Monthly Archives: September 2020

Lordship Salvation’s SBC: Brand on the Run

Posted on September 15, 2020 by | 33 comments

By johninnc

2 Corinthians 4:3-4: But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

We have featured a number of articles over the years that document the ways in which the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) undermines the gospel, and how their current leader does not appear to even be consistently anchored to anything at all. See select articles linked below:

Southern Baptists’ Fragile Detente: The Fight Over Competing False Gospels, Calvinism and Lordship “Salvation”

Lordship Salvation: Southern Baptist Conventional Wisdom

Lordship Salvation: SBC Leadership Seeking Unity

Lordship Salvation’s J.D. Greear: The Situational Calvinist

In discussing some of this with my son, who was an advertising major in college, he made a very insightful comment: “The SBC is a brand.”

I decided to do a little research on what constitutes a brand, and I happened onto an article entitled “Defining What a Brand is: Why is it So Hard?” (from Emotive Brand).

The article gave some various definitions of brand, including:

David Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising,” defined brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes.

The Dictionary of Brand defines brand as “a person’s perception of a product, service, experience, or organization.”

Marty Neumeier, author and speaker on all things brand, defines brand by first laying out what a brand is not: “A brand is not a logo. A brand is not an identity. A brand is not a product.” Neumeier goes on to say that “a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.”

Perhaps, then, this last definition best fits the brand refinement currently going on within the SBC.

Following are excerpts from an article from The Washington Post entitled “Prominent Southern Baptists are dropping ‘Southern’ name amid racial unrest”:

The 50,000 Baptist churches in the convention are autonomous and can still choose to refer to themselves as “Southern Baptist” or “SBC.” But in his first interview on the topic, convention president J.D. Greear said momentum has been building to adopt the name “Great Commission Baptists,” both because of the racial reckoning underway in the United States and because many have long seen the “Southern Baptist” name as too regional for a global group of believers.

My comment: The SBC developed its name for political reasons and it will change its name for political reasons. The only thing consistent, throughout its history, is its embrace of the false gospel of Lordship “salvation” (LS) and its intent to be economically and politically relevant. The Great Commission refers to preaching the gospel around the world, not the false gospel Calvinist/LS substitute promulgated by the SBC.

“Our Lord Jesus was not a White Southerner but a brown-skinned Middle Eastern refugee,” said Greear, who this summer used the phrase “Black lives matter” in a presidential address and announced that he would retire a historic gavel named for an enslaver. “Every week we gather to worship a savior who died for the whole world, not one part of it. What we call ourselves should make that clear.”

My comment: Greer says that Jesus died for the whole world, but he will not take a stance against Calvinism within the SBC. One of Calvinism’s false tenets is that Christ died only for people whom God predestined to come to faith in Christ (limited atonement). Further, the SBCs false gospel of works is not compatible with the Great Commission, even nominally.

While theology hasn’t changed, he said, what does need to change is the culture of the convention: “We as Baptists want to be defined by 2025, not by 1845.”

My comment: The SBC’s theology was wrong then and it is wrong now. They are simply attempting to whitewash their brand to make their false gospel more palatable to the present culture.

So, back to the definition of brand:  a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization: No matter how the SBC, including the new and improved SBC makes you feel, their brand has nothing to do with the Great Commission or Christianity.

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Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Unlike the SBC, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a brand to be repackaged to keep up with public sentiment. It is the good news of God’s plan of salvation for a fallen world.

If you would like to how to have eternal life, click here: THE GOSPEL

33 Comments

Posted in Calvinism, Lordship Salvation, SBC, Southern Baptist Convention

Lordship Salvation: No Justice, No Peace

Posted on September 6, 2020 by | 22 comments

By johninnc

John 19:30: When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

The chant “no justice, no peace” has become nearly ubiquitous in our uncivil landscape. It is chanted, I’m sure, by some people of goodwill, but is also shrilly shouted from the lips of some of the more malevolent actors in our midst.

People have varying impressions of what constitutes justice and peace. Some use the chant “no justice, no peace” as being inseparable, meaning that the absence of justice will invariably be accompanied by the absence of  peace, and the presence of justice will invariably by accompanied by the presence of peace. Others view it as a conditional “if-then” statement, implying that if their view of “justice” isn’t delivered, they will make sure that peace for others isn’t possible.

The “if-then” form of “no justice, no peace” is exemplified in the United States by people who are unwilling to abide by verdicts in trials. In our legal system, a person charged with a criminal offense has a right to a trial by a jury of his peers. This system does not always result in perfect justice, so a meaningful slice of our population has decided that mob justice is preferable. Think pitchforks and torches.

This is nothing new. Even when a trial has rendered a fair verdict, people think they should get to decide.

Luke 23:20-24: Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.

Pilate went along to get along, attempting to mollify the savage bloodlust of the mob.

Fallen man is incapable of delivering perfect justice. Even when justice is offered, many reject it.

Perfect justice can only be found in God!

Let me explain, using an extensive excerpt from a previous post:

There is a God. He is the eternal creator, without beginning or end. He created everything, including you and me. He is perfectly holy, perfectly just, and perfectly loving. As such, He cannot allow anything that isn’t perfect into His presence.

You and I aren’t perfect. We have all broken God’s laws, and can’t do anything to fix that. Our efforts to work our way back to God are completely useless.

But, God loves us so much that He would rather die than spend eternity without us.

So, He gave his only begotten Son –Jesus Christ – God in the flesh – to reconcile us to Him.

Jesus had no sin of His own, but bore our sin so that we might be reconciled to God. He had no sin and we had no righteousness. Jesus took our sin from us. He made the complete payment for our sin, leaving us nothing to pay.

He did this by suffering a criminal’s death by crucifixion. He died on the cross, He was buried, and He was raised from the dead three days later, proving that His payment for our sins was accepted.

Anyone who believes in Jesus, and what He accomplished through His death and resurrection – that he paid the full price for our sins, leaving nothing for us to pay – has eternal life. Eternal life means that it can never be lost or forfeited. God no longer sees believers in their sins, but sees them as perfectly righteous.

God’s justice was satisfied by the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21: For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

In opposition to the above gospel message, Lordship “salvation” (LS) advocates deny God’s justice in favor of a false gospel of eternal salvation by works. Lordship salvation is either an implicit or explicit denial of the finished work of Christ.

LS is the unsupportable and unbiblical belief that the PERFORMANCE of good works, the PROMISE of good works, or the EVIDENCE of good works MUST accompany faith in Christ in order to establish, or provide evidence, that such faith has resulted in eternal life.

The Bible says:

Romans 3:23-27 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

LS says: “I have to do my part to be justified.”

Christians (those who have believed in Jesus as Savior) have been justified by God upon belief in Jesus as Savior. They have eternal life that can never be lost or forfeited. Christians should oppose injustice in civic life. Christians should also defend the gospel against attempts by false teachers to override God’s perfect justice with whatever they think is right.

If you would like to know more about how to have eternal life according to our perfectly just, perfectly righteous, perfectly loving God, click here:

THE GOSPEL

22 Comments

Posted in Christianity, Eternal Security, Lordship Salvation