Confidence in the knowledge or reality of a believer's salvation. While someone can waver in their assurance from bad theology, the assurance the Bible describes is absolute certainty based on the faithfulness of God alone.
Assurance is intrinstic to, or inseperable from, saving faith. In orders orders, if someone has been convinced of Jesus as the Christ who gives eternal life, then they have assurance (at least in that moment). Lasting assurance rests on God's promise of security. Reformed theology adds the needs for ongoing works, conviction and outward sorrow over sin, and peseverance to the end of one's life in faith to find assurnace of one's eternal destiny. This approach leads, if honest, to subjectivism and uncertainity. The Catholic and Orthodoxy faiths go as far as outright denying any asbolute assurance, often labeling such claims as prideful. The Quest for Full Assurance provides a concise history of the Protestant struggle for assurance. By contrast, the Bible describes assurance as an expected present experience for every beleiver because of God's nature to keep His promises and the finality of the atonement in 1 John 5:6-13. God wants us to be certain.
The Bema Seat (from Greek βῆμα, a raised platform) is the judgment seat of Christ where believers are evaluated after death — not for salvation, but for the quality of their service and faithfulness in this life.
The Bible describes two clearly different judgments, the Bema Seat and the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11–15). The unbelievers are judged in the latter on the basis of whether their names are in the Book of Life. Meanwhile at the Bema (2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Cor. 3:12–15), believers receive or lose rewards — not eternal life, which was already secured by faith alone. A believer whose works are burned up "will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:15). This distinction is foundational to the GES view that salvation and discipleship are entirely separate tracks. Conflating the two judgments is a common mistake in Lordship Salvation.
The belief that salvation must involve some outward decision, such as praying a prayer, walking an aisle or signing a commitment card.
The widespread evangelistic teaching and practice that a person becomes eternally saved from Hell primarily by making a conscious, external “decision” for Christ. Typically this is understood as the "sinner's prayer" or a traditional similar invitation. Making decisions for Christ after faith is not wrong - yet too often the faith is not distinguished from the expression itself. Decisionism produces false assurance by insisting people look at their external responses, rather than the finished work of Christ.
ETC is the traditional view of Hell as a place of eternal conscious suffering for those who have rejected Christ.
The Bible describes unbelievers being resurrected, judged at the Great White Throne (Revelation 20:11–15), and then cast into the Lake of Fire where they will experience conscious, unending suffering forever, rather than annihilation, reincarnation, or purification. It is based on various biblical passages that describe Hell as a place of unending fire and darkness.
Eternal security is the doctrine that a person who has believed in Jesus Christ for eternal life can never lose that salvation, regardless of subsequent sin or failure of faith.
The Scripture grounds eternal security not in the perseverance of the believer but in the promise of God. Jesus said, "I give eternal life to them. They will never perish" (John 10:28). The word eternal (Greek: αἰώνιος) means unending — a life that could be forfeited would not qualify. GES also appeals to the nature of the new birth (John 3:3–7): just as physical birth cannot be undone, neither can spiritual regeneration. This stands in contrast to Arminian views of conditionalism and to Lordship Salvation's implicit conditionalism, where perseverance in obedience becomes the evidence — and thus de facto condition — of genuine faith.
In Free Grace theology, saving faith is the act of believing — mentally assenting to and trusting in — the promise that Jesus gives eternal life to whoever believes in Him. It is not a commitment, surrender, or lifestyle change.
The Greek noun πίστις (pistis) and verb πιστεύω (pisteúō) mean "belief" or "trust," not "submission" or "lordship." GES emphasizes that John's Gospel — written explicitly so that readers "may believe" and "have life" (John 20:31) — never once uses the word repentance as a condition of salvation. Zane Hodges and Bob Wilkin have argued extensively that inserting surrender or commitment into saving faith is a category error that conflates justification with discipleship. The object of saving faith is also significant: one must believe in Jesus as the guarantor of eternal life, not merely believe historical facts about Him.
Justification is God's legal declaration that a sinner is righteous in His sight, based entirely on faith in Christ — not on works, character, or continued obedience.
Justification is a forensic (legal) act, not a transformative one — it changes one's standing before God, not one's inner state (that is sanctification). Paul's argument in Romans 3–5 is that Abraham was justified before circumcision (Rom. 4:10) and apart from the law (Rom. 3:21), establishing that the ground of justification is always and only faith. Free Grace theology insists this is a one-time, permanent verdict — not an ongoing process. The imputed righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21) is credited to the believer the moment they believe. Any teaching that makes justification contingent on future performance or perseverance undermines Paul's entire argument in Galatians.
Kenosis is the self-emptying of Christ in His incarnation, where He laid aside His divine privileges and took on the form of a servant.
From the Greek word Κενόω, meaning to make empty. The doctrine of kenosis is derived from Philippians 2:7, which describes how Christ "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant." By becoming incarnate, Jesus accepted limitation of humanity, being able to experience hunger, tiredness, and death. Yet, He never become less divine - or He would cease to be God. He voluntarily forfieted distinct honor and glory with the Father in taking on flesh.
Lordship Salvation is the teaching that genuine saving faith necessarily includes submission to Christ as Lord, a willingness to obey, and a life marked by perseverance in good works — otherwise the faith was never real.
Associated primarily with John MacArthur and Reformed evangelicalism, Lordship Salvation frames repentance and surrender as inseparable components of saving faith. Free Grace theologians — particularly Zane Hodges and Charles Ryrie — argue this view smuggles works into the gospel. If ongoing obedience is the necessary evidence of real faith, then assurance becomes impossible and the gospel is no longer free. GES also challenges the hermeneutical move of reading discipleship passages (Luke 9:23, "take up your cross") as salvation passages. These, Free Grace holds, are addressed to already-believing disciples about rewards, not to unbelievers about the new birth.
Repentance (Greek: μετάνοια, metanoia) might rarely be used as a synonym for belief (Acts 11:18). The normal New Testament usage is a call to turn from sin and move towards God. Regardless, it's never a condition of eteranl life.
Repentance is sometimes charactarized as merely a "change of mind", which many free grace theologians argue is the only suitable use as a synonym for faith itself. Although, the context varies. It may be used of turning from sins to delay temporal judgment and extent physical life (2 Peter 3:9, 2 Cor. 7:10, Jonah 3:5-10), a command for the 1st Century nation of Israel to experience the Kingdom (Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:14-15, Luke 13:3-5), or is clearly addressed to believers to renounce sin for spirtual maturity (Acts 8:22, Revelation 2:21-22). Significantly, the word in every form is absent from the Gospel of John, the only explicitly evangelical book of the Bible
The root fallacy (or sometimes called the etymological fallacy) is the assumption that the word parts define the meaning of a term. In Free Grace theology, this fallacy is often applied to terms like "repentance," which is sometimes misunderstood based on its etymology rather than letting the context determine the best usage.
We don't look at the word "butterfly" and assume the word means a flying stick of butter! Sometimes though people do make too much of the component parts of word in Hebrew and Koine Greek that stretches beyond the intended meaning. For example, the word for apostle is the noun form of ἀποστέλλω (to send), yet clearly it has a more technical meaning of those called by Christ to establish the Church (Epheisans 2:20). Similarly, repentence literally is made up the words for "change" and "mind" but context determines the type of change implied, whether a kind of synonym for belief or a directional change away from sin.
Sanctification is the ongoing process of a believer growing in holiness and conformity to Christ after salvation. It is entirely distinct from justification, which is complete and instantaneous at the moment of faith.
Free Grace theology is careful to maintain the distinction between justification (positional, complete, the basis of eternal life) and sanctification (progressive, experiential, the basis of rewards at the Bema). Conflating them leads either to works-based assurance or to despair. The "carnal Christian" (1 Cor. 3:1–4) is the Free Grace acknowledgment that a genuine believer can live in persistent carnality — saved but not growing. Lordship Salvation tends to deny this category, arguing that such a person was never truly regenerate. GES holds this denial makes sanctification a hidden condition of justification.
The theological and philosophcial attempt to defend the Christian God's goodness, righteousness, and power in light of the existence of evil and suffering the world
The Bible describes God as perfectly good, just, and powerful. The existence of evil then creates a challenge for understanding why God allows sin to exist at all. Epicurus, and later David Hume, popularized a paradox around the "problem of evil", where either God is not all powerful and thus cannot defeat evil, not willing to prevent evil (making Him malevolent), or both. Traditionally apologists have proposed various solutions to this dilemma. Evil may exists because God simply allows humans the free will to choose Him and to reap the consequences of rejecting His Word, suffering allows for growth and spiritual maturity, some evil is necessary for a greater good to occur (namely the atonement of the cross), and God has certainly promised to defeat sin forever and is patient that all might come to faith. Believers can be certain God did not create or decree evil but sovereignly permits it, often for purposes beyond our comprehension