TRY HARD CHRISTIANITY (Santamaria)

THE TRY-HARD CHRISTIANITY

By Guillermo Santamaria

“Trying hard to be holy” – the strain of effort-based Christianity.

Contents

• Foreword
• Absoluter Position among Old School Baptists
• New School Missionary Baptist Position
• “Growth in Grace” in the Mind of Beebe and Trott
• Key Terms Often Used to Defend Progressive Sanctification
• Striving, Pursuing, Chasing After, and Other Exhortations
• How This Relates to Those Who Think an Effort Must Be Made Toward Holiness

FOREWORD

We again fight this heresy of those espousing making efforts to obey God’s commands. This is by the will of the flesh, not the Spirit.

Guillermo Santamaria

ABSOLUTER POSITION AMONG OLD SCHOOL BAPTISTS

Old School Baptists—especially the Absoluter wing you’ve been mining—would basically say:

“Everything you just called progressive sanctification is either (1) finished in Christ, or (2) a matter of walk, not nature. So preach growth in walk, but keep your hands off Christ’s finished work and the believer’s standing.”

Let’s run it the way they’d slice it.

1. On “getting holier” in God’s sight

Absoluter Old School Baptists would be blunt:

A child of God is not “getting holier” in God’s sight.

He is holy in Christ, from first to last, before he ever draws a conscious breath of faith.

Think Beebe’s beloved cluster:

• “By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” (Heb 10:14)
• “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us… sanctification.” (1 Cor 1:30)
• “Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified…” (1 Cor 6:11)

OSBs hammer this:

• Sanctification, as to standing, is:
  • eternal in election,
  • secured in Christ’s offering,
  • applied by the Spirit in regeneration,
  not a moral ladder you climb.

So if someone says:

“By progressive sanctification, I’m becoming more holy before God.”

An Old School Absoluter would say: that’s false doctrine—it smells of Fullerism, Methodism, or Rome, depending on which way the wind’s blowing.

2. On “the nature getting holier.”

Absoluters draw a hard, almost brutal line:

• New man: created in righteousness and true holiness; cannot be improved.
• Old man/flesh: entirely corrupt; cannot be sanctified; only crucified.

So the idea that:

“My nature is slowly being purified and made more holy over time”

would be flatly rejected. They’d say:

That’s an “old man improvement scheme” – trying to sanctify what God has condemned.

The new birth gives a new creature, not a rehabbed old one. The new creature does not become more holy; it is holy.

What changes is what gets expressed:

• sometimes the old man,
• sometimes the new man,
• and the Spirit chastens, corrects, and turns the child of God back again and again.

To them, “progress in holiness of nature” sounds like saying the Spirit is gradually making the flesh less flesh. Hard no.

3. Where they will grant “progress.”

Here’s where they’ll nod, but with a lot of theological barbed wire around it.

They’ll say there is progress in:

• Light – growing knowledge of truth, clearer views of Christ, of self, of providence.
• Experience – deeper repentance, more thorough stripping of creature-righteousness, more sensitivity to sin.
• Walk – more consistent Godward conduct, greater care for the brethren, less outward scandal, more sobriety and humility.

They’ll happily talk about:

• “growth in grace,”
• “increasing fruit,”
• “more conformity of walk,”
• “more weaned from the world,”
• “more dead to law-righteousness.”

But they’ll insist:

This is not adding holiness to your standing.

It is manifesting what God already made you in Christ.

It is God making you feel and know what was eternally true in His purpose and secured at the cross.

So yes to progress in manifestation; no to progress in essence.

4. How they’d respond to mainstream “progressive sanctification” talk

If a standard evangelical says:

“We’re justified once for all, but then sanctification is progressive—over time the believer becomes holier and more Christlike.”

The Old School Absoluter would pick it apart like this:

If you mean:

“We learn, are corrected, chastened, and our walk becomes more consistent with the gospel we believe” —

Fine. Say that. That’s just biblical admonition and growth.

But if you mean:

“We are gradually made more holy in God’s sight, and our spiritual nature itself is being refined” —

No. That’s a corruption of the gospel.

They would especially hate:

Any scheme that makes sanctification sound like a joint venture where:

• Christ gets you in the door,
• your “progress” keeps you inside and makes you more acceptable.

To their ears, that’s just justification-by-sanctification in nicer clothes.

5. The big fears driving their language

Why are Old School Absoluters so touchy on this?

Because they see:

• Assurance at risk – If holiness is progressive in the sense of your safety before God, then you can only be as secure as your best week.
• Christ’s sufficiency at risk – If your status needs topping up by your progress, the cross isn’t “It is finished,” it’s “It is started.”
• Law / gospel confusion – If you don’t distinguish:
  • what Christ has done for you and what the Spirit does in you, from
  • what you are called to do as a child,
  you end up measuring your sonship by your performance instead of by Christ.

So they’d rather speak awkwardly and repeat themselves than let the idea slip in that a believer becomes more holy in God’s sight over time.

6. So, if you asked an Old School Absoluter straight up:

“Is progressive sanctification a true doctrine?”

You’d get something like:

“If you mean progress in gospel obedience, growth in grace, and increase in the fruits of the Spirit—yes, that is true, though we don’t like the term much because of how it’s abused.”

“If you mean a progressive increase of holiness before God, or of the spiritual nature itself, then no; that is error. A child of God is as complete in Christ the first moment of quickening as he will be in glory, though he knows almost nothing of it and walks very poorly in it.”

In other words:

growth in walk? Yes.

growth in standing or nature? No.

And then they’d send you back to Hebrews 10:14 and 1 Corinthians 1:30 and insist you stay there until the notion of “getting holier” in God’s sight feels as wrong as saying Christ is “getting more finished” as a Savior.

NEW SCHOOL MISSIONARY BAPTIST POSITION

I’ll focus on classic 19th-century “New School / Missionary” Baptists and their heirs (generic evangelical Baptists today), not the fine-grained sub-schools.

1. Their basic model in a nutshell

New School / Missionary Baptists typically see the Christian life like this:

• Justification – once-for-all, by faith alone, legal standing.
• Progressive sanctification – lifelong moral and spiritual transformation, in which:
  • the believer actually becomes more holy in character,
  • sin’s power is being more and more broken,
  • the soul is being gradually cleansed and conformed to Christ.
• Glorification – final perfection at death/resurrection.

So for them, progressive sanctification is not just “better walk.” It is usually described as:

a real, internal, increasing holiness of nature and character, produced by the Holy Spirit, in which the believer is “made more and more dead to sin and alive to righteousness.”

They’ll insist this doesn’t justify you, but they absolutely see it as a real, inward, progressive change.

2. How they talk about it theologically

New School Baptists were heavily shaped by:

• English / American evangelical Calvinism (Fuller, Hodge, etc.),
• later revivalist / Keswick / holiness influences.

So you typically get language like:

• “Sanctification is both definitive and progressive.”
• “We are positionally holy in Christ, but practically we are being made holy over time.”
• “The Spirit infuses habits of grace, mortifies sin, and renews the whole man after the image of God.”

They will say:

• The believer actually grows in grace and holiness.
• The Spirit uses means (Bible reading, prayer, preaching, sacraments, Christian effort) to produce increasing likeness to Christ.

So the New School line is:

“Yes, you are set apart in Christ at conversion, and from that point on, the Spirit is progressively making you more holy in your inner life and conduct.”

For them, “progressive sanctification” is absolutely a central, non-negotiable category.

3. How this differs from Old School (Absoluter) instincts

Old School Absoluters:

“Standing: finished. Nature: new man already holy, old man entirely corrupt. Progress: only in walk/experience, not in standing or essence.”

New School Baptists:

Standing vs. state, but both under “sanctification.”

They’ll agree there’s a “positional” sanctification in Christ.

But they also strongly emphasize a progressive inner renewal of the believer.

Real inward moral change

They’d say the Spirit is not just giving you more light while nature stays binary.

They talk as if the whole person is being increasingly renewed, not just externally steered.

Means and cooperation

Sanctification, in New School thinking, usually involves our cooperation:

• You must “use the means of grace,”
• “strive,”
• “mortify sin,”
• “yield to the Spirit.”

God does the work, but through your obedience and diligence. Neglect the means, and you will “not advance far” in holiness.

Old School Absoluters get very itchy here, because this sounds (to them) like:

“Christ + my progressive holiness = the full picture of salvation.”

New School Baptists would deny that formula, but their language often edges toward it practically.

4. How New School Baptists preach it

In preaching and popular teaching, progressive sanctification among New School / evangelical Baptists usually sounds like:

• “God loves you as you are, but He loves you too much to leave you as you are.”
• “You should be more holy this year than last year.”
• “Real Christians will show ongoing growth. If there is no growth, there may be no life.”

So:

• Signs of grace = growth in holiness.
• Assurance is often tethered to visible progress.

They’ll say:

Justification is the root,

Sanctification is the inevitable fruit,

Lack of fruit may reveal that the root was never there.

Old School ears hear this and think:

“You’ve just smuggled evidence-based assurance and a subtle works-test back into the Christian’s conscience.”

5. Where the sharp clash really is

On paper, both sides affirm:

• Justification by grace alone.
• The necessity of good works as fruit.
• The reality of growth.

The real clash is in emphasis and implication:

New School Baptist vibe

• There is a real, progressive work of the Spirit in which the believer is more and more made holy.
• This ongoing transformation is a crucial part of salvation’s application.
• A professing believer with no discernible progress lives under serious doubt.

Old School Absoluter vibe

• There is no progressive holiness before God; it is all in Christ, all at once.
• There is growth in light, repentance, and walk—but this is a change in experience, not in your safety or nature.
• Using “progressive sanctification” language almost always ends up:
  • troubling tender consciences,
  • feeding legal spirits,
  • making assurance ride on spiritual performance.

So if you asked:

“Do New School Baptists believe in progressive sanctification?”

Answer: yes, very much so—they see it as:

• a lifelong, Spirit-wrought, real increase of holiness in the believer’s inner life and outer conduct,
• using means, requiring effort, and functioning as a major pillar of assurance.

Where Old School Absoluters say, “Careful, that’s a slippery slope,” New School Baptists say, “That’s just basic Christian discipleship.” The difference is not a small nuance; it’s two different instincts about how to protect grace and how to talk to tender consciences.

“GROWTH IN GRACE” IN THE MIND OF BEEBE AND TROTT

Yes – we can nail this down from Old School / Primitive Baptist sources themselves, not from BiblePortal-type aggregators.

I’ll tie the earlier points to actual OSB texts.

1. Trott: all equally holy in Christ, “more manifestly holy” in walk

In “Concerning Holiness” (Signs, reprinted in Samuel Trott, Volume 2), Trott explicitly distinguishes eternal holiness in Christ from manifest holiness in life.

He says that in regard to eternal salvation:

“all the children of grace… are alike sanctified or holy… that we may expect the saints to be more manifestly holy.”

That one sentence carries the whole structure:

• “all the children of grace… are alike sanctified or holy” – no degrees here; in the eternal sense, all saints are equally holy in Christ.
• “more manifestly holy” – the difference is in manifestation in their lives, not in Christ’s sanctification itself.

In the same article, he roots this “alike sanctified” in:

• election in the Father (Eph 1:4),
• Christ being “made unto us… sanctification” (1 Cor 1:30),
• and being “chosen… through sanctification of the Spirit” (2 Thess 2:13, 1 Pet 1:2).

So Trott is your explicit OSB witness that:

• Holiness in Christ = non-progressive, complete, equal for all elect.
• Holiness in conduct = “more manifestly holy” as they live out what they already are.

That’s exactly the distinction summarized earlier.

2. The Predestinarian: triune sanctification, Christ himself as our sanctification

A later Old School / Predestinarian writer (in The Predestinarian, vol. 4, issue 47) gives a very Beebe-ish synthesis of sanctification as the coordinated work of the Trinity:

“The Godhead also is united in the sanctification of the elect—Father, Son, and Spirit… Christ was made unto them all the Sanctification they need.”

Notice what that does:

• Father – sanctifies by eternal election (“chose us in him before the foundation of the world”).
• Son – sanctifies by once-for-all sacrifice and imputed righteousness (“purified unto himself a peculiar people”).
• Spirit – sanctifies by calling them “to a knowledge of it in the Father and Son” and by separating them experimentally from the world.

And crucially:

“Truth in the ‘letter’… does not sanctify… it is the Spirit of God that sanctifies through the truth, and by His effectual power the truth then sanctifies the believer.”

That matches what was said earlier: “growth” is the Spirit making us experimentally know and walk in a finished sanctification already in Christ – not climbing a holiness ladder to become sanctified.

3. Beebe: sanctification of the Spirit; faith as fruit, not self-improvement

We don’t need BiblePortal to see Beebe’s structure. In his editorial “The Mystery of Godliness” (Signs 1871, as compiled on supralapsarian.com), commenting on 2 Thess 2:13 (“chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth”), he writes:

“Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the fruit of the Spirit, and until the power of the Spirit is given, none can possess it.”

That line does a lot of work:

• “sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” are inseparable;
• faith is not a natural self-act but an effectual fruit of the Spirit’s sanctifying work.

So for Beebe, “growth” cannot be “I, by my efforts, become more and more holy.” It is:

• the Spirit causing the elect to believe and understand what God has already purposed and accomplished in Christ;
• the outworking of that faith in walk, under the same sanctifying Spirit.

That’s exactly the framework the later Predestinarian piece systematizes.

4. Bartley: Christ made sanctification to us

In David Bartley’s Works (reprinting his Signs articles, available for example at mountzionpbc.org), he exposits 1 Corinthians 1:30:

“who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”

Bartley presses that:

• all that we need – wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption – is already given in Christ;
• our problem is not to “add” sanctification, but to be brought experimentally into what God has already made Christ to us.

So again: holiness is Christ-given and complete; what “grows” is our knowledge, assurance, and experience of it.

5. Definition-wise, how does this document what was said?

From these OSB sources, you can line up the key points like this:

Non-progressive holiness in Christ

• Trott: “all the children of grace… are alike sanctified or holy” in relation to eternal salvation.
• Predestinarian: “Christ was made unto them all the Sanctification they need.”
• Bartley: cites 1 Cor 1:30 as the ground – Christ made sanctification to us.

Triune, not creature-driven sanctification

• Predestinarian: “The Godhead also is united in the sanctification of the elect—Father, Son, and Spirit…”
• Beebe: salvation is “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth,” with faith as “the fruit of the Spirit.”

Growth = manifestation/knowledge, not “getting holier” in Christ

• Trott: difference is that saints may become “more manifestly holy” in their lives, though they are already “alike sanctified or holy.”
• Predestinarian: the Spirit sanctifies “through the truth,” separating them in walk and experience, and calling them “to a knowledge” of what the Father and Son have already done.

Put bluntly in OSB terms:

No: a progressive, creature-driven sanctification making you more sanctified in Christ over time.

Yes: a triune, once-for-all sanctification in Christ, with a progressive manifestation – growth in grace – as the Spirit teaches, separates, and leads you to “act out” what was finished from the start.

MORE TERMS USED BY SOME TO DEFEND PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION

Good, this is where the gears really mesh: fruit, law, and “holier walk” all in the Absoluter machine-room. Let’s take the three phrases one by one and let Trott & Beebe talk.

1. “Increasing in fruit.”

Samuel Trott

Trott never preached “getting holier” in essence. He distinguished sharply between:

• eternal, essential holiness (fixed in election and in Christ), and
• manifest holiness in life (what you and I see in conduct).

In his long exposition on Isaiah 4, he says that when God refines Zion,

The saints “will be more manifestly holy… This is no other than living under the influence of the internal sanctification of the Spirit, or working out, or rather acting out their salvation…”

He immediately unpacks that:

• this “acting out” implies abstaining from iniquity and
• not conforming to the world,

yet remaining in their earthly callings and duties.

So for Trott:

“Increasing in fruit” = holiness in life becoming more visible and consistent,

not the soul becoming more holy in its standing before God.

The root (internal sanctification) is perfect; what “increases” is the expression of that sanctity in obedience and separation.

It’s growth in manifestation, not growth in the quality of the new nature.

Gilbert Beebe

Beebe speaks the same dialect. When he expounds the “mystery of godliness,” he insists that:

The church is the seed of Abraham, which Christ took on him.

They were “crucified (legally) with him, dead with him, risen with him to newness of life… now being dead to the law by the body of Christ, they are made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Note the logic:

• Their legal standing and life in Christ are complete.
• Faith itself is “the fruit of the Spirit,” not a work that improves their state.

So if Beebe hears “increasing in fruit,” he’s fine if you mean:

• The Spirit brings forth more visible obedience, patience, love, etc.,
• as fruits of an already-complete salvation.

He is not fine if you mean:

• The believer is climbing from a lower to a higher degree of holiness before God,
• Or that fruit contributes to a “better” justification or sanctity.

Fruit grows; holiness in Christ does not.

2. “Dead to law-righteousness.”

Here we’re in their sweet spot.

Samuel Trott

Trott explicitly ties God’s eternal purpose to putting the elect under law and then killing that legal relation:

God’s purpose was “to create them in Adam under the law… that they might thus become proper subjects to be redeemed from under the law, and that, becoming dead to the law, and of course to their relation to [it]…”

So for Trott:

“Dead to law righteousness” =

• The elect once truly under the covenant of works in Adam,
• Then redeemed from under it in Christ,
• So that the law no longer stands over them to give or withhold righteousness.

They still uphold the law as holy and just, but not as their rule of life in a covenantal sense. To preach that the believer is “dead to the law by the body of Christ” is exactly the Pauline doctrine; that is why men label them “Antinomian.” A later Sovereign Grace writer notes that those who dare say believers are “dead to the law by the body of Christ” (including Trott & Beebe) are quickly branded enemies of holiness (see, for example, articles hosted by Hidden Hills Sovereign Grace Baptist Church).

Trott’s point:

• Law-righteousness is over;
• Christ-righteousness is everything;
• Obedience is the fruit of that, never the ground of acceptance.

Gilbert Beebe

Beebe is equally explicit. In the editorial we just looked at, he says the elect are:

“crucified (legally) with him, dead with him, risen with him to newness of life… risen with him from under the curse and dominion of the law, and now being dead to the law by the body of Christ, they are made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

That’s the whole OSB Absoluter package in one sentence:

• Crucified with Christ – the law has executed its sentence.
• Risen with Christ – the old legal relation is over; the law’s dominion is finished.
• Dead to the law – not partly, not provisionally; fully, in the body of Christ.

So “dead to law righteousness” for Beebe means:

• The law never again functions as their covenant of life.
• Their entire righteousness is Christ’s obedience and blood, already complete.
• Any talk of “getting more righteous” by law-keeping is a direct denial of this.

Yet he still insists that the Spirit’s work includes “sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” in the elect, so experimental holiness always accompanies this legal death to the law.

3. “More conformity of walk.”

This is where people usually smuggle progressive sanctification back in. Trott tries to lock every door and window before they do.

Samuel Trott

In the same Isaiah 4 piece, after demolishing the idea of varying degrees of essential holiness, he shifts to life and walk:

All the elect are equally sanctified in God’s purpose and in Christ:

“All the children of grace, in every age, are alike sanctified… chosen in Christ… that they should be holy… Christ is of God made unto us sanctification… from the beginning chosen unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”

Then he explains what changes:

“But it is in reference to their lives… that we may expect the saints to be more manifestly holy. This is no other than living under the influence of the internal sanctification of the Spirit, or acting out their salvation…”

And he spells that out:

It “necessarily implies an abstaining from all iniquity, and as the whole world lieth in wickedness, an abstaining from conformity to the world.”

Yet it “does not imply a withdrawal from the world, nor from the several duties or relations of life.”

It leads to doing “whatsoever we do… to the glory of God” in ordinary concerns (eating, drinking, callings, family, church).

So for Trott:

“More conformity of walk” = a more consistent, Spirit-caused obedience in ordinary life,

rooted in internal sanctification fully given,

not a step-ladder to become more holy in being.

In other words, the walk can become more conformed; the man in Christ cannot become more holy.

Gilbert Beebe

Beebe reasons the same way, even if he doesn’t use your exact phrase.

He anchors everything in union with Christ: the elect are justified, sanctified, and seated in heavenly places in him, by virtue of his death and resurrection.

Faith and obedience are “the fruit of the Spirit”, not the engine of the relationship.

So when he exhorts to obedience or speaks of walking in newness of life, he’s always presupposing:

• A finished righteousness and sanctification in Christ,
• A Spirit already given, who now causes them to “walk in newness of life.”

Thus, “more conformity of walk” for Beebe:

Is legitimate language as long as you mean:

• more fruit, more obedience, more practical separation,
• flowing from an unchangeable union with Christ.

It is false if you mean:

• altering their degree of sanctity before God,
• moving from “50% holy” to “75% holy.”

Pulling the three together

So, if we paraphrase Trott & Beebe in your three phrases:

“Increasing in fruit.”

• Yes, manifestly; the Spirit draws out more obedience, love, and separation.
• No, not as an increase in essential holiness, which is complete in Christ.

“Dead to law-righteousness.”

• Yes, absolutely; the believer’s relation to the law as covenant-of-works is finished.
• Righteousness is entirely Christ’s; any “law-righteousness” talk is a denial of the gospel.

“More conformity of walk.”

• Yes, as a deeper acting-out of an already-given salvation; more consistent nonconformity to the world and obedience in daily callings.
• No, if it’s framed as climbing into a higher holiness before God.

In modern terms, Trott and Beebe will happily talk about the growth of fruit and clarity, but they refuse to let that morph into growth of holiness-as-substance. Christ is all the holiness; our “progress” is just the Spirit dragging our walk into line with what was finished from the start.

STRIVING, PURSUING, CHASING AFTER, ETC., AND ALL OTHER EXHORTATIONS

Think of all those hot-blooded verbs in the NT:

• strive (agonizomai)
• press toward (diōkō / epekteinomai)
• follow after / pursue (diōkō)
• fight / run / mortify / lay hold

New-School folks (Fullerite / Reformed evangelical) and Old School Baptists read the same words and live in two different universes.

Let’s sketch the two universes, then walk through some key texts.

1. New School view in a nutshell

a) Big picture

New School / Fullerite / mainstream Reformed-evangelical view of these exhortations:

• Progressive sanctification: The believer’s inner moral/spiritual state actually changes over time; you “get holier” bit by bit.
• Synergistic language: God gives grace, but you must “cooperate,” “strive,” “pursue,” etc. These verbs are often treated as conditions of growth in holiness.
• Final salvation tied to pursuit: Texts like “follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb 12:14) are read as:

  If you don’t pursue holiness in your conduct, you will not finally be saved.

  (see discussions at ministries such as Third Millennium Ministries).

A good snapshot: A.W. Pink on Heb 12:14 argues that believers must mortify sins and bring forth the “graces of godliness”; without this practical holiness, a man “will go to Hell as surely as” any openly wicked sinner (also widely circulated via Third Millennium-type sites).

Modern sermons on “pressing toward the mark” usually present it as: stay focused, disciplined, progressively transformed; don’t settle for less than “God’s best,” etc.—the classic “lifelong race of progressive sanctification” (see, for example, Sermon Central).

So when New School people see:

• “Strive to enter in at the strait gate” (Lk 13:24)
• “Follow peace with all men, and holiness” (Heb 12:14)
• “Press toward the mark” (Phil 3:14)
• “Follow after righteousness” (1 Tim 6:11)
• “Work out your own salvation” (Phil 2:12)

They tend to say:

These are calls to make real, progressive advances in holiness, by our Spirit-assisted effort, and in some sense, your final salvation/assurance hangs on whether you do this.

That’s New School in one sentence.

2. Old School Baptist (Absoluter) framework

Old School / Primitive Baptists of the Beebe–Trott stripe are playing a very different game.

a) Fixed eternal standing, not progressive

Election, justification, and sanctification are eternal and perfect in Christ.

God’s view of His people is settled. A modern Primitive Baptist synthesis puts it this way:

“The mind, purpose, and posture of God toward the elect was forever settled in Jesus Christ. The only remaining business is to correct and settle the minds of men.”

So nothing in the imperative texts conditions God’s love, choice, or final glorification of His people.

b) Growth is experiential, not “more holy in nature.”

Beebe, Trott, and later Absoluters insist:

• The child of God is not becoming more holy in nature.
• “Growth in grace” is growth in:
  • experimental knowledge,
  • clarity of faith,
  • obedience in walk,
  • comfort and assurance — not growth in the amount of holiness possessed.

A representative modern PB statement about Phil 2:12:

“Work out your own salvation… is clearly an exhortation to elicit an active obedience enabled by a state of salvation.”

I.e., you already have salvation; you “work it out” into your conduct and experience.

c) Exhortations aimed at the inner man, not at dead sinners

For Old Schoolers:

• Imperatives like strive, press, follow, and mortify are addressed to those who already have spiritual life.
• They never mean, “If you do this, you will obtain eternal life.”
• They also never authorize us to invent “means” and religious machinery (missions, measures, etc.) to make these things happen.

Beebe spends a lot of ink warning against turning supposed commands into human programs:

Many “ascribe salvation to means, instrumentality, efforts, missions, funds, free-will, or human power,” and claim God has “enjoined on us the work of saving sinners, or of procuring and securing our own individual salvation.” He replies with Jeremiah’s rebuke: “Who hath required this at your hand?”

(see reprints at sovereignredeemerbooks.com).

So the striving/pursuing texts must not be read as God commanding us to secure salvation—ours or anyone else’s.

3. Comparing the two readings passage by passage

Let’s take some of the classic “striving/pursuing/pressing” texts and contrast the two readings.

A) Luke 13:24 – “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.”

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

New School:

• Addressed to all hearers, regenerate and unregenerate.
• “Strive” = make earnest, persevering efforts to be saved; “entering” is obtaining salvation.
• This verse is often used against “easy-believism”: you must strive, repent, persevere, or you’ll be among those who “seek” but are shut out.

Old School (Beebe-style):

• Question in context: “Lord, are there few that be saved?” (v.23). He answers to disciples, not the world.
• “Strive” describes the inward conflict of those in whose hearts grace is already at work; the path is narrow because flesh, world, and devil resist.
• The “many [who] seek to enter” and cannot, in Old School readings, are often:
  • formalists,
  • self-righteous religionists,
  • or those trusting in works and means.
• The text exposes false confidence, not offers salvation on condition of sufficient striving.

Primitive Baptist writers regularly cite this against the Arminian “offered salvation,” not for it (see critiques collected on sites like Test All Things).

B) Hebrews 12:14 – “Follow peace… and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

New School:

• “Follow” = pursue continually; holiness is a progressive moral state you must grow into.
• If your life doesn’t show an increasing pattern of holiness, you will not see the Lord (either because you never were saved, or because you fail to “obtain” final salvation).
• The verse becomes a linchpin proof for progressive sanctification: you must be becoming holier, or you’re lost.

Old School:

• “Holiness” here is not a ladder of ever-higher moral attainment, but:
  • Christ Himself as our sanctification, and
  • the practical separation and walk suited to that standing.
• To “follow” holiness is to walk in that separated path — but this is grounded in a completed holiness in Christ, not generating more holiness to make God like you.
• No seeing of the Lord is possible apart from holiness because all who will see Him are already sanctified in Christ; the exhortation calls them to walk in the light of what they are, not to become something else in order to qualify.

So OSBs read this as a searching test of profession and a call to consistency, not as a doctrine that your eternal destiny is a function of how much you’ve managed to advance morally.

C) Philippians 3:12–14 – “I press toward the mark.”

…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

New School:

Paul is portrayed as a believer progressing toward conformity with Christ, still “on the way” in his holiness.

“Press toward the mark” = striving for increasing likeness to Christ, which is the essence of progressive sanctification (common in sermons archived at Sermon Central and similar sites).

Old School / Primitive Baptist (as summarized in Perfections of Grace):

• Christ already secures the “prize” (Christ, eternal life, righteousness); justification and acceptance are not inching forward.
• Assurance is not gained by hitting some perfection level, but:

  Christ’s finished work obtains salvation; the verity of our faith is “measured by our approach to ‘the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’” (Phil 3:14).

So pressing = the believer’s subjective pursuit of Christ and His will, by faith, because Christ has first apprehended him (Phil 3:12), not to persuade Christ to apprehend him.

Note the order: “I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” OSB hammer that order; New School often inverts it functionally.

D) Philippians 2:12–13 – “Work out your own salvation.”

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

New School:

• Often: your salvation (in a broad sense) is “already/not yet.”
• You have justification, but you must now “work out” (complete, bring to fruition) your sanctification by active obedience.
• God works in you, but you must cooperate; this is the classic “God’s part/your part” text.

Old School / Primitive Baptist:

A modern Absoluter treatment of this (explicitly appealing to Beebe/Trott’s framework) says:

This is “an exhortation to elicit an active obedience enabled by a state of salvation.”

• The “beloved” in v.12 already has salvation (God is presently “working in you” v.13).
• “Work out” = bring into exercise, expression, and practical manifestation the salvation God has given, especially in church obedience, humility, and unity (context of Phil 2).
• Fear and trembling: not groveling to keep from falling out of grace, but reverent seriousness because you are handling something God is doing in you.

So for OSB:

The text is about experience and obedience flowing from salvation, not about making salvation actual or secure.

E) 1 Timothy 6:11–12 – “Follow after righteousness… fight the good fight of faith.”

But thou, O man of God… follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life…

New School:

Standard progressive sanctification text: spiritual virtues listed as things you must actively pursue in order to grow in holiness.

“Lay hold on eternal life” is often read as: keep seizing and holding onto salvation; perseverance is synergistic.

Old School:

• Addressed to a man already called and regenerated (“O man of God”).
• “Follow after” = pursue in your conduct what God has already wrought in the inner man.
• “Lay hold on eternal life” = grasp, enjoy, and live in the good of the life you already possess in Christ, with an eye to the good confession and to faithfulness in ministry.

Again, the exhortation is about manifestation and enjoyment, not about obtaining the life itself.

4. So what are exhortations doing in the OSB scheme?

If we gather the Old School threads:

• They presuppose life, never create it.
  Commands to strive, pursue, chase, work, mortify, etc., are the voice of the Shepherd to His living sheep, not an offer of life to the dead.
• They don’t make us more elect/more justified/more sanctified in nature.
  God’s mind toward the elect is “forever settled” in Christ; exhortations are about our unsettled minds being corrected.
• They shape experience, walk, and assurance.
  Pressing, striving, mortifying = entering into what is already true in Christ. Growth is growth in faith, understanding, repentance, obedience, and comfort, not in the amount of holiness we possess.
• They are not warrants to invent means systems.
  When men turn “strive/pursue/work” into mission boards, anxious-bench methods, or cooperate-with-grace schemes, Beebe calls it modern Baal-worship and asks: “Who hath required this at your hand?” (again, see reprints at sovereignredeemerbooks.com).

5. The blunt contrast

New School:

Exhortations are God’s way of saying: “Here is what you must do with my help in order to grow spiritually and reach final salvation; you’ll become holier as you cooperate.”

Old School (Absoluter):

Exhortations are God’s way of saying: “Here is how the life I have already given you behaves; walk in it, and in doing so you’ll see and enjoy what I settled for you in Christ before the world began.”

Same verbs—“strive, pursue, chase, press”—but in one system you’re climbing toward God; in the other you’re staggering, often awkwardly, in a life that’s already anchored in Him.

HOW DO THESE THINGS RELATE TO THOSE WHO THINK AN EFFORT MUST BE MADE TOWARD HOLINESS?

Short version: it depends on what they think their effort is doing.

If “effort to holiness” means climbing up to God so He’ll be pleased with me, that crashes into everything we’ve just said.

If it means the painful, daily struggle of a child who is already holy in Christ, trying to walk like it, that actually fits the OSB frame very well.

Let’s tease those apart.

1. Two very different meanings of “making an effort to be holy.”

When people say, “We must make an effort to holiness,” they’re usually mixing at least two ideas:

Cause-level effort

My effort is part of what makes me holy in God’s sight or keeps me in grace.

This is the New School, progressive-sanctification vibe: I am becoming more holy as a person by cooperating with grace; my effort is a partial cause of my holiness.

Fruit-level effort

Because God has made me His, there is a real struggle, labor, and “chasing after” in my walk.

Here, “effort” is not the cause of holiness, but the expression of life in a hostile environment.

Old School Baptists absolutely deny (1) and absolutely expect (2).

2. What the exhortations are doing

Take all the “strive/press/follow/mortify/lay hold” texts:

New School reads them like:

“Here is how you move from less-holy to more-holy in your very nature, and your standing before God rises or falls with how well you do this.”

OSB reads them like:

“Here is what the life God already gave you does in a world of sin and in a body of death. This is how that life behaves and suffers.”

So when someone says, “Effort must be made toward holiness,” an Old School answer would be:

• If you mean: “I have to work very hard to commend myself to God, to stay saved, or to get more saved” – then you are putting the imperative where only the indicative belongs. That’s a legal spirit: doing in order to live.
• If you mean: “Grace in me does not make me passive. My inner man really does fight, flee, pursue, mortify, and that feels like effort” – then yes, that’s just Paul in Romans 7 and Philippians 3.

The exhortations relate to these people by exposing which of the two they really believe.

3. Why OSBs get nervous when “effort” language is causal

Old School Baptists (especially the Absoluter stripe) are guarding a few things:

• That the elect are as completely set apart in Christ from eternity as they will ever be. No amount of effort makes God more reconciled to them.
• That Christ’s obedience is the only ground of holiness before God.
• That “growth” is growth in light, faith, repentance, obedience, and comfort — not a change in the amount of holiness God sees in you.

So when someone says, “You must make an effort to be holy,” and means by that:

“Without sufficient effort, you will not finally see the Lord; your eternal state hangs on how well you pursue holiness.”

OSB hears: You have snuck works into the foundation. You’ve turned passages like Heb 12:14 and Phil 2:12 into conditions for being in Christ, rather than descriptions of those who already are in Christ. That’s why Beebe spends so much time swatting down “means” theories and “helping God” theology—because they all read these exhortations as God handing over part of the saving work to us.

4. But effort as warfare? That’s baked into grace.

On the other hand, the OSB view is not lazy antinomian mush.

Once you distinguish cause from fruit, “effort” is everywhere in Scripture:

• Paul “labored more abundantly… yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
• He “keeps under” his body, runs, fights, presses, strives.
• Timothy is told to “fight the good fight of faith,” “flee,” and “follow after” righteousness.

For Old School folks, all of that is:

• The inner man (created in righteousness and true holiness) dragging the outward man along like a stubborn mule.
• The “effort” is the conflict between two natures, not the soul clawing its way up into God’s favor.

So, someone who says, “Holiness requires effort” and then describes:

• painful resistance to sin,
• costly obedience,
• long, slow learning,
• a sense of inward compulsion to walk with Christ—

is describing exactly what OSB calls the exercise of grace.

What OSB won’t allow is the move from “Grace makes me fight,” to “My fighting helps establish my standing with God.”

5. What this means pastorally for “effort people.”

How do these truths touch those who talk this way?

• If they’re God’s children, their instinct that the Christian life is not effortless is right. The Spirit does not make statues; He makes fighters, pilgrims, and cross-bearers.
• Where they’re hurting themselves is in thinking that their sweat and strain create or upgrade holiness, instead of revealing it and walking in it.
• That confusion tends to produce:
  • pride when they feel they’re doing well (“I’m really getting holy now”), or
  • despair when they’re honest (“I’m failing; therefore I must not be very holy or maybe not saved”).

The OSB framework re-locates the whole drama:

• Holiness as God sees it is in Christ, fixed.
• You, in time, are being taught, chastened, and drawn to live like what you are.
• Your “effort” is not a payment or a ladder; it’s the thrashing of a living child in a world full of thorns and idols.

So the exhortations don’t vanish. They just stop being a wage contract and become a Father’s voice to a child who is already in the house.