Lordship Salvation! by Dr. Robert L. Sumner (1922-2016)
Posted at www.biblewalking.com by permission of the author.
This document (73 pages) was to have been Chapter 13 in a forthcoming book by Dr. Robert L. Sumner: Fights I Didn't Start ... and some I did (Vol II). ●Dr. Robert L. Sumner (Born Aug. 3, 1922 - Died Dec. 5, 2016) (94 Years Old) Long-time evangelist; Associate to John R. Rice at the Sword of the Lord paper. Later, was Editor: The Biblical Evangelist.
Dr. Robert L. Sumner writes: Is “Lordship Salvation” heresy? Is it a perversion of the Gospel? Were such giants of the past as A. T. Robertson, Albert Barnes, F. L. Godet, H. A. Ironside, John R. Rice, C. H. Spurgeon, R. G. Lee, W. E. Biederwolf, Hyman Appelman, Herschel H. Hobbs, Bruce Cummons and Fred Barlow perverters of the Gospel? Were they guilty of “Preaching another Gospel”? Should they be damned? This article was written in answer to one editor’s charges to that effect. Many we quote in rebuttal were that editor’s personal friends and heroes – and that may explain why we included them in this article back then. In the same vein, John R. Rice was a close friend of this other editor and that explains some of our emphasis on him here.
“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
– Philippians 2:9-11
The above Scripture states very clearly that everyone will bow his or her knee to Jesus Christ, and with his or her tongue confess that He is Lord. Almost all evangelical Bible believers have understood that whether this is done or not done is the determining factor between salvation and damnation. If done in this life, the individual confessing Christ as “Lord” receives salvation instantaneously. One who goes through life refusing to bow the knee or confess with the mouth Jesus as “Lord” will be forced to do so at the Great White Throne, also called the Great Judgment Morning. Sadly, it will be too late then and all those who refused to do so in this life will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14, 15).
Some are trying to tell us now, however, that all this is a mistake. They are saying that it is not necessary to receive Jesus Christ as Lord in order to be saved. In fact, teaching “Lordship salvation” is called “another gospel” and its defenders are given the Galatian epithet, “Let them be damned!”
What about it? Is it unscriptural to tell a sinner seeking salvation that he must receive Jesus Christ as both Lord and Savior? Or is it “adding works” to the clear teaching of the Word of God that salvation is “by grace through faith” (Ephesians 2:8, 9)? To answer this, perhaps we should begin our study by examining,
I. The Meaning of ‘Lordship Salvation’
When we tell a sinner he must receive Jesus Christ as his Lord we are referring to a heart attitude – not that he will promise to live a life of perfection ever after. We are not talking about a state or position where “there has never been a time since you were saved when Christ has not been the absolute Lord of your life,” as one writer foolishly expressed it. No, never!
It is not agreeing to live in some state of perfection any more than repentance is agreeing to do so. David, Noah, Lot and Peter all “had a lapse in their yieldedness or commitment after they were saved,” but all these men had repented, too. (They had lapses of their repentance!) Was their action consistent with Christ’s lordship? No, but it was not consistent with their repentance, either – and repentance was certainly necessary for their salvation.
When we speak of receiving Jesus as Lord we do not mean that the lost sinner must understand all that is involved in His “Lordship” any more than he must understand the virgin birth, the Trinity, the atonement, or other major doctrines to be saved. Nor are we saying that “Lordship salvation” means drilling a potential convert about such details. Again we emphasize, it is simply a heart attitude, a heart surrender, just as is repentance!
We will be very frank and say that much – perhaps we should say “almost all” – of what is involved in Christ’s Lordship is not understood at the time of conversion. For example, the Ephesians might not have understood at the time Paul led them to Christ that keeping around the house the magical arts and books dedicated to Diana was inconsistent with their new faith in Christ (although the “sense” of Acts 19:18, 19, regarding those involved in that “holy bonfire,” is that the action immediately followed their conversion, not two years later).
We have known converted Catholics to keep crucifixes, images of Mary and the saints, etc., around the house for some time before realizing how contrary to Scripture they are. But one thing is “dead sure for certain”: those Ephesians rejected Diana at the time of their profession or they weren’t converted! They did not add Jesus as a new god to go with Diana and the others. No, no! Never!
Is Failure to Emphasize “Lordship” One Reason for Today’s Evangelism Failures?
In a book of sermons by the famous evangelist of the 19th century, Dwight Lyman Moody (New Sermons, Addresses, and Prayers, published in 1887), he lamented: “Why, I may say with truth, that there is only about one in ten, who profess Christianity, who will turn around and glorify God with a loud voice. Nine out of ten are stillborn Christians. You never hear of them. If you press them hard, with the question whether they are Christians, they might say, ‘Well, I hope so.’ We never see it in their actions; we never see it in their lives.”
The situation is certainly no better in this century!
By way of example, one evangelistic organization set out to evangelize America – a very commendable undertaking, surely – spending literally millions of dollars and organizing hundreds of thousands of church workers in a great telephone and follow-up crusade. Volunteers were first trained and then they manned telephones in seeking to reach entire cities all across the United States. My own sister and brother-in-law, now in Heaven, were among those volunteers.
Thousands upon thousands of “conversions” were reported. While we do not doubt for a single moment that some were genuinely converted, the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of the converts were never heard from again. In a typical case, the sponsor of the program – and he was certainly a good man with honorable motives about reaching souls for Christ – reported one church in particular as having had “several hundred” accept Christ. But the pastor lamented later, “If we did, I have yet to see one down the aisle of my church.”
If this were an isolated incident, it would be tragic enough. However, reports are dime-a-dozen about youth groups going to the Florida beaches at spring break and winning literally thousands in just a few days. And others speak nonchalantly of going to a busy street corner in a downtown metropolis like Chicago or a suburban shopping mall and garnering scores of “conversions” in just an hour or two.
To bring it a little closer to home, our local churches will report any number of converts through their visitation programs that never once darken the door of their church – or any other, as far as they know. One of the major problems for which pastors are seeking solutions at seminars and other local church training institutes relates to “getting them down the aisle.” And, quite frankly, some of the experts who have written and lectured about how to “get them down the aisle” only get a small percentage of their own ‘converts’ down their own aisles! It is a gigantic problem of major proportions.
In our judgment, much of the problem relates to the fact that the prospect does not understand what he is doing – and the soul winner does not understand that his prospect does not understand! Most soul-winning efforts consist merely of hurriedly reading four or five verses, asking a series of questions to which the only possible answer is “Yes!” (apart from appearing like an infidel), then leading the individual in prayer where the personal worker puts the words into the prospect’s mouth – and he repeats them like a lip syncer or a ventriloquist’s dummy. There is no understanding at all that the individual is receiving Jesus Christ as his Lord.
Brethren, this ought not so to be!
We Have ALWAYS Taught the Lordship of Christ!
When I was still young in the ministry, I sensed the need of instructing my prospects carefully as to the decision they were actually making, and it led me to an emphasis upon the Lordship of Christ. As a result, I think it is safe to say that in my soul winning, rather than one out of ten professions received making their decision public, it was much closer to nine out of ten. In the manual on soul winning which I wrote over four decades ago[1] – and was used as a textbook on evangelism in many colleges, Bible institutes and seminaries in this country and abroad – we expressed it like this:
Sometimes it is helpful to emphasize the Lordship of Jesus Christ in explaining this matter of a personal surrender. More spiritual ‘miscarriages’ happen because the sinner does not understand what is involved in taking Jesus Christ as his Lord than over any other thing, in my judgment. A ‘believism’ which does not include a heart surrender is a mere mental believism; this could no more result in a new birth for a sinner than it does for the devils!
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, in his book, Evangelism, insists that the first emphasis in evangelistic preaching should be on this theme. He declared:
“First, the Lordship of Jesus. Now you may say to me, ‘But have you put these in their right order? Is it not true that the first business of the evangelist is to preach the Cross of Christ?’ I do not think so. I believe the first note of the true evangelist is that of announcing to men the Lordship of Christ ... But, it may be objected, He cannot be Lord of a man’s life until a man is saved. Quite true, but the vast majority of people will never begin to feel their need of His salvation until they have been brought to stand in the light of the claim of His Lordship, and so I insist upon the putting of this first. This was the apostolic method.”
Consider the following Scriptures which deal with His Lordship: Matthew 11:27-30; Matthew 16:13-19, 27, 28; John 13:13-16; Acts 2:36; Acts 4:12; Acts 7:55-59; Acts 9:5; Acts 16:30, 31; Philippians 2:9-11; and Romans 10:13.
Perhaps it would be profitable for me to illustrate how I close the deal with a sinner, using Romans 10:13. First of all, if I have been using the Nicodemus plan, I point out that the ‘whosoever’ here is the same as that in John 3:15. Then I ask him, – and this is one verse I always have the sinner read with me – what God says will happen if he calls upon the name of the Lord. The answer, of course, is that he “shall be saved.” I go over that fact thoroughly until the prospect realizes that salvation will be his the very moment he asks for it.
Actually, my policy has been to make it even stronger than stated above. Before going to prayer on the basis of Romans 10:13, after being assured the lost person understands the biblical plan of salvation, when I call attention to the fact that the word “Lord” here means Master – or, to put it in a word the seeking sinner can clearly understand, “Boss.” I very bluntly tell the individual, “If you call upon the Name of the Lord and ask Him to save you, you are taking Him as your Boss. Naturally, you have no idea what the Bible says He wants you to do, but you are saying that as you find out His will, you will do it. And if you do not mean that you are willing to let Him take over your life completely, then I do not want you to be a hypocrite and say a prayer.”
While I have had some back out at that point because they did not mean business, such action has been very rare. Most understood exactly what was involved in calling upon the Name of the Lord.
Because of this, after the surrender had been made and assurance had been received, when we rose from our knees I could say, “You said you would do whatever he wants you to do if He would save you. Right here in Romans 10 it speaks of confessing Him with your mouth. And in Acts 2:41 it speaks of being baptized and added to the church after calling on the Name of the Lord. Are you willing to do this?”
Since they already had the heart attitude of being willing to do whatever God wanted, in the overwhelming majority of the cases there was an immediate response and a follow-through at the church.
R. A. Torrey’s Position Was the Same!
Our textbook on evangelism is not alone in teaching that important truth. Dr. R. A. Torrey, in his huge 518-page classic, How to Work for Christ: A Compendium of Effective Methods, in the section about “How to Deal With Those Who Realize Their Need of a Savior and Really Desire to be Saved,” his third point was “Show them Jesus as Lord.” He commented there:
It is not enough to know Jesus as a Savior, we must know Him as Lord also. A good verse for this purpose is Acts 2:36:
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
When the inquirer has read the verse, ask him what God hath made Jesus, and hold him to it until he replies, “Both Lord and Christ.” Then say to him, “Are you willing to accept Him as your Divine Lord, the one to whom you will surrender your heart, your every thought, and word, and act?”
Another good verse for this purpose is Romans 10:9:
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
When the inquirer has read the verse, ask him what we are to confess Jesus as. He should reply, “Lord.” If he does not so reply, ask him other questions until he does answer in this way. Then ask him, “Do you really believe that Jesus is Lord, that He is Lord of all, that He is rightfully the absolute Lord and Master of your life and person?” Perhaps it will be well to use Acts 10:36 as throwing additional light upon this point:
“The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all).”
Other evangelism authors could be multiplied, no doubt. The early Southern Baptist leader, Lee R. Scarborough, in his widely used With Christ After the Lost, in the section about dealing with those under conviction, instructed workers to point the lost to “Christ [as] his risen, regnant Lord and Master,” and Romans 10:9 was one of the passages he recommended using for this.
One of the problems with not emphasizing the Lordship of Christ with a sinner seeking salvation is that it borders on – or could lead to is perhaps a better way of expressing it – Antinomianism. This latter teaching holds that a believer is free, since Christ’s obedience and suffering fulfilled the demands of the law, from any obligation to observe it, misapplying Paul’s words in Romans 6:14, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” But, as F. W. Robertson expressed it, “Faith alone justifies, but not the faith that is alone.” Such a faith, as James insisted, would be dead. It would be both lifeless and useless.
When it comes right down to it, why would anyone want to receive Jesus Christ as Savior, but not as Lord? As one brother, a member of our Biblical Evangelism board, expressed it, “To any student of the Bible, it is apparent that trying to separate Jesus Christ from His Lordship is as impossible as separating the sun from its heat, numbers from mathematics, notes from music, or words from thoughts.” To take the Lordship of Jesus Christ out of the gospel is fatal!
II. “Lordship Salvation” Taught In The Bible!
Dr. John R. Rice, in one of his ‘answer’ books (Dr. Rice, Here Are More Questions…) used Romans 10:9, 10 in responding to a query about what it means to obey the gospel. He said there: “Faith in Christ saves, and that faith is measured in the sight of men by confession of Christ as Savior. That faith is not just to believe that there is a Savior but to trust Him or claim Him as Savior and Lord” (emphasis added). As Dr. Rice noted, claiming Him “as Savior and Lord” is how somebody obeys the gospel and gets saved.
Note carefully these two verses: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9, 10).
It is unfortunate that the opening phrase in those verses is worded as it is in the King James Version: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.” For most 21st century English readers, this misses the thrust of what Paul is saying. Actually, Paul was demanding, not that they confess “the Lord Jesus,” but that they confess “Jesus as Lord.” Almost every other translation and paraphrase, even by liberals, renders it thus and to offer evidence, here are just a few:
NASB, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord.”
PHILLIPS, “If you openly admit by your own mouth that Jesus Christ is the Lord.”
BECK, “If with your mouth you confess, ‘Jesus is the Lord’.”
TYNDALE, (the very first Bible translated into English from the Greek), “For if thou shalt [ac]knowledge with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord.”
CENTENARY, “Confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
WEYMOUTH, “if with your mouth you confess Jesus as Lord.”
GOODSPEED, “if with your lips you acknowledge the message that Jesus is Lord.”
WILLIAMS, “if with your lips you acknowledge the fact that Jesus is Lord”
ADAMS, “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
NIV, “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
NEB, “If on your lips is the confession, ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
TLB, “if you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus is your Lord.”
AMPLIFIED, “if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord.”
RSV, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord.”
HCSB, “if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart.”
ESV, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.”
NRSV, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart”
Others could be given, of course, and we have quoted from both Bibles and paraphrases, reliable and unreliable, simply to show that all scholarship agrees, whether it is liberal scholarship or Bible-believing scholarship.
Let me give further scholarship to support the thesis. Dr. A. T. Robertson is probably the most highly respected Greek scholar among today’s Fundamentalists, just as he was in his own day in the 20th century. In his Word Pictures in the New Testament, he wrote about Romans 10:9:
If thou shalt confess (ean homologēsēis). Third class condition (ean and first aorist active subjunctive of homologeō). With thy mouth Jesus as Lord (en tōi stomati sou Kurion Iēsoun). This is the reading of nearly all the MSS. But B 71 Clem of Alex. read to rēma en tōi stomati sou hoti Kurios Iēsous (the word in thy mouth that Jesus is Lord). The idea is the same, the confession of Jesus as Lord as in I Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:11. No Jew would do this who had not really trusted Christ, for Kurios in the LXX is used of God. No Gentile would do it who had not ceased worshipping the emperor as Kurios. The word Kurios was and is the touchstone of faith. And shalt believe (kai pisteusēis). Same construction. Faith precedes confession, of course.
Dr. James Denney, professor of systematic and pastoral theology at Glasgow’s Free Church College, in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, commenting on Romans 10:9, notes that “this verse gives the content of what the Apostle describes as ‘the word of faith which we preach’,” and concludes, “We confess it when we say, Jesus is Lord. Cf. I Cor. xii. 3, Phil. ii. 11.” He calls it “the fundamental Christian confession” and says, “Paul nowhere connects the Lordship of Christ with His incarnation, and there is certainly no reference to His Divine nature here. The confession of the first part of the verse answers to the faith in the second; he who believes in his heart that God raised Christ from the dead can confess with his mouth (on that ground and in that sense) that Jesus is Lord. On the basis of such mutually interpreting faith and confession he is saved.”
Incidentally, the writer of the comments on Philippians in Expositor’s, Harry Angus Alexander Kennedy, chair of New Testament Language and Literature at New College in Edinburgh, in his comments on 2:11 (where he calls it “most significant that Lord has no article, which shows that it has become virtually one of Christ’s proper names”) laments, “The term ‘Lord’ has become one of the most lifeless words in the Christian vocabulary,” then says, “The whole purpose of the working out of salvation is the glory of God the Father. This end is attained when men yield to His operations and acknowledge Christ as Lord. Cf esp. Eph. i. 9-12.”
In his comments on Romans 10:9, the famous Presbyterian divine, Albert Barnes, best known for his classic Barnes’ Notes on the Whole Bible, called attention to the fact that “the thing to be confessed is, that he is Lord. Comp. Acts ii.36, Phil ii.11. ‘And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.’ Here it means to acknowledge him as Lord, i.e., as having a right to rule over the soul.”
Then he says about the phrase shalt believe in thine heart, “Shalt sincerely and truly believe this, so that the external profession shall correspond with the real, internal feelings. Where this is not the case, it would be hypocrisy; where this is the case, there would be the highest sincerity, and this religion requires.”
For many years, perhaps, the most popular one-volume commentary was Jamison, Fausset & Brown. They point out that, in Romans 10:9, “the apostle is here giving the language of the true method of justification,” noting Paul was “confirming the foregoing statements as to simplicity of the gospel method of salvation.” Regarding the phrase “confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,” they note that it is “probably, ‘If thou shalt confess Jesus [to be] the Lord,’ which is the proper manifestation or evidence of faith (Matthew 10:32; I John 4:15).”
The highly respected Swiss theologian Frederic Louis Godet, in his Commentary on Romans – in the section dealing with 10:9, 10 – notes: “The object of the [confession] is the title Lord given to Christ, as is done in the invocation by which we publicly declare ourselves subjects; comp. I Cor. xii 3 (according to the true reading). Here again we find the idea of ver. 6 that of the glorified Christ. The same relation between the sovereignty of Christ and the Christian profession appears in Phil. ii. 9-11; ‘Wherefore God hath supremely exalted Him ... that every tongue should confess that he is Lord’.”
Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, whose notes on Romans were written by Dr. William Sanday, professor of exegesis at Oxford, merely had the simple comment about the phrase the Lord Jesus: “Jesus as Lord.” But that was sufficient to highlight the thrust of Paul’s point.
Another work which has passed the test of time is The Bible Commentary, edited by F. C. Cook. Its comments on Romans were written by E. H. Gifford who, like all the others, noted that the Lord Jesus is literally “that Jesus is Lord.” And he quotes the illustrious Greek scholar Johann Albrecht Bengel, “In this appellation (Jesus the Lord) lies the sum of faith in salvation.” So it does.
One of yesteryear’s theologians whose books are still being reprinted in our day because of their value was Bishop H. C. G. Moule. In his commentary on Romans, he notes that “the word of faith” is more precisely “the utterance of faith,” and that 10:9, 10, give the contents of that utterance in more detail. Regarding confessing with the mouth, Moule says that is “practically, ‘submit to and own Him as supreme for thee.’ See for the demand of such ‘confession,’ Matt. x. 32; Luke xii. 8. For all adult converts, this was an important feature of Baptism. In all cases, it is to be a text of the intelligence and reality of the faith of which it is a fruit.”
About the phrase the Lord Jesus, Moule says “Better, Jesus as Lord; i.e. as Supreme and Eternal; the all-blessed Son. Cp. I Cor. xii. 3; where light is thrown on the deep reality and significance of the confession meant here.– St. Paul here refers back to the ‘who shall ascend?’ of ver. 6; Jesus, as Lord, is He ‘who is in Heaven,’ (John iii. 13,) who came thence, and is the way thither.”
He says again, “The ‘confession with the mouth’ represents in fact the whole process by which the Christian, in his life on earth, owns and obeys Christ as his Lord; refuses to ‘deny Him’ in the evil world.”
The more modern writers are just as unanimous in emphasizing the truth of the Lordship of Christ for salvation. In Erdman’s Tyndale New Testament Commentary, F. F. Bruce notes about Romans 10:9: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. The last three words should be placed within quotation marks; cf. NEB; ‘If on your lips is the confession, “Jesus is Lord”.’ This is the confession (Kurios Iēsous) which, as Paul says in I Corinthians xii. 3, no one can make except ‘in the Holy Spirit’ (RV). Cf. Philippians ii. 11, where the confession ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ is man’s acknowledgment of the supreme honor to which God has exalted Him.”
John Murray, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, wrote the notes on Romans in The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Among other things about Romans 10:9, 10 he noted: “In this passage attention is focused upon the lordship and the resurrection of Christ, confession that Jesus is Lord and belief that God raised him from the dead. It appears that the conjunction at the beginning of verse 9 means ‘that’ rather than ‘because’; it specifies what is in the mouth and what is in the heart, confession of Jesus’ lordship and belief of that resurrection, respectively ...
“The confession ‘Jesus as Lord’ or ‘Jesus is Lord’ refers to the lordship which Jesus exercises (cf. 1:4; 14:9; I Cor. 12:3; Eph. 1:20-23; Phil. 2:11; also Matt. 28:18; Acts 2:36; 10:36; Heb 1:3; I Pet. 3:21, 22) ... The effect of this confession and belief is said to be salvation – ‘thou shalt be saved’.”
In the commentary written by past and present faculty members of the strongly evangelical and highly respected Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, the writer of the notes on Romans, John A. Witmer, observes:
“In these verses Paul stated the content of that message concerning faith. Confessing with the mouth that Jesus is Lord is mentioned firsts to conform to the order of the quotation from Deuteronomy 30:14 and Romans 10:8” (emphasis in original). Concerning believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth, he writes: “Yet these are not two separate steps to salvation. They are chronologically together. Salvation comes through acknowledging to God that Christ is God and believing in Him.”
In a kindred work, the Liberty Bible Commentary, prepared by the faculty at Liberty University, the section on Romans was written by the general editor, Woodrow Michael Kroll. About the passage in question, he writes: “Paul has just made reference that the gospel has been in the mouths of the Jews. Now he builds on that thought. He explains that the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ refers to the lordship which Jesus exercises as the exalted Christ. Salvation must entail faith in One who is Lord.” And he adds, “Token assent that Jesus is Lord and the fact of His resurrection is not sufficient for salvation” (emphasis added).
Dr. Herman A. Hoyt, former president of Grace Theological Seminary & Grace College at Winona Lake (IN), in his commentary on Romans, The First Christian Theology, observes about these verses:
This confession centers in the person of Christ. There must be genuine heart faith that Jesus is Lord and that this lordship was demonstrated by resurrection. This will be exhibited by confession of the mouth. Confession means to say with the mouth what agrees with the facts and corresponds with the conviction in the heart. Now Paul has struck at the real issue. It is the question concerning the identity of Christ. Is this Jesus of Nazareth none other than the promised Messiah, the Lord from heaven? Though Paul had once fought against this (I Tim. 1:13), at last he was forced to make confession of Christ as Lord (Acts 9:5). And he admitted later that no man can make this confession except by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:3). But when the Holy Spirit of God reveals Christ in the heart (Gal. 1:16) and the man truly believes this great fact, he will then give voice to it by mouth. This will demonstrate the fact that he has experienced salvation.
Throughout the history of the Christian church a confession of Jesus as Lord has been acknowledged as a condition of salvation. While preparing our notes for this article, we stopped to proofread a column from one of our writers. He, knowing nothing of this article, made the statement: “First, there must be an acceptance of Christ by faith as your Lord and Savior.” That kind of statement comes naturally. Faith in Christ as Lord and faith in Christ as Savior go together in complete harmony, like mother and apple pie.
We have never gone around saying, “If you don’t take Jesus as Lord you aren’t saved,” or, “If you didn’t consciously take Jesus as Lord when you made your profession you aren’t saved.” That is not the issue. “Savior” and “Lord” are like “faith” and “repentance.” You can’t have one without the other. Just as many put their faith in Christ without any consciousness that they are also “repenting,” so many put their faith in Christ as Savior without the awareness that they are also claiming Him as Lord. But the heart attitude must be present, nonetheless. In fact, it will be present if one sincerely takes Christ as Savior.
Many other authorities, both past and present, could be quoted as setting forth dogmatically the truth that “Lordship salvation” is taught in the Word of God. But permit us to sum up this section with a quote from Tom Westwood’s study on Romans, published by Loizeaux Brothers, Romans – A Courtroom Drama. He comments on this passage:
There is no realm in the heights above, nor in the depths beneath, but faith in the living, resurrected Son of God carries me triumphant through and above it all. Here is the word that Paul preached, “The confession of Jesus as Lord and the acceptance by faith that God raised Him from the dead.” You and I must appropriate each for himself that the Person called the Lord Jesus Christ is One who went into death, but God raised Him from the dead, after He paid the penalty of our transgressions, and now He is a living, triumphant Savior, able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. It is in this way that with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Salvation is more than the hope of getting to heaven in the distant future. Salvation, in its New Testament meaning, entails the emancipation of the soul now from the power of Satan, from the fear of death, the transference out of darkness into light, the present victorious entrance of the soul into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. This is salvation. It is not merely the hope of heaven by and by. It is present, victorious living. Let us never for a moment reduce it to the tawdry elements that are so often preached; and that if I nod in assent to the terms of the simple gospel then I can live as I please, go and sin if need be, and be saved in the end. That is not the gospel nor is it the truth. We must confess Jesus as Lord, the Sovereign of our lives, the Commander of our every activity and believe in the heart, not only in the head, that He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for out justification. That is the gospel!
III. Bible Examples of “Lordship Salvation”
Obviously, if the Word of God teaches “Lordship salvation,” as emphasized in the previous paragraphs, it will be illustrated in the Word of God as well.
Indeed, it is!
One such example was the dying thief whose conversion is recorded in Luke 23:39-43. His petition, resulting in his conversion, is found in verse 42: “And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (emphasis added). And Jesus immediately responded, “Verily I say unto thee, to day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” There was no hesitation, no delay, simply an instantaneous response on the part of the Son of God to assure that dying criminal, the moment he took Jesus as his Lord, that Paradise would be his home – and that he would arrive there that very day.
The second illustration relates to the woman in John 8:1-11, “taken in adultery, in the very act.” To highlight how her conversion took place, we will simply repeat what we said in our sermon, “Caught in the Act of Sin!”[2] We wrote there:
When was this fallen woman forgiven? She was cleansed the moment she said, “No man, LORD!” When she claimed Him as Lord, the guarantee of Romans 10:9, 10 became effective in her life: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
You see, when she claimed Jesus as her Lord, she was confessing several things. First, she was acknowledging her sin and unworthiness. She didn’t try to evade, excuse or escape it. On the contrary, she was claiming the mercy based upon the blood He had intimated through His action.
Second, she was confessing her faith in His deity. He could, He would forgive sin. You and I might desire to forgive sin, but we do not have the ability or the power. On the other hand, one might be able to forgive sin and not be willing to do so. In the case of this fallen woman, she was confessing faith in Jesus Christ for both.
Third, she was confessing her willingness to yield to Him for life. That is the idea wrapped up in the word “Lord.” One who thus claims Christ is saying that he or she is willing to follow Him forever, completely willing to let Him be the Boss and give the orders. He is to be the Master; we are to be the servants.
The fact that she received her cleansing the moment she confessed Him as Lord can be seen by the statement in I Corinthians 12:3, “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”
A third illustration relates to the man in the next chapter, John 9, who was born blind. After his healing, Jesus asked him, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him” (Vss. 35-38, emphasis added). As soon as he knew that Jesus was the Son of God, he claimed Him as his Lord and immediately began to worship Him.
Another illustration of Lordship salvation relates to Saul of Tarsus, who later became the flaming Apostle Paul. The account of his conversion is given by Paul in Acts 22. He relates that he heard a voice from Heaven saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? (Vss.7, 8, emphasis added). In other words, he said, ‘I don’t know who you are but if you will identify yourself, you can be my Lord, my Boss.’
Then came the answer from Heaven, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest” (Vs. 8).
Saul’s immediate response, in trembling and astonishment, was, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Vs. 10, emphasis added). The very moment he discovered that Jesus of Nazareth was the one speaking to him from Heaven, he immediately claimed him as Lord, was “born out of due time” (I Corinthians 15:8), and asked what his new Lord’s first order would be!
Since the Apostle Paul was born into the family of God by claiming Jesus as his Lord, it is important to remember that his conversion was “a pattern” for everyone else. As he wrote to the young preacher, Timothy: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting” (I Timothy 1:15, 16, emphasis added). The way Paul got saved is the way everyone gets saved, by surrendering to Jesus Christ as Lord!
The noted Greek scholar A. T. Robertson wrote about this: “Saul surrendered instantly as Thomas did (John 20:28) and as little Samuel (I Sam. 3:9). This surrender of the will to Christ was the conversion of Saul. He saw a real Person, the Risen Christ, to whom he surrendered his life. On this point he never wavered for one moment to the end.”
There are many, many passages of Scripture in the Word of God which offer salvation to one who puts his faith in Jesus as Lord. Perhaps the best known is Acts 16:31. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” That was the way the warden at Philippi could be saved, it was the way his family could be saved, and it is the way anyone and everyone else can be saved.
Some would have us delete the word “Lord” and make it read, “Believe on Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” No, no! That is not what it says. One is to “believe on the Lord” – and that Lord is Jesus Christ – and he will be saved.
IV. Great Preachers Who Taught “Lordship Salvation”
One of my heroes was the late John R. Rice, a strong voice in Fundamentalism for a half-century. He and I did not agree on every detail regarding every doctrine, of course, but our views were basically the same on almost everything, especially on essential doctrine. Even at that, he did not permit anything I wrote to get into print – if he had anything to say about it – that disagreed in any detail with his own position. It mattered not whether it was for my column in his magazine, or a sermon to be printed therein, or a book his publishing company was releasing – it had to conform in every point to his position. I have often joked privately with friends about one of my books in which, upon its publication, I discovered that my views on a certain subject – in print, at least – had been changed to conform to his! Without saying anything to me, he had changed the manuscript and the published book was in total agreement with his position! Yes, it was a minor matter, but he still changed it.
I mention it now only to emphasize that when he published my textbook on evangelism, Biblical Evangelism in Action, the section quoted earlier in this article about “Lordship Salvation” would never have appeared in that book unless Dr. Rice agreed with that position totally. And he did! He understood surrender to Christ to be a permanent commitment.
In my “Letter To a Lutheran Minister,” published some weeks back (November 1, 1985) and reprinted in my first Fights book, I said to that brother, “You say nice things about the late John R. Rice – and I concur with the sentiment, of course – and say, ‘But even in his preaching (and I think he was the best among the Fundamentalists) the wonderful truth of grace alone was often obscured by the fundamentalist confusion of faith and commitment’ (emphasis yours).” That Lutheran brother summed up very accurately part of Dr. Rice’s position. He did emphasize commitment in salvation (but it did not obscure ‘grace alone’).[3]
A case in point relates to the dying thief, whose conversion is recorded in Luke 23. In his commentary on Luke, The Son of Man, Dr. Rice stressed, among other things, “God wanted this thief to be an example for all of us who are sinners alike. And the way one is saved is the way all are to be saved.” And he noted: “The thief surrendered to Jesus as Lord. He did not use that term lightly. He did not speak as to a fellow criminal but with heart surrender he gave himself to Jesus” (emphasis added).
In fact, one of Dr. Rice’s favorite messages was “The Criminal Who Wanted Another Chance,” based on this very text. We say it was one of his favorites because when Fleming H. Revell Publishing Company released its two-volume set of Great Gospel Sermons, one volume of “classic” and one of “contemporary,” in response to its request to Dr. Rice for a sermon, this is the one he submitted.
In it, one of his main sub-points was, “The Dying Thief Surrendered to Jesus as Lord and Master.” In that section he said, in part:
When the dying thief called Jesus Lord, “Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,” he was instantly heard and forgiven.
So it was with the woman taken in adultery in the very act when Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?” Then she replied “No man, Lord.” She was instantly saved and Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.” See John 8:10-11.
Paul, persecuting the church, when stricken down on the road to Damascus by a light brighter than the noon-day sun, cried out, “Who art thou, Lord?” And then when he knew it was Jesus, he trembling and astonished said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Oh, when Saul called Jesus Lord, meaning that he accepted Him as Master and Lord of his life and heart, he found forgiveness and salvation!
And so did the dying thief. The word Lord meant a full surrender, the acceptance of Christ’s will in his own life.
Dr. Torrey said that in his world tours of evangelism the most popular song everywhere there was a great revival was, “I Surrender All.” Coming to Jesus for salvation involves not only a mental acceptance of the fact that Christ is the Son of God. Far more than that, it involves a heart surrender to Him, a bending of the will, a giving up to Jesus. The dying thief that day cast himself upon the mercy of the Lord Jesus, depending upon Him alone, accepting Him as the Lord and Master of his faith. And he was not refused! (emphasis added).
Another “Lordship salvation” preacher was the one Dr. Rice mentioned, Reuben Archer Torrey. We have already quoted from his textbook on evangelism, noting that he emphasized explaining to a potential convert that he must receive Jesus as his Lord. Torrey practiced what he preached and in his sermon, “Saved By A Cry,” based on Romans 10:13, after giving many different scriptural expressions about salvation, he summed it up:
“But to my mind, the simplest statement of all is that of our text tonight, where we are told that, We are saved by just calling on the name of the Lord, ‘WHOSOEVER SHALL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED’ (Rom. 10:13). Saved simply by a cry, a cry to the Lord Jesus; for that Jesus is ‘the Lord’ in this passage is evident from the ninth verse of the same chapter, where we are told, ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved’” (emphasis in the original).
Later in the same sermon, Torrey said: “What does it mean to ‘Call upon the name of the Lord?’ It means just what it says, all any one of you has to do to be saved is to call upon the name of THE LORD Jesus (verse 9) to save you. This is evident from the preceding verse, ‘For there is no distinction between the Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon him.’”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was another mighty minister who emphasized “Lordship salvation” in his preaching. In his sermon “Negotiations for Peace” based on Acts 10:36, he declared: “Be it also known that Jesus the Savior must be received as Lord in the souls of those whom he redeems. You must obey him if you trust him, or else your trust will be mere hypocrisy. If we trust a physician, we follow his prescriptions; if we trust a guide, we follow his directions; and if we fully rely on Jesus, we obey his gracious commands. The faith which saves is a faith which produces a change of life and subdues the soul to obedience to the Lord. Be not deceived; where Jesus comes he comes to reign. Without submission to his will and word, you are without the safety of his atonement” (emphasis added).
In another sermon, “Mouth and Heart” based on Romans 10:9 and emphasizing the confession with the mouth, Spurgeon, whose reputation as a “grace” preacher cannot be denied, nonetheless declared: “We have plenty of preaching of ‘believe and live,’ and I do not condemn it; but still, strictly speaking it is incomplete” (emphasis added).
Why was it incomplete? For one thing, as Spurgeon went on to say: “Notice what it is that is to be confessed: The Lord Jesus. By which I gather, that it is essential to salvation that a man confess the deity of Christ ...
“Again, you must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; that is, Ruler and Master. You must cheerfully become his disciple, a follower, and servant. You must confess – ‘He is my Master, he is my Lord, I intend to be a soldier under him; he shall be to me Leader and Commander; God has made him such, and I accept him as such’”(boldface emphasis added).
And before he closed his sermon he questioned, “Have I gone an inch beyond my text? I am sure I have not.”
We have already noted that Dr. A. T. Robertson, the noted Greek scholar and theologian, insisted on “Lordship Salvation.” What about A. T. Robertson, the preacher? Was there any difference there? Of course not! In his message, “Paul’s Full Cup,” based on Philippians 2:1-11, he summed up his sermon. “No one is able to say ‘Lord Jesus’ except by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:3). To confess Jesus as Lord was the mark of a true believer, a Christian in reality (Rom. 10:9). ‘God made this Jesus both Lord and Christ’ (Acts 2:36). ‘Christ the Lord’ the angels said (Luke 2:11) the Saviour would be.”
When you think of great preachers who have emphasized “Lordship salvation” include Dr. Robert G. Lee, long pastor of the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis (TN) and famous for his sermon Pay day – Someday which he preached over 1,200 times in our country and abroad. In his sermon on the dying thief he said, among other things “‘Lord’ means one having supreme power and authority. Some people have not called Him ‘Lord’ in spite of the fact of His worldwide influence for nineteen centuries ...
“But what a faith this dying thief had – faith blossoming like a lily in a butcher’s slaughter pen – when he called Jesus ‘Lord’ as he saw Him dying on a cross...
“The dying thief believed that Jesus was Lord – ‘very God of very God’.”
Our long-time friend and contributor to this magazine for many years, Dr. Fred M. Barlow, a recognized Sunday school authority and a godly and successful evangelist, in his sermon on Romans 10:13, “Salvation Made Simple” found in a book that we publish (Timeless Truth for 20th Century Times) declared:
“‘Lord’ – that is not just some lovely language. The word ‘Lord’ seen in Scriptures means someone supreme: master, king, sovereign, ruler. When a sinner calls upon the name of the Lord he must mean that he is crowning Christ Lord – Lord of his life, Lord of his lips. He must mean that he is changing bosses. Once he served self, sin, Satan, but now, with the help of Heaven, he means to serve the Savior.
“That is what the thief on the cross meant when he cried out to Christ, ‘Lord, remember me...’ That is what Saul meant on the Damascus Road as he cried out,...‘Lord what wilt thou have me to do?’ (Acts 9:6). That is what Paul preached to the penitent Philippian jailor when he asked, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ – ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house’ (Acts 16:31). That is what Christ demands when He declares to those who profess Him, ‘Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (Luke 6:46). That is why ‘whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (boldface emphasis added; italics in the original).
The famous Presbyterian evangelist – and long-time friend of the late Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. – William E. Biederwolf, in his sermon “Confessing Christ,” based on Romans 10:9, declared:
“It says, ‘If thou shall believe in thine heart.’ There is a difference between heart belief and head belief. A man once said, ‘It doesn’t make much difference about a man’s life; if he believes on Jesus Christ, God will save him.’ But he was confounding opinion with faith. And if theology has been guilty of any one crime I am afraid it’s been this.” Then talking about belief of the heart, he explained, “... it’s that kind of belief that leads you to trust Him and commit yourself to Him in order to be saved.”
In another sermon, “What Must I Do to be Saved?” he emphasized the kind of faith needed for salvation. He did so by breaking down the phrase in the text, “Lord Jesus Christ.” He said first, “… we are to believe on Him first of all as Jesus.” His third point was, “Then you are to believe on Him as Christ. ´In between was his second point: “Then we are to believe on Him as Lord. He says in John 13:13, ‘You call me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am.’ He is called Lord to emphasize His kingly office.
“You are to believe on Him as King and let Him reign in your life” (emphasis added).
Our late friend Hyman Appelman, the noted Jewish evangelist – who held many great city-wide crusades and whose sermons Dr. Rice printed in his magazine repeatedly, even as we have in ours – had a sermon in one of his books, “Only Believe,” based on Acts 16:31. In it he insisted: “We are to believe, only believe; we are to believe, not in a preacher, not in a church, not in a denomination, not in a theological dictum, but in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. His name includes His mighty offices and His marvelous work. As Lord, He is the King of all creation. As Jesus, He is the Prophet of God, revealing God to the generations of men. As Christ, He is the High Priest, entering within the veil to intercede for the needy world. He is possessed of all saving, keeping power. He is a Savior adapted to all the sinner’s needs, to the sinner’s state, to the sinner’s danger.”
And he concluded that section: “It is in this Jesus that you are asked to place your faith. It is He upon Whom you are to believe.”
Another giant of the past was H. A. Ironside, long pastor of the Moody Memorial Church in Chicago and the author of many blessed and useful books. In writing about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, Dr. Ironside commented: “He trembled and said, ‘Lord.’ We are told ‘No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost.’ The implied meaning is that Paul accepted Christ as Lord there and then on the Damascus road; and we know, ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ And so Saul says, ‘Lord, henceforth I am Thine, Thy bondservant; I belong to Thee; Thou art my Lord, give me instruction now. What wilt Thou have me to do?’ From the moment of his conversion he was submissive, ready to yield himself wholly to the One who died to redeem him.”
Herschel H. Hobbs was a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He chaired the committee that prepared its famous doctrinal statement, Baptist Faith and Message, which has the strong section about the inspiration of the inerrant Word of God. In a volume titled Great Southern Baptist Doctrinal Preaching, a sermon by Dr. Hobbs was presented on “The Lordship of Christ.” Referring to the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and his cry, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:11), Dr. Hobbs wrote:
In that second the bloodthirsty persecuting rabbi became the bleeding, persecuted apostle! Henceforth, ‘Jesus” was not a name to be hated, despised, persecuted. It became the ‘... name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow ... and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Philippians 2:9-11)...When Paul became a Christian he did not simply believe in Jesus as Savior. He confessed Him as his Lord.
Indeed, can we separate the two? We talk of making the Savior of our souls the Lord of our lives. But note that He is the ‘Lord Jesus.’ He must be ‘Lord’ before He can be ‘Jesus’ our Savior. Saviorhood is no halfway station in the Christian experience, in which we can decide whether or not we shall go on to His Lordship. It is the other way around. Before Jesus can be our Savior we must recognize Him as our Lord, that He is Jehovah effecting our salvation. And salvation involves more than the soul. It involves the whole of our beings (emphasis added).
Hobbs was, indeed, a strong “Lordship salvation” preacher!
Independent Baptists of almost all stripes and persuasions got together and conducted a number of international Baptist congresses. Billed as the “Fundamental Baptist Congress of North America,” the first was held in 1963 and the last in 1974. The second congress was in October of 1966 at the Civic Auditorium in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and my friend, Dr. John G. Balyo, later the president of Western Baptist College, delivered the keynote message on “The Lordship of Christ.” He opened his address:
The Bible teaches us that some day every tongue in the universe shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and every knee shall bow in acknowledgement of His authority and sovereignty. How plain it is that God gives us no option in the matter of subjection to Jesus Christ. He simply allows us to submit now voluntarily or be compelled to submit later. There is a mass of difference, however, in voluntary or compulsory submission. Voluntary submission means salvation; compulsory submission means damnation. Jesus Christ alone has the right to control a man’s life, and to recognize that right is essential to a person’s eternal salvation.
Dr. Balyo followed that last sentence with his first main point, which he titled, “The Lordship of Christ is Essential to Salvation.” He opened this section by declaring:
Does not the Bible say, …”If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9; ASV)? Does not the Bible make it clear that we must transfer the management of life from self to Christ when it declares, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”(Rom. 10:13)? “The wages of sin is death,” the Bible warns us; but then promises, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
The Bible teaches that “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord [and mean it, of course], but by the Holy Ghost” (I Cor. 12:3); and it is significant that Judas, who betrayed Jesus, never once called Jesus Lord. He was ready enough to call Jesus Rabbi (as the word Master should be translated in Matthew 26:25); but he never called Him Lord because he was always a man uncommitted to Christ, however much he pretended allegiance and loyalty. He was not a person in possession of salvation which he lost; he was an unsaved man playing the hypocrite in the presence of genuine disciples who were ignorant of his disobedient heart.
The peril of becoming a Judas is a threat to all men who profess some confidence in Christ, but are uncommitted to Him. A person must believe in the Lordship of Christ and genuinely submit to it. Obviously, it is not enough merely to mouth the title. Jesus Christ earnestly and compassionately warned that ‘Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 7:21). If Christ made it plain that people are not saved from sin and judgment by the weight of a load of good works, He also made it plain that salvation involves them in a performance of the will of God (boldface emphasis added; italic in original).
Five years later, at the Fundamental Baptist Congress of North America in Detroit, where I also spoke, another speaker spoke on “The Lordship of Christ.” His fourth and final point was “Acknowledge him as Lord,” and he said:
“No power can keep Jesus from being recognized Lord and King when the Father decides that it is time. It is foolish and tragic to wait until the Father forces the acknowledgement of His Lordship. Jesus wants to be Lord now. Submission to Him is not grievous and burdensome, but pleasant and sweet. Jesus invites us to ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matt. 11:28-30).
“Jesus should be the Lord of our lives. Surrender to His Lordship brings salvation, then discipleship, service, and worship. Rebellion against His Lordship is sin. Unwillingness to submit is ‘wickedness’ (emphasis added.)
Other contemporary preachers agree. Dr. Bruce Cummons, who founded the Massillon Baptist Temple in that Ohio city years ago and was its only pastor for decades – and who also founded and served as president of the Massillon Baptist College – was one such preacher. On the completion of 25 years in that pastorate, Dr. John R. Rice published a book of his messages, Silver Anniversary Sermons. Dr. Cummons summed up his final sermon in the book, “You Can Be Saved Now,” with the sub-point: “Make Christ Lord of Life!” Then he said:
“Paul said, ‘Believe on the LORD Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved ...’ Christ must not only be your Savior, but He must be the Lord and Master of your life. Obey Him! Obey His Word!
“So many people only want to trust in Christ as a ‘fire escape from Hell.’ He is more than just a Savior to save you from Hell. He is a Savior who saved you to LIVE for Him! (emphasis added).
And remember that Dr. Rice did not allow any book to be printed at his publishing house with which he disagreed.
Another preacher whom John R. Rice held a very high opinion, describing him as one of the greatest preachers in America and one of its most influential Fundamentalist leaders, was Dr. Tom Malone. Early in 1970 he published a book of Dr. Malone’s sermons, The Wisdom of Soul Winning. The last message therein was “God’s Program for This Age,” relating to the conversion of Cornelius under the ministry of Simon Peter. His fifth and final point emphasized “seven great things” about Peter’s sermon in Acts 10, and Dr. Malone described the final one this way:
Then in his seventh point he said, “You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only way to be saved.”
You know, people today are not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. They are believing on the fact of God in their head. But that won’t save you. The Bible says that when the man asked, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
I am sure that if you don’t believe on Him as the Lord of your life, that is, full surrender, sell out to Jesus, lock, stock and barrel, quit the old world and the Devil’s crowd and his doings and walk with Jesus, you don’t believe on Jesus as Savor. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” This is the first time that the term is ever found in the Bible. Acts 11:17 is repeated again by Peter, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
God help you to believe and to be saved (emphasis added).
And so the book ended.
It would be difficult to find any stronger “Lordship salvation” preaching than the above by Tom Malone. Other quotes by good men both living and dead could be multiplied, but we have given sufficient to establish the point.
Some time ago we read an article that applied Galatians 1:9 to all who preach Lordship salvation, “let them be damned!” That idea is ridiculous of course. John R. Rice, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? R. A. Torrey, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? Fred M. Barlow, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? Robert G. Lee, Tom Malone, W. E. Biederwolf, Hyman Appelman, H. A. Ironside, H. H. Hobbs and other giants of the past and present who preached Lordship salvation – let them all be damned?
To ask these questions is to answer them. Of course not! The Bible clearly teaches that one is to receive Jesus Christ as “Lord” as well as “Savior” if he or she desires God’s “so great salvation.”
Conclusion
What about the utter depravity of man? Can such a one claim Christ as Lord? Some say not, but surely he could do so as easily as he could have faith, as easily as he could claim Christ as Savior. So this is no problem.
What about the Scriptures calling for those already saved to progress in surrender? If Christ had already been claimed as Lord, why would these appeals be made? This is no more of a problem than all of the Scriptures calling for those already saved by faith to increase their faith. There is no perfection for any one at the time of salvation, other than positional. Sanctification, as any theologian knows, is in part a progressive matter that should develop throughout the Christian life.
Is Lordship salvation a matter of works? One article we read said it was – establishing a straw man to shoot down – and then quoting numerous Scriptures showing that works have nothing to do with salvation. But claiming Christ as Lord is not salvation of works in any shape, form or manner. Anyone who tries to make out that it is simply doesn’t understand what “Lordship salvation” is all about.
Someone argues that no one can call Jesus “Lord” until after he is saved because he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit until then. But one cannot come to Christ without the Holy Spirit, either! John 6:44 says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” The same blessed Holy Spirit who enables a dead sinner seeking salvation to come to Christ also enables him to call Jesus “Lord!” You see, all of this is tied in with repentance and the moment the heart attitude is changed (which is what repentance is) one can call Jesus Lord.
Obviously, someone wrong on repentance could easily get wrong on the Lordship of Christ as well. If one denied that repentance “leads to a change of action,” he would likely be wrong about receiving Jesus as Lord. He would be apt to say that such a statement as, “You cannot receive Jesus Christ as Savior without receiving Him as Lord,” was a teaching of works, a perverted gospel, a statement of heresy. But such a statement is true, just as it would be if it were changed to “You cannot receive Jesus Christ as Lord without receiving Him as Savior.” It works both ways.
Do not let anyone deny the soundness of “Lordship salvation.” Repudiating it leads to “professions without possession” and borders on antinomianism. (End)
[1] At the time of the release of this book
[2] The Biblical Evangelist, September 16, 1985
[3] This article is also found in the previous volume, Fights I Didn’t Start … and some I did
Posted at www.biblewalking.com by permission of the author.
This document (73 pages) was to have been Chapter 13 in a forthcoming book by Dr. Robert L. Sumner: Fights I Didn't Start ... and some I did (Vol II). ●Dr. Robert L. Sumner (Born Aug. 3, 1922 - Died Dec. 5, 2016) (94 Years Old) Long-time evangelist; Associate to John R. Rice at the Sword of the Lord paper. Later, was Editor: The Biblical Evangelist.
Dr. Robert L. Sumner writes: Is “Lordship Salvation” heresy? Is it a perversion of the Gospel? Were such giants of the past as A. T. Robertson, Albert Barnes, F. L. Godet, H. A. Ironside, John R. Rice, C. H. Spurgeon, R. G. Lee, W. E. Biederwolf, Hyman Appelman, Herschel H. Hobbs, Bruce Cummons and Fred Barlow perverters of the Gospel? Were they guilty of “Preaching another Gospel”? Should they be damned? This article was written in answer to one editor’s charges to that effect. Many we quote in rebuttal were that editor’s personal friends and heroes – and that may explain why we included them in this article back then. In the same vein, John R. Rice was a close friend of this other editor and that explains some of our emphasis on him here.
“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
– Philippians 2:9-11
The above Scripture states very clearly that everyone will bow his or her knee to Jesus Christ, and with his or her tongue confess that He is Lord. Almost all evangelical Bible believers have understood that whether this is done or not done is the determining factor between salvation and damnation. If done in this life, the individual confessing Christ as “Lord” receives salvation instantaneously. One who goes through life refusing to bow the knee or confess with the mouth Jesus as “Lord” will be forced to do so at the Great White Throne, also called the Great Judgment Morning. Sadly, it will be too late then and all those who refused to do so in this life will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14, 15).
Some are trying to tell us now, however, that all this is a mistake. They are saying that it is not necessary to receive Jesus Christ as Lord in order to be saved. In fact, teaching “Lordship salvation” is called “another gospel” and its defenders are given the Galatian epithet, “Let them be damned!”
What about it? Is it unscriptural to tell a sinner seeking salvation that he must receive Jesus Christ as both Lord and Savior? Or is it “adding works” to the clear teaching of the Word of God that salvation is “by grace through faith” (Ephesians 2:8, 9)? To answer this, perhaps we should begin our study by examining,
I. The Meaning of ‘Lordship Salvation’
When we tell a sinner he must receive Jesus Christ as his Lord we are referring to a heart attitude – not that he will promise to live a life of perfection ever after. We are not talking about a state or position where “there has never been a time since you were saved when Christ has not been the absolute Lord of your life,” as one writer foolishly expressed it. No, never!
It is not agreeing to live in some state of perfection any more than repentance is agreeing to do so. David, Noah, Lot and Peter all “had a lapse in their yieldedness or commitment after they were saved,” but all these men had repented, too. (They had lapses of their repentance!) Was their action consistent with Christ’s lordship? No, but it was not consistent with their repentance, either – and repentance was certainly necessary for their salvation.
When we speak of receiving Jesus as Lord we do not mean that the lost sinner must understand all that is involved in His “Lordship” any more than he must understand the virgin birth, the Trinity, the atonement, or other major doctrines to be saved. Nor are we saying that “Lordship salvation” means drilling a potential convert about such details. Again we emphasize, it is simply a heart attitude, a heart surrender, just as is repentance!
We will be very frank and say that much – perhaps we should say “almost all” – of what is involved in Christ’s Lordship is not understood at the time of conversion. For example, the Ephesians might not have understood at the time Paul led them to Christ that keeping around the house the magical arts and books dedicated to Diana was inconsistent with their new faith in Christ (although the “sense” of Acts 19:18, 19, regarding those involved in that “holy bonfire,” is that the action immediately followed their conversion, not two years later).
We have known converted Catholics to keep crucifixes, images of Mary and the saints, etc., around the house for some time before realizing how contrary to Scripture they are. But one thing is “dead sure for certain”: those Ephesians rejected Diana at the time of their profession or they weren’t converted! They did not add Jesus as a new god to go with Diana and the others. No, no! Never!
Is Failure to Emphasize “Lordship” One Reason for Today’s Evangelism Failures?
In a book of sermons by the famous evangelist of the 19th century, Dwight Lyman Moody (New Sermons, Addresses, and Prayers, published in 1887), he lamented: “Why, I may say with truth, that there is only about one in ten, who profess Christianity, who will turn around and glorify God with a loud voice. Nine out of ten are stillborn Christians. You never hear of them. If you press them hard, with the question whether they are Christians, they might say, ‘Well, I hope so.’ We never see it in their actions; we never see it in their lives.”
The situation is certainly no better in this century!
By way of example, one evangelistic organization set out to evangelize America – a very commendable undertaking, surely – spending literally millions of dollars and organizing hundreds of thousands of church workers in a great telephone and follow-up crusade. Volunteers were first trained and then they manned telephones in seeking to reach entire cities all across the United States. My own sister and brother-in-law, now in Heaven, were among those volunteers.
Thousands upon thousands of “conversions” were reported. While we do not doubt for a single moment that some were genuinely converted, the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of the converts were never heard from again. In a typical case, the sponsor of the program – and he was certainly a good man with honorable motives about reaching souls for Christ – reported one church in particular as having had “several hundred” accept Christ. But the pastor lamented later, “If we did, I have yet to see one down the aisle of my church.”
If this were an isolated incident, it would be tragic enough. However, reports are dime-a-dozen about youth groups going to the Florida beaches at spring break and winning literally thousands in just a few days. And others speak nonchalantly of going to a busy street corner in a downtown metropolis like Chicago or a suburban shopping mall and garnering scores of “conversions” in just an hour or two.
To bring it a little closer to home, our local churches will report any number of converts through their visitation programs that never once darken the door of their church – or any other, as far as they know. One of the major problems for which pastors are seeking solutions at seminars and other local church training institutes relates to “getting them down the aisle.” And, quite frankly, some of the experts who have written and lectured about how to “get them down the aisle” only get a small percentage of their own ‘converts’ down their own aisles! It is a gigantic problem of major proportions.
In our judgment, much of the problem relates to the fact that the prospect does not understand what he is doing – and the soul winner does not understand that his prospect does not understand! Most soul-winning efforts consist merely of hurriedly reading four or five verses, asking a series of questions to which the only possible answer is “Yes!” (apart from appearing like an infidel), then leading the individual in prayer where the personal worker puts the words into the prospect’s mouth – and he repeats them like a lip syncer or a ventriloquist’s dummy. There is no understanding at all that the individual is receiving Jesus Christ as his Lord.
Brethren, this ought not so to be!
We Have ALWAYS Taught the Lordship of Christ!
When I was still young in the ministry, I sensed the need of instructing my prospects carefully as to the decision they were actually making, and it led me to an emphasis upon the Lordship of Christ. As a result, I think it is safe to say that in my soul winning, rather than one out of ten professions received making their decision public, it was much closer to nine out of ten. In the manual on soul winning which I wrote over four decades ago[1] – and was used as a textbook on evangelism in many colleges, Bible institutes and seminaries in this country and abroad – we expressed it like this:
Sometimes it is helpful to emphasize the Lordship of Jesus Christ in explaining this matter of a personal surrender. More spiritual ‘miscarriages’ happen because the sinner does not understand what is involved in taking Jesus Christ as his Lord than over any other thing, in my judgment. A ‘believism’ which does not include a heart surrender is a mere mental believism; this could no more result in a new birth for a sinner than it does for the devils!
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, in his book, Evangelism, insists that the first emphasis in evangelistic preaching should be on this theme. He declared:
“First, the Lordship of Jesus. Now you may say to me, ‘But have you put these in their right order? Is it not true that the first business of the evangelist is to preach the Cross of Christ?’ I do not think so. I believe the first note of the true evangelist is that of announcing to men the Lordship of Christ ... But, it may be objected, He cannot be Lord of a man’s life until a man is saved. Quite true, but the vast majority of people will never begin to feel their need of His salvation until they have been brought to stand in the light of the claim of His Lordship, and so I insist upon the putting of this first. This was the apostolic method.”
Consider the following Scriptures which deal with His Lordship: Matthew 11:27-30; Matthew 16:13-19, 27, 28; John 13:13-16; Acts 2:36; Acts 4:12; Acts 7:55-59; Acts 9:5; Acts 16:30, 31; Philippians 2:9-11; and Romans 10:13.
Perhaps it would be profitable for me to illustrate how I close the deal with a sinner, using Romans 10:13. First of all, if I have been using the Nicodemus plan, I point out that the ‘whosoever’ here is the same as that in John 3:15. Then I ask him, – and this is one verse I always have the sinner read with me – what God says will happen if he calls upon the name of the Lord. The answer, of course, is that he “shall be saved.” I go over that fact thoroughly until the prospect realizes that salvation will be his the very moment he asks for it.
Actually, my policy has been to make it even stronger than stated above. Before going to prayer on the basis of Romans 10:13, after being assured the lost person understands the biblical plan of salvation, when I call attention to the fact that the word “Lord” here means Master – or, to put it in a word the seeking sinner can clearly understand, “Boss.” I very bluntly tell the individual, “If you call upon the Name of the Lord and ask Him to save you, you are taking Him as your Boss. Naturally, you have no idea what the Bible says He wants you to do, but you are saying that as you find out His will, you will do it. And if you do not mean that you are willing to let Him take over your life completely, then I do not want you to be a hypocrite and say a prayer.”
While I have had some back out at that point because they did not mean business, such action has been very rare. Most understood exactly what was involved in calling upon the Name of the Lord.
Because of this, after the surrender had been made and assurance had been received, when we rose from our knees I could say, “You said you would do whatever he wants you to do if He would save you. Right here in Romans 10 it speaks of confessing Him with your mouth. And in Acts 2:41 it speaks of being baptized and added to the church after calling on the Name of the Lord. Are you willing to do this?”
Since they already had the heart attitude of being willing to do whatever God wanted, in the overwhelming majority of the cases there was an immediate response and a follow-through at the church.
R. A. Torrey’s Position Was the Same!
Our textbook on evangelism is not alone in teaching that important truth. Dr. R. A. Torrey, in his huge 518-page classic, How to Work for Christ: A Compendium of Effective Methods, in the section about “How to Deal With Those Who Realize Their Need of a Savior and Really Desire to be Saved,” his third point was “Show them Jesus as Lord.” He commented there:
It is not enough to know Jesus as a Savior, we must know Him as Lord also. A good verse for this purpose is Acts 2:36:
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
When the inquirer has read the verse, ask him what God hath made Jesus, and hold him to it until he replies, “Both Lord and Christ.” Then say to him, “Are you willing to accept Him as your Divine Lord, the one to whom you will surrender your heart, your every thought, and word, and act?”
Another good verse for this purpose is Romans 10:9:
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
When the inquirer has read the verse, ask him what we are to confess Jesus as. He should reply, “Lord.” If he does not so reply, ask him other questions until he does answer in this way. Then ask him, “Do you really believe that Jesus is Lord, that He is Lord of all, that He is rightfully the absolute Lord and Master of your life and person?” Perhaps it will be well to use Acts 10:36 as throwing additional light upon this point:
“The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all).”
Other evangelism authors could be multiplied, no doubt. The early Southern Baptist leader, Lee R. Scarborough, in his widely used With Christ After the Lost, in the section about dealing with those under conviction, instructed workers to point the lost to “Christ [as] his risen, regnant Lord and Master,” and Romans 10:9 was one of the passages he recommended using for this.
One of the problems with not emphasizing the Lordship of Christ with a sinner seeking salvation is that it borders on – or could lead to is perhaps a better way of expressing it – Antinomianism. This latter teaching holds that a believer is free, since Christ’s obedience and suffering fulfilled the demands of the law, from any obligation to observe it, misapplying Paul’s words in Romans 6:14, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” But, as F. W. Robertson expressed it, “Faith alone justifies, but not the faith that is alone.” Such a faith, as James insisted, would be dead. It would be both lifeless and useless.
When it comes right down to it, why would anyone want to receive Jesus Christ as Savior, but not as Lord? As one brother, a member of our Biblical Evangelism board, expressed it, “To any student of the Bible, it is apparent that trying to separate Jesus Christ from His Lordship is as impossible as separating the sun from its heat, numbers from mathematics, notes from music, or words from thoughts.” To take the Lordship of Jesus Christ out of the gospel is fatal!
II. “Lordship Salvation” Taught In The Bible!
Dr. John R. Rice, in one of his ‘answer’ books (Dr. Rice, Here Are More Questions…) used Romans 10:9, 10 in responding to a query about what it means to obey the gospel. He said there: “Faith in Christ saves, and that faith is measured in the sight of men by confession of Christ as Savior. That faith is not just to believe that there is a Savior but to trust Him or claim Him as Savior and Lord” (emphasis added). As Dr. Rice noted, claiming Him “as Savior and Lord” is how somebody obeys the gospel and gets saved.
Note carefully these two verses: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9, 10).
It is unfortunate that the opening phrase in those verses is worded as it is in the King James Version: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.” For most 21st century English readers, this misses the thrust of what Paul is saying. Actually, Paul was demanding, not that they confess “the Lord Jesus,” but that they confess “Jesus as Lord.” Almost every other translation and paraphrase, even by liberals, renders it thus and to offer evidence, here are just a few:
NASB, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord.”
PHILLIPS, “If you openly admit by your own mouth that Jesus Christ is the Lord.”
BECK, “If with your mouth you confess, ‘Jesus is the Lord’.”
TYNDALE, (the very first Bible translated into English from the Greek), “For if thou shalt [ac]knowledge with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord.”
CENTENARY, “Confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
WEYMOUTH, “if with your mouth you confess Jesus as Lord.”
GOODSPEED, “if with your lips you acknowledge the message that Jesus is Lord.”
WILLIAMS, “if with your lips you acknowledge the fact that Jesus is Lord”
ADAMS, “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
NIV, “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
NEB, “If on your lips is the confession, ‘Jesus is Lord’.”
TLB, “if you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus is your Lord.”
AMPLIFIED, “if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord.”
RSV, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord.”
HCSB, “if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart.”
ESV, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.”
NRSV, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart”
Others could be given, of course, and we have quoted from both Bibles and paraphrases, reliable and unreliable, simply to show that all scholarship agrees, whether it is liberal scholarship or Bible-believing scholarship.
Let me give further scholarship to support the thesis. Dr. A. T. Robertson is probably the most highly respected Greek scholar among today’s Fundamentalists, just as he was in his own day in the 20th century. In his Word Pictures in the New Testament, he wrote about Romans 10:9:
If thou shalt confess (ean homologēsēis). Third class condition (ean and first aorist active subjunctive of homologeō). With thy mouth Jesus as Lord (en tōi stomati sou Kurion Iēsoun). This is the reading of nearly all the MSS. But B 71 Clem of Alex. read to rēma en tōi stomati sou hoti Kurios Iēsous (the word in thy mouth that Jesus is Lord). The idea is the same, the confession of Jesus as Lord as in I Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:11. No Jew would do this who had not really trusted Christ, for Kurios in the LXX is used of God. No Gentile would do it who had not ceased worshipping the emperor as Kurios. The word Kurios was and is the touchstone of faith. And shalt believe (kai pisteusēis). Same construction. Faith precedes confession, of course.
Dr. James Denney, professor of systematic and pastoral theology at Glasgow’s Free Church College, in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, commenting on Romans 10:9, notes that “this verse gives the content of what the Apostle describes as ‘the word of faith which we preach’,” and concludes, “We confess it when we say, Jesus is Lord. Cf. I Cor. xii. 3, Phil. ii. 11.” He calls it “the fundamental Christian confession” and says, “Paul nowhere connects the Lordship of Christ with His incarnation, and there is certainly no reference to His Divine nature here. The confession of the first part of the verse answers to the faith in the second; he who believes in his heart that God raised Christ from the dead can confess with his mouth (on that ground and in that sense) that Jesus is Lord. On the basis of such mutually interpreting faith and confession he is saved.”
Incidentally, the writer of the comments on Philippians in Expositor’s, Harry Angus Alexander Kennedy, chair of New Testament Language and Literature at New College in Edinburgh, in his comments on 2:11 (where he calls it “most significant that Lord has no article, which shows that it has become virtually one of Christ’s proper names”) laments, “The term ‘Lord’ has become one of the most lifeless words in the Christian vocabulary,” then says, “The whole purpose of the working out of salvation is the glory of God the Father. This end is attained when men yield to His operations and acknowledge Christ as Lord. Cf esp. Eph. i. 9-12.”
In his comments on Romans 10:9, the famous Presbyterian divine, Albert Barnes, best known for his classic Barnes’ Notes on the Whole Bible, called attention to the fact that “the thing to be confessed is, that he is Lord. Comp. Acts ii.36, Phil ii.11. ‘And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.’ Here it means to acknowledge him as Lord, i.e., as having a right to rule over the soul.”
Then he says about the phrase shalt believe in thine heart, “Shalt sincerely and truly believe this, so that the external profession shall correspond with the real, internal feelings. Where this is not the case, it would be hypocrisy; where this is the case, there would be the highest sincerity, and this religion requires.”
For many years, perhaps, the most popular one-volume commentary was Jamison, Fausset & Brown. They point out that, in Romans 10:9, “the apostle is here giving the language of the true method of justification,” noting Paul was “confirming the foregoing statements as to simplicity of the gospel method of salvation.” Regarding the phrase “confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,” they note that it is “probably, ‘If thou shalt confess Jesus [to be] the Lord,’ which is the proper manifestation or evidence of faith (Matthew 10:32; I John 4:15).”
The highly respected Swiss theologian Frederic Louis Godet, in his Commentary on Romans – in the section dealing with 10:9, 10 – notes: “The object of the [confession] is the title Lord given to Christ, as is done in the invocation by which we publicly declare ourselves subjects; comp. I Cor. xii 3 (according to the true reading). Here again we find the idea of ver. 6 that of the glorified Christ. The same relation between the sovereignty of Christ and the Christian profession appears in Phil. ii. 9-11; ‘Wherefore God hath supremely exalted Him ... that every tongue should confess that he is Lord’.”
Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, whose notes on Romans were written by Dr. William Sanday, professor of exegesis at Oxford, merely had the simple comment about the phrase the Lord Jesus: “Jesus as Lord.” But that was sufficient to highlight the thrust of Paul’s point.
Another work which has passed the test of time is The Bible Commentary, edited by F. C. Cook. Its comments on Romans were written by E. H. Gifford who, like all the others, noted that the Lord Jesus is literally “that Jesus is Lord.” And he quotes the illustrious Greek scholar Johann Albrecht Bengel, “In this appellation (Jesus the Lord) lies the sum of faith in salvation.” So it does.
One of yesteryear’s theologians whose books are still being reprinted in our day because of their value was Bishop H. C. G. Moule. In his commentary on Romans, he notes that “the word of faith” is more precisely “the utterance of faith,” and that 10:9, 10, give the contents of that utterance in more detail. Regarding confessing with the mouth, Moule says that is “practically, ‘submit to and own Him as supreme for thee.’ See for the demand of such ‘confession,’ Matt. x. 32; Luke xii. 8. For all adult converts, this was an important feature of Baptism. In all cases, it is to be a text of the intelligence and reality of the faith of which it is a fruit.”
About the phrase the Lord Jesus, Moule says “Better, Jesus as Lord; i.e. as Supreme and Eternal; the all-blessed Son. Cp. I Cor. xii. 3; where light is thrown on the deep reality and significance of the confession meant here.– St. Paul here refers back to the ‘who shall ascend?’ of ver. 6; Jesus, as Lord, is He ‘who is in Heaven,’ (John iii. 13,) who came thence, and is the way thither.”
He says again, “The ‘confession with the mouth’ represents in fact the whole process by which the Christian, in his life on earth, owns and obeys Christ as his Lord; refuses to ‘deny Him’ in the evil world.”
The more modern writers are just as unanimous in emphasizing the truth of the Lordship of Christ for salvation. In Erdman’s Tyndale New Testament Commentary, F. F. Bruce notes about Romans 10:9: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. The last three words should be placed within quotation marks; cf. NEB; ‘If on your lips is the confession, “Jesus is Lord”.’ This is the confession (Kurios Iēsous) which, as Paul says in I Corinthians xii. 3, no one can make except ‘in the Holy Spirit’ (RV). Cf. Philippians ii. 11, where the confession ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ is man’s acknowledgment of the supreme honor to which God has exalted Him.”
John Murray, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, wrote the notes on Romans in The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Among other things about Romans 10:9, 10 he noted: “In this passage attention is focused upon the lordship and the resurrection of Christ, confession that Jesus is Lord and belief that God raised him from the dead. It appears that the conjunction at the beginning of verse 9 means ‘that’ rather than ‘because’; it specifies what is in the mouth and what is in the heart, confession of Jesus’ lordship and belief of that resurrection, respectively ...
“The confession ‘Jesus as Lord’ or ‘Jesus is Lord’ refers to the lordship which Jesus exercises (cf. 1:4; 14:9; I Cor. 12:3; Eph. 1:20-23; Phil. 2:11; also Matt. 28:18; Acts 2:36; 10:36; Heb 1:3; I Pet. 3:21, 22) ... The effect of this confession and belief is said to be salvation – ‘thou shalt be saved’.”
In the commentary written by past and present faculty members of the strongly evangelical and highly respected Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, the writer of the notes on Romans, John A. Witmer, observes:
“In these verses Paul stated the content of that message concerning faith. Confessing with the mouth that Jesus is Lord is mentioned firsts to conform to the order of the quotation from Deuteronomy 30:14 and Romans 10:8” (emphasis in original). Concerning believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth, he writes: “Yet these are not two separate steps to salvation. They are chronologically together. Salvation comes through acknowledging to God that Christ is God and believing in Him.”
In a kindred work, the Liberty Bible Commentary, prepared by the faculty at Liberty University, the section on Romans was written by the general editor, Woodrow Michael Kroll. About the passage in question, he writes: “Paul has just made reference that the gospel has been in the mouths of the Jews. Now he builds on that thought. He explains that the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ refers to the lordship which Jesus exercises as the exalted Christ. Salvation must entail faith in One who is Lord.” And he adds, “Token assent that Jesus is Lord and the fact of His resurrection is not sufficient for salvation” (emphasis added).
Dr. Herman A. Hoyt, former president of Grace Theological Seminary & Grace College at Winona Lake (IN), in his commentary on Romans, The First Christian Theology, observes about these verses:
This confession centers in the person of Christ. There must be genuine heart faith that Jesus is Lord and that this lordship was demonstrated by resurrection. This will be exhibited by confession of the mouth. Confession means to say with the mouth what agrees with the facts and corresponds with the conviction in the heart. Now Paul has struck at the real issue. It is the question concerning the identity of Christ. Is this Jesus of Nazareth none other than the promised Messiah, the Lord from heaven? Though Paul had once fought against this (I Tim. 1:13), at last he was forced to make confession of Christ as Lord (Acts 9:5). And he admitted later that no man can make this confession except by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:3). But when the Holy Spirit of God reveals Christ in the heart (Gal. 1:16) and the man truly believes this great fact, he will then give voice to it by mouth. This will demonstrate the fact that he has experienced salvation.
Throughout the history of the Christian church a confession of Jesus as Lord has been acknowledged as a condition of salvation. While preparing our notes for this article, we stopped to proofread a column from one of our writers. He, knowing nothing of this article, made the statement: “First, there must be an acceptance of Christ by faith as your Lord and Savior.” That kind of statement comes naturally. Faith in Christ as Lord and faith in Christ as Savior go together in complete harmony, like mother and apple pie.
We have never gone around saying, “If you don’t take Jesus as Lord you aren’t saved,” or, “If you didn’t consciously take Jesus as Lord when you made your profession you aren’t saved.” That is not the issue. “Savior” and “Lord” are like “faith” and “repentance.” You can’t have one without the other. Just as many put their faith in Christ without any consciousness that they are also “repenting,” so many put their faith in Christ as Savior without the awareness that they are also claiming Him as Lord. But the heart attitude must be present, nonetheless. In fact, it will be present if one sincerely takes Christ as Savior.
Many other authorities, both past and present, could be quoted as setting forth dogmatically the truth that “Lordship salvation” is taught in the Word of God. But permit us to sum up this section with a quote from Tom Westwood’s study on Romans, published by Loizeaux Brothers, Romans – A Courtroom Drama. He comments on this passage:
There is no realm in the heights above, nor in the depths beneath, but faith in the living, resurrected Son of God carries me triumphant through and above it all. Here is the word that Paul preached, “The confession of Jesus as Lord and the acceptance by faith that God raised Him from the dead.” You and I must appropriate each for himself that the Person called the Lord Jesus Christ is One who went into death, but God raised Him from the dead, after He paid the penalty of our transgressions, and now He is a living, triumphant Savior, able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. It is in this way that with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Salvation is more than the hope of getting to heaven in the distant future. Salvation, in its New Testament meaning, entails the emancipation of the soul now from the power of Satan, from the fear of death, the transference out of darkness into light, the present victorious entrance of the soul into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. This is salvation. It is not merely the hope of heaven by and by. It is present, victorious living. Let us never for a moment reduce it to the tawdry elements that are so often preached; and that if I nod in assent to the terms of the simple gospel then I can live as I please, go and sin if need be, and be saved in the end. That is not the gospel nor is it the truth. We must confess Jesus as Lord, the Sovereign of our lives, the Commander of our every activity and believe in the heart, not only in the head, that He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for out justification. That is the gospel!
III. Bible Examples of “Lordship Salvation”
Obviously, if the Word of God teaches “Lordship salvation,” as emphasized in the previous paragraphs, it will be illustrated in the Word of God as well.
Indeed, it is!
One such example was the dying thief whose conversion is recorded in Luke 23:39-43. His petition, resulting in his conversion, is found in verse 42: “And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (emphasis added). And Jesus immediately responded, “Verily I say unto thee, to day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” There was no hesitation, no delay, simply an instantaneous response on the part of the Son of God to assure that dying criminal, the moment he took Jesus as his Lord, that Paradise would be his home – and that he would arrive there that very day.
The second illustration relates to the woman in John 8:1-11, “taken in adultery, in the very act.” To highlight how her conversion took place, we will simply repeat what we said in our sermon, “Caught in the Act of Sin!”[2] We wrote there:
When was this fallen woman forgiven? She was cleansed the moment she said, “No man, LORD!” When she claimed Him as Lord, the guarantee of Romans 10:9, 10 became effective in her life: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
You see, when she claimed Jesus as her Lord, she was confessing several things. First, she was acknowledging her sin and unworthiness. She didn’t try to evade, excuse or escape it. On the contrary, she was claiming the mercy based upon the blood He had intimated through His action.
Second, she was confessing her faith in His deity. He could, He would forgive sin. You and I might desire to forgive sin, but we do not have the ability or the power. On the other hand, one might be able to forgive sin and not be willing to do so. In the case of this fallen woman, she was confessing faith in Jesus Christ for both.
Third, she was confessing her willingness to yield to Him for life. That is the idea wrapped up in the word “Lord.” One who thus claims Christ is saying that he or she is willing to follow Him forever, completely willing to let Him be the Boss and give the orders. He is to be the Master; we are to be the servants.
The fact that she received her cleansing the moment she confessed Him as Lord can be seen by the statement in I Corinthians 12:3, “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”
A third illustration relates to the man in the next chapter, John 9, who was born blind. After his healing, Jesus asked him, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him” (Vss. 35-38, emphasis added). As soon as he knew that Jesus was the Son of God, he claimed Him as his Lord and immediately began to worship Him.
Another illustration of Lordship salvation relates to Saul of Tarsus, who later became the flaming Apostle Paul. The account of his conversion is given by Paul in Acts 22. He relates that he heard a voice from Heaven saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? (Vss.7, 8, emphasis added). In other words, he said, ‘I don’t know who you are but if you will identify yourself, you can be my Lord, my Boss.’
Then came the answer from Heaven, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest” (Vs. 8).
Saul’s immediate response, in trembling and astonishment, was, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Vs. 10, emphasis added). The very moment he discovered that Jesus of Nazareth was the one speaking to him from Heaven, he immediately claimed him as Lord, was “born out of due time” (I Corinthians 15:8), and asked what his new Lord’s first order would be!
Since the Apostle Paul was born into the family of God by claiming Jesus as his Lord, it is important to remember that his conversion was “a pattern” for everyone else. As he wrote to the young preacher, Timothy: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting” (I Timothy 1:15, 16, emphasis added). The way Paul got saved is the way everyone gets saved, by surrendering to Jesus Christ as Lord!
The noted Greek scholar A. T. Robertson wrote about this: “Saul surrendered instantly as Thomas did (John 20:28) and as little Samuel (I Sam. 3:9). This surrender of the will to Christ was the conversion of Saul. He saw a real Person, the Risen Christ, to whom he surrendered his life. On this point he never wavered for one moment to the end.”
There are many, many passages of Scripture in the Word of God which offer salvation to one who puts his faith in Jesus as Lord. Perhaps the best known is Acts 16:31. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” That was the way the warden at Philippi could be saved, it was the way his family could be saved, and it is the way anyone and everyone else can be saved.
Some would have us delete the word “Lord” and make it read, “Believe on Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” No, no! That is not what it says. One is to “believe on the Lord” – and that Lord is Jesus Christ – and he will be saved.
IV. Great Preachers Who Taught “Lordship Salvation”
One of my heroes was the late John R. Rice, a strong voice in Fundamentalism for a half-century. He and I did not agree on every detail regarding every doctrine, of course, but our views were basically the same on almost everything, especially on essential doctrine. Even at that, he did not permit anything I wrote to get into print – if he had anything to say about it – that disagreed in any detail with his own position. It mattered not whether it was for my column in his magazine, or a sermon to be printed therein, or a book his publishing company was releasing – it had to conform in every point to his position. I have often joked privately with friends about one of my books in which, upon its publication, I discovered that my views on a certain subject – in print, at least – had been changed to conform to his! Without saying anything to me, he had changed the manuscript and the published book was in total agreement with his position! Yes, it was a minor matter, but he still changed it.
I mention it now only to emphasize that when he published my textbook on evangelism, Biblical Evangelism in Action, the section quoted earlier in this article about “Lordship Salvation” would never have appeared in that book unless Dr. Rice agreed with that position totally. And he did! He understood surrender to Christ to be a permanent commitment.
In my “Letter To a Lutheran Minister,” published some weeks back (November 1, 1985) and reprinted in my first Fights book, I said to that brother, “You say nice things about the late John R. Rice – and I concur with the sentiment, of course – and say, ‘But even in his preaching (and I think he was the best among the Fundamentalists) the wonderful truth of grace alone was often obscured by the fundamentalist confusion of faith and commitment’ (emphasis yours).” That Lutheran brother summed up very accurately part of Dr. Rice’s position. He did emphasize commitment in salvation (but it did not obscure ‘grace alone’).[3]
A case in point relates to the dying thief, whose conversion is recorded in Luke 23. In his commentary on Luke, The Son of Man, Dr. Rice stressed, among other things, “God wanted this thief to be an example for all of us who are sinners alike. And the way one is saved is the way all are to be saved.” And he noted: “The thief surrendered to Jesus as Lord. He did not use that term lightly. He did not speak as to a fellow criminal but with heart surrender he gave himself to Jesus” (emphasis added).
In fact, one of Dr. Rice’s favorite messages was “The Criminal Who Wanted Another Chance,” based on this very text. We say it was one of his favorites because when Fleming H. Revell Publishing Company released its two-volume set of Great Gospel Sermons, one volume of “classic” and one of “contemporary,” in response to its request to Dr. Rice for a sermon, this is the one he submitted.
In it, one of his main sub-points was, “The Dying Thief Surrendered to Jesus as Lord and Master.” In that section he said, in part:
When the dying thief called Jesus Lord, “Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,” he was instantly heard and forgiven.
So it was with the woman taken in adultery in the very act when Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?” Then she replied “No man, Lord.” She was instantly saved and Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.” See John 8:10-11.
Paul, persecuting the church, when stricken down on the road to Damascus by a light brighter than the noon-day sun, cried out, “Who art thou, Lord?” And then when he knew it was Jesus, he trembling and astonished said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Oh, when Saul called Jesus Lord, meaning that he accepted Him as Master and Lord of his life and heart, he found forgiveness and salvation!
And so did the dying thief. The word Lord meant a full surrender, the acceptance of Christ’s will in his own life.
Dr. Torrey said that in his world tours of evangelism the most popular song everywhere there was a great revival was, “I Surrender All.” Coming to Jesus for salvation involves not only a mental acceptance of the fact that Christ is the Son of God. Far more than that, it involves a heart surrender to Him, a bending of the will, a giving up to Jesus. The dying thief that day cast himself upon the mercy of the Lord Jesus, depending upon Him alone, accepting Him as the Lord and Master of his faith. And he was not refused! (emphasis added).
Another “Lordship salvation” preacher was the one Dr. Rice mentioned, Reuben Archer Torrey. We have already quoted from his textbook on evangelism, noting that he emphasized explaining to a potential convert that he must receive Jesus as his Lord. Torrey practiced what he preached and in his sermon, “Saved By A Cry,” based on Romans 10:13, after giving many different scriptural expressions about salvation, he summed it up:
“But to my mind, the simplest statement of all is that of our text tonight, where we are told that, We are saved by just calling on the name of the Lord, ‘WHOSOEVER SHALL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED’ (Rom. 10:13). Saved simply by a cry, a cry to the Lord Jesus; for that Jesus is ‘the Lord’ in this passage is evident from the ninth verse of the same chapter, where we are told, ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved’” (emphasis in the original).
Later in the same sermon, Torrey said: “What does it mean to ‘Call upon the name of the Lord?’ It means just what it says, all any one of you has to do to be saved is to call upon the name of THE LORD Jesus (verse 9) to save you. This is evident from the preceding verse, ‘For there is no distinction between the Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon him.’”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was another mighty minister who emphasized “Lordship salvation” in his preaching. In his sermon “Negotiations for Peace” based on Acts 10:36, he declared: “Be it also known that Jesus the Savior must be received as Lord in the souls of those whom he redeems. You must obey him if you trust him, or else your trust will be mere hypocrisy. If we trust a physician, we follow his prescriptions; if we trust a guide, we follow his directions; and if we fully rely on Jesus, we obey his gracious commands. The faith which saves is a faith which produces a change of life and subdues the soul to obedience to the Lord. Be not deceived; where Jesus comes he comes to reign. Without submission to his will and word, you are without the safety of his atonement” (emphasis added).
In another sermon, “Mouth and Heart” based on Romans 10:9 and emphasizing the confession with the mouth, Spurgeon, whose reputation as a “grace” preacher cannot be denied, nonetheless declared: “We have plenty of preaching of ‘believe and live,’ and I do not condemn it; but still, strictly speaking it is incomplete” (emphasis added).
Why was it incomplete? For one thing, as Spurgeon went on to say: “Notice what it is that is to be confessed: The Lord Jesus. By which I gather, that it is essential to salvation that a man confess the deity of Christ ...
“Again, you must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; that is, Ruler and Master. You must cheerfully become his disciple, a follower, and servant. You must confess – ‘He is my Master, he is my Lord, I intend to be a soldier under him; he shall be to me Leader and Commander; God has made him such, and I accept him as such’”(boldface emphasis added).
And before he closed his sermon he questioned, “Have I gone an inch beyond my text? I am sure I have not.”
We have already noted that Dr. A. T. Robertson, the noted Greek scholar and theologian, insisted on “Lordship Salvation.” What about A. T. Robertson, the preacher? Was there any difference there? Of course not! In his message, “Paul’s Full Cup,” based on Philippians 2:1-11, he summed up his sermon. “No one is able to say ‘Lord Jesus’ except by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:3). To confess Jesus as Lord was the mark of a true believer, a Christian in reality (Rom. 10:9). ‘God made this Jesus both Lord and Christ’ (Acts 2:36). ‘Christ the Lord’ the angels said (Luke 2:11) the Saviour would be.”
When you think of great preachers who have emphasized “Lordship salvation” include Dr. Robert G. Lee, long pastor of the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis (TN) and famous for his sermon Pay day – Someday which he preached over 1,200 times in our country and abroad. In his sermon on the dying thief he said, among other things “‘Lord’ means one having supreme power and authority. Some people have not called Him ‘Lord’ in spite of the fact of His worldwide influence for nineteen centuries ...
“But what a faith this dying thief had – faith blossoming like a lily in a butcher’s slaughter pen – when he called Jesus ‘Lord’ as he saw Him dying on a cross...
“The dying thief believed that Jesus was Lord – ‘very God of very God’.”
Our long-time friend and contributor to this magazine for many years, Dr. Fred M. Barlow, a recognized Sunday school authority and a godly and successful evangelist, in his sermon on Romans 10:13, “Salvation Made Simple” found in a book that we publish (Timeless Truth for 20th Century Times) declared:
“‘Lord’ – that is not just some lovely language. The word ‘Lord’ seen in Scriptures means someone supreme: master, king, sovereign, ruler. When a sinner calls upon the name of the Lord he must mean that he is crowning Christ Lord – Lord of his life, Lord of his lips. He must mean that he is changing bosses. Once he served self, sin, Satan, but now, with the help of Heaven, he means to serve the Savior.
“That is what the thief on the cross meant when he cried out to Christ, ‘Lord, remember me...’ That is what Saul meant on the Damascus Road as he cried out,...‘Lord what wilt thou have me to do?’ (Acts 9:6). That is what Paul preached to the penitent Philippian jailor when he asked, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ – ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house’ (Acts 16:31). That is what Christ demands when He declares to those who profess Him, ‘Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (Luke 6:46). That is why ‘whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (boldface emphasis added; italics in the original).
The famous Presbyterian evangelist – and long-time friend of the late Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. – William E. Biederwolf, in his sermon “Confessing Christ,” based on Romans 10:9, declared:
“It says, ‘If thou shall believe in thine heart.’ There is a difference between heart belief and head belief. A man once said, ‘It doesn’t make much difference about a man’s life; if he believes on Jesus Christ, God will save him.’ But he was confounding opinion with faith. And if theology has been guilty of any one crime I am afraid it’s been this.” Then talking about belief of the heart, he explained, “... it’s that kind of belief that leads you to trust Him and commit yourself to Him in order to be saved.”
In another sermon, “What Must I Do to be Saved?” he emphasized the kind of faith needed for salvation. He did so by breaking down the phrase in the text, “Lord Jesus Christ.” He said first, “… we are to believe on Him first of all as Jesus.” His third point was, “Then you are to believe on Him as Christ. ´In between was his second point: “Then we are to believe on Him as Lord. He says in John 13:13, ‘You call me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am.’ He is called Lord to emphasize His kingly office.
“You are to believe on Him as King and let Him reign in your life” (emphasis added).
Our late friend Hyman Appelman, the noted Jewish evangelist – who held many great city-wide crusades and whose sermons Dr. Rice printed in his magazine repeatedly, even as we have in ours – had a sermon in one of his books, “Only Believe,” based on Acts 16:31. In it he insisted: “We are to believe, only believe; we are to believe, not in a preacher, not in a church, not in a denomination, not in a theological dictum, but in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. His name includes His mighty offices and His marvelous work. As Lord, He is the King of all creation. As Jesus, He is the Prophet of God, revealing God to the generations of men. As Christ, He is the High Priest, entering within the veil to intercede for the needy world. He is possessed of all saving, keeping power. He is a Savior adapted to all the sinner’s needs, to the sinner’s state, to the sinner’s danger.”
And he concluded that section: “It is in this Jesus that you are asked to place your faith. It is He upon Whom you are to believe.”
Another giant of the past was H. A. Ironside, long pastor of the Moody Memorial Church in Chicago and the author of many blessed and useful books. In writing about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, Dr. Ironside commented: “He trembled and said, ‘Lord.’ We are told ‘No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost.’ The implied meaning is that Paul accepted Christ as Lord there and then on the Damascus road; and we know, ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ And so Saul says, ‘Lord, henceforth I am Thine, Thy bondservant; I belong to Thee; Thou art my Lord, give me instruction now. What wilt Thou have me to do?’ From the moment of his conversion he was submissive, ready to yield himself wholly to the One who died to redeem him.”
Herschel H. Hobbs was a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He chaired the committee that prepared its famous doctrinal statement, Baptist Faith and Message, which has the strong section about the inspiration of the inerrant Word of God. In a volume titled Great Southern Baptist Doctrinal Preaching, a sermon by Dr. Hobbs was presented on “The Lordship of Christ.” Referring to the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and his cry, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:11), Dr. Hobbs wrote:
In that second the bloodthirsty persecuting rabbi became the bleeding, persecuted apostle! Henceforth, ‘Jesus” was not a name to be hated, despised, persecuted. It became the ‘... name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow ... and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Philippians 2:9-11)...When Paul became a Christian he did not simply believe in Jesus as Savior. He confessed Him as his Lord.
Indeed, can we separate the two? We talk of making the Savior of our souls the Lord of our lives. But note that He is the ‘Lord Jesus.’ He must be ‘Lord’ before He can be ‘Jesus’ our Savior. Saviorhood is no halfway station in the Christian experience, in which we can decide whether or not we shall go on to His Lordship. It is the other way around. Before Jesus can be our Savior we must recognize Him as our Lord, that He is Jehovah effecting our salvation. And salvation involves more than the soul. It involves the whole of our beings (emphasis added).
Hobbs was, indeed, a strong “Lordship salvation” preacher!
Independent Baptists of almost all stripes and persuasions got together and conducted a number of international Baptist congresses. Billed as the “Fundamental Baptist Congress of North America,” the first was held in 1963 and the last in 1974. The second congress was in October of 1966 at the Civic Auditorium in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and my friend, Dr. John G. Balyo, later the president of Western Baptist College, delivered the keynote message on “The Lordship of Christ.” He opened his address:
The Bible teaches us that some day every tongue in the universe shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and every knee shall bow in acknowledgement of His authority and sovereignty. How plain it is that God gives us no option in the matter of subjection to Jesus Christ. He simply allows us to submit now voluntarily or be compelled to submit later. There is a mass of difference, however, in voluntary or compulsory submission. Voluntary submission means salvation; compulsory submission means damnation. Jesus Christ alone has the right to control a man’s life, and to recognize that right is essential to a person’s eternal salvation.
Dr. Balyo followed that last sentence with his first main point, which he titled, “The Lordship of Christ is Essential to Salvation.” He opened this section by declaring:
Does not the Bible say, …”If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9; ASV)? Does not the Bible make it clear that we must transfer the management of life from self to Christ when it declares, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”(Rom. 10:13)? “The wages of sin is death,” the Bible warns us; but then promises, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
The Bible teaches that “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord [and mean it, of course], but by the Holy Ghost” (I Cor. 12:3); and it is significant that Judas, who betrayed Jesus, never once called Jesus Lord. He was ready enough to call Jesus Rabbi (as the word Master should be translated in Matthew 26:25); but he never called Him Lord because he was always a man uncommitted to Christ, however much he pretended allegiance and loyalty. He was not a person in possession of salvation which he lost; he was an unsaved man playing the hypocrite in the presence of genuine disciples who were ignorant of his disobedient heart.
The peril of becoming a Judas is a threat to all men who profess some confidence in Christ, but are uncommitted to Him. A person must believe in the Lordship of Christ and genuinely submit to it. Obviously, it is not enough merely to mouth the title. Jesus Christ earnestly and compassionately warned that ‘Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 7:21). If Christ made it plain that people are not saved from sin and judgment by the weight of a load of good works, He also made it plain that salvation involves them in a performance of the will of God (boldface emphasis added; italic in original).
Five years later, at the Fundamental Baptist Congress of North America in Detroit, where I also spoke, another speaker spoke on “The Lordship of Christ.” His fourth and final point was “Acknowledge him as Lord,” and he said:
“No power can keep Jesus from being recognized Lord and King when the Father decides that it is time. It is foolish and tragic to wait until the Father forces the acknowledgement of His Lordship. Jesus wants to be Lord now. Submission to Him is not grievous and burdensome, but pleasant and sweet. Jesus invites us to ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matt. 11:28-30).
“Jesus should be the Lord of our lives. Surrender to His Lordship brings salvation, then discipleship, service, and worship. Rebellion against His Lordship is sin. Unwillingness to submit is ‘wickedness’ (emphasis added.)
Other contemporary preachers agree. Dr. Bruce Cummons, who founded the Massillon Baptist Temple in that Ohio city years ago and was its only pastor for decades – and who also founded and served as president of the Massillon Baptist College – was one such preacher. On the completion of 25 years in that pastorate, Dr. John R. Rice published a book of his messages, Silver Anniversary Sermons. Dr. Cummons summed up his final sermon in the book, “You Can Be Saved Now,” with the sub-point: “Make Christ Lord of Life!” Then he said:
“Paul said, ‘Believe on the LORD Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved ...’ Christ must not only be your Savior, but He must be the Lord and Master of your life. Obey Him! Obey His Word!
“So many people only want to trust in Christ as a ‘fire escape from Hell.’ He is more than just a Savior to save you from Hell. He is a Savior who saved you to LIVE for Him! (emphasis added).
And remember that Dr. Rice did not allow any book to be printed at his publishing house with which he disagreed.
Another preacher whom John R. Rice held a very high opinion, describing him as one of the greatest preachers in America and one of its most influential Fundamentalist leaders, was Dr. Tom Malone. Early in 1970 he published a book of Dr. Malone’s sermons, The Wisdom of Soul Winning. The last message therein was “God’s Program for This Age,” relating to the conversion of Cornelius under the ministry of Simon Peter. His fifth and final point emphasized “seven great things” about Peter’s sermon in Acts 10, and Dr. Malone described the final one this way:
Then in his seventh point he said, “You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only way to be saved.”
You know, people today are not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. They are believing on the fact of God in their head. But that won’t save you. The Bible says that when the man asked, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
I am sure that if you don’t believe on Him as the Lord of your life, that is, full surrender, sell out to Jesus, lock, stock and barrel, quit the old world and the Devil’s crowd and his doings and walk with Jesus, you don’t believe on Jesus as Savor. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” This is the first time that the term is ever found in the Bible. Acts 11:17 is repeated again by Peter, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
God help you to believe and to be saved (emphasis added).
And so the book ended.
It would be difficult to find any stronger “Lordship salvation” preaching than the above by Tom Malone. Other quotes by good men both living and dead could be multiplied, but we have given sufficient to establish the point.
Some time ago we read an article that applied Galatians 1:9 to all who preach Lordship salvation, “let them be damned!” That idea is ridiculous of course. John R. Rice, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? R. A. Torrey, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? Fred M. Barlow, who preached Lordship salvation – let him be damned? Robert G. Lee, Tom Malone, W. E. Biederwolf, Hyman Appelman, H. A. Ironside, H. H. Hobbs and other giants of the past and present who preached Lordship salvation – let them all be damned?
To ask these questions is to answer them. Of course not! The Bible clearly teaches that one is to receive Jesus Christ as “Lord” as well as “Savior” if he or she desires God’s “so great salvation.”
Conclusion
What about the utter depravity of man? Can such a one claim Christ as Lord? Some say not, but surely he could do so as easily as he could have faith, as easily as he could claim Christ as Savior. So this is no problem.
What about the Scriptures calling for those already saved to progress in surrender? If Christ had already been claimed as Lord, why would these appeals be made? This is no more of a problem than all of the Scriptures calling for those already saved by faith to increase their faith. There is no perfection for any one at the time of salvation, other than positional. Sanctification, as any theologian knows, is in part a progressive matter that should develop throughout the Christian life.
Is Lordship salvation a matter of works? One article we read said it was – establishing a straw man to shoot down – and then quoting numerous Scriptures showing that works have nothing to do with salvation. But claiming Christ as Lord is not salvation of works in any shape, form or manner. Anyone who tries to make out that it is simply doesn’t understand what “Lordship salvation” is all about.
Someone argues that no one can call Jesus “Lord” until after he is saved because he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit until then. But one cannot come to Christ without the Holy Spirit, either! John 6:44 says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” The same blessed Holy Spirit who enables a dead sinner seeking salvation to come to Christ also enables him to call Jesus “Lord!” You see, all of this is tied in with repentance and the moment the heart attitude is changed (which is what repentance is) one can call Jesus Lord.
Obviously, someone wrong on repentance could easily get wrong on the Lordship of Christ as well. If one denied that repentance “leads to a change of action,” he would likely be wrong about receiving Jesus as Lord. He would be apt to say that such a statement as, “You cannot receive Jesus Christ as Savior without receiving Him as Lord,” was a teaching of works, a perverted gospel, a statement of heresy. But such a statement is true, just as it would be if it were changed to “You cannot receive Jesus Christ as Lord without receiving Him as Savior.” It works both ways.
Do not let anyone deny the soundness of “Lordship salvation.” Repudiating it leads to “professions without possession” and borders on antinomianism. (End)
[1] At the time of the release of this book
[2] The Biblical Evangelist, September 16, 1985
[3] This article is also found in the previous volume, Fights I Didn’t Start … and some I did