NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - What Is Your Position On Lordship Salvation? | John MacArthur
Aired: 2022-10-27
Duration: 11:17


=== Jesus Is Lord Of All (09:32) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
[00:00:03]  If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show, would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five star review?
[00:00:09]  This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
[00:00:17]  Thanks.
[00:00:22]  Guyan, or Guyan, I'm going to say Guyan, from Guyan the Baptist, what is your position on Lordship Salvation?
[00:00:27]  It seems to me that Lordship Salvation, as presented by John MacArthur, for example, Contradicts the 1689.
[00:00:34]  I know he's not confessional, just as an example.
[00:00:39]  It's a good question.
[00:00:42]  Yeah, it just a lot of it depends on how the person is presenting it.
[00:00:46]  There are certain elements of John MacArthur's Lordship Salvation that I probably would not have worded the way that he did.
[00:00:55]  But I mean, the general premise, right?
[00:00:57]  If we're just talking about the basic idea that somebody who is genuinely born again.
[00:01:03]  Is going to submit to Christ as Lord, and that's going to be evidenced in their life.
[00:01:10]  Yeah, that's absolutely vital.
[00:01:13]  I think, you know, one thing we have to remember is that nobody's doing theology in a vacuum, right?
[00:01:19]  All of us within God's providence have been placed into a specific place, specific time, amongst a specific people.
[00:01:26]  And a lot of what you see with theologians, both those who are living, like John MacArthur, or those who are long dead, is that they're all products of their time.
[00:01:36]  In the sense that there are certain things going on in their day, and they were faithfully, by God's grace, to the best of their ability, opposing those things, those things that contradicted the truth of God.
[00:01:51]  Everybody has that, right?
[00:01:53]  So, whether it's Luther against Roman Catholicism, you know, or all these different examples that we find throughout the ages.
[00:02:00]  And I think for MacArthur, he's had multiple fights, but he's had a few big ones, right?
[00:02:05]  The lordship, salvation being one of them, inerrancy.
[00:02:08]  Controversy in terms of the view of scripture.
[00:02:10]  That's another one.
[00:02:12]  And he's joined the fight against social justice and those kinds of things.
[00:02:17]  And so, as it pertains to lordship, I think you have to, again, realize MacArthur's not in a vacuum.
[00:02:23]  What's going on here?
[00:02:24]  What's the context?
[00:02:25]  The context is MacArthur's coming on the heels of Billy Graham.
[00:02:30]  And within Billy Graham Christianity, whether Billy Graham ever said this or not, you know, still the.
[00:02:38]  The assumption by many that the effect of his ministry for many was that I could walk down the aisle at some revival meeting, some crusade, evangelistic crusade, and I can say a specific prayer, the sinner's prayer.
[00:02:54]  I can ask Jesus into my heart.
[00:02:57]  MacArthur's Lordship stuff is the same as Paul Washer.
[00:03:00]  Paul Washer has one of his viral videos where he says that the greatest heresy or the most frequent heresy, most common heresy, is that if you invite Jesus into your heart, He will most certainly come in.
[00:03:15]  And Wash is saying that that's not true.
[00:03:18]  You can invite Jesus into your heart, and Jesus declines to accept your offer.
[00:03:23]  He refuses your offer.
[00:03:25]  And you can walk around the rest of your life until you die thinking that you have Jesus in your heart, and yet you don't.
[00:03:30]  And so I think on the heels of Billy Graham and then the seeker sensitive movement that we had, where doctrine and the scripture and the gospel was so watered down, I think that's what MacArthur is combating.
[00:03:42]  And in some aspects, he may have worded things.
[00:03:46]  He may have overcompensated.
[00:03:48]  But I understand your question.
[00:03:50]  I see the sentiment.
[00:03:51]  I see what you're getting at.
[00:03:52]  Because the reality is that, well, I'll say it like this.
[00:03:56]  This is the reality theologically, if we're just speaking in theological objective categories.
[00:04:01]  Jesus is Lord of everyone and Savior of some.
[00:04:07]  And see, that's the truth.
[00:04:09]  See, what we've done is we've reversed that and we say, you know, like there's a lot of people who have Jesus as Savior, but do they really have Him as Lord?
[00:04:16]  Right?
[00:04:17]  So your Billy Graham, I'll say it like this your Billy Graham kind of thing is, you know, a lot of people have Jesus as Savior.
[00:04:23]  Few have him as Lord.
[00:04:24]  MacArthur's combating that and saying, if you don't have him as Lord, you also don't have him as Savior.
[00:04:28]  And then what I'm saying, and I believe this is what the scripture says, is actually, ironically, every human being has Jesus as Lord.
[00:04:35]  You either love him, hate him, bless him, curse him, but he is your Lord.
[00:04:41]  I would say that what we don't need to ask people to do is we don't ever need to go and ask someone to make Jesus their Lord.
[00:04:48]  What we're doing is we're commanding people upon the authority of Christ that they would actually submit joyfully to his Lordship, but no one makes Jesus Lord.
[00:04:57]  God, the Father, made Jesus Lord by raising him from the dead.
[00:05:03]  Jesus is Lord.
[00:05:05]  He is God's anointed one.
[00:05:07]  I have set my anointed one on Zion.
[00:05:11]  The kings of the earth kiss the sun.
[00:05:14]  Bow to the sun.
[00:05:16]  Bow to the king of kings, lest his wrath be quickly kindled and you perish in the way.
[00:05:22]  Jesus is Lord.
[00:05:24]  He has been crowned Lord, not by each individual person saying a prayer.
[00:05:28]  He's been crowned Lord by his Father, and he is King of kings.
[00:05:33]  He is Lord of lords.
[00:05:35]  So, Jesus actually is, in objective theological categories, he is Lord of each and every human being.
[00:05:43]  Everyone, universal Lord, right?
[00:05:45]  We're not universalist, so we don't believe that Jesus is universal Savior.
[00:05:50]  That's a heresy.
[00:05:51]  People die and go to hell.
[00:05:52]  But we do believe in Christ's universal lordship.
[00:05:55]  Now, that doesn't mean that everybody is joyfully submitting to his lordship, but he is Lord of all.
[00:06:01]  So, we could say Jesus.
[00:06:03]  I think what's biblical to say is Jesus is Lord of all, Savior of some.
[00:06:09]  Lord of all, Savior of some.
[00:06:11]  And I think what Billy Graham kind of said is Jesus is Savior of many and Lord of even fewer.
[00:06:19]  MacArthur is coming and saying, no, no, no.
[00:06:21]  He is only Savior for the same group of people who make him Lord.
[00:06:26]  If he's not Lord, he's not Savior.
[00:06:29]  But technically, objectively, we would say, no, I think the Bible actually says, Jesus is Lord of all, whether they like that Lordship or not.
[00:06:36]  They can bless him or curse him, love him or hate him, but Jesus is their Lord.
[00:06:41]  Jesus is Lord of all, but he is only Savior of some.
[00:06:46]  And so, with the Lordship, salvation, that whole battle, the reality is that repentance.
[00:06:54]  So, if Jesus is someone's Savior, you're going to see sanctification, right?
[00:07:00]  If someone has been justified, they will be sanctified.
[00:07:04]  The question, though, is sanctified in what areas, to what degrees, at what speed?
[00:07:11]  Those are three important questions that we need to ponder.
[00:07:14]  All individuals who have been justified by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone will be sanctified.
[00:07:20]  Not just will be, but are being sanctified.
[00:07:23]  But the question is sanctified in what areas, to what degree, at what speed?
[00:07:31]  Meaning, not everyone, everyone is equally justified.
[00:07:36]  They're either wholly condemned or wholly justified.
[00:07:38]  And there are no different degrees of justification.
[00:07:43]  There are different degrees of sanctification.
[00:07:46]  Some people, for whatever reason, will be sanctified less than others.
[00:07:51]  And some people will be sanctified in one area, but not another.
[00:07:55]  And one of the things that I've had to learn pastorally, in regards to my ministry as a local pastor, is sometimes there are certain areas that I want to say this is the measure of sanctification, and therefore this is the determining factor for justification, right?
[00:08:10]  Because you haven't been justified if you're not being sanctified.
[00:08:14]  That's true.
[00:08:15]  But then what we do is we hijack sanctification, or I should say we truncate sanctification.
[00:08:20]  So I haven't been justified unless I've been sanctified.
[00:08:22]  But then we truncate sanctification and say, and sanctification means this area to this degree at this speed.
[00:08:33]  And that's where I think we get in trouble.
[00:08:34]  We can overpurify the church, maybe unintentionally, but we can overpurify the church because we say, well, this one area is the quintessential area where Christians need to grow in righteousness.
[00:08:49]  And if you're not growing in this area, then you're not being sanctified.
[00:08:52]  Whereas the reality is that the Spirit of God could be sanctifying them in a number, you know, 50.
[00:08:56]  15 other areas, but we just have deemed those areas as less important than this one quintessential area.
[00:09:03]  And so, even though they're being sanctified over here, they're not being sanctified over there, but there is what we have truncated the entirety of sanctification to be.
[00:09:12]  And because we don't see sanctification there, we then begin to make claims that the person hasn't even been justified.
[00:09:20]  So, you just have to be careful.
[00:09:22]  But all that being said, in terms of MacArthur, I'm grateful for MacArthur.
[00:09:25]  And MacArthur, like Joel and like anybody else, is not doing Theological work in a vacuum.

=== Bonus Guest Dale Partridge (01:45) ===

[00:09:32]  He's a specific man in a specific time to specific people.
[00:09:37]  He's in a context.
[00:09:38]  We're all doing ministry.
[00:09:39]  We're all doing the Christian life.
[00:09:40]  We're all doing the work of theology in a context.
[00:09:44]  And I think MacArthur's coming on the heels of Billy Graham and the secret sensitive movement, Robert Shuler, all these kinds of things, Bill Hybles, right?
[00:09:52]  Willow Creek.
[00:09:53]  And he's pushing back on that and saying, you don't get Jesus as Savior while rejecting Him as Lord.
[00:10:01]  And that sentiment is true.
[00:10:03]  It's just objectively, we would say, no, Jesus is Lord of everyone, whether they like it or not, and he saves some.
[00:10:11]  So, but what MacArthur, I think, is trying to do is a good instinct.
[00:10:17]  Oh, hi, I didn't see you there.
[00:10:18]  Thanks for sticking around.
[00:10:19]  I've got an important announcement to make.
[00:10:21]  That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
[00:10:30]  Theonomy and Postmillennialism.
[00:10:32]  We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
[00:10:34]  That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot.
[00:10:37]  Dr. Gary DeMar, non doctor, Pastor Joel Webbin.
[00:10:39]  But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.
[00:10:45]  Perhaps you've heard of him.
[00:10:45]  If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
[00:10:48]  It's fantastic.
[00:10:49]  Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
[00:10:52]  We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able to write in questions and get them answered.
[00:10:58]  We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas style barbecue meal on Friday that's a part of your registration fee.
[00:11:05]  All that is covered.
[00:11:06]  So you need to get that.
[00:11:07]  This is how you do it.
[00:11:09]  Go and register right now at rightresponseconference.com.
[00:11:13]  Again, that's rightresponseconference.com.
[00:11:17]  God bless.