The Hungry Inherit is the title of one of Zane Hodges’ earlier books. In this book Hodges sets forth the position that in Jesus’ parable of the Sower (Matt. 13:3-9), all of the soils except the first soil represent saved individuals. This view is quite consistent with Hodge’s teaching that a person can have eternal life but not evidence it in any way. Hodges thus teaches that a saved person can be totally worldly (thorny ground) and a saved person may believe only for a time, have no root, and then fall away (stony ground).  In either case, there is no fruit.

It is interesting to contrast Hodges’ position with that of the Free Will Baptists. The Free Will Baptist position is that a true believer may depart from the faith and be lost forever. Hodges position is that a true believer may depart from the faith and be saved forever. The teaching of the Word of God is that a true believer’s faith will not fail because of the intercessory ministry of Christ (Luke 22:31-32; John 17) and the keeping power of God (1 Pet. 1:5). God’s Word teaches that a true believer may have a very serious lapse of faith (as Peter did) but not a total departure from the Lord, because "we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul" (Heb. 10:39). Every believer is on the ship of faith, as it were. We may fall down on the deck and we may fall very hard, but we will never fall overboard. Our faith will never fail in a final way because we have the blessed intercessory ministry of our Saviour on our behalf, as did Peter (Luke 22:31-32). The Lord prays for us, as He did for Peter, that our faith will not fail!

Manfred Kober, former professor at Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Iowa, wrote an excellent paper on the Lordship salvation issue In this paper, on page 25, he gives the following helpful formulas showing the relationship between faith and good works:

First of all we have the error of legalism (including Lordship salvation legalism):

GRACE + FAITH + WORKS = SALVATION

Second we have the Biblical teaching of Ephesians 2:8-10:

GRACE + FAITH = SALVATION + WORKS

Let’s now apply Kober’s charts to the teachings of Hodges and Dillow: