Martyn Lloyd-Jones Demolishes Joseph Prince’s Teaching that the Sermon on the Mount is not for the Church – By Rev George Ong (Dated 8 Dec 2021)
(This article was also sent to Rev Dr Ngoei Foong Nghian, General Secretary, NCCS office, and for the attention of the Executive Committee Members.)
In a weekly sermon aired on 28 November 2021, two Sundays ago, Joseph Prince said the following; please click to view excerpts in the one-minute plus video,
“Remember what Jesus said in the Upper Room. You know, one thing about church truths are found in all the writings of Paul and the other apostles in the New Testament, but also in the Upper Room. You know we study so much on the Sermon on the Mount, but actually, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus proclaiming the laws of the, or the constitution of the kingdom and the kingdom to come. Actually, He was bringing the kingdom to Israel but Israel rejected Him and thereby they rejected the kingdom. So the Sermon on the Mount, although there are a lot of Christian principles that we still adopt into our New Covenant, into our Christian life like ‘love your enemies’; but more than that, it was designed as a constitution for the kingdom. Now we know the Sermon on the Mount better than the Sermon on another Mount, Mount Zion in the Upper Room. And that’s sad because, actually the Upper Room is pure church truths. In the Upper Room, I say it again, it’s pure church truths. Truths for the church. Truths for the called-out ones; the redeemed ones, the ecclesia. And it’s all about church truths: The New Commandment; loving one another as Christ loves us. The promise of the Holy Spirit; that He will teach us all things and guides us into all truths.”
What Joseph Prince has articulated is that the Sermon on the Mount is only for Israel in the Old Covenant but not the Church in the New Covenant as it doesn’t qualify to be ‘church truths’ as Prince has said,
“… church truths are found in all the writings of Paul and the other apostles in the New Testament, but also in the Upper Room.”
To Prince, truths for the New Covenant Church are only found in the epistles and what Jesus said in the Upper Room and not the Sermon on the Mount because it was written as laws of the kingdom to Israel:
“You know we study so much on the Sermon on the Mount, but actually, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus proclaiming the laws of the, or the constitution of the kingdom and the kingdom to come. Actually, He was bringing the kingdom to Israel but Israel rejected Him and thereby they rejected the kingdom.”
“So the Sermon on the Mount… was designed as a constitution for the kingdom.”
Joseph Prince, by making the statement,
“You know we study so much on the Sermon on the Mount, but actually, the Sermon on the Mount…”
is undoubtedly implying that we shouldn’t study so much about the Sermon on the Mount because they are not meant for the New Covenant Church but Israel under the Old Covenant.
But Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who is a giant in expository preaching, totally contradicted the dispensational and false view of Joseph Prince.
In Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Pages 14-17, 20, 29-31, he elaborately wrote:
“… and which teach a dispensational view of the Sermon on the Mount, saying that it has nothing whatsoever to do with modern Christians. They say our Lord began to preach about the kingdom of God, and the preaching of the Sermon on the Mount was in connection with the inauguration of this kingdom.
Unfortunately, they continue, the Jews did not believe His teaching. So our Lord could not establish the kingdom, and therefore, almost as a kind of afterthought, the death on the cross came in, and as another afterthought the whole Church and the whole Church age came in, and that will persist up to a certain point in history.
Then our Lord will return with the kingdom and again the Sermon on the Mount will be introduced. That is the teaching; it says, in effect, that the Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with us. It is meant `for the kingdom age’. It was meant for the people to whom He was preaching (Israel); it will be meant again in the millennial age. It is the law of that age and of the kingdom of heaven, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Christians in the meantime.
Now obviously this is a serious matter for us. This view is right or else it is not. According to this view I need not read the Sermon on the Mount; I need not be concerned about its precepts; I need not feel condemned because I am not doing certain things; it has no relevance for me. It seems to me that the answer to all that can be put like this.”
“But clearly our Lord was preaching to these men (His disciples) and telling them what they were to do in this world, not only while He was here, but after He had gone. It was preached to people who were meant to practise it at that time and ever afterwards.
Not only that. To me another very important consideration is that there is no teaching to be found in the Sermon on the Mount which is not also found in the various New Testament Epistles. Make a list of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount; then read your Epistles. You will find that the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is there also.
Now all the Epistles are meant for Christians today; so if their teaching is the same as that of the Sermon on the Mount, clearly its teaching also is meant for Christians today. That is a weighty and important argument.
But perhaps I can put it best like this. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a great and grand and perfect elaboration of what our Lord called His ‘new commandment’. His new commandment was that we love one another even as He has loved us. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a grand elaboration of that. If we are Christ’s, and our Lord has meant that word for us, that we should love one another even as He loved us, here (in the Sermon on the Mount) we are shown how to do it.”
“There is nothing, therefore, so dangerous as to say that the Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with modern Christians. Indeed, I will put it like this: it is something which is meant for all Christian people. It is a perfect picture of the life of the kingdom of God.”
“In other words, we are not told in the Sermon on the Mount, `Live like this and you will become Christian’; rather we are told, `Because you are Christian live like this.’ This is how Christians ought to live; this is how Christians are meant to live.”
“And if you read the history of the Church you will find it has always been when men and women have taken this Sermon seriously and faced themselves in the light of it, that true revival has come.”
“Finally, if you regard any particular injunction in this Sermon as impossible, once more your interpretation and understanding of it must be wrong. Let me put it like this. Our Lord taught these things, and He expects us to live them. His last injunction, you remember, to these men whom He sent out to preach was, ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever ever I have commanded you.’ (Matt 28:19-20) Now here in this Sermon (on the Mount) are those very things. He meant them to be taught, He meant them to be practised.
Our Lord Himself lived the Sermon on the Mount. The apostles lived the Sermon on the Mount, and if you take the trouble to read the lives of the saints down the centuries, and the men who have been most greatly used of God, you will find that, every time, they have been men who have taken the Sermon on the Mount not only seriously but literally. You read the life of a man like Hudson Taylor and you will find he literally lived it, and he is not the only one. These things were taught by the Lord and were meant for us, His people. This is how the Christian is meant to live.”
“Beware of the spirit of arguing against them (injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount); beware of making them ridiculous; and beware of so interpreting them as to regard any one of them as impossible. Here is the life to which we are called, and I maintain again that if only every Christian in the Church today were living the Sermon on the Mount, the great revival for which we are praying and longing would already have started. Amazing and astounding things would happen; the world would be shocked, and men and women would be drawn and attracted to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
If you have just simply browsed through and have not carefully read and compared between what Joseph Prince and Martyn Lloyd-Jones had written, you need to read them again.
For those who have carefully read them, you would have noticed that the view of Martyn Lloyd-Jones regarding the Sermon on the Mount is not just marginally different but diametrically opposed to that of Joseph Prince.
There is no more need for me to add to what Lloyd-Jones had marvellously and exhaustively written which had exposed the stark nakedness of the falsity of Joseph Prince’s doctrine regarding the Sermon on the Mount, except for 3 points of elaboration.
First, Prince quoted the New Commandment that Christ gave in the Upper Room in John 13:34-35 as one example of church truths, as if to imply that the Sermon on the Mount, which was not written for the Church but to Israel, does not contain any traces or evidence of the New Commandment.
This is contradicted by Martyn Lloyd-Jones:
“But perhaps I can put it best like this. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a great and grand and perfect elaboration of what our Lord called His ‘new commandment’. His new commandment was that we love one another even as He has loved us. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a grand elaboration of that. If we are Christ’s, and our Lord has meant that word for us, that we should love one another even as He loved us, here (in the Sermon on the Mount) we are shown how to do it.”
So if the Sermon on the Mount contains “a great and grand and perfect elaboration of” the New Commandment that the Lord Jesus had spoken about in the Upper Room, as Lloyd-Jones had rightly pointed out, it only proves that the New Commandment, which is part of church truths, is found in the Sermon on the Mount. Hence, the Sermon on the Mount was written for the New Covenant Church, which Joseph Prince disclaimed.
Second, Joseph Prince has painted a false dichotomy between what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount and what Christ said in the Upper Room:
“Now we know the Sermon on the Mount better than the Sermon on another Mount, Mount Zion in the Upper Room. And that’s sad because, actually the Upper Room is pure church truths. In the Upper Room, I say it again, it’s pure church truths. Truths for the church.”
Prince has falsely taught that ‘church truths’ are found in the Upper Room but not in the Sermon on the Mount. The fact is, both of what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount and the Upper Room contain ‘church truths’ or truths for the church.
By Joseph Prince’s expression (highlighted in red and underlined),
“Now we know the Sermon on the Mount better than the Sermon on another Mount, Mount Zion in the Upper Room. And that’s sad…”
it shows that he is biased against the Sermon on the Mount as, to him, it doesn’t contain truths for the church. By doing that, Prince is irreverently pitting the Jesus of the Upper Room against the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount.
Third, Martyn Lloyd Jones had rightly pointed out that when Jesus commanded us to observe or obey ‘all things’ in the Great Commission, the ‘all things’ also contain what was written in the Sermon on the Mount:
“His last injunction, you remember, to these men whom He sent out to preach was, ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever ever I have commanded you.’ (Matt 28:19-20) Now here in this Sermon (on the Mount) are those very things. He meant them to be taught, He meant them to be practised.”
In other words, New Covenant believers are commanded to observe or obey whatever was written in the Sermon on the Mount because it is part of what we are called to obey under the Great Commission.
But not only does Joseph Prince not recognise the Sermon on the Mount as truths for the church, most damagingly, he does not even acknowledge the Great Commission, (which is a costly Gospel), but he replaces it with his Grace Revolution Gospel, which is nothing but an easy, cheap and false gospel.
If Joseph Prince does not even preach and obey the Great Commission himself which is the heartbeat of Jesus and Christ’s most important command to be obeyed by every church and Christian before He was ascended; furthermore, Prince daringly replaces it with his Grace Revolution Gospel, how can he not be a heretic?
Next, let me show you how inconsistent, flippant, self-contradictory and unprincipled Joseph Prince is when it comes to his own teachings by comparing what he said in this sermon (in the one-minute plus video clip) and what he wrote in his books:
In his sermon on 28 November 2021, two Sundays ago, he said,
“Remember what Jesus said in the Upper Room. You know, one thing about church truths are found in all the writings of Paul and the other apostles in the New Testament, but also in the Upper Room… actually the Upper Room is pure church truths. In the Upper Room, I say it again, it’s pure church truths. Truths for the church. Truths for the called-out ones; the redeemed ones, the ecclesia. And it’s all about church truths.”
Now, let’s take a look at what Prince wrote in his books:
In ‘Unmerited Favor’, Page 97, Joseph Prince wrote,
“However, the new covenant does not actually begin with the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as these books deal predominantly with the life of Jesus before the cross. In fact, the new covenant begins after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Hence, the cross is our clearest marking point of where the new covenant begins.”
In ‘Destined To Reign’, Page 92, Joseph Prince wrote,
“The new covenant only begins after the cross, when the Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost. I know that our Bibles are divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament, which begins with the four gospels. However, it is important to realize that the cross made a difference!”
On the one hand, Joseph Prince said in his sermon on 28 November 2021 that what Jesus said in the Upper Room, (particularly in the Gospel of John chapters 13-17, which is before the cross) contains pure church truths for New Covenant believers.
On the other hand, Prince wrote in his books that everything of what Christ spoke and taught in the gospels before the cross doesn’t apply to New Covenant believers because they were spoken and taught under the Old Covenant Law.
This means what Jesus said and taught His disciples in the Upper Room in the Gospel of John, which is before the cross, is under the Old Covenant Law. Yet, in his sermon on 28 November 2021, he said they contain ‘pure church truths’ – meaning they are concretely and conclusively relevant to New Covenant believers.
Can you see how self-contradictory and unprincipled this sneaky man is?
When there are truths in the gospels that speak against his grace doctrine, he will immediately offer the excuse they are under the Old Covenant and therefore inapplicable to New Covenant believers. But when he finds passages in the gospels that can be used to support his doctrine, he changes tact, and arbitrarily, makes them the exception.
This is not the first time that he has done this. In the many passages of the gospels, such as John 3:16, the Prodigal Son and other examples, what are not applicable to his New Covenant Grace doctrine because these were spoken by Jesus before the cross, he, arbitrarily, switched around, and conveniently used them to support his doctrine just because they served his purpose.
How on earth can people ever trust this unprincipled fellow in the flippant, inconsistent and self-contradictory way he handled Bible texts?
Furthermore, Martyn Lloyd-Jones had warned us of the following:
“Finally, if you regard any particular injunction in this Sermon as impossible, once more your interpretation and understanding of it must be wrong.”
“Beware of the spirit of arguing against them (injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount); beware of making them ridiculous; and beware of so interpreting them as to regard any one of them as impossible.”
It is these very warnings of Martyn Lloyd-Jones about the Sermon on the Mount that Joseph Prince went head-on against. In the next or probably future update, I will surface a passage in the Sermon on the Mount, where Prince not only argued against that passage, but he also ridiculed the applicability of it for New Covenant believers. He even dared to irreverently state that what the Lord Jesus said and taught about that particular text in the Sermon is impossible to be obeyed.
In summary, while Joseph Prince sees the Sermon on the Mount as for the Jews under the Old Covenant and doesn’t qualify to be church truths for New Covenant people, Martyn Lloyd-Jones totally contradicted him. Lloyd-Jones argued that the Sermon is for the New Covenant Church and it provides principles by which New Covenant believers are meant to live by. He further stated that both our Lord Jesus and the apostles had lived the Sermon on the Mount and every believer is expected to do the same.
If both the scriptures and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a well-respected figure in Bible exposition, contradicted Joseph Prince’s position on a key text of the Sermon on the Mount, which was preached by none other than Jesus Himself, how can Prince be a true teacher of God’s word?
Rev George Ong