I recently heard a preacher tell the story of a former member of his church. The pastor didn’t explicitly say it, but from the story, it was apparent that he holds to a Lordship Salvation view of eternal salvation. 

He told about a conversation he’d had with the former member, whom I’ll call Bill. Bill told him he was having an ongoing affair with another woman, even though he was married. The pastor told him that a practicing adulterer cannot enter the kingdom of God because a real believer cannot continue in sin. 

Bill told the pastor that he knew adultery was a sin, but he also knew he would be in the kingdom. He quoted John 5:24 and said that Christ guaranteed him that once he believed in Him for eternal life, he could never lose it. He said that eternal salvation was a gift through God’s grace. He did not have to continue in good works to keep it. 

The pastor said that salvation by grace through faith is only one side of the coin. We must take into account all the Lord’s teachings. The Lord also taught that one must do good works to get into His kingdom. We know believers by their works (Matt 7:16). 

The pastor said that one side of the coin is salvation by grace without works. But the other side of the coin is that salvation is by works. He told Bill that it is like the deity of Christ. Some verses say that Jesus is God. But other verses say He got hungry, was tempted, and didn’t know the day He would return. One side of the coin, when it came to the Person of Christ, is that He is God, cannot be tempted, and knows all things. However, the other side of the coin is that He could be tempted and is not omniscient. 

But this is not a valid comparison. Jesus was God. When He became a man, as a man, He could become hungry and could be tested by Satan to disobey His Father (even though evil desires could not tempt Him, since He had none). In His humanity, He voluntarily laid aside some of His prerogatives as deity. These prerogatives address the unique Person of the Son of God who became a man. We do not understand His majesty, but there is no contradiction. It would be a contradiction if we said that Jesus was God but was not God. Jesus is God, and as a man, He became hungry, etc.  

The pastor’s words concerning Bill’s eternal salvation are a contradiction. Bill said that, based upon John 5:24, the believer has assurance of eternal salvation based solely upon his faith in Christ’s promise, and that works have nothing to do with it. The pastor said that the believer does not have assurance of eternal salvation and that if he is going to be in the kingdom, he must do good works. Faith is not enough. 

When it comes to eternal salvation, Calvinists and those who hold to Lordship Salvation often say it’s like a two-sided coin. On one side of the coin, we read that salvation is by grace apart from works. On the other side of the coin, it says you must work to gain eternal salvation.  

They can dress it up however they want. They can compare it to the Hypostatic Union. They can say the coin of eternal salvation is like a rare 1913 Liberty Head nickel, and that we need to look at both sides of the coin in order to understand its remarkable beauty. But in the final analysis, that analogy is nonsense. Salvation is not like a two-sided coin, and that analogy does not change the fact that what they’re saying is indisputably a contradiction.