2 Peter 1:10
Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall.

First, Peter clearly addressed his letter to those who are saved. In verse 1 he said that he wrote to those “who have received a faith as precious as ours,” in verse 5 he said to “add to your faith,” in verse 9 he scolded the unproductive one who has “forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins,” and verse 10 he calls them brethren. Thus Paul would contradict himself if in verse ten he challenges their faith, which he just granted to them through the inspiration of the Spirit.

Second, the context supports the idea that Paul’s purpose was to encourage these believers to move along in their walk, not to determine if they were saved. In 2 Peter 1:3 he said “God hath called us to glory and virtue.” (KJV) I suggest the King James correctly rendered “called us to glory and virtue”. So, I think the dative (idios) is a pure dative not an intrumental dative. Hence, we have the different translations of “to glory and virtue” (KJV) or “by his own glory and virtue” (NIV). Glory and virtue could be what they are called to or by what means God called them. Both are true, but in this context Peter focuses on the first because verse four and following Peter called them to “participate in the divine nature” and “to add virtue to faith.” So, in verse ten calling and election refer to what believers are called to. They are to have in their spiritual walk His own glory (valor) and virtue. It is not a reference about election to eternal salvation, but a calling to holy living. Furthermore, the word translated “sure” is better translated “steadfast.” The Greek word bebaios according to the Greek-English Lexicon BDAG has three possible uses: reliable, steadfast (ex. Heb. 3:6, 14), or valid. Many translations go with the last possibility, “valid” or “certain.” Yet the context lends to the translation of “be all the more eager in your calling and election to make yourselves steadfast”. For Paul has already affirmed his audience to be believers and his purpose was to encourage them to add character to their faith (2 Peter 1:5-7). If Peter’s audience became steadfast they would have an entrance richly supplied into the everlasting kingdom (1:11). They would be richly rewarded for their diligence.

I think Bobby grow brought up the consistent error in Lordship salvation, word-loading.

I’m glad you decided to post a sort of conclusion to your long series.

I think this statement well encapsulates your position:
_____________________________

The lordship position teaches that salvation occurs at the moment of conversion, and that conversion includes a change of heart such that those who were enemies of Christ now love Him.

That’s pretty much it.
______________________________

The problem is that you are taking valid Scriptural comment and misapplying it.

God gives us eternal life for the sake of our loving Him and knowing the Father and the Son. At the moment of conversion we receive a new heart. The new heart is Christ in us and has become the real us. Every new convert shows that he has that new heart and every normal Christian shows it.

But God grieves permission to Satan to destroy the lives of converted people who walk away from the authority of His Word and become deceived by sin. The NT calls us to doubt how well we are following and obeying Him.

The details of each of the passages tend to dramatically reveal this. That is, Peter writes:

8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall…

And yet Peter says between those two statements the clincher:

9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

Nathan, this shows that Peter is speaking of not the professed believer (though there are many of those in the Church) but that he is addressing the individual who not only thinks he has been but has been “cleansed from his past sins“.

You are misapplying valid Scriptural challenges.

God bless.

Jodie

Recently I ventured into the world of the Internet. I carefully dipped my big toe in the waters of a bulletin board on Lordship Salvation. It has been very interesting.

In one posting two people were discussing Paul’s anathema in 1 Cor 16:22. There Paul says, “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed [Greek: anathema]. O Lord, come!” It was clear that the one writer, a seminary professor, understood this to mean that all genuine believers love Christ and that those who don’t love Him are eternally condemned.

That is not an isolated view. Many commentators hold that opinion. For example, one commentator writes, “Paul’s personal note began with a passionate warning probably aimed at false teachers (cf. 12:3) whom he believed to be already present in the congregation (cf. 2 Cor 11:3-4)…Paul invoked God’s wrath on these false brethren (cf. Gal 1:8-9) and in the same breath appealed to Christ to return” (Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” p. 548 in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, NT edition).

That view of 1 Cor 16:22 is inconsistent with the passage and it inadvertently undermines an admonition about the seriousness of sin in the life of the believer.
Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ Does Not Guarantee Loving Him

This verse is the only place in the entire NT where the idea of loving the Lord occurs using the verb phileo. However, very similar expressions do occur and they clearly show that loving the Lord Jesus is not the same as believing in Him.

In the Upper Room Discourse Jesus said to the eleven, all believers, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). See also John 21:15-17, James 4:4, and 1 John 2:15. The Lord wouldn’t have commanded them to keep His commandments and thereby love Him if all believers automatically obey and love Him. But believers don’t always keep the Lord’s commandments, so they don’t always love Him! Loving Jesus Christ is not the same as believing in Him.

Since all who have come to faith in Christ for eternal life are secure forever (John 5:24; Rom 8:38-39), and since some believers don’t love the Lord, this verse can’t be teaching that those who don’t love Him are unsaved. This leads us to consider the key word in this verse, anathema (accursed).
Anathema Can Refer to Temporal or Eternal Judgment

The word anathema literally means “under a curse.” The nature of the curse is not explicit in the word anathema. It could refer to either eternal condemnation or to temporal judgment here and now.

Anathema was routinely used in the Greek OT (the Septuagint, or LXX) to refer to temporal destruction and to cursing people and cities (e.g., Josh 6:17; 7:1-13ff.; 22:20; Judg 1:17; Zech 14:11). There are no clear examples of it being used in the LXX to refer to eternal judgment.

Anathema occurs only six times in the NT. In three of those uses, Acts 23:14 and Gal 1:8, 9, the context shows that temporal judgment is in view. (See The GES News, Mar-Apr 94, “The Anathema of Gal 1:8-9.”) First Corinthians 12:3 is unclear, but quite probably refers to current alienation from God. Only in Rom 9:3 is eternal condemnation probably in view.
Paul’s Anathema Here Refers to the Temporal Judgment of Believers

This verse, 1 Cor 16:22, appears at the close of the epistle. As was often his practice, Paul had dictated this epistle to a scribe who put the words to paper. Paul picked up the pen himself to write the closing as is evident in v 21: “The salutation with my own hand- Paul’s.” Clearly he did this to make the closing even more personal, much like today an executive will dictate a letter but sign it and add a brief note at the bottom.

The verses which follow clearly indicate that Paul had only believers in mind here: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen” (vv 23-24). As many commentators note, the warning of v 22 in this context is surely directed to members of the church at Corinth (see Lowery’s comments above). The suggestion that Paul is warning false teachers who have crept into the congregation unnoticed is untenable. For one thing, there is no convincing evidence that false teachers were a part of the church at Corinth, or even that the church was already being threatened by false teachers. For another, there is no hint that Paul is thinking exclusively or even primarily of doctrinal defection here. The epistle heavily emphasizes moral issues. Paul’s warning was probably directed against those whose behavior showed a lack of love for the Lord.

The apostle John wrote, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20). Note that John was talking about the one who doesn’t love his brother. An unsaved man cannot hate his Christian brother since that relationship does not exist. He was talking about believers, not unbelievers. Compare 1 John 3:16-18. The apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthian believers for the existence of “envy, strife, and divisions among you” (1 Cor 3:3), yet he still called them “babes in Christ” in that very context (3:1). Clearly the believers to whom Paul was writing were in danger of falling under the anathema which he was invoking.
Sin in the Life of a Believer Is Serious

The view that unbelievers are being warned here undercuts the power of Paul’s warning. On that view, if I know I’m a believer, then I will simply understand Paul’s warning not to have direct application to me. I am exempt because I’m a Christian. Wrong! If I don’t love the Lord, I will experience temporal judgment from God. Surely the readers of 1 Corinthians knew this quite well. Paul had already stated that, due to their drunken and gluttonous abuses of the Lord’s Supper, “Many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep” (11:30).

The blessings/curses motif was a prominent aspect of the Mosaic Law (cf. Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28). The idea that God blesses obedience and curses disobedience was not limited to the Law of Moses, how- ever. That is a timeless principle. God blesses us when we obey Him (cf. Matt 6:33; Gal 5:22-23) and He curses us (i.e., disciplines us) when we disobey Him (cf. 1 Cor 5:5; 11:30; Heb 6:4-8; Jas 5:19-20; 1 John 5:16).

May we take Paul’s warning seriously and use our time, energy, and our money and possessions, to express love to others and thereby to God as well.

sorry my response is a little late. Not all people who name the name of Christ, throughout church history have held to the Calvinist understanding of “election” (and they aren’t even Arminians). Your appeal to history seems to present a bit of a red herring, based on a hasty generalization–so needless to say, I don’t think that argument really works.

Natew said:

I believe the Bible is clear that you can recognize a tree by its fruit. (Mt. 7:17-18) Spiritual fruit in the life of a person is evidence of election. II Peter 1:10 directly relates God’s election of believers and their assurance of that election to how they live. I John 3:8-10 makes it clear that those who make a practice of sinning are not born of God. I John 2:5 says “But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him”.

II Pet. 1:10 doesn’t relate to assurance of “justification” but to “glorification”, in other words it’s in reference to what “kind” of entrance this particular saint will make into the kingdom (cf. I Cor 3:15; I Jn 2:28; etc.).

What does I Jn 3:24 say? That assurance is a result of the Holy Spirit bearing witness to our spirit that we indeed are children of God.

The general context of Mt. 7 and the sermon on the mount is one of discipleship (i.e. sanctification) not an issue of “proving justification”. If your assertion is true then Jesus’ argument is futile given Mt 5: 20. If your assertion is true then the Pharisees might look at their good works, and presume that they are saved and elect of God (in fact they did do this, but lets not forget Mt. 23).

I John isn’t a good epistle to use to establish your argument since the apostle John continues to analogically use his light/darkness motif to communicate the polar extremes of sinner/saint. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a continuum of maturity represented somewhere between the extremes. Also don’t forget that I Jn 1 and 2 assumes that these Christians are in fact sinners and involved in sinning (probably indulging in the flesh given the incipient proto gnosticism that they apparently had engaged).

External good works don’t prove anything, if they do, then Mother Theresa should have lived with all kinds of assurance of her salvation.

If you don’t see, Nate, how your position has historically blurred the line between justification and sanctification, then I’m sorry–it’s readily apparent to me. Hopefully your “performing” all kinds of good works, so indeed you yourself live with assurance of your salvation.

Is willingness to surrender a human work?

In your own presentation of the gospel, the sinner must be willing to believe in Christ’s sacrifice, and willing to depend on Christ’s sacrifice.

How then is being willing to love Christ (and hence being willing to obey Him — John 14:15) any different than the willingness you call for?

You are drawing arbitrary lines.

I noted this in a previous post, but it’s worth citing again:

Lou affirms that saving faith is an act of obedience (p. 247). This is a crucial point, so I’ll repeat it: Lou affirms that saving faith is an act of obedience. My question to Lou would be, who gets the credit for that obedience? If the answer is God, then Lou should have little to complain about with the lordship view. But if the answer is the sinner, then Lou himself is making human works of obedience the condition for salvation–meaning that he would be guilty of the very thing he wrongly accuses lordship of doing. This dilemma alone presents a major problem for Lou’s position.

As we have stated many times before, the willingness to come to Christ is a result of the initiating work of God (John 6:44). So it is not a human work, but as Jesus Himself calls it, it is “the work of God” (John 6:29).

Thanks,
NB

I got my answer to my question from Grace to You.. http://www.gty.org/gcc_distinctives/Gift_of_Tongues.pdf Talks about why he believes tongues are no longer used. Sorry for asking questions that are off topic.

-Adam

To deny the Lordship of Christ is to deny the very nature of God. God is sovereign, therefore He is Lord over all. “so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:10-11. The word “every” assumes that not everyone is acknowledging Christ as Lord yet. One day, EVERYONE will bow and confess, willingly or unwillingly. Demons believe who Jesus is, they know He died and rose from the dead. That’s a fact they cannot deny. And yet they do not put their faith in Him to save them, and they do not obey Him as Lord. They have always trembled before Him.

True saving faith includes the willingness to embrace all the “costs” that Christ has clearly put forth in the Gospels. Even though I, like Peter have denied my Lord in various situations, I have faith that if I ever face the decision to deny Christ or lose my life, God will grant me the strength and grace to choose Him and deny myself, just as Peter did at the end of his life.

To me, Scripture shows that “believing” is a word that encompasses all of the hard teachings of Christ. In fact, it was studying those teachings that lead to my eyes being opened and being saved. I grew up in a Christian home, and one day wondered why those teachings were never taught in my church, (or my later churches for that matter.)

It IS hard to believe. Just ask any converted Christian ex-Moslem who understood that when they switched allegience to Christ their lives (on the outside) would be drastically changed for the worse. Yet they were willing to suffer the persecution that followed.

Anyway, sorry this got so long, didn’t intend it to be.
Just my nickle’s worth.

Perhaps you could do an article on one of the discipleship passages in the gospels (like Mark 8:34ff or one of its parallels) before leaving the lordship subject. It would certainly help people see that the MacArthur quotes repeatedly denounced by Lou are actually built on a solid biblical foundation.

I appreciate the time you put into this “magazine.” Keep up the good work!

I find it interesting that you thank me for demonstrating that Dr. MacArthur’s surrender gospel is found in both examples of The Gospel According to Jesus. As I noted earlier, all this does it reiterate and substantiate the questionable statements found in the original edition.

I have read Dr. MacArthur’s “free gift” statements. It is not a matter of believing him. Those statements, in light of the statements such as I repeat for everyone below, reveals the contradiction in position. Salvation is either the “free gift” of God (Rom. 6:23) or it is the result of Lordship Salvation’s message of a commitment to full-surrender, self-denial, cross bearing, and obedience in exchange for eternal life. It cannot be both! If there is a clarification of his position it is once again clarifying a message of obedience in exchange for salvation.

“Thus in a sense we pay the ultimate price for salvation when our sinful self is nailed to a cross. . . . It is an exchange of all that we are for all that Christ is. And it denotes implicit obedience, full surrender to the lordship of Christ. Nothing less can qualify as saving faith.” (The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 140.)

You wrote, “The only reason you see works-salvation in that quote is because you are reading it in. Yet you refuse to even accept the possibility that it could be understood any other way, even though we have repeatedly explained our position to you.”

I have to restate my oft-repeated assertion that we are disagreeing over the terms, which define the reception of the gospel. There are additional corresponding statements to the one above found in the revised and expanded version, I chose to cite just one. In my book I cite numerous instances where John MacArthur presents a salvation message predicated on promises of cross bearing, self-denial, commitments to obey, etc.

Make no mistake about it, John MacArthur is making demands of the sinner for eternal life that the Scriptures do not. Any claim that I am reading his position incorrectly is not valid; his position on what he believes to be the requirements for salvation are plain and very clear. For example:

“The gospel Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship, a call to follow Him in submissive obedience. . . . Forsaking oneself for Christ’s sake is not an optional step of discipleship subsequent to conversion; it is the sine qua non of saving faith.” (The Gospel According to Jesus [Revised & Expanded Edition], pp. 27, 142.

“That is the kind of response the Lord Jesus called for: wholehearted commitment. A desire for him at any cost. Unconditional surrender. A full exchange of self for the Savior. It is the only response that will open the gates of the kingdom.” (The Gospel According to Jesus [Revised & Expanded Edition], p. 148.)

“Anyone who wants to come after Jesus into the Kingdom of God- anyone who wants to be a Christian- has to face three commands: 1) deny himself, 2) take up his cross daily, and 3) follow him.” (Hard to Believe: The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus, p. 6.

“Our Lord gave this young man a test. He had to choose between his possessions and Jesus Christ. He failed the test. No matter what he believed, since he was unwilling to forsake all, he could not be a disciple of Christ. Salvation is for those who are willing to forsake everything.” (The Gospel According To Jesus, p. 78.)

“All of these passages (Rom. 10:9; Acts 2:21; 2:36; 16:31) include indisputably the lordship of Christ as part of the gospel to be believed for salvation. . . . it is clear that people who come to Christ for salvation must do so in obedience to Him, that is, with a willingness to surrender to Him as Lord.” (The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 207.)

There are more, however, I show only these to demonstrate that I am not misunderstanding or misinterpreting Dr. MacArthur’s position on the requirements for salvation. He conditions the free gift on a lost man’s willingness to “pay the ultimate price.” This is “works salvation.”

One of my contributors wrote, “Believers should be willing to surrender their wills to Christ and to follow Him wherever He leads them, whatever the cost may be. But that decision cannot be construed as part of the salvation experience.”
LM

http://www.indefenseofthegospel.blogspot.com