The Lordship debate ... who's side are you on?

Is the Lordship vs. Free Grace debate important ? You bet it is.

Consider the following when you consider what “camp” you dearly hold to in this often misunderstood doctrinal debate: The reason the Lordship debate is one of great importance is simply because the two views are at such extreme, opposite, theological ends with no reconciliation to be found.

Comparing the Lordship position to the Free Grace position is like comparing:

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  Light and Dark
  
  
  
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  Jesus Christ and Satan
  
  
  
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  Wheat and Tares
  
  
  
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  Sheep and Goats.
  
  
  

By now you get the picture. Simply put, the “no Lordship” people are taking the doctrine of “justification by faith” and perverting it into something it is not. The essence of the perversion comes in defining “saving faith”.

The most interesting point in the entirety of the debate is that there was no debate prior to about 180 years ago. Just a cursory look back into evangelical history will show that spurious or non-saving faith wasn’t an argued point. It was not until the altar call was invented until the need arose for this debate. Prior to the altar call, it was a well understood fact that faith without works is dead. We know that dead faith is not saving faith. You would think this would end the debate, but let's go on.

In fact, in light of Matthew 7:21 a verbal profession of faith alone is worth absolutely nothing on the Day of Judgment. “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”

If you take a Savior Only position, or No Lordship position of Jesus Christ in the work of Salvation, you are saying that one can enter through the “narrow gate”, but somehow end up walking on the “broad path”. Even more ludicrous would be to say you could gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from among the thistles!

You might guess then, that we are able to know the true child of God by their fruit. Not to mention the IRON CLAD testimony of Scripture in 1 John 3:10, "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother."

So what is the real issue … what is the sore spot of this debate? SIN is the issue. To give you a clear understanding of the complete picture let’s start at the beginning.

First and foremost let’s start with the infallibility and the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. The bible is the word of God and is absolutely and completely sufficient to handle this discussion on it’s own without opinions being interjected on either side.

The bible is the story of the redemption of man.

The free grace position holds to a faulty view of regeneration call “decisional regeneration”. Take a look at biblical regeneration. Regeneration is the act of a sovereign God creating a new creature. Regeneration is God, for His own good pleasure and purpose, supernaturally transplanting a man from his sinful, fallen, hell bound condition to a position of granting him repentance, faith and eternal life. It is called being born again.

In John 3 Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit”

Men in history have always been, and were obviously not satisfied with God’s church growth method. Somewhere about 150 to 200 years ago a preacher got the idea that he could coax, coerce and motivate people into making long, drawn out, emotional laden, public professions of faith. He was successful and birthed the “altar call” response system we see so prevalent in the professing church today. Pragmatism takes over from there and the rest is history, ugly history.

Although decisions for Christ were readily being made, the bulk of these decisions didn’t last. People were not being changed. I could bore you with polls, statistics and historical facts that demonstrate that the bulk of the professing, modern church look, act, think and generally live life just like the sinful world, but I won’t. I won’t bore you with stories, but just take a look around your own family and friends … ask your family and friends if they are Christians. Ask them if they died today where they think their eternal destiny will be. Go ahead and try it. Ask the drunkard, the thief, the liar, in fact go to the local jail and ask all the hardened criminals on death row. You will find the overwhelming majority of people really believe that they are going to heaven, and the demonstration of their life, or the sins they continue to commit have absolutely no bearing on a past decision of faith. They entered through the narrow gate one day at church, revival service or an evangelical crusade and yet never took one step onto the narrow path. They continue to run down the broad path to their own destruction with a smile on their face, because some silly preacher or worse yet a “numbers running” preacher told them they were saved because they prayed and asked Jesus to come into their heart.

The gospel call has always been and will always be to “repent and believe” (Mark 1:15). Pray a sinner's prayer if you want, walk down the aisle, stand up at the crusade and visit the prayer room, but whatever you do, don’t mistake God for an unjust idol. Don’t think the God that created you is somehow magically amazed because you “did” some ritual at the front, back or even outside the church.

God did not send His Son to die on a cross so that you could pray a prayer and remain in your sins. God sent His Son to save His people from their sins. God sent His Son to purchase a people for Himself that would glorify Him with good works.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

What does the born again Christian look like.

If you are genuinely born again, you will walk in the way of righteousness as a style of life; and if you step off the path, the narrow path, the Father will come for you and discipline you to bring you back on the narrow path. If you can walk in sin, live in sin, continue in sin and yet you profess Christ you ought to be terrified of the state of your soul and your eternal destination.

We don’t tell people they are saved; we tell them how to be saved. Tell them how to get saved and let God tell them they are saved.

Jesus is Lord and Savior or He is nothing at all. Prophet, Priest and King are offices we do not have the authority to usurp or divide. Christ is Lord.