News broke overnight that John MacArthur has died. He was pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California.
MacArthur was perhaps most known in recent years for two major controversies, first there were question marks about significant pastoral and church discipline issues in his church, second his resistance to Covid restrictions. I’ve written about both issues previously on this site.
Charismatic Christians may not know so much of him except that he was a prominent critic of the movement. We may do well to listen to some of those criticisms without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
What many may not have picked up on was that MacArthur was at heart a Bible expositor, fearless in his commitment to opening up God’s Word, both in the pulpit and in writing. Many Christians around the world are thankful both for the content of his preaching and the model he set as an example to others.
We can also be thankful for his insistence that salvation is about Jesus both as saviour and Lord, that there is both grace and repentance. He has been attacked for this “Lordship Salvation” as though he taught works. However this misses the point that he has in his sights those who preach a two tier Christianity.
There are some great things to remember and give thanks to God for in regards to his life. There are also things to grieve us. His approach to Covid seemed to come across as harsh at times, as much to his fellow Christians as to the state. Disagreement could have been done better with more evidence of grace.
I say this not least because of the grace shown to him by many when he got into an appalling mess over the eternal sonship of Jesus. Whilst he changed his position to an Orthodox view, I’m not convinced that the seriousness of error was fully addressed.
MacArthur was very much a marmite figure, lionized as a hero by his admirers, demonized by his opponents. I don’t tend to revisit the issues involved except to note that the demonization perhaps reflected and reacted to the way that he was lionised. He seemed to attract quite a passionate, loyal following and I think this meant a couple of things.
First, there seemed to be an unwillingness to acknowledge that he could get things wrong. This meant that the Eternal or Incarnational Sonship controversy was downplayed. We cannot state how serious the error was nor ignore that it happened not when he was young, fresh, naive and obscure but was present in his teaching at a stage when he already had a major platform.
Then it seemed that he became infallible, so those actions in relation to church discipline and covid were treated as unquestionable and those who did challenge were berated and even accused of making up false accusation. I wonder to what extent this reflected a situation where people became over dependent on one man and his reputation. I note that Grace To You insists that it will continue only to broadcast and publish MacArthur. I also can’t help thinking that his continuation as senior pastor at his church into his 80s reflected and created weakness. It meant that bad decisions were covered by celebrity leadership and so it was impossible to ensure accountability.
It is the world’s way to paint cartoon pictures of people, living or dead, to present them either as angels or demons. Surely our assessment needs to be better than that. We can recognise the gifts a brother brought to the church whilst not whitewashing over the flaws. Macarthur’s ministry was known as Grace to You. This reminds us that all of us, MacArthur included are sinners saved by grace.
Faithroots 
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