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Agonizing to Enter It
- 11/07/10
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I recently happened across an interesting quote from John MacArthur’s book Hard to Believe. The premise of the book, which flies in the face of the church growth movement, is that it is not at all easy to be saved—it is actually very difficult. A few weeks ago I mentioned how important Ashamed of the Gospel was in my spiritual development at the time that I transitioned from mainstream theology [back] into Reformed theology. Hard to Believe came a little after that, but was very reassuring to me as I continued to grapple with the issues.
And here is what MacArthur says:
*****
I know this shocks some people, because we hear all the time that getting saved is easy. "Just sign this little card!" "Just raise your hand!" "Just walk down that aisle while the choir sings one more stanza!" "Just recite this prayer!" "Just ask Jesus into your heart." It all sounds simple. The only problem is that none of those actions has anything to do with real salvation and getting through the narrow gate. That sort of invitationalism implies that Jesus is some poor pitiful Savior, waiting for us to make the first move to allow Him His way. It implies that salvation hinges on a human decision, as if the power that saves us were the power of human "free will."
[MacArthur provides a few paragraphs explaining how this sort of invitational phenomenon started with Finney in the late nineteenth century, was carried on by Moody and soon became part of standard Christianity. He shows how it is, at its heart, anti-Calvinist. He then continues...]
According to Jesus, it's very, very difficult to get saved. At the end of Matthew 7:14, He said of the narrow gate, "There are few who find it." I don't believe anyone ever slipped and fell into the kingdom of God. That's cheap grace, easy-believism, Christianity Lite, a shallow, emotional revivalist approach: "I believe in Jesus!" "Fine, you're part of the family, come on in!" No. The few who find the narrow gate have to search hard for it, then come through it alone. It's hard to find a church or preacher—or a Christian—who can direct you to it. The kingdom is for those who agonize to enter it, whose hearts are shattered over their sinfulness, who mourn in meekness, who hunger and thirst and long for God to change their lives. It's hard because you've got all hell against you. One of Satan's pervasive lies in the world today is that it's easy to become a Christian. It's not easy at all. It's a very narrow gate that you must find and go through alone, anguished over your sinfulness and longing for forgiveness.
Somebody might say this sounds like the religion of human achievement. Not so. When you come to brokenness, the recognition that you, of yourself, cannot make it through the narrow gate, then Christ pours into you grace upon grace to strengthen you for that entrance. In your brokenness, His power becomes your resource. Our part is to admit our sin and inability and plead for mercy and power from on high.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (32)
The seeker sensitive crowd foolishly ties salvation into the signing of a card. MacArthur’s crowd foolishly ties salvation into the grueling search for the narrow gate. You’re right, it is very, very difficult to get saved - and Jesus is the only one who could have accomplished it for us.
http://spiritualklutz.blogspot.com/2010/10/did-mel-gibson-kill-jesus.html
But with God, ALL things are possible. Agree with this, but let’s not go too far the other way. We were reading at Church this morning about the Philippian Jailer. He was saved IMMEDIATELY, he and all his house. Jesus says “he that comes to me I will in NO WISE cast out.” Like so many things in the Christian life becoming a Christian is both the easiest thing AND the hardest thing, AT THE SAME TIME…. As Charles Simeon said about Arminianism and Calvinism… Whosoever will may come AND chosen before the foundation of the world. There is no “golden mean”. Both are true.
http://wordandmusic.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/against-the-golden-mean/
“MacArthur’s crowd foolishly ties salvation into the grueling search for the narrow gate. ”
I thought it was Jesus who said that. Man, those translators messed with the original Greek again.
Hardy har har. Man, all I was trying to say is that the search for the gate isn’t the path to meriting our salvation; Christ Himself, the Gate, has merited it already.
But seriously - talk about foolish - it’s probably not a great idea form me to have put the word “foolishly” and “John MacArthur” in the same sentence.
I have not read this work by MacArthur, but have read Ashamed for the Gospel and The Gospel According to Jesus that have similar statements. I think people went to far with Faith Alone and because of that had this belief system that simple “beliefism” saves. This is a corrective to such teaching and reminds us that Jesus calls us to Discipleship and to put Him on as Lord.
www.studyyourbibleonline.com
Yes, but confession and baptism were exlained to me and I obeyed. I was not told there was anything else. Three or four churches later, the Holy Spirit stepped in that door I had cracked opened with my confession and began to guide me to the narrow road. Now nearly 40 years later I am eternally grateful to the one who presented the gospel to me, but no less so to the one who discipled me. I agree that there is more that just filling out a slip of paper, but every journey has a first step and no first step is more important than the one which begins our relationship with Jesus and our journey to Heaven. Now since the thief on the cross went straight to Heaven, I’m assuming that he is exempt from Dr MacArthur’s premise. Make ye disciples. Those of us who know need to step up and disciple someone(one on one) we know who is taking baby steps and show them the narrow road. Someone did for me, now I must for someone else. Isn’t that what Titus 2 is speaking of?
It is agonizing to enter in. Shortly before I entered in I kept a journal and a couple of different entries said that “what I want the most is what I am afraid of the most.” I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be free. I wanted to know the truth. But, as Larry Crabb says in his book Inside Out, life is also full of deep disappointment and recognizing our own brokenness due to our mutiny against God’s plan for our life hurts, too. Thankfully, Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is light. If you have not received his forgiveness as a free gift, confessed what you believe about him, turned from your sin and desire to go in a new direction, and been baptized, then what are you waiting for? His yoke is easy and his burden is light!!
I think we too easily dismiss grace and faith with the meaningless pejorative ‘easy-believism’. In fact most people are not comfortable with the idea that repentance means mere belief. Belief is too vaporous, too ephemeral, too easy. Manly religion asks for real repentance, repentance with hair on its chest, full of valor and deeds and proof and grand promises of change. Jesus does not share this idea:”They said therefore to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”” John 6:28, 29, NASB.The door to real repentance does not go through the decision and will and persistance of man. If it is based on a man’s moral fortitude and vigor, then we probably wouldn’t need repentance in the first place. The repentant man is a failed man, a weak man, a sinful man. It is a man who has the desire for sin etched deeply into his habits and psyche. The drug addict can drive into a strange town and know by instinct exactly where to go to find drugs. The repentant man is a practiced expert in the art of the forbidden. Sin is powerful and the man’s genius and skill have in his history been fully engaged in seeking sustenance for his desire there. It is no small task to change these things. A man’s singular decision to change cannot depend entirely upon himself. Repentance must include in itself the seed that will grow to consume his life, with the understanding that he will be weak and failing in it at times. It must include room for mercy, for grace, for instant help. It must have God’s favor, it must believe in the kindness of God, right up front, before there is fruit. This belief is true repentance.
So if belief is hard, it is hard because it is too easy. It offends our flesh, which wants to eat the fruit of being like God.
MacArthur’s writing is leaving me weary, burdened, and in need of rest. Excuse me while I take Jesus up on his offer to come to him.
Did Jesus really intend for salvation to be an “agonozing” ordeal? Or “so hard” to “figure out?” Just where is the grace, Mr. MacArthur? (And no, I don’t mean cheap grace.) The childlike faith? Seems I have to do too much to receive it. So much for the “good news” of Jesus. No thanks.
Jesus’ path is both hard and easy. You are saved by faith, but faith without works is dead, as James said. But if you’re worrying about your works, and thinking, “gee, I’m not sure if I have enough works. Maybe my life isn’t hard enough right now. I’ll go and do something difficult right away.” Then you’re just following a religion of rules, which is just as useless as the pharisees. God will lead you on a road which is at times very hard, and at times easy and joyful, but be sure that it’s God leading you and not your own ideas about what a ‘christian life’ ought to look like. When the prostitute came into Simon the pharisee’s house and broke the bottle of perfume over his feet, he didn’t say to her “Congratulations! your faith has started you down a very difficult road that will probably be impossible for you to follow and then you will most likely be damned anyway.” What he said was “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace!” He also said, somewhere in John, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” That probably doesn’t mean skydiving (though you shouldn’t limit God) but it probably means that if you wish your life was over already so you could finally have your salvation and stop worrying about whether you’re still on the narrow path, then there’s something wrong.
“Seems I have to do too much to receive it. So much for the “good news” of Jesus. No thanks.”
WE have too much to do to receive it? How about what Christ all did for us so that we are made WORTHY to receive it? The focus need not be on us, but on Him. When we focus only on what we can do, then yes, you are right, there is too much to do. But if you focus on Him, then you will say with confidence “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:10.
James 2:14 ff and Paul in Romans 8 are really saying very similar things. James is talking about authenticity of faith. They both say that faith leads to genuine works. More here if anyone is interested in my very humble take on it:
http://thereforenow.com/?p=49
I don’t see a contradiction here. Eternal life is “free” and sovereign and given fully in Christ with out our effort. But the striving and agonizing comes as a result (and evidence) of that salvation that has freely taken effect in us.
The word agonizomai (“striving”) in Luke 13:24 is the same word used in 1Cor 9:25 of an athlete battling to win a victory. It is also used in 1Tim 6:12, of the Christian who “fights the good fight of faith.” The life of Christ is a severe struggle, a battle, and even a life of shocking violence. This is in no way a violence to others, but a violence to self- our own flesh, desires and dreams, and everything remaining of the old nature. It’s better to gouge out your sinning eye and amputate your transgressing arm now so that you may gain King Jesus and entry into his kingdom for eternity.
That’s why the gate of salvation is “narrow” now. As Christ said passage brought up here, there are “very few” who find it. (Mat 7:13-14) There are few who are striving, so it follow there are few who have been given this grace.
I guess we should stop using this verse then……. hmmmm
John 3:16-21 (ESV)16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
“I guess we should stop using this verse then…”
Why?
Well I read that John MacArthur wrote this:
That’s cheap grace, easy-believism, Christianity Lite, a shallow, emotional revivalist approach: “I believe in Jesus!” “Fine, you’re part of the family, come on in!” No.
I read where the Bible (God) says this:
“that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
It uses believe four different times in several forms. What do you think that means?
I want to be sure to say that I mean no disrespect here in what I am about to post, I appreciate Tim’s blog immensely and I am posting this in the spirit of dialog and friendliness. I know sometimes I personally can come across as abrasive, it’s something God is working out with me.
It’s strange how even on a forum like this, some people can think two opposing things are true without noticing there is a conflict. MacArthur is throwing down the gauntlet, and some of us are calling foul, and others are saying both things and saying, “What’s the problem?” The refreshing thing about MacArthur is that he is never wishy-washy, he is perfectly willing to speak very candidly and call a spade a spade.
The problem is that Biblically, it really is faith alone, belief in the grace and mercy that comes through Jesus’ propitiatory death. I have thought for years that MacArthur’s teachings offend this. Grace was the revelation to Martin Luther, true reformation. Grace is the narrow path. Grace isn’t just cheap, it is absolutely free. That means you can’t pay for it, earn it, or do anything to procure it. It is like manna - you pick it up. Period.
So I believe Matt is right - if ‘easy-believism’ is wrong, then we can certainly throw out John 3, and perhaps large chunks of the book of Romans and Galatians. And all those parables of Jesus, such as the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, and the one where He accepts the penitent sinner instead of the self-righteous pharisee. A truly Biblical position must embrace these passages.
I’m really not even calvinist, I’m truly surprised that I have to defend this here. Is MacArthur calvinist? I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming. He seems like such a Lordship salvation kind of guy, which seems so … Arminian. It shows me again how little I know.
Matt,
MacArthur did not call John 3:16-21 “easy-believism,” etc. He said that of preachers who equate intellectual and verbal assent to the gospel (or the preacher’s version of the gospel) with conversion. So my question of why we should stop using John 3:16-21 based on your misinterpretation of MacArthur’s words stands.
MacArthur is not saying that salvation requires more than faith, or that faith is hard to get. The message is that those who receive it experience more than an easy, light-hearted change of mind. Conversion involves the agony of the conviction of sin, the frustration of helplessness, and the hopelessness of ever entering the Kingdom. It is as MacArthur wrote:
“The kingdom is for those who agonize to enter it, whose hearts are shattered over their sinfulness, who mourn in meekness, who hunger and thirst and long for God to change their lives.”
He does not mean that that is what saves them; he means that that is how it is for those who are saved.
To those who have objections to the excerpt Tim posted, I’d suggest reading the book from whence it was taken before arguing at too much length against it. (Yes, for your information, I have.)
Jim McNeely,
Concerning your remarks on so-called “Lordship salvation,” I’d suggest you read MacArthur’s The Gospel According to Jesus. You’ll see that “easy-believism” is not the same as faith alone, and that Calvinists believe James as well as Romans, and that they aren’t contradictory.
Thanks, David, I will look into that. I think I might actually agree with your response to Matt, although belief itself must be stripped of anything of a promise to change behaviorally. Otherwise it precludes forgiveness as a free gift and operates under the impression that it is wages under law. What we are really kind of saying here is that the notions that prevent someone from belief may be hard things to let go of, but once we are driven to the need for grace, belief is easy.
“He does not mean that that is what saves them; he means that that is how it is for those who are saved.”
Really? Because what I’m reading above in print says, “According to Jesus, it’s very, very difficult to GET saved.”
I guess I should probably read the book in it’s fulless, because I’m just not seeing that this isn’t a works based salvation.
Just like MacArthur probably shouldn’t hinge his theological argument on the one narrow gate verse.
Well, hey, don’t go by me. I’ve only been listening to Grace to You (MacArthur’s radio broadcast) for 20+ years and read 80% of his books (not counting the commentaries, which I also own and use). I’m sure your take on this excerpt makes you better qualified to comment on his theology than I.
Thanks for the feed back David however as Anonymous has beaten me to th punch:
“According to Jesus, it’s very, very difficult to GET saved.”
How do you mis-interpret that?
What about the thief on the cross? Do you think all of the things below applied to his specific situation.
“The kingdom is for those who agonize to enter it, whose hearts are shattered over their sinfulness, who mourn in meekness, who hunger and thirst and long for God to change their lives.”
I was born into a Christian family. Accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior at a young age. I am absolutely broken by the magnitude of what Christ did on the cross for me. I never experienced agony in my life until long after my salvation. I have never had a hopelessness of entering the Kingdom. I stand on the promises of being joint heirs with Jesus. Longing for God to change my life? I have faith that he changed my life from the moment I accepted Jesus and has been the director of my life ever since. Even in the face of adversity I have not longed for him to change my life. I have prayed for deliverance from affliction, for direction, for intervention. Knowing that through what ever trials I may be experiencing he is refining me.
I am actually a fan of MacArthur and have many of his sermons. Listen to him almost daily on Moody Radio and read his stuff. I am an even bigger fan of Jesus, which is why I believe in showing grace to others that may have theological differences that do not interfere with the core Christian beliefs, however, this teaching on salvation and how it comes about, comes very close to treading all over what the bible actually does say.
I read the bible and see truth in everything I read. I have never read the bible and said “wait….. that’s not right”
There is not a man in the world that I have ever read (besides Jesus Christ) that I have not at some point said “wait…… that’s not right” Point is no man can get it 100% right, not Calvin, Moody, Spurgeon, Finney, Arminius, Luther. It is just not going to happen. Am I 100% right NO!!!!! but I am working out my salvation with fear and trembling.
I intend to read this book. However I was responding to specificly what was posted here. Right now I am in the middle of finishing a couple of classics by Spurgeon and Calvin as well as Radical and an expository study of Matthew 18: 10 -14 so it is going to be a bit.
In the mean time I leave you with this:
“The more we become what we shall be, the more will compassion rule our hearts. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is the pattern and mirror of perfect manhood, what said he concerning the sins and the woes of Jerusalem? He knew Jerusalem must perish; did he bury his pity beneath the fact of the divine decree, and steel his heart by the thought of the sovereignty or the justice that would be resplendent in the city’s destruction? Nay, not he, but with eyes gushing like founts, he cried, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings! and ye would not.”
“If you would be like Jesus, you must be tender and very pitiful. Ye would be as unlike him as possible if we could sit down in grim content, and, with a Stoic’s philosophy, turn all the flesh within you into stone. If it be natural, then, and above all, if it be natural to the higher grace-given nature, I beseech you, let your hearts be moved with pity, do not endure to see the spiritual death of mankind. Be in agony as often as you contemplate the ruin of any soul of the seed of Adam.”
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
In the mean time brothers… Grace to You :)
Well I sorta have wondered about all those people that have come forward at the Billy Graham crusades and if they were truely saved or not. Interesting point Tim.
Matt: Very well said! You are right…no matter how schooled any man is, he is still human and may not get every aspect of theology right. Only God knows each person’s heart. I, personally, have to be very careful to not let other people invalidate my experience with the Lord just because my salvation experience didn’t happen “just so” in their eyes. I’ve had too many people try to “scare the hell” out of me (i.e., Church of Christ, others, and now MacArthur…even though I’ve been a long-time albeit distant fan), and I’m growing weary of that.
John 3:16, Believing in the modern sence is a mental asscent,believe i the biblical sense is to tust in and wholly rely upon,it is an action, not just an agreement.Literaly the words should read “Those who believe into Jesus”,so it is the ones who have trusted into Jesus that will not perish,not the ones who have believed in certain facts,its the ones who have gone beyond that and believed into Jesus,that are saved.
@Neil,
Respectfully, I think upon reflection, that is nonsense. Repentance is a change of mind. Belief is rightly a factor of the mind. The mind is the legitimate battlefield of the things of the Spirit. The right change of mind leads to fruit, but tagging our justification based on behavior based repentance is like taping apples to a spruce tree and calling it fruit. I’m not saying fruit shouldn’t come, but the crucial think is really a full mental assent - that we are sinful, that it is the work of Christ only which justifies us, that our virtue is a gift, a fruit of grace and not a frightened obligation. This insight that it is faith alone in the work of Christ was Martin Luther’s central insight, the very beating heart of the reformation. It may be a narrow path but this is actually THE path. There are actually few who find it. I would have to agree with MacArthur here, this level of grace is scandalous, and so it is hard to believe.
I have much much more about this here if anyone is interested:
http://thereforenow.com/?p=252
A book I found helpful on Lordship Salvation is titled Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation by Dr Michael Horton. Its at least a reformed perspective on the issue.
I looked up this book on Amazon, it looks very interesting! Since you’ve read that, you’ll understand that I am very much in the Zane Hodges camp; I really love that guy’s thinking. However, I am not a party to the Dallas Theological Seminary cessationist position; so now you can understand how to peg me in context. I was brought up from my spiritual infancy in DTS style churches in the Dallas area, in fact. I’m not sure they would all agree with me now, but if Zane Hodges were alive he would be very happy to read what I’m writing these days.
That said, here is a portion of writing from my stuff about Lordship. It is a bit incendiary, I apologize in advance for that, but in a way I’m trying to point something and it seemed the right way to say it:
“We see Him [Jesus] doing miracles to prove He has the power to forgive. We see Jesus persevering with Peter to make him the cornerstone figure of His church, even in the face of heinous rejection and betrayal. In this case, it is JESUS who is Lord - even terrible rejection and betrayal and abandonment by all of His closest disciples could not stop Him. He raised Himself from the DEAD, and came back with mercy and grace in His heart for them. I think that for them, the first disciples, the ‘Lordship of Christ’ would mean something very different …”
(from http://thereforenow.com/?p=76)
In other words, if by Lordship salvation, we mean HE is LORD of our salvation, I agree. If by Lordship salvation, we mean, I promise to try to make Him seem like Lord by trying not to sin any more, I think it is undoable and simply false.
I also want to say I mean no disrespect to those who say otherwise. There is a lot of room for discussion among believing brothers and sisters on this point. In the end we end up pressing on to holiness, even if we differ on the means. I am finding a lot of joy and a new power in pursuing things the way I’m thinking about them. Serious deep delicious scandalous grace is way more efficacious as a means to holiness than I would have dared to believe; I can understand what Paul meant in Col 3:23 in this regard.
Ah, Zane Hodges … that explains everything.
Amen.