Elder T. S. Dalton

The article below is from the book “A Treatise On Salvation” By Elder T.S. Dalton. The book has preserved many of the points of his debate with Elder T.R. Burnett, Disciple or Church of Christ: which took place in 1886 and was published in 1897, by The Gospel Advocate Publishing Company. The book here, “A Treatise On Salvation” was published after Elder Dalton’s death (Elder Dalton went to be with his Lord in 1931).

The thoughts set forth in this writing were published by “The Baptist Bible Hour Publications” of Cincinnati, Ohio, sometime in the 1950's or 60's (Estimated, as the publication is not dated), and are rarely available in book form today.

These articles were written in a time, when there were sundry discussions and debates between the Primitive Baptists and those who advocated for “Universal Atonement and a Conditional Salvation.”

Editor

“Eternal Salvation is Unconditional Because:”

Seventh Premise:

The seventh and final premise in this series we will publish is, “Salvation is unconditional because Jesus purged our sins before He took His seat in glory,” in proof of which please read Heb. 1:1-3: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds ; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." To admit the truth of Paul's teaching in this passage is to deny every theory that presents conditions for sinners to perform in order that their sins may be purged.

Suppose there was a man in our country that had been guilty of some very bad crime, and was brought before the court and condemned and was ready to be executed to pay the penalty due to his crime, and some good friend steps in and takes the place of the guilty, and in the eyes of law becomes the guilty party, and pays all of the demands of the law, until the law acknowledges satisfaction. Is not the real guilty person purged from his guilt? Can the law punish him then for the same crime? Surely not. This is what Jesus did for the poor sinner before he ascended home to glory. He assumed the guilt of the sinner, and in the eyes of the law became the guilty party, and the law inflicted upon Jesus just what would have been put upon us; and in His sufferings and death He met all of the demands of the law for us. When Jesus expired upon the cross the law was satisfied; that is, it held no further claims, and could therefore demand nothing more. Through His sacrifice of Himself, Jesus purged our sins, ascended home to His Father, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He said: "I give unto them eternal life." Paul says: "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

So, for us to now go forth into the world, telling poor sinners that Jesus is offering eternal life to them, is simply to deny the Bible and to confess that we do not believe the Lord at all; for it would be useless for a man to tell me that he believed in me, and loved me, and then go all over the country disputing what I had told him. The Bible says that Jesus purged our sins before He sat down in glory. Men tell us that our sins will be purged if we will perform certain conditions. Now, the question is, which shall we believe? If we accept what the Bible says about it, we become unpopular and looked down upon with disdain and are accounted by the religious (?) world as hard, narrow, contracted and SELFISH, opposed to the spread of the gospel, and setting the sinner down on the stool of do-nothing, teaching the doctrine of "let us do evil, that good may come." Should we deny the Bible, and fall into the ranks with what the world would call good and great, we become popular, and are extolled to the skies by the world; but the anathemas of heaven are against us, and we feel the force of that declaration of the blessed Saviour, "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets"; and again, "He that would be the friend of the world, is an enemy of God." we can but conclude that the best method is to deal honestly and shun no part of the counsel of God, and receive the frowns and scorns of the world as so many evidences that our mission is of the Lord, for Jesus said, "Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves; be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves." And again, "Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven."

Therefore, with these blessed promises of our dear Saviour, we are willing to bear the frowns and scoffs of the world, and be counted the offscouring (an obsolete word meaning, “rejected matter, that which is vile or despised) of creation, and go forth under the direction of the Holy Spirit, and contend for that precious truth that Jesus, by Himself, purged our sins, before He took His seat in glory, and has therefore never sent out men to prescribe CONDITIONS for poor sinners to perform in order that their sins be PURGED.

Well might the apostles be bold in declaring that salvation was of GRACE. Well might Paul say to his Ephesian brethren, "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." And again to Titus, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.' And again, Paul said to Timothy, "Who hath saved Us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Oh how beautifully this corresponds with Heb. 1:3: "When he had by himself purged our sins." He "hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

Now for us to go out into the world professing to be servants of God and impressed to preach His truth, and then in the face of these Scriptures teach that God requires the sinner to do certain things in order that his sins be purged, or that Christ bring life to him, is (to say the least of it) a contradiction, and for us to believe that God has impressed a man with the duty of preaching His truth, and then sends him out to deny what the Bible says, we cannot. Paul says, "When he (Jesus) had by himself purged our sins, forever sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high," that is, He had no one to assist Him in doing this great work, but He did it by Himself. This beautifully corresponds with what the prophet Isaiah said, 63 :3: "I have trodden the wine press alone, and of the people there was none with me"; and again, verse 5. "And I looked and there was none to help . . . therefore mine own arm hath brought salvation unto me, and my fury, it upheld me." If Jesus had only lived in this day of conditionalism He would have had many helpers, for we can hear them call upon the brethren to come up to the help of the Lord; that is, they really say, come up and help the Lord, as though the Lord were dependent on us for the accomplishment of a work that Paul says Jesus did before He sat down in glory; and besides this, the Lord has never called for the aid of poor puny man to help Him in the accomplishment of His divine purposes. That we continually need the help of the Lord, is true; but that the Lord needs us to help Him, is not sensible to believe. Hence, when Paul told his brethren to "come up to the help of the Lord," he did not mean for them to help the Lord, but come where the Lord would help them.

The Bible tells us that Jesus has purged our sins, and has ascended home to the right hand of His Father, and is expecting that His enemies be made His foot stool; and we are told again, "what the Lord doeth shall be forever; none addeth to it, and none taketh from this he doeth that men may fear before him." Eccl. 3:14 We can therefore fully adopt the language of Zacharias when he was filled with the Holy Ghost at the birth of his son, John the Baptist; he said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began; that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that He would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life."

All of this Zacharias said the Lord would do for us, and failed to say a word about what the Lord would require of us as conditions upon which this work would be done; therefore we conclude that if the Lord had suspended these blessings on conditions for us to perform, Zacharias surely would have said so in this connection somewhere, But he did not; and therefore, we conclude that it is all UNCONDITIONAL.

Grace first contrived the way
To save rebellious man,
And all the steps that grace display,
Which drew the wondrous plan.

Editorial note:

While these Seven Premises are set forth as proofs, the eternal salvation of the Lord's chosen people, all teach eternal salvation to be unconditional, and are not, nor are they intended to be the conclusion of the matter. These are just so many expressions of the principles of belief, concerning the eternal salvation God's elect as were declared by the Church of Christ in this period (late 1800's and early 1900's) and were the reflection of what has been believed in the Church of Jesus Christ, and preached by such good men in His Church, in a long line of such men as links in a chain reaching the apostles of Christ who taught and preached these same principles of doctrine which are the identity of this same Church today.

Men change from generation to generation, but, “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” II Tim 2:19

The ideas of men may change, through much learning and imitation of worldly traditions: But the truths and traditions of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ are based upon the eternal truths of God in which, are no variableness, turning or doubt. Today, there are around 58 or so different versions of bibles on the market, with texts which change in wording and often in meaning from version to version; but the Church says: “We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired, written word of God; that they were penned down by holy men of God, as they were move by the Holy Spirit, and that such words are the only true rule of faith and practice, and that we prefer translation under the authority of King James.” We recognize that it is God, who without question is the only Divine Author of Truth, Who does not, and cannot change; and by His truth we know He has stood up a Surety for us and our eternal salvation, which is our hope of glory, which is Jesus Christ: “The gospel is good news of that!”