Press, 1982), 57.
to Crispo and to Gayo. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 1:14, 17).
18.Charles Haddon Spurgeon,El ganador de almas, trad. José María Blanch (Carlisle, PA: The Standard of Truth, 2013), 36.
19. T. Alan Chrisope, Jesus Is Lord (Hertfordshire, England: Evangelical Press, 1982), 57.
20.Ibid., 61.
21.Id., 63.
22.John MacArthur, Jr., The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (El Paso: Editorial Hispanic World, 2015), 260, 268.
Appendix 1
A COMPARISON OF THREE PERSPECTIVES
The chart that appears on the following pages is a comparison in parallel of the most important points within the controversy of the lordship. You can refer to chapter 2 for more information.
To readers interested in a deeper analysis of the key issues within the controversy of lordship, reading will be very helpful to them from the excellent book by Robert Lescelius Lordship Salvation: Some Crucial Questions and Answers (The salvation of lordship: some questions and crucial answers) (Asheville, NC: Revival Literature, 1992). Another resource very useful is the work of Richard P. Belcher A Layman's Guide to the Lordship Controversy (Guide for Laypeople on the Controversy of Lordship) MA: Crowne Publications, 1990.
Lordship Denial of lordship Radical denial of lordship
Agreed. Agreed. The cross The death of Christ on the cross paid for the penalty complete for our sins and the price for the eternal salvation. His sacrifice expiatory allows to justify to God the sinners freely without compromise the perfection of your divine justice. Its
resurrection declares his victory about sin and death.
Justification Salvation is Alright. Agreed. by faith by grace through faith only in the Lord Jesus Christ, no more no less.
Good works The sinners do not agree.
Agreed.
they can earn the
salvation nor the favor of God.
Prerequisites God does not demand.Okay. for the salvation
Okay.
the saved works high schools neither improvements personal previous.
Eternal life Eternal life is agreed.
Okay.
a gift from God.
Okay. Justification The believers are in agreement. immediate salvos and completely justified before to produce not even one just work.
The believers The Christians Agreed. Okay. and the sin they can sin and pecan. Even the more Christians strong live fighting constant e intensely against sin in the flesh. The believers
true to sometimes they make mistakes horrible sins.
Arrepenfeeling
The gospel call the
Regret is okay. a change of opinion fishermen of faith about Christ. In at the same time the context of the that to the invitation of repentance. gospel, To repent repentance means to give her just a mind back to sin. synonym of "de". No It is not a work it's a grace
it is necessary to give the back to sin granted by God. to obtain the It's a change of salvation. The heart, but the true regret
repentance is not something essential for him message of the gospel it will also produce nor relates to a change of conduct
some way with the savior faith
Iron Salvation is completely work including faith, it is
All salvation, Faith is a human work, not a gift from God. It happens in a of God and those who a gift from God, but decisive moment, but not screens are saved faith may not last. necessarily remains. The without any A Christian it can be true effort for his true can leave defeated, knocked down, collapse part. Even the faith of believing for it's a gift from God, complete. not a work of the
and still become incredulity.
man, so the be authentic no it can have flaws a transitory being, but rather remains for always.
The object of The object of faith The faith that saves
"Believing" for salvation consists of it simply consists of believing in the facts of
the faith it is the own
Christ, not just in being convinced gospel. "Trust in Jesus"
I believe or one promise. Faith, therefore, it implies credit to it. It is the a commitment personal with him.
means believing in the 'facts "saviors" about him and to believe in this is to appropriate the gift of eternal life. Those who trust that Christ can remove any suggestion of In other words, guilt and giving life the believers eternal, but not true continues to suppose a
of the truth of gospel or give
commitment has been set aside from the New Testament idea of salvation. to Jesus. personal commitment conel.
Effects of True Faith It is inevitable that Is there any fruit in all experience
The spiritual fruit is not guaranteed in life Christian. Some Christians iron produce inevitably a life Christian, who, without passing their lives in a sterile transformed. However, it may not salvation includes being visible to the the transformation of others. The Christians from the inner being. They can fall on a
desert of failures, with fusion and all kinds of evil.
nature of the Cristiano is
state of sterility permanent spiritual. different, new. The pattern unbreakable of sin and Hostility against God no will continue when a person is born again.
Scope of salvation eternal life,
The 'gift of God', Only the aspects Believers are guaranteed the sky but not the victory; it I could even say that 'the "salvos" continue to need
judicial of the salvation (like the regarding the justification, the life and holiness, adoption, justice salvation. Christ offers all not only one charged and the a range of experiences of post-release conversion to supply what passage to heaven. sanctification
include everything
(positional) are guarantees two for the ones that are missing for the Christians, but believer in this life. these "salvations" require Sanctification practice and the
that human works be added like obedience, the growth in the submission and the confession of
grace requires of Jesus as Lord. So an act of dedication God depends, to a certain extent after the conversion.
point, of human effort to achieve liberation from sin in this life.
Lordship of Christ
Jesus is Lord The submission to the of everything and the faith that supreme authority of meaning, a condition for
Submission is not, in any
requires implies the submission
Christ as Lord does not have eternal life. 'Call upon the
it has nothing to do with it Sir unconditional. Not with the transaction of submitting to him. gives them life, salvation, as well as eternal to those neither the whose hearts consecration or the they are still willing against him. to dedicate oneself what to see with her. The news that Christ died for our sins and rose up of the dead it is the gospel completely it is not it is necessary to believe nothing more to be saved.
Wishes of holiness
Those who believe in Christians can Nothing guarantees that a truth will love fall into a state of Cristiano truly loved me Christ and, so much, they will long for To obey him.
carnality life licia. God. Salvation not In the church exists necessarily places at the a whole category of sinner in a good relationship "carnal Christians": in harmonious communion with him. people born of new that live continues mind as the unsaved.
Security The Disobedience and If people are safe prolonged sin behavior, not what they believe, their faith being... it is a test there are reasons to authentic. Everyone who important to doubt reality the faith of the person of faith of a
they claim Christ as Salvation by faith (including the that are committing sins serious and prolonged) can
person.
It's real. On the other hand part, the person
to be sure that he belong to God regardless of what happen. Question salvation of those who profess to be Christians are dangerous and destructive. The writers of the New Testament never they questioned the reality of the faith of its readers.
that continues without any arrangement to obey Christ no evidence of faith genuine.
A believer can It is possible to experience a moment of faith that guarantees the complete and reach the heaven for eternity and then
Perseverance The believers
the true ones will be able to leave Christ for to stumble and fall they will persevere to the point of in faith. Those who incredulity. God has to live an absolutely
move away permanently and
lacking all spiritual fruit. The true believers more complete they will be ahead
guaranteed that no will reject those who
they separate from the Mister for
abandon the faith. They can even stop them from that once they have been mentioned to Christ or of demonstrating that the saved are secure confess to being Christians. actually never forever, even if it they had been born from apartan. new.
Appendix 2
WHAT IS DISPENSATIONALISM And what is your relationship with the SALVATION OF LORDSHIP?
One of the most confusing elements in the whole controversy of the lordship has what to see with dispensationalism. Some have assumed that my attack on the theology of the denial of lordship is a relentless struggle against the dispensationalism, but that is not the case. Some readers may be it is surprising to know that the issue of dispensationalism is an area in which Charles Ryrie, Zane Hodges, and I share some common ground: we are all dispensationalists.
It is understandable that many are confused by the term. dispensationalism; I have known graduates from seminary and many Christian leaders who have no idea how to define it. In what How does it differ from covenant theology? What does it have to do with salvation? lordship? Perhaps we can answer those questions simply and without a lot of theological jargon.
Dispensationalism is a system of biblical interpretation that sees a difference between God's program for Israel and His dealings with the church. true, it's that simple.
A dispensation is God's plan whereby He administers His government within a specific stage of its eternal program. The Dispensations are not periods of time, but different administrations. in the eternal development of God's purpose. It is especially crucial to note that the method of salvation (by grace, through faith) is the same in each dispensation. God's redemptive plan remains unchanged, but the the way it is administered will vary between one dispensing and another. The Dispensationalists observe that Israel was the focus of God's redemptive plan.
in a dispensation; the church, composed of the redeemed, including Jews and Gentiles, is the focus on another. All dispensationalists believe that There is at least one dispensation yet to be fulfilled in the future, during the kingdom. millennium of Christ on earth (known as the millennium), in which Israel will once again have an essential role.
Dispensationalism teaches that the rest of God's covenant promises to Israel will be fulfilled literally, including the promises of blessings. earthly and of the earthly messianic kingdom: God promised Israel, by example, that they would possess the promised land forever (Gen. 13:14-17; Exo. 32:13); the Scriptures declare that the Messiah will reign over the kingdoms of the land from Jerusalem (Zech. 14:9-11); the prophecy of the Old Testament He says that all Israel will one day be restored to the promised land (Amos 9:14, 15), the temple will be rebuilt (Eze. 37:26-28) and the people of Israel will be redeemed (Jer. 23:6; Rom. 11:26, 27). Dispensationalists believe that all those promised blessings will be fulfilled as literally as happened with the promised curses.
The theology of the covenant, on the other hand, normally considers that such prophecies have been fulfilled allegorically or symbolically. The theologians of covenant they believe that the church (not literally Israel) is the recipient of the promises of the covenant, for according to them this has replaced Israel in the eternal program of God, so that His promises to Israel are fulfilled in the spiritual blessings received by Christians Since your system 1
it does not allow the literal fulfillment of the blessings promised to the nation Jewish, the covenant theologians allegorize or spiritualize those passages. prophetic of the Word of God.
I am a dispensationalist because dispensationalism generally understands and applies the Bible (in particular the prophetic passages) in a more consistent with the normal and literal perspective that I believe that God has determined for the interpretation of his Word . For example, the 2 dispensationalists can interpret Zechariah 12-14 literally, Romans 11:25-29 and Revelation 20:1-6, while covenant theologians no.
Thus, I am convinced that the dispensationalist distinction between the The church and Israel is an accurate interpretation of God's eternal plan revealed. in the Scriptures. I have not abandoned dispensationalism nor do I have intentions to do it.
Note, by the way, that the description made by Dr. Ryrie of the dispensationalism and its reasons for adopting that system are very similar to what I just said here. A few years ago I wrote: 'The essence of dispensationalism, then, is the distinction between Israel and the Church. This comes from the use that the dispensationalist makes of a system of normal and plain interpretation As for this, it seems that Dr. Ryrie 3 you and I fundamentally agree, but where we differ is in the practical application of dispensationalism. The system of Doctor Ryrie it turns out to be somehow more complex than its own definition seems to suggest.
The debate over lordship has had a devastating effect on the dispensationalism. Given that the theology of the denial of lordship is so closely related to dispensationalism, many have imagined a relationship of cause and effect between the two. In The gospel according to Jesus Christ I stated that some of the early dispensationalists established the foundations for the teaching of the denial of lordship; I expressed my disagreement with extreme dispensationalists who relegate sections complete texts from the Bible (including the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer) to an era of the future kingdom; I criticized the way some dispensationalists have manipulated the preaching and teaching of Jesus up to to nullify the evangelistic intent of some of its most inviting. important; I discredited the methodology of the dispensationalists that they seek to isolate salvation from repentance, justification from sanctification, the faith of works and the lordship of Christ of his role as Salvador, in a way that they are separating what God has united.
Several declared anti-dispensationalists praised the book as a blow. important against dispensationalism: they wanted to declare the death of system and organize the celebration of your funeral.
To be honest, I believe that certain hybrids of dispensationalism they should die and I would love to join that funeral procession, but it's a mistake to dismiss all dispensationalism as if it were completely invalid. My purpose is not to attack your roots, but to appeal for a purer and more biblical application of the principle of literal interpretation, historical and grammatical. The underlying hermeneutical method of Dispensationalism is solid and should not be abandoned: that is the point. of the debate of the lordship.
Who are the dispensationalists? Practically all of them dispensationalists are evangelical conservative theology: our the perspective of the Scriptures is generally very high, our method of interpretation is consistently literal and our zeal for things spiritual issues are exacerbated by the conviction that we are living in the last days.
How does dispensationalism influence our perspective? general theology? Obviously, the fundamental question in any system is the eschatology (the study of prophecy): all dispensationalists are premillennialists; that is, they believe that in the future Christ will reign over the earth for a thousand years because that is what a literal perspective decrees prophecy (cf. Rev. 20:1-10). Dispensationalists may not agree with agreement regarding the moment of the rapture, the number of dispensations or other details, but its position regarding the millennial kingdom on earth remains established by its method of biblical interpretation.
Dispensationalism also has implications for ecclesiology. doctrine of the church) due to the differentiation between the church and Israel. Many dispensationalists, including myself, agree that that there is some continuity between the people of God of the Old and the New Testament in that we share the same salvation purchased by Jesus Christ and appropriated by grace through faith, but the Dispensationalists do not accept the teaching of covenant theology that the the church is the spiritual Israel. Covenant theology sees a continuity between the Jewish ritual and the sacraments of the New Testament, for example, hence In their system, baptism and circumcision have a similar significance. (Indeed, many covenant theologians use the analogy of circumcision) as an argument in favor of infant baptism). The dispensationalists, by another part, they tend to see baptism as a sacrament exclusive to believers different from the Jewish rite.
Thus, dispensationalism determines eschatology and ecclesiology. from the person, but that is all. Pure dispensationalism has no repercussions for the doctrines of God, man, sin or of the sanctification and, more importantly, dispensationalism does not make no relevant contribution to soteriology (doctrine of salvation). In other words, there is nothing in a Biblical perspective. legitimate dispensationalist who decrees that we define the gospel of a
unique or different way. In fact, if the same zeal for hermeneutics literal that applies to the distinction between Israel and the church followed consistently on the topic of salvation, there would be nothing like the theology of the denial of lordship.
What is the connection between dispensationalism and the
doctrine of the denial of lordship?
Nevertheless, the fact that practically all defenders of the doctrine of the denial of lordship they are dispensationalists follows prevailing. No covenant theologian defends the gospel of denial. of the lordship. Why?
First of all, you need to understand that dispensationalism does not has always been well represented by its most enthusiastic supporters. As I have pointed out, what distinguishes dispensationalism is that we see in the Bible a differentiation between Israel and the church and that unique perspective that All dispensationalists have in common the differences from the non. dispensationalists. By the way, it is the only element within the teaching of traditional dispensationalism that arises from a literal interpretation of The biblical texts, besides being the only principle that practically everyone Dispensationalists unanimously support this (that is why it I distinguished it as the characteristic that defines dispensationalism). When when I talk about 'pure' dispensationalism, I am referring to this common denominator: the differentiation between Israel and the church.
It must be acknowledged, however, that the majority of dispensationalists They load with much more baggage in their systems than this single point. The original dispensationalists used to stuff their doctrine with systems complex and esoteric illustrated by complicated diagrams; saturated their repertoire of strange ideas and new teachings, some of which they persist to this day in different branches of this movement. Among the first influential spokesmen of dispensationalism were J. N. Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren and considered by many as the father of modern dispensationalism; Cyrus I. Scofield, author of the Bible Annotated by Scofield; Clarence Larken, whose book of charts dispensationalists have not ceased to be printed and sold since 1918; and
Ethelbert W. Bullinger, an Anglican clergyman who introduced dispensationalism to unprecedented extremes (something that is commonly known as the ultradispensationalism Many of these men learned theology 4
for themselves and were professionals in secular occupations (Darby and Scofield, for example, were lawyers, and Larkin was a mechanical designer; they were laypeople whose teachings gained enormous popularity, greatly measure thanks to popular enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, some of these early exhibitors of Dispensationalism was not as precise or understood as it would have been. was in case of having benefited from theological training more complete. C. I. Scofield, for example, included in his annotated Bible a reference that contrasts "legal obedience as a condition for the salvation [in the Old Testament]" with "the acceptance... of Christ" as the condition for salvation in the present dispensation The critics do not 5 dispensationalists have often attacked dispensationalism for to teach that the conditions for salvation differ between a dispensation and another, criticisms to which here at least Scofield was exposed, although in other contexts seemed to recognize that the law was never a means for the salvation of the saints of the Old Testament . 6 The maturation of dispensationalism has therefore consisted mainly of a process of refining, distillation, clarification, standardization, and trimming of it what is strange or erroneous. Later dispensationalists (among them Donald Grey Barnhouse, Wilbur Smith, Allan MacRae and H. A. Ironside they were increasingly cautious of the fallacies that splattered many of the teachings of earlier dispensationalism. The writings of Ironside they demonstrate their determination to confront the error within the movement: he attacked Bullinger's ultradispensationalism criticized the teaching of 7 regret relegated to some other time condemned the theology of 8 "Christian brother" who helped prepare the way for the teaching of the denial of the radical lordship of our days His writings are filled with 9 warnings against antinomianism . 10 Non-dispensationalists have tended to caricature the dispensationalism through the emphasis on its excesses, and, to be honest, the The movement has produced quite a generous share of lessons. abominable. Although dispensationalists have often been forced to acknowledge that some of the arguments made by their critics have been in the
true the biblical differentiation between Israel and the church remains 11 irrefutable like the essence of pure dispensationalism.
In recent years, dispensationalism has faced a fierce blow. onslaught of criticism, mainly directed at his fascination with the gospel of the denial of lordship, some of whose evidence has been seen in Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism (Incorrectly dividing the Word of Truth: A critique of dispensationalism), by John Gerstner , who attacks correctly 12 the elements of antinomianism and the soteriology of the denial of lordship in some of the dispensationalist teachings. However, it assumes mistakenly that those concepts are inherent to everything dispensationalism, thereby rejecting the entire movement due to the sloppy theology that is found in several of the dispensationalists more important.
Assume that antinomianism is at the heart of the doctrine dispensationalism is a grave error. Moreover, it is unfair to present everyone dispensationalists as if they were theologians lacking sophistication or careless, for many skilled and intelligent students of the Scriptures they have adopted dispensationalism and have managed to avoid antinomianism, extremism and other mistakes. All my professors from the seminar were dispensationalists, but none of them would have defended the doctrine of the denial of lordship . 13 However, nobody can deny that dispensationalism and the Antinomianism has often been defended by the same people. Recent discussions presented in defense of the theology of denial The lordship is rooted in ideas popularized by the dispensationalists and the main defenders of contemporary theology from the denial of lordship are dispensationalists. The controversy of Lordship is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the tensions that always han existido en la comunidad dispensacionalista y alrededor de esta, un punto what is essential for the clear understanding of the discussion as a whole.
Thus, to appreciate some of the key concepts of the gospel of the denial of lordship we must understand its relationship with tradition dispensationalist.
Dividing the Word without criteria?
For some dispensationalists, the differentiation between Israel and the church is only the beginning, for its theology is full of similar contrasts: the church and the kingdom, believers and disciples, the old and the new nature, faith and repentance. It is clear that there are many important distinctions and legitimate in the Bible and in solid theology (the old and the new covenant, the law and grace, faith and works, justification and sanctification), but the dispensationalists often tend to take things too far even the legitimate contrasts. Most of the dispensationalists who have subordinated to the doctrine of the denial of lordship, they imagine, for example, that law and grace are mutually exclusive opposites, or that faith and the works are somehow incompatible.
Some dispensationalists apply 2 Timothy 2:15 ('Make every effort to') present yourself to God approved, as a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who rightly interprets the word of truth" (NIV, emphasis added) as if the keyword were 'interpret' instead of 'correctly'. The trend dispensationalist to interpret and contrast has led to certain exegeses a so imaginative: some dispensationalists, for example, teach that 'the "kingdom of heaven" and "the kingdom of God" are references to realms different although both terms are clearly synonyms in the 14 Scriptures, as shown by a comparison of Matthew and Luke (Matt. 5:3 and Luke 6:20; Matthew 10:7 and Luke 10:9; Matthew 11:11 and Luke 7:28; Matthew 11:12 and Luke 16:16; Matt. 13:11 and Luke 8:10; Matt. 13:31-33 and Luke 13:18-21; Matt. 18:4 and Luke 18:17; Matthew 19:23 and Luke 18:24). Matthew is the only book in all of the Bible that uses the phrase 'kingdom of heaven', for the apostle was writing to an audience that is mostly Jewish and how I understood the sensitivity of these to the use of the name of God, simply used the common euphemism; thus the kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of God.
This tendency to oppose parallel truths is at the heart of the theology of the denial of lordship: the lordship of Jesus and his role as Salvador are distant from one another, making it possible to proclaim it. as Savior and at the same time reject him as Lord; the justification is separated from sanctification, legitimizing the concept of salvation lacking from a transformation; the simple believers are distinguished from the disciples, establishing two classes of Christians, the carnal and the spiritual; the
faith is contrasted with obedience, nullifying the moral aspect of the act of faith; grace becomes the antithesis of the law, providing the basis for an inherently antinomial system.
The grace-law dichotomy deserves deeper examination. A large part of the the systems of the early dispensationalists were unclear regarding the role of grace in the Mosaic economy and the place of the law in the dispensation present. As I pointed out, Scofield left the unfortunate impression that the saints of the Old Testament were saved by the fulfillment of the law. His best-known disciple, Lewis Sperry Chafer (co-founder of the Dallas Theological Seminary and a prolific author), wrote the first condensed systematic theology of dispensationalism and its system became the standard for several generations of dispensationalists educated in Dallas. However, Chafer repeated Scofield's mistake. In his summary on justification wrote:
According to the Old Testament, men were righteous because they were honest and faithful to keeping the Mosaic law. Micah defines such a life this way: "Oh man, he has declared to you what is good! What does the LORD require of you? Only to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God Thus, men were justified by their own works before God, while the justification of the New Testament is the work of God for the man in response to his faith (Rom. 5:1) . 15
Although Chafer denied in other writings that he taught multiple ways of salvation, it is clear that it opened an immense gap between grace and the law. If well for him the law of the Old Testament imposed 'an obligation to do merits before God , on the other hand, I believed that grace frees the son of God 16 of all aspects of the law: as a rule for life, as a obligation to become acceptable before God, as a dependence on the impotent meat The teachings of grace are not laws; they are 17
Suggestions. They are not demands; they are requests," he wrote. . 18 In the Chafer system, God seems to fluctuate between the dispensations of the law and grace: grace was what governed life from Adam to Moses and the "pure law" took authority when the new dispensation began in the Sinai; in the present dispensation, "pure grace" is the rule and the kingdom The millennium will be another dispensation of 'pure grace.' It is evident that Chafer I believed that grace and the law could not coexist, so I sought to eliminate
one or the other of each dispensation. He wrote:
Both in the era before the cross and the one that will follow the return of Christ they represent the exercise of pure law, while the period between both it represents the exercise of pure grace. It is imperative, therefore, that one does not produce a careless mix of these great characteristic elements of each era, lest the most important differentiations be lost in the different relationships between God and man, and that the recognition is obscured of the true strength of the death of Christ and of his coming . 19
No one denies that the Bible clearly contrasts law and grace. John 1:17 he says that 'The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through us' have come through Jesus Christ" and Romans 6:4 that "They are not under the law but under grace obvious in the Scriptures.
Nevertheless, grace and law operate in all dispensations. Grace has always been the only means for eternal salvation. The key point of Romans 4 is about Abraham, David, and other saints from the Old Testament. they were justified by grace through faith, not because they kept the law . 20 Did the apostle Paul believe that we can annul the law in this era of pure Thank you? Her response to that question was unequivocal: "Absolutely not!" Rather, we confirm the law" (Rom. 3:31).
To be fair, it is important to note that when he was pressed to regarding, Chafer acknowledged that the grace of God and the blood of Christ were the the only provision for sinners of any time to be salvos It should be emphasized, however, that Chafer, Scofield and others of theirs 21
followers have established much of the differentiation between the dispensations of the Old and New Testament. As I wanted to avoid the which he considered a "careless mixture" of law and grace, Chafer ended with the 'era of law', which is legalistic, and the 'era of grace', which it smells like antinomianism.
Chafer was actually a devout man, committed to holiness and with high standards of Christian living, which in practice would never exist consented to carnality, but its dispensationalist system (with the strong dichotomies he introduced, with his 'teachings of grace' which are suggestions opposed to the law of any kind) opened the way for a style of
Christianity that has legitimized careless and carnal behavior.
Chafer could rightly have been considered the father of theology of the denial of the lordship of the 20th century, as it pointed to repentance and to submission as two of the most common aspects of responsibility humans that are too often mistakenly added to this only requirement of the faith He wrote: "to impose the need to 22
dedicating one's life to God, as an additional condition for salvation, is one of the greater inexplicabilities. We are never told that God's calling to the inconvertibles aim to make them subjects of the Lord, but rather to be object of His saving grace After the due attention that must be 23
to provide to the doctrine, the most important obligation of the preacher is to preach exclusively to those who are already Christians their duty to submit to the Lordship of Christ, and the unconverted the need to believe in Christ as their Salvador . 24 It is important to note that when Chafer wrote these things, he was arguing against the Oxford Movement, a popular heresy but dangerous that was pushing the protesters back to legalism and the justice for the works of Roman Catholicism. Chafer wrote:
disastrous the error of preventing the unconverted from the idea of the Lordship of Christ, a destructive heresy under the name of the Oxford Movement, which has specialized in this calamitous error, with the aggravating factor that the promoters of this Movement completely omits the idea of the need to believe in Christ to save themselves they only invoke the obligation to submit to God; for consequently, they confuse conversion with consecration, faith with fidelity, and faith for eternal life with the purity of everyday life. How can easily observed, the goal of this Movement is to set aside the the necessity of the death of Christ as the basis of regeneration and forgiveness, and promote the ruinous heresy that it matters very little what one believes about to the saving power of Christ, provided that everyday life is dedicated to the service of God... The tragic part of all this is that those who adhere to such deception, they seem incapable for life of getting out of such a mess through a genuine faith in Christ as Savior; so there is no better example than this Movement can present today to testify to what it means to be 'blind'.
guiding another blind person . 25
But Chafer prescribed the wrong remedy for false teachings. from the Oxford Movement, since in order to respond to a movement that completely omit the idea of the necessity to believe in Christ for
"to save oneself and the obligation to submit only to God" developed a concept of faith that strips belief of any indication of submission. Although the movement it opposed was indeed a insidious error, Chafer unfortunately established the foundation for the opposite error, with equally devastating results.
The idea of faith without repentance fits well with Chafer's concept. from an era of 'pure grace', so it was assimilated and expanded by those who developed their theology based on the Chafer model, which to this day it remains the basis of all teaching about the denial of lordship.
Another especially regrettable outcome of Chafer's rigid division. between 'the era of the law' and 'the era of grace' is its effect on the perspective of this is about the Bible. Chafer believed that 'the teachings of the law, the teachings of grace, and the teachings of the kingdom are systems of rules divine, separate, and complete , hence why it relegated the Sermon on the Mount and 26 the Our Father to an era of the kingdom still to come and concluded that the the only Scripture directly applicable to this era of grace is found in portions of the Gospels, in portions of the Book of Acts, and in the Epistles of the New Testament the 'teachings of grace'. How 27 we can know which portions of the Gospels and of Acts are 'teachings of grace" designated for this era? Chafer was ambiguous:
The teachings of grace are not isolated in the Sacred Text. The three systems appear in the four Gospels. The teachings of grace are they are identified more by their intrinsic character wherever they are found. Large portions of the New Testament are totally revelations of the doctrine of grace. The student, just as Timothy, is entrusted to study to be approved by God in rightly dividing the word of truth . 28
In other words, in the New Testament there is a lot of mixing between the teachings of the law and those of the kingdom, and since they are not explicitly identified for us, we may make mistakes if we try to apply them mistakenly to the present era. Thus the Bible is like a puzzle in which we must discern and categorize what portions are they apply to the present era in order to classify them properly, something that only we can do for 'its intrinsic nature'.
If Chafer was sure of anything, it was that many of the teachings of Christ, if not all, are applicable to the Christian of this era:
A dangerous and completely unfounded sentiment is spreading around the world that suggests that each teaching of Christ is an obligation to apply it in this age simply because Christ pronounced it. The fact that Christ, while living under the law of Moses, keeping it and applying it, also taught the principles of his future kingdom, and at the end of his ministry and in relation to his cross, he also anticipated the teachings of grace. If these three divisions are not recognized the teachings of Christ, there will only be mental confusion and, as consequence, a contradiction of the truth . 29
The dispensationalists who follow Chafer at this point divide mistakenly the Word of truth, assigning complete sections of the New Testament to some other dispensation, nullifying the power of important fragments from the gospels and the teachings of our Sir for today . 30
Which gospel should we preach today?
Not long ago I received an article that has been widely disseminated. by a well-known dispensationalist, who wrote: 'Dr. MacArthur he was very right to title his book The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, for the gospel that Jesus taught in his humiliation prior to the cross, as Messiah of Israel and for the covenant people under the law was, for all intents and purposes, the lordship salvation." However, he added: "The salvation of lordship is based on the gospel according to Jesus Christ, John the Baptist and the early disciples, which is directed to the covenant nation of Israel... The gospel the kingdom of the Lord Jesus has nothing to do with Christians or with the church.
The note includes many quotes from the writings of Dr. Chafer in an attempt to demonstrate that the gospel of Jesus 'was on par with the law and the kingdom "earthly" and has nothing to do with grace or the present dispensation.
The author of the article notes that I wrote "The gospel that is announced Today, in a disturbing number of fronts, it is not the gospel according to Jesus Christ," to which he responds: "What a blessed truth! Today we are ministers of the gospel 'by grace, through faith' of Paul, not of the gospel of Lord Jesus related to the theocratic kingdom oriented towards the law.
Continues saying: "The one converted by the gospel according to Jesus Christ has converted into a son of the kingdom [not in Christian]. And the divine authority
it will always be the driving force of his heart (the Spirit that dwells in him and write the law in his heart in order to make it possible for him to submit to the law theocratic kingdom, under its King, [But the Christian] is not under authority, not seeks to obey) unless it is under the law, as described in Romans For him, to live is Christ, and that life is not under authority... Paul was offering a completely different salvation.
Here, expressed as clearly as possible, are all the madness that have ever stained dispensationalism summarized in one system: the blatant antinomianism ("The Christian... is not under authority, does not seek to obey); multiple ways to achieve salvation ("Paul I was offering a completely different salvation); a perspective fragmented from the Scriptures ("the gospel of the Lord Jesus related to the theocratic kingdom oriented towards the law"); and the tendency to divide and disconnect related ideas ("Today we are ministers of the gospel... of Pablo... not of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus.
Pay close attention: this man acknowledges that the gospel of Jesus demands submission to his lordship, but according to him the message of Jesus has no relevance for this present era, that's why he believes that today's Christians must proclaim a different gospel than the one Jesus preached. How do you imagine that Jesus' invitation to sinners was of a different nature than that of message that the church is called to proclaim, believes that we should preach a different gospel.
None of those ideas are new or unusual within the community. dispensationalist, since all of them can be traced back to one or more of the first representatives of dispensationalism, but it is time to abandon them.
In honor of justice, we should point out that the note I cited expresses some quite extreme perspectives. Although most of the main defenders of the evangelism of the lordship denial probably they would disagree with the type of dispensationalism of this man, the the doctrine of the denial of lordship that they defend is precisely a product of that type of teaching. It is not enough to abandon the forms rigidities of extreme dispensationalism, we must also abandon the antinomian trends.
The careful discipline that has marked most of our tradition theological thought after the Reformation must be guarded jealously. The