Brother Kevin Fralick wrote (here):
"The duplication of Christian virtues is the inevitable result of what happens when one follows a system which attempts to preserve God fulfilling his purpose concerning His elect in time, but will not allow Him to do so through gospel means. For each evangelical blessing that is to be conveyed to the children of God, a non-evangelical version must be created of which they are said to receive, where the former is left uncertain."
My point in opposing the representation of some modern Primitive Baptists as believing in "two faiths" or "two salvations" is not to claim that some modern PB's are fully correct or accurate in their views. I acknowledged in my last post that some PB's do indeed lend themselves to the criticism of Brother Fralick. My point is that there is an element of truth in their emphasis, but it is often, among some, poorly expressed, and that Brother Fralick does not really address the truth of a distinction between sonship and discipleship or between regeneration and conversion by an attack on the confused expressions of some Primitive Baptists over the last century.
To claim that it is false to distinguish sonship from discipleship or eternal salvation from the temporal manifestation of eternal salvation on the basis of specific writings of specific ministers among the PB's of the last century would only disprove the failings of the argumentation of those ministers. Kevin Fralick has not addressed my specific writing on these matters (though he makes a few snipes in this post), which, I think, establishes the truth of the emphases of much of modern PB's without falling into the error of antinomianism or a hollow-log view of regeneration.
It doesn't matter if he can poke holes and overthrow the silliest versions of soteriology of some modern PB's, it still does not disprove some degree of truth in their emphasis.
Brother Fralick wrote:
"If the terminology of “two faiths” is a caricature, it would stand to reason that the charge of "two kinds" of other virtues (listed above) are a caricature as well. What of "two salvations"? Is that a caricature? If evangelical faith is an extension of seed faith in regeneration, then is gospel conversion (i.e. time salvation) also an extension of regeneration? It would seem that way. For if evangelical faith is not really a separate faith from that received in regeneration, then the "two salvations" which are said to bring seed and evangelical faith, respectively, should be considered a single unit as well. Otherwise we are left with the strange conclusion that time salvation conveys and imparts a blessing which is actually part of the first salvation! Thus, the verbage of “two salvations” should henceforth be discarded. Starting today, it should be declared that there really are not two salvations taught in scripture. Rather, there is one salvation taught in the Bible, in which regeneration and the future gospel conversion are the components."
I agree with Elder Walter Cash in a post I made on the Sculptor's Hammer. God saves His people, whether it be in matters pertaining to their redemption in Jesus Christ or the extension of this redemption by a providential care of them in time. Certainly, it can hardly be denied that children of God can damage their fellowship with God through disobedience, and, consequently, fail to enjoy the blessings that are obtained through obedience. This truth is abused by some modern Primitive Baptists to give comfort to those who fully reject Jesus Christ and live lives given over to gross immorality, and to justify a judgment of the eternal security of the unrepentant. This hardly follows as a legitimate extension of the truth that God's children can be disobedient, but is imposed to justify a virtual universalism.
Though it is true that there is a difference between being saved and having the full assurance and knowledge of being saved, some modern Primitive Baptists extend this distinction unbiblically to the point that there is no effective temporal distinction between those set apart and the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. When "two salvations" or "two faiths" is applied to make regenerate people out of the reprobate among those that openly blaspheme and reject Jesus Christ, one can clearly perceive universalism gone to seed.
Brother Fralick stated:
"The main point, though, is that even if I were to go back and rewrite my posting, and change my verbage of "two faiths" to one faith with two aspects, the substance remains the same. Passages yoking faith with salvation must still be given an interpretation. So I express it differently. What is that stage or aspect of the ONE faith which unites us to Christ, as in Gal. 3:26? Is it:
1) faith below the consciousness through the preaching of Jesus?
2) cognitive faith through the preaching of Jesus?
3) cognitive faith through the preaching of men?
Or some other permutation? This is not a haphazard handling of a subject, but a legitimate question based on the various aspects of faith as defined by the very inventors of this regeneration-conversion divorcement."
The essential misunderstanding here is that faith through the gospel as preached by man must be distinct in substance from the faith wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God alone. They are the same, or fundamentally the same, save in the degree of intellectual knowledge about the gospel that may be given through the preaching of man. One cannot separate out the faith of Christ wrought immediately by the Spirit from the propositional truth of the gospel as preached by man to those effectually called under the sound of the gospel. I have said this in multiple posts. The faith in Christ, wrought by the Spirit alone, assents, at the very least inwardly, to gospel propositions to some degree; the faith effected by the Spirit is an immediate revelation of the person of Christ, the gospel propositions corroborate this revelation, which is a spiritual reality. The sufficient condition of Biblical faith is not propositions of language but a spiritual revelation of the person of Christ wherein true sons cry Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6).
Gal. 3:23-26 seems to be more fully explained by Galatians 4:1-9. Gal. 4:5 does not make receiving the adoption of sons contingent on a mere intellectual apprehension and assent to propositions, though this text is fully consistent with such apprehension in mentally competent adults under the sound of the man-preached gospel, but the adoption is effected in time by an intrusive, effectual work of God through the Spirit of Christ by which sons cry, 'Abba Father', in a spiritual, vital faith in the person of Christ. This root groaning that "cannot be uttered" under girds and is the basis of all true, evangelical faith in the gospel as preached by man. It need not be fully separated exegetically from the gospel as preached by man, especially in plain contexts of evangelical faith in the New Testament, but is fully associated so that no text in the N.T. that states the necessity of faith for salvation should be absent this fundamental sense of it. Galatians 4:6 explains the basic nature of faith in Christ of 3:26.
Brother Fralick stated:
"The scriptures annihilate the idea of a time gap between regeneration and conversion, and thus the position that says that one receives seed faith in regeneration, and then evangelical faith one week, one year, or twenty years later. It does so by specific proof texts in which evangelical faith as preached by MAN is included as part of the transition in which one goes from death in sins to life in Christ."
The scripture plainly indicates that a regenerate person can be united to Christ without a full, intellectual apprehension of gospel truth. A fair examination of Galatians 4:9-11 proves that it is possible that truly regenerate persons, known of God in the covenant of grace, can be in error in regard to how they are apprehended of in Christ Jesus, as Paul also concedes in Philippians 3.
Paul considers, in Galatians 4:11, that the Galatians are either false professors or truly regenerate persons in error. He does not assert the fact of either, but plainly states his fear of the former by the possibility of the latter; conversely, he states his concern of the latter by the possibility of the former.
The preclusion by brother Fralick that there are not degrees of conversion among the regenerate controverts what is evidently possible from this passage, and from much of Hebrews. Paul could not write the Hebrew audience if he thought it was a forgone conclusion that those in error were and are false professors. The exhortation of Paul to the visible, community of believers establishes that children of God can be in error from the gospel and in need of temporal deliverance, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh (Jude 23). Gospel conversion obviously admits of degrees in terms of the full stature of Christ, and the regenerate may either live stunted spiritual lives in the kingdom or enjoy fuller, spiritual blessings through obedience. As Sonny Pyles puts it, the elect will either grow in grace or groan in disgrace.
Specific texts which include evangelical faith as a part of the transition from spiritual death to life establish that Christ is the object of true faith. The fact that the Spirit effects faith in the person of Christ under the sound of the gospel, including some degree of assent to gospel propositions, does not establish that faith is created by the rational hearing of the audible gospel. When a man hears the audible gospel and faith is effected by the Spirit, the faith effected is not fundamentally in the gospel propositions but in the person of Christ, which is the content of the gospel. This is the crucial point. Christ is not known savingly through propositions of language, even if these propositions mediate the Spirit (the meaningful mediation to man would be after faith in Christ is immediately effected by the Spirit), but by direct and immediate revelation of God, as Gal. 4:6 depicts. It is the Spirit of Christ, sent from God, wherein true sons respond in faith, not first in gospel propositions, though that surely follows to some degree in those under the sound of the gospel.
As Vincent points out in his word studies, Romans 10:17 does not refer by 'and hearing by the word of God' to the notion of gospel instrumentality to hearing, but, as the oldest manuscripts known have 'rhematos Xristou', to the idea that it is from the commission of Christ to the Apostles to preach the gospel indicated by Romans 10:15. The 'hearing' is the same word as 'report' in 10:16, so that Paul is clearly referring to the authority of Christ's command in the Commission of the Apostles to preach to all nations. The hearing under consideration does not carry with it a meaning of the individual's hearing of faith, but that belief of the individual is the intended effect of the divine command of Christ for the Apostles to report the gospel to all nations.
This passage should be evaluated in context and by word study before it is recklessly applied, as Paul then argues in 10:18,19 that the Gentile world had been preached to the point of satisfaction of Christ's commission to Paul.
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