The Church Fathers and Lordship Salvation

The debate between “Lordship Salvation” and “Easy Believism” was quite the “tempest in the teapot” for a certain segment of evangelicalism — it just so happened to have been in the segment of which I was a part, as a student of the particular Bible college I attended in the mid-70s. The names, “Lordship Salvation” and “Easy Believism,” were the designations each group used for the other, and were generally applied pejoratively. The latter represented what has come to be known as the “Free Grace” movement; the former was a new name for how the Church has understood the nature of faith and salvation all along, even among the Reformers. 

In a recent conversation, someone who attended the same Bible college I did — which vigorously promoted the “Easy Believism” view — wondered what the early Church might think of this modern debate. I thought that was a good question, so I put it to ChatGPT. Below is my question and the answer I got back:

Q. What might the early Church Fathers say about the late 20th century debate between “Lordship Salvation” and “Easy Believism”?

A. Great question. The debates in the late 20th century between “Lordship Salvation” (John MacArthur, et al.) and “Easy Believism” (Charles Ryrie, Zane Hodges, et al.) were framed in very modern, Protestant terms — but if we ask how the early Church Fathers might have looked at this dispute, their testimony points clearly in certain directions.

1. Faith as Obedience and Fidelity

For the Fathers, faith (pistis) was not a mere mental assent or one-time decision, but a lived trust expressed in obedience.

• St. Irenaeus speaks of faith as obedience to God’s word (Against Heresies 4.16.2).
• Clement of Rome (1 Clem. 35) exhorts believers to show faith by “hospitality, humility, and perseverance in good works.”
• Origen: “To believe in Christ is not merely to say ‘I believe,’ but to live in accordance with his words” (Commentary on John 19.6).

They would not separate confessing Jesus as Lord from actually living under his lordship.

2. Cheap Grace vs. Transformation

The Fathers consistently reject the idea of a bare, inactive faith.

• St. James (canonical text): “Faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:26), repeatedly cited by Fathers.
• St. John Chrysostom: “Faith without works of love is not faith at all” (Homilies on Romans 18).
• St. Basil: warns against thinking that baptism or confession alone saves apart from a transformed life (On Baptism 1.3). This lines up more with the Lordship Salvation insistence that true faith brings forth fruit than with Easy Believism’s worry that demanding fruit compromises grace.

3. Salvation as Ongoing, Synergistic

The Fathers saw salvation as a dynamic process of cooperation with grace (synergeia), not a punctiliar event.

• St. Athanasius: “The Word was made man in order that we might be made God” (On the Incarnation 54). This implies transformation, not mere status change.
• St. Maximus the Confessor: salvation requires our free cooperation with divine grace in obedience.

Thus, they would likely object to the “one-time decision, forever settled” framework of Easy Believism.

4. Assurance and Perseverance

The Fathers rarely speak of assurance the way modern Protestant debates do. Instead, they emphasize watchfulness, repentance, perseverance.

• The Didache: “If you are able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you are not able, do what you can” (6.2).
• Hermas, Shepherd: stresses repeated repentance and obedience, warning that faith without moral transformation is worthless.
• Augustine: genuine grace transforms the will, and perseverance to the end is God’s gift (On the Gift of Perseverance).

5. Likely Patristic Evaluation of the Debate

• They would reject Easy Believism outright as a distortion: reducing faith to a mental act apart from obedience would sound to them like the gnostics who claimed salvation by secret knowledge without transformation.
• They would agree with the Lordship Salvation concern — that to confess Christ is to submit to him as Lord, and that genuine faith shows itself in obedience and holiness.
• At the same time, they would be uneasy with any suggestion (sometimes found in Lordship Salvation rhetoric) that salvation is reducible to moral performance — for them, it is always grace working in us, not human effort alone.

In Summary:

The Fathers would not recognize a dichotomy between “faith” and “obedience.” To them, faith is entrusting oneself to Christ as Lord, which necessarily issues in obedience and transformation. They would strongly criticize Easy Believism as antinomian, and would support the Lordship position—though always with the caveat that obedience is not a human achievement but the fruit of grace.

An Interesting Thing About the Saints

An interesting thing about the great saints is that while others experienced them as holy, they experienced themselves as sinful. St. Paul said, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15). And Lord Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32). The following story is told of Abba Sisoes (d. 429), one of the great Desert Fathers of the ancient Egyptian desert (his feast day is observed on July 6):

When Abba Sisoes was about to die, and the fathers were sitting with him, they saw that his face was shining like the sun. He said unto them, “Behold, Abba Anthony has come.” After a little while he said again, “Behold, the company of prophets has come,” and his face shone twice as bright. Suddenly, he became as one speaking with someone else, and the fathers sitting there asked him, “Show us with whom you are speaking, father.”

Immediately, Abba Sisoes said to them, “Behold, the angels came to take me away and I asked them to leave me so that I might tarry here a little longer and repent.” And the old men said unto him, “You have no need to repent, father.” And Abba Sisoes said to the fathers, “I do not know in my soul if I have rightly begun to repent,” and they all realized that the old man was perfect.

Then, suddenly, his face beamed like the sun and all who sat there were afraid and he said to them, “Look! Look! Behold, the Lord has come and he says, ‘Bring unto me the chosen vessel which is in the desert,’” and he at once delivered up his spirit and became like lightning and the whole place was filled with a sweet fragrance.*

Therefore, let us not lose heart. Let us gladly own ourselves sinners, that we may be cleansed by our Lord Jesus Christ and know our true identity in him. Let us gladly confess our lostness, that we may know our true home in him. Let us gladly embrace our death, that we may know our true life in him. Amen.

* The Paradise of the Holy Fathers, Vol 2, translated by E.A. Wallis Budge, (Seattle, WA: St. Nectarios Press, 1984)