Fall To Grace
Why you should
reject this book

Fall To Grace
by Jay Bakker

The Bible warns
about false teachers

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Jude 3 tells us: "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."

Based on what they have written in, Fall To Grace, Jay Bakker and Martin Edlund are false teachers. The apostle Paul is our example of how to "earnestly contend for the faith."

"For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." Acts 20:29-30

"But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." Galatians 2:11

"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them." -Romans 16:17

Because they preach their delusions instead of the Bible according to Jesus, Christians are told to:

1. Mark them
2. Watch out for them
3. Avoid them

Why? Because false teachers:

1. Cause divisions
2. Put obstacles in the way of truth
3. Upset people's faith
4. Cause dissensions (strife) and hindrances
5. Make others fall away from Christian faith
6. Lead others into sin
7. Defy God's revealed truth

B. By walking in the Spirit. "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." Galatians 5:16

C. By obeying the leading of the Holy Spirit. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Romans 8:14

D. By rejecting false teachers and false teaching, as God instructs us. "A man that is an heretick, after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." Titus 3:10-11

When a man teaches false doctrine about salvation and God's grace, the Biblical response is to confront and expose his false teaching. Bold emphasis in the following quotations is mine.

I had hoped that Fall To Grace would be thoughtful and Biblically informed. Unfortunately that is not the case. Throughout Fall To Grace, Jay Bakker uses the Biblical word "grace" as code for his false teaching of Universal Salvation.

On page 51 of Fall To Grace: "Christ presents us with a game we can't lose. Everybody gets the prize just for showing up."

On page 152 Jay writes: "Because no man is innocent, no man is guilty. We're all saved."

On page 175 of Fall To Grace: Jesus "tells us of God's universal acceptance in every way He can think of. Paul teaches us the same thing."

On page 176 of Fall To Grace: "As we have seen, the point of Paul's ministry is that the religious law has been replaced by the law of Christ, the law of love: universal acceptance through grace."

Jay presents a false gospel in this book. One need not be a Bible scholar to recognize the egregious false doctrine Jay is promoting. Fall To Grace does not present the teaching of the Bible about salvation through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone nor does it present the scriptural gospel of the grace of God, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. The Bible never says what Jay says in this book. Indeed, scripture strongly condemns people like Jay and Martin (his co-author), who preach a false gospel.

"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." Galatians 1:6-9

• No Old Testament prophet preached universal salvation.

• No human author of the Old Testament taught universal salvation.

• No verse in the Old Testament mentions universal salvation.

• No New Testament apostle preached universal salvation.

• No human author of the New Testament taught universal salvation.

• No verse in the New Testament mentions universal salvation.

• Jesus never mentioned, affirmed or taught universal salvation.

• Jesus taught the opposite of universal salvation, John 3:7, 3:18, 3:36, 10:9, 14:6. -Look up the verses.

On page 6 of Fall To Grace: "Heaven and hell were the carrot and stick of our faith. It was turn or burn, baby."

On page 112 of Fall To Grace: "Sin is not a hellfire offense punishable by eternal damnation."

Yet Jesus and the Bible make it clear that sin IS a hellfire offense punishable by eternal damnation for those who do not receive Jesus as their Savior, John 1:12, 3:7, 3:18, 3:36.

• "in danger of hell fire" - Matthew 5:22
• "cast into hell" - Matthew 5:29
• "cast into hell" - Matthew 5:30
• "fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" - Matthew 10:28
• "cast into hell fire" - Matthew 18:9
• "twofold more the child of hell than yourselves" - Matthew 23:15
• "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" - Matthew 23:33
• "go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched" - Mark 9:43
• "cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched" - Mark 9:45
• "Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." - Luke 12:5
• "And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments" - Luke 16:23

Jay writes on p. 138 of Fall To Grace: "But God's unconditional love is an example to us..."

Unconditional acceptance and the unconditional love of God for the lost is never taught in the Bible. Unconditional love - love without ANY conditions - is a politically correct pipe-dream of postmodern christians who refuse to believe what the Bible says.

In the Old Testament acceptance with God was based on obedience, doing what God told them to do. In the New Testament acceptance with God is based on the finished work of Christ on the Cross of Calvary. The Bible never teaches and God never offers unconditional acceptance to the lost. What God offers is individual personal salvation to "whosoever" will repent and get saved.

Forgiveness and acceptance with God are offered ONLY when/if we trust Jesus Christ and receive the free gift of eternal life He made possible for us, Romans 5:17, 6:23, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. Jesus Himself emphasized the absolute necessity of getting saved in John 3:7, 3:18, 3:36, 10:9, 14:6, by clearly differentiating between lost and saved folks. Is there anything unclear about Jesus' words?

"I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." John 10:9

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6

That is certainly true for a saved and born again Christian. It is certainly not true for any unsaved person. The extent of Jay's misunderstanding of and false teaching about grace is staggering.

On page 24 of Fall To Grace: "But "dis-grace" has no place in our relationship with God. You won't be dis-owned or dis-avowed by God. You won't be dis-loved. You can't be un-graced. Once granted, grace is never retracted."

Remember that Jay Bakker writes based on his false belief that everyone is already saved simply because Jesus died on the Cross, p. 152 of Fall To Grace.

Jay makes no distinction between saved and lost folks when he writes of the unconditional love of God. His false teaching is a massive distortion of the Biblical grace message, Romans 5:17, which ALWAYS conditions salvation on receiving God's free gift, John 1:12, 3:7, Galatians 3:26.

4. While Jay mentions Jesus' death on the Cross, instead of presenting Biblical truth, he attacks and judges Christians who believe what the Bible says about Jesus' substitutionary blood sacrifice on the Cross for sinners.

In spite of Jay's disjointed logic, the univocal teaching of the Bible about Christ's Substitutionary Atonement on Calvary is that Jesus died in our place, as our substitute, taking upon Himself God's wrath against our sins.

What the Bible says
about the atonement

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows... he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him..." Isaiah 53:4-5

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God..." 1 Peter 3:18

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God." Hebrews 10:12.

"Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." Romans 4:25

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:21

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." 1 Peter 2:24

"And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." 1 John 2:2

Scripture contradicts
Jay's false teaching
of universal salvation

"He that believeth on him (Jesus) is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." John 3:18

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36

"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Jesus in John 3:7

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name." John 1:12

"For if by one man's offense (Adam) death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Romans 5:17

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:13

"But they have not all obeyed the gospel." Romans 10:16

5. Jay makes some really strange comments throughout the book, several of which I note here.

On page 90 of Fall To Grace, Jay writes: "To join the family we must be reborn into it, as Christ was."

On page 115 of Fall To Grace: "What's interesting is that the cost of rebirth-losing your ego, giving up your selfish pursuit of pleasure and glory-is really no cost at all... Having shed our old bodies, Paul tells us we are born into a new one: "one body in Christ" (Rom. 12:5).

Jay seems to have zero understanding of what it means to be born again in the Biblical sense. Instead, Jay presents an incomprehensible New Age spin on being born again which includes "shedding our old bodies," whatever that means.

Its possible that Jay is attempting to say we must be born again (John 3:7). Yet if that is what he means, why say that Jesus was reborn? Jesus was "God in the flesh," 1 Timothy 3:16, John 1:14. Jesus was never born again nor had He any need to be born again. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Jay lacks even the most rudimentary understanding of basic Bible doctrine.

"The point is that we believers can splinter into all the denominations we want... We can each claim that our little group is the only one with a true comprehension of God's Word. We can segregate society and close our hearts because of these superficial differences. Or, we can begin to patch up these fault lines and fractures we've created in the church and try to see past our differing interpretations of Scripture to recognize one another as children of the same God.

Yes, we can debate our faith-even argue. But in the end, we need to recognize that we're all members of the same big family. Faith in Christ can be the tie that brings and binds us together, even when everything else threatens to pull us apart."

Jay writes as if everyone is saved, even folks in cults who reject the Biblical historical Jesus. His idea that there are only "superficial differences" between cult beliefs and Christian beliefs betrays his ignorance of what the cults say and what the Bible says.

Jay lacks basic understanding of what Jesus said and what the New Testament says. Jesus and the New Testament scriptures draw clear distinctions between religious folks and true Christians. These simple distinctions were part of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 25 for example and Luke 16.

While we certainly understand that the drag queen has a basic misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches, Jay himself is so deficient in Bible knowledge that he seems to believe the drag queen had the message of the Bible right, that "Jesus loved everybody without judgment."

Yet that is most assuredly not what the Bible says. Jesus reserved His most scathing words for religious pretenders who trusted their religious good works instead of trusting Jesus as their Messiah, Matthew 23:1-33.

Jesus concluded his tirade against religious pretenders with these scalding words: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Matthew 23:1-33.

Can anyone read those words and believe that "Jesus loved everybody without judgment?" Jay uses the drag queen story as segue to his unscriptural belief that grace means no judging.

On page 107 Jay writes: "Maybe the judgment has to do with sexuality or drinking or different religions (or no religion at all)... What are the rules I make about who gets to sit at Christ's table?"

The issue isn't rules Jay or other human beings make. The issue is, what does the Bible say in context? Jay is setting us up for his false teaching of universal salvation by implying that everyone is already saved (even people who have never trusted Christ) and Christians should never judge anyone as unsaved, especially people from different religions, including Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, p. 96-97.

7. On page 134 Jay writes: "Motivated by God's grace, you are touched by His perfection. When you act out of love you are, in this small way, perfect. But achieving this standard requires that we reject all the received rules and be guided instead by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

Rejecting all the written scriptures ("reject all the received rules") and replacing the Bible with the subjective "inspiration of the Holy Spirit" is the modus operandi of postmodern christians and the Emergent Church.

After rejecting what the Bible says, they invent a politically correct religion and a politically correct god. These they cloak in Biblical terminology like "grace" to make their false teaching appear scriptural.

1. Fall To Grace eliminates personal accountability of sinners to God.

2. Fall To Grace eliminates the Biblical concept of sin as our inheritance from Adam, Romans 5:12.

3. Fall To Grace eliminates personal salvation by receiving Jesus Christ as Savior, John 1:12, Romans 5:17.

4. Fall To Grace eliminates the absolute necessity of being individually born again like Jesus taught, John 3:7.

5. Fall To Grace eliminates the wrath of God against sin.

6. Fall To Grace eliminates the substitutionary blood atonement of Christ for sinners, 1 Corinthians 15:3.

7. Fall To Grace eliminates the fire of hell as the destination of lost sinners, Luke 16:19-31.

8. Fall To Grace eliminates the lake of fire as the place of God's final judgment against sin, Revelation 20:11-15.

9. Fall To Grace eliminates justification by faith alone in Christ alone, Romans 5:1 and 9.

10. Fall To Grace eliminates the Bible as our only rule of faith and practice ("reject all the received rules"), 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

For the record, there are 31,102 verses and 788,280 words in the King James Bible, not one million. Statistics for other English versions of the Bible are approximately the same.

It should be evident by now that Jay Bakker, as sweet a guy as he is in person, lacks even a basic understanding of scripture rightly divided. He simply doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to teaching the Bible. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 prohibit shrine prostitution, not homosexuality.

Fall To Grace - A Revolution of God, Self & Society is neither a good book nor a helpful book. It paints a sad portrait of Jay Bakker's false teaching about grace instead of providing Biblical teaching about the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Because many Christians, gay and non-gay, lack spiritual discernment, this book will probably be a best seller. That's not a good thing because so many people will be led astray.

Because of it's false teaching and false gospel, serious Christians would do well to follow Dorothy Parker's sage advice when considering Jay Bakker's befuddled stream of consciousness tome.