THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST

by Bill Jackson

(part 1 of 4)

INTRODUCTION

 

After over 30 years of Christian service, and having been able

to scripturally assess victories and defeats (my own and those of

others), I believe I could plainly state a theory:

THE SUCCESS OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE IS IN DIRECT PROPORTION TO THE

LORDSHIP OF CHRIST IN THAT CHRISTIAN LIFE.

However, I know that no amount of time in the Lord's work, or

the astuteness of my observations, could ever form an objective basis

of truth for any Christian aim. Therefore, we will look to the truth

of God's Word:

"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." (Phil. 2:9-11)

It might seem that the basic aim of any Christian devotional

message should be to persuade the Lord's people to respond in a

particular way; a study on the Lordship of Christ should beseech you

to make Him Lord, for God has already stated that Jesus Christ IS

Lord. This, the Divine revelation concerning the Lordship of Christ,

is my subject at hand.

The conclusion, I pray, will be your full and unreserved

acknowledgment and understanding of that fact. However, always

remember that His Lordship does not hinge on your acknowledgment.

Christ is not running for office, nor is He in a popularity contest.

God has decreed His Lordship, and the more we allow this truth to

permeate our beings, the more successful we will be.

I don't mean that you will necessarily have the largest church

in town or the most money in the bank. The reality of your success in

Christ will only be fully realized when He says, "Well done, thou good

and faithful servant."

Chapter 1

THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST AND SALVATION

 

It would seem that the Lordship of Christ should be most

perfectly exhibited in the proclamation of the Gospel and the

understanding of salvation. Patrick wrote, "Salvation is of Christ

the Lord," and one would wonder if a presentation of salvation could

impugn His Lordship. However, we are living in a day in which there

are many misconceptions about salvation.

If you were to question a Jehovah's Witness, a Mormon and a

Roman Catholic about the Lordship of Christ, each would affirm his

belief in this fact. Yet each would have a different theory about

salvation, and none would be right.

Some time ago I had the opportunity to witness to a very sweet

Jehovah's Witness. She had come calling with her two well-groomed

sons. During the course of our conversation, she stated that she did

not have an assurance of salvation, an admission which is usual for a

J.W. Then she told me she would be glad to lay her life alongside

mine for comparison; she was certain her life was as good as or better

than mine. I would not argue with that, but I said I would be glad to

compare my Savior with hers. Both Saviors had the same name. Mine

as the Christ of the Bible and hers was an imperfect concept of "Jesus

Christ". Hers was not an infinite Savior, and therefore not the

Christ of the Bible. Our Lord Jesus Christ is being blasphemed in the

house of His enemies.

When witnessing one day, we came across a Mormon. He agreed

that Jesus Christ did a perfect work on the cross, but he insisted

that we all have to do our part. This is the basic concept of bi-

lateral salvation: Jesus does His part perfectly, and we must do our

part to obtain salvation. In addition to being grossly impractical,

it is completely unscriptural. The Bible speaks of His work on our

behalf, and any law of substitution must state that when a substitute

comes into play, the original player must leave the field and have no

more active involvement. But here is a group that calls Jesus Lord.

Christ is being blasphemed in the enemy's camp.

In Las Vegas, NV, some friends went with me to observe, first-

hand, a Roman Catholic Mass in St. Brigid's Church. During the homily

(sermon), Rev. Despars was speaking about the death of Christ. He

said, "Jesus did almost all the work for our salvation, I would say

about 90%." While understanding that Catholics believed in works,

devotions, prayers and other merits to supplement Christ's work on

order for salvation to be completed, I had never heard it put so

bluntly. The monstrous part is that Rev. Despars probably thought he

was paying Jesus a compliment by assigning such a large part of

salvation to His work on the Cross.

The sad truth is that Rev. Despars insulted and maligned both

the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Any work that can be

given a measurable value can not be an infinite work. By reducing

Jesus' work to being finite, both the perfection of His work and His

essential Deity are impugned. Yet, Rev. Despars would state that he

believes in Christ's Lordship. Our Savior is being blasphemed in the

house of His enemies.

It is also true that the Lord Jesus Christ is also being sorely

wounded in the house of His friends. Evangelicals, fundamentalists

and Bible-believers have fallen prey to up-to-date thoughts and

methods of evangelism that have fundamentally erred from the biblical

presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This insidious error has been

earmarked by A.W. Tozer in "The Old Cross and the New".

"From this new Cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian

life; and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical

technique - a new type of meeting and a new type of preaching. This

new evangelism employs the same language as of the old, but its

content is not the same, and the emphasis not as before.

"The new Cross encourages a new and and entirely different

evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of

the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not

contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into the public view the

same thing the world does, only a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad

world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to

be the very thing the Gospel offers, only the religious product is

better.

"The new cross does not slay the sinner; it re-directs him. It

gears him to a cleaner and jollier way of living, and saves his self-

respect... The Christian message is slanted in the direction of of

vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

"The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere, but

its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because

it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the Cross.

"The old Cross is a symbol of DEATH. It stands for the abrupt,

violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took the

Cross and started down the road had already said good-bye to his

friends. He was not coming back. He was not going out to have his

life re-directed; he was going out to have it ended. The cross made

no compromise; modified nothing; spared nothing. It slew all of the

man completely, and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms

with the victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished

its work, the man was no more.

"The race of Adam is under the death sentence. There is no

commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any fruits of sin,

however innocent they may appear, or beautiful to the eyes of men.

God salvages the individual by liquidating him, and then raising him

again to newness of life.

"The evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways

of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the

souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the

world; it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old

life to a higher plane; we leave it at the Cross...

"We, who preach the Gospel, must not think of ourselves as

public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and

the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ

acceptable to big business, the press, or the world of sports, or

modern entertainment. We are not diplomats, but prophets; and our

message is not a compromise, but an ultimatum."

A scriptural parallel to this is in Romans 7:1-4. A woman was

married to a very harsh husband named Law. She couldn't do anything

to please him, and life was unbearable (Acts 15:10). Then, one day,

she met a wonderful man named Grace. Grace told her that if she

married him, he would treat her more kindly. But she was married to

Law, and couldn't divorce him. She couldn't murder her husband just

to marry a better one, so Grace solved the problem. He killed her,

then raised her from the dead, and then married her. This is the

message of the Cross-death and resurrection.

This is the message that we sometimes feel we have to soft pedal

in order to attract people, because people don't want to die. Jesus

spoke to the people (Mark 8:34). "Whosoever will come after me, let

him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." The Lordship

of Christ is not a post-salvation elective; the only Savior is the

Lord Jesus Christ. When you accept Him as your Savior, He becomes

your Lord. His being Lord does not depend on your acceptance of the

fact, but upon that acceptance hinges the success of your Christian

life.

Some people think of salvation as a subjective experience. You

do experience salvation, but salvation is not an experience. (You

experience rain, but rain is not wet feet.) By subjective we mean

"existing in the mind, arising from the senses; relating to, or

expressing the thoughts and feelings of a person."

There is truth in the statement "Salvation is better felt than

'telt'" because many glorious realities are difficult to express. But

salvation is not how we feel about what Jesus did; it is what Jesus

accomplished at Calvary, appropriated by a response to the

supernatural revelation of the Person and Work of Christ.

It is not how well we understand that truth, or how much we are

moved by it. Salvation becomes effective when, in response to the

Holy Spirit, we place our dependence on the Divinely-revealed

substitutionary work. Christ's work for us on Calvary is a completely

objective reality.

It is a reality that is accomplished without reference to our

experience. Once accomplished, the experience is real, and

experiences may often be felt as we respond to Him. However, the

experience is not salvation. Salvation is in Christ (objective), not

in us (subjective).

An emphasis on the subjective can lead to many erroneous

conclusions. We must always center on the completed work of Christ as

our salvation, and never testify of any assurance because of our mind

or emotion. A charismatic priest once told me, "I feel sure I am

going to Heaven because of all the wonderful things God is doing in my

life." He had a lot of feeling, but no biblical assurance. We are

sure of our salvation because we are in Christ; He is our salvation (1

John 5:11-13).

Many like to think of today as the "space-age." I rather like

to think of it as the "instant age." It seems the No. 1 selling point

of many articles is that you can make them quickly. Simmering soup

for hours is passe; we are now boiling water and pouring it into a

plastic cup to make soup "like Mother's"(?). People are busy; they

don't have time for anything that takes longer than 15 minutes - even

a presentation of the Gospel.

Because of this, well meaning promoters have come up with the

ultimate - the instant Gospel. Some have excelled to the point of

being able, in less than a minute, to present the Gospel, record a

decision and pray a salvation prayer. The record is probably held by

a lady in Indiana who, at a meeting attended by a friend, testified

that she led 100 souls to the Lord in 45 minutes of personal

evangelism.

In his excellent tract, Evangelical Dilemma, William McDonald

says, "There is a curious problem today in the evangelical world - one

that poses sobering questions for the church and for the individual

believer. The problem in brief is this: a great army of personal soul

winners has been mobilized to reach the populace for Christ. They are

earnest, zealous, enthusiastic, and persuasive. To their credit it

must be said that they are on the job. And it is one of the phenomena

of our times that they rack up an astounding number of conversions.

Everything seems on the plus side so far.

"But the problem is this. The conversions do not stick. The

fruit does not remain. Six months later there is nothing to be seen

for all the aggressive evangelism. The capsule technique of soul

winning has produced stillbirths.

"What lies at the back of all this malpractice in bringing souls

to the birth? Strangely enough it begins with a valid determination

to preach the pure Gospel of the grace of God. We want to keep the

message simple - uncluttered by any suggestion that man can earn or

deserve eternal life. Justification is by faith alone, apart from the

deeds of the law. Therefore, the message is 'only believe.'

"From there we reduce the message to a concise formula. For

instance, the evangelistic process is cut down to a few basic

questions and answers, as follows:

"Do you believe you are a sinner?"

"Yes."

"Do you believe Christ died for sinners?"

"Yes."

"Will you receive Him as your Saviour?"

"Yes."

"Then you are saved."

"I am?"

"Yes, the Bible says you are saved."

"At first blush the method and the message seem above criticism.

But on closer study we are forced to have second thoughts and conclude

that we have oversimplified the Gospel.

"The first fatal flaw is the missing element on repentance.

There can be no true conversion without conviction of sin. It is one

thing to agree that I am a sinner; it is quite another thing to

experience the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit in my life.

Unless I have a Spirit-wrought consciousness of my utterly lost

condition, I can never exercise saving faith. It is useless to tell

unconvicted sinners to believe on Jesus - that message is only for

those who know they are lost. We sugar-coat the Gospel when we

de-emphasize man's fallen condition. They do not have deep roots, and

though they might endure for a while, they soon give up all profession

when persecution or trouble comes (Matthew 13:21). We have forgotten

that the message is repentance toward God as well as faith in our Lord

Jesus Christ.

"A second serious omission is the missing emphasis on the

Lordship of Christ. A light, jovial mental assent that Jesus is

Savior misses the point. Jesus is first Lord, then Savior. The New

Testament always places His Lordship before His Saviorhood. Do we

present the full implications of His Lordship to people? He always

did.

"A third defect in our message is our tendency to keep the terms

of discipleship hidden until a decision has been made for Jesus. Our

Lord never did this. The message He preached included the cross as

well as the crown. He never hid His scars to win disciples. He

revealed the worst along with the best, then He told His listeners to

count the cost. We popularize the message and promise fun.

"The result of all this is that we have many people believing

without knowing that they believe. In many cases they have no

doctrinal basis for their decision. They do not know the implications

of commitment to Christ. They have never experienced the mysterious,

miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration."

If we are operating in a manner that precludes the miraculous

regenerative power of the Holy Spirit, the results we get are because

of our sales ability and bright smiles, or because "making a decision"

is the only way some people can get rid of us.

SALVATION IS NOT A MERE INTELLECTUAL ASSENT, SUCCUMBING TO A

SALES PRESSURE, OR A FEELING. SALVATION IS A SUPERNATURAL ACT OF GOD.

Unfortunately, spurred on by others' success, and whole-

heartedly falling into the numbers game, we have deified quantity and

undercut quality. The tragedy is that the quality that has been

degraded concerns the Lordship of Christ, the very One we are supposed

to be leading men to. No wonder the Christ we advertise is often as

impotent to save as Buddha, Mohammed, or the "Christ" of the cults.

True salvation is administered only by the Holy Spirit. It is

He who convicts of sin (John 16:8), reveals Christ (John 15:26), and

baptizes into the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13).

The conviction of sin is because a person is not trusting Christ

for salvation, or trusting other than Him, and therefore he is not

saved. If a person is trusting a false representation of Christ, he

is not saved, for salvation can only be administered by the Holy

Spirit, and He always reveals and responds to the Christ of the Bible,

not a "Christ" to whose partial work sacraments, prayers, works and

merits must be added to make salvation effective.

If a man preaches that Christ plus Baptism will save, and

someone puts his trust in that Christ, he is not saved, for the

necessary work was not done by the Holy Spirit, Who testifies only of

the Christ of the Bible.

If a man preaches that Christ plus Sacraments, or Christ plus

works, or Christ plus keeping from serious sin saves, response to that

message doesn't save, for no supernatural work has been done by the

Holy Spirit.

The work of Christ is full and substitutionary. As the old hymn

says:

"If Thou hast my discharge procured;

and freely in my room endured;

the whole of wrath Divine.

Payment God cannot twice demand,

first at my bleeding Surety's Hand;

and then again at mine."

On the other hand, if a person truly trusts the Christ of the

Bible, and after falls into deficient theology of Sabbatarian

legalism, ethical necessities or any other false idea, he is saved

because the initial work was done by the Holy Spirit Who wrought Bible

salvation. After salvation, deficient theology won't un-save you; it

will only keep you from being a fully efficient Christian.

All who respond, and only those who respond, to the Holy

Spirit's revelation of the Christ of the Bible are born of God. They

are baptized by the Spirit into one body. We know that every true

Christian has trusted Christ, and that the Holy Spirit only reveals

the Christ of the Bible, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Entered by Sherie Bennett for S.O.N. (Salvation Online Network)

Edited by D. Moore (Computers for Christ #11)


Index of Preacher's Help and Notes

These documents are free from BelieversCafe.com, the complete christian resource site with more than 5000 webpages.