I have not visit here in many weeks, but glad I saw this. You wrote, “In case you haven’t heard of it, ‘Free Grace’ is the name given to a theological system founded by Zane Hodges and currently promoted by Bob Wilkin and The Grace Evangelical Society. According to ‘Free-Grace’ theology…”

I want to provide some clarification on your statement above. I have to be hasty, but here goes.

Today there is a very clear and definite divide in the Free Grace (FG) community. There are two very distinct factions that have become even more sharply divided in the last year. One FG faction is the Hodges, Wilkin, GES camp, and then there are those who reject the extremism of Hodges and Wilkin. I trust you understand that Charles Ryrie, for example, is a far cry from Hodges on a number of doctrines. Dr. Charlie Bing would be another.

The dividing line between the two camps in the FG community is primarily over two areas of doctrine.

The first is over repentance: Hodges/Wilkin teaches that repentance is not part of or a condition for salvation. Hodges says repentance as a “change of mind” is not found in Scripture. Many, many men in the FG camp reject this from Hodges.

The second issue, which is the main and very sharp dividing point, is over what has come to be known as the “Crossless” gospel.

This reductionist view of the Gospel from Hodges and Wilkin teaches that the lost man does not have to understand or believe who Jesus is or what He did to provide salvation, but can still be born again. The only condition for salvation in the Hodges (Crossless) system is believing in a promise of eternal life from a man named Jesus no matter who the lost man thinks Jesus is.

Even conscious rejection of the Lord’s deity, in a personal evangelism setting, is viewed as something to be put on the back burner and left there. They believe issues like that are to be dealt with in a discipleship setting.

Other dangerous teaching coming from Hodges and Wilkin include: 1) There is no sin barrier/problem between God and man. 2) There is no technical meaning for “the Gospel.” 3) The Lord’s titles, “the Christ” & “Son of God” do not mean or infer the Lord’s Deity.

I share these things with you and your readers to make the point that there are many men in the FG community who reject these egregious errors coming from Hodges, Wilkin and the GES. These men are Free Grace, they reject Lordship Salvation, but they are not in any way holding hands with the theology of Zane Hodges.

Now, I am not trying to advertise my blog, but if any of your readers click over they can read scores of articles where I and others sharply refute the teaching of Zane Hodges, Bob Wilkin and the GES. We do that from a Free Grace position.

Kind regards,

LM

John says that God is Love. How do we define Love? As a Human one learns to define Love in the way they experience Love through secular experience. If your father says that he Loves you and then beats you, it is hard to separate the two things.

Jesus lived as a definition of Love, so we might be free of the constraints of secular definitions. Paul teaches the Love of Jesus and amplifies it. God/Jesus Loves us. We are imperfect beings, but that is not an issue when it comes to God’s Love. We are loved and forgiven our sins without any action from us.

If we go though life and never know or understand that Love and Forgiveness, we remain in a state of condemnation, not by God but by our lack of knowledge.

It is like a letter that is sent but you never get because you do not check your mailbox. The letter is there. It is yours, but if you do not go to the mail box and recieve the letter you will not know what the letters says. In the case of God, the letter is good news that you will not know unless you go to the mailbox and recieve it.

God’s Love is free and already given, but one does have to act to recieve the knowledge of that Love and Forgiveness.

We can recieve God’s Love and walk away from it. It was there before we believed and and it will be there when we walk away. That part is true, but reality is perception. No matter what exists, if we do not percieve it as being in our reality, it does not exist – to us.

“Works” are not for God, they are for us. It is God’s gift to us so we may know him better and may grow in His way.

I have looked at Love as being like a cup that is full of wine and no matter how much you drink the cup never empties. Now if you take that cup and place it on a shelf and never drink of it you have only one cup of wine. If you take the cup and drink of it you have only what wine you can drink, but if you take the cup and share it with all you know the wine you have or can give is infinite.

That is God’s plan and will for us. He wants us to acknowledge that he Loves us and gave Jesus as a guide to us. Then he wants is to partake of His Love and share His Love. We know God through this process because John tells us that God is Love. If we know love and know it fully we know God.

This is what I beleive, this is what I strive to live by yeilding to God, yeilding to Love.

Ditto.

One thing missed by some is that believing, or faith in the gospel involves obedience. They cannot be held apart from each other. See Heb. 3:16-4:11. The words unbelief and disobedience are used interchangably. 3:19, “So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.” and 4:10-11, “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.”

When you believe in Jesus, you have the Spirit to walk you through the obedience part.