How Lordship Salvation Misunderstands Gospel

The Problem with Defining Faith as Obedience

The way that MacArthur seeks to define faith is one thing that we would raise some issue with. Even the subtitle of the book, What is Authentic Faith? Originally, in the first version, there was stuff that was said that was just full-blown Roman Catholic theology.

That no longer exists in the more updated versions, praise God. But there is still language at points about obedience, for example, being inseparable from faith. MacArthur writes this, "...clearly the biblical concept of faith is inseparable from obedience.

Believe is treated as if it were synonymous with obey in John 3 .36.". Then he cites the verse, "...he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life.". So even here, in the most updated version, you do see this desire to effectively say that you can't separate obedience from faith.

Saving faith is comprised of knowledge about the facts about Jesus, assent, affirming that they're true, and then thirdly, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how the Reformed have always defined faith.

There never has been any language of obedience or repentance or a desire to obey as being a part of saving faith. Those things need to be kept distinct because they are. Now, we would be the first to say, John, as the Reformed have always said, that when saving faith is present, good works and repentance and those other things will be present.

I think what you end up seeing is that MacArthur is trying to bake submission and obedience and a desire to obey into the nature of what it is to trust. He's not saying that fruit and obedience and all these kinds of things are the basis of being saved.

That's not at all what he's saying, but it does seem that good works and fruit and all these kinds of things is the basis by which we can be assured that we are saved, and that's what we would want to raise some issue.

It's as though we are building our justification upon our sanctification. Calvin writes this, for if they begin, they being Christians, begin to judge their salvation by good works, nothing will be more uncertain or more feeble.

From this it comes about that the believer's conscience feels more fear and consternation than assurance. If righteousness is supported by works, in God's sight it must entirely collapse. Now he's talking about what salvation is.

He said, it is confined solely to God's mercy, solely to communion with Christ, and therefore solely to faith. I think that's our concern. There's a confusion, it seems, of exactly what faith is at times, but then there certainly is a collapsing of justification and sanctification in a way that.

Robs the believer of peace with God and assurance. Matthew 7, do you remember that episode that we did? In the end of it, he says, clearly no past experience, not even prophesying, casting out demons, or doing signs and wonders, can be viewed as evidences of salvation apart from a life of obedience.

I understand what he's getting at, but in the context of Matthew 7, you're dealing with people who are rejecting Jesus as Messiah. They aren't rejecting obedience,.

And so there's a confusion there. If anything, I think they're placing confidence in their works,.

Not confidence in Christ. That's the irony. He says, viewed as evidence of salvation apart from a life of obedience, which they were pointing to their obedience as the evidence of salvation, and Jesus rejected them because he's like, it's not your obedience that saves you.

It's not the works you've done in my name. It's me. That's right. His exposition, like you said, John, of the rich young ruler is pretty good for a while, and then sadly, it just ends really, really badly in terms of the takeaway.

Here's perhaps the most significant quote from that section. Our Lord gave this young man a test. He had to choose between his possessions and Jesus Christ. He failed the test. No matter what points of doctrine he might affirm, because he was unwilling to turn from what else he loved most, he could not be a disciple of Christ.

Salvation is only for those who are willing to give Christ first place in their lives. That's guiding MacArthur's exposition of the text. That's his takeaway. When he tells the young man to sell everything he has, give it to the poor, and then come follow me, that is him saying to the young man, okay, you think you've kept the commandments.

Prove your love to God and neighbor. That is still a message completely of law. This is where MacArthur collapses these categories because his takeaway, like so many people, from that section is there is this element in which we must surrender all if we're going to be saved, or we at least have to be willing to do so.

This collapsing of law and gospel forces MacArthur to do this whole backpedaling thing where he's going to say, I'll just read this quote right now. He says, do we literally have to give away everything we own to become Christians?

No, but we do have to give Christ first place. That means we must be willing to forsake all for him. Now he has to backpedal on the requirements of the law, and he has to dumb them down and relativize them and say, okay, well, no, we don't all literally need to sell everything we have in order to follow Jesus, but we need to be willing to do that.

My question is, okay, well, where is willing in the idea of willing in the passage? It's not there because Jesus is giving this man straight up law. Prove your love to God and neighbor, and you will be perfect.

The man can't do it. That's the whole point of it. The one who could provide him righteousness and atone for his sins is standing right there in front of him.

Right. Another quote later on down, it says, he left not because he heard the wrong message, not even because he didn't believe, but because he was unwilling to forsake what he loved most in the world and commit himself to Christ as Lord.

Instead of taking him from where he was and getting him to make a decision, Jesus had laid out the terms that were unacceptable to him. In a sense, Jesus drove him away. We would say the rich young ruler came in and asked, what must I do?

Jesus told him what he had to do. The confusion on that is that somehow then connected to what it's required to be a disciple of Jesus. Jesus never gave him what was required in order to be a follower or let's put it this way, saved from his sins.

That wasn't the conclusion. If you collapse that down in there and say Jesus is setting up the requirements of what it looks like to be a follower of him in forgiveness, that's a confusion of the.

Law and Gospel in the Rich Young Ruler

Law and the gospel. Totally, which is where you get this language of the quote-unquote demands of the gospel. The lordship camp loves to use that kind of language. The gospel demands everything from us and requires everything from us.

It will cost us our very lives and all those kinds of things. There are ways in which we agree that it will cost us our lives in that we are forsaking anything about ourselves that could ever be meritorious before the Lord.

We are following a crucified Savior. All of those things we absolutely and hardly affirm. But the language of the demands of the gospel is Exhibit A when it comes to the collapsing of the law in the gospel and turning the gospel effectively into a kind of covenant of works where there are all these things required of us if we're going to be worthy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It says here, the ultimate test was whether this man would obey the Lord. Jesus was not teaching salvation by philanthropy. He was not saying it is possible to buy eternal life with charity. In fact, he was saying, here is the test of true faith.

Are you willing to do what I want you to do? Whom do you want to run your life, you or me? The Lord was putting his finger on the very nerve of this man's existence. Knowing where his heart was, he said, unless I become the highest authority in your life, there is no salvation for you.

By placing himself alongside the man's wealth and demanding that he makes the choice, our Lord revealed the true state of the man's heart. I don't disagree, but did you see where it was slipped in in that quote?

Jesus never offered him what he is saying. He never offered him eternal life. He only offered him earning it. You can earn it. It's not a gift. We know that salvation, faith, is a gift. This phrase here where he says, the test of true faith, are you willing to do whatever you want to do?

It's like, no, no one is ever willing to do that. You are dead in your trespasses and sins. You cannot make yourself alive. This is where John is a Calvinist, but then uses non-Calvinistic language.

Like some of the reform through history have done, he puts all these qualifiers on faith, and there are all these things that have to be, if not done, at least certain things that need to be met, qualifications that need to be met in order to come to Christ.

We don't have time to get into it, but that is what the whole Mero controversy was about in the Church of Scotland. Do we need to do anything in order to be eligible effectively to come to Jesus? The conclusion there from the Mero brethren, which we agree with, is no, we don't need to do anything in.

Order to come to Christ in faith and then through union with Him. In essence, you can make the conclusion from John that this man needed to do something before he'd be truly a follower of.

Christ, and that's the mistake. Or he had to be willing to give everything away for Christ. It's like, I don't know that anybody is on the front end apart from a sovereign work of God that would give us eyes to see as we hear the law and then the message of Christ in the gospel.

The Sermon on the Mount as Law, Not Gospel

Let's talk briefly on MacArthur's treatment of the Sermon on the Mount. We understand, along with the Reformed through history, that the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest sermon on the law that's ever been preached.

We're not saying exclusively, but largely the purpose of Sermon on the Mount is an exposition of the law and an application of the law to man that will condemn and crush us in our own attempts to be righteous and would thereby drive us to the one preaching the sermon who came to fulfill the law in our place.

But MacArthur's take on the Sermon on the Mount, and I think some of this, John, has to be derived from his dispensational convictions and how he thinks about the law existing in a different era of redemptive history.

Now, with the coming of the Messiah of Christ, we're in a different redemptive era.

Dispensation.

Right, a different dispensation. He says, for example, citing Matthew 7, 13, and 14, which is the broad road and the narrow way and all that, his conclusion from those verses is this. This passage crushes the claim of those who say the Sermon on the Mount is not gospel but law.

In fact, these closing verses are pure gospel with as pointed an invitation as has ever been issued. He goes on to say, quote, you will not find a plainer statement of the gospel according to Jesus anywhere in Scripture, close quote.

He's saying that about the narrow way and the broad road in particular. My initial take on that is, first of all, no, the Sermon on the Mount is not gospel. It's law, and there's a confusion of law and gospel all over the place going on there.

Then when he says you can't find a plainer statement of the gospel according to Jesus in that, I'm like, yeah, bro, I think you can. For example, Jesus's words to the woman of the city in Luke 7, the prostitute who comes and washes his feet, etc.

He says to her, quote, your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. I think that's a better word of gospel. You're forgiven, and your faith in me has saved you. Go in peace.

That's right. Jesus uses a lot of illustrations in his ministry, like the eye of a needle and a camel. He's talking about the impossibility of one finding salvation on their own or one earning salvation by their own merits.

The whole road is narrow, meaning a few that find it. The idea of it is you don't find it. You don't logically discover it. You don't earn your way into it. So taking that verse and using it in that way, you should hear that and respond as the disciples do and say, well, then who could be saved?

Everything Jesus says when it relates to the law and earning salvation, you should hear impossibility. Nicodemus did. He said, well, how am I going to reenter the mother's womb? It's like, well, now you've got it.

Now you understand that this is a work of God. Right. Later on, he even says that this is the work of the Spirit. You can't even manipulate the Spirit. It's like the wind, and we don't know where it's going.

There's nothing you can do to manipulate salvation, not before and not after. It is an entire work of God.