Save By Gospel Faith
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Rom. 10: 13-17)
The scriptures teach the proposition - "no faith = no salvation."
This is contrary to the Hardshell view. Dr. (Elder) Charles Waters in Zion's Advocate (June 1890) wrote:
"Every regenerate child of Adam is saved eternally, faith or no faith. Infants and idiots must be so saved; for they cannot believe, though they must be regenerated. Faith, therefore, is not necessary to eternal salvation."
Then he wrote later in the same periodical (June 1891):
"Spiritual and eternal life may exist, then, apart from a belief in Jesus, repentance toward God, or knowledge of spiritual things, all of which are consequent upon and follow after regeneration; and it may please the Lord to remove the subject of His grace from this time state ere he has developed this spiritual growth, and rear him up beyond the river."
This position was not the original Primitive Baptist position and when it was advocated in the latter quarter of the 19th century, many Primitives objected to it, especially elders Burnam and Pence. Burnam had been an associate editor on Zion's Advocate when Elder Clark edited it. In 1890, however, Elder Clark was no longer living.
During the last quarter of the 19th century, the "ultraist" wing of the Primitive Baptist movement gained the ascendancy. It was a novel idea to affirm that faith and repentance are not required for regeneration and eternal salvation, and one so dramatically opposed to the clear teachings of scripture. Let us see what the scriptures say.
"That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (II Thess. 2: 12)
"...he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark16: 16)
"I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." (John 8: 24)
"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." (II Thess. 1: 7-9)
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3: 36)
"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son." (I John 5: 10)
These verses could not be clearer about the fate of those who reject the gospel. The rejection of their obvious teaching, by the Hardshells, is fantastic and demonstrates their cult status. It is heresy to deny what they teach.
In defending Elder Waters assertion that faith was not required for regeneration and salvation, Elder J. R. Daily, a later editor of Zion's Advocate, wrote:
"The position of the Elder (Burnam) seems to be that the Spirit gives these graces to the unregenerate sinner, and then leaves him to exercise these gifts as a condition of his regeneration. Right here we beg leave to join issue with Elder Burnam. This is the great dividing line between us and the Arminian World and ever has been, and we enter a denial that "it was left to the last quarter of the 19th century to give birth to the notion of regeneration without faith," or rather before faith. Birth was given to that notion by divine inspiration."
Of course, Elder Daily did not state things accurately in his portrayal of the views of Elder Burnam and of those Primitive Baptists who believed in means and that faith was a requirement for being eternally saved. Elder Burnam did not believe that "graces" were given to the unregenerate with the expectation that the unregenerate must use them in order to be regenerated. What he believed was that faith and regeneration were concurrent, that one could not have one without the other. Also, Elder Daily was falsifying when he said that it was the "Arminian World" that taught that faith was connected with regeneration. Calvinists have also asserted the same. The London Confession of 1689 affirms that faith is a requirement for being saved. Dr. Gill affirmed that faith was required. Also, Daily offered no proof that the Hardshell view was not a novelty. He only denied it, affirming that the scriptures teach it. Of course, he is clearly in error on this. The bible does not teach that unbelievers will be saved, as the scriptures I have cited demonstrate.
Further, Burnam did not accept the Arminian teaching concerning "prevenient grace," as Daily implied. Burnam, like the real old Baptists, did believe that there was grace that preceded regeneration, that there was preparatory work that often preceded it.
Daily wrote:
"We wish it understood that what Elder Waters stated in those articles is still the doctrine of Zion's Advocate and we pledge ourselves ready to stand by it."
It may have become the view of the editors of Zion's Advocate after the death of Elder Clark, but it was not the view of it from 1854-1890, during the lifetime of Elder Clark.
Daily wrote:
"Elder Burnam then says, "In the first place, the Holy Scriptures in the clearest manner show that faith in God is essential to spiritual or eternal life," and refers to a number of passages as negative and affirmative proof, not a single one of which says or implies that "faith is essential to eternal life."
I don't know what particular verses were cited by Elder Burnam, but it must have included some of the verses I have cited. Daily can deny that they teach that faith is a requirement of salvation, but he is just stubbornly refusing to confess the obvious, and is intent on twisting their meaning to conform with his proposition, which proposition denies that faith is necessary for salvation.
Daily wrote:
"Elder Burnam does not show, nor can he show, that any one passage in the Bible teaches that one must believe in order to receive eternal life. It is not enough to say they are associated in regeneration, for if belief is to be exercised in order to the work of regeneration, as the Eld. asserts in the beginning of his article, and faith and eternal life are given at the same time, then it follows that one has eternal life before he is regenerated."
"It is not enough to say they are associated in regeneration"? Why is that not enough?
Besides, there are numerous verses that affirm that faith is a means for eternal life, some of which have already been cited. But, notice these:
"But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." (John 20: 31)
"He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1: 11-13)
Elder Daily is arguing for a strict chronological order in which regeneration precedes faith. But, the scriptures do not insist on this order, as the scriptures cited demonstrate.
See here for Daily's words
C. H. Spurgeon said:
"Where there is no faith, there has been no quickening of the Holy Spirit, for faith is of the very essence of spiritual life."
(Faith Essential to Pleasing God, MTP, Sermon #2100, Vol. 35, 446).
Spurgeon's predecessor, John Gill, in commenting upon Romans 10, wrote:
"...there can be no true calling upon God without faith, no faith without hearing, no hearing without preaching, and no preaching without a divine mission."
Elder T. S. Dalton, years later, after Elder Waters and Daily promoted the view that faith was not required for eternal life and salvation, testified in the famous Mt. Carmel church trial. He was asked this interrogative: "You believe that God given faith is essential to the salvation of God's people, do you not?"
Elder Dalton answered:
"I will say this, that there is a belief produced through the preaching of the Gospel and there is a belief of the sacred truth of God; but that belief which is produced through the preaching of the Gospel is not a necessary adjunct in the eternal salvation of the sinner. But there is a faith that is implanted by the Spirit of God in the soul of every man that will ever enter Heaven, and no man will ever go to Heaven without that Divine eternal faith by the Spirit of God." (See this also in "Faith," from "Studies in Bible Doctrine," page 6 - emphasis mine)
Paul says that "faith comes by hearing" and that faith is necessary to be eternally saved. So, how do the Hardshell cultists handle this? They say that there are two kinds of "faith," one kind that comes by the preaching of the gospel, and another kind that comes without it. One kind of faith is necessary to eternal salvation and another kind is not necessary. One kind of faith can be possessed by infants in the womb and by the mentally incompetent, but another is possessed only by adults who are mentally competent. All this is, of course, a perverting of the teachings of scripture. Paul does not say that a certain kind of faith is produced by the gospel, but "faith." To say that some faith comes apart from preaching is to deny the plain teaching of Paul.
My dad, a leading Hardshell preacher and apologist, wrote:
"First, let me say that I believe all those dying in infancy are of the elect of God. God implants a faith in these infants as he did John the Baptist. See Luke 1:15 and 1:44."
”All of these verses prove that there is a faith that is implanted in us supernaturally when we are regenerated. No one will go to heaven without this faith. The preacher has nothing to do with this faith.”
What kind of faith is it that comes apart from knowledge of the truth? What kind of faith is it that does not know or believe anything? Where is the scriptural warrant for such an interpretation? Is it not an invention of those who refuse to believe what God has declared? If the Hardshells want to say that John the Baptist had the kind of "faith" that did not come through a knowledge of the gospel truth, why did John the Baptist "leap for joy" when the gospel was preached? According to Hardshells, the Athenian idolaters, while still in their heathen idolatry, had this kind of "faith"!
Scriptures on the utility and necessity of faith for salvation
"And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." (Acts 15: 9)
"...which are sanctified by faith that is in me." (Acts 26: 18)
"But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus...Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Romans 3: 21-26, 28)
"For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect...Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all." (Romans 4: 13, 14, 19))
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." (Romans 5: 1, 2)
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (Gal. 2: 16)
"This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Gal. 3: 2)
"Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham...That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith...But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." (Gal. 3: 7-9, 14, 22)
"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3: 26)
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." (Eph. 2: 8)
"And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Phil. 3: 9)
"the faith of God's elect." (Titus 1: 11)
"Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." (I Peter 1: 9)
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