I pray it will prompt people to continue to receive God’s Word with a ready mind, and search the Scriptures to see if these things are so… I pray they will stop just accepting what these men and women do, but test the spirits, also proving all things by the Word of God.
Thank you Jack for your continual contending for the truth of God’s Word.
Jesus is Lord. No one who believes the Bible denies that. But what does that mean and how does Christ’s lordship apply to our salvation and our Christian life?
The Meaning of Lord
The word usually translated Lord in the New Testament is the Greek word Kyrios. It is sometimes used as a title of respect, much as we would call someone sir. We see this in Acts 16:30 when the Philippian jailor addresses Paul and Silas as “Sirs” (the plural, kyrioi).
Lord is also commonly used as a title with the name Jesus Christ. As a title, it not only shows respect, but also reflects who Jesus is. He is the Lord. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into the Greek Septuagint, the Hebrew name for God, YHWH, was usually translated Kyrios, or Lord. YHWH conveyed first of all deity, but implied all the other aspects unique to deity such as Creator, Owner, Ruler, Judge, Redeemer, and Savior.
The Lordship of Christ in Salvation
The Lordship, or deity of Jesus Christ, is essential to our salvation. Consider some of the things that Jesus did for our salvation only because He is the Lord God:He became the perfect sacrifice for our sins, without spot or blemish.
He gave His life as a sacrifice for all mankind—past, present, and future.
He rose from the dead to live and offer us eternal life.
He promises, provides, and secures the eternal life of all who believe in Him.
It is only because Jesus is in the position of Lord God that He can save us and gives us eternal life.
While Lord speaks of His position of deity, the name Jesus speaks of His humanity and role of Savior, because Jesus means Savior. In the name Jesus Christ, Christ means Messiah, the One anointed or chosen by God to be the Savior and King. So Lord is a title that primarily conveys Jesus’ deity. What this means for salvation is that Jesus has the power and authority to save sinners because He is God. What this does not mean is that sinners can only be saved if they submit to Him as the Ruler of their lives. Ruler is only one subset of deity, and it is arbitrary to make that one divine function and position into a subjective demand. As the word implies, salvation requires a Savior. Jesus came to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15; 4:10) and He can because He is God. Sinners need a divine Savior. It is one thing to say that to be saved a sinner must acknowledge the divine authority that Jesus has as God or as the Son of God. It is quite another thing to say that to be saved a sinner must submit to Jesus as the Ruler of his life. The first acknowledges Jesus’ objective position and power as God, the second demands a person’s subjective response to Him as Ruler. The Bible has examples of unsaved sinners who addressed Jesus as Lord without submitting to Him (e. g., John 4:11, 15, 19; 9:36).
To further illustrate, we could say that during World War II General Douglas MacArthur saved the Philippines. He was able to save them because he had the position and power of a four star general of the United States Army. To the people of the Philippines, however, MacArthur was not their general, nor were they required to submit to him as their general. They only needed to accept the “salvation” that he offered them.
The view called Lordship Salvation
There is a view that teaches a sinner must submit to Jesus as Ruler of his life in order to be saved. Proponents of this view call it Lordship Salvation, though it should be called Commitment Salvation or Submission Salvation since it emphasizes the unbeliever’s subjective response to Jesus Christ as Ruler. Lordship Salvation confuses the objective position of Jesus as Lord with the subjective response to one aspect of His lordship—rulership. Not only does this view reflect poor theological method—soteriology should not be built merely on titles, but it contradicts the Bible’s teaching of salvation by grace through faith. The grace that saves us is the free, unmerited, unconditional gift of God. Making a sinner’s submission to Jesus as the Ruler of his life a condition for salvation destroys the grace of God which makes salvation a free gift that can only be received through faith (Rom. 4:4-5; 11:6; Eph. 2:8-9). Lordship Salvation is also arbitrary because it only emphasizes rulership in the divine title Lord Jesus Christ.
To be consistent, they should require sinners to accept Jesus as the Creator, Sustainer, Judge, Prophet, Priest, and King, because all these and more are aspects of His deity. Furthermore, they should demand acceptance of all that the name Jesus means, and all that the title Christ means.
Teachers of Lordship Salvation often derogatorily refer to those who believe in the freeness of grace in salvation as no-lordship, or non-lordship. Of course, this is incorrect and deliberately misleading. Their error comes from confusing the objective position of Jesus as the Lord with one’s subjective response to Jesus as their Lord and making it a requirement for salvation.
Those who believe in the freeness of grace believe that Jesus must be the Lord (God) to be Savior. The response required of an unbeliever is simply to believe the gospel— whoJesus is, whatHe has done for our salvation, and whatHe promises us. There is no lexical or biblical basis for defining believe as submit. Believe simply means to be convinced of something or persuaded that it is true. There are even biblical examples of those who had submitted to Jesus as their Ruler but were not saved (Matt. 7:21-23), and those who were saved when not submitted to Jesus as their Ruler (Acts 5:1-10; 19:18-19).
We are not saying a person who comes to Jesus as Savior deliberately rejects the rulership of Jesus Christ. We are saying that to demand a sinner to submit to Him as Master is simply not the issue in salvation, much less is it reasonable to demand this of one who is spiritually dead.
The Lordship of Christ and Sanctification
While we reject Lordship Salvation and its requirement that sinners must submit to Jesus as the Ruler of their lives, we enthusiastically embrace the term Lordship Sanctification or Lordship Discipleship because submitting to Jesus as our Ruler is what the Christian life is all about. Once we know Jesus as Savior, we must learn to relate to Him as our new Master. Many passages admonish us who have believed in Jesus as Savior to now relate and submit to Him as Lord. The point of Romans 6 is that now that we have a new Master in Jesus Christ, we should submit ourselves to Him. Romans 12:1 urges us to present ourselves as “living sacrifices.” We live and die to the Lord (Rom. 14:8-9). As believers we are told to “sanctify the Lord God” in our hearts (1 Peter 3:15) and to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Such admonitions would not be needed if we had already done all that in order to be saved. ConclusionWe can not make Jesus Lord; He is the Lord! We can only submit to Him as servants. As our divine Savior He saves us; as our divine Master He sanctifies us. To keep the grace of the gospel free we must not confuse the faith required of an unbeliever for justification with the many aspects of submission required of believers for sanctification.
Dear brother Jack, i have known and vietisd your nice and blessed blog for less than a year now, during the time that i was and to some extent still am struggling with myself and to a lesser extent with assurance of salvation.
I have been struggling with works-salvation and lordship salvation for quite some time, due to me waking up from a slumber of several years, where i was carnal and backslidden. I’ve had my share of days wherein i thought i was lost, where i asked God to just off me and throw worthless me into hell, where i thought that i had fake belief in Jesus Christ as my Saviour Who paid for it all and Who rose from the dead victoriously on the third day [I’m a former atheist, so go figure how vile and disgusting lordship salvation is to make someone like me doubt his own salvation.], etc.
What gets me is that the lordship salvationists keep asking one to prove one’s faith to oneself in order to see whether one might a REAL believer. And especially the underlining of the necessity of heart faith and denouncement of head faith troubled me and still troubles me a bit, as i have asperger’s syndrome and my heart most of the time does not give this supposed necessary heart faith. Which not only frustrates me to no end and makes me doubt my faith, but also makes my cringe in despair, making me desire the total destruction of myself, as i know i’m unworthy and i still have many emotional issues lingering on from the past, as i was bullied, almost never understood, trampled upon, etc.
I know that to be saved one has to acknowledge God as existing, oneself as the unworthy sinner one is, awaiting a righteous judgment for the sins one has committed, acknowledge Jesus as God come in the flesh, Who gave himself as THE Sacrifice for everybody and their sins, suffered and died on the cross at Calvary, was pierced to have His precious blood shed, was laid in the grave and Who rose victoriously from the grave to show that He is indeed God almighty and that His payment for sin was accepted by the Father. He appeared for 40 days, left earth from the mount of Olives, will snatch us and all dead christians up any moment now and will visibly return to earth on the mount of Olives at the end of the 70th week to reign a King on earth for 1000 years.
Writing that does help put things in perspective, as focusing on Jesus is all we need to do, remembering Who we believe in. He is our eternal hope, not our supposed good works or the avoidance of sin.
well, the following is what triggered me to respond here and ask for some advice: Anyone who uses salvation or security by grace as a license to CONTINUE in a lifestyle of habitual sin has not only accepted gross heresy, but They should examine themselves to see if They have truly been saved. Those who have been saved by grace have become new creatures with new hearts. A faith that produces no works fits the scriptural definition of dead faith which is mere head assent rather than heart faith and which does not save. This is a Perversion of the Grace of God. As far as i can see, this fulfills points 3, 4, 7, 9 and 21, maybe a few more.
What gets me is the stressing of a continued lifestyle of habitual sin showing someone to not be saved, all the while Paul showing in 1 Corinthians, especially in chapters 3, 5 and 11, that God will chasten, destroy, curse, afflict, etc. and even kill those who as His children will continue in rebellion against Him, but He will never take their salvation away. Loss of rewards, tears and shame when the Bema judgment comes, but those who are Jesus’ are and will be His forever and they are His responsibility.Yes, one can keep wilfully sinning after being saved, it won’t make one unsaved, but the further costs are terrible and avoidable. There is freedom to sin, but no license, sin costs us a part of our eternal rewards and our future position. Our Saviour and Lord Jesus wants us to succeed in Him and encourages us to follow Him for His benefit, that of others and our own.Anyway, thank you for your time and God bless you, dear brother.Yours in Christ Jesus, Jan. [I’m a brother from the Netherlands.]
Hi Jan, I apologize, for you page had a link I guess and went into my spam folder. I will let Jack know you have responded. I put in a few spaces so that maybe Jack can read more easily. I’ll try to answer a bit too. In Jesus Christ’s love, Holly
Dear Jan, there are a lot of voices out there, that are not the voice of our Shepherd, but of the accuser. We can help that along by living a carnal lifestyle, not being in the Word, not confessing our sins, not fellowshipping with other sound believers, all these things I believe can lessen our assurance regarding the gift of eternal life we received. The children we were made at that time we believed. When we are living the wrong lifestyle, the focus goes back on us, and we go into despair if we are counting on our own works or even focusing on ourselves. Plus, sin and law, causes us to sin more it seems, so we need to get back to being a disciple, and getting sanctified by His truth, and getting our eyes back on the author and finisher of our faith.
As a former atheist, it must have been awful to come to faith, and then believe that you somehow were not really saved, or wonder whether you were a real believer. We are all unworthy…The gospel is simple and is laid out in 1 Cor 15 and is what we need to believe to be saved.
I believe what has happened is minds have been corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, even in the dead faith argument from James that Lordship and Roman Catholics use so often. Remember the ones that were referred to as having dead (worthless) faith, were also referred to as believers, brethren, sisters, brother, and referred to as having the Spirit in them, over 20 references just in 5 chapters.
The argument that anyone that uses grace as a license to sin, is one that Lordship frequently uses, and the point is that no one who is teaching God’s Word teaches that. Habitual sin is another term that is not in the Word either. ‘Practicing’ sin isn’t really a correct way to translate certain passages, actually it should read DO. As in one time. If you DO it once. See, in the new man we do NOT sin. In the old nature, we still do sin, and we always will until we throw off this body of flesh and get a new body.
The epistles are many a warning against sin, the consequences, not only to one’s self, but to others, and to the name of Christ. So, we confess our sins, and we trust His faithfulness, to keep in fellowship with not only Him, but others. Works are never the way we examine ourselves, that is not what Paul was saying in 2 Cor 13. He was defending his apostleship and in spite of their terrible works and sexual immorality and lack of mourning over sin, he still said they were the proof of his ministry. He told them to examine themselves, but what people leave out is the very next part. Or do you not know Jesus Christ is in you?
Anyways, thanks for visiting over here, you might want to copy and paste and ask the question over on Jack’s page. God bless you, Holly
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Thanks Holly —
The more the Truth of the Gospel is repeated the less foothold the “evangelical elites” will be heard.
In Jesus Christ eternally, Jack
I pray it will prompt people to continue to receive God’s Word with a ready mind, and search the Scriptures to see if these things are so… I pray they will stop just accepting what these men and women do, but test the spirits, also proving all things by the Word of God.
Thank you Jack for your continual contending for the truth of God’s Word.
Hello Jerry (this is not Jerry K),I believe that John has already answered you well some time earlier on the issue of Lordship.
Here is an article from Dr. Charlie Bing of Grace Life Ministries which elaborates on the biblical position of salvation and lordship http://www.gracelife.org/resources/gracenotes/?id=41.
Dr. Charlie Bing:
Jesus is Lord. No one who believes the Bible denies that. But what does that mean and how does Christ’s lordship apply to our salvation and our Christian life?
The Meaning of Lord
The word usually translated Lord in the New Testament is the Greek word Kyrios. It is sometimes used as a title of respect, much as we would call someone sir. We see this in Acts 16:30 when the Philippian jailor addresses Paul and Silas as “Sirs” (the plural, kyrioi).
Lord is also commonly used as a title with the name Jesus Christ. As a title, it not only shows respect, but also reflects who Jesus is. He is the Lord. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into the Greek Septuagint, the Hebrew name for God, YHWH, was usually translated Kyrios, or Lord. YHWH conveyed first of all deity, but implied all the other aspects unique to deity such as Creator, Owner, Ruler, Judge, Redeemer, and Savior.
The Lordship of Christ in Salvation
The Lordship, or deity of Jesus Christ, is essential to our salvation. Consider some of the things that Jesus did for our salvation only because He is the Lord God:He became the perfect sacrifice for our sins, without spot or blemish.
He gave His life as a sacrifice for all mankind—past, present, and future.
He rose from the dead to live and offer us eternal life.
He promises, provides, and secures the eternal life of all who believe in Him.
It is only because Jesus is in the position of Lord God that He can save us and gives us eternal life.
While Lord speaks of His position of deity, the name Jesus speaks of His humanity and role of Savior, because Jesus means Savior. In the name Jesus Christ, Christ means Messiah, the One anointed or chosen by God to be the Savior and King. So Lord is a title that primarily conveys Jesus’ deity. What this means for salvation is that Jesus has the power and authority to save sinners because He is God. What this does not mean is that sinners can only be saved if they submit to Him as the Ruler of their lives. Ruler is only one subset of deity, and it is arbitrary to make that one divine function and position into a subjective demand. As the word implies, salvation requires a Savior. Jesus came to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15; 4:10) and He can because He is God. Sinners need a divine Savior. It is one thing to say that to be saved a sinner must acknowledge the divine authority that Jesus has as God or as the Son of God. It is quite another thing to say that to be saved a sinner must submit to Jesus as the Ruler of his life. The first acknowledges Jesus’ objective position and power as God, the second demands a person’s subjective response to Him as Ruler. The Bible has examples of unsaved sinners who addressed Jesus as Lord without submitting to Him (e. g., John 4:11, 15, 19; 9:36).
To further illustrate, we could say that during World War II General Douglas MacArthur saved the Philippines. He was able to save them because he had the position and power of a four star general of the United States Army. To the people of the Philippines, however, MacArthur was not their general, nor were they required to submit to him as their general. They only needed to accept the “salvation” that he offered them.
The view called Lordship Salvation
There is a view that teaches a sinner must submit to Jesus as Ruler of his life in order to be saved. Proponents of this view call it Lordship Salvation, though it should be called Commitment Salvation or Submission Salvation since it emphasizes the unbeliever’s subjective response to Jesus Christ as Ruler. Lordship Salvation confuses the objective position of Jesus as Lord with the subjective response to one aspect of His lordship—rulership. Not only does this view reflect poor theological method—soteriology should not be built merely on titles, but it contradicts the Bible’s teaching of salvation by grace through faith. The grace that saves us is the free, unmerited, unconditional gift of God. Making a sinner’s submission to Jesus as the Ruler of his life a condition for salvation destroys the grace of God which makes salvation a free gift that can only be received through faith (Rom. 4:4-5; 11:6; Eph. 2:8-9). Lordship Salvation is also arbitrary because it only emphasizes rulership in the divine title Lord Jesus Christ.
To be consistent, they should require sinners to accept Jesus as the Creator, Sustainer, Judge, Prophet, Priest, and King, because all these and more are aspects of His deity. Furthermore, they should demand acceptance of all that the name Jesus means, and all that the title Christ means.
Teachers of Lordship Salvation often derogatorily refer to those who believe in the freeness of grace in salvation as no-lordship, or non-lordship. Of course, this is incorrect and deliberately misleading. Their error comes from confusing the objective position of Jesus as the Lord with one’s subjective response to Jesus as their Lord and making it a requirement for salvation.
Those who believe in the freeness of grace believe that Jesus must be the Lord (God) to be Savior. The response required of an unbeliever is simply to believe the gospel— who Jesus is, what He has done for our salvation, and what He promises us. There is no lexical or biblical basis for defining believe as submit. Believe simply means to be convinced of something or persuaded that it is true. There are even biblical examples of those who had submitted to Jesus as their Ruler but were not saved (Matt. 7:21-23), and those who were saved when not submitted to Jesus as their Ruler (Acts 5:1-10; 19:18-19).
We are not saying a person who comes to Jesus as Savior deliberately rejects the rulership of Jesus Christ. We are saying that to demand a sinner to submit to Him as Master is simply not the issue in salvation, much less is it reasonable to demand this of one who is spiritually dead.
The Lordship of Christ and Sanctification
While we reject Lordship Salvation and its requirement that sinners must submit to Jesus as the Ruler of their lives, we enthusiastically embrace the term Lordship Sanctification or Lordship Discipleship because submitting to Jesus as our Ruler is what the Christian life is all about. Once we know Jesus as Savior, we must learn to relate to Him as our new Master. Many passages admonish us who have believed in Jesus as Savior to now relate and submit to Him as Lord. The point of Romans 6 is that now that we have a new Master in Jesus Christ, we should submit ourselves to Him. Romans 12:1 urges us to present ourselves as “living sacrifices.” We live and die to the Lord (Rom. 14:8-9). As believers we are told to “sanctify the Lord God” in our hearts (1 Peter 3:15) and to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Such admonitions would not be needed if we had already done all that in order to be saved. ConclusionWe can not make Jesus Lord; He is the Lord! We can only submit to Him as servants. As our divine Savior He saves us; as our divine Master He sanctifies us. To keep the grace of the gospel free we must not confuse the faith required of an unbeliever for justification with the many aspects of submission required of believers for sanctification.
Thank you Teresa, not quite sure why some of these go to spam, but I have added back the formatting etc. that was removed.
Dear brother Jack, i have known and vietisd your nice and blessed blog for less than a year now, during the time that i was and to some extent still am struggling with myself and to a lesser extent with assurance of salvation.
I have been struggling with works-salvation and lordship salvation for quite some time, due to me waking up from a slumber of several years, where i was carnal and backslidden. I’ve had my share of days wherein i thought i was lost, where i asked God to just off me and throw worthless me into hell, where i thought that i had fake belief in Jesus Christ as my Saviour Who paid for it all and Who rose from the dead victoriously on the third day [I’m a former atheist, so go figure how vile and disgusting lordship salvation is to make someone like me doubt his own salvation.], etc.
What gets me is that the lordship salvationists keep asking one to prove one’s faith to oneself in order to see whether one might a REAL believer. And especially the underlining of the necessity of heart faith and denouncement of head faith troubled me and still troubles me a bit, as i have asperger’s syndrome and my heart most of the time does not give this supposed necessary heart faith. Which not only frustrates me to no end and makes me doubt my faith, but also makes my cringe in despair, making me desire the total destruction of myself, as i know i’m unworthy and i still have many emotional issues lingering on from the past, as i was bullied, almost never understood, trampled upon, etc.
I know that to be saved one has to acknowledge God as existing, oneself as the unworthy sinner one is, awaiting a righteous judgment for the sins one has committed, acknowledge Jesus as God come in the flesh, Who gave himself as THE Sacrifice for everybody and their sins, suffered and died on the cross at Calvary, was pierced to have His precious blood shed, was laid in the grave and Who rose victoriously from the grave to show that He is indeed God almighty and that His payment for sin was accepted by the Father. He appeared for 40 days, left earth from the mount of Olives, will snatch us and all dead christians up any moment now and will visibly return to earth on the mount of Olives at the end of the 70th week to reign a King on earth for 1000 years.
Writing that does help put things in perspective, as focusing on Jesus is all we need to do, remembering Who we believe in. He is our eternal hope, not our supposed good works or the avoidance of sin.
well, the following is what triggered me to respond here and ask for some advice: Anyone who uses salvation or security by grace as a license to CONTINUE in a lifestyle of habitual sin has not only accepted gross heresy, but They should examine themselves to see if They have truly been saved. Those who have been saved by grace have become new creatures with new hearts. A faith that produces no works fits the scriptural definition of dead faith which is mere head assent rather than heart faith and which does not save. This is a Perversion of the Grace of God. As far as i can see, this fulfills points 3, 4, 7, 9 and 21, maybe a few more.
What gets me is the stressing of a continued lifestyle of habitual sin showing someone to not be saved, all the while Paul showing in 1 Corinthians, especially in chapters 3, 5 and 11, that God will chasten, destroy, curse, afflict, etc. and even kill those who as His children will continue in rebellion against Him, but He will never take their salvation away. Loss of rewards, tears and shame when the Bema judgment comes, but those who are Jesus’ are and will be His forever and they are His responsibility.Yes, one can keep wilfully sinning after being saved, it won’t make one unsaved, but the further costs are terrible and avoidable. There is freedom to sin, but no license, sin costs us a part of our eternal rewards and our future position. Our Saviour and Lord Jesus wants us to succeed in Him and encourages us to follow Him for His benefit, that of others and our own.Anyway, thank you for your time and God bless you, dear brother.Yours in Christ Jesus, Jan. [I’m a brother from the Netherlands.]
Hi Jan, I apologize, for you page had a link I guess and went into my spam folder. I will let Jack know you have responded. I put in a few spaces so that maybe Jack can read more easily. I’ll try to answer a bit too. In Jesus Christ’s love, Holly
Dear Jan, there are a lot of voices out there, that are not the voice of our Shepherd, but of the accuser. We can help that along by living a carnal lifestyle, not being in the Word, not confessing our sins, not fellowshipping with other sound believers, all these things I believe can lessen our assurance regarding the gift of eternal life we received. The children we were made at that time we believed. When we are living the wrong lifestyle, the focus goes back on us, and we go into despair if we are counting on our own works or even focusing on ourselves. Plus, sin and law, causes us to sin more it seems, so we need to get back to being a disciple, and getting sanctified by His truth, and getting our eyes back on the author and finisher of our faith.
As a former atheist, it must have been awful to come to faith, and then believe that you somehow were not really saved, or wonder whether you were a real believer. We are all unworthy…The gospel is simple and is laid out in 1 Cor 15 and is what we need to believe to be saved.
I believe what has happened is minds have been corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, even in the dead faith argument from James that Lordship and Roman Catholics use so often. Remember the ones that were referred to as having dead (worthless) faith, were also referred to as believers, brethren, sisters, brother, and referred to as having the Spirit in them, over 20 references just in 5 chapters.
The argument that anyone that uses grace as a license to sin, is one that Lordship frequently uses, and the point is that no one who is teaching God’s Word teaches that. Habitual sin is another term that is not in the Word either. ‘Practicing’ sin isn’t really a correct way to translate certain passages, actually it should read DO. As in one time. If you DO it once. See, in the new man we do NOT sin. In the old nature, we still do sin, and we always will until we throw off this body of flesh and get a new body.
The epistles are many a warning against sin, the consequences, not only to one’s self, but to others, and to the name of Christ. So, we confess our sins, and we trust His faithfulness, to keep in fellowship with not only Him, but others. Works are never the way we examine ourselves, that is not what Paul was saying in 2 Cor 13. He was defending his apostleship and in spite of their terrible works and sexual immorality and lack of mourning over sin, he still said they were the proof of his ministry. He told them to examine themselves, but what people leave out is the very next part. Or do you not know Jesus Christ is in you?
Anyways, thanks for visiting over here, you might want to copy and paste and ask the question over on Jack’s page. God bless you, Holly