Hassell on “the conditionality of time salvation”
NOTE: Cut & Paste done from Doctrines For Dummies
Another equally unnecessary and unprofitable verbal contention among a few Primitive Baptists is one similar to, if not connected with, the controversy on predestination. It is the question concern*ing what is called "the conditionality of time salvation," and, con*nected with this, the question as to the ability of the child of God to obey the commandments of his Heavenly Father.
All Primitive Baptists are agreed upon the unconditionality of our eternal salvation, and the inability of those who are dead in sin to render spiritual obedience to the law of God. Instead of re*pentance and faith being conditions prerequisite to salvation, we understand that they are the work of the Holy Spirit in the re*newed heart, and are thus essential parts of salvation; and, until the spiritual renewal, the fallen child of Adam will love sin and hate holiness and continue in rebellion against God.
But there is an apparent disagreement in two or three of our Associations, among worthy and lovely brethren, who would be heartily fellowshipped and gladly welcomed by other Primitive Baptists everywhere, as to whether our time salvation, that is, our deliverance from spiritual darkness, coldness, distress, and chastise*ment during the present life is conditioned or dependent upon our obedience to God, and as to whether the child of God is able to obey or not.
Now, even the authors of dictionaries have no right to manu*facture or change the meanings of words; their business is simply to ascertain and state the meanings which words actually and al*ready have in the language of which they treat. It would be de*ceptive to use words in a different sense from that which they generally have, unless we explain the sense which we mean. The most of controversies are strifes of words; and when words are properly defined, and their correct meaning is accepted by both parties, the controversy, ends.
A "condition" is defined by the best of English dictionaries to be "an event, object, fact, or being that is necessary to the occurrence or existence of some other, though not its cause; a prerequisite; that which must exist as the occasion or concomitance of something else; that which is requisite in order that something else should take effect; an essential qualification." And these dictionaries say that the word "if" is "the typical conditional particle, and is nearly always used to .introduce the subordinate clause of a conditional sentence," and means on the supposition that; provided, or on condition that; in case that, granting, allowing, or supposing that.”
There are 1,422 “ifs” in the Bible—830 in the Old Testament, and 592 in the New Testament; and these conditional sentences make up about one fiftieth part of the Bible. Thus forty-nine fiftieths of the Scriptures are unconditional, and one fiftieth is conditional. All reverent minds must admit that this conditional part of the Scriptures, though comparatively small, has a real and true meaning.
It cannot be denied by any informed and honest man that such Scriptures as the following are conditional; “If His children forsake My law, I will visit their transgression with the rod, nevertheless My loving-kindness will I not utterly take from Him. (Psalms lxxxix. 30-33). “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” (Isa. 1. 19, 20). “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” (John xiii. 17). “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye, through the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Rom. viii. 13 How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. Ii. 3). “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” (I John ii. 7). See also, such scriptures as Lev. xxvi; Deut. iv. 29-31; vii. 12-26; xi. 13-32; xxviii.; Ezek. Xviii, xxxiii. Nor only is it certain that these Scriptures are conditional, but it is equally certain that the condition, introduced by “if,” necessarily precedes the conclusion, which would not take place unless the condition took place first. If the conclusion in these sentences means eternal punishment, then Arminianism is true; but either the text itself, or the context and other Scriptures, prove that the punishment or chastisement threatened in case of disobedience, is temporal and corrective, and not eternal and destructive, for God gives His children eternal life, and they shall never perish, and though their voluntary sins separate them from His face, nothing present or future can ever separate them from His love. (John x. 28-30, Heb. xii., Isa. lix. 2; Rom. Viii. 28-30). Thus the conditionality of time salvation is just as certain as the truth of the eternal word of God. Baptists have always heretofore understood it so; nearly all Baptists understand it so now; and this truth is in perfect accordance with Christian experience. And if the living child of God, having the indwelling of the Spirit of life and grace, which makes him alive, is not able to obey heartily and sincerely, though imperfectly, the commandments of his Heavenly Father, his real state does not differ from that of those who are dead in sin. Of course he can do nothing spiritual or acceptable to God except by that Spirit of grace; but that Spirit dwells in him. (John xiv. 16, 17; Rom. viii. 9-17; II Cor. vi. 16; Eph. ii. 22); and he “can do all things through Christ, who strengthens him.” (Philip. iv. 13); and he well knows and loves to confess that he has nothing good which he did not receive from God, and that without Christ he can do nothing, and that, by the grace of God, he is what he is—a poor, hell-deserving sinner, SAVED BY GRACE—a brand plucked from the eternal burning (I Cor. iv. 7; James i. 17; John xv. 5; I Cor. xv. 10; I Tim. i. 15; Zech. iii. 2). And he knows just as well, both from the scriptures and his own experience, that, in willful disobedience to God, he does not enjoy that spiritual comfort which he has in obedience. All the children of God are as assured of these truths as they are of their own existence; and bitter contention over them is wholly unnecessary, unprofitable, unwholesome, and subverting. The ENTIRE scriptural truth about any matter unites, comforts, and edifies the children of God; while a contention for a PART of the truth for the WHOLE truth divides, distresses, and overthrows them. Truth is spherical; we must look at it on all sides to understand it at all aright. Extremes are dangerous; let us avoid them as we would the verge of a fatal precipice. “Let our moderation be known unto all men—the Lord is at hand.” (Philip iv. 5).
God is the only independent and absolute Being in the universe; not for one instant does any other being cease to be, both naturally and spiritually, dependent upon Him. All our sins come from our*selves alone, and with confusion of face we must take all the shame for them, and not charge them in any way upon our holy Creator *upon His foreknowledge, or predestination, or the partial with*drawal of His spirit of grace, for well do we know that such a blasphemous imputation would be the grossest of sins; while all our salvation from sin and its consequences comes from God, who de*serves and will receive every particle of the glory of it.
While fear and hope are, in the conditional scriptures, recognized and addressed as strong motives to human action, pure, self-deny*ing LOVE is set forth, in the scriptures, as the highest and strongest motive that can actuate any being; the motive which assimilates us most to the character of the Three-One God, who is love, and who saves His people because of His eternal and infinite love of them. Without this divine motive in our hearts, our services cannot be acceptable to God, and we can never enter that "heaven above, where all is love," or if we could enter the home of eternal love, we could not enjoy its holy delights.
Man is not an unthinking, involuntary, irresponsible machine. He can and should be moral-it will be better for him in this world; but it is far better for him to be spiritual, and to be thus prepared for heaven.
I believe that all right-minded Primitive Baptists will accept these scriptural truths. Such acceptance would put an end to the useless and ruinous strife of words on this subject."
