Whitten claims that the church contaminated Grace. But, he, of course, was intuitively correct at first and then re-enlightened later in life. And now he will set us all free!
Later in this post, there is a link to preview the intro and first chapter of his book. We recommend that you read this to know what his message and purpose is. He is not shy about what he thinks. Also, we remind you that there are parts of Whitten’s message that any reformed person would agree with. But Whitten also overstates his case. He has grace doing things it does not do. For Whitten, grace even bypasses Christ and His blood.
We will let Whitten speak for himself with his own words
The quotes below are from his book “Pure Grace: The Life Changing Power of Uncontaminated Grace”; Destiny Image Publishers (March 2012). Whitten has a BS degree from East Texas State University and a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Whitten’s enlightenment
Page 23 , “Luther and Calvin got it right concerning justification … However, they didn’t get it right concerning sanctification.”
Page 23, “There is a party being hosted by our heavenly Father in honor of those of us who have come to our senses in the pig-pen of legalism and decided to come home to be with Him.” Pastor Whitten actually claims that if you oppose his new “grace reformation,” you are part of the “religious establishment”, and you “will, by and large, resist with gnashing of teeth.”
Page 25, “Martin Luther and John Calvin, the primary leaders of the Protestant Reformation, got it right concerning justification, … But they missed it on sanctification.”
Page 28, Whitten minces no words in his attack on what he labels “religion – not real Christianity,” which, he says, “is and always has been in the behavior modification and sin management business. It is so lucrative and so firmly entrenched in the Church that it will take a second Great Reformation and a revelation of no less importance than Luther’s to correct this great and spiritually murderous lie”.
Whitten’s three contaminants of grace: confession, repentance and conviction
Page 20, “Christians are not required to confess their sins to God in order to be forgiven, we already are forgiven”. And, “I believe that New Testament repentance is not the Holy Spirit convicting of sin, me feeling sorry, confessing the sin, asking for forgiveness, and committing to stop doing it. That typical scenario is a grotesque misrepresentation of the gift of repentance. It is heathenish!”
Page 95, “As a Christian, I do not confess sin to God in order to be forgiven. I already am forgiven; and furthermore, I am cleansed of sin and have become the righteousness of God in Christ. That does not mean that I never interact with God about sin, but it does mean it is a fruitless religious exercise to ask for what has already been given.”
Page 106, “The Holy Spirit’s role in convicting believers of sin is presented by legalists and modern Pharisees as if there are many biblical references to support this concept.”
Page 107, “The Holy Spirit’s ministry to the world is to convince the world of sin because they do not believe in me, Jesus says in John 16:9. The Holy Spirit has already convinced me of sin, and now I believe in Jesus! He is now convincing me of righteousness (see John 16:10). I am convinced that I am becoming the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). The Holy Spirit convinced me of judgment and that truth helped me become a believer. Now, He is convincing me that the ruler of this world has been judged (John 16: 11) — not me!” [Whitten translates ‘convict’ as ‘convince’]. [Emphasis Whitten]
Whitten’s understanding of 1 John 1:1-9
Page 91, “There is only one verse in the whole New Testament that requires us to confess our sins to God to be forgiven. One! This one verse is the fulcrum verse that tips your life toward legalism or toward grace, toward religion or toward intimacy with God, toward a life of performance or toward a life of rest and security, toward bondage or toward freedom, toward law or toward love.”
Page 91-92, “The devil … accomplished much …to enslave believers whom Jesus died to set free by leading us to misapply one verse in the Bible. … a little leaven, leavens the whole lump …”
Page 94, “Read the first eight verses in First John 1 and it will be clear to you that John is showing unbelievers how to be saved.” To Whitten, First John 1:9 is not directed toward believers, but toward those unbelievers who still need salvation. For Whitten, forgiveness is a one-time event.
Whitten’s favorite passage to relate in order to prove his ideology is the parable of the Prodigal Son, which he erroneously interprets, you will hear it repeatedly.
Either Sanctified or Not = once and done sanctification
Page 19, “Christians are way too conscious of sin and way too unconscious of God’s grace. Listen, Jesus did not die to modify your behavior!”
Page 26, “… Christians are simply sinners saved by grace – an unbiblical but widely held view of salvation. This is the kind of legalistic leaven that has leavened the modern Church’s doctrine …”
Page 29, “I am already justified, and get this – I am already sanctified! Sanctification – having been made perfect – is a state of being, not a goal to be achieved or grow into; Heb. 10:14.”.
Page 30, “The old religious approach of “I am justified, I am being sanctified, and I will be glorified” is a lie.” [italics added]
Page 31-32, “What I am talking about is a state of being, not a goal to be achieved. I am all these things, I’m not waiting to become them. It has to be this way. Our Holy God cannot, will not, allow sin in His presence. To be in His presence, I must be as sinless as Christ. Again, that is a state of being that Christ accomplished in me. That is why I believe progressive sanctification is nonsense. It is a religious teaching to control behavior and manage sin. Legalists and religionists simply do not trust in the finished work of Christ and the efficacy of His blood to produce His intended result. Therefore, they feel compelled to help Him control the behavior of His new creations.”
Page 37, “I am sanctified, and so are you if you are born again – whether you believe it or not!”
Page 166, “You are like Him, my friend, and are in a permanent and unchangeable state of being of holiness. It cannot be any other way.”
On pleasing the Lord and fellowship with God
Page 20, “My bad works don’t move God any more than my good works move Him. He simply isn’t moved by ‘works’ of any kind. If you are motivated to do a great work for God, good luck!”
Page 21-22, “Many think and teach that while sin doesn’t destroy my relationship with God as a believer, it does damage my fellowship with God, implying God punishes or disciplines me for sin by withdrawing His fellowship. Some mental gymnastics are required to arrive at this conclusion, but keeping people under the thumb of God is necessary to make them behave and, after all, behavior control is the goal. The threat of God withholding fellowship while remaining in relationship is another nonbiblical concept. It is a lie. Show me where the New Testament even hints at such a thing. The opposite is true.”
Page 40, “If you are ‘working’ to please Him, you are in for a lifetime of unfinished business, and it will leave you perpetually exhausted!”
Page 53, “I find myself cringing every time I hear the phrase [covered by the blood] spoken by preachers or in lyrics in a song. Blood covering is an Old Covenant concept and reality. …There is no filter or film of blood between God and me. When God looks at me, He doesn’t see me through the blood of Christ, he sees me – cleansed! Likewise, He sees us as holy and righteous. He sees us, and He loves what He sees!” [emphasis added]
His Great Awakening
Page 147, “There is a coming Great Awakening to the Body of Christ that will be resisted fiercely by the legalistic establishment which has so much invested in the sin management model of discipleship.” (More on this later.)
In this video here at minute 4, he speaks of his time at his theological college. He states, “that he went to the largest theology seminary in the world, and he took 96 class hours”. And then he acknowledges how caring and dedicated everyone there was. But he immediately says that he came out of there “with a theology that was seriously wrong”. Is he trying to say that he has an understanding that no other person in the largest theological seminary had?
His personal experience trumps scripture
Page 18, pg 16 in the sample (note the emphasis on feelings); “I became a believer at 20 years of age – rather dramatically, without benefit of having been raised in church. I felt an incredible joy and sense of belonging, acceptance, and love from my new heavenly Father. My relationship with Him was simple and emotionally overwhelming. Witnessing to my friends and family about Christ was natural, exciting, and very effective. I loved God and He loved me. There was no sense at all of having to justify His love by doing anything. Kind of *like* Adam and Eve *before* the Fall, huh? They just were who they were created to be. They were human beings in intimate relationship with this incredible God. That is how I felt.”
Excerpt: You can read the intro and first chapter here; please note especially pages 17-20 (actual page in the sample, not the pdf page #, this does NOT coincide with the page #s in the book itself) for the list of things Whitten asserts about Christianity. Also, page 25-26 Whitten makes clear what he understands what the leaven of legalism is. As you continue to read, Whitten, like Langerak, ‘knows’ … they both ‘just know’ that believers will be the children of God that they are. They are sure that your actions will be ‘right’. To Whitten, admonitions are legalism. Whitten’s phrase ‘revelation of grace’ is the same idea as Tullian Tchividjian’s ‘remember your justification, hit the reset button on your justification’.
Disagree with them?
To Whitten, you are a legalist when you preach and teach against sin; even though Jesus and all the New Testament writers did. You are a legalist when you help people to overcome sin in practical ways; or when you encourage a change of behavior through the gospel. You are into “sin management.” Worse still, you might well be doing it for profit.
To Whitten and his followers, it is legalistic to call believers to walk worthy of their salvation. Or that you are to pursue holiness of heart and life. Therefore, teaching about working out your salvation by the ongoing process of sanctification means you are preaching “behavior modification”, you are in the (lucrative!) “sin management business,” you are propagating the same “spiritually murderous lie” that Luther and Calvin did.
There is also this video
A video of a conversation with Whitten by an admirer, Judy Manis.
- At min 12, it is about feelings, feeling good, feeling alive. He mentions feelings throughout the video.
- At minute 17.30 Whitten talks about three contaminants people need to get rid of: 1) confessing, 2) repentance with its sorrow and commitment to stop, and 3) the idea that the Spirit convicts you that you sinned ‘which is a dark hole you cannot get out of’. (Hence the subtitle of his book).
- At min 23.30 he admits his impatience with those who still teach intentional obedience and effort in obedience. The impatience of the otherwise grandfatherly, personable Whitten is visible; he appears almost sickened.
The video raises at least a few concerns
The video raises the concern about depression in those floundering in legalism as Whitten seems to have been. Now, it is unclear what church he went to at that time in his life. It may have been one that taught legalism. It may also have been a decent church with a biblical message. Whitten himself may have just heard a good message wrongly. Perhaps he ‘heard’ with legalistic ears. Based on his statements about his years at the seminary, maybe he has always chafed under the biblical concept of human responsibility in the covenant of salvation.
Or maybe he just likes life ‘black and white’ with no gray areas that require him to dive back into prayerful scripture study. Figuring out what God’s will is in some particularly difficult situation often requires humility and submission to God. In his book he asserts that at first, he ‘intuitively got it right’. This is an awfully high view of himself. To say that he intuitively got it right is not scriptural. It’s the equivalent of saying that ‘he just knew’ apart from Christ and the efficacious preached Word.
At min 20, Whitten states ‘legalism is a maze’. Yes, it is; but true, thankful obedience is not a maze of legalism. Neither is it something that we imprison ourselves in. What is the purpose of obedience? Also of concern was min 29.45. He says that the universe is expanding at the speed of light because it is currently not ‘big enough to contain all the things that God has prepared for those who love him’. In other words, really good things are coming for Christians? What about the ones that didn’t live long enough for this Day?
A few thoughts
Whitten likes a state of sanctification. He does not like, or maybe does not understand, the practice or practical aspect of sanctification. Sanctification, according to the forefathers is a change in our spiritual direction. This change manifests evidence in ongoing outward obedience. This does not make it mere ‘behavior modification’ nor ‘sin management’. But, sanctification does involve our actions (obedient or sinful), attitude (spiritual posture), and behavior towards others (good works) in this life. Whitten implies that if it involves our actions, it is legalism.
Whitten believes that it is anti-gospel to teach that the Holy Spirit’s work is to convict you of your sin when you stray. Additionally, he believes that it is anti-gospel to teach that God gave the Holy Spirit ‘to empower you to act better and better’; To Whitten, Christ deleted your sin with cleansing. Whitten does not like the idea of ‘covering’ sin. He understands that as ‘covering up’ sin and not as the covering of blood-atonement as pictured at the first Passover.
Whitten gets a few things close to correct, just before he derails.
Whitten rightly defines repentance as a change of mind; but not a changed mind about your sin, to change from loving your sin, to hating your sin. Whitten means you need to change your mind about God. Change what you always thought about Him based on what your church taught you in the past. Whitten is very critical of the Church. It is, to him, a contaminating institution.
Whitten often correctly does say that one needs to view the OT with the lense of the NT. But to him the OT is all just ‘law’ and law-keeping. He knows the OT is about Christ but he sees no grace there.
As churches, we need to address any misconception about the purpose of spiritual conviction of sin, repentance and confession. This seems to be where Whitten went into his ditch. The video also indicates that he, and others like him, do not like to speak about God as judge. Nor of Christ as judge of all the earth. The message from the video is that this is a feelings-based ideology.
There is also this helpful review of Whitten’s book by Gary Gilley on his blog “Think On These Things”
