"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31).
A few years ago I was involved in a brief discussion on the topic of Lordship Salvation, and I will include my comments here in order to elaborate more on the subject of this post. In an Amazon discussion started April 4, 2012 by Steven R. Cook and titled "Lordship Salvation or Free Grace Salvation?", Mr. Cook posted a comment which he subsequently deleted. But before he deleted it, I responded to it and said:
Steven,
You said: "Lordship Sanctification is biblical, Lordship Salvation is not."
Don't let the non Free Grace position define the terms. We DO believe that Lordship Salvation is biblical in the sense that one must "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved" (Acts 16:31). The question in the debate is not whether or not the Savior is Lord (We all agree that He is!). The question in the debate is whether or not a person has to submit / commit / surrender / forsake / promise / etc. to "the Lord Jesus Christ" in order to be eternally saved? The Free Grace position says "no"; the non Free Grace position says "yes".
I don't know if I'll be able to get back to this discussion, but I think this point is important to make.
In a follow up comment I added this:
I might add that Dr. Charlie Bing has written an excellent explanation of Acts 16:30-31 from a Free Grace perspective - making the same basic point as I've made. See: Charlie Bing, Lordship Salvation (Xulon [Press], 2010), pp. 108-110 [where he says in part: "The acclamation of Jesus as Lord is an acclamation of His sovereign position as God over all and not a demand for individual submission. The objective truth must be distinguished from the subjective requirement" (p. 109)].
Jon, something i notice is that most LS people who try to debunk Free Grace depend on straw man arguments to prove their point.
ReplyDeleteStraw man#1:Free Grace denies Christ's Lordship
answer: We do not deny His Lordship or any other of His attributes. We know He is Lord, even proclaiming it as part of the saving message.
Straw man#2:Free Grace takes repentance out of salvation
answer: We don't take repentance out of salvation, rather preach it as it should be properly understood, as a change of mind about Jesus, and about yourself, coming to Him as a hopeless sinner fully deserving of Hell, trusting in His finnished work alone for salvation.
Straw man#3:Free Grace is antinomialin
answer: FG is not antinomian, we do not beleive it's ok to just do anything, especialy not without consequences. Repeated, willful sin will bring not only physical and spiritual punishment in this life, but loss of reward in the Millenium and Eternity.
Straw Man#4:Free Grace hates good works/says you shouldn't do them
answer: If you've heard almost any FG preacher talk about the Gospel, you'll know they encourage good works and decipleship, but not as a requirement for salvation or to prove it. The Bible encourages us in many places to be in service to others and to God, but never as part of a Gospel passage. If beleiving is enough(as many, many verses say), but you also need works, there's a massive contradiction in scripture.
These are just a few of the straw men LSers use against Grace, but the're hardly an accurate representation of the position. My guess is they use these because they can't make a good rebutal to the real position, or don't want to try. Maybe they just desprately want to hold on to their works-for-proof-of-salvation position, and so deny what we're saying, and lie to others about it too. I don't mean to slander any of them, but it really seems like what those who use these straw men are doing.
Good points, thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about your comment about the straw man arguments of Lordship Salvation. You have some good thoughts and I wonder if you are at all interested in writing a blog post about it? You could maybe just expand a little bit on what you said in your comment and I could feature it as a blog post on my blog. What do you think?
i would be intrested in writing a blog post about it, what should i start with?
ReplyDeleteMaybe use your comment from March 18, 2020 12:14 PM as a starting point and elaborate on it a little bit. If you want to use just the four (4) straw man arguments you listed that's okay--or maybe think of a few more examples so you have a total of 7 or even 10. I would add in Scripture references where appropriate to support and clarify your points. Maybe interact with some Lordship and/or Free Grace scholars and insert a few of their statements in quotations. Also, try to think of a good blog post title--it could be straight-forward or catchy. After you type it up you can email it to me and we can go over it. I'm looking forward to it! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteLate to the game on this one but this is a great thread and a great post. I've always thought about how Jesus is in fact "Lord", whether we treat him as Lord over every area of our life or not. His Lordship is not determined or quantified by my willingness to submit to him any more than the President of the United States is the President whether I think he should be or shouldn't be.
ReplyDeleteSide note - in the OT we see LORD in all-caps as a way to distinguish that they are in fact talking about YWHW without saying it out-loud. The ineffable Name. This is the result of the Hebrew practice of combining the vowels of the Hebrew word "Adonai" or "Lord" with the Consonants of YHWH to come up with "Jehova" or YaHoWaH. (YHWH with vowel sounds added in Hebrew). However, Jehova isn't a real word and when the Hebrews saw YHWH with the vowel sounds written out, they didn't say Jehovah, they simply say Adonai (Lord) knowing that in fact they are talking about YHWH without saying His sacred Name.
I've always wondered if this was at play in the New Testament. In other words, when we say Jesus is "Lord", was the intention in fact to say that Jesus is YHWH in line with the Old Testament Practice?
Thanks Jonathan!
Todd
Hi Todd,
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts, thanks! In regards to when you asked, "I've always wondered if this was at play in the New Testament. In other words, when we say Jesus is "Lord", was the intention in fact to say that Jesus is YHWH in line with the Old Testament Practice?" I would say, yes, that is my understanding. Here's an extended quote that might help from Dr. Bing's book, Lordship Salvation: A Biblical Evaluation and Response (excerpted from chapter 4: "Christ's Lordship and Salvation"):
"The meaning of kurios ["Lord"] in the New Testament cannot be dissociated from the influence of the LXX and its signification of Yahweh, the divine name. Turner's conclusion that 'In Biblical Greek, . . . kurios is a divine title, the LXX rendering of JHWH (God's holy Name) and of adonai, (my Lord)' is reinforced by Machen who says,
'Thus when the Christian missionaries used the word "Lord" of Jesus, their hearers knew at once what they meant. n They knew at once that Jesus occupied a place which is occupied only by God...'
'...An important fact has been established more and more firmly by modern research...the fact that the Greek word "kyrios" in the first century of our era was, wherever the Greek language extended, distinctively a designation of divinity. The common use of the word indeed persisted; the word still expressed the relation which a master sustained toward his slaves.But the word had come to be a characteristically religious term, and it is in a religious sense, especially as fixed by the Septuagint, that it appears in the New Testament.'
Speaking of the influence of the LXX on the Apostle Paul, Warfield claims, 'the title 'Lord' becomes in Paul's hands almost a proper name, the specific designation for Jesus conceived as a divine person in distinction from God the Father.' He also writes,
'We should never lose from sight the outstanding fact that to men familiar with the LXX and the usage of "Lord" as the personal name of Deity there illustrated, the term "Lord" was charged with associations of deity, so that a habit of speaking of Jesus as the "Lord"...was apt to carry with it implications of deity.'
Even Boice, an ardent teacher of Lordship Salvation, agrees:
'...in the Greek version of the Old Testament, which was well known to the Jewish community in the first century and from which most of the New Testament writers quoted when citing Scripture, the word kyrios ("Lord") is used to translate the Hebrew word "Jehovah" and "Yahweh." This is why most of our English Bibles do not have the name Jehovah but use Lord instead. The disciples of Christ knew that this title was repeatedly used for God.But knowing this, they did not hesitate to transfer the title to Jesus, an act tantamount to saying that Jesus is Jehovah.'
Before and during the New Testament era kurios denoted deity before anything else."