The Overview Effect is a cognitive shift that occurs in many astronauts when they view the earth from space. Frank White coined the phrase in the 1980s after interviewing many astronauts. It is described as “a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus.”In other words, once you see the big picture—the earth floating in a great black emptiness—your thinking is radically changed. I would like to suggest there is a similar cognitive shift, let’s call it the Grace Effect, that occurs in the heart and mind when one’s spiritual eyes gaze upon the whole spiritual reality of God’s grace.

Sometimes, it happens at the same moment a person comes to faith, and this is ideal. However, in my pastoral experience, I found that people often do not see the complete picture until they open the windows of God’s Word. It occurs at the moment a believer recognizes they have complete security in Christ—that there was nothing they had to do to earn or merit salvation—it was all a gift, nor is there anything they need to do keep salvation. In fact, there isn’t anything they could ever do to lose their salvation. We sometimes call it assurance, the state of being sure of our identity as children of God with a definite eternal destiny. When this assurance is based on God’s grace and Jesus’ finished work rather than our own, we can undergo a radical cognitive shift.

Tragically, many people who have believed the good news about Jesus—who are aware of their own shortcomings and sin and who have trusted in Jesus’ substitutionary work on their behalf, do not fully comprehend the grace in which they stand. Do not be alarmed by this, for this is a key purpose of pastoring and Bible teaching. Paul himself delineates the process: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate in hope of the glory of God”
Romans 5:1-2.

The starting point is justification by faith. After we understand our justification, Paul teaches us about the peace we have through what Christ has done (rather than what we have done or will do). Not only peace, but an introduction into this grace in which we stand. This peace and this standing of grace is to be excitedly celebrated! The implication of an introduction into grace is that there is still more to learn and experience beyond justification and assurance. The next chapter of Romans begins the ascent to the next orbit—sanctification by grace.

As a former pastor, I found that a great many people are seeking to work toward sanctification without first being grounded in grace. My pastoral refrain was always the same: you cannot begin to grow in grace until you understand where you stand in grace. Our identity precedes our practice. A change of mind precedes our change of behavior. This change of mind is the cognitive shift of the Grace Effect:

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Not only is our thinking changed, but our changed thinking spills over into our behavior patterns. Not in an absolute sense—we are still quite human after all. Correct thinking doesn’t always result in the right actions. Instead, in the same way that Paul is speaking of in Romans 12:1, when he says, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,”  as our thinking changes, we undergo a transformation (progressive sanctification) that is experiential—both practical and observable.

This transformation is the change that we, as disciple-making Bible teachers, should seek to see in our disciples' lives as we ply God's Word and grace into their hearts and minds.

Years ago, I confronted a dear friend and Bible teacher who had, in his presentation, merged elements of justification and sanctification. As we spoke, he explained that in the service of brevity (which sermons do desperately need), he simply took a shortcut by merging them together. It isn’t a popular opinion, but many (with some notable exceptions) who teach from a non-free grace perspective do, in fact, recognize a difference between positional justification and progressive sanctification. Often, the issue is they believe that one invariably leads to the other. They do not have a developed theology of failure. The fact that the Bible is full of exhortations to run the race well clearly reveals that failure to run the race well is a potential outcome.

I’d like to suggest that when Bible teachers have not fully experienced the Grace Effect themselves, the natural result is that their teaching does not produce the Grace Effect. No one can teach what they do not comprehend themselves. Dust in the nebula makes for dark patches among the stars.

Those who teach free grace are often accused of anti-nominalism or ignoring progressive sanctification. If our teaching does not point toward transformation, I would be first in line to admit we are in error. Thankfully, the accusations are unfounded. I continually observe free grace teachers seeking the progressive sanctification of their flocks.

Thus, the real issue is more nuanced. We who teach free grace argue that the best way to bring about the transformation we want to happen is to teach clearly about God’s grace in justification, grace in assurance, and grace in sanctification. Because we believe in the transformational power of the Grace Effect, our teaching reflects this grace. Our message is simple: as people who have received Jesus—by grace alone in faith alone in Christ alone—walk in your new identity in Christ, having fully seen the big picture of the gift of His grace toward us.

Paul teaches this exact thing (albeit with agricultural rather than aeronautical illustration) in Colossians 2:6-7:

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.

Immediately after his October 2021 flight into space (aboard a New Shepard rocket), William Shatner, the actor who played the captain on the original series of Star Trek, told Jeff Bezos, “What you have given me is the most profound experience. I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now.”

Later in his biography, Boldly Go, he described what he had felt: “It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness.” What he had imagined as a great celebration—experiencing “space, the final frontier”—had brought a cognitive shift in his thinking about himself and about the fragility and value of the earth itself.

I pray that you and I will never recover from the overwhelming and transformational realization of the freedom, security, and assurance we have because of His gift—the grace of God in Jesus Christ.