Question from a reader:

There has been much disagreement lately about repentance and lordship salvation. Personally, I believe that salvation comes from grace through faith alone, and repentance follows as a result of a transformed heart. However, a very popular evangelist (and many other people as well) promote salvation through trust in Jesus AND repentance. In other words, the belief seems to be that salvation is not obtained unless both of those factors are present. This, to me, seems to be works-based salvation. Where does Randy stand on this?

Answer from Randy Alcorn:

This issue is a huge controversy, and in searching online I did see some people identify me with the notorious (to them) “lordship salvation” position. To me, it is just the position that biblically informed Christians have always taken, but to people with the Grace Evangelical Society, it is heresy.

Here is John Piper’s position on it, which I totally agree with. It is a long article, but I think those interested would benefit from reading it.

Got Questions has two good articles, one on lordship salvation  and the other on free grace.

They clearly favor, as do I, the position that John MacArthur took in his book Gospel According to Jesus, which was hugely controversial back in 1988, two years before our ministry was born. Back then hardly a day would go by without hearing people discuss these issues. (John MacArthur is a strong and confident communicator, so his method of portraying his position was not very winsome and sometimes unnecessarily kept people at arm’s length from what I believe were his biblical conclusions. John Piper supported MacArthur's book, before the two of them had even met, and was severely criticized for doing so.)