The Therapeutic Gospel and the Undermining of Justification

Author: Gary E. Gilley
Series: Sola Fide: The Heart of the Gospel — Why Faith Alone Still Matters in a Confused Age
Publication: Theology for Life

Introduction

In the not-too-distant past, virtually all students of the Scriptures would agree that the Church exists for two basic purposes: evangelism and edification. We are called to share the gospel with lost souls (Romans 10:14) and are to disciple those who come to Christ (Matthew 28:19). Edification takes place as the local church gathers to be taught the Word and to minister to one another (Ephesians 4:11–16; 1 Corinthians 12). But in order to truly evangelize the lost presupposes that the evangelist knows the gospel message.¹

But what if the message that many, if not most, are proclaiming is a mutilation of the biblical gospel? What if the message of justification, the good news of how through the cross-work of Jesus Christ, those who are dead in their sins can now be declared righteous before a holy God, has been changed to how troubled people can “find the good life, be self-fulfilled, enhance their self-esteem, and be prosperous”? Is this therapeutic gospel that I have just described the same thing as the gospel of redemption taught in the Bible?

The focus of this article is to draw a contrast between the biblical gospel and the therapeutic gospel. One can save, the other cannot. One offers reconciliation with God, the other reconciliation with self. One offers abundant, even eternal life in the presence of a holy God; the other claims to mark out the path for happiness. The first step in our analysis is to lay out the contours of the therapeutic gospel.

The Therapeutic Gospel

Before we dig into the content of the therapeutic gospel, a word should be said about motivation. Motivations are always hard to nail down, but in an attempt to be gracious, we should admit that many who are offering this distortion of the gospel do so with the best of intentions.

Having been influenced by a psychological culture, many may simply not know that the biblical and therapeutic gospels are not identical. Believing a softer, psychological approach is more winsome than the “old, direct, out-of-date” model used in the past. So, those who espouse the therapeutic gospel default to what they believe is most likely to draw people to salvation. Their motives might be commendable, but the misunderstanding of the content of their message needs to be reexamined. D. A. Carson lays out the issues:

It is hard, for instance, to deny the influence of pluralism on evangelical preachers who increasingly reconstruct the “gospel” along the lines of felt needs, knowing that such a presentation will be far better appreciated than one that articulates truth with hard edges (i.e., that insists that certain contrary things are false), or that warns of the wrath to come. How far can such reconstruction go before what is preached is no longer the gospel in any historical or biblical sense?²

A Personal Example

Recently I picked up a bulletin from a local evangelical church that offers a good example of Carson’s concerns. At the bottom of the sermon notes handout was a plan of salvation which was, in essence, a watered-down version of the “Four Spiritual Laws.” Here are the supposed four steps to salvation:³

• God loves you and has a plan for your life.
• We make mistakes and decisions that don’t please God.
• Jesus died on the cross for all the “bad stuff”.
• You can accept His forgiveness, follow Jesus, and become a Christian through prayer.

There are numerous problems with these steps, including no mention of the cross-work of Christ or the place of faith and repentance, but possibly the most glaring is the absence of any mention of sin. Sin is sand-blasted out of this statement and replaced with “mistakes”, “decisions that don’t please God”, and “bad stuff”.

Why would this evangelical church, one which places evangelism at the top of its priority list, want to shy so far away from using the word “sin”? And why, when it attempts to use synonyms as substitutes for sin, does it choose to use words that do not define sin? “Mistakes”, “decisions that don’t please God”, and “bad stuff” are lame alternatives for the biblical concept of sin. Rebelliousness, disobedience, transgressions, iniquity, evil, or wickedness might have been decent stand-ins, but not mistakes.

Christ did not die on the cross because we make bad choices or mistakes. He died because we are helpless, ungodly sinners who happened also to be the very enemies of God (Romans 5:6–10). And we do not become Christians by asking God to “forgive our mistakes”, we become Christians when, after recognizing our lost condition we, by faith, repent and receive Jesus Christ and the gift of God’s saving grace (John 1:12; Ephesians 2:1–10).

What would provoke an evangelistic-minded church to so alter the gospel message as to gut it of (as Carson says), “its historical and biblical sense”? Almost certainly their motivation is a noble one—the desire to see people get saved. But they fear that very few will respond to a gospel which calls sin, sin and identifies unbelievers as ungodly, rebellious enemies of God.

With Robert Schuller they apparently suppose “[o]nce a person believes he is an ‘unworthy sinner,’ it is doubtful if he can really honestly accept the saving grace God offers in Jesus Christ.”⁴ Such Christian leaders simply do not believe the unaltered gospel message, as presented in Scripture, will draw the seeker to Christ. It is too offensive, too degrading, and too foolish to be appetizing. If we are to entice unbelievers to Christ, we must somehow make the foolishness of the cross attractive to sinners.

Therapeutic Influencers

The therapeutic infiltration within evangelicalism at large—that filters down to the gospel itself—stems from scholars, professors, and others who have integrated secular psychological theories with biblical teachings. This integration has been passed down to influencers, authors, and podcasters, who spread the message to their audiences.

Among the many popular promoters of the therapeutic gospel are the following:

Rachel Hollis, in her book, Girl, Wash Your Face, which has sold millions, focuses not on the gospel but her formula for the good life, which (in her opinion) is that everyone should chase his/her own dreams, no matter how wild or ridiculous they might seem, “because you are worthy of wanting something more.”⁵ If we will but believe in ourselves, chase our dreams, and follow her formula, then all will work out in the end, and we will find success as she has—or so she promises.

She claims the greatest lesson she can give her readers is that “only you have the power to change your life.”⁶ This is a message that resonates with our culture, but is not the message of Scripture. Concerning the gospel, Hollis says, “I studied the gospel and finally grasped the divine knowledge that I am loved and worthy and enough…as I am.”⁷

Jen Hatmaker, in Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire, agrees, “I am exactly enough.”⁸

Rick Warren’s gospel presentation in his best-selling book, The Purpose-Driven Life, leaves much to be desired. In the video that accompanies the “40 Days of Purpose”, Warren leads his listeners in prayer at the end of the first session.

The prayer goes like this: “Dear God, I want to know your purpose for my life. I don’t want to base the rest of my life on wrong things. I want to take the first step in preparing for eternity by getting to know you. Jesus Christ, I don’t understand how but as much as I know how I want to open up my life to you. Make yourself real to me. And use this series in my life to help me know what you made me for.”⁹

Warren goes on to say: “Now if you’ve just prayed that prayer for the very first time, I want to congratulate you. You’ve just become a part of the family of God.”¹⁰ Warren would be hard-pressed to find biblical backing for this presentation of the gospel. There is nothing here about sin, grace, repentance, the person of Christ, Calvary, faith, justification, judgment, or the resurrection.

This is the ultimate in a mutilated, seeker-sensitive gospel: the seeker comes to Christ in order to find his purpose in life, not to receive forgiveness from sin and the righteousness of God. Then, to pronounce someone a full-fledged member of the family of God because he has prayed such a prayer (based on minimal, if any, understanding of the person and work of Christ) is beyond tragic.

Christian Smith, who coined the phrase “moralistic therapeutic deism,” identified five beliefs of the typical teen in 2005 (who are now adults). Those beliefs included that God wants people to be good and nice; the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself; God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when He is needed to resolve a problem; and good people go to heaven when they die. These young people have fully absorbed the therapeutic gospel.¹¹

Jim Davis and Michael Graham, authors of The Great Dechurching, suggest that “over the last fifty years, it appears fewer people are asking: Is Jesus true? And more are asking, ‘Is Jesus good?’ and ‘Is Jesus beautiful…’ People are longing for a better self, city, country, and world, and nobody seems to have the answers.” They go on to claim that the old gospel message of the 20th century is inadequate for the 21st century because “the pain point is less the soul-felt burden of individual sin and more a burden of what vision promotes human flourishing and discourages injustice… [unbelievers need to see a] Christianity [that] actively promotes human flourishing.”¹²

This is just a sampling of the multitude of examples of “Christian” leaders who do not believe the biblical gospel is adequate. It is out-of-date, out of style, no longer culturally acceptable, and if we want to win people to Christ, we must proclaim a therapeutic gospel that relates well to the spirit of our age.

Proclaiming an Offensive Message

There is nothing new to this approach; it is as old as the New Testament. The Apostle Paul apparently was under similar pressure to produce converts. Some at Corinth seemed to be leaning on Paul to preach a gospel-lite that would incorporate some of the in-vogue wisdom so popular among unbelievers in the first century. At the very least Paul should not be so offensive—he was turning everyone off, Jew and Gentile alike, by insisting on the centrality of the cross.

What was Paul to do? First Corinthians 1:18–30 is the answer. Verse 18 sets the stage: “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Our perspective on the gospel is determined exclusively by our relationship with the Savior. To the lost, the good news is foolish; to the redeemed it is the power of God.

It is of utmost importance that we wrestle with the truth that the unbeliever views the cross as foolish. This being the case, in our attempts to evangelize, there appear to be two options. We can present the gospel exactly as Scripture describes, knowing that its message will repulse the unbeliever devoid of the enlightening ministry of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17–18; 4:6). Or we can attempt to “unfoolish” the gospel by altering the message enough to make it sound enticing to unregenerate minds.

In 1 Corinthians 1:22–23, Paul affirms that what the unsaved person seeks is foreign to the gospel. Jews asked for signs, while Greeks searched for wisdom. A marketer would give the audience what they wanted—de-emphasize the negative and accentuate the positive. But Paul saw clearly that danger lay in filtering out what might offend. To be true to the gospel, the offensive part would not only have to be retained, but emphasized.

This emphasis was not for the purpose of intentionally stepping on toes; Paul sought not to unnecessarily offend (1 Corinthians 9:19–23). But to tamper with the gospel’s essence in order to attract a wider audience is to create “a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6).

The central piece of the gospel, which was so offensive to the Corinthians, was the cross. In the first century it carried disgraceful connotations. The Roman Empire reserved crucifixion for rebellious slaves, the worst of criminals, and defeated foes. Gentiles viewed crucified men with disdain. Donald Green writes, “This animosity toward crucified men was deeply engraved on the social consciousness of the world to which Paul brought his message about a crucified Savior.”¹³

For the Jews, things were even worse. “Though Gentiles viewed crucifixion as a punishment reserved for detestable people… the Jews believed the victim was cursed by God (Deut. 21:23). Consequently, the stigma went beyond social disgrace to a declaration of God’s spiritual judgment against the victim.”¹⁴

The Greek word translated “stumbling block” is skandalon (from which we get our word “scandal”) and refers to an enticement to apostasy and unbelief. “In other words, the spiritual offense of the cross actually worked to make some Jews go astray…”¹⁵

Paul was not ignorant of the fact that the preaching of a crucified Savior would dull the attractiveness of the gospel; it would be a major impediment. Yet he would not minimize the cross, for to the “called” the crucified Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).

In the 21st century, the cross is often sentimentalized. Still Paul’s point stands: the gospel continues to offend—whether through its insistence on sin and repentance, receiving by faith One we have never seen, or denying ourselves and taking up our cross (Matthew 16:24).

The gospel is not a message about getting ahead in life or finding the key to happiness. Paul stayed focused on what was essential. “‘Christ crucified’ was not a ‘seeker-friendly’ message in the first century. It was an absurd obscenity to Gentiles and a scandalous oxymoron to Jews. The gospel guaranteed offense.”¹⁶

Paul’s example should discourage us from selling out the gospel for perceived evangelistic success. We must proclaim the message given in the New Testament and let God give the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6–7). The therapeutic gospel tries to “unfoolish” the gospel by making it palatable to those shaped by the psychological propaganda of our age. But it offers what people think they need—comfort, prosperity, success, and self-focus—instead of what they truly need: justification, reconciliation with God, and forgiveness of sin.

Conclusion

In the end, the therapeutic gospel offers no good news at all.

Footnotes

1. Romans 10:14; Matthew 28:19; Ephesians 4:11–16; 1 Corinthians 12. ↩
2. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 488–489. ↩
3. Bill Bright, Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws? (Orlando: Campus Crusade for Christ, 1965). ↩
4. Robert H. Schuller, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1982), 98. ↩
5. Rachel Hollis, Girl, Wash Your Face (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2018), 4. ↩
6. Ibid., 45. ↩
7. Ibid., 67. ↩
8. Jen Hatmaker, Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2020), 21. ↩
9. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), “40 Days of Purpose” Session 1 video/prayer. ↩
10. Ibid. ↩
11. Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 162–171. ↩
12. Jim Davis and Michael Graham, The Great Dechurching (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023), 52–54. ↩
13. Donald E. Green, The Meaning of the Cross (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1963), 42. ↩
14. Deuteronomy 21:23; cf. Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 85–90. ↩
15. See discussion in Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 85–90. ↩
16. See summary of the offense of the cross in Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 85–90. ↩