Thomas Ross is a contemporary Baptist theologian with a decent influence among especially Landmarkist Baptists. While some of his work is highly informative, and I found his defense of the Classical Nicene view of the Trinity particularly edifying. However, when it comes to soteriology and things such as Baptist Briderism, I strongly disagree with him.
Ross is a staunch proponent of Lordship Salvation and has asserted that any church identifying as Baptist while teaching Free Grace theology stands outside the true churches of Christ. He has argued that Baptists, before the rise of Jack Hyles in the 1950s, unanimously affirmed Lordship Salvation. However, this claim is historically inaccurate.
Adressing the argumentation
Ross in his article "Historic Baptist Doctrine, Receiving Christ as both Savior and Lord or the So-Called Lordship Salvation, and the So-Called Free Grace Gospel" quotes multiple Baptist confessions which do affirm Lordship salvation. However, this does not mean that everybody agreed with those confessions. A notable example is Archibald MacLean (1733–1812), who wrote: "Now, when men include in the very nature of justifying faith such good dispositions, holy affections and pious exercises of heart as the moral law requires, and so make them necessary (no matter under what consideration) to a sinner's acceptance with God, it perverts the Apostle'3 doctrine upon this important subject, and makes justification to be at least " as it were by the works of the law." (The commission given by Jesus Christ to his apostles illustrated). Similar non-Lordship views seem to have been held by the Irish Baptist Alexander Carson (1776 – 1844), who argued that salvation is simply by faith, and not about the excellence/quality of the faith, stating: "They who speak of salvation being by faith, on account of the excellence of faith itself, are virtually on the same foundation with those who preach salvation directly by works." (Carson, Letters to the Author of “Evangelical Preaching,” 37; idem, Works 1:354.).
Even closer to our time, John R. Rice, a Baptist pastor who began his ministry in 1926, expressed views that align closely with Free Grace theology, well before Jack Hyles came to believe in similar ideas. Rice strongly affirmed the dual nature of the believer and the reality of carnal Christians, emphasizing that salvation does not automatically result in a transformed life without discipleship and spiritual growth. He wrote:
Now a Christian should live a consecrated Christian life but that does not automatically follow. People who are saved will find, like Paul, "When I would do good, evil is present with me . . . . So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:21,25).
Every saved person still has the old carnal nature and often-times has the same kind of temptation he had before. Some people who have truly been born again have a desperate fight to quit tobacco, and some have never seemed to get the victory over that or other bad habits. Some Christians have never learned to trust the Lord enough to bring tithes and offerings, and some have never learned to win souls. When a baby is born, he is not born grown. Being born is one thing; growing is another thing entirely.
So the thing to do is to take for granted that people are saved when they trust Christ for salvation. Then one should set out to teach them to read the Bible daily, to learn to pray about their daily needs, to confess their sins and failures and grow in grace day by day. It is as foolish to expect young Christians to be good Christians by themselves as it is to expect a child, born in the family, to automatically be a great credit to the family without any rearing—whether they are spiritual babes or physical babes. I assure you that unless people are taught to be consecrated Christians, taught to read the Bible and pray, they are not likely to be good Christians, even if they are truly born again.
SOURCE: Dr. Rice... Here Are More Questions, by John R. Rice, pg. 76,77, Sword of the Lord Publishers; ISBN: 0-87398-157-X
Thus, I believe Thomas Ross is oversimplifying the data by focusing too much on the Baptist confessions, as Baptists have always held to congregational church governance, thus churches often held to a wide range of beliefs due to their independence from each other. Thus, as we see today a mixture of views on salvation among Baptists, we also can see it in the past.
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