THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION AND CONDITIONAL TIME SALVATION

To most Old School Baptists, this article may seem a waste to write or to read. After all, some might ask why we need to read about views we do not believe.  This would be true for those who believe in absolute predestination, but it is not true for most of the outside world.

Some of us were raised as an Old School Baptist, we came to the beliefs through the leading and power of the Holy Spirit.  However, others were at one time Southern Baptists, Sovereign Grace Baptists, or even Arminian Baptists.  We began to question the commonly held beliefs of the groups we were in and heard or read Old School Baptist writings which through the teaching of Jesus himself in our hearts convinced us of the error of those groups.  In the end what matters is not what men have thought of this doctrine, but what the Scriptures say on it.

A common Reformed doctrine is something called "progressive sanctification."  It is commonly held among "evangelical" Baptists, Reformed Baptists, and probably many Sovereign Grace Baptists. We need to explain it to those who are not aware of that doctrine.  To avoid the fact that the word sanctification is never found as a progressive idea in the Scriptures, some may a theological distinction between positional and progressive sanctification.

Perhaps the definitions for these terms are provided by Calvary Christian Fellowship.  First progressive sanctification:

Progressive Sanctification is described by the Apostle Peter as the ongoing impact salvation through Jesus Christ has on our lives in a practical sense. It is worth noting that sanctification and salvation aren’t conditions of one another, but the natural result of both lived out in someone’s life. Once that salvation is in place, God’s work in your life will be reflected by these things. In other passages that encourage Christians to test themselves to see if they are in the faith, these are examples of what to look for. It is also key to emphasize that these things aren’t a replacement for salvation, but the impact the Holy Spirit will have on your life once He has been welcomed in. God cleans His fish after He has caught them. It isn’t a self-help manual. It’s an observation of the progress, or heading towards the goal, of an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.

Positional Sanctification

This doctrine presents many problems. It basically makes God in need of glasses. It reached that God sees us as the finished glorified being. He sees Christ in us. This is true of course, but, if he only saw in this way, why would there be a need for glorification? After all, if all he sees is Christ then there can be no further perfection that can be added! No. He sees us in all our weaknesses. He knows we are weak and frail and easily temptable still. He knows that we still have the remnants of the old man in us that MUST die. Nowhere does Paul say that God sees us only as he sees Christ. We have an old man and a new man who are in conflict one “lusts” against the other. But there is also the US that is the combination of those two in us. Nevertheless, though we disagree with this doctrinal notion, we quote it as understood by the advocates of it:

Positional Sanctification brings the attention away from the Christians living their lives and onto how God views the Christian as a rule. This is the ongoing reality for those who have received and are abiding in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Even though we still struggle and fall into sin, God already sees us in Heaven with Him and righteous on the sole basis of His Son having made us justified before the Father. The Apostle Paul describes that reality in the following way.

God views us as sinners. After all, while we were yet sinners and enemies Christ died for us. Yet he has never viewed his chosen people in any other way but in love, despite our sins! We needed a physician. Only the sick need one, did he not say?

Final Sanctification
Final Sanctification likewise brings the attention away from us at the moment and looks ahead to where we’ll ultimately be. Like Progressive and Positional Sanctification, it focuses on the impact salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has on us. Unlike the former two topics, it answers the question of what we are progressing towards and how that position will remain the case in Heaven.

If we examine the use of these terms in the now-vast Google library, we can see when these terms began to be used in a large number of instances.  The first is progressive sanctification, and the second is positional sanctification.  Interestingly enough, Google could find no books citing the term Final sanctification (probably because this confusing term is equivalent to glorification and cannot justify its existence).

Thus we see, that the term progressive sanctification was b basically unknown until the year 1800.  This coincides with the growth of the missionary movement.  The term positional sanctification briefly surfaced in the 1870s but peaked in the 1990s.

The author of this website admits that "Though the words “Progressive, Positional, and Final” aren’t directly associated with Sanctification, they are describing biblical principals that surround this topic. Likewise, in order to have an accurate understanding of sanctification as a whole, all of these things need to be understood."  The author of this typical website on sanctification explains why we must have these doctrines:

Without Progressive Sanctification, Positional and Final Sanctification are meaningless to you given the fact that you have no metric to determine whether or not you’re actually benefitting from them. Someone who understands how God sees a saved soul and where they are ultimately headed won’t help them if they have no metric to determine if they are in that position and heading to that final destination.

So it is a metric! And a metric implies improvement or growth.  I remember a young teacher, teaching "how much sanctification" it took for Moses to carry the burden of the nation of Israel. This is the sad confusion that occurs in any works-based system.

Conditionalism/Conditional Time Salvation
Old School Baptists at the time of their beginning separation from benevolent religious societies did not believe in conditional time salvation or time salvation. This group calling themselves various names such as Old-Line Baptists, describe themselves as true Primitive Baptists.  Sadly, they are not so primitive.

 

In both of these searches, we see that these phrases did not begin to be used until the 1850s.

Elder James F. Poole former pastor of Welsh Tract Old School Baptist Church in Newark, Delaware, penned an article that quoted from several pamphlets written by prominent Old-Line Baptists. Some of their statements are truly shocking.  We quote some from Elder Poole's article titled "Definitions" published in 1993.

Conditional time salvation is a very new doctrine and can be traced back only to the latter part of the last century, and only in the United States. It has no identity in early history anywhere, and the New Testament is totally silent in its support. A few of the proponents of this system have, however, loosely gleaned a number of passages from the Old Testament accounts of God's governmental dealings with Israel. These they have saddled on the backs of those confused about the distinguishing differences between law and grace. Not a single sermon, tract, letter, or account of this doctrine can be produced dating back before the close of the War Between the States. Dissenters from this statement will search history's vaults and libraries in vain to produce contrary evidence. It simply does not exist.

Here are more quotes from their own works as found by Elder Poole. "Conditional salvation belongs to the children of God; those that are born again; and unconditional salvation belongs to those dead in trespasses and sin." Elder T. S. Dalton, A Treatise on Salvation, Page 22.  We have another quote from Elder E.D. McCutcheon:

When God quickens one by the Holy Spirit, sets him free from being a bond slave to sin, writes His law in the heart, He equips him with the ability to repent. Repentance on the outside is evidence of grace on the inside. Repentance is just as necessary today as it was in the days of John the Baptist or in the New Testament churches. God does not repent for us, He gives us the ability to do so. If we fail, we are without excuse. Elder E. D. McCutcheon, This we Believe, Page 42.

Thus the idea that God grants repentance is foreign to this doctrine. This quote is impossible to reconcile with the belief that there are number of elect and that all of them will be brought to Christ:

However, many do not know the wondrous story: probably millions of God's elect have died without the knowledge of God's works among the children of men. God left in the hands of men a system to take care of the distribution of this knowledge. Men have done a very poor job. What they have been given .. what has been assigned to them -- is called the gospel, the glad tidings. Because of the failure of men to carry the gospel.. to preach it properly -- very few of His children have the knowledge required for a full earnest of the inheritance --a blessed hope of what God has done, is doing and has promised to do. This we Believe, Page 27.

On the subject of Predestination, they fall far short of what Scripture declares:

Some people believe that God could only know what would occur by determining in advance the course of events and ordering the whole process in such a manner that every thought, deed, and happening is unalterable in any manner. This is the doctrine of absolute predestination. Primitive Baptists (except for a splinter group) do not believe this doctrine." This We Believe, Page 14

Dalton next claims that the King James Version does not teach absolute predestination: "While it is true that a few events in history were by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, (See Acts 2.23) yet predestination pertains to people, not to events, in every place it is used in the King James version." This We Believe, Page 17.  We go on: "The gospel offers forgiveness of sins to God's born-again people. It does not offer life nor justification by the blood of Christ, both of which are absolutely essential for eternal glory. The gospel offers an experimental forgiveness to the believer." This We Believe, Pages 29, 20.  An offer implies an acceptance on the part of men.  We do not believe God offers salvation to any, but his preachers proclaim the Gospel, and those who are given the new birth by the Spirit of God, will have ears to hear and eyes to see.

Conclusions

Both systems of belief assert one thing, the ability of men to improve or worsen themselves spiritually by what they do or don't do. In the life of a Christian, there is growth (we'll explain later)!  But nowhere is it called sanctification.  Many confuse the word sanctification and the word holiness in English.  In English, holiness implies morality, uprightness, etc.  But in Greek, they are the same word.  The word essentially means "to be set apart."  So the Greek word implies being set apart by God (which has moral implications. But it is not a legalistic obedience to the Ten Commandments.  But like we said earlier, there is growth in the Christian, Peter speaks of it,  "But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen." II Peter 3.18. This growth in grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ does not mean an improvement in "holiness." The Old man cannot be improved and the new man (Christ Jesus in us the hope of Glory) needs no improvement.  Romans 7 clarifies our constant sinfulness in both words, thoughts, and deeds.

Advocates for progressive sanctification disagree. Some passages are claimed to imply that sanctification is a progressive concept. Many go to I Thessalonians 4.3 where Paul believers who are sanctified should abstain from fornication.  But this is not because have become progressively sanctified.  The passage explicitly states that our sanctification is the will of God.  His will cannot be frustrated.

Some advocates quote I Peter 3.15, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." But even here, there is no idea of progress or advancement.  It is simply a reminder of how we ought to set apart God in our hearts from anything or anyone else.  The example of it here is the willingness to testify of Christ even in legal proceedings of persecution.

There are places in which it is clear that sanctification is an accomplished fact:

Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate Hebrews 4.12

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I Thessalonians 5.23

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, Ephesians 5.26

And for their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. John 17.17

Conditionalists talk about believers "losing" the "joy of their salvation." And they add: 

Concerning obedience to 'the way' we are cautioned to not grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4.30). Our disobedience is this grievance. This is sometimes called conditional time salvation, I believe this is worked under the Grace of God in accordance to our obedience to His Word (or according to our walk in the 'way').

The fascinating thing about this phrase is it is found in Psalm 51.12.  The psalmist is asking the Lord to restore his joy.  This implies that it is God and not man who is responsible for giving or taking this joy.  This is true in a simple reading of the English passage but even more pronounced in the Hebrew. The Hebrew very is in the hiphil stem.  This stem is called the causative stem in Hebrew.  It is the strongest way the Hebrew can explain that, in this case, it is God who causes the joy to be restored (implying that it is also God that takes it away).  So the psalmist is requesting for God to restore his joy., acknowledging that it is HE that can give it and take it away. Thus God is the one who ordains all things in the life of a Christian for his own mysterious purposes (but always for the good of a believer).

May the Lord teach us that as we learn more about God and our Savior Jesus, the more aware we become of our sinfulness before him and long for our glorification where we will be rid of our body of sin.