Why Is "Lordship Salvation" Popular?
by Dr. Charlie Bing (Grace Notes #66)
Salvation is by grace through faith alone in Christ alone, meaning that an unsaved person cannot do anything or make any commitment (such as submitting to Jesus as the Master of one's life) in order to be saved... The word believe means to be convinced or persuaded of the truth of the gospel. An opposing view teaches that an unsaved person must believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and submit to Him as Lord (or Master) of his life. This view, called 'Lordship Salvation' teaches that believe must include includes submission, commitment, and obedience [or other forms of good works and devotion]...
The Lordship Salvation View Misinterprets Scripture
Failure to distinguish between the passages in the Bible that pertain to salvation and those that pertain to the Christian life (or discipleship) lead many to a Lordship view. They confuse justification and sanctification issues, which makes the Lordship "gospel" include many conditions of commitment and obedience. Unfortunately, this adds human merit [and devotion] to the gospel. Preaching these texts as conditions for salvation may produce more outward commitment, but it also induces guilt and doubt.
The Lordship Salvation View Confuses Law & Grace
Lordship theology often comes from confusing law and grace. Transferring the moral laws of the Mosaic Law to the age of grace after Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Law makes law-keeping an important part of salvation--if not at the front end as a condition for salvation, then at the back end as proof of salvation. Lordship adherents believe those who are truly saved will keep the moral laws of the Old and New Testaments demonstrating that Jesus is the Master of their lives. But this view not only ignores the change of dispensations between Law and grace, that is, the difference between God's program for Israel and His program for the church, it also ignores the reality that no one keeps all the laws perfectly [not even close!].
The Lordship Salvation View Embraces Extreme Calvinism
There has been a great resurgence of strong deterministic Calvinism, especially among young adults. Lordship theology is a necessary result of this theology, because in this view God elects some to salvation and gives them faith to believe [and He chooses others to be damned]. This view teaches that the divine gift of faith cannot fail, therefore it guarantees a persevering life of submission to Jesus as Lord if one is truly saved. This view of Christianity preaches the necessity of a full commitment to Jesus Christ, which is commendable in itself, but not if it is a test of salvation. The preaching of commitment attracts many young adults who respond to such challenges. Unfortunately, it is very likely that many or most of these "young, restless, and Reformed" Calvinists do not understand the whole package that makes commitment the condition for salvation [of course the truth is, none of us are fully committed to Christ, "we all stumble in many ways" - see Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9, James 3:2].
The Lordship Salvation View Has An Unrealistic View of Sin
An unwillingness to admit that Christians can sin severely or continuously, leads many to a Lordship view, because they are not willing to concede that such people are saved since they have not made Jesus their Lord. While it is grievous when Christians sin, a more biblical approach is to recognize that this reality is reflected throughout the Bible. Grace gives people the freedom to serve God or their own selfish desires. Unfortunately, not all choose to serve God, but the solution is not to make the gospel more difficult with additional conditions [salvation is the free gift of God, offered without cost, to those who are completely unworthy, undeserving, and spiritually destitute - see Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Timothy 1:9, etc.]. Labeling these people [these believers] as unsaved ignores or deals insufficiently with the Bible's teaching about God's discipline and the church's discipline for sinning Christians and their loss of temporal and eternal rewards. It is also possible they never really understood the simple gospel to begin with and are not saved.
[Editor's Note: The biblical record includes the tragic reality that many of God's children (His "saints") committed vile and grievous sins. This includes: Noah's drunkenness and shameful lewdness; Lot's (this "righteous man") worldliness, his willingness to offer to his own daughters to be raped and abused by a mob, and His incest with them after God saved him from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra; Abraham's deliberate and premeditated lying and willingness to allow His wife to be sexually violated; Jacob and Rachel's lying, deception and evil scheming against Isaac and Esau; Moses' murder of an Egyptian slave driver, and his later angry rebellion against God at Marabah (for which he was put to death and denied entry into the promised land); Aaron's blatant and overt leading of the people into idolatry and immorality (the golden calf incident), as well as his later deliberate rebellion against Moses' authority as God's leader; David's adultery with Bathsheba, his pre-meditated and carefully planned murder of Uriah, and his long-term (possibly year-long) scandalous coverup; Solomon's 'decades-long' practice of idolatry (including building numerous elaborate temples dedicated to pagan gods and demonic worship); Peter's deliberate and vehement thrice denial of Jesus on the night of Christ's death, as well as His later hypocrisy and denial of the grace of God toward the gentiles in Antioch, the other disciples' abandonment of Christ when "they all forsook Him and fled" after promising to remain faithful to Him to the death; the Corinthian believers' ("the saints of God") blatant and repeated immorality with prostitutes, their publicly flaunted greed, and their blasphemous behavior and drunkenness when participating in the Lord's supper (for which many were struck down by the Lord with sickness and some were put to death); etc. Many of these people were severely disciplined by the Lord for their actions and/or experienced the awful earthy consequences of their sins. Astonishingly, however, all of these believers are in heaven today on the basis of God's amazing and indescribable grace, and Christ's sacrificial and substitutionary atonement for their sins (and ours) on the cross - see Romans 4:1-8. Perhaps equally astonishingly is the undeniable fact that several of these men (including John Mark, not mentioned above) were chosen by God to write large portions of the Old & New Testaments!].
The Lordship Salvation View Attempts to Cure Worldliness
A sincere and legitimate concern about the worldliness of modern Christians also causes many to adopt a Lordship position. They conclude that worldliness results from a gospel that makes salvation too "easy" [which they often describe as "easy-believism" or "cheap grace", in contradistinction to the reformation proclamation of "sola fida" (faith alone)]. They believe that if salvation available only to those who are fully committed to the lordship of Christ, then godliness is guaranteed. To them, believe is not sufficient as the condition for salvation; it must be believe and submit or believe and commit. Unfortunately, this changes the condition of the gospel from faith alone to faith plus something the sinner must do. [It also takes the focus off of the magnitude of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross and places it on what we must do for Christ - totally ignoring the fact that a lost sinner, who's nature is entirely corrupted by sin, is entirely unable to do anything that is pleasing to God. The Bible makes it clear that human effort, personal devotion, dedication, surrender, and submission (no matter how sincere or well-meaning) is utterly rejected as either the means or the condition for receiving forgiveness of sins and eternal life!]
[Editor's Note: Over 160 times in the New Testament, simple childlike faith alone is presented as the one and only condition for salvation. The Greek verb that is translated in the New Testament by the English words "believe" and "faith" is entirely devoid of, and unencumbered by, the conditions of Lordship salvation (as described above). By its very definition, this Greek word means to believe (or believe in), to have faith (or have faith in), to rely on (or trust in) someone other than yourself! There is no implication or suggestion in this word (or its English translation) that faith means or includes dedication, commitment, or a promise of obedience, etc. Over and over, the Bible makes it clear that faith (trusting in another) is something totally different than obedience and personal devotion. The essence of saving faith is to rely on what Christ has already fully accomplished for you on the cross, totally apart from your own input, effort, determination, dedication or personal righteousness of any kind (see Titus 3:5, 2 Timothy 1:9, Romans 4:5, Ephesians 2:8-9, Revelation 22:17). Adding other conditions, qualifications, or requirements to simple childlike faith in Jesus Christ alone, not only causes great confusion about how a person is saved and pronounced 'righteous' in God's sight, but it also "perverts" and distorts the Gospel of grace. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul uses some of the strongest and harshest language in all of the Bible to rebuke and warn those who do so! See Galatians 1:6-9, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 & 15:11, John 3:14-18, etc.]
The Lordship Salvation View Appeals to Human Nature
Our natural human aversion to grace feeds the Lordship view. Since creation, humans have wanted to contribute to their salvation in their own way [beginning with Cain who offered the fruit which was the result of the labor of His own hands]. This appeases the ego that craves significance, even if it is only the feeling that "I helped" or "I am fully committed," therefore I am saved. This appeals to the subtle sinful tendency of all humankind toward legalism - the self-inflating [and self-righteous] attitude that I can do something on my own to become acceptable to God [or contribute something toward my salvation, no matter how small]. The prevalent legalism in almost all religious systems welcomes this Lordship theology.
The Proponents of Lordship Salvation Often Rely On Misleading Rhetoric
Lordship adherents have influenced many by their derogatory rhetoric and misrepresentation of Free Grace views. For example, the Free Grace position is sometimes called the "no-lordship" position even though its adherents believe that the lordship of Jesus Christ is essential to His provision of salvation and godly sanctification. The difference is that Free Grace adherents don't think commitment to Jesus as the Master of one's life is the issue in salvation. The issue is believing in Jesus as the One who died for one's sin, rose again, and guarantees eternal salvation. Commitment to Christ as Master is an issue of sanctification (that is, the Christian life or discipleship). Lordship adherents also make charges of "easy believism," which is misleading since no one says believing is easy. It is simple, but not necessarily easy. Another derogatory charge is that the Free Grace view is "antinomian" (lawless) and gives believers a license to sin. While Free Grace adherents do not believe Christians are under the Old Testament Law [or saved by their works or obedience], they do recognize the New Testament commands, with the understanding that these commands makes Christians Christlike, but they don't bring [cause] or prove salvation. The Free Grace position teaches that good works and holiness are God's desire for every Christian.
[Editor's Note: The fruit, but not the root of our salvation (see Ephesians 2:10). This fruit is only produced by the Holy Spirit in those who have already put their faith in Christ for salvation (who are already born again) and who chose to yield to his will by faith at any given moment in their ongoing walk with Christ. Again, it must be emphasized that a lost sinner (no matter how sincere, submissive, or determined) can never have or produce any such fruit before he or she is saved by the grace of God, not can he or she do anything that is in anyway pleasing to God, or that can make them acceptable to God in any way (see Romans 3:10-12, Romans 8:7-8, Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9). The reality is that the world has yet to see anyone (saved or unsaved) who has truly or totally given their life to God (except for Jesus Himself), nor has anyone ever fully submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The truth is that even most obedient believers who have walked by faith for most of their lives, frequently prove themselves unfaithful in many ways. In reality, any sin that a believer commit is an outright denial of our submission to the Lordship of Christ in our lives. If the offer of salvation includes the requirements or qualifications demanded by those who preach the Lordship Salvation message, not one of us could be ever be saved "for we all stumble in many ways.". Of course, this includes the Lordship teachers themselves, as well as all of the rest of us, who if we are honest with ourselves must admit that we all fall short of the glory of God, and the holiness He desires of us, on a regular basis! See Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9.]
The Lordship Salvation View is Often Propagated by Hearsay
People tend to repeat the language and rhetoric passed on to them without evaluating it theologically or biblically. Sayings like "Receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior" and "If He is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all" have become part of popular Christian lingo. Usually, little thought goes into these phrases before they are used and repeated. Using such language does not confirm someone as Lordship, but is certainly pushes them that way.
The Prominence of the Lordship Salvation View Often Results in Censorship
Frankly, those who hold a Lordship position, especially the Reformed Calvinists, have a lot of influence. That position dominates the publishing industry and academic institutions, and holds large conferences popular with young adults. As ugly as it sounds and is, that control purposely excludes the Free Grace perspective from the academic and popular forums, institutions, and publications, so Lordship Salvation flourishes. So-called "academic freedom" is not always so.
Concluding Thoughts About the Lordship Salvation View
All these reasons can be reduced to one: Failure to comprehend the full riches of God's free gift of grace leads many Christians into Lordship Salvation. Their perspective implies that such grace is too good to be true, so it requires from a person either commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ to be saved, stay saved, or prove that one was ever saved. Free Grace, on the other hand, accepts the amazing and underserved nature of God's saving grace and therefore teaches that eternal life can only be received through the response of faith apart from any merit on the sinner's part.
The insights above were directly copied from (and in some cases, paraphrased from) an article written by Dr. Charlie Bing, titled 'Why Is Lordship Salvation So Popular?' (Grace Life Ministries - GraceNotes #66) For more excellent articles by Dr. Bing visit GraceLife.org
by Dr. Charlie Bing (Grace Notes #66)
Salvation is by grace through faith alone in Christ alone, meaning that an unsaved person cannot do anything or make any commitment (such as submitting to Jesus as the Master of one's life) in order to be saved... The word believe means to be convinced or persuaded of the truth of the gospel. An opposing view teaches that an unsaved person must believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and submit to Him as Lord (or Master) of his life. This view, called 'Lordship Salvation' teaches that believe must include includes submission, commitment, and obedience [or other forms of good works and devotion]...
The Lordship Salvation View Misinterprets Scripture
Failure to distinguish between the passages in the Bible that pertain to salvation and those that pertain to the Christian life (or discipleship) lead many to a Lordship view. They confuse justification and sanctification issues, which makes the Lordship "gospel" include many conditions of commitment and obedience. Unfortunately, this adds human merit [and devotion] to the gospel. Preaching these texts as conditions for salvation may produce more outward commitment, but it also induces guilt and doubt.
The Lordship Salvation View Confuses Law & Grace
Lordship theology often comes from confusing law and grace. Transferring the moral laws of the Mosaic Law to the age of grace after Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Law makes law-keeping an important part of salvation--if not at the front end as a condition for salvation, then at the back end as proof of salvation. Lordship adherents believe those who are truly saved will keep the moral laws of the Old and New Testaments demonstrating that Jesus is the Master of their lives. But this view not only ignores the change of dispensations between Law and grace, that is, the difference between God's program for Israel and His program for the church, it also ignores the reality that no one keeps all the laws perfectly [not even close!].
The Lordship Salvation View Embraces Extreme Calvinism
There has been a great resurgence of strong deterministic Calvinism, especially among young adults. Lordship theology is a necessary result of this theology, because in this view God elects some to salvation and gives them faith to believe [and He chooses others to be damned]. This view teaches that the divine gift of faith cannot fail, therefore it guarantees a persevering life of submission to Jesus as Lord if one is truly saved. This view of Christianity preaches the necessity of a full commitment to Jesus Christ, which is commendable in itself, but not if it is a test of salvation. The preaching of commitment attracts many young adults who respond to such challenges. Unfortunately, it is very likely that many or most of these "young, restless, and Reformed" Calvinists do not understand the whole package that makes commitment the condition for salvation [of course the truth is, none of us are fully committed to Christ, "we all stumble in many ways" - see Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9, James 3:2].
The Lordship Salvation View Has An Unrealistic View of Sin
An unwillingness to admit that Christians can sin severely or continuously, leads many to a Lordship view, because they are not willing to concede that such people are saved since they have not made Jesus their Lord. While it is grievous when Christians sin, a more biblical approach is to recognize that this reality is reflected throughout the Bible. Grace gives people the freedom to serve God or their own selfish desires. Unfortunately, not all choose to serve God, but the solution is not to make the gospel more difficult with additional conditions [salvation is the free gift of God, offered without cost, to those who are completely unworthy, undeserving, and spiritually destitute - see Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Timothy 1:9, etc.]. Labeling these people [these believers] as unsaved ignores or deals insufficiently with the Bible's teaching about God's discipline and the church's discipline for sinning Christians and their loss of temporal and eternal rewards. It is also possible they never really understood the simple gospel to begin with and are not saved.
[Editor's Note: The biblical record includes the tragic reality that many of God's children (His "saints") committed vile and grievous sins. This includes: Noah's drunkenness and shameful lewdness; Lot's (this "righteous man") worldliness, his willingness to offer to his own daughters to be raped and abused by a mob, and His incest with them after God saved him from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra; Abraham's deliberate and premeditated lying and willingness to allow His wife to be sexually violated; Jacob and Rachel's lying, deception and evil scheming against Isaac and Esau; Moses' murder of an Egyptian slave driver, and his later angry rebellion against God at Marabah (for which he was put to death and denied entry into the promised land); Aaron's blatant and overt leading of the people into idolatry and immorality (the golden calf incident), as well as his later deliberate rebellion against Moses' authority as God's leader; David's adultery with Bathsheba, his pre-meditated and carefully planned murder of Uriah, and his long-term (possibly year-long) scandalous coverup; Solomon's 'decades-long' practice of idolatry (including building numerous elaborate temples dedicated to pagan gods and demonic worship); Peter's deliberate and vehement thrice denial of Jesus on the night of Christ's death, as well as His later hypocrisy and denial of the grace of God toward the gentiles in Antioch, the other disciples' abandonment of Christ when "they all forsook Him and fled" after promising to remain faithful to Him to the death; the Corinthian believers' ("the saints of God") blatant and repeated immorality with prostitutes, their publicly flaunted greed, and their blasphemous behavior and drunkenness when participating in the Lord's supper (for which many were struck down by the Lord with sickness and some were put to death); etc. Many of these people were severely disciplined by the Lord for their actions and/or experienced the awful earthy consequences of their sins. Astonishingly, however, all of these believers are in heaven today on the basis of God's amazing and indescribable grace, and Christ's sacrificial and substitutionary atonement for their sins (and ours) on the cross - see Romans 4:1-8. Perhaps equally astonishingly is the undeniable fact that several of these men (including John Mark, not mentioned above) were chosen by God to write large portions of the Old & New Testaments!].
The Lordship Salvation View Attempts to Cure Worldliness
A sincere and legitimate concern about the worldliness of modern Christians also causes many to adopt a Lordship position. They conclude that worldliness results from a gospel that makes salvation too "easy" [which they often describe as "easy-believism" or "cheap grace", in contradistinction to the reformation proclamation of "sola fida" (faith alone)]. They believe that if salvation available only to those who are fully committed to the lordship of Christ, then godliness is guaranteed. To them, believe is not sufficient as the condition for salvation; it must be believe and submit or believe and commit. Unfortunately, this changes the condition of the gospel from faith alone to faith plus something the sinner must do. [It also takes the focus off of the magnitude of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross and places it on what we must do for Christ - totally ignoring the fact that a lost sinner, who's nature is entirely corrupted by sin, is entirely unable to do anything that is pleasing to God. The Bible makes it clear that human effort, personal devotion, dedication, surrender, and submission (no matter how sincere or well-meaning) is utterly rejected as either the means or the condition for receiving forgiveness of sins and eternal life!]
[Editor's Note: Over 160 times in the New Testament, simple childlike faith alone is presented as the one and only condition for salvation. The Greek verb that is translated in the New Testament by the English words "believe" and "faith" is entirely devoid of, and unencumbered by, the conditions of Lordship salvation (as described above). By its very definition, this Greek word means to believe (or believe in), to have faith (or have faith in), to rely on (or trust in) someone other than yourself! There is no implication or suggestion in this word (or its English translation) that faith means or includes dedication, commitment, or a promise of obedience, etc. Over and over, the Bible makes it clear that faith (trusting in another) is something totally different than obedience and personal devotion. The essence of saving faith is to rely on what Christ has already fully accomplished for you on the cross, totally apart from your own input, effort, determination, dedication or personal righteousness of any kind (see Titus 3:5, 2 Timothy 1:9, Romans 4:5, Ephesians 2:8-9, Revelation 22:17). Adding other conditions, qualifications, or requirements to simple childlike faith in Jesus Christ alone, not only causes great confusion about how a person is saved and pronounced 'righteous' in God's sight, but it also "perverts" and distorts the Gospel of grace. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul uses some of the strongest and harshest language in all of the Bible to rebuke and warn those who do so! See Galatians 1:6-9, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 & 15:11, John 3:14-18, etc.]
The Lordship Salvation View Appeals to Human Nature
Our natural human aversion to grace feeds the Lordship view. Since creation, humans have wanted to contribute to their salvation in their own way [beginning with Cain who offered the fruit which was the result of the labor of His own hands]. This appeases the ego that craves significance, even if it is only the feeling that "I helped" or "I am fully committed," therefore I am saved. This appeals to the subtle sinful tendency of all humankind toward legalism - the self-inflating [and self-righteous] attitude that I can do something on my own to become acceptable to God [or contribute something toward my salvation, no matter how small]. The prevalent legalism in almost all religious systems welcomes this Lordship theology.
The Proponents of Lordship Salvation Often Rely On Misleading Rhetoric
Lordship adherents have influenced many by their derogatory rhetoric and misrepresentation of Free Grace views. For example, the Free Grace position is sometimes called the "no-lordship" position even though its adherents believe that the lordship of Jesus Christ is essential to His provision of salvation and godly sanctification. The difference is that Free Grace adherents don't think commitment to Jesus as the Master of one's life is the issue in salvation. The issue is believing in Jesus as the One who died for one's sin, rose again, and guarantees eternal salvation. Commitment to Christ as Master is an issue of sanctification (that is, the Christian life or discipleship). Lordship adherents also make charges of "easy believism," which is misleading since no one says believing is easy. It is simple, but not necessarily easy. Another derogatory charge is that the Free Grace view is "antinomian" (lawless) and gives believers a license to sin. While Free Grace adherents do not believe Christians are under the Old Testament Law [or saved by their works or obedience], they do recognize the New Testament commands, with the understanding that these commands makes Christians Christlike, but they don't bring [cause] or prove salvation. The Free Grace position teaches that good works and holiness are God's desire for every Christian.
[Editor's Note: The fruit, but not the root of our salvation (see Ephesians 2:10). This fruit is only produced by the Holy Spirit in those who have already put their faith in Christ for salvation (who are already born again) and who chose to yield to his will by faith at any given moment in their ongoing walk with Christ. Again, it must be emphasized that a lost sinner (no matter how sincere, submissive, or determined) can never have or produce any such fruit before he or she is saved by the grace of God, not can he or she do anything that is in anyway pleasing to God, or that can make them acceptable to God in any way (see Romans 3:10-12, Romans 8:7-8, Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9). The reality is that the world has yet to see anyone (saved or unsaved) who has truly or totally given their life to God (except for Jesus Himself), nor has anyone ever fully submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The truth is that even most obedient believers who have walked by faith for most of their lives, frequently prove themselves unfaithful in many ways. In reality, any sin that a believer commit is an outright denial of our submission to the Lordship of Christ in our lives. If the offer of salvation includes the requirements or qualifications demanded by those who preach the Lordship Salvation message, not one of us could be ever be saved "for we all stumble in many ways.". Of course, this includes the Lordship teachers themselves, as well as all of the rest of us, who if we are honest with ourselves must admit that we all fall short of the glory of God, and the holiness He desires of us, on a regular basis! See Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9.]
The Lordship Salvation View is Often Propagated by Hearsay
People tend to repeat the language and rhetoric passed on to them without evaluating it theologically or biblically. Sayings like "Receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior" and "If He is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all" have become part of popular Christian lingo. Usually, little thought goes into these phrases before they are used and repeated. Using such language does not confirm someone as Lordship, but is certainly pushes them that way.
The Prominence of the Lordship Salvation View Often Results in Censorship
Frankly, those who hold a Lordship position, especially the Reformed Calvinists, have a lot of influence. That position dominates the publishing industry and academic institutions, and holds large conferences popular with young adults. As ugly as it sounds and is, that control purposely excludes the Free Grace perspective from the academic and popular forums, institutions, and publications, so Lordship Salvation flourishes. So-called "academic freedom" is not always so.
Concluding Thoughts About the Lordship Salvation View
All these reasons can be reduced to one: Failure to comprehend the full riches of God's free gift of grace leads many Christians into Lordship Salvation. Their perspective implies that such grace is too good to be true, so it requires from a person either commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ to be saved, stay saved, or prove that one was ever saved. Free Grace, on the other hand, accepts the amazing and underserved nature of God's saving grace and therefore teaches that eternal life can only be received through the response of faith apart from any merit on the sinner's part.
The insights above were directly copied from (and in some cases, paraphrased from) an article written by Dr. Charlie Bing, titled 'Why Is Lordship Salvation So Popular?' (Grace Life Ministries - GraceNotes #66) For more excellent articles by Dr. Bing visit GraceLife.org
