The Only Ones

By branching off my Facebook friend list I eventually come across the page of a “Primitive” Baptist elder.  In a discussion which ensued from one of his postings, this comment was made:

“In fact, PBs are the FEW MINOR REMNANT of the Elect Family out of every (nation – KF)- Rev. 5:9. Mat. 7:13-14”

There you have it!  Unmistakable proof that Conditionalist Hardshells feel themselves to be the elite from all the rest of the regenerated community!

This statement is cultic.  All other regenerate souls may constitute God’s elect children, “eternally speaking” (to borrow their language), yet they only comprise a special inner circle.  The remnant within the remnant! Only they walk the straight and narrow into temporal life here on Earth!  Every other Christian is on the temporal road to destruction!

If I could think of a word stronger than heresy, I would use it.

This statement is contradictory.  At times, Hardshells can be found speaking of their beloved time salvation as if it is OF the Lord.  Hence, you will find them using the expressions temporal elect, the elect within the elect, or as in this case, few minor remnant, in order to denote those who they would say have been saved in time.  Most of the time, however, they refer to it as something NOT OF the Lord, and that the child of God must do this for himself!  What a contradiction!  Labeling “Primitive” Baptists as God’s temporal elect or some similar expression is language which, obviously, raises the subject of God’s decree.  It assumes that time salvation is the product of God’s election!!! But this contradicts their usual manner of explanation that time salvation is the effect of the free-will of those said to be “already regenerated”!  So which one is it?  Is time salvation the effect of God’s election as hinted at when the expressions timely elect or the elect within the elect are used?  Or is it the result of free-will, in that we must “save ourselves from this untoward generation”?

I have noticed this contradiction for years now.

This statement discourages a desire for growth.  The smaller the congregation and the lesser number of churches, the more evidence that we are the only ones!  Sad.

This statement lastly raises a very interesting question.  If time salvation is gained only by PB Conditionalists, then what do we call the experience of a so-called regenerated person who hears and believes the gospel as preached by anyone other than a Hardshell minister?  If it wasn’t regeneration and it wasn’t true conversion, then what is it?  Obviously he experienced some kind of change. But what do we call that change?  Are there two kinds of time salvation?