Andy Woods - Soteriology 07: Lordship Salvation Part I (Matthew 16:24-25)

we had a handout going around does anybody need that you can put your hand up and we'll give you a handout the handout as you know just contains the slides that I'm gonna use which also are posted on our website but this is our seventh lesson on the doctrine of salvation otherwise called soteriology and we have been in Roman numeral five in our outline can you guys hear me okay is that mic picking up thumbs up okay we've been dealing with Roman numeral five which is God's one condition of salvation and I hope you picked up the fact that there's only one condition to be saved which is to what believe and we went through what believe means and so forth now once you once you say that people will say well wait a minute there's other passages that seem to teach something different so there's a collection of passages that say a believer must repent so last time I tried to show you the how we harmonize repent with the word believe remember that repent means change of mind which is a synonym for belief remember we went through all that and tonight we're getting into another controversy what do we do with passages that talk about following Christ as Lord and if there are passages in the Bible that call us to follow him as Lord how does that harmonize with the idea that we simply believe in Christ to be saved and receive a gift so take a look if you could you 16 verses 24 and 25 this is what Jesus says to Peter I believe and the other disciples then jesus said to his disciples if anyone who wishes to come after me he must deny himself take up his cross and follow me for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it and whoever wishes to lose his life for my sake will find it and you know it goes on from there now you say wait a minute I thought you taught us I thought the Bible said we must believe to be saved in Christ and here is a verse that adds a bunch of other things you must deny yourself you must take up your cross you must follow him you must be willing to lose your life see and how does how do we harmonize that with verses like John 3:16 which make it sound as if salvation is as simple as believing in Christ so you see the tension that we're in here and really the key to the whole thing is verse 24 then jesus said to his disciples in other words Jesus is talking to people that are already saved but more on that a little bit later so sadly there is a doctrine that has been become very prominent in Bible believing circles really since around 1980 or so and the doctrine is Lord called lordship salvation has anybody heard of this doctrine lordship salvation okay a couple of you here is Robert Lightner explained he's not a lordship advocate but he's defining it and he says lordship salvation refers to the belief which says the sinner who wants to be safe must not only trust Christ as his substitute for sin but also must surrender every area of his life to the complete control of Christ you know when he says not only trust in Christ but add something else that should raise some red flags because a couple of lessons ago we taught very clearly based on about 200 passages that people are saved by faith alone and lordship salvation says you're not saved by faith alone faith is great but it also must be accompanied by something else a surrender of some kind probably the biggest proponent of lordship salvation today in our world and particularly in our church world is a very popular teacher by the name of John MacArthur and he wrote a book about this called the Gospel according to Jesus and let me read to you an excerpt from this book he says eternal life is a free gift Romans 6:23 salvation cannot be earned with good deeds or purchased with money it has already been bought by Christ who paid the ransom with his blood now if he had just stopped the sentence there I would say Amen but notice this conjunction but see whenever someone says you're saved by faith alone but then it's time to get nervous so he says but that does not mean there is no cost now there he's talking about the cost to me and you there is no cost in terms of salvations impact on the sinners life this paradox may be difficult but it is nevertheless true salvation is both free and costly well how can that be that's like saying jumbo shrimp isn't it that's a those are two words that don't go together eternal life brings immediate death to self he quotes Romans 6:6 there thus in a sense IPE whoa the ultimate price for salvation when our sinful self is nailed to a cross it is a total abandonment of self-will like the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies so that can bear much fruit is it is an exchange of all that we are for all that Christ is it denotes implicit obedience and full surrender to the lordship of Christ nothing less can qualify as saving faith so it's not just Christ paid the price and I receive it as a gift but I have to pay some kind of prize you see here is another quote from John MacArthur in his book faith works he says Jesus is Lord of all and the faith he demands involves unconditional surrender he does not bestow eternal life on those whose hearts remain against him so here he says it's faith and that's nice to have faith but you also have to have this unconditional surrender so this is very common to hear people talk like this this is called lordship salvation the debate over lordship salvation is not whether Jesus is Lord we all know he's Lord he's always been Lord he always will be Lord and He is Lord the debate is do you must--you in addition to faith submit to him as Lord to be justified that's the debate it's not a debate of whether he's Lord it's is lordship a condition for justification lordship salvation people say yes our our church says no here is from a transcript from a sermon that John MacArthur gave and he writes this self-discipline comes when you look back to the Covenant of your salvation that is to say you remember that at the point of salvation you made a promise to submit to the Lord you made a pledge at that time to obedient to be obedient to Christ see I thought salvation was God's pledge to me but he's saying it's not God's pledge to you alone it's your pledge to God you confessed him as Lord and Lord means that he is above all it is essential then as believers to remember that we made a covenant of obedience when we confessed him as Lord we were saved unto obedience which God had ordained that we would walk thereof and obedience characterized by good works and obedience to God's Word that pledge was inherent in Salvation God at the time you came to him for salvation promised you forgiveness and eternal life and all the grace necessary to fulfill his will and the Holy Spirit and you pledged so God made promises to me and I made promises to God and if there weren't according to lordship salvation promises going two ways here a person really is not a Christian according to lordship salvation so he's saying you need to go back and remember and have integrity to be faithful to your original promise to God here is a lordship salvation advocate a J I Packer Jim McGowen power point that I'm getting some of this from Jim McGowan Riots lordship advocates consistently declare that repentance and faith are two distinct and necessary requirements for salvation now if you followed with us last week we taught that repentance and faith are synonyms when you believe you change your mind or repent but lordship people say no faith is nice but it also must be accompanied by something else which is called repentance note for example the statement made by a prominent reformed theologian J I Packer and he writes the demand is for repentance as well as faith you see how they keep saying faith by itself it's not enough to be justified it is not enough to believe that only through Christ and his death are sinners justified and accepted so faith is not enough knowledge of the gospel and Orthodox belief of it is no substitute for repentance where there is no realistic recognition of the real claims that Christ makes there can be no repentance and there can be no salvation so sometimes you hear people phrase it this way you hear preachers say this a lot if Jesus Christ is not Lord of all then he is not Lord what at all and when they say that what they're saying is unless you have acquiesced through your will and submission or at least be willing to do so every area of your life to Christ you're not a believer you know this is this issue was not even an issue prior to 1980 there were some people that believed it but now it's become a major hot-button issue and it's almost taken over a lot of different ministries and what caused it well the best I understand it is this is what happened John MacArthur who has a very large Church of over 10,000 people in California it looked around at his church and he saw a lot of people that really claim the name of Christ but weren't living like Christians and I say join the club welcome to the pastor it you have that kind of thing going on and so he made a right diagnosis of a problem I mean this is a problem you have a lot of people that say Christians and they don't really have a lot of fruit to back it up and that's a problem my solution to the problem is maybe preach the gospel to people again or maybe bring them into maturity through the teaching of the word of God and discipleship and talk about the doctrine of rewards but you see his solution was let's change the gospel and when you change the gospel you put yourself under the curse of Galatians 1 where Paul you know pronounces a curse on those that preach a different gospel so I would say this and by the way when drama carthoris tarted and this is not originally what John MacArthur believed he had taken a sabbatical from his church and he had been reading the Puritans now the Puritans are those that were very instrumental in the establishing of our own country coming from Europe and the Puritan writings are steeped in all this thinking and what he started to do and I'll show you some quotes in a minute is he started to look at these Puritans as the real scholars and as he was wrestling with this question what do you do with this low level of Christian living in my church he began to borrow from Puritan writers and he began to bring this into the pulpit he began to bring this into his writings and it became a point of controversy beginning around 1980 and it continues on as a controversy right up to the present time and the reason it's controversial is because we believe it's a change in the gospel itself which is always salvation by faith alone as we have studied so according to lordship theology these real claims that Christ makes refer to repentance which they don't define as a synonym for faith the way we did last time they define it as a commitment - or at least a willingness to do the following obey Christ commands take up one's cross and follow Christ forsake sin so faith is great but it also has to be accompanied by behavioral or a willingness to obey take up one's cross and forsake sin and something that's important understand is John MacArthur has a huge ministry amongst X Catholics he picks off Catholics constantly and is able to move them into his fold and I think he's so successful at it because he's basically giving them the exact same theology that they're used to to a very large extent he's transferring them from one form of legalism you know to another and I criticize John MacArthur very carefully because I as I mentioned last time I've appreciated many of the things he's contributed in other areas but this is a big problem what he's doing here with the gospel he's not the only one but he's one of the key progenitors of this so lordship people say the failure of witnessing to declare these precursors to the gospel in any presentation and a failure on the part of the sinner to willingly comply it means that the sinner cannot be saved in other words if you teach faith without mentioning obedience taking up your cross forsaking sin then a you haven't preached the true gospel and be people that believe you're saved by faith alone aren't really Christians so that was sort of his solution to dealing with carnality in the Christian life you just say well those people over there that are carnal never we're saved to begin with because they never understood that Christianity is not just believing in Christ but it's taking up your cross and following Christ so at least I've gone over the sort of slow but at least you kind of understand what lordship salvation is and I'm not sure if I'm going to get through all these tonight maybe maybe so maybe not but the direction I want to go is I want to now that I've explained what Lordships salvation is I want to give you seven reasons why I think this view is problematic and why there's another far better way to handle the discipleship passages other than insert them as conditions for one's justification before God so let's go through these what is really the problem with lordship salvation why can't we just say you know c'est la vie it's just wrangling about words and let it go at that I mean why make an issue out of that well the first problem with lordship salvation is I've tried to explain it is it changes the gospel it changes the gospel into something that God never made it into you'll notice that MacArthur says Jesus paid the price but you pay the price he said that in the Gospel according to Jesus how does the book of Revelation end what does revelation 22:17 say the spirit to the unbeliever the spirit and the bride say come and let the one who hear say come and let the one who is thirsty and let the one who wishes to take the water of life without what cost salvation justification before God costs us nothing now it costs Jesus the second member of the Trinity everything but he did what he did to provide what he provided for us so we don't pay anything and you see that's the nature of a gift and how different that statement is compared to these things that John MacArthur is saying we pay a costs how they is free and costly let me tell you something the moment you attach a single cost to salvation it's no longer free so your kid turns 16 mine is going to turn 16 in about seven years so I'm thinking about this and they passed their driver's license test and kind of to celebrate that you buy a car for your kid you put it in the driveway and you say there's a free car out in that driveway for you to take now and drive and then you also say to the kid oh by the way you need to start making payments on that I'll expect payments on a monthly basis and of course your 16 year old is gonna say well then it's not free right and see this is the problem with teaching the gospel in a way to the unbeliever making it seem like they've got to pay some kind of price you can't tell the unbeliever they've got to pay some kind of price or else it's no longer free it's no longer taking from the water of life without cost and so we went through all of these passages we believe that the Bible teaches salvation is by faith alone the Latin word for that is Sola fidei Genesis 15:6 a ton of passages in John acts ephesians romans hebrews and the Bible's teaches this two hundred times you see abraham believed God and it was credited to him unto righteousness there's nothing in any of these passages about any surrender commitment forsaking any of that type of language it simply says receive it as a free gift by way of faith John 15 Genesis 15:6 you know hang your hat on John 3:16 if nothing else you all know that probably by heart for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in him and forsakes and surrenders and no it doesn't say that does it for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever what believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life you see the same thing in acts 16:30 and 31 and the Bible says this somewhere from 150 as high as 200 times could not be clearer dr. Schaefer the founder of Dallas seminary writes this outside the doctrines related to the person and work of Christ there is no truth more far-reaching in its implications and no fact more to be defended than that salvation and all of its limitless magnitude is secured so far as human responsibility is concerned by believing on Christ as Savior period to this one requirement no other obligation may be added without violence being done to the scriptures and a resulting in a total disruption of the essential doctrine of salvation by grace alone once you start adding conditions you're disrupting something that God set up intentionally on purpose for people to receive as a free gift Schafer says only ignorance or reprehensible inattention to the structure of Rights soteriology will attempt to intrude some form of human works with its supposed merit into the principle of grace so that's a that's a strong statement there so the first thing we really to understand about lordship salvation is you have to understand that it is a fundamental alteration of the gospel it's not some minor issue okay we're not arguing about when the GOG Magog war of Ezekiel 38 and 39 happens you know is it before the tribulation or in the middle of the tribulation we're not arguing some arcane eschatological point we're dealing with the gospel itself number two lordship salvation places an impossible burden on the unsaved when you tell the unsaved to commit to surrender to forsake you are asking them to do something they can't do and the reason they can't do it is because they don't even have the Holy Spirit inside of them the only connection they have to the Holy Spirit is the Spirit is convicting them John 16 verses 7 through 11 to believe other than that the unsaved person does not have the Holy Spirit inside of them so you're when you tell them to put on the armor of God to renew their mind to study and show themselves approved you know commands aimed at the believer you're asking the unbeliever to do something that it is virtually impossible for them to do dr. McGowan says the question must be laid at the feet of lordship proponents how can one who is unregenerate and dead in their trespasses and sins Ephesians 2:1 Ephesians 2:5 blinded by the god of this world 2nd Corinthians 4:4 possibly make such a commitment on the contrary this is an impossibility as Luce Barry Schaeffer correctly points out Schafer says no unregenerate mind is prepared to deal and you know what I mean by an unregenerate mind an unbelieving mind regeneration is the new birth that you receive at the point of faith so the unbelievers for what we call unregenerate no unregenerate mind is prepared to deal with the problems of true Christian living these problems anticipate the new dynamic impe of the imparted divine nature and could produce nothing but hopeless discouragement when really contemplated by an unregenerate person you you place on these unbelievers an obstacle that crushes them what they need to do is trust in priced and received the empowerment of God and then they'll have the as they walk under the power of their new resources they'll have the ability to follow Christ as Lord but they have no capacity to do that as an unsaved person see we're so we're getting the cart before the horse with lordship salvation and we're teaching a works oriented gospel in the process number three lordship salvation confuses justification with sanctification now you might recall in our very first lecture together we walked through the three phases of salvation the first is justification it's freedom from sins past penalty at the point of faith in Christ so it saved past tense okay then after we're Christians the Lord moves us into what's called progressive sanctification which is the present tense of salvation or the walk the Lord has a son as he wants to deliver us from sins power gradually as we learn of our divine resources and walk by faith moment by moment and that is not something that takes place instantaneously that is a process that we are all in in the words I've already been delivered from sins past penalty which is hell through faith alone in Christ and now I need to learn to go to a Bible believing Church be around God's people study God's Word be around good Christian resources and learn what Jesus has done for me so that I can walk therein as a Christian and that's progressive sanctification and sometimes we make great strides in that area and sometimes we don't but that's being saved present tense and then the future tense is glorification and all I have to do there is die or be raptured because once I'm out of this physical body either through death or the rapture out of this sinful body I should say I won't even have a desire to sin anymore and I'll be delivered from sins very presence you know what does it take to be justified before God the Bible is very clear one faith alone a one verb alone which is the verb what faith noun faith or the verb believe what do I do to grow in my progressive sanctification a lot of stuff I mean you'll spend your whole life as a Christian discovering all the things God would have us to do under his resources you know study and show yourself approved forsake not the assembling of yourselves together pray without ceasing do not let the Sun go down on your anger you know on and on we could go with different commands that God gives us but those aren't conditions for justification those are conditions for progressive sanctification and what you'll find with lordship salvation people is they don't differentiate these phases and they take sanctification concepts related to sanctification and so what we call front-loading the gospel and they'll bring it they'll drag it back if you will into justification and they'll make it sound like things that one must do to be progressively sanctified are the same things one must do to be justified before God so they don't distinguish what parts of the Bible go with what circumstances and as you grow in your knowledge of the Bible you'll see that there are verses that deal with different things some verses are direct commands to unbelievers most of the Bible are commands to believers and you have to become sensitive to what parts of the Bible deal with what or else you'll end up preaching around gospel to the unbeliever see now take a look at Exodus 19 verse 1 for a second I just want to show you that this is not some these different phases of salvation you know there's so little teaching on this in the body of Christ when you start talking like this people think you're crazy that you're making things up but this is the normal pattern of God in goshen which was the area that the children of Israel were in bondage for about 400 years God through Passover redeemed them and they were to put the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorpost which required faith and these folks were redeemed at that point they were saved and I know they were saved because they passed through the Red Sea and the book of Hebrews which is the Hall of faith it's a record of great believers of the past the folks that went through the Red Sea are in the Hall of faith along with all the other believers in the Hall of faith so there's no doubt these people are saved so they're justified at that point but you see after they got on the other side of the Red Sea and God closed the waters and drown the the Egyptians what started to kick in their sin nature and they started to say things like your kids say when you take them on a trip I'm thirsty I'm hungry I'm tired I want to go home I want to go back to where we came from I liked being in bondage because after all we got at least three square meals a day here we're out in the wilderness we didn't know our next meal is gonna come from and the people rut now these are saved people okay and they rose up continuously against Moses and you see God took them out of Egypt but Egypt never really got out of them right away see that and when you look at Exodus 19 1 it says in the 3rd month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt on the very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai so this is month three day one after passing through the Red Sea in other words two months had passed two months of whining two months of complaining and you know you read about the story Exodus how God kept providing and they didn't trust God the next time around I mean it kind of sounds like us doesn't it if we're honest with ourselves so two months pass and God brings them to Mount Sinai now why did he bring them to Mount Sinai he did not and this is so in critical to understand he did not bring them to Mount Sinai to justify them they already had justification back in Egypt through the Passover lamb which required faith and passing through the Red Sea these are already redeemed people the law is very important understand this the law of Moses the Ten Commandments and the accompanying commandment 613 commandments total was never given to redeem a people the law was given to a redeemed people the law was there to teach them now that you are justified before God here's how you're supposed to behave here's how you behave towards God Commandments 1 through 4 here's how you behave towards each other Commandments 5 through 10 here is how you are to represent God to the nation's that's why he calls them here a kingdom of priests and he put them under a sacrificial system that's recorded in the Book of Leviticus given at the same time why did God give him the sacrificial system not to redeem them the question in the Book of Leviticus is how can God continue to fellowship with his people when his people practically speaking sin so the sacrificial system was never given to get these people saved they already were saved the sacrificial system was given as a tool by which fellowship with God could be restored if God's people and when God's people did sin the sacrificial system for Israel is our equivalent of first John 1:9 you all know first John 1:9 right if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness why in the world do we have first John 1:9 in our Bible not to justify us because first John 1:9 you go to first john 2:1 it says my little children first john was not written to the unsaved first john is written to the saved and it's saying when we as God's people sinned here is how fellowship can be restored with God you see once you're saved your position before God is unaltered it's forever yours but when you sin if you sin when you send you guys ever sinned you guys look very spiritual out there by the way with your Bibles and everything I'm not sure I'm talking to the right crowd here I think maybe Richard sends a little bit but not the rest of you guys no I'm just kidding but when we sin what happens people think well you're not a Christian anymore no your position before God is unaltered but fellowship is broken it's the kind of condition that David was in when he committed adultery and murder David was the second king of the United Kingdom there's no doubt he would say but when he did those sins and he hid him from the Lord for about a year he was not unsaved at that point he was out of fellowship with God so the sacrificial system in the Old Testament was designed to restore broken fellowship and that's what first John 1:9 is designed to do but as you study salvation history you see very clearly there's two things here justification that first circle up there on the left and then the whole Sinai experience has nothing to do with justification it has to do with progressive sanctification and in fact there's two months of carnality between those two circles that's why read out of Exodus 19 one see lordship salvation people they don't they don't make this distinction they take Sinai if they were teaching this in the Old Testament and would dump it back into Passover and so they're merging two things that don't go together see now this is also a New Testament concept if you have a Study Bible that's that's good I I enjoy the Rio Bible not that I agree with every little nook and cranny of the Ryrie Study Bible but by and large it's a pretty good Study Bible between the Testaments old a New Testament he's got several pages here on a harmony of the life of Christ and if you have a good Study Bible you'll see the same thing in yours and what that does is it puts in chronological order all of the events of Christ's life everything that happened in Christ's life and ministry is organized chronologically beginning with number one going up into something like two hundred events something like that now watch this very carefully Peter came to Jesus in John 1 okay then Jesus said to Peter and the other disciples in Matthew 4 around verses 19 through 22 leave your nets and I will make you fishers of men now what I want you to see and your chronology of the life of Christ and your Study Bible will show you this is John 1 the calling of Peter happened in event 20 in Christ's life when Jesus called Peter to leave his fishing nets and follow Christ and I will make you fishers of men that happened in event 35 so first Peter is say by faith alone event 20 in Christ's life and it's not until later after Peter has a chance to grow some that he's now called into a deeper walk with the Lord which is a walk of discipleship and you see the chronology of Christ's life just like the Sinai experience compared to a Passover shows those are two different things look one is justification the second is sanctification lordship salvation merges the two together wrongly so what do we teach about lordship we teach lordship sanctification we do not teach lordship and submission to Christ as Lord is a condition to be justified we teach lordship is a condition to grow in Christ and you'll see a number of commands like this in the Bible for example Romans 6 12 and 13 says do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies now who is that command aimed at the believer or the unbeliever it's obviously aimed at the believer when you look at the context see Romans 12:1 and 2 which basically says do not be conformed any longer to the thinking of this world but be transformed in the renewing of your mind is that command aimed at the unbeliever or the believer very clearly the believer because he says in Romans 12:1 therefore I urge you brethren I mean the Bible never would never say something like this to an unbeliever who doesn't even have the Holy Spirit inside of him yet the unbeliever only has one command from God which is to believe or trust in Christ so as to be saved jumping down there to the end Ephesians 6 verses 10 through 20 the famous put on the armor of God passage is that aimed at the believer or the unbeliever I mean very clearly you look at the context you'll see that is not a command for the unbeliever that is a command for the believer a key verse and I'm so glad the Lord included this in his word thank you Jesus because it it's almost like the Lord knew this controversy would arise at some point over in 1st Peter 3 verse 15 it talks about lordship and it says over in 1st Peter 4 I'm sorry 1st Peter 3 verse 15 but sanctify so what tents of salvation are we dealing with here middle tents sanctify Christ as what does it say Lord in your hearts always be willing to make a defense to everyone who asks you for the hope that is within you see the command to make Christ Lord is not a command for justification first tents of salvation it is a command for sanctification little tents of salvation so people say well do you guys over there at circle and Bible Church do you guys teach lordship salvation and I like to say well we teach lordship sanctification we don't teach lordship justification see the difference so the bottom line is this all disciples are believers but not all believers are disciples God wants unbelievers to become believers no doubt about that but then he wants believers this is what he was doing with Peter he wants believers to become disciples and the goal of any local church should first of all be to introduce unbelievers to Christ so that they become believers and then exhort believers to submit to the commands of Christ under Christ's power that he gives us to fulfill these commands and to be ushered into discipleship to separate things this chart here is helpful because it shows you the difference between justification and discipleship justification is a free gift discipleship on the other hand when the Lord starts to wreck your life a little bit as he has a habit of doing and say give up this sin give up that sin under his power that's going to cost you something you are not contributing in any way to your standing before God through submission but when the Lord moves us on into discipleship there's always things to be given up Peter for example had to give up his fishing business to become a Fisher of men he had to trust Christ fully to work for the Lord to transition Peter into the role that he had for him justification is received through faith alone discipleship on the other hand has entered to through commitment and obedience now notice this next clause through the spirits enablement sometimes the doctrine of discipleship is missed hot where people are given the impression that they need to fulfill as Christians Christ's command through willpower white-knuckling it and that's not biblical the command towards discipleship is to become aware of your resources in Christ to appropriate those by faith moment by moment and submit to areas of your life that Christ once changed justification is not by works discipleship on the other hand involves a greater degree of cooperation I'm not saying it's works oriented but there's a greater degree of volition involved in it where I become aware of Christ commands and submit to those moment-by-moment justification takes place in a nanosecond discipleship on the other hand is a lifelong process justification is phase one of salvation sanctification is phase two justification Jesus paid the price discipleship there's always some kind of price we pay in terms of giving things up I have noticed though that when we give things up to the Lord as Christians that he has a habit of replacing them with something better have you noticed that so you know he's not he's not trying to wreck your life the Lord is not trying to wreck your life he comes that we may have life and have it to the what to the full in justification we trust Jesus as Savior but in discipleship we follow him as what Lord that's where lordship comes in justification we believe the gospel discipleship we obey God's commands under his power justification one condition discipleship multiple conditions justification is experienced by all Christians discipleship is a Halling of all christians but some never really entered discipleship sadly so discipleship is experienced by some Christians justification results in eternal life well if I already have eternal life then why do I need to become a disciple because discipleship results in rewards and authority and there is something coming in the future following the rapture called the Bema seat judgment of Christ where believers will not be judged for their sins because Jesus already paid the penalty for our sins rather believers why are there be given rewards or not given rewards based rewards above and beyond salvation based on the degree of cooperation that we exhibited as we walked with Christ in this life you see people have this attitude while I'm saying it doesn't matter how I live it doesn't matter in terms of whether you're going to heaven but it does matter in terms of rewards and by the way do you know there's a kingdom coming Jesus is gonna run your cooperation with Christ as a disciple determines to a very large extent the degree of authority that you will wield in that kingdom some are assigned five cities some are assigned ten cities to rule over so there is some sort of ramification for our cooperation and discipleship but it does not relate to whether we're saved at all see the difference so hopefully that chart clears things up and I love the book of Ephesians because the book of Ephesians is set up almost like justification Ephesians one through three sanctification Ephesians four through six Ephesians one through three first tents of salvation Ephesians four through six 2nd tents of salvation and what is the hinge between the two and Paul's writings typically is the word therefore and we see Paul using the word therefore we have to ask ourselves what is the word therefore therefore and typically its to transition us away from the blessings we've received as a result of justification and transitions that transition us into living for Christ so Ephesians one through three is about relationship Ephesians four through six is about responsibility now you'll go through Ephesians one through three and there's not a single command to be followed it is a wonderful in those three chapters a wonderful description of what you have in Christ and you may not feel rich but you're filthy rich spiritually but then after explaining to us our riches you go to Ephesians 4:1 and you see the word therefore now he's moving us away from what we have to what we're supposed to do as disciples as a result of receiving these blessings so we don't have any imperatives that's the mood for command and Greek in Ephesians 1 through 3 but Ephesians 4 through 6 there's at least 35 imperatives or commands and I can't tell you how many sermons series I've heard where the pastor starts something out of Ephesians 4 and I'm thinking to myself you're killing people when you do that you're giving them do this do that and you haven't even told them who they are yet and what their resources are it's like trying to drive a car with no gasoline in the gas tank because we're so into relevant Bible studies we want to tell people to do something you know Paul when he went through Ephesians 1 through 3 he never told him to do anything so than what they have and then after that was grass then he started tell them what to do see that's a totally different teaching model isn't it I don't think we should get around a bunch of people that are brand-new Christians and say do this do this do this we need to explain them what they have now once they recognize what they have then they'll be in a position to obey and by the way it's not just Ephesians set up this way Galatians 1 through 4 justification the word therefore Galatians 5:1 in the last two chapters discipleship Romans 1 through 12 justification then you see the word therefore Romans 12:1 Romans 12 through 16 Romans 1 through 11 excuse me justification Romans 12 through 16 sanctification I mean this is a classic Paul line way of teaching theevans 1 through 3 is Orthodoxy have you gone to the orthodontist lately ortho means correct like getting your mouth corrected so orthodoxy is correct belief feegans 4 through 6 is orthopraxy correct practice Fusion is 1 through 3 is knowledge but did you know that knowledge was never the last step in God it's a first step but it's not a last step knowledge needs to lead to what wisdom which is knowledge applied Ephesians 4 through 6 seasons 1 through 3 behavior excuse me belief fusions 4 through 6 practice Ephesians one through three position seasons four through six practice Ephesians one through three privileges and guess what people start to act like once they understand that they're privileged they start taking on more responsibility naturally seasons four through six responsibility so you see the two phases of salvation here this is lost in lordship salvation lordship salvation takes the two and it follows what I like to call the RAM jam and cram method where it crams it all at the poor end and in the process ends up teaching an arrant gospel let me just do one more and we'll conclude number four lordship salvation confuses the result of salvation with the requirement for salvation another way of saying it is I've got the cart before the horse so Renauld showers respected theologian says this there is a clear distinction between a requirement for salvation and a result of salvation the two should not be confused with each other a willingness and a desire for Christ to rule over one's life are prompted by the new spiritual life imparted by the Holy Spirit when he regenerates the believer at salvation the unsaved do not and cannot submit to divine rule now you'll notice he's got Romans 8 and verse 7 there in parenthesis you know what Romans 8 verse 7 says it says because the mind is set on the flesh that mind is hostile toward God for it does not subject itself to the law of God nor is it even able to do so the unregenerate Nature has in and of itself absolutely no ability to submit to the authority of Christ that's why when the Lord saves us he doesn't slap a coat of white paint over my sin nature and try to you know kind of decorate a little bit my sin nature is so far gone the first atom that the Lord gives me a new nature and guess what that new nature wants to do it wants to submit to Christ the old nature doesn't want to do that so now that I am a Christian I find that I have a desire to submit to Christ where that desire wasn't even there before see so showers rights the unsaved do not and cannot submit to divine rule just look at this I love this analogy just as a tree cannot have apples unless it already has the nature of an apple tree so a person cannot have a willingness and a desire to submit to Christ rule unless he already possesses the new nature received by regeneration at salvation you can jot down 2nd Peter 1 3 and 4 it talks about our new nature there so showers rights thus even the willingness and desire to submit to Christ rule are the result of and not the requirement for salvation you know I graduated through high school I don't know how they graduated me to be frank with you because my major was basketball and I remember just hating to read hated it and then I hear the gospel and I get saved and suddenly something different is inside of me I had a desire to read particularly the Bible I had a desire to read books by by Christians I never had that desire before now that was not the requirement of my salvation that was the fruit of it see and this gets lost in lordship salvation teaching because they conflate the two so I think I'll stop there but in will do the next three next time but the problem with lordship salvation I'll give you some more problems next week but lordship salvation the problem with it is it changes the gospel itself it places an impossible burden upon the unsaved your seeing them to do something that they can't do it conflates or confuses justification with sanctification it does not understand the three tenses of salvation which is so critical towards properly interpreting the Bible and then finally number four it confuses the result of salvation with the requirement for salvation so anyway hopefully that here's a little bit of ambiguity so if you got to collect your young ones well let you go at this time and if you have any questions we could open up the floor you

Channel: Andy Woods' Unofficial Channel

Views: 7,873

Rating: 4.8727274 out of 5

Keywords: andy woods, osas, once saved always saved, gospel, soteriology, lordship salvation, eternal security, matthew 16, 24, 25, follow Jesus, make Jesus Lord, make Jesus our Lord, Jesus

Id: BTR_44K7fCU

Length: 61min 5sec (3665 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2019