True Biblical Leadership for your Church. 

Have you and your Church considered true Biblical leadership? Looking around at what is happening to day in the Church in America poor leadership is one of the major problems facing the Church. Alexander Strauch has authored a number of Book on Biblical Eldership.  They are a great study on the return to Biblical Leadership.  
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Do You Struggle with Predestination

Where we struggle with predestination is at this point: that God leaves some to themselves, but in other cases he intervenes. He gives a blessing to his elect that he does not give to other people. This means that God does not treat everybody alike. Indeed, Scripture from beginning to end makes it abundantly clear that God doesn’t treat everybody the same. He appeared to Abraham, called him out of godless paganism and made him the father of a great nation, but he did not do that for Pharaoh. Jesus appeared to the enemy of the church, Paul, on the road to Damascus and overcame his unbelief right there, but he did not do that for Pontius Pilate or for Caiaphas. Would it not be a ghastly thing to suggest that the reason why Jesus revealed himself to Paul and not to Pilate, was because Paul in some manner deserved or earned or merited that special revelation? Think of it in this very personal way. If you are a believer, ask yourself candidly why it is that you believe yet somebody else does not. Do you harbour the idea within your heart that the reason why you received Christ while your neighbour rejected him is because you were somehow more righteously disposed towards obeying the summons of the gospel than your neighbour? Why doesn’t God give his grace to everyone? It is certainly a legitimate question, but we do not know the answer. We might suggest that God is honoured when his justice is manifested in leaving some to the punishment their sins deserve, and he is honoured when his grace is manifested in the salvation of his elect. Of course, God is also just when he gives grace, for election is inseparably bound up with Christ. It is for the sake of the Beloved, and not just because of God’s love for us, that there is redemption at all. God honours his Beloved Son by creating from fallen humanity new vessels of life, a new humanity, a new household of faith, that he calls his church, those who are called out from this world, according to the sovereign plan of Divine election. Sproul, R. C. (1994). The Purpose of God: Ephesians (25–26). Scotland: Christian Focus Publications.

Five Christian Responses to the 2012 Election

Five Christian Responses to the 2012 Election Article by Rick Phillips November 2012 As conservative Christians, the recent national elections in America should not bring alarm merely because of the anticipated results of economic policies or concerns for the safety of our nation in a dangerous world. Economic and foreign policy matters are those in which sincere Christians can and do disagree without violence to the Bible. It is clear from the election that our nation is greatly divided on how to proceed with the economy and foreign policy, so Christians should continue to pray for God's wisdom to guide elected leaders and to bless well-intended measures that may be adopted. There is a concern that was made glaring during the election, however, for which Christians should feel dismay and alarm. I refer to the blatant debasing of the nation's moral consciousness when it comes to personal dignity, sexuality, sobriety, marriage, and the family. It was grievous to witness a political party set forth a clear social agenda centered on the availability of abortion, the advancement of liberty for sexual sin, homosexual marriage, the legalization of narcotic drugs, and government intolerance for religious freedom. To then see this agenda lifted up in triumph over the American electorate is to witness the defeat of the conservative Christian political agenda and to tremble over the future of our morally libertine society. For many conservative Christians, the electoral defeat of 2012 will urge a reevaluation of political strategy. The problem with this approach is that the moral degeneracy of America did not happen in the voting booth but in the living room, the classroom, and the marketplace. I would urge that alarm over the moral catastrophe of this recent election should be expressed not in the Christian political posture but in the way actual Christians relate to the culture and to non-Christian people we know. In this vein, let me propose five constructive Christian responses to the moral debasement revealed in yesterday's election, which by working outside the formal political process may with God's blessing have the most positive effect on the cultural and political landscape in years to come. 1. Make an increased effort to get to know your non-Christian neighbor and co-worker. It is often noted how conservative Christians live increasingly in self-constructed fortresses which not only protect our children but isolate us from non-believers. This is not to say that Christians should immediately enroll our children in public schools. But it does say that we must become more involved in neighborhood and civic life. The neo-pagan left is bent on demonizing Christians and Christian values, as the media repeatedly showed prior to the recent election. So get to know people personally, let them see the way you interact with your spouse and children, show kindness, concern and love to them, and by your good works glorify God in their sight. 2. Refuse to compromise on Christians standards even at the cost of persecution. Christian employers must refuse to purchase abortion-providing health care plans, even at the cost of their livelihoods. Christian military officers must refuse to promote homosexual behavior to their soldiers, even at the risk of courts martial. Christian campus groups must refuse to adopt tyrannical non-discrimination codes when it comes to Christian values and doctrines, even at the risk of being kicked off campus. Christian pulpits must speak with a bold prophetic voice as to the moral consequences of a degenerate America, even at the risk of imprisonment for "hate speech." In short, if we want America to take Christian truth seriously, we must take a costly stand for Christian truth and morality in a way with which the world will have to reckon. 3. Speak more pointedly to the true moral and spiritual issues at work destroying America. Challenge people to care about the millions of children growing up without two parents because of the scourge of "sexual liberation." Say uncomfortable truths about babies who are bloodily butchered a day before their mother goes into labor. Argue against the indignity inflicted on young women as schools promote contraceptives and urge people to consider the dignity of self-control and the beauty of chastity. Point out the goodness of God as he forgives our sins in Christ and blesses those who walk in his ways. Be willing to receive scorn for these statements, but present reasonable arguments without anger or venom, trusting God to awaken the sleeping conscience in the hearts of people you know. 4. Begin making a serious commitment to pray for the Church and for America. The moral decline of America rightly directs us to biblical passages where Christ's people were beleaguered and besieged. But those passages show God answering his peoples' prayers with saving power. Yet so far the moral debacle in our country has not moved Christians to prayer. This shows that we are not truly turning to God but are still relying on man to save our land. When Christians begin flocking to the prayer meeting and begin pouring out earnest pleas for God's grace, we then may look for more success in both evangelism and the culture war. 5. Recommit yourself as a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It should not surprise us that a generation that does not know the Lord embraces a godless way of life. Our churches must respond to growing immorality not by preaching politics but by preaching Jesus. We must lift up the crucified Christ who gives forgiveness for sin, the resurrected Christ who gives power for godly living, and the returning Christ who will judge the nations by the standard of God's Word. As Christians look upon our fellow countrymen shouting for the right to abortion, scarred and shamed by sexual "freedom", cynically bitter towards the claims of virtue and truth, we must remember our own need for the saving grace of Jesus and what his new life has meant to us. Paul wrote: "And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11). Therefore, the best response to the alarming moral consensus expressed in our recent election is the one advocated by Paul in Romans 10:14-15: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

Chosen By God

Chosen by God: The Doctrine of Unconditional Election



By: Brian Schwertley



One of the fundamental doctrines that underlie the biblical teaching that men are saved by the grace of God alone is the doctrine of election. The doctrine of election refers to God’s choice of a certain number of people out of fallen humanity who in history would receive all the merits of Christ’s redemptive work and thus be truly, actually and eternally saved. God’s choice takes place before creation; has absolutely nothing to do with any foreseen merit in man including a foreseen faith or repentance; and, is based solely upon God’s own sovereign good pleasure.[1] An excellent definition of this doctrine is set forth in the Canons of Dordt:

Now election is the immutable purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he has, according to the most free goodpleasure of his own will, of mere grace, chosen out of the whole human race, fallen by its own fault from its primeval integrity into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons, neither better nor more deserving than others but with them involved in a common misery, unto salvation in Christ; whom even from eternity he had appointed Mediator and Head of all the elect and the foundation of salvation; and therefore he has decreed to give them unto him to be saved…”[2]

In order to emphasize the fact that God’s election or choice of certain sinners to be saved is not based upon anything that the sinner himself does, Reformed theologians refer to election to eternal life as unconditional election. Because the doctrine of election has been redefined and essentially turned upside down by professing Christians since the days of the Reformation, our study will interact with and refute the popular Arminian interpretation of this doctrine. First, however, we will briefly examine the clearest most succinct and detailed passage on election in the Bible, Ephesians 1:3ff.



The Apostle’s Definition of Election



The teaching that God from eternity, before the world was even created, chose a definite number of people to be saved comes from the pen of the Apostle Paul. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:3-5). This statement is amazing and merits our close analysis. We are told that God the Father has blessed us, that is, Christians or believers, with every spiritual blessing. These blessings are designated spiritual because they are derived from the Holy Spirit who applies Christ’s perfect work of redemption to our souls. When Paul says “every spiritual blessing...in Christ” he means that every aspect of redemption that Jesus accomplished for His people (justification, sanctification, adoption, glorification) is ours (i.e. true believers).

In verse four we come to the section of Paul’s statement that is controversial. Paul says that all the blessings of salvation that believers have, have their source in the electing love of God the Father. Divine election is the source or origin of every Christian’s salvation. The word chose (Greek, exelexato) means to elect. God elected us in Christ. This word is frequently avoided or redefined in evangelical churches because if God elected some (i.e. everyone in Christ) then by logical implication others are not elected. That is, they are left by God to perish in their sins. Because many professing Christians don’t think such a view is democratic or fair, they turn this passage upside down and teach that God only chooses men who first choose Him. This view will be considered in a moment.

Note that election is in Christ. The elect are chosen to be in Jesus. Everyone chosen by God will be united to the Savior (their federal head and representative) and thus will receive everything merited for them by the Mediator (regeneration, the gift of the Holy Spirit, justification, definitive sanctification, perseverance, glorification). Thus, we see that the ultimate ground of our federal union with Christ is not our faith in Jesus, but rather, our faith in the Savior is ultimately rooted in our federal union with Christ. Although we are not actually justified until we lay hold of Christ by faith in space and time, the gifts of regeneration (Jn. 3:8; Ac. 11:18) and faith (Eph. 2:8) would not be bestowed by Christ without first the divine election of particular sinners.

Paul then gives us the time when election took place. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (v. 4). Before time began, before the universe even existed, in eternity God chose those who He wanted to save in Christ. This statement tells some very important things regarding God’s plan of salvation. We see that everything relating to the salvation of sinners is worked out in exhaustive detail in God’s mind before the world even exists. There are no areas or pockets of chance in God’s universe. He works everything according to the counsel of His own will. Nothing that happens can or will take God by surprise. What this all means is that in the salvation of particular sinners, the elect ones, there cannot be failure. Their salvation is certain. Thus, salvation is from the Lord (Jonah 2:9). Christians are not saved by anything they have done. They are not ultimately saved because they made a choice; but, because God chose them. In other words, according to His great love and mercy He saved us. What a blessed gospel! God reaches out and saves those who cannot save themselves.

This teaching is supported by verse 5 which says that God “predestined us to adoption as sons [i.e. to be part of His own family] by Jesus Christ…according to the good pleasure of His will.” The word predestined (Greek, proorisas) means to predetermine or to determine beforehand. In context the word beforehand can only mean before the foundation of the world. The word predestined repeats the same idea as contained in verse four: “He chose us…before the foundation of the world.” God decided before creation began exactly who would be a part of His saved people. Therefore, the number of the elect was set in granite before any humans even existed. To argue otherwise is to say that either God is not sovereign or that Paul writing by divine inspiration made a mistake. Such ideas are obviously unchristian and demonic.

God’s choosing, election or predestination of those people who are to be saved is said to be “according to the good pleasure of His will” (v. 5). This means that God’s choice of the elect has absolutely nothing to do with anything outside Himself. It is not based on the foreseen faith of those who would choose Christ as Wesley proclaimed. Indeed, it cannot be based on what man does because: (a) man is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1), spiritually blind (1 Cor. 2:14), hostile to God (Rom. 8:6-8) and completely unable to choose spiritual good (Rom. 8:6-8; Jn. 15:5; Ps. 14:3). Therefore, God must take the initiative in saving a people for Himself and that is exactly what He does when He chooses a people in Christ. Because election has everything to do with what God does and is not at all based on man’s initiative, theologians refer to it as unconditional election. The ground of election is God’s sovereign will, not the will or choice of men who are spiritually dead and unable to believe in Christ.

The purpose or goal of divine election is “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love” (v. 4). Commentators are divided over whether or not the word holiness in verse 4 is subjective and designates sanctification or is objective and refers to justification (i.e. Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to believers). If one believes it refers to sanctification the word “blameless” would refer to a person’s sinless perfection at the final resurrection. Whatever interpretation one follows, one thing is crystal clear. Election does not open the possibility of salvation, but guarantees its actual accomplishment. Election does not make salvation possible nor does it take men part of the way to heaven; rather, it takes sinners all the way to paradise to behold the face of God. “It does not merely bring him to conversion; it brings him to perfection. It purposes to make him holy—that is cleansed from all sin and separated entirely to God and to his service—and faultless—that is, without any blemish whatever (Phil. 2:15), like a perfect sacrifice.”[3] Election is a God glorifying doctrine that ought to be precious to every Bible-believing Christian.



The Common “Evangelical” Redefinition of Election



The doctrine of election discussed above where God sovereignly chooses who will be saved, an election not conditional upon anything in man, is rejected and hated by many professing Christians in our day. Thus, they argue that election is not based upon God’s choice which is founded upon His own good pleasure (as we have just seen); but, upon God’s foreknowledge of man’s exercise of faith. In other words, before the world was created God looked down the corridors of history and took note of every single human being who believed in Jesus and then chose them. This popular, yet strange view, essentially teaches that God does not completely control His creation; that God’s “good pleasure” has no role whatsoever in choosing the elect; that God is not really sovereign over His rational creatures; that God does not really save sinners but that sinners save themselves (with some help from God) and then God simply acknowledges what man has done. The reason that “evangelicals” have turned the doctrine of election upside down to where God does not elect men but men elect God is their doctrine of “free will.” The idea that man is sovereign over his own salvation must be protected at almost any cost.

How do “evangelicals” justify their upside down version of election? They do so with a peculiar interpretation of Romans 8:29: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” The word “foreknew” in this passage is said to simply mean that God knew something in advance. He knew before the foundation of the world who would believe and repent and on the basis of their actions God chose them. There are a number of reasons why the common “evangelical” (i.e. Arminian) understanding of Romans 8:29 is unscriptural and impossible.

(1) The first reason is that the word “foreknow” (pregno, aorist active indicative of proginosko) does not simply mean to have an intellectual knowledge of something before it happens. Note the following considerations:

a) In Romans 8:29 foreknowledge is placed before predestination, while in Acts 2:23, God’s predetermined plan (“predetermined,” from horizo; “plan,” boulomai—will, design or purpose) is placed before foreknowledge. “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” This fact of course does not mean that Scripture contradicts Scripture but that God’s omniscience and omnipotence are not separated, disjointed attributes. In other words, God’s decree of what comes to pass and His foreknowledge of what will occur in the future are intimately connected. Because God is all powerful, determines and controls all things, His foreknowledge is a consequence (i.e. logically, for God’s foreknowledge and decree occur simultaneously) of His eternal, fixed, counsel. God knows what will occur because He planned and ordained it.

The Ariminian idea that God looked down through time to see who would choose Him and then elected such persons implicitly denies the omnipotence and providence of God. If a human (a finite mortal) could look down the corridors of time he would have the ability to choose people on the basis of their faith or something they did. But God who controls and sustains every aspect of creation (even subatomic particles, bacteria, viruses and insects) is not an impartial observer. He both knows and controls. If He sees a man believe, He gave that man the gift of faith and preordained his salvation. Calvin writes: “Peter doth teach that God did not only foresee that which befell Christ, but it was decreed by him. And hence must be gathered a general doctrine; because God doth no less show his providence in governing the whole world, than in appointing the death of Christ. Therefore, it belongeth to God not only to know before things to come, but of his own will to determine what he will have done.”[4]

b) Further, the word “foreknow” when used of God’s elect does not refer to a simple intellectual foresight or a knowing something cognitively before it happens, but rather refers to a selective knowledge which regards a person with favor and makes that person an object of love. In other words, in Romans 8:29 Paul uses “foreknow” in the Old Testament/Hebraistic sense of to love beforehand.[5] John Murray writes:

Although the term “foreknow” is used seldom in the New Testament, it is altogether indefensible to ignore the meaning so frequently given to the word “know” in the usage of Scripture; “foreknow” merely adds the thought of “beforehand” to the word “know.” Many times in Scripture “know” has a pregnant meaning which goes beyond that of mere cognition. It is used in a sense practically synonymous with “love,” to set regard upon, to know with particular interest, delight, affection, and action (cf. Gen. 18:19; Exod. 2:25; Psalm 1:6; 144:3; Jer. 1:5; Amos 3:2; Hosea 13:5; Matt. 7:23; 1 Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9; 2 Tim. 2:19; 1 john 3:1)….It means “whom he set regard upon” or “whom he knew from eternity with distinguishing affection and delight” and is virtually equivalent to “whom he foreloved.”[6]

God’s electing love originates from Himself and not out of foreseen faith or repentance. Therefore, when the Bible discusses individual election, it always grounds it in God and not sinful, depraved humanity. Election is “according to His good pleasure” (Eph. 1:9). It is “after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11).

This interpretation of “foreknow” in Romans 8:29 is supported by the simple fact that if we accept the Arminian interpretation that God predestinated men whose future history He foreknew, then the term would prove something totally unbiblical. Why? Because God foreknows the history of every man, woman and child who ever did or will ever live. Thus, the text would teach universalism. No Arminian believes that everyone including Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin will go to heaven. It is obvious that Pol Pot, Al Capone and Heinrich Himler have not been predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

The Arminian will object to the observation above by stating, “You are misrepresenting my position. I believe that only those people that God foreknew would choose Jesus are the ones He predestined to life.” To this objection we ask one simple question. Where in the text of Scripture does it say this? One can read the Bible very carefully, cover to cover, and this statement or any like it cannot be found. “Where are the words you have added, ‘Whom he did foreknow to repent, to believe, and to persevere in grace’? I do not find them either in the English version or in the Greek original.”[7] Sadly, Arminian theologians and interpreters are guilty of reading their own prejudices, presuppositions and humanistic traditions into the text of Scripture. While the Arminian interpretation is very popular and appeals to our fleshly egos and our human autonomy, we must reject it because it has no exegetical basis in Scripture. We must “bow to holy Scripture…not to glosses which theologians may choose to put upon it.”[8] Since the Arminian interpretation contradicts Scripture, is not found in the text at all and is absurd we will choose the biblical and logical alternative: that the word “know” in this passage refers to God’s saving love and favor.

c) The Arminian interpretation that the word “know” is purely intellectual is decisively refuted by the immediate context of Romans 8:29. The context of Romans 8:29 does not teach that God chooses on the basis of what man will do in the future. Paul does not say that man is ultimately sovereign in salvation. He says the exact opposite. In Romans 8:30ff the apostle teaches that God’s love is not a passive, helpless love, that sits by and waits to see what sinful, lost, hopeless men will do; but rather the passage sets forth a sovereign active love, a love that nothing can impede, stop or override. Paul writes:

Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:30-39).

The interpretation that foreknowledge is merely the recognition that certain people will exercise faith some time in the future—a faith that is solely dependent on man and that can fail at any time—simply contradicts Paul’s emphasis on God’s determinative action in salvation. Paul presents a chain of events, all of which are dependent solely upon God. Paul is teaching a monergistic doctrine of salvation. That salvation depends solely upon divine choice and action. Paul emphasizes that God is the one who predestinates, calls, justifies, and then glorifies. Furthermore, it is Christ who achieved an objective, perfect redemption; who intercedes at the right hand of God for His people (v. 34). The three actions (called, justified, and glorified) which inevitably flow from God’s eternal counsel cannot be separated. “The future glorification of the believer is designated by the aorist, as his justification, calling, predestination, and election have been; because all these divine acts are eternal, and therefore simultaneous for the divine mind. All are equally certain.”[9] Paul emphasizes that salvation is certain for the elect because “God is for us” (v. 31).

Salvation is guaranteed by God’s electing love and predestinating power. Such a doctrine is totally incompatible with the idea that everything boils down to the “free” choice of people who are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), who could lose their faith and salvation at any moment. Since it is God alone who saves, Paul can affirm that nothing created can separate the elect from God’s love (v. 39). Nothing created—not even man’s will—has veto power over the elect’s final salvation. “He has shown how the present pilgrimage of the people of God falls into its place in that determinate and undefeatable plan of God that is bounded by two foci, the sovereign love of God in his eternal counsel and glorification with Christ in the age to come.”[10] Girardeau writes: “Whatsoever, then, may be, according to the Arminian view, the love of God towards his saints, it is a love which does not secure their salvation: it is not a saving love. It is not equal to the love which a mother cherishes for her child. She would save him if she could. This reputed divine love may be called a special love, but it is not the love for his saints which the Scriptures assign to God. The idea of it was not born of inspiration: God never claimed such love as his own.”[11] “What God is assuring his children in Romans 8:29 is not that He has foreseen our favourable response to his call when the time comes and has therefore decided that we shall duly be conformed to the image of his Son. It is rather that he loved us in anticipation and determined, for reasons entirely hidden from us, that we should be conformed to the image of his Son by an act of his sovereign grace.”[12] Therefore, Christians can be “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

(2) The Arminian interpretation of Romans 8:29 contradicts the biblical teaching that salvation is by the pure grace of God. If (as modern evangelicals assert) God’s predestination of the elect is based on something that men do such as faith and repentance, then ultimately conversion is not entirely a work of God’s grace. Faith and repentance are no longer gifts of God’s grace[13] but are autonomous, self-generated acts of the human will. Men are no longer saved by or through faith (Rom. 3:22, 25, 28, 30; 5:1; Eph. 2:8) but rather because of faith. According to the Arminian interpretation “it is not God and God alone who works salvation…the actual enjoyment of salvation hangs at a decisive point upon something in man, or something done by man.”[14]

Martin Luther repudiates the idea that God cannot save man unless man allows Him to dispense His grace. In his exposition of 1 Peter 1:2 he writes:

V. 2a. According to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Peter says, they are elected. How? Not by themselves, but according to the order or purpose of God. For we will not be able to raise ourselves to heaven nor create faith in ourselves. God will not permit all persons to enter heaven; he will very definitely identify his own. Here the human doctrine of free will and or our own ability avails nothing any longer. It does not depend upon our will but upon the will and election of God.

This means that you are chosen, you have not obtained it through your own strength, work or merit, for the treasure is too great, and all the holiness and righteousness of mankind far too worthless to obtain it; moreover you were heathen, knew nothing of God, had no hope and served dumb idols. Therefore, without any assistance on your part, out of pure grace you have come to such inexpressible glory, namely, only in the way that God the Father appointed you to it from eternity. Thus he presents the foreknowledge of God in a very beautiful and comfortable light, as it he should have said: You are chosen and you will indeed remain so, for God who foreknew you is sufficiently strong and certain that his foreknowledge cannot fail him, nevertheless so far as you believe his promise and esteem him as the true God.

From this we can in brief draw the teaching that this foreknowledge does not rest upon our worthiness and merit, as the sophists hold, for then Satan could every moment make it doubtful and overthrow it; but it rests in the hand of God, and is founded upon his mercy, which is unchangeable and eternal; consequently it is called the foreknowledge of God, and therefore it is certain and cannot fail.[15]

Further, Romans 9:11-18 makes it abundantly clear that election has nothing to do with what we do and everything to do with God’s calling. As Paul concludes, “So then it is not of him who wills [i.e., election is not a result of men exercising their free will or choosing God], nor of him who runs [i.e. it has nothing to do with human exertion or works], but of God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:16). As Augustine so beautifully states in his Confessions: “By your gift I had come totally not to will what I had willed but to will what you willed” (9:1).[16] Interestingly, one of Paul’s proofs that the gospel is the power of God is that “the world through wisdom did not know God” (1 Cor. 1:21). “[T]he weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called….God has chosen, the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence….as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the LORD’” (1 Cor. 1:25, 28, 29, 31).

Reformer Martin Luther understood that attributing our salvation to a human choice (i.e. “free will’) ultimately destroys the grace of God. He writes:

Granted that your friends assign to “free will as little as possible”, nonetheless they teach us that by that little we can attain righteousness and grace; and they solve the problem as to why God justifies one and abandons another simply by presupposing “free-will”, and saying: “the one endeavoured and the other did not; and God regards the one for his endeavour and despises the other; and He would be unjust were He to do anything else!...They [the guardians of “free will”] do not believe that He intercedes before God and obtains grace for them by His blood, and “grace” (as is here said) “for grace”. And as they believe, so it is unto them. Christ is in truth an inexorable judge to them, and deservedly so; for they abandon Him in His office as a Mediator and kindest Saviour, and account His blood and grace as of less worth than the efforts and endeavors of “free-will”![17]

The apostle Paul says that the biblical doctrine of salvation completely excludes human boasting (Rom. 3:27). Yet, if Arminianism is true and some people have the wisdom and moral perception to choose Christ while others do not, then do they not have a reason to boast? If some men on the basis of their own intrinsic power and faith have caused God to choose them over others (who were unwilling), then do they not have a reason to brag? Of course they do! Therefore, Arminianism cannot be true for it repeatedly contradicts Paul’s teaching. But, if men are dead in trespasses and sins and totally unable by their own will or power to respond to Christ until He raises them from the dead through regeneration, then there is no reason to boast. The biblical gospel preserves the doctrines of grace of which divine election is so integral a part.

(3) The Arminian interpretation of Romans 8:29 explicitly contradicts the doctrine of original sin or man’s state after the fall (e.g. total depravity and spiritual inability). If God’s choice is contingent on fallen man’s prior choice, then no one would be elect for Paul says, “There is none who understands…who seeks God…who does good, no not one” (Rom. 3:11, 12). The Bible teaches that unsaved, unregenerate men hate both Christ and the truth (Jn. 3:19-21). Unregenerate fallen man: dwells in darkness (Jn. 1:4-5); is dead spiritually (Eph. 2:1-5); has a heart of stone which is unable to respond to divine truth (Ezek. 11:19); is helpless (Ezek. 16:4-6); is unable to repent (Jer. 13:23); is enslaved to Satan (Ac. 26:17-18); and is unable to see or comprehend divine truth (1 Cor. 2:14). Unconditional election is the logical corollary to total depravity. Thus Jesus Christ taught: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.... No one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father” (Jn.. 6:44, 65). An unregenerate man can no more choose Christ as Savior than can a rotting corpse raise itself.

Since the Bible teaches that the fall has rendered man incapable of believing in Christ and repenting, the idea that God looked through time and chose those who first chose him is absurd and impossible. That is why the Bible teaches that faith and repentance are gifts from God (cf. Jn. 3:3-8; 6:44-45, 65; Eph. 2:8; Phil. 1:29; 2 Pet. 1:2, 3). “For unless God by sovereign, operative grace had turned our enmity to love and our disbelief to faith we would never yield the response of faith and love.”[18] Furthermore, the biblical passages which teach unconditional election are clear and abundant.

(4) The Arminian doctrine of a conditional election is an implicit denial of the sovereignty of God. “Evangelicals” who emphatically reject the doctrine of unconditional election, foreknowledge (biblically defined) and predestination do so because they believe that God’s prior sovereign choice and predestination infringes on human freedom. Consequently the Arminian’s concept of free will or human freedom becomes the presuppositional axis of their whole theological system. It completely alters their concept of God and their doctrine of salvation.

For example, the Arminian is well aware that the Bible teaches that God is sovereign (read 1 Chron, 29:11-14; 2 Chron. 20:6; Job 12:10-23; 36:32; 42:2; Gen. 45:7; 50:20; Ex. 2:1-10; 4:11, 21; 7:3, 13; 8:15; 9:12, 35; Deut. 2:30; Prov. 21:1, 30; 19:21; 20:24; Isa. 40:15-23; 14:24, 27; 46:10, 11; 45:7; Am. 3:6; Dan. 4:31-32; Jn. 6:44, 45, 67; 17:2, 6, 9, 12; 12:37-40; 15:16; Ac. 2:23; 4:28; 13:48; 16:14; 18:27; Rom. 9; Eph. 1:1ff, Ja. 1:17-18; etc).[19] But in order to preserve his philosophical concept of human freedom he proposes the idea of a self-limiting God. In other words, God voluntarily limited His absolute sovereign power so that He would not intrude upon man’s free will. This humanistic presupposition is foundational to the idea that man allows God to elect him. (In other words, in the sphere of salvation man is sovereign over God). But this self-limiting concept raises a few pertinent questions. Is it possible for God to suppress, negate or alter one of His essential attributes? Can God somehow voluntarily cease to be absolutely sovereign over certain aspects of His creation? The biblical answer to this question is absolutely not. God, the Bible tells us, cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13). He can no more cease to be sovereign than could He lie, for to do so would be to deny Himself. The idea that God can create an area of pure contingency outside of His control is just as unbiblical and absurd as teaching that God could create some part of creation that could exist without God’s sustaining power. It is simply impossible. In his zeal to protect his humanistic concept of human freedom, the Arminian must posit a God who can cease to be God.

Further, if man is to be truly free from all outside influences and forces as Arminian theology requires, then man would have to be a self-created, truly autonomous, self-sustaining being. But, that is obviously not the case. Robert L. Reymond writes:

There simply is no such thing as a will which is detached from and totally independent of the person making the choice—suspended, so to speak, in midair and enjoying some “extra-personal vantage point” from which to determine itself. The will is the “mind choosing” (Edwards). Men choose the things they do because of the complex, finite persons that they are. They cannot will to walk on water or to flap their arms and fly. Their choices in such matters are restricted by their physical capabilities. Similarly, their moral choices are also determined by the total complexion of who they are. And the Bible informs us that men are not only finite but are now also sinners, who by nature cannot bring forth good fruit (Matt. 7:18), by nature cannot hear Christ’s word that they might have life (John 8:43), by nature cannot be subject to the law of God (Rom. 8:7), by nature cannot discern truths of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14), by nature cannot confess from the heart Jesus as Lord (1 Cor. 12:3), by nature cannot control the tongue (James 3:8), and by nature cannot come to Christ (John 6:44, 65). In order to do any of these things, they must receive powerful aid coming to them ab extra. So there simply is no such thing as a free will which can always choose the right.[20]



Additional Biblical Evidence for Unconditional Election



Although the evidence for unconditional election presented thus far is strong and irrefutable, there are other passages that clearly affirm this doctrine.[21]

(1) In Acts 13:48 Luke says that only those men who were appointed by God to eternal life believed. “Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” The Greek word tetagmenoi, which is translated as ordained (KJV, ASV, RSV), appointed (NKJV, NASB, Berkeley, Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible) and destined (JB) is the passive form of the verb tasso which (as might be expected) means to ordain, or to appoint. The fact that the verb is passive indicates that these people did not ordain themselves but were chosen by an outside agent—God the Father. “In the Greek, the form were ordained is a passive participle in the perfect tense. The perfect denotes action that took place in the past but is relevant for the present.”[22] God predestined the salvation of particular persons even among the Gentiles. Thus, Luke, writing under divine inspiration, explicitly endorses the doctrine of unconditional election. These people believed in Christ because God first appointed them to eternal life. Therefore, this passage explicitly contradicts the idea that election is God’s response to man’s faith. God’s choice of a person to be saved is the cause, not the effect, of that person’ faith in Christ. Therefore, God receives all the glory for our salvation and we have no reason to boast.

Why then, do some people believe and others disbelieve? According to Luke, the difference is not that some people are smarter, wiser or more holy than others, but that God has chosen or ordained some to life and passed by the rest. If you believe in Christ it is because God chose you and gave you the ability to believe by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. God drew you to Christ and turned your stony heart into a heart of flesh. He turned your enmity toward the Savior into love and delight. God makes the unwilling, willing. Calvin writes,

[T]his ordaining must be understood of the eternal counsel of God alone….And this place teacheth that faith dependeth upon God’s election. And assuredly, seeing that the whole race of mankind is blind and stubborn, those diseases stick fast in our nature until they are redressed by the grace of the Spirit, and that redressing floweth from the fountain of election alone. For in that of two which hear the same doctrine together, the one showeth himself apt to be taught, the other continueth in his obstinancy. It is not, therefore, because God doth lighten [illumine] the former, and doth not vouchsafe the other the like grace….though our heavenly Father invited all men into the faith by the external voice of man, yet doth he not call effectually by his Spirit any save those whom He hath determined to save.[23]

Those who reject predestination and unconditional election have attempted to circumvent the clear meaning of this passage in two different ways. First, there are people who simply ignore the meaning of the Greek and twist the passage so that it means what they would like it to mean. Thus, the Arminian translator of the Living Bible translates Acts 13:48b as follows: “…and as many as wanted eternal life believed.” Not only does this translation completely pervert the meaning of the original Greek but it also assumes something quite ridiculous. Apparently, those who did not believe did so because they did not want eternal life. In other words, they didn’t believe because they preferred the eternal tortures hell over paradise. They must have been sadomasochists! Another arbitrary translation comes from the pen of the old heretic Socinius who invented his own Greek grammar to have the passage say, “…as many as believed, were ordained to eternal life.” Socinius held to the view that if the Bible doesn’t say what one thinks it should, then one should switch the words around until it does.

Second, a more sophisticated method for avoiding the doctrine of foreordination is to argue that the verb is not passive but middle: “…as many as were disposed to eternal life believed.” (In the Greek language passive and middle verbs have the same ending.) Such a translation must be rejected for the following reasons: a) Such a translation ignores the analogy of Scripture and the entire New Testament which teaches that God ordains or predestinates and not man (cf. Rom. 8:28-29; 9:11; Eph. 1:4; 1 Tim. 1:9; 1 Cor. 1:26-29; 1Pet. 1:2, etc). b) It ignores the context of the book of Acts which teaches that no man is able to put himself in God’s debt by his own powers or works (Ac. 8:19ff; 13:39; 16:14). “[W]henever this verb occurs elsewhere, it invariably expresses the exertion of power or authority, divine or human, and being in the passive voice, cannot denote mere disposition, much less self-determination, any more than the form used in 2, 40 above…”[24] c) The concept of being disposed to eternal life as a cause of believing is odd and foreign to Scripture. If we define dispose as having a natural inclination towards something, then would not everyone believe? How many people are there who would say that they do not want to go to heaven but instead have a preference for the flames of hell? The issue in Scripture is never a preference for heaven or hell but rather one’s attitude toward Jesus Christ. On this issue the Bible is crystal clear. No one has a natural disposition towards the Savior unless they were appointed to life by God and their hearts are changed by a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, one should not be surprised to discover that all the ancient translations (including the Latin Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic as well as virtually all modern translations (Living Bible excepted) translate tetamenoi as the passive: “were ordained, or appointed.” Given the biblical evidence we must heed the wisdom of C. H. Spurgeon on this passage. He writes:

Attempts have been made to prove that these words do not teach predestination, but these attempts so clearly do violence to language that I shall not waste time in answering them. I read, ‘As many as were ordained to eternal life believed’ and I shall not twist the text but shall glorify the grace of God by ascribing to that grace the faith of every man. Is it not God who gives the disposition to believe? If men are disposed to have eternal life, does not He—in every case—dispose them? Is it wrong for God to give grace? If it be right for Him to give it—is it wrong for Him to purpose to give it? Would you have Him give it by accident? If it is right for Him to purpose to give grace to-day, it was right for Him to purpose it before today—and, since He changes not—from eternity.[25]

(2) In Romans chapter 9 Paul gives a very detailed explanation of divine election. He writes: “[F]or the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.... As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’ What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.’ So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy” (vs.11, 13-16). If one has ever wondered why some people become Christians and others continue in darkness, he need only read Romans 9:6-24. Paul argues that the reason some are saved and others are damned is that God so willed it. Paul says that God ultimately decides who receives mercy. Election reflects God’s will and purpose: “it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:16).

In order to emphasize God’s sovereignty over salvation (out of the whole Old Testament), Paul chooses the twin brothers Jacob and Esau as a case study in divine election. Paul sets out to prove that election to salvation flows solely from God’s will and purpose; that one’s blood line, parentage, upbringing, actions, or human choice have nothing to do with election. Note that Jacob and Esau were twins. They were conceived at the same moment and born only minutes apart. Unlike the case of Isaac and Ishmael who had different mothers, one being an Egyptian slave (Hagar), Jacob and Esau had the same mother, Rebekah. Both were covenant children born of the patriarch Isaac. Their conception was a miraculous answer to prayer (Gen. 25:21). From a human standpoint, if anyone had the advantage it was Esau who was the first born (Gen. 25:25) and favored by Isaac his father (Gen. 25:28). Furthermore, in order to make it absolutely clear that election has nothing to do with human merit or choice, Paul says that God chose one to salvation (Jacob) and one to reprobation (Esau) before they were even born; before either had done good or evil. Why is it that some people believe in Christ and others do not? Because God has mercy on some and others He hardens (Rom. 9:18). Ultimately God makes the difference. Paul reasons as “plainly as language can express the idea, the ground of the choice is not in those chosen, but in God who chooses.”[26]

There are a number of objections that have been raised against the doctrine of unconditional election as taught by Paul in Romans 9. First, it is said that when the passage says God hated Esau, it really means that God loved him less than He loved Jacob. Although the word hate can sometimes be used in Scripture to mean to love less (e.g., Lk. 14:26), the context of the passage quoted by Paul (Mal. 1:2-3) and Romans 9 itself indicate that in this instance hate does not mean to love less. “The context of Mal. 1:2-3 is one of judgment, punishment, indignation: ‘...Esau have I hated, and made his mountains a desolation.... They will build, but I will throw down.’”[27] If Paul meant to love less, then why compare Esau to Pharaoh, whom God destroyed? God killed Pharaoh’s firstborn son and then drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea. If a person slit the throat of your firstborn son and then drowned you in the backyard swimming pool, would you regard that person as loving you less? Also, why would Paul explain what he meant by saying that those hated beforehand are “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” (v. 22). They are lumps formed by God for dishonor (v. 21). It is obvious that hate in Rom. 9:13 does not mean and cannot mean to love less.

Another objection is that Paul is not really referring to individual election, but the election of nations. Were not Jacob and Esau both the father of nations? Indeed they were. But the context of the passage indicates that here Paul is not at all concerned with collective or national election, but is explaining why “they are not all Israel, who are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6). Paul is explaining the distinction between Israel and true Israel. He wants his reader to understand why so many within the elect nation do not believe. This brings Paul to a lengthy discussion of individual election so that all may understand: they are not all elect (individually), who are of elect Israel (nationally). Furthermore, according to the Arminian conception of justice and fairness “is it not equally unjust of God to choose one nation and leave another? The argument which they imagine overthrows us overthrows them also. There never was a more foolish subterfuge than that of trying to bring out national election. What is the election of a nation, but the election of so many units, of so many people?—and it is tantamount to the same thing as the particular election of individuals. In thinking, men cannot see clearly that if—which we do not for a moment believe—there be any injustice in God choosing one man and not another, how much more must there be injustice in choosing one nation and not another. No! The difficulty cannot be got rid of thus, but is greatly increased by this foolish wresting of God’s Word.”[28]

The most common objection is: “That’s not fair!” Paul himself anticipates such a response in verse 14: “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God?” Many people think that the doctrine of predestination, where God foreordains some to salvation and others to destruction before they are even born, is unjust. Although such a response may be natural for the unregenerate and those ignorant of theology, it should never be the response of a Christian. Paul, after posing the question, says, “Certainly not!” (v.14) Furthermore: “It is not for their being passed by that they are punished, but for their sins. Their being passed by is a sovereign act: their condemnation is a judicial act of God in His capacity as a Judge. ‘Salvation is all of grace; damnation all of sin. Salvation [is] of God from first to last—the Alpha and the Omega; but damnation [is] of men not of God: and if you perish at your own hands must your blood be required’ (C. H. Spurgeon).”[29]

Why does Paul have such an emphatic, negative reaction to the objection that divine election is unfair and unjust? Perhaps the apostle is outraged at the thought of finite sinful beings assuming they are competent to sit in judgment over the secret, eternal determinations of the triune God. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and our children forever” (Dt. 29:29). Perhaps Paul thinks that sinners who are selfish, narrow-minded, have an ax to grind against God, subjective and understand so little about God’s justice and plan ought to keep quiet. Such people “assume that we are competent to sit in judgment on God’s government of the universe; that we can ascertain the end He has in view, and estimate aright the wisdom and justice of the means adopted for its accomplishment. This is clearly a preposterous assumption, not only because of our utter incapacity to comprehend the ways of God, but also because we must of necessity judge before the consummation of his plan, and must also from appearances.”[30]

Further, a fatal problem with the objection that predestination or unconditional election makes God unjust is the simple fact that all human beings because of the sin of Adam and their own sins deserve eternal damnation. “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10-13). God could justly send every human being to hell. He is not obligated to save anyone. If God had not (because of His love) elected some to life and sent His only begotten Son to die, no one would go to heaven. “Shall we not fix it once for all in our minds that salvation is the right of no man; that a ‘chance’ to save himself is no ‘chance’ of salvation for any; and that, if any of the sinful race of man is saved, it must be by a miracle of almighty grace, on which he has no claim, and, contemplating which as a fact, he can only be filled with wondering adoration of the marvels of the inexplicable love of God? To demand that all criminals shall be given a ‘chance’ of escaping their penalties, and that all shall be given an ‘equal chance,’ is simply to mock at the very idea of justice, and no less, at the very idea of love.”[31] This explains why election is always presented in Scripture as according to God’s will and purpose and not man’s merit. Paul goes on to quote Exodus 33:19 in response. The key to understanding election for Paul is God’s mercy. “For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (Rom. 9:15). What is mercy? Mercy is the unmerited or undeserved favor of God. “Compassion has to do with recognizing the poor or helpless state of a person and stooping to help that person. Mercy does the same, but its unique quality is that it is shown to people not only who do not deserve it, but who in fact deserve the opposite. In this case, mercy describes the giving of salvation to people who actually deserve to perish.”[32]

The Arminian thinks he is avoiding the common objection of unfairness by making the ultimate cause of election man’s choice of Christ. However, this supposed solution to the question of fairness does not really address the “problem.” The Bible clearly teaches that no one can be saved apart from Christ (Acts 4:12; Jn. 14:6; 15:5; 1 Jn. 5:12; Rom. 10:13). Yet throughout the history of mankind, very few people have had the opportunity to hear the gospel. If God was trying to meet this human, unscriptural standard of justice that under girds Arminianism, would He not give every person in history an opportunity to hear the gospel? Yet, the biblical account shows that God in the Old Covenant era focused His attention on a tiny nation in Palestine while the rest of the world was left in complete ignorance and darkness. And even in the New Covenant era, when God is gathering His elect from every nation, the vast majority of people have not heard the gospel. Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel in Asia, but rather was directed in a vision to go to Europe (Macedonia; cf. Ac. 16:6). God excluded some and focused on others. “It was the sovereign choice of God which brought the Gospel to the people of Europe and later to America, while the people of the east, and north, and south were left in darkness.”[33]

Also consider that God is in total control of when and where each person is born, yet some individuals are born into households where they are taught false religions and philosophies while others are born into Christian households where they hear the gospel throughout childhood. One child is born in poverty to wicked parents who worship idols, and another is born into a middle-class Christian family where Christ is taught, honored, and worshipped daily. The Bible teaches that God has the power to open and close the womb (cf. Gen. 30:2-3). God could (if He wanted to meet the Arminian standard of fairness) only allow children to be born into godly Christian households. Furthermore, some are born more intelligent, trusting, kind, etc., than others. If God’s elective choice is dependent upon the foreseen faith of man, as the Arminian asserts, then election is unjust, because all men are not born into equal circumstances and all are not born with equal intellectual capabilities.

The doctrine of unconditional election is the only view of election which is just. The whole human race is dead in trespasses and sins, and under the just sentence of eternal damnation. But God, who is merciful, chooses “according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:5) to save some. None are deserving. None are spiritually able. None have a spiritual advantage. They all are at the same point. Then apart from anything in them God saves some and passes by others. This is exactly what Paul is saying when sinful, guilty humanity is compared to the “same lump.” “Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” (Rom. 9:21) “This scripture evidences that there is ‘no difference,’ in themselves, between the elect and the non-elect: they are all clay of ‘the same lump,’ which agrees with Eph. 2:3, where we are told, that all are by nature children of wrath.”[34] “The main idea Paul is putting across is this: if even a potter has the right out of the same lump or mass of clay to make one vessel for honor, and another for dishonor, then certainly God, our Maker, has the right, out of the same mass of human beings who by their own guilt have plunged themselves into the pit of misery, to elect some to everlasting life, and to allow others to remain in the abyss of wretchedness.”[35]

Another fatal problem for the Arminian view of election as taught in Romans 9 is that if Paul is teaching that election is based not on God’s will, but human choice, the hypothetical objections that Paul raises to the doctrine don’t make any sense. If Esau was not elected because he did not exercise faith, why would anyone accuse God of injustice? The Arminian teaches that ultimately God had nothing to do with it. The objection raised in verse 19 (“You say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?’”) is obviously made against predestination. If (as Arminians erroneously assert) God cannot violate man’s free will, and salvation is merely a possibility which man sovereignly appropriates, why an objection against God’s absolute control of salvation and reprobation? Furthermore, the illustration developed above regarding the potter fashioning the clay solely as he pleases is also totally out of place. Unconditional election is a hated doctrine by most professing Christians today. Yet, the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, championed the doctrine and taught it with such clarity that one can only wonder how those who profess belief in the Bible can deny it.

It is truly sad that so many who profess the name of Christ hate the doctrine of unconditional election, for it is the heart of biblical religion and God-glorifying doctrine. What is more fundamental to biblical truth than the fact that salvation is a gift from God? “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10). Those who hate the doctrine in reality hate God’s sovereign grace. They would ignore the doctrine if they could, but since it is taught so clearly and often in the New Testament, they have no choice but to attempt to explain it away. Their main attempt—the idea that election is based on a foreseen faith—turns election into its very opposite: God does not elect man, but rather man elects God. Furthermore, predestination in such a scheme is really a postdestination. The Arminian viewpoint is unbiblical and illogical for it makes the eternal counsel and choice of God contingent upon the choice of men who are spiritually dead and unable to choose Christ (apart from regeneration) and who do not even exist yet! The Arminian scheme has temporal events controlling and conditioning the eternal, unchanging will of God. In other words, the clay has control over the potter. The Arminian, by taking election out of God’s hands and placing it in the hands of depraved man, has destroyed salvation by grace alone and replaced it with a humanistic synergism. Christ testified against such Scripture twisting when He said to His disciples: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (Jn. 15:16). Arminianism is unscriptural, irrational, and takes the glory due to God alone and bestows it upon sinful man.

(3) In John chapter 17 which contains Christ’s solemn prayer to the Father after His farewell address, we find some very profound statements on the topic of election. After Jesus prays for Himself, He prays for those chosen by the Father. “You [the Father] have given eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (v. 2). “I pray for them, I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours” (v. 9). There are some important theological statements in our Lord’s words.

a) Note that Jesus receives authority over the whole human race as a result of His redemptive obedience. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Mt. 28:18). He is the “head of every man” (1 Cor. 11:3); the “head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10). “Christ…is gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him” (1 Pet. 3:22). The reason the Mediator receives this authority is so that He can give eternal life to those given to Him by the Father. The ascended Savior sits at the right hand of God and gives the Holy Spirit to everyone who is to be saved. “‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Christ is sovereign over salvation and gives it only to the elect.

b) Jesus only gives eternal life to those persons given to Him by the Father. Why are the people who are to be saved described as a possession of the Father’s that is given to the Son? Because in the economy of salvation it is the Father who chooses the elect. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:3-4).The Father takes what is His (the elect) and gives it as a love gift to the Son. “Beside the power given unto Christ over all creatures, there are a certain number of men given by the Father unto Christ in the covenant of redemption, that he may redeem, take charge of, and be forthcoming for them….”[36]

All men without exception are commanded to repent and believe in Jesus. But, only those men chosen by God from all eternity who belong to the Father and are given to the Son will repent, believe and obtain eternal life. “This giving of men to the Son to be redeemed and saved is the same thing with election and predestination….All the elect are given from eternity to the Son, to be redeemed by His blood; and all the redeemed are in due time drawn by the Father to the Son [Jn. 6:44], to be kept to eternal life.”[37] Now we can understand the certainty of Christ’s glorious promise in John 10:27-29, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.”

c) Note that Jesus does not pray for all men without exception, but only for the elect—those who are chosen and thus belong to the Father. The Savior prays and intercedes only for the elect and not for others because the elect are the possession of the Father. They have been given to the Son and are Christ’s also. Further, Jesus is glorified in them (v. 10). If (as Arminians assert) God is trying to save all men without exception, then why doesn’t the Savior pray for all men? The answer is simple. Christ only came to save His people, the elect, His sheep. Hendricksen writes:

It is with reference to (peri) the elect that Jesus is making request, in order that the full merits of his redemption may be applied to them, namely to the given ones (see on 6:37, 39, 44; 17:6). It is for these given ones that he lays down his life (see on 10:11, 14); hence, it is also for them—for them alone—that he makes (is constantly making) this request. See also Rom. 8:34 (“he makes intercession for us”); Heb. 7:25 (“he ever lives to make intercession for those who draw near to God through him”) 9:24 (“Christ entered into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us”); and 1 John 2:1 (“We have a Helper with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous”).

All this is particular, not universal. Nevertheless, the prayer of the Highpriest looks beyond the men who were in the Upper Room that night, as is clear from verses 20 and 21. It is wrong, moreover, to say (as is sometimes done) that Jesus prayed only for believers. Rather, he prayed for all his people, also for those who as yet did not believe in him, but were going to accept him by true faith later on (again, see verses 20, 21), as the result of sovereign grace.[38]

The topic of election is one that is hated and avoided by most professing Christians today. Yet our Lord’s most detailed and longest prayer for His saints is incomprehensible without it. The typical “evangelical” objections to this doctrine are irrational, weak and based on human concepts of fairness, not biblical exegesis.

(4) In 2 Thessalonians, Paul gives thanks to God for his brothers who have been loved by the Lord “because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2:13). When Paul wants to comfort and reassure the Thessalonians regarding their own participation in the coming deliverance on the day of the Lord he points them to divine election. They have been elected or chosen (heilato) by God from the beginning. “‘From the beginning’…dates this act of God’s, but not at the beginning when time began; apo, ‘from the beginning,’ dates from that extreme point of time (the Greek always thinks forward from the farthest point) because beyond that no point of time exists. The sense is thus the same as ‘before the foundation of the world’ (Eph. 1:4), in eternity.”[39] God chose His own unto salvation which is achieved in time through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. Only those who are elected by God have the Holy Spirit given to them by Christ. The Spirit of God sets them apart, regenerates their dead hearts and enables them to savingly embrace Jesus Christ. “Here, therefore, is the true port of safety, that God, who elected us from the beginning, will deliver us from all the evils that threaten us. For we are elected to salvation; we shall, therefore be safe from destruction. But as it is not for us to penetrate into God’s secret counsel, to seek there assurance of our salvation, he specifies signs or tokens of election, which should suffice us for the assurance of it.”[40] If (as the Arminians teach men elect themselves by an act of the unencumbered will (i.e., the divine decree is not based on God’s good pleasure but sinful fallen man’s choice of Jesus in history), then Paul’s appeal to divine election as a reassuring doctrine falls to the ground. Such appeals would really amount to no more than pep talks on man’s own power. “Don’t worry about your severe persecution. Your free will, which allowed God to save you, will pull you through this trial also.” We must reject such humanistic nonsense and thank God for His election of us; for His sovereign decision to save us even though we deserved to go to hell for our sins and were completely unable to make any move toward God. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father” (Jn. 6:65).

Conclusion

The doctrine of unconditional election is foundational to biblical Christianity for it places the salvation of men squarely in the hands of God. “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jon. 2:9). Men are saved solely by God’s grace. Calvin writes: “We shall never be clearly persuaded, as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the wellspring of God’s free mercy until we come to know his eternal election, which illumines God’s grace by this contrast; that he does not indiscriminately adopt all into the hope of salvation but gives to some what he denies to others. How much the ignorance of this principle detracts from God’s glory, how much it takes away from true humility, is well known…. If—to make it clear that our salvation comes about solely from God’s mere generosity—we must be called back to the course of election.…[41]



Copyright © Brian Schwertley, Haslett, Michigan, 2005

























[1] This study of election is limited to the doctrine of individual election. The Word of God also speaks of a corporate national election as was the case of Old Testament Israel (e.g. see Deut. 10:14-15). The reason that corporate election will not be considered is that national election involves the whole visible church which is composed of both wheat and tares, true believers and hypocrites, faithful saints and wicked apostates (e.g. read Mt. 3:12; 13:24, 25, 47; 7:21-23; 1 Jn. 2:19-20; 2:27; 5:4; etc). Individual election deals solely with those elected to salvation (true Israel, the invisible church, the remnant, real believers). Within the elect nation of Israel, Paul says, there is “a remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom. 11:5). In other words, in the visible church—the elect nation—there were many who were not elect individually. The reason that we must note this biblical distinction between national and individual election is that some Arminian apologists attempt to blur this distinction in order to justify universal atonement and the idea that real believers can fall away and go to hell.

[2] First Head of Doctrine, Article 7. William Hendriksen, translator, as quoted in Hendriksen, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1953) 2:353. The Westminster Confession of Faith (the pinnacle of Reformed confessional thought) treats the doctrine of election under the topic of God’s eternal decree. Some helpful sections of this chapter reads as follows: “V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his free grace and love alone, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace. VI. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. VII. The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.”



[3] John L. Girardeau, Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle [1890] 1984), 78.

[4] John Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 1:97.

[5] The Bible abounds with examples of the word “know” being used to describe an intimate relationship, personal relation or love. “Now Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore Cain” (Gen. 4:1; cf. 4:17, 25; 38:26; Jdg. 11:39; 1 Sam. 1:19; etc). “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you” (Jer. 1:5). “Those who handle the law did not know Me; the rulers also transgressed against Me” (Jer. 2:8). “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). “And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Mt. 7:23). “I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep” (Jn. 10:14-15). “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal; The Lord knows those who are His” (2 Tim. 2:19). Lenski writes: “It is plain that in his omniscience God knew, knows, and foreknew all men. When Jesus says regarding the wicked on judgment day that he never knew them, and when in contrast it is so repeatedly said regarding the Lord and regarding Jesus that they know the godly, we at once see that in all these statements ‘to know,’…is used in a pregnant sense, which usage our dogmaticians well define as noscere (nosse) cum affectu et effectu, ‘to know with affection and with a resultant effect.’ The dictionaries would do well to adopt this definition, because nothing that is more exact and to the point has been produced. Now [epoginoskein] dates this affectionate and effective knowing back into eternity. This is the whole story” (The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans [Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg (1936, 45) 1961], 557).

[6] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 317.

[7] Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Expository Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 7:22.

[8] Ibid. Girardeau writes: “The testimony in Eph. i. 4 is indisputable. Arminians are compelled to evade it. For example, Wesley says upon the text: ‘“As he hath chosen us’”—both Jews and Gentiles, whom he foreknew as believing in Christ.’ That is, he chose us because he foreknew that we would be holy. But Paul says just the opposite: he chose us that we should be holy. So clear is the affirmation that holiness is the effect of election, that even Meyer and Ellicott both acknowledge that the Greek infinitive rendered ‘that we should be’ is one of intention—in order that we should be holy” (Calvinism and Evangelical Arimianism, 69).

[9] William G. T. Shedd, Romans, 266.

[10] John Murray, Romans, 321.

[11] John L. Girardeau, 69.

[12] Arthur C. Custance, The Sovereignty of Grace (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1981), 139-140.

[13] The Bible explicitly teaches that faith and repentance are not self-generated, but are gifts from God. Note the following passages. Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Paul teaches that not only are we saved by faith in opposition to works, but even our faith does not originate in ourselves. It is also a gift of God. Philippians 1:29 says, “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. 2 Peter 1:2-3 reads: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness.” Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me” (Jn. 6:44-45). Acts 11:18 reads, “When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.’” Acts 16:14 says, “Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.”

[14] Benjamin B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 70.

[15] Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1982), 10-11.

[16]Augustine as quoted in Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 468.

[17] Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, Translated by J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnson (Cambridge: Jones Clark, 1957), 292, 305.

[18] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 100.

[19] The Bible unequivocally teaches that God according to His own good pleasure determines the destiny of every single human being. Psalm 75:7 says that God “puts down one, and exalts another.” 1 Samuel 2:7 says, “The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up.” Deuteronomy 8:18 reads, “Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth.” Daniel 4:17 declares, “The Most High rules in the kingdom of men, [and] gives it to whomever He will.” Daniel 2:21, “He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.” When Pilate attempted to intimidate Christ by speaking of his great authority Jesus said in John 19:11, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.” The God of the Bible has providential control over all the affairs of men. If we deny this fact in order to assert human freedom, then we do not believe in the true living God with whom we have to deal. Although God is totally sovereign, man is a valid secondary agent who is responsible for all his actions. (This point is discussed below).

[20] Robert Reymond, 353-354.

[21] There are so many passages that teach or at least imply the doctrine of unconditional election that we do not have the time or space to treat each passage. For further study examine the following passages. 1 Kings 19:18, “I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal.” Rom. 11:5-6, “Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works.” Rom. 8:30, “Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justifiedand whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Gal. 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me….” Eph. 1:11, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” 1 Thess. 1:4, “knowing beloved brethren your election by God.” 2 Tim. 1:8-9, “…God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.” 1 Peter 1:2, “…elect according to the foreknowledge of God in the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Revelation 7:4, “And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed. James 1:18, “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” The Bible also teaches a foreordination to condemnation. Rom. 9:13, 22, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated….God…endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” 1 Peter 2:8, “They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they were appointed.” Jude 4, “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation….”

[22] Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 496.

[23] John Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 1:555-6.

[24] J. A. Alexander, Acts of the Apostles (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, [1857] 1991), 43.

[25] C. H. Spurgeon, quoted in George Sayles Bishop, The Doctrines of Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1954), 171.

[26] Charles Hodge, Romans (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, [1835] 1989), 309.

[27] William Hendriksen, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 323. “What we find in Malachi 1:1-5 is illustrated by instances in the Old Testament where God’s hatred is mentioned and where either persons or things are the objects (cf. Psalms 5:5; 11:5; Prov. 6:16; 8:13; Is. 1:14; 61:8; Jer. 44:4; Hos. 9:15; Amos 5:21; Zech. 8:17; Mal. 2:16). The divine reaction could scarcely be reduced to that of not loving or loving less. Thus the evidence would require, to say the least, the thought of disfavor, disapprobation, displeasure” (Murray, Romans, 2:22).

[28] C. H. Spurgeon, sermon on Jacob and Esau, in William MacLean, Arminianism: Another Gospel (Gisborne, New Zealand: Westminster Standard, 1965), 16-17.

[29] MacLean, Arminianism: Another Gospel, 15.

[30] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 2:350.

[31] B. B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 80-81.

[32] James Montgomery Boice, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 3:1070.

[33]Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, 89. “If the Arminian theory were true, namely, that Christ died for all men and that the benefits of His death are actually applied to all men, we would expect to find that God had made some provision for the Gospel to be communicated to all men. The problem of the heathens, who live and die without the Gospel, has always been a thorny one for the Arminians who insist that all men have sufficient grace if they will but make use of it” (Boettner, 118).

[34] Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976 [1930]), 51.

[35] Hendriksen, Romans, 327.

[36] George Hutcheson, The Gospel of John (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, [1657] 1972), 353.

[37] Robert Trail as quoted in J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John (Cambridge, England: James Clark, 1976), 3:197.

[38] William Hendricksen, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1954), 2:354-355.

[39] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistle’s to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus and to Philemon (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, [1937] 1964), 439.

[40] John Calvin, Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980 ), 439.

[41]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III:XXI:1 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 2:921.

John 1:11-13 What did Jesus Say

11 He came to his own,2 and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, the gave the right uto become children of God, 13 who wwere born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. Wheaton : Standard Bible Society, 2001, S. Jn 1:11-13


1:12–13 Receive him implies not merely intellectual agreement with some facts about Jesus but also welcoming and submitting to him in a personal relationship. “Believed in” (Gk. pisteuō eis) implies personal trust. His name refers to all that is true about him, and therefore the totality of his person. Born, not of blood …, but of God makes clear that neither physical birth nor ethnic descent nor human effort can make people children of God, but only God’s supernatural work (8:41–47; cf. 3:16). This extends the possibility of becoming God’s children to Gentiles and not just Jews (11:51–52; cf. 10:16). See also 3:3–8. To all … who believed … he gave the right indicates that saving faith precedes becoming members of God’s family through adoption as his children.
Crossway Bibles: The ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, IL : Crossway Bibles, 2008, S. 2019

John MacArthur States on page 116 of his book "The Gospel according to Jesus"

" Receiving Christ in the biblical sense is more than simply "accepting" Him or responding positively to Him John 1:11-12 contrasts those who "received" Him with those who rejected Him as Messiah. Those who received Christ were people who embraced Him and all of His claims without reservation-- They "believed on His name" (v 12KJV;cf.Col 2:6)

An Introduction to Lordship Salvation

An Introduction to Lordship Salvation




What follows is from the Grace Community Church Distinctive on LordshipSalvation . It was adapted from John MacArthur's material on the topic of lordship salvation, and serves as an excellent introduction to the subject.
The gospel that Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship, a call to follow Him in submissive obedience, not just a plea to make a decision or pray a prayer. Jesus' message liberated people from the bondage of their sin while it confronted and condemned hypocrisy. It was an offer of eternal life and forgiveness for repentant sinners, but at the same time it was a rebuke to outwardly religious people whose lives were devoid of true righteousness. It put sinners on notice that they must turn from sin and embrace God's righteousness. Our Lord's words about eternal life were invariably accompanied by warnings to those who might be tempted to take salvation lightly. He taught that the cost of following Him is high, that the way is narrow and few find it. He said many who call him Lord will be forbidden from entering the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt. 7:13-23).
Present-day evangelicalism, by and large, ignores these warnings. The prevailing view of what constitutes saving faith continues to grow broader and more shallow, while the portrayal of Christ in preaching and witnessing becomes fuzzy. Anyone who claims to be a Christian can find evangelicals willing to accept a profession of faith, whether or not the person's behavior shows any evidence of commitment to Christ. In this way, faith has become merely an intellectual exercise. Instead of calling men and women to surrender to Christ, modern evangelism asks them only to accept some basic facts about Him.
This shallow understanding of salvation and the gospel, known as "easy-believism," stands in stark contrast to what the Bible teaches. To put it simply, the gospel call to faith presupposes that sinners must repent of their sin and yield to Christ's authority. This, in a nutshell, is what is commonly referred to as lordship salvation.
The Distinctives of Lordship Salvation
There are many articles of faith that are fundamental to all evangelical teaching. For example, there is agreement among all believers on the following truths: (1) Christ's death purchased eternal salvation; (2) the saved are justified by grace through faith in Christ alone; (3) sinners cannot earn divine favor; (4) God requires no preparatory works or pre-salvation reformation; (5) eternal life is a gift of God; (6) believers are saved before their faith ever produces any righteous works; and (7) Christians can and do sin, sometimes horribly.
What, then, are the distinctives of lordship salvation? What does Scripture teach that is embraced by those who affirm lordship salvation but rejected by proponents of "easy-believism"? The following are nine distinctives of a biblical understanding of salvation and the gospel.
First, Scripture teaches that the gospel calls sinners to faith joined in oneness with repentance (Acts 2:38; 17:30; 20:21; 2 Pet. 3:9). Repentance is a turning from sin (Acts 3:19; Luke 24:47) that consists not of a human work but of a divinely bestowed grace (Acts 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25). It is a change of heart, but genuine repentance will effect a change of behavior as well (Luke 3:8; Acts 26:18-20). In contrast, easy-believism teaches that repentance is simply a synonym for faith and that no turning from sin is required for salvation.
Second, Scripture teaches that salvation is all God's work. Those who believe are saved utterly apart from any effort on their own (Titus 3:5). Even faith is a gift of God, not a work of man (Eph. 2:1-5,8). Real faith therefore cannot be defective or short-lived but endures forever (Phil. 1:6; cf. Heb. 11). In contrast, easy-believism teaches that faith might not last and that a true Christian can completely cease believing.
Third, Scripture teaches that the object of faith is Christ Himself, not a creed or a promise (John 3:16). Faith therefore involves personal commitment to Christ (2 Cor. 5:15). In other words, all true believers follow Jesus (John 10:27-28). In contrast, easy-believism teaches that saving faith is simply being convinced or giving credence to the truth of the gospel and does not include a personal commitment to the person of Christ.
Fourth, Scripture teaches that real faith inevitably produces a changed life (2 Cor. 5:17). Salvation includes a transformation of the inner person (Gal. 2:20). The nature of the Christian is new and different (Rom. 6:6). The unbroken pattern of sin and enmity with God will not continue when a person is born again (1 John 3:9-10). Those with genuine faith follow Christ (John 10:27), love their brothers (1 John 3:14), obey God's commandments (1 John 2:3; John 15:14), do the will of God (Matt. 12:50), abide in God's Word (John 8:31), keep God's Word (John 17:6), do good works (Eph. 2:10), and continue in the faith (Col. 1:21-23; Heb. 3:14). In contrast, easy-believism teaches that although some spiritual fruit is inevitable, that fruit might not be visible to others and Christians can even lapse into a state of permanent spiritual barrenness.
Fifth, Scripture teaches that God's gift of eternal life includes all that pertains to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8:32), not just a ticket to heaven. In contrast, according to easy-believism, only the judicial aspects of salvation (e.g., justification, adoption, and positional sanctification) are guaranteed for believers in this life; practical sanctification and growth in grace require a post-conversion act of dedication.
Sixth, Scripture teaches that Jesus is Lord of all, and the faith He demands involves unconditional surrender (Rom. 6:17-18; 10:9-10). In other words, Christ does not bestow eternal life on those whose hearts remain set against Him (James 4:6). Surrender to Jesus' lordship is not an addendum to the biblical terms of salvation; the summons to submission is at the heart of the gospel invitation throughout Scripture. In contrast, easy-believism teaches that submission to Christ's supreme authority is not germane to the saving transaction.
Seventh, Scripture teaches that those who truly believe will love Christ (1 Pet. 1:8-9; Rom. 8:28-30; 1 Cor. 16:22). They will therefore long to obey Him (John 14:15, 23). In contrast, easy-believism teaches that Christians may fall into a state of lifelong carnality.
Eighth, Scripture teaches that behavior is an important test of faith. Obedience is evidence that one's faith is real (1 John 2:3). On the other hand, the person who remains utterly unwilling to obey Christ does not evidence true faith (1 John 2:4). In contrast, easy-believism teaches that disobedience and prolonged sin are no reason to doubt the reality of one's faith.
Ninth, Scripture teaches that genuine believers may stumble and fall, but they will persevere in the faith (1 Cor. 1:8). Those who later turn completely away from the Lord show that they were never truly born again (1 John 2:19). In contrast, easy-believism teaches that a true believer may utterly forsake Christ and come to the point of not believing.
Most Christians recognize that these nine distinctives are not new or radical ideas. The preponderance of Bible-believing Christians over the centuries have held these to be basic tenets of orthodoxy. In fact, no major orthodox movement in the history of Christianity has ever taught that sinners can spurn the lordship of Christ yet lay claim to Him as Savior.
This issue is not a trivial one. In fact, how could any issue be more important? The gospel that is presented to unbelievers has eternal ramifications. If it is the true gospel, it can direct men and women into the everlasting kingdom. If it is a corrupted message, it can give unsaved people false hope while consigning them to eternal damnation. This is not merely a matter for theologians to discuss and debate and speculate about. This is an issue that every single pastor and lay person must understand in order that the gospel may be rightly proclaimed to all the nations.
The Lordship Controversy
Selected Scriptures
Code: 80-53

The Lordship Controversy

Selected Scriptures


CARL: John, we just concluded a series but on Monday a brand new series that I know is of extreme importance to you, as a matter of fact, a book just recently released is the same title, The Gospel According to Jesus.

I read in the Forward to the book that you thought or said that you will be misunderstood, possibly, by what you've written here. Maybe that's a good way to start. It seems like this must be very important if you're going to be misunderstood.

JOHN: Well, I think that's true, Carl. I think this is probably the most important book I've ever written. I would even be so bold as to say it may be one of the most important books ever written, not because I wrote it but because of the things that it deals with.

The Gospel According To Jesus sounds at first, I think, a bit common to people. What is there to say about the Gospel according to Jesus? I mean He died on the cross and rose again, and you believe in Him and you'll receive eternal life.

But there is a tremendous amount of confusion about this subject and people are polarizing on different views. And I think that it's time to make a clear statement about what Jesus taught about the Gospel and go back to the beginning.
CARL: Is there something specifically or has it been a period of time that has kind of brought this to the front for you? Is there something that's concerned you in your own ministry or in Christian evangelicalism in general?

JOHN: It goes way back. And I maybe will take a moment to share where it all has its roots.

When I was in high school I had a friend. He and I used to go sometimes on the weekend down to Pershing Square, which is in the middle of Los Angeles and it's kind of where bums and derelicts and street people hang out.

And we would go down there for the express purpose of witnessing, sharing Christ. He was very active in his church; I was very active in my church. We were close buddies. He played first base on the baseball team; I played shortstop. We played basketball together. We played football together. His father would give me a summer job. We were close buddies.

He went away to college, and I didn't see him for a couple of years. And when we met a couple of summers after we had begun college, he told me he was an atheist.

I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know how to file that theologically. I couldn't handle it. I didn't know whether he could possibly have ever been a Christian and wind up an atheist. I knew if you were saved it was forever, and so I had a difficult time understanding what was going on.

When I went to college, I was student body vice president. I had a good friend who was student body president. Again, we played tandem backs in the same backfield in our football team in college. He was a youth pastor after he graduated from college. I was a youth pastor after I graduated from college. He was my really close buddy. He wound up teaching philosophy in the California state school system and running drugs, got into sexual orgies and denied the faith.

That was the second close friend. I had a very difficult time, again, dealing with that. This is a guy, raised in a Christian family, his father was a pastor. He was a youth pastor and totally abandoned everything about the faith, not only in theology but in lifestyle.

As if that wasn't enough, I went to seminary and the son of the dean was a very dear friend. Close friend. We sang together. We ministered together. We talked theology together. And he married a girl who was into Buddhism and walked away from the faith.

So I was really struggling with that and I never really dug deeply into the understanding of what is going on in this regard? And as I got out into the ministry, I began to realize that this is pretty common stuff. People who make a profession of Christ but you look at their life, and you just don't see anything. And sometimes you see flat-out denial.

Those experiences in my life catapulted me into understanding what true salvation really is. And then as a pastor, of course, you ask yourself that question again and again and again because you see people come to the church, you know. They make a commitment to Christ, they get baptized and a few months later you don't know where they are. A few years later, you don't know where they are. Or some guy you pour your life into - I remember a guy at Grace Church, when I first came here, I spent a year. I met him every Tuesday morning at 6:00 a.m. and prayed for an hour with the guy. At the end of the year, he left his wife and left the faith. And that's a guy really close to me. And I don't know but I think the Lord may have been preparing me to tackle this subject, because it was so terribly close to my own heart.

And then along came some writings, and I read things like this: If you believe in Christ at any moment in your life and never believe again, and become an agnostic or an atheist, you're still saved if you once believed in the past. And that kind of theology is beginning to develop a following and that's when I really thought I needed to write the book.

CARL: It seems at first glance, I'm sure those listening are possibly thinking this, this is a matter of liberal versus conservative theology. Those who have denied the faith, they don't probably believe in the Scripture, do they? Is that the case?

JOHN: No, not at all. In fact, the people who are advocating a view that says a person is saved if they believe only for one moment and then walk away from it are conservative, Bible-believing people.

They're articulating a theology that says salvation is a result of and is secured by a moment of faith, whether or not there's a transformation in life. And that's a concern to me because I look at Matthew 7 and I hear the Lord say that many are going to say unto him, "Lord, Lord, we've done all these things in your name." And these aren't people who're denying him; these are people who are supposedly serving him, at least in their own mind. And He says to them, "I don't even know you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity."

So apparently a person who claims to know the Lord but who has a pattern of life of working iniquity will not be admitted to Heaven. And we've got to be consistent about taking what Jesus' said and building our theology of the Gospel on that.

CARL: Now, in the coming days on the broadcast we'll be talking details about this but maybe a thumbnail sketch would be good here. It seems immediately that we're attacking what a lot of us have come to know as the Gospel of Christ. You think of accepting Christ as Savior, asking Christ into your heart. We can remember camping situations or youth camps or rallies and this type of thing, making a decision. Are we saying that all of this is now wrong? Have we been led astray?

JOHN: No, I would say all of that is right. Receiving Christ is right, and accepting Christ is right and deciding to follow Christ is right.

But we're dealing with two issues here. What is the nature of true faith and what does it produce?

In other words, would you believe, for example, that someone could make some kind of decision toward Christ that wasn't real? Sure. Right? Who's going to deny that? Is there such a thing as a non saving faith? Sure. Jesus, you remember, was confronting the Jews, early in John's gospel, and says many believed on him. John 8. But he didn't commit himself to them because he knew what was in their heart. He knew their faith wasn't real.

John 6:66: "Many of his disciples walked no more with him." They went away. They were short-time kind of commitments.

So what we're talking about here is, if it is possible to believe with a non saving faith - and I guess that would be the devils who believe and tremble, and they're not saved - then it must be very, very important to discern what a true saving faith is.

So we want to discern that. What does it mean to really accept, receive, commit your life to Christ?

CARL: Now, are we talking - I'm thinking in terms of the way evangelism is normally handled, or at least in most evangelical circles - we're talking about the point of salvation and then the importance of assuring that person's salvation and so on. Are we taking a slice of that second step now and saying, how do we know we're saved?

Are there differences, in other words, between what must I do and how do I know?

JOHN: Yes, and I think that's the second point. The first thing you want to know is what is the nature of saving faith so that we can discern true faith from false faith, non saving faith?

And second question, what is the result of regeneration? That's the issue.

If you've been regenerated, born again, given new life, if you're a new creation in Christ, will you be the same? Or will you be different?

If you're born again and you have a new nature and a new heart, and God takes out your stony heart and gives you a new heart and if he plants his Spirit in you, will you deny the faith? Will you deny Christ? Will you become an atheist?

You see, that's the issue. What does regeneration do for you? I'm convinced that what the Bible says it does is it transforms your life so that you love God, you love Christ and you believe the Bible. And you begin to live a life of obedience that follows Christ.

It's not - and I want to make this very clear - it's not that you become perfect. You don't. It's that you have new desire.

CARL: But it sounds immediately like you're saying this is so much perfection, John. You're expecting us to live a perfect life.

JOHN: No, it's very simple, Carl. I would say this. If you asked me the bottom line characteristic of a truly converted person, I would say this: a person who is genuinely converted, transformed, given a new nature, so that they have exercised true saving faith, they've been transformed, that person, bottom line, will love Jesus Christ, okay?

It doesn't necessarily mean that because we love Him, we never offend Him. It does mean, when we offend Him, we hurt, because we've violated that love.

Christians aren't perfect. Christians will be pained by their imperfection, because it violates the God they love.

Remember what Paul said in I Corinthians 16:22? He says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed." Cursing comes to those who don't love Christ. Conversely, blessing must come to those who love Christ. That's what Peter said, "whom having not seen, you love."

That is the bottom-line characteristic of a Christian. If I say to a person, do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Of if I said to someone, tell me how you feel about the Lord Jesus Christ, I would be able, probably better than any other way, to discern the reality of the state of their heart.

If they say to me, I don't like Christ at all, I have no interest in him whatsoever, I wouldn't really care what their past decision might be. I don't know what they did in the past but if they can say flatly, I have no interest in Christ. He compels me to do nothing. I have not particular desire to follow him at all, that is not the Spirit moving and that is not the evidence of a new nature.

A person, let's say, caught in adultery or a person committing sin, how do you feel about the Lord Jesus Christ? And they say, I love the Lord Jesus Christ and I hate that I offend him. Now you're talking about somebody whose nature is different and even though our nature is different and even though our nature is recreated, because we're still in the flesh, that new nature is inhibited and restrained by sin that is in us, Paul says in Roman 7.

CARL: We're talking today about John MacArthur's latest book, The Gospel According to Jesus and beginning on Monday on the broadcast, we'll be presenting a series of messages delivered to his congregation in southern California dealing with this topic and, the Lord willing, late in the series we'll have a chance to come back and actually ask some specific questions. And no doubt there will be questions.

With that in mind the book, just now being out, what type of questions are being asked? What is the most common?

JOHN: Well, Carl, initially I believe that people who wanted to come up with a gospel that sort of was simple and, from my view point, easy, those people had a pure motive. I really do believe that. And their motive was to make sure that they didn't pollute pure grace.

CARL: Just as I am.

JOHN: That's right. Yeah. In the book I make the point that there are people who want to celebrate just as I am and they go a step further and say, not only will He take you just as you are, but He'll leave you the same way. And that's what we don't accept.

But I really believe that these people wanted to preserve grace and they were fearful that if you put repentance and genuine commitment into the act of believing, you have therefore somehow added works to grace.

So in the book I make a major point out of the fact that I am convinced that salvation is by grace through faith, plus or minus nothing.

In fact, I believe even the faith to believe is a gracious gift from God. Salvation is all of grace. Repentance from sin is a gracious gift from God. A willingness to follow and obey Christ is a gracious gift from God.

It's not a situation where, and this is where the criticism will come, well, you're saying that a person has to clean up his life, a person has to be willing to be obedient, a person has to surrender his will to Christ.

No. What I'm saying is that when the Lord produced saving faith, He graciously produces repentance, submission and willingness to obey.

CARL: Well, what does this saving faith look like? Intellectually, you've already indicated that we can believe a lot of things but they not be there. Is there an emotional or some kind of will involved in all of this as well?

JOHN: Yeah. If - and that's a very astute question, Carl, because if you say that it's simply believing, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? You mean there's no - there's no sense in which faith becomes operative? It's just something in my head and that's it?

No, I think faith in the New Testament, saving faith, is a verb rather than a substantive. It isn't a thing. It's a way to live. That's why the term, pistuo, which means to believe, is regularly used in the case of saving faith in the present tense. Linear, continuous, action. You don't believe in a moment. You are a believer. You are believing.

So I think that the essence of faith is that it becomes a pattern of thinking that results in a way of life.

To put it very simply and this is a subtitle we use on the book - what does Jesus' mean when he says, follow me? Another way to approach people rather than saying will you believe is, are you willing to follow Jesus Christ? Jesus said it. He said this: if you love me, you keep my commandments. And the one who knows me is the one you keeps my commandments. So it is a continual believing which results in a change in behavior. I mean, let's face it. Our life is a reflection of what our beliefs are. If they're true beliefs.

CARL: Now, immediately the thought comes to mind again that what we consider to be evangelical evangelism - those two words don't even need to go side-by-side; one stands alone - but it seems like our process, that you and I experience and no doubt most of the listeners have is that there was a day and time - it almost seems like we're talking about a process rather than faith being today or September so and so, 19 whatever.

JOHN: It's not a process in the sense that salvation is a momentary miracle. It is a progress from that point on.

We're not talking about process to salvation. We're talking progress from salvation.

We're not talking about sort of moving along the track to get saved. We're talking about being saved and then the result of that is a changed life.

I don't believe for one moment that salvation is a process. I believe salvation is a momentary miracle that happens by the sovereign working of God in the heart and I believe there is a moment in which a person passes from death to life. There is a moment of new birth.

But I also believe it issues in a new life and whole result of that one momentary miracle begins to unfold throughout all of time and is culminated in eternity when we're made like Christ.

Now I realize that there's some people who are criticizing this because they don't understand what I'm saying. Some people say well, is this a knock on grace? Absolutely not. Is this saying you have to do some pre salvation human works to get yourself in a position to get saved? Absolutely not. Does this mean that once you're a Christian you'll never sin? Absolutely not.

CARL: What about law and grace? This sounds like we're following a few steps before this grace is applied.

JOHN: Well, of course, the mystery of the new birth is, indeed, a mystery. I don't think there are - how can I say it? Particular steps to salvation from a human viewpoint. I think God saves us in marvelous ways, but I think there are some ingredients.

In other words, people say, well, do you have to repent first and then say I'm willing to submit, and then yield and then you get saved?

I don't know the sequence and I don't look at it like steps. But what I would simply say the Bible teaches is that when God saves you, he produces in your heart repentance for sin and a desire to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I'm not really saying any more than that. There's a change - it's primarily a change in motivation. Primarily a change in desire. I mean, I've often said that if a person is a bad-tempered, grumpy, grouchy unbeliever and they get converted to Christ, they'll probably be a bad-tempered, grumpy, grouch Christian until the Lord and the power of the Spirit begins to shape and mold and mature the individual.

Sin is a reality and if we say we have no sin, we make God a liar. But I doe believe that we can look for a progress in our lives toward Christ's likeness and that progress and that process is dependent on obedience to what the old reformers used to call the means of grace: prayer, Bible study and that kind of thing.

CARL: John, I know we'll have time to ask specific questions and maybe some more detailed questions as we conclude this series in a few days but is what you're talking about, is this brand new? You know, to some extent it seems like it's contrary to what we've been taught for the last several years.

JOHN: Carl, it isn't new and let me - I'm going to be bold enough to say it isn't even controversial. This is what the church has always taught. It's just gotten muddied because some people are saying things that are unclear.

This is not new and there's no reason in the world that this book should be controversial. It shouldn't be. I don't even want to be involved in a controversy, unless it's a controversy with Satan and the enemy.

This is not controversial. This is Scripture, and it isn't new. There's an entire chapter in the book that chronicles the whole history of this doctrine, which was crystal clear in the history of the church and I stand in that tradition of the history of the church that has always held this doctrine to be true.

CARL: At the risk of sounding exploitive of current events in Christian history in recent years, what does The Gospel According To Jesus, this book and the studies you've presented have to do with what's been happening in the way of scandals and things. Is there a concern there that people are being misled and that part of what the Gospel is is being diluted by all of that?

JOHN: Well, if we want to make sure we're not scandalous in any area, we ought to make sure we're not scandalous in reference to the Gospel.

I can't think of anything more horrifying than to have some man or woman articulating other than a true Gospel because that damns people. I mean, if you're giving people the wrong message, I mean that's deadly. That's fatal.

I also think, look at the scandals in the church today, all this adultery and all the others. I think that what we've got in the church on a large scale is unconverted people. Unsaved people.

I'm not going to sit in judgment of particular people, but I think there are an awful lot of folks who are going to show up and say "Lord, Lord" and He's going to say, "Depart from me. I never knew you."

There are a lot of - to use the parable in Matthew, there are a lot of virgins with no oil. There are a lot of people who are religious. They're hanging around thinking they're bridesmaids and they're going to get invited to the wedding. But when it comes time to look and see if the light's on, the light's not on. There's no oil. And they're in darkness rather than light.

I personally believe, Carl, that the churches are filled with unsaved people. And in many cases, what's really frightening is these people thought they made "a decision" at some point in the past. And they're hanging on that decision.

I heard recently - I'll give you an illustration. In fact, I heard this this week. A family who sent their child to camp, high school camp. At high school camp, this kid broke down and confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The youth director told the parents that the kid had made a genuine commitment to Christ, and confessed sin and was so thrilled with a new faith. And the parents were irate because, they said, we were with him when he made his childhood decision. How dare you question the reality of that decision? And they yanked the kid out of the youth group.

Now that is frightening. They would rather bank on some kind of past event than a present broken, contrite, repentant, obedient heart. I don't know how many other parents are like that, but - so I think the frightening thing that we're look at in this whole deal is the church is populated with people who are under the illusion that they're Christian and it doesn't change the way they live at all. They're looking at some past event as if that's all that matters.

CARL: I'm certain the direction of the book is toward the individual and to wrap up today's discussion, to set up this series that begins on Monday, maybe we should describe once again - I know the intention is to look at my heart, not to look at others, to use this as a guideline to know whether you're saved, but to whether or not I'm saved. What do we say? What should I do if I'm examining my own heart? What are going to be the questions and the answers?

JOHN: I don't want to be self-serving anyway, but I think everybody ought to read the book. I think, as I said, it's the most important book I've ever written. I think we have to be right about the Gospel and you, who are listening, you have to be right about the Gospel, too.

If you're questioning your salvation, if you're struggling with that, you need to look carefully into these truths and examine yourself in the light of the Word of God and you're going to find that if you're genuinely saved, this book is going to make you rejoice because you're going to have tremendous assurance based upon the truths that are in it.

But if you read it and you're not a Christian, it's going to reveal that to you. It's a good book to give to others and pray that God will use it as, I guess as a knife, in a sense, to sort of slice things open so they can be revealed to see what they really are.

CARL: John, one of the editors of the book has written in the Forward, "The Gospel According To Jesus," the title of your book, "clearly teaches there's no eternal life without surrender to the Lordship of Christ." And immediately, I know, people may be reacting, some positively, some negatively. But what is meant by that?

JOHN: Well, all that means is that you're not a Christian unless you follow Christ. That's basic. Being a Christian means to follow Christ. Jesus even said to the disciples, "Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men."

I wish we would use that more often. I would like to hear evangelists and pastors, instead of saying we want to call you people to make a decision for Christ, we want to call you to believe in Christ, now those aren't bad but how much more enriching to call people to follow Jesus Christ? That has such a long-term kind of sound to it and reality to it.

So calling people to follow Jesus Christ is really what we're saying and acknowledge that He is Lord. I mean, basically Romans 10: 9 and 10 says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, believe in your heart God has raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved."

So confessing Jesus as Lord doesn't seem to me to be asking more than the Bible asks. But I think it must imply that if He's Lord, He's in charge and if He's in charge, then I'm willing to follow.

CARL: John, I just concluded a series on the broadcast, The Gospel According To Jesus, and I know there area lot of questions. First, let us encourage the listeners to obtain a copy of the book and the tapes for review. It will help answer a lot of those questions. But the first one that comes to mind, just even personally, when I became a believer I don't know that I understood what Lord even meant.

I understood that I was going to die someday and if I didn't have Christ as my Savior, I wouldn't go to Heaven and maybe that's the extent of what I understood. Does that mean that salvation didn't occur at that point?

JOHN: Not necessarily. What it does mean, though, is that you may not have understood the full implications at that time.

I suppose I could ask you the question now, however, as you look back from the time of your salvation, after you gave your life to Christ or however you termed it, did you have a desire to obey Him?

CARL: Yeah.

JOHN: To follow Him? To do His will? The Spirit of God began to produce that in your life.

I'm not saying that everyone at the point of salvation fully understands all the implications of Christ's Lordship. I'm not saying that a person at the point of salvation fully understands the sinfulness of sin. I'm not saying at the point of salvation that a person fully loves God with all their hearts, soul, mind and strength.

What I am saying is that when God saves someone, He begins to produce those things in their life: a growing love for Him, a growing willingness to obey, a growing hatred of sin.

But I do believe that those are in at least an embryonic form in the heart of a person who's exercising saving faith.

When you come to receive Christ, in a very real sense you are turning from sin. You're coming and saying, "Lord Jesus, I want You to forgive my sin." And by so doing, you are acknowledging his Lordship. I mean, at least you acknowledge that He is Lord over your life in the sense that He can transform you. He is sovereign over sin in the sense that He can forgive it. He is the caretaker that you're committing yourself to; to some degree you're acknowledging that.

So I do believe there has to be some basic element of turning from sin, repentance, and submitting to Christ to forgive your sin, to lead you, to guide you. You're giving your life into His hands, for time in eternity, right?

CARL: Right.

JOHN: That's a tremendous commitment of your life that affirms that He is in charge, to some degree. And as I say, it's not necessarily a comprehensive understanding but it's there in some form and I think Jesus made that very clear in the parable of the rich young ruler to whom He said in effect, "If you don't acknowledge your sin and you're not willing to follow me, forget it."

CARL: I think it's important to restate something you said at the beginning of this series about two weeks ago that those who are taking the opposite viewpoint are not necessarily in the liberal crowd that already has denied Scriptures as being God's Word or denied other important aspects of faith, theology, but they're part of the evangelical community.

JOHN: Do you know the one quote I have in the book is a quote from a man who said, "If we believe that only those who seriously follow Christ or who willingly follow Christ are saved, that means that we would have to believe that only a few are really saved." That was a quote.

And my response to that was, "But that's exactly what Jesus said. You define it."

So again I think these people who came up with kind of a view were motivated, number one, by wanting to keep grace pure and not putting anything in it, and I think they stripped it a little too naked. But secondly, I also think they had a passion to see as many people saved as possible and it's very hard to deal with the fact that many, many people are lost and few are going to be saved according to what Jesus said.

And so I think, in a desire to, how can I say it? Sort of widen the Gospel to get more people saved, they also stripped it. You know, I remember talking to a woman one time, a young woman, who said she would never believe in the doctrine of hell. She could never believe in the doctrine of hell because her mother died without Christ and that the moment she believed in the doctrine of hell, her mother would be, in her mind, consigned to that eternal perdition. So she had to come up with a theology that had no hell in order to get her mother out of it.

And I think in some ways, this is backing into a theology that wants desperately to get some people saved, but that's not the way to approach it. You have to come at it from a Biblical perspective.

CARL: Some of us can recall being taught, I believe it's - you even talk about it in the book - from I Corinthians, about two classifications, potentially, of Christians: living in a carnal state and living in a spiritual state. I take you don't agree, or it doesn't appear that you agree, that there are those two classifications?

JOHN: Well, I would say I do agree that there are those two kinds of conditions. I think carnality or spirituality, that is following the flesh or following the Spirit, are absolutes. In other words, at any given point in my life as a Christian, I'm doing one or the other of those. I'm either operating in the flesh or in the Spirit. Every Christian does. Those are absolutes.

The moment a person is saved, they can operate in the Spirit, and 50 years after they've been saved, they can operate in the flesh.

So I do believe that a believer can be fleshy or carnal, if you like that term. I also believe a believer can be spiritual, or in the Spirit.

What I don't believe is that carnality or a carnal Christian is a category that you choose to remain in sort of permanently until you get lifted to Level 2. In other words, I don't believe that Christians can be divided down the middle and say well, here are the carnal ones who aren't obedient and here are the spiritual ones who are.

And I guess I'd have to ask the question, if you could move into the spiritual plane, if you accepted that view, could you slide back out of it also again and become a carnal Christian? I think that's very difficult.

They even go further and say well, there are those Christians who just get in the Kingdom, but don't inherit it. In other words, they're sort of semi-blessed, I guess, in Heaven.

I don't see it that way at all. I think we're all in the same category; we all have a new nature, we're all new creatures in Christ, we all love the Lord Jesus Christ and we have a desire to do what is right. We hate sin. But we're also besieged by our flesh and we are both in the Spirit and in the flesh as we go through our life because sometimes we sin and sometimes we obey.
But to say that there is a category in which you just stay as a carnal Christian and then there's a category in which you stay as a spiritual Christian, really smacks to me of a sort of traditional, second work of grace kind of theology, or the second blessing kind of thing and I don't see that taught in Scripture.

CARL: Immediately we try to think of ways, well how do we define this even further for ourselves personally or for a loved one, especially, as you indicated earlier. It's difficult to change our theology, or want to change our theology when it involves a loved one, but how do we know? You think of Old Testament examples. David, he fell. Well, if we would have caught him at that one particular time we would say, hey, David, you're out.

JOHN: If David had sinned the way he sinned and turned his back on God, become an agnostic and an atheist, I'd have questioned his salvation. But all you have to do is read Psalm 32 and then read Psalm 51 and David's crying out of the depths of his heart, "Against thee, thee only have I sinned." And his heart is broken. And he cries out for God to purge him with hyssop and make him clean.

That's the heart. That's the heart attitude that demonstrates the love for God that is in there. And so David would be a classic illustration of a sinning saint who is broken over his sinfulness.

CARL: What about Solomon? It seems like the course of his life, trying everything, was anything but moving up. It was moving down.

JOHN: Well, Solomon is a difficult situation, I guess, in one sense. Although I personally believe that in the early years of Solomon's life he obviously tried everything there was to try, I guess, including women and, from what we understand, huge, massive stables of horses and great gold and wealth and all of that kind of thing.

But I think when he got to the end of his life, he wrote Ecclesiastes and I think he looked back over his life and he made some pretty profound assessments. In writing Ecclesiastes, it seems to me that Solomon had definitely come to the conclusion that the essence of life was not to be found in the things that he once aspired to in his youth.

So again, at what point was Solomon converted? I don't really know at what point he was converted, but he sure gives some good advice in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes when he says, "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near, when you'll say 'I have no delight in them'."

It kind of makes me think that Solomon may not have really recognized the Creator in the days of his youth and it wasn't until the years had gone by that he began to come to grips with the reality of what God desired.

And toward the end of his life, no doubt looked back and wrote Ecclesiastes and penned the proverbs of great wisdom, wisdom which he'd learned, not only by divine inspiration but by experience.

CARL: The Gospel According To Jesus is the title of your new book and the series we just completed on the broadcast. I know the whole discussion of dispensational theology kind of falls in here. For those who maybe aren't in the theological circles and don't even know what that means, maybe we should explain it first but what does that play, or how does that play into this whole scenario?

JOHN: Well, you know, there are some people who have interpreted the Bible, Carl, sort of in a chronologically, categorical way. In other words, they would say that what is said in Genesis and the Pentatude, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, was written for certain people at a certain time.

What is said by the prophets was directed to a certain people at a certain time. What was said by Jesus was directed to a certain people at a certain time. What is said by Peter, the same thing; by Paul, the same thing. And so they develop what would be a very stiff, almost barrier-loaded dispensational view. This is for this group, this is for this group, this is for this group. And things don't transcend their chronological place in history. That would be an extreme dispensational view. It might even be called hyperdispensationalism.

I am a dispensationalist and the bottom line for me is that I do believe God operated in unique ways. Categorically, for example, God functioned in his relationship to man one way before the fall and another way after the fall. One way before the cross, and another way after the cross. One way in this age, and another way in the age to come in eternity.

So there have been dispensations or economies in which God has operated uniquely. So I would affirm dispensationalism as a valid Hermeneutic or principal for Biblical interpretation into which things can be fitted and better understood.

But there are some people who will take Jesus' Gospel, okay? What Jesus taught, Sermon on the Mount, other things and say, that was pre-cross, pre-resurrection, pushed at in the Jewish era, has nothing to do with the church therefore it has nothing to do with us.

So one of the arguments against even studying The Gospel According To Jesus is to just dispensationalize it away and say it all fits into a certain thing. That is a frightening thing, because now what you've done is you have just made the ministry, the teaching of Jesus, absolutely irrelevant.

CARL: Like this is the Church Age. I think this would be the argument.

JOHN: Yeah.

CARL: This is the Church Age, but that didn't start until post-cross.

JOHN: Right. So what we should do is, instead of having a red-letter Bible with the words of Jesus in red, we ought to have one with the words of Paul in red because they're the only ones that matter.

We can't do that because, in the first place, all that the epistles ever intended to do was elucidate the teaching of Jesus. If in any sense they are contradictory to the teaching of Jesus, we have a problem. And if in any sense the teaching of Jesus was irrelevant to the Church Age, then why are the apostles and the writers building on his teaching?

CARL: But what about the message to Jews, and then to the Gentiles. Isn't that different? We mentioned different economies. It seems like the Gospel, when He talked to the Jews, that should be different than us.

JOHN: Yeah but neither is there salvation in any other name for there's no other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Salvation is in Jesus Christ alone, and there is no other salvation. So there can only be one salvation.

So when Jesus talks about salvation, eternal life, coming into the Kingdom, when He talks about being born again to Nicodemus and regenerated, whether it's Jesus or Peter talking about it, or whether it's Paul talking about faith or Jesus talking about faith, whether it's Jesus talking about righteousness or John talking about righteousness, it's the same righteousness, the same faith, the same regeneration. It has to be because they are inextricably intertwined.

Jesus came and taught, and the apostles and the writers build on, enhance and enrich, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the things that Jesus said, but it's still the foundation and to eliminate it would be to make the teaching of Jesus basically irrelevant to this age. And I think that would be a tragic thing. That would be a terrible thing to do to Scripture.

CARL: It struck me, I know it's simplistic but it struck me as being new light almost when you outlined in the book, talking about law and grace, that we tend to think they're mutually exclusive. But you indicated the fact that salvation has always been by grace through faith.

JOHN: That's right. You know, you can make dispensational distinctions, but you must be very careful. The Old Testament was not just the age of law. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It was not just the age of works. Abraham believed and it was counted to him for righteousness.

Neither is the New Testament just an age of grace. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And the new covenant, Jeremiah said, writes the law in your heart in the inward part.

And the New Testament is not just faith. James says, your "faith without works is dead."

So when you're making dispensational distinctions, you have to be very cautious that you do not isolate some concept like law to the exclusion of grace, or even a concept like grace to the exclusion of law. And we have to be very, very careful.

Those two are always related to one another. The law imposes initially the standard. Man, facing the law, recognizes his failure and receives the grace of God through forgiveness, but also the power to then keep the law, which he prior could not keep.

CARL: Let's talk about some very practical areas as we wrap this discussion up today. Thinking in terms of the fact that we're not talking about those who have denied the faith, who hold a different view. If that's the case, it almost seems like this other gospel could be considered heresy. How do we treat the teaching? I'm thinking of a person sitting in a church where they have not been taught this. What should they do? How do they react?

JOHN: Carl, it's my firm conviction that most people don't understand the issue. They just don't understand it. And that 95 percent of the confusion is related, not to different views, but to a misunderstanding of the issues.

And that's why the book is so important. Not because I wrote it. It would be important whoever wrote it. But people need to read the book. They need to understand the issue and to understand very clearly what the Bible teaches. I believe that the confusion over this can be eliminated if we simply understand the word of God.

To me, it is a very clear-cut, simple, direct revelation of God that puts this thing to rest, and the church must know what the gospel is to be. And I don't think there'll be a struggle if people understand with some clarity what the issues are and how Scripture speaks clearly to them.

CARL: How do you deal, personally - I know that some who oppose or stand on the opposite end of the issue as you do are good friends. They also preach "the Gospel," or at least use the same language. How do you deal with those on a personal level?

JOHN: Friends are friends, and I love many people who might hold a different view on this. First of all, I have to say that I don't think, until the book came out, that they really understood what I was saying. And I hope that many who thought that I was saying something now know that I wasn't saying what they thought I was saying. And the book has resolved a lot of that, because there are many reading it and saying well, that's what I believe. That's what I agreed to.

On the other hand, the people who say no, I do disagree with this and I do hold that all you have to do is believe for one moment and it doesn't necessarily mean that your life will be changed and an easy, believistic kind of thing, how do I treat them? Well, there's a certain sadness in my heart and I would pray for them and all of that. But I'll tell you, there's a bottom-line thing that I go back to, Carl.

Jesus said in John 6, "All that the Father gives to Me, will come to Me, and I have lost none of them. But I will raise them up at the last day."

Could I say it this way and be understood? An inadequate presentation of the Gospel will not prevent the salvation of the elect. It won't. What it will do is make some people think they're saved who aren't, and confuse an awful lot of people. I'm comforted in the fact that God is going to redeem His church, but at the same time I also recognize that that redemption must come to people through a clear presentation of the Gospel.

So I guess I could become greatly disturbed about this, but in my heart I know that if you simply preach Jesus' death and resurrection, God will work the work in the hearts of those on whom He sets His love. And even though the one who presented to them the Gospel didn't present it adequately, He'll produce in them the right response to that Gospel.

CARL: There's a statement you used in the, I believe it was the closing portion of the book where you said perfection, because a lot of this sounds like we're talking about sinless perfection, but you said, "Perfection is the standard. Direction is the test." Can you elaborate on that? What are we saying?

JOHN: Well, when you're a Christian the marked characteristic of your life is not its perfection, but its direction.

CARL: Where are you going?

JOHN: Where are you going? Yeah, where are you going? I can look at a person and see where they're going and determine what's in their heart. What's motivating them. I mean, I'm not perfect. I certainly wouldn't assign to myself sinless perfection or anything close to it. But I sure know the direction of my life. And the direction of my life is to honor God, to move toward Him, to draw near to Him, to be more like Christ. And I stumble and fall, as we all do, and fail. But that's nonetheless the direction of my life, and I pick myself up and go.

And I think assurance - people say well, you're going to take away assurance. People going to think, you know, they're going to be forever insecure. I mean, sort of eternal insecurity. Boy, I'll never know. In fact, I heard one critic of this particular issue say well, what MacArthur's doing is making people totally insecure so they can never know whether they're saved until they get to Heaven.

No! You can know you're saved. All you have to do is get in touch with your heart. Also examine yourself. See whether you're in the faith. What are you examining? You're examining the intent of your heart.

You couldn't make me doubt my salvation because I know what's in my heart, and my heart longs to serve Christ. My heart loves Christ. I hate my sin. If I looked at myself I'd say oh, you know, he said an unkind word, or you wasted time, or you exhibited pride or, you know, you desired something the Lord hadn't given to you, you know, you coveted a certain possession or whatever. You may not be a Christian.

No, no, no. I go deeper than that and I look at my heart and say, what is the longing of my heart? It's to serve God and love Christ. To honor Him. And those kinds of things break my heart, to one extent or another, and that's what I want to be in touch with. And that's very securing.

James says, you go through tests because they're going to try your faith. God doesn't need my faith tested. He knows if it's real, but I don't always. But when I go through a test and come out the other end believing I say wow, I'm real. I'm real.

So I'm no advocating a situation that puts people into sort of indefinite confusion about their salvation and security. I really think what we're saying here is that you can know you're a Christian. In fact, this book I don't believe for one minute is going to make Christians insecure. I think this book will literally take a Christian who's insecure and make him absolutely secure. This may be the greatest gift that you as a Christian could have if you're prone to doubt your faith because by the time you're through reading this book, you are going to know whether you're a Christian or not without any shadow of doubt.

CARL: As we wrap it up, the thought occurs there may still be a skeptic out there or two, and I even think you mentioned it early on in the preface to the book. You said you went through a phase of thinking this whole dispute was misunderstandings, semantics problems.

JOHN: It isn't semantics. With some people it might be, but I thought it was semantical, I thought we were maybe talking about the same thing in different terms but as I dug deeper into it I found that that wasn't the case.

And I need to say, Carl, that it isn't as if there is my view and, along with me, most other Christians and then there's this other view held by another group. The truth of it is, there is the view the Scripture holds and a whole lot of other views strung out somewhere between what the Bible teaches and the extreme view. And folks are at all points along that line and they all sort of, in my judgment, need to be harmonized and brought into conformity to God's Word. Harmonized and brought into conformity to God's Word.


The Lordship Controversy
Selected Scriptures
Code: A293

John MacArthur


Introduction
No more important issue confronts the church than the controversy regarding the way of salvation. This, of course, is the most fundamental matter of all, for it ultimately determines how we present Christ to a lost world. Unlike questions about modes of baptism or systems of church leadership, this one has eternal implications.
Are we supposed to exhort unsaved people to receive Christ as Lord and Savior, or as Savior only? The difference may not seem like much, but the ramifications are enormous.
One has only to look at the feeble spiritual condition of the church today to see that something is seriously wrong. I'm convinced that at the root of the problem is a weakened gospel that presents Christ as Savior only and makes surrender to His lordship an option to be considered later.
The lordship of Christ is not peripheral to the gospel message. Surrender to Christ's lordship is the only acceptable response to the gospel, and any message that does not call sinners to submit to Jesus as Lord is not really the gospel. The Savior-only message that has been popularized in our generation falls far short of the message our Lord commissioned His disciples to preach.
The following is meant only as an introduction to the major issues of the lordship controversy. I intend to familiarize you with what is at stake in the controversy, and to suggest some of the key considerations about the nature of saving faith.
These words are excerpted, with minor adaptations, from my book, The Gospel According to Jesus, which contains a much fuller treatment of the issue. The book includes in-depth studies of Jesus' major evangelistic encounters with individuals, His evangelistic sermons, and several of the parables He used to illustrate salvation to His disciples. It examines the meaning and place of faith, repentance, discipleship, and Jesus' lordship. I hope you'll want to read the entire book.
My prayer is that the Spirit of God will use what follows to whet your appetite to understand the gospel better, to articulate the truth more clearly, and to yield yourself to the lordship of Christ more fully than ever.
A Look at the Issues
A subtle shift in emphasis over the past hundred years or so has gradually eroded the way evangelicals understand and present the gospel. Preaching and witnessing have changed. The message we're hearing is less challenging, more comforting. But is it the truth?
Listen to the typical gospel presentation nowadays. You'll hear sinners entreated with words like, "accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior"; "ask Jesus into your heart"; "invite Christ into your life"; or "make a decision for Christ." You may be so accustomed to hearing those phrases that it will surprise you to learn that none of them is based on biblical terminology. They are the products of a diluted gospel. It is not the gospel according to Jesus.
The gospel Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship, a call to follow Him in submissive obedience, not just a plea to make a decision or pray a prayer. Jesus' message liberated people from the bondage of their sin while it confronted and condemned hypocrisy. It was an offer of eternal life and forgiveness for repentant sinners, but at the same time it was a rebuke to outwardly religious people whose lives were devoid of true righteous¬ness. It put sinners on notice that they must turn from sin and embrace God's righteous¬ness. It was in every sense good news, yet it was anything but easy-believism.
Our Lord's words about eternal life were invariably accompa¬nied by warnings to those who might be tempted to take salvation lightly. He taught that the cost of following Him is high, that the way is narrow and few find it. He said many who call Him Lord will be forbidden from entering the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matthew 7:13-23).
Present-day evangelicalism, by and large, ignores those warnings. The prevailing view of what constitutes saving faith continues to grow broader and more shallow, while the portrayal of Christ in preaching and witnessing becomes fuzzy. Anyone who claims to be a Christian can find evangelicals willing to accept a profession of faith, whether or not the person's behavior shows any evidence of commitment to Christ. Several decades ago the national media reported on the spectacle of a notorious pornographer who claimed to be "born again" yet continued to publish the worst kinds of smut. A well-known sports figure professed faith in Christ and was baptized in a highly publicized ceremony, then weeks later was accused and later convicted of rape. Another celebrity who claims to be a Christian is renowned for the profligacy of his lifestyle. What troubles me about all these is that many Christians insist such people really are born again and should be embraced by the rest of the church as true believers.
The Abandonment of Jesus' Gospel
One segment of evangelicalism even propounds the doctrine that conversion to Christ involves "no spiritual commit¬ment whatsoever." [1] Those who hold this view of the gospel teach that Scripture promises salvation to anyone who simply believes the facts about Christ and claims eternal life. There need be no turning from sin, no resulting change in lifestyle, no commit¬ment--not even a willingness to yield to Christ's lordship. [2] Those things, they say, amount to human works, which corrupt grace and have nothing to do with faith.
The fallout of such thinking is a deficient doctrine of salvation. It is justification without sanctification, and its impact on the church has been catastrophic. The community of professing believers is populated with people who have bought into a system that encourag¬es shallow and ineffectual faith. Many sincerely believe they are saved, but their lives are utterly barren of any verifying fruit.
Jesus gave this sobering warning: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:21-22, emphasis added). Clearly no past experience--not even prophesy¬ing, casting out demons, or doing signs and wonders--can be viewed as evidence of salvation apart from a life of obedience.
Our Lord was not speaking about an isolated group of fringe followers. There will be "many" on that day who will stand before Him, stunned to learn they are not included in the kingdom. I fear that multitudes who now fill church pews in the mainstream of the evangelical movement will be among those turned away because they did not do the will of the Father.
Contemporary Christians have been conditioned to believe that because they recited a prayer, signed on a dotted line, walked an aisle, or had some other experience, they are saved and should never question their salvation. I have attended evangelism training seminars where counselors were taught to tell "converts" that any doubt about their salvation is satanic and should be dismissed. It is a widely held misconception that anyone who questions whether he is saved is challenging the integrity of God's Word.
What misguided thinking that is! Scripture encourages us to examine ourselves to determine if we are in the faith (2 Corinthi¬ans 13:5). Peter wrote, "Be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you" (2 Peter 1:10). It is right to examine our lives and evaluate the fruit we bear, for "each tree is known by its own fruit" (Luke 6:44).
The Bible teaches clearly that the evidence of God's work in a life is the inevitable fruit of transformed behavior (1 John 3:10). Faith that does not result in righteous living is dead and cannot save (James 2:14-17). [3] Professing Christians utterly lacking the fruit of true righteousness will find no biblical basis for assurance of salvation (1 John 2:4).
Real salvation is not only justification. It cannot be isolated from regeneration, sanctification, and ultimately glorifica¬tion. Salvation is the work of God through which we are "conformed to the image of His Son" (Romans 8:29, cf. Romans 13:11). Genuine assurance comes from seeing the Holy Spirit's transform¬ing work in one's life, not from clinging to the memory of some experience.
Some Historical Background
In a study of Jesus' gospel, we cannot be concerned primarily with academic systems of theology or the views of specific theologians on a given doctrine. Nevertheless, in seeking to understand the issues, we must look at how the contemporary perspective of the gospel has evolved.
Prior to the twentieth century, no serious theologian would have enter¬tained the notion that it is possible to be saved yet see nothing of the outworking of regeneration in one's lifestyle or behavior. [4] In 1918 Lewis Sperry Chafer published He That Is Spiritual, articu¬lating the concept that 1 Corinthians 2:15--3:3 speaks of two classes of Chris¬tians: carnal and spiritual. Chafer wrote, "The 'carnal' Christian is... characterized by a 'walk' that is on the same plane as that of the 'natural' [unsaved] man." [5] That was a foreign concept to most Christians in Dr. Chafer's generation, [6] but it has become a central premise for a large segment of the church today. Dr. Chafer's doctrine of spirituality, along with some of his other teachings, have become the basis of a whole new way of looking at the gospel. It is therefore essential to confront what he taught.
Chafer's dichotomy between carnal and spiritual Christians was seen by Dr. B. B. Warfield as an echo of "the jargon of the Higher Life teachers," [7] who taught that a higher plane of victori¬ous living was available to Christians who would lay hold of it by faith. This idea of two classes of believers was undoubt¬edly an unfortunate result of Chafer's predilection for dispensationalist distinctions. It is a classic example of how dispen¬sationalism's methodology can be carried too far.
Dispensationalism is a fundamentally correct system of under¬stand¬ing God's program through the ages. Its chief element is a recogni¬tion that God's plan for Israel is not superseded by or swallowed up in His program for the church. Israel and the church are separate entities, and God will restore national Israel under the earthly rule of Jesus as Messiah. I accept and affirm that tenet, because it emerges from a consistently literal interpre¬tation of Scripture (while still recognizing the presence of legitimate metaphor in the Bible). And in that regard, I consider myself a traditional premillennial dispensa¬tionalist. [8]
Dr. Chafer was an early and articulate spokesman for dispensa¬tionalism, and his teachings helped chart the course for much of the movement. He was a brilliant man, gifted with both a keen analyti¬cal mind and the ability to communicate clearly. The systematic methodology of traditional dispensationalism is in part his legacy.
There is a tendency, however, for dispensationalists to get carried away with compartmentalizing truth to the point that they make unbiblical differentiations. An almost obsessive desire to catego¬rize and contrast related truths has carried various dispen¬sationalist interpret¬ers far beyond the legitimate distinction between Israel and the church. Many would also draw hard lines between salvation and discipleship, the church and the kingdom, Christ's preaching and the apostolic message, faith and repen¬tance, and the age of law and the age of grace.
The age-of-law/age-of-grace division in particular has wreaked havoc on dispensationalist theology and contributed to confusion about the doctrine of salvation. Of course, there is an important distinction to be made between law and grace. But it is wrong to conclude, as Chafer apparently did, that law and grace are mutually exclusive in the program of God for any age. [9] Actually, elements of both law and grace are part of the program of God in every dispensation. Most critical is this truth: Salvation has always been by grace through faith, not by the works of the law (Galatians 2:16). Clearly, even Old Testament saints who preceded or were under the Mosaic Law were saved by grace through faith (Romans 4:3, 6-8, 16). Just as clearly, New Testament saints have a law to fulfill (1 Corinthians 7:19; 9:21; Galatians 6:2). That is not "careless co-mingling" [10] of law and grace, as Chafer implied. It is basic biblical truth.
Chafer's view of all Scripture was colored by his desire to maintain a stark distinction between the age of "pure grace" (the church age) and the two ages of "pure law" (the Mosaic era and the millennial kingdom) he saw sandwiching it. [11] He wrote, for exam¬ple, that the Sermon on the Mount was part of "the Gospel of the kingdom," the "Manifesto of the King." [12] He believed its purpose was to declare "the essential character of the [millennial] kingdom." He judged it to be law, not grace, and concluded it made no reference to either salvation or grace. "Such a complete omission of any reference to any feature of the present age of grace, is a fact which should be carefully weighed," he wrote. [13]
Other dispensationalist writers did weigh those ideas and went on to state in more explicit terms what Chafer only hinted at: that the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount "have no application to the Christian, but only to those who are under the Law, and therefore must apply to another Dispensation than this." [14] This lamentable hermeneutic is widely applied in varying degrees to much of our Lord's earthly teaching, emasculating the message of the gospels. [15]
It is no wonder that the evangelistic message growing out of such a system differs sharply from the gospel according to Jesus. If we begin with the presupposition that much of Christ's message was intended for another age, why should our gospel be the same as the one He preached?
But that is a dangerous and untenable presupposition. Jesus did not come to proclaim a message that would be invalid until the Tribulation or the Millennium. He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came to call sinners to repentance (Matthew 9:13). He came so the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17). He proclaimed the saving gospel, not merely a manifesto for some future age. His gospel is the only message we are to preach.
Wrongly Dividing the Word
Let's look a little more closely at the dispensationalist tendency to make unwarranted contrasts between related or parallel truths. It is important that we delineate carefully between essentially different biblical axioms (2 Timothy 2:15). But it is also possible to go overboard. The unbridled zeal of some dispensation¬alists for making dichotomies has led to a number of unfortunate impositions on the gospel.
For example, Jesus is both Savior and Lord (Luke 2:11), and no true believer would ever dispute that. "Savior" and "Lord" are separate offices, but we must be careful not to partition them in such a way that we divide Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:13). Nevertheless, loud voices from the dispensationalist camp are putting forth the teaching that it is possible to reject Christ as Lord yet receive Him as Savior.
Indeed, there are those who would have us believe that the norm for salvation is to accept Jesus as Savior without yielding to Him as Lord. They make the incredible claim that any other teaching amounts to a false gospel "because it subtly adds works to the clear and simple condition set forth in the Word of God." [16] They have tagged the view they oppose "lordship salvation."
Lordship salvation, defined by one who labels it heresy, is "the view that for salvation a person must trust Jesus Christ as his Savior from sin and must also commit himself to Christ as Lord of his life, submitting to His sovereign authority." [17]
It is astonishing that anyone would characterize that truth as unbiblical or heretical, but a growing chorus of voices is echoing the charge. The implication is that acknowledging Christ's lordship is a human work. That mistaken notion is backed by volumes of literature that speaks of people "making Jesus Christ Lord of their lives." [18]
We do not "make" Christ Lord; He is Lord! Those who will not receive Him as Lord are guilty of rejecting Him. "Faith" that rejects His sovereign authority is really unbelief. Conversely, acknowledging His lordship is no more a human work than repentance (cf. 2 Timothy 2:25) or faith itself (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9). In fact, surrender to Christ is an important aspect of divinely-produced saving faith, not some¬thing added to faith.
The two clearest statements on the way of salvation in all of Scripture both emphasize Jesus' lordship: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved" (Acts 16:31); and "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved" (Romans 10:9). [19] Peter's sermon at Pentecost concluded with this declara¬tion: "Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ--this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36, emphasis added). No promise of salvation is ever extended to those who refuse to accede to Christ's lordship. Thus there is no salvation except "lordship" salvation. [20]
Opponents of lordship salvation have gone to great lengths to make the claim that "Lord" in those verses does not mean "Master" but is a reference to His deity. [21] Even if that conten¬tion is granted, it simply affirms that those who come to Christ for salvation must acknowledge He is God. The implications of that are even more demanding than if "Lord" only meant "Master"!
The fact is, "Lord" does mean "God" in all those verses. More precisely, it means "God who rules," [22] and that only bolsters the arguments for lordship salvation. No one who comes for salvation with genuine faith, sincerely believing that Jesus is the eternal, almighty, sovereign God, will willfully reject His authority. True faith is not lip service. Our Lord Himself pronounced condemna¬tion on those who wor¬shiped Him with their lips but not with their lives (Matthew 15:7-9). He does not become anyone's Savior until that person receives Him for who He is--Lord of all (Acts 10:36).
A. W. Tozer said, "The Lord will not save those whom He cannot command. He will not divide His offices. You cannot believe on a half-Christ. We take Him for what He is--the anointed Saviour and Lord who is King of kings and Lord of all lords! He would not be Who He is if He saved us and called us and chose us without the understanding that He can also guide and control our lives." [23]
Faith and True Discipleship
Those who teach that obedience and submission are extrane¬ous to saving faith are forced to make a firm but unbiblical distinc¬tion between salvation and discipleship. That is the only way they can explain the ministry of Jesus. This dichotomy, like that of the carnal/spiritual Christian, sets up two classes of Christians: believers only, and true disciples. Most who hold this position discard the evangelistic intent of virtually every recorded invitation of Jesus, saying those apply to discipleship, not to salvation. [24] One writer says of this view, "No distinction is more vital to theology, more basic to a correct understanding of the New Testament, or more relevant to every believer's life and wit¬ness." [25]
On the contrary, no distinction has done so much to undermine the authority of Jesus' message. Are we to believe that when Jesus told the multitudes to deny themselves (Luke 14:26), to take up a cross (v. 27), and to forsake all and follow Him (v. 33), His words had no meaning whatsoever for the unsaved people in the crowd? How could that be true of One who said He came not to call the righteous but sinners (Matthew 9:13)?
James M. Boice, in his book, Christ's Call to Discipleship, writes with insight about the salvation/discipleship dichotomy, which he frankly describes as "defective theology":
This theology separates faith from discipleship and grace from obedi¬ence. It teaches that Jesus can be received as one's Savior without being received as one's Lord.
This is a common defect in times of prosperity. In days of hardship, particularly persecution, those who are in the process of becoming Christians count the cost of discipleship carefully before taking up the cross of the Nazarene. Preachers do not beguile them with false promises of an easy life or indulgence of sins. But in good times, the cost does not seem so high, and people take the name of Christ without undergoing the radical transfor¬mation of life that true conversion implies. [26]
The call to Calvary must be recognized for what it is: a call to discipleship under the lordship of Jesus Christ. To respond to that call is to become a believer. Anything less is simply unbe¬lief. [27]
The gospel according to Jesus explicitly and unequivocally rules out easy-believism. To make all of our Lord's difficult demands apply only to a higher class of Christians blunts the force of His entire message. It makes room for a cheap and meaningless faith--a faith that may be exercised with absolutely no impact on the fleshly life of sin. That is not saving faith.
By Grace Through Faith
Salvation is solely by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). That truth is the biblical watershed for all we teach. But it means nothing if we begin with a misunderstanding of grace or a faulty definition of faith.
God's grace is not a static attribute whereby He passively accepts hardened, unrepentant sinners. Grace does not change a person's standing before God yet leave his character untouched. Real grace does not include, as Chafer claimed, "the Christian's liberty to do precisely as he chooses." [28] True grace, according to Scripture, teaches us "to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age" (Titus 2:12). Grace is the power of God to fulfill our New Covenant duties (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:19), however inconsistently we obey at times. Clearly, grace does not grant permission to live in the flesh; it supplies power to live in the Spirit.
Faith, like grace, is not static. Saving faith is more than just understanding the facts and mentally acquiescing. It is insepara¬ble from repentance, surrender, and a supernatural longing to obey. None of those responses can be classified exclusively as a human work, any more than believing itself is solely a human effort.
Misunderstanding on that key point is at the heart of the error of those who reject lordship salvation. They assume that because Scripture contrasts faith and works, faith must be incompatible with works. They set faith in opposition to submission, yielded¬ness, or turning from sin, and they categorize all the practical elements of salvation as human works. They stumble over the twin truths that salvation is a gift, yet it costs everything.
Those ideas are paradoxical, but they are not mutually exclusive. The same dissonance is seen in Jesus' own words, "I will give you rest," followed by "take My yoke upon you" (Matthew 11:28-29). The rest we enter into by faith is not a rest of inactivi¬ty.
Salvation is a gift, but it is appropriated through a faith that goes beyond merely understanding and assenting to the truth. Demons have that kind of "faith" (James 2:19). True believers are character¬ized by faith that is as repulsed by the life of sin as it is attracted to the mercy of the Savior. Drawn to Christ, they are drawn away from everything else. Jesus described genuine believers as "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3). They are like the repentant tax-gatherer, so broken he could not even look heaven¬ward. He could only beat his breast and plead, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" (Luke 18:13).
That man's desperate prayer is one of the clearest pictures of genuine, God-wrought repentance in all of Scripture. His plea was not in any sense a human work or an attempt at earning righteous¬ness. On the contrary, it represented his total abandon¬ment of confidence in religious works. As if to prove it he stood "some distance away" from the praying Pharisee. He understood that the only way he could ever be saved was by God's merciful grace. On that basis, having first come to the end of himself, he received salvation as a gift. Jesus said that man "went down to his house justified" (v. 14).
Our Lord's point in relating that account was to demonstrate that repentance is at the core of saving faith. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, literally means "to think after." It implies a change of mind, and some who oppose lordship salvation have tried to limit its meaning to that. [29] But a definition of repen¬tance cannot be drawn solely from the etymology of the Greek word.
Repentance as Jesus characterized it in this incident involves a recognition of one's utter sinfulness and a turning from self and sin to God (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:9). Far from being a human work, it is the inevitable result of God's work in a human heart. And it always represents the end of any human attempt to earn God's favor. It is much more than a mere change of mind--it involves a complete change of heart, attitude, interest, and direction. It is a conversion in every sense of the word.
The Bible does not recognize "conversion" that lacks this radical change of direction (Luke 3:7-8). A true believer cannot remain rebellious--or even indifferent. Genuine faith will inevitably provoke some degree of obedience. In fact, Scripture often equates faith with obedi¬ence (John 3:36; Romans 1:5; 16:26; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). [30] "By faith Abraham [the father of true faith]...obeyed" (Hebrews 11:8). That's the heart of the message of Hebrews 11, the great treatise on faith.
Faith and works are not incompatible. Jesus even calls the act of believing a work (John 6:29)--not merely a human work, but a gracious work of God in us. He brings us to faith, then enables and empowers us to believe unto obedience (cf. Romans 16:26).
It is precisely here that the key distinction must be made. Salvation by faith does not eliminate works per se. It does away with works that are the result of human effort alone (Ephesians 2:8). It abolishes any attempt to merit God's favor by our works (v. 9). But it does not deter God's foreordained purpose that our walk should be characterized by good works (v. 10).
We must remember above all that salvation is a sovereign work of God. Biblically it is defined by what it produces, not by what one does to get it. Works are not necessary to earn salvation. But true salvation wrought by God will not fail to produce the good works that are its fruit (cf. Matthew 7:17). No aspect of salvation is merited by human works, but it is all the work of God (Titus 3:5-7). Thus salvation cannot be defective in any dimen¬sion. "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). As a part of His saving work, God will produce repentance, faith, sanctifica¬tion, yieldedness, obedience, and ultimately glorifica¬tion. Since He is not dependent on human effort in producing those elements, an experience that lacks any of them cannot be the saving work of God.
If we are truly born of God, we have a faith that cannot fail to overcome the world (1 John 5:4). We may sin (1 John 2:1)--we will sin--but the process of sanctification can never stall complete¬ly. God is at work in us (Philippians 2:13), and He will continue to perfect us until the day of Christ (Philippians 1:6; 1 Thessaloni¬ans 5:23-24).
The Nature of True Faith
Both sides in the lordship controversy would agree that salvation is by grace through faith--and faith alone. No true believer is saying that sinners must add works to their faith in order to be saved. The real issue hinges on the definition of true faith. How does it differ from a false profession? What are its characteristics? And what does it produce in the life of a believer?
Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
That stanza, penned by Charlotte Elliot in the nineteenth century, has probably been used as background for the evangelistic invitation more than any other hymn in history. The thought those words convey is a glorious biblical reality: sinners may come to Christ just as they are--solely on the basis of repentant faith--and He will save them. The Lord's own wonderful promise is in John 3:16: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (emphasis added). Later He added, "The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37).
The erosion of the gospel in our day has given this truth an insidious twist. The language of the modern message sounds vaguely similar to "Just as I Am," but the difference in meaning is profound. Sinners today hear not only that Christ will receive them as they are, but also that He will let them stay that way! Many erroneously believe they can come to Christ, receive absolution and immortality, then walk away to continue living life as they please, even choosing "to leave God out and live according to the old nature." [31]
Some years ago leaders of an international Christian youth organization asked me to preview a training film they produced. The subject was evangelism, and the film instructed youth workers not to tell unsaved young people they must obey Christ, give Him their hearts, surrender their lives, repent of their sins, submit to His lordship, or follow Him. Telling the unsaved they must do those things confuses the gospel message, the film said. It advocated giving only the objective facts about Jesus' death, (making no mention of the resurrection), and pressing on them the need to believe. The film concluded that the sum total of saving faith is understanding and accepting the facts of the gospel.
I once spoke at a Bible conference where a well-known Bible teacher brought a message on salvation. He suggested that telling unsaved people they must surrender to Christ is the same as preaching works. He defined salvation as the unconditional gift of everlast¬ing life given to people who believe the facts about Christ, whether they choose to obey Him or not. One of his main points was that salvation may or may not alter a person's behav¬ior. Trans¬formed conduct is certainly desirable, he said, but even if no change in lifestyle occurs, the one who has believed the facts of the gospel can rest in the certainty of heaven.
Multitudes approach Christ on those terms. Thinking He will not confront their sin, they respond eagerly--but with no sense of the severity of their guilt before God, and with no desire to be freed from sin's bondage. They have been deceived by a corrupt¬ed gospel. They have been told that faith alone will save them, but they neither understand nor possess real faith. The "faith" they are relying on is only intellectual acquiescence to a set of facts. It will not save.
Eternal Life from Dead Faith?
Not all faith is redemptive. James 2:14-16 says faith without works is dead and cannot save. [32] James de¬scribes spurious faith as pure hypocrisy (v. 16), mere cognitive assent (v. 19), devoid of any verifying works (vv. 17-18)--no different from the demons' belief (v. 19). Obviously there is more to saving faith than merely conceding a set of facts. Faith without works is useless (v. 20).
Yet some in contemporary evangelicalism refuse to allow for any kind of relationship between faith and works. With this limitation, they are forced to receive virtually any profession of faith as the real thing. [33] At least one writer explicitly stated that dead faith can save. [34] Amazingly, one popular interpreta¬tion of James 2 teaches that dead faith is actually proof of salva¬tion. [35]
Others admit the inefficacy of "faith" that is no more than a barren, academic recognition of the truth, but balk at defining faith in terms that imply submission or commitment of one's life. [36] In fact, it is commonly believed that faith and commitment are innately discon¬nected. [37] The typical idea of faith relegates it to a momentary act that takes place in the mind, a decision to believe the facts of the gospel--"nothing more than a response to a divine initiative." [38]
Herein lies the fallacy of today's popular approach to evange¬lism. The gospel appeal is tacked onto a wholly inadequate explanation of what it means to believe. The modern definition of faith eliminates repentance; it erases the moral significance of believing; it obviates the work of God in the sinner's heart; it makes an ongoing trust in the Lord optional. Far from champion¬ing the truth that human works have no place in salvation, modern easy-believism has made faith itself a wholly human work, a fragile, temporary attribute that may or may not endure. [39]
But it is not a biblical view of faith to say one may have it at the moment of salvation and never need to have it again. Paul's words in 2 Timothy 2:12 speak powerfully to this issue: "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him, if we deny Him, He also will deny us." Endurance is the mark of those who will reign with Christ in His kingdom. Clearly, enduring is a characteristic of true believers, while disloyalty and defection reveal a heart of unbelief. Those who deny Christ, He will deny. Paul goes on to say, "If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself" (v. 13). Thus God's faithfulness is a blessed comfort to loyal, abiding believers, but a frightening warning to false professors (cf. John 3:17-18).
Faith as Scripture Describes It
We have seen already that repentance is granted by God; it is not a human work (Acts 11:18; 2 Timothy 2:25). Likewise, faith is a supernatu¬ral gift of God. Ephesians 2:8-9 is a familiar passage: "By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast." What is "the gift of God" Paul speaks of? Westcott calls it "the saving energy of faith." [40] However, the phrase "that not of your¬selves" has no clear antecedent. The Greek pronoun translated "that" is neuter and the word for "faith" is feminine. The antecedent of that, it would seem, cannot be the word faith. The problem is, there is no clear antecedent in this passage. "That" might refer to the act of believing, employing an antecedent that is not stated but under¬stood. It is also possible that Paul had in mind the entire pro¬cess--grace, faith, and salva¬tion--as the gift of God. Both possibilities certainly are in keeping with the context: "Even when we were dead in our transgres¬sions, [God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (v. 5). Spiritually dead, we were helpless until God inter¬vened to quicken us. Faith is an integral part of the "gift" His grace bestowed on us.
Consistently the Scriptures teach that faith is not conjured up by the human will but is a sovereignly granted gift of God. Jesus said, "No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). And "No one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father" (v. 65). Acts 3:16 speaks of "the faith which comes through Him." Philippi¬ans 1:29 says, "To you it has been granted for Christ's sake... to believe in Him." And Peter wrote to fellow believers as "those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours" (2 Peter 1:1). How do we know that faith is God's gift? Left to ourselves, no one would ever believe: "There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God" (Romans 3:11). "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy" (9:16). God draws the sinner to Christ and gives the ability to believe. Without that divinely generated faith, one cannot under¬stand and approach the Savior. "A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually ap¬praised" (1 Corinthians 2:14). That is precisely why when Peter affirmed his faith in Christ as the Son of God, Jesus told him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 16:17). Faith is graciously given to believers by God Himself.
As a divine gift, faith is neither transient nor impotent. It has an abiding quality that guarantees it will endure to the end. The familiar words of Habakkuk 2:4, "The righteous will live by his faith" (cf. Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38), speak not of a momentary act of believing, but of a living, enduring trust in God. Hebrews 3:14 emphasizes the permanence of genuine faith. Its very durability is proof of its reality: "We have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end." The faith God gives can never evaporate. And the work of salvation cannot ultimately be thwarted. In Philippians 1:6 Paul wrote, "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (cf. also 1 Corinthians 1:8; Colossians 1:22-23).
The faith God graciously supplies produces both the volition and the ability to comply with His will (cf. Philippians 2:13: "God... is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure"). Thus faith is insepara¬ble from obedience. Berkhof sees three elements to genuine faith: An intellectual element (notitia), which is "a positive recogni¬tion of the truth"; an emotion¬al element (assensus), which includes "a deep convic¬tion [and affirmation] of the truth"; and a volitional element (fiducia), which involves "a personal trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord, including a surrender... to Christ." [41] Modern popular theology tends to recognize notitia and often assensus but eliminate fiducia. Yet faith is not true faith if it lacks this attitude of surrender to Christ's authority.
Writing about the verb "to obey" (peithō), W. E. Vine says,
Peithō and pisteuō, "to trust," are closely related etymo¬log¬ically; the difference in meaning is that the former implies the obedience that is produced by the latter, cp. Heb. 3:18, 19, where the disobedi¬ence of the Israelites is said to be the evidence of their unbelief.... When a man obeys God he gives the only possible evidence that in his heart he believes God.... Peithō in N. T. suggests an actual and outward result of the inward persua¬sion and consequent faith. [42]
So the person who has believed will yearn to obey. Because we retain the vestiges of sinful flesh, no one will obey perfectly (cf. 2 Corinthi¬ans 7:1; 1 Thessalonians 3:10), but the desire to do the will of God will be ever present in true believers (cf. Romans 7:18). [43] That is why faith and obedience are so closely linked throughout Scripture.
A concept of faith apart from surrender of the will corrupts the message of salvation. Paul spoke of the gospel as something to be obeyed (Romans 10:16, KJV; 2 Thessalonians 1:8). Here's how he characterized conversion: "Though you were the slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart" (Romans 6:17). The result he sought in his ministry of evangelism was "obedi¬ence... by word and deed" (15:18). And he wrote repeatedly of "the obedience of faith" (1:5; 16:26).
Clearly, the biblical concept of faith is inseparable from obedi¬ence. "Believe" is treated as if it were synonymous with "obey" in John 3:36: "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life." Acts 6:7 shows how salvation was understood in the early church: "A great many... were becoming obedient to the faith." Obedience is so closely related to saving faith that Hebrews 5:9 uses it as a synonym: "Having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation." Hebrews 11, the great treatise on faith, presents obedi¬ence and faith as inseparable: "By faith... Abraham obeyed" (v. 8)--and not just Abraham. All the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11 showed their faith by obedience.
Obedience is the inevitable manifestation of true faith. Paul recognized this when he wrote to Titus about "those who are defiled and unbelieving.... They profess to know God but by their deeds they deny Him" (Titus 1:15-16). [44] To Paul, their perpetual disobedi¬ence proved their disbelief. Their actions denied God more loudly than their words proclaimed Him. This is characteristic of unbelief, not faith, for true faith always embodies righteous works. As the Reformers were fond of saying, we are justified by faith alone, but justifying faith is never alone. Spurgeon said, "Although we are sure that men are not saved for the sake of their works, yet we are equally sure that no man will be saved without them." [45] True faith is manifest only in obedi¬ence.
Faith and faithfulness were not substantially different concepts to the first-century Christian. In fact, the same word is translated both ways in our English Bibles. [46] Writing on "faith" in his commentary on Galatians, Lightfoot says,
The Greek pistis... and the English "faith" hover between two meanings; trustfulness, the frame of mind which relies on another; and trustworthi¬ness, the frame of mind which can be relied upon. Not only are the two connected together grammatically, as active and passive sense of the same word, or logically, as subject and object of the same act; but there is a close moral affinity between them. Fidelity, constan¬cy, firmness, confidence, reliance, trust, belief--these are the links which connect the two extremes, the passive with the active meaning of "faith." Owing to these combined causes, the two senses will at times be so blended together that they can only be separated by some arbitrary distinc¬tion... In all such cases it is better to accept the latitude, and even the vagueness, of a word or phrase, than to attempt a rigid definition.... And indeed the loss in grammatical precision is often more than compensated by the gain in theological depth. In the case of "the faithful" for instance, does not the one quality of heart carry the other with it, so that they who are trustful are trusty also; they who have faith in God are stedfast and unmov¬able in the path of duty? [47]
And so the faithful (believing) are also faithful (obedient). "Fidelity, constancy, firmness, confidence, reliance, trust, [and] belief" are all indivisibly wrapped up in the idea of believing. Righteous living is an inevitable by-product of real faith (Romans 10:10).
Of course, that is not to say that faith results in anything like sinless perfection. All true believers understand the plea of the demon-possessed boy's father, "I do believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24). Those who believe will desire to obey, however imperfectly they may follow through at times. So-called "faith" in God that does not produce this yearning to submit to His will is not faith at all. The state of mind that refuses obedience is pure and simple unbelief.
Faith as Jesus Presented It
The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) reveal the character of true faith as well as any passage of Scripture I know. [48] These traits--poverty of spirit, hunger and thirst for righteousness, purity of heart, and so on--are not just an unobtain¬able legal standard. These are charac¬teris¬tics common to all who believe. The first of the Beatitudes leaves no doubt about whom the Lord is speaking: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3, emphasis added). He is describing redeemed people, those who have believed, those who are part of the kingdom. Here is what their faith is like.
Its foundational characteristic is humility--a poverty of spirit, a brokenness that acknowledges spiritual bankruptcy. Genuine believers see themselves as sinners; they know they have nothing to offer God that will buy His favor. That is why they mourn (v. 4), with the sorrow that accompa¬nies true repentance. It crushes the believer into meekness (v. 5). He hungers and thirsts for righteous¬ness (v. 6). As the Lord satisfies that hunger, He makes the believing one merciful (v. 6), pure in heart (v. 7), and a peacemaker (v. 9). The believer is ultimately persecuted and reviled for righ¬teousness' sake (v. 10).
That is Jesus' description of the genuine believer. Each of the characteristics He names--starting with humility and reaching fruition in obedience--is a consequence of true faith. And note that the obedience of faith is more than external; it issues from the heart. That is one reason their righteousness is greater than the righteous¬ness of the scribes and Pharisees (v. 20). Jesus goes on to character¬ize true righteous¬ness--the righteousness that is born of faith (cf. Romans 10:6)--as obedience not just to the letter of the law, but to the spirit of the law as well (Matthew 5:21-48). This kind of righteousness does not merely avoid acts of adultery; it goes so far as to avoid adulterous thoughts. It eschews hatred the same as murder.
If you see that God's standard is higher than you can possibly attain, you're on the road to the blessedness Jesus spoke of in the Beatitudes. It begins with the humility that grows out of a sense of utter spiritual poverty, the knowledge that we are poor in spirit. And it consum¬mates inevitably in righteous obedience. Those are characteristics of a supernatural life. They are impossible apart from faith, and it is impossible that someone with true faith might be utterly lacking these characteristics that are common to everyone in the kingdom (Matthew 5:3).
When Jesus wanted to illustrate the character of saving faith, He took a little child, stood him in the midst of the disciples, and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mat¬thew 18:3). A child was the perfect picture of obedient humili¬ty, [49] an object lesson about saving faith.
Jesus used this illustration to teach that if we insist on retaining the privileges of adulthood--if we want to be our own boss, do our own thing, govern our own lives--we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. But if we are willing to come on the basis of childlike faith and receive salvation with the humility of a child, with a willingness to surrender to Christ's authority, then we are coming with the right attitude.
Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life; and they shall never perish" (John 10:27-28, emphasis added). Who are the true sheep? The ones who follow. Who are the ones who follow? The ones who are given eternal life.
Faith obeys. Unbelief rebels. The direction of one's life should reveal whether that person is a believer or an unbeliever. There is no middle ground. [50] Merely knowing and affirming facts apart from obedi¬ence to the truth is not believing in the biblical sense. Those who cling to the memory of a one-time decision of "faith" but lack any evidence of the outworking of faith had better heed the clear and solemn warning of Scripture: "He who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36).
________________________________________
[1] Zane C. Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege (Dallas: Redención Viva, 1981), p. 14.
[2] Charles C. Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life (Chicago: Moody, 1969), pp. 169-70.
[3] James asks the rhetorical question, "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?" (James 2:14). One branch of contemporary theology seems to be saying yes. Cf. Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege, pp. 19-33.
Nevertheless, James's message seems clear. Even the demons have faith enough to grasp the basic facts (v. 19), but that is not redeeming faith. "Faith without works is useless" (v. 20) and "faith without works is dead" (v. 26). Putting those three verses together, we must conclude that this is a description of ineffec¬tual faith, not faith that was once alive but now has died.
[4] See Appendix 2, "The Gospel According to Historic Christianity," pp. 255-72, for an overview of the historic church's under¬stand¬ing of the relationship between faith and works.
[5] Lewis Sperry Chafer, He That Is Spiritual, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zonder¬van, 1967), p. 21.
[6] Those schooled in dispensationalist theology may be surprised to learn that Dr. Chafer's book was extremely controversial when first released. In a scathing review, Dr. B. B. Warfield took issue with Chafer's basic premise. While not denying the obvious truth that Chris¬tians can behave in carnal ways, Warfield objected vigorously to the classification of carnality as a separate state of the spiritual life. Warfield makes some excellent points:
This teaching is indistinguishable from what is ordinarily under¬stood by the doctrine of a "second blessing," "a second work of grace," "the higher life."
............
The remainders of the flesh in the Christian do not consti¬tute his charac¬ter¬istic. He is in the Spirit and is walking, with however halting steps, by the Spirit; and it is to all Christians, not to some, that the great promise is given, "Sin shall not have dominion over you," and the great assurance is added, "Because ye are not under the law but under grace." He who believes in Jesus Christ is under grace, and his whole course, in its process and in its issue alike, is determined by grace, and therefore, having been predes¬tined to be conformed to the image of God's Son, he is surely being conformed to that image, God Himself seeing to it that he is not only called and justified but also glori¬fied. You may find Christians at every stage of this process, for it is a process through which all must pass; but you will find none who will not in God's own good time and way pass through every stage of it. There are not two kinds of Christians, although there are Christians at every conceiv¬able stage of advance¬ment towards the one goal to which all are bound and at which all shall arrive.
Benjamin B. Warfield, review in The Princeton Theological Review (April 1919), pp. 322-27.
[7] Ibid., p. 322.
[8] A definition of biblical dispensationalism is given in Charles C. Ryrie, Dispen¬sation¬alism Today (Chicago: Moody, 1965), pp. 43-44.
[9] Chafer wrote,
In respect to the character of divine govern¬ment, both the age before the cross and the age following the return of Christ represent the exercise of pure law; while the period between the two ages repre¬sents the exercise of pure grace. It is imperative, therefore, that there shall be no careless co-mingling of these great age-characteriz¬ing elements, else the preserva¬tion of the most important distinc¬tions in the various relationships between God and man are lost, and the recognition of the true force of the death of Christ and His coming again is obscured.
Lewis Sperry Chafer, Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1922), p. 124.
[10] Ibid. It is noteworthy that The New Scofield Reference Bible places far more weight than Chafer did on the importance of the law and its ministry in the age of grace (New York: Oxford, 1967), pp. 3, 1254.
[11] Chafer, Grace, p. 124.
[12] Ibid., p. 138.
[13] Ibid., p. 139. Contrast this with Luther's statement that "the Sermon on the Mount is not Law, but Gospel." Cited in John R. W. Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Down¬ers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity, 1978), p. 37.
[14] Clarence Larkin, Dispensational Truth (Philadelphia: Larkin, 1918), p. 87. Larkin, whose books and charts are still in print and used by many dispen¬sationalists, also pointed to the phrase "Thy kingdom come" in the Lord's Prayer as proof the prayer is meant only "for those who shall be living in the 'Tribulation Period.'" His conclu¬sion is unwarranted. The kingdom is also yet to come for those living today, before the Tribulation.
[15] It should be pointed out that many dispensationalists resent the criticism that they relegate the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Jesus to a future age. Most dispensation¬alists will say they see application of the Sermon to the church age, but still stop short of saying its primary message is for Christians. Even Dr. Ryrie, who wrote a passionate counterattack to this charge, falls short of embracing the Sermon on the Mount as truth for today. After a lengthy defense of the traditional dispensationalist view of the Sermon on the Mount, Ryrie concludes that it cannot be applied "primarily and ful¬ly... to the believer in this age" (Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, p. 109). Yet virtually every detail in the Sermon is repeated in the epistles.
[16] Livingston Blauvelt, Jr., "Does the Bible Teach Lordship Salva¬tion?" Biblio¬theca Sacra (January-March 1986), p. 37.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid., p. 38.
[19] Some dispensationalists would confine the application of Romans 10:9-10 to unbeliev¬ing Jews. It is true that Romans 9-11 deals with the question of Israel's rejection of the Messiah and the nation's place in God's eternal plan. But the soteriological significance of those verses cannot be limited to Israel alone, because of verses 12-13: "There is no distinc¬tion between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him; for whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved."
[20] I don't like the term "lordship salvation." It was coined by those who want to eliminate the idea of submission to Christ from the call to saving faith, and it implies that Jesus' lordship is a false addition to the gospel. As we shall see, however, "lordship salvation" is simply biblical and historic evan¬gelical soteriol¬ogy. I use the term in this volume only for the sake of argument.
[21] Ibid., pp. 38-41. See also G. Michael Cocoris, Lordship Sal¬vation--Is It Bibli¬cal? (Dallas: Redención Viva, 1983), pp. 13-15.
[22] Proper understanding of any biblical term depends on etymology, context, and history. Etymologically, kurios comes from a Greek root that means "rule, dominion, or power." Contextu¬ally, taking Peter's use of kurios in Acts 2:36, it is important to note that verses 34-35 quote from Psalm 110, a messianic Psalm of rule and dominion ("Rule in the midst of Thine ene¬mies," Psalm 110:2). Peter was not saying merely that "God has made Him... God"; he was affirm¬ing Jesus' right to rule. Historical¬ly, Peter's sermon addressed the Jews' role in crucifying their Messiah (Acts 2:23). At the trial of Jesus before Pilate and the Jewish mob, the issue was clearly His kingship, mentioned at least a dozen times in John 18:33--19:22. Clearly, careful historical-grammati¬cal exegesis of Acts 2:36 can lead to only one conclusion: Jesus is the divine King who rules in the midst of both friends and foes. Having thus identified Christ as Lord of all, Peter makes his gospel appeal. Note carefully that Paul preached Jesus in exactly the same way (2 Corinthians 4:3-5): Jesus is our sovereign Lord, and we are His servants.
[23] A. W. Tozer, I Call It Heresy! (Harrisburg, Pa.: Christian Publica¬tions, 1974), pp. 18-19.
[24] Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege, 35-45; Cocoris, Lordship Salvation--Is It Biblical?, 15-16; Blauvelt, "Does the Bible Teach Lordship Salvation?," p. 41.
[25] Charles C. Ryrie in the foreword to Zane C. Hodges, The Hungry Inherit (Portland: Multnomah, 1980), p. 7.
[26] James M. Boice, Christ's Call to Discipleship (Chicago: Moody, 1986), p. 14.
[27] Jesus' Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 does not talk about making believers in distinction to disciples. "Make disci¬ples... baptizing them" implies that every new believer is a disciple, for all Christians are to be baptized (Acts 2:38), not just those who go on to some deeper level of commit¬ment.
[28] Chafer, Grace, 345. Chafer would be the last person to countenance lawless Christian living. Yet because of his extreme emphasis on "pure grace," he often made state¬ments with a strange antinomian flavor that may have conveyed impressions he did not want to convey.
[29] Cocoris, Lordship Salvation--Is It Biblical?, 11. Also, Dr. Ryrie claims that repentance is "a change of mind about Jesus Christ so that He is believed and received as personal Saviour from sin." Repentance, by this definition, has nothing to do with one's attitude toward sin and does not necessarily result in any change in lifestyle. It is merely a Christolog¬ical focus. Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life, pp. 175-76.
[30] Those who reject the lordship position often claim that texts such as Ro¬mans 1:5 ("the obedience of faith") indicate that believing itself is the only obedience called for in salvation. By believing in the Son, we obey the Father's will (John 6:29). This is "the obedience of faith," they say; it is one-time obedi¬ence to the Father, not lasting obedience to the command¬ments of Christ. But obedience to Christ's authority is clearly enjoined by texts such as John 3:36 ("He who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him") and Hebrews 5:9 ("[Christ] became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation").
[31] Charles C. Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life, p. 35.
[32] The question of James 2:14, introduced by the Greek particle mē, gram¬mati¬cal¬ly pre¬sumes a negative answer: "Can that faith save him? Of course not!" Cf. A. T. Robert¬son, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville: Broad¬man, 1933), 6:34.
[33] "One gets the impression that [they see] no distinction." Johnny V. Miller, review of The Gospel Under Siege, Trinity Journal 4 (Spring 1983), pp. 93-94.
[34] A. Ray Stanford, Handbook of Personal Evangelism (Holly¬wood, Fla.: Florida Bible College, n.d.), pp. 102-3.
[35] Zane C. Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege, p. 19. Hodges postulates that in order for faith to be dead, it must have been alive at one time (p. 20). He theorizes that the salvation spoken of in James 2:14 means deliver¬ance from the temporal consequences of sin, not eternal salvation (p. 23). Thus he concludes that James is talking to re¬deemed people beset by dead orthodoxy--in Hodges' words, their faith has become "little more than a creedal corpse" (p. 33). Though their faith has lapsed, Hodges believes their eternal salvation is secure. The fact that their faith is dead, he says, simply proves it was once alive--and therefore they must be saved. But that is skewed logic. "Dead faith" does not necessitate faith that was once alive, any more than Ephesians 2:1 ("You were dead in your trespasses and sins") implies that individual sinners were once spiritual¬ly alive.
[36] Cf. Livingston Blauvelt, Jr., "Does the Bible Teach Lordship Salvation?," pp. 37-45. Blauvelt begins his article with a recognition that intellectual assent is not saving faith: "Many people 'say' they have faith (James 2:14) but have no genuine conversion. Mere verbal assent or mental acquiescence to the fact of Christ's death, without any conviction of personal sin, is inadequate" (p. 37). But Blauvelt's entire discussion of the true na¬ture of faith consists only of four paragraphs arguing that saving faith has nothing to do with commit¬ment, after which he writes, "The term faith in the New Testament sense involves believing that Jesus of Nazareth is Christ the Son of God and that He died for one's sins and rose from the dead (John 20:31; 1 Corin¬thians 15:3-4). Faith is trusting Christ for everlasting life" (p. 43). It is difficult to see how such faith apart from any kind of commitment to Christ differs from "mere verbal assent or mental acquiescence."
[37] Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life, p. 170. Here Dr. Ryrie writes, "The message of faith plus commitment of life... cannot be the gospel."
[38] Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege, p. 21. Although this book is labeled "a study on faith and works," this brief statement is as close as Hodges comes in the book to giving a definition of faith: "Faith, as we have perceived it in the simple, direct state¬ments of the Bible about the saving transaction, is nothing more than a re¬sponse to a divine initiative. It is the means by which the gift of life is re¬ceived."
[39] Shockingly, Hodges writes, "It is widely held in modern Christendom that the faith of a genuine Christian cannot fail. But this is not an assertion that can be verified from the New Testament" (ibid., p. 68); and, "There is nothing to support the view that persever¬ance in the faith is an inevitable outcome of true salvation" (p. 83). Contrast that statement with Paul's inspired words in Colossians 1:22-23: "He has now recon¬ciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach--if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel" (emphasis added). What is that but a guarantee that if faith is genuine, it will endure to the end? Cf. also 1 Corinthians 15:1-2; 2 Timothy 2:12; Hebrews 2:1-3; 3:14; 4:14; 6:11-12; 12:14; James 1:2; 1 John 2:19.
[40] B. F. Westcott, St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians (Minneap¬olis: Klock and Klock, n.d., reprint of 1906 volume), p. 32.
[41] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), pp. 503-5. Berkhof seems to borrow heavily here from Augustus Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: Judson, 1907), 837-38. Strong is as explicit as Berkhof in defining the volitional element of faith, fiducia. He says it involves "surren¬der of the soul, as guilty and defiled, to Christ's gover¬nance." Thus we find "lordship salvation" at the very heart of the definition of faith.
[42] W. E. Vine, Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1981), 3:124.
[43] Romans 7 is the classic text describing the believer's struggle with his sinful flesh. Note that while Paul acknowledged his own disobedience, he wrote that the desire to do good was his consuming passion: "I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate" (v. 15); "The wishing [to do good] is present in me" (v. 18); "I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man" (v. 22); and "I myself with my mind am serving the law of God" (v. 25).
Though the apostle Paul described himself as the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), those who love reveling in debauch¬ery will not find a kindred spirit in him.
[44] Incredibly, Zane Hodges asserts that Paul was describing true believers when he wrote those words to Titus (The Gospel Under Siege, p. 96). He writes, "The people Paul has in mind in Titus 1:16 are evidently the same as those of whom he says in verse 13: 'Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.' The Greek word for 'sound' means to be healthy. Hence, the persons he thinks of are not individuals who are not 'in the faith' at all. Rather, they are people whom he regards as spiritually 'sick' and who need a rebuke designed to restore them to good health."
That completely ignores the fact that Paul referred to these people as "defiled an unbelieving, [with] both their mind and their cons¬cience... defiled" (v. 15); and "detest¬able and disobedi¬ent... worthless for any good deed" (v. 16). That cannot be a descrip¬tion of the children of God.
[45] Charles H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit (Grand Rapids: Zonder¬van, 1962 reprint of 1858 volume), 4:265.
[46] Cf. Galatians 5:22, where pistis as a fruit of the Spirit is rendered "faithful¬ness." This is the same word translated "faith" in Ephe¬sians 2:8: "By grace you have been saved through faith."
[47] J. B. Lightfoot, The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Zonder¬van, n.d.), pp. 154-55.
[48] For a complete commentary on the Beatitudes, see John MacArthur, Matthew 1-7, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1985), pp. 131-233. For a popular treat¬ment of the same passage, see John MacArthur, The Only Way to Happiness (Chicago: Moody, 1998).
[49] Children, of course, do not always obey. But they are under the authority of another, and when they disobey, they are chastened.
[50] Again, this is not to deny the obvious truth that Christians can and do fall into sin. But even in the case of a sinning believer, the Spirit will operate by producing conviction, hatred for his sin, and some kind of desire for obedience. The idea that a true believer can continue in unbroken disobe¬dience from the moment of conversion, without ever producing any righ¬teous fruit whatso¬ever, is foreign to Scripture.