Transcript

ANNOUNCER: If you are a lordship salvation preacher and you’re using all the words that Jesus uses, how could it be a false gospel? Thank you for joining us here on Grace in Focus, that is our discussion for today, and we are a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org, and we’d love for you to subscribe to our magazine. It is a free subscription called Grace in Focus, released six times per year every other month, great articles, full-color, full-size magazine, and yes, it is free, except you must pay the postage if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States. But we do want you to have it, it is free, so subscribe today, and our website, faithalone.org. 

Now here with today’s question and answer discussion, Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob, we have a question from Randy. Specifically it’s in  reference to a blog, I think either you or Ken wrote on Paul Washer, where you make the claim that Paul Washer preached a false gospel or an inaccurate gospel. 

BOB: Yeah, let me make a quick comment. Paul Washer is an extreme lordship salvation preacher, stronger than someone like Dr. John MacArthur. He would be somebody who would be very, very big about, you’ve got to turn from all your known sins, you’ve got to commit your life to Christ, you’ve got to follow Christ. He’s very big on the fact that you should be questioning your own salvation unless you see the fruits that would be expected of a person who has repented and committed. 

SAM: So Randy’s question comes from, he doesn’t think you all gave Paul Washer a fair shake. So he has a few points that he wants you to address. So the claim is that Paul Washer only preached the words that Jesus preached. And so I think—

BOB: That’s what Randy’s claiming. 

SAM: That’s what Randy’s claiming. And so—

BOB: And by the way, he’s right. It’s kind of like saying, you know, I think it was Mark Twain came up after a guy spoke and he said, that was a great talk. And he said, I have a book in my library that has your entire message and every word you said. The guy said, that’s impossible. This is an original message. It was me. And he said, no, it’s not. The guy said, what’s the title of your book? And he said, it’s called the dictionary. 

Well, the dictionary has every word and you can find repentance in the preaching of Jesus, you can find Jesus calling people to obey in his teaching. But what Randy’s trying to say is that Paul Washer is correct, when he says, you must turn from your sins, you must repent and you must obey Christ in order to have eternal life. That last part is the part that’s confusing. So maybe read what Randy said. 

SAM: Right. So the first issue he brings up is from the Synoptic Gospels. So verses like He preached repent for the kingdom is at hand, Matthew 4:17, or he came to call us to repentance, Luke 5:32. So what is, I guess we kind of addressed that. But what’s the reason why that isn’t him preaching the gospel? 

BOB: Right. There’s no question, but Jesus was calling the nation of Israel to repent in light of the coming kingdom. And by the way, John the Baptist, Matthew 3:2, also preached repent for the kingdom of heaven as a hand. Now, I believe Randy says that was the beginning of Jesus ministry. No, that’s the beginning of His ministry in Matthew, but actually in John, John chapter 3 precedes Matthew chapter 4 and Jesus preached to Nicodemus before He did His public preaching about calling the nation to repent. 

But calling the nation to repent was for national deliverance of Israel from Gentile rule and establishing the kingdom. But when Jesus evangelized, he told people to believe on Him and you will have eternal life, John 3:16, right? It’s funny, you mentioned, where did Randy quote from? Didn’t you say the Synoptic Gospels, two different gospel writers? 

SAM: Yeah, the other was Luke 5:32. 

BOB: Yeah, Luke 5:32, “I didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Well, it’s true. He came to call sinners to repentance. And if you read Luke 15, you’ve got a hundred sheep. They’re all righteous and then one strays and he goes and finds the strain brings it back to the 99 righteous ones who didn’t need repentance. You’ve got 10 coins, all 10 are righteous. One falls away. The woman goes and finds it and brings it back. And the prodigal son, both sons are righteous and then one son goes away and he comes back and he comes back to fellowship with his father. 

And so the issue is calling the nation of Israel to repentance. And the Lord did that. And of course, the Old Testament prophets did that. And of course, the New Testament has a lot to say about repentance. See my book Turn and Live: The Power of Repentance. It’s all about the fact that believer or unbeliever, if we are walking in life of sin, we are calling for our own premature death. And it’s only if we turn from that wayward lifestyle that we’re going to stop the deadly consequences of our sinful behavior. 

SAM: His second point is to the gospel of John and he makes the claim that even if you’re saying this is the only evangelistic gospel, that everything after John 3:16 is explaining what believing in Him means. And he makes the claim that it explains that you need repentance and commitment—that those are a critical part of belief. 

BOB: So in the first place, the nice thing about John’s gospel is we don’t just have one place where He calls people to believe in Him for everlasting life. It’s over and over again in practically every chapter up through chapter 12. You have Him talking to the woman at the well and He mentions nothing about turning from sins or commitment of life or anything else. He doesn’t mention sin when He talks to Nicodemus. 

ANNOUNCER: We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote the Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true. And GES president Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the Biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content.

BOB: I believe what Randy was citing was 3:19-21, but he said 3:17-21, which is kind of bizarre because verse 17 says, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Well, that verse is going back to verse 16, which says, “For God so loved the world that He gave is only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but has everlasting life.”

Verse 17 says, perishing is being condemned and having everlasting life is being saved. And so verse 17 is teaching it’s by faith alone. And even in verse 18, “He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” 

Notice the issue there is belief or non-belief. The issue isn’t surrender, turning from sins, commitment. Now 19-21, we have some articles at faithalone.org and you can read them, but all 19-21 is saying is that if a person is a believer in Jesus Christ, then they should come out in the light and confess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to show that their deeds are done in God. That’s the end of verse 21. And guess what immediately follows that—John the Baptist verses 22-36, who is the prime example of someone who confessed Christ. 

Guess what precedes this—Nicodemus, who’s the secret believer in the gospel of John. Three times we’re told he came to Jesus by night—in chapter 3, in chapter 7, in chapter 19. And the reason it says that is he was unwilling to openly confess Christ. When the fellow members of Sanhedrin were saying that we should arrest him and kill him, he says, well, we don’t judge a man before we hear him. And they said, you’re not His disciple, are you? Well, he doesn’t come out and say, yes, I believe in Him or yes, I’m His disciple. He doesn’t do any of that. The closest he comes is in 19 when he claims the body with Joseph of Arimathea. And even there, we’re not told he said anything. 

So Nicodemus is an example of someone who’s not coming to the light. He comes in the darkness because he doesn’t want his fellow members of Sanhedrin to know what he’s doing. But John the Baptist is an example of one who does come to the light and shows that his deeds are done in God. 

So what 19:20-21 are doing is calling this new believer, I think it’s extremely clear that Nicodemus came to faith by verse 18, somewhere around verse 16 or 17 or 18. That’s why 19-21, Jesus calls him to come out in the light. And that’s why you see in chapter 7 and in chapter 19, it’s mentioned again that he came to Jesus by night. That’s why in one of my books, I call him “Nic at Night”. 

SAM: If you look at it from the other side and say, okay, you have to come out into the light, you have to commit yourself. You have to do all this stuff so that means that you believe in Jesus. Then at what point would those people say Nicodemus is saved? Is, you know, helping preserve Christ’s body is that enough to prove that he was saved or does he need to do that a couple more times? Or how many things do you need to do? Because John the Baptist is easy to say, oh, he’s a beacon of light before Christ came and already had these disciples and paved the way for Christ. But do you have to be John the Baptist to be saved or can you be a Nicodemus and be saved? And for these people, there’s no hope at all because if you say the goal is always higher and higher, you have to be Paul or John the Baptist or Peter, people are not going to feel confident in the salvation that they already have.

BOB: Yeah, ultimately what Paul Washer is doing, he’s saying that it’s not enough to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You’ve got to turn from your sins and you’ve got to commit yourself to obey Him and to follow Him. 

Well, ultimately, they’re defining believing as commitment and turning from sins. But when you look at Jesus asking, Martha, do you believe this in John 11:26, He’s saying nothing about commitment. He’s saying nothing about turning from sins. He’s not asking about her quiet time or her prayer life or how often she goes to the synagogue. He’s just saying, do you believe that I’m the resurrection and the life, that anyone who believes in Me, though he may die, he’s going to be raised from the dead and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die spiritually? Do you believe this, Martha? She says yes.

SAM: Yeah, her answer was, yes, it wasn’t, I go to church every day, I gave alms to the poor, I forgave my brother 70 times 7. She just said, yes, I believe. 

BOB: Keep in mind, the fact that Jesus taught repentance and called the nation to repentance doesn’t mean He ever said, if you repent, you’ll be born again. And the fact that Jesus called people to obey Him doesn’t mean He ever said, you need to obey My commandments in order to be born again. That’s confusing apples and oranges. The Bible teaches truth about how we’re born again and truth about how we please God in our daily living. And those are two separate things. 

And unfortunately, Paul Washer mixes those two together. Read the gospel of John carefully. Read a chapter a day, read it and pray and say, is it really as simple as just believing in Jesus? Can I be sure of my eternal destiny by believing in him apart from repentance, apart from commitment, apart from looking at my works? And the good news is, yes, that is what Jesus was saying. And that is what the apostles say in the epistles as well.

Well, good question, Randy, and let’s keep grace in focus. Amen. 

ANNOUNCER: Would you be interested in some free ebooks on topics you hear on this program? Well, if you are, you need to come visit us at faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. We would love to hear from you. Maybe you’ve got a question, comment, or some feedback. If you do, please don’t hesitate to send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s radio at faithalone.org. That’s radio at faithalone.org. And when you do very important, please let us know your radio station call letters and the city of your location.

On our next episode: some questions about assurance. Please come back and join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.