Free Grace people believe that the true gospel has long been a minority position. We claim that most of Christianity, which became Christendom, abandoned the gospel for a falsehood.
It is hard to believe that something so catastrophic could happen. And yet, that was Paul’s conclusion. He found that the Galatian churches he had planted were abandoning the gospel for a false one:
I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—(Galatians 1:6).
He was amazed. How could it happen? How could the people be so flaky? (And the unasked question—why would God let error spread?)
Paul wrote in defense of the gospel. But what happened afterwards? Did he win them back to the gospel, or did that error continue to spread?
From a Free Grace evaluation, things seem to have only gotten worse. The early churches seem to have abandoned the gospel. Church life was especially corrupted when Emperor Constantine helped transform Christianity into Christendom.
Now, when we make those kinds of claims, we can sound like wingnuts. Free Grace people can sound like paranoid sectarians on the fringes of theology. And, to be honest, that impression is sometimes justified—but not in this case!
Here’s a similar judgment from a “respectable” theologian.
Douglas John Hall is a “mainline” Canadian theologian. He graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is a former professor at one of Canada’s top secular universities. He is also a member of the United Church of Canada, a denomination so liberal it recently debated whether or not an atheist could pastor one of its churches, and decided one could (see here). In other words, Hall’s Liberal credentials are impeccable. And yet, here is what he said about the gospel and Christendom:
The “other” gospel against which Paul wrote in such strenuous language was a religion of law, of moralistic and liturgical observations, of distinctions between persons, of pretensions to possess righteousness. For hope it substituted immediate realization of the goal; for faith it substituted vision; for love, it substituted obedience to laws. It was, above all, a religion that offered men clear-cut paths to the attainment of a glory in keeping with their human expectations. As such it was the very antithesis of the gospel that Paul preached, which found the only authentic glory in the cross of Christ, at the point where human possibilities and hopes were canceled (Hall, Lighten our Darkness, p. 115).
Hall recognizes that the Galatian “gospel”—characterized by law and moralism—was the antithesis of Paul’s gospel. And yet, which gospel “won” the popular vote?
Perhaps the most ironic fact of the history of Western civilization is that the “other” gospel against which Paul spoke in the name of the crucified Christ became, in a very short time, the dominant religion of the West, bearing the name and emblems of the Christ, including his cross! So normative did this “other” gospel become that from the standpoint of quantitative comparison, it is the gospel of Paul, and not the Galatian aberration, that must be regarded as the exception—the “other” gospel (pp. 115-116).
Douglas John Hall agrees. Paul's gospel became the minority position. Something other than the gospel was believed by most of Christendom. How surprising! How shocking! But it's true.
However, Paul’s gospel was marginalized but never lost. Not completely. Free Grace people represent the remnant staying true to the original message. Other groups who clearly teach salvation by faith apart from works. And thank God for them. We are swimming against the current together. But in case that discourages you, remember this: while “other” gospels may win the numbers, only the grace gospel saves souls (cf. Romans 1:16-17).
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Send your questions or comments to shawn@freegrace.in.
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