John Macarthur is known to have brought in the heretical Lordship Salvation heresy into the church. When defining what it means for Christ to be Lord he says basically that it is a lifestyle change. He connects this and other doctrines with how we live or what we do. He says, "Jesus is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). That is the single, central, foundational, and distinguishable article of Christianity. It is also the first essential confession of faith every true Christian must make: 'If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved' (Rom. 10:9). The belief that someone could be a true Christian while that person's whole lifestyle, value system, speech, and attitude are marked by a stubborn refusal to surrender to Christ as Lord is a notion that shouldn't even need to be refuted." Macarthur is an existentialist. Unless something is experienced it cannot be true. On top of this he is a dispensationalist.
However, this isnt taught by any of the Reformers. Luther never defined Christ's Lordship in conjunction to our obedience. He says in the Larger Catechism found in the book of Concord on pg. 414 "If you are asked, 'What do you believe in the Second Article, concerning Jesus Christ?' answer briefly, 'I believe that Jesus Christ, true Son of God, has become my Lord.' What is it to 'become a Lord'? It means that he has redeemed me from sin, from the devil, from death, and from all evil. Before this I had no Lord and King but was captive under the power of the devil. I was condemned to death and entangled in sin and blindness."
Luther also says on the same page, "Those tyrants and jailers now have been routed, and their place has been taken by Jesus Christ, the Lord of life and righteousness and every good and blessing. He has snatched us, poor lost creatures, from the jaws of hell, won us, made us free, and restored us to the Father's favor and grace. . . . Let this be the summary of this article, that the little word 'Lord' simply means the same as Redeemer, that is, he who has brought us back from the devil to God, from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and now keeps us safe there."
None of these blessings have an existential truth connected to it.
Ursinus says, "When we, therefore, say that we believe in our Lord, we believe, 1. That the Son of God is the Creator of all things, and therefore has a right over all creatures. 'All things that the Father hath are mine.' 2. That he is in a peculiar manner constituted the Lord, the defender and preserver of the church, because he has redeemed it with his blood. 3. That the Son of God is also my Lord, that I am one of his subjects, that I am redeemed by his blood and continually preserved by him, so that I am bound to be grateful to him. And, further, that his dominion over me is such as is calculated to promote my good, and that I am saved by him as a most precious possession, a peculiar purchase, secured at the greatest expense." - Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, pg. 205
Jerome Zanchius says the that the term Lord means that God has absolute sovereign rights to do as He pleases.
Jerome Zanchius says, "As Lord or Sovereign of all, He does as He will (and has a most unquestionable right to do so) with His own, and in particular fixes and determines the everlasting state of every individual person, as He sees fit. It is essential to absolute sovereignty that the sovereign have it in his power to dispose of those over whom his jurisdiction extends, just as he pleases, without being accountable to any; and God, whose authority is unbounded, none being exempt from it, may, with the strictest holiness and justice, love or hate, elect or reprobate, save or destroy any of His creatures, whether human or angelic, according to His own free pleasure and sovereign purpose." - Absolute Predestination, Pg. 38
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