RH:51 Why Social Justice is Not the Gospel

[00:00:06] Welcome to The Reasoned Hope podcast. In this podcast, we explore the intellectual credibility of the Christian faith.

[00:00:14] We seek to show how the central hope found in Jesus Christ is not only rational, but that the Christian worldview makes sense of our experience, our deepest longings and our intuitions about the world.

[00:00:27] Thanks for listening and we hope today's episode is both encouraging and challenging to you, whether you are a believer or a skeptic. But podcast, thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. In this episode, we're going to take some time to consider an alternative Gospel.

[00:00:58] We're at least a message that claims to be based on the Bible that is presented as Christianity. It's presented as what Jesus taught. It's presented as the essence of what Christians believe, and it is set forth as the accurate way to live for Jesus in today's world.

[00:01:23] And there's some aspects of this that are good reminders. There's things to affirm in it.

[00:01:30] However, I think overall what we're going to see is that this message, while it claims to be based on the teachings of Jesus, and while it claims to be based on the Bible as a whole, it's actually an entirely different message from what the Bible is about.

[00:01:47] And this is essentially an episode focused on just discussing a little bit about why social justice is not the Gospel.

[00:01:58] Before I get into the details of this, I want to qualify it by saying that there is a lot that has been said about this topic and there is much that I'm not going to be able to address in this one episode.

[00:02:13] So really, the main point of this episode is just to show how in many churches that you might walk into in the United States, even around the world, an emphasis on social justice has replaced the true Gospel.

[00:02:32] And an emphasis on social justice has replaced the true message of what Jesus taught and people are being fed a version of Christianity that is not in line with what Jesus really taught.

[00:02:48] It's not in line with the true Gospel. And this is very significant. It's a very important matter to get right because the church, people who claim to be teaching the Bible, people who claim to be teaching what Jesus taught, they should be actually teaching what Jesus taught. They should be pointing people to the person of Christ.

[00:03:14] And they should direct people towards what real hope is and what our true need is. And as we'll see, this emphasis on social justice is not in line with any of those things.

[00:03:29] That's what the main point of the episode is just to show how in many churches today an emphasis on social justice has replaced the true Gospel.

[00:03:37] Now it's clear that the reality of false gospels, the word gospel, just means good news and it's supposed to be the good news of Jesus Christ.

[00:03:48] So the Gospel is supposed to be about the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what he accomplished on our behalf so that we could be reconciled to him, washed clean of our sins and we could walk with him in the newness of life.

[00:04:03] And the hope of his future kingdom where he will make all things new and he will do away with all evil and he'll create a new heavens and a new earth.

[00:04:13] That's the message of the Bible and that's the Christian hope. But the reality of false gospels, these are messages that although they claim to be the same good news as what Jesus taught, they claim to be the essence of Christianity in actuality there an entirely different message.

[00:04:34] And we can see this clearly, Paul, when he was going around planting churches after he had been commissioned by Jesus as an apostle, Paul was very familiar with the reality of false gospels.

[00:04:48] So it's going to read two passages, one is from Galatians and the other one is from Second Corinthians. But in both these passages, Paul is concerned that the churches that he has started in these cities are being let us stray by false gospels.

[00:05:04] They're being told by false teachers that there's this message from Jesus that actually contradicts the true gospel. And so listen to what Paul says here in Galatians chapter 1 verses 6 through 9, he says,

[00:05:22] I'm amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

[00:05:40] But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we preach to you, a curse beyond him as we have said before, I now say again,

[00:05:54] if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse beyond him. So Paul is very emphatic that there is only one gospel and any teaching, regardless of who it comes from, any teaching that contradicts the true gospel is a false gospel.

[00:06:16] And this is such a serious matter that Paul uses the strongest language that he could. He says, a curse beyond him. That is a curse beyond anyone who teaches a different gospel and leads Christians a stray.

[00:06:35] Specifically the Christians that he is writing to in the church in Galatia, so very strong language and as you can see Paul was aware of false gospels and he considered it to be a very serious matter.

[00:06:47] The false teaching was not something that he took lightly and it's not something that Christians today should take lightly either. Now the second passage here is from 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 3 through 4.

[00:07:01] And you'll hear some similar things here that we heard in the Galatians chapter, but Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11 3 through 4 he says, But I fear that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

[00:07:19] For if a person comes and preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach or you receive a different spirit which you had not received or a different gospel, which you had not accepted, you put up with it splendidly.

[00:07:33] Now in that passage it's similar language, Paul is writing to a church that he planted in the city of Corinth. And he's expressing his concern that they are being or will be or are susceptible to being led astray by false teaching.

[00:07:50] So that this involves people preaching about an entirely different idea of who Jesus was or a different gospel and he's concerned that they are tolerating this kind of false teaching and being led astray.

[00:08:06] So at the very least we see from these two passages that Paul considered false gospels to be a reality he was aware of them that this was a thing that there was false teaching going around,

[00:08:16] masquerading as the teaching of Jesus. And he also considered it to be a matter of supreme importance.

[00:08:24] And that's because a false gospel is a gospel that cannot save. A false gospel is a place that if you put your hope and a false message then you're putting your hope in falsehood and that will not deliver the salvation that we need.

[00:08:42] And that's Paul's concern. So in light of these things the Bible teaches that Christians in all times and in all places need to be discerning about what they hear, so they are not led astray from the truth.

[00:08:59] So anyone can claim to be teaching the Bible. Anyone can use the same language as Christians. They can talk about the person of Jesus, they can talk about God and they can appeal to Bible passages.

[00:09:15] That alone does not mean that they're actually teaching the truth of what Jesus taught. It doesn't mean that they're teaching the Bible accurately. It doesn't mean that they're leading people to focus on the true gospel.

[00:09:28] So this is why discernment is required and there's a couple passages where we can see this one is in 1 John chapter 4 verses 1 through 3, and this is the Apostle John writing to Christians and he says this.

[00:09:42] Dear friends, do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

[00:09:52] This is how you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

[00:10:00] But every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antachrist, which you have heard is coming even now it is already in the world.

[00:10:14] So in John's time, the Christians he was writing to, there was a false teaching going around called Nosticism.

[00:10:21] And while it included many things, it included the teaching that Jesus wasn't really human that he didn't actually come as a human being that he only appeared to be human because in Nosticism the physical world is considered to be evil.

[00:10:39] And the spiritual is considered to be good. And so if Jesus Christ, the Son of God, actually had a human body, then this was intolerable from a Nostic perspective.

[00:10:51] And so when John says here, this is how you know the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

[00:11:04] This was a test against false teaching of the day because if someone taught that Jesus did come in the flesh, that is he was both fully God and fully human, then this was in line with the true teaching about Jesus and what Jesus said about himself.

[00:11:23] And so someone contradicted that and taught that Jesus only appeared to be human, but he really wasn't. Well this contradicted the message that Jesus taught about himself. And so that was a way to test against false teaching.

[00:11:36] It was to know what the true teaching was about Jesus and his person. And so the same application is for Christians today, maybe not with Nosticism specifically.

[00:11:47] But any teaching that would deviate from what Jesus claimed about himself and from what Jesus said his mission was. And from what the Bible teaches over all, that is a teaching to be rejected. It's false teaching.

[00:12:03] Now we can see an example of how this played out in the book of Acts chapter 17 verses 10 through 11. So this is when Paul and Silas were traveling around on a missionary journey, and they were teaching people about the gospel about Jesus.

[00:12:20] And they end up in a place called Beria. And this passage is, it comes from that context and so it says this. As soon as it was night, the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas away to Beria. Upon arrival, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

[00:12:40] The people here were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, since they received the word with eagerness. And examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

[00:12:53] So this is a situation where Paul and Silas have just left the city of Thessalonica where they were not received well in telling the people about Jesus there.

[00:13:03] But they end up in this other city called Beria. And when they get to the city, they go immediately to the synagogue where the Jews are. And they began telling them about Jesus. And it says the people here were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica.

[00:13:19] Why is that? Because they received the word with eagerness. So they were open to hearing what Paul had to say.

[00:13:27] They were willing to discern, to try to discern if this was actually true or not. And the method that they did that by was that they examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

[00:13:43] And so this is a good example. This is why Christians need to know the Bible. Because if you are being taught something from the Bible and it is a false teaching, it's someone using the Bible to teach something that actually isn't what the Bible says, then the only way you're going to be able to know if what you're hearing is accurate is if you know the Bible yourself. And if you know how to read it.

[00:14:06] So Christian maturity requires growing in discernment about what the Bible says. So those passages are just to establish the point that false teaching is real. Once again, we saw that with the false gospels in the first two passages that Paul was talking about. He was addressing the reality of false gospels.

[00:14:28] And in light of this, Christians need to have discernment so that they can test whether or not what they're hearing is actually in line with the truth.

[00:14:39] So those are important things to keep in mind as we move through and talk about this whole movement of social justice that has captured many churches and why this is such a big deal.

[00:14:52] So what is social justice? I've used that term a few times and why does this matter?

[00:14:59] Social justice is one of those terms or phrases that is very unclear. People can use it in all kinds of ways and they don't always clearly define what they mean or what they're talking about.

[00:15:12] So we need to define that carefully. And I think in the broadest sense, the term social justice refers to the effort to achieve equality, fairness and access to opportunities for all members of a given society.

[00:15:28] So in a very broad sense, that's what social justice is about. Social is dealing with society and justice of course is dealing with things like fairness, equality and things of that nature.

[00:15:45] Now one writer describes social justice this way. It's a truly just society. If we want to ask what that is, it's one in which the basic needs of every one are met.

[00:15:57] And the basic question to ask from this viewpoint regarding a just society is how does everyone get a fair equitable access to the means of life?

[00:16:13] So in the most basic sense, that is the kind of thing that social justice is concerned with. It's focused on having a just society and a just society is generally defined by fairness, equality and access to opportunities for people.

[00:16:31] And so if this is true, then it has implications for how any culture should care for the poor and those in need. People who are perhaps the lowest of society, not in terms of value as persons but in terms of need, the people who who need help and who need support and who need care, the weakest members of society, the most vulnerable members of society.

[00:16:58] So if you want a just society, how you treat those people is really going to be reflective of whether or not you have a just society to begin with.

[00:17:08] So this also means that if a given society wants to be a just society, it needs to be reflective on its laws to ensure that they uphold justice rather than promote injustice.

[00:17:21] So if we view social justice this way, in kind of this broad sense, it means that anywhere there is a perceived inequality, then this must be a case of social injustice. Anywhere there's a perceived inequality, this must be a case of social injustice.

[00:17:42] And so if we step back from that, there's nothing really controversial about that as it's generally stated. The controversies and the disagreements come of course over what does it mean to have equality in a society? What does it mean to have fairness?

[00:18:02] What does it mean to have access to opportunities for all members of a given society?

[00:18:08] And this is where you could go so many different directions and talking about this topic, because words like equality and fairness are loaded terms in many ways how someone thinks about what is what equality looks like, how it's to be achieved.

[00:18:27] How they think about fairness and what fairness means in different contexts and in different situations. All that is going to be informed by a lot of other value commitments in worldview commitments that a person already has in their background beliefs.

[00:18:42] So we're not going to be able to deal with all the nuances of that in this episode. I just wanted to define in a broad sense how some have considered social justice and what it's referring to. And I think that's sufficient for this episode.

[00:18:57] So now that we've gotten a broad sense of maybe what this term social justice means, one way to look at it, how do advocates of a social justice gospel appeal to the Bible?

[00:19:11] Now if we go back to what we discussed at the beginning, there is such a thing as different gospels we saw that. The Bible itself speaks of this. So on the one hand, we have the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[00:19:25] And that is a particular message. It's a particular thing. It has particular content and we can know that by actually going and reading what Jesus taught. And getting a sense for what the Bible is all about. What is the good news that the Bible communicates to us?

[00:19:42] So we have that on the one hand and then on the other hand, we have false gospels. And my point in this episode is that the social justice gospel is a false gospel. It is not the same thing as what Jesus taught.

[00:19:59] And yet there is a large segment of people who appeal to the social justice gospel as if this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. As if this is what Christianity is all about, as if this is what the Bible teaches and this is what you should believe.

[00:20:20] And as we'll see, when you start to understand the social justice gospel, you begin to see that things like the kingdom of God are entirely redefined.

[00:20:31] And the person of Jesus and his mission is entirely redefined. And the way you go about reading and interpreting the Bible is not accurate.

[00:20:39] So I want to spend some time now just talking about in a general sense how advocates of this false gospel, the social justice gospel appeal to the Bible to make their case.

[00:20:52] Now those who advocate for a social justice gospel, they often appeal to the Bible's many statements regarding God's concern for the poor and the outcast.

[00:21:02] And they will also appeal to Jesus' ministry of miracles and love for the outcasts of society as evidence that he was a social justice activist. Now remember, we mentioned we've talked about different gospels, well there's also different versions of Jesus that people have.

[00:21:22] And we saw this from Paul's passage in second Corinthians where he warned the Corinthians that there's people who are preaching another Jesus. Well, the social justice Jesus is another Jesus, not the same Jesus of the gospels. And we'll see this.

[00:21:38] But social justice gospel advocates teach about Jesus as if he was a social justice activist.

[00:21:48] So we'll get to that in a few minutes. But if we go to the Old Testament, there's passages in the Old Testament that speak about God's concern for the poor, God's concern for the outcast, God's concern for a just society.

[00:22:06] And so I'm just going to read a couple of these. So you'll get a sense for what this sounds like and you'll better understand how people appeal to them to make their case for a social justice gospel.

[00:22:21] So the first passage that you'll hear a lot is Micah 6 verse 8 and it says, mankind, he has told each of you what is good. And what it is the Lord requires of you to act justly, to love faithfulness and to walk humbly with your God.

[00:22:40] Another one is Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 24, but the one who boasts should boast in this that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord, showing faithful love, justice and righteousness on the earth for I delight in these things. This is the Lord's declaration.

[00:23:00] And a third passage is Exodus 22 verses 21 to 23. God says to the people of Israel, you must not exploit a resident alien or a press him since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.

[00:23:14] You must not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, they will no doubt cry to me and I will certainly hear their cry.

[00:23:24] So you can get the sense just from these three passages and there's many more that God cares about a just society. He cares about widows and orphans and immigrants not being mistreated in the context of the nation of Israel, he gave them specific commands like this.

[00:23:45] And we see things about God's character. God is a God who shows faithful love, justice and righteousness on the earth. He delights in these things.

[00:23:54] And then what is it that the Lord requires of you to act justly, to love faithfulness and to walk calmly with your God. And so generally people who are advocating for a social justice gospel, they're going to appeal to passages like this and they're going to say, see, this is what God is concerned with. God is concerned with justice. God is concerned with social justice and we should be too.

[00:24:18] And this becomes the emphasis in how the Christian life is to be lived and it ends up becoming the gospel. And we'll see more about how that develops, but those are just some passages in the Old Testament.

[00:24:33] When we get to the New Testament, many different appeals to Jesus statements had been made. And one is from Luke chapter four verses 18 through 19 and this is when Jesus and his minister, he goes back to Nazareth, the town of Nazareth where he grew up.

[00:24:49] He goes into the synagogue and he reads from the scroll of Isaiah. He reads a passage from Isaiah. And so this is where that's the context for this passage, and it's from Luke chapter four verses 18 through 19.

[00:25:03] And it says he, Jesus, came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. The scroll, the prophet Isaiah was given to him and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written.

[00:25:19] The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

[00:25:37] So Jesus seems to be saying here that he is the anointed one of God, he's been sent. He is the fulfillment of this prophecy from the book of Isaiah and why has he been sent?

[00:25:49] To preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

[00:25:58] And so this, in some people's minds, this is a classic text that talks about Jesus as a social justice activist. That Jesus was all about setting the oppressed free. Those who are oppressed by the powers at be, the powers of a given society, the religious elite.

[00:26:20] Jesus came to preach good news to the poor. He was advocating for the poor. And so the ministry of Jesus is characterized as in line with social justice activism by appealing to a passage like this.

[00:26:35] We can also go to the sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapter 5 verse 3 says, on saying that Jesus once again was about social justice in achieving a quality for the poor in his day.

[00:27:15] Now, if we go to some contemporary advocates of a social justice gospel, you can see this same sort of characterization of the ministry of Jesus and what the central message of the Bible is all about.

[00:27:30] So the first quote here is from a guy named John Pavlovitz who argues that Jesus is or was a social justice activist, and that this is what Christianity is about. So this is John Pavlovitz describing Jesus. He says, he was a compassionate caregiver and status quo changer.

[00:27:53] He was a gentle healer and radical activist. He was a wall destroyer and barrier breaker and lease lover. He was a shepherd to the people of the street.

[00:28:05] And he was a holy tear to the wolves wielding religion like a hammer against them. He poured out his life in acts of service and generosity in empathy and sacrifice.

[00:28:17] He made selfish, powerful and titled religious people the most uncomfortable because he welcomed everyone to the table and declared them equal with every breath he preached social justice with every act he engineered it.

[00:28:35] And so that's pretty clear. John Pavlovitz is saying that when you think about Jesus, you need to think social justice activist. When you look at his ministry and the things that he talked and the things that he did and what he stood for, Jesus was all about social justice.

[00:28:55] Now another writer named Kurt Struckmeyer, he has a website called following Jesus.org. And reading through a few articles on his website, he has one where he begins to discuss what the central message of the Bible is.

[00:29:13] And so this is what Struckmeyer says, it is the story of a God who liberates and oppressed people from a powerful empire and creates a remarkable covenant with them. Worship no other God than me and create a contrast society to the oppressive empires of the world.

[00:29:35] The biblical story that flows through the Old Testament is about God's strong desire to create an alternative community that is opposed to the values of empire.

[00:29:47] When the people strayed from a just society, especially after they created their own form of empire, God sent prophets to call them back to renewed social justice. Jesus emphasizes the alternative society as the manifestation of the reign of God.

[00:30:06] We can see it in the Jerusalem community and the book of Acts, and Paul created similar contrast communities throughout the Roman Empire. So if you step back from that, Struckmeyer is basically saying, the central message of the Bible has always been a message about social justice.

[00:30:24] That redeems the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, they're under oppression by the powerful empire of Egypt. God liberates his people from this oppression. He makes a covenant with them. He's to be their God there to be his people.

[00:30:40] And there to have this contrast society, so all the values of God's people in Israel are to be contrasted with the values of the great empires of the world that surround them.

[00:30:54] And when you go through the biblical story, this is what God's desire for Israel is. It's about having an alternative community that has contrasting values to the values of the empires of the world.

[00:31:07] And when the people strayed from this, that is what the message of the prophets was. It was calling the people back to social justice. And when we get to the New Testament, Jesus continues this same teaching.

[00:31:21] When he talks about the Kingdom of God, he's talking about a society, a kingdom of people who have values that are opposed to the oppressive values of the world.

[00:31:34] And that's what Jesus calls his people to. When Jesus calls people to himself, he calls them to have contrasting values to the values of the world and to establish the Kingdom of God here and to fight for social justice.

[00:31:49] And by the time you get to the book of Acts and you start to see the early church, when you get to the churches that Paul is planting, when you start to read Paul's letters, this is the same message, according to Strutmire.

[00:32:03] That's the narrative that he's communicating in this quote here. So it's good just to have that fixed in your mind. This is one way, this is a sampling of how some advocates of the false gospel, the social justice gospel advocate for it from a biblical point of view. Now what are some good things about this perspective?

[00:32:30] Is there anything in this that we can affirm? I've already said, this is a false gospel. This is not the central message of the Bible. This is not an accurate representation of what Jesus taught.

[00:32:44] But is there anything in this that is good? And I think there are a few things properly qualified. One is that it provides a reminder that God certainly cares about the poor and the outcasts of society.

[00:32:59] And as such, those who claim to follow Jesus should show compassion to those in need. It's true when you read throughout the Bible, God is very clear that he cares about the lowest of society. He cares about the widow and the orphan. He cares about those in need.

[00:33:19] And so when Christians, both on an individual basis and as part of their larger church family, they need to care for those in need in their community. There needs to be unawareness that following Jesus does result in loving one's neighbor. And that's important.

[00:33:41] And how that looks may look different in each community. But that is something that Jesus certainly cared about. Jesus certainly cared about the poor. God has a heart for the needy in his word.

[00:33:54] And so sometimes Christians can lose sight of that. We can get caught up in our own lives and our own routines, and we cannot think about those in need the way we should.

[00:34:07] And so that's this perspective by appealing to certain passages that talk about God's concern for those in need. It does provide a good reminder of that.

[00:34:18] Now alongside that, God is also concerned with people being treated fairly in society and for there to be just laws. When you go back and look at many things the prophets did say to the nation of Israel, it did concern in justices and sin that was being committed in society.

[00:34:38] So you had judges that were not upholding righteousness in the law. You had people who were not paying their workers fairly or not paying them at all. You had dishonest business practices.

[00:34:50] And so that's what I think is what I think is what I think is what I think of the people who are not doing this. It's a bit short-sighted to say that God is only concerned with their being fair laws

[00:35:27] to the exclusion of God being concerned with right worship, worship of himself. But the two go together in the prophets. When you read the prophets, you see a concern for a justice society because God's a righteous God and he cares about justice,

[00:35:42] rightness being upheld, but chief among that, the thing that influences that. The thing that matters most in that is who the people are worshiping. And the people of Israel had repeatedly turned away from God and began to worship idols

[00:36:00] and to serve false gods. And that was why their society began to break down and they're began to be sin at every level of society. So properly qualified, God is concerned about a justice society and for there to be just laws and for righteousness to be upheld.

[00:36:19] And of course when Jesus comes back, that's the way things are going to be. Now, the third thing that we can say here is that the church, God's people, should not fall into mere ritual religion but remember that the two greatest commandments are to love God

[00:36:34] and to love others. This was also something that God heavily criticized and condemned in the Old Testament when the people of Israel began to think that all God cared about was just going through the motions of sacrifices and festivals and things of that sort,

[00:36:53] and they thought they could just do those sorts of things and check the boxes and yet be living immorally and in opposition to his commands in every other area of their life.

[00:37:05] God made it very clear that that is not what he wanted and that that was not right. There's a statement in the book of Jeremiah about the people of Israel having the name of God

[00:37:17] on their lips and yet their hearts are far from him. And so some things included within a social justice approach to the Bible even though it's a false gospel overall certain passages that are

[00:37:31] appeal to and certain infacies that are made remind us that following Christ is not a mere ritual religion that our lives should display love for God and love for other people. And that's a good

[00:37:46] reminder. So after affirming those three things and there could be more, I want to talk about how this focus is a different gospel. So remember the main point that I'm trying to emphasize here is that

[00:38:00] social justice is not the gospel. This is a different gospel than what Jesus taught. This is not the message of the Bible. It's not the central message of the Bible, it's not an accurate way to

[00:38:14] speak about the kingdom of God and so we need to understand why this is because this is a big deal. So even though the social justice gospel contains some truths regarding God's care for the poor

[00:38:29] and the Christian calling to care for those in need, it is essential to understand that this is a different gospel. And we can see this from a quote from the screw-type letters. So this was a book that

[00:38:41] C.S. Lewis wrote, it was a very creative way to describe how a Satan works to deceive people and to work in their lives to keep them away from God. And in this quote, C.S. Lewis is through the mouth of a

[00:38:58] a demon kind of coaching a younger demon is speaking about how Christianity can be used that people can get in their minds. They can miss the real point of Christianity and they can get caught

[00:39:14] up in how Christianity and how Jesus can be used as a means to an end. And so he mentioned in this quote, how there is a deception where people can be let astray in thinking that Jesus is just a

[00:39:29] means to social justice. Christianity is just a means to accomplish something else, namely social justice. And I thought this was very illustrative of what we're trying to get at in this episode

[00:39:44] and so listen to this quote, it says we do want and want very much to make men treat Christianity as a means, preferably of course, as a means to their own advancement. But failing that,

[00:40:01] as a means to anything, even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the enemy demands and then work him on to the stage at which

[00:40:17] he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the enemy, we'll not be used as a convenience. Miner nations who think they can revive the faith in order to make a good society

[00:40:32] might just as well think they can use the stairs of heaven as a shortcut to the nearest drug store fortunately. It is quite easy to coax humans around this little corner. So that is a senior

[00:40:47] demon talking to a younger demon about a this strategy to deceive people into using Christianity as a means to another end and he gives social justice as an example there. And when he speaks

[00:41:02] of the enemy, he's talking about God there. So this is very subtle and it's why Christians need discernment because a person or a group or an organization, a church can have all the symbols

[00:41:19] of Christianity and they can use all the right terms. They can talk about Jesus. They can appeal to the Bible. They can re-bibble passages. They can go through similar things like a church service

[00:41:30] and they can sing songs in all this and yet the entire thing can be about something else. And that is why it takes discernment here and that's the sort of strategy of deception

[00:41:43] that CS Lewis is capturing here. And so the core problem I think with the social justice gospel is everything that is left out. And so while an emphasis on social justice calls for Christians

[00:42:00] to care for those in need and to fight against oppression, this is the kind of language that you're going to hear. It entirely ignores the reality of sin. It ignores the reality of God's judgment

[00:42:12] against sin. It ignores the reality of God's command for all people everywhere to repent of our sins, to turn away from them and to turn back to him. It ignores the reality of what Jesus has done

[00:42:28] in his life, death and resurrection to free us from our sins. The majority of the time if someone is adopted a social justice gospel, you will not hear them talk about sin. You will not hear

[00:42:44] them talk about much of what Jesus said. It will be cherry picking passages from the Bible to support a particular narrative rather than taking into account all of what the Bible says. And this is

[00:42:58] characteristic of false teaching. People are going to go to certain passages that seem to support their favorite viewpoint and they're going to ignore other passages which do not. And this is a classic case of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when you have a perspective that you think

[00:43:17] and you affirm and you point to all the things that seem to confirm what you already believe and yet you ignore all the evidence and anything that might contradict what you believe. You don't take everything into account basically. And what I'm not even hearing what I want to

[00:43:35] point out is that if you advocate for a social justice gospel and you want to describe the central message of the Bible, the ways that I've read from these quotes. If you want to describe the

[00:43:47] message of Jesus in his ministry as a social justice activist, you're going to have to ignore much of what we have about what Jesus said and did. And you're going to have to ignore much of the

[00:43:59] Bible and you're going to have to cherry pick it because that's the only way that you can have any semblance that this is what the Bible is teaching. And the reason is because it's not what

[00:44:10] the Bible teaches. As an example of this kind of thinking, I want to read another quote from Curt Struckmeyer and what you did notice how he makes a sharp distinction between what he calls personal salvation

[00:44:23] theology on the one hand and the reign of God on the other hand. So he says for centuries, personal salvation theology has obscured the deepest meanings of Jesus. Our traditional focus has been on personal salvation, not on individual or social transformation. The church has focused

[00:44:50] on individual redemption, not on the redemption of the social order. We have focused on maintaining and expanding the church, but not on building the reign of God. So notice what he's saying here.

[00:45:05] He's saying on the one hand we have personal salvation theology and this is an incorrect focus on just the individual and the individual's salvation. And then on the other hand we have a focus

[00:45:18] on the reign of God. And the Bible is about the reign of God. And we've gotten, we've gotten distracted from the true focus of the church, which is on building the reign of God and we have been

[00:45:30] incorrectly focused on personal salvation. Now in that quote there he doesn't give a ton more detail as to what personal salvation looks like, but from other portions of his writing that I'll kind of get into, we'll we'll kind of discuss that. But this is common. There's either no

[00:45:50] mention of personal salvation or there is a distinction made between the two. As if talking about personal salvation is somehow opposed to what Jesus came to teach and what His ministry was

[00:46:03] about, and this is set in opposition to the reign of God, which is really the kingdom of God. So there's a lot that could be said to point out and to help you see that the social justice

[00:46:17] gospel is a false gospel. It is not the same gospel that Jesus taught. There's a lot that we could do to point this out, but I just want to mention several things here. And the first one that

[00:46:30] then I want to talk about is the kingdom of God. So what does a social justice gospel say about the kingdom of God? Jesus taught much about the kingdom of God during his earthly ministry. You can't

[00:46:45] read the gospels and not come away knowing that Jesus said a lot about the kingdom of God. But according to some advocates of the social justice gospel, we shouldn't think about the

[00:46:56] kingdom of God in terms of an afterlife. So this isn't about heaven. It's not about anything like that. It's it's about the here and now. It's about what happens here on earth. It's about what happens here

[00:47:09] in this life. That's what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God. This is how it's described. And so what this means is that according to the social justice gospel, Christians work to bring about the kingdom of God that Jesus had in mind when they fight for social justice.

[00:47:29] So there's another quote from a Kurt Struckmeyer which brings this out. So he says the kingdom of God that Jesus described in metaphors and stories was the action of a social political movement inspired by the God of love to restore what Jesus believed

[00:47:48] to be God's intention for humanity from the very moment of creation. Rather than the Jewish dream or restoration of political and religious power through external divine action, Jesus painted a vision of God changing the world from within through the creation of a new

[00:48:06] community bonded together in new egalitarian social relationships. Jesus described what would happen when love finally broke through the hearts and minds of people to transform their actions and relationships into a society based on compassion, generosity,

[00:48:25] and equality. Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom had already arrived and could be clearly seen and entered into if a person underwent a radical transformation of the beliefs and values that conventional wisdom of power and success had implanted in their hearts.

[00:48:44] So there's a lot in that quote there but notice that Struckmeyer defines the kingdom of God as a social political movement. He says that this was in contrast to kind of what the Jewish

[00:48:59] hope for the Messiah and the kingdom was. The Jewish hope predominantly for the Messiah was that he would come and he would ever throw a Rome and he would establish a political and he would restore

[00:49:12] Israel to having the glory that it once had before Rome that Israel would have political might and religious influence. And that this was a very earth-centered way of thinking about the kingdom and Struckmeyer's correct that that is not what Jesus taught, that the kind of Messiah that

[00:49:35] Jesus came to be was something much different. However even though Kurt Struckmeyer gets that part of it right, he goes on to describe that this was about God establishing this new community that was all about egalitarian social relationships it was about having a society based on compassion,

[00:49:54] generosity and equality and that this was about people undergoing this radical transformation where their beliefs and values become flipped and they're no longer dominated by the way of the world, they're dominated by the vision Jesus had. And to some extent that's correct. Jesus in his teaching

[00:50:18] he did teach his followers that they weren't to lord their leadership over others like the Gentiles, he did teach them that greatness in his kingdom is about serving others. He did say that you're to love

[00:50:31] your enemies and pray for them. So there's some things here that are correct some principles it is correct that Jesus teachings did go contrary to the way of the world. However this is one of

[00:50:44] those cases where the statements made are true as far as they go, but it's the direction that Struckmeyer and others take these sorts of things that is in correct. But that quote there is just to illustrate

[00:51:00] what this perspective on the kingdom of God looks like when you go and read about what advocates of the social justice gospel have to say. So according to Struckmeyer the kingdom of God that

[00:51:10] Jesus preached it was the action of a social political movement inspired by the God of love and its essence is living a life of love and contrast to the world around us. So as I said there's

[00:51:23] a measure of truth in that but to describe the kingdom of God is a social political movement is not accurate. So what about this is problem that it? While Jesus certainly did teach that the two greatest commandments were loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves,

[00:51:42] he also taught much more about the kingdom. This is a great illustration of the principle that I taught before. The problem with the social justice gospel and how people appeal to the Bible

[00:51:55] to advocate for it is everything they leave out. What else did Jesus have to say about the kingdom? Well, Jesus preaching of the kingdom addressed human sin and the need for repentance. The very

[00:52:10] first words out of Jesus' mouth when he began his earthly ministry was this you can go find it in Matthew 5, 17. Jesus says repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near to repent means that you

[00:52:26] recognize that you're sinful before God it means that you recognize that you are living in opposition to God that you are not in a right relationship with him that you are at enmity with him

[00:52:41] that you have committed crimes against him that you have broken his moral law and that you stand condemned. It's to recognize that and then it's to turn away from living for yourself.

[00:52:56] It's to turn away from your sin and it's to turn towards God and it's to begin moving towards God and forsaking your sin. So Jesus from the very first moments of his ministry he connects this idea

[00:53:13] of repentance which is loaded with everything else I just said with the kingdom of heaven. Repent why? Because the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God has come near. In Luke chapter 13 Jesus is making a clear statement about the need for all people to repent.

[00:53:38] And he's answering some questions regarding some tragic events that happened to people in the ancient world during the first century. So he says it says at that time, some people came and reported to him

[00:53:55] to Jesus about the gallalians whose blood pilot had mixed with their sacrifices and he responded to them. Do you think that these gallalians were more sinful than all the other gallalians because

[00:54:08] they severed these things? No, I tell you but unless you repent you will all perish as well. Or those 18 that the tower in Salon fell on and killed do you think they were more sinful

[00:54:23] than all the other people who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you but unless you repent you will all perish as well. What's the point? Jesus is making there. You had these two

[00:54:37] tragic events that happened. One was a brutal murder that pilot had done to some people in gallalys, people who suffered at his hands and were killed and then you had some sort of accident where

[00:54:50] a tower fell on people and killed them. 18 people and Jesus is saying the fact that these events happened to these people does not indicate that they are any more guilty before God than anyone else.

[00:55:07] Rather, you that is the people who came to him and told them about these things, you should be concerned about the fact that all people need to repent because all people have

[00:55:19] sent before God and all people need forgiveness. All people stand under God's wrath and they need to repent and they need to turn back to Him and seek His mercy. That is the point that Jesus emphasized

[00:55:31] here. He was very clear about the need to repent from sin. What about Luke chapter 5 verse 32, Jesus clearly states, I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Again, a very clear statement about his purpose. He came to call sinners to repentance. Not people who

[00:55:54] think that they don't need God, not people who are self-righteous and who are think, they can achieve their own righteousness apart from God. Now he came to call sinners to repentance.

[00:56:06] So many more passages could be cited but the point that I'm making here is that the view of the kingdom of God articulated by struckmire and others who advocate for a social justice gospel.

[00:56:20] This says nothing about sin. It says nothing about God's judgment against sin and it says nothing about our need to repent and that is a serious problem because Jesus preaching of the kingdom,

[00:56:34] address human sin and the need for repentance. And if you're going to teach people about what the kingdom of God is and what Jesus said, you cannot leave that out because Jesus didn't leave it out.

[00:56:45] And if you do, you are purposely misleading people and leading them astray and that's a very serious thing. So Jesus also taught that in order to enter the kingdom of God, one must be born again.

[00:57:01] Now that phrase born again is something that even people who really haven't read the Bible much or who haven't really been in church are probably somewhat familiar with. But it's important to understand what Jesus is talking about because he says in John chapter 3 that this is the way

[00:57:20] that a person enters the kingdom. It's a way that the person can see the kingdom. They must be born again. And this is an image taken from God's promise and the Old Testament to give us people a new heart.

[00:57:33] So you can go to Jeremiah 31 and you can go to Ezekiel 36. These are both passages where God is talking about how he will give his people a new heart. He will give them a heart of flesh in place of their

[00:57:45] heart of stone. And it generally, without going to those passages and all the other ones we could go to to talk about this, when a person is born again, this involves a work of God where he gives a

[00:57:57] person spiritual life when they are spiritually dead. It involves a conviction of your own sins against God and a turning from them and towards God, so that's repentance. And this new birth is

[00:58:15] may possible by Jesus' own sacrificial death in our place because he took the punishment for our sins and his resurrection from the dead. And this new birth is applied to individuals when they

[00:58:30] personally respond to the gospel and trust in Jesus' work on their behalf. So the kingdom of God is advanced when individuals are personally transformed. But this personal transformation, it's not a mere matter of just willing to do the right thing or to fight for certain political causes.

[00:58:53] Rather, this transformation, it's a person turning from a sinful way of life that is opposed to God and being made new by his spirit. And it means that where a person was once an enemy of God,

[00:59:07] now they have been reconciled to him. Where a person was once under the wrath of God for their son, now they have peace with God. Romans chapter 5 makes that very clear, a phetians chapter 2 talks about

[00:59:19] this as well. So very, very clear things in the new testament. Now when God does this work in someone's life, it will certainly affect how they live and treat other people. If it's a genuine

[00:59:34] transformation, then that will certainly be the result. So this means that someone who really knows Jesus should be someone who cares for those in need and shows compassion as they have opportunity

[00:59:45] and as they come across needs. The point here is that the kingdom of God is not reducible to social and political activism. The kingdom of God is not a mere earthly enterprise. God's ultimate plan of

[01:00:01] redemption culminates at the end of the age when he judges evil once in for all, and he establishes a new heavens and a newer. And it's here that his people and God's people, those who are children of God,

[01:00:14] are all those who have trusted in Jesus and been made new. They will dwell with him forever. So on the one hand, struck my Resubvision of the kingdom of God, get some things right as far as it goes.

[01:00:28] The kingdom of God does involve people who have values and a way of life that is different from the way of the world. The kingdom of God is advanced by personal transformation, but where this thinking goes wrong

[01:00:42] is that it characterizes the personal transformation as not a conviction and repentance of sins and putting one's trust in Jesus for salvation and being born again, it characterizes it as basically

[01:00:57] trying to be a good person and trying to do the right thing and trying to fight for justice in society. And that is not the gospel. That is not what the kingdom of God is, that's not what Jesus meant by being

[01:01:10] born again. Jesus was very clear about what he meant by being born again and the reality of repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation with God accomplish through Jesus and apply through people trusting and His work personally is very clear in the new testament. So that's the second thing here.

[01:01:31] Jesus preaching of the kingdom addressed humans and the need for repentance. Jesus also taught that in order to enter the kingdom of God, that a person must be born again. Those things are crucial

[01:01:43] for his teaching about the kingdom of God. And I focus on the social justice gospel and what the social justice gospel says about the kingdom of God is not the same thing. Now a third thing

[01:01:57] here about the kingdom is that Jesus made very clear that his kingdom was not of this world. In John 18 verse 36, Jesus is talking to Pontius Pilate before his crucifixion and this is what

[01:02:12] Jesus says when he's asked by Pilate if he's a king. And Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. Said Jesus, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I wouldn't be

[01:02:27] handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here. So in context like a said, Jesus is speaking with Pontius Pilate before his crucifixion and Pilate has been asking

[01:02:41] Jesus if he is the king of the Jews. And Jesus does not deny that he's a king but he makes very clear that his kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. That is, it is not a political enterprise but

[01:02:54] it's a spiritual one. And Jesus goes on in the passage further to say that he came to testify to the truth and that everyone who is of the truth listens to his voice. And if you read about

[01:03:09] Jesus other teaching, it reveals that the truth he came to reveal was his own identity as the Son of God. He came to free his people from the dominion of sin and to make a way for us to be forgiven

[01:03:24] through his life death and resurrection. Now even aside from that, Jesus statement that his kingdom is not of this world should give anybody pause if they're tempted to think that the kingdom of God

[01:03:40] is reducible to this worldly social activism. That idea does not square with what Jesus taught about the kingdom. So more could be said here about the errors of the way the social just as

[01:03:56] gospel talks about the kingdom, but those are just three. Jesus was clear about the need for repentance and how this was associated with the kingdom. So you can't talk about the kingdom without talking about repentance and sin, and yet the social justice gospel does not talk about this

[01:04:15] at all. Jesus taught that in order to enter the kingdom of God, you must be born again. And that is a personal transformation that once again involves a recognition of your own sins against God

[01:04:27] and you're need to trust in Jesus and his life death and resurrection to save you from your sin and to bring you into the kingdom. And Jesus made clear that his kingdom was not of this world. So

[01:04:37] what he had in mind cannot be social and political activism in the world. The irony here is that people like struck Meyer will talk about if you ask them what the central message of the Bible is,

[01:04:51] they will begin to describe how the kingdom of God that Jesus talked about was opposed to the values of the world. And it wasn't some political and religious thing like the Jews had in mind,

[01:05:05] but then they go on to describe the kingdom as a political this worldly enterprise. And it's still the same error. That's not what Jesus taught. Jesus taught that his kingdom was a spiritual

[01:05:19] kingdom. The kingdom that he came to establish advances through the work of the Holy Spirit who can mix people of sin, of righteousness and of judgment and brings them into God's family,

[01:05:32] makes them children of God that will one day culminate in the new heavens in the new earth. All right so the kingdom of God is one area that we can look at to see where the social

[01:05:45] justice gospel goes wrong. Why this is a false gospel? We've looked at the some of the errors involved here in the thinking about what the kingdom of God is and what the central message of the Bible

[01:05:57] is. I want to spend some time now looking at what Jesus claimed about his own purpose. So in very significant ways, the social justice gospel misses entirely what Jesus claimed about his own purpose.

[01:06:14] As we saw before in the quote from John Pavlovitz, Advocate said the social justice gospel teach that Jesus was a social justice warrior. But if we want to be like the brands and we want to be

[01:06:30] discerning and we want to test what we're being told, we have to ask, does that actually line up with Jesus' own statements regarding his purpose? And I'm going to argue that the answer to that

[01:06:43] question is a definite no. So Jesus stated clearly that his mission was focused on the forgiveness of sin. We've already seen some of that from the passages that we've looked at and I'm not going

[01:06:55] to read all these passages but I'm just going to read off some themes from Jesus' ministry that he talked about. Jesus said he came to seek and to save the lost. That's Luke 19 verse 10.

[01:07:10] Jesus said that he was sent to save the world, not condemn it. That's from John 317 and Luke 956. Jesus came to call sinners to repentance, not the self-righteous. We already saw that one

[01:07:23] from Luke chapter 5 verse 32. Jesus said he came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many Matthew 20 verse 28. And finally, Jesus said he came to do the will of the

[01:07:37] Father which is to save all those given to him and that's from John 6 38 to 39. So you can go and look those passages up with the point here. Jesus stated clearly that his mission was focused

[01:07:50] on the forgiveness of sin. Now another thing that we can see when we read through the cospels is that when Jesus spoke of salvation, he was not referring to social justice but he was referring to forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. Again, the gospel's tell us that

[01:08:08] the Son, Jesus, was sent out of God's love for the world so that those who are spiritually dead could receive eternal life. That's John 3 verses 16 through 17. Those who reject Jesus and do not obey Him remain under the wrath of God. That's John chapter 3 verse 36. Jesus claimed and demonstrated

[01:08:30] his authority to forgive sins. Matthew 9 verse 6. And when he healed the paralytic, his first words to the paralytic were about forgiveness of sins. So this is a man who was brought to Jesus by his friends to be healed from paralysis and Jesus first words to him were about

[01:08:48] the forgiveness of his sins. And this tells us a lot about Jesus' central focus, especially since the friends of the paralytic brought him to Jesus to be healed physically. You can read about that

[01:09:00] in Mark chapter 2 among other places. And finally, Jesus responds to the woman washing his feet who was in an act of worship and repentance by focusing on how her sins had been forgiven. So that's John 7 47 to 48. Jesus says there that he ties the actions of this woman and

[01:09:22] the response of the Pharisees who's present to the forgiveness of sins. So this tells us a lot about what Jesus meant by salvation. He was not referring to social justice but forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. Finally, Jesus stated repeatedly that the way he would accomplish salvation

[01:09:42] for his people was through his life death and resurrection. Jesus states he came to bring division as there are necessarily two groups of people in response to them. There are those who follow him

[01:09:56] and those who do not follow him. There's only two types of people in the world. Jesus said and you can see that in Luke 12 verse 51. Jesus said that he must go to Jerusalem, be killed and be raised on the third day. Matthew 16 verse 21. And Jesus predicts his death

[01:10:15] in resurrection and he states clearly that he came for the hour of his death and subsequent resurrection. That's John 12 verse 27. And at the last supper, Jesus says his blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Matthew 26, 28. He's very clear on what the cross is about and

[01:10:38] what he's going to accomplish and why the cross is necessary. His blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And after he's

[01:10:51] been raised from the dead in Luke 24 verses 44 through 47 on the road to Amaz. Jesus explains to two disciples that he has fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah in his death and resurrection. So again, you can go look up all those pastures for yourself.

[01:11:12] I'm just making the point here that Jesus was very clear repeatedly that his death and resurrection, his life-death and resurrection were necessary to accomplish the salvation that he came to bring for his people. And that salvation was about the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God

[01:11:31] and that transformation that comes as a result of knowing God, of moving from a place of spiritual death where you don't know God and moving to a place of life where you do know God. A final mistake

[01:11:46] that the social justice gospel makes. So we've looked at the errors that it makes about the kingdom of God. We've looked at how the errors it makes when we look at the life and ministry of

[01:11:58] Jesus. And in this, this sort of overlaps with I think the other two to a certain degree. But the social justice gospel mistakes some of the fruits of the kingdom for the gospel of the kingdom.

[01:12:13] It mistakes some of the fruits of the kingdom for the gospel of the kingdom. Now the Bible clearly teaches that those who follow Jesus must obey what He says. Jesus says in Luke 646, why do you call me Lord Lord and don't do the things I say?

[01:12:33] First John 2 3 says this is how we know that we know him if we keep his commands. James chapter 1 verses 22 to 25, said, but be doers of the word and not here is only

[01:12:46] deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hero of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror for he looks at himself goes away and immediately forget

[01:12:57] what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and persevere in it. And is not a forgetful here, but a doer who works. This person will be blessed

[01:13:10] in what he does. And James goes on to say, what good is it my brothers and sisters? If someone claims to have faith, but does not have works? Can such faith save him? If a brother or sister

[01:13:22] is without clothes and lackstately food and one of you says to them, go and peace, stay warm and be well fed. But you don't give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith,

[01:13:34] if it does not have works is dead by itself. So very clear, if a person claims to follow Jesus, then the way they live their life and the way they treat other people should match that. That is a

[01:13:48] fruit of genuine faith in Jesus. If someone claims to know Jesus and yet they hate their brother or they hate people, they refuse to love people. Well this is evidence that they don't know

[01:14:00] Jesus. So that's very clear in the Bible. But that is a fruit of knowing God. Secondly, we can see that those who follow Jesus will reflect the character of Jesus and there's a lot of passages

[01:14:13] that you can appeal to for this. But I'll just read one of them first John 2 through through six says, this is how we know that we know him if we keep his commands. The one who says, I have

[01:14:25] come to know him and yet doesn't keep his commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word truly in him, the love of God is making complete. This is how we know

[01:14:37] we are in him. The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked. In other words, if you follow Jesus, your character and your life should look like it. You should be growing

[01:14:51] to look more like Jesus. And fundamentally, the new testament says that Christians are fundamentally and ambassadors for Christ and were tasked with sharing with others the message of reconciliation. This is the Gospel. Paul says here, second Corinthians 5, 17 through 21, notice what Paul says,

[01:15:12] the message of reconciliation is. He says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The oldest past away and see. The new has come. Everything is from God who has reconciled us to

[01:15:25] himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ,

[01:15:43] since God is making His appeal through us. We plead on Christ behalf, be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not know Son to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness

[01:15:59] of God. That is abundantly clear about how to think about what it means to be a Christian. How to think about what it means to be in the kingdom and how to understand the message

[01:16:14] that Christians are tasked with sharing with the world. It is not a message of political activism and social justice. It is a message of what God has done in Jesus Christ to reconcile

[01:16:28] sinful people to Himself and to save them from the wrath that they deserve for their sins. And that is every single person. Every single person needs to repent from their sins and come

[01:16:40] to Jesus to be forgiven and be made new. Paul speaks clearly of a personal transformation here. That's what it means to be born again. If anyone is in Christ, He is in new creation.

[01:16:52] The oldest passed away and see the new has come. And this involves being reconciled to the God that we were once at Inmati Wih and we are reconciled to God through the work of Jesus on our behalf.

[01:17:04] He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that Inmati Wih might become the righteousness of God. And if that has happened in a person's life, then this affects how we live

[01:17:21] in society. It affects how we treat other people and that should flow into care for other people and love for others. But caring for people and loving others and being concerned with justice

[01:17:36] in society, that's not the gospel. That is as far as it goes, fruits of the gospel. Now there's some final considerations here that I want to wrap up with. So we've talked about a lot.

[01:17:52] One thing I want to mention is that if we go back to how we defined social justice, I said that in general terms, one way you can think about this is that it's concerned with a society

[01:18:05] being equitable, with their being equality, with their being just laws and things of that sort. And I mentioned how even those terms, what does equality mean? What does it look like in any given circumstance? And how does one go about achieving it? What does fairness and

[01:18:24] justice look like in any given circumstance? What makes a just law? What's the criteria that we're using to judge that? And the complicating thing about that is that a person's world view will

[01:18:38] inform how they interpret those words. And it will inform what they think a just society looks like. And I can't get into all the details of the specifics in this episode, but I just want to

[01:18:52] mention that the way many people who advocate for a social justice gospel, they have bought into a certain view of what equality and justice and fairness looks like. They have adopted the same views of the secular culture on this. And so you end up getting people advocating for

[01:19:19] abortion as a social justice issue and describing abortion as a matter of reproductive justice and women's rights and all that. And so if you adopt the values of a secular culture and then you approach an issue in the culture like abortion. And then you want to tie that

[01:19:44] to Christianity. And you want to somehow say that fighting for this kind of policy in culture is in line with the Kingdom of God, then that's a problem because the moral questions and the moral

[01:20:01] status of abortion is very clear from a, from a biblical perspective. It's clear from a natural law perspective. It's clear from a scientific perspective in terms of the status of what a unborn child is. It's clear from a philosophical perspective in terms of what personhood is

[01:20:23] and things of that sort. So my point with that is not to get into abortion as a specific issue, but it's to make the point that when people advocating for a social justice gospel. When they

[01:20:37] want to say, this is what the gospel is. This is what Jesus taught. Therefore we should be fighting for a just and equitable society how a person thinks about what a just and equitable society looks

[01:20:50] like is informed by a lot of different things. And so on the one hand someone could be talking about social justice. They could be talking about Christianity and they could be using the language of

[01:21:02] Christianity, but they can be approaching the question of justice by adopting the values of secular culture. And in many ways that is what happens. And that is it's a related issue. It shows you

[01:21:20] that when you adopt a false gospel, that this is going to have other effects in your world view because the pattern that I'm referring to is when someone uses the language of justice from

[01:21:34] the Bible. And then they apply that in such a way that it undermines God's moral law. And so loving other people in the name of justice and supporting certain policies in the name of justice and in the name of loving other people becomes antithetical to God's clear

[01:21:54] moral commands. And God's good design for us as human beings. And that's a problem. So that's just something to keep in mind. Another thing to keep in mind is that this appeal to the prophets

[01:22:07] and the Old Testament already mentioned this a little bit, but many who argue for the social justice gospel appeal to the prophets. I already quoted Mike a six, say Jeremiah 924 and there's others as well. But it's important to understand passages in the Bible that speak about God's concern

[01:22:25] for Israel being a just society. You have to ask does that really support a social justice gospel because that's something entirely different? And I would argue generally the correct way to think about those passages is that they fit into the larger context of God's redemptive

[01:22:45] mission through Israel. And God's purpose through the nation of Israel was to have a people for himself who was holy as he was holy and through whom he would bring the Messiah who would bring

[01:23:00] blessing to all people of the earth, all families of the earth, and that through the Messiah a great nation would be made that was God's kingdom. When you go back and you look at God's promised

[01:23:11] Abraham, a Genesis 12, he promises to make Abraham into a great nation. And so you have to think about the mission of the prophets in line with God's overall purpose with Israel. And when you do that,

[01:23:23] my point is that these passages can't be used to argue for a social justice gospel. Now one final thing to consider, what about Jesus' parable of the sheep in the goats? This is from Matthew 25, verses 31 to 46 and you can go and read that. Basically this is a

[01:23:45] parable where Jesus seems to be saying there are two groups of people in the end at the end at the end of the age when he is on his throne. And it's today of judgment and he says that there's

[01:23:54] going to be people who are in the category of sheep and there will be people who are in the category of goats. And that the sheep will be on his right, and the goats will be on his left. And he goes through

[01:24:05] and the parable seems to indicate that the sheep that is the righteous were those who engaged in ministries of mercy to those in need. And this is where Jesus said that you gave me food when I was hungry.

[01:24:20] You gave me drink when I was thirsty. When I was in prison and when I was sick, you came to visit me. And then he says the righteous will say, Lord, when did we see you in all these situations

[01:24:30] and do these things for you? And Jesus' response was to say, whatever you have done for the least of these, you've done for me. Enter into the kingdom that's been prepared for you by my father.

[01:24:43] And then to the goats, to those on his left, he says, depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For when I was hungry, you did not

[01:24:52] feed me. When I was thirsty, you did not give me drink. When I was sick and imprisoned, you did not come to visit me. And the same pattern they will say, Lord, when did we see you in the

[01:25:02] state and not help you? And he says, whatever you have not done for the least of these, you did not do for me. And some have read this thinking, this seems to indicate that people who

[01:25:15] are engaged in these kinds of good works, ministries of mercy, helping the poor and all that, those are the righteous. And people who don't do this, people who refuse to help those in

[01:25:27] need, those are the wicked and those are the ones who will be condemned. And so this appears to teach that righteousness is achieved by works. And it specifically seems to indicate that people gain their righteous status before God through good works to others. And because these works are

[01:25:43] specifically ministries of mercy to those in need, it appears to support a social justice gospel. But the civil answer to this is that you have to remember that a good practice of biblical interpretation and it's this, never isolate any passage from its larger context. And when

[01:26:03] we take Jesus teaching and the rest of the Bible into account in regards to salvation, it's easy to see that this example in Matthew 25, it's an example of how those who really know Jesus and have been saved by Him will manifest authentic lives of love for other people.

[01:26:26] The righteous and the parable did not earn their righteousness by their good works. Rather, their good works revealed they truly new Jesus and had been saved by Him. And we've already even looked at passage is which indicate this. And when you look at the surrounding context

[01:26:42] for that parable in Matthew 25, you see that in chapters 24 and 25, what Jesus is dealing with is he's giving teaching concerning His return and what it looks like to be ready for His return.

[01:26:57] And so a significant point with that parable is that those who are ready for Jesus return, those who are in His family, those who are the righteous, those who love Him. They're those people who have trusted in Him personally for their salvation

[01:27:14] and they're those people who are living lives of love for other people because God first love them, because they've been made righteous in Christ and they've been given such grace. They are showing that kind of loving grace to other people. So that's the point.

[01:27:30] So why does all this matter? It matters because of false gospel and a false Jesus cannot save us from our sins. It matters because of false gospel and a false Jesus cannot bring about

[01:27:44] real change in people's lives. And it matters because of false gospel and a false Jesus contradicts the very source on which it claims to be based. The social justice gospel claims to be the

[01:27:55] gospel of Jesus Christ, but it's not. It undermines the gospel of Jesus Christ. The social justice gospel claims to be the central message of the Bible. The social justice gospel is not

[01:28:10] the central message of the Bible. This is a false teaching and if a church has been given over to this kind of teaching and they're not teaching the real gospel of Jesus then you need to find a

[01:28:23] different church because you're not being taught what Jesus himself taught and that's a very serious matter. So that's been the point of this episode just to show that the social justice gospel

[01:28:37] is an entirely different gospel than the gospel of Jesus Christ and I hope that it's been a helpful episode for you. There's a lot in here so hopefully it's given you some good things to think

[01:28:48] about. If you've got any questions or comments you can email me at reasonhotepodcast at gmail.com we have a website there's a contact form on there as well or you can contact me and if you enjoy this

[01:29:04] podcast please be sure to tell other people about it so they can hear it and benefit from it. If you have not subscribed to the podcast where be listened to it from please do so so you won't

[01:29:15] miss the next episode and remember that there is reason for hope in Jesus Christ.