What is the Gospel? Jesus Christ and he crucified. Yes, true enough. But that is not the whole, part of the story yes, but lacking nonetheless. Did Jesus die to make us have a better life? Did he save us from hell? Did his brokenness make us whole? The answers are yes, yes, and yes but that these promises are at their core Spiritual should be clear for all to see and this is where people fall into all sorts of gross heresies that run rampant within modern day Evangelicalism. When Spiritual promises are applied to earthly, here and now, things and problems, we end up with fallacious doctrine and theology. We shall seek to show within this short paper that the gospel Firstly, is not for prosperity in the here and now, Second, is not to save us from hell, and Third, that the Gospel is not meant to give us a free pass in this life. Once we have went through these it should be sufficiently clear that the Gospel peddled by the modern day Evangelical salesman is no Gospel at all.
First, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not meant to give us prosperity in the here and now of life. This can be easily shown with a few Bible verses, but I would first like to give some Scripture passages that Prosperity peddlers use to defend their position. Probably the most used Bible passage for this is
Isaiah 53
These verses to them are invincible proof of the fact that by Christ’ physical suffering we are made physically well. This may seem reasonable, after all, if we are going to say that this is speaking of Christ’ suffering in the body than why wouldn’t it be speaking of our bodily healing? But this underlies an inaccurate Hermeneutic when speaking of this passage. Their error is in their fact that they do not, when interpreting this as firstly physical, take into account the whole of Scripture on this topic. I will here provide just one verse because when we get into the next couple of points we will bring out several more that will make my point. Here is the verse “All those who desire to live a godly life, in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” 2 Timothy 3:12. Now if we are to suffer persecution when saved would that not be the very opposite of physical well-being? Yes, indeed it would and we can therefor easily see that this view does not and indeed, cannot hold itself up under the weight of its own assertions.
The next false view that we will seek to look at is that Christ died to save us from hell. This view is probably the subtlest of the views that I will be confronting in this article. After all Jesus did save us from hell, but here is the problem with this: When that is the locus of the presentation it is a false Gospel. A.W. Pink sums this up well when he says, “The nature of Christ’ salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day Evangelist. He announces a savior from hell rather than a savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.” This essentially shows the foolishness of proclaiming a savior from hell, the famous ‘fire insurance’ plea that we hear repeated oft over until our ears are ringing with the folly. While no one will deny that we are saved from hell; the moment that that becomes the focus instead of being saved unto righteousness it becomes a false Gospel and bad doctrine.
Next, we look at that Christ did not come to give us a free pass in life. We cannot live however we want now that we are saved. We are now bound to Christ by an unbreakable contract that will bring us to holiness and righteousness in Christ Jesus our Kurios. Now you may be wondering what the word Kurios means? It is a Greek word, used often in the NT, that means to be “Lord over one or many; The power to do as one pleases with the ones that are being ruled over” “TO dispose or dispense with t will.”. This is what the word means, and we find a plethora of times throughout the NT, appearing around 740 times in the NT! Mostly referring to Christ as Lord and ruler. While some are opposed to the term “Lordship Salvation”, saying that it is un-Biblical, I challenge them to find in Scripture one passage that teaches the contrary of this. “Lordship Salvation” is simply another term for “Biblical Salvation”, as Spurgeon famously said that “Calvinism is another word for the Gospel” so I say that “Lordship salvation is only another word for true and not false salvation”. I challenge you, my readers to find one passage that teaches anything contrary to Lordship salvation, upon which I will capitulate. Some passages that support this with inexorable thoroughness are: Matthew 20:8, Romans 14:7-9, Acts 10:36, Romans 1:1, Ephesians 1:1-2, etc. etc. These passages demonstrate the necessity and truth of Christ being Lord and king of the believer’s lives. In some of these passages it is even taken so far as to call believers doulos or slaves, this should be somewhat of a wake-up call to modern day Evangelicalism.
Summing up: We have seen in this post that the Gospel is not for physical well-being, to save you from hell, and/or to let you live your life the way you want to live it. All these are true and if any of them is erred from it results in an aberration from the Gospel of our blessed Lord and savior Jesus Christ. This aberration results in erroneous doctrine and theology leading to a corrupting influence within the lives of believers and the church at large.
First, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not meant to give us prosperity in the here and now of life. This can be easily shown with a few Bible verses, but I would first like to give some Scripture passages that Prosperity peddlers use to defend their position. Probably the most used Bible passage for this is
Isaiah 53
These verses to them are invincible proof of the fact that by Christ’ physical suffering we are made physically well. This may seem reasonable, after all, if we are going to say that this is speaking of Christ’ suffering in the body than why wouldn’t it be speaking of our bodily healing? But this underlies an inaccurate Hermeneutic when speaking of this passage. Their error is in their fact that they do not, when interpreting this as firstly physical, take into account the whole of Scripture on this topic. I will here provide just one verse because when we get into the next couple of points we will bring out several more that will make my point. Here is the verse “All those who desire to live a godly life, in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” 2 Timothy 3:12. Now if we are to suffer persecution when saved would that not be the very opposite of physical well-being? Yes, indeed it would and we can therefor easily see that this view does not and indeed, cannot hold itself up under the weight of its own assertions.
The next false view that we will seek to look at is that Christ died to save us from hell. This view is probably the subtlest of the views that I will be confronting in this article. After all Jesus did save us from hell, but here is the problem with this: When that is the locus of the presentation it is a false Gospel. A.W. Pink sums this up well when he says, “The nature of Christ’ salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day Evangelist. He announces a savior from hell rather than a savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.” This essentially shows the foolishness of proclaiming a savior from hell, the famous ‘fire insurance’ plea that we hear repeated oft over until our ears are ringing with the folly. While no one will deny that we are saved from hell; the moment that that becomes the focus instead of being saved unto righteousness it becomes a false Gospel and bad doctrine.
Next, we look at that Christ did not come to give us a free pass in life. We cannot live however we want now that we are saved. We are now bound to Christ by an unbreakable contract that will bring us to holiness and righteousness in Christ Jesus our Kurios. Now you may be wondering what the word Kurios means? It is a Greek word, used often in the NT, that means to be “Lord over one or many; The power to do as one pleases with the ones that are being ruled over” “TO dispose or dispense with t will.”. This is what the word means, and we find a plethora of times throughout the NT, appearing around 740 times in the NT! Mostly referring to Christ as Lord and ruler. While some are opposed to the term “Lordship Salvation”, saying that it is un-Biblical, I challenge them to find in Scripture one passage that teaches the contrary of this. “Lordship Salvation” is simply another term for “Biblical Salvation”, as Spurgeon famously said that “Calvinism is another word for the Gospel” so I say that “Lordship salvation is only another word for true and not false salvation”. I challenge you, my readers to find one passage that teaches anything contrary to Lordship salvation, upon which I will capitulate. Some passages that support this with inexorable thoroughness are: Matthew 20:8, Romans 14:7-9, Acts 10:36, Romans 1:1, Ephesians 1:1-2, etc. etc. These passages demonstrate the necessity and truth of Christ being Lord and king of the believer’s lives. In some of these passages it is even taken so far as to call believers doulos or slaves, this should be somewhat of a wake-up call to modern day Evangelicalism.
Summing up: We have seen in this post that the Gospel is not for physical well-being, to save you from hell, and/or to let you live your life the way you want to live it. All these are true and if any of them is erred from it results in an aberration from the Gospel of our blessed Lord and savior Jesus Christ. This aberration results in erroneous doctrine and theology leading to a corrupting influence within the lives of believers and the church at large.
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