COMMON ASSAULTS ON THE GOSPEL (Part 4)
“BELIEVE PLUS MAKE CHRIST LORD” Pt. 2
A
Subtle Form Of Legalism
The
Lordship Salvation position is a subtle form of legalism and a direct attack on
the free gift emphasis of the Gospel message so prominent in the New Testament.
Proponents end up diluting the concept of salvation as a free gift.
In
his book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, J. I. Packer writes,
"It is not enough to believe that only through Christ and his death are
sinners justified and accepted, ...In common honesty, we must not conceal the
fact that free forgiveness in one sense will cost everything." I have a great respect for this man, but
this is a flat contradiction. Just compare Paul's argument in Romans 4:4-5 and
11:6.
Writing
with regard to Packer's statement, Bob Wilkin writes:
Frankly I find this view of the gospel appalling. It is gibberish to speak of a free gift which costs us everything. It is absurd to suggest that we should show an unbeliever all of the things which believers are commanded to do and not to do in Scripture and then have them promise to do the former and not to do the latter from now on faithfully. Such a gospel is not a free gift. It is an earned wage. Romans 4:1ff. and approximately 150 other passages which condition eternal salvation upon faith alone in Christ alone contradict such a view ("The Grace Evangelical Society News," p. 3, June-July, 1988).
Ultimately,
the lordship position leaves people trusting in their own record or performance
and merit and not that of Christ. In
the final analysis, under such a view, people are saved by their works, but the
New Testament emphatically states that men are not saved by works (Eph. 2:8-9;
Tit. 3:5).
Roy
Zuck has a good illustration on this point:
If
I offer my wife a gift and then tell her it will cost her something to get it,
it is no longer a gift. Salvation is a gift from God. But if someone says a person
must commit, surrender, obey, forsake all, or deny self in order to receive
that gift and be saved, that implies that salvation is not a gift after all
(Kindred Spirit, Summer 1989, p. 6).
Passages
used to support lordship salvation can and should be explained in connection
with discipleship or rewards in the kingdom – in these passages, it's not entrance
that is in view, but inheritance or rewards (2 Peter
1:10-11).
In
other words, salvation is confused with sanctification or conversion with
consecration. As Zuck writes:
The
lordship view does not clarify the distinction between sanctification and
justification, or between discipleship and sonship. It mixes the condition with the consequences. It confuses becoming a Christian with being
a Christian (Kindred Spirit, p. 6).
These
passages deal with the consequences of sin on fellowship, physical
health, inheritance in the kingdom or rewards or their loss, but not on entrance
into the kingdom of God.
An illustration is Luke 14:16-33. First, when those invited to the banquet find excuses not to come (a reference to unbelieving Israel), the servants are told to go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come to the banquet. The banquet is a picture of the kingdom (vss. 16-24). In other words, there are no requirements. Entrance is free. However, in the next section, verses 25ff., the Lord shows that in order to be His disciple, one must be willing to count the cost. This is not a call for salvation, but a declaration of what is involved in being His disciple. Furthermore, the emphasis is not so much that Christ would not let such a person be His disciple, but that such a person who had not counted the cost would not be able to be His disciple: when it came time to make those tough decisions, they would not be willing and able to do so because they had not dealt with their values and eternal priorities.
No
Room For Carnality
The
lordship position rules out the concept of carnal Christians (1 Cor. 3:3).
The
lordship position leaves no room for spiritual regression in a believer's life
or it is minimized. The fact
is the Bible is full of examples where believers fell into sin and in some
cases stayed in that condition for some time.
David is a classic example. Lot,
who is called a righteous man (2 Pet. 2:7), was actually one whom I would not
want to use as an example to follow.
With
the lordship salvation view, there is ultimately no room for the carnal
Christian; only Christians who act in a carnal way. This is precisely the
statement of John MacArthur in his book, The Gospel According to Jesus
(p. 97, footnote 2). Concerning 1 Corinthians 3:3ff. and MacArthur's view,
Ryrie writes,
Notice
that Paul does not merely say that Christians "can and do behave in carnal
ways" (quoting MacArthur); he plainly states, "You are
carnal." How then can one charge
that "contemporary theologians have fabricated an entire category for this
type of person – 'the carnal Christian' (again quoting MacArthur). Obviously, such a designation for some
Christians is not a fabrication; it is a scriptural teaching
(Charles C. Ryrie, So Great Salvation, Victor Books, p. 61 ).
Clearly
then, the text of 1 Corinthians 3:3 and the condition of the Corinthians as
they are described in the book of 1 Corinthians shows the contrary. MacArthur
is begging the question.
The
lordship position misunderstands salvation passages which use "Lord"
as a call to surrender one's life to Christ's lordship (Rom. 10:9).
In
relation to Christ's lordship, there are two aspects. There is first of all the
objective. This recognizes the fact
that Christ is God, the sovereign Lord of the universe. Then, there is the subjective which involves
personal surrender of one's life or commitment.
Does
Romans 10:9 call for the objective fact or the subjective commitment or
both? Concerning this question, Everett
Harrison writes:
"Jesus is Lord" was the earliest declaration of faith fashioned by the church (Acts 2:36; 1 Cor. 12:3). This great truth was recognized first by God in raising his Son from the dead – an act then acknowledged by the church and one day to be acknowledged by all (Phil. 2:11)… Paul's statement in vv. 9, 10 is misunderstood when it is made to support the claim that one cannot be saved unless he makes Jesus the Lord of his life by a personal commitment. Such a commitment is most important; however, in this passage, Paul is speaking of the objective lordship of Christ, which is the very cornerstone of faith, something without which no one could be saved. Intimately connected as it was with the resurrection, which in turn validated the saving death, it proclaimed something that was true no matter whether or not a single soul believed it and built his life on it (Everett F. Harrison, "Romans," The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976, 10:112).
Roman's
10:9 is calling for the need to confess that Jesus is God. In this context Paul
quotes the Old Testament a number of times and is dealing with Jewish unbelief,
not lordship issues. "Lord"
(the Greek kurios) certainly is used as the equivalent of Yahweh in
the Old Testament. It is calling for the acknowledgment that Jesus is the
"I Am" of the Old Testament and therefore God.
That
Paul refers to confessing that Jesus is Lord is also supported
grammatically. The passage should not
be translated as does the NASB, "Jesus as Lord," or as the KJV
, "the Lord Jesus," but as the NN , "Jesus is Lord."
This involves a fine point of Greek grammar involving the use of what
grammarians call the "double accusative of object-complement" where
one accusative is the direct object of a verb of "calling, designating, or
confessing," and the second accusative is the complement that makes an
assertion about the direct object. Some
grammarians would call the second accusative a predicate accusative (cf.
Robertson, Short Grammar, p. 219).
Generally, the first accusative is the object and the second is the
complement, but, as here in Romans 10:9, this is not always the case. Since Jesus
is a proper name, even though it follows the noun Lord by way of
word order, Jesus functions as the direct object of the verb confess,
and the other accusative, Lord, is its complement (See Daniel Wallace, An
Exegetical Syntax of the Greek New Testament, Preliminary Draft, Zondervan,
p. 151.) So the confession that is
required is that "Jesus is Lord," i.e., Yahweh, the God
of the Old Testament.
Obviously, when a person confesses that Christ is God there is an underlying recognition or awareness that Christ has the right to rule one's life, but the passage is not calling for a subjective commitment to Christ's lordship in order to be saved. Instead, the passage is saying that for a person to be saved, he or she must acknowledge, believe, that Jesus was [is] also God, God come in the flesh, the God-man and so the only One able to save.
Not All Scripture Is Relevant
The lordship position
rules out a large portion of the epistles as being relevant like Romans 6 and
12. If being a true believer includes
commitment or total surrender, then why do we have these passages which were
written to believers? If they were
written, as it is claimed, simply to challenge us to more commitment, then how
much is enough to be saved? Again we must
ask the question, is it 10% or 50%, etc.?
Where and how do we draw the line?
The Bible says, "you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart?" This is to be the goal, but does anyone ever measure up? And if so, for how long?
These passages in Romans and many others show us that saved people, true Christians whom Paul thought of as saved, do not settle the matter of the personal, subjective lordship of Christ until after they are saved. Paul deals with the Gospel and the how of salvation in Romans 1-3, but he doesn't deal with lordship or commitment until chapters 6 and 12. If commitment or surrender to the lordship of Christ was a part of the Gospel, then the Apostle either didn't know it or was careless in his responsibility. We know neither of these could be the truth for He wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit.
Our
good works are not always measurable and observable by men, not even by
ourselves – especially when it comes to motives (1 Cor. 4:4-5). Further, unbelievers can and do point to
their good works, but they are unsaved.
It
is contrary to those passages that teach Christians can be disciplined unto
physical death while still viewed as saved (1 Cor. 5:1f; 11:28f; 1 John
5:16-17).
These are passages
written to Christians about Christians who were clearly not living for the Lord
and would be disciplined as God's children, in some cases, even unto physical
death, yet they are still viewed as saved.
Of course, these passages are usually applied to unbelievers by those in
the lordship camp. ˘
J.
Hampton Keathley III, Th.M. is a 1966 graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary
and a former pastor of 28 years. Hampton currently writes for the Biblical
Studies Foundation.
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