The question is driven by those who see people express belief or give a profession of faith, but then drift away and never show any real spiritual fruit in their lives. They want so badly to say these people are saved because they did profess faith, even no fruit has been see. This is the Free Grace side of the debate. They say that grace is so free, that we never have to bear any fruit at all. In fact, they say those of us who tend to hold the opposite view are works oriented. This is quite a charge all together. They are basically saying that we are making works a part of salvation.
We are not. What we are saying is that if there is true faith, true grace in a persons life, there will be true works as well. The often used passage to this is the thief on the cross. The Free Grace types point to this and say, "but what about him? What works did he perform?" We would respond by saying the fruit of repentance was clearly seen and expressed by the thief. He freely admitted his sinfulness and confessed to Christ's lordship when he asked to be with Jesus when Christ came to His Kingdom.
The other often site passage is Ephesians 2:8-9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
To which we would readily agree. We are not saved by works at all, but by faith alone. But the faith that saves us is NOT alone. Just look at verse 10 of the same passage: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
God saves us, makes us new in Christ, in order for us to do good works that He has prepared beforehand to do. He is calling us to walk in obedience, and the one that does not, has no real assurance of salvation. If we are disciples, then we will have good works. It a natural by product of who we are and we will have a deep desire to do such, because Jesus IS our Lord.
Those who claim otherwise, are seeking ways to remain in disobedience. But the true believer will have no desire to remain in disobedience and will seek to be holy, because He is holy.
The following is from the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and is their Question of the Week.
I think I may confidently state that there is no one affiliated with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals who takes a stand against the basic ideas of lordship salvation. That is, we firmly assert that one must have Jesus as Lord in order to have Him as Savior. The New Testament could not possibly be clearer on this matter -- see Luke 9:23-24, Ephesians 2:10, Romans 8:3-4, just for starters. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone apart from works. But we are saved to do good works, so that a professing believer who bears no fruit has no biblical grounds to hope for salvation. "We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves never is alone." Here is how we properly relate Paul's teaching on justification and James' teaching. Paul insists that works are joined to faith but not to justification. That is, to summarize Galatians, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Gal. 3:11), and “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). Faith in Christ alone justifies, but that faith works through love. Therefore, while Paul asserts that we are justified by a living faith alone, James denies that we are justified by a dead faith. Paul's affirmation and James' denial go hand in hand to present justification by faith alone, which faith always works.
Rev. Richard Phillips is the chair of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology and senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church Coral Springs, Margate, Florida.
A good book to read on this is Dr. James Boice's Christ's Call to Discipleship. That book really was his response to the denials of “Lordship Salvation.” It is not by chance that John MacArthur wrote the preface to that book and that Boice wrote the preface to MacArthur's The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.
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