To distinguish themselves from those who hold to both Eternal Security and Perseverance of the Saints, they refer to their idea as "Free Grace" as opposed to "Lordship Salvation".
"Lordship Salvation" means that once saved, Christ becomes Lord to that person and causes him to persevere in his faith to the end. Holiness and faithfulness will be the general lifestyle of the believer, although temporary sins will come into the Christian's life. This is the idea behind the perseverance of the Saints. Once saved, always saved, but also once saved, it is inevitable that such a person will persevere until the end.
"Lordship Salvation" must not be confused with Legalistic-Arminianism in which a person must maintain a certain level of performance in order to maintain his salvation status.
What's wrong with Antinomial-Calvinism?
The reasoning behind "free grace" is that since justification (the forgiveness of sins) is not dependent upon our performance but rather accepted freely by faith, that once one accepts it by faith, his destiny is then sealed, having had his sins forgiven. Such a person rely's on God's "graciousness", which is His attitude of freely giving to the undeserving, being essential to the message of the gospel.
This is essentially correct. However, the assumption is that being born of God, which occurs when one believes the gospel, has no effect on the person's free will. It has no inevitable effect on the person's behavior or the permanence of his beliefs. This is not correct. For example, John writes:
"No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God." 1John 3:6-9The book of 1John is all about how you can measure whether someone has been born of God by their behavior. Yet it strongly advocates Eternal Security, as in:
"They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.Notice that although such people may have been presumed to be "saved" before they went out, John evaluates them as merely having been "nominal" Christians, not really having belonged to begin with. How did he know that? By their action of leaving the faith. This verse contains both the concepts of Eternal Security and Perseverance of the Saints.
For if they had belonged to us, {ONCE SAVED}
they would have remained with us; {ALWAYS SAVED}
but their going showed that none of them belonged to us." 1John 2:19
What about those who believed and now no longer believe? In fact they never believed to begin with. Quite often you will find there was a deficiency in either the content of their faith or the quality of their faith.
What about those who believed, but live a lifestyle of sin? The Bible makes it clear that such are also deficient in their faith, not yet having been saved. This is clear not only in 1John, but also in Paul's writings like:
"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1Corinthians 6:9,10The Danger of the "Free Grace" Doctrine of Antinomial-Calvinism
Unike Legalistic-Arminianism this form of Antinomial-Calvinism is not an essential deviation from the gospel of grace. It deviates on the non-essential idea as to what to expect from those who have been born of God, but not on the issue as to how to become born of God. It seems to have been developed more out of a reaction against Legalistic-Arminianism rather than from a dispassionate study of the scriptures.
The main danger I see is that it could trivialize the quality and content of faith that saves. The idea that if we can just get people to pray some prayer or try out belief in Christ in a sort of experimental fashion and then assume that such people are saved, would tend to result in many Christians who are merely "nominally so". Or the object of faith could be focussed away from the atoning work of Christ to Assurance of Salvation: People thinking that they must be certain of their salvation status and be confident that they are going to heaven, rather than being confident in the blood of Christ to justify them.
These are subtle differences, but could affect both a person's eternal destiny, if the content or quality of his faith is deficient, and the manner in which the gospel is presented, which affects other people's eternal destiny.
Message to the Antinomial-Calvinists:
Preach the gospel the way the Bible does. And if you life a lifestyle of sin, then, like Paul says:
"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you-- unless, of course, you fail the test?" 2Corinthians 13:5
See also Free
Grace Theology vs The Bible
Apr 12,2004