Saturday, September 1, 2007

The Love-centric Gospel

A prevalent error that has resulted in many Christians finding themselves caught in a bind is viewing God in a wrong light. It is truly appalling that churches are preaching a perverted gospel of incompleteness or half-truths; they preach of God’s overflowing love and grace but little else. Yes, the Almighty is a God of love, it is because of His overwhelming love for mankind that He sent His only Son to pay the price of our sins, but love is not His sole attribute. Many believers find it unacceptable to view Jesus Christ as anything else other than a demure, passive and loving Saviour. However, is this an accurate view of Christ as advocated by scripture?

One of His primary attributes often overlooked by the church is His Holiness; His perfect immutable nature and absolute intolerance of sin. Truly, the church has lost sight of the majestic holiness that He radiates from His throne. Rather, Christians prefer to embrace the concept of a warm and loving friend, minimizing His Holy aspect for fear of developing a legalistic attitude towards God. Christians summarily reject emphasizing on God’s Holiness out of the mistaken belief and fear that in doing so the perception of God as an austere and wrathful deity will arise. In fact, His death on the cross is not just a triumph of God’s love but also of holiness over unholiness. It was His death that sanctified man so that man could step into His Holy presence.

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
1 Peter 1:13-16


His Holiness demands that sin be judged. It is also due to His Holiness that the ultimate place of judgment, hell exists. Despite being reiterated many times in the bible, the mere mention of such concepts induce fidgetiness among Christians. Why should it be so? A child of the Most High should not fear such judgments if he were truly covered by the blood of the Lamb. Furthermore, Christians find the concept of judgment and hell ‘too cruel’ and feel that it violates their fancy perception of God as a loves-struck God. The concept of sin and hell are regarded as medieval, nevermind that all sin regardless of its magnitude constitutes a direct rebellion and conceitness before God. The realization of the consequences of sin which is eternal damnation is lost among the modern churches. Consequently, the urgency to preach the true gospel of Christ has been largely diminished. This is the great deception within the church as people do not realize that the world is no friend but a foe.

Unsurprisingly, many Christians develop a romantic notion of Jesus Christ as a lover God as a result of receiving an imperfect gospel. So, some will argue, is there a problem with treating God as your celestial boyfriend/girlfriend? Yes! It would mean placing God on equal standing with you in terms of your personal relationship with Him. In reality, such a belief is blatantly wrong and no sound basis for it can be found in the scriptures. The proper relationship that one must maintain with God is that of a father and child. God is a loving father that will care for His children, but will not hesitate to chastise them if they were to go astray. Your dad may be your best friend, but there are dynamics in the relationship that must be adhered to such as obedience and reverence. God is not your nice tame buddy that you can push over; to regard Him as such is to mock Him for it implies that He has few, if any standards.

““For whom the LORD loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?” Hebrews 12:6-7


Preaching a love-centric gospel produces spiritual brats who perceive God as a Santa Claus who attends to their every whim and fancy. Such a gospel loses the true focus of God’s love and renders it senseless. The core of the gospel that Jesus Christ came to preach is that of repentance, and the call to holiness was issued even before He began His ministry. The focal point of the true gospel is a call to repentance, and this theme is echoed in the epistles and verified in the Acts of the Apostles.

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
Matthew 3:1-2


Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38

And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Acts 16:30-31


I’m not discounting God’s love; rather I am saying that His love must be viewed in an accurate relation to His character as a whole. The perverted gospel of modern times goes along the lines of “God loves you so much, He desires your soul and wants you to dwell in His kingdom forever. God wants to bless you abundantly as His grace is overwhelming”; it mentions sin on a superficial basis and thus waters down the true significance of Christ’s death and resurrection. It makes no direct attempt to call sinners to repentance, or may just encourage them to do so through mere lip-service instead out of sincere conviction. Resultantly, many people who respond to the altar call could be doing so with a shallow understanding of the cross, and may be responding for many reasons save the right one. Churches preach John 3:16, but not the verses following it. Jesus Christ did not come to die so that Christians can lead easy, prosperous, indulgent and self-fulfilled lifestyles!

A doctor who breaks the news to a patient who faces certain death does not do so in jest, but rather pores over the patient’s options and prognosis in all somberness. Similarly, the gospel of Jesus Christ dying on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins is a solemn issue revolving around eternal life, or death. Hence, it was never intended to be parceled together with the worldly circus racket that features on a regular basis on Sundays in churches. The gospel cannot be injected into secular entertainment to form a holy concoction; the gospel cannot be prepackaged into “Christian” rock concerts, Manga comics, Hollywood blockbusters, figure action toys, adorable cartoon characters, etc. To do so is to mock God for it implies that the good news is somehow “not good enough”. For example, I have heard a sermon being preached on the virtues of “Luke Skywalker and the Force” to draw parallels with Jesus Christ! To say the least, is the preacher ignorant of the fact that the Star Wars’ mystical concept of “the Force” was drawn from Hinduism, and that he is indirectly promoting syncretism, which is basically a fusion of religions. The gospel must be preached per se, with no reinventions or embellishment.

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? 2 Corinthians 6:14-16a

The gospel in its fullness can be summarized as “God loves you so much despite your sins that He sent His only Son to die and wash you clean of your sins. His suffering and eventual death on the cross has set you free from sin and its penalty: death“. Note the difference from the incomplete gospel above. It is the failure of the church to realize the severity of sin in God’s eyes that has led the church to believing the lie that “some blots are fine, no one is perfect”. Hence, sin is permitted to go on a rampage in the church as Christians ignore its true consequences. While it is true that no one is perfect, we must never cease in striving to imitate Christ. God’s grace is no license to justify sin.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Certainly not! Romans 6:14-15


To view God in a distorted manner will in turn result in a distorted relationship with Him.
Think on it, if the gospel is not preached wholly, to what extent is it possible for people, Christians included, to fully attain salvation?

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