John MacArthur explains easy-believism, grace-only, etc.

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Basically it is pretty easy to figure out if someone is teaching correctly or not today by doing a Google search on them with the right key words. Also, I check their net worth, too. If they are millionaires in regards to their assets, or net worth, they are placing their treasure here upon this Earth and not in Heaven (Which is a violation of the teachings of Jesus Christ).
 
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Thess

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So he is not the kind of person that you think he is. His net worth is almost 13 million and he has an annual salary of 160,000.

This IS a big problem for sure. That said, we don't know what his intentions are with his monies, so while I have jumped on board to criticize him for this, I have had to admit that I cannot know his heart. John used to be my favorite pastor, and in a sense I do still respect a lot of his insights, but I no longer depend on humans for understanding God's Word. Rarely anymore do I seek counsel from Men....only when I absolutely must. For I found that by studying the works of Men, I wasn't actually studying the Word of God. Sure, pastors know a ton of minutia, but I'm not looking for minutia, but the truth that will cause me to change and be the Child of God that God has prepared for me to become....and works which He has prepared me to do. No man knows what Holy Work it is that God has for me, so I let know man tell me what I am to do, say or think without processing it through Christ first.
 
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The friction between antinomianism on one hand and the confusion of justification and sanctification on the other is the Arminian system running out into its logical conclusion. While there can be an understanding of "hyper-grace" within the Arminian and other synergistic systems, it's a concept that is not transferable to Lutheranism, to which I hold.

In the Lutheran system, justification is a complete work and sanctification follows as the fruit of justification. Sanctification does not increase or sustain justification. In simple terms: We are saved from God from beginning to end. We must do good works, but they have no bearing on our salvation. While synergism says "You must do good works, or else....", Lutheranism (and Calvinism) says "You must do good works."

I don't even think Lutheranism has a category exactly like "sanctification". We talk about vocation, and we do believe in a kind of growth in maturity, but I've never heard a notion of progressive sanctification. In fact it's criticized a great deal by many Lutheran theologians and pastors.
 
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@BCsenior

1] Are you a righteous person by your works?
2] What works can a man accomplish in this life that would ever compare to Christ's atonement on the cross?

Thanks in advance

The faith of Abraham produces works. Therefore, the Holy Work of a true believer is to simply believe. When true belief exists, obedience exists by nature of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Holy Helper that the Israelites did not have, but only the Leaders, Kings, Judges and prophets.

And what was it that Abraham believed? That God was the Master over life and death. Abraham reasoned that after he had sacrificed his son Isaac, that God would raise him back from the dead, thus, Abraham was obedient and ready to slay his son. But, God intervened, so, Abraham obeyed because he believed. He was in the process of killing his own child, whom which Jesus would come.

Abrahams and Sarah's bodies were as good as dead, but God gave their bodes life to produce a son and Abraham never doubted. He always believed that as old as they were, God's promise to raise their old bodies to life to produce Isaac would in fact happen. That is out work....to believe in the God who raises the dead....Jesus Christ.
 
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FireDragon76

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I believe Macarthur is a cessationist. He's also put out some weird comment on Jesus's blood not being important but rather that Jesus death is what saved us??

He's also a bit vain in that he spent millions building a library honoring himself at his campus, but other than that he's pretty clean. I would place him as a stereo-typical Baptist type of Pastor.

He's an old time fundamentalist. They have always been highly moralistic or even legalistic, and most were traditionally highly anti-Pentecostal.
 
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Thess

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I don't even think Lutheranism has a category exactly like "sanctification". We talk about vocation, and we do believe in a kind of growth in maturity, but I've never heard a notion of progressive sanctification. In fact it's criticized a great deal by many Lutheran theologians and pastors.

That is really interesting....even concerning a bit. I can't imagine my faith without Sanctificaiton.
 
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FireDragon76

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That is really interesting....even concerning a bit. I can't imagine my faith without Sanctificaiton.

We have a different emphasis on justification as compared to Reformed Christians, a different coloration of the doctrine. We don't think of justification exclusively as a past event, it's something that is always a reality in the Christian's life.
 
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Thess

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We have a different emphasis on justification as compared to Reformed Christians, a different coloration of the doctrine. We don't think of justification exclusively as a past event, it's something that is always a reality in the Christian's life.

Again, very interesting....and I appreciate your willingness to engage. Thank you.

Thinking out loud, here: It's almost as if the idea of Sanctification is irrelevant, providing that you are Justified. Become justified, and after that, so be it, but BE JUSTIFIED!
 
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Again, very interesting....and I appreciate your willingness to engage. Thank you.

Thinking out loud, here: It's almost as if the idea of Sanctification is irrelevant, providing that you are Justified. Become justified, and after that, so be it, but BE JUSTIFIED!

I think its due to our acceptance of ambiguity about the nature of faith and the Christian life. Luther and Lutherans are more "medieval" in tone and less rationalistic. So we don't expect human beings can actually plan out a Christian life in the way Reformed tend to. Life is mysterious, paradoxical, and often tragic, and our theology reflects that.

If you are familiar with Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Realism, he was a Reformed pastor that actually was closer to us, coming from a German-American Reformed background. The British and Anglo-American Calvinist traditions have taken Reformed theology in a perfectionistic direction, expecting a great deal out of the potential of sanctification and moral reform than Contintental Reformed ever did.
 
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I think its due to our acceptance of ambiguity about the nature of faith and the Christian life. Luther and Lutherans are more "medieval" in tone and less rationalistic. So we don't expect human beings can actually plan out a Christian life in the way Reformed tend to. Life is mysterious, paradoxical, and often tragic, and our theology reflects that.

If you are familiar with Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Realism, he was a Reformed pastor that actually was closer to us, coming from a German-American Reformed background. The British and Americans have taken Reformed theology in a perfectionistic direction, expecting a great deal out of the potential of sanctification that Contintental Reformed never did.

Man alive, you're a smart guy, much smarter than me. And with all of the possible ideas of theology, of which I am open to all, I am just thankful that God showed me His Holy Terror followed up with immediate peace and love....all of which were so Powerful that the Terror nearly erupted me from the inside, and the Power of God's Love and Peace was also Powerful enough to harm my body. Imagine, so much peace and love that my physical body could not endure it without physical change of some kind.

And what I found out from this experience is that I know virtually nothing, that I am virtually nothing, yet in my nothingness, I (all genuine believers) am also great enough to be willing to die for. While this experience made many, many things clear to me, I realized that I had better start taking life, God's Word and His Heavenly Realms much, much more seriously. Of course, as I saw and felt myself making "every effort", I now realize that while it feels like my effort from within to change, it is not. The Ability to change is not that of myself, but that of God's indwelling Spirit. It's a miracle....for I have proven all throughout my life that I was only capable of following Satan, though I desperately did not want to.

We should all pray to come to know our God in this way. I just can't imagine living without that experience. I'd still be wanting suicide if God hadn't graced me with His Powerful Presence, showing me enough of His Power necessary to part an entire Red Sea. Now that I truly believe, I see that I will likely die for His name alone.
 
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Man alive, you're a smart guy, must smarter than me. And with all of the possible ideas of theology, of which I am open to all, I am just thankful that God showed me His Holy Terror followed up with immediate peace and love....all of which were so Powerful that the Terror nearly erupted me from the inside and the Power of God's Love and Peace was also Powerful enough to harm my body. Imagine, so much peace and love that my physical body could not endure it without physical change of some kind.

And what I found out from this experience is that I know virtually nothing, that I am virtually nothing, yet in my nothingness, I (all genuine believers) am also great enough to be willing to die for. While this experience made many, many things clear to me, I realized that I had better start taking life, God's Word and His Heavenly Realms much, much more seriously. Of course, as I saw and felt myself making "every effort", I now realize that while it feels like my effort from within to change, it is not. The Ability to change is not that of myself, but that of God's indwelling Spirit. It's a miracle....for I have proven all throughout my life that I was only capable of following Satan, though I desperately did not want to.

We should all pray to come to know our God in this way. I just can't imagine living without that experience. I'd still be wanting suicide if God hadn't graced me with His Powerful Presence, showing me enough of His Power necessary to part an entire Red Sea. Now that I truly believe, I see that I will likely die for His name alone.

Lutherans don't emphasize individual spiritual experiences in that way. We do have spiritual experiences of course (we are human beings after all), particularly associated with our concept of calling or vocation, but we emphasize the collective experience of the Church as a whole rooted in our encounter with God's Word.
 
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Talking about cheap grace, I get frustrated with people who actually plan to sin, excusing themselves with the idea that God's grace will cover it. This I get from family members, one of which is an ordained minister. It drives me nuts.
Yes brother, they are NOT in a state of salvation,
i.e. if they were to die today, they would be lost.
They simply need to REPENT and get back on that
narrow path that Jesus talks about in Matthew 7:13+
 
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Calvinists believe that God elects some to be saved and other to not be saved. This is basically saying that no person is actually truly responsible for their salvation but God alone.
Where I'm at right now re: election ...

God chooses and calls some for obedience to Christ,
according to Paul. But then, the believer can choose
to fall away, fall from grace, draw back to perdition!
So IMO, God and man both have a crack at choosing
exactly who gets to be with a Holy God in heaven
for all of eternity.


Perhaps someone could tell me what the theological
term is for this "doctrine"?
 
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fhansen

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Grace-only, cheap-grace, hyper-grace, easy-believism, etc. are called antinomianianism.
This is the notion that a one-time justification saves … apart from sanctification.


FromThe Gospel According to Jesus
(Expanded Edition), John MacArthur, 1994, Zondervan


There are some today who ... “teach that Scripture promises salvation to anyone who simply believes the facts about Christ and claims eternal life. There need be no turning from sin, no resulting change in lifestyle, no commitment – not even a willingness to yield to Christ’s lordship. Those things, they say, amount to human works, which corrupt grace and have nothing to do with faith. The fallout of such thinking is a deficient doctrine of salvation. It is justification without sanctification, and its impact on the church has been catastrophic … many sincerely believe they are saved, but their lives are utterly barren of any verifying fruit.”

“Salvation is solely by grace through faith (Ephes. 2:8) … But it means nothing if we begin with a misunderstanding of grace or a faulty definition of faith. God’s grace is not a static attribute whereby he passively accepts hardened, unrepentant sinners. Grace does not change a person’s standing before God, yet leave his character untouched … Grace is the power of God to fulfil our New Covenant duties … Clearly, grace does not grant permission to live in the flesh; it supplies power to live in the Spirit.”

“Salvation is by grace though faith … But the only possible response to God’s grace is a broken humility that causes the sinner to turn from his old life to Christ. The evidence of such a turning is the willingness to submit and obey.”

“Faith, like grace, is not static … It is inseparable from repentance, surrender, and a supernatural longing to obey … the heart of the error of those who reject lordship salvation … they stumble over the twin truths that salvation is a gift, yet it costs everything.”

“What does it mean to believe in Christ? … Real faith
has at its heart a willingness to obey. … Thus the test of true faith is this: Does it produce obedience? If not, it is not saving faith. Disobedience is unbelief. Real faith obeys.”

“It is meaningless to expound on grace to someone who does not know the divine command for righteousness. … You cannot preach a gospel of grace to someone who has not heard that God requires obedience and punishes disobedience.”

“A righteous, holy, pure God cannot tolerate evil. He will not save those who try to come to him harboring sin.”

“… the gospel according to Jesus is as much a call to forsake sin as it is a summons to faith.”

“They have been deceived by a corrupted gospel. They have been told that faith alone will save them, but they neither understand nor possess real faith. The faith they are relying on is only intellectual acquiescence to a set of facts. It will not save.”

There are a few more quotes in post #2 ...
Yes, this is all true. The real motivation for obedience, however, is ultimately meant to be love, which increases with sanctification. Love is the true measure of one's holiness or justice, which is why the Greatest Commandments are what they are incidentally. And, "If you love Me you'll keep My commandments" (John 14:15). And this is a two-way street. We keep His commandments because we love Him; love compels obedience such that it's no longer done strictly out of a sense of obligation. His command becomes our own will as well.

Anyway the Church has classically taught that justification, by faith, is the beginning, the first step, the foundation, of salvation for man. From there we're expected to "own" that gift more and more, with more expected from those given more (Luke 12:48). We're to increase the gift given by investing it (ref the Parable of the Talents), with even more grace resulting, grace leading to grace, holiness to more holiness.

Faith can blossom this way because its the first fruit of reconciliation between fallen man and God, a reconciliation that re-establishes communion between Him and us. From there grace flows. But we must walk in that grace, we must continue to respond to it, abiding in Him, remaining faithful, growing in righteousness overall as were transformed into His own image. Consider what happened to the wicked and lazy servant at the end of the Parable of the Talents. Christianity is a walk, not just some one-time event. Faith is not a license to escape from man's obligation to be righteous, to be who he was created to be. Rather, its the means to the grace that achieves that righteousness.
 
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There are many problems with MacArthur.
You might agree that God can use anyone for any
of His purposes!
The first edition of this book was
in 1988 ... IMO, back then, MacArthur was quite
a different person with different beliefs, perhaps
not swayed by Satan at all.
I, and others, feel that this book was/is powerfully anointed by God, absolutely filled with spiritual Truths, which are of great value to the body of Christ.

And one thing to keep in mind ...
Satan attacks most ferociously those BACs who are
the most influential and/or powerfully anointed.
 
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This IS a big problem for sure. That said, we don't know what his intentions are with his monies, so while I have jumped on board to criticize him for this, I have had to admit that I cannot know his heart. John used to be my favorite pastor, and in a sense I do still respect a lot of his insights, but I no longer depend on humans for understanding God's Word. Rarely anymore do I seek counsel from Men....only when I absolutely must. For I found that by studying the works of Men, I wasn't actually studying the Word of God. Sure, pastors know a ton of minutia, but I'm not looking for minutia, but the truth that will cause me to change and be the Child of God that God has prepared for me to become....and works which He has prepared me to do. No man knows what Holy Work it is that God has for me, so I let know man tell me what I am to do, say or think without processing it through Christ first.

However, John MacArthur has a whole score of problems.

#1. He denies the blood atonement (You cannot deny the blood of Jesus as a part of salvation because it is taught in many places in Scripture as an essential part of our salvation).

#2. He is a Calvinist. This means he believes in Unconditional Election (that is not biblical). This is an attack upon the very good character of GOD. It is not man who is responsible for his own choice in regards to GOD, but it is God who chooses ultimately who is saved and not saved. Yet, if this is the case, then why have a Judgment? It makes no sense. It would be like creating a robot where it's only choice in it's program is to kill and then putting that robot on trial for murder. I believe the Bible teaches Prevenient Grace (Arminianism) and not Unconditional Election (Calvinism). To learn more about Prevenient Grace, click on the following spoiler button:

Prevenient Grace:

Prevenient Grace is the belief that God draws men at certain times to see and understand the gospel so as to choose it or reject it of their own free will. Without this illumination or drawing by God, a person cannot understand the gospel. For in the Parable in the Sower, we learn that the first seed did not even understand the gospel message. The devil stole the seed out of their heart before they could understand it. So there are times where a person can hear the gospel and not understand it because they have not been drawn by God yet. But God will draw all men unto Him in His timing, though.

Prevenient Grace Verses:

John 1:9 says,
“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

John 12:32 says,
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

John 16:8-11 says,
8 “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”

Romans 2:4 says,
“Or despise you the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

Titus 2:11 says,
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,”

1 Timothy 2:3-4 says,
3 “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

John 3:16 says,
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

2 Peter 3:9 which states that God “is not willing that any should perish, but for all to come to repentance.”

1 John 2:2 says,
“[Jesus] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (Also see John 1:29 - the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world).

Hebrews 2:9 essentially says,
"Jesus tasted death for everyone."

Matthew 13:15 says,
"For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”

Matthew 23:37 (NLT) says,
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me.”

Deuteronomy 30:19 says,
“I call heaven and earth as witness this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live”.

Acts of the Apostles 17:27 says, “he be not far from every one of us”

Acts of the Apostles 16:14 says,
“And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” (Note: This was an opening of the heart to listen and it was not a change of heart to be instantly saved and regenerated).


Good Article on this topic:
What Biblical Evidence Is There For Prevenient Grace?

#3. He says any believer who is against Once Saved Always Saved is committing blasphemy against God or something to that effect. This is a very serious charge. So while he appears to be for holy living according to Lordship Salvation, he believes this is forced in some way by God. He also appears to contradict himself by writing an article that a person cannot lose salvation but then he says nothing about holiness or Lordship salvation in that article. This can lead a person to think the wrong way and treat sin as if it was a license. Also, Lordship Salvation and Once Saved Always Saved are not compatible unless you believe you are puppet being moved about by God against your own will.

#4. He is a millionaire (i.e. he is rich). Yet, 1 Timothy 6 says this about the rich and it is not good:

9 "But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses." (1 Timothy 6:9-12).​

Verse 9 said that they that be rich fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts and they drown men in destruction and perdition.
Verse 10 is saying that the love of money is the root of all evil. You can tell what a person loves by their accumulation of that thing. If a person has Elvis everywhere in their home, they love Elvis.
Verse 11 is telling the man to flee these things and to follow instead after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, etc.

Jesus says where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. We are told by Jesus to lay up our treasure in heaven and not here upon this earth.
 
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You might agree that God can use anyone for any
of His purposes!
The first edition of this book was
in 1988 ... IMO, back then, MacArthur was quite
a different person with different beliefs, perhaps
not swayed by Satan at all.
I, and others, feel that this book was/is powerfully anointed by God, absolutely filled with spiritual Truths, which are of great value to the body of Christ.

And one thing to keep in mind ...
Satan attacks most ferociously those BACs who are
the most influential and/or powerfully anointed.

You need to read these articles on him.
He preaches a double message.

John MacArthur Grace To You Reformed Teacher EXPOSED
JOHN MACARTHUR UNSCRIPTURAL Grace To You
 
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