The Warning of Colossians 2:8
Paul’s warning in Colossians 2 is directed against those who would spoil believers through deceitful religious philosophies and the traditions of men — particularly those who would bring them back under ceremonialism, sacramentalism, and legalism. The warning is repeated throughout Scripture because all men are naturally prone to idolatry and works religion. In the Old Testament, God repeatedly warned those who worshipped him never to put their hands upon those things which typified Christ and his work of redemption. The altars and sacrifices were all typical of Christ, and to mix something of man’s own devising with them was a total denial of the gospel they represented. When Uzza reached out his hand to steady the ark of God, he declared by that act that God’s salvation was in some degree dependent upon him — and God killed him.
Nothing has changed. Any teaching that makes God’s salvation in any degree dependent upon the will, work, or worth of man denies the gospel of Christ. And there is one form of religion, Fortner argues, that is even more subtle than Arminianism and just as deadly — what men call Reformed Theology, the Reformed Faith, or Reformed Doctrine.
Baptists Are Not Reformed
Reformed Theology, as Fortner defines it, is essentially Presbyterianism as set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith. The denomination called Reformed Baptists, which has arisen in recent years, is in reality not Baptist at all — merely dunking Presbyterians who hold to Reformed theology in every area except baptism. Fortner states plainly: Baptists are not, never have been, and cannot be either Protestant or Reformed. The only rule of faith and practice is the Word of God — not the Westminster Confession, not the 1689 Baptist Confession, not any creed of men.
This is not indifference to doctrine. It is precisely the opposite. It is the insistence that Scripture alone governs the church, and that any confession which claims to bind the conscience by adding to Scripture what Scripture does not plainly say has already departed from the ground of free grace.
Five Heresies of Reformed Doctrine
Fortner identifies five specific heresies embedded in the Reformed confessions, drawn from their own words in their own order:
1. The Heresy of Necessary Consequence. The Westminster Confession teaches that the rule of faith and practice is not only what is written in Scripture but what may be logically deduced from it. This opens the door to binding the conscience with conclusions of human reason rather than the plain Word of God — and it is from this single error that the remaining heresies flow.
2. The Heresy of Conditional Grace. Reformed doctrine teaches that while God has elected a people, the benefits of that election are conditional upon the sinner meeting certain terms — repentance, faith, perseverance — which, however graciously enabled, are still required as conditions to be met. This subtly introduces the works of man into the ground of salvation.
3. The Heresy of Self-Righteous Assurance. The Reformed system grounds assurance not in Christ alone but in the believer’s own evidences of grace — his repentance, his obedience, his perseverance. This turns the eye inward rather than to Christ, and produces either presumption or despair.
4. The Heresy of Legalism. Reformed theology retains the law as a rule of life for the Christian, placing believers under its demands as a condition of continued fellowship with God. This is a return to the rudiments of the world that Paul warns against.
5. The Heresy of Sacramentalism. The Reformed confessions teach that the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are means of grace — that is, that grace is conferred through their administration. This is Romanism in Protestant clothing, attaching saving efficacy to physical ordinances and the acts of men.
The Gospel of Free Grace
Fortner’s concern is not academic. It is pastoral and evangelical. Any system that mixes the grace of God with the works of man — however subtly — at any point, totally denies salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (Romans 11:6). The gospel is not Reformed doctrine. The gospel is Christ crucified, risen, and reigning — the free, sovereign, particular grace of God to undeserving sinners, with nothing of man mixed in at any point whatsoever.