Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 03/20/25

It’s not about eternal punishment, it’s about eternal opportunity. As a believing Christian who grew up terrified of committing the dreaded “unforgivable sin,” I believe biblical scholars Andrew Farley and John Lynch have, via their new book Gospel Zero: Reclaiming the Radical Message of Grace, delivered a vital resource for believers afflicted with the all-too-real and often debilitating problem of sin obsession. I just spoke with Andrew about the book and its reassuring message for believers.

JWK: I just want to tell you that I think this book is very important. I actually struggled with a lot of this stuff when I was younger. So, I think this is a very important book and I’m happy to feature it

Andrew Farley: Well, thank you.

JWK: So, let’s get started. Why did you write this book?

AF: We wanted to ask what if the Apostles were alive? What would they say to the Church of today with all of the chaos of modern Christianity, all of the extremely large budgets put into buildings and programs – yet so many people spend their lives in church today and they still don’t understand the Gospel. Some people spend decades in church and they’re still left with questions about their forgiveness, their identity in Christ, (and) what does God feel about them? (There are) so many questions that are left unanswered. It seems like the Apostles might speak into that today much like they did 2000 years ago when they said “You foolish Galatians!” They might have a message for the Church of today.

So, Gospel Zero is asking what might the Apostles say to us – and it’s done in a witty, funny and sarcastic way while, at the same time, really calling us to the carpet as the modern Church to be more Gospel focused.

JWK: If you could sum up that message in a couple of sentences, what would it be?

AF: I think the message would be that we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and have a more Christ-centered Gospel. Today we seem to be focused on behavior improvement and sin management. We have a very big focus on sin. We’re teaching Christians that they have a “wicked heart” in some cases – which is not true. Believers have a new heart. We’re teaching Christians that they have to ask for forgiveness for every sin. That’s not true. Jesus took away all of our sins. He forgave them all at one time. So, we need to be more focused on the finished work of Christ.

JWK: Are you worried about backlash to this message? Do some in the Church resist – and, if they do, is it because perhaps some use guilt and fear as a means of control?

AF: Yeah. I think there are people today who are not very different from the Pharisees a long time ago. They will be disturbed by this book. They will be alarmed by some of the thoughts in this book but this book needed to written. It is a warning to the Church of today that we are losing sight of the most important truths of the Gospel. So, yes, we expect backlash but you only get backlash when you’re standing up for something (and) when you have a message that needs to get out there. I really believe that the reason people are so offended quite often by the grace of God is because they have a pitiful view of God’s grace. They think that God’s grace is just a free pass to Heaven and forgiveness. You know, forgiveness and Heaven, forgiveness and Heaven, that’s it. Grace is much bigger than that. I mean by God’s grace we have a new heart. By God’s grace with have a new identity. By God’s grace we have His Spirit living in us. God’s grace is motivating. God’s Grace is inspiring. We don’t need to be scared of God’s grace. Being scared of too much grace is like being scared of too much victory over sin.

JWK: What are some of the beliefs that people hold that you think need to be challenged and dismantled?

AF: I’ll go back to a big one. That is (about) the believer’s heart. We see it all the time. How many times have we been sitting in church and we’ve been told that we have a deceitful (and) wicked heart? Quoting from the Old Testament, we tell Christians that their heart is sinful. That is not true. At salvation, we were born again. At salvation God says he takes our heart of stone and gives us a new heart. Romans Chapter 6 says “We became obedient from the heart.” We’re even told by the Apostle Paul to “give freely from the heart.” If we’re supposed to give from the heart and live from the heart then what does that say about our heart? We have a beautiful new heart where Christ lives in us. Yet, we’re always hearing that we need to test our hearts. We hear things from the stage on Sunday morning like “Your heart is not right with God.” Well, it may be true that our attitude is not right sometimes. It may be true that our mind is being renewed. That’s absolutely biblical but, when it come to the believer’s heart, we have a new heart and we can trust it. That’s where Christ lives inside of us. So, that’s just one big one.

I would say the second idea that needs to be challenged goes back to our forgiveness. We are not being forgiven little by little, day by day, sin by sin. We’re not being forgiven by God like it’s paying off your car or paying off your mortgage. We are forgiven once (and) for all. Hebrews Chapter 10 Verse 14 tells us this. It says  that “By one sacrifice we’ve been made perfect for all time.” That does not mean that we’re perfectly behaved but it does mean that we are perfectly cleansed and perfectly forgiven by God because of one sacrifice 2000 years ago. It’s just crazy for us to celebrate grace and say that we live under a new covenant, a New Testament and then to turn around and believe that we’re being forgiven little by little, day by day, hour by hour or sin by sin. That is not the truth. In fact, if that were true then that’s saying the blood of Jesus is less powerful than the blood of bulls and goats because, under the law, (practitioners of animal sacrifice) were forgiven for 365 days of sins in one moment. Yet, what are we saying when we when we teach Christians today that they have to be forgiven daily and hourly and minute by minute and sin by sin. It is neurotic. It is not the finished work of Christ. We need to be teaching the truth about the believer’s heart and about the believer’s forgiveness in Jesus.

JWK: One concept that I think is a cause of a lot of neuroticism is the concept of “the unforgivable sin,” the idea that you can do something and that’s it, you’re done. I know it’s something I struggled with earlier in my life and I think I’m not the only one.

AF: God clearly tells us “I’ll never leave you. I’ll never forsake you…Nobody can snatch you out of My hand… Even when you are faithless, I remain faithful.” Those are the promises of God. We are safe and secure in Him. The only “unforgivable sin” is rejecting Christ, rejecting the Gospel, rejecting the truth. That’s the unforgivable sin. Once you are in Jesus, you are a totally forgiven person, past present and future. He says “I’ll never leave you.” Everlasting life is everlasting. Eternal life is eternal. If it were not eternal then God would be a liar. If it were not everlasting God would be a liar. If our forgiveness was not once and for all then God would be a liar. These are the reasons we’re safe forever – because we have everlasting life, total forgiveness and the promises of God keep us safe.

JWK: The way I look at it, it’s more like a blockage. It’s not God punishing you. It’s more like a mindset that gets in the way of experiencing the grace that is available to you.

AF: The Bible talks about “quenching the Spirit” and “grieving the Spirit.” I think those are biblical way to talk about this. Obviously, you cannot sin and express Jesus at the same time. You cannot sin and express the Holy Spirit at the same time. That’s why the Bible calls it “quenching the Spirit” or “grieving the Spirit.” That’s different from our forgiveness. We are totally forgiven but I would ask people who wants to be forgiven but miserable? Who wants to be forgiven but unhappy? Who wants to be forgiven but unfulfilled? So, yes, we’re forgiven but we’re also designed, from the heart level, to live a godly life. Nothing else is going to satisfy us.

JWK: So the sin, in a way, is an interference with experiencing the grace that is already yours?

AF: Yeah. If we’re choosing sin then we’re going against our heart. If we’re choosing sin we’re going against our nature. The most amazing truth of the Gospel that I think people don’t realize is this right here: “HEY, CHRISTIANS! YOU DON’T REALLY WANT TO SIN! YOU DON’T REALLY DESIRE SIN!” You might think you want to sin. You might feel like you want to sin – but the truth is that God now took up residence inside of you and He gave you new desires, a new nature, a new heart and you don’t really want to sin.

JWK: Some people feel that if you take away the idea of punishment then people will want to sin but you really don’t because to do so interferes with experiencing the gifts God is offering you.

AF: Exactly! People are afraid “Oh, no! If we tell Christians that they’re totally forgiven then they’re just going to go out and sin even more.” Well, what I would say to that is “Look at yourself. You’re already sinning just fine.” You’re already sinning as you’re scared of God. You’re already sinning as you’re scared of punishment. You’re already sinning just fine. So, what if you tried the grace of God for a change? I mean Jesus said “Whoever is forgiven much is going to love much.” That’s exactly what we’re saying in Gospel Zero. You’ve got to get to know the love of God, the grace of God (and) the forgiveness of God because whoever is “forgiven much” is going  to love much.

JWK: The words I would use is that grace is eternal, it’s merciful and it’s empowering. It empowers you to experience the joy and the power to do good that comes from God.

AF: Yes. I love the way you put that. Grace is empowering. What we’re saying is take a step back. Consider what God has done for you. Oh, my goodness! Are you kidding me?! The God of the Universe lives inside of me! Wow! He has given me new desires! He’s written His desires on my heart! He loves me! He accepts me! He likes me! He has empowered me by His Spirit! Does this make me want to go out and sin more? Does it make me want to set a world record for sin? No! Quite the opposite! It makes me fall in love with Him even more! It makes me realize “Wow! God is good!” He knows what contentment looks like. I’m gonna look to Him, live from Him and let His grace inspire me.

JWK: Another section you bring up is Hebrews 10:26 where it says “If we sin willfully after we have received knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins.” Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

AF: Yeah. People use Hebrews 10:26 to scare Christians. First, I’d like to say this. Scaring Christians is not ministry. A lot of people think that scaring Christians is good ministry – “Maybe we will scare them into better behavior. Maybe we will put so much fear in them that they will start to behave.” – but scaring Christians is not real ministry. Authentic ministry that comes from God’s Spirit is always building us up, not tearing us down. So, with regard to Hebrews 10:26, really the author of Hebrews is not talking about a believer losing their salvation. He is simply saying that if we keep on rejecting the truth – if we have heard the truth taught by the Apostles and then we decide “No thank you. I don’t want it. I’ll pass. I’m going back to the Jewish temple. I’m going back to the animal sacrifices – well, if that’s what we decide, then there is no sacrifice left for sins. Why not? Because we have rejected the one-and-only sacrifice of Christ. This is exactly what Hebrews is talking about. For ten chapters in the Book of Hebrews there is only one kind of sin mentioned. It is the sin of unbelief. It is not the sin of lying or cheating or stealing. So, when we get to Hebrews 10:26, the author is not saying “Oh, if you steal too much then the blood of Jesus will run out. He’s not saying if you lie too much the blood of Christ will be exhausted. No. He’s actually talking about the one-and-only sin mentioned in Hebrews chapters one to ten. That is the sin of unbelief. If we keep on unbelieving, if we keep on rejecting the Gospel after we’ve heard the Good News then we are not gonna find any acceptable sacrifice anywhere else.

JWK: I think the important thing for people to understand is that if you hear the truth and you mess up again, you’re not done. You can always turn around. You can mess up and get back to the right way. It’s not over for you.

AF: Exactly! Yes! That’s what “once for all” means. If you look at Hebrews chapters six, seven, eight, nine and ten, there are five chapters there where the Book of Hebrews is arguing vehemently that our forgiveness is once for all. That it’s total. That it’s past, present and future. Again, we look at Hebrews 10:14 as the prime example. It says that “By one sacrifice we’ve been made perfect for all time.” So, Christians are not being forgiven progressively. Christians are totally forgiven. That’s why God never gives up on us. We’re never too far gone. We always seem to be worried “Did I mess up one too many times? Is God frustrated? Is God done with me?” The answer is NO. He’s never ever gonna leave you. Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.

JWK: That’s a great message. So, when you talk about “work out” versus “work for” you salvation, what do mean?

AF: In Philippians we see the Apostle Paul saying “Work out you salvation with fear and trembling.” A lot of people get scared. When they read that passage they imagine that Paul is saying we need to work tirelessly to earn our salvation or to keep our salvation. That’s not at all what he’s saying. Notice that he is actually writing that we should “work out” our salvation. So, it’s not “work for” your salvation. That simply means that we wake up every day and with reverence and awe we can say “Wow! The God of the Universe, the Creator of Everything, He lives inside of me!” So, I’m gonna “work out” what God is “working in.” God has already worked in His forgiveness, his love, his grace (and) his acceptance. His Spirit lives in me so I’m gonna work out in my daily life what God has already worked in. This is simply celebrating Jesus, setting your mind on Him and trusting Him with your attitudes and actions.

JWK: There are some unique challenges that people face today with the internet and what have you when their dealing with this kind of stuff. Sometimes people can get really confused by bouncing all over the place. It’s good to internalize the message that God is within you. It can, of course, be helpful to reach out to other people but it can also be confusing to depend on other people to assure you of your forgiveness. At best, it should be internalized within yourself.

AF: Yes. That’s right. The New Testament message of the Gospel is that we are complete in Christ. We have everything we need for life in godliness. The Apostle John even goes so far as to say that we have an “anointing” from God. We need no one teach us. That’s a pretty radical statement. Yes, we the Church belong to each other. Yes, there are spiritual gifts in the Church – and, yes, we each have a unique role – but you’re 100% correct that we cannot be just putting our antenna out to the religious world trying to figure out what’s true because there are so many mixed messages out there. I’ll tell you what. Here’s how you know when you have the truth. It’s a very simple question. Did Jesus do a perfect job on the Cross and through the Resurrection? Did He do a perfect job? So, when it comes to your forgiveness, did He forgive you perfectly or not? When it comes to your freedom from the law, did He free you and liberate you perfectly or not? When it comes to acceptance and love, does He love and accept you perfectly or not? When He made you a new creation, did He make you into a person with a perfect new heart or not? So, asking the question “Did Jesus Christ do a perfect job?” is critical today because there so many religious messages that are trying to sell us a gospel that is not good enough. It is not the truth.

JWK: What are some practical steps a person who is caught up in a constant fear of losing their salvation can take to kind of calm themselves down and get on the steady path?

AF: We meet a lot of people who are struggling with the security of their salvation. They’re struggling with whether they are truly forgiven. They’re struggling with God’s opinion of them. What does God feel about them? They’re sometimes even obsessive about it. They have Obsessive Religious Disorder. They have a Compulsive Christianity Disorder, perhaps. Well, in that case, what I encourage people to do is take that same obsession, take that same level of analysis and shift your focus. Shift your focus to the Cross and the Resurrection and go ahead and obsess. Become a world expert on what the Cross accomplished. Become an expert on what the Resurrection accomplished. Take that obsession and take that analysis and aim it at Jesus and say “Lord, Jesus Christ, I want to know how forgiven I am. I want to know how perfect You’ve made me in Your sight. I want to know what your blood accomplished. I want to know what it means to be a new creation. I want to know what it means to be in union with You, to have a perfect vine/branches relationship with You. I want you to teach me that I’m clean and close.” When we obsess about the Cross and the Resurrection we will never be disappointed.

JWK: Like I said, I’ve been through this. I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes it’s important to understand that there are different translations of the Bible. Sometimes when you read something it can kind of panic you or whatever because of the the particular phrasing of one translation. It’s important to “wait on the Lord” and not react immediately to a particular verse – to let the calmness of God come to you as opposed to panicking when you hear something or read something that upsets you.

AF: Yes. That’s exactly why we wrote Gospel Zero. You will notice that, even if someone opens Gospel Zero and spends just a couple of hours with it, by the time they are done with the book they will have some incredible answers to some of the most difficult challenging and perplexing Bible passages in the New Testament – everything from “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” to Matthew when Jesus says “Depart from Me! I never knew you!” to the Great White Throne Judgment and what that looks like. Everything that Christians are worried about and confused about, we made sure that Gospel Zero offers real help in understanding the love and grace of God.

JWK: How can people connect with you online? You invite that, right?

AF: Yes. Anyone can find out more about us at andrewfarley.org. That’s our website. We have thousands of free resources. Then we also have an amazing new resource called biblequestions.com. Biblequestions.com is answering anyone’s question in ten seconds or less. We have already answered over a million questions at biblequestions.com. You can go there day or night to get help. People are finding answers at three o’clock in the morning. Some people are suicidal (never the answer!), other people are asking questions about their faith or a personal issue. What ever is going on in their lives, they can get answers at biblequestions.com.

JWK: Is there anything else you’d like to say as we wrap up?

AF: I’d just want to say that I wrote this book together with John Lynch. John Lynch is a dramatic storyteller – and he is hilarious! The book is just a lot of fun. People are gonna laugh and they’re gonna learn at the same time. I’ve written eleven books but I’ve never been a part of a book like this one. I’m so excited for people to laugh and learn together and get to know God’s love.

JWK: As someone who has personally struggled with this kind of stuff and is grateful to have come out on the other side of it, I think this is a very important book. I wish you great success and blessings with it.

AF: Thank you, my friend. Great talking with you.

End Note: As I made clear in the above conversation, I have struggled in the past with the issues raised in Ground Zero. I give authors Andrew Farley and John Lynch a lot of credit for shining cleansing sunlight on an issue that many religious leaders either intentionally or unintentionally contribute to, do their best to ignore or simply don’t know how to deal with.

Here are my further thoughts on the issue. Obsessive Religious Disorder is real problem that often creates a roadblock to people experiencing the freedom and the empowerment God is offering everyone to do real good in the world.  There is no sin that is beyond God’s ability and willingness to forgive – but first you have to believe and trust that God is indeed good and has the best interest of you and everyone else in His world at heart. I personally believe His forgiveness goes beyond even those that label themselves as Christians. I have known Jews and Muslims, for instance, who view Jesus as a son of God, if not the Son of God – and they view His message as good and having come from a good God. Even agnostics, in my view, are more apt to tap into the power of God then those who actually hold the view that God is not good and has it out for His creation. It’s not that God is out to punish or harm anyone for sin. I have come to the view that sin is not something that God punishes us for but, rather, is something that gets in the way of our experiencing the unwavering grace and forgiveness He has already granted us. Believing that God is actually bad is a huge obstacle – but it is not unforgivable. All anyone need do, at any point, is turn and experience the fruits of forgiveness. You ALWAYS have the power to do that. You are NEVER lost.

In my personal journey I have also come to realize the importance of balance. Any idea – be it religious, ideological or otherwise – can be taken too far to the right right or left and therefore throw off our balance. Sanity and peace and the ultimate tests of whether an idea is from God. Toward that end, I’ve arrived at 14 Principles that I believe lead to fully experiencing the love, grace and forgiveness of God. You can find them here. I hope they’re helpful.

Go forward in peace!

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.