Came across your blog from The Master’s College blogring…
Great job posting something that takes everything possible John MacArthur said out of context, twisting his words to say he’s clearly out of line with scripture. I looked up the context of the sermon quoted, and wonder if you (or whoever made the video?) even read 2 Peter 1, which he was preaching from. Considering that the sermon quoted is the last of a 8-part series on assurance of salvation, which makes it clear that what we are working to pursue is not salvation, but full realization of the assurance we have in Christ, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that – MacArthur rightly turns people continually back to scripture and pursuit of Christlikeness to put up the shield of faith against the flaming arrows of the evil one, which do include doubt. As for the study questions… That one should be so see-through that I’m surprised it was even used: so many books have study questions that are obviously meant to produce the opposite idea. I forget the exact wording, but for instance “How can we short-circut the Holy’s Spirit’s working” or something like that. Obvious answer: we can’t. Very typical for a study question. If you want to be convincing, use his own writing in full context, not chopped up to say the exact opposite of what he meant. I really hope that christians who have been assailed by Satan with attacks of doubt and found Scriptural realization of the assurance of their salvation based on Christ in listening to MacArthur’s sermons never ever see this video; there’s a lot of other issues with John MacArthur’s teaching you could cover a lot less likely to stumble a weaker brother.
And just for the record, I’m not some John MacArthur fan sticking up for him just because; I happen to typically be the one on the “MacArthur’s wrong” side of the discussion. I just think this is really out of line on an issue a lot of people struggle with; you might want to think about not only the people who might be in error that you could be correcting, but the weaker brothers who need to be nurtured and built up to maturity. Just because the fact that your assurance is based on Christ’s resurrection is enough for you, and you’re right that it should be enough, doesn’t mean that some Christians don’t struggle with how to practically apply that in their lives and fight the very real spiritual attacks of doubt. The fact that you draw attention to this post in weblog pools should make you even more careful. Keep pointing out errors if that’s what you think you should do, but if you don’t mind a complete stranger saying it, pray about being more judicious in which things you choose to attack, and how ethically you go about it.
And oh, if you feel like stopping by my blog and showing me from stuff used in context that John MacArthur really does preach error on this, please do if you even can.
I’m not a MacArthur groupie either, but isn’t he saying that our salvation rests in Christ alone, but that the fruits of our salvation (our sanctification) assures us? On one website, MacArthur says, “I do not believe that an incomplete presentation of the gospel–in other words, if you just present the gospel that Jesus died for your sin and rose again and graciously offers you forgiveness by faith in his name; if that’s all you presented, and you didn’t talk about Lordship, and you didn’t talk about being a disciple, and you didn’t talk about repentance, and you didn’t talk about turning from sin-even an incomplete presentation of the gospel-now listen-could not prevent someone from being saved whom God was saving. Got that? Because if you didn’t talk about sin, they’d be feeling the conviction. And if you didn’t talk about submission, they’d be coming to that submission.
What I am saying is that when we present a shallow gospel, we don’t prevent the elect from getting saved; we make people think they’re saved who aren’t. That’s the issue… So, I don’t want to say that… You know, somebody said to me, “Well, I didn’t know all about Lordship when I was saved. Am I not saved?” No. The issue is, “Do you understand that Jesus is Lord and is it your heart’s desire to love Him and serve Him?” And if the answer is yes, then you understand it. So, that’s the point you have to understand.
Now, Jesus called men to follow Him in discipleship. He called them to obey Him. We’ve shown all of that and we’ll even go into more detail when the book comes out.
I believe that when you present the gospel-now listen carefully to this-you can make it as difficult as possible! That’s what Jesus did. He made it as difficult as possible. Why? Because salvation is a work of God, not based on the cleverness of the one giving the gospel, but based on the power of God.”
MacArthur is not perfect, but it is not like he denies the sovereignty of God, obviously.
|||||| lynard
IMHO, name calling of brothers and sisters in Christ–especially in a public venue–is not becoming of one saved by grace. It is better to stick to the issues.
Comments (4)
Should we stone him?
Came across your blog from The Master’s College blogring…
Great job posting something that takes everything possible John MacArthur said out of context, twisting his words to say he’s clearly out of line with scripture. I looked up the context of the sermon quoted, and wonder if you (or whoever made the video?) even read 2 Peter 1, which he was preaching from. Considering that the sermon quoted is the last of a 8-part series on assurance of salvation, which makes it clear that what we are working to pursue is not salvation, but full realization of the assurance we have in Christ, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that – MacArthur rightly turns people continually back to scripture and pursuit of Christlikeness to put up the shield of faith against the flaming arrows of the evil one, which do include doubt. As for the study questions… That one should be so see-through that I’m surprised it was even used: so many books have study questions that are obviously meant to produce the opposite idea. I forget the exact wording, but for instance “How can we short-circut the Holy’s Spirit’s working” or something like that. Obvious answer: we can’t. Very typical for a study question. If you want to be convincing, use his own writing in full context, not chopped up to say the exact opposite of what he meant. I really hope that christians who have been assailed by Satan with attacks of doubt and found Scriptural realization of the assurance of their salvation based on Christ in listening to MacArthur’s sermons never ever see this video; there’s a lot of other issues with John MacArthur’s teaching you could cover a lot less likely to stumble a weaker brother.
And just for the record, I’m not some John MacArthur fan sticking up for him just because; I happen to typically be the one on the “MacArthur’s wrong” side of the discussion. I just think this is really out of line on an issue a lot of people struggle with; you might want to think about not only the people who might be in error that you could be correcting, but the weaker brothers who need to be nurtured and built up to maturity. Just because the fact that your assurance is based on Christ’s resurrection is enough for you, and you’re right that it should be enough, doesn’t mean that some Christians don’t struggle with how to practically apply that in their lives and fight the very real spiritual attacks of doubt. The fact that you draw attention to this post in weblog pools should make you even more careful. Keep pointing out errors if that’s what you think you should do, but if you don’t mind a complete stranger saying it, pray about being more judicious in which things you choose to attack, and how ethically you go about it.
And oh, if you feel like stopping by my blog and showing me from stuff used in context that John MacArthur really does preach error on this, please do if you even can.
I’m not a MacArthur groupie either, but isn’t he saying that our salvation rests in Christ alone, but that the fruits of our salvation (our sanctification) assures us? On one website, MacArthur says, “I do not believe that an incomplete presentation of the gospel–in other words, if you just present the gospel that Jesus died for your sin and rose again and graciously offers you forgiveness by faith in his name; if that’s all you presented, and you didn’t talk about Lordship, and you didn’t talk about being a disciple, and you didn’t talk about repentance, and you didn’t talk about turning from sin-even an incomplete presentation of the gospel-now listen-could not prevent someone from being saved whom God was saving. Got that? Because if you didn’t talk about sin, they’d be feeling the conviction. And if you didn’t talk about submission, they’d be coming to that submission.
What I am saying is that when we present a shallow gospel, we don’t prevent the elect from getting saved; we make people think they’re saved who aren’t. That’s the issue…
So, I don’t want to say that… You know, somebody said to me, “Well, I didn’t know all about Lordship when I was saved. Am I not saved?” No. The issue is, “Do you understand that Jesus is Lord and is it your heart’s desire to love Him and serve Him?” And if the answer is yes, then you understand it. So, that’s the point you have to understand.
Now, Jesus called men to follow Him in discipleship. He called them to obey Him. We’ve shown all of that and we’ll even go into more detail when the book comes out.
I believe that when you present the gospel-now listen carefully to this-you can make it as difficult as possible! That’s what Jesus did. He made it as difficult as possible. Why? Because salvation is a work of God, not based on the cleverness of the one giving the gospel, but based on the power of God.”
MacArthur is not perfect, but it is not like he denies the sovereignty of God, obviously.
|||||| lynard
IMHO, name calling of brothers and sisters in Christ–especially in a public venue–is not becoming of one saved by grace. It is better to stick to the issues.
|||||| lynard