Lordship Salvation: Is it false?

For this reason, I do not defend the LS position. :thumbs:

 

Yes, that is correct.

Until recently canadyjd spent months tryng to defend MacArthur's LS position without having ever read any of JM's books you noted. Now we have Reformed Baptist doing the same thing, although he may have read a small portion of Hard to Believe.

I think their lack of understanding over what the core issue in the doctrinal controversy is contributes to their drift toward the error of interpreting and portraying the debate as if it is a personality clash or character issue with Dr. MacArthur.

All must understand that MacArthur's character is NOT under scrutiny, MacArthur's teaching is. As far as I know MacArthur's personal testimony is above reproach. I am grateful for that when so many preachers have lost their testimony for Christ and in so doing have harmed the cause of Christ. His good testimony and reputation even in the secular world makes it doubly difficult to read and have to address his obvious departure from a biblically balanced view of the Gospel. MacArthur has changed the terms of the Gospel and many have followed him into that error.

The answers by DHK that you acknowledged IMO go a long way toward educating the LS sympathizers on exactly what the crux of the debate is over and why men who are Reformed in their theology have been expressing reservations over MacArthur's LS interpretation of the Gospel.

Thanks,


LM

 

Repent - Metanoia (Greek).

μετάνοια
metanoia
changing one's mind, repentance. From unbelief to belief.

pisteuo
believe

Strong's Concordance:
believe 239, commit unto 4, commit to (one's) trust 1,
be committed unto 1, be put in trust with 1,
be commit to one's trust 1, believer 1; 248

Where Lordship Salvationists go wrong:
In the Book of Romans, Paul clearly speaks of the ROOT of a believer's faith as opposed to the Book of James, where the FRUIT of a believer's faith is referred to.

Romans 4:3 - For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

compared to:
James 2:18 - ...shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

With God, we are justified by FAITH, with man we are justified by works.

1 Samuel 16:7 - ...for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

James said SHEW ME your faith and I will show you my faith.

Lordship Salvationists say the word "Lord" means "Master", that is, to surrender to Christ's will. Yet the word for "Lord" in the Bible is "kurios" which means "supreme authority", so in effect what is correctly meant by this is to believe in Him is to trust Him (Jesus Christ).

It is very clear from Scripture that it is possible to live in Christ's Spirit (to be saved), but yet still fail to walk in Christ's Spirit (live for the Lord).

Galatians 5:25 - If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

it is possible for a genuinely saved believer to live like the world, and Hebrews 12:8 tells us the diiference between a worldly unbeliever and a wordly believer:

But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Here God clearly states if a believer lives in sin, that person will be chastised or disciplined.

Proverb 24:16 - For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.

Although Believers are free from the curse of the Law, they are still expected to obey the command of the Law, so no Believer has a license to sin.

Every Believer struggles with his/her sin nature, and Lordship Salvationists behave like they are without sin, but in fact they are saturated with sin, especially the sin of hypocrisy.

Let him who is without fault among you throw the first stone.

 

Thank you for putting this in print, Lou.

And for the record, I am not a Lordship salvationist if recognizing Christ as Lord is added as an ingredient to eternal salvation.

Submitting to His Lordship is imperative for those who do profess Him as Savior, though, and by this I mean those who profess gospel, or timely, salvation. To them Christ addressed his question: why call ye me Lord, and do not the things I say ?

There is a difference.

 

If biblical faith is an "action word" (you are correct, of course), why can that action not be viewed the same way in relation to Lordship? Why does it become "heretical" to say, "When one puts their faith in the Lord, he, at the same time, will have repented and submitted himself to Christ Lordship (even if he didn't understand the terms).

I disagree with the characterization that those who believe in LS necessarily believe in a "works salvation". That is clearly not true with John MacArthur. He stresses the grace of God in salvation. He repeatedly states that men can do no work to earn salvation. MacArthur believes salvation is completely a work of God. That every aspect of salvation....regeneration, repentance, faith, lordship, perseverence etc., are all gifts of God's grace. He believes God would not draw someone to faith in His Son and not grant the gift of "Lordship" with that faith.

That is why I have so vigorously contended that the man's views be accurately and honestly represented. You certainly do not have to agree with him, and I appreciate the humble way you have presented your arguments. But it is simply not accurate to say John MacArthur believes and teaches a works based salvation.

Those are the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus often spoke of the cost of being His disciple. As far as I can see, He always spoke of two kinds of people. Those who believed and were His disciples and those who did not believe and were lost. Did He ever teach the 3rd possibility of one who believed/was saved, but did not become His disciple and produce fruit? Did Jesus ever separate "believers" from "disciples" in such a way?

BTW, I understand your position (and Lou Martuneac's and EdSutton's) that discipleship will or should follow genuine salvation, but that it is not part of the "faith/repentance" necessary for salvation.

And MacArthur would argue that neither is lordship considered works by the Bible, but an essential element of faith (just as repentance is essential to salvation)

Wow, for a minute there I thought you were quoting John MacArthur.

When this debate first began, that is the criticism I made of MacArthur's position. That is a major weakness in his position. He seemed to be saying that genuine salvation would always have "whole-hearted commitment" to Jesus and other such terms.

After reading more of what he teaches, I discovered he does acknowledge that believers must grow in maturity. With the previous statement, he seems to be focused more on the "desire" to follow Christ, than the actual reality of putting one's life in order.

Is that the question? Or is the question, "Can Christ be your Saviour without being Lord of any part of your life?"

I thank you for your thoughtful responses and look forward to your next.

peace to youraying:

 

The 'puter fritzed out, and my bride just got it fixed a while ago, so I gotta' catch up.

Thankfully, she was using it, instead of me when that happened, so I can say, at least sometimes, I don't acutally mess it up. She didn't either, the on-line part just died suddenly, with no apparent reason for the glitch.

Back after I read some more.

Ed

 

I read "The Gospel According to Jesus" about 6 months ago. I have to say it was one of the most inspired books I've ever read. This current quest about whether "Lordship Salvation" is a heresy is very puzzling to me. I've been a Baptist my entire life and every minister I've ever heard that preached the gospel accepted this as, well the gospel.

In His ministry Jesus stressed the need to give up our sinful and selfish selves, pick up our cross and follow Him. He made it very clear in his meeting with the rich young ruler that this is a prerequisite for salvation. The rich young ruler went away sorrowful because he loved his money more than he loved the Lord.

Nicodemus found out that a dramatic change in life style was necessary for salvation when Jesus told him "Ye must be born again." He was and immediately offered to make amends for his previous life of greed. Christ emphasized the central importance of love when He said that we must love God and our neighbors. Of course God first showed love to us when He sent His Son to die for us as rebellious, sinful people.

Faith, repentance, love, and accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior are bound together when we become saved.

So, do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I did a long time ago. I have slipped many times but He has been gracious enough to help me back on the straight and narrow. I will follow Him until He leads me home. He is my rock and my salvation.

 

His post was very clear and biblically demonstratable in this wasn't it?

I must concur with DHK's post as well. Well done :thumbs:

 

The teaching of MacArthur is hardly inspiring. It is a travesty to read how he reinterprets the Bible to force into conformity with Lordship's works based salvation. Scripture never teaches the reception of salvation by forsaking everything. That is a message of what man must do and/or commit to do, which is a departure from the message of what Christ has done.

John MacArthur writes,

That citation from the 1994-revised and expanded edition of The Gospel According to Jesus is a revision of what John MacArthur first wrote. In the original edition, John MacArthur states:

From his book Hard to Believe MacArthur wrote:

MacArthur wrote,

It is in his discussion of the rich young ruler. JM continues,

There it is in context: How to be born again, how to become a Christian is the subject. JM's answer, “Salvation (the requirement for eternal life) is for those who are willing to forsake everything...give Christ first place....” (TGATJ, p. 78)

That theme runs like a thread through all three editions of TGATJ. That may sound noble, but that statement defines a gospel of faith plus works.

The LS message that, “salvation is for those who are willing to forsake everything," is a corruptin of the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3).

 

Faith is confidence. It is trust or confidence in the word of another. We exercise faith everyday. If I put my key into my ignition and turn it I have faith that my car will start. If faith is confidence in the word of another, then my faith is based on the word of the Ford Company, who wrote the instruction manual for the car. Someday the car won't start. Will my faith then fail? No. The reason being is that man is fallible and makes things that are not perfect.

But God is perfect. His Word is perfect. I can put my confidence in the perfect Word of a perfect God, knowing that he is faithful to all of his promises.
That is faith. It is simple confidence or trust. Nothing more.

If Lordship goes with faith then salvation becomes a religion based on works, for discipleship is works. It includes the work of baptism, the work of forsaking all, the work of prayer, and the study of the Word, the work of never looking back, etc. These are all works. They are good, but they are all works. Salvation is not of works; it is the gift of God.
For a person to be saved he must understand the gospel: the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, that the work of Christ was paid for his sin, and that he must accept that sacrifice by faith and faith alone. It does not involve works. It is a gift. It is really a simple message. Lordship salvation complicates what is a simple message.

For me the question has nothing to do with MacArthur. I'll let others look into his beliefs. The subject of this thread is: "Lordship Salvation: Is it false?" My understanding of Lordship Salvation is based on previous knowledge coupled statements already made on this board by those who believe in LS. For example, Reformed Baptist, who believes in LS, states that in order for a person to have eternal all he must forsake all and follow Jesus (that is forsake: mother, father, sister, brother, etc.) Does that make sense? If that is true, should I teach it to my young teen-age daughter, encouraging her to forsake her parents when she hasn't even finished school? It is ludicrous even to suggest something with such implications. Yet if one does not forsake all (become a disciple), he is not saved. I would have to conclude that all childhood and teenage decisions for Christ were false decisions and those who made such are not saved according to LS theology.

I believe that Jesus did separate believers from disciples, and if it wasn't Jesus directly, at least it was the Bible.
(Again, I am not concerned with the beliefs of John MacArthur, but just what the Bible says on the subject).
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night for fear of the Jews.
Jesus told Nicodemus: "You must be born again."
It seems apparent that Nicodemus did get saved, or was born again, for we see him later speaking out for Christ, and again at the burial of Christ. But we don't see much of him. He is a rabbi, a prominent teacher in Israel, a member of the Sanhedrin. He could have done much more with his position and influence but he didn't. The fact that he came to Jesus by night is very telling in itself. Nicodemus was not "a disciple." He was a "secret believer." He did not testify openly for Christ. He was a believer, but not a disciple.

Arimathea also was a member of the Sanhedrin. No doubt he also was a "secret believer."

There is no reason not to believe that Annanias and Sapphira were not saved. I believe they were. But I don't believe they were disciples.

As I read through the first epistle of Corinthians I find believers that have taken each other to court, committed immoral acts, denied the resurrection, abused the Lord's Table (and died as a result of it), were divisive, etc. And all of these are believers, but not necessarily disciples.

However, there is a cost to being a disciple. And Jesus often stressed that cost in his ministry. But it was discipleship, not salvation.

Lordship, making Christ the Lord of your life, even uses a verb that implies work. It requires work. Here is what Jesus said:

Luke 14:26-27 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

I have bolded three verbs. They indicate action. That is things that you must do, or works. These are the works that you must do in order to be a disciple of Christ. Therefore it is a works-based salvation, when both Christ and Paul state that salvation is the gift of God to be accepted by faith alone.

The question that gets down to: "How much of salvation does a person need to understand before he can be saved?"
When one considers the answer to that question Lordship salvation fades off into the distance.
When a child become saved; how much does he understand about Christ being Lord of every part of His life. Are the LS advocates demanding a theology from a new believer far greater than is necessary? Not everyone is a thelogian when they are saved.

After being a Catholic for twenty years and then hearing the gospel for the first time in my life, I got saved. I knew Christ was my Saviour, but that was all. I knew nothing of LS. I knew nothing of Christ being the Lord of all my life or part of my life, or what the concept even meant. I was a knew believer and totally ignorant of the Bible. People who preach LS assume too much about a person who first comes to Christ. They aren't ready made theologians.

 

With all due respect, please don't try and 'redefine' what I am saying, even if you happen to disagree with it. If "repent" is, as I said previously, effectively the flip side of "believe" (note I did not say "faith", for one is a noun and the other is a verb) as it relates to salvation, I would say they are two different ways of describing the same thing, and not two 'different' things, at all. One book in the Bible claims to have been written for the specific purpose of bringing one to believe in Jesus and the accompanying life that goes with it.-

Another book is written for the stated purposes of giving one assurance of eternal life and that they might continue to believe.-

To my knowledge, these are the only two books that are written to state such. I find it significant that John uses 'believe' 99 times in his gospel and another 10 times in I John, and the noun form 'faith' in I John one additional time for 110 uses of the same root word. John never uses the word "repent" one single time in these two books. I submit that if 'repent' and 'believe' are not synonyms in this, then John failed in his stated mission, and further, one only has this problem when wrongly defining "repent," in salvation.

I am not 'viewing' "repent" (metanoeO) and "believe" (pisteuO) as "completely separate things," in salvation. However, "repent" does not automatically refer to changing one's mind [You are basically correct that that is what "repent" means in all but 8 instances of any form of that word in the English NT, and those are actually different Greek words, as I'm sure you (canadyjd) know, but I said this for the benefit of the 'lurkers.'] about the subject of personal salvation (Ac. 8:22; II Cor. 12:21; Heb. 12:17; Rev. 2:5, 21), nor does "believe" automatically refer to one's salvation, in every instance, either. (Mt. 24:33; Lk. 24:41; Ac. 9:26; Rom. 4:18; 14:2)

While one could say this, I guess, where you are attempting to head is what concerns me, viz.

Yes, "lordship" (sic) (This should be capitalized, when referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, IMO.) is related in salvation to faith and repentance, because Jesus is the Lord. That is an accurate way of describing His Deity. Every person who has posted to this subject, to my knowledge, believes and has said that, if the question actually came up. But that is not what you are really asking, is it? Let's continue -

On the surface, nothing appears especially wrong with your question. However, the 'undercurrent' of these tranquil appearing waters is still a question of 'performance.' And I believe, that is exactly what you are driving at, with your wording.

There is a major difference between "believe (or faith)" for salvation, which is what I fully proclaim, and "behave or (faithful)" upon/after salvation, which is what I fully preach we should strive to do, as believers (for, in fact, it is an impossibility be 'faithful' or 'behave' prior to one's becoming a believer), and "believe (or faithful)" when thes two words are surreptitiously re-defined to include "behave (or faithful)" for salvation, which is what is effectively proclaimed by the varied adherents of 'Lordship' salvation. (Incidentally, I actually mistyped "salvation" above, a moment ago, when intending to type "salvation", which I now have in italics, for attention.) I have previously noted that there is little, if any difference between "Arminian" advocates of this, and "Calvinist" adherents of this teaching. "Lordship Salvation" is still a performance based salvation, no matter how it is sliced and diced, or from what direction one approaches it, in the final analysis. And that is why I reject it, because it makes a mockery of the grace of God, in the attempt to somehow admix "grace" and "works" as one thing, something that cannot be done. (Rom. 11:6)

G'nite, all.

Ed

 

Ed:

You wrote,

This is the point I have been making on how LS sympathizers evade and dodge a transparent discussion of and/or clear answers to the objections we raise over Lordship Salvation. They consistently redefine our notes and questions to evade the crux of the controversy and answer a question of their own making. It's all part of the misdirect away from the extreme teaching coming from LS advocates and the disturbing implications of that works based teaching FOR salvation.

I enjoyed how you ended your notes with this:

LM

 

There is very little information concerning whether Nicodemus was saved, though many believe his actions after the death of Christ indicate he was.

Joseph of Arimathea is clearly identified as a "disciple" in John 19:38, though a "secret one", meaning a secret disciple. That is not said of Nicodemus.

Concerning those who "believed" but were not disciples, this passage of scripture applies. John 12:42-43 "Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him , lest they should be put out of the synagogue. (43) for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God."

Are you saying these men were saved based on the statement they "believed in Him"?.., Even though scripture clearly says they wouldn't "confess Him" and they "loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God."?

I believe Jesus did not separate believers from disciples. To be a believer was to be a disciple.

peace to youraying:

 

Here is what you said,

Now, I certainly made a mistake by saying "repent/faith" instead of "repentance/faith", but, with all due respect, that does not rise to the level of trying to "redefine" what you are saying. BTW, I didn't say I disagreed with you.

You didn't answer my question and so I'll try again. If "repent" is the "flipside" of "believe" when it comes to salvation, why cannot "Lordship" be viewed in the same manner? Why is "Lordship" not the flipside of "repent", in that repentance changes the mind of a person who will then "believe" in the Lord Jesus Christ; that belief recognizing that submission to Christ Lordship is the only response of a repentant sinner?

That said, do you think the men spoken of in the following passage are saved based on the statement they, "believed in Him". Do you think "loving the approval of God" rather than men is an element of true faith?

John 12:42-43 "Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him , lest they should be put out of the synagogue. (43) for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God."

peace to youraying:

 

Thief on the cross. It's not like he had any time TO be a disciple. Was he saved?

 

The thief on the cross demonstrated repentance for his previous acts by rebuking the other man and acknowledging he deserved his punishment while Jesus did not deserve His. The thief on the cross demonstrated faith and submitted to Christ's Lordship by asking Him to remember him when He came into His Kingdom.

Was he a disciple? Yes, for that very brief time he was.

Do you believe the men in the following passage where saved? Why or why not?

John 12:42-43 "Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him , lest they should be put out of the synagogue. (43) for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God."

peace to youraying:

 

I agree with everything except "submitted to His Lordship". You have outlined what true repentance is (his previous acts and understanding of his deserved punishment...a "change of mind")

I believe the men in John 12 (which included Nicodemus and Joseph of Arithimea) were saved. Robetson's Word Pictures nails it...

They did not confess (ouch hōmologoun). Negative imperfect in contrast to the punctiliar aorist episteusan. "They kept on not confessing." How like the cowardly excuses made today by those under conviction who refuse to step out for Christ.