Dr. MacArthur vs. Easy Believism
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 was 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 frequent 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 has the opposite view.
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 from this
alleged dotrine? 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 law.” God’s judgement was based on 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 Christ yet? 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 was 85 years old. But he believed God for a miracle. He
doubted, but he always came back to God. Note Genesis 15:6:
And he believed in
the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
Abraham was righteous 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 haven’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 only compassionate in the New. A problem
for them, though, was faith was evidenced by works in Jesus’ Sermon on the
Mount, where He set a higher bar than the Law had set for God’s judgement. The false dispensationalists 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 not in accord with their doctrine—so
they announced that the whole Sermon on the Mount was a doctrine for the future
Kingdom age (yay, another age), where Jesus will rule for 1000 years. I guess
we should say, “Whew! I guess carnal
living is still OK.” But it could send
you to hell. 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.” That’s where obedience to His
commands is required, as Lord of our lives. Yes, I guess that could be
dangerous—especially if you want to continue serious sin. Even as early as Luke
2:11, Jesus is called Savior and Lord. Along with many other Scriptures in the
same vein, these two (salvation and accepting His Lordship) 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. We can never be perfect in this life, but
He knows what our intentions are.
Again, those who believe in this
false doctrine 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 for Christ in our life is “adding works.” But get real.
James has a whole chapter on how faith, without works, is dead. Such a thing 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 man-made, and ignored a huge body of Scripture
(such as in James) 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. 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 T 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 because 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, (and
of course they tied it to the sacrifice of Jesus). 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. Doing things for the Lord is important, but
NOT doing certain things is also important. 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, the morals in the Old Testament or New, is essential. This is giving your whole 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.
