Christians Are Teaching UNIMAGINABLE Things... | Paul Washer

The False Gospel of a Less Angry God

Hey, God is less grumpy because of Jesus, Atonement Theory in 17 seconds. He's gonna kill you because he's angry at you, but instead he's gonna kill Jesus.

The good news is he has already forgiven you.

Never once did he mention the righteousness of God, and how can a righteous God pardon wicked men? Never once did he mention.

Who is God? What is salvation? These are two of the most important questions in Christianity. But surprisingly, there is a shocking number of extremely popular Christian teachers today whose teachings concerning these two questions are fundamentally wrong.

God will never, never, never, never, never, never stop loving you. Even if you chose to reject him and go to hell, God will still love you.

God will never love you anymore, and he loves you, right?

First, who is God? Of course, God is a God of love, and pretty much no Christian teacher has a problem with this.

Knowing that God loves you perfectly and unconditionally, that he will never stop loving you.

It don't make no difference to me how you act. I love you just the way God loves you.

However, it's when we get into God's relationship with sin and sinners that we start running into problems.

There is no sin that this Yahweh cannot forgive. So far, so good. But now he says, yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. I have just read to you what the Bible is all about. I have just read to you what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about.

I have just expounded to you the greatest problem in all of Scripture so that we could actually say it is the divine dilemma and it is found throughout all of Scripture. And what is this? On one hand, we have a God who forgives all types and kinds of sin.

Yet on the other hand, we have a God who will punish every sin committed by every sinner on planet Earth.

Exodus 34 tells us that God is not just a God of love, but also a God who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. This is a foundational attribute of God. Yet the most popular Christian teachers today rarely, if ever, teach about God's justice and wrath towards sin.

You won't find any sermons by Joel Osteen about God punishing sinners because all Osteen wants to do is make people feel good about themselves.

Do you feel like you're cheating people by not telling them about the hell part?

No, I really don't because it's a different approach. You know, it's not hellfire and brimstone, but I say most people are beaten down enough by life. They already feel guilty enough. They're not doing what they should do, raising their kids.

You know, we can all find reasons. So I want them to come to Lakewood or our meetings and be lifted up to say, you know what, I may not be perfect, but I'm moving forward. I'm doing better and I think that motivates you to do better.

Same with Stephen Furtick.

Furtick likewise only talks about people achieving their full potential through God. It's always been in you.

It's always been in you. And the process of discipleship is not God changing you into something else. It's him revealing who you've been all along.

And if you ever hear T .D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, or Rick Warren teach about sinners deserving God's wrath, judgment, and punishment, let me know because I haven't seen any of that. The inevitable result of all this is that there are millions of church-going Christians who do not understand who God truly is.

The Divine Dilemma of God’s Justice and Mercy

This is Christianity.

This is a religion. It is about God. And no one knows who God is. So that in one breath, a person can say in a typical evangelical church, God is righteous and God forgives all sin and not realize that that is a gigantic, insurmountable contradiction.

How can he be righteous? How can he be that way and forgive sin?

Some argue that God can simply forgive sinners without punishing their sin.

Why can't God do what he asked us to be able to do, to freely forgive without demanding retribution first?

Jesus doesn't say, punch them in the mouth and then you can forgive them, or kill their baby and then you can forgive them.

He just goes like, just forgive them.

However, the truth is that a proper understanding of what we deserve because of our sin is necessary to understand what exactly salvation is.

You tell me God is righteous and yet you tell me God covers sin? God forgives all types and kinds of sin and yet the guilty will not go unpunished? How can this be? It's an absolute impossibility. My dear friend, if you do not understand this, you do not understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.

With the rise of seeker-sensitive and numbers-driven Christianity, Christian teachers have essentially abandoned the biblical teaching of God's wrath and justice towards not just sin, but also sinners.

Well, at least this was not rare news 150 years ago. It was the common stock of gospel preaching. That's why I tell you, this country is not so much gospel-hardened as it is gospel-ignorant. And it's ignorant of the gospel because its preachers are ignorant of the gospel.

The Cross, Atonement, and the Meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:21

To help spread this message, subscribe does more than you might think. What exactly happened to Jesus on the cross? What exactly does it mean that Jesus saves Christians from their sin?

We need to talk about the cross event, so let's do that in one... I don't know how really to describe this text. Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Paul has told us so many times about the atonement and the sufferings of Christ.

He takes us down a steep ladder into many dark holes with regard to the indescribable sufferings of Jesus Christ and what He endured on that tree. But just when you think He can go no further, He lights a torch and takes us down further.

2 Corinthians 5 .21 He, that is God, made Him, that is Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

On the cross, Jesus became sin. This is a staggering statement and we need to understand this correctly. Todd White interprets this to mean that Jesus actually became a sinner on the cross.

Jesus became Satan worship on a tree. Are you hearing me? This is really hard to even say, yet it's true. What does it mean that He who knew no sin became sin? Jesus became bestiality on a tree.

But White's interpretation of this passage is a serious error.

Utter blasphemy. Jesus did not turn into sin. He was made an offering for our sin. This was a judicial thing. Our sin was imputed to Christ. It was credited, if you will, to Christ's account.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. What does this mean? Does this mean that somehow on the cross that Christ devolved into a corrupt being or became somehow something other than spotless and despicable?

I mean, after all, what does it mean? Well, it doesn't mean that. But what does it mean? Well, let's look at the second part of the text. It says, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

When a person believes God, he's declared to be righteous. Now, that does not mean that the moment you believe God, you become a righteous being who never sins. What does it mean? It means the moment that you believe God, God grants to you or speaks forth a legal or forensic declaration, you are right with Him.

You are right with God.

In the same way that the righteousness we receive through Jesus is a legal or forensic declaration, Jesus became sin in a legal forensic sense. In other words, Jesus was not punished because He became a sinner, but rather as if He was a sinner.

So now, how does that apply to the cross? On the cross, our sins, the sins of God's people, were imputed to the Son. And He was legally declared guilty before God. And He was treated as guilty in the place of His people.

Now, it wasn't imputed guilt, but it was a real guilt. It does not diminish the suffering. He was declared before the very bar of His Father to be guilty. And from that moment, treated as guilty.

So on the cross, Jesus was treated as if He were guilty. Now, what does this mean? Tim Mackey is the theologian behind The Bible Project, one of the most popular sources of Christian teaching on the Internet.

While there is certainly value in a lot of The Bible Project's content, which is beautifully animated and usually pretty well researched, there is also some serious error in Mackey's teachings. First, Mackey teaches that sin is essentially its own punishment, not something God actively punishes.

Something has happened to this wealthy man. Something has deteriorated and disintegrated inside of him. He's just unable to recognize that he's wrong. And he's made horrible decisions. Eternal blame shift.

The irony of the story is that this is what he wanted. This is the end result of his choices. It's what he wanted. Hell is not some arbitrary, like, oh, you did a few bad things, you go to this place where you go after you die.

No, no, it's the end of a long life trajectory of his humanness disintegrating.

But scripture is clear that God actively punishes and pours out his wrath upon sin.

Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal. Let not one of them escape. And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Gishon and slaughtered them. That seems a bit excessive. Not if you understand idolatry.

And not if you understand the righteous wrath of God. This is a picture of what happens to all idolaters.

Hell, Wrath, and the Presence of the Lamb

Second, Mackey teaches that God's only desire is to save people and that God has no desire to punish sinners.

When the Apostle John thinks of Jesus dying as a sacrifice that covers for our sin, he believes this shows loud and clear that this is a revelation of God's what? His anger? That he hates you? And that he wants to kill you because you fail?

Do you see how distorted that idea is? It's the exact opposite. It's the exact opposite. He loves you.

He could walk out on you. But he promised that he wouldn't. But scripture is clear that God also desires to glorify himself through the display of his glorious justice. Folks, listen to me.

The justice and righteousness of God will be your all in all in heaven. And the eternal punishment of sin and God pouring out his wrath on sin is a glorification and magnification of his righteousness.

What else could you celebrate? And third, Mackey teaches that hell is merely a place of separation from God that sinners choose for themselves.

So it raises the question for us. Why would God allow anyone to experience such a fate? Eternal separation from the only relationship that can give humans life. Why would he allow this? And this is where we're going to look at a passage where Jesus is going to subvert and overturn all the normal ways that we think about these things.

Because in the scriptural vision of hell and what Jesus is going to get at in this passage is hell is not somewhere where humans go kicking and screaming. Hell is actually something that we want. We want it and we choose it.

But scripture is clear that God himself is present in hell overseeing the judgment of all who continue to rebel against his commands.

Notice the use of wine here again. Poured out full strength into the cup of his anger and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.

And they have no rest day or night. These worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name. They will drink down the dregs. They will be tormented. We see fire and sulfur.

This takes place in the presence of the lamb.

It takes place forever and ever. It takes place without rest. The Bible teaches that those who do not obey God are cursed.

What does this mean? In the book of Galatians we read this. In chapter 3 verse 10. Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law to perform them. When preaching is precise men tremble at words like sin.

Men tremble at words like curse. You see we hear curse. We think oh under a curse. But it is the labor of the preacher to expound, to try to explain. What does this mean? You can go throughout the scriptures.

Old Testament and new. It's talking about separation. It's talking about condemnation, hopelessness, alienation from God. Let me put it to you this way. The sinner outside of Christ is so vile, so heinous, so despicable and loathsome not only before God, but before every righteous being in heaven that the last thing that sinner will hear when he takes his first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because God has rid the earth of him.

When the trees clap their hands and the waves dance across the sea rejoicing that you have been removed from creation with no one not even a closest kin to pity you but all raising their hands and saying the God of all the earth has done right.

God's justice and wrath towards sin is a foundational aspect of who he is. Yet the majority of the most popular Christian teachers today either never teach about this or even actively teach against it.

The Passion, the Wrath of God, and Penal Substitution

When the gospel is preached we don't hear these things. I remember one time when the movie The Passion came out and all kinds of pastors were writing me all angry about so many things about in that movie and I have no bones to pick with Mel Gibson or those who did the movie.

As a matter of fact it provided me an opportunity to write those pastors back and say I have more problems with your preaching the gospel than I do Mel Gibson's film. Because one of the most foremost evangelicals in the United States came on a radio program and he says we've heard a lot about this movie.

I am going to share the gospel. I'm pulling out all the stops. I'm going to tell you people what the gospel is. I pulled off side of the road I was working there on my mom's farm. Shut off the truck. Turn the key back on.

Turn the radio up. Oh wonderful! Finally! He talked about the nails. He talked about the crown of thorns. He talked about what the Romans did to him. He talked about everything that was in that film but never once did he mention the righteousness of God and how can a righteous God pardon wicked men.

Never once did he mention that the true pain of the cross was not a Roman whip but the wrath of almighty God falling down upon the head of his son. There it is.

On the cross Jesus bore the wrath of almighty God in the place of sinners. The theological term for this is substitutionary atonement or penal substitution. It's absolutely central to the questions of who God is and how God saves sinners.

Yet Tim Mackey teaches against this. C .S. Lewis affirms some form of substitution but not penal substitution. Andy Stanley teaches that sin doesn't make God angry but rather it breaks God's heart. And the new covenant you know what we discover?

That sin doesn't make God angry. Sin breaks God's heart.

Todd White gets this wrong and these men are just the tip of the iceberg. Whether or not we go as far as to call all Christian teachers like these false teachers we can certainly say that their rejection of the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is serious serious error that deserves to be called out because teaching a wrong view of God and of salvation is at best extremely dangerous.

And of course you'll never hear popular word of faith teachers like Joel Osteen, Stephen Furtick T .D. Jakes or Joyce Meyer come close to saying anything about the subject since their focus is on earthly health wealth, prosperity and success.

God's justice and wrath towards sin doesn't attract people looking for these things. You better believe the topic.

Was not the gospel. The topic was not you know. Come and have your sins forgiven. Come and repent and believe. No, you know what it was. Come get your blessing come get your miracle come get your deliverance come get your.

And the list goes on and on. These are the things that thousands flock to.

This is not just some minor theological doctrine that we're nitpicking about. This is the heart of the gospel. Our sins weren't paid for because a bunch of Romans.

Beat up Jesus they weren't merely paid for because he was nailed to a tree or a spear was put in his side which is the theme of every Easter weekend. How many Easter sermons have I heard only of what the Romans did to Jesus and hardly have I ever heard that he was crushed under the wrath of God and he died and in dying he paid for our sins and on the third day he rose again from the dead.

The gospel must not only be preached correctly but men must be called correctly. And if even children.

Can understand and articulate this doctrine we should expect Christian leaders and teachers to be able to as well. And so I started preaching and finally I got this question. I said what was in the cup.

What was in the cup. And this little girl.

She couldn't have been more than nine years old in truly reformed fashion. She raised her hand. I said yes dear. She stood up stood beside her desk and she said sir the wrath of almighty God was in the cup.