What is the Gospel?

For the record, I'm not an "easy believism" nor a "Lordship Salvation" advocate. Both are wrong.

Believing IS everything. Its not easy and it is never just throwing a few words toward heaven. Those that believe in "Lordship Salvation" are ignoring the fact that there are people who live cleaner lives than they... themselves do.... and yet they're never going to know Jesus Christ as Lord.

I'm just for the Truth.

When I grew up a freewill Baptist, I heard their message over and over again. Time and time again but it was empty. A half truth. A message without dealing truthfully with God's Son. Jesus Christ. When I started attending a IFB church, I finally heard the missing link. The all encompassing guilt of humanity and began to understand the inadequacy of any of our efforts to please God.

That is the TRUE message of the Gospel. It stripped me of my efforts and left me with ONLY.... Jesus Christ.
 
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treasure_unseen said:
Those that believe in "Lordship Salvation" are ignoring the fact that there are people who live cleaner lives than they... themselves do.... and yet they're never going to know Jesus Christ as Lord.
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Which has nothing to do with the subject. Lordship Salvation is not comparing holiness among believers.
Lordship Salvation teaches that genuine believers have a faith that produces good works. That commitment to turn from sin and turn to God is very strong at the moment of Salvation... Sanctification is an entirely different topic.
 
tmjbog said:
The pastor always pointed to the Baptists as Calvinists and spoke about how they believed once you prayed for salvation you could live like the devil.
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R. L. Dabney, the 19th-century southern Presbyterian theologian:

We do not teach that any man is entitled to believe that he is justified, and therefore shall not come again in condemnation on the proposition "once in grace always in grace," although he be now living in intentional, wilful sin. This falsehood of Satan we abhor. We say, the fact that this deluded man can live in wilful sin is the strongest possible proof that he never was justified, and never had any grace to fall from. And, once for all, no intelligent believer can possibly abuse this doctrine into a pretext for carnal security. It promises to true believers a perseverance in holiness. Who, except an idiot, could infer from that promise the privilege to be unholy? (Dabney, "The Five Points of Calvinism")​

From what I've seen the Baptists are more like half calvinists.
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Nah. If you compare the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession, the most significant differences are over ecclesiology and the proper subject of baptism (obviously). As far as soteriology goes, there's little difference. The Particular Baptists who wrote the LBCF obviously felt the WCF was close enough to the truth to revise, rather than start from scratch.
 
treasure_unseen said:
For the record, I'm not an "easy believism" nor a "Lordship Salvation" advocate. Both are wrong.

Believing IS everything. Its not easy and it is never just throwing a few words toward heaven. Those that believe in "Lordship Salvation" are ignoring the fact that there are people who live cleaner lives than they... themselves do.... and yet they're never going to know Jesus Christ as Lord.

I'm just for the Truth.

When I grew up a freewill Baptist, I heard their message over and over again. Time and time again but it was empty. A half truth. A message without dealing truthfully with God's Son. Jesus Christ. When I started attending a IFB church, I finally heard the missing link. The all encompassing guilt of humanity and began to understand the inadequacy of any of our efforts to please God.

That is the TRUE message of the Gospel. It stripped me of my efforts and left me with ONLY.... Jesus Christ.
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I guess it depends on what your definition of "Lordship Salvation" is. I do not mean sinless perfection. A willingness to follow the one I claim to have "turned to" means I will not seek to offend the one I claim to have "turned to" It does not mean that I cannot or will not ever sin again or that by not committing certain sins I've earned any standing before God.
 
treasure_unseen said:
I thought LordShip Salvation was/is a late teaching. The Westminister Confession did NOT directly deal with the issue.
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Which is why I bolded the phrase. A commitment to obedience has always been part of salvation.
 
tmjbog said:
A very good reason to call upon God without having been regenerated? Often times it's the quickest way to get these crazy guys in ties off my front porch.
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Heck, that's happened to me. When I was in university I had a lady come to my residence door soul-winning. She refused to accept my insistence that I was a fellow believer--she grilled me on various topics and if there was the slightest point of disagreement, she took that as evidence of my unregenerate state. Ultimately the only way to get rid of her was to pray the prayer so I could get back to my homework.

She gave me a tract, which I looked at after she was gone--it turned out she attended my (rather large, ~500 attendees) church. Sigh.
 
FSSL said:
Which has nothing to do with the subject. Lordship Salvation is not comparing holiness among believers.
Lordship Salvation teaches that genuine believers have a faith that produces good works. That commitment to turn from sin and turn to God is very strong at the moment of Salvation... Sanctification is an entirely different topic.
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Just how can you write such a thing and "keep a straight face".....

You require a turn away from sin and then you don't want to compare sin?

Just how do you accomplish such? Exactly what constitutes an biblical example of turning away from sin? Paul said he was sold under sin. You are too. I am too. Were are no different. You have right to claim otherwise.
 
treasure_unseen said:
Just how can you write such a thing and "keep a straight face".....

You require a turn away from sin and then you don't want to compare sin?

Just how do you accomplish such? Exactly what constitutes an biblical example of turning away from sin? Paul said he was sold under sin. You are too. I am too. Were are no different. You have right to claim otherwise.
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You mention Paul there. Prior to salvation he murdered and persecuted Christians. After salvation how many Christians did he persecute or murder?
 
treasure_unseen said:
I thought LordShip Salvation was/is a late teaching. The Westminister Confession did NOT directly deal with the issue.
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It is recent. In The Gospel According to the Apostles, MacArthur calls it primarily an internal debate between dispensationalists. There's an appendix to the book that traces the history of the dispute. As I recall, MacArthur lays the blame primarily at the feet of Lewis Sperry Chafer.
 
Ransom said:
Heck, that's happened to me. When I was in university I had a lady come to my residence door soul-winning. She refused to accept my insistence that I was a fellow believer--she grilled me on various topics and if there was the slightest point of disagreement, she took that as evidence of my unregenerate state. Ultimately the only way to get rid of her was to pray the prayer so I could get back to my homework.

She gave me a tract, which I looked at after she was gone--it turned out she attended my (rather large, ~500 attendees) church. Sigh.
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One of my son's classmates in high school always had the most souls won. One of his tricks was to find a group of kids and get a few of his friends to challenge them to Basketball. If these kids won he would give them each a soda, but if they lost they had to pray the prayer. He must have been decent at basketball based on his numbers.
 
John F. MacArthur Jr., The Gospel according to the Apostles: The Role of Works in the Life of Faith (Nashville, TN: Word Pub., 2000).

To be even more specific, the modern lordship controversy is primarily a dispute among dispensationalists. Appendix 2 explains dispensationalism and why it is at the heart of the lordship debate. Without getting into a technical discussion about theology at this point, let me simply note that one arm of the dispensationalist movement has developed and defended no-lordship doctrine. Their influence on the evangelical culture has been widespread. As the lordship controversy has been debated on radio talk shows and in other popular formats, it has begun to seem like a monumental conflict threatening to divide Protestant Christianity in a major way. The truth is, only one branch of dispensationalism has risen to defend the no-lordship view.

Who are the defenders of no-lordship dispensationalism? Nearly all of them stand in a tradition that has its roots in the teaching of Lewis Sperry Chafer. I will show in Appendix 2 that Dr. Chafer is the father of modern no-lordship teaching. Every prominent figure on the no-lordship side descends from Dr. Chafer’s spiritual lineage. Though Dr. Chafer did not invent or originate any of the key elements of no-lordship teaching, he codified the system of dispensationalism on which all contemporary no-lordship doctrine is founded. That system is the common link between those who attempt to defend no-lordship doctrine on theological grounds.


<<<<<< which I have stated before that Dallas Dispensationalism is known to be extreme.
 
tmjbog said:
I guess it depends on what your definition of "Lordship Salvation" is. I do not mean sinless perfection. A willingness to follow the one I claim to have "turned to" means I will not seek to offend the one I claim to have "turned to" It does not mean that I cannot or will not ever sin again or that by not committing certain sins I've earned any standing before God.
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So we ignore our sin and arbitrarily point our fingers at whomever we want?

Sin is sin. It seems you are attributing rank and quantity of sin to your equation?
 
FSSL said:
Which is why I bolded the phrase. A commitment to obedience has always been part of salvation.
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An empty commitment is all you have. It is all I have.

It is just mouth service. We prove our condition every day of our lives. Sin has this flesh.
 
FSSL said:
Because I know the difference between SALVATION and SANCTIFICATION.
You are confusing the two
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You're drawing your own lines between the two. You can't assume your line is the Scriptures line.

There is not a just man upon the earth that does good and sins not.
 
treasure_unseen said:
So we ignore our sin and arbitrarily point our fingers at whomever we want?

Sin is sin. It seems you are attributing rank and quantity of sin to your equation?
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UGC...is that you? Who said anything about pointing fingers?
 
tmjbog said:
You mention Paul there. Prior to salvation he murdered and persecuted Christians. After salvation how many Christians did he persecute or murder?
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He persecuted many with his message. So much so, that they sought to kill him. Largely, he just changed sides. The side he changed to didn't carry the authority of the side he started with. He had the church at Corinth commit a confessing believer in Jesus Christ to death.

Not that I'm against what he did. I'm just making the point. Perspective is what really changed.

It would also seem as if you've narrowed your sense of disapproving sin to murder? How about Peter living as a Gentile and yet refusing to stand against his fellow Jew's demands for Gentiles?

Was that sanctification?
 
tmjbog said:
UGC...is that you? Who said anything about pointing fingers?
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Not literally. Figuratively with your choices. Just a figure of speech. I'm not classifying you as one of those people. Sorry.
 
treasure_unseen said:
He persecuted many with his message. So much so, that they sought to kill him. Largely, he just changed sides. The side he changed to didn't carry the authority of the side he started with. He had the church at Corinth commit a confessing believer in Jesus Christ to death.

Not that I'm against what he did. I'm just making the point. Perspective is what really changed.

It would also seem as if you've narrowed your sense of disapproving sin to murder? How about Peter living as a Gentile and yet refusing to stand against his fellow Jew's demands for Gentiles?

Was that sanctification?
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Yes, he changed sides. From working against God to work to do the will of God.
 
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