Article from
www.Biblewheel.com
John
Hagee has one of the largest ministries in the country. Here is how it
is described on his website
www.JohnHagee.org :
Dr. John C.
Hagee is the founder and Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Church in San
Antonio, Texas, a non-denominational evangelical church with more than
18,000 active members. [He] is the President and C.E.O. of John Hagee
Ministries which telecasts his national radio and television ministry
carried in America on 160 T.V. stations, 50 radio stations, eight
networks and can be seen weekly in 99 million homes. ... [He] is the
author of 10 major books published by Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Any man
preaching the Bible into 99 million homes bears a massive
responsibility before God and his fellow human beings to accurately
and clearly proclaim the truth. Scripture warns that "not many" should
set themselves up as "masters" or teachers, for in so doing they risk
a "greater condemnation" (James 3:1).
Before
discussing Hagee's apostasy from the Christian faith, it is important
for the reader to know that I stand firm in my support of Israel for
humanitarian and political reasons. I love the Jewish people, delight
in their music, literature and culture, and deeply appreciate that God
used them to bring forth Jesus the Messiah and the Holy Bible that
proclaims the Gospel of His Messiahship "to the Jew first, and also to
the Gentile." I condemn any form of anti-semitism as anti-christian
and a sure sign of spiritual alienation from God. But I also know that
you do not "show love and support" to Israel by denying that Jesus
Christ is their Messiah, which is exactly what John Hagee has done.
In his
book
In Defense of Israel
(2007), beginning in the section called "The Jews did not Reject Jesus
as Messiah" (p. 132) John Hagee relentlessly twisted Scripture in his
attempt to prove that Jesus Christ did not come "to be Messiah to the
Jews." His denial of Jesus as the Christ (Messiah) cannot be
overlooked as a mere "slip of his pen" because he repeated his
assertion "seven ways from Sunday" as seen in this sample of seven
quotes from his book:
-
If God intended
for Jesus to be the Messiah of Israel, why didn't he authorize
Jesus to use supernatural signs to prove he was God's Messiah,
just as Moses had done? (p. 137)
-
Jesus refused to
produce a sign ... because it was not the Father's will, nor his,
to be Messiah. (p 138)
-
If Jesus wanted
to be Messiah, why did he repeatedly tell his disciples and
followers to "tell no one" about his supernatural accomplishments?
(p. 139)
-
The Jews were not
rejecting Jesus as Messiah; it was Jesus who was refusing to be
the Messiah to the Jews. (p. 140)
-
They wanted him
to be their Messiah, but he flatly refused. (p. 141)
-
He refused to be
their Messiah, choosing instead to be the Savior of the world (p.
143)
-
Jesus rejected to
the last detail the role of Messiah in word or deed. (p. 145)
John Hagee's words
directly contradict the central message of the entire New Testament.
Indeed, John Hagee's words directly contradict the fundamental
declaration that defines the Christian Faith, which is that Jesus
is the Messiah (i.e. the Christ). This is what Peter declared in
his first sermon to thousands of his fellow Jews gathered at Pentecost
(Acts 2:36):
Therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that
same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Messiah).
Likewise, this was
the first thing Saul, the Jew from Tarsus, proclaimed to his fellow
Jews in the synagogues immediately after the scales fell from his eyes
(Acts 9:20-23):
And
straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is
the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not
this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem,
and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto
the chief priests? But Saul increased the more in strength, and
confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is
very Christ. And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews
took counsel to kill him:
Scripture declares
that Saul, who soon would be known as the Apostle Paul, preached and
proved to his Jewish audience that Jesus is Messiah. The Gospel
itself is called the "Gospel of Christ" or in Jewish terms, the
Gospel of the Messiah! This fact is so very elementary it seems
almost foolish to belabour it. That any genuinely Christian teacher
could err on this point is inconceiveable because the error concerns
the primal definition of Christianity itself. Scripture therefore
places this error under the greatest possible condemnation:
Who is a
liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is
antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. -- 1 John 2:22
Liar! Antichrist!
There is no mistaking the apostasy here. The word "Christ" literally
means "Messiah." The New Testament could be faithfully translated with
all references to Jesus Christ rendered as "Jesus the Messiah."
Indeed, the
Complete Jewish Bible
translates the verse above as "Who is a liar at all, if not the person
who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah?" How then is it possible
that John Hagee, who has been preaching and teaching the "Bible" for
over forty years, could suddenly turn and deny that Jesus is the
Messiah? Is it possible that we are misunderstanding what he really
meant? The unfortunate answer is that Hagee left no room for
misunderstanding. He repeated his heresies over and over again. Let us
begin with this quote from pages 137-138:
If God intended for
Jesus to be the Messiah of Israel, why didn't he authorize Jesus to
use supernatural signs to prove he was God's Messiah, just as Moses
had done? The Jews, knowing of Moses's signs to Israel, asked for a
supernatural sign that Jesus was indeed their Messiah. Jesus
answered:
No
sign will be given...except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as
Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great
fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. -- Matthew 12:39-40
Jesus refused to
give a sign. He only compared himself with the prophet Jonah, who
carried the message of repentance from God to the Gentiles in
Nineveh.
This one quote has
many errors. The first is Hagee's failure to recognize that the "sign
of Jonah" was the ultimate miraculous sign upon which all Christianity
stands, namely, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the supreme
sign that God gave to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. Hagee ignored
it as if it were nothing; his six page Index doesn't even have an
entry for "resurrection." He also erred in his assertion that God
didn't "authorize Jesus to use supernatural signs to prove he was
God's Messiah." This directly contradicts the words preached by the
Apostle Peter at Pentecost (Acts 2:22-23)
Ye men of
Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God
among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him
in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken,
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
Hagee's claim also
contradicts Christ's answer to the Jews when they demanded to know if
He was Messiah (John 10:24-33):
Then came
the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make
us to doubt? If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly. Jesus
answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do
in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not,
because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them
eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than
all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and
my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father;
for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him,
saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and
because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Christ cited the
"good works" of His miraculous signs as proof that He is Messiah.
John's Gospel was designed around seven of those signs, beginning with
the miraculous transformation of water into wine and culminating in
the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead after which the Jews,
predictably, plotted again to murder him. The Apostle John drove the
final nail into the coffin of Hagee's heresy when he summed up the
purpose of his Gospel (John 20:30-31):
And many
other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples,
which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye
might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God; and
that believing ye might have life through his name.
Peter, Paul, and John
are but three of the New Testament Jews who declared to their fellow
Jews that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. Yet Hagee denies
that Jesus ever claimed to be the Messiah, and with that false
presupposition attempts to exonerate "the Jews" by asking "How can the
Jews be blamed for rejecting what was never offered?" (p. 136). He
repeatedly denies that the "Jews as a people" were in any way
responsible for the death of Christ. Peter's pentecostal sermon quoted
above provides another refuation of this error. The Apostle addressed
the whole crowd of multiplied thousands, saying "Ye men of Judaea, and
all ye that dwell at Jerusalem" (Acts 2:14), and the accused them all
saying "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have
crucified, both Lord and Messiah." He declared them all guilty
of killing Jesus and contrary to Hagee, told those thousands upon
thousands of first century Jews that Jesus was not only "Lord" but
also MESSIAH. This was the declaration of all the Jews who
believed: Jesus is Messiah! This pricked the crowd to their
heart, and about three thousand Jews were saved that day. Yet in the
face of all this biblical evidence, John Hagee continues to deny that
Jesus is the Messiah to the Jews, saying "The people wanted him to be
their Messiah, but he flatly refused" (p. 139).
It is a
most unfortunate fact that Hagee's errors cannot be discounted as
innocent mistakes. In his quote of Matthew 12 in the tan box above, he
willfully omitted Scripture that contradicted his thesis. The true
reason that "Jesus refused to give a sign" in that particular passage
is revealed in the text that Hagee deliberately hid from his readers
(Matthew 12:38-41, NKJV):
Then some
of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we want to
see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil
and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will
be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as
Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish,
so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with
this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the
preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.
The words Hagee
quoted are underlined. He ripped them out of their context in which
they are bracketed before and after by Christ's rebuke of the "evil
and adulterous generation" that would be condemned by the wicked "men
of Nineveh" in the Day of Judgment. Matthew 12 is but one of the many
texts in which Christ condemned the whole generation of Jews that
rejected him, not just "the high priest and his circle of religious
conspirators" as Hagee falsely asserts (p. 128). Hagee attempted as
similar ruse on page 138 (emphasis added):
When
Jesus went on trial, Herod "had desired for a long time to see
Him...and he hoped to see some miracle [sign] done by Him" (Luke
23:8). Jesus refused to produce a sign for the national leadership of
Israel in an attempt to prove he was the Messiah because it was not
the Father's will, nor his, to be the Messiah. Jesus's repeated
response to the Jewish people who urged him to be their Messiah was,
"My kindgom is not of this world" (John 18:36)
This sheds some light
on the source of Hagee's error. It seems he has wholeheartedly adopted
the unbiblical definition of the Messiah promoted by the unbelieving
Jews who deny Christ on the pretext that He failed to defeat the
Romans and set up an earthly ethnic kingom on some dusty Middle East
real estate. Thus Hagee rejects Jesus as the Christ because His
Kingdom "is not of this world." This is confirmed on page 139
(emphasis added):
If Jesus
wanted to be Messiah, why did he repeatedly tell his disciples and
followers to "tell no one" about his supernatural accomplishments?
Think about it! If the man were trying to gain national attention to
rally the support of the general public for the overthrow of mighty
Rome, he would not go around the country saying "Tell no one!"
So there it is.
Though he never explicitly stated his definition, Hagee used the word
"Messiah" to designate nothing but a conquering Jew who would "smash
Rome" and "usher in an era of universal peace" (p. 141). Since Jesus
did not come to do this, He was "not the Messiah" by Hagee's heretical
definition. Thus the Jews are completely exonerated for rejecting
Christ, for indeed, "The Jews were not rejecting Jesus as Messiah; it
was Jesus who was refusing to be the Messiah to the Jews" (p. 140).
It is a
tragedy that Hagee wrote as if he never understood a single word of
the New Testament proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah.
How else could he assert that there is a distinction between Jesus as
Saviour and Jesus as Messiah as he did when he asserted that "He
refused to be their Messiah, choosing instead to be the Savior of the
world" (p. 143)? He appears to know less of the Gospel than any ten
year old child who has recited Luke 2:11 in a Christmans pageant:
For unto
you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is
Christ the Lord.
These are the
apostate antichrist teachings of John Hagee. He explicitly and
repeatedly denies that Jesus came to be the Messiah to the Jews. John
Hagee needs to repent. All faithful and orthodox Christians need to
warn others of his false teachings.
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