Bilateral Contract Salvation, most commonly known as "Lordship Salvation" is the false doctrine whereby God offers a lost sinner the promise of eternal life in exchange for a lost sinner's promise of future works.  It is thereby an exchange of promises, or a bilateral contract.  Because the controverys of Bilateral Contract Salvation developed more slowly than the question of other works of man commonly required witihin religion for man's eternal salvation, advocates of "Lordship" or Bilateral Contract Salvation are embedded within the framework of evangelicalism, and generally regarded as a different "flavor" of the evangelical faith.

Ultimately, however, there is no theological distinction between corrupt systems of theology that require works, such as water baptism, to be performed prior to gaining salvation, and corrupt theological systems that require the promise of future works in exchange for salvation.  Any gospel presentation that makes, as a requirement for gaining eternal salvation, repentance from one's sins, committing one's life to Christ, making Christ the "Lord" (master) of one's life, becoming a disciple of Christ, and other equivalent statements that require a promise of future behavior (Romans 5:8; Titus 3:5), is heresy.

Although there is no limit to the number of passages of Scripture that have been twisted to require every conceivable work of man as a prerequisite for receiving God's eternal salvation, there are three terms most commonly asserted as demonstrating the tenets of Lordship Salvation:

a)                  Lord          In the time of Christ, the term Kurios (Lord) could variously mean "God," "master," or "Sir" depending on the context of usage.  Within "salvation formulas" within Scripture (passages that declare, prima facie, what one must do or believe to be saved), the divinity of Jesus is repeatedly presented as an essential element of saving faith.  (John 8:25-27, 8:23-24, 11:25-27, 20:31; Acts 9:20, 16:30-31; and 1st John 5:13).  The fundamental goal of a physicist is to generate generalizations which remain true under diverse circumstances.  If they can do so, they are called "laws of nature."  The fundamental goal of the theologian is to generate generalizations which are consistent across a spectrum of teachings within Scripture.  If they stand up to that test, the are called "doctrines."  The fact that the divinity of Jesus is explicitly identified as an element of saving faith throughout Scripture should inform a theologian as to a logical interpretation of the term "Lord" in conjunction with eternal salvation.  And the existence of over 160 verses of Scripture that declare salvation is by faith alone, and countless verses that further declare that salvation is not by the works of the law, should further inform even the most callow theologian that the call to obedience is expressly not a demand placed on man in exchange for eternal life.  To interpret the word "Kurios" (Lord) as a call to obedience in exchange for the promise of eternal life is therefore to utterly fail as a theologian!  To The use of the term Kurios in conjunction with man's salvation is plainly a call to man to honor Christ as his Creator.

b)                  Repentance  The extant Greek literature plainly demonstrates that the Greek verb "metanoeo" and the noun "metanoia" are simply a change of mind.  This change of mind can take virtually any object, as evidenced both by Scripture, and by extant Greek literature.  Sin can be the object of repentance, but there is no basis in the Greek language for understanding "sin" to be the necessary or intrinsic object of repentance.  Moreover, no passage of that identifis sin as the object of repentance also identifies the consequence of that repentance as eternal salvation.  And no passage of identifying repentance as a requirement for eternal salvation ever identifies sin as the object of that repentance.  The discussion of repentance is thoroughly examined beginning at the following link:  http://www.cleargospel.org/topics.php?t_id=27

In passages dealing with eternal life, repentance is used in a sense that is equivalent to believing on Christ alone, which, within the witness of the New Testament, has the reasonable scope of:

i)       rejecting other gods (Acts 17:22-30), thereby affirming our Triune God as the only true God;

ii)             rejecting as the means for salvation all other vehicles, such as religion (Matthew 3:5-9), sacraments, animal sacrifice or religious ritual al or sacerdotal functions good works, animal sacrifice, religion, or religious rituals (Hebrews 6:1 [c.f. Hebrews 9:9-14]), or salvation by obedience to the ten commandments (Luke 13:1-5), thereby affirming Jesus as the only means by which men must be saved; and

iii)           evaluating the person and work of Christ and turning to Him in faith (Luke 24:47, Acts 26:20).

"Sin" is never described as the object of repentance unto eternal salvation.

c)    Disciple:    The litany of verses in Scripture could be examined to demonstrate that discipleship is not a condition for salvation.  But after examining these verses, those committed to salvation-by-works will simply amble off to some other passage where God places demands on mankind.  The fact that God calls us to discipleship is in no way a proof that the call to discipleship is a requirement for salvation.

In any form, the logic behind this statement is equivalent to asserting:  "The city forbids spitting on the grass.  If you spit on the grass, you will receive the death sentence."  Although some poor fellow may have recently read an article on capital punishment and may be traumatized by the spector of this punishment looming over the head of every citizen of the land does not make is conclusion about spitting on the grass a rational one.  All it really demonstrates is his pathological obsession with the death penalty.  It has well been said, "To a man with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail."

Some years ago, I sat in a coffee house debating the question of evolution.  I asked him:  "Can you offer me one single piece of evidence for evolution?"  Without a moment's hesitation, the poor dim wit responded:  "DNA."  Surely the complexity of DNA is evidence of a supremely intelligent Creator.  But notwithstanding this argument against evolution, until some particular component of DNA is discussed (such as its complexity), the very presence of DNA is neither an argument for evolution, nor an argument against evolution.  It is simply a bare fact.  He could offer no logical sylogism to demonstrate why the mere existence of DNA supported the evolutionary hypothesis over the theory of creation.   The next "evidence" cited for evolution was the diversity of life in this world.  What this this poor simpleton failed to understand is that these same facts equally pointed to a Creator.  And when the fossin "gaps" within that great diversity, or the mathematical complexity of DNA are considered, these little nuggets point decidedly away from the evolutionary hypothesis.   When one believes that all life evolved, the mere presence of life is viewed as evidence for evolution!

The same confusion in logic is evidenced in almost every writing or debate one sees by a "Contract" or "Lordship" Salvationist.  They will produce a great litany of different verses of Scripture in which God demands holiness, sacrifice, humility, love, or some other manifestation of obedience in His Creatures.  But this alone proves nothing.  To serve as evidence for "Lordship" salvation, or any other form of salvation by works, some statemnt in the context of these demands must state that eternal salvation is conditioned on the promise, or the performance of these demands.  The fact that some passages of Scripture speak of God's eternal salvation, and other passages of Scripture speak of God's offer of eternal life, does not mean that they are interlated!  Simply being between two covers of the same volume does not constitute a logical sylogism. 

The only persons persuaded by this line of argumentation are those who already believe that good works are necessary for salvation, or those who are incapable of logic.