Sunday, April 4, 2010

John McArthur's Easter 2010 Message - a Response

I owe it to John McArthur, when I was still a professed Calvinist, for pointing me to the truth of "Lordship salvation". He is right on although he fails to explain it properly mainly because his theological foundation (which obviously is Calvinist) clashes squarely with what McArthur himself believes that the Bible says about this concept.

With all due respect to John, and perhaps I misunderstood what he really meant, he took a shot at the last lines of the hymn, "He Lives" during one of his 2010 Easter week messages:

"You ask me how I know He lives.
He lives within my heart."

He somewhat criticized the hymn as inadequate in demonstrating the truth of the resurrection of Christ, stating that this statement was quite subjective and not measurable in terms of proving that Christ rose from the dead.

Sadly, I think this is where classical exegetes completely miss out on the "Kingdom of God among us". The world does not need any more objective proof of Christ's resurrection in order to be convinced and converted to Christ. If that was all they needed, we would have more committed Christians today. What they really need are evidences that faith in Christ works on individual Christians. It is when Kingdom citizens and Kingdom children actually live the life depicted in the Sermon on the Mount to prove that the Kingdom of God is a real kingdom that the world starts to take notice and some actually turn from their wicked ways, repent and turn to Christ.

In Luke 16:31, Abraham's response to the rich man is instructional, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

History showed that the world marveled that Christians "turned the world upside down" in the book of Acts. "Behold, how they love!" was another documented reaction to the first century church. The Holy Spirit PLUS transformed lives: these are the only factors needed to bring the world's attention to Christ!

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