Albert, you flatter me too much. Thanks.

Next time, for good measure, I’ll throw in some incendiary language about the Pope, or start accuse people’s mothers of being hamsters.

That will get some attention. : )

Best,

matt

But seriously,

Mr. Little, the Lordship of Christ is a part of the gospel. No one thinks it is the totality of the good news, but it is part of the good news.

We need to grasp that the gospel is not just about the atoning death of Christ, but about his resurrection by which he was declared to be the Son of God in power with all authority given to him. One without the other is not good news.

On a related note, there is more to biblical salvation than justification, though there certainly is not less. But you wouldn’t know that from much of the rhetoric. A narrow, truncated view of salvation is the problem with much of the rhetoric in the justification debate.

Thanks for the link to the critique of MacArthur. I don’t have time to do a careful read of it right now, but will try to get around to it.

Collin,

I don’t know how accurately Herod understood the Gospel. But he clearly views it as a political threat. I actually think (if I understand the categories) there’s lots of room to be a dispensationalist and agree with everything I wrote above. After all, if the Gospel is for the nations, then it seems that opens up space for national Israel to have a place. So I think it’s not necessary in this context to head down that road.

Daryl,

One implication of my post is that a proper presentation of the Gospel includes both Christus victor and propitiation, albeit ordered and prioritized correctly (which rarely happens). I don’t want to have to choose between them if I don’t have to. How that plays into the “Lordship salvation” debate, I’m not entirely sure….

I knew this one was going to get me into trouble with…possibly everyone! : )

Best,

matt

You’re confusing categories. The Lordship of Christ is not the gospel, and it’s the gospel that led so many to pass on the MD.

As Matthew wrote in his last sentence:

“Ignoring it strips evangelicals not of the heart of the Gospel, but of crucial theological and anthropological resources to help us live out the fullness of the faith in a dark and hostile world.”

But what MacArthur does not seem to grasp
That is not a reasonable conclusion. I think MacArthur fully understands the issue. It is, though, understood differently. Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, yet to support an alternative, an appeal is made to the kingdom within Israel, given the passages provided. The net is that we dispensationalists differ greatly on this point while also fully understanding the issue.

Fortunately, by God’s grace, there is room in the kingdom for both dispensationalists and covenant theologians.

“This reframing of the political order, and of power, opens up the possibility for approaching politics, for approaching art, for approaching education and science from a different vantage point–one that is integrated into and reflects the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross.”

Here’s a post by Andrew Sandlin titled “Lordship Salvation Is Not Enough: A Response to John MacArthur” that dovetails nicely with your post. Here’s some excerpts, but do read it all:

“MacArthur is wrong on two counts. First, he over-generalizes and oversimplifies the Gospel.

Second, and more relevantly, MacArthur underestimates the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

The MD presupposes an ethical calling wider than the Gospel, and we dare not shrink back from the implications of this wholly valid assumption: the Gospel is one of the great themes of the Bible without which there can be no “true and ultimate remedy for all of humanity’s moral ills,” but the Gospel is not the entire, or even the most important, message of the Bible. It is a crucial dimension of an even more momentous message, which is the sovereignty of God over all things (2 Chron. 20:6; Ps. 103:19; Pr. 21:1; Zech. 9:10; 1 Tim. 1:17; Rev. 19:6).

The MD is suggesting that Jesus is Lord of the state, too, not just Lord of redemption. And when the state transgresses its God-ordained role, it stands as a rebel against the kingdom of Jesus Christ to which it, too, and not just the church, is called to submit.

But what MacArthur does not seem to grasp, and what the signatories of the MD do grasp, at least intuitively, is that the Lordship of Jesus is wider than individual salvation. This fact is easy to prove.

The MD takes a step toward recovering an understanding of the full-fledged Lordship of Jesus — that Christians must speak prophetically to the ethical issues of the time, and expect the state to stay within its divinely prescribed limits. Just as Jesus’ Lordship is wider than the church, so Christians’ message must be wider than the Gospel.“