TRY HARD CHRISTIANITY

By: Guillermo Santamaria

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The book argues that “try-hard Christianity” misunderstands both holiness and the function of biblical exhortations by turning the Christian life into a cooperative project in which our effort helps make us holier before God. In contrast, the Absoluter wing of Old School Baptists insists that all the elect are equally and immutably holy in Christ: sanctification, as to standing, is eternal in election, accomplished once-for-all in Christ’s offering, and applied by the Spirit in regeneration, not a moral ladder the believer climbs. New School / Missionary Baptists maintain a classic “progressive sanctification” model in which the believer is truly, internally made holier over time by Spirit-aided effort, and they therefore read exhortations to strive, pursue, press, work out as conditions of growth and practical prerequisites for final salvation. Old School writers like Trott and Beebe sharply distinguish this from what they call “growth in grace”: believers do “increase in fruit” and become “more manifestly holy” in their walk, but this is growth in manifestation, light, experience, and obedience, not an increase in the amount of holiness God sees in them. The paper re-reads key texts (Luke 13:24; Heb 12:14; Phil 2:12–13; Phil 3:12–14; 1 Tim 6:11–12) accordingly: exhortations presuppose life, never create it; they call the already-sanctified inner man to act out what is finished in Christ, not to secure or upgrade his standing. Finally, the essay distinguishes “cause-level effort” (trying to make oneself holier or safer before God, which OSBs reject) from “fruit-level effort” (the real, painful warfare of the inner man against sin, which they fully expect), and shows how collapsing that distinction breeds either pride or despair. Properly understood, the believer’s struggle is not a wage-contract with God, but the conflicted obedience of a child whose holiness and acceptance were settled in Christ before he ever began to “try hard.”