I was reading a chapter on the book of Judges today and I came across a sentence that stopped me in my tracks.<\/p>\n
\nGod did not wait until His people had cleaned up their lives (i.e., repented) before He saved them. He delivered them when they cried to Him for help ([Judges] 3:9, 15; 4:3; 6:6-9; 10:10, 12; 16:28; cf. Rom. 10:3).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Upon reflection, I recalled that this writer rejects the view that is sometimes called “Lordship Salvation” in favor of “Free Grace.” But I am mystified that he would find in Judges support for his position!<\/p>\n
Before you race through to read my comments, you might want to go back and think through what this guy is saying. Do you agree? What are the problems with his statement? [Don’t worry, I ‘ll wait.]<\/p>\n
A salient point that may not be so fresh in your mind is the cyclical nature of the events in Judges. The people are saved from external oppression only until the judge dies. Then they go back to their wicked ways.<\/p>\n
Now if I’m going to see a paradigm for salvation today in the deliverances described in Judges, I would apply it this way: dear visitor to church, please walk down the aisle and say you love Jesus. He ‘ll stop your boss from harassing you and he ‘ll help you to quit smoking but your heart will be unchanged and you ‘ll still go to hell.<\/p>\n
There is no doubt that God is a God of grace and he gives what his people don’t deserve. This is very clear from Judges and elsewhere. But I wouldn’t want to use that as an argument that a new heart is not required.<\/p>\n
As an aside, I reject the silly equation of “cleaned up their lives” with “repented” in the above quotation as well, though I’ve heard it more than once as a characterization of “Lordship Salvation.”<\/p>\n
[Note: this chapter was in a book published in 1991 by a seminary faculty that (at that time) was very much against “Lordship Salvation.” MacArthur’s first book<\/a> on the subject came out in 1988. That it was a hot issue at the time may have contributed to some indefensible statements.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was reading a chapter on the book of Judges today and I came across a sentence that stopped me in my tracks. God did not wait until His people had cleaned up their lives (i.e., repented) before He saved them. He delivered them when they cried to Him for help ([Judges] 3:9, 15; 4:3;\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-israel","category-arguments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}