Joseph Prince exposed by Derek Prince for false conversions & Martyn Lloyd-Jones for preaching heresy
& Edmund Chan, AW Tozer, Charles Spurgeon, JI Packer, John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, RC Sproul, DA Carson, Arthur Pink, Derek Prince, John Piper & John MacArthur,
that there is a crucial role of the Lordship of Christ in the context of Discipleship & Salvation – By Rev George Ong (Dated 19 Nov 2023)
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Note there is 1 video each on
Derek Prince, Edmund Chan and Joseph Prince.
Don’t miss the insightful views of these 11 Bible teachers and commentators regarding Joseph Prince’s false gospel,
that one can accept Jesus as Saviour and not Lord, or Jesus as Saviour first and then Lord.
Their views are featured under the Appendix.
I have spent humongous amounts of time digging and researching these materials,
and you are unlikely to find them assembled in any other forum than on my website.
EXCERPT NO 1 FROM THE ARTICLE:
Derek Prince said:
“… if you want to be saved you have to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord
… There is no salvation that stops short of acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus.
It’s a false salvation.
… I have to say, frankly I think there’s a great deal of false conversions.”
In other words, what Derek Prince said is that those who don’t believe in Lordship Salvation
– that we must not only accept Jesus as Saviour but also Him as Lord,
as Joseph Prince does and preaches against,
are producing false conversions.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“… but to teach specifically that you can take Him (Jesus) as Saviour without taking Him as Lord
is nothing but sheer heresy.”
So, you mustn’t be deceived by the constant boast of Joseph Prince that he had won multitudes of souls,
as according to Derek Prince, most of these are false conversions,
and according to Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joseph Prince is preaching heresy.
I mean, what can you expect from a no-repentance and now a no-Lordship false gospel.
EXCERPT NO 2 FROM THE ARTICLE:
George Ong’s views:
There are no scriptures (as far as I know) that directly teach that we must receive Jesus as our Saviour,
but there are many scriptures that teach that we must receive Him as our Lord.
If Jesus is referred to as Lord in the New Testament a massive 600 over times and as Saviour only about 16 times,
why has Joseph Prince gone so terribly wrong in just emphasizing the Saviourhood of Christ in his gospel preaching
without even mentioning His Lordship?
And even if Joseph Prince does (in the sinner’s prayer), it is just for cosmetic purposes.
To think that believers can accept Jesus as Saviour and not Lord
when He is called ‘Saviour’ for about a mere 16 times
and ‘Lord’ for a massive 600 over times in the New Testament,
is only having a dream.
Since the scriptures never say,
‘Our Lord or Saviour Jesus Christ,’
but ‘Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,’
there was never a time a choice was given to receive Jesus as Saviour and not Lord.
Since the New Testament never says
‘Our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ,’
but ‘Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,’
His Lordship is obviously preeminent, even over His Saviourhood.
Jesus is Saviour only to those who acknowledge Him as Lord.
Receiving Christ as Saviour is not enough to ensure saving faith
until one acknowledges Him as Lord.
It should be clear to you by now
that the Saviourhood and Lordship of Christ which cannot be separated
has to be received in one total package.
EXCERPT NO 3 FROM THE ARTICLE:
In ‘JI Packer Library, JI Packer wrote:
“The idea that there can be saving faith without repentance,
and that one can be justified by embracing Christ as Saviour while refusing him as Lord,
is a destructive delusion.”
In ‘The New Testament, Spurgeon’s Sermons By Each Book.’ Charles Spurgeon said:
“I am afraid that a great many people know a Christ who is meek and lowly, their servant and Saviour,
but they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alas, my Friends, such people set up a false Christ!”
In ‘The New Testament, Spurgeon’s Sermons By Each Book.’ Charles Spurgeon said:
“It is not possible that a rebel should be a friend to Christ.
If a man says of any Law of Christ,
“I do not mean to keep that,”
then, Sir, you have virtually said,
“I do not mean to have Christ for my Lord,”
and that means that you cannot have Him as your Saviour.”
In ‘Essential Truths of the Christian Faith,’ RC Sproul wrote:
“Easy believism is a modern form
of the ancient heresy of antinomianism.
It asserts that once a person makes a decision for Christ or prays to receive Jesus as Savior,
it is not necessary to embrace Him as Lord.”
In ‘Essential Truths of the Christian Faith,’ RC Sproul wrote:
It is a grievous error, indeed a modern form of the antinomian heresy,
to suggest that a person can be justified by embracing Jesus as Savior but not as Lord.
True faith accepts Christ as both Savior and Lord.
In ‘An Exposition of Hebrews, Faithful Classic,’ Arthur Pink wrote:
“To invite sinners to receive Christ as their “Savior”
before they surrender to Him as their Lord,
is to present a false “way of salvation.”
In ‘The Gospel According to Jesus,’ John MacArthur wrote:
“He (Jesus) commanded those who sought eternal life
to deny themselves, forsake all, and follow him.
He never held forth the hope of salvation to anyone
who refused to submit to his sovereign lordship.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans Chapter 1, The Gospel of God, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“As we have seen you cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ at all
unless you believe in Him as your Lord as well as your Saviour.
But you see how often people seem really to be teaching a kind of ‘believism’,
saying that you can be a Christian without repenting – that that will come later.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans Chapter 1, The Gospel of God, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“And, therefore, as Christians, we are not free;
we are bought by Christ. We belong to Him.
He is our Master, our Lord.
This idea that you can believe in Christ first as your Saviour only,
and then perhaps, years later, go on to take Him as your Lord,
is a denial of Scripture.
From the moment He sets you free, He is your Lord.
We do not decide to take Him as Lord.
It is He as Lord who buys us out of that market and liberates us, and we belong to Him,
We are never free.
We were the bond-servants of Satan
– we are now the bond-servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
In ‘Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount And His Confrontation with the World,’ DA Carson wrote:
“But on the other hand,
those elementary truths do not mean
that there are no costs at all, no personal demands.
Biblical salvation is paid for by someone else:
in that sense it is free.
But individual appropriation of it
entails repentance, personal death to self-interest,
principial submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
These are not meritorious acts.
They are, finally, evidence of the grace of God in the Christian life,
but they are no less personal or costly for that.
So, she displayed a second misunderstanding:
she failed to see that salvation that has been paid for, and is therefore free,
nevertheless works in our lives so powerfully
that it transforms us, confronts our will,
demands our devotion and allegiance,
and calls forth our deepest commitment.
… In one sense, our salvation costs us absolutely nothing;
in another, it costs us not less than everything.
The former is true because Jesus paid it all;
the latter is possible
because Jesus enables us to respond to his upward call.
Those who stress the latter and neglect the former
may never learn that salvation is by grace alone;
those who stress the former and neglect the latter
may buy into a cheap facsimile of grace
that knows little of the biblical gospel
and less of biblical holiness.
The authentic Jesus makes demands that are personal and costly.”
George Ong’s comments:
Imagine the above views – only the meagre excerpts of the bulk of enormous materials
that are featured in the Appendix,
are already very damning on Joseph Prince’s heretical teaching of a no-repentance and a no-Lordship gospel.
Joseph Prince repeated his heretical only-belief gospel when he said in the video (see below):
“But at the moment of believing Him, we just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
that’s the gospel.”
Again, Joseph Prince is proven to be a Lone Ranger in the doctrines that he teaches,
as no true Bible teacher would accept his only-belief gospel,
without repenting and accepting both the Saviourhood and the Lordship of Christ.
(This article was also sent to Rev Dr Ngoei Foong Nghian, General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) office, and for the attention of the Executive Committee Members.)
In a Sunday sermon aired on YouTube on 12 Nov 2023, last Sunday, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 1-minute video:
“If you have a message by the Apostle Paul, and you said,
‘Paul, will the real gospel please stand up,’
because nowadays, when I go to YouTube, it’s so confusing.
There’s this Lordship salvation.
People say that unless He’s Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all.
Finished.
I’m not too sure He’s Lord of all because, for sure when you are watching Netflix at that moment,
He’s not Lord of your viewing.
Alright, because some of the things you view on Netflix at that moment,
He’s not Lord in your life.
There are a lot of things you want to talk about it; He’s not Lord of your life, if you want to make Him Lord.
But at the moment of believing Him, we just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
that’s the gospel.
And to say that unless He’s Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all
means at any point you die, and He’s not Lord of all your life, you are still lost.
That’s not the gospel.
It’s one of the things that’s very rampant.
It’s unfortunate when people are hungry, they go to YouTube or social media.
A lot of these is out there.
Lordship salvation.”
Joseph Prince said:
“And to say that unless He’s Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all
means at any point you die, and He’s not Lord of all your life, you are still lost.
That’s not the gospel.”
George Ong’s comments:
By making the above statements, Joseph Prince thought he was clever.
But it only reveals his ignorance about Bible doctrines.
Doesn’t Joseph Prince know there is a doctrine and a place for sanctification?
Who is teaching that we can all be so perfect that God is the Lord of every area of our lives in a short instant?
Once we become a Christian (justification), sanctification starts.
This means under the help of the Holy Spirit, we will try our level best to allow Christ to be the Lord of every area of our lives.
When we fail, and we will, we pick ourselves up again and move on in our Christian discipleship.
By the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, day by day, as we press on in our walk with God, I am sure more and more areas will come under Christ’s control.
We will not reach perfection, and no Christian will, but at least we grow towards and nearer it.
Christ is not a slave driver that Joseph Prince tries to insinuate.
Jesus certainly knows the difference between a believer who is sincere and is giving his best shot about making Him Lord in every area of his life,
and another, who isn’t genuine at all but is constantly making excuses for his failures, and isn’t putting in any effort in the first place of making Christ Lord of his life.
In a sermon, Derek Prince said;
Please click here to view the 1-minute video:
“I heard a well-known personality in the acting world whose name would be known to every one of you.
Years ago, give her testimony.
She said,
“As a girl, I received Jesus as Saviour.” But she said, “It was many years later before I confessed him as Lord.”
And I sat there, and I thought that doesn’t make sense because Paul says in Romans 10:10,
if you want to be saved
you have to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord
and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead.
There is no salvation that stops short of acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus.
It’s a false salvation.
Charles Finney, in his writings, had a lot to say about false conversions.
I suggest if you’ve never read it, you might find it profitable to do so.
I have to say, frankly I think there’s a great deal of false conversions.”
George Ong’s comments:
In other words, what Derek Prince said is that those who don’t believe in Lordship Salvation
– that we must not only accept Jesus as Saviour but also Him as Lord,
as Joseph Prince does and preaches against, are producing false conversions.
So, you mustn’t be deceived by the constant boast of Joseph Prince that he had won multitudes of souls,
as most of these are false conversions.
I mean, what can you expect from a no-repentance and now a no-Lordship
false gospel.
Joseph Prince said:
Please click here to view the 25-second video:
“People say that unless He’s Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all.
And to say that unless He’s Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all
means at any point you die, and He’s not Lord of all your life, you are still lost.
That’s not the gospel.
It’s one of the things that’s very rampant.
It’s unfortunate when people are hungry, they go to YouTube or social media.
A lot of these is out there.”
In a sermon, Edmund Chan said;
Please click here to view the 1-minute video:
“It was a call to an allegiance.
You’ve heard this. It is said,
‘If Jesus Christ is not Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all.’
Jesus Christ is coming to our life to be Lord, supreme Lord of all.
There is a fundamental call to an absolute allegiance to Jesus Christ.
So, when Jesus says follow me,
it is to follow him as the Kings of kings, the Lord of lords, the King of lords and the Lord of kings.
There is a need for the Church of Jesus Christ, once again to grasp this fundamental call to radical New Testament discipleship
where Jesus Christ is Lord of every arena of our lives because He is Lord.
This is the fundamental understanding of what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
It’s a call to follow Him fully.
It is a call to an allegiance to the King.”
I first got to know Edmund Chan way back in 1968, 55 years ago,
when we were Sunday School classmates in Grace Assembly of God.
It is such a joy to see him impact many lives throughout the many years of his ministry.
As you all know, no one is more qualified to speak on Radical Discipleship and the Lordship of Christ than Edmund Chan.
I fully agree with Edmund when he said:
“There is a need for the Church of Jesus Christ, once again to grasp this fundamental call to radical New Testament discipleship
where Jesus Christ is Lord of every arena of our lives because He is Lord.”
This brings me to the following I have written:
THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST – CHRIST MUST BE ACCEPTED AS BOTH SAVIOUR & LORD
Getting people just to say a prayer to accept Jesus as Saviour isn’t the Church’s call,
making disciples willing to obey Christ as Lord should be her passion (Matt 28:18-20).
The Lordship of Christ is evidenced
in His having ‘all authority’
and the extent of His Lordship is over ‘heaven and on earth’” (Matt 28:18).
Since Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth,
do you think He will allow you to just accept Him as Saviour and not Lord (Matt 28:18)?
Since Christ is the Lord of the universe,
for any person to reject His Lordship is the arrogance of the highest order (Phil 2:9-11):
Philippians 2:9-11 NIV
9 “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Since Christ is the Lord of the entire world,
how can He not have the right to be the Lord over an individual’s life?
If it is totally illogical and a laughing stock for a king who reigns over an entire nation not to reign over a citizen’s life
– what more, the King of kings and the Lord of the universe?
Jesus will never allow Himself to be accepted as Saviour and not Lord
because He is God, and since He is God, He must be Lord.
Christ is not a genie in a bottle to serve us at our beck and call
but the Commander-in-Chief who has come to take over the complete control of our lives.
There are no scriptures (as far as I know) that directly teach that we must receive Jesus as our Saviour,
but there are many scriptures that teach that we must receive Him as our Lord:
21 “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Acts 11:21 NIV
21 “The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.”
11 “No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Acts 16:15 NIV
15 “When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.”
Acts 18:8 NIV
8 “Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized.”
Acts 20:21 NIV
21 “I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”
Romans 5:1-2 NIV
1 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:11 NIV
11 “Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Romans 5:21 NIV
21 “so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 6:23 NIV
23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 10:13 NIV
13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 14:9 NIV
9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
Colossians 2:6 NIV
6 “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him.”
1 Thessalonians 5:9 NIV
9 “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Romans 10:9-10 NIV
9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Can one declare that Jesus is Lord in Romans 10:9 and not obey Him and do His will?
Obviously not!
Some tried to in Matthew 7:21-23, and all they got was to be barred from heaven.
No matter how often one may loudly declare that Christ is Lord,
obedience by doing His will is the final concrete proof. (Rom 10:9; Matt 7:21-23)
Since the reason for the accomplishment of our salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ
is for Him to be the Lord of all,
Romans 14:9 NIV
9 “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.”
to reject His Lordship is the most defiant of all acts. (Rom 14:9)
Since Jesus died and rose again so that he might be our Lord,
how can anyone, such as Joseph Prince, hold to the view that there can be salvation apart from having Jesus as one’s Lord? (Rom 14:9)
The fact that the word ‘Lord’ appears many times in many passages in the context of our salvation,
simply means that one of the primary relationships between Christ and us is that of master and servant
– hence, not to make Him Lord
is the mother of all contradictions.
If Jesus is referred to as Lord in the New Testament a massive 600 over times and as Saviour only about 16 times,
why has Joseph Prince gone so terribly wrong in just emphasizing the Saviourhood of Christ in his gospel preaching
without even mentioning His Lordship?
And even if Joseph Prince does (in the sinner’s prayer), it is just for cosmetic purposes.
To think that believers can accept Jesus as Saviour and not Lord
when He is called ‘Saviour’ for about a mere 16 times
and ‘Lord’ for a massive 600 over times in the New Testament,
is only having a dream.
Since the scriptures never say,
‘Our Lord or Saviour Jesus Christ,’
but ‘Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,’
there was never a time a choice was given to receive Jesus as Saviour and not Lord.
Since the New Testament never says
‘Our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ,’
but ‘Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,’
His Lordship is obviously preeminent, even over His Saviourhood.
Based on the above facts, which title do you think God the Father wants us to focus on when we talk about Jesus:
Jesus as our Saviour or Jesus as our Lord?
Yet, that which comes out from the lips of most Christians is the phrase, ‘Jesus is my Saviour,’ rather than ‘Jesus is my Lord.’
If Jesus is your Lord, He will automatically be your Saviour.
If Jesus is your Saviour, He may or may not be your Lord.
The Sea of Galilee that Christ calmed, the dead Lazarus that He raised, and the demons that He casts out
is a clear testimony of His Lordship over nature, death and demons.
Sheep are those who receive Christ as Lord;
goats are those who receive Him as Saviour.
Getting people to receive Jesus as Saviour to obtain eternal life is an unbiblical idea.
Jesus is Saviour only to those who acknowledge Him as Lord.
Receiving Christ as Saviour is not enough to ensure saving faith
until one acknowledges Him as Lord.
Making Jesus as Saviour does not save;
one is saved only when Jesus is Lord over his life.
If Jesus is not our Lord,
He cannot be our Saviour.
If Jesus is our Lord, He will automatically save,
and if He is our Saviour, He must be our Lord.
The promise of Christ’s Saviourhood will only hold
if the condition of His Lordship is embraced.
Many have been self-deceived that they possess saving faith because they have received Christ as Saviour,
even though they have continued to reject Him as Lord.
The response and commitment of one who receives Christ as Lord is totally different from another who merely receives Him as Saviour.
The Church that has enthroned Christ as Lord will be on fire; the Church that has dethroned Him to be a mere Saviour will become lukewarm.
Joseph Prince talks about the Grace Revolution (even written a book on it) of his Pseudo-grace that will sweep the world – the Lord forbid that this should ever happen!
May the Lord destroy and bring to naught this sinful and egoistic dream of Joseph Prince that will only bring shame to His glory.
What is needed is not a Grace Revolution but a Grace Reformation
– to repent and humbly return to what our Apostolic fathers have originally preached that we have so terribly deviated from.
Can you see how horrendous the Pseudo-grace gospel that is preached by Joseph Prince has gone wrong:
– as it is a gospel without repentance,
a gospel without obedience,
a gospel without works,
a gospel without holiness,
a gospel without discipleship,
a gospel without Lordship
– and all these are essential, without which it is a false gospel.
Can’t you see that the Pseudo-grace gospel, instead of leading souls to heaven,
is literally being used by the devil to lead them to hell.
The false gospel is a ‘Saviourhood without Lordship’ gospel that will lead people to hell;
the true gospel is a ‘Saviourhood with Lordship’ gospel that will lead them to heaven.
Despite the biblical fact that the number of times ‘Jesus as Saviour’ and ‘Jesus as Lord’ appear in the Bible,
it is totally unacceptable that Joseph Prince has been preaching the unbiblical doctrine of a ‘Saviour and not Lord’ Gospel.
This has resulted in a church that is full of goats whose only conception is a Christ who saves,
and His Lordship is viewed as an unwelcome encroachment into their personal lives.
It should be clear to you by now
that the Saviourhood and Lordship of Christ which cannot be separated
has to be received in one total package.
In ‘Lord and Christ,’
Ernest C. Reisinger wrote:
“At our Lord’s birth, the angels announced Him as Lord.
“For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).
His Saviorhood is within His lordship, not apart from it.
The New Testament preachers spoke of Him as Lord.
“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5).
In the Book of Acts, the sacred manual of evangelism, the word “Savior” occurs only twice,
“Lord” 92 times, the phrase “Lord Jesus Christ” 6 times, and “Lord Jesus” 13 times.
This should tell us something about the apostles’ evangelism.
In the New Testament, sinners received Jesus as Lord.
“As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6).
The dying thief recognized that Jesus was Lord.
“Lord, remember me …” (Luke 23:42).
The adulterous woman in John 8 knew who Jesus was.
When He asked her,
“Where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” she answered, “No one, Lord” (vv. 10-11).
When the doubting Thomas realized who Jesus was in John 20:28, he exclaimed,
“My Lord and my God!”
Jesus Himself affirmed this truth in John 13:13:
“You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.”
The first apostolic sermon should settle the question, in which Peter declared,
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).
Paul tells us that the very reason that Jesus died and rose again is that He might be Lord.
“For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and living” (Rom. 14:9).
In Philippians 2:5-8 the great apostle gives us the steps of our Lord’s humiliation, and then in verses 9-11 he speaks of His exaltation.
We are assured in these passages that all men will bow the knee, and that every tongue will confess.
Confess what?
“That Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Notice the words “every knee” and “every tongue”— some in restitution but all in recognition.
In the light of the above Scriptures, which trace Jesus’ life from the cradle to the cross, the resurrection, and the heavenly throne,
how could there even be a question about His lordship, let alone a controversy?”
Rev George Ong
APPENDIX
World-Renowned Bible teachers:
AW Tozer, Charles Spurgeon, JI Packer, John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, RC Sproul, DA Carson, Arthur Pink, Derek Prince, John Piper & John MacArthur,
have all contradicted Joseph Prince’s teachings
that Christ can be received as Saviour and not Lord,
or Saviour first and then Lord.
In ‘And He Dwelt Among us,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“There are those who would offer a divided Christ.
They say, in effect,
“Accept Christ now as your Savior.”
And then later on say,
“Now, accept Christ as your Lord.”
The Bible does not teach anything of the sort.
There is no Saviourhood without Lordship.
Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior,
and He was Lord before He was Savior;
and if He’s not Lord, He’s not Savior.
When we present this Eternal Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us to men as Lord and Savior,
we present Him only in His other offices.
Previously, He has been Creator, Sustainer and Benefactor.
Now we ask men to believe on Him as Lord and Savior;
but it is the same Lord Jesus.”
In ‘The Root of the Righteous,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“No Saviorhood without Lordship
We must never underestimate the ability of human beings to get themselves tangled up.
Mankind appears to have a positive genius for twisting truth until it ceases to be truth
and becomes downright falsehood.
By overemphasizing in one place and underemphasizing in another the whole pattern of truth may be so altered
that a completely false view results without our being aware of it.
This fact was brought forcibly to mind recently by hearing again the discredited doctrine of a divided Christ so widely accepted in many religious circles.
It goes like this:
Christ is both Savior and Lord.
A sinner may be saved by accepting Him as Savior
without yielding to Him as Lord.
The practical outworking of this doctrine is that the evangelist presents and the seeker accepts a divided Christ.
… So, sermons embodying this heresy are freely preached,
… The notion that we are so permitted is a modern-day heresy,
I repeat, and like every heresy it has had evil consequences among Christians.
No heresy is ever entertained with impunity.
We pay in practical failure for our theoretical errors.
It is altogether doubtful whether any man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help
but with no intention to obey Him.
Christ’s Saviourhood is forever united to His lordship.
Look at the Scriptures:
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved … For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:9, 12-13).
There the Lord is the object of faith for salvation.
And when the Philippian jailer asked the way to be saved, Paul replied,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).
He did not tell him to believe on the Saviour
with the thought that he could later take up the matter of His lordship and settle it at his own convenience.
To Paul there could be no division of offices.
Christ must be Lord or He will not be Savior.
… That is the truth which has been twisted out of shape and reduced to impotence
by the doctrine that we can believe on His Saviourhood while rejecting His lordship.”
In ‘Mornings with Tozer, Daily Devotional Readings,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“BOTH LORD AND CHRIST
God hath made the same Jesus…both Lord and Christ. Acts 2:36
No Christian believer should ever forget what the Bible says about the Person and the offices of the eternal Son, the Christ of God.
“God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).
Jesus means Savior;
Lord means Sovereign;
Christ means Anointed One.
The Apostle Peter did not proclaim Jesus only as Savior
— he preached to them Jesus as Lord and Christ and Savior,
never dividing His Person or His offices.
Remember, also, the declaration of Paul:
“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus…thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).
Three times in the passage to the Roman Christians telling how to be saved,
Paul calls Jesus “Lord.”
He says that faith in the Lord Jesus plus confession of that faith to the world brings salvation to us!”
In ‘Gems from Tozer,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“The discredited doctrine of a divided Christ goes like this:
“Christ is both Savior and Lord.
A sinner may be saved by accepting Him as Saviour
without yielding to Him as Lord.”
(But) Christ’s Saviourhood is forever united to His lordship.
Christ must be Lord or He will not be Saviour.”
In ‘The Set of the Sail,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
salvation and discipleship are so closely related as to be indivisible.
They are not identical, but as with Siamese twins they are joined by a tie which can be severed only at the price of death.
Yet they are being severed in evangelical circles today.
In the working creed of the average Christian salvation is held to be immediate and automatic,
while discipleship is thought to be something optional which the Christian may delay indefinitely or never accept at all.
It is not uncommon to hear Christian workers urging seekers to accept Christ now and leave moral and social questions to be decided later.
The notion is that obedience and discipleship are unrelated to salvation.
We may be saved by believing a historical fact about Jesus Christ (that He died for our sins and rose again) and applying this to our personal situation.
The whole biblical concept of Lordship and obedience is completely absent from the mind of the seeker.
He needs help, and Christ is the very one, even the only one, who can furnish it, so he “takes” Him as his personal Saviour.
The idea of His Lordship is completely ignored.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans Chapter 1, The Gospel of God,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“Probably you have often heard people say, You can take Christ as your Saviour,
but perhaps you will not take Him as your Lord for years,
or perhaps you will not believe in Him as your Lord for years.
For a long time, they say, you may be a Christian; yes, you have believed in Him as your Saviour;
but then, after all these years of struggling and so on, at long last you surrender to Him and you take Him as your Lord.
As I understand the matter, this teaching is not only wrong,
it is impossible.
You cannot divide the person – this one and the selfsame Person is always Jesus Christ our Lord.
You cannot say He is only Jesus, or only Christ, or only Lord.
No, no!
The one Person is the Lord Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ the Lord.
Now the Apostle himself, of course, in writing to the Colossians, puts it quite specifically.
Here is a text which you very rarely hear, and which is so sadly forgotten:
‘As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him’ [2:6].
There is nowhere in the Scripture where you will find that you can accept Him or take Him, or believe in Him or receive Him,
as Jesus only, Saviour only, or Christ only.
No! The Person is one and indivisible.
And if you think that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ without realizing that He is your Lord,
I would not hesitate to say that your belief is of no value.
You cannot take Him as Saviour only, because He saves you by buying you with His precious blood.
And if you believe that, you must know at once that He is your Lord.
That is where the whole danger comes in, doesn’t it?
– the danger which we have already seen of saying that you can be justified without being sanctified.
You cannot.
You cannot be in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ
unless He is your Lord.
Our realization of this, of course, may vary from time to time,
but to teach specifically that you can take Him as Saviour without taking Him as Lord
is nothing but sheer heresy.
It is a dividing of the Person in a way that this one little word ‘our’ alone completely prohibits.
Therefore, I say, let us be careful; let us examine ourselves.
Have I perhaps until now only thought of Him as someone who has purchased for me forgiveness of sins and deliverance from hell, and no more?
If so, I had better go back again and make sure that I really do believe in Him,
because if I really believe in the New Testament teaching about sin it means this
– that I am condemned and I am hopeless.
Christ is Saviour.
What does it mean?
Well, not simply that He saves me from hell, but that ‘he will save his people from their sins’.
Why did He die for us?
Well, ask the Apostle Paul.
In writing to Titus, he says,
‘Who gave himself for us that he might separate unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works’ 2:14.
There is the Lordship.
You cannot truly believe in Him unless He is your Lord,
as well as the Jesus who saves you, and as the Christ who has done this work for you.
Let us, then, follow the apostolic example;
let us not get into the habit of speaking about Him as either Jesus, or Christ, or even Lord alone,
although if you must have one word only, then choose the last – the Lord.
But let us, I say, follow the apostolic pattern and example, and let us, when we speak of Him and when we think of Him, do so in these terms:
The Lord Jesus Christ – Jesus Christ my Lord.
Let us give Him the full title; let us ascribe to Him the whole designation; let us stand before Him and think of Him in all His fulness, His completeness, and in all His glory.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans Chapter 1, The Gospel of God,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“What, then, does he mean by this term?
Well, I suggest that he meant a number of things by it.
I think that, first of all, he was using it in a general sense, just to describe himself as a Christian,
for every Christian is a ‘bond-slave’ of Jesus Christ.
Take the way in which the Apostle puts that in I Corinthians 6:19-20.
He there reminds them that their bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost and he goes on to say,
‘Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price’.
‘You must not be guilty of this sin of fornication’,
he says.
‘Do you not realize who you are? Do you not realize that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, and that you are not your own? You have no right to do what you like with your body; you have been bought with a price. You have been taken out of that market where you were slaves who could never have found release – the Son of God has come, and at the cost of His own precious blood He has bought you out of the market’.
That is the meaning of the term ‘redemption’.
It is liberation out of that bondage and slavery wherein you once were under the dominion of Satan, the devil.
So, having known this liberation, the Apostle likes to describe himself in this way.
In other words, he is saying to these Roman Christians,
‘I, Paul, am like you – I am one of you; I belong to you, because we all belong to Christ. I am a sinner saved by the blood of Christ; I have nothing else to say for myself. I was a persecutor, and a blasphemer, and an injurious person, but I obtained mercy’.
He has been rescued and redeemed and that is the first thing he has to say about himself.
And, again I say, it is true of all of us, if we are Christians, for no man makes himself a Christian.
Every one of us is born a slave of the devil, and we can only be liberated from that bondage by the precious blood of Christ.
Peter, of course, says exactly the same thing.
‘Forasmuch’, he says, ‘as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot’.
And, therefore, as Christians, we are not free;
we are bought by Christ.
We belong to Him.
He is our Master, our Lord.
This idea that you can believe in Christ first as your Saviour only,
and then perhaps, years later, go on to take Him as your Lord,
is a denial of Scripture.
From the moment He sets you free, He is your Lord.
We do not decide to take Him as Lord.
It is He as Lord who buys us out of that market and liberates us, and we belong to Him,
We are never free.
We were the bond-servants of Satan
– we are now the bond-servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If only we always remembered that!
If only we always lived in the light of this glorious truth!
May God give us grace ever to remember it, and ever to live accordingly!”
In ‘Exposition of Romans Chapter 1, The Gospel of God,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“Listen to Paul saying it in another place:
‘As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord…’ [Col 2:6],
you cannot receive Him except as the Lord.
You cannot take Him as your Saviour, and say later, I will perhaps take Him as my Lord.
He is always the Lord and you receive Him as Lord.”
In ‘The New Testament, Spurgeon’s Sermons By Each Book.’
Charles Spurgeon said:
“He might say, “Keep God’s commandments,” but he would never have said, “Keep my commandments.”
That dear and Divine Person whom we call Master and Lord here says, “Keep My commandments.”
What a commanding person He must be!
What lordship He has over His people!
How great He is among His saints!
If you keep His commandments, you are putting Him into the position which He claims.
By obedience, you acknowledge His sovereignty and Godhead and say with Thomas,
“My Lord and my God.”
I am afraid that a great many people know a Christ who is meek and lowly, their servant and Saviour,
but they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alas, my Friends, such people set up a false Christ!
We do not love Jesus at all if He is not our Lord and God.
It is all cant and hypocrisy, this love to Christ which robs Him of His Deity!
I abhor that love for Christ which does not make Him King of kings and Lord of lords.
Love Him and belittle Him?
It is absurd!
Follow your own will in preference to His will and then talk of love to Him?
Ridiculous!
This is but the devil’s counterfeit of love
– it is a contradiction of all true love.
Love is loyal!
Love crowns its Lord with obedience.
If you love Jesus aright,
you view His every precept as a Divine Commandment.
You love the true Christ
if you love a commanding Christ as well as a saving Christ
and look to Him for the guidance of your life as well as for the pardon of your sin.”
In ‘The New Testament, Spurgeon’s Sermons By Each Book.’
Charles Spurgeon said:
“It is not possible that a rebel should be a friend to Christ.
If a man says of any Law of Christ,
“I do not mean to keep that,”
then, Sir, you have virtually said,
“I do not mean to have Christ for my Lord,”
and that means that you cannot have Him as your Saviour.”
JI Packer wrote:
“But in actual life, repentance is inseparable from faith,
being the negative aspect (faith is the positive aspect)
of turning to Christ as Lord and Savior.
The idea that there can be saving faith without repentance,
and that one can be justified by embracing Christ as Saviour while refusing him as Lord,
is a destructive delusion.
True faith acknowledges Christ as what he truly is, our God-appointed king
as well as our God-given priest, and true trust in him as Savior
will express itself in submission to him as Lord also.
To refuse this is to seek justification
through an impenitent faith, which is no faith.”
In ‘A Quest For Godliness, The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life,’
JI Packer wrote:
“The Lord Jesus Christ must be received in his whole mediatorial office, as Saviour and Lord,
as Prophet, Priest and King; for ‘never did any man take Jesus Christ savingly,
who took him not for a Husband and a Lord, to serve, love and obey him for ever after, as well as a Saviour to disburden him of his sinnes;
as a King to govern him by his Word and Spirit, as well as a Priest to wash him in his Blood.’
To accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Priest is evangelical faith;
to enthrone him as Lord and King is evangelical repentance.”
In ‘JI Packer Library,
JI Packer wrote:
“The kingdom becomes real and crucial in a person’s life when he or she submits in faith to the lordship of Christ,
a momentous commitment that brings salvation and eternal life (Mark 10:17-27: John 5:24).”
In ‘Issues Facing Christians Today,’
John Stott wrote:
“Secondly, we must not separate Jesus the Saviour
from Jesus the Lord.
It is little short of incredible that some evangelists teach the possibility of accepting Jesus the Saviour,
while postponing a surrender to him as Lord.
God has exalted Jesus to his right hand and made him Lord.
From that position of supreme power and executive authority
he is able to bestow salvation and the gift of the Spirit.
It is precisely because he is Lord that he can save.
The affirmations “Jesus is Lord” and “Jesus is Saviour” are almost interchangeable.
And his lordship extends far beyond the religious bit of our lives.
It embraces the whole of our experience, public and private, home and work, church membership and civic duty, evangelistic and social responsibilities.”
In ‘Christian Mission in the Modern World,’
John Stott wrote;
“This leads me to mention a controversy in certain evangelical circles.
Some have been so determined to maintain the doctrine of justification by faith alone
that they have not been able to accommodate themselves to the addition of repentance.
They distinguish sharply between the acceptance of Jesus as Saviour and the surrender to him as Lord,
and they even promulgate the grotesque notion
that to insist on surrender in addition to acceptance is to distort the gospel.
… (But) Saving faith is a total, penitent and submissive commitment to Christ,
and it would have been inconceivable to the apostles
that anybody could believe in Jesus as Savior without submitting to him as Lord.
We have already seen that the one exalted to God’s right hand is Jesus the Lord and Savior.
We cannot chop this Jesus into bits and then respond to only one of the bits.
The object of saving faith is the whole and undivided person of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
One other point before I leave the gospel demands.
We must not miss the note of urgency as well as authority in which the apostles issued their call to repent and believe.
They were conscious not only that the summons came from the throne where Jesus reigned but also that this same Jesus would return as Judge.
The God who “now … commands all men everywhere to repent” had already fixed the judgment day and appointed the Judge.
He is Jesus, the same one who had died and been resurrected (Acts 17:30-31; cf. 3:20-21; 10:42; 13:40-41).”
In ‘Christian Mission in the Modern World,’
John Stott wrote:
“If from the throne Jesus bestows blessing upon his people,
he also expects them to submit to him, to bow their knee to him.
“Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).
These words formed the climax of Peter’s sermon.
They cut his listeners to the heart and made them cry out for instruction about what to do.
They must repent, Peter said.
God had reversed their verdict on Jesus, for they had killed him but God had raised him.
Now they must reverse their verdict too.
They must bring the whole of life, individual and social, under the sovereign lordship of Jesus.
To be in his kingdom or under his rule brings both total blessing and total demand.
Thus, the symbolic statement that Jesus is “at the right hand of God” comprises the two great gospel affirmations
that he is Savior (with authority to bestow salvation)
and that he is Lord (with authority to demand submission).
The two are joined by Peter in his second speech to the Sanhedrin:
“God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31).
… The world is still waiting to hear these gospel affirmations, and to hear them in the present tense which speaks to men today, namely,
“Jesus is Lord” and “Jesus is Savior.”
In ‘Christ in Conflict: Lessons from Jesus and His Controversies,’
John Stott wrote:
“Of course, there have been plenty of other religious teachers.
But Jesus went further, claiming also to be Lord.
Teachers instruct their students.
They may even plead with them to follow their teaching.
But they cannot command agreement, still less obedience.
Yet this right was exercised by Jesus as Lord.
“If you love me,” he said, “keep my commands” (John 14:15). “Anyone who loves their father or mother… son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).
What he asked from his disciples was nothing less than their supreme love and loyalty.
So, Christians look to Jesus Christ both as their Teacher and their Lord,
their Teacher to instruct them and their Lord to command them.
We are proud to be more than his pupils; we are his servants as well.
We recognize his right to lay upon us duties and obligations:
“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).
This “should” we accept from the authority of Jesus.
We desire not only to submit our minds to his teaching but our wills to his obedience.”
In ‘The Cross of Christ,’
John R. W. Stott wrote:
“Thus, Jesus’ lordship over both church and Christian
is attributed to his having bought us with his own blood.”
In ‘Essential Truths of the Christian Faith,’
RC Sproul wrote:
“The Error of Easy Believism
Easy believism is a modern form
of the ancient heresy of antinomianism.
It asserts that once a person makes a decision for Christ or prays to receive Jesus as Savior,
it is not necessary to embrace Him as Lord.
There are no requirements of law that bind the Christian.
There are few Christian teachers, if any, who declare that one who embraces Christ as Savior shouldn’t also embrace Him as Lord.
Rather, they encourage the “carnal Christian” to become more spiritual and obedient.
But they shrink from declaring that embracing Christ as Lord is necessary for salvation.
Indeed, they insist that it is not necessary for attaining salvation.
They allow for the reality of a carnal Christian.
This type of antinomianism is so pervasive in American evangelicalism that it may even be the majority report.
The current “Lordship Salvation” controversy focuses on this issue.
Recently a pastor spoke to me about a young man in his congregation who was using drugs and living in an illicit relationship with his girlfriend.
The pastor tried to counsel the young man about his life-style.
The young man said casually,
“It’s OK, Pastor, I’m a carnal Christian.”
(But) To be a Christian in the biblical sense of the word
is to be a disciple of Christ.”
In ‘Essential Truths of the Christian Faith,’
RC Sproul wrote:
“When James declared that faith without works is dead, he asserted that such “faith” cannot justify anyone because it is not alive.
Living faith produces good works, but these good works are not the basis for justification.
Only the merit achieved by Jesus Christ can justify the sinner.
It is a grievous error, indeed a modern form of the antinomian heresy,
to suggest that a person can be justified by embracing Jesus as Savior but not as Lord.
True faith accepts Christ as both Savior and Lord.
To rely on Christ alone for salvation is to acknowledge one’s total dependence upon Him and to repent of one’s sin.
To repent of sin is to submit to Christ’s authority over us.
To deny His lordship is to seek justification with an impenitent faith, which is no faith.”
In ‘The Intolerance of Tolerance,’
DA Carson wrote:
“We have already seen that Christ himself can berate a church for being too tolerant of false teaching (Revelation 2:20, mentioned above).
We must also ask if we are truly dealing with “the body of Christ” when people claim to be Christians
but have no intention of submitting to the Lordship of King Jesus.
It sounds more like an awkward union between genuine believers
and those with not much more than an aesthetic and sentimental attachment to an institution called the church,
divorced from revealed and mandated truth joyfully believed, confessed, and obeyed.
That sort of unity is nowhere in Scripture held up as something to be admired or pursued.”
In ‘Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount And His Confrontation with the World,’
DA Carson wrote:
“But on the other hand,
those elementary truths do not mean
that there are no costs at all, no personal demands.
Biblical salvation is paid for by someone else:
in that sense it is free.
But individual appropriation of it
entails repentance, personal death to self-interest,
principial submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
These are not meritorious acts.
They are, finally, evidence of the grace of God in the Christian life,
but they are no less personal or costly for that.
So, she displayed a second misunderstanding:
she failed to see that salvation that has been paid for, and is therefore free,
nevertheless works in our lives so powerfully
that it transforms us, confronts our will,
demands our devotion and allegiance,
and calls forth our deepest commitment.
In concrete terms, the “costs” Christians pay in the West, as compared with those paid by many Christians in the world, are very small.
Principally, however,
they are exactly the same for all Christians:
death to self-interest, a daily “dying” that can be quite painful.
But it is precisely that attitude that breeds a Borden of Yale, who abandoned great wealth and status to prepare for ministry in the Middle East.
Only a short time after his arrival, he contracted the disease that killed him; and as he lay dying, with others bemoaning the “waste,”
his conclusion was firm: “No reserve; no retreat; no regrets.”
In one sense, our salvation costs us absolutely nothing;
in another, it costs us not less than everything.
The former is true because Jesus paid it all;
the latter is possible
because Jesus enables us to respond to his upward call.
Those who stress the latter and neglect the former
may never learn that salvation is by grace alone;
those who stress the former and neglect the latter
may buy into a cheap facsimile of grace
that knows little of the biblical gospel
and less of biblical holiness.
The authentic Jesus makes demands that are personal and costly.”
In ‘Telling the Truth,’
DA Carson wrote:
“A person becomes a Christian when he or she is persuaded of the truth of the gospel
and on that basis confesses Jesus Christ as Lord (Rom. 10:9).”
In ‘The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures,’
Edited by DA Carson:
“The heart of the gospel is the kingdom of God,
expressed through the lordship of Jesus Christ.
This means that faith and repentance are not accidental corollaries of the gospel,
but necessary consequences of it.
They are foundational to the Christian life.
If Christ is Lord,
the only appropriate worship of him is to trust ourselves to him entirely,
that is, to submit to him in an obedient faith
that relies upon and takes its shape from words that come from the Lord.
That is why in the same passage Paul speaks of the gospel not only as the word of Christ but also as “the word of faith which we proclaim” (Rom. 10:8).
It is a word that engenders faith; it is a word that is proclaimed; it is a word that is explained in words;
it is a word that is not far off and unobtainable, but one that “is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (10:8);
it is a word that invites obedience.”
In ‘The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures,’
Edited by DA Carson:
“Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ,
knowing him as Lord,
I bow in advance to whatever he is pleased to tell me.
This is “formal,” though it does not imply any ultimate separation
between form and content:
the Lord is my Savior, he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,
and it would be foolish and ungodly
to separate his Lordship
from what it means in concrete terms.”
In ‘1 John 1:1 – 3:1, An Exposition of the First Epistle of John, (1886-1952),’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“We cannot know Him as Lord and Father,
without being dutiful children and obedient servants” (Calvin).
While John describes quite a number of distinct marks
whereby God’s children may surely recognize themselves
and also identify those who have a form of godliness
but know nothing of its living and transforming power,
it is both highly significant and deeply important to note
that he has given the precedence unto obedience,
for without it any other apparent features of spirituality are but spurious.
Though this be by no means the only evidence of a saving knowledge of God,
it is the first and foremost, and where it be absent it is useless to look for others.
As Christ asked those whom He addressed,
“Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luk 6:46).
Habitual disregard of His commandments
is utterly incompatible with the owning of Him as our Lord.
A disobedient life
is a blank repudiation of a Christian profession.
To avow that I know God savingly
while self-will orders my life is a blatant assumption, for it is thoroughly lacking in reality.
If I disregard that which Christ has appointed to be observed and done by His disciples,
then that is absent which marks me as one.”
In ‘An Exposition of Hebrews, Faithful Classic,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“The “Gospel” which is being preached today
is only calculated to deceive souls and bolster them up in a false hope.
To make men believe that God loves them, while they are under His wrath (see John 3:36),
is worse than a physician telling a diabetic subject that he may safely eat all he wishes.
To withhold the preaching of the Law — its Divine authority, its inexorable demands,
its spirituality (in requiring inward conformity to it: Matthew 5:22, 28), its awful curse
—is to omit that which alone conveys a true knowledge of sin: see Romans 3:20, 7:7.
To cry “Believe, believe,” and say nothing about repentance,
is to falsify the terms of salvation: Luke 24:47; Acts 17:30.
To invite sinners to receive Christ as their “Savior”
before they surrender to Him as their Lord,
is to present a false “way of salvation.”
To bid the lost “come to Christ” without telling them they must first “forsake the world,”
is to fill the “churches” with unconverted souls.
To tell sinners they may find rest unto their souls without taking Christ’s YOKE upon them,
is to give the lie unto the Master’s own teaching: Matthew 11:29.”
In ‘Satan and his Gospel,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“A yet more specious form of Satan’s gospel is to move preachers to present the atoning sacrifice of Christ
and then tell their hearers that all God requires from them is to “believe” in His Son.
Thereby thousands of impenitent souls are deluded into thinking
that they have been saved.
But Christ said,
“Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luk 13:3).
To “repent” is to hate sin, to sorrow over, to turn from it.
It is the result of the Spirit’s making the heart contrite before God.
None except a broken heart can savingly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, thousands are deceived into supposing
that they have “accepted Christ” as their “personal Saviour,”
who have not first received Him as their LORD.
The Son of God did not come here to save His people in their sin, but “from their sins” (Mat 1:21).
To be saved from sins, is to be saved from ignoring and despising the authority of God,
it is to abandon the course of self-will and self-pleasing, it is to “forsake our way” (Isa 55:7).
It is to surrender to God’s authority, to yield to His dominion, to give ourselves over to be ruled by Him.
The one who has never taken Christ’s “yoke” upon him,
who is not truly and diligently seeking to please Him in all the details of his life,
and yet supposes that he is “resting on the finished work of Christ”
is deluded by the devil.”
In ‘An Exposition of Ephesians 4:1-16, Christian Unity,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“All of us who say that we are ‘in Christ’
are proclaiming that we have forsaken all else,
that He alone is our Lord and Master,
that henceforth we are going to follow Him.
He Himself said,
‘If any man would be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me’.”
In ‘The Farewell Discourse And Final Prayer of Jesus,’
DA Carson wrote:
“If the world hates you,” Jesus says, “keep in mind that it hated me first” (15:18).
But more than chronological priority is at stake:
there is the broader question of our identity with Jesus’s teaching
and our submission to Jesus’s lordship.
That is why Jesus goes on to say,
“Remember the words I spoke to you:
‘No servant is greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.
If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also” (15:20).
In ‘The Farewell Discourse And Final Prayer of Jesus,’
DA Carson wrote:
“Another person may confess “Jesus is Lord”
to indicate his formal agreement with the tenets of orthodoxy (just as a person may recite superficially the apostles’ creed)
yet fail to acknowledge Jesus’s lordship over his ethical practices,
including both his private but consistently selfish conduct and his business practices.
Such a person passes the test of 1 Corinthians 12:3 from a merely doctrinal perspective;
but failing to submit to the implications of lordship,
he may fall under the searching tests of moral obedience and growing love (see, for instance, 1 John).
In each of these instances,
the confession “Jesus is Lord”
serves as a necessary
but not a sufficient criterion
for being a genuine believer, a disciple of Christ, a Christian.”
In ‘A Letter to a Friend Concerning the So-Called ‘Lordship Salvation’
John Piper wrote:
“He (my father) quoted Romans 10:9 on the phone and said,
“If a person does not have Jesus as Lord, he does not have him at all.”
… And it is so misleading!
It is misleading because Christ is Lord whether we acknowledge that or not (Act 2:36; Phi 2:11).
And it is misleading because he is the Lord of every true believer whether we grasp this fully or obey him fully or not.
Just consider these few observations.
Dozens of times, in writing to all the believers of a church, Paul refers to Jesus as “our Lord.”
Some of these places have to take in all the believers, not just those who are more mature in their devotion to Christ.
For example, Romans 8:39 is a text you would probably want to use to encourage a faltering believer that he was secure in the arms of God.
Yet the verse says that nothing will separate us from “the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If the verse is to comfort the reader, the reader has to see himself in the “our.”
Paul has no intention here of saying that there are some Christians who do not have Jesus as Lord and thus do not have security.
All true Christians can say “our Lord” and be included here. (The same thing could be said of Romans 6:23.)
Romans 10:9 says,
“If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
It is a frightening thing, in view of this verse, to tell people that they do not have to confess Jesus as Lord in order to be saved.
That is just the opposite of what scripture says. (Romans 10:13 is just as strong.)
In Romans 14:7-8, Paul says,
“None of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
Notice the phrase “none of us.”
There is no group of Christians who do not live to the Lord.
We may do it imperfectly and haltingly.
But to belong to the Lord is to live to the Lord.
Paul simply identifies Christians in 1 Corinthians 1:2 as “all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.”
He can do this because becoming a Christian means confessing Jesus as Lord (Romans 10:9) and calling on the name of the Lord (Romans 10:13).
Paul described the content of his gospel preaching like this:
“For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5).
And in 1 Thessalonians 1:8 he says that the spreading of this gospel by the churches is the sounding forth of “the Word of the Lord.”
This is not a second-stage “discipleship” message.
This is what he preached as the gospel.
You Did Not Receive a Half-Christ
In Colossians 2:6 Paul says,
“As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him.”
This is the way we should speak to new believers: you received Jesus in all his offices when you received him for salvation.
You did not receive a half-Christ.
He is Prophet, Priest and King – and he is this for you.
This is the One you received.
Now live in him in a way that befits his offices.
If you reject him in any of his offices,
you reject the Christ
and are left with one of your own making who cannot save.
There are many other uses of the term “Lord” in the New Testament that show that Paul and the others
never conceived of the possibility of saying that a person could be saved and “not have Jesus as Lord.”
It is not a biblical way of talking and it is dangerously misleading.
You say,
“One of my primary objectives [in discipling four men] is to bring them to a point where Christ becomes Lord. That is a primary task of discipleship.”
I find these words staggeringly unbiblical!
Nowhere!
Nowhere in the New Testament can you find such an idea,
that mature Christians should suggest to newer believers that Christ is not their Lord.
Do you honestly think the apostle Paul would allow a new convert to say to him,
“Jesus is not my Lord, but I am saved”?
Now let me see if I can cool down here and be conciliatory.
Again, I believe that you are in essence teaching something true:
namely, that very often a person is converted without realizing the full implications of the lordship of Christ for their lives.
It is like deciding to join the army and knowing that there will be a commander
but not realizing all that he may tell you to do and all the rebellion that still remains in your heart.
But that is very different from saying that you can join the army
while rejecting the very right of the commander to tell you what to do.
So, I agree that discipling is “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Mat 28:19).
But I do not agree that Jesus is not the Lord (commander) of true Christians.
No one is a Christian who does not, in principle (i.e. even if he does not know all the specifics),
bow the knee to Jesus as Lord and say one way or another,
I reckon myself dead to sin and alive to God.
“Those who belong to Christ (all of them!) have crucified the flesh” (Gal 5:24).
How Do You Preach to Disobedient, Professing Christians?
You ask,
“Could we dare say that they [the unconcerned, apathetic, stingy, uncommitted professing believers] do not have salvation?”
I believe that our unwillingness to take this possibility seriously is one of the things that makes preaching across our country anemic.
If you measure by the preaching of Jesus and by the epistles of Paul the way to preach to disobedient, professing Christians, it means saying things like:
“I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21; cf. 1Co 6:9-10).
“Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:15-16).
“Strive to enter by that narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luk 13:24).
“If you live according to the flesh, you will die” (Rom 8:13).
The absence of this kind of preaching – with such urgency to professing believers – is one of the weaknesses of the evangelical pulpit.
I am puzzled that you are so hesitant to consider that thousands of professing Christians are not saved,
when that is what Jesus very strongly suggests was true in his day (Mat 7:13-14)
and will be true at the end of the age – our day (Mat 24:12-13).
(John) MacArthur is right when he says that Jesus far more often calls people’s false assurance into question than he tries to give security to any willfully disobedient beginner.
And yet we seem to have just the opposite concern.
We shrink back from calling anyone’s assurance into question if they are a professing believer.
And we shrink back from telling new believers anything about the demands of Jesus that would cause them to wonder if they are really saved.
We are not in sync with Jesus or the epistles at this point.”
In ‘The Gospel According to Jesus,’
John MacArthur wrote:
“The gospel according to Jesus stands in stark contrast.
Our Lord frequently chased the most enthusiastic inquirers away.
We have already studied his challenge to the rich young ruler.
That was no isolated episode in his evangelistic ministry.
Luke 9:57-62, for example, relates how Jesus ran off three other hot prospects.
Think also of the crowds that followed Jesus during the early days of his ministry.
Why did so many of them turn away (cf. John 6:66)?
Because Jesus repeatedly made difficult demands.
He commanded those who sought eternal life
to deny themselves, forsake all, and follow him.
He never held forth the hope of salvation to anyone
who refused to submit to his sovereign lordship.
His words to the multitudes in Mark 8:34-37 could hardly have been more straightforward:
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; and whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Some have tried to soften that demand by interpreting it as a call for saved people to take a further step of commitment.
But similar words from the Lord in John 12:24-25 make his meaning unmistakable.
The subject here is explicitly eternal life and salvation:
“Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal” (emphasis added).
Forsaking oneself for Christ’s sake is not an optional step of discipleship subsequent to conversion;
it is the sine qua non (indispensable condition) of saving faith.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans Chapter 1, The Gospel of God,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“In other words, to believe the gospel, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
is not a kind of ‘believism’, which has so often made havoc in the church.
This, surely, is a vital matter for us to hold in our minds always.
Take that verse which I have just quoted:
‘For with the heart man believeth… and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’.
There was a terrible heresy in the church about one hundred and seventy years ago called the Sandemanian heresy.
… It taught that all that a man had to do was to say that he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and all was well.
It did not matter at all whether he felt anything.
It did not matter very much what his life was like, as long as he said he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ – ‘Confession is made with the mouth unto salvation’.
That was their great text.
That is a kind of ‘believism’ and, as l say, it did lead to terrible havoc in the church.
… Now no-one can become a victim of the Sandemanian heresy if he remembers this phrase, ‘the obedience of faith’.
The whole man is involved.
You are not saved if you merely say that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The whole personality must be involved.
Take our Lord’s own teaching on this subject, in His parable of the two sons.
He said,
‘A certain man had two sons; and he came to one of them and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not, but afterward he repented and went. And he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir, and went not. Whether of them twain’, asks our Lord, ‘did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first.’ And our Lord told them that they had answered correctly. But you notice what He says; the first boy, when his father told him to go and work in the vineyard, said, ‘I will not’, but repented and went.
And the going, you see, is a part of the repentance, for if he had merely said,
‘All right; I am sorry that I said I would not go, I say now that I will go’ – if he had merely said that without going,
he would not have done his father’s will, any more than the second boy who said, ‘I go, Sir’, but did not.
No, no!
Obedience means the going; not only repenting and the actual sorrow, but the going and working in the vineyard: he repented and went.
Now that is what believing in the Lord Jesus Christ means.
It does not merely mean a statement that we believe.
It does not merely mean acceptance with the intellect, or giving assent with the intellect.
It means a surrender of ourselves, a committal of ourselves, the involvement of our whole personality.
According, then, to the Apostle’s teaching, no-one really can be regarded as having believed the gospel who has not repented
and turned from a life of sin to a life of obedience to God in Jesus Christ.
Surely, believing the gospel cannot mean anything less than that!
If I say I believe the gospel, I must be saying that I believe I am a sinner, that I am under the wrath of God, that I am hell-bound, and that I cannot save myself,
but that God has provided the way in Jesus Christ, and in Him crucified, and I therefore believe.
But if I believe that, I am not going to continue where I was.
I must be sorry for my sin which has necessitated the coming of the Son of God into the world, and His terrible death upon the cross.
I must have sorrow for sin, for why do I go to Him if I am not conscious of my sin?
And, having done all that, I turn away from my sin; I do not want to belong to the world and its sin any longer;
I want to belong to Him and to please Him who has done so much for me. I give myself to Him.
As we have seen you cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ at all unless you believe in Him as your Lord as well as your Saviour.
But you see how often people seem really to be teaching a kind of ‘believism’, saying that you can be a Christian without repenting
– that that will come later.
But what have you believed?
What does believing in the Lord Jesus Christ mean if there is not this sorrow for sin, this realization of your desperate plight as the result of sin?
Now this one term, ‘the obedience of faith’ includes all that.
The Apostle uses his terms very deliberately – he does not just say, ‘Believe the gospel’,- he says, ‘the obedience of faith’.
Faith is always an obedience.
I am not talking about works that are going to follow all this.
I say again, the very process of becoming a Christian is this ‘obedience of faith’.
Because I believe this, and as I believe it, I turn away from sin and I turn to God with grateful thanks, because of what Christ Jesus has done for me.
And here the Apostle tells us that he has received grace and apostleship in order to call people to this obedience of faith.”
In ‘Evenings with Tozer, Daily Devotional Readings,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“…Preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is LORD of all). ACTS 10:36
It is altogether doubtful whether any man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help
but with no intention of obeying Him,
for Christ’s Saviourhood is forever united to His lordship.
Look at the apostle’s instruction and admonition:
“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved…for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:9-13
There the Lord is the object of faith for salvation!
And when the Philippian jailer asked the way to be saved, Paul replied,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).
Paul did not tell him to believe on the Saviour
with the thought that he could later take up the matter of His lordship and settle it at his own convenience.
To Paul there could be no division of offices.
Christ must be Lord
or He will not be Saviour!
There is no intention here to teach that our first saving contact with Christ brings perfect knowledge of all He is to us.
The contrary is true.
Ages upon ages will hardly be long enough to allow us to experience all the riches of His grace.
As we discover new meanings in His titles and make them ours, we will grow in the knowledge of our Lord and the many forms of love He wears exalted on His throne!”
In ‘Reclaiming Christianity, A Call to Authentic Faith,’
AW Tozer wrote (complied and edited by James L Snyder):
“Among the things he (Tozer) said in that sermon was that the way of the cross was hard.
This was an important consideration on his part, because he felt that many people were trying to make the Christian life out to be an easy thing when the Scriptures showed how difficult it was to follow Jesus Christ.
A Christian without the cross was unthinkable in his mind, and he believed that too many leaders were offering a brand of Christianity that was cheap and easy and did not lay the heavy burden of cross bearing on the people.
This certainly was not the Christianity of the Church fathers, the reformers or the revivalists that had come before.
Tozer also emphasized the biblical truth that there can be no Savior without Lordship.
His comments flew in the face of the idea that a person could accept Jesus Christ as Savior without accepting Him as the Lord of his or her life.
That idea, according to Tozer, was a great fallacy within the evangelical Church.
He emphasized as much as possible the fact that Jesus Christ is both Savior and Lord.
There cannot be a divided Christ.
To proclaim a divided Christ is to destroy the foundation of the Church.”
In ‘Christ in Conflict: Lessons from Jesus and His Controversies,’
John Stott wrote:
“But ultimately the question which faces the church is very simple:
is Jesus Christ Lord or not?
And if he is Lord, is he Lord of all?
The lordship of Jesus must be allowed to extend over every aspect of the lives of those who claim that “Jesus is Lord,” including their minds and their wills.
Why should these be excluded from his otherwise universal dominion?
No one is truly converted who is not intellectually and morally converted.
And no one is intellectually converted if they have not submitted their mind to the mind of the Lord Christ,
nor morally converted if they have not submitted their will to the will of the Lord Christ.”
In ‘Between Two Worlds,’
John Stott wrote:
“‘We herald Christ crucified’ and ’we herald
… Jesus Christ as Lord’
are two of Paul’s most direct descriptions of his evangelistic preaching.”
In ‘God’s Love,’
RC Sproul wrote:
“The slave-master motif is found throughout the New Testament.
The Apostle Paul characteristically identified himself as a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The slave is owned by his master.
He cannot come and go as he pleases.
Paul extended the analogy beyond himself to the whole Christian community
when he declared that we are not our own but have been bought with a price.
The price of our purchase was the blood of Christ, the value of which exceeds any amount of silver or gold.
One of the most neglected texts of the New Testament is found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him. (6:5-9)”
In ‘St Andrew’s Expositional Commentary on Romans,’
RC Sproul wrote:
“There is no room in Paul’s theology for the carnal Christian,
one who takes Christ as Savior but does not take him as Lord.”
In ‘St Andrew’s Expositional Commentary on Romans,’
RC Sproul wrote:
“The metaphor teaches that we can have Christ in our lives—we can be converted—without having Christ on the throne of our lives.
I am grateful to John MacArthur for his indefatigable labor in correcting that (above) biblical error.
We cannot receive Christ as Savior without at the same time bending our knees to his lordship.
This does not mean we believe we are perfect, but it does mean that at the moment we believe, we are changed.
Our lives are turned around, and the beginning of the process of sanctification has taken place.
Justification does not produce the fullness of sanctification, but it initiates it immediately.
If we have made a profession of faith but there is absolutely no evidence of change in our hearts and lives,
then we need to ask whether that profession of faith was genuine.
True faith always and immediately produces change.
Yes, indeed, the battle with sin goes on for our whole lifetime.
We do not believe in instantaneous sanctification.
Justification is instantaneous.
The second we believe we are fully justified.
We will never be any more justified than we are at the moment we believe,
but sanctification is a process that begins at our justification
and is completed in our glorification in heaven.
If we are believers, we are in that process of sanctification.
Luther said that in terms of our justification, we are justified solely on the grounds of the righteousness of Jesus,
but when God pronounces us just by imputation, he gives us the medicine by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit
through which we are becoming righteous, not only by imputation but by sanctification.
The medicine of the indwelling Holy Spirit will effect our full sanctification.
What shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
Certainly not!”
In ‘St Andrew’s Expositional Commentary on Acts,’
RC Sproul wrote:
“Savior and Lord
Extremely divisive over the last twenty-five years has been the Lordship-Salvation Controversy,
which became popularized by the idea of the carnal Christian.
Some time ago I talked to a young man who said he was a Christian, but he was using and selling illegal drugs.
He was also living with a girl not his wife.
His hedonistic lifestyle gave no manifestation whatsoever of godliness.
When I questioned the discrepancy between his profession of faith and his lifestyle, he said,
“I’m a carnal Christian. I’ve received Jesus as my Savior, but I’m going to wait awhile before I submit to him as my Lord.”
The recent disjunction between Christ as Savior and Christ as Lord
is foreign and antithetical to the New Testament.
At the heart of this text where the kerygma is being preached is the affirmation of the lordship of Christ.
I get terrified when I listen to the jargon of Christians who say,
“I asked Jesus into my heart, and I invited Him to be the Lord of my life.”
What was He before that invitation?
Christianity can be a “religion” that has nothing to do with the truth content of the biblical message.
The message is far more radical than this.
Peter is saying that it is a matter of objective reality.
God, who created heaven and earth, has made Christ the Lord of the universe.
He rules; He does not wait for us to invite Him.
He rules us whether or not we want Him to rule.
We can be hostile to His reign; we can be renegades in His dominion; we may fight against His just empowerment as the King of kings and Lord of lords,
but all that does not reduce Him to impotency.
Our attempts to supplant Him as Lord are impotent because God has decreed His lordship.
The metaphor of bowing the knee is used again and again in the Old Testament with respect to the coming Messiah of Israel, and we—even to this day—bow the knee as a gesture indicating worship.
The Scriptures tell us that there will be a day when every human being on the face of the earth will bow his knee to Christ as Lord.
People ask,
“How can that be? Most of the people in the world do not embrace the Christian faith.”
In the final analysis that does not matter.
What matters is who God declares to be Lord, and God said,
“I make Your enemies Your footstool” (Ps. 110:1).
David said,
“You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:9).
Many people come willingly and prostrate themselves before the King of kings.
Others flee from the King of kings.
God says that all at some point will bow down whether they want to or not, even if it means God has to break their knee.
That is far different from modern evangelism that issues an invitation to people.
God does not invite people to come to Christ;
He commands it.
He requires it because He has put Christ at His right hand.”