The Protestant Denial of Sola Gratia

This was addressed to Steve, but I couldn't resist comment. I know Steve can hold his own, but this is just one of my pet peeves. I posted an article on this theology a few weeks ago in a thread that published Jim Eliff's article "Southern Baptists An Unregenerate Denomination." I have watched the SBC and many independent churches fill the pews with unregenerate souls and bloat membership rolls for years now. So you should be able to figure out exactly what I think when I see this:

So Free Grace is Marcionism. Hmmmm.

Free Grace is the belief that those things that are essential to successfully living the Christian life can be distinguished from the offer of eternal life.

We think this is valid because the NT writers never blur the distinction between following Christ and receiving eternal life/being justified before God's legal bar of justice.

We accept and proclaim everything good coming out of the incarnation but we correlate and distingush those things that are correlated and distinguished by the NT writers.

The offer of eternal life is not a bulletin board for everything urgent in Christian theology. We proclaim the whole canon. The Free Grace enterprise insists that there is nothing free about discipleship and to mingle it with what is free inexorably dismisses the power given it by the NT wriers.

# posted by H K Flynn : 2/13/2006 10:36 PM http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6789188&postID=113967719173577570

This is so basic. Let's put this together for H K Flynn, and let's not mince words.

"Free Grace" is a denial, not an affirmation of Sola Gratia.

On the "Free Grace" view, regeneration and election are both put outside, not inside the work of the Holy Spirit. In Calvinism we believe because we are born again and no other reason (1 John 5:1). We persevere, again because we are born again. We repent, because we are born again. We commit our lives to Christ because we are born again. We obey Christ because we are born again. The Spirit's work lies directly behind each of these. They do not arise from a state of (fallen) nature. They arise as the result of His work and all in conjunction with the gospel and the Word of God itself.

Ergo, we do not apostatize from the faith. We can backslide, but we do not apostatize. Let's not forget here that the definition of "eternal security" in Free Grace theology is "If you have at any time in the past made a commitment to Christ, you are saved." Can an unbeliever apostatize from the faith completely? The Free Grace position says "Yes." Reformed theology says "No."

R.B.C. Howell, the 2nd president of the SBC defined apostasy as the embracing of 3 evils: repudiation of the evangelical doctrine (the gospel); a gradual (if not radical) decline in morality; and a loss of spirituality of mind (conviction of sin, interest in spriitual things, love for the brethren, etc). Backsliding encompasses only one, maybe two , but not all three. Apostasy embraces all three. If a man apostatizes, he was not regenerate from the start. We cannot, of a certainty, know of another man's state in this respect, but the Free Grace position affirms the security of the believer in such a way that a man can apostatize and still be counted of the brethren. It conflates a credible profession of faith, which is what Baptists require for baptism, with a saving profession of faith and couples this with an affirmation of the security of the believer that denies the reality of spurious faith and the inevitable necessity of some degree of sanctification.

It doesn't end there, either. Oh no. This is typically what passes for soteriology in conservative/fundamental Baptist circles. Baptist ecclesiology proceeds from the notion of a regenerate church membership...not merely the universal church, but the local church as well. Free Grace Theology has conflated a saving profession of faith with a credible profession of faith. Baptists require a credible profession of faith for baptism (John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology Chapter 12, Treatise on Church Order).

Free Grace theology merely assumes these are all saving professions of faith. It is one thing to give your baptismal candidates the benefit of the doubt and mistakenly allow unregenerates into the local assembly as members. That's why a 100 percent regenerate membership is an ideal. Believer's baptism is a control, but it is not infallible.

However, the Free Grace Theology amounts to Campbellite ecclesiology without baptismal regeneration, for, if you "pray that prayer and really really mean it" and "make that decision to ask Jesus in your heart to your Lord n' Savior" (even if it is the fifteenth time you've done it...you just really really mean it this time), you can be validly baptized, and you can be a full member. These f0lks don't want to be Campellites. (God forbid they believe baptismal regeneration), but they want to be sure they have a regenerate church membership, so they turn the sinner's prayer into a sacramental prayer that functions in the same way. Presto! You get a big church with big numbers and a soteriology that says that if they apostatize, they're still considered true converts, and a sacramental prayer and an invitation have become your new sacraments.

There's a reason we call this "Easy believism." There's a reason we call this a "dispensational soteriological innovation."

It is the Free Grace Theology that bloats the membership rolls.

It is the Free Grace Theology that results in churches with 29,000 members but only 9000 or less show up on any given Sunday morning, 1/3 of which are visitors.

It is the Free Grace Theology that gives us Pastor's Conferences that are full of men who pat themselves proudly on the back for their inflated numbers without regard to the church members they actually cultivate and then get snippy when you bring up that issue.

It's Free Grace Theology that gives us an SBC President that spends 2 years touring the nation promoting a baptismal program we affectionately call "The Million Man Dunk."

So, not only is the gospel reduced and redefined, a new sacrament is invented, the ecclesiological value of a regenerate church membership is diminished, and the ordinance of baptism is trivialized. I wonder also how many have taken the Lord's Supper to their condemnation to boot.

This isn't the gospel of the Protestant Reformation. This isn't the gospel of the Bible. Arminians wonder at this. You know, I actually have Arminian friends that call this Pelagian. You have to be pretty far out there for that to happen if you ask me.

I'd add that this is the Campbellite Movement all over again. Honestly, I'm surprised nobody has really noticed that yet. The sinner's prayer has replaced baptism. All baptisms are valid and the membership is, at least at the conceptual level, considered regenerate, since all the elect are preserved but all the elect do not also persevere. Add a dose of Keswick spirituality to make sanctification a second blessing, and you have a modified form of the old restoration movement.

How does this do this you ask? Well, the logic works something like this:

The Free Grace position's definition of saving faith is exactly that of Arminian theology, it just waters it down to assent to some facts about Jesus. It's removal of the "fiducia" component of "noticia, assensus, fiducia" plus a removal of prevenient grace.. The problem of course, is that it is less Arminian than Arminianism, and that’s not a compliment.

For one thing, in Arminianism you have a doctrine of prevenient grace. Depending on what strand of Arminianism being articulated by a given theologian, this can mean a grace given to all men without exception at the time they hear the gospel that stays with them enabling them to believe. At that point, the prevenient grace become effectual. There's a "point of no return" so to speak, if the individual does not resist it. On the other hand, it is sometimes spoken of as a spiritual benefit for all men without exception that comes by way of the cross that enables them to be led to God via common grace and from common grace to special grace. Then, there are those who would say that this prevenient grace leads them to a point of "equipoise" in which the will makes an uncaused choice for some unknown reason to choose Christ or reject Christ.

The Free Grace position, if you pay close attention, never discusses prevenient grace or buries it so far from view it may as well be nonexistent. Prevenient grace is merely the universal, external call of the gospel. The Spirit "woos" people, but then He "woos" everybody.

Prevenient grace as actual Arminian soteriology teaches it is built upon a doctrine of total inability virtually identical to that of Reformed Theology. Perhaps one of these days H.K Flynn will read the Opinions of the Remonstrance and realize that his position is the historically new kid on the block, for Free Grace Theology denies this.

Free Grace theology, makes absurd exegetical comments like Dr. Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church did last year in which he ripped Romans 12:3 from its context to say that God has given every man a measure of faith. First, he assumed that "every man" is "every human being." In context, it is every believer--the brethren to whom the text is addressed. The faith discussed here has to do with Christian living and the sound judgment required for it, not saving faith. Dr. Graham interpreted this as saving faith. Then he used this to deny total inability.

Unlike the Free Grace Theologians, the Reformed community as well as, I would argue the classical Arminian community take passages like John 6:44, Romans 8:7, and 1 Cor. 2:14 and others seriously. When Scripture declares we can't do something, that means we can't do it. Free Grace theology denies this.

I'd add that Chafer was a dispensational Amyrauldian. I have friends that were at Dallas Theological Seminary before the "Free Grace" movement at the Geislerian, Dave Hunt, Zane Hodges, Herb Reavis 4 - point Arminianism + eternal security position took hold. These men believe the doctrines of grace as strongly as I do. They look at DTS now and see what has happened and can't believe their eyes. Why?

The dispensationalists of the Free Grace community have so watered Chafer down that now "Total Depravity" is interpreted to mean "We are all guilty of sin and sinful," but we are not so sinful as to be unable to contribute any spiritual good to our salvation. That's closer to Rome than Arminianism. That's closer to functional Pelagianism than Rome. Pelagius focused on the “free will” of every man, not just when they hear the gospel, to accept Christ. Why is grace needed if man has the free will to choose Christ?

So, Free Grace soteriology begins with a functionally Pelagian anthropology of man due to this denial of spiritual inability and the further denial or, at best, incoherent articulation, of prevenient grace, much less effectual grace.

Then Free Grace Theology borrows the Arminian view of election (foreseen faith). Lately, I've heard pastors in the SBC speak of us all being elect, which sounds remarkably like the universal election view of a certain Pelagius from well over a millenium ago.

Why mention this? Well, by denying monergisitic regeneration and placing election outside the grace of God, both election and regeneration are placed outside a chain of grace that results in saving faith in the believer. On this view, the work of Christ is all that is in the chain of grace, and it's not an effectual grace, for Christ does not secure salvation for the elect, He merely secures the opportunity to believe. I've even read some statements by professors at DTS that state that Christ did not die for the sin of unbelief. I've seen discussions at the Baptistboard that deny that not believing in Christ is a sin. In short, you end up with functional Unitarianism.

So, when you say this:

We accept and proclaim everything good coming out of the incarnation but we correlate and distingush those things that are correlated and distinguished by the NT writers.

We say, "No you don’t." You are functional Unitarians, for you deny election and the inevitability/necessity of sanctification in such a way that you deny the covenant of redemption, which underwrites the whole reason for the Incarnation. Grace is relegated to the cross and effectual for justification and security, but not sanctification or any other spiritual benefits. This is "fire insurance" salvation nothing more. Election and regeneration are outside the chain of grace. Sanctification is a second, optional, work. Christ came to offer eternal life and to set aside and rule a people for Himself and purify them in this life as well as the next. In your treatment of sanctification, you deny this part of the Incarnation’s purpose as well. This isn't an offer of eternal life you affirm, it's an offer of fire insurance, a bill of goods I would argue that sends folks to hell with a policy in their back pocket on a regular basis. However, the Free Grace Theology wishes to maintain its doctrine of eternal security. By divorcing saving faith from regeneration, it is the Free Grace position, not the Calvinist position, that makes faith arise from a state of nature. By divorcing sanctification from the work of the Spirit beginning with regeneration and further asserting that one can embrace the three evils of apostasy from the faith and still be counted among the regenerate, you make sanctification optional an add-on, an appendage.. Ergo, if a man perseveres in the faith, it is from himself, not the Spirit at work in him, for it is not the natural, inevitable result of regeneration.


But that's not all. Then you have the whole "carnal Christian" theory to add insult to injury.

Remember this little jewel?

In this theory, men have not one regenerated new nature, but two natures, a sin nature and a new nature living side by side. When a man sins, this is attributed to his sin nature. When a man obeys this is attributed to his new nature. One would ask then, who then is to repent for sin in a man’s life? If a man has two natures at work within him, then we have a problem, for there is but one man, yet his new nature is not charged with sin, according to this theory, it is his old. This is a man with a sin nature (evil) and a new nature (good) at work within him. This is just plain old fashioned dualism. This smacks of good old fashioned Gnosticism.

So, when you say this:

Free Grace is the belief that those things that are essential to successfully living the Christian life can be distinguished from the offer ofeternal life.

We think this is valid because the NT writers never blur the distinction between following Christ and receiving eternal life/being justified before God's legal bar of justice.

We rightly say that what you have done is severe justification and sanctification such that the latter is viewed as a second, no, a secondary, work of grace, but, even then, it’s not a work of grace, it’s a form of dualism, for you have good and evil coexisting as separate natures in one person and the only real operative grace in this system of yours is the work of Christ, not the work of the Spirit, and that is ineffectual with respect to bringing about both saving faith (for you deny monergism) and sanctification (for you essentially render it optional and a separate and secondary work of grace that may or may not occur).

We do not do this. God does not fail to sanctify that which He justifies, for God is the one who brings about the faith that justifies and, just as Paul argued in Romans, that will lead to a changed life. Justification and sanctification are separate and distinct, but they are not so separate and distinct that the latter does not always result from the former. Let’s not forget yours is the view that says Simon Magus was a true convert, a discussion I have actually had with a Free Gracer before, yet all of church history says he, Helena, and Meander founded Gnosticism. How ironic, indeed you would implicitly affirm dualism.

Ernest Reisinger, bless him, said it well:

The "Carnal Christian" teaching is primarily based on an erroneous interpretation of a single passage of Scripture (1 Cor. 3:1-4).

The "Carnal Christian" teaching perverts many other doctrines of the Christian faith.

The "Carnal Christian" teaching separates the two main doctrines of the Christian faith--justification and sanctification.

The "Carnal Christian" teaching separates the new covenant by making the act of submission to Christ optional--what God has joined together let no man or teaching put asunder.

The "Carnal Christian" teaching makes holiness, obedience and discipleship optional. See John 10:26-28; 14:21-23; 15:10; 1 Pet. 1:155,16; Heb. 12:14; Titus 2:10-14.

The "Carnal Christian" teaching breeds antinomianism and gives a false standard of what a Christian really is.

The "Carnal Christian" teaching is the mother of many of the second-work-of-grace errors.

The "Carnal Christian" teaching actually teaches two ways to heaven: one, the carnal-Christian way and two, the spiritual-Christian way--whichever your prefer.

The "Carnal Christian" teachers ignore the biblical distinction between the grounds of salvation and the grounds of assurance.

The "Carnal Christian" teaching breeds a false spirituality and Pharisaism in the so-called "spiritual Christians" who have measured up to some man-made standard of spirituality.

There ought to be no professed "spiritual Christians," much less "super-spiritual" ones! George Whitefield, a man who lived very close to his Savior, prayed all his days, "Let me begin to be a Christian." And another Christian has truly said, "In the life of the most perfect Christian there is every day renewed occasion for self-abhorrence, for repentance, for renewed application to the blood of Christ, for application of the rekindling of the Holy Spirit.

So, Free Grace Theology affirms Sola Fide, but it's Sola Fide light. Its not composed of "noticia, assensus, fiducia" but only "noticia and assensus." It's less Arminian than than Arminius. It's closer to Rome than Arminianism, but it's actually funcitionally Pelagian, something Rome, I would argue is not, to her credit.

The Free Grace is a Unitarian grace. It may as well be Socinian, for the election of the Father is not determinative and the Spirit's work is inefffectual and negated by men's wills ad infinitum at virtually every turn. Regeneration and election and ultimately sanctification itself are all put outside of the chain of grace, so Free Grace is, in point of fact a denial of and Sola Fide Sola Gratia, for to get to Sola Fide you have to redefine it and then deny Sola Gratia.

So, Mr. Flynn, you may assert this is Sola Christus, but it denies what Christ says about faith and salvation; it's not Sola Fide except in name only and the Free Grace is not grace at all, it's a denial of, not an affirmation of , Sola Gratia. Add Baptist ecclesiology and the sinner's prayer and a pinch of Keswick spirituality and you have Neo-Campbellites.