Free Grace Theology - with it's "Believe these propositional truths about Jesus and you are irrevocably in the Eternal Life Club, no genuine righteousness required" - ends up with this big question:
Why does God arrange this particular system for entry into heaven?
The Free Grace folks highlight this arrangement as bringing glory to Jesus - "He paid the price for you. It was ALL Him. Your righteousness or lack of righteousness had nothing to do with it. All you have to do is believe. And because He is faithful, once you believe, the Father will honor this arrangement, no questions asked."
So through all of human history, the Lord repeatedly offers humanity guidance toward righteousness, asks for righteousness, blesses obedience and punishes unrighteousness. But in the end, He really doesn't care that much about human righteousness because the really important thing is that His Son gets glory for sticking to His word?
Sounds a little like God just gave up on human righteousness, instead of making a way to enable it.
But I think what bothers me most about Free Grace Theology is its focus on justification - defined as simply the ticket into heaven.
There's no sense of humanity being reconciled to the Creator. (Which is really what justification is all about.) Rather, it's just "do this one simple thing and I will let you into heaven".
It's a great example of what Matthew Bates calls "the truncated gospel": "You are a sinner destined for hell but Jesus died for you so that you can go to heaven when you die so just believe in Him."
Which falls SO FAR SHORT of this vision, for example, from the mouth of Jesus Himself: "Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." (John 17:3)
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