"Lordship Salvation"

[DBowling]

After reading your article another semantic distinction came to mind, and I would be interested in your position.

Which of these statements do you agree with and which do you disagree with?
1. "Condition of" and "Condition for" mean the same thing
2. If A is a necessary result of B then A is a condition for B
3. If wet streets are necessary result of rain then wet streets are a condition for rain
4. making works a "necessary result" of justification is no different than making them a condition for it
And a new one based on your article
5. making works a "necessary result" of justification is no different than making them a condition for glorification

Just trying to make sure I understand your position.
Thanks

DBowling,

Before I address your statements, I want to be able to fully understand the message in the link I posted. I read it over a couple of times, and I'm still working through it.

Edit: after reading the article, it hasn't changed what I believe, but it's making me think about how I can word it better. I'm trying not to be confusing.

Fair enough

[SoCalExile]

The only ones muddying the gospel is those teaching that John 3:16 isn't enough.

And they can say all they want that they believe in salvation-by-faith, but when they are telling people on the very same page that works are a necessary result of salvation, then they are talking out of both sides of their mouth.

[RickD]

To be fair to DBowling, I was critiquing the version of LS that MacArthur holds to in this Grace to You link, because DBowling said it was an accurate representation of LS. But, as we've seen in this thread, DBowling has disagreed with much of MacArthur's version of LS.

So, maybe we need to look at what Jac said in his last post. At least two differing "types" of Lordship Salvation.

[Nicki]

There's a confusion here between "condition" and "precondition." Most people use the former in the sense of the latter, which I think is what's going on here. LS does not make works a precondition of salvation. It certainly makes them a condition of salvation (see the joke I told above). That's evident in the fact that the LS claims "where there are no works, there is no salvation."

So stated, that's just a back-loaded gospel. Strictly, a back-loaded gospel is not an aberrant Christianity as it is not a false gospel. The reason is that, in a back-loaded gospel, the person believes the gospel (that if they trust Christ, they are saved), but then they go on from there to make other mistakes. In this case, the mistake they are making is pneumatological. They want to suggest that the Holy Spirit has a ministry that He does not, namely, the necessary bringing about of good works in the life of the believer. So they're wrong on that point. The HS has no such ministry. And yet, just because the LS is wrong on that, it doesn't follow that they do not believe the gospel. What it does mean, though, is that they can have no assurance, or that their assurance can only be of the moral sort (and so they are Roman Catholic in their thinking here). Now, ultimately, the inability to have absolute assurance means that you don't believe the gospel at all, because the gospel, by nature, grants absolute assurance. You can't say that you believe Jesus has saved you and not believe that you are saved. But to press slightly further, that's less of an issue with the gospel as it is with human psychology. We have this amazing ability to affirm two contradictory things at the same time. So DB can say he believes the gospel, but then deny (when pressed) that he knows he's saved (absolutely--he certainly has moral assurance). Now, those two statements are logically contradictory, which means he is denying the gospel in practice. But none of that means that the gospel itself, in and of itself, is compromised.

That changes, though, when the LS is of the MacArthur camp. He doesn't just backload the gospel with conditions but in fact frontloads the gospel with preconditions. For them, "faith" doesn't mean "believe" or "trust." "Faith" means "to commit to" or "to pledge obedience to." In this case, they are requiring in addition to belief other conditions: a pledge/promise of obedience. For that reason, I don't actually think "lordship salvation" is a good term. We ought to be calling it "Commitment Salvation" or "I-Promise Salvation." At this point, I say that this is aberrant. Such a view is literally a false gospel. People who believe it (and who have never believed the gospel of Jesus) will actually go to Hell, not because of any pneumatological mistake they are making (as the backloaders do) but rather because of a soteriological mistake they make. Put simply, Jesus says, "Everyone who believes has everlasting life," and they say, "No, Jesus, that's not true. Some believes don't have everlasting life. Haven't you read James 2? No, the fact is, only people who believe and also meet the further condition of pledging their obedience have everlasting life." It is the addition of the precondition of commitment to obedience (and so the term "lordship") that makes this a false gospel.

Note that I am not at all saying that the presence or lack thereof of works makes this a false gospel. Here, they're just making the same mistake backloaders do. It amounts to requiring a promise to do works on the front end that makes it a false gospel. When you throw the thief on the cross at them, they'll say that if he had lived, he would have done good works: the backloaders because his faith would have so resulted in good works, and the frontloaders because he made a promise to do them and that is what made it true faith, and that is why the HS would bring them about. Again, for both positions, the presence of works is a condition of salvation. But only for the frontloader is the the promise of obedience a precondition of salvation. Therefore, frontloading LSers are literally not Christian, anymore than Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses are. They are heretics, plain and simple. Backloaders are dangerous, but they aren't aberrant. They still have the basics of the gospel correct.

I'm not pronouncing on DB as to which camp he is. I'll let him say for himself.

I agree mostly, but I can't see that it's that wrong to say we should try to obey God. If I imagine simply praying for salvation - that's quite a short prayer really; nothing wrong with adding that you'd like to make Jesus Lord of your life and try to obey him. Maybe it's wrong to say we absolutely have to pray that, but are people who believe we should really unsaved? Isn't it supposed to be about the walk and not just the talk?

When I got saved a long time ago one of the booklets I read which explained it to me said that one aspect of becoming a Christian was taking yourself off the throne of your life and putting God on the throne to be your king. Is that a false gospel as well?

[DBowling]

I agree mostly, but I can't see that it's that wrong to say we should try to obey God. If I imagine simply praying for salvation - that's quite a short prayer really; nothing wrong with adding that you'd like to make Jesus Lord of your life and try to obey him. Maybe it's wrong to say we absolutely have to pray that, but are people who believe we should really unsaved? Isn't it supposed to be about the walk and not just the talk?

When I got saved a long time ago one of the booklets I read which explained it to me said that one aspect of becoming a Christian was taking yourself off the throne of your life and putting God on the throne to be your king. Is that a false gospel as well?

I wouldn't label it as a false Gospel. I would call it a legitimate example of what it means to place my trust in someone other than myself... similar to 'lordship' in the Lordship Salvation that we are discussing.
Many people have no real frame of reference to understand many of the religious terms that we throw around on a regular basis. So I think it is legitimate to explain concepts like faith/belief/trust in terms that people can understand.

One of my favorite examples of what it means to trust in someone other than myself is the classic Charles Blondin wheelbarrow example.

In Christ

[Jac3510]

I agree mostly, but I can't see that it's that wrong to say we should try to obey God. If I imagine simply praying for salvation - that's quite a short prayer really; nothing wrong with adding that you'd like to make Jesus Lord of your life and try to obey him. Maybe it's wrong to say we absolutely have to pray that, but are people who believe we should really unsaved? Isn't it supposed to be about the walk and not just the talk?

When I got saved a long time ago one of the booklets I read which explained it to me said that one aspect of becoming a Christian was taking yourself off the throne of your life and putting God on the throne to be your king. Is that a false gospel as well?

There is no false gospel in promising obedience. It becomes a false gospel when you consider that promise of obedience as a precondition of receiving salvation, either as a discreet act (I have belief/trust and I also promise obedience) or as a replacement/redefinition of the act of faith ("real faith" is not belief, but belief+promise/commitment).

The problem, in practice, is that while frontloaders practice the former--and so are clearly heretics--backloaders run the risk of practicing the latter, and so their heresy is covered and allows a degree of plausible deniability. The former most definitely the reject Jesus' promise that all who believe have everlasting life. What they believe, instead, is something He never said. They believe that all those who "have real faith" have everlasting life, where the phrase "have real faith" is a placeholder for their own theological construct of belief+repentance+submission+whatever-other-preconditions-they-want-to-add-here. The problem they have is the word Jesus used just does not carry the meaning that they attach to it, such that they, again, do not believe what Jesus actually said. The latter (backloaders), run the risk of this, insofar as they attempt (with frontloaders) to "redefine" faith rather than merely seeing works as the necessary outgrowth of faith. Strictly speaking, a backloader can maintain their error if they stick to the proper defininition of faith (although we've already seen the inherent contradiction in that theology). The practical problem, given the self-contradictory nature of the theology, is that in practice, the very essence and definition of faith are changed such that end up preaching in deed if not in word the same thing as front loading false prophets.

Again, to be clear, there is no false gospel in promising obedience. There is a false gospel in making the promise of obedience a precondition of faith (or in defining faith in such a way that it presumes a promise of obedience).

[Kurieuo]

Righteousness doesn't come to us through obedience, but by faith from Christ.
Those who frontload righteousness (you must ask for forgiveness and be good) or
backload righteousness (now you are forgiven you must be good or else you're not saved really), both are wrong.

Since it is by faith we receive Christ's righteousness and not obedience, shall we continue sinning?

• 8But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” 12For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; 13for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”

If it is with the heart a person believes, then whoever believes in Christ must have a heart for Christ. In this, their inner most deepest self melts and unites with Christ. These are those who will not perish, but have everlasting life.

So then, desire sin? Yes, while we remain in flesh we're still weak. Our natural selves will crave many things that we ought not. We are affected by the world, by our bodies, by emotions, by others, by our carnal thoughts and self. It is something we can however continually strive to improve upon with God's help, at least those of us who love Christ and as such really desire to not go against God.

Some people say "belief" merely requires intellectual assent, I do not consider such easy believism to be right. Even the demons believe and tremble, and everyone will end up believing in any case. What is the logical reason for now rather than before God? When before God declaring, "Oh, I believe. Jesus you exist. Wow! Please take away my sin!" There isn't any logical reason whatsoever I can think for why now and not also then.

Heck, God is evident in the world and people run and bury themselves from God. They keep their hearts distant. No, "belief" as Paul tells us in Romans 10 requires the central core of a person, their very heart. God desired the heart of Israel, and God desires our hearts. David had a heart after God's, but it wasn't due to his righteousness that's for sure. Rather, his faith in God was unshakable, even when he pursued his fleshly desires. What was this? Was it his action? No. Was it a mere rational belief in God? No. It was David's heart, in his heart he believed in God, loved God, sung to God.

So then, if God has your heart, and indeed Christ has your heart, then you have Christ's righteousness. If your heart desires money, you'll pursue wealth. If your heart desires God, you'll pursue what God desires. People may fail at both, but nonetheless our hearts desire something. God knows our hearts. Either God has your heart and you belong to Him, or God doesn't and you don't. Your heart can't desire both God and not God.

So then, I'm now an open target, but this makes sense to me and seems utterly Scriptural.

[RickD]

Righteousness doesn't come to us through obedience, but by faith from Christ.
Those who frontload righteousness (you must ask for forgiveness and be good) or
backload righteousness (now you are forgiven you must be good or else you're not saved really), both are wrong.

Since it is by faith we receive Christ's righteousness and not obedience, shall we continue sinning?

• 8But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” 12For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; 13for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”

If it is with the heart a person believes, then whoever believes in Christ must have a heart for Christ. In this, their inner most deepest self melts and unites with Christ. These are those who will not perish, but have everlasting life.

So then, desire sin? Yes, while we remain in flesh we're still weak. Our natural selves will crave many things that we ought not. We are affected by the world, by our bodies, by emotions, by others, by our carnal thoughts and self. It is something we can however continually strive to improve upon with God's help, at least those of us who love Christ and as such really desire to not go against God.

Some people say "belief" merely requires intellectual assent, I do not consider such easy believism to be right. Even the demons believe and tremble, and everyone will end up believing in any case. What is the logical reason for now rather than before God? When before God declaring, "Oh, I believe. Jesus you exist. Wow! Please take away my sin!" There isn't any logical reason whatsoever I can think for why now and not also then.

Heck, God is evident in the world and people run and bury themselves from God. They keep their hearts distant. No, "belief" as Paul tells us in Romans 10 requires the central core of a person, their very heart. God desired the heart of Israel, and God desires our hearts. David had a heart after God's, but it wasn't due to his righteousness that's for sure. Rather, his faith in God was unshakable, even when he pursued his fleshly desires. What was this? Was it his action? No. Was it a mere rational belief in God? No. It was David's heart, in his heart he believed in God, loved God, sung to God.

So then, if God has your heart, and indeed Christ has your heart, then you have Christ's righteousness. If your heart desires money, you'll pursue wealth. If your heart desires God, you'll pursue what God desires. People may fail at both, but nonetheless our hearts desire something. God knows our hearts. Either God has your heart and you belong to Him, or God doesn't and you don't. Your heart can't desire both God and not God.

So then, I'm now an open target, but this makes sense to me and seems utterly Scriptural.

How exactly does God have someone's heart?

Is trusting Christ, merely intellectual? If not, please explain what trusting Christ for salvation entails?

[B. W.]

This is straying into the area that I thought it would...

Obedienceless Christianity justified...

Wow...

John 14:15 is null and void...

John 17 summed up in verse John 17:25, 26 explains obedience mentioned in John 14:15

If you loved God, you would not remain lazy, indifferent, and resistant to him and the change he brings to a persons heart which causes their lives to become transformed in recognizable ways.

As it is now, just as Melanie pointed out, people do not see Christians being Christian but rather acting just like the world and justifying such apathy as the norm.

I know we discussed this before and I know folks like to separate salvation from sanctification, making the two, two separate issues/acts. However, the two go together and are not separate. They are not.

A Born again person is born again by the Holy Spirit who will change a person in the course of his or her mortal life through processes of growth. This growth will increase and teach that we love God because he first loved us. His love resurrects us who do not deserve God's love in the least to love him and we will do those things that please him. We will fail and by failure we learn not to fail and things are changed around us. From there we are transformed and such transformation indeed changes people outwardly too. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not some static exercise of intellectual prowess - it transforms.

Doing works to keep oneself saved is stupid and not biblically based or sound either. I think folks get that. God changes a person inside out and it shows.

As I look at the modern state of the majority of Western Christiandom, I see plenty of the Sardis' and Laodicean types out there mixed in with the Ephesus, Pergamum's, and Thyatirans types too. All I can do is and
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[Jac3510]

Obedienceless Christianity justified...

That's a straw man, BW. If you can't do any better than misrepresent the position of people who disagree with you, then please do us the favor of staying out of the debate.

Can I get a mod to moderate this mod?

[RickD]

This is straying into the area that I thought it would...

Obedienceless Christianity justified...

Wow...

John 14:15 is null and void...

John 17 summed up in verse John 17:25, 26 explains obedience mentioned in John 14:15

If you loved God, you would not remain lazy, indifferent, and resistant to him and the change he brings to a persons heart which causes their lives to become transformed in recognizable ways.

As it is now, just as Melanie pointed out, people do not see Christians being Christian but rather acting just like the world and justifying such apathy as the norm.

I know we discussed this before and I know folks like to separate salvation from sanctification, making the two, two separate issues/acts. However, the two go together and are not separate. They are not.

A Born again person is born again by the Holy Spirit who will change a person in the course of his or her mortal life through processes of growth. This growth will increase and teach that we love God because he first loved us. His love resurrects us who do not deserve God's love in the least to love him and we will do those things that please him. We will fail and by failure we learn not to fail and things are changed around us. From there we are transformed and such transformation indeed changes people outwardly too. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not some static exercise of intellectual prowess - it transforms.

Doing works to keep oneself saved is stupid and not biblically based or sound either. I think folks get that. God changes a person inside out and it shows.

As I look at the modern state of the majority of Western Christiandom, I see plenty of the Sardis' and Laodicean types out there mixed in with the Ephesus, Pergamum's, and Thyatirans types too. All I can do is and
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Nobody is advocating "obedienceless christianity".

B. W., I think you really don't understand the position we are taking.

Nobody is saying that believers should be lazy, indifferent and resistant to God. We are advocating for precisely the opposite. Specifically that in order for us to grow as believers, we must do something. Specifically, cooperating with the Holy Spirit.
As I said before, the Holy Spirit is not like a demon who possesses people, and takes them over. He leads us, but we must respond.

[DBowling]

Some comments on 'redefining faith' to fit an agenda...

There are two ways to 'redefine' faith.
As many have noted, adding things to faith that are not part of faith as described in Scripture is one way of redefining faith.
But subtracting things from faith that are integral to faith as described in Scripture is an equally misguided way of redefining faith.

Let's start with the simple Scriptural premise that...
We trust in Jesus to save us from our sin.

If we redefine faith by removing the Scriptural concepts of repentance, submission, and commitment, then we are changing it from the living faith described in Scripture that affects the life of believers to a dead faith that is reduced to a mental acknowledgement of theological truths.

The effect of subtracting these Scriptural principles from faith is that we run the danger of changing the Gospel from...
Trusting in the person of Jesus Christ to save me from sin in my life
to
Trusting in my intellectual understanding of Biblical truths to save me from the consequences of sin.

I think Lordship Salvation sees the negative impact on the church caused by this redefinition of faith. And it is trying get back to the Gospel that Jesus taught and that we find in the pages of Scripture. Now I have already acknowledged that LS has some legitimate problems of its own to work through, but they are at least trying to address (sometimes imperfectly) a very real danger in the Church today.

In Christ

[RickD]

DBowling wrote:

If we redefine faith by removing the Scriptural concepts of repentance, submission, and commitment, then we are changing it from the living faith described in Scripture that affects the life of believers to a dead faith that is reduced to a mental acknowledgement of theological truths.

You do realize that faith like faith in Ephesians 2:8, 1 John 5:13 is the Greek word pistis.

Nowhere in the definition of faith, is repentance, submission, or commitment.

Those have been added by some, to what the word "faith" actually means. You do realize that, don't you?

Faith simply means trust. We are saved by God's grace, through trust in Christ.

By adding those things, and redefining faith, you are creating a different way through which we must be saved. You are redefining the gospel.

Please don't change the biblical meaning of faith, by adding things that aren't present in the meaning of the word.

[Jac3510]

And that is your fundamental problem, DB (it's a problem shared by K, it appears). You're seeing "faith" as a theological construct, a "biblical idea" you "define" by combining ideas from this verse and that verse. That commits a hermenutical and lexical fallacy called "illegitimate totality transfer." The fact is that the Greek and Hebrew words we translate "believe" (Pisteuo and aman, respectively) have a lexical meaning, and that meaning, and that meaning alone, is the meaning of the word. And the absolute, indisputable fact is that the ideas of "repentance, submission, and commitment" are not lexically or semantically related to "believe." You have read those words into our word, and as such, you simply do not believe what the text says as written. Instead, you believe what you have reinterpreted it to mean based on your broader theology. But as it happens, your broader theology is wrong, and were we to explore it, you would see that your argument turns out to be circular--which it must be, since you get your "definition" of "faith" from your theology, but since your theology is read back into the very text you are exegeting.

edit:

Beaten by Rick!

[RickD]

I beat you to it Jac.

But seriously, I think it's no more obvious how wrong LS is, by its redefining of "faith" to suit one's theology.