No Other Jesus

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

There is danger in the effort to introduce Jesus into the culture different than He is revealed in Scripture.  And the Christians of the church in Corinth are rebuked for that very thing.

Though it is unclear exactly who it was that came into the Corinthians church and proclaimed a different Jesus, with a different spirit and a different gospel, the church seemed quite ready to receive it. The Apostle Paul describes these people in verses 13 and 14 of the same chapter: "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."

But what is the danger? Simple: the danger is to leave people deceived and yet believing that they are in Christ. However, they are believing on a false Christ. An imaginary Jesus cannot save, how can he--for it is a lie. Peter said that there is no other name by which we must be saved--and that still remains today (see Acts 4:12). 

And much the same thing is happening in the cultural Christianity that has grown in the post-modern era of our world today. Consider what happens when a person has gravitated to a mimic of Christ in some various media expression and they declare that they can now believe in Jesus because He was finally portrayed in a way that they could accept?  They don't look to God's word for the truth of Christ, they look to the modern rendition despite the fact that it bears so little resemblance to the Lord Jesus.

It comes back to the original lie of the enemy, "did God really say?" And buying the lie of an invented Jesus runs a terrible risk of keeping someone from the truth--exactly what the devil wants to do.

It is also what the world desires. Consider the words of 2 Timothy 4:3-4, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." A more comfortable, more agreeable and palatable Jesus is exactly what the world wants, for eventually they will have a Jesus that conforms to them.

There are two things you can do in the face of this.

First, hold fast to the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in God's word through the gospel. The rebuke of the Apostle comes at the church for their acceptance of a false Christ. Do not accept anything other than solid, Biblical truth. Second, do not readily put up with any other rendering of the Lord Jesus that does not conform to the Word of God. Many may call you all manner of pejorative names, believing that you've become stolid and unbending, don't give in.

Remember that the distortion of Jesus, even though much might be similar to Scripture, is like a drop of poison in an otherwise pure glass of water. Both are deadly, and it is a foolish thing to drink either.

In His Grace,
Pastor Michael

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