Dear Editors,

I am having a hard time finding a good, written answer to this question: Can conditional salvation ever be rightly explained by saying that Christ fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation?

Would you be interested in answering this question for myself and the benefit of other readers?

Thank you.

In Christ,

Annette Kuiper

RESPONSE

Thank you for your letter, and your question is a good one: Can conditional salvation ever be rightly explained by saying that Christ fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation? The answer is an emphatic, no. Conditional salvation can never be rightly explained by saying that Christ fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation.

The key concept here is “conditional salvation.” Conditional salvation teaches that man’s salvation depends upon man. Whether it is man’s supposed inherent goodness, or man’s work, or man’s will, salvation depends upon man. It is “conditional” salvation because man’s contribution to his salvation is the condition upon which his salvation depends. Rome, for example, teaches that man’s obedient good works merit eternal life. Man’s works are the condition for his salvation. Arminianism, for example, teaches that man’s act of believing is the condition for his being elected and saved. Examples could be multiplied, for any theology that teaches that man contributes to his own salvation is a theology of conditional salvation. The question is not whether one uses the word conditional to describe his theology, but whether one’s theology makes man contribute to his own salvation. Any theology that has man saving himself in any sense is conditional theology.

You ask whether conditional salvation can ever be rightly explained, indicating your own judgment that conditional salvation is wrong. Your judgment is correct. Conditional salvation is the lie, and it is always the lie. There is never a way to make conditional salvation the truth. There is no qualification that will make it true. There is no explanation that can make it right. Conditional salvation is always and forever the lie. The truth is that salvation is purely gracious. Salvation depends upon the sovereign God and never upon man. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). Even the beautiful God-given good works in which we walk do not contribute to our salvation and are of no account to our salvation, for they are entirely of God in Christ. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

Your question is theologically profound, for your question exposes one of Satan’s favorite tactics to deceive the unwary. That tactic is to ascribe conditional salvation to the gracious work of God in Christ. The devil pays lip service to God, to God’s grace, and to God’s Christ in order to camouflage the God-dishonoring, grace-denying, and Christ-opposing heresy of conditional salvation. The devil takes the lie—conditional salvation—and mixes it with the truth—Christ has fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation. The result of that mixture is still the lie—conditional salvation—but now in a form that appears to honor Christ and so deceives many.

It has always been the tactic of Satan to confuse this issue by appealing to the grace of God and to the work of Jesus Christ as the explanation for how man can fulfill the supposed conditions of his salvation. The argument goes this way: Man’s believing and obeying are the conditions upon which man’s salvation depends, but it is God’s grace to man and Christ’s work in man that enable man to fulfill the conditions. By appealing to God’s grace and Christ’s work, the devil obscures the fact that salvation still depends upon man. It is still man’s believing and obeying that accomplish man’s salvation, regardless of where man receives the power to believe and obey. It is still man’s fulfillment of the condition that saves him, regardless of how man fulfills the condition. It is still conditional salvation.

This is Rome’s tactic in its doctrine of conditional salvation, as taught in Rome’s 1563 Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent.

The Synod furthermore declares, that, in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from his vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through his quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace: in such sort that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, neither is man himself utterly inactive while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in his sight.¹

Notice in Rome’s explanation the repeated appeals to God’s grace and Christ’s work, so much so, that man is “not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in his sight.” Nevertheless, man still saves himself. Men “convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace.”

This is also the Arminian tactic in defense of conditional perseverance, which tactic was exposed by the Synod of Dordt in 1618–19. Arminianism teaches “that God does indeed provide the believer with sufficient powers to persevere, and is ever ready to preserve these in him, if he will do his duty; but that though all things which are necessary to persevere in faith and which God will use to preserve faith are made use of, it even then ever depends on the pleasure of the will whether it will persevere or not” (Canons of Dordt 5, error 2).

Notice in the Arminian doctrine the appeal to God’s work of providing “the believer with sufficient powers to persevere” and God’s willingness “to preserve these in him.” Nevertheless, man preserves himself, for “it even then ever depends on the pleasure of the will whether it will persevere or not.” The Canons condemn this as “an outspoken Pelagianism” (Canons of Dordt 5, rejection 2).

This was also the tactic of the Dutch theologian Klaas Schilder, whose conditional covenant theology infiltrated the Protestant Reformed Churches in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Schilder watched these churches reject conditions by their provisional adoption of the Declaration of Principles in 1950. The Declaration states, “That faith is not a prerequisite or condition unto salvation, but a gift of God, and a God-given instrument whereby we appropriate the salvation in Christ.”² Schilder’s tactic was to insist that he agreed with the Protestant Reformed Churches on the point that faith is a gift. “Any meaning put in the word condition, causing it to mean that faith is not given but comes from ourselves, will be rejected wholeheartedly by all of us!”³ Nevertheless, Schilder maintained conditional salvation, for he taught that God makes his gracious promise of salvation to every single baptized child on condition of the child’s faith. 

When the Form for Baptism declares that, by baptism, God makes promises to us it clearly says, “He makes promises to this by-name-mentioned-child.” He can safely say this and also teach this to us, because the promise goes hand in hand with the demand. To this child is said, “You, child, under the condition (that is to say under emphasized assurance and stipulation) that your faith will be and must be the only way in which all this will happen (therefore you are called and obliged to this), the Father will provide you with all good and He will avert all evil or turn it to your benefit, the Spirit will impart to you what we have in Christ.”⁴

If it is wrong to camouflage conditional salvation with God’s grace and Christ’s work, what is the truth of the matter? The truth of the matter is that salvation is unconditional. Salvation is entirely the work of God’s grace in Christ without any cooperation or contribution whatsoever by man. Salvation does not depend upon man in any respect or at any point, but depends entirely upon God and his Anointed. To use the language of your question, “Christ fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation.” Christ fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation. Christ alone fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation. God never laid the requirements of the salvation of the elect upon the elect as the condition for their salvation. From eternity God appointed Christ the head and mediator of the covenant and laid the requirements of the salvation of the elect upon him.

Election is the unchangeable purpose of God whereby, before the foundation of the world, He hath out of mere grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of His own will, chosen, from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault from their primitive state of rectitude into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ, whom He from eternity appointed the Mediator and Head of the elect, and the foundation of salvation. (Canons of Dordt 1.7)

Here is the lie: Salvation is conditional, but Christ fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation.

Here is the truth: Salvation is unconditional, because Christ fulfilled all the requirements of our salvation.

Your question points us to an important lesson about our response to a doctrine of conditional salvation. When we encounter such a doctrine, let us beware of any attempt to explain it, or excuse it, or qualify it, or defend it by appeals to God’s grace and Christ’s work. It is Satan’s lie! When we encounter a doctrine of conditional salvation, let us deny it, repudiate it, condemn it, and reject it. For the love of God’s truth!