“The Gospel is Under Siege Again by the Very Man Who Wrote the Book on It!”

Dear Guests:

I want to encourage each of you to visit the Grace Family Journal. There you will find in the Special Edition section A Critique of Zane Hodges Article The Hydra’s Other Head: Theological Legalism, which you can download in PDF form. Here is a sample from one of the closing paragraphs:

Hodges once claimed in the opening sentence of an old Bib Sac article on the resurrection, “The central fact of the Christian faith is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Zane C. Hodges, “The Women and the Empty Tomb,” Bib Sac 123 (October 1966): 301. Are we now to be led to believe that a person can become a Christian without ever having to believe the “central fact of the Christian faith?” In addition, according to Hodges’s recent GES article which I am reviewing, John’s Gospel doesn’t even require belief in this “central fact of the Christian faith” to have eternal life?! I must confess that the Gospel is under siege again by the very man who wrote the book on it!

In his critique Pastor Rokser clearly demonstrates how the Gospel has been assaulted and put under siege by the man who wrote the book on it.

As a reminder, next week I will begin publishing Greg Schliesmann’s comprehensive review and critique of Hodges’s article. Here is another sample from Greg’s review:

In another incredible, unsupported claim about Scripture, Hodges says it is wrong to believe the term “Gospel...defines what a person must believe to have eternal life.”

We have always maintained that the term “Gospel” is sometimes used in Scripture in the general sense of good news. But to deny that the term “the Gospel” is ever employed to indicate the saving message represents willful denial of the clear teaching of verses such as 1Cor. 1:17-23; 4:15; 2Cor. 4:3-4; Eph. 1:13; 2Thes. 1:8; 2:13-14; and others. To suggest someone must be “conditioned” to understand the term “the Gospel” in these verses as the message one must believe to be saved is ludicrous. Quite the opposite! Someone must be conditioned and theologically blinded by Hodges’s theology to understand the term “the Gospel” in these verses in any other way than the message one must believe to be saved.

I’ll close with this compelling passage from the Inspired Commentary, which we must heed lest the “perverse things” of Zane Hodges, Bob Wilkin and the GES makes any new inroads into unsuspecting churches or fellowship of believers.

“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears,” (Acts 20:28-31).

See Perverse Things Draw Away Disciples

Yours faithfully,


LM

NOTE: At the GFJ’s Special Edition Take a moment to download Pastor Tom's Stegall's latest installment in his series The Tragedy of the “Crossless” Gospel, Part 9. It is titled, What is the Gospel According to the Galatians?. We will have more to report from Part 9 in upcoming articles.