Someone could say to his boss, “Sure you’re the boss, but I get to interpret everything you say and, one, make it mean what I say that it means, even if it means changing its meaning, or, two, decide what is plain or clear so as not to do what isn’t plain to me.” No boss would take those terms, because he would know what it means — he isn’t the boss any more. He couldn’t and wouldn’t count on his business getting done. Yet, this is the state of most of professing Christianity today.
Whatever it is that professing Christians, including its leaders, don’t like or don’t think will work, they can void through one of the same two ways as the above illustration. Differing interpretations and decisions related to plainness become liberty issues or at least are considered to be questionable things. Your only requirement, something of which you don’t have liberty, is to agree to disagree — that is the only requirement, the only way in which you don’t have liberty. You have liberty only to agree. You don’t have liberty to say someone is wrong, because you would have to sure someone is wrong. You might be sure, but you can’t say, because that would take away this liberty to interpret everything on your own, and the companion liberty to decide what is plain and clear, both of which I will hereon refer to as “faux autonomy.”
I have read a very tenuous, spider web thread-like exegetical or theological connection to this inability to be sure, based upon faux autonomy. If scripture doesn’t say, for instance, smoking crack, you go beyond scripture to prohibit. Peter said that there are things hard to be understood, so things can be too hard to understand. Jesus talked about weightier matters of the law, so certain matters can be judged to be very light, weighing literally nothing. Since the gospel is first in importance, someone can judge things to be of very little importance, or might as well be said to be of no importance.
If someone believes in Jesus Christ, he must believe Jesus is Lord. If someone believes Jesus is the Christ, then he believes Jesus is the Messiah, that is, the King, another implication of lordship. The identity of Jesus is an aspect of the gospel. You must believe in the Jesus of the Bible, the One revealed in scripture, to be saved. Doing what you are told shouldn’t be and can’t be separated from lordship. He isn’t Lord on our terms, anymore than someone is boss on our terms. If it is our terms, then He isn’t Lord to us, that is, we aren’t believing in Him.
No one has liberty to sin, especially Christians. Christians don’t have liberty to disobey Jesus Christ. Faux autonomy contradicts the lordship of Christ. However, this is where Christianity is today, diminishing the lordship of Christ with faux autonomy. They are picking their own Jesus based on what they prefer. They use faux autonomy to “believe” in Him and then not do what He says. They don’t believe in Him.
Jesus calls us to salvation by calling us with Him outside the camp (Heb 13:13). Professing Christians want the salvation that stays in the camp and doesn’t bear the reproach of association with Jesus, separate from the world. They prefer a convenient Christianity, spotted by the world. This Christianity attracts a larger crowd. It isn’t Christianity.
A meaningless lordship. A king without a crown. A ruler without a scepter. His resurrection, among other things, demonstrate lorship. I don't present a Burger King Jesus. Not the Jesus of the Bible. Someone put it this way either He is Lord of all or He is not Lord at all. I kinda like that saying. Thanks for the article.