We have become accustomed to the Baptists' method of thought. If we replace any topic they say with another, we come to the same argument: what others say contradicts the New Testament. And just what they say, he agrees! This is the case when they talk about the “local church.”

We must acknowledge, first of all, that Baptists are divided in their opinion about the Church: some of them do not mind speaking about its catholicity, and most of them see it as only local. The extremists among them, that is, most of them, consider that the church “does not refer at all to organized Christianity, or to a group of churches,” but rather it means “a local group of baptized believers,” which “carries out its work democratically and manages its affairs independently under the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus” (Herschel Hobbes, The Doctrine and Mission of the Baptists, pp. 118-120; Robert A. Baker, The Biography of the Baptists in History, p. 17; The Biblical Position, No. 5). This, which they believe distinguishes them from others and justifies their existence (Finley M. Graham, Systematic Theology, pp. 282-285), has made them wage a ferocious war against those who disagree with them, especially the traditional churches. Whoever does not follow their approach, that is, whoever adopts “the system of dioceses or patriarchies,” violates “the principle of biblical simplicity that calls for administrative and spiritual independence of the local church,” and prejudices “the absolute authority of Christ over his church”!

It is necessary to say, without waiting, that what we have quoted here, from the books of the Baptists, has nothing to do with the New Testament, neither close nor distant. Oh God, unless they have books in their hands that have not reached us! However, so that our words are not considered emotional, it is necessary to mention what is established in the heritage, and I mean that there is no local church without a Eucharistic meeting headed by a local bishop (or someone he delegates), a bishop whose holiness is difficult to achieve if the believers separate from him, or disdain him ( Letter of Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians 2:2). What the Apostle says, in his first letter to the Church of Corinth: “When you gather in the church” (11:18), its fixed meaning is that the church is achieved, built, and organized in this meeting (the sacrament of thanksgiving), which contains all the foundations of church organization. This is not a statement that contradicts the original, as Baptists ignorantly claim. What we encounter, since the beginning of the Church’s existence, is that it is an organized people that excludes any empty crowd that has no relation to order and structure, that is, it is the body of Christ (Romans 12:4, 5; 1 Corinthians 10:16, 17, 12:27; Ephesians 1:23, and 2:16, 4:4-7; Colossians 1:24, 3:15). Therefore, what Baptists say about the “local church,” and consequently the sharp distinction that most of them make between the church and churches, are outside the biblical meaning. We know that their second statement has two goals. The first is their love of distortion, and the second is to cover up the fragments of their distinction. You cannot cover up the error that is afflicting you, except by accusing others of being wrong! If they were actually coming from the books of the New Testament, they would have known that the Church of God, based on love and the validity of the sacraments and doctrine, is, in no other way, the one Church of God (see, for example: 1 Corinthians 4:17, 10:32, 15:9; 2 Corinthians 8:18 -24 and 11:28; Galatians 1:13; Ephesians 3:10 and 21-32; Colossians 1:18 and 24).

Therefore, Baptists claim that the church has no biblical system, that is, it is every group that manages itself. This realistically means, according to their opinion, that there is no bishop to preside over it. We do not want to repeat what we said before in the episcopate and elsewhere. However, what we cannot ignore when he said that the problem with Baptists does not lie only in what they say, but in what they claim that others say. There is no need to confirm, after what we have explained here, that what the Apostolic Church says, and lives according to its system, stems from the heart of the New Testament. It is foolishness to think that the Church, in its course, added to revelation what it cannot bear. It is true that the books of the New Testament did not elaborate on priestly services. But this does not mean, at all, that what she said is in addition to the first postulates. As an example of this, Baptists believe that the Church, in its talk about the headship of the bishop, violated God’s covenant by making it another head (or several heads) over one body. This is a slander that any conscious reader of books and Christian heritage in general would reject. The church, which said of the bishop that he is “an icon of Christ,” meant, among other things, that the bishop is a gift of the Holy Spirit. In this regard, the Apostle said to his disciple: “Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which you received by prophecy, with the group of elders placed upon you” (1 Timothy 4:14). We know that the laying on of hands, according to their opinion, is “an appearance without substance,” and “is not consistent with revelation or reason, but is merely an imitation” (Awad Simaan, Priesthood, pages 351 and 352). What is apparent, in the words of the Apostle recorded above, is that it is from the New Testament tradition (see also: 2 Timothy 1:6). This shows, in a way that cannot be disputed, that Baptists read books and are inspired by the daughters of their own ideas, or by what the innovators left behind a generation ago!

It remains to be emphasized that our authentic heritage has revealed the total agreement between the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant (Ephesians 2:4-6; Hebrews 12:22-24; Revelation 6:9-11). The Church is one because the one God achieved, in history, his victory over time and scope, and inaugurated his final kingdom, for all who believed that nothing would separate them “from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).