John Fullerton MacArthur, Jr. (1939-2025) passed on to his eternal reward on July 14, 2025. Since 1969, he was pastor of Grace Community Church, a nondenominational church in Sun Valley, California. During his 56-year pastorate, preaching five times a week, always in a coat and tie, his expository sermons resulted in exponential growth into a certifiable megachurch of thousands of members.
MacArthur, the son of Baptist radio preacher Jack MacArthur, and from a five-generation preacher family, became a pioneer in radio ministry and in tape cassettes of his sermons being distributed across America and internationally.
MacArthur wrote, or edited, over 150 books as well as producing the MacArthur Study Bible, which has sold over 1 million copies. (It is, along with the Criswell Study Bible, the study Bible that has been most used by me in sermon preparation over the many years of my ministry.)
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I first became aware of MacArthur’s ministry upon my return from doctoral studies in Oxford, England, in 1975. I became a professor at Criswell College in Dallas, Texas, and a colleague shared some cassette tapes of a series of John’s sermons with me. I was tremendously impressed with his strong polemical and exegetical gifts. As Franklin Graham observed, “He could get more out of a Bible verse than anyone I’ve ever seen.” John Piper, also a gifted pulpiteer and theologian, stated, “I simply stood in awe of what he could do in the pulpit with a passage of Scripture.”
I attended several of his Shepherd’s Conferences hosted by his church in the late 1970s and in the early 1980s. During that time, my wife would often come into the bathroom as I was listening to John preach on tape while I was shaving, and she would say, “Good morning, Richard! Good morning, John!”
John MacArthur’s enormous impact on American Christianity and beyond was driven by his extraordinary giftedness and fidelity to preaching what he fervently believed was the unadulterated Word of God.
He was absolutely committed to preaching expositionally, sharing verse by verse God’s revelation to man in the inerrant, infallible Word of God.
On June 5, 2011, John MacArthur completed a self-confessed “life goal” of finishing a 42-year-long sermon series encompassing the entirety of the New Testament. And when people heard John MacArthur preach, they did not leave in any doubt about where John stood on any given issue and where he fervently believed you should stand as well. As Al Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, observed, “Evangelicalism is a pulpit-driven movement, and John has driven the most influential pulpit in Evangelical Christianity for more than half a century.”
In many ways, it is surprising that John MacArthur came to prominence in Southern California, one of the epicenters of cultural liberalism in America. MacArthur’s legacy will be carried forward by the Master’s University (formerly Los Angeles Baptist College) and the Master’s Seminary (combined enrollment approximately 2,700), as well as by his numerous publications and sermon broadcasting ministry.
Given the thousands of ministers who have been impacted by John MacArthur’s sermon ministry over approximately three generations, a strong case could be made that John MacArthur has been the most influential Evangelical preacher since Billy Graham.
Being such a strong pulpit presence and possessing strong, uncompromising convictions, John MacArthur was controversial, a “Fiery Preacher and Culture Warrior,” as The New York Times described him.
As I related earlier, I was close to John in my early ministry (1975-1985) when he was still more influenced by his Baptist background. MacArthur became more stridently “reformed” in his Christian doctrine as his ministry progressed. He was the somewhat unusual combination of a strong Calvinist who was also a dispensational premillennialist. I agreed with his premillennialism, but did not agree with his five-point Calvinism.
The simplistic summary of Calvinism is the T.U.L.I.P. (T.=Total Depravity; U.=Unconditional Election; L.=Limited Atonement; I.=Irresistible Grace; P.=Perseverance of the Saints). While MacArthur increasingly embraced all five points, I remained about a “3¼ point Calvinist” (¾ of Total Depravity; ¾ of Unconditional Election; 0 of Limited Atonement; ¾ of Irresistible Grace; and all of Perseverance of the Saints). More about this next week.
As John MacArthur’s ministry progressed across the latter decades of the 20th and the first decades of the 21st century, he appeared to become more rigid in where he drew the lines concerning acceptable doctrine. For instance, he came to believe that Pentecostalism was in error for not accepting “cessationism,” the belief that the extraordinary manifestation of the Holy Spirit conferring gifts like “prophecy” and “sign gifts” ceased with the end of the Apostolic Age and the completion of the New Testament canon. This led him to conclude that the modern charismatic movement was in serious error. This culminated in Grace Community Church hosting a “Strange Fire” Conference, followed by a book, Strange Fire, which implied “continualationists,” as opposed to “cessationists,” were verging on being beyond the pale as a cult. While I do not accept Pentecostal theology, I do not believe their theology puts them beyond the borders of orthodox Christianity.
MacArthur’s view that “[t]he Charismatic movement has stolen the Holy Spirit and created a golden calf, and they’re dancing around the golden calf as if it were the Holy Spirit,” in my opinion, is too harsh. Doctrinal error is most often doctrinal error, not heresy.
Similarly, in his strong emphasis on the Reformation doctrine that “salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone,” MacArthur questioned whether people in faith traditions that took a view that works were a necessary evidence of faith were not preaching the Gospel.
Once again, I take a broader view. I certainly believe that people must trust Jesus and His death on the Cross and His Resurrection for their personal salvation. I also believe Romans 10:9, which says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” My theology and my experience have convinced me, for instance, that many devout Roman Catholics and Pentecostals meet the standard of Romans 10:9, and some Baptists don’t.
Also, MacArthur became what The New York Times identified as a “Culture Warrior” over the decades, as he opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage. However, earlier in his ministry, he expressed doubt about whether Christians should be significantly involved in public policy, as opposed to focusing on missions and evangelism.
On the other hand, I was involved with the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in urging Christians to get involved as salt and light (Matt. 5:13-16) in public policy. For example, when then-Vice President Al Gore was attempting to expunge all overtly evangelistic religious programming from radio and television, I had the opportunity to tell John personally, “John, they are trying to take you off the airwaves. It is because of people like me who are doing public policy that Vice President Gore won’t be successful.” Whether I convinced him or not, he became much more the cultural warrior in subsequent years.
I cannot begin to express my gratitude for John MacArthur, his dedication, his giftedness, and his devotion to our Lord and Savior. We had our disagreements. I would have chosen to worship in a Baptist church had I lived in his neighborhood in Southern California, rather than Grace Community Church. However, I would have been glad to have him as a neighbor pastor and as co-belligerent in contending for the Gospel.
Thank you, John, for being faithful. I am grateful you have entered eternity. Every time I listen to one of your sermons or read one of your books, I will think of the words of your hero and example, the Apostle Paul:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” (II Timothy 4:7-8)
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
