The Trouble with "Lordship Salvation"

I have come to be convinced that the whole point of Christianity is knowing God the Father through Jesus Christ, and in that knowledge we find salvation and rest, peace and eternal life, because through Christ crucified we learn that God is a God of grace. This grace is righteous, and is expressed at the cross where both God's wrath against us and His amazing love for us come to a head. This is the place of the revelation of the Father through Christ, and if we have seen Him we have seen the Father, and that is enough.

I am greatly grieved over the so-called Lordship preaching that is so common throughout the Christian church, and such preachers completely fail to communicate what Christianity is to their hearers. These men have made faith and obedience indistinguishable, and in so doing they are making Christianity indistinguishable from every other religion. Many would argue this point, but even though our religion may have its own distinctive facts, like the virgin birth of Jesus, and Jesus walking on water, and the resurrection, and the second coming of Christ the King, if we lose the message of the gospel of grace we are essentially no different than the other religions, which are all based upon works-based righteousness. What makes the gospel the gospel is that it is the good news of what God has done for us sinners, and we are called to believe that news and have rest and peace in believing. The gospel is the revelation of righteousness through faith alone (Rom. 1:16-17) which alone reveals to us the love of God for us (Rom. 5:8).

Before I was born again I believed in the fact that Jesus had died on the cross for my sins, but I didn't understand the meaning of that fact, and I thought that He did what He did so that if I obeyed His commandments and lived rightly, then I would partake in His salvation. I believed exactly like these preachers, but I was lost, and was full of guilt. I wasn't believing the truth, for the truth sets you free. It was not until I understood the meaning of the death of Christ that I finally had peace with God and received the assurance that I had eternal life. It wasn't until I understood that God sent Christ to die for me while I was a sinner, and that the work of redemption was finished, and that God had forgiveness for me as a sinner, that my guilt instantly left me. It was not until I understood that God's heart was full of grace for me, that I believed in His goodness and found rest.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast." (Eph. 2:8-9) Notice this verse doesn't explicitly mention either Jesus Christ or the cross. That is because the cross of Christ is found inside the word grace. We are saved by grace (that is, the undeserved love of God for sinners expressed in the redeeming death of Jesus Christ for our sins), through faith. Faith is not what saves us, but it is the means through which the grace of God saves me. I think it was Spurgeon who likened it to swallowing: my hunger is not alleviated by swallowing, but through swallowing. It is by food that I am filled, through swallowing. If I don't swallow the food I will never be filled, but I can swallow all day without food and nothing will happen. Thus it is the object of our faith that makes all the difference, and when I have faith in the right object (the grace of God), then it, the object, saves me. The object of our faith - what we are believing as Christians - is that Christ died for our sins and rose again, and that what this reveals is the forgiving heart that God has for sinners. It tells us that God is love, what kind of love it is, and thus we believe and rest in God. Paul explicitly denies that work has anything to do with the means of salvation; and of course it doesn't, if the above is the whole point. The moment you require any work to be done in order to receive salvation, you have unwittingly changed everything. It is no longer about us looking to see who God is, but it is then about God looking to see who we are. Of course, the lesson of the law is that when God looks to see who is good, He finds no one. All this amounts to a line from a song: "We don't need religion... we could use the love of God."

Christ calls us to come unto Him and rest. He calls us to believe in Him, and in so doing, to believe in the Father (John 12:44). The trouble with Lordship salvation doctrine is that it sends people away looking to themselves and what they need to do in order to be saved, rather than to believing in the Father and what He has done for them through Jesus Christ. As truly right as it is to serve God (for this is what the law requires), Christ shows us that the gospel is ultimately about God serving us, and not us serving God. Sounds blasphemous, but Christ said to a man who felt that way: "If I do not wash your feet, you have no part with me." This man then said, "Give me the full treatment!" The gospel leads to us serving God, but it itself is about God serving us. God came into the world, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. For those who see God, they cannot help but worship and adore Him. But that worship is only inspired when we see that God loved us and gave Himself for us, not when we think otherwise. "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood... to Him be glory and honor and dominion and power forever and ever!" It is the sight of the slain Lamb that does this. Why did the woman serve Christ, by washing His feet with her tears? It was because "he that is forgiven much loves much." She was not serving Him in order to be forgiven. She was serving Him, spontaneously and deeply, because she could not stop thinking about how beautiful Christ was, to love and forgive an unworthy sinner like her.

But what about taking up your cross? This, I am convinced, has nothing to do with the proverbial "Die to self" mantra that is so often heard in cultural Christian circles. The common idea is that Jesus is speaking spiritually, and we need to say "no" to our sinful desires and "yes" to obedience. I believe this devotional interpretation of Christ's words is a product of our western culture, where for the most part Christians don't experience much persecution from their families and communities. But Jesus was actually crucified, and He promised that the world would likewise hate you on account of Him. "They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time will come when whoever kills you will think they are doing God a service: and this they will do, because they do not know the Father, nor me." (John 16:2-3) It is real persecution that Christ has in view when He tells us that we must take up our cross if we are going to follow Him. By believing in the grace of God, the world will despise you, ridicule you, and even kill you. How interesting that it is the religious world that Christ has in view: they are those who do not know the Father, but think that salvation is all ultimately about serving God and obeying the law. Challenge that idea, and watch the story of Cain and Abel unfold again. Therefore, Christ forewarns, if you believe in me you, be prepared to lose family members, friends, and maybe even your own life; but it is worth it. Take up your cross and follow me.

It is the gospel itself, the grace of God, the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins through faith alone, that gives us peace and provokes the animosity of the world. We must not allow ourselves to miss the point, and fail to see what Christianity is all about. If we add anything to being saved beside simple faith in Jesus Christ, we not only will find ourselves with a religion no different than all the rest, but we will have lost the true knowledge of God, and eternal life. So everything is at stake.