Particular Baptists

Definition and Meaning

Particular Baptists are the stream within the Baptist tradition that holds to a Calvinist soteriology. The term "Particular" derives from the doctrine of limited atonement, which teaches that Christ's substitutionary death, in which he paid the penalty for sin in the place of sinners, was for the particular people whom God has chosen. By contrast, Baptists of the Arminian tradition, who hold that Christ died for all people, are called General Baptists. In Korean, the name is also rendered as "specific Baptists" or "Calvinistic Baptists."

Biblical and Historical Background

Like other Baptists, Particular Baptists administer baptism only to those who have professed faith. In support of this practice they cite Matthew 28:19, Acts 8:36–38, and Romans 6:3–4, among other passages. As grounds for limited atonement, they point to John 10:11, 15, where Christ lays down his life "for the sheep," as well as to Ephesians 5:25. General Baptists, citing 1 Timothy 2:4–6 and 1 John 2:2, among other passages, hold that the atonement is open to all people.

Historically, Particular Baptists are generally understood to have emerged in the 1630s from separatist congregations of the Puritan tradition in London. In 1644 several churches jointly issued the First London Baptist Confession of Faith, which explicitly prescribed baptism by immersion. In 1677 the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith was drafted on the basis of the Westminster Confession of Faith, with revisions to the articles on baptism and church government. Because it was adopted by a general assembly in 1689, it is commonly called the "1689 Confession."

In the late eighteenth century, a missionary movement arose among Particular Baptists. William Carey, Andrew Fuller, and others founded the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, an organization regarded as the starting point of modern Protestant foreign missions. The nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon also belonged to this tradition. In England, when the General Baptist "New Connexion" joined the Baptist Union in 1891, the distinction between the two streams faded at the institutional level.

Practice in the Korean Church

No major denomination in Korea uses "Particular Baptist" as its official name. The largest Baptist denomination in Korea, the Korea Baptist Convention, has its roots in the mission work of Malcolm Fenwick and in cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention of the United States. The denomination does not officially espouse any particular soteriological system, and both Calvinist and non-Calvinist views are reportedly found within it. Because some of the early confessions of the Southern Baptists drew on the Second London Confession, some observers hold that the Particular Baptist tradition reached Korea indirectly.

There are also small "Reformed Baptist" churches and fellowships in Korea that adopt the 1689 Confession as their confession of faith, and a Korean translation of the confession has been published. Reformed denominations that practice infant baptism, such as the Presbyterians, share much with Particular Baptists in soteriology. They differ, however, on infant baptism and church government. These differences are discussed in the articles Infant Baptism Controversy and Predestination and Free Will.