Questions & Answers #41

Q: What does the Bible say about the nature of salvation?

The Bible teaches that the nature of salvation is non-negotiable and involves essential truths about God, Christ, and the redemption offered through Him. The nature of salvation is grounded in several essential truths which are non-negotiable for all Christians. These truths include the authority and divinity of Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity regarding God, and the full deity of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures make clear that these doctrines form the foundational drivetrain of our faith. Without acknowledging the Bible as the Word of God, we risk leading ourselves and others into uncertainty regarding salvation. Essential doctrines must be held with unwavering conviction as they directly connect to our understanding of how one is saved—through faith in Christ alone, by grace alone, to the glory of God alone (the Five Solas). Therefore, any deviation from these critical elements effectively undermines the saving gospel.

Q: How do we know the Bible is the Word of God?

We know the Bible is the Word of God through its authoritative nature and divine inspiration, which all believers must accept. Believing that the Bible is the Word of God is foundational to the Christian faith. If one does not accept Scripture as divinely inspired and authoritative, everything else about their faith becomes questionable. The Bible presents itself as the infallible revelation of God's will and character, thus demanding our affirmation of its truthfulness. Any belief system that departs from the Scriptures' authority risks the integrity of its teachings and leads to various theological errors. Embracing the Bible's authority not only affirms its truth but also forms the bedrock of the doctrines that encompass salvation, ensuring that believers have a reliable foundation upon which to base their faith.

Q: Why is understanding God’s nature important for Christians?

Understanding God’s nature as a Trinity is critical for accurately knowing who God is and how He relates to humanity. The nature of God is of utmost importance in Christian theology because it directly influences our understanding of the gospel and the means of salvation. A correct comprehension of God as a Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—ensures that we are worshiping the one true God who has revealed Himself through Scripture. When we encounter varying beliefs, such as those proposed by non-Christian sects, we affirm that such deviations indicate a false understanding of God which leads to a different gospel and, ultimately, different salvation. Therefore, grasping the triune nature of God is essential for discerning truth and maintaining the integrity of the faith. Such comprehension not only shapes our theology but also inspires worship and effective evangelism.

Q: How can a Christian discern essential doctrines?

Christians can discern essential doctrines by evaluating their connection to salvation and the nature of God and Christ. To discern essential doctrines within the Christian faith, believers must evaluate which truths are non-negotiable for salvation. Essential doctrines include beliefs about the nature of God, the deity of Christ, and the way of salvation. Disagreements in non-fundamental areas, such as church polity or eschatology, do not affect one’s standing in the faith. However, when it comes to the nature of God and foundational teachings about Christ and salvation, we must stand firm on what Scripture teaches, as these are crucial to understanding and asserting the gospel. Regular engagement with Scripture and sound theological teaching is essential for maintaining clarity in these areas.

My name is Jimmy Hurd from Seattle,
Washington. John, the Scriptures speak of
the faith, the religious truth that we believe and that we teach.
Ephesians 4, one faith. 1 Timothy 4, some shall depart
from the faith. Jude 3, we earnestly contend
for the faith. There appears to be teachings
that we agree on, and if we disagree, then you tend to try to straighten
me out, I tend to try to straighten you out. If we disagree on those,
then we tend to go our separate ways. There seems to be other
teachings and scriptures that we agree to disagree on and still
sense that we're accepted by God. The question is, how do
we tell the difference? How do we discern? which truths,
which teachings belong in a category that we all must agree on? Which
of those fall in the category, maybe Paul speaks of this in
Romans 4? How do we discern which is which? John MacArthur Great
question. And I think in one of my books, I wrote a whole
chapter on this, but I can't remember what I wrote in what
book, it's all a blur. And that's the truth. But somewhere
I wrote a chapter on this, and I would say this is what I've
always said in answer to that question throughout my whole
life in ministry. Any doctrine of Scripture that
is essential to the matter of salvation is a non-negotiable.
And that's sort of what I call the drivetrain of our faith. And that has to do with anything
connected to the nature of God, the nature of Christ, and the
nature of salvation. We could disagree on Old Testament
covenants. We could disagree on New Testament
church polity. We could disagree on certain
prophetic fulfillments. We could disagree on our eschatology. We could disagree on modes of
baptism. We could disagree on an interpretation
of a parable. We could disagree on interpretation
of a certain element of the epistles or the prophets. But those things
which are essential to salvation, they are non-negotiables. And I believe that maybe they
go something like this, if we can sort of start and move through
rapidly. I think it's necessary to believe that the Bible is
the Word of God. There might be some quibbling
at some point as to some nuance of the means of inspiration or
something, but I think we have to start with the fact that what
is in Scripture is authoritative and divine. Because if you don't
believe that, then everything is up for grabs. I think it includes
the nature of God as a trinity. I had a year or so ago the privilege
of having the heads of the Department of Religion at Brigham Young
come down to spend a day with me. because they've been reading
my books. And this is true. Dr. Robert
Millett, who chairs that department, was sent under the approval of
the Apostles of the Mormon Church and at their expense to spend
a day with me because they had been reading the books that I've
written and they were really drawn into them and they had
established, I think, the gospel according to Jesus as a textbook
in the Religious Studies Department of BYU. which made me wonder
what I left out. I had to go back and write that
again. But anyway, they were very much drawn to that book
because of the seriousness with which it calls a person to faith
in Christ. And we had a day together and at the end of the day they
were very, very gracious and very interested and they wanted
so much for me to affirm them as Christians and I asked them...I
just have three questions at the end of the day. Is God a
Trinity? They said, No. Then I said, We
have a different God. I said, Is Jesus fully God? And
they said, No, He's a created person. And I said, We have a
different Christ. And I said, How...how do I...how
do I receive salvation and get to heaven? And they said, This
is always going to interest me. They said, Well, we're here to
announce to you that you're going to be in a much higher heaven
than most Mormons would believe already. And it sort of surprised
me, I don't know what that means, but I said, I want to get to
the highest heaven in your system, how do I get there? And they
told me I had to obey certain laws, I had to go through a certain
ceremony in the temple, etc., etc. Then I said, let's make
it clear, as friendly as we would like to be, you have a different
God, a different Christ and a different gospel. And I would love to have
an ongoing relationship with you for the single reason of
bringing you to the true God, the true Christ and the true
faith. And they said to me, and we have
the same purpose in mind, and I said, I'm not convertible at
this point to that. And we have continued, I got
a letter from Bob Millett again, he writes me very often, continues
to read the books, I continue to pray for his salvation. You
have to have the right God, you have to have the right Christ,
and you have to have the right gospel. That is to understand
the death of Jesus Christ in its appropriate way. So, where
does that take you? That takes you back to the Reformation.
Sola Scriptura, right? Sola Dea Gloria, the right God
and all to His glory. Sola Christus, Christ alone,
the true Christ. And Sola Gratia, it's all of
grace. And Sola Fide, it's by faith
and faith alone. That is the drivetrain of the
gospel, and that is non-negotiable. That is non-negotiable. And that's
where we have to stand. And I think it's, you know, there
are many Christians who would affirm all that but not be able
to explain it. That leads me to, you know, it's
hard for me because I'm experiencing everything you're experiencing
here. And I think I know what I'm going to preach on, sort
of pre-planet, but as the days go by, I keep changing because
I want to respond to what the Spirit of God is saying. For
tonight, I have been doing a series here on deliverance, and I just
keep being drawn back to that, because I think we have a major
problem in the church today. We're not sure who are Christians.
I mean, that's the bottom line. It's been hinted at, but I think
I'm going to address that tonight. And that takes us right back
to the non-negotiables. So that's where I would draw
those non-negotiables. If you tamper with the person
of God, the person of Christ, the person of the Spirit, and
the nature of redemption or the nature of salvation, You have
adulterated the saving gospel. And beyond that, I'm not saying
they are negotiable, but I am saying they are not eternally as fixed and as critical. I mean,
a person, if he believes all the right things essential to
the gospel, could actually not know much else, right? Which
makes the point. Okay, next question. Joe Cardamone. Hi, Joe. My question is, while
I was hoping for a session on church planting, as I'm seeking
the Lord and prayerfully considering planting a church, my question
is, would you like to see or would you be willing to start
an association of like-minded men that are Calvinistic, that
understand lordship, that are traditional, And I guess I would
say moderately dispensational. The remnant, so to speak. I mean, I just feel like I'm
out there alone. And so under whose authority do I plant this
church and under whose sanction? And let me help you with that. Let me help you. Thank you. You
are already under the authority of God. There was no association
of prophets and there was no Association of Churches in the
New Testament. I thought about this and I mentioned
it somewhere, guys. Here we have this group of I
don't know how many people and probably pushing 4,000 last night
and we've had 500 or so in overflow. And you know why we're all here?
Because we have a commonality. If this was a denomination, we'd
spend all this time fighting. Because we'd be trying to discipline
the defectors. Right? And the people who are
going the wrong direction and taking our name with them, right?
Who needs it? Who needs it? What do we have
here? We have a great force of men who are committed to the
same things. Organizing that is really immaterial. It's the organism that has the
power. And I don't want to be responsible for people's defections. I don't want to try to hold an
organization where it needs to be. If you want to be a part
of this fellowship, if you want to be with us, if these are your
men and your people and this is where your passion is, then
hang around. And when you don't want it anymore,
go where you want to go. But you're not going to drag
the good name of the Lord Jesus Christ with you. And so, I just,
I want something that the Spirit of God holds together by the
truth, not something that men hold together by structure. I've
just watched that historically. I mean, what happens to all these
organizations? They start out usually in the
euphoria of some kind of reaction to error, and they circle the
wagons and then they get organized, and then they start to fight.
And I just want something the Holy Spirit is going to do. And
you know, there are 350,000 churches in America, and half of them
at any point in time don't have a pastor. So look first there,
and half that do would like to get rid of the guy they've got
and get you. I'm telling you, if you have
to plant a church because you're going to a place where Christ
is not named, you want to know how to plant a church? Go where
Christ isn't named, lead people to Jesus Christ, and they're
a church. But just to go in to someplace
where there are already churches and multiply more churches and
create a greater leadership drain, that's the reason here at the
seminary We're not interested in sending our guys out to plant
little grace community churches everywhere. We don't do that,
because there are churches all over the map just crying out
for shepherds and for leaders. And they're already planted,
and they're already there, and they're hungry. And we just say,
we're here to provide the men for you. Planning a church is
a very tough thing. If you're going to do it, go
to a place where there isn't a testimony to the honor of God,
and if you have to go into that place, then understand that that
is an evangelistic enterprise, to go where Christ is not named.
I tell you, when you look at Grace Community Church, and I
will tell you, the vast majority of people in this church were
converted here, or by personal evangelism from people who go
here. We get two kinds of people into this church. One, we get
new Christians because of the aggressive Christian testimony
of our people, and then we get, in very many cases, we get the
most mature, the most hungry for the Word
of God, the best people out of other churches who aren't getting
fed the Word of God. And the Lord multiplies our leadership
at that point so that all these new Christians pouring in also
have leaders. is not to empty other churches. That's not our
goal. And we tell our guys, don't plant a church if there are churches
there. Find out if there's a pulpit available there. Step into it
and take the people from where they are to where they need to
be. But if you feel like you need to plant a church, our brother
who gave his testimony, Peter, a little earlier, has planted
fifteen churches in Russia. You ought to sit down with him
and talk. Alex Montoya, who teaches at the Master Seminary, I think
he's planted, I don't know how many churches, fifteen or twenty.
churches and teaches in our pastoral studies department. I have a
little chat with Alex Montoya and he'll give you some insight,
okay? Alright. David Prince, Birmingham, Alabama.
Dr. MacArthur, I wanted to ask you
to respond to Wayne Grudem's thesis about fallible present-day
New Testament prophecy and prophets. And I ask the question out of
pastoral concern. We have a lot of young adults
coming our way at our church. Many have been influenced by
this, not so much that they've read Wayne Grudem's systematic
theology, but that they have heard it in popularized form
in other pulpits and from prominent pastors that are advocating that.
So I'd just like to hear you respond to that. Well, first
of all, I want to commend Wayne Grudem for his tremendous contributions
to the body of Christ and with regard to the Council on Biblical
Manhood, with regard to dealing with integrity in Bible translations.
He's just a...he's a real warrior, he's a soldier. I like people
who will climb up on a hill and put a flag in the ground and
say, here I stand and I'm not moving. I disagree with him on
that issue. I believe the canon is closed
and I believe there is no further revelation. And so, what I like
to think about is that the prophetic gift is the reiteration rather
than the revelation. I am reiterating the revelation
of God. I get real nervous when I start
thinking about fallible revelation because as one pastor in the
Midwest wrote in his book, he said, when somebody stands up
in our church and gives a prophecy, quote, we know it's either true
or it's not, end quote. That's not helpful. What's the criteria? And as I
said the other day, I do not agree with this experiencing
God kind of thing, listening for the voice of God kind of
thing, as if God is speaking. This to me is essentially what
the Charismatic Movement has done to undermine the singular
integrity of Scripture with all of its prophecies and all of
its forms of divine communication. I have never heard the voice
of God, never in my life have I heard the voice of God. There
are times in retrospect when I look back and I can see the
leading of the Spirit of God, but at the time God is leading
me, at the time God is directing me, at the time He is moving
me in a certain direction, I have no way to know it's Him because
there's not a red light on my head that goes on and starts
going around in circles, this is God, not your own feeling
or anything else. Only in retrospect can I see
the providential working of God in my life and the direction
of the Spirit. There's no feeling that I get when that happens.
I think it's a very scary thing to add anything to Scripture.
And to say you have fallible revelation would put you in a
category where you could get stoned because in the Old Testament
if a prophet said something that wasn't true, he was a false prophet
and should be stoned. So, I don't want to get into
all the nuances of that. We have some material available
on that, I'm sure. I think it's very, very dangerous to tell
people to listen for the voice of God, whether they're supposed
to be giving potentially fallible prophecy or whether they're waiting
for some gut-level feeling that they interpret as the voice of
God. I think if you want to hear God speak, you open the Bible
and that's where He speaks. And my responsibility is not
to wait for revelation, my responsibility is reiterating the revelation
once for all delivered to the saints. Dr. MacArthur, Bob Barton from
Roanoke, Virginia. Greetings from Lance and Sandy
Roberts, two of your church members that are interning with us. My
question is, when you taught on the doctrine of substitution,
you said something that I needed very much, and you encouraged
us to view our people as Christ. In a day and age when there's
so much easy-believism, and churches are filled with people who think
they're saved because they walk down an aisle, Could you talk
to the balance between viewing them as Christ, and you may be
doing this in the message you referenced tonight, viewing them
as Christ, yet understanding many are lost and balancing that.
Well, I think the first thing you have to do is realize that
evangelism begins in your church because Matthew 7 says, many
will say to Me, Lord, Lord, and I will say to them, depart from
Me, I never knew you. is just replete in the New Testament.
I mean, that's just everywhere. James was dealing with it, John
in 1 John was dealing with it, Paul was dealing with it, examine
yourselves whether you be in the faith, 1 Corinthians 11,
every time you come to the Lord's table with your people, what
are you supposed to tell them to do? Do a self-examination, take on a
spiritual inventory. I think we can...we have to be
somewhat relentless in this and when I think we need to create
a healthy doubt at the same time that we need to teach our people
a responsible assurance. So I think it's sort of in the
warp and woof of your preaching. I think we have to deal with
some specific things. Sunday night we had a number
of baptisms and there were some young people giving their testimony.
I think three of them made the statement that they prayed a
prayer when they were like five, six, seven years old to invite
Jesus Christ into their life. And through their teenage years,
you know, they basically abandoned any of that and they lived a
sinful life. And I mean, these kids were like,
I don't know, high school kids, weren't they? And they were just
pouring out this sin and I knew I was lost and etc., etc. when they came under the preaching
of the Word of God here. And I told the parents afterwards,
I says, look, people, if you have a five-, six-year-old, seven-year-old
kid who makes Supposedly a commitment to Christ. Please, for their
sake, don't reinforce that as a legitimate salvation. Don't
spend the rest of their life telling them they were saved. That's the worst thing you can
do. Encourage those steps toward God. That's the wonderful thing
to do. But if they behave in a way that
doesn't manifest transformation, you need to say, you're not acting
like a Christian. Christians don't act like that.
Christians don't do that. I don't know that Christ has
really changed your heart. You need to spend some time in
prayer. You need to continually confront
your children over the matter of if they are genuinely Christians. And you'll begin to see the fruit.
I'm starting to see it in my little grandchildren now. And
I think all of those precious little ones, you know, the ones
that are, you know, I have eleven of them, eleven and under, and
I'm beginning to see evidences in some of their little lives,
older ones, of the work of the Spirit of God. But they've all,
at some point in time, or almost all, you know, said, I want Jesus
to come into my life. It was really cute. I said to
one of them, I can't remember which one, five or six years
old, I said, are you a Christian? No. I'm not a Christian. Well, that's
really healthy. His mom and dad were dealing
in a very honest way. You have to come to a certain
point to understand the gospel. And then if there's a transformation,
I'm not saying a transformation can't happen, I don't think it's
going to happen at five, but around six, seven, eight, nine,
ten years old, things begin to take shape in their little minds.
But I think that's something we have to do. We do it with
children. And what happens, you are first and foremost an evangelist
with your family and your children. And I think in your church as
a pastor, you need to prevent parents from reinforcing childhood
things and reinforcing event kind of conversions rather than
transformation. So you just call it to that level
of accountability. I am going to address that tonight
because it's coming up. I will be intersecting with and
building on what Steve and John have been saying, but I think
this has to happen here. We've got to get this clear.
I don't know if that answers your question, but it's critical. John Pitzer from Brentwood, California,
Grace Bible Fellowship. I actually have two questions,
and if you have time to deal with both of them. First of all,
on our first session you spoke of when we submit to the truth
of the sovereignty of God in His building the church, that
it removes the panic from pastoral ministry. But I find that sometimes
we who believe that have a tendency to go the opposite direction,
and we think that we don't have to exhort people to be diligent
and to obey and to do what the Scripture tells them. And so
if you could talk about that. I will. Let me respond to that.
That's just sin. That's just sin. That is sin. If I read my Bible right, the
Apostle Paul pled with sinners with tears, and Jesus wept over
Jerusalem. I think Jesus fairly well knew
the sovereign plan. And the Old Testament says that
God is going to bless those who weep over souls, right? Bearing
precious seed. And they take that seed weeping.
I think that is a spiritual problem. If you love God, as John Piper
always says, if you desire God, if you find your highest delight
in God, if you are enraptured in wonder, love and praise, then
obedience is the natural outflow of that. And if you can sit by
in your contented Calvinism and not have a passion for lost people,
that's sin. That's sin. That is not the heart
of God. That's not the heart of Christ.
and the Apostle Paul said he took himself, let me tell you,
to the brink when he said, I could almost wish myself, what? Damn
to hell, if it could mean. I mean, you talk about a man
willing to make a sacrifice. He came to the brink of saying,
I'd go to hell if my people could be saved. Now, what kind of heart
is that for the lost? I worry about the church today,
and that I worry about all this politicization of the church
where all of a sudden the world around us is the enemy rather
than the mission field. And rather than weep over their
lostness, we're mad at them for their politics. That's serious
stuff. If you have some kind of theology
that causes your heart to grow indifferent toward the lost,
then that's sin. If you've become apathetic, There's
no excuse for that. I think the thing that drives me,
I don't like to assess my motives, but I think the thing that drives
me, the good part of me, as John called it last night, the thing
that drives me is what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4 where he said
he was really preaching the gospel so that it could redound to the
glory of God, that he saw his life as a way to add one more
soul to the hallelujah chorus. What a privilege to bring people
to a place of worshiping and glorifying God. What a high calling.
And that's the only way I can describe that. I mean, if your
theology causes you to become complacent and apathetic, and
if it allows you... And this happens, too. You not
only get complacent about souls, you get complacent about your
own holiness. Because, you know, you're all
wired into eternity anyway, so why worry about it? But, you
know, there is such a thing as eternal reward, isn't there?
Look to yourselves. John said that you lose not the
things that you've wrought, but that you receive a full reward.
You're not going to lose your salvation, but you could lose
your eternal reward. And I think your eternal reward
is related to some eternal capacity to glorify God. And I think He's
worthy of everything I have. And I really understand what
John was saying last night, that people say, you know, what motivates
you? I don't know. I guess it's the
Holy Spirit, but this life that I live wouldn't make any sense
either, and neither would yours as a pastor, would it, if there
wasn't a resurrection? I mean, what we go through and
what we endure, and it's not always just It's not always just
that we don't have a good car to drive, or we don't have a
soft chair to sit in, or a nice warm home. It's this crazy, relentless
sacrifice that we have to make to just keep this stuff cranked
up all the time. You know, one of the things that I think about
as a sacrifice, and it's probably the most consistent sacrifice
in my life, is the relentless bondage of having to preach every
week. I mean, you know, nobody understands that, guys. But us?
Nobody. Even the people in your church,
the leaders in your church, they haven't got a clue what that's like.
I mean, there was a famous orator in England who, I can't think
of his name, it just escapes me, but anyway, he said the most
paralyzing thought he ever had would be to have to speak to
the same group three times in a row. Come on, I've been talking
to the same people for 32 years, and I got to be good every week,
and fresh, and come with a message from God, and that is a relentless
bondage. You know, it's getting more challenging
all the time to send these guys out of the seminary with the
understanding you're going to go out there and you're going
to preach every Sunday morning, you're going to preach every Sunday night, and you're going
to be profound, and you're going to take your people down, and
you're going to take them high, and you're going to do that every
week of your life. That's a sacrifice, and it wouldn't
make sense unless this was an eternal thing. So I just think
apathy is a sin. I mean, if your theology strips
you of your passion, then that's a sin. Maybe we ought to get
somebody else to ask a question, unless it's quick. Well, I was
just going to add to that. I was also referring to challenging
people who are believers to obey God and not to just leave that
with the Lord, so to speak. And you can do that in your preaching.
That's one of the that's one of the really good things about
being in the same place for a long time, because it's not so much
what you say over the long haul. It's how you live your life.
And if they see you as sacrificial and consistent, and passionate.
That's what modeling is all about in the pastorate. And you know,
the average deal is like three years, right? Two and a half
to three years. They don't even get to know you. They haven't
even figured out what you're saying yet. Okay. Thank you. John Steve Zachary
from First Baptist Church, California City. Good morning. Faith-based
federal grants. Some of the church members have
been coming to me and asking me, well, if this comes through, how is
this going to relate to the church? And I guess I frame it this way.
Does it violate our trust in God to provide for His church?
And what advice would you give the pastors who may be considering
this offer in the near future? Well, my advice would be take
all the money you can and use it for the gospel. I mean, if
they want to start handing us money, we've been handing them
money for a long, long time.

Questions & Answers #41

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the nature of salvation?

How do we know the Bible is the Word of God?

Why is understanding God’s nature important for Christians?

How can a Christian discern essential doctrines?

Sermon Transcript

Comments

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Questions & Answers #41

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the nature of salvation?

How do we know the Bible is the Word of God?

Why is understanding God’s nature important for Christians?

How can a Christian discern essential doctrines?

Sermon Transcript

Comments

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