_What must I do to be saved?_
The answer to this question is so controversial that it has
divided some quarters of evangelical Christianity into warring
factions. The issue involved is the nature of salvation and
saving faith: What _is_ saving faith? What does it mean to
receive Jesus as Lord and Savior? How much must one surrender to
the Lord at the time of salvation? What are the fruits of
repentance?
"Lordship salvation" advocates say that in order to be saved,
one must not only believe and acknowledge that Christ is Lord,
but also submit to His lordship. In other words, there must be --
at the moment one trusts in Christ for salvation -- a
_willingness_ to commit one's life absolutely to the Lord, even
though the actual _practice_ of a committed life may not follow
immediately or completely. Non-lordship proponents argue that
such a pre-salvation commitment to Christ's lordship compromises
salvation by _grace._
The present debate is largely due to the publication of John
F. MacArthur, Jr.'s _The Gospel According to Jesus_ (Zondervan,
1988). According to an article by S. Lewis Johnson in the
September 22 edition of _Christianity Today,_ this book has
produced "an explosion of comment, discussion, and feisty
debate." MacArthur, Senior Pastor of Grace Community Church and
president of The Master's Seminary (both in Sun Valley,
California) is a lordship salvation advocate. He wrote his book
in response to (among others) a 1981 book by Zane C. Hodges
entitled _The Gospel Under Siege_ (Redencion Viva). Hodges,
former professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary,
espouses the non-lordship view, and argues that much evangelical
gospel-preaching is guilty of compromising the grace of the
gospel. Hodges followed MacArthur's book with still another book
entitled _Absolutely Free_ (Zondervan, 1989).
Another scholar responding to MacArthur's book is Charles C.
Ryrie (of _The Ryrie Study Bible_ fame). Ryrie recently published
_So Great Salvation_ (Victor, 1989) in which he strongly affirms
the non-lordship position. According to Ryrie, the non-lordship
position states that accepting Jesus as Lord does not refer to a
subjective commitment to Christ's lordship in one's life, but
rather a repentance (or changing of one's mind) about one's ideas
of _who Christ is_ (i.e., He is the Sovereign and God) and
exercising faith in Christ. Ryrie argues that repentance from sin
is what _follows_ in the Christian's daily walk with the Lord....
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