Main title: Joseph Prince’s statement that Jesus’ words in the gospels are milk, not meat, is blasphemous
Sub title: Joseph Prince blasphemed Jesus & was called a heretic by AW Tozer
– By Rev George Ong (Dated 14 Jan 2024)
First Opening Shot to Joseph Prince:
I listened to Joseph Prince’s sermon this morning,
which ended at 1.40 pm.
“Hey Joe, Mr Pen is very disappointed with you.
Why you chicken out like a church mouse?
How come last week mention Mr Pen’s name at least 7 times.
But this morning, one time also don’t have.
Mr Pen needs your attention, leh.
Okay, give you another chance this Sunday on 21 Jan.
Remember to mention Mr Pen.
He needs your attention a lot, you know.”
Second Opening Shot to Joseph Prince:
“Hey Joe,
Be fair, leh.
Mr Pen quoted plenty of church fathers (Bible teachers)
to support his view in so many articles,
but you, zero or hardly any so far.
What happened?
This article, Mr Pen quoted another 5 church fathers, you know.
Hey, quote some church fathers, leh,
so your case can be more Tok Kong (strong), mah.
Hah, you mean you can’t find any church father
that can agree with your grace doctrine,
like, don’t have to confess sins anymore,
or you will look young and handsome after taking Holy Communion?
In that case ah, you confirmed heretic already.
Hey, to redeem yourself,
make sure you quote some church fathers in your next sermon, okay.
If not, you sure no hope, one.
But li eh sai leh (capable), so many supporters, ah.
Think here, think there,
only those with itchy ears will support you.
Wah, so many itchy ears in your congregation, ah.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 prophecy confirmed Liao (already).”
Important & Serious Warning to all Pastors & Churches, especially in Singapore:
Last Sunday, Joseph Prince announced that
from this year onwards,
he and New Creation Church will spare no effort
in getting their young people back to church,
and also to win more new ones to New Creation Church.
You had better teach especially your young people
the heresies of Joseph Prince,
so they don’t stray into his church.
Announcement:
Don’t miss 1 video on Michael Brown,
2 videos on Joseph Prince,
and the insightful sayings of AW Tozer,
Walter Kaiser, Charles Spurgeon and John Stott.
Excerpt from the Article:
Hey Joseph Prince, let me put this straight to your face.
Your teaching does not pass the test of meat, not even milk,
but it is pure junk food
that is good for only swine and fit for the dumps.
(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 Sunday sermon aired on YouTube last Sunday,
on 7 Jan 2024, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 45-second video:
“But at the end in the Upper Room, Jesus said to them,
‘I have many things to say unto you.’
That means all the rest of His ministry,
3 and a half years is not, it’s just milk, milk,
and it’s not the meat
that comes through Pauline revelation.
Then you are finding the teachings of Jesus
where He said at the end of his earthly life,
‘I have many things to say,
but you are not able to bear them now,
but when the Holy Spirit is come.’
So, in other words,
Paul’s ministry was alluded there as well
because he wrote three fourths of the New Testament.
And Paul’s words are not Paul’s words, as you see here.
It’s the words of the ascended Christ.
Not Christ when He was on earth,
but the words of the ascended Christ.”
Joseph Prince alludes to John 16:12-13
to advance his claim that what the Apostle Paul taught
and the gospel that he preached in the epistles
is based on the words of the ascended Christ after the cross,
and not based on what Jesus said
in the 4 gospels before the cross:
John 16:12-13 NASB
12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at the present time. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
What Joseph Prince has done
is that he is using the half-truth trickery again to deceive people.
While Joseph Prince unfolded John 16:12-13,
he deceptively ‘hid’ from you, John 14:26:
John 14:26 NASB
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I said to you.
Here, our Lord Jesus said that the Holy Spirit
would remind the disciples of everything He said.
So, when did Jesus say those things?
A large portion of what Jesus said
must have been found in the gospels before the cross.
Why must the Holy Spirit remind them
of those things that Jesus said and taught
before the cross in the gospels
if they are placed under the Old Covenant as milk,
and if they are no more relevant
to His disciples (and to us)
as Joseph Prince falsely teaches?
Does it make sense?
Jesus said, the Holy Spirit
“will remind you of everything I have said to you,”
because the words and teachings of Christ in the gospels
are critically important for New Covenant believers
and He doesn’t want them to be forgotten by His disciples (and us).
If they are that important to Jesus
that He doesn’t want them to be forgotten by His disciples (and us),
it must plainly mean that they are still binding on New Covenant believers,
as they are reflected in the teachings of the Apostles in the epistles.
Both John 14:26 and John 16:12-13 must be taken together.
One must not be pitted against the other,
and both must be seen as one harmonious whole.
But what Joseph Prince does is that he only surfaces John 16:12-13,
and pretends that John 14:26 doesn’t exist.
Though Christ may have revealed more things to His disciples
through the Holy Spirit after His ascension in John 16:12-13,
what the Holy Spirit revealed
must never contradict, or undo, or cancel out
what Christ has said to His disciples
in the gospels before the cross in John 14:26.
Leon Morris, in ‘Expository Reflections on the Gospel of John’, and in exegeting John 16:12-13, wrote:
“The disciples should not think that they have learned all there is to know.
Jesus goes on to tell them that he has many things yet to say to them (v 12).
Believers should be very careful here, for from time and time through the history of the Christian church,
people have arisen who have said that they had new revelations and they have led people astray.
It is important for us to keep a firm hold on the truth that the definitive revelation has been given in Scripture.
Christian teaching is the teaching God gave through Christ and Christ’s apostles.
Nothing can claim to be authentic Christian teaching that does not agree with this.”
What Leon Morris is stating is that whatever new revelation Christ gives through the Holy Spirit after His ascension (after the cross),
must ultimately agree with whatever teachings and truths that have already been revealed in the scriptures (in the gospels before the cross),
What Christ would say through the Holy Spirit after His ascension in John 16:12-13,
would definitely reinforce what Christ has already taught in the gospels in John 14:26.
For example, there is one concrete thing that Christ said through the Holy Spirit
after His ascension in Revelation chapters 2-3 to the 7 churches of Revelation.
One of the key things that Christ said through the Holy Spirit after His ascension
was to warn 5 of the 7 churches to repent.
And repentance was exactly what Jesus taught
at the beginning of His ministry in Matthew 3:2 and Matthew 4:17,
and throughout His ministry in Luke 13:3,5, in the gospels before the cross,
and at the end of His ministry, after His resurrection
but before His ascension in Luke 24:46-47.
Whatever truth Jesus may have said through the Holy Spirit after His ascension,
must never trivialised or repudiate,
but it must reinforce and harmonise
with what Christ has already revealed in the scriptures and the gospels before the cross.
However, Joseph Prince uses one half of God’s word in John 16:12-13,
and by his own authority,
‘obliterate’ the other half of God’s word in John 14:26,
giving the impression that one ‘contradicts’ the other.
God’s word can never contradict itself.
Let me give you an illustration:
Let’s say Larry relates that Jimmy told him A (John 14:26).
Then Jimmy tells Larry B (John 16:12-13).
Just because Jimmy tells Larry B (John 16:12-13),
Larry went on to conclude that A (John 14:26) is no longer applicable or that important,
when Jimmy has not said anything to that effect.
What is worse is that when Jimmy tells Larry both A (Jn 14:26) and B (Jn 16:12-13),
Larry only reveals to his friends the half-truth of B (Jn 16:12-13),
but he ‘hid’ from them that Jimmy actually told him A (Jn 14:26) too,
giving people a false impression of what Jimmy actually said.
That’s what Joseph Prince has craftily and irreverently done to God’s word.
Thus, Joseph Prince’s ploy of using John 16:12-13
to paint the picture of what Christ has revealed through the Holy Spirit after His ascension,
differs from what He taught and said in His 3 years of earthly ministry,
is exposed to be a lie.
More than a lie,
it is blasphemous to say that Jesus’s words in the gospel
is milk, not meat.
Joseph Prince is maligning Jesus and ruining what He came to do,
when he said that all that Jesus taught and said in the gospels was milk, not meat.
No true teacher of God’s word can take this lying down,
at such repulsive and disgusting remarks that Joseph Prince has uttered
against the Lord Jesus, who is God Himself.
If what Joseph Prince said doesn’t evoke a righteous anger to arise from within you,
then something is seriously wrong,
not only with Joseph Prince but with you too.
By saying that the words of Jesus in the gospels are milk, not meat,
Joseph Prince is also saying that what Jesus said:
John 11:25 NIV
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;”
John 14:6 NIV
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,”
words that were mentioned by Jesus in the gospels before the cross,
are also milk, not meat.
You mean the fact that Jesus announced that
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;”
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,”
in which He declares Himself as the cornerstone of the gospel,
is milk not meat?
Only a heretic who dares to mock God would venture to say that.
Joseph Prince is saying that
we can disregard Christ’s declaration
that He is the resurrection
and the life and all who believe in Him shall never die
just because these were said by Jesus
during the 3 years of His ministry, before His ascension.
Joseph Prince is saying that
we can disregard Jesus’ claim
that He is the way, the truth and the life,
and no one comes to the Father except through Him,
just because these were said by Jesus
during the 3 years of His ministry, before His ascension.
This is Preposterous! Revolting! Monstrous!
Why does Joseph Prince want to reject the words, teachings and commands of Jesus in the gospels?
The unmistakable and stark answer is that Jesus’ words and teachings in the gospels
clearly don’t square with and agree with his Grace Theology.
As a matter of fact, they are at loggerheads with each other.
Jesus’ teachings in the gospels
call for a serious commitment to deny ourselves and take up the cross,
and His words demand costly discipleship,
which doesn’t fit with Joseph Prince’s feel-good Grace Doctrine that
“God doesn’t demand anything from you,
and all you need to do is just believe (without repenting),
rest and enjoy the wealth, health, long life and youthful looks
that He has come to bless you with.”
Has it become obvious to you now
that Joseph Prince is preaching a different Jesus.
If Joseph Prince’s Jesus is a different Jesus of the Bible,
only a fool would keep listening to his sermons and support his ministry.
Hey Joseph Prince, let me put this straight to your face.
Your teaching does not pass the test of meat, not even milk,
but it is pure junk food
that is good for only swine and fit for the dumps.
I want to raise a question of the lack of logic
and the issue of context on the part of Joseph Prince
when he applied John 16:12-13 to Paul:
John 16:12-13 NASB
12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at the present time. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
Ask yourself who was Jesus speaking to in John 16:12-13?
Not to Paul but to His disciples, as Paul was saved later.
In other words, Paul wasn’t in the audience when Jesus spoke those words in John 16:12-13.
Yet, Joseph Prince applied John 16:12-13 to Paul.
Yes, Jesus could have revealed more things to Paul when he was saved later.
But Joseph Prince is forbidden to churn out the view that Jesus revealed more things to Paul after His ascension
based on John 16:12-13 as Paul wasn’t even in the audience.
To do that would be out of context.
In a discussion, Dr Scott Stewart and Michael Brown said;
Please click here to view the 2-minute video:
Dr Scott Stewart:
One of the things we’re dealing with that seems right now with questions I get from my congregation, telephone calls, emails, text and things,
is a seemingly attack on the nature and character of Jesus, especially, in His relationship to His words.
For example, I’ll read up a few of these things here:
It’s been taught today that Jesus’ words are like an expired credit card.
You’ve got to be careful about some of those words you’re reading in red (Jesus’ words in the New Testament).
Jesus’ words are not all really for the church.
You have to feed on the words of Paul and not on the words of Jesus.
There’s a difference between the words spoken before the cross and after the cross.
Words after the cross refer to Christians.
The words before the cross are the Jews.
After all, Jesus is an Old Testament man, and therefore He is relegated to Old Testament approaches.
You cannot take everything He says for today.
What’s happening?”
Dr Michael Brown:
“Ya, I mean that’s grievous.
It’s not just grievous theologically, it’s grievous relationally.
That’s our Saviour. That’s our Lord.
That’s the one who told us what he feels and communicates, says to His disciples, ‘I no longer call you servants, I call you friends.’
So, the intimate words shared with a friend; when Jesus says at the Last Supper in Luke 22,
‘I’ve eagerly desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer’
– Oh, that’s just for the Jews.
That’s not for believers today;
(that’s for) the Jews before the cross,
I mean it’s outrageous!
(Hyper grace is) forthrightly and completely against scripture,
and it’s against common sense, and the Lord as well.
It’s against life in the Spirit.
It’s against New Covenant realities.
When I shared some of this with my wife, Nancy,
she was so disturbed she couldn’t sleep that night.
And it’s absolutely shameful.
It needs to be denounced in the clearest possible terms,
and these men or women preaching this need to repent.”
George Ong’s comments:
Despite such severe words of rebuke
from Michael Brown against hyper grace teachers,
of which Joseph Prince is one,
Prince is still stubbornly unrepentant
and continues to deceive the world with his heresies
with reckless abandon.
In a Sunday sermon aired on YouTube last Sunday,
on 7 Jan 2024, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 25-second video:
“I want to tell you something about the Apostle Paul.
A lot of people say,
‘Pastor Prince, you know,
you preached a lot from Paul’s letters and all that.’
Listen. The whole Bible is for us.
I said the whole Bible is for us.
You read the Old Testament and it’s profitable.
But remember, they are not written to you.
Don’t accept the judgments there as for you.
You can learn from their lives.
But when it comes to the epistles,
it’s all written to you.
It’s written to the Church.
It’s written to those under grace.”
To bolster his teaching that the epistles in the New Testament are New Covenant teachings that are meant for us,
Joseph Prince said these are written to us that we should spend more time on,
while the rest of the scriptures, the Old Testament, including the gospels, are written for us.
Joseph Prince’s demarcation
– that while the epistles in the New Testament are written to us,
the rest of the scriptures are written for us,
makes little sense in the end.
Joseph Prince is making a distinction that is rather useless and meaningless.
What is worse is that his facts are wrong.
Please tell me,
did Paul write the Epistle of Corinthians to us?
No, Paul wrote it to the Church in Corinth.
Did Paul write the Epistle of Philippians to us?
No, Paul wrote it to the Church in Philippi.
Did Paul write Philemon’s Letter to us?
No, he wrote it to Philemon to receive his slave, Onesimus, with forgiveness.
Did Peter write the Book of 1 Peter to us?
No, Peter wrote it to believers in some regions of Asia Minor who were experiencing great persecution and suffering.
Did John write the Book of Revelation to us?
No, he wrote it to strengthen the 7 churches of Revelation preparing them for suffering and martyrdom.
No epistle or book, regardless of whether they are the Old Testament or New Testament scriptures,
was written directly to us,
but every epistle or book in the holy scriptures
was written for us and for our benefit:
2 Timothy 3:16 NASB
16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
Romans 15:4 GNT
4 “Everything written in the Scriptures was written to teach us, in order that we might have hope through the patience and encouragement which the Scriptures give us.”
When Paul wrote,
“All Scripture” in 2 Timothy 3:16
and
“Everything written in the Scriptures” in Romans 15:4
he was referring to the Old Testament scriptures.
When Paul wrote 2 Timothy 3:16 and Romans 15:4,
he could not have been referring to the New Testament,
as it was not even written and compiled yet at the point of Paul’s writing.
All the New Testament scriptures were written and compiled many years after the ascension of Christ;
with the last Book of Revelation written in about AD 90.
So, what Paul was referring to when he said,
“All Scripture?”
in 2 Timothy 3:16 is inspired by God for teaching, etc
– he was referring to the Old Testament scriptures.
This would shut the mouth of Joseph Prince
from ever uttering his ignorant and deceptive line again,
“Oh, that is Old Testament stuff,
and it was written for us, but it was not written to us.”
In fact, everything in the Old Testament
that is not abrogated or superceded by the New,
is authoritative as a rule of faith,
and applies as much as the New Testament
to New Covenant believers.
What is worse is that Joseph Prince blatantly contradicts his assertion that the epistles were written to us,
when he, in the same vein,
insisted that the first chapter of 1 John was written to unbelievers, the Gnostics.
Joseph Prince said that we, as New Covenant believers,
should spend more time on the epistles of the New Testament as they were written to us,
while the Old Testament scriptures and the gospels were written for us.
The truth is that none of the Old and New Testament scriptures were written directly to us,
but all of them were written for us, for our learning, to warn us, and to strengthen us in our faith.
Let me feature what AW Tozer, Walter Kaiser, Charles Spurgeon and John Stott
have to say about the heretical teachings of Joseph Prince.
In ‘Delighting in God, Compiled and Edited by James L. Snyder,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“Both the Old and New Testaments declare the mercy of God.
Sometimes, we think there is more of God’s mercy in the New Testament.
The odd thing is the Old Testament has more than four times as much to say about mercy as the New Testament
– that is, it is odd, seen against a background of error, which we have been taught most of our lives.
We have been taught that the Old Testament is a book of law,
and the New Testament is a book of grace.
The Old Testament is a book of judgment,
and the New Testament a book of mercy.
If the God of the Old Testament is a God of thunder and judgment,
in the New Testament, He is a God of meekness and mercy.
But the truth is, God is merciful and God’s mercy is perfect.
His mercy is infinitely perfect.
It is impossible to separate the Old Testament from the New Testament.
It takes the whole Bible to make the Word of God.
Trying to isolate one part of the Bible from another part
is to do great damage to the Word of God.
Trying to separate law from grace
is a very dangerous thing
and usually leads to heresy.
There can be no law without grace,
and no grace without law.
George Ong’s comments:
All that AW Tozer wrote is effectively and accurately a description
of what Joseph Prince teaches.
Tozer further declares that those
(including Joseph Prince)
who tries to separate law from grace
is a heretic.
In ‘The Price of Neglect,’
AW Tozer wrote:
“The idea creeps into much evangelical teaching
that the Old Testament is a book of justice and judgment
without a ray of mercy or grace or love to lighten the darkness,
whereas the New Testament is filled with mercy and forgiveness.
The truth is that mercy and justice, love and judgment
are found in both the Old and the New Testament
in about equal proportion.
Not two Gods but one wrote the Bible
and the unity of His perfect character
reveals itself in all parts of the Scriptures.
It may come as a surprise to some to learn
that there is as much about mercy in the Old Testament
as in the New,
but such is actually the case.
Grace is found throughout the Old Testament,
and love is also found there in abundance.
Justification by faith is an Old Testament doctrine.
It was first associated with Abraham,
appeared later in the writings of David and Habakkuk
and was shown by Paul
to be one of the most vital doctrines of the New Testament.
Thus, the organic unity of the Bible is confirmed.”
George Ong’s comments:
AW Tozer beautifully and correctly hinted
that justification by faith was birthed in the Old Testament
and consummated in the New.
He also concluded that the Bible,
comprising the Old and New Testaments,
must be seen as one organic whole,
whereas Joseph Prince sees them as
two separate parts,
one, the Old Testament was written for us,
of which we should pay less focus on,
and two, the New Testament was written to us,
of which we should pay more attention to.
In ‘Recovering the Unity of the Bible, One Continuous Story, Plan, and Purpose,’
Walter C Kaiser Jr wrote:
“The Unity of the Bible between the Two Testaments
From its earliest days,
the Christian church has claimed the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament
as an essential part of the sacred text.
In fact, those books functioned as the sole source of authority for the early church
from AD 30 to somewhere near AD 45-48,
prior to the development of the New Testament canon.
The first books of the New Testament began to appear around AD 45.
And subsequent to that time,
the first thirty-nine books remained as equal partners
with the twenty-seven books of the New Testament,
which were completed around AD 85-95.
Upon the completion of the New Testament,
the early church fathers
witnessed to the unity of the canon of sixty-six books
by according to both groups of texts
full theological, ecclesiastical, and liturgical authority
in their usage and citations.”
George Ong’s comments:
Walter Kaiser wrote:
“Upon the completion of the New Testament,
the early church fathers
witnessed to the unity of the canon of sixty-six books
by according to both groups of texts
full theological, ecclesiastical, and liturgical authority
in their usage and citations.”
Hence, the Old Testament is not a poorer cousin
that Joseph Prince wants to make out to be,
but an equal partner to the New Testament
comprising as one organic unity – the Holy Scriptures,
as authoritative for both doctrine and practice.
In ‘The New Testament, Spurgeon’s Sermons By Each Book.’
Charles Spurgeon said:
“Furthermore, as we look at this text,
we observe that, inasmuch as it is not always possible to gauge the emotions and the affections,
a further test is given us
– “He that loves Me not keeps not My sayings.”
I may know, therefore, whether I love the Lord Jesus Christ
by answering this further question,
Do I keep His sayings?
What does this mean?
It means, first, have we a reverent regard
for all the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Do we receive them as being our standard of doctrine and our rule of life?
Remember that, in effect,
all that is in the Old Testament as well as in the New
must be considered to be the sayings of Christ,
for He says that He came not to destroy the Law,
but to establish it.
Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not one tittle of the Law shall fail.
The whole record of Inspiration is endorsed by Christ
and may be said to be His sayings.”
George Ong’s comments:
According to Charles Spurgeon,
both the Old Testament and the New
are equally authoritative for doctrine and practice,
as they are both endorsed by Christ.
In ‘Understanding the Bible,’
John Stott wrote:
“It is beyond question, then, that Jesus Christ was himself personally submissive to Scripture.
In his own ethical standards, in his understanding of his mission and in debate with the Jewish leaders,
what the Scripture said was decisive for him. “Scripture cannot be broken,” he affirmed. And again,
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matt. 5:18)
There is no example of Christ contradicting the divine origin of Old Testament Scripture.
Some people have supposed that he did so in the six antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount,
in which he said, “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you….”
However, it is not Moses with whom he was at odds, but the scribal perversions of Moses;
not Scripture (which is God’s Word), but tradition (which is man’s).
All the available evidence confirms that Jesus Christ assented in his mind and submitted in his life
to the authority of Old Testament Scripture.
Is it not inconceivable that his followers
should have a lower view of it than he?
George Ong’s comments:
John Stott was convinced that if Christ had such a high regard of the Old Testament scriptures,
it is unacceptable for any New Covenant believer to have a lower view of them.
Rev George Ong