First Corinthians 6 and the Lordship Debate

One of the most significant theological debates over the last several decades has been the controversy over “lordship salvation.” Central to this debate is the question of whether or not obedience to God is an inevitable fruit of genuine conversion. In the preface to The Gospel According to Jesus—the 1988 book that brought the lordship controversy to a new level—lordship advocate John MacArthur wrote:  

I have never taught that some pre-salvation works of righteousness are necessary to or part of salvation. But I do believe without apology that real salvation cannot, and will not, fail to produce works of righteousness in the life of a true believer. There are no human works in the saving act, but God’s work of salvation includes a change of intent, will, desire, and attitude that inevitably produces the fruit of the Spirit.

This belief that regeneration inevitably results in a spiritually transformed life is one of the main tenets of lordship salvation. In contrast, many opponents of the lordship view have denied that good works are an inevitable result of conversion. For example, according to the late Zane Hodges—founder of the more radical form of non-lordship teaching known as “Free Grace” (hereafter FG)—the idea that “faith inevitably produces good works” is “a theological construct which cannot be established from the Bible.” Elsewhere Hodges writes, “How strange that in our day and time we have been told so often that fruitlessness is a sure sign that a person is unsaved. Certainly we did not get this idea from the Bible.” According to Hodges and other FG teachers, it is hypothetically possible for an individual to believe in Christ and yet show forth absolutely no fruit in terms of obedience to God or love for Christ. Put another way, they believe in a regeneration which may or may not result in a visibly changed life.   Continue at Matt Waymeyer

Is Psychology the 67th Book of the Bible?

All truth is God’s truth, or so the saying goes. The problem with this seemingly axiomatic assertion is not simply its ambiguity, but the way it serves as a means to justify using extra-biblical sources (such as psychology) to deal with spiritual issues. This is especially common among integrationists in the field of Christian counseling. The view of integrationism is that only when Scripture and psychology are integrated—brought together into a unified whole—is one able to engage in a truly effective counseling ministry. This view is really an assault on the idea that Scripture alone is sufficient for spiritual growth.

Psychology as General Revelation

But how exactly does this relate to the idea that all truth is God’s truth? The integrationist argument goes something like this: Because God has made Himself known through two channels—special revelation (the propositional truth recorded in scripture) and general revelation (the non-propositional truth deposited by God in the created order of things)—man has a mandate from his Creator to investigate and discover truths through means such as psychological research, the findings of which should be accepted as having their origin in God. Scripture alone, then, is not sufficient, but rather, as John H. Coe asserts, “Only when all forms of revelation are taken together can we speak of the sufficiency of revelation.” Put simply, all truth is God’s truth and should be embraced as such whether it be found in Scripture (special revelation) or in psychological research (general revelation).

This argument has been articulated in various ways by different integrationists. Notice the language of divine revelation in the following examples:

• Larry Crabb: “All truth is certainly God’s truth. The doctrine of general revelation provides warrant for going beyond the propositional revelation of Scripture into the secular world of scientific study expecting to find true and useable concepts.”

• Bruce Narramore: “The evangelical church has a great opportunity to combine the special revelation of God’s Word with the general revelation studied by the psychological sciences and professions. The end result of this integration can be a broader (and deeper) view of human life.”  Continue at Matt Waymeyer

Can we trust the New Testament?

Several years ago I was walking in a park and met a man who identified himself as a pantheist. As I shared the Gospel with him, he raised a series of objections, the first of which concerned the reliability of Scripture. “The Bible was going along fine,” he explained, “until King James came along and changed it all. Now we have no idea what the original Bible actually said.”

The man’s objection was obviously more than a bit misinformed, but it does raise a significant question: If we do not possess the original manuscripts of the Bible, if the existing manuscripts do not completely agree with each other, and if there is no absolutely sure method of determining the original reading where these differences exist, then how can we have confidence in the Bible we possess today?

The points of difference between existing manuscripts are known as textual variants, and the process of determining the original wording where variants exist is known as textual criticism. Because this process is at least partly subjective in nature, it is not infallible and therefore we cannot know with absolute certainty what the original manuscripts said in a given place. For this reason, the question is indeed a significant one: Can we really trust the Bible as it has been handed down to us?    Keep Reading...