THE TEACHINGS OF
JOHN MacARTHUR
John MacArthur, the gifted and charming pastor of
Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, has been the center of
controversy for many years. He appears to be one of those rare individuals
whose presence leaves a wake of confusion and contention. For many, he is a
champion of the faith whose voice is correcting many of the ills of
Christianity. For others, his teachings border on heresy. He is seen by these
as a threat to the Christian faith.
Much has already been written concerning John MacArthur.
What good could another article about him accomplish? Why should the VISITOR
get involved in the fray? If John MacArthur is being unjustly criticized, he
should be defended. If, on the other hand, John MacArthur is doing damage to
the body of Christ, he should be exposed. In either case, the influence of
John MacArthur and its subsequent confusion have reached into the ranks of
fundamental Christianity. Silence is not an option.
An initial reason for writing is that some, within
fundamentalism, seem to be implying that MacArthur has clarified previous
confusing doctrinal statements and there is no longer any problem with him.
Others say that MacArthur has been the victim of misunderstanding all along.
These voices are wrong.
A second reason for writing is to remind separatist
Christians that regardless of the rightness or wrongness of MacArthur’s
teaching, he is a thorough-going new evangelical. His credentials of
compromise are impeccable. A full embrace of the man and his ministry would
not be possible even if his teachings were proven to be acceptable.
A third reason for writing stems from the hunger within
fundamentalism for theological substance in preaching and sanity in
evangelism. There is a growing disregard for the shallow preaching and
mindless evangelism that have characterized much of our ranks for decades. In
many ways, John MacArthur is a fresh breeze in arid times. He is saying things
that desperately need saying. He is bringing a degree of dignity back to the
pulpit. Present conditions coupled with MacArthur’s charm and charisma and
abilities have combined to make him very appealing to those who should
otherwise know better.
Lastly, the almost perpetual confusion caused by
MacArthur should serve as a stark warning that something is wrong. Some of the
controversy swirling around this preacher goes way back to the middle 1970s. I
have learned over the years that a person can make himself clear if he so
desires. Putting a new twist on old doctrines of the faith serves no good
purpose. Separating what ought to be united is every bit as wrong as uniting
what ought to be separated. MacArthur is guilty of doing these things as I
will subsequently prove in this article. He is confusing and remains confusing
because error is confusing.
WHO IS JOHN MacARTHUR?
John MacArthur was reared in Southern California
and received his early education there. His first two years of college were
spent at Bob Jones University. His undergraduate work was completed at Los
Angeles Pacific College, followed by seminary training at Talbot Theological
Seminary.
He has been the pastor of Grace Community Church in
Panorama City, California for many years. Under his ministry the church has
grown from 450 members to a membership of several thousand. He has also been
named President of Masters College and Seminary. Over the years, more than
7,000,000 tapes of his messages have been distributed around the world.
MacArthur is a gifted author. Among
his works are two controversial books: The New Testament Commentary on
Hebrews, and The Gospel According to Jesus. Much of his
influence is achieved through his popular radio program called,
“Grace to You”.
WHAT DOES JOHN
MacARTHUR TEACH?
As indicted earlier, John MacArthur’s teachings
have resulted in a great controversy and confusion that refuse to go away,
even when repeated attempts of clarification are made. One capable Bible
scholar labeled his teachings as “imprecise”.
There are no doctrines that are more essential to our
historic Christian faith than the saving power of the blood of Christ and the
eternal Son-ship of the Person of Christ. Since the 1970s, MacArthur has
managed to muddle what the Word of God has made clear concerning these truths.
At the core of the problems MacArthur’s insistence upon redefining terms so
that he uses orthodox language to express himself, but he has changed the
meaning of the words. This, of course, was the tactic employed by
neo-orthodoxy.
ERROR ONE -
It Is The Death Of Christ,
Not The Blood
Of Christ, That Saves From Sin.
MacArthur creates an issue that doesn’t
exist by seeking to separate the death of Christ from the blood of Christ. On
page 237 of his commentary on Hebrews, MacArthur states that it is “not Jesus’
physical blood that saves us, but His dying on our behalf” . In a letter to
Mr. Tim Weidlich, dated April 4, 1986, MacArthur writes, “Obviously, it was
not the blood of Jesus that saves or He could have bled for us without dying.
...Yes, the blood of Christ is precious - but as precious as it is - it could
not save.”
MacArthur reduces the blood of Christ to a mere symbol of
death. In this same letter of Mr. Weidlich. He
writes,
“I admit that because of some traditional hymns there is
an emotional attachment to the blood - but that should not pose problem when
one is dealing with theological or textual specificity. I can sing hymns about
the blood and rejoice with them - but I understand that reference to be a
metonym for His death.”
Dr. Stewart Custer, of Bob Jones University, rebukes the
error of MacArthur succinctly when he writes these words to the California
pastor:
“To separate the blood of Christ from His death and
imply that it is merely a symbol is not the historic Fundamental position.”
The Scriptures speak again and again about our salvation
being accomplished through the shed blood of Christ. Verses such as
Romans 5:9 could
scarcely be more clear, “...being now justified by his blood, we shall be
saved from wrath through him”. MacArthur is equally clear if we can take his
words at face value:
“Nothing in his human blood saves. His shed blood
represents His sacrificial death for us.” (Grace to You”, 1976)
The Scriptures and MacArthur cannot both be
right.
ERROR TWO -
Jesus Christ Became The Son Of God
At The Incarnation.
John MacArthur teaches that although Jesus is
eternal, He is not the eternal Son of God. He writes, “Son is an
incarnational title of Christ. It is an analogy to say that God is Father and
Jesus is Son...God’s way of helping us understand the essential relationship
between the first and second persons of the Trinity. ...Christ was not Son
until His incarnation”. (Commentary to the Hebrews, pp. 27, 28)
MacArthur makes his erroneous position sufficiently clear
about the Sonship of Christ in the previously mentioned letter to Mr. Weidlich:
“Regarding he Sonship of Jesus. I am only concerned to
explain the meaning of Hebrews
1:5. If there was a time when the second
member of the Trinity became a son, was begotten; and if the use of the future
shall be to me a Son;’ then there must have been a time when He was not.”
The truth of the matter is that
Hebrews 1:5
is not saying there was a day when Jesus became
a Son, but there was an occasion when the Father publicly and openly
acknowledged Him as His Son. God acknowledges Christ was His Son at the
baptism of Christ, the transfiguration of Christ and the resurrection of
Christ.
“And declared to be the Son of God with power, according
to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection of the dead”. (Romans
1:4)
Again the Scriptures are abundantly clear on what MacArthur
manages to cloud. Jesus Christ is truly the eternal Son of God. The Psalmist
declared a thousand years before the incarnation,
“Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is
kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” (Psalm
2:11-12)
ERROR THREE -
The Term “Lordship Salvation” Is
Employed Prominently Without Proper Warning.
Easy believism has been a blight on
American Christianity since the days of Charles Finney. The numbers oriented,
super-aggressive, gimmick employing factions of fundamentalism have
contributed greatly to the problem. Lordship salvation has been a reaction to
all of this, swinging the theological pendulum too far the other direction. In
its strongest form. Lordship salvation means that trusting Jesus Christ as
personal Saviour is not sufficient for salvation. He must also be Lord of your
life.
Lordship salvation advocates separate what must be united.
Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour. No one is saved who negotiates terms
with God. However, complete obedience to the rule of Christ as a requirement
of salvation is foreign to salvation by grace. In practical experience this
leads to sincere people making professions of faith over and over or a
continuous doubting of one’s standing before God.
MacArthur’s problem is his insistence upon using a bad term
(Lordship salvation) to correctly teach that genuine salvation is the result
of Holy Spirit-wrought conviction of sin and life-changing faith in God.
In his book, The Gospel according to Jesus, he
writes,
The call to Calvary must be recognized for what it is: a
call to discipleship under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. To respond to that
call is to become a believer. Anything less is simply unbelief. The gospel
according to Jesus explicitly and unequivocally rules out easy-believism. To
make all of our Lords difficult demands apply only to a higher class of
Christians blunts the force of His entire message. It makes room for a cheap
and meaningless faith - a faith that may be exercised with absolutely no
impact on the fleshly life of sin. That is not saving faith. (The Gospel
According to Jesus, pp. 30-31)
Once again MacArthur’s imprecision has brought unnecessary
confusion to the body of Christ. In the wake of his words controversy swirls.
Instead of the positive effect of truth being declared with carefulness and
simplicity, there is charge and countercharge over what he is saying or not
saying. An uncertain sound is not the mark of a faithful pastor-teacher of the
Word of God.
WHAT IS JOHN
MacARTHUR DOING?
John MacArthur is a champion of compromise.
Even if he did not perpetuate confusion and false doctrine, he would not
qualify as an acceptable leader for fundamentalists. MacArthur is a staunch
new evangelical with impeccable credentials of compromise.
A long list of poor associations can easily be comprised
for MacArthur by perusing the various publications which focus on the issues
of the day:
1) He has spoken at an event sponsored by Wheaton
College along with a Catholic speaker.
2) He serves on the Board of Trustees at Moody Bible
Institute.
3) He is a speaker at word of Life.
4) In the Spring of 1988, he spoke at a conference
in Bermuda with Dr. Jack Wyrtzen, of Word of Life, along with Dr. Wendell
Kempton, of ABWE.
5) He was a scheduled speaker in 1989 at a Southern
Baptist Church in Denver.
6) He has been a speaker at Dallas Theological
Seminary.
7) He spoke at an annual fellowship of conservative
Baptists in Phoenix along with new evangelicals Charles Colson, Hadden
Robinson and Steve Green.
8) He spoke at Charles Stanley’s First Baptist
church in Atlanta on March 17, 1986.
9) He spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters
convention in February, 1982 along with Pat Robertson and Rex Humbard.
10) He spoke at the 1987 Super conference VIII at
Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church along with Tim Lee and E. V. Hill.
CONCLUDING
THOUGHTS
Do fundamentalists need another reminder that a
little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? The cost of compromise is the loss of
God’s blessing on our ministries and the eventual removal of our candlesticks
from their places of service in God’s work. Why toy with disaster by becoming
enamored with a compromiser regardless of how charming he might be? We must
fight with tenacity our tendencies to follow gifted and charismatic
personalities.
Let’s not play games with the precious
doctrines of God’s Word. There are no good reasons to tamper with truth. We
are saved by the blood of the crucified One. We need no other message.
We,
at Good News Bible Church, encourage you to download any of these Bible studies
on our website. Or, if you would prefer, you are welcome to print them out for
your own personal Bible study, or to use in a group Bible study. But just as
salvation is a free gift, offered to us through the work of Jesus Christ, these
Bible studies are a FREE gift and are not to be sold for any reason.
If you have questions or
comments, or you would like any other information concerning this or any other
Bible studies we have available, or if you would like to request copies in
booklet form, please
contact us using the information below.
GOOD NEWS
BIBLE CHURCH
718 Riverspring Drive
Prentice, WI 54556
www.gnbcbible.com
gnbcbible@gnbcbible.com