“Genuine repentance”

Discuss topics raised by callers on the radio program
User avatar
StevenD
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:25 am

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by StevenD » Mon May 17, 2010 5:29 am

I removed this post because it seemed to be more of a distraction than a contribution to the thread.

My sincere apologies,
Steve D.
Last edited by StevenD on Tue May 18, 2010 3:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

BrianK
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:45 am

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by BrianK » Tue May 18, 2010 2:21 am

“Lordship Salvation” is a specific brand of theology that was started in the 1980's, and has been challenged by theologians such as Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges, who argued that it teaches a form of works-based salvation. What happens when you have people who come up with doctrines, that in a roundabout way, imply the original doctrine of salvation is not enough, that more is required, is people who become like the Pharisees, by tacking on their own rules and regulations for what is "true" and "genuine" Christianity and salvation. That's all I was saying.

It's like a caller who said he heard some teacher/preacher on the radio saying that he spent two solid hours a day in prayer, on his knees, in a prayer closet, and if you weren't willing to commit to that, then you couldn't call yourself a "true Christian".

What I was saying when I said that when a certain pastor initiated "Lordship Salvation" as a doctrine to adhere to, and someone in his inner circle challenged the doctrine with scripture - I DID NOT SAY HE CHALLENGED OUR OBIDIANCE TO CHRIST AS OUR LORD- but that he challenged that particular newly invented doctrine using scripture (I'm guessing much the same way as Ryrie and Hodges did later on). The key factor in this is, the pastor AGREED with the rebuttal against the doctrine of "Lordship Salvation" however, he was sticking to preaching it. To me that basically means he was going with additional rules and regulations to keep Christians under control. PM me if you want to know exactly who I'm talking about and how I came upon this info.

This is an example of why I am starting to get a little leery of qualifying things such as salvation and repentance as "true" and "genuine" based on what might end up being my own personal criteria.
Last edited by BrianK on Tue May 18, 2010 3:20 am, edited 2 times in total.

BrianK
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:45 am

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by BrianK » Tue May 18, 2010 2:46 am

steve wrote:I don't know why people gravitate to one or the other of those extremes. It's really very simple. God has declared that Jesus is Lord. People deal with that fact in any way they choose.
I think teachers and pastors gravitate to those extremes because they want to impose their personal criteria and agenda. One the one hand, you have the ultra passive ones. On the other hand, you have the ultra aggressive ones. Both in my opinion are motivated by things like fear and doubt. The passive ones are afraid to make Christianity look too hard and therefore unappealing. The aggressive ones are afraid of making Christianity look to soft and therefore not taken seriously.
The passive ones mislead and the aggressive ones oppress.

BrianK
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:45 am

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by BrianK » Tue May 18, 2010 3:07 am

kaufmannphillips wrote:

:arrow: When we consider the theological significance of “Lordship,” it is important to give due consideration to worldview....

Part of what makes the original Python sketch humorous is the quandary that Arthur finds himself in when he is faced with anachronistic political theory. A “lordship” model only works when all participants have bought into its premises....

So what happens when participants do not buy into the premises? Well, there are a number of possibilities....

And so we give attention to worldview: when the early Christians thought of Jesus as “Lord,” what premises would they have considered to be intrinsic to this?...

And what of present-day Christians who derive from egalitarian societies?....
I think maybe you have me confused with some professor. :roll:

User avatar
kaufmannphillips
Posts: 585
Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:00 pm

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by kaufmannphillips » Tue May 18, 2010 11:58 am

I removed this post because it seemed to be more of a distraction than a contribution to the thread.

My sincere apologies,
Steve D.
Hi, Steve -

I still have the text to your post. If you don't mind, I'll post some of your responses to the "oven of Aknai" in the "Judaism" section and engage them there.

Shalom, Emmet
========================
"The more something is repeated, the more it becomes an unexamined truth...." (Nicholas Thompson)
========================

User avatar
steve
Posts: 3392
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by steve » Tue May 18, 2010 11:59 am

Brian,

I am not sure where you have obtained your history of doctrine, but it seems to be very mistaken. Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges do not preach the "original doctrine of salvation" from which someone recently (in the 1980s!) deviated by inventing "Lordship Salvation". Let me put things into correct perspective.

The gospel as preached everywhere in scripture and throughout the age of the church has always been that Jesus is the Lord, and that those who accept that reality from the heart will be saved (Romans 10:9). As near as I can tell, this is the concept that you are calling "Lordship Salvation," and there is nothing new about it at all.

(It is true that certain branches of the church created strange rituals that they imposed upon believers, as a part of what they thought "obedience" involved, but that is a separate issue, and those who advocate the doctrine that you so decry are Protestants, who generally do not add such ritual demands to the gospel. It is also true that, even among Protestants, there have been legalists who make salvation a matter of performance, but that, too, is not an essential element of the so-called "Lordship Salvation" message).

What is truly "new" is the dispensationalism of Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges, the origins of which virtually all historians trace to John Nelson Darby, in 1830. This view has always been at odds with historical Christianity, and when Darby introduced it, conservative theologians around the world denounced his views as "liberalism." Now, one may be convinced that dispensationalism is correct, if he finds it to be agreeable with the Bible, but no one can deny that it was a "new" (not the "original") message of salvation introduced in 1830. Darby himself admitted this, and said that, while he thought his views to be scriptural, yet they were in conflict with everything the church had taught since the time of the apostles. He believed the truth had been lost as soon as the apostles died, and that he, Darby, had "rediscovered" (his own word) the truth. Those familiar with religious history may remember that Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, made exactly the same claim in the same year!

What was "new" in the 1980's was the term "Lordship Salvation"—invented by dispensationalists as a pejorative for the historical teachings of the church prior to dispensationalism. I am not even sure why it should be considered a pejorative, unless the word "Lordship" offends—which it does not offend lovers of Christ.

So instead of revising history to say that "Lordship Salvation" was a doctrine created in the 1980's, a more honest and correct historical statement would be that the term "Lordship Salvation" was invented by dispensationalists in the 1980's as a label for a view that had been the mainstream belief of the Church for 1800 years, and which Ryrie and Hodges were hoping to replace with a new doctrine on "No-Lordship."

To say that the attack on "Lordship Salvation" does not constitute a challenge to "our obedience to Christ as our Lord" is disingenuous. The works or Ryrie and Hodges do indeed challenge our obedience to Christ as our Lord—not by forbidding obedience to Jesus, but by making it optional. This is a failure to give proper weight to the meaning of the word and office of "Lord." If someone has a Lord, obedience is obligatory. If no obedience is mandatory, there is no "Lord" in the picture. Where there is no Lord, there certainly is no Jesus—and where there is no Jesus, there is no salvation. Anyone who has made obedience to Jesus optional, has denied His Lordship. There is no such thing as a "Lord" who is not to be obeyed.
“Lordship Salvation” is a specific brand of theology that was started in the 1980's, and has been challenged by theologians such as Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges, who argued that it teaches a form of works-based salvation. What happens when you have people who come up with doctrines, that in a roundabout way, imply the original doctrine of salvation is not enough, that more is required, is people who become like the Pharisees, by tacking on their own rules and regulations for what is "true" and "genuine" Christianity and salvation. That's all I was saying.
This is not only historically inaccurate (as demonstrated above), but it is also a non sequitur. To say that Jesus is Lord, and that we are obliged to obey Him does not invoke a works-based salvation. It means no one is saved if they do not embrace Jesus as Lord. It does not predict how successfully the Christian will exemplify the ideal servant. My children, when in my home, were obligated to obey me, as well. This did not mean that their obedience was perfect, nor that their acceptance in the family was based upon the perfection of their obedience. This is so obvious to me that (I confess) I become frustrated when people can't see it.

I guess it is because the people who misunderstand have never known a relationship with a human father that was not performance-based (a situation that I have never known and can hardly imagine). Anyway, suffice it to say that those who preach the Lordship of Christ (in other words, those who preach the same Gospel the apostles preached) have not thereby created a set of works that must be performed to earn salvation. Reading any of Paul's epistles should make that abundantly clear.

Those who think that the message of Christ's Lordship is somehow a diminishing of the message of grace have done too little thinking about either lordship or grace. Why do we need grace? Is it not because we have disobeyed God and need to be forgiven? But why should disobedience require forgiveness, unless there was an obligation to obey in the first place? If I have no obligation to obey a person, then I need no forgiveness for my disobedience to him.

We need grace because we have been rebels against our King. We receive grace, when we foreswear our rebellion (meaning, we stop rebelling—meaning we accept His rule). The King is gracious. Otherwise He would not accept our repentance as adequate for reconciliation. This same King remains gracious and forgiving throughout our lifetime in His service. However, the fact that He is forgiving does not reduce His Lordship, nor our obligation to obey Him, one iota.

There can be no message of grace without the message of Lordship. If it is no Lord that we have disobeyed, no argument can be made to require our needing His forgiveness.

User avatar
steve
Posts: 3392
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by steve » Tue May 18, 2010 12:02 pm

Emmet wrote:
Hi, Steve ["Steve D" not "Steve G"]-

I still have the text to your post. If you don't mind, I'll post some of your responses to the "oven of Aknai" in the "Judaism" section and engage them there.

Shalom, Emmet
I am glad to hear that you saved that information, Emmet. I thought it was very valuable, and was disappointed to see that it had been removed. However, it is true that it would fit better in the Judaism section.

BrianK
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:45 am

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by BrianK » Tue May 18, 2010 8:29 pm

Hi Steve,

My take on "Lordship Salvation" was motivated out of bias. It was a "movement" that hit close to home church back around 1980. And it did, as you say, give rise to accusations of legalism and even did actually give rise to legalism in some circles, which is why it would leave a "bad taste" in my mouth. The pastor of the home church also started becoming a "hyper Calvinist" as well. (You have to forgive me if I don't get these terms entirely correct as they're terms I've heard consistently applied [usually derogatorily] but have not studied their complexities in depth). And I therefore in my mind figured it was all doctrinal rhetoric.

It seems to me, in my observation, that there is such a slippery slope about what is and is not legitimate grounds for determining "True/genuine Christianity". It seems even from the same teachers, that it can go from one end of the spectrum to the other, depending on how it's being addressed. I think that's why people get so confused. I myself will hear or read something from someone I trust and it will cause me to wonder if I'm on shaky ground. Then the same person will say or write something later on that will cause me to feel at ease and encouraged.

And in such a situation someone might say "he's being legalistic" and then later on "now he's giving people a ticket to sin".

Thanks for taking the time to spell it out more clearly.

User avatar
steve
Posts: 3392
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by steve » Tue May 18, 2010 11:46 pm

You're welcome, Brian. I know you have had ongoing struggles about these issues. It seems that the very best thing to do is not to worry about specific doctrinal controversies, but just to concentrate on loving Jesus and keeping Him first in all things—but accepting His grace when you feel that you have not kept Him first in any matter. I don't think He intended for it to be complicated or confusing. We who teach can certainly make a mess of things. We will have the stricter judgment—probably because we can get people so confused and discouraged by getting their eyes onto something other than Jesus alone.

User avatar
StevenD
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:25 am

Re: “Genuine repentance”

Post by StevenD » Wed May 19, 2010 2:45 am

Greetings Emmet,

Thanks for taking the post seriously. Shucks, if Steve Gregg approved - I'll gladly repost in the Judaism section. Again, I apologize for interrupting this thread.

-sd

Post Reply

Return to “Radio Program Topics”