Text: Ephesians 2:1-6
In this passage, the Apostle Paul outlines man’s true condition before God and it is far more desperate than we might first imagine. Dead towards God (as a result of the Fall) man needs Divine intervention in the strongest possible way. He needs a miracle. He needs a resurrection!
Richard Barcellos:
The riddle to be solved is how and who brings the sin-stained, cursed creation to its new state of existence? The answer is the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), the son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1), the lion of the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:9; Num. 24:9; Rev. 5:5), the one from Jacob who shall have dominion (Num. 24:19; Gen. 1:28; Zech. 9:9-10). He is the prophet greater than Moses (Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22, 7:37), one greater than Joshua, the son of David (Matt. 1:1), the child of the virgin (Isa. 7:14; Micah 5:3; Matt. 1:23), the child born who governs the kingdom of David (Isa. 9:6-7; Mark 11:10; Luke 1:32-33). He is the branch of the LORD who will build the temple of the LORD and sit and rule on his throne as a priest (Jer. 33:14-15; Isa. 4:2; 11:1-2 [John 1:32 echoes Isa. 11:2]; 53:2; Jer. 23:5-6; Zech. 6:11-13), the righteous, suffering servant of the LORD (Isa. 53). He is the embodiment of all that Israel was not (i.e., a faithful son of God). He is the one who went forth for the LORD “to be ruler in Israel,” whose “goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity” (Mic. 5:2), “the Lord, whom you seek, [who] suddenly [came] to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant” (Mal. 3:1; Luke 1:76). He is the one conceived of the Holy Spirit named “Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21), “’IMMANUEL,’ which translated means, “GOD WITH US” (Matt. 1:23, citing or collating Isa. 7:14; 8:10; and 9:6). He is the Son of God called out of Egypt (Matt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1; Exod. 4:22-23), the one “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1). He is the one who said, “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matt. 16:18b), the one who said, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning” (Luke 10:18) and “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (John 12:31), “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), “the Word [who] became flesh” (John 1:14a), “the son of God” (John 1:34). He is the one who both cleansed the temple of God and claimed to be the temple of God (John 2:16-22; Mal. 3:1), the one who said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore . . .” (Matt. 28:18-19a). He is the one who suffered then entered into glory according to the Old Testament Scriptures (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46; Acts 26:22-23; 1 Pet. 1:10-12), the one who has “all things in subjection under His feet,” who is “head over all things to the church” (Eph. 1:22), the church being “a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 1:21), “a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 1:22), and “the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:1-6). He is the agent through whom “many sons [are brought] to glory” (Heb. 2:10), who is coming again that those he has called “may gain [his] glory” (2 Thess. 3:14), who will usher in “new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). He is the one who was sent by the Father in “the fullness of the time . . . born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem” and “that [the redeemed] might receive the adoption as sons” and received the gift of the Spirit (Gal. 4:4-6). In other words, the one who brings the sin-stained, cursed creation to its new state of existence is our Lord Jesus Christ, the skull-crushing seed of the woman, the incarnate Son of God (for us and for our salvation). He is the second man, the last Adam, the Lord of glory, who is coming again to raise the dead, condemn the wicked, and make all things new. He does these things by virtue of his sufferings and glory.
D. A. Horton is executive director of ReachLife Ministries, the non-profit ministry of Reach Records. Here’s an article he wrote at the 9Marks website (original source followed by two years in theological rehab, which prepared me for the next six years of pastoring in the urban context. What’s become clear to me is that the nine marks of a healthy church provide a useful grid for assessing any church, including those that teach the prosperity gospel.
And what we find is that a prosperity gospel church is a purely anti-nine marks church.
Some of the examples in what follows are specific and may not identify with you the reader. Many however are universal and are propagated by preachers on the internet, radio, and television. Since the prosperity gospel movement is inter-denominational, the teachings expressed in this article are not to be associated with any one denomination within evangelical Christianity.
1. EXPOSITIONAL PREACHING
Preaching in prosperity gospel churches is far from expositional. Instead, the purpose of preaching is to motivate hearers to give financially, and you give to get. Preachers exploit the passages that deal with the sacrificial giving of tithes and offerings week in and week out. They instruct hearers to activate their faith by sowing a “faith seed,” thereby tapping into God’s law of reciprocity and leading to their own financial breakthrough.
Isolated Old Testament passages are often used as examples of God’s abundant reward for faith giving. One passage often used to manipulate hearers into giving more is Malachi 3:10. Prosperity preachers highlight two points from this passage. First, they tell hearers they are robbing God by not tithing. Second, they assure hearers that God wants them to test him by giving more, so that he can give them more.
But consider Malachi 3:10 in its proper context. The Israelites were robbing God by not giving enough food to the national storehouse that was used to feed the priests of Israel. So the priests were having to leave their priestly duties and take up farming to survive (see Neh. 13:10-13). God therefore exhorts Israel to test him by giving obediently. If they did, he would reward them as he did in the past (2 Chr. 31:7-10). The point of this entire passage concerns a historically specific episode in the life of Israel. Preaching it as a Christian sermon, however, requires more than transferring its commands and promises to Christians on a one-to-one basis. Yes, there are larger applications for the Christian concerning giving, but first one needs to account for the differences between old covenant and new, especially the nature of God’s promises to Israel and the manner in which they are fulfilled for the Christian in Christ.
A healthy church uses preaching to communicate God’s words to his people. It confronts the hearer with God’s truth and leads to conviction, encouragement, clarity, and a call to action. It also centers every text around the gospel in order to show the hearer how central and necessary Jesus Christ is to the believer living in obedience to God’s word. A healthy church will inform believers that the results of holy living will not necessarily be financial gain but rather godliness that honors our Lord.
2. BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
Prosperity gospel theology rests upon the foundational error that man shares a form of deity with God, such that our words carry the same creative power as God’s words. Psalm 82:6, Proverbs 18:20-21, and Romans 4:17 are popular proof texts used to support this falsehood. It is often said that man is a “lower-case god” and possesses the power to demonstrate deity by speaking things into existence, creating and controlling our destiny with words, and even mandating a frustrated and limited God to act on our behalf for our benefit. Continue reading