Lordship salvation

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Lordship Salvation is a teaching in Christian theology which maintains that good works are a necessary consequence of being declared righteous before God.^[1] In other words, Jesus cannot be considered a person's savior (that is, bringer of salvation) without simultaneously being lord of the person's life, which is demonstrated by the gradual purification from sin and the exercising of good works (for instance, caring for widows and orphans, James 1:27). The teaching is advocated in many of the creeds of Protestantism, but is not universally accepted. Advocates and opponents of the doctrine within Protestantism all agree that acceptance before God is through faith alone by grace alone, but they differ on whether true justification can ever be followed by a life of indifference or even apostasy.

The opposing position is often called Free Grace theology, and those who are putatively saved but have no works are termed "carnal Christians."

Contents 1 History of the debate 2 The Free Grace opposition 3 Lordship critique of their opposition 4 Relevant Bible passages 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] History of the debate

In the mid-20th century Reformed scholars began to question whether the opposing could even be considered "Christian"^[2] and if the Gospel of the new evangelical culture was even the true gospel.^[3]

Dispensational leaders, many of whom advocated carnal Christianity, were slow to respond to this observation, especially given their recent experience separating from Dispensational Fundamentalists, an experience not shared or duplicated by Reformed Evangelicals.^[4] The Reformed tradition, with its historical debates with Arminianism and its self-identification with Augustine in his debate with Pelagius, gave Reformed scholars and church leaders an intellectual tradition from which to oppose what they considered a false gospel.^[5]

The first known use of the term "lordship salvation" occurred in a 1959 debate in Eternity magazine between Presbyterian Everett F. Harrison, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, and John Stott, an Anglican theologian. The controversy moved to the forefront of the evangelical world in the late 1980's when Calvinist John F. MacArthur argued against the doctrine of carnal Christianity in his book The Gospel According to Jesus (ISBN 0-310-39491-0). In response, in 1989, Charles Ryrie published So Great Salvation and Zane C. Hodges published Absolutely Free! A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation. Both MacArthur's and the Hodges's books were published by Zondervan. MacArthur later published Faith Works (1993) and Hodges released a 2nd edition of his earlier title, The Gospel Under Siege in 1989.

Supporting MacArthur's position, John Gerstner published Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth (1991) which firmly argued against Dispensationalists like Hodges and H. A. Ironside. Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, and Tony Evans supported the Free Grace view in their pulpits and various books.

In 1986, the Grace Evangelical Society (GES) was founded by Dispensationalist and Dallas Theological Seminary graduate, Robert Wilkin. The GES exists to promote a "clear proclamation of God's grace in evangelism and discipleship",^[6] essentially making advancing the Free Grace position the sole mission of the theological ministry. In April of 2005, Bob Wilkin debated James White in a two part engagement in which the topics were, "Resolved that regeneration precedes faith" and "Resolved that works are not an indispensable element of true faith." In 2004, in San Antonio, the Free Grace Alliance, was founded^[7] to support pastors and ministry leaders who hold Free Grace soteriological views.

However, even without a formal association dedicated to the advancement of Lordship Salvation, its soteriological viewpoint has clearly thrived since the public debate dissipated. The resurgence of interest in Jonathan Edwards and other Puritan Divines in the 1990's has helped Lordship Salvation views to become far more deeply rooted in younger generations of the general Evangelical culture. John Piper^[8] moved the argument by clarifying what it is good works are necessary for, not only for faith to be real, as MacArthur argued, but also for final salvation from Hell.^[9]

[edit] The Free Grace opposition

When Evangelicals such as Charles C. Ryrie, Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, Norman Geisler, Zane C. Hodges, and Bill Bright denied that Reformed soteriology was biblically superior to the Dispensational view, and since the term Dispensationalism denoted a broad philosophy of history, they called their own view Free Grace theology.

The Free Grace view posits that salvation is a gift of divine grace whereby the recipient is declared righteous before God on account of Jesus' atonement and righteous life, and that God's declaration of righteousness is unaffected by the future behavior of the saved person.

The Free Grace consensus, however, is that sanctification is an "inevitable" part of every Christian's life. Zane Hodges writes, "Of course, there is every reason to believe that there will be good works in the life of each believer in Christ. The idea that one may believe in Him and live for years totally unaffected by the amazing miracle of regeneration, or by the instruction and/or discipline of God his heavenly Father, is a fantastic notion—even bizarre. We reject it categorically."^[10] Bob Wilkin writes, "Reformed theologians suggest that good works are the inevitable result of the new birth. All believers will produce good works, they say. Some people from the Lordship Salvation position seem to think that we in the Free Grace camp deny such teaching. While GES has no specific statement directly on this point, most members of GES would not have a problem with the above statement—at least in terms of what it actually says."^[11] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, in his book entitled So Great Salvation, writes, "Every Christian will bear spiritual fruit. Somewhere, sometime, somehow. Otherwise that person is not a believer. Every born-again individual will be fruitful. Not to be fruitful is to be faithless, without faith, and therefore without salvation."^{[cite this quote]} They also agree that good works are outward evidence (especially to the unsaved world) that God is at work in a person's life and that the person is truly following Christ.

But the Free Grace position rules out seeing good works as evidence of one's own salvation. For this, they would argue, one can only look to the sufficiency of him who provides eternal life to the person who believes in him. Free Grace proponents further point to the way apostasy is treated by the New Testament writers whom they understand to teach that apostasy suggests, not an unregenerate nature as Lordship proponents teach, but a failure and a "wandering from the truth".^[12]

Essentially, the Free Grace view is that the New Testament writers are quick to call on believers to question whether they are truly following Christ as "disciples," but these writers never encourage the person who is trusting Christ for eternal life to doubt his or her born again status.^[13]

Miles Stanford goes further in suggesting that "Lordship salvation ... rightly insists upon repentance, but wrongly includes a change of behavior ... in order to be saved. No one questions that there must be a sincere change of mind, a turning from oneself to the Savior; but Lordship advocates attempt to make behavior and fruit [that is, good works] essential ingredients of, rather than evidence of, saving faith." ^[14] Stanford's views, however, go beyond the GES.

[edit] Lordship critique of their opposition

Among other arguments against their opponents, the Free Grace view is considered "carnal Christianity" by Lordship leaders because those who live carnally (in biblical terms, "indulging the flesh", that is living in gross, habitual sin) and who currently show no "fruit" (that is, no evidence of a converted heart) are thought of as having equal rights to assurance as far more active disciples, since they have been taught that they are saved because Christ offers eternal life to anyone who believes in Him for it.

The Free Grace position is also called "cheap grace" by critics. By way of comparison, proponents of Lordship salvation claim that true salvation necessarily produces a desire for sanctification and living a righteous life. For them, it is not a matter of undoing what God has done, but of following the natural desires of the truly regenerated heart, and if those desires are not present, then it is evidence that the person is not truly saved.

[edit] Relevant Bible passages

Several Bible passages (the following are from the New International Version) are frequently used to support Lordship Salvation. Advocates of Lordship Salvation argue that these passages appear to unequivocally demand sanctification, or "holiness", as an essential part of being a follower of Christ, and by implication, a regenerate person. Advocates of Free Grace theology understand all of these quotations (with the possible exception of 2 Corinthians 5:17) as having a context in which the author is admonishing unfaithful but truly saved people to live their lives as an example to others faithfully in obedience to God's commands:

• John 14:15: "If you love me [Jesus], you will obey what I command."
• Hebrews 12:14b: "Without holiness no one will see the Lord."
• Ephesians 5:5: "For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."
• 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
• James 2:14,17: "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ...faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
• 1 Peter 1:15-16: "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'"
• 1 John 2:3-6: "We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."
• 1 John 3:6-9: "No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.... Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil.... No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God."
• Romans 8:5-8: "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
• Romans 6:1-2a: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!"
• 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Perseverance of the saints

[edit] External links

• Many articles advocating Lordship salvation
• "Have You Made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-filled Life?" a booklet by Bill Bright allowing for carnal Christianity
• "Legalism: The Real Thing (Zane Hodges, 1996, The Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society)
• "Regeneration: A New Covenant Blessing" (Zane Hodges, 2005, The Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society)