Beware of Hyper Grace: Joseph Prince
Joseph Prince may make you feel good, but prove all things (1 Thess 5:21; Acts 17:11). Is what he says really so?
Joseph Prince may make you feel good, but prove all things (1 Thess 5:21; Acts 17:11). Is what he says really so?
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Joseph Prince teaches works (victory over sin) as evidence of eternal life. That teaching contradicts his purported belief in grace, because it focuses a person back on himself for assurance of eternal life.
Yes on one of his videos, he teaches eating the ‘Holy Communion reverses curses in our lives’. He applies it as the Roman Catholic church does, and of course if you want to know more, you can buy the ‘full sermon’.
He also denies that Paul’s infirmity or thorn in his flesh was physical, saying ‘it’s our personality that troubles us’ or ‘pain in the neck’ as he also used. What??? Paul said because of his infirmity he preached the gospel to them at the first, so it was supposedly Paul’s distorted personality that did this?
People want to hear these things, and that God will never chasten them, that they don’t have to confess anything, and it’s not anything we’ve done (law of sowing and reaping) but a consequence of the curse, and he’s always teaching them how to ‘reverse the curse’ . Has a nice ring doesn’t it? 🙂
Except Jesus TOOK the curse upon Himself, and I can’t stand to see people handle God’s Word so deceitfully and irresponsibly. It really troubles me (Is 66:2), they have no respect.
Pastor Prince is not a performance rooted preacher, nor is he some Roman Catholic instructor. The Communion is a symbol a reminder, a celebration of the Finished Work. In the Finished Work Jesus bore all our shame, condemnation, sins and sickness disease. Partaking of communion is merely reminding ourselves what Jesus already accomplished.
As for Paul I am saddened to see this stubborn tradition plaguing the Church still a stronghold in so many minds. Paul was attacked by the enemy. No it had nothing to do with Paul being prideful, the KJV wording confuses people. The be exalted above measure isn’t about pride. Think. The devil is referred to as the king of the children of pride. The devil’s biggest sin is his pride. Why would God in His infinite wisdom send the king of pride to keep Paul humble? It stands that the enemy would want Paul prideful. He wouldn’t hinder Paul becoming prideful.
As for the thorn, allow the Bible to interpret the Bible. Paul said he was given a thorn, the messenger of satan, to buffet me. The thorn in the flesh is the messenger of satan. Thorn in the flesh is a figure of speech otherwise you must conclude that Paul had a thorn somewhere stuck in his body.
The thorn was not a sickness or disease, and to suppose so is merely to speculate.
I apologize, for this statement just seems a little rambling to me John. What ‘stubborn tradition’ plaguing the church are you addressing? What thorn? I never even saw it in the article. So when Satan was allowed to cause physical issues for Job, it was nothing physical? We somehow should suppose it is otherwise? We don’t know exactly what it was, because the Bible doesn’t say, we do know Paul had physical infirmities because of them he preached the gospel to the Galatians. Other than that, it for the author wishes to address you more thoroughly, maybe he knows what you’re talking about. In Christ.
Hyper Grace is not hyper enough, lol. I think Bob George was also in this camp.
On youtube there is Bas Rijksen. It seems that most hyper grace people borrow from word of faith.
Actually they do get some from both sides of the coin in odd ways. They supposedly understand how to divide Israel from the church, but when it bolsters their doctrine, suddenly they’ll misapply Scripture to make their case.
Not sure I follow your logic. Are you saying Israel and the Church are the same?
Neither the author (standforthefaith.com), nor myself believe that Israel and the Church are the same. Absolutely not.
For instance, Bas Rijksen teaches that if you don’t get healed from sickness, you do not have faith. This is another channel that disappointed and another to mark and avoid.
Why isn’t it the elders that don’t get chastised for their lack of faith? The elders pray for the sick, where is their faith?
Come to think of it, I think Martin Luther the so-called great Reformer was hypergrace. He had some of their traits: LS backdoors (baptism), some overreactions (rejecting James), a tendency to apply grace to the Christian life in some wrong ways, a tendency to hyperdivide, a penchant for shock value, and other weird stuff (eg antisemitism). Lutheranism seems to have moved away from hypergrace teachings while retaining the backdoors.
Jason, Who knows? Luther had a great hatred for the Jews, he was very antisemitic and we see his effect on the madman Hitler. Replacement theology tends to do that. Any theology that is man-centered or perverted (the wrong way) we may see some ‘good things’ and some ‘bad’, that’s the problem, people see enough ‘good’ to think that they’re in a good place.
Anyone that hyperdivides the Scriptures and Paul and Peter too to supposedly be teaching two different gospels is in error. The intent of the cross is clear in Ephesians 2, that one new man will be made.
Amused by how these label Hyper Grace as LS! Hahaha. Free Grace and others still preach the error that the believer still has the sin nature within. They teach that our forgiveness is merely “judicial” but we still need “familial” forgiveness. They teach that God can’t fellowship with us when we sin…
Sounds like harsh taskmaster Lord, just as bad if not worse than LS!
Hyper Grace stays with the Word, when we are born again God comes to live inside us, Old passes away and the New comes. If God leaves us the way He found us (with a sin nature) then His salvation is pretty shoddy work! Thank God though His Finished Work, was a perfect work, and He removed our old nature and gave us His nature. We are just as righteous as Jesus! He forgave us once for all time, past and present and future. We are forgiven of our sins period. He said He’d never leave us or forsake us. This would include when we sin. God’s fellowship with me is based in the Blood of Jesus and perfect redemption not on my conduct!
John, fellowship is for our behalf. All our sins are paid for at the cross, but when we sin, we still hide, or are grieved, or become carnal, or go back into the world, or become false teachers, immoral fornicators, drunkards, railers, etc.
I highly recommend this two part series by Pastor Tom Cucuzza. I will say I’m not going to post argumentative debate style posts (i.e. your last post which I didn’t approve). Sounds like your own religious tradition of idolizing certain pastors over the Word of God may be what is troubling you. We have a New creation which does not sin (1 Pet 1:23; 1 John 3:9). Our new man is perfected forever by His one sacrifice (Heb 10:10,14). But as Paul said in Romans 7, he found that evil was still present in him, and he did sin, and John told believers, that to confess their sins were for fellowship and for their JOY to remain FULL. Understand the difference, this is not ‘familial’, this restores our fellowship when we grieve the Spirit holding on to the sins that so easily beset us.
My ‘relationship’ with God the moment I believed was as becoming His body (Eph 5:25-32), His child (John 1:12), adopted into His family (Gal 4:4-6), perfected in Him by His one sacrifice (Heb 10:10,14). That is my position in Him and will never change. He is my Father, and I am His daughter. I can do things to grieve Him but I am still His daughter. Because God doesn’t put these sins on our account since we have believed, doesn’t change the fact we still have a conscience. Paul said he ‘practiced’ the sin he did not want to do. Joseph Prince would say he was probably unsaved.
I hope you will consider Pastor Cucuzza’s series, I allowed this one response because it wasn’t really argumentative or combative, a Believer should not strive, and I’m not going to with you. In Christ, Holly
Understanding the Two Natures
https://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?speakerWithinSource=&subsetCat=&subsetItem=&mediatype=&includekeywords=&exactverse=&keyword=Dr._Thomas_M._Cucuzza&keyworddesc=Dr.+Thomas+M.+Cucuzza&currsection=&AudioOnly=false&SpeakerOnly=true&keywordwithin=understanding+two+natures&x=3&y=5
Thanks for posting this!