There
is nothing more important than soteriology—the doctrine of salvation, or how we
can know from Scripture if we’re going to heaven. As anybody who reads my blogs know, I am a
long-time foot-stomper on how the doctrine of salvation has been weakened. But I dug up a book where Dr. John MacArthur,
one of my favorite blunt-edge guys, feels the same way, and expresses his
agitation much better than I could. After
all, he’s pastor of a church for 50 years, chancellor emeritus of The Master’s
University, and editor and author of 150 books.
You will find, as I did, that much of this battle we outline below is a
battle of words. If you can change the
meaning of a word that expresses a necessity for salvation, or if you can
eliminate that expression entirely, then you have won half the battle. So Satan—and his followers—have found. So let’s get into just the first chapter of his book, prophetically written from
1988, “The Gospel According to Jesus.”
His
introduction bemoans the gospel presentations today (“ask Jesus into your heart,”
etc). None of them is Biblical—the gospel Jesus proclaimed was a call to
discipleship, a call to follow Him in submissive obedience. In truth, the cost to follow Him is high, the
way is narrow—and few find it (Matthew 7:13). Sadly, the verse points out
that the majority of people are headed for hell, whether they know it or not. The
verse is a warning call. As he puts it,
“present day evangelicalism ignores those warnings.”
The
first serious break from Scripture was from an alleged evangelist, Lewis Sperry
Chafer in his book in 1918 (note: Chafer
was a founder and the first president of Dallas Theological Seminary, where it
can be easily proved that this heretical doctrine has been taught there). The theory goes like this: there are two classes of Christians, carnal
and spiritual. As he wrote in his book,
“the ‘carnal’ Christian is characterized by a walk that is on the same plane as
that of the ‘natural’ (i.e. unsaved) man.”
Dr. MacArthur points out that “that was a foreign concept to most
Christians in Dr. Chafer’s generation, but it has become a central premise for
a large segment of the church today.” He
argues that Scripture clearly is opposite.
For instance, I John 3:10:
In this the
children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not
practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
Of course, a Christian cannot be perfectly
righteous, and will stumble, but as the great theologian B.B. Warfield put it,
“the remainders of the flesh in the Christian do not constitute his
characteristic. He is in the Spirit and
is walking, with however halting steps, by the Spirit.” The Christian wants to come back to God when
he sins. He wants to confess. Such is
abiding (a requirement to remain Christian, in John 15:1-6). It is to ALL Christians that Scripture says,
“sin shall not have dominion over you.”
(Romans 6:14). But the easy
doctrine (“I can still be carnal”) won the people’s love. Many people think
they are Christians but have no interest in holiness, in abiding in
Christ. The carnal life is good enough
for them. What do we learn? That false prophecies move fastest into
acceptance, through the pastors who were taught this heresy, to the people.
Another crack in the surface of soteriology was
forwarded by dispensationalists (who believe that God acts differently in
different ages). They assert that the
Old Testament was the “age of law.” The
New Testament is the “age of grace.” God
is kinder, He is different, now. Chafer
wrote, “the age before the cross…represent the exercise of (i.e., God’s
judgement was based on) pure law, while the (current) period represents the
exercise of pure grace.” Grace, of course,
has a new meaning: it means “God is
kinder” to them. That’s not the meaning
of the word at all, but who cares?
Sounds better. To attack this
malign heresy is easy: first, God
doesn’t change. Salvation has always
been, whether Old or New time periods, by grace through faith, not by the works
of the law. Galatians 2:16:
a man is not justified by the works of the law
but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that
we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law;
for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified
Well, what saved them in the Old Testament,
without faith in Christ? It was faith in
God. Let’s consider Abraham, who lived
in what they call the law-period. In Genesis 15, God promises him many
descendants—but he’s 85 years old. But
he believed God for a miracle. He doubted, but he always came back to God. He got what God promised. Note Genesis 15:6:
And he believed in the Lord, and
He accounted it to him for righteousness.
Abraham was right with God because of his faith.
So it wasn’t any different in the Old Testament than in the New. It’s all the same—belief by faith in Yahweh,
or belief in Jesus Who also was God. But
these clear verses hasn’t stopped those of the “two age systems” to warp it
into believing that God was harsh in the Old, but changes the rules and becomes
compassionate in the New. A problem for
them, though, was in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where He set a higher bar than
the Law had set for God’s judgement.
They had to discount that Sermon, or else God’s judgement of sin would
be harsher than the Law. In the Law, a
sex act outside of marriage was adultery:
But Jesus said, to look on a woman to lust after her was adultery in our
heart (Matthew 5:28). And Jesus said, murderous
thoughts in our mind, such as being angry with our brother without a cause,
would be judged as murder. And He gave more
of the same in that Sermon. The point
is, the dispensationalists considered these as impossible—so they announced that
the whole Sermon on the Mount was for the future Kingdom age (yay, another age),
where Jesus will rule for 1000 years. It
wasn’t anything to get seriously concerned about now. I guess we should say, “Whew! I guess carnal living is still OK.” But Dr. MacDonald saw through their fog, and
called this a “lamentable hermeneutic.”
He said it “emasculates the message of the gospels.”
Further weakening of salvation theology continued
on with those arguing the dangers of “Lordship salvation.” Even as early as Luke 2:11, Jesus is called
Savior and Lord. Along with many other Scriptures in the same vein, these two
clearly go together. We must do honor to Him on both counts to be saved. He not only saved us from hell, He saved us
from sin’s power. He is to be Lord of
our lives, and we are to read His Word and listen to the Spirit to make
decisions to be in His perfect will.
Again, the dispensationalists are fighting for
weakness here: They claim it is possible to receive Christ as Savior, yet
reject Him as Lord. You have an option
to say “maybe later” on Lordship when you are “saved.” As if. To
some reputed “theologians,” that is the norm for salvation: to add such a requirement as Lordship is to
“add works.” So I guess, then, that
professing obedience in behavior to Christ in our life is “adding works.” But get real.
James has a whole chapter on how faith, without works, is dead. It is not faith at all. Remember our brief discussion of the narrow
gate above, and few getting into heaven?
Let’s look at Luke 13:24:
“Strive to enter through the
narrow gate, for many,
I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
Now if there were ever a
dirty “works” word, “Strive” would be it.
Yet Jesus quotes it in connection of salvation. There are many other
verses that echo the same theme. The problem is, when Protestant theology was
first formed, the Reformers (Luther and Calvin) hated all the sacraments, all
the works, that Catholics put on salvation. The Catholics had martyred
thousands of them, so the hate was real.
But they put a new definition of “works” that is way too sensitive, and
ignored a huge body of Scripture (such as the above) that points out the
importance of works, for fruits. Luther
hated the book of James, calling it “a book of straw,” so he ignored it. Because James, under God, said that faith
without following works was dead. But
you cannot ignore one book, or thirty other verses, to “get what you want”
soteriology to be. So they went too far to expunge what they call “works.” With some churches, if you reveal that you
have rules in your family about limiting TV watching, or requiring prayer
before every meal, they will call you “legalistic.” Let us not run so far from the Catholics, all
you Protestants, that we swing the pendulum away so far from works so as to
enter a fuzzy, non-existent world of complacency—do anything you want, pay no
attention to laws (they are all Old stuff, right? Uh, no, Jesus had a few clarification
commands refining Law). No, with the
help of the Holy Spirit, we must strive.
We must say “no” a lot—to the temptations of the world. We must abide in Christ. When Paul says, “by the works of the law no
flesh shall be justified,” he is simply saying, we aren’t saved by works. God looks to our faith. Good works follow faith, though. We will have
an urge to follow Christ in our actions.
Such good works are called “fruit.”
Without fruit, we are NOT ON the VINE (John 15:1-6). A.W. Tozer put it well: “The Lord will not save those He cannot
command.”
Talking about the necessity of fruits, there was
also a fight over the word “repentance.”
The “weaker salvation” theologians have argued that repentance is not
necessary in salvation: It stresses
“works.” A dirty word to them. But the Greek root of repent is metanoia,
defined as “to perceive afterwards, implying a change in mind.” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of N.T.
Words). He adds that in Scripture, it is
almost always used as an exhortation, and a change for the better. Also note
that the word repent is the first
word used by John the Baptist, by Jesus and by Peter at the start of their
ministries (Matthew 3:2, 4:17, and Acts 2:38). They wanted a change in heart about sin. Or
you’re not saved. By placing the word at
the very beginning of their preachment, the concept was important in the
gospel. And note what John the Baptist says as proof that you really repented
in Matthew 3:8:
Therefore
bear fruits worthy of repentance
This clearly shows that repentance is tied to equally
important fruits in salvation.
Yet another battle arose on
the word “discipleship.” Again, it so
goes that there are two classes of Christians:
‘believers’ and ‘true disciples.’
Dr. MacArthur, in attacking yet another split, quotes the Great
Commission, Matthew 28:19-20. Note that
His disciples were not asked to go out and bring everyone to salvation:
Go therefore and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded
you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Dr. MacArthur quotes
appropriately from James M. Boice (by the way, if these names are all unknown
to you, it just proves that I’m older.
You can read up on them in Wikipedia). Boice wrote:
“In days of persecution, those who are in the
process of becoming Christians have to count the cost of discipleship carefully
before taking up the Cross…But in good times, the cost (of following Christ)
does not seem so high, and people take the name of Christ without undergoing
the radical transformation of life that true conversion implies.”
Boice bluntly called this
two classes idea “defective theology.”
I trust you might have
noticed a trend in the heretical theologies that have weakened salvation doctrine. All of them want to give you a choice of one
of two ways to go, after being “saved”:
you can have the option to carry on the same life as before, just with
the added “fire insurance” policy of salvation for heaven through mental assent
that, yeah, Jesus died for my sins.
Thanks, Jesus. They then give you
the other option, the tough life, which is rejected by most people. It says:
Leave it to the zealots to claim to follow moral law, or Lordship, or
discipleship, or the saintly life. Most
“saved” people choose the easy way; they still like the carnal life, not trying
for the impossible like the Sermon on the Mount. The choice is to their destruction.
The Catholics have a similar
theme in their doctrine. If you are a
true disciple, or saint, you go directly to heaven. The rest of us, who want to enjoy the dung of
carnality, as long as we commit no mortal sin, we can go to purgatory, and get
purged of all of that scum later, and then maybe we can eventually go to
heaven. So you see, the “two-way”
soteriology is in there too.
Well, Jesus had a Word for
that. Note the danger in His words: Matthew 7:21-23:
“Not everyone who says to
Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven,
but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name,
and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
In “lawlessness,” there’s
the final word that Jesus still pays attention to moral law. And in the phrase “does the will of My
Father,” you have the final word that there is an element of works in final
salvation: we must “do the will” of God.
Holiness, obeying the moral
Law, Old Testament or New, is essential.
Giving your life to Christ. It’s not really asking too much, since
Scripture shows how much He loved you (He died to get your sin out of the way
so you can get reconciled to God). Discipleship is essential. Lordship is essential. Repentance from sin is essential.
Got it? More than you thought? Well, as Jesus said, count the cost. Luke 14:28:
For which of you, intending to build a
tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it
The
parable is for those who realize, from Scripture, that it’s truly a narrow way
to final salvation. But the choice, as the verses point out, is….heaven or
hell. I can’t overstate how important
THAT decision is. Well, you read it
here, straight from Scripture. And
crusty Dr. MacDonald. God awaits your
decision.
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