Salvation2

     John writes his Gospel to the world for the purpose of telling us how we can know with certainly how to receive everlasting life. The only condition he repeatedly mentions is "believe" used nearly 100 times but mentions repentance "0" that's "zero" times. John's silence tells us that repentance is not a necessary condition for receiving everlasting life.

     In some cases, repentance is the consequence of believing, not the cause. If someone "believes" then he has as a result "changed his mind", that is, repented. It is not necessary to tell an unbeliever to "change his mind" about Christ. If John did not think it was necessary to tell unbelievers that they needed to repent, then who are we to think that we need to do so. It is only necessary to tell the world to "believe" in Christ for everlasting life.

     If "turning from all of your sins" is necessary for salvation, then we are all doomed, for all have sinned, and continue to sin. "If a believer says that he does not sin, he deceives himself, and is not telling the truth" (1 John 1:8). If a saved sinner sins, he then, is to confess his sin, for the forgiveness of sins... which restores his ongoing relationship with God (1:9).

     If a saved sinner wanders from the Lord and walks with the world, he is in serious danger of severe discipline from the Lord. The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness of men regardless of their eternal destiny. God's wrath can take on many forms--sickness, economic ruin, mental stress, even physical death. To avoid God's wrath the sinner must repent of his sins and begin walking in His Spirit. Free Grace Theology pleads no contest. There is a call to repentance, just not a call to repentance accompanied by or an element of faith for everlasting life.

The hell bound sinner is saved and
freed from the penalty of sin. There
are no eternal consequences for violations to the Mosaic Law. Jesus paid the full penalty on the cross, our Redeemer. The sinner saved by free grace is no longer obligated to keep the Mosaic Law. Jesus fulfilled all its obligations. However, the believer is not law-less. Far from being "antinomian" (a theological curse word) there has been a "metatithemi" "a change of law" (Hebrews 7:12). Jesus said, "A new commandment I give you" (John 13:34). Keeping His commandments is what is pleasing in God's sight (1 John 3:22-23). This new law is the royal law of love, the Law of Christ, a perfect law of liberty that those who abide by it will be blessed by what he does (James 1:25), and by which his works will be judged (2:12). If we fulfill the royal law of love, we are doing well (2:8). As a result, the believer cannot sin without impunity. There are still the natural and temporal consequences of sin which everyone experiences. And there still remains a day of judgement in which the believer will have to give an account of his life in Christ. His works of service will be judged, not his person for the believer has already passed from death unto life.

Anti-Workianism - Not only are works not necessary for eternal salvation, but charge that Free Grace theologians teach works are not even necessary in the life of the Christian whatsoever. "Works or fruit are optional in the life of a saved person. There is no eternal value of works. They are only for the purpose of preserving a saved person in his earthly life." Author and speaker, Rob Zins concludes by saying that, "It's is worse than antinomianism", its "antiworkianism".

Opposition to "justification by faith alone", just comes with the territory. The earliest reformers were "anathematized", that is, "accursed" by the Catholic Church of Rome. The deepest pits of hell were reserved for the proponents of "faith alone, in Christ alone". Martin Luther declared the Pope to be the antichrist, and the Pope returned the favor. Opponents of "free grace" have made many false accusations and erroneous assumptions based on flawed conjectures. Some of the indictments are very serious, and "if" true, deserve to be denounced and condemned. To these charges "Free Grace Gospel" believers plead NOT GUILTY!

No Lordship Salvation - is a salvation that accepts Jesus as Savior without yielding to Him as Lord, that is, the Master of one's life. This makes obedience to the Lordship of Christ optional. Philip L. Simpson says Free Grace believes, "One may receive Christ as Savior, yet reject Him as Lord. That is, one may receive Christ by faith alone, yet do so with ongoing rebellion--accepting the gift while shaking a fist at the giver." Modern evangelical methods of evangelism proclaim, "You can accept Christ as Savior now, and later make Him Lord by some decision if ones so chooses or you may opt out."

False Faith - is any kind of faith that does not include repentance (not just a change of mind, but also a determination to turn from sinful behavior), obedience, submission or surrender to the will of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and must also ultimately and inevitably includes good works or demonstrative fruit. The faith that saves is always the kind that results in some form of obedience (though none can agree on the exact elements of obedience that is absolutely necessary). There are many false kinds of faith--dead faith, temporary professions of faith, walk the isle faith, head faith, mere intellectual faith, "believing and really believing", easy-believism.

Easy-Believism - The Free Grace Gospel is "bad news of an insidious easy-believism that makes no moral demands on the lives of sinners." (John MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus, page XII). The FGG makes it too easy for sinners to believe for everlasting life, making it the popular view of contemporary evangelicalism. It's only fashionable in weak times, times of prosperity, good times when the demands on life are not as pressing.

Cheap Grace - is a grace without discipleship. Mercy without accountability. Freedom without holiness. Love without truth. Preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance. Cheap grace takes Christ as Savior, but not as Lord. It diminishes the Gospel. It's a watered down version of true grace. True grace is not cheap, it's free, but it will cost you everything--this is paradoxical.

Well, this is worse than dishonesty. It's true, works are not necessary for receiving everlasting life. Justification is by faith alone! After Paul proves that none are righteous he concludes by saying, "Therefore, by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight..." (Rom. 3:16), "a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law" (3:25), and we all know that, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it (salvation) is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). Faith alone is the only condition for justification before God. That's Good News! That's the "Free Grace Gospel". If works are ultimately necessary for eternal salvation as some kind of post-requisite, or if faith is pregnant with works, necessary for final justification, then that is not good news, that's sad news. And it's a different gospel that Paul preached.

Good works, the fruit of salvation, are not necessary to receive everlasting life, but neither are they optional in the life of the believer. They have both temporal/earthly value AND eternal value, earned through "Costly Growth" for "Exceeding Glory".

Faith's results are immediate and instantaneous, whereas repentance is a lifelong process, necessary for fellowship with God. Faith in Christ is what a sinner must do in order to be saved--receive eternal life, whereas repentance is what a saved sinner needs to do to receive life and harmony with God. Repentance is an action of "Costly Growth", not an act of God's "Free Grace".

The charge of "Easy-believism" is a strawman argument for there is no such thing, and not a single soul teaches it. Instead, the Free Grace Gospel is plain and simple to understand, it's "SIMPLE BELIEVISM". It is simple enough for even a child to understand. John 3:16, the greatest and most familiar salvation passage of all, demonstrates the simplicity of the Free Grace Gospel. It alone contains all that is necessary for anyone to know how to be eternally saved--how to receive the free gift of everlasting life and secure those from perishing eternally. There is nothing insidious, sneaky, stealthy or deceptive about the Free Grace Gospel. It is only insidious to those who insist on imbedding works, repentance, submission, or surrender into the definition of faith. Faith is simple in the Bible. It's nothing more than taking God at his Word. As the saying goes, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it!" True grace is simple, clear, and free! Receive it today!

As the sayings goes, "Nothing is easy" and "Nothing is free", except when God makes it so. You might wonder, if "easy-believism" is so easy to believe, then why do so few actually believe it? The Free Grace Movement is and has always been a minority group. It is truly the narrow way. In fact, the most
popular and seemingly easiest view of
salvation to believe in the world by far is
"works salvation" that is, "hard-believism",
even in contemporary Evangelicalism.

Turning the Table - "Reform" teaching (not to be confused with the great Reformers--Luther and Calvin), "Traditional Protestants" (as some of them would like to be called), "Puritans" (the pure branch of Protestantism), and their modern equivalent, the "Neo-puritans" better know as "Lordship Salvationists" (Though they don't like the label. They do not necessarily disagree with it but embrace it) object to the charge by "Free Gift" advocates, that they are teaching a form of works-righteousness, faith + works. They claim they have been misquoted and misrepresented. They plead NOT Guilty and intensely disagree. "We believe in salvation by "faith alone". Oh, BUT wait a second, "but it is a faith that is not alone." They can argue that they do not teach works-righteousness for two reasons:

1) Salvation is a sovereign work of God, and not a human endeavor in any sense. Seeking God, faith in God, repentance from sin, good works, and obedience to His commands, submission to the Lordship of Christ, sanctification and glorification are all the work of God. Man does nothing, and God gets all the glory. The saved just goes along for the ride. God begins the work, and what God starts, He finishes. God cannot fail. Good works, the fruit of salvation and continuous faith are the necessary inevitable outcome of believing, the outward evidence that the true believer is saved. So, since salvation is solely the work of God they can say that it is by faith alone and not by human works.

     An interesting twist is that Reform teachers steeped in Calvinism say that faith alone advocates actually teach salvation by works. How? Because FG teachers say that faith itself is not the gift of God, they make faith itself wholly a human work, self-generated by man.

     True, faith is something the man does. A passive activity or work of the mind. Believing is the only work of God that man works, that endures to eternal life (Jn. 6:27-29). The Father's command to believe in His Son, Jesus Christ (1 Jn. 3:23) is the only act of obedience that is required, as the means of receiving eternal life.

     Man's faith itself is not a gift that must be given by God, so that he can believe. Faith is a God given ability that every person possesses. Every person has the ability to believe or not to believe. Man can believe. He may be willing, or he may not be willing to believe (Mt. 23:37). No man seeks after God, but this does not mean that man is unable to respond to God's seeking. We affirm total depravity, but not total inability, otherwise how can God find man accountable for not believing. Total inability makes God cruel and unjust for demanding faith that is impossible.

2) Playing word games by not calling the necessary and inevitable requirements for salvation, such as works, repentance, etc. "conditions", but soften the terms and prefer to call them "elements" or "components", "parts" of saving faith. Sinners are not saved by "works", but "works" are absolutely necessary elements and the unescapable outcome of saving faith. Human actions must "accompany" faith. This certainly sounds like works-righteousness, and they know it does. In the end, they completely redefine saving faith and works.

Second, there is a big difference between believing that Jesus is LORD, and then making Jesus Lord "Master" of your entire life or submitting to Jesus' "Lordship" of your life. Learning submission is a process of "Costly Growth" (see 1 Peter 2-3), not a part, an element or component of "Free Grace". Even Jesus had to learn submission (Heb. 5:8). As LORD of the universe, prior to his incarnation and emptying of Himself, He knew nothing of submission.

Is true grace really paradoxical, or is it an inconsistent contradiction, or worse, an absurdity? True grace is truly FREE, period, with no strings attached. No ifs, ands and buts. Salvation by grace is free to us because Christ paid the full price to purchase it for us. We do not receive God's gift of salvation at a discount. There is simply no need to commit ourselves to following Christ in order to receive eternal life or to retain salvation (Eph. 2:8-9).

Grace salvation is free. Discipleship requires a lot of work. Free Grace and Costly Growth do not mix. The "Free Grace Gospel" does not confuse justification (a legal declaration of righteousness), with sanctification (the practical outworking of righteousness). The FGG does not confuse one's position with one's practice. And grace that is costly and not truly free is nothing less than "Fake Grace".

Those who add elements to faith alone are attempting to improve on God's Word. They think that the quality of people in our churches is low. They are convinced God wants church people to live holier lives than they are living. So their solution is to make it harder to get into the church. Raise the bar. Raise the entrance requirements. However, their solution produces the opposite effect creating uncertainty, doubt, dread, despair, and dropout--the very definition and byproduct of postmodern thinking. Doubt about salvation undermines the intended effects of God's grace and the motivation to produce good works.

Neo-puritans see different kinds of faith in the Bible and in the lives of church going people. But the Bible knows nothing of these faiths. It only knows of believing and not believing, believers and unbelievers. Sinners are saved not by the kind of faith they possess, the intensity of their faith, or how emotional "heartfelt" that faith appears. The object of faith, with whom they place their faith in. Faith alone in Christ alone!

Lordship Salvation is divided by what it produces and what it will not fail to produce.

The Scriptures were not originally written in King James English. The OT was original written in Hebrew and the NT written in Greek and then some 1500 years later translated into English. The English word "Lord" has the connotation of someone who rules. It is translated from the Greek word "Kurios" and the Hebrew word "Yahweh", meaning "I am". When the OT was translated into Greek, called the Septuagint, in the mid third century BCE, the translators used "Kurios" or "LORD" in the place of "Yahweh". So, to declare Jesus as Lord, one is agreeing that Jesus is "Yahweh", the name of God in the OT. This was especially significant for any Jew to acknowledge, and critically important for any Gentiles as well.

What is Lordship Salvation?

It is the view that a commitment to obedience in our daily lives must be a part, element or component of spiritual conversion. Submission to the Lord must accompany faith in Christ, otherwise, it is not true faith. True faith is the kind of faith that must result in some form of outward obedience. Like works of repentance, submission to the Lordship of Christ is the inevitable and necessary outcome of saving faith itself.

The Reformed minded, the Puritans of the past, and the Lordship Salvationist of today (Neo-puritans) say, "there is no salvation except "Lordship Salvation", receiving Jesus as Lord and Master of one's life. Before an unbeliever can accept Christ, he must first count the cost of submission to the LORD. In addition, real salvation cannot and will not fail to produce works of righteousness in the life of the confessing believer. If a disciple fails in this requirement, salvation was never in his possession.

By believing in Jesus, who is Christ the Lord, is at the same time obeying the command of the Father to believe in His Son (1 Jn. 3:23), this is "doing the will of the Father" (Mt. 7:21). This is the one and only work of God that man works, that results in everlasting life (Jn. 6:29). So, he who believes in Him who He has sent, and he who believes has everlasting life (6:29, 47). In this sense, everyone is required to submit to the command of the Father and the Son to believe. This is the one and only act of submission that is necessary to receive the free gift of everlasting life. Subsequent acts of submission are learned through the process of "Costly Growth" for the purpose of receiving the fullness of everlasting life, the salvation of the soul.

Zane Hodges replies to lordship salvation
by saying, "Submission to His Lordship in our
daily lives is only a command a born-again
Christian can truly carry out. No unsaved
sinner can possibly respond appropriately to
the lordship of Christ. The capacity to do so is
not within one until the rebirth. Only after
at one's birth does one receive the full range
of capabilities needed for Christian submission
and obedience... It is one to illusions of lordship thought that unsaved people can offer God any kind of submission... only the submission of a redeemed heart is fully acceptable to God. But unsaved people have nothing to offer" (A Reply to Lordship Salvation, Absolutely Free, p. 171-172)

Paul's response, "Certainly not!" Paul tells believers to present themselves slaves to obedience that leads to practical righteousness (6:16). Paul tells Titus, "I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men" (Titus 3:8). Paul tells Timothy, "…discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness... godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come" (1 Timothy 4:7-8).

Our good works cannot profit us eternal life, but good works do profit in the quality of our present life and even much more in the future. Those who diligently add to their faith, an abundant entrance will be supplied to them into the everlasting Kingdom (2 Pt. 1:5-10). Good works are not optional, but absolutely necessary for having an abundant eternal life.