Clearing Up Repentance: A Refutation of Lordship Salvation, Final

Dear Guests of IDOTG:

Last week I welcomed back Phillip Evans with this new multi-part series. Please refer to Part One, where you will find a 35+ comments very helpful thread discussion under way. Then proceed to Part 2 and Part 3 for the previous installments of this series. Phillip is the author of Eternal Security Proved. Excerpts from this article are drawn from his book. For additional articles by Brother Evans see below.

This morning we conclude, with my gratitude, this final installment of Brother Phillip Evans’s new series.

Lordship Salvation (LS) doctrine undermines personal assurance of salvation, for how does one know that they will “endure to the end?.” Hold forth I John 5:13 to an LS advocate, and they'll shoot over to I John 2:3 in defense, as if one cannot know Christ as Savior unless they are continuing to keep His commandments.

Could a child of God say with all honesty that they truly have an experiential knowledge of Christ, that they have fellowship with Him, and reflect His character in their lives without keeping His commandments? Of course not. Only those that are keeping His commandments can know that the love of God is completed and fulfilled within them. If you are claiming to abide in Christ, then you should walk as He walked. All of this is precisely what this passage is teaching us.

Those who use this Scripture as justification for teaching that eternal life is obtained and/or kept by keeping all of Christ’s commandments use “know Him” in the very narrow sense of “know Him as your Savior.” They then conclude that if you don’t keep His commandments, that you no longer know Him as your Savior, and are therefore lost.

Since this passage is obviously about fellowship, the burden of proof is on those who assert that this narrow usage of the phrase “know Him” is what is in view here. So far I have not seen them present any such proof.

LS advocates muddy, yeah pervert the Gospel by taking numerous Scripture passages that apply only to the saints, and then reading that back into the life of a lost person, as a requirement to be saved.

This not only does great harm to lost by preventing them from hearing a clear presentation of the Gospel, but also harms the body of Christ, by not only eroding their assurance of salvation, but also influencing them to ignore precious Scripture that directly applies to them. Not to mention tempting saints into the self-righteous judging of others (who may indeed be saved) as lost.

I suspect that most LS advocates (at least those who are born-again) did not outright embrace this doctrinal system, for most saints who fall into error do so gradually. It would behoove the saved to learn to recognize the theological systems of thought that tend to lead to LS doctrine.


Site Publisher’s Note:
Reminding that there is a good discussion underway in the thread under the first installment of this series. You may want to look in.

Phillip Evans has contributed several articles to IDOTG including:
The Hollow Gospel of the GES

Christ's Resurrection: Part of the Saving Message?

Out on a Limb to Protest Too Much