The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Lordship Salvation

I've always put myself in the Lordship Salvation camp, but are there different forms of it?

I thought the argument was over whether someone can become a believer without submitting to Christ Jesus as Lord. Those arguiing against LS are saying that someone can become a believer without acknowleging Christ as Lord, just their Savior.

If LS is the proper way of understanding, why do some get jittery in thinking LS advocates a works rigtheousness path of salvation.

Are their LS proponenents taking it to far, or is my understanding of it faulty?

Wasn't the term more or less coin during the debate several years ago between MacArthur and Swindle with easy believism being at stake?

John,

Personally, I am uncomfortable with even the term, "Lordship Salvation", especially when it is described as someone making Christ Lord and Saviour. Why? Because one doesn't make the Lord Christ anything. He IS the LORD Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners. When someone comes to true faith in Him, it is a believing, trusting, taking hold, resting and taking hold of Him for who He is. One's acknowledgment of His lordship is no less a natural thing than one acknowledging that Bush is President, as far as the office that he occupies. You simply cannot bifurcate Christ from His person and work nor can one compartmentalize Him and then choose some things and leave others, as if you are shopping for groceries at the local food store.

Love and obedience are two sides of the same coin.

John 14:15 (KJV) "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

John 15:10 (KJV) "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love."

1 John 2:3 (KJV) "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments."

1 John 2:4 (KJV) "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

1 John 5:3 (KJV) "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous."

Philippians 2:9-11 (ASV) "Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven and [things] on earth and [things] under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

In His Grace,

Well said pilgrim!
John_C I agree essentially with what you said but I wouldn't even start to go down the road of lordship salvation.

You asked "Are their LS proponenents taking it to far, or is my understanding of it faulty?"
The answer is yes.
I would recommend staying away from antinomianism and lordship salvation.

John,

This debate never got into the Reformed community, which is quite telling I believe. Submitting to Christ is basic Reformed soteriology. It was novel within the evangelical community when MacArthur began to grow in his understanding of God's work in salvation. MacArthur was becoming Reformed in his soteriology, which is what caused the hoo ha within pop-evangelicalism. For the Arminian, one can believe in Christ with the mere help of the Holy Spirit, but repentance would be a "work" and, therefore, need not accompany biblical salvation -- so say Arminians. MacArthur, on the other hand, had a “revelation.” He became keenly aware that one could not even believe, let alone repent, without the monergistic work of the Spirit. I remember John saying that “we must not strip out what God is doing in salvation.” His point was, not only does God grant faith he also grants repentance to all who trust in Christ alone for their salvation.

The problem is, although those who are justified do submit to Christ upon first believing the gospel, the gospel message must not be changed. The Gospel is that Jesus died for his people and rose for their justification. However, I believe that John had a tendency to skew the message of the gospel into a message of works, though he was correct that those who embrace Christ will have works.

Fair enough?

Ron

I am not sure it is completely accurate to say that John had a "revelation" about the monergistic work of the spirit and thus began the debate between a NonLS position and a LS position. From what I understand from John in both his preaching and in private discussions around Grace Church, is that he was asked years ago, as a young minister, if he believed in "Lordship" salvation and his response was, "What other kind of salvation is there?" As his attention was drawn to the fact there was this insidious nonsense theology advocated by proponents of classic dispensationalism, John believed there needed to be a biblical response. Hence, the book, "The Gospel According to Jesus" arose out of that conviction. I have always understood that "Lordship Salvation" was coined by the opponents to the biblical doctrine. Similar in fashion to how the various points of Calvinism received negative titles, like "Limited Atonement." That is an Arminian gloss that places a negative spin upon the doctrine and does not correspond to what the Synod of Dort meant when highlighting the doctrine of Christ's atonement.

In some respects, it could be argued that John probably was not as clear as he could have been when he originally wrote against this false doctrine, and LS proponents, as well as NonLS proponents, accused him of promoting a works oriented salvation. However, any one even remotely familiar with John and his preaching and reading "The Gospel According to Jesus" in its entirety, realize that is not what he is advocating at all. Perhaps in his zeal to defend the truth he could have been clearer in his presentation (hence the reason for a revised and updated "TGATJ").

Fred

Fred,

One sermon in particular, “The Nature of Saving Faith” I believe, John stated how he had been gripped by this theology while preaching through Matthew’s gospel. It was clearly brand new to him. Hey, John had a pulpit ministry prior to embracing the eternal Sonship of the Second Person of the Trinity. He embraced heresy while in the pulpit in other words, so why the surprise that he had an illumination over Christ’s Lordship in salvation? We’re all evolving. I can’t wait for him to be knocked off his horse and to confess clearly and unambiguously the doctrines of particular redemption and covenant baptism! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bananas.gif" alt="" />

Blessings,

Ron

I talked to several members of his church when they visited my church several months ago, and they said they thought MacArthur now is a 5-pointer. We'll have to see for sure, as I have no specifics about it.

About the Eternal Sonship issue, how important of a doctrine is it? Would you call a denial of it heresy, aberrant teaching, or what?

Concerning eternal sonship, I'd call it a heresy. If the the Son is not eternal, then God is not the ontological Trinity.

Ron

I found this on the web. It looks like he's closed the loop on TULIP.

Ron

(Fred) I think what John means to say is that it gripped him as being totally undeniable. It is again being inaccurate to say that it was an illumination to him for the very first time when he was preaching through Matthew. I can ask him for you to make sure, at least run it by Phil Johnson, but I think it is a tad misleading to say he had never believed this before. My undestanding, and this comes from people who have known John when he was still in high school, is that he always held to LS, but was under no compulsion to defend it until he was challenged. Calvin was the same way with predestination. He had always believed the biblical view of predestination that would eventually bare his name, but he only began to comment upon it in the later editions of his institutes after Pighius made it an issue.


(Fred) This is a different issue all together, but John never denied the ontological trinity. Even when the less sophisticated fundies in the IFCA mistakenly made this an issue so that John was brought up on "heresy" charges and had to face an IFCA inquisition, he had never denied the trinity. For John, the sonship debate centered around the incarnational language. Christ had always been the second member of the trinity, however, John argued that he took on the unique role of the son at his incarnation. Granted, he has changed his position on this, but it is once again misleading to say that John was denying the eternal son in the sense of denying the second member of the trinity.

Fred

Fred,

What did John repent of if it wasn't heresy? He tampered with the second person of the Trinity in a way that was outside orthodoxy did he not? If the Second Person of the Trinity was not the eternal Son but became the Son, then the doctrine of the ontological Trinity would be tampered with beyond the bounds of orthodoxy. The Son's relationship to the Father in the covenant of redemption would too be in shambles. A quick test for heresy is that if the doctrine were true, Christianity would be false. Well, if the Son were not eternal in his relationship to the Father, then Christianity is lost. John misunderstood the eternal unity of the Godhead yet wanted to maintain the particulars; but the Trinity is unity and diversity, which a denial of the eternal Sonship undermines. There's a lot more to Trinitarian theology than affirming three persons. The eternal Sonship is just one example of orthodoxy.

Ron

(Fred) John did not "repent" of any heresy. That is your word, not his. If you read carefully John's statement about his doctrinal change, it is his coming to a different conviction with regards to the incarnational language. MacArthur's view on the Sonship of Christ


(Fred) No, he did not tamper with any aspect of the second person of the trinity; your definition of orthodoxy not withstanding. He specifically believed the disagreement came to how one understands the incarnational language concerning Christ. Read John's statement on the matter. In fact, I will quote the relevant portion of the text:


Ultimately, your quivel with the incarnational sonship view centers around the fact you hold to Covenant Theology as a system. As you point out the eternal sonship undergirds CT's covenant of grace and redemption. That is all fine and dandy if you choose to adhere to that theological system, however, to charge someone with heresy because he understands the Bible slightly different than what your favored theology dictates is a rather fallacious charge. It is as phoney a charge as calling someone an antinomian who doesn't necessarily view the Ten Commandments as binding law upon Christians today and rejects the CTers take on Mosiac law altogether - but that is a discussion for another post. The same would apply to believers baptism, how we understand the New Covenant, and a host of other biblical ideas that are impacted by our theological presuppositions.

Fred

Fred,

I said: "What did John repent of if it wasn't heresy?" John changed his mind about something didn't he? Of course he denies that he repented of heresy. His claim is that he repented of a something permissible but not correct.


Fred, I don’t think you appreciate what a fallacy is, from what you’ve said. If your paradigm for fallacy is correct, then it would be fallacious of you to charge Mormons of adhering to heresy. After all, they “understand the Bible slightly different than what your favored theology dictates.”

You couldn’t be more wrong about the covenant of redemption, but let’s stick with something really basic, which you'll find below in bold print.


Whether we baptize infants or not does not undermine the Christian faith. Again, a heresy if true would make Christianity false. Christianity does not stand or fall on water baptism. However, if the intra-Trinitarian relationship, which presupposes Son and Father, is not eternal, Christianity is false. Do you deny this? Yes or No. Keep in mind, there is unity and diversity in the Godhead. The unity is predicated upon the Son as Son and his relationship to the Father, etc. Is the eternal relationship as Son to Father essential to the Godhead? Could God exist apart from this relationship?

Just slightly?


God bless,

william

Are you so often cryptic in order to avoid interaction with your beliefs? Please string some premises together and conclude something based upon those premises. If I had to guess what this vague remarks means, I'd conclude that you think that Mormons are way off, so they're heretics; whereas one may deny the eternal sonship of Christ and remain within the bounds of orthodoxy. But who knows what you mean.

Ron