To follow Christ as His Disciple is not a works based salvation. The whole Christian life is lived by grace and no obedience is meritorious. Living as a disciple of Christ is the proper response of one who has saving faith. You cannot have faith in God without loving God, and you cannot love God without following God. All of this is accomplished in Christ’s death. Lordship salvation is just humbling yourself to the authority of God’s revelation which reveals God’s as king, and God’s as ruler and lawgiver, God as creator, God as Holy. When one gets a glimpse of God he realizes His lordship over his life and asks and accepts his mercy and grace. Salvation is not accepting Jesus as savior and later on in life accepting him as Lord? That distorts the Gospel of grace. In order to define our terms, How do you define Lordship Salvation?
Even though the label “Lordship Salvation” is a pejorative term given to the Biblical Gospel by those who truncate the Gospel, I use this term in a useful way to describe the Biblical Gospel and Biblical Salvation. We must understand that “Lordship Salvation” in no way at all promotes any works based salvation but a genuine full Gospel of Grace.
It is the reason Colossians 1:21-23 says: “[21] And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, [22] he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, [23] if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” It is also why Romans 10:9 Paul writes: “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Even when the apostle John was confronting apostasy he affirmed that a believer cannot deny Christ’s Lordship and live as they please. 1 John 3:6-8 says [6] No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. [7] Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. [8] Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. [9] No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
To separate the call of salvation and the call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to truncate the Biblical Gospel which will have very harmful effects in Evangelism, and our sanctification (Christian Growth), and our ecclesiology (especially in Church Discipline).
Read this excellent article on Lordship Salvation:
Lordship Salvation by John MacArthur
see also www.disciplemaking.net
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