For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Corinthians 11:4)

But Which Jesus Is It Whom You Claim To Love?

There is certainly no shortage of people claiming to “love Jesus” today; and, there’s also a veritable cornucopia of ideas about who this Person Jesus is as well. As most of you know, there are many different “Jesuses” running around all over the countryside these days. As Apprising Ministries shows you in Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up, the major views that you are most likely to run into about Him are quite varied–and surprising–to be sure.

The Jesus which is probably the most widely known in this pagan postmodern culture is the so-called “historical Jesus”. Let me be perfectly clear, this Jesus is just as much a myth as any of the “gods” of Greek mythology. And notice from our text above that God warns us there really is such a thing as another Jesus. Here I must also point out to you a vitally important point that the Bible—the Word of our Creator—makes regarding the only way in which a sinner is saved from his sins.

Perhaps you’ve heard Acts 4:12 before — And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Do you see: No other Name; we must be saved. Indeed, very narrow, and completely exclusive, and definitive, claims. The wise person is going to ask the key questi0n here: Because I must be saved, what Name are we talking about here? That answer is found two verses prior in Acts 4. We are clearly told that the “Name” being discussed concerning our salvation is: Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

And that’s why you so often will see me say Jesus of Nazareth when I mention our Lord and Savior. This is done purposely in order to distinguish the actual Jesus of history from all these other mythical impostors. When you add the “of Nazareth” you are letting people know that you are talking about a real Person, Who lived in real time and space and history, upon this planet. Yes, I know,  it has now actually become this ridiculous that we almost have to use double-talk to make a point about our Lord.

But that’s how inside-out and upside-down Satan and his malevolent minions have turned this world. It’s not enough to simply say you love “Jesus.” You see, we are not saved by faith itself; but rather, by the Person Who is the object of our faith—in this critical case—Jesus the Christ of Nazareth, as revealed in the Biblical revelation. That’s why I see grave danger when Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch headed by his friend universalist EC pastor Doug Pagitt, told me the following as we were speaking on the phone a couple of years ago:

“we [Emergent Village] haven’t yet found that there’s anything that justifies us breaking fellowship with somebody else who loves and is trying to follow Jesus.”

Trying to follow which Jesus? Right now critical distinctives are being erased as you’ll see e.g. in If You Truly Love “Jesus” There Are No Boundaries For The “Christ-Followers”. From nearly 23 years of personally studying Comparative Religion I can tell you that in just 3+ years of public ministry Jesus made such an impact on people’s lives that virtually every religion has had to reserve a place for Jesus on their roster of spiritual “superstars.” And here many thought that Muhammad Ali was “the greatest.” Well, he truly has nothing on Jesus of Nazareth—Who is thought of in a lot of different ways.

Space allows but one example; He’s thought to be the fictional Jesus of heretical Living Spiritual Teacher and “Progessive Christian” scholar Marcus Borg, who wishes Christ was merely a very good and moral man about whom the Church built a mythology around in an attempt to make him into God. This Jesus is essentially a social reformer—A “Jesus” Who’s Gandhi With A Beard—as a matter of fact this is quite close to the way Jesus is viewed in the mythology of the Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell and the spiritually bankrupt neo-liberalism “big tent” Progressive Christianity aka Emergence Christianity. 

Our Job As Ambassadors For The Real Jesus Christ Is To Remove The Confusion

Now we need to be very careful to make sure here that we don’t confuse the issues, which is exactly what Satan loves to do. And right now he has so many people so confused that they finally just stop trying to fight through this hellacious haze of deceptions. First of all, no one is saying that these scholars/teachers and their followers haven’t the right to their opinions. Of course they are free to believe whatever they want to believe. And as was pointed out elsewhere by an intuitive husband: I’ve even been wrong on a couple of occasions. And oddly enough, my wife was there each time.

However in all seriousness, if these scholars and organizations have the right to voice their views, then we Christians also have the right to respond with our own opinions. Do you see how that works? So the Christian is to share the message of the actual Jesus Christ, and we are to defend His Gospel. It’s those in this insidious man-centered Church Growth Movement—be it the Purpose Driven pragmatism of Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren or the empty emerging Christian Universalism inherent in the postmodern Liberalism 2.0 of Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren—who would have us compromise our beliefs for the supposed sake of “love.”

Well I hold that if someone is sitting next to me in a church thinking that they are saved, but who have never committed their lives to the Christ Jesus of Biblical revelation, the most loving thing I can possibly do for them is to tell them the Truth! Most certainly we must do so as gently, compassionately, and patiently as we can, but tell it to them we must; and we must share the actual Jesus Christ with them. Sure people will get angry at you sometimes—but then again dear one in Christ—they once got so angry at Jesus of Nazareth that they ended up nailing Him to a tree and then left Him to die!

Sadly, blind guides like Rob Bell’s friend Peter Rollins are busy confusing you with their lies twisted inside of pious-sounding questions like this:

The idea can be expressed in many ways, here I will pose it in terms of a question, “what if God is not to be found directly in our beliefs and practices but rather indirectly as the name we give to the source that generates our desire to form beliefs and practices”. (Online source)

As I previously pointed out in Peter Rollins Darling Of Emergence Christianity, God is known only through the historic Person of Jesus Christ; Who gave His life for every sinner who will believe on Him, was then raised Bodily from the dead, and now lives forever as our justification. The time has arrived where we have got to be willing—in this gelatinous generation of compromise—to pay the price to take up the Bible and to bring the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ out into the world — to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in [to the Kingdom of God] (Luke 14:23).

Finally, when you get the chance read Revelation 2:4-5; you should realize that mainline churches embraced  the original cult of liberalism and long lost their first love—Christ Jesus of Nazareth. And because of this, they’ve become so dead and boring that most people won’t even come into them. At the same time a dead orthodoxy festered within mainstream evangelicalism and an Ecumenical Church of Deceit has now come slithering into this vacuum with an attempt to fill with their corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism, ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, masquerading as Spiritual Formation.

So the spirit of this age, which is universalism, demands that we do what the 1st century church did; take the Gospel out to the people and then leave it to the Lord add them to His Church (cf. Acts 2:47). We are to faithfully deliver the Gospel, but we are not required to try and “help” God through alterations that we in our fallen state think will make its message more attractive. No; tell the whole Truth, and God will empower it. And you’d be surprised what a few new converts to the real Jesus Christ—fresh from their filling of the Holy Spirit—can do to light a fire under slumbering Christians.

The important thing is…that you go; now, before it’s too late…

See also:

MOVE OVER PASTORS FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS/GURUS

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM (CSM) OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION IS RECKLESS FAITH

MARCUS BORG AND CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN JESUS

SETTING BRIAN MCLAREN STRAIGHT

ROB BELL AND POSTMODERN NEO-LIBERALISM

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

APPRISING MINISTRIES WITH A PEEK AT THE COMING SOTERIOLOGY OF EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY