John MacArthur

It has now been 15 years since The Gospel According to Jesus was first published and the lordship of Christ became a matter of intense debate among evangelicals. That book stood for the simple proposition that the gospel is a call to surrender to the lordship of Christ in humble, repentant faith.

My publisher originally assigned The Gospel According to Jesus to their academic division. They had high expectations for the book from the start and initially thought it might sell as many as 30,000 copies–an unusually high number for an academic book of that sort. But it surpassed 100,000 in sales in a few months, and within a couple of years it had reached the quarter-million mark. There are now about half a million copies in circulation, and the book is still in print. That is almost unprecedented for a polemic book dealing with a theological issue.

When I wrote the book, I expected it to be somewhat controversial, of course, because I was defending a view that a handful of respected Christian leaders, (including Charles Ryrie, John Walvoord, and Zane Hodges) had already denounced as “lordship salvation.” But I confess that I did not anticipate the firestorm of intense debate that arose. The controversy seemed to dominate the evangelical world for several years after the book was published.

Most of my theological opponents in the lordship debate were fellow conservative evangelicals who had been my friends and allies in earlier controversies regarding the charismatic movement and the inerrancy of the Scriptures. They were men whom I deeply respected (and still esteem highly for much of the work they have done).

But they were promoting a view of the gospel that, from a biblical perspective, seemed seriously flawed. They insisted there is no place in the gospel for the proclamation of Jesus’ lordship. They said those who call unbelievers to surrender to Christ’s authority are preaching a gospel of works. They taught that repentance is a false addition to the gospel message. They objected to any kind of evangelism that employed the language of denying oneself, taking up a cross, and following Christ (cf. Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). They declared that devotion to Christ, love for Him, and obedience to His commands are all matters that pertain to discipleship rather than saving faith. Faith, they said, is merely the acceptance of salvation as a free and unconditional gift–and they portrayed discipleship as a second-level commitment. Therefore, according to their view, the gospel presents Jesus as Savior only, not as Lord.

Nearly all the leading advocates of the no-lordship gospel were associated with Dallas Theological Seminary. In fact, Dr. James M. Boice, who wrote powerfully in defense of “lordship salvation” long before I entered the fray, referred to their view as “the Dallas Doctrine.”

The pedigree of no-lordship doctrine at Dallas Seminary is traceable back to founder Lewis Sperry Chafer. The doctrine apparently stemmed from Chafer’s misguided attempts to develop a uniquely dispensationalist soteriology. Chafer (together with other early dispensationalists, including C. I. Scofield) was so zealous to eliminate every vestige of law from the dispensation of grace that he embraced a kind of antinomianism. That was the seed from which the no-lordship gospel sprouted.

Apparently, no-lordship doctrine no longer dominates Dallas Seminary the way it once did, but controversy over the issue is by no means dead. The past year or so has seen publication of a few new books touting the no-lordship view, attempting to revive the debate yet again. At least one organization, the Grace Evangelical Society, was founded in the heat of the controversy a decade and a half ago and regularly publishes a journal and a newsletter devoted to defending no-lordship theology. The question evidently remains unsettled for many.

My own views on “lordship salvation” have not changed, and if anything I now see the issue as larger and more far-reaching than I did when I first wrote The Gospel According to Jesus. Much more is at stake than just the question of how we proclaim the gospel. The lordship issue has serious ramifications for a number of crucial points of theology.

Grace

The doctrine of grace, for example, is profoundly affected by no-lordship teaching. Defenders of the no-lordship gospel often refer to their unique teachings as “Grace Theology” and their movement as “the Grace Movement.” They are convinced that only their system preserves the gospel’s message of grace. That is precisely why they insist every opposing opinion is a kind of works-salvation.

But they are working with an unbiblical notion of “grace.” Grace is not a liberal clemency or a passive indulgence that simply tolerates and coexists with sin. Divine grace doesn’t guarantee heaven in the afterlife while merely overlooking the evils of this life. Authentic grace is the undeserved favor of God toward sinners, delivering them from the power as well as the penalty of sin (Romans 6:14). Grace is dynamic, “teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:12).

Furthermore, grace is not merely God’s response to the sinner’s initiative. Quite the opposite. Because He is gracious, God takes the initiative, drawing the sinner (John 6:44, 65), granting repentance (Acts 3:26; 5:31; 11:18), and awakening the heart to faith (Acts 13:48; 16:14). Every aspect of the believer’s response–conviction, repentance, and faith–is the result of God’s gracious work in the heart. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

God’s grace is rooted in Christ’s atonement for sin, which was infinitely costly. In fact, Christ’s death on behalf of sinners is the supreme expression of divine grace. It is unthinkable that God would sacrifice His Son to purchase heaven for sinners but leave them to fend for themselves against the power of sin in this life (cf. Romans 8:32).

Sanctification

That’s why sanctification is another major doctrine whose biblical foundations are undermined by no-lordship doctrine. The whole gist of the no-lordship message is that while justification is a free gift of God’s grace, sanctification is primarily the believer’s own work–and therefore more or less optional.

But Scripture teaches that sanctification begins at conversion. The process of practical sanctification is launched by God’s regenerating work, when He graciously gives the sinner a new heart and a new spirit of obedience (Ezekiel 11:19-20; 36:26-27; 2 Corinthians 5:17). Just as regeneration marks the beginning of sanctification, glorification marks its end. Sanctification culminates in that moment when we see Christ and are instantly conformed perfectly to His image (1 John 3:2; 1 Corinthians 13:12). Meanwhile, all genuine believers are being sanctified–conformed gradually to the image of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 8:29). Those who remain unchanged and in unbroken bondage to sin have no true knowledge of Christ (1 John 3:6).

Sanctification is as much a work of divine grace as justification. By portraying sanctification as an optional human work, advocates of no-lordship doctrine actually fall into the very error of works-salvation they profess to deplore. They have made at least this aspect of salvation into a human work.

Justification by Faith

The pivotal doctrine in the lordship debate is justification by grace through faith alone (sola fide). No-lordship doctrine is a corruption of sola fide. The leading proponents of the no-lordship view err because they tend to make justification practically the only work God does in salvation, and they omit or downplay the doctrines of regeneration and sanctification.

Justification is a forensic decree–God’s legal verdict that the sinner has been fully forgiven and credited with the full merit of a perfect righteousness. Justification must be distinguished from regeneration and sanctification, but it can never be divorced from them. There is no such thing as a justified sinner who is still unregenerate or utterly unsanctified.

That is not to suggest that we are justified because of our sanctification. We are not even justified “because” of our faith. Faith is the instrument of our justification, not the ground of it.

The righteousness of Christ–not any work done by the believer or wrought by God in the sinner–is the true ground of our justification. In other words, God gives us a righteous standing only because of the perfect righteousness He imputes to us. We’re not justified because of any righteousness we attain in our sanctification. We’re not justified because of the quality of our faith or the depth of our repentance. God accepts us only for Christ’s sake. Because of our union with Christ, he receives us as righteous in Christ. Thus we are justified because of what Christ has done on our behalf; not because of anything we do, period.

And it is by faith alone that we lay hold of the promise of justification. That’s what Scripture means when it speaks of being “justified by faith” (Romans 3:8; 5:1; Galatians 2:16; 3:24).

But, as the Reformers said, while faith alone justifies, the faith that justifies is never alone. Genuine faith inevitably produces good works. The works are the fruit, not the root, of faith. And justification is therefore complete at the very inception of faith, before faith ever produces a single work. It is not a process like sanctification.

Most who have defended the lordship of Christ for the past decade and a half have labored diligently to make these things clear and to defend the principle of sola fide. This will become more and more important if the debate is rekindled, because there are a number of theological trends on the horizon that tend to undermine the principle of sola fide. These include the so-called “New Perspective on Paul,” several recent attacks on the doctrine of imputation, ECT-style ecumenism, and a revival of Anabaptist opposition to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Some who have helped popularize these trends claim that they too are simply battling the shallow “faith” and cheap “grace” of modern evangelicalism, but they actually overthrow the heart of the gospel when they abandon the doctrine of justification by faith.

The errors of no-lordship theology do not find their origin in the principle of sola fide; they stem from an incomplete, man-centered soteriology that refuses to see anything beyond justification. In defending the gospel from no-lordship doctrine, we must take care not to commit the opposite error by downplaying or abandoning the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

The Sovereignty of God

Another doctrine under attack in the lordship debate is the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. No-lordship theology cannot coexist with biblical views of election, predestination, and divine foreknowledge. Simply put, you won’t find a Calvinist who believes in no-lordship doctrine.

If salvation is really all God’s work, how could it be utterly lacking the grace of sanctification? Is surrender to Christ really a human work, or is regeneration with all its effects a sovereign work of God? How can a believer whose heart has been renewed by divine grace fail to bow to Christ’s lordship? As I wrote in chapter 1 of The Gospel According to Jesus:

We must remember above all that salvation is a sovereign work of God. Biblically it is defined by what it produces, not by what one does to get it. Works are not necessary to earn salvation. But true salvation wrought by God will not fail to produce the good works that are its fruit (cf. Matthew 7:17). No aspect of salvation is merited by human works, but it is all the work of God (Titus 3:5-7). Thus salvation cannot be defective in any dimension. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). As a part of His saving work, God will produce repentance, faith, sanctification, yieldedness, obedience, and ultimately glorification. Since He is not dependent on human effort in producing those elements, an experience that lacks any of them cannot be the saving work of God.

I once listened to a message by S. Lewis Johnson critiquing a book by Zane Hodges in which Dr. Johnson concluded that the central error underlying no-lordship doctrine is nothing but the ancient heresy of semi-pelagianism–the belief that saving grace cannot be efficacious without the prior cooperation of human free will.

Dr. Johnson’s analysis was accurate. Scripture teaches that God’s saving grace is inherently efficacious. All whom the Father has chosen shall come to Christ (John 6:37). Each one of them will be effectually called, justified, glorified, and perfectly conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29-30). No aspect of salvation can fail, because none of it hinges on the fickle human will. All of it is the efficacious work of a sovereign God. Accept those truths and you cannot embrace no-lordship doctrine.

Other Important Points of Doctrine

Where you land on the lordship question will also have far-reaching implications for your views on assurance, faith, repentance, eternal rewards, human depravity, the role of the moral law, and a host of other crucial doctrines. Almost no aspect of soteriology is left untainted by the errors of no-lordship doctrine.

Today’s article comes from John MacArthur as he recounts an experience he had early in his ministry which made a lasting impact on him.

In those days, every seminary student had to preach in chapel. When my turn came, I was assigned to preach on 2 Samuel 7, the great text on the Davidic Covenant. My sermon was probably a fine example of structural craftsmanship. It had a zinger for a beginning and a zapper at the end. It would have been a great success, too—if it hadn’t been for my lack of biblical content in the middle section. I preached a “practical” message that was only superficially related to the biblical text. In that passage, Nathan encourages David to build a house for the Lord. And God says, “Wait a minute, you didn’t check in. That’s not the plan.” So I preached about how important it is to not to presume on God.

When I finished, I felt pretty good. The chapel audience seemed to have followed with interest, and I even thought I heard some murmurs of approval. But I really only cared about the opinion of one man—my mentor, Dr. Feinberg. The faculty sat behind us when we preached in chapel, and they had legal-sized criticism sheets, which they filled out during the student’s sermon. After we were done preaching, we would stand at the door, and the faculty would hand us their sheets as they left the room. I just wanted Dr. Feinberg’s.

He was at the end of the line, and I could see that he had folded his sheet up very small and very tightly. When he handed it to me, he did not even look up at me. He kept his eyes straight down and walked firmly past. That was not a good sign. So at my first opportunity, I unrolled his paper. I was eager to read his feedback, hoping desperately that he would be impressed with my sermon.

To be sure, I expected some constructive criticism. But the few bold red words that stared back at me were much worse than anything I had prepared myself for. He had completely ignored all the suggested categories and scoring helps that were printed on the sheet. Instead, he wrote across the page in bold red letters a one-line critique that hit me like a hard punch to the solar plexus: “ You missed the whole point of the passage .”

That is the worst possible mistake any preacher could make—but especially in front of someone like Dr. Feinberg.

Like many young preachers, I had naively concerned myself with just about everything except getting the meaning of the text right. My preparation was focused on delivery, gestures, anecdotes, the right mix of humor and illustrative material, and the alliteration of my main points. I had actually approached the biblical passage itself almost as an afterthought.

Later that day, I received a message instructing me to go to Dr. Feinberg’s office. When I got there, he was sitting at his desk, shaking his head in disappointment. “How could you? How could you? That passage presents the Davidic Covenant culminating in the Messiah and His glorious kingdom—and you talked about ‘not presuming on God’ in our personal day-to-day choices. That would have been a fine admonition to preach from Numbers 15:30-31 or Psalm 19:31, but you can’t reduce 2 Samuel 7 to that ! You missed the entire point of the passage, and it’s one of the greatest of all Old Testament passages. Don’t ever do that again.”

He never said another word about it to me, but that incident hit me like a sledgehammer. In fact, it was the deepest single impression I ever received in seminary. Never miss the point of the passage. To this day, when I come to the text each week and begin to study its richness and depth, I can still hear Dr. Feinberg’s heartfelt admonition ringing in my ears. If you don’t have the meaning of Scripture, you do not have the Word of God at all. If you miss the true sense of what God has said, you are not actually preaching God’s Word! That reality has compelled me for nearly 40 years of preaching.

How would He react to the post-evangelical goulash of opinions represented in Christian magazines, in the Emerging blogosphere, or in the trendy evangelical megachurches that have held the evangelical movement in thrall for the past few decades? Would He affirm the current mainstream of evangelical apathy toward truth and authentic biblical unity? Would He approve of those who, confronted with a plethora of contradictions and doctrinal novelties, simply celebrate their movement’s “diversity” while trying to avoid all controversy, embracing every theological renegade, and elevating orthopraxy over orthodoxy? Was Jesus’ meek-and-gentle mildness of that sort?

I’m convinced we can answer those questions with confidence if we first ask a slightly different question: What did Jesus do? How did He deal with the false teachers, religious hypocrites, and theological miscreants of His time? Did He favor the approach of friendly dialogue and collegial disagreement, or did He in fact adopt a militant stance against every form of false religion?

Anyone even superficially familiar with the gospel accounts ought to know the answer to that question, because there is no shortage of data on the matter. Jesus’ interaction with the Scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites of His culture was full of conflict from the start of His earthly ministry to the end. Sometimes the Pharisees provoked the conflict; more often than not, Jesus did. Hostile is not too strong a word to describe His attitude toward the religious system they represented, and that was evident in all His dealings with them.

Jesus never suffered professional hypocrites or false teachers gladly. He never shied away from conflict. He never softened His message to please genteel tastes or priggish scruples. He never suppressed any truth in order to accommodate someone’s artificial notion of dignity. He never bowed to the intimidation of scholars or paid homage to their institutions.

And He never, never, never treated the vital distinction between truth and error as a merely academic question.

Excerpted from John MacArthur’s The Jesus You Can’t Ignore.

Bonds

Doulos (δοῦλος) is not an ambiguous term. It suggests a very specific concept, which — while repugnant to our culture and our natural minds — should not be toned down or backed away from. It is the main Greek word that was used to describe the lowest abject bond slave — a person who was literally owned by a master who could legally force him to work without wages. In other words, a doulos (δοῦλος) was a person without standing or rights. According to Kittel’s definitive dictionary of New Testament expressions, words in the doulos (δοῦλος) group

serve either to describe the status of a slave or an attitude corresponding to that of a slave. . . . The meaning is so unequivocal and self-contained that it is superfluous to give examples of the individual terms or to trace the history of the group. Distinction from synonymous words and groups . . . is made possible by the fact that the emphasis here is always on “serving as a slave.” Hence we have a service which is not a matter of choice for the one who renders it, which he has to perform whether he likes or not, because he is subject as a slave to an alien will, to the will of his owner. [The term stresses] the slave’s dependence on his lord.

Unfortunately, readers of the English Bible have long been shielded from the full force of the word doulos (δοῦλος) because of an ages-old tendency among Bible translators to tone down the literal sense of the word — translating it as “servant,” or “bond servant” rather than “slave.” The practice goes back hundreds of years, even before the King James Version. The Geneva Bible, the main Bible of the Puritan era, consistently translated doulos (δοῦλος) as “servant” (though in the distinctive spelling of the time, it appears as “seruant”). Murray Harris surveyed twenty major translations of the New Testament in English and found only one, E. J. Goodspeed’s The New Testament: An American Translation (1923) — where doulos (δοῦλος) was consistently rendered “slave.”  No doubt that reflects our society’s longstanding discomfort with the practice of slavery and the severe abuses that have always occurred in institutionalized versions of human slavery.

Still, service and slavery are not really the same thing, and it is extremely unfortunate that the full impact of the expression doulos (δοῦλος) has been obscured in our English translations for so long.

There are at least six Greek words for “servant,” and doulos (δοῦλος) is not one of them. For example, diakonos (διάκονος) (from which our word deacon is derived) means “servant.” Oiketes (οἰκέτης) speaks of a domestic servant. Pais (παῖς) denotes a young boy who runs errands. Huperetes (ὑπηρέτης) (usually translated “minister”) literally signifies a low-level servant who pulls an oar on the lower deck of a large ship. Leitourgos (λειτουργὸς), also meaning “minister,” designates someone who performs some kind of religious ser vice. Therapon (θεράπων), used of Moses in Hebrews 3:5 (“faithful in all His house as a servant”), refers to a dignified kind of high-level ser vice. And there are several more specific Greek words that describe service in terms far loftier and more respectable than doulos (δοῦλος).

Doulos (δοῦλος) speaks of slavery, pure and simple. It is not at all a hazy or uncertain term. It describes someone lacking personal freedom and personal rights whose very existence is defined by his service to another. It is the sort of slavery in which “human autonomy is set aside and an alien will takes precedence of one’s own.”5 This is total, unqualified submission to the control and the directives of a higher authority — slavery, not merely service at one’s own discretion.

For example, in Matthew 6:24, Jesus said, “No one can be a slave to two masters” (literal translation). That translation is much stronger (and actually makes better sense) than what you will find in most versions: “No one can serve two masters.” An employee with two jobs could indeed serve two masters. But slavery — not merely service — is what the word doulos (δοῦλος) and all its derivatives speak of.

There is an important difference. A servant gives service to someone, but a slave belongs to someone.  It is not merely a nuance. Scripture repeatedly and emphatically places Christians in the latter category: “Do you not know that . . . you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19 – 20). We have a Master who purchased us (2 Peter 2:1). To be specific, we were purchased for God with the precious blood of Christ (Rev. 5:9). This is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian: “For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:7 – 9).

Excerpted from The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur