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Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part six)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
When someone gets toward the end of preaching the gospel, he explains belief. God saves those who believe in Jesus Christ. All over the internet and then on paper churches do not say, believe in Jesus Christ, something that simple. No, they say, “Ask Jesus into your heart,” “Pray and ask Jesus to save you,” “Accept Jesus as Savior,” “Trust in Jesus Christ,” and other statements. I’m fine with “believe in Jesus Christ” or “receive Jesus Christ,” and then explaining that.
As a part of the explanation of “believe in Jesus Christ” is Jesus Christ Himself. Who is He? For someone to believe in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ must be Jesus Christ. He must be the actual one. First, Jesus Christ is God. Second, and in no given order, although I could argue for one, He is Lord. People have complicated this over the last fifty plus years as much or more than anything in explaining who Jesus is.
Ask yourself why people will leave the Lordship of Christ out. Why has Lordship become such a controversy? It’s easy to understand how someone would not want Lordship. Lordship clashes with the will of the person to whom you’re preaching.
Jesus Is Lord
Not Synonymous with God
In the Lordship controversy, I’ve noticed that preachers or theologians will try to move Lordship into the category of Deity. They make God and Lord mean the same thing, so that believing Jesus Christ is God covers for believing He is Lord. The two have definite overlap like all of these necessary attributes of Who Jesus is. In a story from a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to Thomas, John 20:27-29 say:
John 20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
Verse 28 is key, when Thomas says, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus doesn’t refute that or alter it. He says, “Thou hast believed.” Thomas wasn’t saying, “My God and my God.” The two qualities of His nature are different and distinct and necessary.
A Requirement
Romans 10:9-10 shows this as a requirement:
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Non-Lordship advocates like to use Romans 10:9-10 for a gospel presentation and then leave out Lordship. What does it say? “Confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.” A few verses later, Paul writes in verse 13, a commonly used evangelism verse: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Again, an evangelist might say “Lord,” and then eliminate it from the explanation of salvation.
Usage of the Lord in the Gospels
In the English (King James Version), the two words, “the Lord,” are used 6,918 times. You see an early New Testament reference in an introduction of John the Baptist in Matthew 3:3: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Concerning Himself in the temptation in the wilderness to Satan in Matthew 4:7, Jesus says, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” And three verses later, He says to Satan, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
The angels at Christ’s birth proclaimed in Luke 2:11, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Just as an example of one of the ways the gospels refer to Jesus as the Lord in several instances, John 11:2 says, “It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.” Mary anointed “the Lord.” After His resurrection, John (20:18) writes of Mary Magdalene that “she had seen the Lord.” When John and Peter saw Jesus from their boat, John said to Peter, “It is the Lord” (21:7).
Usages of the Lord in Acts
Lordship of Christ is all over the gospel preaching of Acts. Five times in his sermon in Acts 2, Peter refers to Jesus as “the Lord.” In Acts 3:19 in that preaching of Peter, he says,
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
When Saul went out persecuting Christians, they are called, “the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). Soon after, Paul’s conversion profession is the simple question, “Who art thou, Lord?” “And the Lord said, I am Jesus” (Acts 9:5). I’m not going to keep going because Lordship is so patently obvious.
Usages of the Lord in the Epistles
The New Testament includes Lordship in the requirement and it dovetails with repentance. This is something to which Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20:
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
“Ye are not your own” and “ye are bought with a price.” Jesus bought these saints. They are not their own any more, so they do not do what they want, but what He wants. People have such a hard time with Lordship, because of the nature of lust. They want what they want and this clashes with the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That’s also why so-called evangelists might leave it out. Believing in Jesus Christ means being owned and an outcome of obedience. You do not obey to be saved, but you believe you have a future of obedience to the Lord Jesus.
2 Peter centers on the Lordship of Jesus with its emphasis on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The apostates turn away from Jesus to walk after their own lust. In doing so, they deny the Second Coming of Jesus Christ because they don’t want the judgment of the Lord that comes with it. Most don’t mind salvation, but since they don’t like Lordship, they reject it or turn away from it. Leaving Lordship out is creating a future of rampant apostasy, really buying into the apostates’ demands.
Explaining Jesus Is Lord
When I explain that Jesus is Lord in believing in Jesus Christ, I will say, “When you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe that He is Lord.” That means believing that He is on the throne and you are not. You relinquish the throne of your life. This is what Jesus said, Losing your life for His sake (Matthew 10:39, 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, 17:33, John 12:25). This is attached to losing your own soul, which is speaking of damnation. Believing Jesus is Lord is in effect giving up your life to Him. Then He can and will cleanse your soul.
More to Come
The Trinitarian Bible Society and Its Position on Scripture
Four days ago the Trinitarian Bible Society launched this video, called, “Upholding the Word of God.”
I appreciate their stand on scripture. What they present is what, I believe, many Christians across the world say they believe. What the above video explains is also why they believe it.
Scriptural Presuppositions
The Trinitarian Bible Society starts with scriptural presuppositions. Their practice of Bible publication arises from their biblical beliefs about the Bible. This is how it should be. It’s also what we do not see with those on the critical text side. They do not emphasize or most often even teach at all what is the scriptural basis of their position. Their position does not have a biblical mooring.
Someone who appears and speaks often in the above video is Jonathan Arnold, who is also pastor of the Westminster Baptist Church in London. My wife and I visited that church twice on trips to England. I appreciate this younger man’s stand on the Word of God in a time of much attack on the doctrine of scripture. He is now the General Director of the Trinitarian Bible Society.
Many pastors across the world use the Greek New Testament, textus receptus, printed by the Trinitarian Bible Society. They also print an entire original language Bible in the received text of the Old (Hebrew) and New (Greek) Testaments.
Separatist Heritage
The Trinitarian Bible Society is by history and, therefore, by definition a separatist organization. It started from a split from the British and Foreign Bible Society over spreading Unitarianism, hence, Trinitarian, and over scripture, therefore, Bible. As an indication of how significant people thought that was, two thousand gathered for the first meeting at Exeter Hall in London in 1831. Could they get that many to gather for that separatist purpose today?
The British and Foreign Bible Society allowed a Unitarian as an officer. Unitarian at the time became the doctrinal position du jour. It’s a familiar theological term now, unitarian, but it really does encapsulate almost every major theology error in the history of heresy. It was essentially Socinianism, which taught works salvation and anti-Trinitarianism. Unitarians denied not only the deity of Christ but also the miracles of the Bible. They did away of the authority of scripture.
For a long period of time, we would call Socinianism or Unitarianism theological liberalism. Most liberal churches in whatever denomination are Socinians or Unitarians. In many ways, we would say they don’t believe anything. They are drawn together by their denial of scriptural and historical doctrine, which is to say, they deny the truth.
Overall
I have attended many churches affiliated with the Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS) in England. Some strong churches exist who would not fellowship with the Trinitarian Bible Society, but very few. A majority of the strongest churches in England, where the best representation of New Testament Christianity exists, associate themselves with the TBS. This says much about the outcome or consequences of the received text of the original languages of scripture and the King James Version, which these churches support and propagate.
I differ from most of these Trinitarian Bible Society affiliated institutions in ecclesiology, eschatology, and dispensationalism versus covenant theology. That saddens me, but it does not take away the joy I have for what they do believe. I rejoice in that. I have more in common with these churches than I do most other Baptist churches today.
The churches affiliated with the Trinitarian Bible Society believe an orthodox, true position on the Trinity and about the Lord Jesus Christ. They preach a true gospel, including repentance and Lordship. TBS type churches utilize reverent worship. They are active in their evangelism of the lost. Their churches are not worldly churches. Their preaching of scripture is dense and thorough. They rely on scripture for their success. I am not saying these doctrines and practices are all that matter, but they do distinguish the Trinitarian Bible Society affiliated churches.
“Q,” the Son of Man, and Christ’s Deity
The alleged document “Q,” according to critical or anti-supernaturalist scholars, underlies the New Testament Gospels. As explained in my study on the New Testament and archaeology, there is no reason to believe that “Q” ever existed. However, even if one granted, for the sake of argument, that “Q” did exist, it still provides evidence that Christ is Divine, for the Lord Jesus clearly identifies Himself as the Son of Man.In Daniel 7:13-14; the “service” the Son of Man receives is that which pertains only to Jehovah [see the other Biblical references to the Aramaic word pᵉlaḥ in: Daniel 3:12, 14, 17–18, 28; 6:16, 20; 7:14, 27; Ezra 7:24; the word means to “pay reverence to, serve (deity),” (Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977]) and is translated in the LXX as latreuo, the word for the service/worship of God]). Thus, when Christ claims to be the Son of Man, He is claiming a Divine title.According to the skeptical, anti-supernaturalist criteria for evaluating the authenticity of Christ’s sayings about Himself known as the principle of dissimilarity, sayings of Jesus are recognized by skeptical scholars as authentic when they disagree with what early Christianity taught and what the Judaism of the time taught. In other words, the Christians were not making up sayings of Jesus and putting them into His mouth if they themselves did not employ them. This is a foolish skeptical criterion, for the likelihood that the Christians would teach what Christ had taught them and so there would be tremendous overlap is only natural. However, if one accepts this criterion as true for the sake of argument, the “Son of Man” sayings by the Lord Jesus pass it. Skeptical scholars recognize that Jesus’ “Son of Man” sayings are attested to by multiple sources. As Gary Habermas points out, even though “Son of Man” is Jesus’ favorite self‐designation in the Gospels, none of the New Testament epistles attribute this title to Jesus even a single time. So skeptical scholars, using their own critera, should accept the legitimacy of the Son of Man sayings in the Gospels.The real Jesus of history is a supernatural one who claims He is God in the flesh, the Divine-human Son of Man predicted by Daniel the prophet. A “Jesus” who was just a good teacher is entirely absent from the pages of history. Thus, my question in my debate with Shabir Ally on the accuracy of the New Testament picture of Jesus (on YouTube here):If, for the sake of argument, I granted that “Q” existed, does not the fact that “Q” still specifies a Jesus who has the attributes of God (Q 10:22 cf. Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22), gives the Holy Spirit Divine status (Q 12:10; cf. Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:28-29; Luke 12:10), and who is the Divine Son of Man who shares Jehovah’s throne, glory, and worship[1] (Q 6:22-23; 7:34; 9:58; 11:30; 12:8-10; 17:22-23; cf. Matthew 8:20; 9:6; 10:23; 11:19; 12:8, 32, 40; 13:37, 41; 16:13, 27–28; 17:9, 12, 22; 18:11; 19:28; 20:18, 28; 24:27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 25:13, 31; 26:2, 24, 45, 64; Mark 2:10, 28; 8:31, 38; 9:9, 12, 31; 10:33, 45; 13:26, 34; 14:21, 41, 62; Luke 5:24; 6:5; 7:34; 9:22, 26, 44, 56, 58; 11:30; 12:8, 10, 40; 17:22, 24, 26, 30; 18:8, 31; 19:10; 21:27, 36; 22:22, 48, 69; 24:7; John 1:51; 3:13–14; 5:27; 6:27, 53, 62; 8:28; 12:23, 34; 13:31; Acts 7:56; Hebrews 2:6; Revelation 1:13; 14:14) show how impossible it is to reduce the Lord Jesus to the mere prophet or teacher affirmed in Islam and secular humanism, since even in the anti-supernaturalist myth “Q” Christ still is the God-Man?–TR
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