Critics of Lordship Salvation Are ALL Antinomians?

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Just yesterday before, in preparation for this, I googled Theocast and antinomianism.

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A one video that showed up had a pastor rather passionately preaching. And basically it was, since you guys give pushback to the lordship salvation model, because you do that, therefore you are antinomian.

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And so I would like to hear the two of you talk about that, give some pushback. How about this?

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Are those the two options? You're either lordship salvation or you're antinomian. Neither one of them are biblical, obviously.

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I feel like the definition of lordship keeps changing. Because sometimes when people describe it, I'm like, well, I agree with that.

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Jesus is Lord. Mike Grimes and Pat Abendorth, we agree to that, right? We do. Pactam, yeah,

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Jesus is Lord. We got that figured out. And he's a wondrous Lord and a Lord that we love to serve.

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And we feel that, you know, as Peter, 1 Peter 5 says, we submit humbly under the mighty hand of God, right?

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We put all of that. We want that to be true. We think that our lives should be a living sacrifice for the

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King. Amen. And that when we come to Christ, we need to lay our entire life down for his use.

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Where we are a drink offering poured out for him. So if that's lordship to you, we're like, dude, stamp me, approve me.

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But unfortunately, that's not necessarily how it's always been historically represented. So if we're going to talk about the lordship issue and the one who really uses that word historically, when

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John MacArthur wrote those books, and we've done episodes on this, but when he wrote those books, it was really a confusion against Zayn Hodges, which he was teaching antinomianism.

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And a lot of criticisms that John had against Zayn, we would too. Like, yeah, Zayn, we think you've gone too far.

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The concerns we would share. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yes. But the responses we felt like were not really staying in line with scripture, specifically in the area of the order of salvation, like how one comes to faith in the gospel.

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And so what we're trying to push back on is saying that to repent of your sin, to turn away from your sin, to stop sinning, and then believe the gospel is not the way in which lordship in scripture works.

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The way in which we would say biblically and historically, and really the reformed faith fought for this.

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We would even encourage you to read Dr. Ferguson's book on the

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Merriman, which is really an older debate about the same issue. Yep, called The Whole Christ. The Whole Christ.

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Yeah, we believe that the gospel preached to the believer, when the

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Holy Spirit comes, he regenerates the heart, plants faith in us, and that faith then leads to repentance. So you can say to someone, repent and believe because that becomes the fruit of the gospel.

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That becomes the fruit of our faith versus requiring faith and repentance before someone is actually saved.

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So if I can briefly... Yep. Ever so quickly, Justin, especially if you make repentance some kind of change of behavior.

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That's right. So especially if you're defining it that way, you don't clean up your life and repent in that sense, and then

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God saves you because that would be a form of works prerequisite. So great point.

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Repentance is, it's a change of mind, but it's also a turning. And the turning emphasis typically that's made in the church today is a turning from sin.

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And I think we ought to rightly emphasize the turning to Christ, casting ourselves on Him.

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Where there's some confusion, especially this is, I think, more apparent in the earlier editions of The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur.

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There's a redefinition of faith. If I can, the reformed through history,

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I can say that on here, right, Pat? The reformed through history. Have agreed that where there is saving faith, there will be repentance.

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Where there is saving faith, there will be obedience. Where there is saving faith, there will be a desire to obey.

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That's right. But those things are not a part of faith. The Lordship, salvation, the advocates, they will, in some way or another, weave repentance, obedience, and a desire to obey into the definition of what saving faith is.

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Even not just a desire to obey, but even obedience and love, right? You have to have affections and love.

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And those things are not faith. And that distinction really does matter because if you start to collapse categories, you're giving it away.

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So then, Justin, to be clear, faith is what in the reformed tradition? The principal acts of saving faith, says the

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Confession, center on Jesus alone, accepting, receiving, and resting on Him for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace.

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Now, we could also talk about some of the other paradigms that have been used through history, knowledge, assent, trust, et cetera.

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Those things are obviously legitimate. We believe certain things about Jesus are true. We are trusting

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Him that what He did for the redemption of mankind, He did for me. Those kinds of things, there's a personal component of that.

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But that accepting, receiving, and resting on Christ alone for the entirety of my salvation, I think is a great place to start in defining saving faith.

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And that makes a huge difference because it's not enough to say sola fide if faith somehow includes some kind of obedience in law.

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No, it's resting, it's trusting, it's depending upon the work of another. That is why, again,

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Romans 4, 5 says, He justifies the ungodly by faith.

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So the lordship perspective is not the historic reformed faith because somehow it's faith and works gets you justified.

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The supposed opposite or the only other alternative is antinomianism and you can live however you want to live and God's law doesn't matter.

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It doesn't matter how you live, right. What's a better alternative? What's the right alternative? When we say this, when the

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Pactum says it, when anybody in their forum says resting, you know, it's efficiency of Christ. What they think we're saying is let go and let

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God and you don't, there's nothing for you to do. When we're thinking about our relationship to God, as far as son and father, 2

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Peter is like everything that you've ever needed has been granted to you by his divine power, like for life and godliness and for your glorification.

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So when you're thinking about picking up a tool to add to the building of this relationship is like set it down and rest in the reality that it's all been accomplished.

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It is finished. That's the resting part we're talking about. But that doesn't mean that there isn't work for us to do because what does

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Jesus say? Come to me and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy, my burden is light. There is work for us to do.

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Excellent point, excellent. But it is not the work of salvation. That's been given to us. It's the work of proclamation.

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It's the work of sharing love, right? We love because he first loved us. So this is where we kick back and say the other option isn't antinomianism.

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The other option is to then understand the work of the kingdom in light of the king, right?

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He rescued us, he saves us. He says, you've been set free, rest in my sufficiency. And now proclaim the truth to others.

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He uses things like salt, light, right? A light of kingdom, a sweet aroma. Ambassador, those are the kind of the languages that he uses.

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So what's so hard for people is that Justin and the Reformed and Pacton, we all believe that God absolutely calls us to obey and wants us to obey.

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And dare I say, needs us to obey for the sake of proclaiming the good news around the world and for building up the body of Christ.

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But does not need your good works for your salvation or sanctification. And therefore you can rest there and work here.

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God expects us to sin. This is why 1 John says, tell them about your failure so that you can be forgiven, your conscious can be set clean and that you could go back to doing the work of honoring him and the work of the kingdom.

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But you should never think, oh, my sin now is causing me to really question my relationship with God.

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Look, that was never started by your works and it will not be affected by your works. Yet you want to reflect him and do his work because you're a part of his family.

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Really understanding the difference between pietism and a biblical perspective of a relationship with God is what we're talking about here.