• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1. Perverting the Gospel - The Ultimate Sin Against Humanity
• CHAPTER 2. Salvation by Grace Alone - Part I - Faith and Obedience
• CHAPTER 3. Salvation by Grace Alone - Part II - A Righteous Life by Faith
• CHAPTER 4. Regeneration: God's Creation of the Righteous
• CHAPTER 5. Sanctification and Growing in Righteousness
• CHAPTER 6. The Lordship of Christ in Salvation - Part I
• CHAPTER 7. The Lordship of Christ in Salvation - Part II
• CHAPTER 8. We Walk By Faith Not By Sight - Part I
• CHAPTER 9. We Walk By Faith - Part II - Taking Up Our Cross
• CHAPTER 10. What is a Carnal Christian?
• CHAPTER 11. Bear or Burn: The Fruit of Obedience in the Parables of Christ
• CHAPTER 12. Saint or Sinner?
• CHAPTER 13. Righteousness vs. Self-righteousness
• CHAPTER 14. Can a Christian Backslide?
• CHAPTER 15. Sin and the Misinterpretation of Romans 7
• CHAPTER 16. Examine Yourselves as to Whether You Are in the Faith
• APPENDIX 1. Quotes and Confessions in Church History
• APPENDIX 2. Scriptural Evidence for the Necessity of Obedience in Salvation

Clinging to a Counterfeit Cross

Grk/Heb Fonts

Over 75 Free Online Bible Commentaries

by James P. Shelly

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Lordship of Christ in Salvation – Part II

That there is a typological equivalence between the historical Exodus and our redemption in Christ is well-established in Scripture and is often referenced in the New Testament as a type or pattern of our salvation in Christ. In Exodus 1:13, 14, we have a description of the slavery that Israel experienced by the Egyptians, “That they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service…In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. The Hebrew word for slaves in these passages is עָבַד abad [aw-bad’]. This is the same word used in Exodus 8:1 where we find God’s purpose for setting His people free, “Let my people go, that they may serve (abad) me.” “In the Hiphil stem, it means ’to compel one to labor’ as a slave (Ex 1:13). When the service is offered to God, however, it is not bondage, but rather a joyous and liberating experience” (Ex 3:12; Ex 4:23; Ex 7:16; Ex 10:26; Ps 22:31 ; Job 21:15; Jer 2:20; Mal 3:14)¹ What we find then is that their deliverance was not to free them from serving as slaves but rather to transfer ownership from one master to another. This is Old Testament typology depicting God’s sending forth of His Son to this earth, as He did Moses to Israel (Acts 3:22), to deliver His people (sent to the Jew first) from the bondage of the oppression of the powers of darkness even as Moses from the bondage of the oppression of the Egyptians. “To bring good news [i.e., the gospel], to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;” (Isa. 61:1). To proclaim freedom to those, who in the flesh, are subject to their own defiled hearts. Slaves to sin, bound by a spiritual law which is contrary and oppressive to the carnal, natural man, and are therefore imprisoned by the law (Gal. 3:23), being held captive to the law of sin and death (Rom. 7:23), captured by Satan to do his will (2 Tim. 2:26). Even as the Egyptians “ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service” even so is the law to those still in the flesh, legalistically obeying the law as exemplified in the Pharisees. Jesus says to them in John 8:34-36, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin… and in v. 36, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Therefore, Paul says of believers, “and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:18) (This, of course, refers not only to the Jews, but all those grafted into the Jewish system, Rom. 11:17). So, even as with the Exodus, the people are not set free from slavery as such but free to serve an alternate master, “Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Rom. 6:22). “You are not your own? For you were bought at a price” (1 Cor. 6:19, 20). The amplified version translates it as “you are not your own [property]”. This is slave language pointing to a transfer of ownership. We are in this sense set free, yet remain as slaves. In Christ, we are now slaves to righteousness, mastered by a new and purified heart wherein the Spirit dwells, set free from the oppression of the law in that it is no longer condemning, contrary and antagonistic, but in harmony with and compatible to our new spiritual nature, being now captured by Christ to do God’s will. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3). As it is written in Romans 8:1-4,

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death…in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

We find then, that the believer is set free from the law of sin and death that they might be slaves of the law of the Spirit of life, i.e., righteousness. Therefore, If you are led by the [law of the] Spirit, you are not under the [Mosaic] law [of sin and death](Gal. 5:18). In the exodus of the New Covenant God says to the ruler of darkness who has taken those captive to do his will, “Let the people go, that they may serve me.” “We have been delivered from the law…so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7:6). The believer is set free from the slavery of serving the external law “written with the finger of God” on tablets of stone, Exodus 31:18, that they might be the servants of an inward law of righteousness written by the finger of God on the tablet of their hearts. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jer. 31:33) These can now say with David, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (Psa. 40:8). They are those who not only say “Lord, Lord” (Matt. 7:21) but actually do the will of the Father, as this is what brings them the greatest joy, peace, and happiness. A legalistic obedience is as a bitter herb; Spirit wrought obedience as the sweetest honey. “As it was with Israel, so it is with believers. The deliverance from the bondage of sin has made each believer a part of the new covenant people of God with a common father, a common salvation, a common hope, and a common obligation to serve and obey God in Jesus Christ.”²

Scripture teaches then, that whether knowingly or unknowingly, every human being is a slave. Those who claim to be Christians in word can only discern whose slaves they are by deed. Paul says, “You are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16). The slave of sin seeks to please his master, walking according to the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh; the slave of righteousness seeks to please his master, walking according to the spirit, fulfilling the desires of the Spirit and thus “the righteous requirement of the law.” Whichever one we most naturally and consistently obey, sin or righteousness, that is the master of our hearts, and again, Christ said, “No one can serve two masters.” And though there will be times of stumbling, the slave of righteousness will maintain such consistency as to be considered, in the end, good and faithful slaves (Grk. - doulos) by their Master (Matt. 25:21, NASB). So then, only those who have become slaves of God, under Christ’s Lordship will, in the end, receive eternal life. Thayer’s definition of the Greek term for slave, ‎dou=lo$ (doo’-los) is, “1. a slave 2. metaph., one who gives himself up to another’s will, those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause among men and 3. devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests.” Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says of this word,

All the words in this group serve either to describe the status of a slave or an attitude corresponding to that of a slave....The meaning is so unequivocal and self-contained that it is superfluous to give examples of the individual terms or to trace the history of the group. Distinction from synonymous words and groups is made possible by the fact that the emphasis here is always on ‘serving as a slave.’ Hence we have a service, which is not a matter of choice for the one who renders it, which he has to perform whether he likes or not, because he is subject as a slave to an alien will, to the will of his owner. ‎oi)ke/th$ [servant] is almost exactly synonymous, but in ‎dou=lo$ ‎the stress is rather on the slave’s dependence on his lord....This shows us again how strong is the passive element in ‎dou=lo$‎, and in the whole word group to which it belongs.

In the LXX ‎douleu/ein is the most common term for the service of God, not in the sense of an isolated act, but in that of total commitment to the Godhead....This shows us that any other attitude towards God than that of ‎douleu/ein ‎implies disobedience and betrayal of His cause.

The connexion of those liberated from the ‎doulei/a ‎ (slavery) of the world, sin and death to the One who has liberated them links up with the occasional use of the term for commitment to God. This naturally results from the goal of the redemption, which is obedience rather than autonomy [self-governance]. When Christ undertakes the work of redemption, He makes the redeemed His own possession, giving them directions and goals by which to shape their lives. This commitment is expressed linguistically by calling those who are thus obligated to Christ His ‎‎dou=loi ‎(1 Cor 7:22; Eph 6:6; cf. Rom 14:18; 16:18; Col 3:25). The term shows us that the new state of Christians is fulfilled...in love and in self-sacrifice—all these things being implied in fellowship with Christ. Especially it makes it clear that there is no path to an orderly relationship with God, or to service which is pleasing to Him, apart from that of unconditional commitment to Him, so that by His work and Word He exercises sovereign rule over the relationship of man to God and God to man, and therefore over man’s whole conduct within the ordinary nexus of life.³

The Apostle Paul, “interpreted freedom in a distinctive way. It was the freedom of men ransomed at ‘a price’ (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23), acquired by God as Israel of old had been acquired to be ‘his own possession’ (Ex. 19:5). So now the redeemed were to ‘live no longer for themselves’ but for their Lord ‘who died and was raised for them’ (2 Cor. 5:15). As mentioned in a previous chapter, Deissmann in Light From the Ancient East gives several convincing quotations from the papyri to prove that ‎pisteuein eis auton (“believe in/on Him”)meant surrender or submission to ….G. Milligan agrees with Deissmann that this papyri usage of ‎eis auton (in/on Him), is also found regularly in the New Testament. Thus to believe on or to be baptized into the name of Jesus means to renounce self and to consider oneself the lifetime servant of Jesus.⁴ So again, Jesus says to His disciples “When you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves (doúloi); we have done only that which we ought to have done.’” (Luke 17:10, NASB). John Macarthur writes,

We are bound, therefore, to submission and obedience. Nothing could define the Christian relationship to the Lord more clearly than that. What did Jesus say in the great commission? ‘Go out and teach them to observe...what?...everything I have commanded you.’ This is about yielding up. This is not about, ‘God, come into my life and fulfill my dreams.’ That is not the language of the New Testament. The language of the New Testament is Luke 9:23, ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.’ It’s the end of you, virtually. That, by the way, means in the Greek to refuse to associate with. It is to come to Christ and say, ‘I refuse to associate with the person that I am, I abandon myself.’ Jesus expanded that. He said, ‘If you don’t hate your father, hate your mother, and yes hate your own life, you can’t be My disciple. You better count the cost, like the man who goes to war, you better count the cost like the man who is going to build the tower, make sure you have what it takes to complete the job. And what does it cost? It costs you everything, deny yourself, hate yourself, it’s the end of you.’

Coming to Christ doesn’t make God your slave, it makes you His slave. And so you say, ‘I’m willing to deny myself,’ that’s the hurdle that makes the gospel so difficult because that goes against the grain of the unregenerate heart, right? We spend all our time building ourselves up and the gospel comes along and says, ‘Die...die, abandon everything, yield up everything, give away all your ambition, all your freedoms so that you have no ambition but to be pleasing to Him.’ Right? Second Corinthians 5:9, we have it as our ambition to be pleasing to Him. That’s it. You deny yourself, take up your cross, which means it’s a denial to the end of death. It’s total denial, even if it costs you your life and follow Me. And that’s repeated in Matthew as well as Luke. ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, refuse to associate with the person he is, take his cross up and a cross was not some kind of mystical thing, and it wasn’t his mother-in-law, or his wife or his boss, the cross to those people meant execution.’ So the picture is you give yourself up, even to the point of death if necessary, and you follow Christ. That’s the New Testament picture. We live in complete submission and obedience to Him. That’s what it means when you hear Paul say, if you confess Jesus as Lord, Romans 10:9 and 10, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be… what… saved. But confessing Jesus as Lord is tantamount to confessing yourself as slave…⁵

So as we have seen, the New Testament reflects on the Exodus as a pattern in the proclamation of our deliverance in Christ and that our deliverance was for the purpose of serving a new Master. Therefore, we also find in the New Testament the Exodus used as a pattern of warning to those who would not continue in faithful obedience to Christ their Lord. We read in Hebrews 3:16-19

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

We then read in Hebrews 4,

So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it....Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience....Let us be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience (Heb. 4:1, 2, 6, 11, NKJV) (emphasis added).

Why did they not enter? Because of their disobedience to God’s word; “the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith.” Why does he warn New Testament believers? Because they will not enter the kingdom if they fall according to the same example of disobedience. He says in 3:12-15,

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [those who left Egypt led by Moses].’ (italics and brackets added).

Those hardened by the deceitfulness of sin are those who naturally say in their hearts, “We do not want this man [Jesus] to reign over us” (Luke 19:14), and refuse to submit to His Lordship, and again, He says of such, v 27, “these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me".

We have the same warning again in Jude v. 5, which says, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” Again, they did not believe in Christ as evidenced by their rejection of His authority to rule over their lives. Once more the warning is given to the Corinthians,

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor. 10:1-12) (italics added).

They were all partakers of the same baptism, the same spiritual food and drink; They all drank of that spiritual rock which was Christ, but with most of them God was not pleased. Why? Because they rebelled against His Lordship. Therefore, they will not hear the words of the Master, “Well done, good and faithful slave” (NASB) but rather “You wicked and lazy slave!... Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:14-30, NASB).

Paul exhorts his readers in Ephesians 6:5-9,

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. (NASB, emphasis added).

Would Paul be telling his hearers to be obedient to their earthly masters, according to the flesh, if it were not already established that they were committed to obeying their heavenly Master, according to the Spirit? He addresses them as slaves of Christ, and as such, were committed to doing the will of God. It is stated again in Titus 2:9, “Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; well pleasing in all things.” Again, an exhortation to obey and please earthly masters without first assuming a commitment to obeying and pleasing their heavenly Master, would not only be ineffectual, but nonsensical. Paul says of Christians that they have made it their aim to be well pleasing to Christ (2 Cor. 5:9) and therefore he is confident of their obedience as he states in 2 Thess. 3:4, “We have confidence in the Lord concerning you, both that you do and will do the things we command you.”

We read in Hebrews 13:17,

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

Is it reasonable to suppose that we are to submit to and obey earthly spiritual leaders who look out for our souls and yet think it optional to submit to and obey Christ our heavenly leader; the head of the Church; the Chief Shepherd and Overseer of our souls? Moreover, would the writer have any reason to expect that his readers would heed his exhortation without assuming that they were already in obedient submission to their heavenly leader? If not, surely he would have first exhorted them to do so before giving them any further instruction. To expect any exhortation in Scripture to be effective without presupposing a prior commitment to the Lordship of Christ is nonsensical. We would otherwise have to conclude that the teachings of Scripture are not for all Christians but only for an elite group who have taken Christ as their Lord.

It is written in Ephesians 5:22, 23,

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (emphasis added).

In the Greek, the phrase “submits to” is hupotasso [hoop-ot-as’-so] meaning to subject one’s self, to submit to one’s control, to yield to one’s admonition or advice, to obey, be subject, a voluntary attitude of giving in.⁶ It is already assumed in this passage that the Christian is in submission to the authority of the Lord in that it states as the church submits [hupotasso] to Christ. Moreover,if an earthly wife is to submit to her husband how much more so is it required of the Lamb’s wife (Rev. 21:9) to submit to Christ. Paul writes in Romans 7:4, “Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God” (NKJV). Again, if wives are to submit to their own husbands, then surely it necessarily follows that it is required of the one married to Him who was raised from the dead to be committed, submitted, and faithful to Him. To preach a gospel that leaves out of its message any mention of commitment, loyalty, and faithfulness to Christ, claiming these have nothing to do with one’s salvation, can be likened to a minister performing a wedding ceremony that leaves out of his message any mention of commitment, loyalty, and faithfulness to one’s spouse, claiming these have nothing to do with entering into a covenant of marriage. The one is no less absurd than the other. In a traditional wedding vow the bride promises to “love, cherish and obey” her husband. How profane and insulting to our blessed Lord to imagine that our relationship to Him would result in any less of a commitment. Even as it was with adulterous Israel, which was the cause of God divorcing them (Jer. 3:8), those who are unfaithful to Christ will suffer the same fate.

Moreover, when a woman is contemplating marriage, seeking counsel, is it wise to only speak of the joys of marriage while failing to inform her of the commitment, difficulties, and sacrifices required in marriage for fear that she might decide against it? No, it would do her a grave disservice to allow her to enter into a marriage without first informing her of the expected requirements of such a commitment. Likewise, should we not present the Gospel in its fullness, with its promises, joys, commitments, difficulties, sacrifices, etc., withholding nothing for fear that one might reject it because they think it too difficult, restrictive, or narrow? When Christ spoke such words as, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn. 6:54), He had little concern that His hearers might misunderstand or be offended, thinking the requirements unpalatable or too stringent. He preached the truths of the Gospel despite the fact that He knew the response of many would be, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” (Jn. 6:60). He expected of His hearers to believe in Him by accepting as authoritative and binding, not some of His words, but every word that would come forth from His lips no matter how difficult, confusing, or hard they might initially perceive them to be. Those who truly believe in Christand Whom He claims to be—the Son of the living God—will have a predisposed disposition to believe and obediently respond to every word He speaks, including those words of which they do not fully understand or are yet ignorant of. A disciple who is not intent on learning and doing what His Master teaches is a contradiction in terms. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed” (Jn. 8:31) and, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him” (Jn 12:48). To believe in Christ is to receive and abide in His words—all of His words—without picking and choosing. Faith in Christ is not a single act but a life lived with a steadfast resolve to be faithful to the Person of Christ in all He is, says, did, and will do.

Paul says in v. 22 that, Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. In other words, Christ is both Lord and Savior of the Church and the one cannot be severed from the other. We read in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “Christ is the head of every man.” One would think that these verses, as simple as they are clear, would end any controversy over the necessity of Christ’s Lordship. Paul says Christ is the head of his body the Church, i.e., the Lord, Master, Chief, ruling authority, of every Christian man (or women) within the body of Christ without exception. A gospel that allows for the individual members of the body the option of refusing to come under the direction and governing authority of the head is contrary to nature itself. Any member of the body, a leg, an arm, an eye, etc., that is not under the direction of the head is an anomaly, a deformity, that which is diseased or paralyzed, and is not only useless but a burden to the whole body. If Christ is not our head, that which governs our thoughts, words, and actions, we are not true members of His body; We are not Christians.

Peter tells his readers, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him” (1 Peter 2:13, NKJV) If we are told here to submit to earthly kings as those in authority, is it not self-evident that submission to the King of kings and Lord of lords is to be taken for granted? Peter continues in v. 18, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.” If servants are commanded to be submissive to their earthly masters, even the unjust, how much more so is submission required when coming into a relationship with our heavenly Master, who is kind, gentle, and loving? How impotent would Peter’s exhortation be if his hearers were under the impression that submission to their heavenly Master was optional? The truth is, they would not even be capable of doing the latter without first having done the former.

Thus, it should be plain to all with ears to hear, that a Gospel that allows for the rejection of the Lordship of Christ is a different Gospel, Galatians 1:6, and another Jesus, 2 Corinthians 11:4, than that which is presented throughout Scripture. “As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). Therefore, every genuine and faithful Christian, whosoever they may be or wherever they may be found, should all with one heart and mind, fully and ardently be in agreement with Spurgeon as previously quoted saying,

I cannot conceive it possible for anyone to truly receive Christ as Savior and yet not to receive Him as Lord...It is not possible for us to accept Christ as our Savior unless he also becomes our King, for a very large part of salvation consists in our being saved from sin’s dominion over us, and the only way in which we can be delivered from the mastery of Satan is by becoming subject to the mastery of Christ.⁷

Scripture states,

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths (2 Tim. 4:3).

To have “itching ears,” is to be “desirous of hearing something pleasant.” ⁸ These have no ear for the unpleasant rebukes and admonitions of God’s Word which are contrary to their own lusts and desires so they accumulate for themselves teachers that sooth and comfort them as they pursue their own fleshly aims and goals. They do not have a heart that says, “I must be about My Father’s business,” but rather seek God’s assistance and approval as they go about their own business. Sadly, in this age, there is no shortage of teachers who are willing to accommodate them. Ellicott writes;

The thirst for novelties in doctrine, the desire for a teaching which, while offering peace to a troubled conscience, would yet allow the old self-indulgent life to go on as before, would increase....after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers....this expression gives us some insight into the reason which led to this future apostasy of so many, concerning which St. Paul warned Timothy. ‘Their own lusts,’ which, at all risks, they would gratify, would serve to alienate them from that severe and strictly moral school of Apostolic teaching, in which the sternest morality was bound up with purity of doctrine, to which school St. Paul’s pupils—men like Timothy and the presbyters of Ephesus—belonged. These worldly ones to whom St. Paul referred, reluctant to part with the hope Christianity taught, and unwilling to live the life which St. Paul and Timothy insisted upon as necessary to be lived by all those who would share in that glorious hope, sought out for themselves more indulgent teachers, who would flatter and gratify their hearers with novelties in doctrine, and would, at the same time, lay comparatively little stress on the pure and saintly life.⁹

What would we expect to hear from teachers who would soothe the carnal ear? Would we not hear that, “Our Lord never insists on our obedience” (Oswald Chambers¹⁰); “Even if a believer for all practical purposes becomes an unbeliever, his salvation is not in jeopardy” (Charles Stanley¹¹). “The requirements of discipleship are different than the requirements of salvation” (Greg Laurie¹²). That “the New Testament does not impose repentance upon the unsaved” (Chafer¹³).That nothing is required of you, just repeat the sinner’s prayer and you will receive eternal life. Such teachings tickle the carnal ear but the spiritual ear will find them repugnant as they dishonor and undermine the love, work, and sacrifice of our beloved Lord and do a momentous disservice to our fellow man. Arthur W. Pink comments on 2 Tim. 4:3, 4:

The ‘falling away’ which characterizes our day was referred to by the apostle...That time has arrived! Church-goers today will not endure ‘sound doctrine.’ Those who…set forth the inflexible righteousness and holiness of God…find it almost impossible to obtain a hearing. Such preachers are regarded as puritanical pessimists, and are not wanted. In these degenerate times, the masses demand that which will soothe them in their sins and amuse them while they journey down the Broad Road. The multitude is affected with ‘itching ears’ which crave novelty and that which is sensational. They have ears which wish to be ‘tickled,’ ears which eagerly drink in the songs of professional and unsaved soloists and choristers, ears which are well pleased with the vulgar slang of our modern evangelists.¹⁴

If one were to suggest that the time would come when a group of evangelical Christians would be arguing for a salvation without repentance, without a change of behavior or lifestyle, without a real avowal of the lordship and authority of Christ, without perseverance, without discipleship, and a salvation that does not necessarily result in obedience and works, and with a regeneration that does not necessarily change one’s life, most believers of several decades ago would have felt such would be an absolute impossibility. But believe it or not the hour has come¹⁵ (emphasis added).

For the Christian, there is no greater joy in all of life than to obey the God we love, likewise no greater sorrow than sin. This is the grace of God. The beauty of God’s grace is not in that man can be forgiven and continue to walk in disobedience, but rather being granted the gift of repentance and forgiveness; receiving a new heart, a new spirit, and the indwelling of God’s Spirit, we walk in loving obedience, and yet because it is a gift there is no boasting, but rather God receives all the glory. It is a grace that is high and lifted up to its proper domain, even to the right hand of the Father. It is a noble, praiseworthy, and God honoring grace. It is the only grace that is worthy of the name of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Would we not expect from a perfectly Holy God a grace that results in a Holy people? (Heb. 12:14). Would we not expect the grace of a most righteous Father to produce righteous children (1 Cor. 6:9)? Would we not expect the members of His household to lovingly submit to the head of the house? (Eph. 2:19) Would we not expect those born of God to be imitators of their Father? (Eph. 5:1). Undoubtedly such is the case, and therefore these characteristics are found in all His true children throughout Scripture; the circumcised in heart; the remnant of the Old Testament and the Christian of the New. Sin causes nothing but misery, destruction, and sorrow. God’s love and continuance in sin are as opposed to one another as love is to hate. When we say God so loved the world that he gave His only Son (John 3:16), we should say in the same breath, He sent Him to bless us by turning every one of us from our wickedness (Acts 3:26). A gospel that does not turn us from our sins renders the words, “God is love” or “Love does no harm to a neighbor” as null and void; For no greater harm can come to a man than to be left in a state of bondage to his sin. If God were to allow the believer to remain in such a state it would not magnify His love and mercy but would contradict it. On the con-trary, because God is love, He sent His Son to set us free from sin, and “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn. 8:36). It is only those who reject His love that He allows to remain in bondage to sin.

No matter how respected and honored the man that preaches a gospel that allows for continuance in sin, that one might continue to walk according to the flesh, and yet be a child of God, though he may teach it with the utmost sincerity, is teaching a perverted gospel that cannot save. We can be sincerely wrong about many things, but not about the saving of the soul, for it is an irrevocable and eternal error that the Day of Judgment will reveal in all its horrors.

Although the Church in times past, even as today, has fallen into gross error by corrupting the gospel, we thank God for such men as have persevered in the faith, in that truth which was established in its purity from the beginning, and has continued to the present time. Charles Hodge, the esteemed Princeton theologian of the 1800’s wrote:

There is no logical connection between the neglect of moral duties, and the system which teaches that Christ is a Savior as well from the power as from the penalty of sin; that faith is the act by which the soul receives and rests on Him for sanctification as well as for justification; and that such is the nature of the union with Christ by faith and indwelling of the Spirit, that no one is, or can be partaker of the benefit of His death, who is not also partaker of the power of His life; which holds to the divine authority of Scripture which declares that without holiness no man shall see the Lord (Heb. 12:14) and which the great advocate of salvation by grace, warns all who call themselves Christians: ‘Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9, 10)¹⁶ (emphasis added).

He further states:

It is, therefore, to subvert the whole gospel, and to make the death of Christ of none effect, to suppose that redemption and continuance in sin are compatible. The whole design and purpose of the mission and sufferings of the Savior would be frustrated if his people were not made partakers of his holiness; for the glory of God is promoted in them and by them only so far as they are made holy, and the recompense of the Redeemer is his bringing his people into conformity to his own image, that he may be the first-born among many brethren. Every child of God feels that the charm and glory of redemption is deliverance from sin, and conformity to God. This is the crown of righteousness, the prize of the high calling of God, the exaltation and blessedness for which he longs, and suffers, and prays. To tell him that he may be saved without being made holy, is to confound all his ideas of salvation, and to crush all his hopes. The nature of salvation, the character of God, the declarations of his word, the design of redemption, all concur to prove that holiness is absolutely and indispensably necessary, so that whatever we may be, or whatever we may have, if we are not holy, we are not the children of God, nor the heirs of his kingdom.¹⁷

Author W. Pink writes:

Some of the propagators of the salvation without works error during the last century have assumed the garb of the orthodox and thereby obtained a hearing from many who had never listened to them had their real characters been suspected. They have gone to the opposite extreme (of legalism) and preached a ‘gospel’ as far removed from the Truth as the Romish lie of salvation by works. They teach that while good works from Christians are certainly desirable yet they are not imperative, the absence of them involving merely the loss of certain ‘millennial’ honors and not the missing of heaven itself. They have interpreted those words of Christ’s ‘It is finished’ in such a way to lull multitudes of souls into a false peace, as though He wrought something at the Cross which renders it needless for sinners to repent, forsake their idols, renounce the world before they can be saved; ‘that nothing is required of them but their simple acceptance of Christ by faith’; that once they have ‘rested on His finished work’—no matter what their subsequent lives—they are ‘eternally secure.’ So widely has this fatal doctrine been received, so thoroughly have these ‘ravenous wolves’ deceived the religious world by their ‘sheep’s clothing,’ that with rare exceptions anyone who now denounces this deadly evil is to call down upon himself the charge of being a ‘Legalist’ or ‘Judaizer.’¹⁸

In his book “The Authentic Gospel” Jefferey E. Wilson writes:

Today’s Christianity is in a state of disarray and decay, and the condition is deteriorating year by year. The truth of God’s word has been watered down and compromised to reach a common denominator that will accommodate the largest number of participants. The result is a hybrid Christianity which is essentially man-centered, materialistic, and worldly, and shamefully dishonoring to the Lord Jesus Christ. This shameful degeneracy is due in large part to the erroneous gospel that is presented by many around the world.¹⁹

When the leaven of carnality finds its way within the walls of the visible church, the whole lump becomes more and more like the world with very little distinction. To the spiritually deaf, sound teaching is dull and lifeless. Church growth then can only be accomplished by teaching what the natural man finds satisfying along with worldly enticements and entertainment. “We must have more entertainment, fun, music, and games or they won’t come.” What the natural man wants to hear is that he can have Christ, salvation, heaven, sin, and the world, and this is what the optional lordship/discipleship message teaches. It is a so-called “free grace” that will cost a man his soul. A grace that gives the professing Christian the liberty of being the “salt of the earth,” or salt in the Savior’s wounds, whichever they prefer. How unacceptable and appalling this should be to those with spiritual ears!?

Various perversions of the gospel have been fought against since the Churches beginnings and will most likely continue to be fought throughout the church age. If we look back to the time of the reformation we find that it is not inconceivable that deception can be so prevalent that the established institutional church as a whole can be deceived by “another gospel.” In this day it is the gospel of licentiousness that has infiltrated our churches. We would not readily perceive those men in the past, who perverted the gospel, as evil and wicked men. No, they came in sheep’s clothing, disguised as Christians, and therefore would outwardly appear as saints of God, “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:5). Does Paul say that we are to agree to disagree with such people? No, he says, “Avoid such people.” It is even as with the so-called religious leaders of Jesus’ time who superficially appeared as men of God but were keeping others from the salvation of their souls (Matt. 23:13). Would we not be wise then in this day to look not to men, but with the utmost diligence to the Word of God to find out whether or not these things are so? “Let God be true though every one were a liar” (Rom. 3:4). Let us not be content with the teachings of so-called “great men of God,” but rather let us seek with diligence the great God of men. Taking to heart the warning, “beware of the false teachers who come to you in sheep’s clothing.”

If there was ever a time to heed the word of God to “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), it is the day in which we live. For evil men and impostors have indeed grown from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived (2 Tim. 3:13). With teachings that will have such a devastating effect, on a countless number of souls, that it is beyond our capacity to comprehend while in this temporal sphere and will only be fully realized on Day of Judgment to the unconceivable terror of those deceived and thus found clinging to a counterfeit cross.