Common Misconceptions Of Hyper-Grace

[BenFTW]

Chime in!
This thread is going to be one of voluntary involvement whereby you list common misconceptions you've witnessed against God's grace. You list the misconception and then the Gospel truth.
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I will start...

Misconception: A license to sin - "God's grace is so great that I can sin all I want and still be saved."

The Gospel truth - God's grace is not a license to sin, and might I add, even the Apostle Paul dealt with this accusation or inquiry. The reality is that God's grace sets us free from sin's dominion! It even teaches us stuff! Lets take a look...

Romans 6:14-15 King James Version (KJV)

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

He went on later to say that we ought to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive unto God (as symbolized in baptism, partaking in Christ's death and resurrection)

Romans 6:5-11 King James Version (KJV)

5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

FREEDOM!!! Awake to righteousness.
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So, what misconception will you tackle? Go for it!

 

[Willie-T]

Hyper-Grace Preachers Don’t Believe in Repentance

Not only do we believe in repentance, but we seek to understand and teach it thoroughly and accurately. In the New Testament, “to repent” is a translation of the Greek verb “metanoeo” meaning “to change one’s mind or perspective.” Obviously, when we receive Christ, we have repented in the genuine sense of the term – changing our minds about our need of a Savior and receiving Christ.

Before Christ, we lived as self-sufficiently as possible, thinking that God would probably grade on a curve and accept us at least partly on the basis of our own best efforts and self-generated goodness. When we came to understand our spiritual bankruptcy and our desperate need for Christ’s forgiveness and new life, we repented (had a change of perspective) and received Christ by trusting in Him alone to rescue us.

Beyond this initial experience of “getting saved” (as we often call it), repentance is a daily lifestyle in which an ongoing “renewal of the mind” process is taking place within us. As we grow in faith and in our understanding of God through His Word and our union with His Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), we begin to replace old thinking with new thinking and false thinking with true thinking. This renewal of the mind (Rom. 12:1-3) is an integral part of the transformative process of the Spirit’s work in our lives. This is the essence of a lifestyle of repentance – taking false thoughts captive, making them obedient to (in conformity with) Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

Paul affirmed in no uncertain terms that God’s kindness (His expressed grace toward us) is what leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4). Far from being anti-repentance, hyper-grace theology affirms repentance and the ongoing renewal of the mind as an integral part of what it means to follow Jesus under His New Covenant.
These are mainly Jeremy White's thoughts

 

[Willie-T]

Some more from Mr. White......

Hyper-Grace Preachers Are Against Confession of Sin

This is one of the most common misrepresentations of hyper-grace theology. The Biblical term “to confess” simply means “to speak the same thing as” or “to agree with.” We teach that confession is important because we should yield our minds to agreement with God about everything He reveals – including, but not limited to, sin.

What we often also teach (and this is where the rub is with some people) is that confession is not about triggering any transaction between us and God that would issue forth more forgiveness, as though God were dispensing forgiveness in various doses based upon our confessions. Forgiveness of sin is something that was provided objectively ONE time by ONE act of grace through ONE Savior who shed His blood on the cross for us 2000 years ago. As the book of Hebrews repeatedly emphasizes, He is the “once for all” sacrifice for sin.

Confession of sin then, is about humility and walking in agreement with God – not about getting more forgiveness from Him. Some will suggest that God’s forgiveness is dispensed using a “two-tiered” approach. On one level, they say, God has forgiven our sins judicially and objectively through the cross. On the second tier, however, we need to confess our sins in order to receive “relational” or “experiential” forgiveness in order to maintain close fellowship with God.

This two-tiered approach is nowhere taught in the New Testament, and has only been popularized because of two basic levels of rationale. The first is based upon a misinterpretation of two passages in the New Testament, both of which have been clearly explained in books and sermons by a host of solid gospel teachers. These two passages are Matthew 6:12 (where Jesus appears to be commanding His followers to ask for God’s forgiveness) and 1 John 1:9 (which seems to link forgiveness to confession of sin).

In my book “The Gospel Uncut: Learning to Rest in the Grace of God” I deal with these passages quite clearly, as do other authors such as Bob George, Andrew Farley, Ralph Harris, Paul Ellis, Cathy Hildebrand and Andrew Nelson. I encourage you to investigate these writings for yourself in order to understand the context in which these passages were intended to be understood.

The bottom-line is this. We hyper-grace preachers DO value confession of sin. We also practice confession of sin in our own lives. However, we understand confession to be about agreeing with God concerning the foolishness of our sin rather than begging for forgiveness based upon a humanly-invented two-tiered approach to somehow "maintaining close fellowship” with Him.

Our fellowship with God was purchased unconditionally and irreversibly by Jesus at the cross. Once we receive that fellowship by simple faith in Christ, it is our eternal possession regardless of our recent performance or track-record. As I’ve written in my book, The Gospel Uncut:

"The way I now approach confession is to simply agree with God about the foolishness of my sin. I admit to Him that my sin hurts me as well as others and that it fails to bring glory to His Name. Often I am sorrowful over the foolishness of my actions. The Apostle Paul wrote that there is a “godly sorrow that brings repentance” (2 Cor. 10:7). When I know I have sinned, I humbly admit that my sinful behavior is out of step with my new nature and identity in Him, and I ask Him to help me rest in His completed work. Now here comes the best part! After agreeing with God about my sin, I begin thanking Him for the fact that this sinful act was already forgiven at the cross. Understanding these realities has literally transformed my practice of confession, changing the experience from a guilt-ridden begging session into a dynamic, worshipful encounter in which my conscious mind (and behavior) is realigned with the grace and truth of Jesus.

So yes! By all means confess your sin to God! Agree with Him about sin and everything else He has revealed. But don’t think of confession as a means of obtaining something that Jesus Christ died “once for all” to secure for you. Remember that confession is about humility and the ongoing renewal of the mind process – and never about getting something from God that is already yours in abundance through the finished work of Christ. If you are a believer in Christ, you are NEVER out of fellowship with God. Fellowship is an identity issue, meaning that you now share "all things in common” with God as a joint-heir with Christ (Rom. 8:17)! This never has been and never will be based upon your behavioral performance and is not something that you must confess sin in order to have reinstated! Because of Christ, you are always clean and God is always close!

 

[Joidevivre]

So yes - everything said is true. What bothers me is how can anyone be too hyper grace? It is the pinnacle - the highest form - of God's love for us. And I would not put it anywhere near the problem of people not feeling the need to repent, or live out their faith and expression of Christ. But HYPER IT IS!

And I'm about as hyper as anyone about God's grace. Yet, I still try to walk in conformity and expression of Christ to the world.
God's grace should not be tampered with or words added to it or subtracted from it. Not if you truly love it. It absolutely must grieve the Holy Spirit. The word grace is a holy word.

 

[Willie-T]

Interestingly enough, until 5:00 this afternoon, I had never even heard of Jeremy White.

Ben nudged me a little to look for a few things online, and lo and behold, I immediately ran across this guy who almost sounds like I was writing his words. So.... I figured, "Why not let a man much smarter than me say the very things I have been saying here for months."

 

[Willie-T]

Hyper-Grace Preachers are Against God’s Law More of Jeremy

Some take this claim so far as to suggest that we even want to throw out or ignore the Old Testament. Wow! What wild imaginations these accusers have! The truth is that we are by no means antinomian (against the law of God), nor do we disbelieve or avoid teaching the Old Testament. Most of us actually esteem the power and purpose of God’s law so highly that we understand grace to be the only way of escape from its impossibly stringent demands.

Paul shared in Romans 3 and elsewhere that God’s purposes for the law were two-fold: 1) to stop our self-righteous excuses, minimizations and justifications of our sin and 2) to reveal our desperate need of a Savior by grace through faith. The entire thrust of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was to bury His very self-righteous audience under the weight of one inescapable reality: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the world’s most stringent law-keepers (the Pharisees and teachers of the law) you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt.5:20).

That Jesus came to “fulfill” the Law (Matt. 5:17) means that He came to keep its demands perfectly because He knew that we couldn’t and wouldn’t. He fulfilled the stringent demands of the Law on our behalf as our Substitute so that His record of perfection could be credited to our spiritual account when we received Him by grace through faith. He did what you and I couldn’t and wouldn’t, and the Sermon on the Mount is a damning indictment of anyone who thinks they can measure up to God’s standards on their own effort.

And have you heard of this “cheap grace” idea? Sometimes the term is ripped off and redefined from Bonhoeffer’s vocabulary to insinuate that the hyper-grace movement has cheapened the grace of God by making it “too easy” for people to attain. After all, we live in a world where there’s no such thing as a free lunch, right? We certainly don't believe or teach that grace is cheap. It cost Jesus His life! But we DO agree with the New Testament that His grace is FREE to those who receive it freely by faith.

The truth of the matter is that hyper-grace teachers are not guilty of promoting cheap grace at all. Rather, our critics are often guilty of promoting cheap Law! Far from being anti-law, WE are the ones who esteem God's Law so highly as to conclude that there is no escape from its condemnation apart from faith in Christ alone! The Law is an all-or-nothing proposition. To stumble in just one aspect of keeping it is the equivalent of breaking all of it (James 2:10). The Law is a ministry of death and condemnation (2 Cor. 3:7-11). The Law is not the bad guy, however. It simply points out who the bad guys are (the world, the flesh and the devil)! The Law is holy and pure and designed to show us what sin is (Rom.7:7).

But living under Law cannot save, change or transform a single heart – only grace can! And this is why we are so adamant about never mixing a law-based mentality with a grace-based mentality toward spiritual life or growth under God’s New Covenant. The New Testament repeatedly affirms that our salvation and sanctification are either completely by law or completely by grace, but cannot be a result of mixing the two.

Conclusion:

With all of that said, the idea of trying to somehow “balance grace” with anything is ludicrous according to both Scripture and plain reason. Grace, by definition, is radically IMBALANCED in our favor! If it were not, it would cease to be grace on that very basis! The term “hyper-grace” is far from insulting! It is in fact the ONLY kind of grace taught, supported and promoted in the Bible.

God understands that His grace is open to the possibility of abuse by those who might misunderstand it. He understands that people may take His grace for granted or even at times misrepresent it as a license to sin. Paul addressed those concerns very clearly, as did Jesus and the other New Testament writers.

However, the fact that grace is open to misinterpretation and the possibility of abuse does not give us license to water it down, explain it away or cheapen its glory by adding a single measure of law into it as an attempt to stay "balanced.” There is nothing balanced whatsoever about the grace of God! We rejoice in that! We celebrate that! We proclaim that without apology!
May God reveal His hyper-grace more clearly to you in the days ahead!

Ben said to feel free to chime in with your thoughts below, I'm through for awhile.

 

[Grace777x70]

Hyper-Grace Preachers say God is not Grieved by your Sin

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. (Eph. 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 around us and make our Father sad. When we sin out of anger 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 is 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.

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 Christ, 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.

 

[Grace777x70]

Hyper-Grace Preachers Disregard the Words of Jesus

Hyper-grace preachers say the words of Jesus are not for us. They have no authority and are irrelevant to the modern church.”

One of the strangest claims made against hyper-grace preachers is that we are dismissive of the pre-cross teachings of Jesus. In point of fact, hyper-grace preachers are the only ones taking Jesus seriously. When Jesus is preaching law, we say that’s authentic law, not to be taken lightly. And when Jesus is revealing grace, we bow in awestruck gratitude. We would not dare re-interpret his words with qualifiers and caveats.

In contrast, those who preach a mixed-grace message dismiss the hard words of Jesus as hyperbole and exaggeration. “Jesus didn’t mean what he said about chopping off limbs or being perfect.” Like the Pharisees of old, they pick and choose those commands which are to be followed while disregarding others as metaphorical, unreal, and not to be taken seriously.

To be fair, the misperception that hyper-grace preachers reject the teachings of Jesus is based on a kernel of truth, which is this: Everything Jesus said is good, but not everything Jesus said is good for you. Or to put it another way, Jesus spoke words the whole world needs to hear, but you are not the whole world.

What you hear in the words of Jesus reflects what is in your heart. If you are standing on your own righteousness you will hear law like you’ve never heard it before. “You have heard it said … but I say unto you …”

Jesus preached tough, merciless law that leaves no margin for error. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). The message is clear. Either you must be perfect or you must be represented by One who is.

However, if you already know that you are not perfect, you need to hear Jesus’ words of grace. You need to hear him speak about his Father who loves you, cares for you, and offers you his righteousness (Matt. 6:33).

A mixed-grace preacher reads the words of Jesus selectively but a hyper-grace preacher values everything Jesus says. He recognizes that Jesus is the perfect Physician who always prescribes the perfect medicine. He gives law to the smug and grace to the needy. No matter who you are or where you are on your journey, Jesus has life-saving words for you.

 

[Grace777x70]

The Hyper-Grace Gospel Makes People Lazy

“Grace is a soft gospel for soft Christians,” say the critics. “Grace promotes passivity and laziness.” It does? I guess somebody forgot to tell Paul:By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Cor. 15:10)

This is not a Grammy speech. This is Paul giving us the secret to his success.

Paul was a tough-as-nails church planter. He wrote letters that would shape the world for 2,000 years. How’d he do it? “I didn’t make this happen,” said Paul. “God and I did it together.”

Grace doesn’t make people lazy; it makes them supernaturally fruitful. In contrast with the law that provides no aid to those who trust it, grace makes us soar. A 300-year-old poem from John Bunyan expresses this perfectly:

Run, John, run, the law commands,
But gives us neither feet nor hands.
Far better news the gospel brings:
It bids us fly and gives us wings.

One of the best illustrations of how grace makes us fruitful comes from Tullian Tchividjian’s book One Way Love. Tchividjian tells the story of two friends who applied for college. One was accepted but the other was deferred. In the subsequent months both friends took similar classes and had a similar workload.

But the one who had been accepted into college branched out into a number of extracurricular activities. He started a band, got into rock-climbing, and set up a program for under-privileged kids. The other friend also got involved in extra-curricular activities but he did so in the hope of impressing college acceptance boards.

At the end of the semester the student who had been deferred was exhausted while the student who had been accepted was full of energy. Free from the pressure to perform and the need to play it safe, the accepted student wrote papers about topics he was genuinely interested in and attained higher grades. Tchividjian concludes that the fruit of assurance was not laziness but creativity, charity, and fun.

The unconditional love of God gives you wings. It inspires you to take risks and be generous with your life. When you are frolicking in the grace of God, work doesn’t feel like work. It feels like fun.

“Grace is irresponsible for it says we have no responsibility to do anything. We have a duty to serve the Lord.” In the mouth of a mixed-grace preacher, words like responsibility and duty are the cattle-prods of performance-based Christianity. They convey a sense of obligation that leaves you debt-conscious rather than grace-conscious.

Jesus didn’t suffer and die to put you in his debt. He did it to show you how much he loves you. The idea that you are obliged to repay him for his priceless sacrifice is ludicrous. What can you give him in consideration for his grace? There is nothing. The instant you give him anything, it ceases to be grace. Your only “duty” is to say, “Thank you, Jesus!”

In a mixed-grace environment you will feel the pressure to perform and live up to the expectations of others. But walk under pure grace and you find there is no pressure, only the freedom to be who God made you to be. Manmade religion will tell you that you have a responsibility to deliver results for the Lord, but your only responsibility is to shine as a dearly-loved child of God.

 

[Grace777x70]

This is an excellent outlining biblical defense of the gospel of grace done a few years before the name "hyper-grace+ gave into vogue.

Part A


[video=youtube;VuVHG01W8YI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVHG01W8YI[/video]

 

[Grace777x70]

This is PART B



[video=vimeo;11810822]https://vimeo.com/11810822[/video]

 

[Grace777x70]

5 Guarantees that God will never hide His face from you..

[video=vimeo;9572675]https://vimeo.com/9572675[/video]

 

[Grace777x70]

How the Gospel Removes the Power of Sin

[video=vimeo;11278728]https://vimeo.com/11278728[/video]

 

[Grace777x70]

Gods Greatest Gift to You - Righteousness of Christ!

[video=vimeo;11274133]https://vimeo.com/11274133[/video]

 

[Grace777x70]

Building a strong root system in grace,

[video=vimeo;19221173]https://vimeo.com/19221173[/video]

 

[Grace777x70]

The nearly too good to be true news


[video=vimeo;35947870]https://vimeo.com/35947870[/video]

 

[Grace777x70]

I am not ashamed of the Gospel

[video=vimeo;61393208]https://vimeo.com/61393208[/video]

 

[PeterJens]

Whatever you guys think you believe your very description of what you believe denies the basic faith of normal simple believers.

What you say you believe is a different version of the same words and concepts, and you are convinced those you call your enemies are actually blind, deaf and dumb. Until you wake up and understand the view others have, you will always just be repeating the same words and ideas, claiming people are lying and miss-representing what you are saying.

Starting new threads, is not going to change how people react to you.

Calling me a Spirit filled, Holy Spirit filled, born again believer a legalist trying to justify myself by self righteousness is simply your own invention and a lie. It is not hard for me to understand exactly what you accuse me of, but it is your delusion.

King David is as much my brother as you are. Until you see Jesus as the intimate fulfillment of the old covenant and the final seal of its further expansion into the new covenant you do not see the power of God in Christ. You can create you own faith or version of faith, but do not expect the people of the Kingdom to follow you.

 

[PeterJens]

I came here after sharing with muslims the love of Jesus, focusing on the difference between love inspired people to care and a faith driven by law and legalism, to be accused of being this very thing by "christians" is such a joke.

I had wondered why Willie-T did not agree with me time over time. But now I understand.
3 weeks ago I did not know hyper-grace. Now I do.

The Lord has inspired me to shine a light here. And the Lord will not stop, things will be overturned and made plain. You cannot make an enemy of the Lord and not expect Him to come and be plain.

However you think of faith, or the Lord, Jesus believes in one thing, the power of His word. Nothing more, just the power of His word. But you deny this, you have made layer upon layer of more complex things, rather than trust the Lord for His guidance and His leading, and His power and redemption. There is a spiritual end to your position but it is not pretty or nice.

 

[Grace777x70]

We are praying for you Peter....we know you don't understand this.............God bless you!