The FBFI: Proclaiming & Defending Lordship Salvation?

UPDATE (9/16): FBFI president Kevin Schaal Posted a reaction to this review.  See my response at
Addressing the FBFI's Response to the Critical Review

The Proclaim & Defend blog is edited by Don Johnson for the FBFI.  The FBFI site states, “Proclaim & Defend is the online voice of the Foundations Baptist Fellowship International.”

The FBFI’s “online voice” Proclaim & Defend has posted a new and troubling article titled, “Following Jesus, No Reservations.”  The author is Brent Niedergall, youth pastor at Catawba Springs Christian Church in Apex, North Carolina. He wrote,

“What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” (Matt 19:16b). This young man wants to know how He can have the right relationship with God that we all need. He’s talking about what the Bible calls getting ‘saved’ or being ‘born again’.”

With that we know the author is speaking to what he believes is God’s plan of salvation for lost mankind. What is Pastor Niedergall’s answer, to how this lost man is to be born again?

“Essentially, Jesus is recruiting him. He says, ‘Follow me.’ However, just like Cookie Gilchrist, this man needs to be eligible for recruitment. Cookie wasn’t eligible to play pro ball because he was still in high school. This young man isn’t eligible yet because he has a divided heart. If he makes the right choice, he will be eligible. This is a choice confronting everyone. That is, not the choice to sell everything, but to choose if you will follow Christ. Even when a person makes that choice to become a Christian, there is still the recurring temptation to aim your following towards someone or something else.”

Pastor Niedergall within a football analogy is expressing John MacArthur’s Lordship Salvation.

To suggest a lost man must somehow become “eligible” for salvation is a departure from biblical truth.  Every person is born “eligible” for salvation because he was born with a sin nature. Every lost sinner, on his way to hell, is “eligible” for salvation by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9) believing in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31) and what He did to provide salvation (John 3:16, 1 Cor. 15:3-4).

In my book, In Defense of the Gospel: Biblical Answers to Lordship Salvation, (pp. 171,175.) I dedicated an entire chapter to the Lord’s encounter with the rich young ruler. In it I made this observation,

“If this young man had recognized Jesus as God, he would have realized that he could not meet God’s standard of perfection. Jesus, the God-man, is that perfection, and all men fall short of it (Rom. 3:23)…. Jesus showed this rich young man that he could not earn Heaven through any good work. The Lord was going to show him that he was a sinner and condemned already (John 3:18).”

It is unfortunate that this article, which is Lordship Salvation’s works-based message appears at Proclaim & Defend, “the online voice of the Foundations Baptist Fellowship International.”  This sends the wrong doctrinal message to its membership. Publishing Following Jesus, No Reservations suggests the FBFI is Proclaiming & Defending Lordship Salvation.


LM

UPDATE (9/16): FBFI president Kevin Schaal Posted a reaction to this review.  See my response at
Addressing the FBFI's Response to the Critical Review

Site Publisher's Addendum:
Later we will examine another example of Lordship Salvation appearing where it had never been an acceptable interpretation of the gospel.