An Appeal: Lift the ban on Hyper-Grace

Part I

There are people like that in all sorts of churches, whether or not you’ve come across them. The self-description for the theological movement as a whole is the “grace revolution”, and it’s being fuelled by well-known preachers like Rob Rufus and Joseph Prince.

IBut there are also some emphases, particularly some of those I’ve just highlighted, that are patently unbiblical and demonstrably unorthodox, and have led to it being described by observers as “hyper-grace”. Whether they are “heretical” or not depends on whether the people in question know that their views are unorthodox, but from what I can tell, most of them do, and think the church needs reformation on this point.

Some readers will be inclined not to take this particular quirk of the “grace revolution” very seriously. (Again: I’m talking about the whole not-asking-for-forgiveness thing in what follows, rather than the theological movement in). The universal church has prayed the Lord’s Prayer for two millennia, and will continue to do so long after the proponents of this particular theological fad have moved on to glory and discovered their mistake; it is a heavily enculturated phenomenon, resulting from a fusion of hyper-Lutheranism and Western therapeutic individualism; and biblical scholars of all stripes will easily debunk the very shaky exegetical foundations on which it rests, particularly its absurd treatment of 1 John and Romans. But although all of this may be true, I have found myself wrestling with it. Not, I should say immediately, because I think it holds any theological water - on some counts it is almost indefensibly ridiculous - but because it is growing in popularity in charismatic circles, and more importantly, because it raises the interesting question of how we engage with and appraise new theological ideas when they emerge at a popular level.

Here’s what I mean. If a new proposal emerges at an academic level, there is a very clear mechanism for establishing whether it should be accepted or not. Extensive research is done, a journal article or scholarly monograph is written, it is peer reviewed, footnotes and bibliographies are provided, a conference paper is presented and critiqued, and experts in the field assess the proposal on its merits. When a new idea emerges at a popular level, though - when, say, it is taught by an influential communicator who writes paperbacks, speaks on television and preaches at large conferences - these mechanisms do not exist. In fact, as I have discovered, they may explicitly be disavowed, on the basis that it was the intellectuals and eggheads in biblical times who rejected Jesus. So if a keynote speaker says that 1 John 1 is written about unbelievers, and substantiates it by saying the word “Gnostics” a few times and quoting a couple of Greek words, it does not count as an argument to say that all scholars would disagree. Of course scholars would disagree. The scribes knew their Bibles better than anyone, you see, and they still killed Jesus. Heads I win, tails you lose.

https://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/the_grace_revolution

Part II

You are in a similar Catch-22 if you try and engage with the idea on the basis of church history. For someone like me, the fact that the universal church has always believed something carries enormous weight; if Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox alike have been praying the Lord’s Prayer together for two thousand years, then to claim that this is unnecessary, legalistic, introspective or sub-Christian is an extremely serious charge, the burden of proof for which is almost unreachably high. But at a street level, this can easily be dismissed as an argument, on the grounds that, after all, the whole of Christendom was wrong about lots of things in the Dark Ages, and somehow managed to lose the doctrine of salvation by grace for 1500 years, and the power of the Holy Spirit for nearly 2000. If the universal church has lost things like that before, then why not now? Historical consensus, then, isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

So how do we proceed? There is no way to squash this sort of thing altogether, as far as I can see; one of Protestantism’s great strengths, its stress on the individual believer’s ability to interpret Scripture for themselves, is also one of its great weaknesses, and the internet age has simply made the theological smorgasbord available to anybody, anywhere, much more quickly. Given that availability, some people will stumble across forcefully presented arguments for things they want to believe, by charismatic and gifted communicators, and some of those will swallow them. Clearly it is possible to stop it spreading throughout the church - clear public and private explanation, and where necessary, confrontation of those who are teaching it (if they are) - but how is theological dialogue to take place with those who are happily convinced, like the people in my church and probably yours? If the charges of unorthodoxy and exegetical implausibility do not have any traction, then what can be done?

Several things. (1) There is always an important place for patient, thorough exegesis, with a view to showing, for instance, that 1 John 1 does refer to Christians (although how anyone could think it wasn’t once they’d read 2:1 is unclear), that Jesus taught his disciples to ask God for forgiveness, that he then told them to teach others to obey everything he commanded them (which ought to debunk the whole “Jesus is old covenant” thing), and that none of the apostles saw any conflict between believing sins had been forgiven and asking for forgiveness. It may not be enough to persuade people, but it is still very important, and it models a text-centred approach to defining doctrine, which in the long run speaks volumes. (2) It is also important to clearly articulate a hermeneutic that makes our default position one of obedience to New Testament instructions, rather than assuming people understand why we don’t wear head coverings or rip our eyes out when we sin. If everybody began with the assumption that we do what Jesus said unless otherwise stated, it would be be much harder to argue against praying the Lord’s Prayer.

(3) We should be careful to avoid anti-intellectualism ourselves, whether or not we or our churches are naturally intellectual; instead of lumping Pharisees, scribes, New Testament scholars and Bible translators together as if they are all much of a muchness, we would do well to esteem scholarship, point out that it’s the only way we even have a Bible in English, and emphasise the vital role Christian scholars played in the Reformation. Lest we forget, the Pharisees weren’t actually Christians, which is a fairly significant difference.

(4) Similarly, we have a responsibility, as leaders and teachers, to take issue with popular level distortions of church history (things went well in the book of Acts, then the wicked Catholics got in power and set up the papacy, and that led to grace, the Holy Spirit and the Bible vanishing into thin air for thousands of years, while the powers that be went around burning everybody), and replace them with more accurate ones (every generation has believed in grace, the Holy Spirit and the Bible; every generation has distorted or underemphasised some aspects of biblical teaching; some have done this more than others, especially when access to what the Bible actually said was very low; etc).

(5) It is helpful, when talking about theology in public church contexts, to stress consensus more than distinctiveness. If the diet of teaching in a church is repeatedly built around areas where other Christians disagree, then the impression given to the congregation, however unwittingly, will be that Christians disagree all the time about most important things. If it focuses mostly on areas of agreement, and only highlights issues of contention carefully and in an honouring way, then the impression given will be one of unity and solidarity with Christians from other backgrounds and centuries, and this will make unorthodox ideas less likely to gain traction.

(6) We should talk about, and act in accordance with, our belief that elders in the church are the guardians of doctrine, and have a responsibility to teach sound doctrine and correct those who contradict it. Practically, this has implications for the way we do Sunday teaching (in our case, elders either deliver or check in advance the content that is taught), the theological education of the leaders (since if this is lower than some in the church, credibility is much harder to achieve), and even the way we do membership courses or equivalent (such that new people understand our view of spiritual authority). None of this will ensure that odd ideas don’t pop up; they should, however, stop them from spreading too far, which is a major concern of Paul’s in the Pastorals.

(7) We need to remember that when theological discussions are happening, the debate is taking place at two levels: what people believe to be true, and what people want to be true. Teacher-types will typically focus on the former, but we need to recognise the very important place of the latter, and present the biblical doctrines as attractively and captivatingly as possible. The reason this particular idea has spread so quickly, I suspect, is because so many Christians who say they believe in grace don’t really seem that happy about it, and live in practice like they are still under the law.

(8) Finally, and perhaps most challengingly for Charismatics like me, it is helpful to think about and talk about the humility of orthodoxy. Being orthodox, in the sense of affirming what the vast majority of Christians in history have believed, is fundamentally a posture of humility, for it involves believing that the untold millions of faithful Christians, leaders and theologians have been guided by the Holy Spirit into all the truth. It can often be presented as if orthodoxy is heavy-handed, authoritarian dogmatism, and unorthodoxy or heresy simply represent the humble and impish whippersnappers trying to get their gentle voices heard - but in general, there is an arrogance to believing that you are right and almost everyone else is wrong, especially when the “everyone else” includes Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Wesley, Barth and co. That doesn’t mean we can never challenge an orthodox consensus, of course; it would be naive to act as if the church’s historic teaching had never been wrong. But when we do, we must do so from a position of humility, and give the benefit of the doubt to the weight of orthodoxy. Luther began the Reformation, remember, by objecting to an egregious abuse (the sale of indulgences by John Tetzel) that was demonstrably unbiblical and which had not been practised by the vast majority of Christians in history, not by announcing that everyone who lived before 1517 had denied justification by .

Roughly translated: in order to deal with new ideas, particularly ones which emerge at the popular level and are not subject to the normal checks and balances, we need to exegete carefully, presume obedience, honour scholarship, portray history accurately, stress consensus, esteem eldership, teach winsomely, and emphasise the humility of orthodoxy. It may not stop people from picking up funny ideas from time to time, but it should help them see that the real “grace revolution” they’re looking for happened a long time ago in Israel, and is showing no signs yet of fizzling out.


Andrew Wilson
Bio:
Andrew is Teaching Pastor at King's Church London, and has theology degrees from Cambridge (MA), London School of Theology (MTh), and King's College London (PhD). He is a columnist for Christianity Today, and has written several books, including the upcoming Echoes of Exodus (Crossway, 2018) and Spirit and Sacrament: An Invitation to Eucharismatic Worship(Zondervan, 2018). Andrew is married to Rachel and they have three children: Zeke, Anna and Samuel. Views he expresses here are his own, and do not represent those of Newfrontiers or any particular church.

https://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/the_grace_revolution

Just thought of several other topics we could discuss!

The characteristics of God. (Focus on him, instead of what God has given ME!)

The cross! (Why is that only rarely discussed in the BDF?)

Is God a person? What is personhood?

What is the history of the triune God? Why should we believe in the Trinity today?

All kinds of topical studies, book studies.

What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit?

Feel free to add more!

seriously Ben?

a little bit of revisionist history going on with you?

after reading Angela's post, I can concur with her. I thought of all those things she said but I didn't want to get into it

I've seen you blow more than once and I prob have also

fear? hey that's a great kick off to a fair (cough cough) conversation

get serious

I'll also add that I would have gone to the owner of the site...he is very approachable...and discussed this with him in private. I think you were looking for others to join in your 'cause'

I don't want to insult you Ben but everything you have said in this thread is not exactly truth regarding HG...maybe you see it that way, so I will extend the benefit of the doubt .... but either you downplay it or you have a hyper grace light going on

seriously. I don't wish to argue with you or insult you and I meant what I said yesterday regarding discussion but I don't know how to solve that

anyway.....

well that was my main point yesterday

why on earth would you put a hyper in front of grace and then say we cannot have a good conversation about the attributes of God...grace included...without bringing in 'teachers of the doctrine' as expressed by the sticky

I have FAR LESS of a problem discussing the matter WITHOUT the endless supply of youtube vids and copy/pastes and links to sites that expressly push an understanding of the Bible formatted with the default hg paradigm

I still like the idea of booting people out of threads who just slam others and call people crazy etc...just a thread ban and not a ban ban. I can guarantee people pull themselves up by the civil bootstraps real quick LOL!

with all due respect Ben, that is not true

who are the we? I was relieved when the mess was over and so were others

I know about emails sent to people from the person Angela mentioned and they were OFF THE WALL! I blocked him myself and I don't use the pm feature here because I have received one too many koo koo pm's from people who want to do nothing but argue or think I need to explain myself to their satisfaction. no one has to do that

as I have stated more than once now, it was the side teachings from this person that really made me sit up and go WHAAAA?

I would hope you do not believe in those other issues, but many hg teachers do

I have not come to your one conclusion.

be persuaded in yourself but please do not include others. people can speak for themselves

you are persuading in this thread. you are saying 'never mind all that other stuff' when it is the other stuff that was particularly odious to most of us

we are not grade 3 students here who believe what someone else says we should believe anymore than you are

excellent topics and so much more productive then the endless OSAS arguements ... which at least can be based on one's understanding of scripture rather than some altar ego Jesus who did not really mean we should listen to Him because He was under the law and we no longer are (makes your head spin)

I have found in this forum that few know, let alone understand, the attributes of God because if they did, they would not write some of the koo koo and unorthodox things that they do

etc

Just the "using" of the term "Hyper Grace", in my mind? Pulls the rug right out from under that which Paul stated concerning God's Grace! Not just in Christ's teachings, but Paul's as well!
Romans 6 (KJV)
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

"Gone" is:
Proverbs 3
11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:
12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.
It would seem, Hyper Gracer's, are under some "umbrella of immunity FROM correction?" Yet, feel justified, in our Heavenly Father's continuing His Love, by grace, WITHOUT Correction? Just how stupid and gullible do hyper gracer's think, by their actions our Heavenly Father is, anyway? That they may, by way of "multitudes of like-minded parishioners" "Petition" the Father, in this manner? I don't reckon Noah's flood, registers very much. Being "blinded" by hyper grace, into not seeing how many holes in their ark, there are!

God "guides, and leads" whom He loves, BY His Will, USING Correction! To:
1 Corinthians 12:31
But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.

This is just what using the "term" Hyper Grace, says to me!

But? Perhaps, I'm missing something?

This is excellent Angela! you have expressed the exact problem in a particularly succinct way. Posts 101 and 102...I'm standing up and applauding.


Angela:
Here’s what I mean. If a new proposal emerges at an academic level, there is a very clear mechanism for establishing whether it should be accepted or not. Extensive research is done, a journal article or scholarly monograph is written, it is peer reviewed, footnotes and bibliographies are provided, a conference paper is presented and critiqued, and experts in the field assess the proposal on its merits. When a new idea emerges at a popular level, though - when, say, it is taught by an influential communicator who writes paperbacks, speaks on television and preaches at large conferences - these mechanisms do not exist. In fact, as I have discovered, they may explicitly be disavowed, on the basis that it was the intellectuals and eggheads in biblical times who rejected Jesus. So if a keynote speaker says that 1 John 1 is written about unbelievers, and substantiates it by saying the word “Gnostics” a few times and quoting a couple of Greek words, it does not count as an argument to say that all scholars would disagree. Of course scholars would disagree. The scribes knew their Bibles better than anyone, you see, and they still killed Jesus. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Maybe a poll should be taken to see who are and who are not In favor of lifting the ban on what Is being called HYPER-grace.

mheh

pretty sure this thread is one by default

I have to agree with ya 7 seas! The "discussions" I wish to have with anyone, is "their take", of a myriad of topics and subjects pertaining to "Christendom!"

To be "inundated" with posting the same video's of some guy, or guys, as one's answer to a question, doesn't cut it for me!

And, trying to "drill down" in seeking SOMETHING from pronators, is where and when the "hitting of nerves" comes in! They get mad! Because they either don't or, cannot accept, a "personal accountability" in regards to their faith! In action, or more specifically, inaction!

Mind you, I'm speaking of people categorizing themselves as "Christians", and not about the Congress of the United States!

Although, it can be said that there is merit for each!

well I checked your profile and saw you have been here since '15 so you cannot be unaware of what all is being discussed here

and I agree regarding personal accountability...or lack thereof...

however you lost me on 'pronator' which I had to look up and I don't understand your meaning? (I would say 'connection' but after reading the dictionary explanation that would seem I am making a play on words haha )

and don't get me started on any sort of congress goings on. I am ready to throw the tv out...if I could find the off switch

before I forget....do read those 2 posts from Angela ...101 and 102...you will appreciate them

Say? Isn't trying the same solution for the same problem and expecting different results, the definition of an "insanity clause?"

EVERYONE knows there ain't no "sanity clause!"

I don't mind discussing with "rational" folks. Yet, when discussing hyper grace? There seems to come with it an over generous amount of irrationality! Perhaps, not at the onset. But, it will come!

It was "spall schneck" man!

The word, or term I was trying to espouse, were people who "promote" hyper grace, or, proponiters of hyper grace! I must apologize for my limited vocabulary.

I have read those posts. And, I do appreciate them! Well stated!

Thank you, Ralph, for proven my point. You have demonstrated how rudeness and those who have no grace in speaking to other about this topic, thank you, you are a credit and added greatly to this topic not going further.

Hi BenFTW,

this is a topic has turned into what I knew it would and that is why I asked the question " what does hyper-grace mean" or what is hyper Grace?
What I see is a place on words in the Greek yet the text used only covers one part from Rom 5

This is what I see as the main part of Rom 5:20 to build the term " Hyper-Grace". Guys this is not proper exegesis.

Rom 5 20-21 is not the end of the contextual authorial intent. the full context is finished in Rom 6 starting verse 1 with

"What shall we say then?" this question was asked from the writing in Chapter 5 they are unit chapters.

it reads like this :

Rom 5:19- 21

19For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 20Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: 21That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (rom6) 1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For he that is dead is freed from sin.

You can not even use the concept of hyper-grace because it's made up you have to interject other verses to create a support for it after ignoring the unit chapters of Rome 5, 6, and 7 and 8 .
Hyper-grace is not supported in Romes.

rom 5:20 is the only verse used to explain something so important about grace?

the issue with hyper-Grace benFTW is only one verse in the Bible to build this understanding from. Yet if we just keep in context rom 5:1-20 with Chapter 6 Hyper-grace is not the focus or interpretation. it's just not there Biblically. You have to take out all of Rom 6 and 7

Excellent reply. Besides the fact that Romans 5:20 is taken out of context of Romans 5. What is Romans 5 about? It is an explanation of justification by faith and salvation history. I think this chapter is up there as one of the top chapters in the Bible, along with Romans 8, and Psalm 23! So much, that I memorized the first half of the chapter. (Of course, the 2nd half is also important, I just never managed to memorize it!)

"Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

20 The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 5:18-21

In no way is this talking about never confessing your sins again, and focusing on your blessings, instead of God. It is about justification, which is not sinless perfection (or pretending you don't need to confess your sins!). It is about the general picture, in which grace increased, or abounded in the church, but even more so, in the world. Grace abounded so more people would be saved! That grace would bring more people to eternal life. Not so the same group of people would get more and more, doing less and less! (As in, maturing in their Christian walk, of which confession of sins plays an important role!)

I would urge everyone to read all of Romans 5, in a modern version so you can actually understand what it means. The KJV was great 400 years ago, but today, too many obsolete words and the grammar is very different. Roman is difficult enough (profound enough??) without having to read it in a language which is not ours.

And after you read Romans 5 a few times, start in on Romans 1, and read through all of Roman a few times. Don't worry about the things you don't understand, God is going to show you a lot. And mostly, reading in context will show you what a foundationless bit of nonsense hypergrace truly is. Again, you can't base a doctrine, let alone a movement on one out of context verse, ever!