Theological Objections to Free Grace Theology

Last time we examined the historical case against the free grace position and noted that it represents a recent theological development in history. Today I want to make a few comments regarding the theological/philosophical objections that I have to the system.

Objection #1: The "second blessing" model of salvation promoted by free grace theology. Andy Naselli, in his book Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology, traces the theological roots of the no-lordship position showing how it is part of a tradition that teaches a two-tiered approach to salvation. The website promoting the book distills the thesis of the book as follows:

Keswick theology—one of the most significant strands of second-blessing theology—assumes that Christians experience two “blessings.” The first is getting “saved,” and the second is getting serious. The change is dramatic: from a defeated life to a victorious life, from a lower life to a higher life, from a shallow life to a deeper life, from a fruitless life to a more abundant life, from being “carnal” to being “spiritual,” from merely having Jesus as your Savior to making Jesus your Master. So how do people experience this second blessing? Through surrender and faith: “Let go and let God.”

You can learn more about the book here. Naselli carefully critiques this view of salvation and offers a biblically satisfying alternative. The free grace understanding that there are two "classes" of Christians-- those who are carnal and those who are committed (or those who simply believe and those who are disciples)-- is foreign to Scripture. The Bible only recognizes two categories of people: unbelievers and believers. This is consistent all the from Psalm 1 (those who are "righteous" and those who are "wicked") to Matthew 7 (those who are on the "narrow road" and those who are on the "broad road"). There are not two kinds of Christians, but only one kind-- those who turn from their sin and trust in Christ as their Lord and Savior. And this one kind of Christian stands in stark contrast to the non-Christian individual.

Denny Burk has some good things to say about this issue on his blog.

Objection #2: The many false dichotomies found in free-grace theology. One of the things I have noticed in reading free grace writers is that they often create false dilemmas by insisting that something cannot be both/and but must be either/or. One particular example that comes immediately to mind is the argument (used by free-grace advocates) that salvation cannot be both free to the sinner and yet costly to the sinner.

D.A. Carson, in his book Exegetical Fallacies (a manual of what not to do when interpreting the Bible), discusses a fallacy similar to false dichotomies and points out how frequent Zane Hodges, the late free-grace teacher, commits these. He begins by quoting from Hodges’ book Absolutely Free, where Hodges writes,

“It is an interpretive mistake of the first magnitude to confuse the terms of discipleship with the offer of eternal life…”

Carson comments with these words:

“…Hodges has assumed that there is a disjunction between grace and demand. He never wrestles with the possibility (in my view, the dead certainty) that in spiritual matters grace and demand are not necessarily mutually incompatible: everything depends on their relations, purposes, and functions. The result of the assumed disjunction in Hodge’s thought is not only what is in my judgment a false thesis—that the Bible teaches that a person may be eternally saved even though there is not a scrap of evidence for it in his or her life—but also an array of exegetical and historical judgments that are extremely problematic.” (91-92).

I will write about the historical and biblical connection (that is inseparable!) between belief and discipleship in a later post but for now, note that the heart of the free grace problem is a failure to see that Jesus’ call to discipleship was a call to salvation. Luke 14:25-35 is one place where Jesus calls for people to be His disciples in which nonbelievers are present! It would be unthinkable to imagine that Jesus was calling these unbelieving crowds to follow Him without also calling them to believe in Him. One entails the other. They are not contradictory, contrary to the claims of no-lordship teachers. Furthermore, in our Lord’s Great Commission, He tells us to “preach the Gospel” (Mark 15:16), part of which is to “make disciples…” (Matt. 28:19). The call to preach the Gospel is the call to make disciples. Again, I will have more on this later.

Objection #3. A tendency toward eisegesis. Because free grace proponents have a priori assumptions about the Gospel (assuming that it is simply a call to casually believe, rather than a call to forsake sin and follow Christ), they tend to override any passage of Scripture or verse that seems to teach (or in fact DOES teach!) that perseverance or good works are the inevitable and necessary result of believing. So, for instance, we find Bob Wilkin, a rigorous opponent of Lordship salvation, making the astounding (and novel) claim that when James says that faith without works cannot save (James 2:14-26), he actually means that it can save! James was not speaking of eternal life, Wilkin claims, even though he uses words like “faith,” “save,” “justified,” and others that are found in other NT contexts that clearly speak of eternal salvation! Wilkin and the free grace teachers turn James 2:14-26 on its head in order to maintain their assumption that Christians do not have to persevere in holiness in order to be saved. See Wilkin's article here.

This last point leads naturally to the next, and final one.

Objection #4: A reductionistic understanding of the Gospel. As a result of their presuppositions (mentioned in point 3), the no-lordship teachers often reduce biblical terms and concepts to their bare minimum, leaving out critical elements. For example, when dealing with the word “repentance,” Michael Cocoris is adamant that

“Repentance is a change of mind—period. A change of mind should result in a change in behavior, but the word repent looks at the change of belief, not the change in behavior. Repentance is the root; change in behavior is the fruit.”

Cocoris denies that the word “repentance” (or “repent”) ever should be defined as “a turning from sin,” as the vast majority of commentators and theologians define it. But in so doing, Cocoris is guilty of what has been called “the root fallacy”—defining a word by its root composites (in this case “meta”—meaning “after,” and “noia”—meaning “thought,” thus meaning “to change one’s mind”). Cocoris completely ignores the fact that the Bible distinguishes between true repentance and false repentance (2 Cor. 7:8-10). The former always leads to a change of behavior, while the latter does not. Therefore, to define the term repentance as “a change of mind” and nothing else is misleading. A true change of mind is always expressed in a change of behavior.

Cocoris separates “change of behavior” from “change of mind” and thus presents a partial definition of “repentance” because he does not like the implications. If repent means more than a change of mind—which it surely does—then the requirements of the Gospel are more demanding. This the free-grace proponents simply cannot have. See Cocoris's article here.

I have sought to demonstrate that the theological methods of the no-lordship position are flawed on at least four counts: first, they adopt a two-tiered understanding of salvation; secondly, they introduce various dilemmas and distinctions where none truly exist; thirdly, they often import foreign interpretations into the biblical text; and, lastly, they have a reductionistic understanding of biblical terms and teaching.