"Does the Bible Teach Lordship Salvation?" 41.
A Look at the Issues
take Him for what He is — the anointed Saviour and Lord who is King of kings and Lord of all lords! He would not be Who He is if He saved us and called us and chose us without the understanding that He can also guide and control our lives."23
Faith and True Discipleship
Those who teach that obedience and submission are extraneous to saving faith are forced to make a firm but unbiblical distinction between salvation and discipleship. That is the only way they can explain the ministry of Jesus. This dichotomy, like that of the carnal/spiritual Chris tian, sets up two classes of Chris tians: believers only, and true disciples. Most who hold this position discard the evangelistic intent of virtually every recorded invitation of Jesus, saying those apply to discipleship, not to salvation.24 One writer says of this view, "No distinction is more vital to theology, more basic to a correct understanding of the New Testament, or more relevant to every believer's life and witness."25
On the contrary, no distinction has done so much to undermine the authority of Jesus' message. Are we to believe that when Jesus told the multitudes to deny themselves (Luke 14:26), to take up a cross (v. 27), and to forsake all and follow Him (v. 33), His words had no meaning whatsoever for the unsaved people in the crowd? How could that be true of One who said He came not to call the righ teous but sinners (Matt. 9:13)?
James M. Boice, in his book Christ's Call to Discipleship, writes with insight about the salvation/discipleship dichotomy, which he frankly describes as "defective theology":
Th is theology separates faith from discipleship and grace from obedience. It teaches that Jesus can be received as one's Savior without being received as one's Lord.
This is a common defect in times of prosperity. In days of hardship, particularly persecution, those who are in the process of becoming Christians count the cost of discipleship carefully before taking up the cross of the Nazarene. Preachers do not beguile them with false promises of an easy life or indulgence of sins. But in good times, the cost does not seem so
23. A. W. Tozer, I Call It Heresy! (Harrisburg, Pa.: Chris tian Publications, 1974), 18 – 19. 24. Hodges, Gospel Under Siege, 35 – 45; Cocoris, Lordship Salvation — Is It Biblical? 15 – 16; Blauvelt, "Does the Bible Teach Lordship Salvation?" 41.
25. Charles C. Ryrie in the foreword to Zane C. Hodges, Th e Hungry Inherit (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah, 1980), 7.