Do I Have To Make Jesus Lord To Be Saved?

There is a theological view of salvation called Lordship Salvation.

Those who hold to this view say for people to be saved they must “make Jesus Lord of their lives.”

By Lord, they mean Jesus must have supreme authority over someone’s life for that person to be truly saved.

Lordship Salvationists teach that authentic belief in Jesus includes not only belief in his death, burial, and resurrection, but also making Jesus Lord of your life by putting him charge (have total authority over) of your life.

But is this what the Bible teaches?

Is this what Jesus taught?

Is this what is meant by Lord?

Let’s take a look.

One of the main verses used by Lordship Salvationists is Romans 10:9, which says:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

It is important to seek the meaning of a verse by understanding the context first, including Romans 10:9.

The context of this verse begins in Romans 10:1 where Paul desires to see his fellow Jewish people saved.

In Chapter 9, Paul writes that Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Christ and refused to place their faith in him for righteousness.

Instead, they pursued righteousness through the works of the law.

In the book of Romans, righteousness is being innocent of all sins.

Paul explains in Romans the wrath of God is coming upon the sinners, the ungodly, and the unrighteous.

Only the righteous ones will escape God’s wrath (when he removes all sin and sinners from the earth in preparation for eternal life on the new earth) and experience eternal life.

During the time Paul wrote Romans, most of his Jewish people were seeking the righteousness needed for eternal life through obedience to the law of Moses, specifically the Ten Commandments (see Romans 7:7-25).

Paul teaches in Romans that the law exposes sin in people’s hearts and increases sin in people’s lives; therefore, the law can’t be what saves a person (Romans 5:20; 7:7-25).

Paul also teaches that the law makes everyone guilty before God as sinners; thus placing everyone under God’s wrath (Romans 3:9-20).

Because the law increases sin and exposes sin in everyone’s hearts, and through the law, God declares everyone guilty for sins, it is impossible for anyone to be declared as righteous before God through obedience to the law.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that God has made a way for anyone to be righteous before him (Romans 3:21-25).

This way of righteousness is freely offered to all people.

This righteousness is a gracious gift from God to everyone (Romans 5:17).

It is received through faith in Jesus.

Those who place their faith in Jesus for righteousness are declared righteous by God.

This is because Jesus took our sin upon himself at the cross.

He took our guilt.

He gives us his righteousness (his innocence) when we believe in him for salvation.

When we believe in Jesus for salvation, God justifies us, meaning he declares us to be innocent before him…guiltless…just as if we have never sinned…never broken any of the Ten Commandments internally or externally.

He sees us as righteous; thus bringing peace between God and those who believe (Romans 5:1-2).

He then removes those who believe from his wrath to come (Romans 5:3-11).

This is what most of Paul’s letter to the Romans is about.

Now back to Romans 10:9, which reads:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Remember, the Jewish people were seeking righteousness through obedience to the law of Moses.

Paul explains to them that obedience to the law doesn’t make anyone righteous, rather it exposes everyone’s unrighteousness, placing all people under the wrath of God.

Paul’s heart was heavy for his Jewish people.

We see the heaviness of Paul’s heart in Romans 9-10.

Not only had they rejected faith in Jesus for righteousness, but they refused to believe Jesus was the Christ…the one prophesized about in the Jewish Scriptures who would come from the Jewish people and who would bring salvation to all people.

The Christ prophesized about in the Jewish Scriptures is called the Lord.

The angel told Mary she would give birth to the Christ (Messiah) and she was to name him Jesus.

After Jesus was born, the angels appeared to the shepherds saying,

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

The words Messiah or Christ and the word Lord was synonymous to the Jewish people.

There was much debate among the Jewish people if Jesus was the Lord…the Christ.

The majority concluded he was not and called for his crucifixion.

Therefore, they rejected him as the Christ and the righteousness he offered.

Peter, in Acts 2:16-21, described to the Jewish people the coming of God’s wrath that anyone can be saved from by calling upon the name of the Lord (Christ).

Peter then explained the name of the Lord is Jesus, and if they call upon his name they will be saved from the wrath to come.

With this understanding, let’s return to Romans 10.

Romans 10:13 says,

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Salvation (righteousness needed to escape God’s wrath and experience eternal life) comes by calling on the name of the Lord.

The name of the Lord is Jesus.

This is why Paul writes in Romans 10:9:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

What Paul is saying in this verse is for his Jewish brothers and sisters to acknowledge that Jesus is Christ the Lord.

Before they can believe and be justified, they must first come out of denying he is the Christ by acknowledging that he is Christ the Lord.

He is the Messiah of the Jewish Scriptures who the prophets said would come.

This is not an exhortation by Paul to “make Jesus Lord of your life.”

This is not context.

The context is Paul encouraging his unbelieving Jewish family to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ and then believe that he rose from the dead.

Upon belief, a person is justified by God, meaning declared by God to be completely righteous…innocent of all sin; therefore, this person is now at peace with God, no longer under his wrath brought about by the law (Romans 4:15).

Rather, this person is now under grace.

Those who use Romans 10:9 to defend Lordship Salvation totally ignore the context of this verse.

They ignore they immediate context and the historical, biblical context, making this verse mean something that Paul was not teaching.

The Lordship Salvationists do this with many other verses, such as when Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and come follow Jesus for eternal life.

In the context, the rich young ruler was seeking righteousness through the law.

In the conversation, Jesus was using the law as an x-ray machine, revealing to this man his sin of loving his money more than God; thus, disobeying the law and disqualifying him for salvation based upon obedience to the law.

Lordship Salvationists take other verses out of context, such as the verses during Jesus’ life on earth where Jesus tells those who want to be his disciples to deny themselves and take up their cross.

These verses have nothing to do with salvation.

There were people during the life of Jesus who truly wanted to be Jesus’ disciples.

They wanted to be around Jesus continually.

They wanted to learn from Jesus daily.

Yet they did not truly understand what they were signing up for.

Jesus was honestly telling them what was required if they wanted to be his disciple.

Becoming a disciple of Jesus meant certain death…all of his earthly disciples died a martyr’s death (the Eleven) but John.

Yet before they died, all denied him.

However, they were still saved because they believed Jesus was the Christ, even though they denied him and put down their cross.

Salvation for his disciples was not because they denied themselves and took up their cross, but because they believed in him as the Christ.

Discipleship during the time of Jesus was popular.

John the Baptist had his disciples.

The Pharisees had theirs.

And Jesus had his.

But salvation was never about being a disciple of Jesus.

Actually, Jesus had disciples who rejected him as the Christ…therefore they were not saved (see John 6).

In what is called the Great Commission, Jesus sends out the Eleven Apostles to disciple the nations, meaning to teach people who Jesus is as the Christ and what he did on the cross and in his resurrection for their salvation.

Once they believe for salvation, Jesus said, “…teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you…”

This means the disciples were to teach people to observe the new testament (Jesus was not talking about books of the Bible) poured out in his blood for the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus had previously instructed them about the new testament (his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins) while with them in the upper room (Matthew 26:28; Luke 22:20).

It was the new testament of grace of Jesus believers were to observe not the old testament of law of Moses.

We see Paul picking up this assignment in 2 Corinthians 3:1-6:2, as well as Galatians 4:21-5:1.

Lordship Salvationists take many verses out of context to promote their false view of salvation.

Their view leaves many people feeling as if they cannot be saved, since they feel inadequate to meet the conditions for salvation put forth by the Lordship Salvationists who take verses out of context to promote their view.

The good news about salvation is that salvation comes by believing (Romans 4).

No conditions attached.

No standards to meet.

Paul received this good news of grace directly from Jesus (Acts 20:24; Galatians 1:11-12), and he wrote about it in Romans 3:21-24:

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith [righteousness is given to us the faithfulness of Jesus in going to the cross for us] in Jesus Christ to all who believe [believing is receiving the righteousness of Jesus as a gift rather than working for righteousness through the law]. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

This is the gospel of grace…and it is not hard to believe.

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