Thank God for the Prosperity Gospel

Thank God for the Prosperity Gospel

By: Deji Yesufu

Controversies have always been the driving force in theology. A careful reading of the New Testament will reveal that our Lord Jesus Christ himself did not shy away from controversies. Most of what Jesus taught was either diatribes against a popular opinion of his day or a polemic against false teachers. The Jews of Jesus’ day could never have imagined that God would have anything against their doctrine or practice. They were convinced that, unlike the days of their fathers, when they frequently departed from God’s laws and went after idols, Ezra had finally succeeded in importing true religion to Israel. The fact that they had groups like the Pharisees and the Sadducees was only a pointer to the virility of their beliefs, or so they thought. “Doctrine divides…”, I could imagine a few of them boasting.

Alas, when Christ the Son of God, nay, God himself, came among them, our Lord condemned the religion of the Jews. They couldn’t believe it and, in their exasperation, they took the Lord of glory and crucified him. Christ’s death was the response of the Jews to Christ’s polemic against their religion. We could sit pretty in the 21st century and think that we ourselves would never do such a thing. But such thinking totally underestimates the wickedness in every one of our hearts. Thankfully, the coming of Jesus had promised salvation from sin (Matthew 1:21). The sin this scripture promises Christ will redeem men from shall not be the sin of the world but the sin of his people. Long before Christ was condemned at the cross, God had set out a plan to save his people from their sins. The true biblical thinking, therefore, is not the man who thinks he has finally gained mastery of his sin; rather, it is the man who identifies the wickedness of his own heart to be on par with those of the Pharisees and Sadducees. If God saves the Jews who condemned his Son, God will save any sinner. This is the gospel.

These thoughts emerge in my thinking in light of a simmering controversy on social media. The details of that controversy are not necessary to be mentioned here. What I felt I must respond to was a diatribe against me during this controversy. When an individual made a statement that I am convinced has my person included. This person said, and I paraphrase: a lot of people you see on social media are not Reformed. These people are only reacting against the Prosperity Gospel. You then ask: how do you know this person was talking about you? And I answer: I was not born yesterday. My chairman at the Reformed Theological Seminary Foundation (RTSF) tells me that the greatest strength of the British is hearing what people did not say within a whole lot of statements they uttered. Besides, how many Reformed persons in this country have written against the Prosperity Gospel like me? My book, HUMANITY, was a polemic against the Prosperity Gospel. Now, to be fair to this individual, he might not have had me in mind when he made that statement. For the sake of this article, however, I choose to wear the cap.

My angst against the Prosperity Gospel can be traced to my mother’s words to me sometimes in 1984. Here we are staring at the television, and Benson Idahosa appears, preaching in a flowing white agenda. My mother said: Beware of men like this. They are in the ministry only for money. Many years later, I saw the story of Jeroboam, the first king of breakaway Israel. Scripture records that Jeroboam made two calves and proclaimed that those calves were the ones that delivered Israel from Egypt. Now, a 21st-century thinking person will say: no one should believe that narrative. Israel should know their history. Alas, they believed it. Not alone, generations after generations prostituted themselves with those calves. Scripture tells us that every king after Jeroboam followed this doctrine and every one of them sinned. This continued until God rid the land of Israel. I read that part of the scriptures in 1999, and I became convinced that Benson Idahosa could very easily be substituted for Jeroboam. Modern Prosperity teachers in Nigeria are the sons and daughters of the sin of Jeroboam – nay, Idahosa. What, then, is the relevance of this thesis to the recent controversy? I will explain.

Get a copy here

Genuine Reformed thinking has never been a doctrine that emerges by itself. Every Reformed work the Holy Spirit has embarked on since Elijah has been a reaction to false doctrine. Reformed Theology, in other words, is REACTIONARY THEOLOGY. We are in business because false teachers are in business. The day we cease to react to false doctrine, we cease to be Reformed. The word “Reformed Theology” was birthed by Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli died early in the Reformed struggle, and it was left to Calvin to push the doctrine forward. And since then, the Reformed message has always entered a land to purify that land of prevailing false doctrine in a land. So, when modern Reformed thinkers tell us that our Reformed message should not react to the Prosperity Gospel, they are speaking from a very limited understanding, to say the least. If you live in Nigeria and your Reformed theology has so evolved as to no longer be bothered about the Prosperity Gospel, one should question your commitment to the gospel demands of our time.

Now this piece is titled “Thank God for the Prosperity Gospel”, and I must hurry to explain the reason for my joy and rejoicing. God told the Jews that he had left some of the inhabitants of the promised land there so that the land would not be overrun with wild animals, and so as to teach Israel to wage war. If not for the Prosperity Gospel, I would probably have never known that Christ died for my sins ALONE. I employ the word “alone” because Martin Luther used it in his translations of the Greek New Testament into German, particularly in that mighty scripture in Romans 1:16-17. Rather than leave Romans 1:17 as “…the just shall live by faith…”, Luther added “…the just shall live by faith alone…” When he was accused of adding to the word of God, Luther explained that the German language needed that emphasis. But you and I understand that today that the distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism is that word “alone”. In a similar way, the difference between reformed theology and Word of Faith is the word “alone”. Biblical theology, and by extension reformed theology, teaches that Christ died for our sin alone; while Word of Faith teaches that Christ died for our sin, and to make us healthy and wealthy. There is a lot of difference between these theologies, and making this distinction a lifelong pursuit is a worthy ministry.

As we pursue the distinction between reformed theology and the prosperity gospel, which is Word of Faithism, it is also important to remind ourselves of some reformed distinctives. No matter how much anyone accuses some of us of not being reformed, the fact still remains that reformed theology, which is true biblical theology, has never been in lip service alone. While we rejoice in our confessions and we uphold worthy doxologies, true reformed theology is what people do. This is what I mean: biblical Christianity is a life that is transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit via the regeneration of a sinner’s heart. God sovereignly overrules the intentions of men’s hearts, causes repentance following the hearing of the gospel, and then imparts faith in the heart of the listeners. Salvation is by faith alone, which implies that we lay hold on Christ with the hands of faith. However, it is also the reformers who taught us that true saving faith is not alone. It yields fruits in keeping with genuine repentance. Therefore, it is not he who merely confesses the confessions that is confessional. It is not he who claims to be reformed, that is genuinely reformed. It is not belonging to a local assembly, where everyone vaunts reformed theology that makes a person reformed. The one who is genuinely reformed is the person who lives out the biblical tenets in all of their ramifications. It means that a Roman Catholic who believes in Jesus and lives out the commandments of Christ is reformed, while a reformed person who lives like a devil is not reformed – it does not matter what confessions he makes.

One day in a nation very far away from ours, at a time quite distant from us, two missionaries met on the mission field to discuss the implications of their mission works so far, and how much more the Lord would demand that they do for him. There was, however, a small disagreement: one of the younger missionaries had left the group and returned home at the very point in time he was most needed. As they plotted the next mission, one of the missionaries insisted that this young missionary would not go with them. The other missionary said it was not an issue; the young missionary can be forgiven. What began as a small matter degenerated into a “sharp” disagreement. The once joyful missionary group became divided (Acts 15:36-41). In the eyes of men, this disagreement was looked upon as something bad, sinful, and controversial. In the eyes of the Lord, two missionary boards had been created to reach the nations with the gospel. The gracious sovereignty of God is the way and manner he uses even our sins to bring his good purposes to pass. This is why I am so thankful to God for the Prosperity Gospel. Because if there had been no prosperity gospel, I probably would never have encountered the doctrine of grace. Amen.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]