Dear Servant of the Lord,

Thank you for your generosity in sending me your publications. I praise God for your admirable (and thoroughly Biblical) stand as to what salvation is and is not. Throughout the entire world there is a tremendous need for teaching like yours. Keep going forward.

CV
Hiawassee, GA

Thanks. I needed that. –Ed.

Dear Bob and Sharon,

We are missionaries in the Philippines. My husband is the pilot for the island of Mindanao.

We just wanted you to know that we certainly do appreciate the GES News. We have recommended it to several of our co-workers over here.

Pray for us as we share the gospel of grace with those in tribal areas. It’s a neat thing to be able to teach these people and present salvation through Christ alone to them.

The Lord bless your ministry there.

M&G
Mindanao, Philippines

Thank you for the encouragement and the Lord’s blessings on your ministry as well! –Ed.

Dear Mr. Wilkin,

I’m not a theologian, teacher, or wise man. I have very little tact. I could write a lot but I know I’d be wasting your time and mine. I want to remind you that you’re treading on holy ground.

Zane Hodges’s books give me the same pain that Lewis Sperry Chafer books do. It’s a shame that such gifted men as Chafer, Hodges, and Wilkin should spend so much time trying to make the sinner feel secure. There can be no security in sin; it must be confessed.

What does God desire from all men? Love, trust, obedience…. Wouldn’t it be wise to teach what God wants rather than what man wants?…

“In the Bible the offer of pardon on the part of God is conditioned upon intention to reform on the part of man. There can be no spiritual regeneration till there has been a moral reformation. That this statement requires defense only proves how far from the truth we’ve strayed” (A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous).

I trust you love God.

R.E.

I’m afraid you misunderstand the Free Grace Salvation position.

We do call people to love, trust, and obedience. We do call for moral reform. We are very much concerned about holiness and godliness.

What we do not do is link our deeds with either our salvation or our assurance. The Scriptures are clear that the only condition of eternal life is faith in Christ. All who believe in Christ can be 100% sure that they are saved on the basis of the promises in the Bible that those who believe in Him have eternal life.

To withhold assurance from sinners is to withhold assurance from everyone since all sin (1 Jn 1:8,10). To call people to clean up their lives as a condition of eternal salvation is to distort the gospel by introducing works and human merit.

I do love God. I love Him because while I was yet a sinner He died for me. I love Him because He first loved me. His utterly undeserved love compels me to serve Him and tell others of His marvelous grace (2 Cor. 5:14). –Ed.

Dear Mr. Wilkin,

I appreciated (and generally agreed with) your article, “Are Good Works Inevitable?” in the February [1990] newsletter. Your illustration using statistics and probability was intriguing, and it has helped me to articulate a question I have been grappling with for some time. That is, do the “odds” of a person choosing to do a good deed change at the moment of conversion? I grant that we cannot know the “odds” and therefore cannot measure the change, if any; but can we say with certainty that the probability of a brand-new believer choosing to do good is to some degree greater one minute after he trusts Christ than it was one minute before he believed?

Hopefully you can help me with this. I do appreciate the work you are doing.

CPW
Wichita Falls, TX

Yes, I would say that the likelihood we will choose to do good increases the moment we trust in Christ. At that moment the Holy Spirit comes to live within us and empowers and motivates us to obey God. We are immediately grateful for what God has done for us and thus gain a powerful motivation to obey God. If we get into the Word and fellowship we begin to get a clearer picture of what is good and how to do it. We learn that God blesses obedience and disciplines disobedience. We learn of the Judgment Seat of Christ and future rewards. It seems to me that not only do the odds to do good increase the moment we trust Christ, they continue to increase daily as long as we keep seeking God. The normal Christian experience should be ever-increasing holiness. God has given us all things we need pertaining to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). –Ed.