Free Grace Theology Sample

Promoting Love of God

Free Grace Theology Promotes a Love Relationship with God

Take the most famous Bible verse in the world, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”

In my classes on Soteriology (the study of salvation), I sometimes ask a married man how long he and his wife dated before marriage. Usually, it’s at least a year. 

“Did you take her out to eat or to a movie during that time?” Sure. “Well, if you thought she was the one you wanted, why didn't you just take her before the civil or religious authorities and force her to marry you? You could’ve saved a lot of time and money. Why did you ask her to marry you instead of forcing her?” 

They will say something to the effect that they wanted her to have a choice. “Why? Why did you want her to have a choice?” They conclude that if it weren’t a choice, they would never know if she loved them. “You mean you wanted her to love you?” Right. “Do you think God wants to be loved any less than we do? After all, God is love.”

You see, if we take human choice away, God would never have external evidence that we love Him. The Bible is a love story. The Shema is at the heart of Deuteronomy, a statement uttered every day by religious Jews: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.” 

Jesus picked up on this when the Pharisees asked, “What’s the greatest commandment?” Jesus quoted the Shema. But entities without choice are just that: entities, not people. The capacity to have volition is part of being created in the image of God. Take choice away, and we have robots.

God is love, and He desires nothing more than a loving relationship with us whom He created out of love. Free Grace theology recognizes this and preserves the free choice within humankind that makes this love relationship possible.

Free Grace theology teaches that “nothing can separate us from the love of Christ… neither things past nor things to come.” (Romans 8:38). In other words, there are no sins I can commit in the future—things to come—that can separate me from God’s love.

Free Grace theology believes entire books of the Bible, such as 1 John, were written to promote a deeper love relationship with God.