Email re “The Chosen” and “Lordship Salvation" (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Critiquing *The Chosen* and Its Portrayal of Jesus

Michael Lee Abendroth here. I don�t know how many years we�ve been doing this show, 12, something like that? It�s been fun, exciting. There was a while there that I�m thinking, �Ah, should I carry on

But so far, we�re going to just keep going and see what happens. I got an email today, or printed it out, and it wasn�t today, sorry, and it said, �Hi, my name is Karen. Can you do a thorough show on the Chosen, the last church, somewhat Reformed, non-denominational, and a real mix of people, including mission people and 70 times 7 ministry

Mission people, that�s capital M. I don�t know what either of those are. I know it�s somewhat Reformed. That last church I went to was wonderful until NAR came and insinuated it, or infected it. Probably not insinuated.

I was raised Christian Reformed, gone to CRC church, Reformed church, it�s adult, very conservative, assembly of God, gives her age, and I haven�t just been flitting around to churches. Sounds like you have.

Just kidding. Karen, just kidding. Now I�ve been going to a Baptist church, but haven�t joined yet. The pastor�s fairly new there and very biblical. All right. So far, so good. I go to a discipleship meeting every week, and the woman who invited me knows the Bible very well and loves the Word, and we take a chapter a week.

Nice. We can go back and forth in discussion frankly without hurting feelings. Excellent. She has the MacArthur Study Bible, so reads those notes as well. She is really involved in the church and lots of mission things always, right to life, etc., and she loves the Chosen.

I�m not in any position to give any input to the church, although I did critique the Chosen to her, and she spends a lot of time at the church and interacting with the woman who is always there in the office.

It was funny. I was typing this woman a critique of the show when she sent me the latest link of Dallas Jenkins defending the show. He�s pretty smart. He promotes Mike Winger on this video, who�s pretty solid and very likable.

In my online search to check my thoughts, feelings on the show, I notice that Dallas leaves comments on Discernment Ministry websites and interviews on channels with them as well. Really proactive defending the show, lots of YouTube videos.

I�m pretty sure that you and I would disagree on quite a bit. Like what? I�m glad we have people who listen to this show that we disagree with. I�m glad. Karen, I�m glad you listen. I hope you�re listening to this show.

But it seems like all believers would think that pretending Jesus did this or that and said things we�re not privy to is wrong. John 2 .24, Jesus did not entrust himself to people, and Dallas�s Jesus doesn�t sound like Isaiah 53.

Then she links sharing the authentic Jesus with the world with the interview on the Mormon channel where he said, �Dallas, we love the same Jesus. I start thinking that I�m making too much of it, but I think that it�s blasphemous and ecumenical with non-Christians.

He has a Roman Catholic priest at a round table on YouTube as well, Galatians 1 .8, 2 John 1 .10. Thank you. Sorry about the different fonts, can�t seem to grasp it. Karen, did Pastor Steve and I talk about this a while ago?

Karen, since you disagree with me on certain things, I won�t do a thorough show. Just kidding. No, I won�t do a thorough show because, frankly, I don�t want to research it, and I don�t want to watch it.

I�ve watched two separate snippets of it, and whether it�s a Second Commandment violation, or as importantly, if you have a man who says, here�s what Dallas said, I heard it with my own ears, here�s a summary of what he said, �Ninety-five percent of the dialogue in the Chosen isn�t in the Bible.

Because it�s this, you know, historical fiction, right? If you�re going to read John 4, well, there�s only so much you can say with the woman at the well and Jesus. And if 95 has been added by a man who doesn�t know the difference between a Mormon Jesus and the biblical Jesus, I don�t want to have anything to do with it.

Not even talking about the Second Commandment violation, but talking about that as well. And therefore, if someone asked me, would I promote the Chosen? No. Would I watch the Chosen? No. Do I think you�re going to go to hell if you watch the Chosen?

No. If you tell me you benefit from the Chosen, I tell you, well, I don�t benefit from the Chosen, so now who�s the winner? Well, I get some of these good insights. I don�t get these insights. I mean, who�s the winner?

Right? So if we can�t argue experience, I�ve really gotten some good insights to Jesus, you know, and how He looks at people and how He, I don�t know, winks and, you know, shrugs His shoulders or is super patient with them.

But if I say, well, you know, you�ve had that experience, but I don�t have that experience, so how do we prove whose experience is right? And you know, it harkens back to shows about Jesus and what can we learn about Jesus.

I guess at best, you know, those old shows, the Matthew series or the John series where the only thing that was said was from the Bible, and then we have issues with what about portraits of Jesus that aren�t in the Bible.

That man doesn�t look like Jesus. He doesn�t talk like Jesus. I think we have plenty of sufficient and adequate revelation, and everything we need to know about Jesus is simply found in the text. That�s all we need.

And therefore, I don�t want it promoted here at the church. I�m not going to be a heavy-handed shepherd, and every time I hear somebody saying that they like it, I�m going to crush them and try to make them feel bad and all this other stuff.

That�s not the way I do things, but you ask me a direct question, I give you a direct answer. And the real issue for me is thinking about Jesus in ways that are through the lens of a man who doesn�t know that the Mormon Jesus isn�t Jesus.

If you don�t know that, you don�t know�I don�t want to learn anything from you. You say, �Well, he�s nice and he�s attractive. Are you talking about Jesus in the movie or are you talking about Dallas?

We love the same Jesus. We love Jesus. Yes, we do. We love the Lucifer brother Jesus. How about you? No possible way. You can get everything and more studying the Bible alone. You can get everything and more studying the Bible.

You say, �Oh, you know, I bet you when everybody was arguing who�s first and Jesus comes in and everybody�s just shrinking with shame and Jesus doesn�t even say anything, the weight of the moment. I don�t need a video to teach me that.

I don�t need Dallas Jenkins to show me that. I can think that. I can imagine that using the text of Scripture. And I don�t know, maybe I talked about this a while ago, I�m not sure, but I have not had Karen�s email in front of me until today.

So therefore, I haven�t watched it, won�t watch it, won�t promote watching it, and I don�t think it�s good for you to watch. It�s just you ask me the question, I give you the answer. You�re like, �Well, yeah, but I benefit from it.

I this, I that. I don�t mean you, Karen, but other people. Okay, well, then maybe next time somebody asks me a question and says, you know, �Give me the answer that I want. There�s so many things in there that I don�t need to know about, like 95 of it.

I�d much rather just watch an old show and, you know, the Leah Remini Scientology show, trying to extract people out of Scientology. I get more out of it, that show, than trying to have my eyes and ears up and in a discerning way thinking, �What did he just add to Jesus, and that�s not how Jesus looks.

We�re not to know how Jesus looks. Anyway, Mike Avendroth, No Compromise Radio. That�s the, I don�t really have too many letters these days, but certainly that�s one of them. I hope you�re a person who likes to read books and likes to study.

That�s one of the things we�re trying to do here at No Compromise Radio Ministry. In front of me, I have a few things. I have, well, I guess I can talk about this now. I have an S. Lewis Johnson article called �How Faith Works.

The volcanic issue of, quote, �Lordship Salvation end quote, is still emitting the smoke and fumes of controversy. S. Lewis Johnson wrote an article about the Lordship controversy. And you have people that are non-Lordship, you have people that are anti-Lordship, and you have people who are Lordship in the last, oh, since I guess 1979, 1980, something like that.

And here�s what I would say about the Lordship stuff. What S. Lewis Johnson does is something very fascinating. He gives a little background of who the players are, and then one of the first things he does is he quotes the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Now, why do I think this is important? Well, obviously, I believe Jesus is Savior. I obviously believe that He�s Lord. S. Lewis said, �How does our obedience, treating Him as Lord, relate to our salvation, accepting Him as Savior?

Christians seem to have difficulty sorting out the relationship, and with the difficulty comes doctrinal conflict and occasionally harsh words. Legalism works righteousness, easy believism, cheap grace.

What do we do? S. Lewis, �The phrases through which the issue of Lordship salvation passes may be likened to those of a volcano. Talks about dormant, then comes, you know, emitting smoke and sulfurous fumes.

The forerunner of the current debate erupted in the late 50s and early 60s. Two well-known evangelicals, Everett Harrison and John Stott, debated the issue in Eternity Magazine in 1959. That's fascinating.

Harrison was first professor of New Testament at Fuller Seminary. Stott, at the time, was rector of All Souls Church in London. Harrison took the position that, while the acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord is essential to salvation, the demand that one must make Jesus his Lord as well as Savior to be truly redeemed is to confuse salvation and the legitimate obligations of the Christian life.

Stott, on the other hand, insisted that one must surrender to the Lordship of Christ to be saved. Lordship salvation, then, is the claim that, to be saved, one must not only believe and acknowledge that Christ is Lord, but also submit to his Lordship.

Then, he talks about Ryrie's book, Balancing the Christian Life, in 1969. He then discusses the Zondervan book by John MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus, 1988, and then Zane Hodges, former professor at Dallas Seminary, Gospel Under Siege.

So, those are the three players that Essos Johnson talks about. Johnson, sadly, the issue has not claimed the attention of systematic theologians as it should. Definitions of terms are fundamental in theological analysis.

In the present debate, they're often wanting, occasionally fuzzy, sometimes inept, and even theologically inaccurate. Talking about definitions. This problem of definitions accounts for the fact that persons holding the same theological views debate and disagree with one another.

Their standards of reference are not common to them. So here's the thing. Before I give you more from Essos Johnson, historically speaking, and that's one of the best things that you can do, is study church history.

There's not really anything new under the sun, is there? We're not talking about, was Charles Ryrie a nice guy, or is John MacArthur a nice guy, or anything like that. We're all wanting to come to, what does the Bible teach?

J. I. Packer would regularly say, and it's in his book, Quest for Godliness, that green book on the Puritans, that Arminians would use these words as a response to the work of Christ. You're talking to an unbeliever.

These are the words Arminians use. They'd be volitional words. Submit, surrender, commit. I'll add some new ones. Treasure, desire. That's the language there. For the Reformed, historically speaking, they said the response to the work of Christ, the unbeliever's response would be belief, trust, rest, rely, and receive.

Fiducia, those have to do, that's with the fiduciary, you know, you're trusting. Not volitional. Now, this is going to be a long show, if I'm not careful. Commit, surrender, submit. That's not wrong for a Christian to do, because that's in the category of sanctification.

But historically speaking, Arminians talk about surrender, Calvinists, Reformed, talk about belief. Now, Hodges, not Charles Hodge, but Zane Hodges, used the Bible to argue his points. Ryrie used the Bible to argue his points.

MacArthur used the Bible to argue his points. That's true. So what do we do? They're all using the Bible. And what S. Lewis Johnson does is, I think it's very helpful, and he said, the seeds of dispute lie in the 19th century with the rise of evangelical campaigns and decisional evangelism that characterize them.

And that is the tendency to regard the raising of one's hand in a public meeting, the signing of a card, the walking of an aisle, or similar activities as evidence of salvation. It is not surprising that such terms as easy believism and cheap grace arose, for so many of the supposed conversions did not stand the test of time.

This practice has led to confusion over what happens when we are justified by faith. And I think MacArthur, more than the other two guys, Ryrie and Hodges, saw that there were a lot of people saying they were Christians, but it was hard to see any fruit in their life.

And it was a temporary faith. It seemed like, from our perspective, a spurious faith. It was a faith that didn't really change them in any way, shape, or form. And, therefore, John MacArthur asked the question, well, then, does Jesus relate their Lord?

Right? Lord and Savior. I have heard John say, you don't make Jesus Lord, Jesus is Lord. But Johnson, as soon as Johnson comes along, and while all three of these players, and of course Stott and Everett Harrison back in the late 50s, early 60s, everybody uses the Bible.

Well, what's Johnson trying to do? He's trying to say, you know what, creeds and confessions over the Bible? Nobody that I know of believes that. This is a summary of what the Bible teaches. And do you think there were questions about this particular problem in the 1600s, 1700s, 1500s?

This is not a new problem. So, what's the difference between justification and sanctification? Does sanctification start when justification starts? That is to say, they're inseparable, but they're different?

Can you be justified and then not be sanctified? Can you... I mean, is justification your sanctification? There's a lot of questions that come up in this. So the things that I want to say today, first of all, here's how church history is looked at, with the Armenians and the Calvinists reformed.

And then Johnson, and I think there are people on both sides that would really look up to S. Lewis Johnson. Nobody... I know John MacArthur doesn't think he's a slouch, and I don't think Charles Ryrie thought he was a slouch.

And I don't... Zane Hodges, I think he died recently, and I don't know about Zane Hodges. Westminster Confession of Faith, justification defined this way. Those whom God affectionately calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone, not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience.

To them as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they are receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves.

It is the gift of God.". Westminster Confession. Now, here's what Johnson says. This grand central principle of the Reformation teaches that believers are declared righteous before God by the instrumentality of faith alone.

What he's meaning is not by submission, not by committing, not by surrendering, but by faith. Christ having made a full satisfaction to his Father's justice in their behalf by his death on the cross, they therefore receive the gift of righteousness and rest upon Christ in his work.

The confession makes the point that while God's righteousness is bestowed through faith alone and not by works, yet when faith is genuine, it is ever accompanied with other saving graces. That is, all other graces have their root in faith.

Good works, then, are not the ground of justification, but are possible only as consequences. The battle cry of the Reformation was, faith alone justifies, but not the faith that is alone. Works, Luther said, are not taken into consideration when the question respects justification.

But true faith will no more fail to produce them than the sun can cease to give light. The confession recognizes that believers continue to sin, stating, God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified, and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may by their sins fall under God's fatherly displeasure and not have the light of his countenance restored unto them until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.

Johnson, much of this is important for the debate over lordship salvation. It is plain that the confession denies that faith is merely intellectual assent to the truths about Jesus. MacArthur, Ryrie, and Hodges agree.

The confession further sees our Lord as a divine being, and he is the author of a full satisfaction to the Father's justice in behalf of sinners. Thus he is properly called Lord. Only a Lord can save souls by sacrificing himself.

The confession states that the justified may fall into sin and carnality. In other words, a complete commitment is not a prerequisite of salvation. Okay, that's what you need to really get into your brain.

You have to commit yourself to the Lord and surrender to the Lord in order to be saved. Well, is there anything antecedent before faith? The answer is no. Because if there was, then how much commitment do you have to make?

It'd have to be a perfect commitment. And you can't do anything perfectly. That's why faith trusts in the perfect one. A weak faith, a tainted faith, a faith that's not even perfect, because what can be perfect?

Because we're sinful. And the right Savior saves. And therefore, if you want to get to heaven by committing yourself to Jesus, submitting yourself to his Lordship, it has to be perfect as the ground for salvation.

S. Lewis Johnson MacArthur, however, occasionally appears to be arguing the position that a full commitment is such a prerequisite. In other places, he modifies his position. He has said that Jesus never held forth the hope of salvation to anyone who refused to submit to his sovereign Lordship.

But he qualified the demand for submission and obedience to a willingness to obey. And I think it'd be fair to say John has since revised that book and has written books called The Gospel According to Paul, The Gospel According to the Apostles, etc.

The Confession clearly connects good works with justification as the expected issue of faith. Hodges 2 says good works are expected and not to be found in the believer's life. He contends, however, that they are not inevitable.

On the contrary, Paul says works are the purpose of a for-preparing God, Ephesians 2 .10. Shall a sovereign purpose be uncertain of realization? Said Johnson. So anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is NoCompromiseRadio .com.

That's part one of what we're talking about when it comes to Lordship. The other book that I think you should read is a book edited by Michael Horton called Christ the Lord, and that will give you the Reformed view of this.

But here's the summary that I have. Arminians say, this is the Arminian historical background, commit, surrender, submit, treasure, desire. The Reformed would say, because the Bible teaches it, receive, rest, trust.

So we don't have volitional things, we have fiducia things. That's the big category break. And secondly, when we come to this problem, let's not start afresh. Let's go back to even things like the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Standards, because I think we could be helped a lot.

We all believe Jesus is Lord. What do we do with Lordship salvation? More on this topic later.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.