SID: Hello. Sid Roth here with Dr. Michael Brown. Mike, what would you say the fundamental deception is in this hyper grace message?
DR. BROWN: One of the big concepts is this. When you get saved, God not only forgives your past sins and your presents sins, but all of your future sins He forgives in advance. So that means if you go out and blow it tomorrow, you don’t have say, “God, I’m sorry, I sinned, wash me, cleanse me, forgive me,” because you’re already forgiven. That means that the Holy Spirit will never convict you of sin because God has already forgiven that sin. That means no matter what you do it cannot even affect your relationship with God or your standing with God because you’ve already been pronounced forgiven. That means that if you or I do something atrocious and God said, it doesn’t even grieve Him because He doesn’t even see it, He always only sees you as perfectly righteous and, therefore, you never, ever have to deal with sin.
SID: But wait a second. Are these the fringe bloggers that are saying these things? Are the main grace teachers saying what you’ve just said?
DR. BROWN: Oh, this is fundamental. One of the famous, prominent ones out there, he says, God does not give forgiveness in installments. So the moment you get saved, all your future sins are already pronounced forgiven. You say, what about 1 John 1, “If we confess our sins, He’s faithful just to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all righteousness,” they will all, the mainstream hyper grace teachers will all say, no, no, no, that’s just for someone getting saved. When you get saved, you confess your sin. Or that’s for alleged gnostic heretics who were part of the congregations then, and John is reaching out to them. Of course, that whole scenario is bogus. It’s we. It’s talking about us, it’s talking about believers. The heretics were the outsiders. They, John talks about it as “they,” they had already left the camp. If I ignore sin in my life, if I deny its presence, there are some who even teach this: Because my spirit is perfect in God’s sight and my spirit doesn’t sin, then I don’t really sin when I sin. That is just my flesh and I’m not my flesh. Well, one well-known teacher said this, “We not our sins.” So that’s what God is looking at. Sid, He’s looking at the whole person. If sin is not an issue, why does almost every letter in the New Testament deal with it?
SID: What does Titus say about that?
DR. BROWN: Here’s what Titus says. Titus 2:11: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching them to say no to ungodliness and to live holy and disciplined lives in the present age.” God’s grace teaches us to say no to sin. Sin is an ongoing issue. In the New Testament, Paul keeps raising it. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 7: “Let us perfect holiness in the fear of God.” Let’s get rid of everything that defiles flesh and spirit. In Revelation, Chapters 2 and 3, Jesus speaks to the seven churches in Asia-Minor, and to five out of the seven, these are believers, the churches, five out of the seven he says, “Repent or else.” If he doesn’t see our sin, why is he rebuking us? If he doesn’t see our sin, why is he grieved? Sid, we have a relationship with God and relationship means shared life, and that means we can grieve God. That means we can disappoint God.
SID: Mike, you know, what you’re saying to me, it defies my 40 years of reading the Bible. I live a repentant life. I mean, that’s normal. I don’t understand how this deception could, it’s got to be a spiritual blindness. It can’t be natural if you read the Bible.
DR. BROWN: You know what I see happening? Our whole culture is “it’s all about me.” I have books that are written by gay Christian pastors and they’re practicing homosexuals who are pastors. They’re obviously in a struggle. What they’ve done is they’ve now rewritten scripture and they’ll say, grace has delivered me. I’m not under that legalism. I’m not under that condemnation. I’m not under all those Old Testament laws. God sees me as righteous. Don’t put me under that. I think that’s what the hyper grace teachers are saying. And it’s what happens when it’s about me, this is who I am, this is how I live. The American gospel that we preach is Jesus died to make you into a bigger and better you. Well if it’s all about me, well this hurts my feelings, this makes me feel bad, as opposed to, Father, how can I please you? You know Sid, there are hyper grace teachers, mainstream, that say if you’re trying to please God, you’ll never do it, and get rid of a God-pleasing mentality.
SID: But wait a second. You can’t read the Old Testament.
DR. BROWN: No, you don’t read the Old Testament. Throw out the Old Testament.
SID: What?
DR. BROWN: Hang on.
SID: Did you hear that?
DR. BROWN: That’s the law, Sid. We’re not under the law. We’re under grace. Get rid of that. That’s just the laws, that’s the mainstream—
SID: Do you know what Bible the first church had? They only had the Old Testament. Do you realize they weren’t slouches either. How would you like to be operating in the power they operated under?
DR. BROWN: Look, the bottom line is Paul preached grace using what we call the Old Testament as his Bible. But hyper grace teachers have a big problem. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Father forgive as we forgive.” That means forgiveness is ongoing. No, no, no. That’s not for us today. Throw out the words of Jesus. Those were just for the Jews in Jesus’ day. Anything that Jesus taught before the Cross doesn’t apply to us. The Sermon on the Mount is the law on steroids to bring law-keeping people to frustration. It is not grace. This is what mainstream hyper grace teachers are putting forth.
SID: All right. Is mainstream moving towards “everyone is ultimately saved including the devil”?
DR. BROWN: Well let’s say this. Mainstream continues to move away from biblical grace. It continues to distort. So the fringe is already there. So how far does it go? I have books by so-called Christian authors who say true grace means everyone will be saved. True grace means there is no hell. And one of them has gone so far, he started with a heart for revival, repentance. He threw that out. He started to preach a hyper grace message. He is now saying, Is the devil beyond the limits of God’s grace? So this is where the fringe is going.
SID: This, you know, when I said, could this be the End Time deception that will cause millions to walk away from the Lord in the last days, as the Bible says will happen, well you decide. We’ll be right back.
