The Doctrinal View of Max Lucado.

Max Lucado Views on Baptism.

Lucado's church is Church of Christ -- but not a typical Church of Christ. For starters, musical instruments are used (although there is still one a cappella service). Also, the church has a baptistic view of baptism -- that is, that baptism isn't required for salvation.

"We never taught -- the buzzphrase is baptismal regeneration, where you go into the baptistery lost and come out saved. We never taught that. Now, I'm not saying there were not people in our church who believed that....

Baptist Press: You preached a sermon in the mid-’90s about baptism. What led you to preach that?"(The sermon, available on the church's website, explained Oak Hills' understanding of the role of baptism.)

Lucado: "I think our church just felt like we needed to have a clearer stand. There are those who have taught that baptism is necessary for salvation, as if baptism adds to the finished work of Christ. We have felt that baptism is necessary for obedience, but that baptism doesn't add to what Christ does for us in the cross, and doesn't add to what a person receives by faith."

Max Lucado Repentance On Good Works

Baptist Press: Have you ever changed your position on this?

Lucado: "I think I can say I have changed my position. I think when I was a missionary in Brazil, I came to a better understanding of grace that I didn't have before I went to Brazil. There was some latent legalism in me -- and there probably still is -- that I found when I was in Brazil. When we were in Brazil, our little church wouldn't grow. We thought, 'Why won't it grow?' So we started studying the Gospel, and I personally found out that I was kind of overlaying the Gospel with regulations and rules. And so I repented of that, and we began teaching the Gospel. Then, the church had its own mini-revival. It was a wonderful experience for me. I can say that in my own life, I have gone through a personal discovery of grace."

Max Lucado views on Eternal Security

Baptist Press: Does your church hold to a Church of Christ view of eternal security?

Lucado: "I don't. Now, this is an ongoing conversation in our church. I believe that if a person is genuinely saved they're eternally saved, and that the work of the Holy Spirit -- Ephesians 1:13, 'When you believed you were sealed with the Spirit' -- that sealing is effective and eternal. If a person is genuinely saved, then nobody can snatch them out of the Father's hands. That's a discovery that I have made in the last decade or so that I don't think I embraced early on. But when you discover that salvation belongs to the Lord and doesn't belong to you, that is good news.

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