*The following is from the conclusion of chapter 2 of Absolutely Free: A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation, pp. 31-32.

In a justly famous passage about Abraham, the great Biblical model of saving faith, Paul writes these words: “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness’” (Rom 4:3).

The utter simplicity of this should be apparent to all. Abraham…believed what God said—and this…was put down to his account as righteousness. In other words, he was justified by faith.

Faith, then, is taking God at His Word. Saving faith is taking God at His Word in the gospel. It is nothing less than this. But it is also nothing more.

The effort to make it more is a tragic blemish on the history of the Christian church. The roots of this effort run deep into certain types of post-Reformation thought. And in the English-speaking world, this radically altered concept of saving faith can, with considerable fairness, be described as Puritan theology. Lordship salvation, in its best-known contemporary form, simply popularizes the Puritanism to which it is heir. This is practically admitted by MacArthur (The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 98). His second appendix (“The Gospel According to Historic Christianity,” pp. 221-37), relies heavily on Puritan theologians. But MacArthur seems unaware of the current literature, which has demonstrated that Puritan theology, especially in the area of faith and assurance, did not at all reflect the doctrine of John Calvin himself and is a distinct departure from Reformation thought.

It is also worth observing that the Reformed theologian Robert L. Dabney pointed out long ago (1890) that he and his fellow Reformed theologians rejected the view of Calvin and Luther that assurance was of the essence of saving faith. That is, Dabney denied that assurance of salvation was an essential part of what it meant to believe in Christ for salvation. He states, “The source of this error [about faith and assurance] is no doubt that doctrine concerning faith which the first Reformers, as Luther and Calvin, were led to adopt…”

Later he also says:

It is very obvious to the attentive reader that these views of faith and assurance which we have examined ground themselves in the faulty definitions of saving faith which we received from the first Reformers. They, as we saw, defined saving faith as a belief that “Christ has saved me,” making the assurance of hope of its necessary essence. Now, the later Reformers, and those learned, holy and modest teachers of the Reformed Churches…have subjected this view to searching examination, and rejected it (as does the Westminster Assembly) on scriptural grounds (“Theology of the Plymouth Brethren, in Discussions by Robert L. Dabney, pp. 173, 183).

Let it be said clearly: Lordship Salvation holds a doctrine of saving faith that is in conflict with that of Luther and Calvin and, most importantly, in conflict with God’s Word.

But today, as always, when the Scriptures are permitted to speak for themselves—and when the church has ears prepared to hear them— the simplicity and freeness of salvation can reemerge as a vital force in the consciousness of God’s people.

Nothing is more desirable than this result. But for such an aim to be realized, there is one thing we must be most careful to do. We must not fail at this crucial point. Simply stated, we must allow faith to be just that—faith.