Joseph Prince’s Half-truth Teaching on Repentance is Demolished by Justin Peters – By Rev George Ong (Dated 17 Oct 2022)
(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.)
In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube on 9 Oct 2022, 2 Sundays ago, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 10-second video:
“Oh the goodness of God. The Bible says, ‘Don’t you know the goodness of God leads you to repentance.’”
In Article 1, ‘Joseph Prince’s Half-truth Teaching on Romans 2:4 Contradicted Michael Brown, Martyn Lloyd-Jones & the Lord Jesus’,
I have focused on Joseph Prince’s half-truth teaching on the goodness of God.
In this article, Article 2, ‘Joseph Prince’s Half-truth Teaching on Repentance is Demolished by Justin Peters’,
my focus is on Joseph Prince’s half-truth teaching on repentance.
Joseph Prince’s teaching on repentance is a half-truth because he stresses that repentance is a change of mind which is true but only half true.
But the other half of the truth which Prince teaches against is that repentance, which is repentance from sin (Prince believes there is no sin to repent from as all sins have already been forgiven and believers must not be made to be sin-conscious) must also result in a changed life with concrete fruits of repentance to show.
I have spoken much against Joseph Prince’s erroneous teaching on repentance and many of these were featured on this website.
So this time, I will let Justin Peters, who is a well-known figure in contending against heretics, do the talking and demolish such a doctrine of Joseph Prince.
Please click here to view the 2-minute video:
Joseph Prince said,
“You know the word ‘repentance’ like Joel (Joel Osteen) said is from the Greek word, ‘Metanoia’ which literally means ‘change your mind’. And every time like Joel or me preaching the word, without using the word ‘repentance’ sometimes, but peoples’ minds are being changed all the time, from thinking this way, negatively, to thinking positively.”
Justin Peters said,
Well, Joseph Prince says that the Greek word for repentance is ‘Metanoia’. You know what? He’s right. And then he says that the word ‘Metanoia’ means to change your mind. You know what? Right again.
But then did you notice how he flashed it out? He said we may not be using the word ‘repentance’ – you know let’s not confuse anybody with theological terms that the Bible uses. So we may not be using that term but we’re teaching people to repent all of the time. When people go from thinking negatively to thinking positively.
‘Prince, that’s not repentance!’ By his definition of repentance, we can all repent simply by joining the Optimist Club. Having a sunny outlook on life. That’s not repentance.
Genuine repentance is a change in mind but it comes when God’s Holy Spirit grants repentance. He gives us a godly sorrow over our sin. And when He grants us repentance, there is evidence of that. There’s fruit of that. And that would be evident to other people around us. There will be deeds.
Paul says, ‘So, King Agrippa I kept declaring that all people should repent and turn to God performing deeds appropriate to repentance’ (Acts 26:20). John the Baptist: ‘Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance’ (Matt 3:8).
Does this mean we do good deeds in order to repent. No. But when God grants repentance, deeds, fruit will be a natural outflow of that. It is a change in mind but it’s a change in mind that results in a changed life. Live to the glory of God.”
My parting shot: if Joseph Prince is preaching a faulty concept of repentance, how can the so-called many converts who received Christ under Joseph Prince’s ministry that he kept boasting about be said to be genuine?
Rev George Ong
Appendix
The Deadliness of Half-truths
In Article 1 and 2, you would have read about how Joseph Prince uses half-truths about the goodness of God and repentance to deceive people.
The ‘half-truth strategy’ is one which Prince liberally employs in his teachings.
It is the half-truth teachings of Joseph Prince that makes him an even more dangerous wolf.
False teachers aren’t so stupid to give themselves away so easily by coming undisguised.
If you are looking for a false teacher who comes as an undisguised wolf to tell you all the outright lies, you can comb the whole world twice over, and still, you wouldn’t be able to find him or her.
The story of the Little Red Riding Hood aptly illustrates that the false teacher would never come as a devouring wolf to scare you but cleverly disguised as your most loving grandmother in the faith to destroy you.
False teachers like Joseph Prince starts with half-truths to hook you first, such as “God is love” or “Jesus is full of grace” or “Jesus is so forgiving” or “God is good” or “repentance is only a change of mind” and keeps repeating it umpteen number of times, week in and week out.
Can you fault him for doing that?
You can’t really – as he is repeating truths – even though they are half-truths.
And before you know it, you have already been bought over by the deception that the half-truth represents the whole truth – that God is only good and loving, Jesus is only gracious and forgiving, it is only God’s goodness that leads to repentance, repentance is only a change of mind as your sins have all been forgiven.
The half-truth deception which is repeatedly propagated, would, over time, be subconsciously accepted by listeners as the whole truth without them even realising it.
The half-truth deception plays on pleasing the flesh which would readily embrace the pleasant half of the truth, such as God is loving and good, but be easily put-off by the unpleasant half, such as God’s wrath and judgement.
If half the face of a man is constantly blown up (God’s love and grace), while the other half is repeatedly squashed (God’s wrath and judgement), a completely different face will emerge – it is the same with Joseph Prince’s Pseudo-grace ‘half-truth teaching’ that is nowhere near the true-grace doctrine.
Removing half the face of a man is not only giving a false picture of the real but a horrifying depiction of the original – that’s what the half-truth theology of Joseph Prince abhorrently does to God – that He is only loving and gracious but He isn’t a God of wrath and one who judges like He was under the Old Covenant.
Such a ‘God’ who is only loving and gracious and not a God who judges is a false God that the Bible never depicts.
How then could a Singapore Methodist Bishop and a Singapore Presbyterian Pastor say that one, such as Joseph Prince, who preaches a false God that the Bible never teaches, isn’t a heretic?