He’s setting up standards for behavior that no one can meet.
I liked him a lot at one time. But I’ve noticed over the years that he’s become very severe and harsh in his approach.
We don’t all come to Christ broken to the depths of our soul over our sinfulness. I don’t think you really reach that point right away. The unsaved person does not have that kind of spiritual sensitivity. That comes later, IMO.
The point is not how perfect we are but that we are being conformed to the image of Christ.
Even Lot was called *righteous Lot* in 2 Peter, hardly a term I’s use to describe Lot. Not to mention David and his adultery and murder. What? Was he not saved? And yet God calls him *a man after my own heart*.
The point is not how perfect we are but that we are being conformed to the image of Christ. I think that is exactly what JM is getting at. A new child of God will be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That is what Romans 8 tells us, it is a promise. My take on this sermon (from 1978 during the outbreak of televangelists-'touch the screen to get saved') is JM is saying exactly what you just posted. We who have saving faith will bear the fruit of the work God is doing in us. We won't be perfect (JM says that) and we will sin (JM says that too) but when we do fail Him we will repent (Holy Spirit convicts us) and hate with all our being what we did. I think we all agree that is very Biblical. Perhaps JMacs approach may seem rough around the edges, but what good pastor isn't:)
>> He’s setting up standards for behavior that no one can meet.<<
And doing it in a carnal way it seems to me. He seems to be focusing on the external. Even the question “am I a Christian” followed by some external law keeping criteria puts the focus on the carnal. I realize it’s a fine line sometimes but like you say “we are being conformed” and to demand that all Christians exhibit the same “holiness” or “righteousness” to determine if they are saved is not what scripture teaches. That level of expectation would have the tendency to drive new Christians into believing they must not have been saved after all.
Some of what I hear from MacArthur sure
sounds like what was called "Lordship Salvation". I think he has skated too close to that line many times and comes across as implying a works-based salvation rather than sanctification being a lifelong process for a believer that
starts with receiving Jesus Christ as Savior and believing in him. Repentance means to "change your mind" and not to "turn from sin" as is often expressed by preachers like him. If we believe that grace is what saves us
through faith, then that is the only way we can be saved and never because of righteous deeds that we do. It's ALL grace.
I think the reason why some preachers talk like he does is they are afraid of being accused of preaching "easy believism" - the idea that we just walk forward at an altar call, say we believe in Jesus and then, that's it, we go to heaven when we die and God doesn't care how we live until then. Of course, NOBODY really teaches that, it's a rhetorical extremist device to get people to back away from the truth of grace and lean towards works AND faith being required to be saved. We shouldn't be pressured into falling into that trap - and it IS a trap.
Instead, we should do as Paul said - through the Holy Spirit, of course - that a genuine faith WILL result in a life that is moved to do the works God has prepared for us to do. It is a realization that the old, godless, sinful life no longer holds the attraction it once did. We find that, the closer we move towards God, the less sin appeals to us and we start to see that we really HAVE had something change deep within us. Before we came to Christ, sin's temptation was hard to resist, but after, we find we HAVE power now to be able to resist sin and what once appealed to us now repulses us and we feel shame over past sins. THAT, I believe, is the evidence that we ARE born again. The Holy Spirit within us bears witness to our spirit that we are the children of God.
Do we wake up the next day after giving our life to Christ completely changed into a perfect, sinless person? Not usually, at least most people won't but there WILL be change - with some faster to reach holy living than others. Even Paul, twenty five years after his experience on the road to Damascus said that he STILL faced a spiritual tug of war between his old sin nature and his new spirit nature and that it was through the strength of Jesus Christ that he could prevail over sin. That, through Christ, he could do all things. I think the very fact that we are experiencing this going on in our lives is proof that we ARE His sheep and that we ARE His redeemed and WILL be in heaven when we die.
