This is a natural law in equity, immutable and abiding. Mosaic obedience was entirely different from christian obedience, and they cannot be joined together or united, because Christ is distinct from Moses. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Moses, therefore, was the minister of justice, which was always unto condemnation, because his people failed in their obedience to the law. Paul therefore says, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.” This is an unchanging principle and abiding truth, both then and now and ever. He gives the righteous reason, saying, “For it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” Christ was the only one that ever thus perfectly obeyed the law. He as a righteous Man under the law kept it, fulfilled it, and took it out of the way forever. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” says Paul. Again he says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” His redeemed people, therefore, are free from the law, from its obligations and its curse, and it has no demands against them, no claims upon them. “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” So taught faithful Paul.
“Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” How different he is from Moses! The law of justice and condemnation came by Moses, and it thunders a righteous curse against all who are of the works of the law, because they woefully fail in their works of obedience to it. Being conditional in its nature and provisions, both its blessings and curses were also conditional. It was a fearful failure, therefore, because all the conditional workers who thus claim to servo God conditionally have miserably failed to render perfect obedience to its righteous conditions and obligations, and it will not accept anything less than perfection; indeed, it cannot.
A half-way or faulty compliance with its righteous conditions would both violate and dishonor the law of God, and so bring down its curse upon every one who failed to render perfect obedience to it. This is the awful defect and failure in any and every conditional covenant and law which offers blessings for conditional obedience, which must necessarily be perfect or it is not obedience, but denounces curses against the disobedient; for no sinful being can ever perfectly obey the righteous obligations of God which rest upon him, because of the depravity and weakness of his sinful nature in the flesh. But a holy law or commandment cannot accept and reward a faulty conditional obedience, because to do so would be an outrage upon righteousness, which no holy commandment will permit.
It is impossible, therefore, for any conditional obedience toward God to receive his blessing as a conditional reward, if imperfection or fault attaches to such obedience. This is a self-evident truth; for a conditional reward from God, if bestowed upon imperfect obedience, and for it, would be the same as rewarding imperfection or sin. From this inevitable consequence there is no escape. All men, even the most zealous for God’s conditional rewards, freely confess this solemn truth in prayer to him, for they will confess their sinful failures in all their righteous obligations to him, and that in no respect are they perfect in their love and service, but continually need his forgiving mercy.
Why, then, will not men be consistent, by teaching according to their prayers? Either the confession of sinful failure and the need of mercy is insincere and mockery, or else the doctrine of conditional rewards is not true, but a delusive snare and cheat. Religious teachers should either quit teaching the people according to the old conditional covenant of rewards for works of obedience, or else they should cease to mock God in their prayers, by asking him to be merciful to their unrighteousness, and to remember their sins against them no more, which is according to the new covenant of mercy and grace; for either their prayers are a mockery and hypocritical, or their conditional teachings are basely false, because it is absurd to profess to be under the new covenant only during prayer, and then to pass out and go under the old covenant of conditions .as soon as the prayer is ended. Men are self-deceived, and deceiving the people, if they flatter themselves that they are honoring and serving and pleasing God, who changes not, by such inconsistencies, contradictions and shams.
A dear brother, now deceased, told an aged minister and me during our last visit at his home, that he said to his pastor, “Brother, you pray all right, but when you get up to preach you contradict your prayers.” This one stubborn fact condemns all the teachings of conditional salvation, or else it fastens upon all conditionalists the awful sin of mocking God in prayer; for there can be no such thing as the mercifulness of God to our unrighteousness, according to conditional salvation, for this bestows rewards or blessings for righteousness or obedience only, and its rewards are never of grace and mercy, but alone of debt. Mercy and grace, therefore, are banished from every form or kind of conditional salvation, and it becomes purely a matter of reward for service performed.
So, then, the moment the worker under the principle of conditional salvation does the work as the required condition, he is righteously entitled to such salvation, not as a beggar at mercy’s door for grace, but as his just due. God himself has so decided this principle, by his inspired servant Paul, and no man can change it from law to gospel; for the sentence of God is, “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” It is clearly evident that all conditional salvation is contingent and dependent upon works of righteousness or right obedience, which the conditionalist must first comply with and do before he can receive the reward of conditional salvation; but then, when he has performed the conditional works, he is lawfully entitled to the stipulated reward of salvation, and it is justly due to him as a debt. It is positively so, and cannot be otherwise, for principles cannot change, and this principle of conditional salvation for conditional obedience is strictly a principle in law, in which the conditional worker becomes the creditor and the Lord the debtor. Boasting on the part of the obedient conditionalist is at once admitted and encouraged, yea, and justified, by every sort of conditional salvation, and the truth of this is confirmed in all the religious world, by the loud claims and boastings of all conditionalists, Conditional Baptists not excepted.
This may do for the natural, fleshly, self-willed, legal and worldly religion of the world, who work and serve religiously, not because they love God and delight to show forth his praise, but their works of formal obedience are prompted by the conditional salvation that they expect to obtain by their works. This fact attaches to every feature of conditional salvation, and to all conditional obedience, for the reward necessarily becomes the incentive and the object sought for in all works and services performed as conditional obedience, upon the performance of which depends conditional salvation of some sort. The whole thing from first to last is wholly worldly and fleshly, legal and selfish, and while it may please and praise the pride of the flesh, it dishonors’ the rich mercy of God, and reproaches his saving grace. This is very far from christian obedience. Christ is the fullness of salvation from all sin, past and present and to come. “And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.” In Christ is infinite and exhaustions fullness of righteousness and salvation and blessing, therefore, and all his fullness is grace. And it is of. his saving fullness only that all we who are his have received; yea, all that we have received or ever shall receive of his divine fullness, on earth and in heaven, is “grace,” and not only grace, but “grace for grace.”
This one blessed truth as it is in Christ, bars out and excludes forever all conditional rewards for works of conditional obedience, because hero grace is the only reward. The christian receives only of Christ’s fullness, and every gift and blessing of salvation that he ever receives is a blessing both of grace and for grace. All Christ’s fullness of blessing is thus. No other principle of reward and blessing in christian obedience can obtain, therefore, only “grace for grace.” And all this riches and blessing of surprising grace is “of his fullness.” Not all of it, to be sure, but sufficient for us, for Jesus is ever “full of grace and truth.”
So, then, if any advocate any conditional system or notion of salvation, and hold to rewards of debt for works of obedience, such cannot find this principle in Christ or in his obedience, but must turn away from him to Moses, and from the grace of the new covenant to the works of the old covenant, for here in Christ and all his heavenly fullness grace only abounds, and grace is all. The gospel of Christ is the gospel of the grace of God, and the fullness of salvation in the gospel is salvation by grace, and all obedience unto Christ and in the gospel is the obedience of grace, for all the obedience of the saved in Christ is only because they have received of his fullness, and grace for grace.
Certainly it must be conceded, and no one will presume to deny it, that there can be no christian obedience out of Christ or without him, and only as we have received of his fullness, and grace for grace. Now this settles it conclusively, that all christian obedience is the result and fruit of Christ’s fullness and grace, of which we must receive, and it must abide and abound in us. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” and he is the Mediator of the new covenant, the Surety of the better testament, which was established upon better promises than the first and old testament or covenant; therefore all obedience to Christ is under the new covenant, and according to it.
It is clearly evident, then, that christian obedience cannot be under the legal or old covenant, nor according to it, therefore the obedience unto Christ cannot be conditional, for then it would necessarily be under the old covenant and according to it, because it was conditional. So, before it can be proven that christian obedience is conditional, it must first be shown that Christ reigns upon Mount Sinai, where the conditional covenant of works was given, and not upon the holy Mount Sion in Jerusalem, where the holy Lamb of God, our precious Redeemer was crucified. The two mountains are far apart, both literally and spiritually, far Sinai is far off in the wilderness of Arabia, and when any one comes to it, behold, he meets, not Jesus, but Moses upon its summit, from whence comes fire and smoke, voices and thunderings, so terrible that even Moses himself was made to exceedingly fear and tremble.
Yet, though strange the infatuation, some who claim to be preachers of salvation and teachers of obedience to Jesus the Savior, will travel away back to Sinai, in their efforts to prove conditional obedience under the new covenant, and will quote liberally from Moses, the mediator of the conditional covenant, which made nothing perfect. Paul would say to all such brethren, “Are ye so foolish! having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” But it is a significant fact, that all classes and schools of conditional religion do always fly to the law of Moses, the ever-failing covenant of works, in their efforts to support some sort of conditional salvation. And then, after they have done the best they can in this way and by such means of proof, as they think, they will try to patch up this old and worn out and ragged garment or system with cloth from the new covenant of mercy and grace, to hide its defects.
So, at best it is a patched up sort of religion, a motley mixture of the new covenant with the old, the works of Moses with the grace of Jesus; yet this is called the gospel of Christ and a recent and self-pleasing term for it is, “Conditional Time Salvation.” The evident and only meaning of this term squarely contradicts every part of the new covenant, which has not a condition in it, and it is contrary to the gospel of Christ, “for it is the power of God unto salvation,” and it also denies that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ saves us now in time. It is not, therefore, the doctrine of the new covenant, nor the gospel of Christ, nor is it “the grace of God that bringeth salvation;” for there is no salvation in this new gospel of conditionalism, but only damnation, unless everyone righteously performs the works which its conditions require; therefore it all “depends upon themselves,” but not upon the grace of God, if any one obtains any salvation whatever conditionally. Who, then, can receive any salvation or divine blessing in this way! For, ask the best of its advocates, Do you perfectly fulfill either all or any of the commandments of God? and he must confess that he does not, unless he is a blinded pharisee, wrapped up in a cloak of self-righteousness.
How, then, is he going to receive anything but condemnation, according to his new-fledged conditional salvation? For he must righteously do the conditions, which no sinful man can do, or else his conditional gospel curses him, and sends him away with the foolish virgins to buy oil for himself. What a miserable fraud and failure must everything be that is conditional on our part, and therefore necessarily depends upon our ever-failing and imperfect selves. How painfully amazing that the children of the new covenant will be deluded and drawn away by such perverse things and chaffy stuff! Let us rejoice that this is not the gospel. Christian obedience is the obedience of love, and “love is of God,” says John. And Paul says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” This has no reference to what God did for us in regeneration, because it is spoken to baptized believers in Christ, and Paul here testifies to what is wrought in our hearts now.
All obedience springs up from this love of God which is thus graciously and freely shed abroad in our hearts, not conditionally if we will do something in order to get it, but by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. How positive and clear it is, therefore, that all obedience unto Christ is from the believing and loving heart of the child of God, and has its active source in the Father’s love, and that this love is ministered in our hearts by the Spirit of love and truth which God gives unto us. To his own loving disciples does Jesus say, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” That is, because ye love me. So, only those who do love can keep his commandments, because this is the obedience of love, and none but the loving disciples of Christ are under this sweet and sacred obligation of obedience to him. John says, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” No, because it is his love in our hearts that qualifies and sweetly constrains and enables us to keep them. “We love God,” which is the essential cause, “and keep his commandments,” as the inseparable and unfailing effect.
Our adorable Savior and Master says, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. If a man love me, he will keep my words. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings.” He states this as an infallible cause and effect, and a positive test. He shows most clearly and certainly that love to him is the root and efficient power and source of all obedience to him, and that keeping his commandments is the certain result, the active outflowing and delightful fruit of this love. “If a man love me, he will keep my words.” The last is just as certain as the first, because our perfect Teacher made no mistakes, and never guessed at what he declared. He said that heaven and earth should pass away, but his words should not. Love to Christ produces obedience to him, therefore, and keeping his words is the manifested power and heavenly outgrowth of this operative or active, sanctifying and glorifying love.
This obedience of love to Jesus the Savior is no more unwilling or coerced or passive or inactive than it is mercenary or selfish, contingent or conditional, for it is none of these. Until it can be shown that one who does not love the Lord may keep his commandments, or that obedience to him can be performed without love to him; or if this point is given up, then unless it can be proven that the Holy Ghost is given unto us conditionally, and that the love of God is also conditionally shed abroad in our hearts by him, our obedience to Christ cannot truthfully be held to be conditional and dependent upon ourselves. Neither of these things will be attempted to be shown by conditionalist Baptists, because it would be so evidently unscriptural and absurd. For the Holy Spirit is freely and sovereignly given to us of God, and the love of God is freely and graciously shed abroad in our hearts by the sovereign operation of the Spirit. To deny this evident truth would be the same as to affirm that the unchangeable God is acted upon and influenced and controlled conditionally by man, which is really a denial of God.
We do not act upon God, neither can we turn him, nor influence, direct and control the Holy Spirit, but all this is true of him toward us. Surely the brethren can all see this, and should admit it. That the dear children of the loving God and Father of his people are brought into the sacred bond of the new covenant, and are under the most blessed and divine obligations to keep the commandments of Jesus in the loyal and loving obedience of their hearts to him, all freely agree. That the precious Christ is the Mediator of the new and everlasting covenant, and fulfilled all its provisions, in which there are no contingencies or conditions on our part, or nothing that depends upon us to fulfill it and make it good and sure, but it consists of the “wills” and “shalls” of the Lord, who absolutely makes it with his people, in which he is merciful to their unrighteousness, which is not possible in any conditional covenant; that the gospel of Christ is the gospel of salvation, but not of condemnation, and therefore belongs to the new covenant exclusively, but not to the old covenant in any respect; that in the new covenant grace only reigns through righteousness by our Lord Jesus Christ, and all his saved and obedient followers are under this reign of grace; that all obedience unto Christ is in the gospel of salvation, which is “the gospel of the grace of God;” and that therefore all christian obedience and all salvation in the gospel of Christ is by grace, “not of works,” is certainly most clearly established, and all who are saved by grace should freely agree here also.
This would both establish fellowship in the gospel and restore peace. Nothing but this ever has made gospel fellowship and peace, or ever can. All the divisions that have ever troubled the people of the Lord’s new covenant of grace, have been brought upon them by teachers among them of perverse things, who have denied and opposed these divine truths of the gospel of Christ, and those perverters of the gospel are responsible for such hurtful things, as the Scriptures show, and the Lord judges them and pronounces a woe upon them.
From the apostles of the Lord until now, the entire history of his new covenant people shows the same lamentable fact, that whenever any would-be leaders have risen up among them who have ambitiously labored to make some innovation upon the gospel of salvation by grace alone from first to last, and have opposed the sufficiency of our Lord’s grace in all the work and way of salvation, they have always sowed discord and made confusion and trouble among the people of God; and always those leaders in some new thing have in the end of their heady and high-minded career left or gone out from the people of grace, and have “fallen from grace,” as Paul said of them. That is, they have left the covenant of grace, have fallen away from the doctrine of grace, and have invariably turned aside to some sort of conditional doctrines. All of these conditional doctrines, from the largest to the smallest, are opposed to grace and deny its power to save in some way. For it is a significant fact in all the parties who have gone away from the people of the new covenant into any principle or teaching of conditionalism in salvation, that, in some way or other, they deny the power and efficacy and sufficiency of the grace of God, and hence they never fail to introduce and urge upon the people some other principle and way of salvation besides grace; and it is sure to be something of themselves, or that “depends upon themselves,” which they in their ideas of self-ability persuade themselves, and as many more as they can, is a safer and better way of salvation, in some sort or part, than to rely on and trust in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to save them.
This is a fair statement of “conditional time salvation,” as also of every other principle of conditional salvation from sin and all else that we need to be saved from. To one who believes and trusts in and looks to grace alone for all salvation, yea, salvation unto righteousness and obedience and every good work, the belief in this conditional salvation, which “depends upon ourselves,” seems incredible and astounding; and so it is to one who truly realizes his sinful infirmities and weakness and failures, as Paul confesses with deep emotion in the seventh chapter of Romans. And though Paul labored more abundantly in the gospel than all the other apostles, he humbly says, “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Now, therefore, since the inspired apostle denied that his faithful and devoted obedience to Christ and more abundant labors in preaching the gospel “depended upon himself,” but attributed it all to the grace of God which was with him, and says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain,” we are safe in holding fast to the grace of God in Christ as the successful power that leads to all loyal and loving and acceptable obedience unto Christ, and in refusing to accept any other doctrine, which denies this sufficiency of grace, as every kind of conditionalism does.
To his brethren in Christ Paul says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” This is the true source of obedient power in all who are thus disarmed of everything that exalteth itself, and are thus through the mighty power of God happily brought to the obedience of Christ. And this “mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds “of error and opposition is infinitely better and more blessed in securing obedience to Christ than it is possible for any conditions of dependence upon ourselves to be. And so the one and only sufficient cause for the exhortation to obedience to Christ in the gospel, in showing forth or working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, is given in the wonderful and blessed words, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
So all the salvation that is ever worked out in all gospel obedience, and by all the saved in Christ Jesus, is because of the power and grace of God in the heart, working in us both the willing mind and the might or power to do. This is present salvation, and it is of God through his Spirit and by his grace. Therefore it is not dependent upon conditions to be performed by our own will and power, but we ourselves are ever dependent upon God. It does seem that all who know the grace of God in truth would agree upon this, and have no controversy, but it is sadly evident that all Baptists do not. If they did, then none would derisively speak of grace as not sufficient to make us obedient to Christ, neither would they presume to say there is another principle and way of salvation than the grace of God, as Jacobus Arminius and all his followers since have urged, a way which they call “conditional salvation.”
This conditional salvation, whether applied to present or future salvation, denies that grace itself saves us, as to that part of salvation which is conditional, for it is clearly evident that so far as the grace of God saves us, our salvation is not conditional upon our pare, and cannot “depend upon ourselves,” as all conditionalism holds; for the moment we admit that we are saved by grace, we must also confess that, so far from salvation depending upon us, we are dependent upon grace for salvation.
It is passing strange that any believer in Christ will deny this, and contend for a principle of salvation which is an enemy to grace, as is all conditionalism in salvation. Have our conditional Baptists paused long enough to see the unavoidable sequence of denying that our salvation now in time is by grace? for when they make this denial, and say it is conditional upon our part, and depends upon ourselves, they thereby deny that the Lord Jesus Christ saves us in time, for it is by him that grace reigns, and reigns through righteousness, and this is unto obedience to Christ most surely, because righteousness is obedience. It is a shocking and fearful thing, therefore, to deny that the reigning and righteous grace of Christ saves us in time, for it is equal to saying that it is safer and better to depend upon ourselves and our optionary conditional works to save us from all the consequences that we need to be saved from all the days of our lives, than it is to look to and rely upon Christ and his grace to save us.
Conditionalism denies Christ. Faithful Paul would say to brethren who hold to a conditional and therefore legal principle of salvation, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” That is, in Christ neither the Jew availeth anything, nor the Gentile, “but a new creature,” says Paul again. So here in Christ is a new creation, corresponding to the Lord’s new covenant, in which Christ and his grace reign supreme, and is all in all.
Therefore, says Paul, “Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Here then is the source and only enabling cause of spiritual good works, for those who perform them are God’s workmanship, and he hath new-created them in Christ unto this very end, good works, and foreordained that we should walk in them; and it is so, for God worketh in them by his Spirit of grace and love, making them willing in the day of Christ’s power, and strengthening them with might by his Spirit in the inner and new man, so that they do testify of and work out and walk in their own salvation, which is in Christ and of him, and they do so with fear and trembling, which is not voluntary or self-caused. For salvation is their own, their gracious inheritance in Christ, with whom they are joint-heirs as his brethren and the children of God in his Son.
All this new and spiritual creation and salvation and good works of faith and love is in Christ Jesus, and it actively springs up in his members, and brethren from the Spirit of life in him; therefore it is of the operation of God, and is by his free favor or grace, “according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” Thus the infallible oracles of God most clearly show that all goodness and righteousness, in the children of God, as manifested or worked out by them, in their obedience to Christ, are by the effective reign of grace in them, the active springing up in them of Christ’s life and love and obedience to God the Father, and all this is the blessed effect and fruit and manifestation of salvation.
Salvation, therefore, in all that salvation means and is, is of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the grace of God, and it all is the fruit of the Spirit, as Paul testifies in Gal. v. Therefore it is neither legal nor conditional, nor of works, nor does it “depend upon us,” as conditionalism teaches, but we ourselves are continually dependent upon “the grace of God that bringeth salvation.” So, being thus saved by grace, we are prepared and ordained unto good works, and savingly and lovingly and actively and willingly brought into heart-given obedience to Christ. Now, therefore, this is the obedience of both love to God and faith in Jesus, in whom only is salvation; and Paul calls this obedience the work of faith and labor of love in Christ Jesus. He speaks of all goodness and righteousness, faith and love, patience and hope, as in Christ Jesus. Without these gifts of God in his Son, and inwrought fruit of the Spirit in our new heart, there is not and cannot be any true obedience to Christ, for all else is carnal and unclean, selfish and unholy, and not pleasing to God. “For whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” and without faith it is impossible to please God. Well, the faith of the Son of God is not conditional on our part, for “it is the gift of God;” therefore the obedience of faith, which worketh by love and purifieth the heart, cannot be conditional, but it is the springing up of the water of life in us which Christ gives us, flowing out in delightful service to the Lord, the gracious Giver of all our salvation and blessings. He gave us the new heart to love the Lord, also the power of faith to believe on Christ unto salvation, out of which arises all christian obedience. And since neither love nor faith are conditional, but free bestowments of God’s grace, so neither is the loving service and obedience of faith conditional, but it is the free tribute of the heart in the unselfish sacrifice of honor and praise to the God of all grace and comfort. In Romans 4, Paul speaks of the righteousness of faith, and testifies that faith is one with grace, saying, “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed.” He thus shows that all the righteousness and blessing of faith is by grace, and that it is grace only that makes the promise and blessing of God sure to the heirs of salvation All know that whatever is conditional is not sure, but very uncertain or insecure, because it depends upon weak and fallible man. But faith belongs to the sure mercy and grace of God in Christ, and out of faith in the believer arises the only true obedience to Christ.
Christian obedience, therefore, is the obedience of reigning grace and faith and love in the heart of the child of God, and these are the unconditional gifts and blessings of the Lord’s new covenant; therefore all the spiritual blessings of God flow to his covenant children from the divine fountain of his abounding grace, and are as unmerited and free as grace itself. And so all the rewards and blessings that the children of God ever receive in their loving service and obedience of faith are the rewards of grace. In view of this precious truth, Paul testifies that God hath blessed all the chosen and called and faithful in Christ with all spiritual blessings in Christ before the world was, unto the God-glorifying end that they should be holy and blameless before him in love. This makes all spiritual blessings as free and unconditional as Christ himself, and therefore absolutely the blessings of saving grace.
D. BARTLEY.
Crawfordsville, Ind., March 6, 1900.
Signs Of The Times
Volume 68, No. 7
April 1, 1900
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