Articles of Faith Departure

Sometimes I'm amazed at the ease at which conditional time salvation can be refuted. Once one understands what it teaches and the doctrines that it compromises, the heresy can be overthrown by literally multitudes of express statements of scripture and historical writings. Perhaps the saddest thing of all, though, is when a denomination has so deviated in its soteriology from its past that it stands refuted, not by its open defiants, but by the declarations of its own founding fathers. It is one thing to refer to openly recognized Calvinists to refute this doctrine. It is another thing to be able to do it from the writings and declarations of the very ones who supposedly are “in line” with the present generation.

It is a most lamentable fact that those promoting this heresy can no longer believe their own original articles of faith.

Observe.

The 1777 Kehukee Assocation Articles of Faith, Article #9 reads (emphasis mine):

"We believe, in like manner, that God's elect shall not only be called, and justified, but that they shall be converted, born again and changed by the effectual workings of God's Holy Spirit."

The term conversion is an ambiguous one. When writers use it, it is incumbent upon the reader to discern if he is treating the term as synonymous with regeneration, or with a slight distinction, probably holding to some form of ordo salutis. In the two-salvation vocabulary, however, conversion gets a whole new meaning as it used synonymously with time salvation. Completely estranged from regeneration, it is viewed as a thing optional to the "regenerate" elect. Indeed, the very heart and soul of time salvation is that many of the elect are regenerated, but never become converted.

The Kehukee brethren state however that God’s elect SHALL BE converted. It might be retorted by our moderns that by this the Kehukee brethren meant that time salvation was GUARANTEED to be obtained by the elect. This however is to destroy the very purpose for the heresy’s existence, which is to render conversion optional. To speak of a DEFINITE time salvation is to say that all shall be converted, all shall know and believe in Christ Jesus, which is the very thing our moderns seek to avoid.

Secondly, the Kehukee brethren assert that the elect would be CHANGED. This is another challenging thing to time salvation, which brings along with it a hollow-log view of regeneration in which there is no change. It cannot be possibly be imagined that the Kehukee brethren had in view that God's people may experience only a "change" below the level of consciousness and continue in this state to the point of death. By subscribing to perseverance (a conscious experience) in the next article any idea such as this is destroyed.

The article of faith actually adhered to by those who teach time salvation is this:

“"We believe, in like manner, that God's elect shall be called, and justified, and born again, but that they shall not necessarily be converted, and not necessarily changed.”

The reason? According to this system the EFFECTUAL working of God’s Spirit does not necessarily EFFECT conversion in the regenerate. This may or may not be accomplished at a later time in an Arminian manner by the works of men.

Article #10 (emphasis mine):

"We believe that such as are converted, justified and called by His grace, shall persevere in holiness, and never fall away."

The fact that the Kehukee brethren used conversion in an eternal context around the happenings of the effectual call showed that they did not divorce it from the experience as our moderns have. That’s the first observation. The second is that they used the term perseverance instead of preservation to set forth their view of eternal security.

Apart from regeneration, probably the greatest doctrine compromised by time salvation is that of the perseverance of the saints. Just as time salvation implies a hollow experience in regeneration, it presents a similar experience of the Christian life. If the regenerate child of God is not converted, then it most certainly can’t be said of him that he perseveres in holiness. This is why espousal of time salvation and a denial of perseverance go hand-in-hand. Emphasis in this camp today is therefore being placed solely on the objective side of eternal security (i.e. preservation) while the subjective side is being denied (i.e. perseverance). It is for this reason that many of the churches today are changing their Articles of Faith, substituting the former term for the latter.

Just as in other areas of the Bible, our moderns have lost the balance of truth on this issue. The scriptures teach both preservation (John 10:27-29; 1 Peter 1:5) and perseverance (Col. 1:21-23; Job 17:9).

It would be wonderful if those who promote the extreme form of conditional time salvation could see how it conflicts with the writings of their own supposed forefathers. More importantly, we wish that it could be seen how it robs the Christian of the very experience of what it means to be saved. It reduces many of God’s elect down to the point of being spiritual vegetables with no awareness of the One who called them from darkness to light.

A return to what our Kehukee brethren penned down would serve as a good start to a more biblical understanding of what actually happens when God saves a hell-bound sinner.