Even though God through His grace was working in the believer to will and to do of His good pleasure Paul reminded them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12-13).
What some advocates of hyper-grace call the mixed grace message is simply the God-side and man-side of our redemption and sanctification.
Sanctify Yourself
It is true that God has already sanctified us. It is true that Jesus Christ is our sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30). That is a high and lofty positional truth expounding on the legal aspect of our sanctification. But the Word also tells us to sanctify ourselves and reminds believers of their personal responsibility to apply that sanctification to their lives. That is called the vital or the experiential aspect of our redemption and sanctification.
So in essence, what I’ve observed in the “hyper-grace” teaching is error through simple overemphasis of one glorious truth at the expense of an almost complete dismissal of another equally important truth. We need the mixture of the God-side and the man-side of our sanctification.
Paul was sanctified and separated from his mother’s womb (Gal. 1:15), but he also sanctified himself lest he be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27). The imagery in these verses is that of a Grecian Olympic athlete who trained rigorously for 10 months to compete in the games. That doesn’t sound too effortless to me, and yet when we yield to the inward grace it seems effortless. That is understood.
Because Paul sanctified himself he admonished Timothy to do the same (2 Tim. 2:21-22). “Purge yourself” is a part of the language Paul uses—yet another example of the man-side of our sanctification. The problem has been that we are asking God to do many things for us which He tells us to do ourselves.
Of course He supplies the grace and the Holy Spirit to help us, but He will not do it for us. The Holy Spirit is a Helper, not a doer. There are perhaps hundreds of examples in the New Testament of this sort of cooperation that exists between God and man, and between grace and works.
I think it’s high time in the body of Christ to heed the wise old maestro’s sound wisdom: “Avoid the ditches, and stay in the middle of the road.”
In doing this, you will not be tossed by winds of doctrine, and the grace of God won’t be received in vain (2 Cor. 6:1).
Bert M. Farias, revivalist and founder of Holy Fire Ministries, is the author of several books including the newly released My Son, My Son—a beautiful father-son journey co-written with his son Daniel for the purpose of enriching and empowering parents to train their children in God’s ways. He is also the co-host of the New England Holy Ghost Forum, a school of the Spirit. Follow him at Bert Farias and Holy Fire Ministries on Facebook or @Bertfarias1 on Twitter.
