What John MacArthur Got Right

He got a few things wrong over his long and distinguished ministry, but he got most of the main things right.

Jul 25, 2025

The recently deceased John MacArthur (JM) got a few things wrong over his long and distinguished ministry, but he got most of the main things right. Since JM was a Baptist dispensationalist (like his well-known pastor father Jack), I as a covenant postmillennialist occasionally found myself in disagreement with his public positions. It's only fair to mention, however, that he referred to himself as a “leaky dispensationalist”; and over the years, his dispensationalism seemed almost to evaporate. At least we almost never heard him talk about the Rapture or the the Great Tribulation Period.

Still, I publicly disagreed with his narrow interpretation of the gospel. I disputed Master Seminary’s position that the church must almost unvaryingly bend to unrighteous civil laws. When he (in)famously preached of the church and Christianity in history, “We lose down here,” he set himself at odds with the kingdom and cultural vision of the cosmic Lordship of Christ in all of life manifested incrementally due to the preaching of the gospel, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the application of God's Word to society, a position I have advocated for decades. For nearly 40 years, I have stood squarely within the Reformational tradition of Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd, Herman Bavinck, and Cornelius Van Til. That is not JM’s theological tradition, to put in mildly.

I believe, therefore, JM was wrong about a number of things. But he was consistently right about the main things. I’ll enumerate three.

The Battle for the Bible

First, he was right about the Battle for the Bible. This battle was launched in a graphic, public way in 1976 by Harold Lindsell’s book of the same title, and it garnered attention in the national news media. It was followed up in 1979 by his The Bible in the Balance, in which he addressed his critics and documented the truth of his first book by showing their inerrancy-repudiating responses.

Basically he shows that for the previous 20 years or so many elite evangelicals had defected from the historic position of biblical inerrancy. The institutional fount of this defection was Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, and championed by scholars like Dan Fuller (the founder’s son), David Allan Hubbard, and William LaSor. They tended to argue, variously, that the Bible is inerrant in theological matters, but not necessarily in historical or scientific or archaeological matters; that inerrancy is a fairly new category historically that our predecessors did not actually believe; and that inerrancy is a divisive topic that shouldn’t divide evangelicals. Some like Clark Pinnock (a former inerrancy proponent) argued the most we can affirm is “limited inerrancy” (a phrase about as oxymoronic as “partial virginity”).

JM would have nothing of any of this scholarly skepticism undermining the Bible, and he was not shy about opposing and exposing it.

Expository Preaching

So as a young pastor in his late 30s and early 40s (and long before and ever afterward), JM stood squarely and vocally within the inerrancy camp. The most obvious pratical exhibition of his commitment to biblical inerrancy was his theory and practice of expository preaching. This is a sermonic method that essentially preaches through entire books of the Bible in a sermon series, expounding each verse or, at least, clearly exegeting (excavating the meaning of) and applying to his congregation small sections of verses. JM’s principal contribution to the battle for the Bible was in fact to link it to expository preaching. He argued at the second summit of the International Council for Biblical Inerrancy that “an inerrantist perspective demands expository preaching, and a non-inerrantist perspective makes it unnecessary.” Later, he adds:

As it was with Christ and the apostles, so Scripture is also to be delivered by preachers today in such a way that they can say, “Thus saith the Lord.” Their responsibility is to deliver it as it was originally given and intended. (emphasis supplied)

In other words, one reason the Holy Spirit laid out the Bible in the fashion he did was so that it could be expounded sermonically in just this sequence. This conviction necessitates expository preaching.

I myself am not convinced that exposition is the only valid way to preach. To my knowledge, no preacher in the Bible (except perhaps Ezra) preached expository sermons. Almost all of them preached what we we today call topical or textual sermons. This was just as true of Peter and Paul’s sermons as it was of Jesus’.

But JM gets the main thing right, as usual. All preaching must be biblical preaching. If the Bible is inerrant, it is our only source of totally reliable divine information. Whether his preaching is expositional, topical, or textual, the preacher must expound and apply what the word of God teaches. There is no room for cherry picking Bible texts to support our own pet theories (accurate as they might be); or preaching therapeutic messages after quoting a Bible verse at the beginning; or giving a long, rambling platitudinous moral story. Preachers are starkly called to “Preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2).

Bible Translation

JM’s unswerving commitment to biblical inerrancy meant also he wanted the most accurately translated English Bible possible. For most of his ministry, that meant the NASB, widely acclaimed for its substantial reproduction of the original languages in English, despite its wide criticism as a “wooden” translation. Later, MacArthur shepherded the Legacy Standard Bible, an update of the NASB 1995 produced in reaction to the 2020 update by the Lockman Foundation that altered the 1995 philosophy and usage of gender language.

Whatever one’s preferred English translation, he must respect JM for putting his money and time and effort and reputation where his mouth was – laboring to produce a translation that, in his view, most accurately reproduced the inerrant autographs.

Revised Practice

Further, JM was bound to an inerrant Bible even if this meant revising his previous views. To his credit, MacArthur altered if not as position certainly a theological emphasis during the Covid drama. Earlier in his ministry he had again and again stressed almost total Christian civil obedience, even to the most dictatorial state. Our calling is to obey the state unless it requires the most egregious disobedience, and trust God with the consequences. This view fit nicely within his understanding of the Faith as limited to responsibility to God and the family and the church; in other words, he held that it’s not the responsibility of the church or Christians to influence the state to enforce God's word appropriate to its own sphere (sphere sovereignty).

But during the state-mandated lockdowns and orders that churches padlock, MacArthur preached what was essentially a theonomic sermon Greg Bahnsen could've applauded. So theonomic was the sermon, in fact, that I actually believe JM walked over to the bookshelf in his library, took down Theonomy in Christian Ethics, and took notes that would shape his sermon. He argued that society should be governed by biblical law. Yes, he really preached that (listen to the sermon linked above).

I had never heard him preach this message before, but I'm certain the flagrant lawlessness of California governor Gavin Newsom and others forced him to go back and reconsider his entire line of thinking. He certainly did not argue for the primacy of natural law within the state. JM was before all else a Bible-believer, and if he was going to believe in God's authority manifested in politics, it had to be biblical law or bust.

JM used his large platform on his radio program Grace To You and his ever increasing influence not only to fight the battle for the Bible, but also to restore the Bible as God’s word to its rightful place in the lives of individuals and the church.

JM got the Bible right.

Lordship Salvation

Second, he got Lordship Salvation right. This battle followed on the heels of and overlapped with the Battle for the Bible. Interestingly, this controversy began among dispensationlists. On one side were the folks who opposed what they derided as “Lordship Salvation” (LS). These included men like Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges, both profs at the dispensationalist citadel Dallas Seminary. Here was their view (in summary). God saves you totally by grace through faith in Jesus. When you trust Jesus, you trust Him as your Savior. Salvation is entirely by grace apart from man’s works. When you trust Jesus, therefore, you trust Him only as your Savior. You don’t trust Him as your Lord and Master. Mainly this means that when you trust Jesus, you don’t make a commitment to submit to him. Commitment to Jesus as Lord is good, and desirable, but that comes later in the Christian life. In other words, salvation is to be separated from discipleship. Jesus wants disciples, but you can be a Christian without being a disciple. So, sometimes these preachers would say, “Years ago some of you here trusted Jesus as your Savior, but now you need to trust Him as your Lord. You’re saved, you’re Christians, but you’re not disciples.” Their leading point was that if you add Christian commitment to salvation, you’re denying salvation by grace.

JM was an unabashed soteric (salvational) Calvinist. He affirmed the famous five points of Calvinism without blinking an eye. Though his opponents were at least mildly Calvinistic, there was no mildness in JM’s soteric Calvinsim. He believed his Calvinism necessitated LS. While in his ground-breaking and controversial The Gospel According to Jesus he agreed with his opponents that God saves sinners totally by grace through faith in Jesus and that salvation is by grace through faith alone apart from works, he did not agree that you can trust Jesus as Savior without trusting him as Lord. For one thing, you can’t trust a divided Christ. (That’s how the devotionalist A. W. Tozer [not a Calvinist] once put it in his essay “No Saviorhood Without Lordship,”) Jesus is both Savior and Lord, and you can’t divvy up his offices when you receive Him. That would be like saying, “I take this woman to be my wife, but I do not take her to be the mother of my children.” No woman — at least no sensible woman — would tolerate that. Wifehood and motherhood reside in one woman. To take a woman as a wife is to take her as the mother of your children. You can’t have one without the other.

Similarly, you can’t take Jesus as your Savior without taking him as your Lord. The Jesus that saves you is the Jesus who rules you — and the rulership is no less optional than the saviorhood. No sincere Christian would say, “I can have eternal life without Jesus as my Savior.” We know that salvation resides in Jesus alone. But we must with equal force deny this statement: “I can have eternal life without Jesus as my Lord.” No saviorhood without lordship.

Within the Reformed tradition defenders and champions of LS like John Gerstner saw it as a necessary component of their soteric Calvinism. What made JM's public support so unique and vital was that he was speaking from within dispensationalism, which since Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder of Dallas Seminary, had routinely opposed LS. The fact that JM's most vocal detractors at the time were to a man dispensationlists demonstrated how wedded the anti-LS position was to that theological school, and how closely linked the LS position was to historic Calvinism. In my view, JM's gradual drift away from dispensationalism in practice, if not always in theory, started with the LS controversy.

In any case, because of his wide influence, Reformed Baptists both within and outside dispensationalism were persuaded of LS. Today, in fact, there's not much of a controversy at all. There are some dispensationalists left who argue for it, but their voices are fewer and weaker. We largely have JM to thank for the widespread victory of LS.

High Churchmanship

Third, JM got the importance of the church right. I don't mean that he got every aspect of his ecclsiology (doctine of the church) right. As a convenantalist, I hold several objections to his ecclesiology. What I mean, however, is that he got his practical ecclesiology right. In short, he knew how vital the church, the local church, the gathered community, is in God's plan. He was the highest of high churchmen. Today we tend to be confused by that language. We identify “high church” with an exalted of view of a formal liturgy. Anglicanism, for instance, is traditionally divided into high church (Anglo-Catholic), broad church (institutionalism that includes liberals with conservatives), and low church (evangelical).

In my view, it is better to denote by high churchmen those who hold the local church in the highest regard. That certainly describes JM. He pastored Grace Community Church for decades. Although his influence across the country and the world has been extensive, he never became a celebrity jet-setter, but poured his life into that congregation. This church is a megachurch in Southern California, hotbed of megachurches. It is one of the few megachurches in the country, however, that consistently stresses doctrinal precision and theological fidelity. it's one church that has been the opposite of a seeker-sensitive church. JM has led it to be a Savior- sensitive church, a Scripture-sensitive church, and a theology-sensitive church.

Every year thousands flock to his Shepherds Conference, and the title is noteworthy. JM stressed the job of pastor not as dictator or celebrity or administrator, but as shepherd. And he modeled what he preached.

JM launched the Master’s Seminary in 1986, and it has grown to a thriving pastor training center. Its roots are in the old Los Angeles Baptist Theological Seminary started in 1927, but under MacArthur's leadership and direction it is accurate to describe it as a newly formed seminary in the mid-80’s. It is here that pastoral students learn the justification for and methodology of expository, preaching, and Reformed Baptist (and other) pulpits are now filled with biblical expositors precisely because of MacArthur's persistent influence.

JM unquestionably emphasized the individual Christian devotional life and the family, but he was not on the bandwagon for crusade evangelism or “focusing on the family” or Moral Majority or other ministries or emphases that often had only a tangential relationship to the local church. For JM, God’s institutional way of working in the world was by his church, and by that he meant the local, gathered community like Grace Community Church and the many thousands of churches across the U. S. and the world that it inspired.

Conclusion

Soon after his death I read a number of sentiments like, “We will never see another like John MacArthur,” and “He was the last of a breed.” But Christians have been delivering similar verdict for centuries, and God keeps raising up godly, faithful men to influence a new generation. No doubt presently there is a young man in college or seminary, or even a boy in a Christian home, or a child not yet born on whom God will place his hand and his power in an extraordinary way as he did on John MacArthur. God buries his workers, not his work. Still, when I think of MacArthur’s death, I think immediately of John 16:36a in the memorable language of the King James Bible:

For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep…

That's all we can ask of a man of God: that he serve his generation, and fall asleep until the great resurrection morning. Few in our lifetime have done that as demonstrably as John MacArthur.

John MacArthur was right about the Bible. He was right about salvation. And he was right about the church.

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