Joseph Prince’s demonic doctrine of sin that defies the Scriptures and the Historic Church teaching is exposed by Martyn Lloyd-Jones – By Rev George Ong (Dated 6 Nov 2022)
This is a very important article on my website, I ‘beg’ you not to miss it.
In the 2 videos on Joseph Prince that you will come across shortly (and you mustn’t miss), Joseph Prince teaches that when a believer sins, it is not the real him who sins but his ‘flesh’.
If a believer who embraced Joseph Prince’s doctrine of sin, sinned by committing murder
(who says true believers cannot commit murder? – David, the person after God’s own heart did, and Moses, the revered leader of the Israelites, and one through whom the holy law of God was given, did too),
can he get off the hook by defending himself and say that it was not the real him who murdered somebody, but it was his ‘flesh’ who did it?
If another believer who is convinced by Joseph Prince’s doctrine of sin, sinned by committing adultery
(who says true believers cannot commit adultery? – David, the person after God’s own heart did),
can he get off the hook by defending himself and say that it was not the real him who committed adultery, but it was his ‘flesh’ who did it?
This is outrageous!
Joseph Prince’s doctrine of sin is bordering on madness!
Are you getting my point?
Do you realise what the grossly warped doctrine on sin that Joseph Prince teaches can lead to?
Joseph Prince may argue that the many examples he quoted in the 2 videos are sins of the mind; and these are what he actually said in the 2 videos: profane thought, blasphemous thought, feelings of jealousy, feelings of pride, lustful imaginations, etc.
And Prince said that these sins (see above) are ‘dead’, and they do not come from the real you but your flesh. Then Prince said because they don’t come from the real you but your flesh, you are to ignore them, rejoice, and laugh about them. View the 2 videos and see for yourself whether what I said is true.
But doesn’t Joseph Prince know (or he pretends not to know) that these sins of the mind and the actual carrying out of such sins, are the same as far as the scriptures and the Lord Jesus is concerned (Matt 5:21, 27-30; 15:18-20; 23:25-28, etc)?
That if a believer’s mind is filled with such evil thoughts, and if they are not dealt with, he may one day carry them out in practise!
Hence, what you will hear from Joseph Prince in these 2 videos, is not only doctrinally horrifying, but also demonically influenced and incited.
In the light of such abhorrent teachings of Joseph Prince, don’t miss the insightful teachings of Martyn Lloyd-Jones as he described with pinhole accuracy the heresies of Joseph Prince as contained in the 2 videos.
If you compare the outrageous doctrine of sin that Joseph Prince taught in the 2 videos with the scriptures, and co-relate it with what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in his teachings (see below) – and if that cannot convince you that Prince is a heretic, nothing else would.
A related article to the current one is titled,
Joseph Prince’s Antinomian gospel of only believing isn’t the Reformation or Martin Luther’s gospel – By Rev George Ong (Dated 31 Oct 2022)
If you haven’t read it, you may wish to click on the link below:
(This article was also sent to Rev Dr Ngoei Foong Nghian, General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) office, and for the attention of the Executive Committee Members.)
Before I show you the 2 videos on Joseph Prince, I need to make the following comments:
All the teachings mentioned by Joseph Prince in the 2 videos would be generally correct (but still, there are errors), IF WE ASSUME (ONLY ASSUME) the following 3 doctrines (in blue) that Prince teaches are biblical. (The true doctrines of the Historic Church are reflected in red):
1. All past, present and future sins of believers are totally forgiven when Christ died for them on the cross.
(The truth is, while provisions are made for the forgiveness of all sins at the cross, forgiveness isn’t automatic, and is contingent upon our confession and repentance.)
2. Since all sins are forgiven, and chapter 1 of 1 John, including 1 John 1:9, was written to unbelievers, confession of sins has no place in the lives of believers, and in fact, is an insult to God.
(The truth is, every book of the New Testament, including the 5 chapters of 1 John (and 1 Jn 1:9), was written to believers, and confession of sins in 1 John 1:9, is a key doctrine that is held by the Historic Church.)
3. Faith alone (believe only) without works, or justification without sanctification, is the only criteria of saving faith.
(The truth is, for true saving faith to be actualised, faith must be authenticated by works and justification by sanctification.)
As many of us would be aware, all these 3 grace doctrines (in blue) of Joseph Prince are heresies, as they cannot be justified from the scriptures, nor were they taught by the Early Church Fathers, Protestant Reformation Fathers, the Puritan Fathers, the Wesleyan Church, the Pentecostals and Charismatics, nor any of the major streams of doctrines in the Evangelical Tradition.
The passages that Joseph Prince preached from in the 2 sermon videos, are generally based on the following passages: Romans 6:6-7, 6:11, 7:18-20, 8:8-9, and Galatians 2:20.
Notice that the passages in Romans 6:6-7, 11;
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
are generally, justification passages.
Joseph Prince wants to give you the impression that justification is the only component that is required for salvation, and blind you to the fact that sanctification (not Prince’s false understanding of sanctification) is required too.
Prince also tries to give you the idea that Romans chapter 6 stops at verse 11 (half-truth deception).
If it is indeed true that Romans chapter 6 stops at verse 11, then Prince is generally right in his exegesis.
But Romans chapter 6 doesn’t stop at verse 11, but continues right up to verse 23.
And verses 12-23 of Romans chapter 6 are generally sanctification passages.
That’s the reason why Joseph Prince only covers Romans 6:6-7, 11, the justification passages.
He dares not cover the sanctification passages of Romans 6:12-13, 16-23, as that will blow his cover.
If we were to examine the sanctification passages in Romans 6:12-13, 16-23, and what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in his sermons (see below), all that Joseph Prince has uttered in the videos, especially the major points that since every sin is considered ‘dead’, you don’t have to do anything about it; and when you sin, it is not you, but your flesh that is responsible – would prove to be false:
Romans 6:12-13 KJV
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube on 30 Oct 2022, 2 Sundays ago, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 3-minute video:
“But child of God once you are born again as a new creation, that new creation is created in righteousness and true holiness.
(George Ong’s interjection: Joseph Prince’s view of holiness or sanctification is erroneous. Like justification, he sees holiness or sanctification only as a past event, and purely on God’s part. That is why Prince can nonsensically say that holiness is an accident, which requires no effort, or holiness is to sit down as Christ did because He has finished His work on the cross. But scriptures see holiness or sanctification not only as a past event, but also as a present reality and a future consummation. Furthermore, holiness isn’t just God’s part as Prince falsely teaches, but both God’s part and our part. Believers are to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you,” Phil 3:12-13.)
And God cannot see sin on you because He sees the blood of Jesus in His holy of holies.” “When God’s eyes see blood, God’s eyes cannot see sin.”
(George Ong’s interjection: These 2 statements must be unpacked. Believers are still justified in the eyes of God even though they sin (not as a lifestyle), as God isn’t that petty to count every little sin against them. But does that mean God cannot see sin in us just because Christ has shed His blood for every believer? Of course not! If that is the case, the Lord Jesus who is God, will never have confronted 5 of the 7 New Covenant churches in Revelation to repent – repent from what? From their sins! If the ascended Lord Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity can still see sins in New Covenant believers in Revelation, what makes Joseph Prince think that Father God, the first person in the Trinitarian Godhead cannot see sins in believers?)
“So watch this, watch this, the part of you that love to sin, there is still uprising, after you become a Christian, have you noticed?” “That part of you that keeps on rising up. You know what God says to you, ‘It’s dead.’
‘But God, it’s so alive. I feel it.’ ‘It’s dead.’ ‘God, how can you say it’s dead, I feel it, I have those thoughts.’ God says, ‘As far as I am concerned, it is dead.’ In the eyes of God, it’s finished at the cross. Now you, take that position.’ In other words, listen, whenever it rises up, I’ll just say ‘It’s dead.’ To my feelings, it’s real; to faith, it’s gone.
(George Ong’s Interjection: While past sins of believers are forgiven and ‘dead’, as they have been dealt with at the cross, present and future sins aren’t, and they would have to be confessed to God to be forgiven.)
But if you make provisions against it, even praying against it. ‘Ah Pastor Prince, praying is good.’ Listen carefully, if your prayers is based on unbelief instead of revelation, it negates the revelation.”
“The Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth. He cannot bear witness to a lying prayer. You might not be intentionally lying, right, but you are lying, because it’s not based on God’s truth. If you act like you are still in the flesh, you get results that is not godly. Why? Good results. Why?
Because you are negating the word of God. More seriously, you are negating the work of Christ. Because that man is dead. The bad thoughts you had towards me just now, gone.
(George Ong’s Interjection: Joseph Prince is lying about the scriptures and about God. Telling believers not to pray against their sins and make provisions against it is evil counsel, as the present sins of believers need to be dealt with.)
So your response is what? It’s gone. No, this is not me. It acts like it’s alive. It’s dead. It’s dead.”
“And the worst is that, you start praying, ‘No, no, no. I have these things that are coming up, I don’t want to sin, I rebuke, I.’ The more you act like it’s alive, you are acting in unbelief. Therefore, you fall.
So, actually, even that part of you that love to sin, is gone. Doesn’t that help you? When you take Communion, you have bad thoughts, or whatever, just say, it’s gone; it’s not the real me.”
“But some of us, we are shocked by even the thoughts. While we are praying, we get a blasphemous thought, a profane thought – it’s not you. It’s not you.
The devil says, ‘No, it’s you.’ It’s not you. You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. Identify with the real you that God identifies with.”
(George Ong’s Interjection: Joseph Prince asserted that believers are to ignore their sins as they are ‘dead’ and that they aren’t the ones who have sinned. The disastrous outcome of Joseph Prince’s teachings is that anyone who does what Prince tells them, isn’t saved to begin with (most likely), as a true believer is unlikely to view sin in that warped and distorted way. Instead of warning a false believer about his or her real condition and the need to make amends, he or she is being led by Joseph Prince to continue on this road of self and eternal destruction. In other words, hell would be the destiny of those who listened to and practised Prince’s teachings. These erroneous teachings of Joseph Prince, especially, in the above 6 paragraphs, are addressed by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. See below.)
In a sermon on 30 May 2021, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 3-and-a-half-minute video:
“Has God made provision for us? Indeed, he has. Hallelujah. Amen. Like the apostle Paul, he was struggling in this struggle and he was saying (Rom 7:19 KJV):
‘You know, the good I want to do, I do it not, but the evil I don’t want to do, I am doing.’ (Romans 7:20 KJV): ‘Now if I do that which I don’t want to do’, it shows that it is not me; it’s not I that do it. It sounds like a copout, but Paul is saying the real me is not the one involved because the real me is not the flesh. The real me is in the spirit, the new creation. Right.
“They come up inside you and they want you to be self-occupied. Feelings of jealousy, feelings of pride, when they come up, they look real. They feel real. Right. But they are dead. God’s word is truth. You cannot remove God’s truth. God says, ‘They are dead.’ God says, ‘You are dead to them. They are finished off at the cross.’”
“Pastor, when the feeling come, temptation, I feel anger and all that. You stop. And I’m telling you this, rejoice. Rejoice because you will not bow to the lie that you are this sin. You are this sin and then God sees you in that sin. No. God separates you from that sin. Woo. I say ‘God separates you from that sin.’
How do I reckon that my sinful man is still alive is when you watch over it, even though you watch over it, so that you will not indulge in it. By watching over it, you are actually saying it’s alive. By praying against it, you are saying it’s alive. By giving it importance in your life, you are saying it’s alive. You are negating what God is saying and what Christ has done at the cross. You have died with Christ.
Just ignore it. Leave it alone. Amen. And when it stirs up, don’t act on it, Amen. It’s a lie. That feeling is a lie. That’s not me. That’s not me. No. This is not me.
I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I’m in Christ risen. Christ is my real identity. I have died to all these feelings of sin, or these stirrings of sin and all these temptations.
What if the devil provokes, guys, uh, lustful imaginations, guys that come to your mind. Things you have seen in the past or whatever. What if it comes there, live and in colour, what do I do Pastor Prince?
Just laugh and, you know, if you need to do something, just laugh because it’s dead. It is dead. Amen. And just feel afresh, Amen, that you are in Christ risen. You are the righteousness of God in Christ.
Don’t feel condemned. ‘O man, I had that thought.’ The more you condemn yourself, the more you acknowledge the flesh, the more you pray against the flesh; as you are praying, you are falling into sin. You know that’s true. You know that has happened. Amen.
Friend, so why do we find failures of every sort in this area? Because people are acknowledging the flesh. People are talking about it as if it’s alive. They are acting as if it’s alive.
(George Ong’s Interjection: Most of the outrageous things that Joseph Prince said in the above 9 paragraphs, are addressed by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. See below.)
They confess everything that the flesh stirs up. They confess. They confess. And they are always in distress. They are always depressed. Because they are always acknowledging the flesh. They are not going forward in their true identity being in Christ risen. They are not Christ-conscious, they are self-occupied.”
(George Ong’s Interjection: To Joseph Prince, there is no place for the confession of sins in his grace doctrine – and if a believer confesses his or her sins, that would make him or her sin-conscious and even more condemned. Instead, as Joseph Prince teaches, a believer who sins, must confess that he is the righteousness of God in Christ, instead of his sins. Such a doctrine, which is diametrically opposed to the scriptures, is clearly demonic.)
Before I unveil the teachings of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I need to make the point that before you attempt to read Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ teachings, make sure you familiarise yourself with what Joseph Prince said in the videos.
When you read the teachings of Martyn Lloyd-Jones with a clear understanding of Joseph Prince’s teachings, it would become immediately clear that most of what Lloyd-Jones said is a direct refutation of what Joseph Prince said.
I repeat, there is no shortcut.
If you haven’t grasped what Joseph Prince said in the 2 videos, it would be difficult to follow what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in the following to make the connections between them:
In ‘An exposition of Romans Chapters 7:1-8:4, The Law: Its Functions and Limits’, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, commenting on Romans 7:16-20, said;
Romans 7:16-20 NIV
16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
“What, then, is the Apostle concerned to say in all this? Let me put it in the form of three conclusions.
First, he is not disclaiming responsibility for his actions or even excusing himself. That is something that we must never do.
But there have been people who have done so, and it has involved them in the most terrible and ‘damnable heresies’.
To what has it led? It has led to Antinomianism which has made them say,
‘Ah, it is not I who am sinning, it is my flesh that is sinning; I am not responsible, I do not want to sin, therefore it is not I who am doing these things’.
(George Ong’s Interjection: Martyn Lloyd-Jones has accurately described the Antinomian heresy that Joseph Prince teaches in the 2 videos, particularly the one when Joseph Prince states from the same passage in Romans 7:19-20, that it isn’t the believer who sins, but his flesh that does. Lloyd-Jones aptly labelled Antinomianism as the most terrible and ‘damnable heresy’.)
They use the language of the Apostle but in a very different way from the Apostle. They do it to excuse sin; they go on sinning and say that it does not matter what a man does.
There was a teaching called ‘Dualism’ in the early Church, which said that sin belonged only to the body. It claimed that that was apostolic teaching; that the man himself was saved, it was only his body that was sinning, and as the body was going to die in any case, it did not really matter whether he sinned or not.
‘I do not sin’, they said, ‘it is my body that is sinning’.”
“The Apostle Paul is not excusing the man he describes here (Rom 7:16-20), he is not disclaiming responsibility for himself; what he is doing is to make a confession.
He is virtually saying:
‘That is the truth about me, that is the weakness in which I find myself, that is the paralysis that I am aware of; that is my useless struggle.’
He does not say,
‘All is well, and it does not matter what I do’.
No, he wants to get out of this condition, as he will tell us later when he says,
‘O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me?’
It is the exact opposite of the foul teaching of Dualism, and the dangerous trap of Antinomianism.
(George Ong’s Interjection: Notice the difference in response; while Martyn Lloyd-Jones said we should not make excuses for our own sins but confess them in Romans 7:16-20, Joseph Prince justifies himself by saying it is not the real him that sinned but the flesh that is in him. What Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, accurately depicts what Joseph Prince said in the 2 videos.)
In ‘Life in Christ, Volume 3, Children of God, Studies in 1 John’, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
“Or let me put it like this: we know that we are children of God when we are deeply aware of sin within.
I emphasise that deliberately. It is only the children of God who realise that they have a sinful nature.
The unregenerate, the natural men and women, are not aware of a sinful nature. They may admit that they do certain things which they should not do, but begin to tell them that they have a sinful nature, that they are dead in trespasses and sins, and they will hate you and begin to defend themselves; they hate preaching that condemns them.”
“No, it is only the children of God who realise that they have an utterly sinful nature.
It is only a saint like Charles Wesley who says,
‘Vile and full of sin I am.’
It was Saint Paul who said,
‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing’ (Romans 7:18).
It is the Christian who cries out and says,
‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Romans 7:24).
(George Ong’s Interjection: Did you notice the way Martyn Lloyd-Jones described how true believers ought to be ‘sin-conscious’ in that they are aware of their sins, which is the opposite of what Joseph Prince said in the 2 videos – that we should do whatever we can, not to rake up the memory of our sins, as they are dead.)
An unregenerate “believer” has never uttered such words and never can – it is impossible.
It is the indwelling Holy Spirit that exposes our sinful nature and the depths of sin and iniquity that reside in our hearts.
‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?’ says Jeremiah (Jeremiah 17:9). ‘I dare not trust my sweetest frame,’ says the hymn-writer.
All these things are indications of the new nature – an awareness of sin and above all a desire to be rid of it.
If you are hating the sin within you and longing to be delivered and emancipated from it, I assure you, you are a child of God – it is one of the best signs.”
In ‘Fellowship with God, Life in Christ: Volume One, Studies in 1 John’, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
“Now there are many who are in error about this, generally because we will persist in thinking of sins rather than of a sinful nature.
I am sure that the authorities are quite right when they tell us that at this point John was thinking in a particular way and manner of that heresy which was very common in the early Church – we have already referred to it – the heresy of Gnosticism.
There were people who argued that if we have become Christians we have been delivered from our sinful nature and we have received a new nature; therefore, because we have received this new nature, there is no sin in us.
So, if we do something that is wrong, it is not we who have sinned, the sin is merely in the flesh. Hence the heresy known as antinomianism, which means that as long as you are a Christian and claim you know God in Christ, it is immaterial what you do, because you do not sin, it is the flesh or body that sins.
(George Ong’s Interjection: Martyn Lloyd-Jones has described with pinhole accuracy what Joseph Prince said in the 2 videos.)
That is the view that John is countering, but it is still fairly common, because we will persist in regarding the matter from the standpoint of action rather than from the point of view of the nature within us that produces the action; and John is very stern about this –
‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’
For someone to say in this way that he has not a sinful nature is nothing but self-deception, and here again I thank God for a word that is so honest and sharp.”
Our nature is evil and sinful, and not to admit that is self–deceit, and not only that but ‘the truth is not in us’.”
“But, thank God, the Apostle does not leave us at that. Having convicted us of our sin, in the self-same verse he goes on to tell us of the glorious provision
– ‘If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’” (1 Jn 1:7,9)
(George Ong’s Interjection: Like all Church Fathers and true Bible teachers, Martyn Lloyd-Jones believed in the confession of sins as stated in 1 John 1:9. If Joseph Prince claimed that the teaching about the confession of sins is unscriptural and even an insult to God, why has he failed to produce a single church father who supports his teaching?)
“Then secondly, we must recognise our sins in particular. This is a painful process; to confess my sins does not just mean that I say in general, ‘Well, I am a sinner – I have never claimed to be a saint.’ No, rather it comes to the details.
I must confess my particular sins, I must name them one by one; it means that I must not gloss over them, I must not attempt to deny them. I must confess them, I must look at them. There must be no attempt to dismiss them as quickly as possible. Confession means facing them, not trying to balance up the sins I have committed and the good deeds I have done.
(George Ong’s Interjection: Joseph Prince said in one of his videos,
“They confess everything that the flesh stirs up. They confess. They confess. And they are always in distress. They are always depressed. Because they are always acknowledging the flesh.”
What a difference in counsel between Martyn Lloyd-Jones and that of Joseph Prince! While Martyn Lloyd-Jones said we need to confess our sins in detail, Joseph Prince said confession will make you distressed and even depressed.)
No, I must let the light so search me that I feel miserable and wretched – this honest facing of the things I have done and of what I am; it means that I must confess it to God in words.
What has God provided for us in this matter of fellowship with Him as we become conscious of our sin?
The answer is:
‘The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ ‘He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ (1 Jn 1:9)
In ‘Life in Christ, Volume 5, Life in God, Studies in 1 John’, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
“Now, John undoubtedly makes that statement because, once more, he is anxious to counter the false doctrines of perfectionism and antinomianism that he has dealt with so frequently.
He was concerned about those people who say,
‘Because I am a Christian, because I have the love of God in my heart, I no longer sin; I am free from it.’
‘All unrighteousness is sin,’ says John; ‘do not listen to people who talk like that.
If you see your brother doing something that is patently wrong, that is sin, and he needs your prayer.’
Likewise with the people who are guilty of antinomianism, who say that such things do not matter to the Christian, and who say that because they are Christians, their actions, as it were, are irrelevant – that it is the flesh that sinned, not themselves.
(George Ong’s Interjection: Martyn Lloyd-Jones is spot on again. What Lloyd-Jones said is what the Antinomian Joseph Prince had stated in the 2 videos – that it isn’t believers who sinned but it is the flesh in them that did it.)
‘Oh no!’ says John; ‘all unrighteousness is sin; anything which we ourselves recognise as unworthy or imperfect is sin and nothing else. You must not call it weakness or indiscretion – it is sin; it is a violation of God’s law, and anything that is a violation of God’s law is sin.’
In ‘Exposition of Romans Chapters 2:1-3:20, The Righteous Judgment of God’, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
“Another reason why it is important is that if we do not realize that the judgment of God is always according to truth, we shall, for certain, fall into the terrible sin of antinomianism, which says that because we are God’s people it does not matter what we do.
‘Of course’, such people say, ‘if we were not God’s people these things would be tremendously important. But after all I am a child of God and therefore I am right with God, my salvation is assured, it does not matter what I do’.
But this is putting the grace and the love of God over against the law, the justice and the righteousness of God. Antinomianism! It is a belief which is denounced in the New Testament, and which has often wrought havoc in the history of the church.
And people fall into that terrible pitfall because they do not realize that the judgment of God is always according to truth, that it does not matter to God whether you are His child or not, if you sin against Him it is sin, and He will punish you. What a terrible thing it is not to realize this!”
In ‘Exposition of Romans chapter 6, The New Man’, expounding on Romans 6:12-14, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
Romans 6:12-14 KJV
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
“So what the Apostle asserts here is that, while we are left in this mortal body, sin will go on trying to bring that about. It will try to trip us, it will try to dominate over the body. And we must not allow it to do so. All along, it will be trying to do so, but we must restrain it, we must resist it, we must fight it.”
(George Ong’s Interjection: What a difference in counsel! While Martyn Lloyd Jones said we must restrain, resist and even fight against sins that are in our mortal body, Joseph Prince asserts that we should just ignore them as they are dead. Prince also states that the more you pray against sins or act against them, the more you would make them come alive.)
There is no exposition of verse 11 (Rom 6:11) which is quite so wrong as that which regards it as saying (as it has so often been put) that we are to reckon that sin is dead to us, for that is the exact opposite of what the Apostle is saying. He never says that sin is dead; what he does say is that we are dead to sin.
He says that sin is not only not dead, but that it is still in our mortal body; and if we do not realize that, and deal with it, it will soon reign in our mortal body.”
“What is the first principle in the New Testament doctrine of sanctification?
It is, obviously, that this doctrine is something that you and I have to put into practice. An exhortation is addressed to us: Do not allow sin to ‘reign in your mortal body’.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans chapter 6, The New Man’, expounding on Romans 6:13, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
Romans 6:12-13 KJV
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
“‘Therefore’, says the Apostle in verse 12 – and this ‘therefore’ as we saw is most important – ‘let not sin reign in your mortal body’. The ‘therefore’ still continues in this 13th verse.
We have seen the light that this teaching throws on the New Testament doctrine and teaching with regard to sanctification and holiness.
But the Apostle does not leave the matter at this point. He says that not only must we not allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies, we must not even afford it any opportunity of doing so. Still less must we make any provision for it to do so, or in any way encourage it to do so.”
“… we are confronted by a command, by an exhortation: ‘Neither yield ye your members.’ (Rom 6:13)
These words are addressed to our wills; this is something that we are told to do, something, therefore, that we can do.
I emphasize this once more for this reason, that any teaching concerning sanctification or holiness which tells us that we really have nothing to do, and that the main call to us is to stop trying to do anything in the matter of our sanctification, is obviously a contradiction of this.
(George Ong’s Interjection: This is what Joseph Prince teaches – that sanctification is not about doing, as it is an accident and merely the act of sitting down as Christ also sat down besides His Father.)
There is, as I have already indicated, a teaching that does that quite definitely.
It says that sanctification is quite simple, that the mistake you have been making all your life is that you have been trying to fight the sin that is in you, that that is where you have gone astray. What you have to do is to give up struggling, to give up fighting; you have just to hand yourself and your whole problem to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will do it for you and in you. The greatest mistake of all, they say, is to attempt to fight sin; our business is rather to stop trying to do so.
(George Ong’s Interjection: What Martyn Lloyd-Jones said is almost similar to what Joseph Prince has stated in the 2 videos. It has also exposed Joseph Prince’s false ‘Let God and let go’ theology – that Christianity is about God doing everything for us, and what is required of us is just to rest in Him.)
I am suggesting that that teaching cannot be reconciled with the verse we are considering, any more than it can be reconciled with the previous verse. ‘You must not allow sin to reign in your mortal body,’ says the Apostle, ‘neither must you yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.’
So a teaching which tells us that sanctification and holiness are really quite simple is clearly not in accord with this.”
“In both instances, these verses call upon us to do something. They do not tell us that we can do nothing, and that we merely have to allow the Lord to do it for us.”
“… whereas the first thing that is needed is that we should realize that this is an appeal addressed to us as Christians to exercise our wills, to do certain things and not to do other things.”
“Here am I thus struggling and striving, defeated and unhappy. Suddenly I look at an advertisement which says, ‘Come to the clinic’. I am quoting actual words that are used – ‘Come to the clinic’. What you need, we are told, is to come to the clinic, to the spiritual hospital, and here your sickness and your illness can be dealt with.
But as I read the verses that we are studying I see no suggestion whatsoever of a clinic.
Rather, I find a barracks; not a hospital, but a military centre. What do I need? what do I find? I do not find a doctor here. What we all need is not a doctor, but a sergeant major.
Here we are, as it were, slouching about the parade ground, feeling our own pulses, feeling miserable, talking about our weakness. So we say, ‘I need a doctor, I need to go to the clinic, I need to see the Medical Officer’.
But that is not right. What you need is to listen to the voice of the sergeant major who is there shouting out the commands of God to you –
“Let not sin reign in your mortal body’. ‘Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.’ ‘Yield yourself unto God.’ (Rom 6:12-13)
You have no business to be slouching about like that; stand on your feet, realize who and what you are, enlisted in the army of God. ‘Present yourself.’ This is not a clinic.
The main trouble with the Christian Church today is that she is too much like a clinic, too much like a hospital; that is why the great world is going to hell outside!”
“We have lost the concept of the army of God, and the King of righteousness in this fight against the kingdom of evil… It is not a clinic you need; you must realize that we are in a barracks, and that we are involved in a mighty campaign.”
“We must not fraternize with the enemy. That is the New Testament way of teaching holiness. What most of us need is not a clinic, but to listen to the sergeant major drilling his troops, commanding them, warning them, threatening them, showing them what to do.
The New Testament teaching is altogether different from the sentimentality and subjectivity that have controlled holiness and sanctification teaching for so long, and which tell us that it is ‘quite simple’.
But it is not easy. ‘Fight the good fight of faith’ says the New Testament. Play the man. ‘Quit yourselves as men’; ‘Put on the whole armour of God’; ‘stand in the evil day’. Those are all military commands; there is nothing of the clinic about them.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans chapter 6, The New Man’, expounding on Romans 6:12-14, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
“The New Testament calls upon us to take action; it does not tell us that the work of sanctification is going to be done for us.
That is why it does not put us into a clinic or a hospital where the patient is told
‘It will be done for you’, and ‘Allow the Lord Jesus Christ to do it for you’.
It calls upon us to take action, and exhorts us to do so. And it tells us and commands us to do so for this reason, that we have been given the ability to do it.”
“But as we have been given the power and the ability and the capacity, the New Testament quite logically, and in perfect consistency with itself, calls upon us to do it.
‘Do not let sin reign in your mortal body’ it says. ‘Do not present your members as instruments unto sin or unrighteousness.’
… This is something that you and I have to do; it is not going to be done for us.
We are in the good ‘fight of faith’, and we have to do the fighting. But, thank God, we are enabled to do it; for the moment we believe, and are justified by faith, and are born again of the Spirit of God, we have the ability.
So the New Testament method of sanctification is to remind us of that; and having reminded us of it, it says, ‘Now then, go and do it’.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans chapter 6, The New Man’, expounding on Romans 6:19, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said;
“Having looked in general at our statement we can now consider it more particularly. The exhortation runs thus: ‘As you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so yield them now as servants to righteousness and to holiness’ (Rom 6:19).
That is a characteristic New Testament way of dealing with this doctrine of holiness and sanctification.”
“What, then, are the principles concerning the teaching of sanctification and holiness that we derive from this particular statement?
First of all, we notice that this is an exhortation; indeed it is a command. The Apostle says, ‘yield’ – ‘as you yielded, now yield’.”
“The New Testament way of handling holiness and sanctification is always a command; it is never an appeal, it is a command. That is a most important point. Then that leads to the second principle, which I put in this form.
As it is a command, it is obviously something that we have to do; and therefore it is something that we can do.”
“I am emphasizing this for this reason, that there are many Christians who spend the whole of their lives trying to get hold of this marvellous way in which all is done for you, and you have nothing to do but to rest and abide in Christ and the victory is given to you.
The answer to that is, that this is a command, an exhortation, a call to us to do something, and to produce a result by using our faculties.”
(George Ong’s Interjection: Martyn Lloyd-Jones has given us the correct teaching about what holiness or sanctification is all about. It is about responding to the call and command of God to do something because He has given us the ability to do so. So, I hope by now you would realise that Joseph Prince’s teaching of holiness or sanctification; that it is merely about sitting down and resting in the finished work of Christ, and that holiness is only an accident that requires no effort, is utterly false.)
Finally, when one compares what Joseph Prince said on the 2 videos with what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in his teachings, you would realise that they are not just discernibly different, but they are also diametrically opposed.
What is demonic about Joseph Prince’s teachings is that he categorically taught believers to ignore their sins as they are ‘dead’, and that they aren’t the ones who sinned but the ‘flesh’.
The disastrous outcome of Joseph Prince’s teachings is that anyone who does what Prince tells them, isn’t saved to begin with (most likely), as a true believer is unlikely to view sin in that warped and distorted way.
Instead of warning a false believer about his or her real condition and the need to make amends, he or she is being led by Joseph Prince to continue on this road of self and eternal destruction.
If Joseph Prince could even lead people to hell, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones had labelled Antinomianism (which Joseph Prince teaches) as the most terrible and ‘damnable heresy’, he is indisputably a heretic.
And if that is so, why is a Singapore Methodist Bishop and a Singapore Presbyterian Pastor defending Joseph Prince that he isn’t a heretic?
Rev George Ong