I think I may confidently state that there is no one affiliated with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals who takes a stand against the basic ideas of lordship salvation.  That is, we firmly assert that one must have Jesus as Lord in order to have Him as Savior.  The New Testament could not possibly be clearer on this matter -- see Luke 9:23-24, Ephesians 2:10, Romans 8:3-4, just for starters.  We are saved by grace alone through faith alone apart from works.  But we are saved to do good works, so that a professing believer who bears no fruit has no biblical grounds to hope for salvation.  "We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves never is alone."  Here is how we properly relate Paul's teaching on justification and James' teaching.  Paul insists that works are joined to faith but not to justification.  That is, to summarize Galatians, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Gal. 3:11), and “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6).  Faith in Christ alone justifies, but that faith works through love.  Therefore, while Paul asserts that we are justified by a living faith alone, James denies that we are justified by a dead faith.  Paul's affirmation and James' denial go hand in hand to present justification by faith alone, which faith always works. 
 
A good book to read on this is Dr. James Boice's Christ's Call to Discipleship.  That book really was his response to the denials of “Lordship Salvation.”  It is not by chance that John MacArthur wrote the preface to that book and that Boice wrote the preface to MacArthur's The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.  

Rev. Richard Phillips is the chair of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology and senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church Coral Springs, Margate, Florida.

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