We are proposing some minor clarifications to The Baptist Faith & Message, which is often used as the basis of a statement of faith by many fundamental conservative biblical churches.
These churches may not realize that the SBC on purpose chose to include unresolved tensions of unanswered questions between various Baptist theologies. But this introduces a source of confusion that inadvertently dilutes the message of the gospel.
We are going to analyze these tensions of unanswered questions from a balanced biblical perspective. And we are going to propose some minor clarifications to sections V. Salvation and VI. God’s Purpose of Grace that biblically resolve these tensions.
Although we are committed to these central truths, we recognize that within them there are tensions:
- God desires for all to come to repentance, yet not all do.
- Humans are ruined by the Fall, yet required to respond in faith.
- God is sovereign in salvation, yet individuals are still held responsible for their reception or rejection of the Gospel.
- Southern Baptist identity has often been connected to Calvinism, yet has often significantly modified it.
– TRUTH, TRUST, and TESTIMONY in a TIME of TENSION by SBC Staff, posted June 1, 2013 in SBC News, pg. 5
Analysis of Points of Tension in Baptist Faith & Message
In this study, we are going to analyze each of the points of “tension” caused by “differences in interpretation” that have been incorporated into The Baptist Faith & Message. Each of these points is from the TRUTH, TRUST, and TESTIMONY in a TIME of TENSION by SBC Staff, posted June 1, 2013 in SBC News, pgs. 6-7.
#1 We agree that God loves everyone and desires to save everyone, but we differ as to why only some are ultimately saved.
Analysis: We agree that God loves everyone and desires all to be saved, but we disagree with any explanation that makes God’s love or saving desire merely “two-tiered” (a universal benevolence versus a secret will that excludes most) or that makes salvation precarious and losable. Scripture speaks plainly: God “desires all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4; Greek pas, “all, every”) and is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9). The Father so loved “the world” (kosmos, the world of humanity) that He gave His Son (John 3:16). Christ promises to “draw all” (John 12:32; helkō, to draw or attract).
Why then are only some saved? Because God has sovereignly ordained faith as the non-meritorious condition for receiving the gift He provides. People perish “because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:10) and “because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). This places the blame on unbelief, not on a prior divine refusal to provide for or sincerely will their salvation. God’s love is universal and sincere; the application of salvation is particular through faith.
#2 While we all heartily affirm the article on election in The Baptist Faith and Message (Article V), we differ as to whether the response of faith plays a role in one’s election.
Analysis: We rejoice to affirm election, but we disagree that election nullifies the divinely ordained role of faith or that it is grounded in a secret, unconditional selection of isolated individuals unto faith. Scripture locates election “in him” (Ephesians 1:4; en autō), which is corporate and Christocentric. God chose Christ as the Elect One and, in Him, chose a people. Individuals come to participate in that elect people by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and belief in the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13). The term for election (eklogē) signifies God’s gracious choice of a people in union with His Son, not an arbitrary decree that renders the means unnecessary.
Foreknowledge (proginōskō) in Romans 8:29 speaks first of God’s prior knowledge bound up with His purpose in Christ. It is neither a mechanistic foresight of self-generated faith nor a bare decree that causes faith. Rather, God set His saving regard on those who would be in His Son and ordained faith as the instrumental means by which sinners are united to Christ (Ephesians 1:13). Faith therefore plays a role that God Himself established, and it does so without becoming meritorious.
#3 We agree that the penal and substitutionary death of Christ was sufficient for the sins of the entire world, but we differ as to whether Jesus actually substituted for the sins of all people or only the elect.
Analysis: We fully affirm penal, substitutionary atonement, but we disagree with any limitation in the provision that restricts Christ’s substitution to the elect alone. Scripture explicitly universalizes the scope of provision: Christ “tasted death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9; hyper pantos), is the “propitiation” (hilasmos, atoning sacrifice) “for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2), and “gave Himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6; antilytron). He even “bought” false teachers who deny Him (2 Peter 2:1; agorazō), which makes little sense if no provision was made for them.
We distinguish provision from application. The cross provides an objectively sufficient, intended sacrifice for all; its saving benefits are applied through faith. There is no “double payment,” because unbelievers are condemned for refusing the provided atonement (John 3:18-19), not because God exacts two punishments for the same guilt.
#4 We agree that the Gospel should be proclaimed to everyone, but we differ as to whether or how every hearer will be enabled to respond.
Analysis: We agree that the Gospel must be preached to all, yet we disagree that only a subset receives an irresistible internal call or that all people possess, apart from the Gospel, a metaphysical “prevenient grace” that restores a neutral will. Scripture locates the Spirit’s enabling with the proclamation itself. The Gospel is “the power of God” (Romans 1:16; dunamis) and “faith comes by hearing” the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). The Spirit “convicts” the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8-11), and God “opens hearts” even as the Word is preached (Acts 16:14).
Thus ability is genuinely given through the divinely appointed means. The call is sincere and enablement is real, yet not coercive. People may “resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51), which would be unintelligible if grace were always irresistible at the point of hearing.
#5 We agree that everyone has inherited Adam’s hopelessly fallen sin nature, but we differ as to whether we also inherit his guilt.
Analysis: We agree that all inherit Adam’s fallen nature, but we disagree that his personal guilt is immediately imputed to every descendant apart from their own sin. Romans 5:12 says that death spread to all “because all sinned” (eph’ hō pantes hēmarton). Paul surely teaches a solidarity with Adam that brings corruption and death, yet he also maintains personal accountability for actual sin. Ezekiel 18:20 and Deuteronomy 24:16 declare that guilt (Hebrew ‘asham, culpability) is not transferred so that a child is punished for a parent’s sin.
Paul can say that sin is “not counted” (ellogeō, to impute) where there is no law (Romans 5:13), which helps to explain why those without moral awareness stand in a different relation to guilt. We are born corrupted (Genesis 8:21), inclined to sin, and under death because of Adam, but Scripture grounds final condemnation in personal, knowing transgression (Romans 2:5-16).
#6 We agree that men and women are sinners, but we differ about the effects of sin on the mind and the will.
Analysis: We agree that sin profoundly corrupts the mind and will, but we disagree that this corruption entails an inability to respond to God’s graciously empowered Gospel. The natural person “does not accept” (ou dechetai) the things of the Spirit and “cannot understand them” (ou dynatai gnōnai) because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). This is not an argument for pre-faith regeneration; it is a description of what people are apart from the Spirit’s convicting, enlightening work through the Gospel. God overcomes darkened minds by shining the light of the knowledge of His glory “in the face of Jesus Christ” through the preached Word (2 Corinthians 4:4-6).
When God commands all to repent (Acts 17:30) and pleads, “Turn… why will you die?” (Ezekiel 33:11), these imperatives assume that, under His gracious summons, there is real capacity to respond. Jesus indicts unbelievers with, “You are unwilling to come to Me” (John 5:40), locating the problem in refusal, not in a metaphysical inability that can only be overcome by regeneration prior to faith.
#7 We recognize the differences among us between those who believe that sin nullifies freedom to respond to the Gospel and those who believe that freedom to respond to the Gospel is marred but not nullified.
Analysis: We agree that sin wounds human freedom, but we disagree that freedom is nullified until new birth. Throughout Scripture God addresses people as responsible agents. Moses sets before Israel life and death and calls them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). Joshua exhorts, “Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Jesus laments, “How often I wanted (ēthelēsa) to gather your children together … and you were unwilling (ouk ēthelēsate)” (Matthew 23:37). The verb thelō, “to will or desire,” marks a real collision between divine desire and human refusal.
The exhortation, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7-8), is meaningful only if hearers, under God’s gracious address, are capable of not hardening. Freedom is marred, not destroyed, and is genuinely responsive to God’s persuasive, enabling grace.
#8 We agree that God is absolutely sovereign in initiating salvation, uniting the believer to Himself, and preserving the believer to the end, but we differ as to how God expresses His sovereignty with respect to human freedom.
Analysis: We agree that God is absolutely sovereign in initiating, uniting, and preserving salvation, but we disagree that sovereignty requires exhaustive, meticulous determinism of every human choice. Ephesians 1:11 affirms God “works all things according to the counsel of His will,” yet the same Scripture portrays humans making real choices within God’s providence. The crucifixion occurred by God’s definite plan and foreknowledge and by the wicked acts of men (Acts 2:23), a text that articulates sovereignty without collapsing human responsibility.
God sovereignly ordains salvation by union with Christ through faith (Ephesians 2:8; pistis, trust or reliance) and can ensure His purposes while granting authentic contingency. He provides “the way of escape” with every temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), which implies meaningful alternatives under His faithful governance.
#9 We agree that the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel enables sinners to be saved, but we differ as to whether this grace is resistible or irresistible.
Analysis: We agree that the Holy Spirit, working through the Gospel, enables sinners to be saved, but we disagree that this grace is inherently irresistible. Stephen tells his hearers, “You always resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). Jesus laments Jerusalem’s refusal despite His gathering desire (Matthew 23:37). Hebrews warns against “insulting the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29). These warnings lose coherence if grace is unfailingly effectual at the moment of hearing.
John 6:44 teaches that no one can come unless the Father draws (helkō), and John 12:32 says the Son will draw all. The consistency lies in understanding draw as powerful, initiating attraction rather than coercion. If drawing in John must be irresistible, then John 12:32 would entail universalism, which Scripture denies. Grace is initiating, necessary, powerful, and yet resistible.
#10 We agree on the necessity of regeneration that results in God-ordained, Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered obedience from the heart, but differ as to whether faith precedes regeneration or regeneration precedes faith.
Analysis: We agree on the necessity and fruit of regeneration, but we disagree that regeneration precedes and causes faith. The consistent order in Scripture is hearing the Gospel, believing, and then receiving life and the Spirit. “But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Believing is instrumentally prior to becoming children. “Having heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13). The Spirit is received “by hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:2). We are “born again” (anagennaō) “through the living and abiding word of God” that was “preached to you” (1 Peter 1:23-25).
Regeneration (palingenesia, Titus 3:5) is the gracious work God performs when the sinner believes; faith does not cause new birth in a meritorious sense, but it is the God-ordained condition upon which He gives life.
#11 We agree that most Southern Baptists believe that those who die before they are capable of moral action go to heaven through the grace of God and the atonement of Christ, even as they differ as to why this is so.
Analysis: We agree that those who die before moral capability go to heaven by the grace of God through Christ’s atonement, and we disagree with any explanation that requires imputing Adam’s personal guilt to them or that leaves their destiny in doubt. Scripture recognizes a category of persons “who today have no knowledge of good or evil” (Deuteronomy 1:39) and speaks of a time before one “knows to refuse the evil and choose the good” (Isaiah 7:15-16). Jonah 4:11 acknowledges “more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left,” a figure that includes those without moral discernment. David’s confidence, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23), implies the child’s acceptance with God.
Paul writes that sin is not “imputed” (ellogeō) where there is no law (Romans 5:13). Because we deny that Adam’s personal guilt is reckoned to those who have not committed knowing transgression, we can affirm that Christ’s atonement covers them in grace apart from acted faith, while maintaining that all who hear and understand are commanded to believe.
Recommended Modifications to Baptist Faith & Message
God genuinely loves all and provided atonement for all; He sovereignly ordained salvation by grace through faith in Christ; the Spirit enables a real, accountable response through the Gospel; faith precedes regeneration in God’s ordained order; and God keeps every true believer forever. Our disagreements with the contested inferences behind each point arise from a commitment to read key texts in context, to honor the meaning of pivotal words (pas, kosmos, helkō, hilasmos, eklogē, proginōskō, pistis, metanoeō), and to preserve both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility as the Bible does. This framework fuels urgent evangelism, offers a sincere Gospel to every person, and grounds the believer’s assurance in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
IV. Salvation
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood provided for all and obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord (for those capable of moral response).
- Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby those who believe are made new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, through the Word, leading the sinner to respond in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour. Upon believing the Gospel, God grants new birth.
- Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ through faith alone. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.
- Sanctification is the experience, positionally and progressively, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.
- Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed at Christ’s coming.
Genesis 3:15; Exodus 3:14-17; 6:2-8; Matthew 1:21; 4:17; 16:21-26; 27:22-28:6; Luke 1:68-69; 2:28-32; John 1:11-14,29; 3:3-21,36; 5:24; 10:9,28-29; 15:1-16; 17:17; Acts 2:21; 4:12; 15:11; 16:30-31; 17:30-31; 20:32; Romans 1:16-18; 2:4; 3:23-25; 4:3ff.; 5:8-10; 6:1-23; 8:1-18,29-39; 10:9-10,13; 13:11-14; 1 Corinthians 1:18,30; 6:19-20; 15:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; Galatians 2:20; 3:13; 5:22-25; 6:15; Ephesians 1:7; 2:8-22; 4:11-16; Philippians 2:12-13; Colossians 1:9-22; 3:1ff.; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:12; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:1-3; 5:8-9; 9:24-28; 11:1-12:8,14; James 2:14-26; 1 Peter 1:2-23; 1 John 1:6-2:11; Revelation 3:20; 21:1-22:5; John 12:32; 1 John 2:2; Romans 10:17; 1 Peter 1:23-25; Ephesians 1:13; Galatians 3:2
V. God’s Purpose of Grace
Election in Christ is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies those who believe. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end (including the proclamation of the Gospel, the Spirit’s conviction, and the sinner’s repentance and faith). It is the glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting (for faith is the non-meritorious instrument) and promotes humility.
All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
Genesis 12:1-3; Exodus 19:5-8; 1 Samuel 8:4-7,19-22; Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 31:31ff.; Matthew 16:18-19; 21:28-45; 24:22,31; 25:34; Luke 1:68-79; 2:29-32; 19:41-44; 24:44-48; John 1:12-14; 3:16; 5:24; 6:44-45,65; 10:27-29; 15:16; 17:6,12,17-18; Acts 20:32; Romans 5:9-10; 8:28-39; 10:12-15; 11:5-7,26-36; 1 Corinthians 1:1-2; 15:24-28; Ephesians 1:4-23; 2:1-10; 3:1-11; Colossians 1:12-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2 Timothy 1:12; 2:10,19; Hebrews 11:39-12:2; James 1:12; 1 Peter 1:2-5,13; 2:4-10; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:19; 3:2; John 12:32; 1 John 2:2; John 16:8; Romans 10:17; Ephesians 1:13.