Peter had just witnessed a remarkable thing. The Holy Spirit had fallen upon Gentile believers in a manner that recalled the day of Pentecost, and he had baptized them. Now, back in Jerusalem, some of the Jewish brethren had their feathers ruffled. Peter was getting flack, not for preaching the gospel, but for the company he kept.

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them." Acts 11:1–3 (LSB)

I suppose it would be rare that any of us would face the exact situation Peter faced that day. But the principle here is good and very applicable. I have seen this sort of behavior, and sadly, I can say I have acted toward my brethren no differently than those Jewish believers in our text.

Jesus had warned his disciples about precisely this kind of thing: the leaven of the Pharisees.

"Be on your guard for the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Luke 12:1 (LSB)

That leaven was the idea that they had arrived. That they were superior to everyone else. Even Peter himself got caught up in this sort of behavior, as Paul had to confront him face to face over it.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he began to shrink back and separate himself, fearing the party of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. Galatians 2:11–13 (LSB)

This is the subject before us today: the evils of hyper-Landmarkism. One preacher put it this way:

"The original Landmarker set out to strengthen weaker Baptists in the faith and convince them why they were Baptist. Modern Landmarkers set out to shame weaker Baptists and convince them why they aren't really Baptist and tell them why they won't have anything to do with them." Ron Crisp

That contrast cuts to the heart of the matter. Sit with it for a while.

What Is a Church? What Are Its Marks?

Before we can talk about hyper-Landmarkism, we need to understand and what a Baptist church actually is. This is where the heart of the controversy is at. This is where men throw the biggest insults, and where the biggest divisions occur. And as we look through the pages of historic landmark Baptist material, we find the historic Baptist definitions are clear and consistent with the Sctiptures. B. H. Carroll defined a church as "a particular assembly of Christ's baptized believers on earth." D. B. Ray wrote that "a church of Christ is an assembly of baptized believers joined together in the doctrine and fellowship of the gospel."

J. M. Carroll, in The Trail of Blood (1931), laid out the marks of a New Testament church. These include Christ as Head and Founder; the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice; congregational polity with all members equal; membership composed only of saved people; the ordinances of believers' baptism followed by the Lord's Supper; and officers of pastors and deacons. J. R. Graves, in Old Landmarkism (1880), gave a similar accounting: a divine and visible institution, local and particular, with regenerate membership, believer's baptism, and a local-church observance of the Lord's Supper.

C. D. Cole summed up the Baptist distinctives plainly: the New Testament is the sufficient rule of faith and practice; individual responsibility before God is paramount; and the church is a body of baptized believers, equal in rank and privilege, administering its own affairs under the headship of Jesus Christ.

These are worth knowing and worth holding, and understanding.

The Corner on the Truth That We Do Not Have

Here is where things can go wrong. Some of the modern Landmarkers take a passage like John 16:13, where Jesus promised to lead the apostles into all truth, and apply it to themselves and their church. But let us be careful. Jesus was not speaking to us there. He was speaking to the apostles, who were to finish writing the inspired Word of God. “All truth” is not in you, not in me, not in this church. The truth is to be found in His Word. That promise was never meant to become a club to beat people with.

C. D. Cole said it well: "The writer is a Baptist, but not a Baptist braggart. We lay no claim to superiority in character or conduct or education. When you find a Baptist with a superiority complex, you can be sure that he is an off brand."

My favorite commentaries are Baptist ones: Gill, Broadus, Haldane, Carroll. But I have also found great truths in Matthew Henry's commentary, John Owen's writings, and John Newton's hymns. Praise God for that. Can God use men who are not Baptists? He certainly can. Can we have them preach here for Sovereign Grace Baptist Church? No, we cannot. We are not God. What He does is His business. What we do must be in line with the Word of God. We cannot have unbaptized men in our pulpits or at the Lord's Supper. But that is not the same thing as denying that God can and does work outside the walls of our congregation.

John had to learn this very thing.

John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to hinder him because he was not following us." But Jesus said, "Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is for us." Mark 9:38–40 (LSB)

There were gifts and abilities outside the church. If it was true then, it is true now. We Baptists really ought to learn to meditate on this passage. God has a people outside His church, and even His churches by definition may be broader than some want to define it.

What Landmarkism Does Not Require

It is possible to be a Baptist, even a Landmark Baptist, and have some differences among us. Notice that in none of the classic definitions above did any of those men include the following as marks of a true church:

None of these men were even rattling chains or chasing down church records trying to prove a pedigree all the way to Jerusalem!

Yet some of these things get added in and become not only tests of fellowship, but modern day marks of a true church. That is hyper-Landmarkism, and it is not warranted by the history or the Scripture.

Consider the men who were most instrumental in the great Landmark awakening among Baptists: J. R. Graves, James Pendleton, and A. C. Dayton. They did not invent the doctrine, but they were used by God to call Baptists back to their roots. And yet even among those three good brethren there were real differences. Graves was a dispensationalist; Pendleton was amillennial. Graves held to local church only; Pendleton did not. In his book Christian Doctrines, Pendleton argued that passages like Ephesians 5:25–27 require a broader, non-local sense of the word "church." Dayton took a different approach still. And yet these men worked together. They fellowshipped with one another and had each other preach in their churches. They could do so because at the level of local church practice, they were in substantial agreement on the marks that matter.

Carnality in the Camp

Today there are so many splits and divisions among brethren in Baptist circles, and I do not believe it ought to be that way. In some circles, men will cut you off not only for what you believe but for who you fellowship with. It begins to look a great deal like what was happening in Corinth.

For you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not mere men? 1 Corinthians 3:3–4 (LSB)

It was carnal then, and it is carnal now. Let us be Baptists to the glory of God, and not Baptists to the glory of ourselves.

When we narrow our view of the truth down to a very tight circle of our own making, we will get very lonely, and we will get arrogant. Elijah fell into this. He cried out to God that he alone was left, that all Israel had forsaken the covenant. But God told him there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

And he said, "I have been very zealous for Yahweh, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, pulled down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." 1 Kings 19:10 (LSB)

Zeal is a good thing. But zeal that curls in on itself, that becomes convinced of its own unique faithfulness, becomes something else entirely. The Lord had more people than Elijah knew. He has more people than we know. If we take Landmarkism as it was intended in the first place, we find that the Lord has many churches and many men we can fellowship with.

Three Lines for Fellowship

Lest anyone think I am moving toward an ecumenism that tears down all distinctions, let me be clear about where I draw the lines for church fellowship:

First, a church has to start right. It needs to have been constituted by another Baptist church. That being said, I do not require a genealogy traced all the way back to Jerusalem. I'm not interested in chain rattling, or genealogical trails. Paul himself warned us to beware of endless genealogies.

Second, it has to have its practice right. Scriptural baptism must precede communion at the Lord's Table.

Third, it has to have its doctrine right. We cannot fellowship in a church capacity with a church or preacher who is rank Arminian, no matter how otherwise orderly their church may appear.

Those are real lines. They are not arbitrary. But they are also not a warrant for manufacturing new tests of fellowship out of matters where good Baptists have honestly disagreed for generations. The old landmarks are worth defending as long as they are Biblical. The fences some have built around those landmarks are another matter entirely.

Let us hold the faith with conviction and hold our brethren with charity. That is the Baptist way, and more importantly, it is the Biblical way.