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In The Grace Awakening, his magnum opus, Dr. Charles R. (Chuck) Swindoll presents himself as fanning the flame of “the torch of freedom” as originally held by protestant Reformers like Martin Luther. In this he convinces his followers that by trusting him and his teaching in The Grace Awakening that they are in line with the historic Reformation teachings of grace and faith alone. Swindoll wrote:

“Achievement must accompany sincere faith … We continue to hear that “different gospel” and it is a lie. It is heresy. It is antithetical to the true message that lit the spark to the Reformation: Sola Fide - faith alone” (The Grace Awakening, p.86).

“When the sixteenth-century European Reformers wielded the torch of freedom …grace was the battle cry: salvation by grace alone a walk of faith without fear of eternal damnation” (The Grace Awakening, p. xiv).

Indeed, the “spark that lit the reformation” was Sola Fide or faith alone. However, the Reformers did not define their terms as Chuck Swindoll does. Swindoll’s understanding of grace promises, “regardless of how you choose to live, you can’t live so bad that God says to you, ‘you’re no longer mine’” (Shedding Light On Our Dark Side, tape sld 1A). Swindoll’s belief regarding the final salvation of even the most reprobate necessitates his elimination of the biblical (as well as the Reformation) linking of works to genuine faith.

Chuck Swindoll, in essence, aligns himself with the Reformers and leaves the naive reader with the false notion that his views on grace and faith are the identical to those of the Reformers. Contrary to Swindoll, however, Luther insisted that works or “human achievement,” as Swindoll says, go arm in arm with authentic, saving faith. On saving faith Luther said:

“Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that performs good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Thus the Apostle bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of Christ on all sides…Idle faith is not justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a Christian. Inwardly it consists in faith towards God, outwardly in love towards our fellow-men” (Luther, Commentary On Galatians).

In his bookFaith Alone Dr. R.C. Sproul wrote: “The Reformers saw saving faith as necessarily, inevitably, and immediately yielding the fruit of works. Martin Luther insisted that the faith that justifies is a fides viva, a vital and living faith that yields the fruit of works.” In opposition to this Dr. Swindoll insists it is heresy and a different gospel to believe that works must accompany saving faith. And this he does as if he were representing the Reformation!

Plainly, Chuck Swindoll leads the uninformed reader to view The Grace Awakening as book recovering the lost truths of the Reformation from the devious hands of present-day legalists who have corrupted them. When the truth is that Luther himself aggressively argued against the conception of grace and faith extolled in Swindoll’s book.

Like those who rewrite history to bolster their agendas, Chuck Swindoll has changed the history of the Reformation to coincide with his views. Does Swindoll teach that “justifying faith is a vital faith that necessarily yields the fruit of works” as did Luther? Does Swindoll insist that “whoever doesn’t do good works is without faith,” as did the Reformers? No he doesn’t, rather, Chuck Swindoll teaches the opposite: that there is no external proof of salvation or spirituality and that it is heresy to maintain that works must accompany faith. And he does this in the name of Reformation teaching! Is this not dishonest? How can this be anything short of historical revisionism?

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