The deception of the 'love-only' Gospel....

I recently spoke with a pastor of a new and young congregation about the Gospel. He was wanting to know about the possibility of his congregation meeting in our church building on a different day for worship. During the "interview" process, the topic of the Gospel came up, how it is defined, and how we are to present it. This pastor shared that he likes to "preach the love of God because people's lives are hard enough already, so why burden them by talking about sin and God's judgment?" When I asked him if he believed we were all sinners (Rom. 3:23), he did agree, but he did not agree that that needed to be preached. This struck a cord within me and was eerily reminiscent of an interview given by megachurch pastor, Joel Osteen, a few years ago.

Osteen is no doubt a major proponent of this "love-only" gospel message - a message geared toward sharing the love and grace of God for all people without confronting the sin problem, much less calling all to repent. In that interview, Osteen was asked why he doesn't preach on these subjects, including hell, and he responded:

"[People] already feel guilty enough. They’re not doing what they should, raising their kids—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.”

For a lot of people who are in the "love-only" gospel camp, their hearts may be in the right place, but keep in mind that the "heart is desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9). The idea behind preaching this type of gospel is made obvious - at the risk of further burdening or depressing people, we would rather share the love of God and win people to Jesus that way; so talking about sin and judgment would hinder that. Although those sentiments are nice and warm, they only represent half the Gospel which in-turn present a half-truth to the sinner. A half-truth is not the whole truth which means it isn't the truth at all.

The truth of the whole Gospel is this: Mankind's fellowship with God has been broken by sin. Since all have sinned and fall short of His glory (Rom. 3:23), absolute moral perfection, sinners are deemed enemies of God (Rom. 5:10). The enemies of God receive judgment and punishment for Law breaking. What God provided in His promise plan of redemption was His Son, Jesus Christ, to be the scapegoat in our place. Where the wages of sin is death for us (Rom. 6:23), Jesus came and took our penalty on Himself on the cross and paid our sin debt. In resurrecting to life, He offers the repentant sinner forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, justification, sanctification, glorification, and adoption. This is the great mercy and grace of God! This is great news! This is the complete Gospel.

Now, let's take the "love-only" gospel. In the "love-only" gospel, this is (basically) the message you would receive, and the following, I would argue, goes even deeper than what is typically preached:

"Jesus offers you forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, justification, sanctification, glorification, and adoption because He is recklessly in love with you. He loves you so much that He died for you. Will you believe in Him?"

Do you see the difference between the two Gospels? Without a complete Gospel, one that speaks of sin, judgment and hell, the offering of Jesus' life for ours, not to mention forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, justification, sanctification, glorification, make absolutely no sense. In the "love-only" gospel, any thinking person would begin to wonder - why did this Jesus do this for me? I'm a pretty good person already. Why do I need this? Since the "love-only" gospel refuses to speak of judgment, sin, and what happens to those who don't repent and believe, Jesus comes off as nothing more than a lunatic or, at the least, an influential guy who may or may not be God, who offers me a gift called grace that I don't think I really need. Even to the downtrodden sinner whose life is in shambles, the "love-only" gospel merely gives an initial spiritual high of love, belonging and acceptance, but when the rubber meets the road and the hard times come again, there's no foundation to the "saving faith" they once claimed and they fall away. The euphoric feeling you get from this God who loves you fails when it isn't rooted in the fact that He also rescued you from His wrath and judgment for the many sins you've committed against Him throughout your life.

A message of love and Son-sacrifice without prior understanding of enmity with a holy God is surface-level and, quite frankly, makes no logical sense.

What are the dangers of preaching this type of "love-only" gospel? For starters, we get a growing number of what we can call 'lost Christians.' Statistic on various polls illustrate we have more lost people in our church pews/seats than we do genuinely saved people. Why? Many are under the impression that they are saved because they were given a false gospel - much of which was preached heavily in the seeker-sensitive movement in the 80s and 90s. This message has carried over into today, with a little more added emphasis on 'spiritual gifts' and 'charismania', but the message is still the same - God loves you this much, He always has (despite your sins), and here's what He wants to give and do for you.

False gospels in general produce devastating results. In Matt. 7:21-23, Jesus taught that there would be a large group of zealous religious people who proclaimed that they had done this and that and had experienced such and such, all in His name, and that they would be in line, awaiting judgment on Judgment Day fully believing they would enter heaven. Jesus responds with, "Many will say to Me on that Day, 'Lord, Lord'.....but I will say to them, 'Depart from Me, I never knew you.'" Yikes! Apparently, there will be countless people genuinely believing they had experienced Jesus and that they were saved but they will be turned away and sent to hell for judgment. Why? They must have believed in a false gospel, and judging by their reasoning for being saved, it was based upon their religious deeds and experiences instead of repentance and faith in Christ alone.

Before I wrap this up, allow me to change gears for a bit. It is imperative we take note that the Bible makes plain that sin must be dealt with. Sin and man's problem, being an enemy of God through sin, must be confronted - it isn't a subject that can be unceremoniously swept under the rug as so many "love-only" gospel preachers practice.

Both 1 Cor. 6:9-15 and Col. 3:5-11 confront those in the churches who felt it was 'ok' to continue living in sinful, habitual lifestyles. Now, let's be clear, Paul wasn't dealing with the various, accidental/unintentional sins we commit in our lives due to the sin nature, those times we slip up or make mistakes - Paul is confronting those who thought it was reasonable to be a Christian while also being identified and living daily in a particular sinful lifestyle. And Paul lists many: sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, stealing, greed, drunkenness, reviling, swindling, impurity, coveting, evil desires, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying. I think God pretty much nails every major subject of sin in these letters!

What's the message here? It is summed up in v.11 of 1 Cor.6: "And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ..." These sinners who had come to repentance and faith were called to live their new lives in Christ, going to war with their old sinful lifestyles (Rom. 7), not continuing to live in them as if nothing had changed.

The Gospel call to repentance and faith (Mark 1:15) clearly involves repentance and that is a changing of one's mind and direction away from habitual, sinful living into the newness of life that is found only through faith in Christ. The repentant sinner is made new and is enabled by the Holy Spirit to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4), not to continue on in a choice of sinful lifestyles while holding onto the love of Jesus.

All of this is to say: The "love-only" gospel is a false gospel because it doesn't confront sin, judgment for that sin, nor the need to repent and turn away from that sin. If a lost individual does not see his/herself as a sinner who needs to repent, they cannot truly understand the Gospel. A cross makes no logical sense without a judgment.

Love is only half the message thus it stands incomplete.

Judgment and grace - this is the full, saving message of the Gospel.