The Hyper-Grace Gospel: A Response to Michael Brown and Those Opposed to the Modern Grace Message (6 page)

“Beware the grace Pharisees who jump on
you if you say something that smacks of unbelief in grace. They say it’s a sin
to ask God for forgiveness.”

There is nothing
wrong in coming to the throne of grace in your hour of need to receive mercy
and find grace. If you need forgiveness, God has an ample supply. If asking
helps you to receive, then ask. It’s not wrong to ask. What’s
wrong
is
telling people God won’t forgive them unless they first do things like repent
or confess all their sins. What’s
wrong
is telling the poor and needy
they’ve got to pay to dine at the table of the Lord’s abundance. What’s
wrong
is putting price tags on the free gift of grace.

It’s not wrong to
ask God for anything. He’s your Father and He cares for you. He wants you to
present all your requests to Him (Php. 4:6). If you have made mistakes and are
in need of forgiveness, have the freedom to ask knowing that He will give you
what you ask for.

But here’s
something you may not appreciate: God will forgive you even if you
don’t
ask. How do I know? Because He’s already done it.

In Him we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the
riches of God’s grace. (Ephesians 1:7)

Perhaps you think you
have
to ask
for forgiveness as in, “If I don’t ask, God won’t forgive me.” That’s like
saying, “Christ didn’t carry all my sin,” which He did, or “Jesus needs to come
and die again,” which He won’t, or “God needs my permission to forgive me,”
which He doesn’t.

Writing in
The
Naked Gospel,
Andrew Farley says asking God to forgive you is like asking
your wife to marry you. It might help you confirm in your mind that you are
actually married, but it’s not necessary. Whether you ask or not won’t change
the fact that you are married. Similarly, asking God for forgiveness won’t
change the fact you are forgiven.

Farley notes that
nowhere in the New Testament epistles is there any hint that we need to ask God
to forgive us.

Why not? Because
the writers penned their words
after
the death of Jesus. They were fully
aware of their forgiveness as an accomplished fact.
[44]

By all means have the freedom to repent,
confess, ask, say sorry, or turn cartwheels if you wish, but do these things
out of a sense of gratitude rather than obligation. Understand that you are not
forgiven because you
did the right things
or
asked in the proper
manner
. You are forgiven because your Father loves you and abounds in grace
towards you.

Joseph Prince
writes:

I have nothing
against saying “sorry” to God or confessing our sins … Do I say “sorry” to God
and confess my sins when I have fallen short and failed? Of course I do. But I
do it not to be forgiven because I
know
that I am
already
forgiven through Jesus’ finished work.
[45]

From God’s side, forgiveness is a done
deal. There remain no more sacrifices for sin. But from our side sin may be a
big problem indeed. Many are crippled by guilt and condemnation. Others remain
slaves to sin and are incapable of making healthy choices. The solution is not
to buy into a message of dead works—“Try harder! Turn from sin! Beg God to
forgive you!” The remedy is to receive the grace that has been provided in
Jesus Christ.

Why do you need
to receive the gift of forgiveness if you are already forgiven? For the same
reason you need to receive the grace of God that has appeared to all people; it
will change you. It will free you from sin’s brutal and condemning grip.

Unwanted grace is
worthless. Leave God’s grace on the shelf and it won’t benefit you. This is why
the New Testament writers exhort us to believe the good news. They’re basically
saying, “Quit beating yourself up over sin and trying to make yourself clean.
Trust Jesus and rest in His finished work.”

Receiving grace
is simply a matter of agreeing with God. It’s thanking Him that through Jesus
“I have been cleansed from all unrighteousness, and all my sins have been taken
away.”

“Hyper-grace preachers say God doesn’t
care when we sin.” Actually, we say God cares very much because sin hurt the
objects of His affection—us! Sin damages people, fractures friendships, and
destroys families. Sin hurts you, and that makes your Father sad.

And do not grieve
the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with
every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each
other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:30–32)

Is God oblivious to our shortcomings and
sins? When you sin does He act like Sergeant Schulz and say, “I see nothing”?
Of course not. God sees everything. Our choices bring Him pleasure and pain.
Paul would not have written, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” if that
wasn’t possible.

But you need to
understand
why
God is grieved. He’s not grieved because you disappoint
Him. (Since He knows everything you’ve ever done and will ever do, it’s not
possible to disappoint Him.) Nor is He grieved because you broke His rules.
(You are worth more to Him than any rule.) Our sins grieve Him because they
hurt His kids.

Look at the sins
Paul lists above and you will see they are all relational sins. They are the
sins of quarreling, backbiting, and being a jerk. When we act this way we hurt
those closest to us and make our Father sad. When we sin out of anger, says
Paul, we give place to the devil and open a door to trouble (Eph. 4:26–27).
That doesn’t make your Father happy and it won’t make you happy either.

Critics of the
hyper-grace gospel say things like, “Grace teaches that God turns a blind eye
to our sin.” It would be more accurate to say, “Grace teaches that God chooses
to remember our sins no more.” But that doesn’t mean our sins don’t trouble
Him. He is our loving Father. He cares deeply for us. He is not happy to see us
destroy ourselves through sin.

If Jesus didn’t
care about the effects of sin, He would not have gone to the cross. Nor would
He have warned the churches in Revelation about their bad behavior and
unhealthy habits. The gospel declares that God’s love us unaffected by our
choices, but it does not follow that we can act without consequences.

Your behavior
matters to God because
you
matter to God. He wants you to prosper and
thrive in every area of your life. He doesn’t want you opening the door to
trouble by sowing to the flesh. But even if you do—even if you make one dumb
mistake after another—He will still be your Father and you will still be His
dearly loved child. Your actions may be harmful and saddening to Him but
you
will always be the apple of His eye.

If you don’t
understand the hyper-grace gospel you may imagine the Holy Spirit to be the
sheriff of heaven recording all your sins and convicting you when you’re
guilty. You may see Him as a Prosecutor and Policeman even though Jesus called
Him the Comforter and Counselor.

Act like a sinner
and you’ll grieve the Holy Spirit, but here’s what won’t happen: The Holy
Spirit won’t record your sins, for He promised not to (Heb. 10:15–17); nor will
He send you on a guilt-trip, for He’s the Spirit of grace not the Spirit of
guilt; and He won’t withdraw from you until you get your act together, for
Jesus said He would never leave you (John 14:16).

When you sin, the
Holy Spirit will always point you to Jesus. He knows that as we behold the
kindness and compassion of Jesus, we become kind and compassionate ourselves.
As we gaze at His forgiving face, we become forgiving. As we marvel at His
beauty, we become beautiful. As we behold Jesus we are transformed into His
shining testimonies of grace. This makes the Holy Spirit happy.

“Hyper-grace preachers claim that God’s
law is bad or defective,” say the critics. “They are opposed to His holy
commands.”

Hyper-grace
preachers are accused of being antinomian or against the law because we preach
what Paul preached; that we are not under law but grace (Rom. 6:14–15). We say
that Christ is the end of the law for all who believe (Rom. 10:4).

The charge of
antinomianism is an old one. As Clark Whitten has observed, religious people
have been accusing grace preachers of being opposed to the law ever since Jesus
showed up:

Jesus must have
been accused of being antinomian because He defended himself by saying, “Do not
think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I did not come to abolish
but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). Apostle Paul must have heard the same antinomian
accusation from the Judaizers and responded by writing the book of Galatians!
[46]

Are hyper-grace preachers against the law?
Not at all. We are 100 percent for the law and the purpose for which it was
given. Joseph Prince speaks for all of us when he writes:

One of
the things I have been accused of is being an antinomian (someone who is
against the law of Moses). The truth is that I have the highest regard for the law
... I am for the law, for the purpose for which God gave the law … God did not
give the law for us to keep. He gave the law to bring man to the end of
himself, so that he would see his need for a Savior.
[47]

A mixed-grace gospel mixes law with grace
and reaps the benefits of neither. It promotes the law as a guide for living
and treats grace as little more than a lubricant for greasing the cogs of
self-effort. Those who buy into this message reveal their disregard for both
law, since they cannot keep it yet pretend to, and grace, since they would
rather trust in their own efforts than in Christ’s magnificent work. Such a
person is lukewarm. They have not yielded to either the cold and unbending
demands of the law or the white-hot love and grace of their Father.

In contrast,
those who preach a hyper-grace gospel esteem the law and agree with Paul who
said “the law is good if one uses it properly” (see 1 Tim. 1:8–11). We
understand that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and
those opposed to the gospel. The law is for those who trust in themselves and
their own righteousness rather than in Christ and His.

A mixed-grace
preacher will tell you that the law shows you how to please the Lord, but it
doesn’t.
Faith
pleases the Lord and the law is not of faith (Gal. 3:12).

A mixed-grace
preacher will say, “God gave us the law to help you overcome sin,” but He
didn’t. God gave us the law to help sin overcome you (Rom. 7:10–11). As
Watchman Nee once said,

We can say,
reverently, that God never gave us the Law to keep: He gave us the Law to
break! He well knew that we could not keep it.
[48]

A hyper-grace preacher understands that
the purpose of the law is to reveal sin so that we might see our need for a
Savior (Rom. 7:7).

So the law was put
in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that
faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. (Galatians
3:24–25, NIV1984)

The law was put in charge to bring us to
the end of ourselves so that we might see our need for grace. Therefore, the
real antinomians are those who use the law for other purposes. They are those
who honor the law with their lips while keeping only some of the commands. They
are the mixed-grace preachers who dilute the law’s power to condemn the proud
and silence the self-righteous. And they are the lawdrivers who dare to
threaten Christ’s bride with curses and penalties.

“Hyper-grace preachers would have you
throw away most of your Bible,” say the critics. “They dismiss the Old
Testament as irrelevant and useless.” This is not true. We view the Old
Testament as a treasure trove of stories, songs, statutes, prophecies, and
promises that all point to Jesus.

The misperception
that hyper-grace preachers ignore the Old Testament is easily refuted. Just
read our books, watch our sermons, or listen to our podcasts. Take Joseph
Prince for example. If you have heard him preach, you will know that he mines
the riches of the Old Testament like few can. He delves into the meanings of
Hebrew words, obscure passages, and old stories to show how the coming of Jesus
and the release of God’s grace was eagerly anticipated by those who lived
before Him.

You can preach from
Genesis to Revelation from the perspective of Jesus and His grace … After all,
Christ is in the Old Testament concealed, and in the New Testament revealed.
[49]

The Old Testament is epic in scope. It
covers the long period between the creation of the world and the arrival of
Jesus. Somewhere in the middle of that period, Moses led the children of Israel
to Mt. Sinai where they signed up for the old covenant. This was the
law-keeping covenant that ran for fourteen centuries and was fulfilled on the
cross. The New Testament writers make it plain that we are not to live under
this old or obsolete covenant because Jesus has forged a new and better
covenant based on His grace (Heb. 8:13).

The old and new
covenants are very different. The old was based on frequent animal sacrifices
that could never take away sin, while the new is based on the once-for-all-time
sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God (Heb. 9:26, 10:4). The old hung on your
obedience and was thus doomed to fail, while the new rests on Christ’s perfect
obedience unto death and thus has already succeeded.

The two covenants
can be distinguished in terms of their language. Those who lived under the old
covenant spoke with hunger and unfulfilled longing as they looked forward to
Jesus. But we who live under the new covenant look back with gratitude and
speak a new language of thanksgiving and praise. We say things like, “I have
been crucified with Christ,” and “I am a new creation.” Or we would, if we
understood the significance of the cross.

Benjamin Dunn
writes:

Isn’t it
heart-rending that so many believers don’t know how to speak this (new)
language? They are stuck in the undone, instead of floating upon the finished.
Some of the phrases of the old language are: “I must nail myself to the cross
every day.” “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” “Lord, You saved me but now
come and cleanse me,” or “Every day I’ve got to die to my flesh.” Obviously the
list goes on, and for the sheer fact that I hate hearing them, I will say no
more of these faithless jabberings. This is a dead language!
[50]

We are not to live by the old covenant,
but that doesn’t mean we should rip it out of our Bibles. As long as we read
the old with the eyes of the new we will see what we are supposed to see:

And beginning with
Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the
Scriptures concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27)

Jesus preached from the Old Testament so
that His disciples might see what was said concerning Himself. That’s why we
read the Bible—to see Jesus. There are pictures of Jesus on every page.

The Bible is a
story about Jesus who loved us, lost us, and won us back. It tells this story a
thousand different ways, and this is why hyper-grace preachers don’t want you
to throw away parts of your Bible. All of it is good and all of it points to Jesus.
The Bible is the greatest story ever told.