Lordship Salvation: True, False, or Confused? Pt 3

Lordship Salvation Is More About Christ Subjecting Himself to the Father's Rules Not Us Subjecting Ourselves to Them

Romans 5:18, “So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification for everyone. For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Psalms 40:5, “Lord my God, You have done many things—Your wonderful works and Your plans for us; none can compare with You. If I were to report and speak of them, they are more than can be told. You do not delight in sacrifice and offering; You open my ears to listen. You do not ask for a whole burnt offering or a sin offering. Then I said, ‘See, I have come; it is written about me in the volume of the scroll. I delight to do Your will, my God; Your instruction lives within me.’ I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; see, I do not keep my mouth closed—as You know, Lord. I did not hide Your righteousness in my heart.”

In the passage above on Romans, I would like for you to consider a few things. The Lordship of Christ is redemptive due to Christ’s covenantal obedience to the Kingdom’s laws, and the focus of the Adamic Lordship conversation is not on the obedience of the subjects but on the obedience of the Lord as the subjected and perfected one.The first is that the first Adam was a protological and typological king who anticipated the last Adam’s rule. The second is that the Kingly work of the last Adam is described in royal and kingly conquering terms in verse 21. The third is that the last Adam’s Kingly work and conquering triumph is as a covenantal head whose human allegiance and conformity to His own terms is what brings sinners under His domain (verse 18-19). It is the obedience of the King that the many are made righteous and brought under and into His Kingly domain. So again, we have a passage about the King and His subjects and the conversation is about the King subjecting Himself to His Father’s rules as covenantal head. The Lordship of Christ is redemptive due to Christ’s covenantal obedience to the Kingdom’s laws, and the focus of the Adamic Lordship conversation is not on the obedience of the subjects but on the obedience of the Lord as the subjected and perfected one. At a careful glance we can see that many of the passages concerning the Kingly rule of Christ are emphatically honing in on the preeminence and power of the King having subjected Himself to the laws of the Kingdom.

Psalms 40:5 is another text that shows this kind of conversation pertaining to the Lordship of God and the subjection of the Son under those terms as the covenantal servant of His people. In verse 5, the Lord God is speaking about His majesty and the need for covenantal allegiance (verse 6). The Son then responds to His Father’s (reference Hebrews 10’s interpretation on the text) call to covenant allegiance by submitting Himself to the covenantal terms of allegiance (verses 7-8). It is the Son’s law allegiance to the Father which reconciles this need for sinners to become subjected to the King. Again we see a Lordship conversation with the covenant people of God and it seems to be more about the Father subjecting the Son to God-centered-law-allegiance and the Son subjecting Himself to the King’s legal authority as covenantal representative. Lordship salvation is most essentially about the covenantal agreements between the Father and the Son and less about the so called pledges of allegiance of God’s people to the Son. The pledges of allegiance of fickle sinners to the King do not carry enough divine weight to eternally secure the relationship (not once or at the next rededication crisis event). It is this covenantal loyalty amongst the persons of the Godhead which grounds and causes and creates redemption not the contingent covenantal loyalty of the subjects. Lordship salvation is more about the Son subjecting Himself as covenant head for His subjects then His subjects subjecting themselves to Him and His laws. His human-for-us subjection is perfect while our subjection is riddled with imperfect and inconsistent subjection (always). Saving faith is about accepting the Father’s acceptance of His Son’s covenantal submission and perfection under the laws of the King as fully sufficient for the sinner rather than being essentially about the extent of the legal submission offered by the King’s subjects.If imperfect legal submission is from Lordship salvation based on Christ’s perfect submission then it is properly understood; however, if imperfect legal submission is in some sense for salvation then it is simply unchristian. Again, we are not talking about one or the other (Christ’s or ours) as both Christ’s covenantal allegiance for us and ours towards him are biblical. We are talking about what is the essence and substance of the Lordship language found in the scriptures rather than the language that has been imposed on the biblical texts. Saving faith is about accepting the Father’s acceptance of His Son’s covenantal submission and perfection under the laws of the King as fully sufficient for the sinner rather than being essentially about the extent of the legal submission offered by the King’s subjects. Jesus’s law subjection as a true man is why you are able to abide under His divine Lordship. Your subjection is not the cause of the relationship but the consequence of Christ’s for-you legal subjection is.

Lordship Salvation Is More About How the King Has Crowned Himself over Us in His Accomplishments than Us Crowning Him in Our Response

Ephesians 1:20, “He demonstrated this power in the Messiah by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens—far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put everything under His feet and appointed Him as head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all things in every way.”

Matthew 16:16, “Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!’ And Jesus responded, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven.”

As we continue to look at texts that speak of the Lordship of God that involves our salvation, I would like for you to consider these texts from Ephesians and Matthew. In the Ephesians text Paul is writing to the church about Christ’s Lordship. In verse 20, the discussion of Lordship talks about how God has seated Christ on the throne (not you). In verse 21, Paul talks about how this position of Kingship is far above all powers in the present and coming age. In verse 22, Paul speaks about God appointing Him as head over the church (not the church doing so). What we see here is that the entire discussion of the Lordship of Christ is pertaining to how God has subdued reality and brought about all of these corresponding subjugations in light of that historic Kingly triumph. Christ has royally triumphed over all the powers that be and has taken His place as the last Adam over all things which has a particular focus on the church. Notice that it is in God’s subduing and crowning through His Son that the church is made subject to such things. The church is a subjected people who have been made benefactors of God’s divine subjugation of all reality through His Son. This text is showing us that the Lordship of Christ is more about the King’s crowning of Himself over us than our personal imperatival crowning of Him in ourselves. The Lord has subdued all reality (in the “already not yet” sense) and has brought the church into the benefits of that redemptive royal subjugation. The whole conversation is a royal declaration to the King’s subjects as to how the King has conquered the adversative powers that previously claimed them and has crowned Himself over the cosmos and subjugated the covenant community into this cosmic reordering of things. This is not a decisional discussion with the visible church but a declarative one. Again, the Lordship of Christ is less about personal piety and behavioral reformation or individual subjugation and more about the monergistic-cosmic subjugation and triumph that the Father and Son have themselves brought about and brought the covenant people into. The text from Matthew is also another Lordship text that conveys the same realities as Ephesians 1. The Messiah (anointed King) is speaking to His people about His royal rule and in doing so proceeds to talk about how His conquering power will result in His monergistic building and preserving of the church. Said another way, Jesus, in speaking to His subjects is talking about how He will rule them and what His rule will subdue and produce. He is not talking about what His subjects will need to produce in order to vindicate and verify His royal position over them but He is talking about what His Kingly power will definitively and decisively do (and all through Peter’s gospel faith confession). The Lordship of Christ in the Matthew conversation is about a benevolent sovereign whose royal rule and power will put His subjects in a domain where all that the King desires to be so shall be. Again, when we examine the various Messianic texts, we continue to see that the Lordship conversation is more about what God has done and is doing with Christ Lordship and less about what people do with Christ’s Lordship. Christ’s Lordship creates conditions in the cosmos and in His subjects, it does not plead for such conditions to be received (we will talk more about this next). Lordship salvation is not about your conditional adjustments nor your willpower resolutions to your new Lord so much as it is about His reordering of the cosmos around Himself through His actions and declaring to you that such things are now definitive of all reality (particularly you). Lordship salvation is not personally pietistic; it is cosmically oriented.