THE STIPULATION OF MAN
Intro:
1. The Bar-tailed Godwit is a medium sized bird, about the size of a seagull. It has a long, skinny beak, and as it feeds on the Mud flats of New Zealand, it becomes inordinately fat. Now these birds make the longest non-stop flights of any bird. Satellites have tracked females with transmitters taking non-stop flights from Alaska to New Zealand. This return route of their annual migration is nearly 8,000 miles long, from the northern reaches of the North Pacific to the southern extremes of the South Pacific. It’s the equivalent of flying from London to Los Angeles and overshooting LA by 1,000 miles. The bar-tailed godwit makes this amazing journey in eight days, without ever stopping to eat, drink, or rest along the way.
I read where someone said this is physically impossible! That is what faith does! It places its full confidence in God to do what we could never do. Salvation is impossible!
25 When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" 26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:25-26
2. Faith in the Lord Jesus brings about what is humanly impossible – salvation by the power of God.
3. Therefore it is extremely important that we understand what faith is, and what it is not. Let’s look at the one stipulation for salvation.
Trans: Let’s review where we have been:
I. The Situation.
A. God’s Perfection.
B. God’s Creation.
C. God’s Demonstration.
II. The Separation.
A. Standard of Deity.
B. Sin Debt.
C. Satanic Dominion.
D. Spiritual Death.
III. The Solution.
A. Representation.
B. Incarnation.
C. Substitution.
D. Satisfaction.
IV. The Salvation.
A. Justification.
B. Redemption.
C. Regeneration.
D. Relocation.
V. The Stipulation.
Ryrie notes:
Salvation is always through faith, not because of faith (Eph. 2: 8). Faith is the channel through which we receive God’s gift of eternal life; it is not the cause. This is so man can never boast, even of his faith. But faith is the necessary and only channel (John 5: 24; 17: 3). Normally the New Testament word for believe (pisteuo) is used with the preposition eis (John 3: 16), indicating reliance or confident trust in the object. Sometimes it is followed by epi, emphasizing the trust as laying hold on the object of faith (Rom. 9: 33; 10: 11). Sometimes it is followed by a clause that introduces the content of the faith (10: 9). The verb is used with a dative in Romans 4: 3. But whatever the form, it indicates reliance on something or someone.
This is extremely important! Because if we get what faith means wrong, say add to it, we turn the gospel of grace into a works salvation, which is really NO salvation at all!
A. The Meaning of Faith.
The Substance of believing.
We have made faith too complicated, some have so many strings attached to faith that it could choke a large elephant! But it is compared with such simple things like:
• Receiving (Jn. 1: 12).
• Drinking (Jn. 4: 14).
• Eating (Jn. 6: 40 with v. 54), and
• Looking (Jn. 3: 14-15).
Some try to make faith a synonym for “commit” but those examples of drinking, eating, looking are not related to commitment but of appropriating or taking what is there.
It involves three basic concepts:
• Intelligence. We have to understand the gospel and that can only be done through the illumination of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2: 14). He alone can convince us that we are sinners under God’s just and holy wrath (Rom. 3: 23; 6: 23); that the Lord Jesus Christ is the God/man who died in our place (Rom. 5: 8); and then rose from the dead (Rom. 10: 9-10/1 Cor. 15: 3-6). Moreover, that He is the only way of salvation. It all begins with intelligence, we must first hear the gospel as the Holy Spirit gives us understanding of what we hear (Ac. 18: 8/ Rom. 10: 14/ Eph. 1: 13/ 1 Cor. 15: 3-4).
If you go to a doctor and he examines you and then tells you that you have a fatal disease – you now know you have a problem.
• Intelligence has to lead to Acceptance. When one hears the gospel, they have to accept it as the truth.
Again if you go to the doctor and he tells you, you have a tumor that will kill you if it is not removed, you have to make a choice. Do you believe him or not? Some are simply unwilling to believe (Mt. 23: 37). Refusing to accept that we are sinners and that Jesus is the only way of salvation will ultimately lead to eternal judgment.
• Intelligence leads to Acceptance which leads to Reliance.
If you go to the doctor and he finds you have a tumor; and you accept that to be true; it does you no good unless you rely upon the Doc to remove it. The substance of faith in the gospel of Christ will always include intelligence that leads to acceptance that leads to reliance. Michael Cocoris notes that, “Thus faith is the recognition of truth, the reception of truth, and the reliance upon truth.”
Anything short of intelligence, acceptance, and reliance falls short of saving faith.
Charles Hodge writes:
That faith, therefore, which is connected with salvation, includes knowledge, that is, perception of the truth and it’s qualities; assent or persuasion of truth of the object of faith; and trust, or reliance. The exercise or state of mind expressed by the word faith, as used in the scriptures is not mere mental assent or mere trust, it is the intelligent perception, reception, and reliance on the truth as revealed in the gospel.”
We must understand faith is not a work, but to trust in the work of another, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only as good as its object, which is the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. It is not faith in faith but faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation is all of grace, there can be no human work required to receive it (Eph. 2:8-9/ Rom. 4:4-5; 11:6). It is not something we do, but believe it has already been done through the Lord Jesus Christ (Jn. 6:28-29). We receive it as a gift! Next Christmas, when someone gives you a gift, open your wallet and try to pay for it – see how that goes! If you have to pay for it, then it’s not a gift (Rom. 10:1-4).
As Spurgeon often said, “Let’s not make a Christ out of our faith.”
Lewis Sperry Chafer gives a good definition of faith:
To turn voluntarily from all hope in one’s own merits, and take an expectant attitude toward God, trusting Him to do a perfect work of salvation based on the merits of Christ alone.
I heard Billy Graham give this illustration many years ago:
Years ago, a tightrope walker named Charles Blondin, went across Niagara Falls, walking on a wire. He went back and forth. He even filled a wheelbarrow with bricks and took that across. A crowd gathered, and he asked one of them, “Do you believe I could do that with you?” The man agreed that he could. Then Blondin said, “Hop on in, and I’ll carry you across.” The man said, “No way!” You see, he did not really believe. He believed in his mind that Blondin could take him across; he wanted him to in his emotions, but he would not commit himself to Blondin and trust him to take him across. Saving faith involves our mind, emotion, and will.
B. The Mistake of Front loading.
Joseph Dillow writes:
Front loading the gospel means attaching various works of submission and obedience on the front end and including them in the conditions for salvation… Faith is redefined to include submission, and a man becomes a Christian not by “hearing” and “believing” but by believing and promising God he will submit his life to Christ… their view is that a man must resolve to turn from all known sin and follow Christ absolutely. It seems that works enter through the front door… In their preoccupation with means, they have forgotten that God has already told us what the means of salvation are and what they are not. Works are not a means, whether on the front end or on the back end. The only means necessary for obtaining salvation is faith and faith alone.
Let us look at some things that are smuggled into the idea of faith:
• It is not faith plus works.
The passage they use is James 2:23-24:
“And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.”
What James is really saying is that man can only see faith when it is demonstrated by works and that is true, but God sees faith immediately because He alone sees the heart of man. While faith does produce works, works are the results not the cause of faith (Eph. 2:8-10).
James points to Abraham’s demonstration of faith when he offered up Isaac, recorded in Gen. 22. However, God had already declared Abraham righteous nearly 40 years before by faith alone as proven by Gen. 15:6! See, Rom. 4:1-5.
So it took Abraham 40 years to produce this work which man can see, but God saw it the moment Abraham believed. An example of this is seen in Lot, he had very little outward fruit that revealed inward faith, but God calls him righteous because He could see a regenerated heart (2 Pet. 2:7-8).
You cannot mix faith and works without losing faith (Rom. 11:5-6).
• Faith plus repentance?
Repentance means a change of mind not as some say, a promise to stop sinning, or even a willingness to stop sinning or to live right. Repentance is not even turning from sin; you cannot do that until you are saved! As one notes:
In the New Testament, repentance is definitely not turning from sin. It makes a distinction between repentance and turning. There is another Greek word for turning (epistrepho) and it is never translated “to repent” (Wilkin, dissertation, p. 11).
Acts 26:20 clearly demonstrates that repenting and turning are two different things. Paul says that the Gentiles should “repent and turn to God” (literal translation).
Berkhof notes, “Scripture, repentance is wholly an inward act, and should not be confounded with the change of life that proceeds from it. Confession of sin and reparation of wrongs are fruits of repentance”
Luke 17:1-4 is an illustration that proves the point. Jesus teaches that if a man repents seven times in one day, he is to be forgiven seven times. There is no question that there is genuine repentance here—the whole point assumes that the repentance is genuine. Yet this genuine repentance did not affect the man’s lifestyle!
It simply means a change of mind!
Chafer says, “The word (repentance) means a change of mind” (Chafer, vol. 3, p. 372).
Ryrie states, “In both the Old and New Testaments repentance means ‘to change one’s mind’”
Baker writes, “It (repentance) refers to reconsidering or changing the mind after an action has taken place” (Baker, p. 411).
Erickson, who pours more into the word, admits that “literally” it means, “to think differently about something or have a change of mind” (Erickson, p. 937).
Alfred Plummer calls repentance “an inward change of mind.”
Westcott says, “It follows, therefore, that ‘Repentance from dead works’ expresses the complete change of mind—of spiritual attitude—which leads the believer to abandon these works and seek some other support for life.”
R. A. Torrey said, “What the repentance, or change of mind, is about must always be determined by the context” (Torrey, p. 355).
Many Greek scholars have also concluded that repentance means a change of mind.
One Greek lexicon says that the Greek word translated “repent” means “to change one’s mind or purpose” and “repentance,” means “after-thought” (Abbott-Smith).
A. T. Robertson, the great Greek scholar, defines “repent” as a “change (think afterwards) [of] their mental attitudes” (see his Word Pictures in the New Testament).
Julius R. Mantey, who co-authored the famous A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (known as “Dana and Mantey”) says, “It means to think differently or have a different attitude toward sin and God, etc.” (Mantey, Basic Christian Doctrine, p. 193).
Often times it is confused with another Greek word, which means remorse. Repentance is not feeling sorry for our sin. As one noted:
In the New Testament, repentance is definitely not being sorry for sin. It makes a distinction between remorse and repentance. There is another Greek word for regret (metamelomai). It appears five times in the New Testament (Mt. 21:29, 32; 27:3; 2 Cor. 7:8; Heb. 7:21). This word describes “sorrow for something done and wishing it undone,” but “forgiveness of sins is nowhere promised” for it (Trench, p. 258). Judas was “remorseful” (Mt. 27:3), but he did not get saved. On the other hand, the Greek word for repentance (metanoia) “does not properly signify sorrow for having done amiss” (Trench, p. 257). Esau shed tears, but it didn’t change anything (Heb. 12:16-17). Paul plainly demonstrates that sorrow and repentance are two different things. He says, “Your sorrow led to repentance” (2 Cor. 7:9). Sorrow may lead to repentance; sorrow may accompany repentance, but sorrow and repentance are two different things… In Acts 2, the Jews regretted what they did to Christ. They were “cut to the heart” and asked, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). It was after their regret that Peter said, “Repent” (Acts 2:38), which shows that regret is different than repentance.
D. L. Moody used to say the inquirer is “not to seek for sorrow, but for the Savior.”
Gill says, “Tears of repentance will not wash away sin; notwithstanding these, iniquity remains marked before God; Christ’s tears themselves did not take away, nor atone for sin; His blood must be shed, and it was shed for the remission of it; and that is the only meritorious cause of it” (Gill on Lk. 24:47).
Harry Ironside said, “Nowhere is man exhorted to feel a certain amount of sorrow for his sins in order to come to Christ.”
I remember reading Josh McDowell’s testimony, he said after he received Christ he felt like throwing-up! He said, “What have I gotten myself into!” But I think we would all agree he got saved!
The word repent occurs forty-six times. Thirty-seven of these times, God is the one repenting (or not repenting). If repentance means sorrow for sin or turning from sin, God would be a sinner!
The problem is not with repentance which is clearly necessary for salvation but making it mean something that it really doesn’t mean.
So what do we change our mind about? Hal Lindsey says it well:
Repentance, as it relates to Christ means to change our minds about Him, who He is and what He’s done to provide forgiveness and deliverance from our sins. When we place faith in Jesus as having taken our place personally on the cross and borne the penalty due our sins, then we’re automatically repenting, because we couldn’t accept Him in this way without having had to change our minds in some way concerning Him.
The essence of the issue is this: you can repent and not believe; but can’t believe and not repent. This is why in the gospel of John, which was expressly written to bring people to new life in Christ, the condition “believe in Christ is stated ninety-nine times. But the word “repent” isn’t used at all in the book.
Try to find repentance mentioned in a key passage related to salvation, I am talking about Romans 4, it is not there! Or try and find it in the book of Galatians. Michael Cocoris observes:
The most detailed book in the Bible on salvation is the book of Romans. The chapter in Romans on what one must do to be saved is Romans 4, but Romans 4 does not contain the words “repent” or “repentance.” In fact, the word “repentance” only occurs once in the book of Romans (Rom. 2:4) and there it is a virtual synonym for faith. The only book in the Bible written to defend the Gospel is Galatians. Neither the word “repent” nor the word “repentance” makes an appearance in that book at all.
To be sure, we would include repentance in the requirement for salvation, but it must be rightly understood. It is interesting to study how the Word of God used the word repentance:
1. Repentance is not sorrow for sins, it can lead to repentance but it is not in and of itself repentance.
9 Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. 2 Corinthians 7:9
2. Repentance is not always a lasting change.
1 Then He said to the disciples, "It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. 3 Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him." Luke 17:1-4
3. Repentance’s root and fruit must be distinguished.
8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, Matthew 3:8
Lenski notes:
Repentance cannot be meant by “fruits”…”Fruits” indicate an organic connection between themselves and repentance just as the tree brings forth the fruit that is peculiar to its nature…[repentance] is invisible; hence we judge its presence by the Fruits which are visible.
So first, comes repentance, a change of mind, and then comes the outward fruit. Repentance is the root and a change in conduct is the fruit. Obviously, the fruit is not part of the root!
4. Repentance/faith is two sides of one coin.
21 testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 20:21
In Acts 20:21, repentance and faith are united by one article. Therefore, repentance and faith are not two steps to salvation; they are not temporally successive. They cannot be separated; but they ought to be distinguished. One can repent and not exercise faith; but to exercise saving faith always involves repentance. The Bible declares up to 150 times that salvation is by faith alone. When repentance related to salvation is mentioned without faith, faith is always assumed.
5. Repentance in various contexts:
a. Repentance because of Storms, but when the storm is over it is business as usual. Example: Pharaoh (Ex. 9:27).
b. Repentance because of the Sword, but when threat of death was passed, it was back to life as before. Example: Balaam (Num. 22:34).
c. Repentance can be UnSuccessful because God refused to acknowledge it. Example: Achan and Esau.
d. Repentance that is just face Saving, done only with men in mind. Example: Saul (1 Sam. 15:24).
e. Repentance of Scorning God’s sovereignty. Example: Job (Job. 40:3-; 42:1).
f. Repentance of a Sinning Saint. Example: David (Psa. 51).
g. Repentance of a lost Sinner. Example Prodigal son (Lu. 15:1-2, 20).
h. Repentance that is not Sincere. Example: Judas (Mt. 27:4-5).
It can get complicated, but the bottom line is that it must not be made as a requirement for salvation, it must not be explained to the lost sinner that he must stop sinning before he can be saved. Repentance is a change of mind, about who we are, a sinner; and about the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who can save us based on His death, burial, and resurrection.
What is the big deal you ask? First, if you add anything we do to salvation we end up unsaved! Two, if we add anything to it we share in God’s glory and God will not tolerate that (Isa. 42:8). Let us say one of my deacons; Steve Hicks buys me a brand new truck. And I pull two cents out and give it to him and say, “Here this will help pay for the truck!” Later another deacon, Gary Cash says, “Wow, that is a wonderful truck!” And I say, “It sure is, Steve and I bought it!” I do not think Steve would appreciate that. And, God does not appreciate or accept our two cents added to salvation.
• It is not faith plus Lordship.
We live in a world where “fake news” has become part of our vocabulary. I came across this the other day:
People are confused about the credibility of "news" and where it comes from, according to a global report.
Fifty-nine percent of people surveyed for the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer said they were unsure what they see in the media is true and what isn't, while nearly seven in 10 said they worry about fake news being used as "a weapon."
Almost two-thirds (63 percent) said the average person does not know how to tell good journalism from rumor or falsehoods. The report surveyed people in 28 countries.
"In a world where facts are under siege, credentialed sources are proving more important than ever," Stephen Kehoe, global chair of reputation at Edelman, said. "There are credibility problems for both platforms and sources. People's trust in them is collapsing."
Well there is also fake faith! Faith in faith; faith in works to save; faith in the ability to change your life so God will accept you; faith in one’s ability to make Jesus Lord of every area of your life in order to bring about salvation; faith in water baptism to secure conversion. Praise God we have the Word of God to tell us what is really required to be saved.
Hal Lindsey writes:
“Lordship salvation is a very subtle form of human merit which some add to “faith” as a condition of salvation…who can say at this moment, no matter how long he’s been a believer, that he has everything in his life under the lordship of Jesus?...As long as we’re still in this world, the flesh, and the devil are still out to get us, there’s not much chance that there’ll be a time in our lives when everything is under Christ’s Lordship…. So how can we make an unbeliever responsible to do something as a condition of salvation that we’re still not able to do?...But worse than that, they’re subtly adding “works” to faith which nullifies grace…The scriptural teaching on this issue is that we must recognize Jesus as Lord in the sense that He’s not a mere man, but the Lord from heaven who became a man to die for our sins.”
All right, let us consider the following:
1. Jesus Christ is Already LORD.
He is already Lord! And it is nothing but a straw man to say that those of us who do not believe in Lordship salvation deny that truth. The issue is not whether He is Lord or not, but whether making Him Lord of our lives is a requirement to be saved. The truth is no lost person has the power to make Him Lord in order to merit salvation. In fact, if we were honest how many of us believers are 100% yielded to His Lordship? Take Peter, he did not yield totally to the Lordship of Jesus after he was saved. Read Mt. 26:69-75/Acts 10:14! Gal. 2:11. How about John Mark? Hardly! Look at Acts 15:38. Was Paul always yielding to the Lordship of Christ? Read Rom. 7:14-23. How about that bunch of believers at Corinth! How about you and me? I tell you He is firmly sitting on His sovereign throne regardless of what anybody does, thinks, or says.
2. That one does not have to make Him Lord in order to be saved is Affirmed by people who were saved without yielding to His Lordship!
Take Lot, we could read the Old Testament for the rest of our lives and find no proof that he ever yielded to God. He was about as self-absorbed as any person you can think of, but God says he was righteous in His sight! See 2 Pet. 2:7-8.
How about those saved at Ephesus.
Ryrie notes:
It concerns those who were converted at Ephesus during Paul's third missionary journey (Acts 19)…These converts came out of a background of the worship of Diana (of which worship Ephesus was the center). An important part of this worship included the superstitious dependence on magical words, charms, and sayings. These were based on letters, which were on the crown, girdle, and feet of the statue of Diana in the temple at Ephesus. Magical incantations were compiled in books, and charms were worn as amulets by the Ephesians. This, is the kind of superstitious background from which the Christians were converted in Ephesus.
In Acts 19:18-19 we are told that more than two years after Paul had first gone to Ephesus, "Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of all; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." It is important to know the tense of the word believed. It is a perfect tense, indicating that those who burned their books that day had believed before that time; that is, sometime during the more than two years Paul had been in Ephesus (see vv. 8 and 10). In other words, they did not burn their books of magic as soon as they had become believers. As believers, they had continued to practice and be guided by the superstitious magic of their heathen background… In case I have not been crystal clear about the import of this example, let me say it again. There were people at Ephesus who became believers in Christ knowing that they should give up their use of magic but who did not give it up, some of them for as long as two years after they had become Christians. Yet their unwillingness to give it up did not prevent their becoming believers. Their salvation did not depend on faith plus willingness to submit to the lordship of Christ in the matter of using magical arts. Their salvation came through faith alone even though for months and years afterward many of them practiced that which they knew to be wrong.
3. Salvation is by grace and thus must be Apart from anything that man can do (Jn. 6:28-29/Rom. 11:5-6/Eph. 2:8-9/Tit. 3:5/etc.)
4. We must Ascertain what the word LORD means.
Again, Ryrie is helpful:
To be sure, Lord does mean Master, but in the New Testament it also means God (Acts 3:22), owner (Luke 19:33), sir (John 4:11), man-made idols (1 Cor. 8:5), and even one's husband (1 Peter 3:6)… the title Lord, which meant "Jehovah-God" to the Jewish mind, became attached to this Man Jesus in the preaching of the apostles, then there was division. Such division would not have been so sharp if Lord Jesus meant merely "Sir Jesus" or "Master Jesus"; but if it meant "God Jesus" or "Jehovah Jesus," then one can account for the division and debate over that kind of claim. If Lord means God and Lord Jesus then means the God-Man… There is nothing unique in Christ's relationship with His followers if that is all Jesus the Master means. Even the leaders of cults claim this. But what religion, other than Christianity, has a savior who claimed to be both God and Man in the same person? If Lord in the phrase Lord Jesus means Master, then the claim to uniqueness is absent. If Lord in the phrase Lord Jesus means Jehovah-God, then Jesus is unique, and this is the very heart of the message of salvation in Christianity… what did cause division among the people was His claim to be God as well. Not a man who claimed to be master, but a man who said he was God is what angered them. The Jews clearly said on one occasion, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God" (John 10:33). The offense is the God-Man, not the Master-Man. Why is this such a crucial matter in our salvation? It is for the simple reason that no other kind of savior can save except a God-Man. Deity and humanity must be combined in order to provide a satisfactory salvation. The Savior must be a man in order to be able to die and in order to be identified with the curse on man. And He must be God in order that that death be effective for an infinite number of persons…The same emphasis is seen in Romans 10:9: "That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord...you shall be saved." It is the confession of Jesus as God and thus faith in the God-Man that saves from sin. This is the same point that Peter drove home on the day of Pentecost when he said: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you have crucified" (Acts 2:36). Jesus the Man had been proved by the resurrection and ascension to be Lord, God and Christ, the Messiah. They had to put their faith in more than a man; it had to be in One who was also God and the promised Messiah of the Old Testament.
Robert P. Lightner:
“The question is not, “Is Jesus Christ Lord?” Of course He is!...The gift of salvation must be received, but it is apart from any human work or contribution of any kind. Sinners are saved by grace through faith alone. These views – the absolutely free gift view and the Lordship view – cannot both be right. They are mutually exclusive. The Bible teaches one or the other or neither, but it cannot teach both without contradicting itself…Christ is called Lord (Greek, kurios) many times in the New Testament…Those who hold to faith only salvation have no problem with this data. It is hard to imagine anyone wishing to be known as evangelical who would ever want to question that Jesus Christ is Lord. That has never been the issue with them. The issue is whether or not God requires the sinner to promise Him that he will make the Lord Christ sovereign master, the Lord over his entire life all the rest of his life, before He will save him?...When Scripture calls Jesus “Lord” it ascribes full and absolute deity to Him. He is sovereign…Unless He is God the Sovereign One, He could not have atoned for sin…But accepting Jesus for who He claimed to be – the Lord God who died as man’s substitute – is not the same as promising Him complete surrender and dedication of one’s entire life. The latter involves human effort or work and the former does not…The term Lord in Ac. 16:31 –or anywhere else it is used of Christ [including Rom. 10:9-10) – does not mean Master over one’s life. Rather it is a descriptive title of who He is – the sovereign God…One Greek Scholar [B. F. Westcott] stated what confessing Jesus as Lord means: “To recognize divine sovereignty in One who is truly man, or in other words, to recognize the union of the Divine and human in one person.”
The Jews had no problem calling Jesus Master, that was nothing new they had all kinds of masters but the real hold up was calling the Lord Jesus God, that they would not do. By the way, the context of Romans 9-11 is related to Israel!
Archibald Thomas Robertson notes:
“No Jew would do this [calling Jesus Lord] who had not really trusted Christ, for kurios in the LXX is used of God. No Gentile would do it who had not ceased worshipping the emperor as kurios. The Word kurios was and is the touchstone of faith.”
Lightner continues:
Lord applied to Jesus, means He is God and therefore the sovereign One. Evangelicals on both sides of the lordship issue agree – no one can have Christ as a substitute for sin and become a child of God who does not acknowledge Him as such. Lordship salvation people go a step further and say the sinner must turn his entire future life over to Jesus as Lord before he can receive forgiveness of sin. Nowhere in Scripture is making Jesus lord of one’s life a requirement to receive salvation from the Savior…The Lordship view confuses becoming a Christian with being a Christian…The lordship view adds to the Gospel of the grace of God what Scripture does not…The gospel of God’s saving grace must not be adulterated, not even by evangelicals.
Lord is most often the concept of Jesus as Deity. B. B. Warfield writes:
The full height of this reverence may be suggest to us by certain passages in which the term “Lord” occurs in citations from the Old Testament, where its reference is to Jehovah, though in the citations it seems to be applied to Jesus…”Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight” (Isa. 3:4), and applies it to the coming of John the Baptist whom he represents as preparing the way for Jesus’ manifestation….On the other hand, in passages like Luke 1:17, 76, although the language is similar, it seems more natural to understand the term “Lord” as referring to God Himself, and to conceive the speaker to be thinking of the coming of Jehovah to redemption in Jesus without necessary identification of the person of Jesus Jehovah…who is Jehovah – to identify the person of Jesus with Jehovah is significant.! We should never lose from sight that outstanding fact that to men familiar with the LXX and the usage of “Lord” as the personal name of the Deity there illustrated, the term “Lord” was charged with associations of deity, so that a habit of speaking of Jesus as “the Lord,” by way of eminence, such as is illustrated by Luke and certainly was current from the beginning of the Christian proclamation (Luke 19:31), was apt to carry with it implications of deity, which, if not rebuked or in some way guarded against, must be considered as receiving the sanction of Jesus Himself.
J. Gresham Machen notes:
When the early Christian missionaries, therefore, called Jesus “Lord,” it was perfectly plain to their pagan hearers everywhere that they meant to ascribe divinity to Him and desired to worship Him.”
The bottom line is that when the Bible says Jesus Christ is Lord, it is a claim that He is God. And, as the God-man, He is our Savior. He is able to save us and give us eternal life when we trust in Him, and Him alone to do so (Jn. 1:12).
5. We do not have to be Afraid that if we do not put the pressure on they will not change! When one is saved, as we have seen, they become a new person indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They are changed! After we are saved, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He will deal with the need to yield to His lordship (Rom. 12:1-2). Every believer has both the desire and the power to yield to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and yes, even with that we all fall short!
When will we learn we do not change people by making them promise and vow to do something, but by giving them the gospel of grace which is trusting God to change people’s hearts.
11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, Titus 2:11-13
Michael Cocoris shared this experience:
Several years ago, I preached a gospel message. After the service, a sensual-looking young lady said to me that she wanted to trust Christ, but she had a problem. She explained that she was living with a man who was involved with the underworld. She was afraid, and she was certain that if she did that he would kill her. I urged her to admit the fact that she was a sinner and trust in Jesus Christ, and Him alone, for salvation. She then asked, “Do I have to stop the affair?” I explained that one does not have to stop sinning in order to be saved, but that candidly, if she trusted Christ, God would tell her that was a sin, and she should stop. She concluded that she would have to stop the affair in order to go to heaven. I insisted that that was not exactly right, but she didn’t get the message.
Finally, I went to the blackboard and drew a circle. In the circle I wrote the word “salvation.” I drew an arrow to the circle and on top of the arrow wrote “faith.” I then drew another arrow, away from the circle, and entitled it “stop sinning.” I explained that the means of salvation was faith. The result would be that God would tell her to stop sinning, and she should. But she was trying to turn it around and say that the means of salvation was to stop sinning, and that was simply not the case.
She finally got it. She agreed to trust in Christ and let God deal with the fellow. She did just that. Sometime later she broke up with the fellow. He did not kill her. On the contrary, she married another man, is the mother of several children, and is happily serving the Lord in her local church.
What must I do to be saved? The Biblical answer is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” (Ac. 16:31).
• Not faith plus baptism.
There are many reasons why we do not include water baptism as part of how to be saved. The thief on the cross was not baptized; yet he was assured of being in Paradise with Christ (Luke 23: 43); The Gentiles in Caesarea were baptized after they were saved (Acts 10: 44– 48); Jesus Himself did not baptize (John 4: 1, 2)— a strange omission if baptism were necessary for salvation; Paul thanked God that he baptized very few of the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1: 14– 16)— an impossible thanksgiving if baptism were essential for salvation; Approximately 150 passages in the NT state that salvation is by faith alone.
Sometimes people use Acts 2:38 to prove that water baptism is part of salvation, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Here is from my book on the book of Acts:
The view I personally hold is that "and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ" is parenthetical:
• The verb makes a distinction between singular and plural verbs and nouns. The verb "repent" is plural and so is the pronoun "your" in the clause "so that your sins may be forgiven" [lit. "unto the remission of your sins."]. Therefore the verb "repent" must go with the purpose of forgiveness of sins. On the other hand the imperative "be baptized" is singular, setting it off from the rest of the sentence.
• This concept fits with Peter's proclamation in Acts 10: 43, in which the same expression "sins may be forgiven" occurs. There, it is granted on the basis of faith alone. Notice - PETER NEVER ADDS THE "AND BE BAPTIZED" WHEN DISCUSSING FORGIVENESS AGAIN. Check it out, he always offers forgiveness without any mention of being baptized, indicating that the phrase "and be baptized" is parenthetical. Acts 3: 19; 5: 31; 10: 43; 13: 38; 20: 21; 26: 18/ Lu. 24: 47.
It would be like me saying, "The storm last night blew down a tree, hey did you see that deer that just crossed the street, it also blew some of the roof off my house." The part about the deer is parenthetical. Every time I mention the storm, I leave out the part about the deer, because it is not my main point. If I were to mention the deer every time I told the story, it would not be parenthetical. So why does Peter not mention the part about being baptized when he talks about forgiveness of sin, in the rest of the book of Acts? It's parenthetical!
• In Luke 24: 47 and Ac. 5: 31, the same writer [Luke], indicates that repentance results in the remission of sins.
The truth is salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ plus nothing.
CONCLUSION:
There you have it! Not exhaustive but hopefully foundational, designed to give us a firm footing in a shaky world.
Andrew Klavan is a popular writer of mysteries—some of which have been made into movies (1999's True Crime and 2001's Don't Say a Word). He was recently interviewed in World magazine about how his writing interacts with his Christian faith. In the process, he described his conversion to being a follower of Christ:
"My life has been more like one of those Outward Bound programs where they drop you far from home and you have to make your way back with a piece of string and a matchbook. I was born and raised a Jew and came up in that wonderful secular intellectual tradition that teaches you to analyze everything. God kept coming into my life, and I kept disproving him—I was very good at it!
Fortunately, I could also disprove the foundations of my disproof. Eventually I saw that the pillars of the secular consensus—scientism, materialism, rationalism—were all made of sand. Whereas the deeper I went into the experience of God, the more I found…life in abundance."
I have found these basic truths have allowed me to experience the life abundant in Christ.
Johnny A Palmer Jr.
