5 Ways Lordship Salvation Is Not Reformed

We think that Lordship Salvation is yet another example of an overreaction against bad doctrine.

And so in responding and seeking to respond to the bad theology of that free grace movement, our fear is that John MacArthur and others in the

Lordship Salvation stream became off -center themselves and started to confuse categories. Concern number one with Lordship Salvation is that it confuses the order of salvation, that the historical

Reformed understanding is that regeneration precedes faith and repentance and obedience and all those things.

And in fact, repentance and obedience in particular are fruits of salvation. They are not what saves a person.

And there is a confusion of all of that in the Lordship Salvation stream because it comes across, it sounds as though a person in order to be saved must repent of sin, like you said,

John, and at least be willing to obey all of the commands of the Lord, if not be obeying them, in order to be right with God.

We must not do anything in order to come to Jesus because if we do need to do anything in order to come to Christ, then we're all damned.

And so Lordship, we fear, is very confusing on this because it sounds like there's stuff that you need to do in order to be able to legitimately come to Christ.

I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove your heart of stone from your flesh and give you, notice who's the acting agent here,

God, and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

So the first acting part is God removing death and then giving us life, giving us the spirit and then giving us the capacity to obey.

So notice the nature of that and that just flows into the New Testament. When you start hearing

Paul, you were dead in your trespasses and sin, he made you alive, Ephesians 2. He made you alive and then later on he says that he now causes you to walk in the good works that he had preordained for you.

But the order is important. It's dead, alive, obey. Number two, we are concerned that lordship salvation redefines faith.

It redefines faith and what it even is. In the lordship camp, there is a desire to say, to teach, to preach even, that repentance and obedience or even a desire to obey are a part of what faith itself is.

That faith is inseparable in terms of its essence and what it is. Faith is inseparable from repentance and obedience and we want to be really clear.

The Reformed have always said that where there is saving faith, repentance and obedience will be present.

That is true, but there always has to be a distinction maintained between faith and repentance and between faith and obedience.

They are not one and the same. Saving faith, for example, as our confession, the 1689

London Baptist Confession, would define it. It consists of trusting, resting, and hoping in the

Lord Jesus Christ for justification, sanctification, and glorification on the basis of the covenant of grace.

So as you hear even that definition, that's in 14 .2 of our confession, there is nothing there about repentance and there is nothing there about obedience.

Our confession says things about repentance and it says things about obedience, but not when it defines what faith is.

Their ability to do good works does not arise at all from themselves, but entirely from the Spirit of Christ.

So what he is describing that as is the result of, right? It's the result of. It's not the cause of.

It's not even part of. No. So I think the damaging results of this, John, whenever you start to change the definition of faith and you weave repentance and obedience into that definition, you rob people of any possibility of assurance.

Because now, in order to even have legitimate faith in the Lord Jesus, I need to be adequately repenting and I need to be adequately obeying.

Nobody, of course, can define that standard in terms of what adequate repentance or adequate obedience looks like, because God's Word is pretty clear when it comes to obedience in particular that only perfection passes muster, right?

I mean, nothing short of perfection is acceptable. So then we have to talk about the sincerity and our motivations and all this kind of stuff, and it gets uber confusing to the point it's like, okay, well,

I don't know that any of us are saved then, you know, if adequate repentance and obedience are a part of what it even means to believe in Christ.

But this is where certain kinds of preaching comes, where they are always trying to snuff out the lazy

Christian, the fake Christian, the one who's... Smoking the nominal. That's right, the nominal Christian, those who said the sinner's prayer but aren't really believers.

And this has been coming more and more into the Facebook group and into my... People are just sending me more and more clips by prominent

Calvinistic preachers who are making claims, like the majority of, you know,

Christians in churches today have a false sense of assurance. Partly saved. Right. And what they're doing is they're pointing to this very thing, that this issue that we're talking about, redefining faith.

Number three, a collapsing of law and gospel. We are concerned that lordship salvation collapses law and gospel.

Collapsing of the law and gospel means you end up changing the very nature of them. For instance, the law becomes achievable and the gospel now has something to achieve.

Right. The law is now a means of salvation. That's right. And the gospel now contains all kinds of things to do.

Yeah. And that's why it becomes achievable. You lowered the standard of the law and it is now, if I repent enough,

I can be saved. And now the gospel is, when you repent enough, you can be saved.

And so there becomes such a mixture between the two that we really don't know the difference between, well, what is the law that condemns us and what is the gospel that now saves us because they're being mixed.

Yep. So this is where you get all that language of the demands of the gospel or even another

John MacArthur title, hard to believe, you know, that kind of stuff. Like the gospel ends up sounding hard when the law and the gospel are confused.

You aren't coming to Jesus to prove to him you mean business. This is the thing,

Justin, that where lordship salvation, I scratched my head because I'm like depravity is a doctrine that most people who believe in lordship hold to, but yet it seems to go out the window because no one can obey

God unless the spirit grants them. That is John 6, Ephesians 2.

And yet somehow we get to a place where the law allows us to adjust the order of salutis.

No, the law condemns, the gospel saves. There's nothing to do in the gospel other than you receive it.

And you can't even do that unless the spirit grants you faith. That's Ephesians 2, right?

It's a gift of God, lest any man should boast. So I think it's when you come up against a passage and Jesus is putting a requirement on you, and you're feeling the weight of that, you need to hear that as, oh,

Jesus is beating down any self -righteousness that I might want to try and claim that God would accept me.

And then you hear the tender words of Jesus saying, there's nothing for you to do to be saved but believe in me.

Now you're understanding the gospel. Exactly. The fourth concern we have about lordship salvation is a confusion on uses of the law.

To me, the only kind of tone that's ever used when talking about the law in the lordship salvation camp is a threatening exacting tone.

And it's not because they're only preaching the first use of the law. They're actually preaching the law to Christians, but it sounds scary.

It's obey or else. We would say that the third use of the law ought not be done in an exacting, threatening way to guide the

Christian's life. It's not do this or else. It's like, no, you've been united to Christ, and here's now how we live together in the church.

Here's how we live as those who have been united to Christ by faith. Specifically, the first use and third use are very important because the first use is only always condemn.

Perfection, condemn, and it only relates to the unbeliever as it relates.

In other words, if you want to know what causes you to be alienated from God and under his condemnation, first use of the law is designed to be that schoolmaster to absolutely teach you, you're condemned.

I think the first use of the law can be preached to Christians, but here's what it sounds like. It's not you are condemned.

It's more of, hey, let's all remember what God requires, and let's remember that even now on the backside of conversion and union with Christ, we can't keep the law adequately.

We can talk like that as Christians, but we're not threatening people with it. We're reminding one another of the impossibility of keeping the law and why we need

Jesus so much. But that's not what's going on in Lordshipstream. Right, so then we get to the third use of the law, which is to guide us as Christians.

In the third use of the law, you never hear, do this and live. A good example of this would be something like Ephesians 4, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, right?

1 Peter 1 or 2 Peter 1, 3 through 9, which talks about add to your faith godliness.

So they're always saying this is the reflection, and the Bible says that if you are a believer, you do these things.

So it's not if you want to obey. It's like, no, this is the new covenant prominence.

You will walk in these truths. This is why even in the confessions, they say those who have faith, obey at varying levels.

But here's where the danger is, is that sometimes you hear the first use of the law being given to believers.

It's the obey or else kind of attitude in that if you don't live up to a certain level of Christianity, a certain level of obedience, which

I have been saying for years, how much obedience, then you're truly not a disciple of Jesus Christ.

And the danger in that is that you are trying to motivate people by two things, fear and condemnation, where there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

And number two, you're using the first use of the law, which is not designed. Let me just say this,

Justin. What does 2 Peter 1, 9 say? If these truths are not true about you in increasing godliness, patience, kindness, what does he say that you forgot?

You've forgotten the good news, man. You've forgotten that you've been cleansed from your former sins. He doesn't point back to the first use of the law.

He actually points back to the gospel for their motivation of obedience. Lordship salvation often calls weak

Christians who have been tossed about by every wind of doctrine, Ephesians 4, and who are not strong in their faith.

They use the first use of the law to call into question their faith. Whereas Paul, and like even to the

Corinthians, you don't see Paul doing this. I want to come and preach Christ to you. Or 2 Peter 1, 9, you've forgotten you've been cleansed.

The motivation for the believer who is weak in obedience is not condemnation under the law, first use, but it is encouragement in the gospel.

Act as what you have received. You've received mercy and grace. Now live in it. Amen, brother. And finally, number five, a confusion of the relationship between justification and sanctification.

Justification is the declaration of God that we are just in his sight on the basis of what

Christ alone has done in our place. He has paid the penalty we deserve, and we have been credited with, we have been given the righteousness of Christ.

His righteousness has been imputed to us, credited to our account, and it's as though we did everything that Jesus did.

And God looks at us and says, just. That is justification. Sanctification is the process by which we are transformed more and more into the image of Christ, into the likeness of Christ, and we are conformed even to live more and more according to God's law.

And this is going to be over the course of our lives. It will ebb and flow. It will look different in different seasons, and it is ultimately a work that God himself by his spirit does as a result of our union with Christ.

We do agree that all those who are justified will be sanctified.

It is not a question. It is certain because God will see to it. And at the same time, there must be a proper distinction maintained between justification and sanctification because what lordship salvation does is collapse the two.

And instead of talking about it the right way, where our sanctification flows out of our justification, that's the reformed understanding.

Lordship makes it sound as though we are building our justification on our sanctification.

We are anchoring our righteous standing before God on our obedience, on our desire to obey, or even on the adequacy of our repentance or something.

Nobody would ever say it like that, but that's how it comes across. John, we talk about this a lot.

It's that prove -it kind of theology. It's that prove -it mentality. It's like you need to obey so that you might prove that you're really justified.

Justin Perdue We'll just quote scripture here. He who began a good work in you will complete it.

Not you. Sanctification is not synergistic. It's not you and God working together. But at the same time, he says, work out your salvation with fearing trembling.

Amen to God. And he means by fearing trembling. It doesn't mean dread and doubt.

He means with reverence and awe. He goes, work it out because God is the one working in you.

Galatians 3, hey, who tripped you guys up? It's not you come to faith and now you do the rest.

He says, the same way you start is the same way you continue. It's faith. Justin Perdue Which is by faith in the

Spirit. I feel like these passages are very clear. Yes, we obey.

It is the part of the Christian life. Just like human beings breathe, Christians obey. At times, we don't obey like we should, and at times we can go long periods of time, which we've done multiple podcasts on this.

But if you are grounding your standing before God as an adopted child based upon your obedience, that means it is possible for you to go from being an adopted child to not being an adopted child.

That is dangerous. Justin Perdue I'm tempted to read the John Calvin quote again that I read in the first one that people liked so much, and that might be a good way to put a bow on this.

So John Calvin in the Institutes writes this, for if they begin to judge their salvation by good works, which is what we're talking about right now, nothing will be more uncertain or more feeble.

From this it comes about that the conscience feels more fear and consternation than assurance. If righteousness is supported by works in God's sight, it must entirely collapse, and it is confined solely to God's mercy, solely to communion with Christ, and therefore solely to faith.

So he's clear there at the end. This is all about mercy. This is all about union with Christ. This is all about faith when it comes to even our good works that we would perform.

It's all done that way, and we cannot look to validate our standing before the

Lord through our good works. Nothing will be more feeble, and nothing will be more damaging because we can't do it.