The Trinity Foundation - The Gospel According to John MacArthur

The following book review in The Trinity Review of April, May, June of 1993 was written by the late John Robbins of The Trinity Foundation. The issue today is just as relevant as it was when the article was first written:

The Gospel According to Jesus, John F. MacArthur, Jr. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, indexed, 253 pages, 1988. Forewords by James Montgomery Boice and J. I. Packer.

For the past few years “lordship salvation” has been a controversial issue. Watching the debate is painful, for neither side can get the story straight. It is like watching a debate between Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses about Christ, or between antinomians and Theonomists about the law of God.

One of the principal protagonists of the lordship salvation debate has been John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, president of The Master’s College and Seminary, and a nationally known radio preacher. “Men have always stumbled over the simplicity of salvation,” MacArthur cries, rubbing his bruised knees.

MacArthur laments the “debacle in contemporary evangelism,” but being semi-Arminian, and failing to understand and believe the Biblical doctrines of justification by faith alone and the imputed righteousness of Christ, he cannot understand the causes of the debacle, and he advocates a solution that will lead to an even worse situation. Rather than criticizing the pervasive Arminianism of today’s evangelism, an Arminianism that perverts and subverts the Gospel of Jesus, MacArthur attacks justification by faith alone and suggests that works be understood as part of faith. Historically, an emphasis on works has usually been the debate strategy of both the Roman church and Protestant Arminians. It was also the strategy of Paul’s opponents.

The cover of MacArthur’s book, The Gospel According to Jesus, includes praise from The Fundamentalist Journal, Alliance Life, The Standard, James Montgomery Boice, David Hocking, and J. I. Packer. In his Foreword, Packer astonishingly asserts that “lordship salvation” is “the mainstream Protestant consensus on the nature of justifying faith” and attacks the Biblical view that faith is “bare assent to the truth about Jesus’ saving role.” Assent to Jesus’ saving role, says Packer, “is less than faith and less than saving.” Packer thinks MacArthur’s book is “fine, clear, cogent, and edifying.” “What is in question,” he writes, “is the nature of faith.”

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You might want to note that J.I. Packer is an Anglican and claims to be a Calvinist. Unfortunately, Packer also contends that Anglo-Catholics are "orthodox" Anglicans. In other words, nevermind that Anglo-Catholics deny the doctrine of justification by faith alone and believe the papist doctrine of justification by faith plus works and infused righteousness as opposed to imputed righteousness. The 39 Articles of Religion clearly refutes Anglo-Catholicism and Arminianism. The implication is that the Articles likewise refute John MacArthur's "lordship salvation", which is really nothing more than semi-Arminianism. Packer was also associated with the Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement and remains an advocate of ecumenical union with papists and other heretics.