Is Repentance Part of the Gospel? The Lordship Salvation Controversy and 1John (Biblestudy @ the Grosjeans Friday December 9th, 7:00pm)

Dear Fellow Douloi

In our next Biblestudy @ the Grosjeans, on Friday December 9th, we will still be thinking about introductory questions concerning 1John.  “Lordship Salvation” is a term for a controversy that appeared in the late 1980s and predominantly addressed the question: “Is repentance part of the gospel?”  Robert Lescelius summarizes the issue as following: “The controversy centers on whether one is saved through receiving Jesus as Savior only, or whether one must acknowledge Jesus as Lord also.”  We will see, that the exposition of 1John heavily depends on what position someone takes in this debate.   

As a preparation for our discussion, I would like you to do the following:

1.     Study the main arguments of the “Non-Lordship” View below:

a.     Hodges: “Faith is just an acknowledgment of facts and a inner conviction that the Gospel is true. Just that!” (John 4:10/ John 6:47/ John 11:26-27)

b.     Ryrie: “When a person gives credence to the historical facts that Christ died and rose from the dead and the doctrinal fact that this was for his sins, he is trusting his eternal destiny to the reliability of those truths.” 

c.     Saving faith is just a single drink from the living water, and then you are saved forever, no matter what happens.

d.     Every human being can exercise saving faith.  We believe hundreds of times a day. For example; We drink water from our faucet and believe that the guys at the water supply works did a good job.

e.     Discipleship is a “higher class” of Christians, but not required for every Christian.  Discipleship is like going to school, or having an education, but not required in order to be saved.

f.      God can use repentance, but he can also use other means to draw someone to Christ.  Gratitude or inward dissatisfaction can bring someone to Christ.

g.     Ryrie: “Every Christian will bear spiritual fruit.  Somewhere, sometime, somehow.  Otherwise that person is not a believer... but this does not mean that a believer will always be fruitful… this does not mean that a certain person’s fruit will necessarily be outwardly evident… my understanding of what fruit is …may be faulty or incomplete.”

h.     Christians can be carnal for a long time (1Cor 3:1-3)

i.      “Repentance” means only “change of mind”, since this is what the Greek verb for “to repent” means.

2.     Prepare yourself to work together in a group on a refutation of the “Non Lordship” Position.  Try to reason theologically and from scripture.

I am looking forward having a great discussion next time.

Blessings

- Pascal