Is there biblical support for Lord ship salvation?

[JonC]

Quote from A W Tozer describes the same thing.

Savior But Not Lord?

In the New Testament salvation and discipleship are so closely related as to be indivisible. They are not identical, but as with Siamese twins they are joined by a tie which can be severed only at the price of death.Yet they are being severed in evangelical circles today. In the working creed of the average Christian salvation is held to be immediate and automatic, while discipleship is thought to be something optional which the Christian may delay indefinitely or never accept at all

It is not uncommon to hear Christian workers urging seekers to accept Christ now and leave moral and social questions to be decided later. The notion is that obedience and discipleship are unrelated to salvation. We may be saved by believing a historic fact about Jesus Christ (that He died for our sins and rose again) and applying this to our personal situation. The whole biblical concept of Lordship and obedience is completely absent from the mind of the seeker. He needs help, and Christ is the very one, even the only one, who can furnish it, so he takes Him as his personal Savior. The idea of His Lordship is completely ignored.

A. W. Tozer

I'm not exactly sure.

Does a person have to hold Christ as his Lord to be saved? Yes, of course.

That is repentance and belief. You cannot serve two masters. Repentance and belief are components of faith. They are two sides of the same coin. One must repent (turn from) and believe (turn towards).

But does a person have to surrender every aspect of his life in order to be saved? No. We wrestle with the flesh, and even fail without Christ being less than Lord.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

The Puritans love God and devoted themselves to living for God.

I do understand that people are often critical of Puritans, referring to them as self righteous and judgmental.

The Puritans, from what I have read, would not even refer to themselves as “saved”, as they believed it was presumptuous, but rather “hopefully saved”.

Peace to you

But that still does not excuse the behavior that was displayed by the Salem Witch hunts and the expulsions of Quakers, Baptists, Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams etc.

 

[Revmitchell]

The Puritans, from what I have read, would not even refer to themselves as “saved”, as they believed it was presumptuous, but rather “hopefully saved”.

Peace to you

Which was contrary to scripture. Jon 20:31 says we have the word of God so that we may believe and have life as a result of belief.

I John 5:13 says that we can "know" that we have eternal life.

This idea of being presumptuous is not holy, godly, nor right. It was an evil of their day.

 

[Revmitchell]

Rom 10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Rom 10:10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

As with Baptism and the Lord's Supper, Salvation is as much a confession. What does it mean by this verse to confess that Jesus is Lord, and why is it so closely tied to salvation?

I have, in the past, has someone on this board try to convince me that this verse has nothing to do with the salvation of men's souls. The mental gymnastics that go on to avoid the crux of this verse. The entire book of Romans has for a theme the comparison between sin reigning in our bodies and grace that frees us from it. Yet there are those who want to divorce sin from salvation in the sense that it has no immediate effect us. Scripture says otherwise. Calling Jesus Lord is saying that we will now live in submission to Jesus and not allow sin to freely reign in our lives. The same sin that Jesus shed His blood for.

If we have come to Jesus with the idea that He needs to deal with our sin problem but we have no intention to live under submission to Him moving forward then our confession is a lie and we do not truly believe He is Lord.

Now the use of this word "Lord" gets abused in that there are some that say "Jesus is Lord no matter what we do". What they are saying is factually true but the reason for saying it is fallacious at best. There is another use of Jesus being Lord when it is used in the sense of our submission to Him. Both are true and both are necessary. To focus only on one to the exclusion of the other to lift up a bad doctrine is to ignore the clear teaching of scripture.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says we are now new creatures in Christ. As new creatures we shall see some immediate change in our heart to the very thing that caused a need to be saved. In John 3 Jesus said we are born again. Yet there are those who believe some can be born from above and see no immediate change in someone's life? Not possible.

Sanctification means to set apart for a special purpose, to wash clean, to consecrate. This is another word that gets abused and only one side of this coin is focused on to prop up a bad doctrine. Sanctification is both immediate and a process. Yet there are those who would only focus on the process side of the coin to the exclusion of the immediate side. When we are born again we are immediately set aside (sanctified) for God's purposes. Those purposes are described in Ephesians 1:4-5 when it says that God chose those who are in Him to be holy, and blameless as well as predestined for adoption. This is an immediate action. This part of the sanctification is only positional as we have not yet been fully redeemed. However, there is an immediate change in those who are no new creatures in Christ. Those who get Baptized and claim to identify in Christ with His death of the old man and commit to walking in newness of life are lying if they have no intention of doing so.

In John 17:17 Jesus was praying for His immediate disciples and not us but it does show what it is God does for us. He prayed that the immediate disciples would be sanctified by His word. This is the second part of sanctification and is an ongoing process that cannot exist without the first part. If you have no desire to live in submission to Jesus as Lord over your life then the ongoing process will never get started and until one realizes the need and begins to live in submission to Jesus as Lord then they have not been truly saved.

 

[taisto]

In scripture we see salvation in a process.
We see our adoption before the foundation of the world.
We see our being made alive by God's grace alone.
We see our confession of faith upon being made alive.
We see our perseverance in faith across a period of time until we join the ranks of heaven.
In each phase we see God refer to this as a function of salvation.

The constant in the process is that God is the one who moves us by the Holy Spirit. We are the created vessel by which God works.

 

[canadyjd]

But that still does not excuse the behavior that was displayed by the Salem Witch hunts and the expulsions of Quakers, Baptists, Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams etc.

Agreed.

peace to you

 

[DaveXR650]

If we have come to Jesus with the idea that He needs to deal with our sin problem but we have no intention to live under submission to Him moving forward then our confession is a lie and we do not truly believe He is Lord.

Right. And the Lordship salvation MacArthur talks about in the "Gospel According to Jesus" is no more than that. Some do teach that you can come to Christ to have your sin dealt with and then maybe, possibly, and optionally, you may follow Christ at some point. He was concerned about that. It is not a "Calvinist" issue or a Calvinist discovery. Scripture teaches it, the early church fathers taught it, non Calvinist preachers like G. Campbell Morgan taught it, the Wesley's taught it - almost everybody just assumed it was understood.

 

[Deacon]

Interesting.

I like listening to MacArthur when he explains his faith. He does a good job at it. But I don't trust him when he explains other people's faith. He always goes to the worst case scenario and offers that as the alternate position.

I’m often at the opposite pole from Mac’s position.
I’m generally shaking my head and saying to myself, “he just doesn’t get it!.”

MacA uses research assistants to research, organize and write his material.

Rob

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

I’m often at the opposite pole from Mac’s position.
I’m generally shaking my head and saying to myself, “he just doesn’t get it!.”

MacA uses research assistants to research, organize and write his material.

Rob

A few year’s ago now, Mac went to a Sproul conferences and was preaching that people must Baptise via water via believers baptism. Now Sproul was dismayed that Mac would do that, especially cause Sproul is a Presbyterian.

 

[Marooncat79]

In scripture we see salvation in a process.
We see our adoption before the foundation of the world.
We see our being made alive by God's grace alone.
We see our confession of faith upon being made alive.
We see our perseverance in faith across a period of time until we join the ranks of heaven.
In each phase we see God refer to this as a function of salvation.

The constant in the process is that God is the one who moves us by the Holy Spirit. We are the created vessel by which God works.

Please describe your word “process”?

I see it more as a radical thing

thanks

 

[Mikey]

A few year’s ago now, Mac went to a Sproul conferences and was preaching that people must Baptise via water via believers baptism. Now Sproul was dismayed that Mac would do that, especially cause Sproul is a Presbyterian.

Is he wrong?

 

[37818]

Is he wrong?

Who is being wrong?

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Is he wrong?

Yes, that just shows Macs arrogance going into someone’s house and attempting to take over. I would have denounced him and shown him the door but Sproul was gracious to him… WHY!?! This just shows Macs thinking process, lack of respect and the obsessive burning desire to take over. He did that with this LS thing that he pulled outa his arse. There were tons of churches that broke apart because of this Puritanical approach that was introduced. What a jerk!

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Who is being wrong?

The self appointed Representatives of God, the ones who mandate your relationship to the holy one. The modern day Pharisee’s of course.

 

[Piper]

So basically it is asking whether repentance is necessary?

Kind of. But it is not that simple.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

And this is where we begin to make a list of behaviors a person needs to do to be saved.

Rob

Nailed it!

 

[canadyjd]

…..
He did that with this LS thing that he pulled outa his arse…..What a jerk!

What a wonderful expression of Christian faith. I’m sure J Mac could learn a lot from such keen intellect.

Please write a book that explains why he’s wrong.

peace to you

 

[John of Japan]

But at the same time turning from ourselves as lord of our lives to Christ as Lord is called repentance, a key part of saving faith (Christ commanded "repent and believe").

Never heard of this definition for repentance before. Care to elaborate? Do you have a theological or linguistic source for the definition?

 

[John of Japan]

I have tiptoed into this thread, having suffered through such threads in the past. It's been a while since anyone attacked the subject.

I will make a small contribution here. To me, the message proclaimed in the Word should produce our theology of evangelism. In other words, look in the book of Acts (and elsewhere, of course), and see what the apostles proclaimed. By this I mean, did the apostles give an invitation to accept Christ as Lord as well as accepting Him as Savior?

I have about 50 books on personal evangelism, going back well over 100 years. As far as I remember, the only one that teaches telling the prospect to accept Christ as Lord as well as Savior is Evangelism Explosion, by James Kennedy.

Does Mac have a book on personal evangelism, anyone? If so, I don't have it. Does it advocated proclaiming a need to accept Christ as Lord as well as Savior?

 

[DaveXR650]

Never heard of this definition for repentance before. Care to elaborate? Do you have a theological or linguistic source for the definition?

"I think there is a danger. We have been preaching 'Believe', and we have not sufficiently said 'Repent, repent, repent,' and we still have to preach this truth, that unless a man will turn to God from idols, then his faith, though he boast of it, is dead and worthless. There is no question of precedence. The quality of faith must be repentance, and the dynamic of repentance must be that of faith, and when we urge upon men that they must believe on the Lord Jesus, we must say that belief means the submission to the Lordship, and that means turning from every other lord that has held dominion over the soul."

This is from G. Campbell Morgan and it's from a chapter on evangelistic preaching, invitations, and the method of follow up on those who come forward during a meeting. G. Campbell Morgan is a little before my time and I found out about him from an old book my dad had and from his connection with Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

John. I would value your weighing in on this. Do you think that MacArthur over reacted to the non lordship issues or is it wrong in your opinion to suggest that to a new convert? I am also a fan of John R. Rice. In his book "You Must Be Born Again", there is one of those cards you can sign and send him. One of the boxes you can check off says this: "I am a poor lost sinner. I believe that Jesus died to save sinners. I take his word for it that he is ready to forgive and save me now. I rely on him and depend on him to be my savior. I give him my heart forever. By his grace I will claim him openly as my Savior and set out to live for him."
It seems to me that giving him your heart and setting out to live for him would be another way of taking him as Lord. I never felt that this was not part of it until I encountered the evangelism style of the Hyles-Anderson school of Baptists in the '70's, which I disagreed with.

Even John Owen, the Puritan, said that when you first come to Christ, you are coming to him with a primary interest in his office as a "Savior", and not as Lord. But then he went on to warn against thinking you could refuse to take him as Lord. Honestly, I never felt that the old school Baptists were guilty of this.