There is a movement in the body of Believers that has been coined 'the Hyper Grace Movement'. The belief among such Believers is that God forgives all future and past sins before we even confess, and that Grace, which is God's love for us, covers everything.
While it is true, love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), there is a great deal more evidence in the entire rest of the Bible to suggest, and even command, confession of our sins before we are forgiven.
There's a teaching, growing more popular as time wears on, that God is entirely Grace and Love. That Jesus preached pacifism, that we must love and never judge, or even acknowledge sin. Hyper Grace teaches these ideologies, and it's leaked into a lot of mainstream Christianity. If God's Grace covers all our sins from the moment we say the Sinners Prayer, then we should be able to ask for his Grace always, and never face the hardships that sin, and life in general, brings with it. Right?
Depending on Hyper-Grace to forgive past and future sins without confession, and believing that God would never allow his children to suffer if we just pray the sinners prayer, has one very glaring issue; it depends entirely on an idea of God and Jesus being as obsessed with Grace and Mercy as humans want them to be.
Grace without Justice
One massive issue with this idea is confusing what Grace, Justice, and Sin are. Grace and Justice go hand in hand; how can God show us Mercy or Grace, without having Justice already? He cannot forgive us of our sins if there's no pre-defined Sin in the first place.
So we must start with the first thing; understanding what Sin even is. Forgiveness cannot happen if we don't know what we are being forgiven for.
Sin is defined in the Ten Commandments, and expanded on in the Torah. God gives the Children of Israel two stone tablets with his commands for them written on them, and then expounds, through Moses, on dietary laws, sexual impurity laws, cleanliness laws, among others. Some of them are moral, like don't law a stumbling block before a blind man, and some are practical, like don't poop in the campsite.
When the Children of Israel broke one of these commands, it was a sin. God gave them a way to cover their sins with animal, grain, and food sacrifices. The process could only be handled by a priest, and only in the designated Temple. God promised blessing on his people in they obeyed his commands, and curses on them if they disobeyed. His Justice was swift, and absolute. Many people died (the earth swallowed them up, the were killed by the surrounding nations, stoned to death, etc.) because of their disobedience. The only way to be saved from sin was to obey, or to sacrifice when you messed up. Some sins were given the gravity of instant punishment upon discovery. This is where we often see the things we consider barbaric, such as stoning.
They, of course, being human, fell away from Torah, and were often carried away into pagan lands, only to realize their mistake, beg forgiveness, and rush back to the Temple in Jerusalem to sacrifice and rebuild. Over time, many of the Tribes of Israel were lost among the nations, and so were unable to sacrifice.
God, in his wisdom and grace for humankind, knew that his people would fall away, and so he send his son, Yeshua (Jesus), to be the ultimate sin sacrifice. His blood then covered all sins, past, present, and future, if we were willing to repent from them.
At this point, only 2 tribes from the 12 original Children of Israel remained, who we now call the Jews (after the tribe of Judah), and it's been a hot debate on who truly even remains. Until then, the only way to be saved from your sins was to join them, bring sacrifices to the Temple, and according to the laws of man, obey the multitude of extra-biblical laws (a practice commonly referred to as Legalism). After Yeshua's death and resurrection, all of mankind were able to come to the Father and obey. Now, we had to ask forgiveness, but no longer had to sacrifice. And now, the punishment for disobedience was taken onto Yeshua, and we didn't have to die for our own sins. Which is why we no longer have the grave task of stoning certain people, or cutting them off from our nation.
So we have an order. Sin came first, followed by Justice for our sins, and finally Grace in the form of the perfect sin sacrifice. They all hold equal weight in our lives, and you cannot have one without the other.
This doesn't give us license to sin freely, knowing we will be forgiven. Sin begins in our hearts, as Jesus said in Matthew 5:21-
"You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Do not murder,' and that anyone who commits murder will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who nurses anger against his brother will be subject to judgment; that whoever calls his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing!’ will be brought before the Sanhedrin (priests); that whoever says, ‘Fool!’ incurs the penalty of burning in the fire of Gei-Hinnom! (hellfire)"
We also see scripture tell us that we should still work to live sinless lives, even when we are covered in the Blood. Hebrews 10:26-
"For if we deliberately continue to sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins-"
Grace cannot exist without Justice. God, in his goodness, sent his son for us, as an act of Grace or Mercy. We no longer incur the earthly punishments when we sin, but ultimately we will still be judged by our actions here on earth. Hyper-Grace teaches us that we can sin, because God knows we are going to and covered us anyway, and we can sin essentially with impunity, because 'once saved, always saved' (which is also not true, but that's a topic for another day).
What Is Grace?
Another issue with Hyper-Grace is confusing what Grace actually is. Grace is touted as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-Card, that when you're 'saved' you can live your life how you want to, because Jesus lived sinless so you didn't have to.
God's ideas are very rarely what our ideas are.
In 2nd Corinthians chapter 12, Paul is writing about the Thorn in his side. In his words, it's a spiritual thorn, given to him from the Adversary to keep him humble. He begged God on 3 different occasions (there is significance in that number, as in Hebrew tradition, saying or asking something 3 times gives it more weight or importance) to remove this thorn from his flesh, but he wasn't told "yes Paul, my Grace covers everything, you're good, no need to work on things, no need to suffer, that's under Grace!" Instead, this is the answer he received in 2nd Corinthians 12:9-
but he told me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness.”
Was this because God's Grace was imperfect? Did God misunderstand Grace? Of course not.
And Paul, was he devastated? Was he angry that God demanded more spiritual work from him? Verse 9 continues on as Paul says-
Therefore, I am very happy to boast about my weaknesses, in order that the Messiah’s power will rest upon me.
Paul understood that God's Grace doesn't mean he will remove all requirements, hardships, and tasks from before us. It doesn't mean that we are free to go and sin. In fact, even when Jesus spoke directly to people, he said "go, and sin no more" (John 8:10).
Paul understood, and shared with the Believers in Corinth, that God's Grace is sufficient. That we are saved from eternal death, and that is more than we deserve. Anything else in our life is our own cross to bear. We can, of course, come to God and ask for Mercy in our hardships, but sometimes the answer is "my grace is sufficient for you".
True Grace
The truth is, we are all sinners, saved by the Grace of our God. We deserve nothing less than hellfire for our sins, but God loves us so much that he wanted us to be able to repent and spend eternity with him.
That doesn't negate sin. It doesn't take it away in general. And it doesn't take away hardships here on earth.
We can commit the most egregious sins known to man, and come crawling to the cross, and God is faithful to forgive us, as per 1 John 1:9-
If we acknowledge our sins, then, since he is trustworthy and just, he will forgive them and purify us from all wrongdoing.
That one verse alone throws out the very core of Hyper-Grace, which says God has forgiven sins you've never even committed yet. We must acknowledge our sins, and ask forgiveness, and then he will forgive and purify us.
That's not to say we will suddenly be free from consequences. God is faithful to forgive, but the world? Not so much. You might commit a murder, realize you're wrong, ask God's forgiveness, and be forgiven, but you're still going to prison. There are natural consequences to any action, and God's forgiveness on our eternal souls doesn't negate what we do to our fellow man or our own bodies. Some sins will follow us to the end of our earthly days, and be buried in the grave with us. They might not follow us through the Pearly Gates, but they will follow us to Judgement Day.
God didn't have to give us his Grace, or his Mercy. He didn't have to give us his love. Our actions cannot get us these things, because he already extends them to us.
But in the same manner, our actions should be something that is worthy of that Grace, Mercy, and Love. God very easily could have flooded the entire earth, and left Noah and his family in the water. He could have started over without giving mankind the option to disobey in the very beginning. He could have created automatons who always cheerfully obeyed him. He could have. But he didn't.
Instead, he gave Adam and Eve a choice, to either love and obey him, or be driven away by their disobedience. He promised Noah to save his family if he obeyed and built an ark, and afterwards to never flood the earth again, because man's heart is wicked, but he wants us to choose him anyway. He gave us free will, we disobeyed, and he still gave us a sacrificial lamb so we have the option to choose him and spend eternity by his side.
God owes us nothing, and yet he's given us everything. Hyper-Grace takes that truly awe-inspiring love and makes it tiny. It takes away the gravity of obedience, and says we're all good. It takes away from the truly ghastly, mutilating, humiliating death on the Cross, and says 'eh, Jesus did it so I don't have to, I'm pretty much free'.
You might even have heard people say "If the Son sets you free, you a free indeed!" as a way to justify their sinful behavior. This doesn't simply mean you are free to do as you please. In context, in John 8:34-36, Jesus is saying to his fellow Judeans-
Yeshua (Jesus) answered them, “Yes, indeed! I tell you that everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. Now a slave does not remain with a family forever, but a son does remain with it forever. So if the Son frees you, you will really be free!"
Hyper-Grace would have you believe that freedom from your sins means freedom to continue to sin. A sin is anything God told us not to do. He gave us the things we are supposed to or not supposed to do in the Ten Commandments and the Torah. So disobedience to God, disobedience to his commands, makes you a slave to sin. You cannot be a slave to sin and a servant to God, as per Matthew 6:24 ('you cannot serve two masters', which is referencing money specifically here, but also, we know that money is the root of many evils, as per 1 Timothy 6:10, so we can assume you also cannot follow the two masters of God and Sin.)
Sin is still sin. God's Grace covers us when we sin and ask forgiveness. To truly ask forgiveness, we have to be intentional to stop sinning. Remember, paying lip service to God in church isn't fooling him; he knows what you do in private (Matthew 6:4, Jesus tells us that our Father sees us in private), and he knows the innermost thoughts of your heart (Psalms 44:21 tells us he knows the secrets of the heart). People might think you're a Believer, but what people think doesn't matter. God knows the truth.
Taking every thought captive to Christ (2nd Corinthians 10:5 tells us we must do so) is the only way to truly accept the gift of Grace. Our actions, our words, even our private thoughts must be taken captive and handed to our Father. He gave us Grace to forgive us, there is no doubt about that. But in return he commands that we must confess our sins and turn away from them. We can't harbor our sinful nature, even in our minds, without throwing the gift that Yeshua gave us on the cross back in his face.
It's not legalism to obey only God's word. It's not wrong to desire to obey our Father. We will fall short, we will sin, and God knows this. But it's because of our sin nature, not because we are acting like we got a free pass to commit sexual immorality, kill people, or ignore the Sabbath, among other things.
The Son Set Us Free
The Son set us free, and we are free indeed. We are blessed to have the freedom to mess up, and still ask forgiveness and try again. We have the freedom to learn as we go. We have the freedom to not have to go to the Temple just in case we accidentally sinned. We have the freedom to love and be loved by Christ, and the Father.
We are also blessed to be able to ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us. We don't have to rely on priests in the Temple, we can go straight to the Father in prayer, because Yeshua is our High Priest.
We are also free to find the truth for ourselves. In this day and age, especially in the first world, we have no excuses to not search the scriptures for ourselves. We all have access to holy text, not just the single scroll in the Temple. We are free to search the scripture, ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom, and learn the truth.
This is Grace. Freedom. The Grace God gave us from the very beginning, which is the freedom to choose. Adam and Eve chose disobedience, as have many others after them. Yeshua chose obedience to the Father, even unto death, and we can as well. In his Grace, Mercy, and Love, God gave us freedom to choose, and then he gave us a way to choose him.
Do you believe in Grace above all? Do you believe in the freedom in Christ? What are you doing with that Grace and Freedom? Is his Grace sufficient for us, or do we hide behind a false Grace as a slave to sin?
Please, don't simply take my word. Read, pray, and ask for wisdom for yourself.
May God bless and keep you.
*Scripture references are from both the KJV and the CJB
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