ELDER DIRKES ON CONDITIONAL TIME SALVATION...

[ed. This article was taken from brother Tom Adam's website and republished here.]


CONDITIONAL SALVATION
There indeed is such a thing as ‘conditional salvation’, but not in the way that it is referred to by the Primitive Baptist. There were many conditions that needed to be met. God’s law and sin, His immutable purpose and covenant of the eternal love of God for His people, the sinless, spotless, firstborn Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the incarnation according to the scriptures, the faithfulness of the Son to do the will of the Father and fulfill the law in righteousness, His being betrayed, tried, beaten and crucified all in accord with the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Each and every one of these conditions had to be met implicitly in order for the purpose of God to be completed and His people delivered from their sin. Every second of the existence of The Son was ordained and executed in compliance with the conditions of the salvation of Jehovah, that’s why His name is Jesus.

BUT ........ the Primitive Baptist, and I do not like to use that term in such a general manner but I think you know to whom I refer, set forth a doctrine that states ultimately that there are two salvations. The one is the eternal salvation of the elect which cannot be altered of effected in any way. The other is a temporal salvation in time. This one is effected by obedience and/or disobedience. God essentially has two paths that you may travel (although they teach that He knows which path one will choose and has planned accordingly). If you are obedient, he will bless you with the things of this world (possession, prominence and honor) and the next (victory over sin, effective prayer life and a testimony to others). If you are disobedient He will withhold blessings and the Holy Spirit which is the ‘joy of’ your salvation (Ps. 51:12) may be withdrawn from you leaving you miserable and alone. If there is no repentance after the chastening of the Lord comes upon you and you slide like a ‘back slider heifer’ (Hos. 4:16) you may ultimately loose your temporal deliverance and fall from grace. The final act will be for you to loose your life so that God may save you with the eternal salvation (I Cor. 11:30). This temporal deliverance, so they say, takes place in time and is effected by time, circumstances and events and is used as a way to make and keep people interested in church, active in the Lord’s work and give them a sense of accomplishment. Conditional Time Salvation is duty faith, Fullerism and the teaching of Pelagius all loosely packaged in a slightly different wrapper with the same stench of death and corruption. It tries to improve the flesh, praise Adam and exalt Edom.

This doctrine accuses those who believe in absolute predestination of being complacent towards sin and granting a license for indifference. The child of grace is reminded of his sin daily and, although he strives diligently to refrain, he is not at all complacent tot he fact that he shall continue to commit those things that prove that in the flesh dwells no good thing. As far as a license to indifference, he becomes fearful when he feels himself cold to the things of God and indifferent to the presence of the Holy Spirit, yet he knows, as taught by the Spirit, that this is the trying of the faith within so that no flesh shall glory in His sight.

Hebrews 6 is applied to the falling from grace as those who have been redeemed but do not endure tot he end. However, Hebrews 6 is speaking of the nation of Israel and those unto whom the first principles of the doctrine of Jesus Christ had been preached. The gospel of Messiah was preached through the Law and the Prophets to the nation of Israel and there were many who ‘called themselves by the name of Jehovah’. These are they which drew near unto Him with their mouth but their hearts were far away and when these fall away, as Isaiah said, “What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Is. 5:4), they cannot be renewed unto repentance. God has given them over to the reprobate mind as children of Satan in vessels of wrath outfitted for destruction.

I hope all is well with you and that these words do not gender confusion. The simplicity of the gospel is based on the finished work of the Son and His children with Him. This cannot be diminished or enhanced in any way. The path is set, the station is assigned and the race is on. May the Spirit grant peace amidst the winds and the waves of this present evil generation.

Your servant in Christ,
chet



Hello Again,

I was re-reading your comments on Conditionalism and my response to it.

Am I getting dangerously close to Conditionalism myself, when I try to keep my eyes on Jesus, as Paul says in Hebrews? I wonder if it is not of the fleshly mind of “duty faith.”

I notice that it is something I must keep remembering to do.  Is not that of the flesh?

It gets confusing at times to know when I am in the Spirit and not in the flesh, and vice versa. Is there a blessing attached to being obedient?

Sorry to bother you again with this.Traditional thinking is hard to see through many times.

IN Hope,

There are two absolutes at work here that are diametrically opposed to one another.

The child of grace, having the Spirit within, has his affections of things that are above and not of this world for, like the father of the faithful, Abraham, he seeks a city not made with hands whose builder and maker is God. He delights after the law of God and keeps them completely in Christ and therefore he is obedient. How much more obedient can one get that to be obedient in Christ who is the head? He abides in Christ and Christ in Him. He is led by the Spirit and his footsteps are illuminated by the Word, which is Christ. His live is hid in Him, he has been sealed with his Father’s name in his forehead and has the never ending love of the Father. The Word dwells in him richly or abundantly, the fullness of the Godhead tabernacles with him (Emmanuel) and will never leave nor forsake him. This is an axiom of truth most precious.

The child of the flesh, that natural man who is of the earth earthly, loves the things he can discern by his senses. He especially loves the works of his hands wherein he can boast. He is carnal sold under sin, the body is dead because of sin and he is in constant warfare with the inner man. Like his father, Adam, he knows he is guilty and that the exacting nature of God’s law demands recompense, so, he gathers the leaves of the trees of this world and by his own hands tries to make the atonement for himself. This is Adamic sanctification and is the basis for the teaching and indoctrination of man’s religion.

The task masters in Egypt did not like the idea that the Israelites were idol, so they told them to work gathering straw (stubble) for themselves so they could make proper bricks to build the houses for Pharaoh. Today, that straw, which is still Esau which is Edom (Obadiah 17), is Bible study, effective prayer life, redirected focus from earthly to heavenly things, self denial and will worship, running the race properly, victorious christian living, being obedient, church attendance and a host of other works of wood hay and stubble to build the house upon the sand. None of these shall stand as they are tried in the refiners fire.

I know! I lived and grew up there, heard that preaching and often revisits the old neighborhood. Try as I might and with good intentions even though they be sought with many tears, I cannot ‘put on Jesus’ or ‘put off the old man’ but know that if I have the Spirit within me, He shall mortify the deeds of this flesh by the power of His will. I cannot ‘look unto Jesus’ with the natural eye (let alone do it in the continual fashion that Hebrews 12:2 mandates) yet I strive oft to do so. After Adam I do not even know what He looks like so I would not know if I was looking straight at Him, had just run passed Him or was standing right next to Him. But by the Spirit within, I walk by His faith and I live by the faith of Him who loved me and gave Himself for me (this is my hope). Adam made a garment for his atonement out of fig leaves. The child of grace, while inhabiting this earthen vessel, has the leaves of the tree of life for his healing, garments of fine linen pure and white as his righteousness and the blood of the Lamb for his atonement.

Man lives, moves and has his being in all the things that the seed of the blessing detests, the things of the earth. He was formed from the dust of the earth, he is sustained by the fruit of the field, he lives with the people of the land and to that same dust he shall return.

The child of grace lives and moves and has his being in the evidence of things unseen and the substance of things hoped for. He is born from above, has the eternal love of the Father, is sustained by His Word and awaits the manifestation of the sons of God. And the blessings are the same. God has blessed His children, not rewarded them for being good, in the heavenlies with spiritual blessings which Adam could not see were he showered with them. The sure sound of the trumpet of the everlasting gospel is the proclamation of a finished work in the Messiah and not a muster call to begin the day, or a call to arms. As the Spirit reveals Himself more and more as the child grows in the grace and knowledge of His will, the conflict between these two axioms grows more intense. Not that the Spirit is struggling with the flesh but rather they are contrary one to another and the natural man knows he is finite. He is in subjection to the Spirit and is growing old like a garment yet he fights vehemently as his days approach and the cries from the children in the market places seems to grow louder and louder, in the natural ear, as they say, come dance with us. Show us your faith by your works, they say, yet they have not the eyes to see the work that God is doing in His children, which is by faith. They cannot see the new creature, the inward man, or the peaceable fruits of righteousness so they chide, ridicule and harass the poor weary pilgrim.

There is no reward for being obedient, the blessing is being made obedient in Him and kept by the power of His Word. There is also no punishment for disobedience, for whom the Lord loves He chastens. Now if obedience brings blessing then when I am obedient there is no chastening of the Lord. Has His love departed? God forbid!!! His chastening is so that no flesh shall glory in His sight and the trials and tribulations are to prove the faith within. The blessing is to be counted worthy to suffer these things for Christ’s sake. “For unto you it is given not only to believe but to suffer for His name”.

As long as we inhabit the garments of Egypt, we shall speak in the foreign tongue. Many of the old phrases shall remain until the tabernacle of this dwelling be dissolved. I say, ‘good luck’ though I do not believe in luck or chance. I say to people, ‘have a nice day’ knowing that they shall have a day that has sufficient evils according to the will of God and I try constantly to discipline my flesh to do that which is good. But when I would do good, evil is present and I do not find the way to do that which is good. This is the warfare, that is the contradiction of sin against the Spirit within. To the flesh it is a paradox. To the child of grace it is the subjection to vanity that God has assigned to him and he longs to be delivered from.

Your servant in Christ,
chet

May 2011