tion to disciples. "Make disciples . . . baptizing them" implies that every new believer is a disciple, for all
Today's Gospel: Good News or Bad?
high, and people take the name of Christ without undergoing the radical transformation of life that true conversion implies.26
The call to Calvary must be recognized for what it is: a call to discipleship under the lordship of Jesus Christ. To respond to that call is to become a believer. Anything less is simply unbelief.27
The gospel according to Jesus explicitly and unequivocally rules out easybelievism. To make all of our Lord's difficult demands apply only to a higher class of Chris tians blunts the force of His entire message. It makes room for a cheap and meaningless faith — a faith that may be exercised with absolutely no impact on the fleshly life of sin. That is not saving faith.
By Grace through Faith
Salvation is solely by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). That truth is the biblical watershed for all we teach. But it means nothing if we begin with a misunderstanding of grace or a faulty definition of faith.
God's grace is not a static attribute whereby He passively accepts hardened, unrepentant sinners. Grace does not change a person's standing before God yet leave his character untouched. Real grace does not include, as Chafer claimed, "the Chris tian's liberty to do precisely as he chooses."28 True grace, according to Scripture, teaches us "to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righ teously and godly in the present age" (Titus 2:12). Grace is the power of God to fulfill our new covenant duties (cf. 1 Cor. 7:19), however inconsistently we obey at times. Clearly, grace does not grant permission to live in the flesh; it supplies power to live in the Spirit.
Faith, like grace, is not static. Saving faith is more than just understanding the facts and mentally acquiescing. It is inseparable from repentance, surrender, and a supernatural longing to obey. None of those responses can be classified exclusively as a human work, any more than believing itself is solely a human effort.
Misunderstanding on that key point is at the heart of the error of those who reject lordship salvation. They assume that because Scripture contrasts faith
26. James M. Boice, Christ's Call to Discipleship (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 14. 27. Jesus' Great Commission in Matthew 28:18 – 20 does not talk about making believers in distinction to disciples. "Make disciples . . . baptizing them" implies that every new believer is a disciple, for all Chris tians are to be baptized (Acts 2:38), not just those who go on to some deeper level of commitment. (See further discussion of this issue in chap. 22, "Th e Cost of Discipleship.")
28. Chafer, Grace, 345. Chafer would be the last person to countenance lawless Chris tian living. Yet because of his extreme emphasis on "pure grace," he oft en made statements with a strange antinomian fl avor that may have conveyed impressions he did not want to convey.