Recently Elder Jeremy Sarber (who used to be a contributor to this blog) wrote an article titled "Romans 3 changed everything for me" (September 13, 2024; See here) from which I want to recommend for your reading and cite from it. (emphasis mine)
"I wanted so badly for Primitive Baptist soteriology to fit with what I was seeing in Scripture. But I couldn’t make it work, no matter how hard I tried.
Even after eight years, people still ask why I left the Primitive Baptists. I understand why. For many, the question isn’t asked solely out of curiosity. They’re grappling with the same doubts that once troubled me.
I grew up in a world where the phrase “time salvation” was as natural to me as breathing. It was part of the theological air I’d always known, an idea as familiar as “Amazing Grace” or carry-in lunches. The notion that justification by faith was a temporal benefit, mostly detached from our eternal destiny, made sense to me. Primitive Baptist doctrines, with their simplicity and clear boundaries, felt safe. It was like a well-worn path I could walk with my eyes closed."
I had the same experience. So have others who have left the "Primitive Baptist" church and have embraced the real old Baptist faith.
Sarber says next:
"Over time and with much study, however, something shifted. What once comforted me started to weigh on me. The neat boxes we had drawn around salvation and justification began to feel more like cages."
Those "neat boxes" Brother Fralick and I have called the Hardshell theological "grid," in which all salvation passages that speak of some action of the sinner for salvation is pigeon holed into one hole, the time salvation hole, while other texts are put into the eternal salvation hole. Further, they are cages, and function like traditions which keep one from correct bible interpretation.
Sarber says next:
"When I began my pastoral ministry, none of that yet bothered me. I preached with confidence, certain that salvation had been secured in eternity, later sealed by Christ’s blood. All we had to do was look for the signs of it in ourselves—faith, repentance, fruit of the Spirit. These were sweet assurances experienced only after the main event on the cross. They were not essential to the saving work itself."
If a person is honest, he cannot deny that faith and repentance, along with perseverance therein, are requirements for eternal salvation. Through the past 18 years I have challenged the Hardshells to come here and debate this question.
Sarber says next:
"Paul writes that we are justified by God’s grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Ro 3:24). That much fit neatly into my theology. But then he said this redemption is to be received by faith (Ro 3:25). (The KJV reads, “through faith in his blood.”) That’s where I got stuck. If justification is received by faith, how could I treat faith as little more than a sign of salvation that pointed back to what had already been accomplished? Paul seemed to teach that faith was the very means by which we receive justification before God."
I got stuck a lot of time in my bible study as a Hardshell pastor and teacher. I began to see that this grid that they had placed over the bible was what was blinding them to the truth and keeping them caged in their heretical views. I also began to study PB church history and to discover the fact that the first generation of Hardshells in the 1830s through 1860s did not accept this grid but taught that faith and repentance by hearing the gospel and word of God was essential for eternal salvation. That was a shocker.
Sarber says next:
"I wrestled with this. I wanted so badly for Primitive Baptist soteriology to fit with what I was seeing in Scripture. But I couldn’t make it work, no matter how hard I tried. Faith wasn’t merely a signpost pointing back to something already done. It was how we laid hold of Christ’s righteousness in the first place."
Amen.
One of the purposes of this blog was to help other Hardshells to see the truth that Elder Sarber, Elder Fralick, and others, including me, have seen. It came down to a choice we had to make. Are we going to be honest with what the bible says even though it contradicts what my church affiliation teaches?
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