I call it a heresy!

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Heresy – a well-known, often feared word. This article deals with a heresy that A.W. Tozer exposed decades ago. This heresy has now found its way into many Christian lives. It is possible that some readers of this magazine may also recognize themselves in it. Here, in addition to the characteristics of this false teaching, ways out are also offered to return to a sound faith.

“As obedient children, do not conform to the desires that existed when you were ignorant” (1 Peter 1:14).

Scripture does not teach that the person of Jesus Christ, or any of the significant offices God has conferred upon Him, can be divided or ignored according to human whim. Therefore, I take the liberty of stating my observation that a remarkable heresy has arisen in evangelical circles: It is widely believed that we humans have the option of accepting Christ only as our Savior and can postpone the obedience due to Him as Lord for as long as we please!

This notion, of course, stems from a misunderstanding of what the Bible actually says about Christian discipleship and obedience. Yet it can be found in almost all of our evangelistic literature. I confess to having been among those who preached this way before I began to pray earnestly, to study intensively, and to reflect seriously on the whole matter.

I believe what follows is a fair account of what I was taught in my early years as a Christian; however, it certainly requires many qualifications and explanations so that we may be preserved from a false teaching: “We are saved by accepting Christ as our Savior; we are sanctified by accepting Christ as our Lord; we can do the first without the second!” In truth, however, Scripture knows nothing of salvation separate from obedience. Peter makes it clear that we are chosen, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience (cf. 1 Peter 1:2).

What a tragedy that in our day we often hear evangelistic appeals based on this premise: “Come to Jesus! You don’t need to obey anyone. You don’t need to change anything. You don’t have to give anything up or return anything, surrender anything, let go of anything—you just need to come and accept Him as your Savior!” So they come and believe in the Savior. Later, in a meeting or conference, they hear another appeal: “Now that you have accepted Him as your Savior, would you also be willing to accept Him as your Lord?”

The fact that we hear this everywhere doesn't make it any more true. Pressuring people to accept a divided Christ is bad teaching because no one can accept half a Christ, or a third of Christ, or a quarter of His person! We are not saved by faith in an office or a work.

I heard well-meaning preachers say, “Come and believe in the finished work!” The work will not save us. The Bible does not teach us to believe in an office or a work, but in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the person who accomplished the work and holds these offices.

Note once again that Peter urgently urges obedience to the scattered and persecuted Christians of his day. It seems very important to me that Peter speaks of his fellow Christians as “obedient children.” He did not command them to obey, nor did he exhort them to do so. Instead, he is essentially saying: “Because I assume that you are believers, I assume that you are also obedient. Therefore, as obedient children, act in this way…”

Obedience is taught throughout the Bible.

Brothers and sisters, I want to emphasize that obedience is taught throughout the Bible and that this obedience is one of the most important requirements of the Christian life. Without obedience, there can be no salvation; for salvation without obedience is a self-contradictory impossibility. The essence of sin is rebellion against divine authority.

God said to Adam and Eve, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17). Here we find a divine demand that expected obedience from those who themselves possessed the power of will and decision. Despite the strict prohibition, Adam and Eve reached out and ate of the fruit; they rebelled against God in disobedience and brought sin upon themselves.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes very simply and directly about the "transgression of the one"—and this is a serious word, one that the Holy Spirit prompts the apostle to write—; through this transgression of the one, condemnation came upon all people! In the First Epistle of John, the Bible states quite simply that sin is lawlessness and disobedience to God's law. And to the Ephesians, Paul describes sinners as "sons of disobedience." By this, Paul certainly means that disobedience is their defining characteristic, something that shapes and defines them. Disobedience has become part of their nature.

All of this forms the background for the great, persistent question: "Who is the master?" From this arise further questions: "To whom do I belong?" and "Who has the right to demand obedience from me?"

Well, I believe that of all people, we in the Western world currently have the most difficulty obeying any person or any law. We consider ourselves free. We won our freedoms through revolutions. Liberty, equality, fraternity was the slogan under which people freed themselves from the yoke of tyranny, and that's why our blood boils when someone says, "You are obligated to obey!" We resent anyone who suggests that we owe obedience to someone. It goes against our nature. In this sense, people of this world always have a quick answer ready when someone asks, "To whom do you belong?" or "To whom do you owe obedience?" The answer is: "I belong to myself! No one has the right to demand obedience from me!"

In the name of individuality

Our generation is particularly prone to this and talks about "individualism." Because of our individuality, we claim the right to self-determination. In an airplane, the pilot at the controls decides where the plane flies. He gets to choose the destination. Now, if God had made us humans merely like machines, we wouldn't possess the power of self-determination; but because He created us in His image, He made us morally responsible beings and gave us the power of self-determination. I don't mean to say that we have the right to self-determination because God has only given us the power to choose evil.

Because God is a holy God and we are moral beings, we have the power, but not the right, to choose evil; for example, no one has the right to lie. We have the power to lie, but no one has the right to do so. We have the power to steal—I could go and take a coat that is better than mine. I could disappear through a back door with the coat. I have the power to do so, but not the right! I have the power to take a knife, a razor blade, or a revolver and kill a person, but most certainly I do not have the right to do so! I only have the power.

In fact, we only have the right to be good—we never had the right to be evil, because God is good. We only have the right to be holy; we never had the right to be unholiness. If you are unholy, you are taking a right that is not yours. Adam and Eve had no moral right to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; yet they did, usurping a right that did not belong to them.

The poet Tennyson must have pondered this when he wrote: “Our will belongs to us, why, no one knows; our will belongs to us, that it may become like Yours!” Oh, this mystery of human free will is far too great for us! Tennyson says: “Why, no one knows.” But then he continues soberly and decisively: “Our will belongs to us, that it may become like Yours!” And this is the only legitimate way to deal with our will here on earth: to align it with the will of God!

God is sovereign

We must remember who God is and who we are. God is unlimited, and we are His creatures. He is the Creator, and therefore He has the right to command us, and we have the obligation to obey. This is a joyful obligation, I may add; for His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

At this point, I return to our human assertion that Christ can have a shared relationship with us. This is proclaimed so widely today that anyone who objects or expresses doubts is quickly shown how far they've gone out on a limb. They then have to be prepared for all sorts of reactions. But how can one insist that our Lord Jesus Christ can be our Savior without also being our Lord? How can one continue to teach that we can be saved without considering the possibility of obeying our sovereign Ruler?

I am convinced that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ must believe in the whole Lord Jesus Christ and make no reservations! I am convinced that it is wrong to view Jesus as a kind of divine nurse to whom one can go when sin has wounded one; and when He has helped, one says, "Goodbye!" – and goes one's own way.

Imagine if I went to the hospital and told the doctors I needed a blood transfusion or an examination of my gallbladder. After they had helped me, I would simply walk away with a cheerful "Goodbye!" as if I owed them nothing and they had only helped me out of friendship [Editor's note: Until the late 1960s, there was a direct doctor-patient relationship in the USA, as the patient had to pay the bills themselves. Source: Wikipedia]. This may seem grotesque to you; but it describes very accurately those people who have been taught that they can call on Jesus as their savior when they are under pressure, without owing Him, their sovereign Lord, obedience and subservience.

There is no such concept of salvation.

Nowhere in the Bible do we find anything of the sort. Nowhere do we find any reason to believe we could accept Jesus as Savior without Him also becoming our Lord. He is the Lord, and as the Lord, He saves us because He holds all the offices of Savior, Christ, High Priest, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption! He is all of that, and all of that is embodied in Him, the Christ and Lord.

My brothers, we are not permitted to come to Christ like superior and shrewd businessmen and say, “We want this or that; but we don’t want the other!” We do not come to Him like someone furnishing a house and declaring, “I like the table, but I don’t need the chair”—and thus divide the set.

No, gentlemen! Either the whole Christ or no Christ at all!

I believe we must once again preach the whole Christ to the world, a Christ who doesn't need our defenses, an undivided Christ, a Christ who is either Lord over all or not Lord at all! I consider it important to acknowledge that true salvation restores the right to a Creator-creature relationship, because it recognizes God's right to our discipleship and fellowship.

Look, in our day we have overemphasized the psychology of the sinner's condition. We spend much time describing the misery of sin, the sinner's sorrow over the many burdens he has to bear. Of course, he has burdens; but we have overemphasized them to such an extent that we have forgotten the fundamental fact: the sinner is a rebel against legitimately established authority!

That's what makes sin sin. We are rebels. We are children of disobedience. Sin is breaking the law, and we are in rebellion, fleeing from God's righteous laws as we continue to sin.

An image: Imagine a man who has escaped from prison. He is, of course, in distress. He is in pain, stumbling against beams, stones, and fences as he hides and crawls away in the darkness. He will soon be hungry and tired, and he will be cold. His beard grows, and at night he lies somewhere curled up in the cold—all this happens to him, but it all stems from the fact that he is a fugitive from justice and a rebel against the law. This is what happens to sinners. Certainly, they suffer terribly and bear heavy burdens. The Bible tells of all these things; but it all has its cause in the fact that a sinner is what he is, that he rebels against God's commandments and flees from divine judgment.

This is the essence of sin; not the fact that a person carries heavy burdens of misery, sadness, and guilt. These things have merely grown out of sinful nature, but the root lies in rebellion against God. Doesn't the sinner say, "I belong to myself—I only need to obey whomever I choose!"? That is sin itself.

But thank God, this is changed through salvation. The former relationship is restored; therefore, the first thing a sinner does is this: He confesses, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:18-19).

We therefore change the relationship through repentance, and we submit completely to the word of God and the will of God. We thus become obedient children.

Now, dear brothers, for moral beings, all happiness lies precisely in obeying God. The psalmist exclaims in Psalm 103:21: “Praise the Lord, all his hosts, you his servants who do his will!”

The angels in heaven find their complete freedom and their highest happiness in obedience to His commandments. They do not consider this tyranny, but bliss.

I have once again gazed into the mysteries of the first chapter of Ezekiel and I cannot comprehend them. There are creatures with four faces and four wings, strange beings who do strange things. They have wheels, and even more wheels, which are located within the first ones. Fire comes from the north, and there are beings that walk straight ahead, and some that raise their wings and move them. Strange, beautiful beings who spend all their time solely experiencing God's presence in complete joy and serving this God!

A world of disobedience

On the other hand, hell is certainly the world of disobedience. Everything else that can be said about hell may be true; but one thing is crucial: hell is the world of the rebel! Hell is the prison of the unwilling rebels, those who refuse to submit to God's will. I thank God that heaven is the world of God's obedient children. Whatever we may say about the pearl gates, the golden streets, and the walls of precious stones—heaven is heaven because the children of the Most High are there in their natural sphere as obedient, moral beings.

Jesus said that hell contains fire and worms, but that doesn't make it hell. One might want to be able to endure fire and worms; but knowing and realizing that one is where one is because one is a rebel—that, for a moral being, is what constitutes hell. That is judgment . It will be the eternal world of all disobedient rebels who thought, "I owe God nothing!"

Now we have been given the time to decide. Each person makes this decision personally regarding the eternal world they will inhabit.

A serious decision

This is a serious matter. You don't make this decision the way you would when offered a job or a place in school. We have no reason to assume we can casually and lightheartedly approach the Lord Jesus and say, "I'm coming by so you can help me a little, Lord Jesus. I know you are the Savior, so I want to believe this and be saved; then I'll turn away and deal with other matters like your Lordship, devotion, and obedience sometime later."

I warn you—you will receive no help this way; for the Lord will not save those who refuse to listen to Him! He will not divide His ministries. You cannot believe in a half-Christ. We accept Him for what He is: the anointed Redeemer and Lord, the King of kings and Lord of lords! He would not be what He is if He saved us, called us to Himself, and chose us without being able to guide and govern our lives at the same time. Brothers, I believe there is a deeper Christian life—oh yes! But I also believe we are mistaken if we try to add this deeper life to an imperfect salvation, one we have received imperfectly, because the concept of the whole matter is imperfect.

Under the influence of the Spirit in people like Wesley and Whitefield, no one would have dared to stand up in a meeting and say, "I am a Christian," unless they had surrendered their entire existence to God and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord. Only then could they say, "I am saved!" Today, we let them say they are saved, no matter how imperfectly and half-heartedly this is done, because we hope that the deeper Christian life will eventually be added to it.

Is it really possible that we believe we owe Christ no obedience?

We owed Him obedience from the second we asked Him for salvation, and if we then refuse to obey Him, I have reason to doubt the conversion!

I see and hear many things that Christians do. When I observe how they behave within the professing Christian community, I really wonder if they are truly converted.

Brothers, I believe we must begin with the false teaching. People think of God as a hospital and Jesus as the chief physician who heals poor sinners who have gotten into trouble! “Make me well, Lord,” they begged, “so that I can go my own way again!” That is an evil teaching, brothers. It is full of self-deception. Let us look to Jesus, our Lord: He is highly exalted, holy, He wears many crowns and is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and has the full right to demand absolute obedience from His redeemed people!

Remember what the Bible says!

Just think about what the Bible says about the person, titles, and offices of Jesus.

“God made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36b). Jesus means “Savior,” Lord means “Ruler,” Christ means “Anointed One.” The apostle, therefore, did not preach Jesus as Savior—he preached Jesus as Lord and Christ and Savior, and never separated the person and the office.

Remember also that Paul wrote to the Roman Christians: “But what does she say? ‘The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.’ This is the word of faith that we preach: that if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:8-9).

The apostle does not say, “that if you confess Jesus as Savior with your mouth…”, but he says, “For it is with the heart that one believes and is justified, and it is with the mouth that one confesses and is saved. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for he is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:10, 12-13).

In this passage, which shows us how we are saved, he calls Jesus Lord three times. He says that faith in the Lord Jesus and confessing this faith before the world brings us salvation!

Above all, God wants us to be honest with Him. Examine the scriptures, read the New Testament, and if you discover a grain of truth in my words, then I urge you to act on it. If you have been led into an imperfect faith in a divided Savior, then rejoice that there is still time to do something about it!

AWTozer (1897–1963)

From "Must One Fear God?", CLV