Lordship necessary for salvation

While I disagree with the NIV translation, of course, I don't think it can be blamed for the LS doctrine. I first heard it taught at BJU in 1971-1972 by Arend Ten Pas, years before the NIV came out.

Ten Pas was allegedly fired from BJU in '72, but I'm not sure of the reasons. His book The Lordship of Christ (1978) is in the bibliography of John MacArthur's The Gospel According to Jesus.

 

Lordship is a by product of Salvation by Gracerace

 

Will no one take this challenge? :type:

 

I would assume you are speaking of the Gospel of John. (Jn. 20.31)
And you are correct - John focuses on the importance of belief. However, reading the entire gospel in context will reveal the kind of belief he is speaking of. Never once does John give the idea that the belief he is speaking of is only mental acceptance or a faith that does not show itself in works. John's writing in 1 John makes this absolutely clear.

"For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (Jn. 3.20-21) Can someone who is saved truly hate the Light?

"He who comes from above is above all, he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven in above all." (Jn. 3.31 - By the way, this sounds like a Lord to me)

Again, noone has said that works are required for salvation. I appreciate and defend the non-LS's in their insistence that salvation is by faith alone. The mistake is that many of them (NOT all, but several) make belief into nothing more than a mental acceptance of gospel facts. James 2 condemns this very kind of belief ("...if someone SAYS he has faith... that THAT faith save him?"..Js. 2.14) Real faith will show itself in works.

By the way, lest you think that I believe non-LS guys are the only ones who get it wrong from time to time - I have been around many LS guys who take it way too far. One person in my last church did not believe a new convert was truly saved because he didn't want to attend his 6:30 in the morning Bible Study! Another guy accused me of sinning and questioning my salvation because I flew through Las Vegas (I didn't go to LV, I simply had a 3 hour layover - flying back from a Pastor's Conference of all things!) That is legalism and abuse. From the heart springs all the issues of life. When God gives us a new heart, new actions will come from it. When old actions come, there will be a godly sorrow leading to repentance.

Randy

 

I'll take a stab at this, the book of John?

John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

The book of John was written that we might believe Jesus is the Christ. It never says we must believe Jesus is the Lord.

 

Way to go Randy, you beat me to the punch! :tongue3:

I can't imagine anyone trusting Jesus and not believeing him to be Lord.

And I can't imagine anyone believeing that they can simply trust Jesus and then just sin freely afterward. Perhaps some do, but I have never met anyone like this, and this certainly wasn't my attitude when I came to Jesus.

But this is altogether different from believeing that you must make a commitment to stop sinning to be saved, that is a salvation dependent upon our own works.

To even be saved, a person must have a change of attitude about sin itself. The unsaved man sees sin as a good thing, something that makes life better or more pleasurable. Jesus said the reason people will not come to him is because they love darkness. They actually love sin and all the pleasure it brings them.

John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

So, the scriptures teach that whoever loves darkness, that is, evil and sin, will never come to the light, Jesus.

But the person who has been sincerely convicted by the word of God and the Holy Spirit sees sin for what it really is, evil that brings death and destruction to them and others. When a person truly sees this they will have a change of attitude toward sin and hate it.

When I realized I was a sinner and that the wages of sin was death I hated sin, I wanted to be rid of it, and still do.

 

How many times do I have to say that this does not describe what we, espeically I believe? It is entirely possible to hold a non-LS position without this. In fact, this is not the position of the vast majority of evangelicalism, only a small minority holding to what you described.

Of course they cannot. That's not the issue.

Thanks for the honesty!:thumbs:

 

Exactly! :thumbs: What I would like from the LS defenders on this thread is a single place in John where lost people (not saved people) are required to confess Christ as Lord. There are no such places.

 

Thanks much for the prayers. Patty and I are still fighting the colds, ten days in. But they seem to be winding down. Sunday was poor. But that's why they call Japan "Gospel resistant."

Well of course not! But do you deny any significance of John's statement? And if John was written so people can believe, why is there no commandment to confess Him as Lord in the book?

Actually, the Greek kurios appears 51 times in the TR Greek NT:
7 times translated as "sir" in the KJV, not always towards Christ.
26 times used as a title talking to Christ.
5 times used by Jesus talking about Himself.
1 time by Thomas in his wonderful declaration.
3 times by John the author about Christ in his narration.
But not one single time commanding anyone to confess Christ as Lord or saying this must be done for salvation. Why is this not significant?

Well of course! But why does this mean a person must confess Christ as Lord for salvation?

A wonderful declaration by Thomas that should be made by all believers. But how do you know he wasn't saved already?

Well of course! But once again, how does this teach lordship salvation? It does not! The book of Revelation was not written to teach salvation. Simply declaring Christ as Lord does not teach a doctrine of salvation.

 

Well of course they did, though Spurgeon has been quoted on both sides of the issue. If you'll re-read my post, it was not that no one preached surrender for salvation, but that no one systemetized it into a doctrine. I even pointed out that Tozer taught it, but Arend Ten Pas systemetized it.

And all of your verses are wonderful, but to me they simply say that a believer will then obey. They don't teach what you are saying, that confessing Christ as Lord is necessary for salvation.

 

Once again, I don't deny this. But the old time theologians did not teach confessing lordship as a requirement for salvation. I quote Calvinist B. B. Warfield who echoes Strong (quoted previously): "In accordance with the nature of this faith the Protestant theologians have generally explained that faith includes in itself the three elements of notitia, assensus, fiducia" (Biblical and Theological Studies, p. 402). "In every movement of faith, therefore, from the lowest to the highest, there is an intellectual, an emotional, and a voluntary element, though naturally these elements vary in their relative prominence in the several movements of faith" (ibid, 403). But Warfield does not require confessing Lordship in this essay on faith, or in the book itself.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. We are missionaries because we surrendered to the Lordship of Christ and obeyed His command. :saint:

I really didn't say this and I don't believe it.

Maybe I'm confused, but I thought you believed that in order to be saved one must, at the time of believing, verbally confess Christ as Lord (from the heart of course). Is this wrong? If I have characterized you correctly, and this is your belief, then why does it not make sense that there would be commands to sinners in John (the book written to describe belief in Christ) to confess Christ in this way?

I believe I showed how kings in Bible times could be prisoners, having no sovereignty, and yet still be called kings. For just one example out of many see Judges 1:7.

Of course it's significant. But it seems to me that LS advocates believe that the mere mention of the term Lord means it is part of salvation. That's what I'm having a problem with here. Simply stating that Jesus is Lord, like Thomas did for example, does not at all prove that confessing Christ as Lord must be part of salvation.

I don't do this at all. (Wait till I get to Acts. :smilewinkgrin I've studied the subject extensively in the whole NT, and read quite a few books and pamphlets on it: MacArthur, Hodges, Ryrie, Pickering, Cocoris, etc.

Thanks for the clarification, but see above. Why is it unreasonable to expect John to have a command to sinners to confess Christ as Lord? It's one of the four Gospels, after all, not the little books of Philemon, Jude or the like (precious as those are).

 

The question at hand, as I understand it, is not surrender but when that surrender should take place: as part of salvation and a requirement for salvation, or as something all believers should do as part of sanctification. So, is surrender part of salvation, or part of sanctification--not, should there be surrender or not.