False Teacher of the Day #19: Joseph Prince - By REFORMATION CHARLOTTE

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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We do not intend to defend Joseph Prince, we shall examine the author's deficient presentation. Further, if Joseph Prince is a false teacher, the author never gets around to actually demonstrating it or teaching us the correct view.

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Joseph Prince was born in May of 1963 to an Indian Sikh priest and a Chinese mother. During his earlier childhood, he lived in Malaysia. In 1983, Prince helped found New Creation Church. He was born Xenonamandar Jegahusiee Singh, but in 1990 he changed his name to Joseph Prince and was appointed senior pastor. He is married to Wendy Prince and has two children with her. In 2008, people started questioning whether or not he should be living as lavishly as he is.

In his book, Destined to Reign, Prince writes,

I distinctly heard the voice of the Lord on the inside. It wasn’t a witness of the Spirit. It was a voice, and I heard God say this clearly to me: ‘Son, you are not preaching grace.’ I said, ‘What do you mean, Lord?…’Every time you preach grace, you preach it with a mixture of law. You attempt to balance grace with the law like many other preachers, and the moment you balance grace, you neutralize it. You cannot put new wine into old wineskins. You cannot put grace and law together. He went on to say, ‘Son, a lot of preachers are not preaching grace the way Apostle Paul preached grace.’

There are two different heresies contained within this quote. The first is Montanism. Montanism is the modern claim of prophecy. (This is incorrect. Even the conservative gotquestions.org disagrees:

It was not the idea of prophecy that caused a great disturbance in the church. It was the manner in which they prophesied. They had departed from the biblical norms of prophecy, both in content and in the manner in which they expressed their prophesies.)

Further, the belief that the gift of prophesy persists to current times is not definitionally heretical. Modern day prophecy is not a core doctrine of salvation.)

If modern prophecy is true, Scripture must be either incomplete or insufficient, so claiming to get direct, divine revelation is to say Scripture is to reject the complete and sufficient nature of Scripture. (This is a false claim. We discuss sufficiency in detail here. We discuss the closed canon here. We discuss prophecy here.)

Furthermore, he is attributing his Antinomianism to God, lying about God, and making a blasphemous false prophecy. (The author will never demonstrate that Prince is antinomian. An antinomian believes that none of the law of God needs to be obeyed. If this is Prince's belief, the author does not document it.)

The second heresy in this quote is the heresy of Antinomianism. Antinomianism is a heresy that denies the Law of God and its necessity today. Prince does this by saying God told him that the Law and Grace cannot be balanced (Which is untrue; the Law and Grace were perfectly balanced at the cross). (A bare denial. If the author presumes to teach us, he needs to tell us from the Bible how Law and Grace were perfectly balanced, how the Law enters our lives today, and how Prince disagrees with this. He does none of this.)

He rips Mark 2:22 out of context to prove this point, further proving this prophecy is not from God. (Again and again the author makes bare assertions. What is the correct context for understanding Mark 2:22? What did Prince say that violates the context? The author explains nothing to us.)

Prince continues,

“Under the new covenant, we don’t have to keep on asking the Lord… for forgiveness because He has already forgiven us.” (Designed to Reign, Page 7)

Jesus taught otherwise. While Prince says to not ask for forgiveness, Jesus told us to pray, “… forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12, ESV) (Sigh. The author has had multiple opportunities to explain his view of doctrine and how that differs from Prince. But he passes on the opportunity each time. 

Perhaps he might look up the Greek word for debt [opheiléma] and discover that it has to do with what we owe God in repayment for our sin. Perhaps the author might explain the difference between forgiveness [a one-time event satisfied by Jesus' death on the cross] and periodic repentance [a repeated process done by Christians who sometimes depart from the teaching of the Bible]. 

Perhaps he might note the specific differences in doctrine between what he and Prince believes.

Nope.)

To claim that we should not ask for forgiveness because we have already been forgiven is as absurd as saying that we should not apologize to our spouses if we commit adultery if they have already forgiven us. It is ridiculous and absurd. (We were unaware that our wives had the ability to pardon our sins. In actual fact, we would be repenting for our transgression, subsequent to getting married, of the covenant we promised. This would not change the fact that we were married. 

This is similar to forgiveness offered by God for our status as sinners as opposed to our repeated failures as Christians.)

“The law is not for you the believer, who has been made righteous in Christ! The law is not applicable to someone who is under the new covenant of grace.” ​(​Unmerited Favor, ​Joseph Prince, Page 100, Emphasis in the original)

This is textbook Antinomianism, the exact same kind taught by Johannes Agricola in 1536 and Anne Hutchinson in 1636. He is even using the same language that Anne Hutchinson used (Namely, a misuse of the phrase “Covenant of Grace”) and he is teaching that the law no longer applies and that we are not obligated to keep God’s moral law. (Waaaiit. Is that what Prince is explaining? Where did Prince say we can go out and do any sin we like because the law doesn't apply?)

Paul addressed a form of this heresy in Romans 6:1-2 (ESV) by saying, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” The existence of sin in the Christian life presumes that there is still a moral law to be kept.

“Religion will tell you that ‘God’ wants you sick to teach you character and patience. Religion will tell you that ‘God’ wants you poor, so that you will learn humility. It sounds noble, doesn’t it? But these are LIES from the pit of hell!” (Unmerited Favor, Page 30)

This is the false gospel of the Prosperity Gospel. He is teaching that the idea that God wants you where He has you is a lie from the pit of Hell. (??? Where did Prince say this?)

Instead, Prince implicitly claims that God wants your physical health and financial prosperity.

“Sickness and diseases are not from God. On the cross, Jesus bore not just our sins, but also our sicknesses, diseases and infirmities, and ‘by His stripes we are healed!'”

In this case, Prince is directly stating that Jesus died for our physical health, which entirely neglects and distorts the real reason that Jesus died and preaches an entirely different gospel, which is no gospel at all, and he takes Isaiah 53:5 out of context to do so. (Again we find the author making unsubstantiated claims. Does Prince believe that Isaiah 53:5 applies ONLY to physical health? If Prince is negating the real reason that Jesus died, then why doesn't the author explain this real reason?)

“I give thanks to God for my roots in the Word of Faith teachings. It is truly on the shoulders of great men of God like Brother Kenneth E. Hagin that we are able to see further into the Word of God today.” (Destined to Reign, Page 271)

Here he is admitting to being a Word of Faith heretic like Kenneth Hagin and thanking God that he is one. Word of Faith theology is a heretical system of belief that teaches that human words have a God-like power to create, and it is a lie similar to the one of the serpent in the garden, who said, “You will be like God.” (We finally come to a substantial and documented criticism of Prince. We have no defense to offer for this statement, other than the fact that the author does not tell us what part of Hagin's teaching Prince likes.)

“God says to you, you have an edge, your edge is your mouth. You are righteous by faith, so speak. God’s favor is all over my business… whatever I do prospers.” (Christian Television Network, 11/18/2009)

I think Isaiah would disagree with this. He said in Isaiah 6:5 (ESV), “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah was to be put in service as a prophet. He saw a great vision and recognized his sinful status before a Holy God. But after his statement we read:

Is. 6:7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

It's these kinds of mistakes and false teaching that gall us. Isaiah was not telling us a universal condition of humankind, he was describing his own selection as a prophet. However, we have been born again, and we are encouraged to conform our words [and actions] to our new identity:

Col. 3:7-10 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Ja. 3:10-12 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt  water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers, can a fig-tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Without our new life in Christ, this verse would make no sense:

He. 13:15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that confess his name.

These are elementary points of doctrine, apparently beyond the understanding of the author.)

While Joseph Prince uses John 15:7 as a proof text, we must look at the overall context to determine if that is accurate. (The author can barely bring himself to quote Scripture. Let's do his work for him: 

Jn. 15:7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.

Now with the text before us let's consider the author's presentation.)

The overall text doesn’t appear to be about “Speak[ing] God’s Word over your situation” or “Power [being] released.” Quite differently, the passage is about God being glorified through believers bearing fruit and obeying His commandments (Commandments that Joseph Prince rejects). (Well, that's why he didn't quote it. John uses the verse as a premise for what follows:

Jn. 15:8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

That is, because remaining in Him we can receive whatever we ask for. As a result, this situation gives glory to God, specifically, bearing much fruit.

This is the crux of the issue. We quote the Scripture in context and supply the application. The author does not, preferring to use Scripture as a bludgeon.)

*Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from Learning the Path, a now-defunct website.