Easy-Believism vs. Lordship Salvation: Who’s Preaching Jesus?

It seems like everyone loves to label everyone else. People have told me to stay away from certain believers because they preach an “easy-believe”, false Gospel. They are said to be sending people to hell with false assurance of salvation. This is also known as “easy-prayerism”. On the other hand, the “easy believers” tell me that those doing the name-calling are the ones preaching the false Gospel of Lordship salvation. This false Gospel is said to require people to name every sin they’ve ever committed and turn from each one or else God will not accept them. Basically, God won’t accept you until you change your life.

After talking to many believers on “both sides”, and comparing their teaching to the Bible, I’ve come to some conclusions. Here it is… both extremes are guilty of the same thing – preaching a humanistic salvation of works.

Those on the extreme “easy believe” side of the spectrum will meet a person, ask them if they want to be saved, and then lead them in a prayer. Basically it is just a choice to go to heaven. They leave out the Spirit of God in the work of regeneration. They make salvation no more than a prayer - magic words of asking Jesus into your heart. The ‘client’ might not even understand what is going on. They don’t want to go to hell so they repeat a canned prayer. The soul-winner gives them a handshake and moves on, never to see that person again. But John 16 says that Holy Spirit evangelism will convince of sin, righteousness and judgment. Good preaching will drive someone to Jesus Christ as their only hope. I’m glad to say that I know people who are labeled “easy-believers”, yet they are in fact preaching a true Gospel.

On the other hand, many who preach against “easy-believism” are guilty of preaching a works Gospel. They preach a hyper-repentance-ism that causes a person to look to themselves and fall into despair. Their message does not point someone to the Lord Jesus Christ, but to the person’s ability to repent and believe. A person can become so focused on having the right ingredients of repentance and faith that they take their eyes off of the Savior. A person in this condition of despair may remain there for days, months, or years, or maybe for their entire life. They live in misery, knowing that they are sinful and separated from God, but unable to repent and believe enough to be accepted of God. Yet others may respond to this preaching by “getting saved” (notice this lingo doesn’t say anything about Jesus Christ). Since their salvation was a result of their focus on themselves (their correctly measured amounts of repentance and faith), they try to live the Christian life by their own abilities. This either results in pride of their Christianity or a realization of failure of their own power to live for God. Since their salvation was based on their own works, they reject their salvation experience and ‘try again’. Anyway, advocates of this teaching are usually known as preachers of Lordship salvation. Again, I can say that I know people with this label who are not to this extreme and are actually preaching a true Gospel.

Jesus Christ is the message of the Gospel. When we lose sight of this, we fall into errors like ‘easy-believism’ and ‘impossible-believism’. Preach sin, righteousness, and judgment and the Holy Spirit will drive men and women to the cross as their only hope of salvation.