In Defense of Lonnie Frisbee’s Salvation; In Defense of Salvation for All

I was planning on writing a blog post on what death is; what Incarnation Anyway entails; and life everlasting. But for lack of energy, and time at the moment, I am going to simply post three separate Facebook/Twitter posts I just posted; as you’ll see they are thematically related. It was really prompted by a video I just watched made by Lonnie Frisbie’s best friend. If you don’t know, Frisbee was the catalyst that started the ‘Jesus People’ movement with Pastor Chuck Smith at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa back in the late 60s early 70s. As an aside: I attended Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa from 95-98 (would go five times a week), and also did one year at Calvary Chapel Bible College. I was just reading the Twitter noise about the recently released movie: ‘The Jesus Revolution,’ which features the story of Frisbee, Chuck Smith, and the beginnings of Calvary Chapel. There has been some legalistic and underinformed reference to Lonnie Frisbee, and the way he died (of AIDS as a result of homosexual experimentation he engaged in). So, that’s the context and impetus behind this vignette of postings.

This first one was in response to the following Tweet (I’ll leave its author anonymous):

“What would a movie telling the whole true story of Lonnie Frisbee look like? It wouldn’t look pretty. It wouldn’t have a happy ending. It definitely wouldn’t be rated PG-13. And it definitely wouldn’t pull in $ 15 million on opening weekend. ”

Me in response: It would look like the thief dying on the cross to whom Jesus said “today you will be with me in paradise.” Lonnie died in repentance; and even if he hadn’t he would’ve been saved. Not because of what he had done, or not done, but because of what Christ has done for him. I’m not a promoter of the theology he followed, or anything like that. But at the end of the day Lonnie trusted Christ for Christ’s eternal life for him. He died in that hope, and thus into the joy of the Lord forevermore.

And now the rest of the posts that were really subtweeting, thematically, the above:

1. The Gospel is not nomist. IOW, it is not Law based, it is triune God based; which is to say: grace based in Jesus Christ. When people pretend like the juridical religions of Calvinism and Arminianism have no real life effect, they fail to grasp the basis of the Gospel itself. You get a Law based Gospel when you start with a Law based notion of God. When you get God wrong from the get-go, everything else that outflows from there is skewed just the same. God is not the big teddy bear in the sky, but He’s not merely the Judge either. Indeed, God is the Judge judged! Think about that when thinking out the implications of the Gospel; it might well save your life (pun intended). It is better to start where Jesus starts with God, as Son of the Father; thus, informing us, that the Father is Father of the Son by the bond of the Holy Spirit. We have a Father-Son-Holy Spirit God who has freely elected all of humanity for Himself; He’s jealous that way.

2. I have a propensity, I’ve noticed, to defend sinners when they die; even in their sins. I’m referring to people who had already come to Christ at some point, and because of varying circumstances “fell off the wagon.” They became bruised reeds. Those in fact are the elect of God. I have this propensity because I’m under no delusion that if they aren’t saved then neither am I; and thus the Gospel has failed to be Good News, it simply became a mask for the Law without Christ (a Judaizing gospel).

3. The One who performed the Gospel, and continues to, is the One who in His triune person is the Gospel; that is, Jesus Christ. We don’t perform anything for our salvation; salvation is the gift of God’s life for all of humanity, especially the sick and disgusting people.

Athanasian Reformed