When I began to address the error of hyper-grace several years ago, hardly a day would go by without me hearing from people who had been deeply hurt by the message. At the same time, I would consistently hear from people who had been greatly helped by it.

Since we know that a good tree cannot produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit (see Luke 6:43-44), how can we explain the fact that some are helped and some hurt by the same message?

This is one of the 12 questions I tackle in my new book, The Grace Controversy, released May 3rd (at the end of this article, I'll list all 12 question from the book).

Here's an abbreviated version of how I answer this important question in The Grace Controversy.

It appears that there are two primary classes of believers drawn to the hyper-grace message.

The first group consists of serious Christians who really want to please the Lord but they struggle with a particular sin or they have very sensitive consciences and always feel like they're falling short. They're not looking for a license to sin, they want to live godly lives, but they can't seem to find a place of freedom from sinful habits or a place of acceptance in the sight of God.

When they hear the hyper-grace message, which tells them that all their sins are forgiven — past, present, and future — and that nothing they do can ever affect their relationship with God, and when they are taught that, on the very worst day of their lives, God sees them as perfect and holy, they take their eyes off of themselves — off of their performance and their failures — and fix their eyes on Jesus. And as they do, they are wonderfully set free and transformed.

Was there a mixture of truth and error in what they heard? Without a doubt. But since they were not looking for an excuse to disobey or backslide, and since one of their biggest problems was measuring their relationship with God on the basis how they performed on a given day, the exaggerated message of grace was liberating for them.

On the other hand, there are believers who are attracted to the hyper-grace message because they have a problem with discipline and holiness, and when they hear these same words and listen to these same sermons, they become complacent, carnal, and compromised, mocking those who call for holy living, branding them grace-hating Pharisees, and claiming that they are mixing grace with works. Rather than draw closer to the Lord in intimate prayer, consistent reading of the Word, and deepening purity, they actually backslide in the name of grace.


Read more: If the Hyper-Grace Message Is Wrong, Why Does It Help So Many?