We must now pass on to show that WHEREVER IT EXISTS IT IS THE PROOF OF REGENERATION. There never was a grain of such faith as this in the world, except in a regenerate soul, and there never will be while the world standeth. It is so according to the text, and if we had no other testimony this one passage would be quite enough to prove it. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." "Ah!" I hear thee say, poor soul, "the new birth is a great mystery; I do not understand it; I am afraid I am not a partaker in it." You are born again if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, if you are relying upon a crucified Saviour you are assuredly begotten again unto a lively hope. Mystery or no mystery, the new birth is yours if you are a believer. Have you never noticed that the greatest mysteries in the world reveal themselves by the simplest indications. The simplicity and apparent easiness of faith is no reason why I should not regard its existence as an infallible indication of the new birth within. How know we that the new-born child lives except by its cry? Yet a child's cry—what a simple sound it is! how readily could it be imitated! a clever workman could with pipes and strings easily deceive us; yet was there never a child's cry in the world but what it indicated the mysteries of breathing, heart-beating, blood-flowing, and all the other wonders which come with life itself. Do you see yonder person just drawn out of the river? Does she live? Yes, life is there. Why? Because the lungs still heave. But does it not seem an easy thing to make lungs heave? A pair of billows blown into them, might not that produce the motion? Ah, yes, the thing is easily imitated after a sort; but no lungs heave except where life is. Take another illustration. Go into a telegraph office at any time, and you will see certain needles moving right and left with unceasing click. Electricity is a great mystery, and you cannot see or feel it; but the operator tells you that the electric current is moving along the wire. How does he know? "I know it by the needle." How is that? I could move your needles easily. "Yes; but do not you see the needle has made two motions to the right, one to the left, and two to the right again? I am reading a message." "But," say you, "I can see nothing in it; I could imitate the clicking and moving very easily." Yet he who is taught the art sees before him in those needles, not only electric action, but a deeper mystery still; he perceives that a mind is directing an invisible force, and speaking by means of it. Not to all, but to the initiated is it given to see the mystery hidden within the simplicity. The believer sees in the faith, which is simple as the movements of the needle, an indication that God is operating on the human mind, and the spiritual man discerns that there is an inner secret intimated thereby, which the carnal eye cannot decipher. To believe in Jesus is a better indicator of regeneration than anything else, and in no case did it ever mislead. Faith in the living God and his Son Jesus Christ is always the result of the new birth, and can never exist except in the regenerate. Whoever has faith is a saved man.

Charles Spurgeon

Adam Kaloostian says:
November 2, 2011 at 5:23 pm
1- “do you consider Baptists of any type to be your fellow believers and co-laborers in the gospel?”
Anyone who is made alive by the Holy Spirit and has true faith in Jesus Christ is a fellow believer, period.

The requisite extent, depth, and maturity of the knowledge which is a necessary component of true faith, is mysterious, and should not be oversimplified. For this reason, for example, Calvin can say about people in what he calls the decidedly false Roman Catholic churches of his day “In one word, I call [Roman Catholic parishes] churches, inasmuch as the Lord there wondrously preserves some remains of his people, though miserably torn and scattered. . .” (Institutes 4.2.12).

So in like manner, there are truly elect and saved people, including Baptists, in the world, people miserably torn, scattered, and deceived by false teaching and sectarianism and idolatry.

I am in Christ with any and every saved, elect Baptist, and I am thankful for the Lord’s miraculous grace to me and to them.
There is however a distinction between someone’s objective, saving union with Christ and someone’s outward expression of that faith in doctrine and life. This outward expression, or profession, is what forms the basis of my “consideration” of whether or not I count someone to be my fellow believer, or by extension co-laborer in the gospel. God knows the heart, but I can go only by external profession of doctrine and life.
In this regard, first, I may not make a private judgment, but am called to submit to the public judgment committed to the lawful officers of a local church, who exercise the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and reflect that work by their membership list. One requirement for someone’s profession of faith to be “considered” credible by me, therefore, would be their possession of official standing in a church of Jesus Christ. Church membership is basic to Christian discipleship. I affirm one of Christendom’s most popular slogans– “You cannot have God for your Father unless you take the church to be your mother.” A simple outline of the biblical argument for church membership can be found here:http://www.ontariourc.org/about/membership/.

Article 28 of the Belgic Confession speaks to this: “We believe that since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of those who are saved and there is no salvation apart from it, no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, regardless of his status or condition. But all people are obliged to join and unite with it, keeping the unity of the church by submitting to its instruction and discipline, by bending their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ, and by serving to build up one another, according to the gifts God has given them as members of each other in the same body.. . . And so, all who withdraw from the church or do not join it act contrary to God’s ordinance.” (One note, when the confession says that there is no salvation apart from the church, I take for granted that this is a logical deduction from the supernatural work which Christ does by His Holy Spirit to save, preserve, and sanctify His people uniquely through the preaching and sacraments of the church, which I describe below. The framers, I think, would have allowed for the idea that in exceptional cases people could be truly elect and saved apart from the church; however, they would not have considered anyone’s profession to be credible until they became part of the church).

Second, I must discern whether the group to which someone belongs is indeed a church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to be confident that the officers of this group are legitimate representatives of Christ, discerning a man’s life and doctrine. Article 29 of the Belgic Confession speaks to this matter: “We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully, by the Word of God, what is the true church– for all sects in the world today claim for themselves the name of “the church.”" In the time of the Reformation, in the West, the pastoral problem of every Jesus group calling itself a church was similar to today’s confusion. There were Roman Catholic parishes, there were Anabaptist parishes of various kinds, and there were Protestant parishes (evolving into Lutheran, continental Reformed, Anglican/Episcopalian, and Presbyterian communions), all claiming to be churches.

Jim Handyside's 2010 US Itinerary
March 3-11 Williston, FL 352-528-2216
March 10 Jacksonville, FL 904-272-6483
March 11-19 Sebring, FL 863-385-3787
March 19-24 Sanford, FL 386-492-2218
March 24-27 St. Mary, GA 912-882-5704
Mar 27-Apr3 Macon, GA 770-631-3660
April 3-6 Atlanta, GA 404-484-7690
April 6-13 Woodstock, GA 678-880-1123