Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast. Making theology central. Good morning, everyone. It is Sunday, January the 19th, 2025. It is currently 11.18 a.m. Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio, located right here in Abilene, Texas. Well, in the last hour, we had a pretty lengthy discussion about artificial intelligence and Isaiah chapter 40, verse 11. And I know for this hour, if I was at church, we would be covering Isaiah 40 9-11. That's what I would typically be doing. That's what I would want to do. But all of our verse-by-verse study of Isaiah 40, from verse 1 all the way to verse 9, has been done at the church in front of a live audience. So I didn't want to then all of a sudden go from Isaiah 40 9-11. switch it to more of a podcasting format that, oh, I like to kind of keep it consistent. If I start something in front of people, I want to kind of finish it there. And then if I start, if I'm doing something on the podcast, I want to keep it here. So I was like, well, what, what, what can we do? Well, we've been having a very important conversation on the podcast that many, many of the people listening this morning may not be familiar with or not even engaged in in any way, shape, or form. So I'm going to do a little bit of a review, and then I'm going to try to move us forward, and hopefully this is going to have a very important—a lot of very important theological ideas and concepts are about to be discussed, and hopefully everyone will catch up and be on the same page, because this is very important. all through 2025. Really starting in 2024, we started talking about it a lot, but as we've entered into 2025, I've decided, in fact, to create an entire series about artificial intelligence and the future of the church. because you either just don't understand artificial intelligence or you're just not paying any attention. I don't know what is wrong if you don't understand. Artificial intelligence, and I'll just say this bluntly, has made the church 1000% irrelevant. You don't need it. It's just a waste of time. AI can do anything the church can do a million times better when it comes to the preaching and teaching of God's word. Now, if your church is sacramental, well, you need the church for the sacraments. But if you go to church for the teaching of God's word, an in-depth study of scripture, AI can blow away any sermon. And we've demonstrated that already multiple times in 2025 by placing AI versus specific sermons, and AI destroyed those sermons in every way possible. and avoided all the errors and pointed out all the errors in the sermons. So we've been talking about that. So I came up with the idea, hmm, what if we, instead of putting AI against a sermon, what if we put artificial intelligence against a theological system? Huh, that could be interesting, right? What if we had them go head to head, artificial intelligence versus How about artificial intelligence versus lordship salvation? Oh, that, that could be, what could happen? Well, we spent over an hour in part one of this taking it apart. So I'm going to have to review quickly. And what's interesting is asked AI to help me. In the review, I said, AI, how can I break everything down? I basically said, here's episode one. I gave it episode one, and it said, OK, here's the best way to remind everyone of what you discussed in part one so that you can move on in part two. And I'm like, thank you, artificial intelligence, because my reviews go way, way, way too long. And artificial intelligence was like, because you're a human, and you don't know what to do. OK, I didn't actually say that, but you get the idea. Let's remind everyone of what we did. So this is artificial intelligence versus lordship salvation. Now, lordship salvation, whether people say they know what it is, even if they have ever heard of it, lordship salvation dominates the way most Christians believe about salvation. They may never have read MacArthur's book. Doesn't matter. Church after church after church, they hold to a lordship salvation view, which I held to for most of my life. And what was the turning point for me? It's when I began to study Catholicism and I realized... Lordship salvation is basically Catholicism. And then I begin to have a crisis of faith, right? So we've talked about this and talked about this. So here's what we discussed in part one, right? I basically asked everyone this question, what comes to mind when you hear the term lordship salvation? Now, some people support it. Some people reject it. Some people are neutral. Some people have no clue what they're talking about. Now, what I find interesting is you ask some people about lordship salvation, they'll say, well, they may even say they disagree with it. They may even say they don't know what it is. Just start asking them questions about salvation. Inevitably, it sounds like lordship salvation, because I think this is the reality. We talked about this in a long gospel series. Our default position is a works-based, law-based system. That's our default way to go. It just is. So I asked that question. Then? I gave everyone kind of an overview of my own personal journey with Lordship Salvation, how I stumbled upon MacArthur's book, The Gospel According to Jesus, how I did everything I could to try to defend and promote that system, and how I ultimately came to our crisis of faith by studying Catholicism and realizing how foolish I had been. So what I'm attempting to do here is I'm trying to give a critical exploration of Lordship Salvation, utilizing my own experience with Lordship Salvation, and, but mainly, I want to show you how artificial intelligence analyzes and critiques Lordship Salvation and some of the conclusions it comes to. because I think that's fascinating. So here are some of my theological shift. I begin to change my view from lordship salvation, and I kind of went through that entire history. I'm not going to go through all of that because many listening this morning, you've heard my entire story a million times, so I'm not going to go through it all. But here is where I think things begin to get very, very important here and to have this discussion. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave my notes here. I'm going to go back to AI here. I'm going to go back to AI. I'm going to go all the way back to the top here, because this is where we started having, to me, where things got very interesting, all right? So this is the way I approached it, because I want to get everyone on the same page here. This is so important philologically. Instead of saying, AI, what do you think about Lordship Salvation? Because of my theological understanding, I knew that the issue between Lordship Salvation and non-Lordship Salvation is not really an issue between Lordship Salvation and non-Lordship Salvation. The issue isn't about, oh, there will be a change. No, the issue is, what do you believe about being saved by imputed righteousness versus being saved by an infused righteousness? So I asked AI this question, isn't it accurate to say that the major difference between Catholicism and non-Catholic Christianity is Catholicism teaches a salvation based on infused righteousness, and non-Catholics for the most part teach salvation based on an imputed righteousness? I said that is a key theological distinction between Catholicism and many forms of non-Catholic Christianity. Alright, here's the breakdown of the concepts. Now, I'm going to go back and do a lot of review on this because this This is the foundation. See, the minute you start talking about Lordship Salvation, people start, oh, you easy-believe-ism, anti-Nomad. They start accusing you of everything other than what the real issue is, because if they get to the discussion of the real issue, the entire system falls apart, because either you accept the Catholic view or you reject the Catholic view. And if you reject the Catholic view, your Lordship Salvation crumbles in front of you if you are even remotely honest. So what is the issue? The issue is infused righteousness versus imputed righteousness. So what are the concepts of infused righteousness? This is the Catholic view. You ready? Catholic theology teaches that righteousness is infused into the believer—now, this is what would make Catholicism a little different—through the sacraments, because they're sacramental, baptism, obviously, in a particular way, and it is sustained and increased through cooperation with God's grace, good works, and participation in the sacramental life. Salvation involves both God's grace and the believer's cooperation with that grace. It's a synergistic system, right? Hey, God does this, but you have to do this, and then it works together for salvation. This view, now listen, this is the key phrase, this is the key paragraph. The infused righteous view emphasizes an internal transformation where the person truly becomes righteous in a practical way over time. So in an infused righteousness, you are infused with righteousness, so you become righteous in a practical way. It is about transformation. Please put that down. If you believe in infused righteousness, you believe in transformation. You will be changed. You will be different. Why? Because you've been infused with righteousness. You have to be different. And then they see justification and sanctification as being interconnected, right? Wait, what? If there's no sanctification, then there was no justification. Why? Because sanctification proves your justification because in justification you were infused with righteousness, so therefore it should be demonstrated in your sanctification. Please note that. Because if you listen to that, that sounds just like lordship salvation, right? Now, the actual Protestant view imputed righteousness. Non-Catholic Christians, especially within supposedly Reformed churches, whatever. Supposedly within Reformed churches, clearly in Lutheran churches, they teach that righteousness is imputed to the believer. This means that the righteousness of Christ is credited to the believer's account through faith alone, not because of any inherent transformation or works. It's not about transformation. It's not about works. It's about God's righteousness is accredited to my account. It does not change me. It does not transform me. It does not do anything. Practically, it just changes my position before God, and now I'm declared to be that which I am not. In this view, salvation is viewed as a monergistic. God alone accomplishes it. And justification is a one-time, declarative act of God where the believer is declared righteous even though they remain a sinner in practice. Let me state that again. If you believe in imputed salvation, salvation based off an imputed righteousness, if you truly believe that, not just theoretically, but you truly believe that, then this is what you believe. A believer is declared righteous even though they remain a sinner in practice. If you believe in imputed righteousness, someone is declared righteous, but they are still a sinner in practice. Now, I know Lordship would be like, well, you'll sin less. How do you measure that? Sin less according to what? If you're guilty of one point of the law, you're guilty of all. So how do you mod? Well, I sin less. I'm guilty of all points of the law at all times. holy as God is holy. Are you ever doing that? No. Therefore, you're in a perpetual state of sin. Like, if you believe in imputed righteousness, you know that you are in a perpetual state of sin. Trying to say you sin more or sin less is a subjective measurement based on you creating a list of which sins you can and can't commit, which is basically going back to Catholicism with a list of mortal and venial sins. And just think, and I'll go ahead and say this, an imputed righteousness, make it very clear, sanctification cannot prove imputed righteousness. Nothing can prove imputed righteousness because it's imputed. It's simply credited to your account. If someone believes you can't prove imputed righteousness because it doesn't produce righteousness, it just declares you to be that which you are not. All right, so that is the big difference there. That is the big distinction. We have to emphasize that, okay? So I wanted to spend time definitely reviewing that. I wanna definitely take the time to take that apart, all right? So. Here is some kind of a—and I'm going to go through this quickly. I'm going to go through this fast. You've got to make sure you know that. So make sure you just know imputed versus infused. And I will argue if you believe in imputed, lordship salvation begins to start—you already start having problems. You're going to have to play a lot of silly verbal games to try to make it work, because you're going to really revert back to an infused righteous understanding. So, we kind of gave, in the last episode, kind of a theological analysis of lordship salvation. We talked about infused versus imputed righteousness, infused Catholicism, righteousness is infused, salvation is synergistic. We talked about all of that, okay? Now, lordship salvation's contradictions or contradiction. Lordship claims to affirm imputed righteousness, and this is what AI says, but it emphasizes works as a proof of salvation, effectively aligning itself with infused righteousness. I want you to hear that again. AI says, that Lordship Salvation, they claim, they claim to emphasize, to affirm imputed, or infused righteousness, or imputed righteousness. Let me state that again. Lordship claims to affirm imputed righteousness. If you talk to anyone who holds to Lordship Salvation, anyone who goes to a Lordship Salvation type church, or even if they don't go to a Lordship Salvation type church, you hear them talk about salvation, it's very a Lordship way of thinking, they will affirm, You are saved by imputed righteousness. However, they will then emphasize that how do you prove someone's salvation? By works. The minute they say someone's salvation is proved by works, they effectively, this is what AI says, effectively aligns themselves with infused righteousness. AI knows that the minute you say, oh, works prove someone's salvation, you are denying imputed righteousness and you're returning to an infused righteous idea, which is Roman Catholicism. That's why I have, forget what AI says, I have said it, or forget what I say, listen to AI, whichever one you want to listen to. AI knows better than I do, but I have been saying way before AI that, look, if you're going to go to an of lordship idea, then why go to some fake, Catholic church. Go to a Catholic church. Don't go to some Protestant church where you're like, oh, we believe in Reformed theology. No, you don't. You are denying the very Reformation and you're going back to the very enemy of the Reformation, which is the Catholic church, because you're holding to an infused righteous view. So then I asked AI to critique Lordship Salvation. First, it says Lordship Salvation is guilty of circular reasoning. Lordship says, works don't save you, but they prove your salvation, which creates a functional dependence on works. Hey, works don't save you, but you have works to prove your salvation, meaning you have to have works in order to be saved. So it's a works-based system and it's circular reasoning, which is a logical fallacy. It undermines assurance by making salvation contingent on a subjective performance. How can you know you're saved? Well, you gotta do this and you gotta do that. Well, how do I know if I've done enough? How many works? What kind of works? When do I know I've done enough? I can't even be sure until I get all the way to the end of my life and hopefully I can look back and I've got enough works that prove that I was saved. Well, that's subjective. That means you can never know for sure if you're saved. It blurs the line between law and gospel. The Lordship Salvation treats the gospel as a new form of law by tying assurance to obedience. It destroys the gospel. It takes the gospel and turns it into a law. Hey, if you believe you'll do this, and you'll do this, and you'll do this, and you do this, and if you don't do this, then you didn't believe, therefore you're not saved, therefore you have to do this in order to be saved. Lordship salvation will claim monergism. However, the emphasis on works makes salvation feel contingent on human effort. Not only that, it's similar to Catholic theology. Conditional assurance and the intertwining of justification and sanctification is Catholicism. It merges justification and sanctification because sanctification becomes the proof of justification. You can't really have assurance because you don't know if you're going to have enough works to prove that you're saved. Basically, it's Roman Catholicism disguised. So AI then, AI affirmed the critique of lordship salvation. It recognized its practical alignment with Catholicism. AI recognized lordship's practical alignment with Catholicism. AI highlighted the inconsistency between lordship salvation and imputed righteousness. AI raised the following points, that Protestant sermons emphasize transformation resembling infused righteousness. Every Protestant sermon talks about being transformed, being changed, being a new creature. All of that is infused righteousness. AI pointed out that assurance is tied to works, which leads to doubt and a performance-based mentality. And AI pointed out a proper understanding of imputed righteousness focuses entirely on Christ's work, not human effort. So AI pointed out all of that. So AI then gave some discussion questions. I'm not going to go into those right now. AI then provided some challenges for lordship salvation for people who believe it. These are questions AI asked as if it was talking to someone who believes in lordship salvation. If imputed righteousness declares believers righteous despite their sin, how can works prove salvation? I've only been asking that question for, I don't know, 10 years. But hey, AI figures it out. Hey, if imputed righteousness declares someone to be righteous, then how can works prove salvation? Your works can't prove anything because you were declared righteous because of an imputed righteousness. How do you reconcile ongoing sin and believers with the claim that transformation is necessary evidence for salvation? AI's like, hey, how do you reconcile the fact that we all continue to sin? Be holy as he is holy. You never do that. You're in a perpetual state of sin. So how can then you say transformation is the proof to salvation? Because then transformation would have to require almost some level of perfection or it would never prove anything. It would become subjective. AI then asked this question, how many works? What kind of works? How many and what kind are sufficient to prove your salvation? AI then asks this question, 4. Does tying assurance to work contradict the Reformation's emphasis on faith alone? If you would tie your assurance based on what you do or don't do, you're destroying faith alone. You're denying the entire Reformation. Then, AI says, can you demonstrate a clear distinction between justification and sanctification in Lordship Salvation Theology? If you hold the Lordship Salvation, can you truly draw a distinction between justification and sanctification? Remember, we talked about this, and I pointed out countless times that, in practice, we merge justification and sanctification just like Catholics do. Remember, I talked about this. So, remember, I raised the question, maybe we should just go be Catholic since we already destroy the distinction between justification and sanctification. Because you destroy the distinction between justification and sanctification the minute you say sanctification is proof of your justification. You cannot prove justification by sanctification if you are justified by an imputed righteousness. So therefore you've got to draw a distinction between the two. Now, so that's kind of just putting it all back together. That's putting it all back together. And that's not even a great review. I didn't even follow AI's outline for my review because there was, AI even gave me too much to review probably there. I skipped most of it. So I then started continuing to talk to AI. I continued to talk to AI about lordship salvation. And AI went on to say this, it would be fair And it would be accurate to describe lordship salvation as a non-Catholic form of Catholicism. AI says, hey, lordship salvation is a non-Catholic form of Catholicism. That's the words it used. And they say it is true in this sense, in terms of its functional theology. In other words, in theory, it may try to be as different as Catholicism is. Maybe sometimes when they preach, they'll try to show how different they are from Catholicism. But in its practical outworking, the theology is just simply Catholicism. It says, Lordship Salvation maintains Protestant terminology and denies Catholic doctrines explicitly, but the way it ties works to salvation resembles Catholic theology in several ways. And here's why this description works. So AI is gonna justify saying that Lordship Salvation is a non-Catholic form of Catholicism. This is AI saying, I'm going to justify why this is an accurate description. Number one, similarities and the role of works. Catholicism teaches that works empowered by grace are necessary for salvation. Justification is a process involving faith, works, and sacraments. That's what Catholicism teaches. Let me say it again. It teaches that works are empowered by grace and they are necessary for salvation. Justification is a process involving faith, works, and sacraments. Now you say, well, how is that similar to lordship? Well, let's let AI tell us how it's similar. AI says, Lordship denies that works save, and it insists that works are necessary evidence of genuine faith, making them essential for assurance of salvation. So just like you have to have works in order to be saved in Catholicism, well, in Lordship Salvation, you have to have works in order to prove you're saved, meaning you have to have these works in order to be saved. It's the same thing. In both systems, works are functionally indispensable, whether as a part of earning it or as proof of having it. But if you have to have works in order to prove you have salvation, then you have to have works in order to be saved. So, you're just playing a semantics game. You're just playing a verbal game. So the similarities when it comes to works. And guess what? Why do you have these works? In Lordship Salvation, I mean, AI doesn't even get into this, but if you have to have these works, where do the works arise from? Well, Lordship Salvation, even though they may not use the term, it's because of an infused righteousness. You would have to have an infused righteousness for the good works to show up, right? The whole thing begins to fall apart. Conditional Assurance Catholicism teaches that assurance of salvation is conditional and tied to the believer's cooperation with grace, avoiding mortal sin, and remaining in a state of grace. Lordship Salvation Assurance is conditional, tied to a believer's visible fruit and obedience. If sufficient evidence of transformation is not present, doubts about salvation are warranted. Hey, you've got to prove you're saved. And guess what? Some sins don't call into question your salvation. Some sins don't. Some sins call into question your salvation. Now wait, does that not sound like mortal and venial sin? Oh, someone, a teenager who's saved who struggles with heterosexual pornography or struggles with a fornication. Okay, that doesn't necessarily disprove their save. But if that teenager struggles with homosexuality, oh, then immediately they're not saved. Well, what just happened? Well, because this one's mortal. These are venial. Ain't that convenient? Lordship plays the same game. It's like, those sins, oh, pride, arrogance, self-righteous, judgmental, condemning, that's okay. Oh, but if you commit this sin or this sin or this sin, you proved you were never saved. At least in the Catholic Church, the Church claims to have the authority to give you what is a mortal and venial sin. I guess within the Protestant lordship world, I guess each believer gets to determine what are the mortal and venial sins. The whole system is subjective and it's ridiculous. Next, another problem is the blurring of justification and sanctification. In Catholicism, justification and sanctification are part of the same process, where the believer becomes progressively righteous through cooperation with grace. Lordship Salvation Though it claims to distinguish justification, a one-time act from sanctification, a process, the heavy emphasis on obedience and transformation as evidence of salvation conflates the two in practice. See, the minute you say your transformation proves your justification, then you're making justification sanctification, and you're making sanctification a proof of justification, which would mean your justification has to be based off an infused righteousness and not an imputed righteousness. You destroy the distinction between justification and sanctification, and for all practical purposes, you basically are a Catholic. The practical blurring undermines the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, where righteousness is fully imputed to the believer apart from works. Remember, the Protestant teaching is God imputes his righteousness to your account apart from works. Works don't earn it. Works don't prove it. Next, Theological and Pastoral Implications Both systems risk leading believers into introspection and fear as they constantly evaluate their works and obedience to determine their standing before God. This focus shifts from the sufficiency of Christ's work to the believer's performance, creating a workspace mentality, even if it's unintentional. Well, because what are you looking to? You're not looking to the finished work of Christ. And you get these questions all the time in Protestant churches. How do I know I'm saved? How do I know I'm saved? How do... Look to Christ. That's how you know you're saved. Well, I do this, and I do this, and I struggle with this. None of that matters because you're saved by what Christ did, not by what you do. What you do doesn't prove it. What you do doesn't earn it. What you do doesn't change it. You are either saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ or you are not. And if you're saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ, you look to his imputed righteousness and everything else is irrelevant as far as your salvation is concerned. As far as spiritual growth, as far as practical implications of sin and consequences, all of that has practical implications. But as far as your justification, you're justified because of what Christ did, not on the basis of what you do. And Christians love to sit around, well, I don't know if that person is saved because they did this, and I don't know if that person is saved. Yeah, because you think you're so wonderful and perfect because they're committing the mortal sins, while you sit around in your self-righteous, condemning attitude, and you don't even see your own sin. So, A.I. goes on to say, now I'm skipping some things because I'm trying to cover as much ground as possible. A.I. says this, this is a direct quote from Artificial Intelligence. The issue for lordship salvation is not antinomianism. The issue for lordship salvation is not easy-believism. The issue for lordship salvation is not cheap grace. but rather the doctrine of salvation by imputed righteousness. Lordship salvation will try to argue, the problem is antinomianism. The problem is easy believism. The problem is cheap grace. And AI is like, no, no, no, that's not your problem. Your problem is the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Let me state it again. Lordship salvation is the enemy of the doctrine of justification by imputed righteousness. It is the enemy. It denies imputed righteousness. It fights against the doctrine. It takes you away from looking to the imputed righteousness as assurance, so that you have to look to your stinking self to somehow prove if you're saved by if you're good enough. And the only way you're good enough is you've got to go along with whatever lordship salvation people tell you you're supposed to do. And if you do what they tell you you're supposed to do, you're good enough. But they don't determine it. God determines it. And if you're going to look to works, God demands perfection. You're never going to be it. So stop listening to lordship salvation because they literally are the enemies of the doctrine of imputed righteousness. They are the enemy. They are no different than Catholicism. If you're going to condemn Catholicism, you have to condemn lordship salvation. There is no neutrality here. If you accept lordship salvation, then do not condemn Catholicism. Don't tell me Catholics aren't saved then. If your lordship salvation friends are saved, then Catholics are saved, because it's the same system. Now, nobody's going to like that, but it is the same system in every practical way. Here's what AI said, imputed righteousness contradicts the core of lordship salvation. The doctrine of imputed righteousness teaches that the believer is declared righteous before God solely on the basis of Christ's righteousness, which is credited to their account by faith. Lordship salvation insists that salvation must be accompanied by a life of visible obedience and works to validate that faith. This shifts the focus from the sufficiency of Christ-imputed righteousness to the believer's sanctification as evidence of justification. The problem is, is that Lordship Salvation struggles to fully accept that justification is a complete and final act at the moment of faith, regardless of the believer's subsequent works or level of sanctification. At the moment of faith, you are declared perfectly righteous. It's done. It's finished. There's no going back saying, wait, wait, wait, wait. You didn't do this. You're not doing this. You're doing this. You're struggling with this, this, this. None of that matters because you were declared righteous at the moment of faith. You can't come back and say, well, I know you believed, but you didn't do this and this and this and this. And if you really would have believed, then this would have changed. Well, why would this have changed the moment I believed unless I was infused with righteousness? But I wasn't infused with righteousness because I was declared to be that which I'm not, which is the entire doctrine of imputed righteousness. So imputed righteousness contradicts the core of lordship salvation. I can't state that enough. It literally contradicts the core of lordship salvation, contradicts imputed righteousness. Number two, another problem is it misdiagnoses the problem. See, antinomianism is the rejection of moral law. Easy believism and cheap grace are often used as straw men by lordship salvation advocates. These terms imply that any teaching emphasizing salvation by grace alone through faith alone will inevitably lead to moral laxity or a disregard for holiness. However, the doctrine of imputed righteousness does not lead to antinomianism. It teaches that good works flow out of gratitude for God's grace, not as a requirement to prove salvation. The real tension for lordship salvation is that imputed righteousness renders any demand for works or obedience as proof of salvation unnecessary and theologically inconsistent. Believing in imputed righteousness does not make you an antinomian. Believing in salvation by imputed righteousness does not make you someone who believes in easy believism or believes in cheap grace. And anyone who says that, it's just a lie. It's just a straight up lie. It's a mischaracterization. It's a straw man. It's attacking people on the basis of complete ignorance. You know what it is? It's actually attacking people. You're not attacking people. You're attacking the doctrine of imputed righteousness. That's your issue. Take it up with imputed righteousness. Now, again, I got no problem if you want to say, hey, we need to reevaluate the doctrine of imputed right. Now, I'm willing to have this conversation. Let's see if the doctrine of imputed righteousness is wrong. Maybe the Bible actually teaches infused righteousness. So maybe we need to reject the entire Reformation, reject imputed righteousness, return to an infused righteous mindset. And if you can prove that, then I'll be like, you know what? I think at this point, we just go back to Catholicism. and we'll just go join a Catholic church and be good Catholics. I'm not going to go play games in your little fake Catholic church claiming to be a Protestant church when you're no more Protestant than the Pope. Lordship salvation reintroduces a works-based framework. By making works a necessary proof of salvation, worship salvation undermines the very nature of imputed righteousness, which declares the believer fully righteous in Christ regardless of their personal performance. Make sure you, if you believe in imputed righteousness, you are perfectly righteous. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't change the imputed right. It was imputed to your account. You're perfectly righteous no matter what you do. I know Christians hate hearing that, but if you believe in imputed righteousness, that's the way it works. See, the demand for works effectively shifts the focus from Christ's righteousness to the believer's behavior. And this reintroduces a functional works-based element into salvation. And that's exactly what happens. You end up in a works-based system. So AI says, hey, look, lordship salvation is basically The problem with Lordship Salvation is not antinomianism, it's not any of these other things. The issue with Lordship Salvation is imputed righteousness. Why is this so? Because imputed righteousness contradicts the core of Lordship Salvation, because Lordship Salvation misdiagnoses the problem when it's not antinomianism, it's not any of this issue, it's imputed righteousness. Lordship Salvation reintroduces a workspace framework which is at odds with imputed righteousness. 4. Assurance becomes dependent on sanctification. The doctrine of imputed righteousness provides assurance because it rests solely on Christ's finished work. See, imputed righteousness, my assurance is Christ's perfection. The end. What's your assurance in salvation? Christ. What's your assurance that you're going to heaven? Christ. What's your assurance you're not going to hell? Christ. What's your assurance that you're saved? Christ. Well, what about these passages that say works? Christ did those works for me. If that's not my proof and I have to start looking to myself, I'm going to hell, you're going to hell, if you're even remotely honest with yourself. Unless you create a mortal venial list. Lordship salvation ties assurance to the believer's sanctification, specifically, their ability to demonstrate fruit in obedience. This creates a subjective and unstable foundation for assurance, which is at odds with objective reality of imputed righteousness. See, it objectively denies the reality of imputed righteousness by saying, this, prove this, prove this, here's the test, here's the test, here's the test, meaning then the imputed righteousness becomes It doesn't even matter anything in a practical sense. Here's the real issue. The real issue is a failure to trust Christ's work. Lordship salvation is ultimately uncomfortable with the radical nature of grace. It seeks to safeguard holiness by adding conditions or proofs, but in so doing so, it undermines the sufficiency of Christ's imputed righteousness. The doctrine of imputed righteousness declares that salvation is entirely a gift received by faith and it cannot be measured or proven by the believer's performance. This is a stumbling block to lordship salvation. It falls apart, ladies and gentlemen. Lordship salvation is based off an infused righteousness mentality. It just is. And imputed righteousness destroys it. And the issue with lordship salvation, it's not antinomianism. It's not all the accusations they throw at people. Easy believism, cheap grace. Oh, wow, you picked up some cliches. You picked up some slogans. I'm so glad you can repeat slogans. But it's nowhere close. Your issue is imputed righteousness. So AI goes on to say this. Lordship salvation operates on certain assumptions. And it assumes that believers, now this is an assumption built into lordship salvation, that a believer has the ability to live in obedience to God's commands. which can be problematic when you examine this biblically and when you examine this in light of reality. Here's a breakdown of the core assumptions and why they should raise theological concerns. So now AI is going to be like, look, if you look at Lordship Salvation, it has a basic assumption. And the basic assumption is you can do it. You can obey the law. You can keep it. You can do it. And AI is like, when you look at this biblically, that doesn't make any sense. And when you look at it reality, come on, even AI knows that we don't keep the law. Even AI knows, come on, you don't keep the law of God. You're out of your mind. So here's the first assumption. A.I. says Lordship Salvation teaches that Christians can keep the law. Lordship Salvation's assumption says that believers can obey God's law sufficiently to demonstrate their salvation. Now, please note the game Lordship Salvation plays there. It doesn't say that you can obey the law perfectly. Lordship salvation will try to play the game. You can obey the law sufficiently to prove your salvation. what is the sufficient amount to prove your salvation? A.I., lordship salvation knows, well, ultimately, you can't keep the law perfectly, but you can keep it sufficiently. So there's a sufficient amount of things you must do in order to prove you're saved. But this is a problem, right? I'll give you two passages that show you this is a problem. First, John 3, Nicodemus. He's described as a righteous man, a man that would meticulously try to keep the law. He would have been outwardly righteous, didn't prove his salvation, meaning you can have a certain level of outward righteousness, even though you're not saved. Right? When we go to John 3 and we read about Nicodemus, There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And when you learn about Nicodemus and you learn about the Pharisees, they were meticulous in trying to keep every letter of the law, every jot and tittle. Do this, don't do this, don't go here, don't eat this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do that. They had an outward form of righteousness, meaning, that a lost person, a completely unregenerate person can have a certain level of morality outwardly that can be achieved without salvation. Therefore, then how are you going to then prove that the outward works prove salvation when there's a certain level of outward morality that even a lost person can achieve? Matthew chapter 7. Lord, Lord, didn't we do this? Didn't we do this? Didn't we do this? Depart from me, I never knew you. Outward proof! No! So then Lordship is like, well, you can't do it perfectly, but you can do it sufficiently. So, how much outward works then is sufficient to prove salvation? Why are we watering down the requirement? God demands, be ye holy as I am holy. God demands, be perfect as I am perfect. Why does lordship come along? Well, you know, you can keep the law. You can't keep it perfectly, but you can keep it sufficiently to prove your salvation. So insufficient obedience is proof of salvation? That makes no sense. If you're going to make proof required, then If you're going to make works as proof, then you would have to demand perfect works. The whole thing falls apart, all right? And again, to obey the law sufficiently, I don't even know what that means. A.I. says, Scripture is clear that even after salvation, believers continue to struggle with sin. The law reveals our inability to meet God's standard, driving us to rely on Christ's righteousness, not our own. So even A.I. says, look, the Bible clearly demonstrates that we're still going to be living in sin, even as a believer. If perfect, this is what A.I. says, if perfect, or near-perfect law-keeping were possible, there would be no need for Christ-imputed righteousness. If you can do it, then you don't need imputed righteousness. Now, the fact that lordship believes that you can even do near, you can do sufficient works to prove it, then they have to believe in infused righteousness, because how else are you able to produce these works, unless you're just saying anybody can produce a near sufficient level of works. Well, if you can produce a near level, sufficient level of works, even without an infused righteousness, then meaning you can do it on your own, or is it God doing it in you? And if God's doing it in you, then why can't God get you to perfection? See, the whole thing falls apart logically. If God is the one getting you to near sufficient works to prove your salvation, why would God only get you to near sufficient or sufficient? Why would he not get you to perfection? Then that means God doesn't want you to be perfect. If God doesn't want you to be perfect, then why do you get upset when people sin? Because God is the one who doesn't want someone to be perfect. The whole thing begins to just fall apart. It makes no sense. It's like the more you pull one string, everything begins to unravel. The second assumption that Lordship Salvation makes is that Christians can love God with all their heart, soul, and mind. Lordship Salvation teaches that believers can love God fully and without reservation, demonstrating their salvation by their devotion. AI says here's the problem. The Greatest Commandment sets an impossibly high standard that no believer fulfills perfectly. Even the most devout Christian falls short in loving God as they should. This is why salvation must rest on Christ's perfect love for the Father, not on our love for the Father. AI knows we can't do it. Why does Lordship Salvation believe that we can? You've got to be delusional. The third assumption Lordship Salvation makes is that Christians can be holy as God is holy. Believers can achieve a level of personal holiness that reflects God's holiness and prove their salvation. That's what Lordship Salvation teaches, is that believers can achieve a level of personal holiness that reflects God's holiness and prove their salvation. The problem, according to AI, is the command to be holy as I am holy reflects God's perfect standard, which no human being can achieve in this life. While sanctification involves growth, believers will always fall short. AI says, hey, we can't do it. AI says you can't do it. Lordship says you can. AI's like, you're out of your mind. It's amazing that AI can be more honest. A fourth assumption that Lordship Salvation makes is that works can be pure and uncorrupted enough to prove salvation. Lordship Salvation assumes the works of a true believer are sufficiently pure and untainted by sin to serve as evidence of salvation. Here's the theological problem. Even the best works of believers are still imperfect and tainted by sin. Isaiah 64 6, Romans 7 18. The idea that human works can prove salvation misunderstands the ongoing presence of sin in the believer's life and elevates human effort over God's grace. AI is like, look, even your best works are tainted. Even your good works are corrupted. So how could your works ever prove salvation? Because your works are never pure. Lordship salvation says your works are pure enough to prove your salvation. That's ridiculous! That means you almost have to deny the existence of a—you cannot say that and believe that people—here's ultimately what lordship salvation is going to do. You've got to reject imputed righteousness and you've got to reject the idea that a Christian still has a sinful nature. Because if you believe that Christians still have a sinful nature, then you would have to assume that every work that we do is corrupted in some way, shape, or form by that sinful nature, since our works arise from within us. Unless you're saying now just an external work without even being connected to an internal reality can prove your salvation, the whole thing falls apart. AI said, here's the flaw in these assumptions. These assumptions overestimate the believer's ability to meet God's standard in this life. They shift the focus from Christ-finished work and imputed righteousness to the believer's imperfect and incomplete sanctification. By holding believers to a standard they cannot meet, Lordship Salvation inadvertently reintroduces a form of works righteousness undermining the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And here's what AI says. Here's a biblical perspective. Salvation is entirely based on Christ's perfect obedience, death and resurrection, which are credited to the believer by faith. I want you to hear that again. AI says, salvation is entirely based on Christ's perfect obedience, death and resurrection, and this is credited to the believer. While good works and growth and holiness are evidence of God's ongoing work in a believer's life, they are not the basis or proof of salvation. Good works are great. Good works are about growth. Good works may be showing what God may or may not be doing inside a believer, because even then trying to understand those works, but they are not proof of salvation. They are not. Because you can't prove imputed righteousness. I've been saying this a million times. Third thing AI says is a biblical perspective. Believers are called to strive for holiness, but the striving is always accompanied by an acknowledgement of dependent on God's grace and an ongoing acknowledgement that we still sin and will continue to sin. I cannot stress enough, and just to remind everyone, and I talked about this in part one, the fascinating thing about this is this. The way I ended up in this conversation, or we now, since you're a part of it, this conversation with AI in regards to this subject, is AI was reviewing a sermon on James 2, 14 through 26. And AI was kind of like, there's some problems here, right? And as soon as it started describing the problems, I was like, whoa, wait a minute. AI is arguing against lordship salvation. This is fascinating. So then I was like, okay, well, before I can have AI critique lordship salvation, we have to first draw a distinction between infused and imputed righteousness. Now, this is where my theological knowledge helps me have the conversation with AI, because you've got to know the difference between infused and imputed righteousness. And I think if you talk to a lot of Christians, They say they believe in imputed righteousness, but then when they start talking, they clearly believe in an infused righteousness. I think most Christians are completely confused over the difference. Now, once you establish that difference, here's infused, here's imputed. Once you understand that difference, then lordship salvation is in trouble. And what ticks me off is while I believed in lordship salvation, this really just irritates me to no end. When I believed in lordship salvation, I criticized Catholicism. I condemned Catholicism. Well, I believed a system that was more in line with Catholicism, but I was condemning Catholicism based off all the stuff that, you know, you always hear you're supposed to condemn Catholicism about, right? You know, the magisterium, papal infallibility, you know, Mary, you know, the Miriam dogmas, you know, all these different things, purgatory, praying to the saints, all that typical stuff that we condemn Catholicism for. Right? Oh, well, it's Catholicism is ancient Babylonian religion brought back, all the stuff you want to just say. That's where I went. And then finally, I started realizing some of those claims, some of the claims were already a little fraudulent or questionable. And then when I'm like, well, I'm going to study Catholicism so that I can better critique Catholicism, then I had no idea that what I was walking into was really a critique of lordship salvation, because I found myself going, wait a minute, this is lordship salvation. to the letter. If you believe in imputed righteousness, Lordship Salvation falls apart. Now, if you believe in infused righteousness, Lordship Salvation makes perfect sense. Lordship Salvation is the enemy of imputed righteousness, even though their supporters would say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I'm telling you, it doesn't work. If someone is declared righteous by faith alone, and they are declared righteous because God accredits His perfection to that person, there's no proof of that. There's no way to challenge that. There's no way to question that. The issue is, do you believe? Are you trusting in Christ alone? Because action can't prove that. I can't show you imputed righteousness. Show me your imputed righteousness. I can't show you. If you want, I guess I could do this. Show me your imputed righteousness. Here's a Bible and go read everything about Jesus. He was tempted in all points yet without sin. He was holy. He was perfect. He was righteous. He was obedient. He fulfilled the Father's will. He loved God. There's my impute. If you want proof of my imputed righteousness, go look at Jesus. Everything he did is now credited to me. Therefore, that's the only proof I can give. I can't give you proof in what I do because Christ doing all of those things and crediting it to my account doesn't make me do those things. And I know that goes against everything, the evangelical Protestant fundamentalist world. It's all about change, change, change. It's all about moralism. Do this. Don't do this. Do this. Don't do this. Do this. Don't do this. Do this. Don't do this. Do this. Don't do this. Do more of this. Read your Bible more. Pray more. Go to church more. Get more money. Do this. Do that. Do this. Do that. Do this. It's all about that. And so if you emphasize imputed righteousness, that kind of scares them. Oh, cheap grace, easy beliefism, antinomian. Oh, you don't care. You don't care about living out the Christian life. Because they panic. They don't know what to do with that. But the whole thing falls apart. And isn't it fascinating? that AI is able to point out all of these errors. That to me is the reason we've talked about a lot of this stuff. But what I want you to see from all of this is that AI is able to go, this whole thing falls apart. Whole thing is inconsistent. Now, if I asked AI, to defend and give me the arguments from salvation. If we accept infused righteousness as the right way of thinking, well, then it will be able to defend lordship salvation. But it knows that lordship salvation is really incompatible with an imputed righteous view because it contradicts it. It's inconsistent with it, it's incompatible with it. And even AI acknowledges that basically Lordship Salvation is a non-Catholic form of Catholicism. And I know that makes everyone so mad. AI goes on to say, we don't have time to get into this now, AI goes on to say, Lordship Salvation fails to maintain a proper distinction between law and gospel, which is a crucial principle in biblical theology. Now remember when I got into the whole discussion about law and gospel, that's when people get really nervous. But you maintain a proper distinction between law and gospel, I think it's the only way you can even understand your Bible, if... if you're going to view it from a Protestant perspective. If you believe in imputed righteousness, you have to maintain the law-gospel distinction. Because when I see a passage that says, do this, do this, do this, do this, it's telling me to do this to show me that I can't do it, so then I run to Christ, which did it. Law says do. Gospel says done. Now, if I destroy that proper law of gospel distinction, now the law is like, do this to prove you're saved. Do this to prove you're saved. If you don't do this, you prove you're not saved. If you don't do this, you prove you're not saved. Well, how much of it do I have to do? Do I have to do it perfectly? Well, you just got to do it sufficiently. Well, what does that even mean? and then it becomes subjective, and then ultimately, if you're even remotely honest with yourself, if you're going to hold the Lordship salvation, here's the conclusion you should come to. You're not saved. Why? Be holy as God is holy. Do you ever do that? That means you're in a perpetual state of sin 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. Even AI says you can't do that. that would mean you're in a perpetual state of sin. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do you do that? No, you fall short. How about do all things without complaining and grumbling? I'd go, no bitterness, no unforgiveness, no this, no that. After a while, you'd be like, you know what? This stuff doesn't work. This stuff is trash. It doesn't work. You would just throw it to the curb. But no, no, no. Lordship, salvation, convince themselves that they do it. Other people don't. I thank thee, Lord, that I'm not like all of these people. I thank thee, God, that I'm not like all of these people. In fact, we'll end with that. The parable, I think, is it the parable? Hang on, let's call it a parable. Hang on. Let's look for that text of the unrighteous Is it a tax collector? Is it a tax collector? I think maybe. And the Pharisee. I think it's the tax collector and the Pharisee. Let me see here. Yeah, that's Luke 18. I think it's Luke 18. I think it's Luke 18. Oh, the Pharisee and the Publican. All right. Here we go. Luke 18, verse 9. And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Luke 18, 9. trusted in themselves that they are righteous. Lordship salvation is all about. Look at how righteous. Now, they may try to say, God gave me the righteousness. They may try to give God the credit, but it's like, look, I do all of these things. This is how I know I'm saved. I know I'm saved because I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this. They're trusting in a righteousness that is somehow manifested in their life as proof that they're saved by an imputed righteousness, which just logically makes no sense. But that's okay. They look at that. And guess what they tend to do? They despise others. That person's not saved. Well, that person's not saved. Well, I don't know if that person can be saved. Are you sure that person can be saved? Can a person really be saved and do this? They're always wanting to use their lordship salvation as their, I guess, their ability to critique and judge everyone else's salvation. Because, you know, them, they are good, but the other people aren't. Well, then how does the story go? Well, two men went up into a temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. Pharisee stood and prayed thus, I thank thee that I'm not as other men are, I'm not an extortioner, and I'm adding here, I'm not unjust, I'm not an adulterer, I'm not even as this publican, I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess, I'm righteous." And all of those things that he said, we would be looking at that Pharisee going, you've got to be saved because your works prove that you're saved. You fast, you give money, you're not an adulterer, you're not an extortioner, you're not like this other sinner. You are the saved one because Lordship Salvation says your works prove it. And then what would Lordship Salvation say to this guy? And then the publican standing far off would not even lift up so much his eyes. unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner." He doesn't even go into what all of his sins are. He's just like, hey, I know I'm a sinner. I'm not worthy of anything. Have mercy. All I can do is ask for mercy. And guess what? When you cry out to God for mercy, and by faith you believe in what Christ has done, his righteousness is imputed to you. But guess what? You still are a sinner. and you will continue to be a sinner, and you will continue to sin, and even your so-called good works are corrupted by sin. And how does the story end? I tell you, this man went down. Which man? The publican, the sinner. He went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone that exalted themselves shall be abased, and he that humbled himself shall be exalted. That's Luke 18, 9 through 14. Now, some people may just see this as, oh, well, you just don't like lordship salvation. No, this is about, you're missing the whole point. If your criticism of this is, well, you just don't like lordship salvation, and who cares? I would rather do something else. Well, you can criticize it, but here's the reality. This is about imputed righteousness versus infused righteousness. This is literally the whole thing the Reformation was about. This is the reason you're not a Catholic. This is the heart of what you claim to believe. You should be greatly interested in it. And what should really fascinate you is that we now have entered into an era where artificial intelligence can literally challenge a theological system and point out its inconsistency, its logical fallacies, how it's incompatible with a, like, hey, if you hold a lordship, well, you can't hold to imputed righteousness because they're incompatible. AI can point that out. Before it would just be people pointing it out. Now you have artificial intelligence going, oh, you know, that doesn't really work. Now, how does that impact the church and theology moving forward? I don't know. I don't think people care. People won't care that AI disagrees with them. They don't care because they think they're smarter than everything. They think they're smarter than other people. They think they're smarter than pastors. They think they're smarter than theologians. They think they're basically God, so they won't care what AI has to say. But I think we should pause when AI's like, hmm, I don't know if that actually works. I think there's a problem there. Just like we did in the first hour where AI was like, I think there's a problem with Isaiah 4011 in baptism. That's what we have to, that's what we need to take from this. is that theologically we've entered into a new era. That's number one. Number two, we have a theological system that has completely infiltrated all of Christianity, that completely denies what our entire theological system is supposed to be about, which is imputed righteousness. That doesn't bother you? And why is it that we have such a law-based mentality? Because that's our natural way of thinking. Because grace is We don't get it. Wait, a person can just be declared righteous and still be a sinner? That seems not right. You gotta do something. No, I don't have to do anything since Christ did everything. You can't say that. Well, then believe in infused righteousness and then I'm all with you. All right, we'll stop right there. It's now 1226. We went 69 minutes. had to do a lot more review than I typically wanted. I wanted to just move right on to part two, but yeah, this was the only choice. To do Isaiah 40 would have just been…it would have just messed up the whole everything that we were doing. So hopefully next Sunday, Isaiah 49-11. But we did cover Isaiah 49-11 in the first hour, so really, you've gotten almost two and a half hours of teaching today. And you have the stuff we did yesterday, I think which was two hours, two and a half hours yesterday. So it's about five, six hours of content in two days. So thanks for listening. And we'll do more talk about basically what AI has done. It's basically written a book. I really, I just basically asked it to create a book on the problems with Lordship Salvation according to AI. And it basically, I've got an entire book here. I'm still edit, I'm still asking it to edit and change some stuff. But when it's all said and done, I'm basically going to have a full blown book on all the problems with Lordship Salvation according to artificial intelligence. And then I'm going to probably try to put it in a PDF file and then I'll try to make it available to everyone. and AI is helping put it together, which is crazy. All right, thanks for listening. Everyone have a great day. God bless.