The Free Grace Alliance

By Roger Fankhauser, DMin I just recently read from a non-free-grace person that the Free Grace position only requires someone to believe in certain propositions about Jesus to receive eternal life. The writer is almost – but not quite – right. However, “not quite right” changes the argument from a valid criticism to a straw man argument. If the writer were correct, then the object of our faith would be limited to statements about Jesus or historical events about Jesus. The object of our faith is Jesus. Jesus said it (“whosoever believes in me”, John 3:16); Paul said it (“that we might be justified by faith in Christ”, Gal. 2:16). Almost all evangelicals say this. (I would say “all”, but as soon as I do, someone would point out an exception!) Free-Grace evangelicals; Reformed evangelicals consistently define the object of saving faith as Jesus. We might disagree about what one must know about this Jesus or about the impact that faith in Jesus “must” have on life, but, at ...

Justification is a central topic to Free Grace theology, and as such when a book is written in scholarly circles to discuss justification it is worth considering!    Beilby, James K., and Eddy, Paul Rhodes, eds., Justification: Five Views. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2011. 308 pp. $15.38.   Multi-view books rise and fall on the quality of their representatives, and Justification: Five Views stands with an impressive list of contributors. James Beilby and Paul Eddy, both professors at Bethel University, have edited several books for the IVP Spectrum series of multiview books and are therefore quite well qualified to edit this volume as well. The flow of the book shows their prowess. This is the fourth multiview book that they have co-edited for IVP, and their experience shows through in the book’s layout from Reformed to Catholic.   In addition to this, the book brings together an impressive list of contributors to their viewpoints, drawing some ...

Br Dr. Fred Lybrand Let's have a discussion. So, Rob Bell writes a book called "Love Wins" and it is basically all about heaven and hell with a final conclusion that Love wins out; God's love will ultimately persuade everyone to embrace Him and His heaven.  It sounds like universalism, but Bell and others are also denying it.  You can call it what you want, but if everyone gets in, then salvation is clearly 'universal' (hence the name). Of course this is unabashedly anti-scriptural (nice interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Vg-qgmJ7nzA ), but what is behind his conclusion?  Cynically we could speak in terms of fame and fortune as motivating Bell to depart from the historic / biblical Christian faith.  I, however, think there is a far more simple way to think about it theologically.  Bell has just imposed a hierarchy on the attributes of God.  The net result is that Bell has taken grace (he says love, but a lov...