The Gospel 2.0

Unless you've been living in the constellation Orion for the last few decades, you have heard of the New Age movement, as well as its attendant hodge-podge of pseudo-spiritual beliefs and practices collectively referred to as the New Age religion.

I have commented on certain aspects of things New Age in past articles, and possibly as a result the idea just got stuck between my teeth. I just felt strongly that the Holy Spirit wanted me to take aim and pump a few rounds right through this monster's heart chakra.

Twenty, to be precise.

The New Age religion has essentially no comprehensive doctrinal structure or cohesive dogma per se; instead, one is confronted with a veritable potpourri of diverse ideas and beliefs that is so nebulous that it makes logically reconciling or refuting those beliefs something akin to arm-wrestling a jellyfish.

As a result, not all who might refer to themselves as New Agers share the same beliefs or espouse the same ideas or principles, or espouse them in the same terms. So, it is quite likely that not all of the twenty items I have listed below apply to all within the New Age movement.

The problem from the Christian perspective is that elements of the New Age religion have been quietly seeping into mainstream churches in America for years, and the result is as sickening as it is tragic. It's causing the gospel of Jesus Christ to metastasize into man-centered mush and it has succeeded in turning a lot of what is coming from many pulpits today into pseudo-spiritual Cream of Wheat couched in Christian buzzwords.

And on the other side of those same pulpits, it is sad and troubling that so many sincere but naive believers within the Church whose grounding in the Word is not what it could (or should) be are allowing themselves to get involved in what seem to be harmless—in fact positive and beneficial—practices that seem to exude a sweet aura of healthy spirituality, but in reality trace their lineage back to the cesspool of mysticism and the occult.

And you don't usually have to trace back very far.

People think it feels s-o-o spiritual. And if it feels spiritual, it must be the Holy Spirit. And if it's the Holy Spirit, it must be from God.

But it's not.

God's Word tells us plainly to shun all meditative and occult practices, or anything involving altered states of consciousness or any sort of interaction with the spiritual realm except prayer, which is conscious and direct communication with God—with the brain God gave you fully engaged.

In other words, just pray. To God. Don't try to "contact the spiritual realm." Just pray. He hears anyone who seeks and approaches Him in faith.

The New Age religion has played a role in the development of a "new and improved" version of the gospel. It's a new Jesus for a new generation, and a vanguard of hip, self-appointed "apostles" and "prophets" are shaking off the dusty old dogma of the past, tossing those antiquated Bibles into the backseat, and ushering into the Church a new paradigm.

"Yeah, that's what we need—a new paradigm. Cool."

It's the gospel for the twenty-first century.

The gospel 2.0.

My goal in writing this article is not necessarily to convert hardcore New Agers—that is, crystal-toting, transcendental-meditating, astral-projecting Gaia worshipers who are busy raising their spiritual vibration levels in the hopes of ascending to the fifth dimension. (Of course, that doesn't stop me from praying that the Holy Spirit would soften the hearts and open the eyes of a few.)

My goal here is simply to wake a few people up, some of whom may even be born-again believers, who may be dabbling with a few things like meditation, yoga (oh, all right, "Christian" meditation and "Christian" yoga...whatever), contemplative prayer, and so forth, and who are innocently and perhaps unknowingly being seduced by the siren song of the New Age religion.

The problem is that once people start down that road, it doesn't take very long until God is no longer the same old Creator of the universe, Jesus is no longer the same old Savior of the world, the Bible is no longer the same old infallible Word of God, and they soon reach the point where their hearts and minds are prepped for even greater deception.

What follows is my own little Top 20 list of some of the fundamental beliefs and claims of the New Age religion (NAR), juxtaposed with what the Bible (BIB) has to say. I just want such people to understand what it is they are playing with, because the seduction can be so gradual and so alluringly spiritual.

I know—it nearly happened to me. And I know it's happening to others. But God is faithful, and when the time was right the Holy Spirit grabbed me by the ear and marched me right out of there.

And I pray He does the same for someone out there reading this article.

Forgive me if I take a little extra time with this one, but it's absolutely crucial. This is the bone that all other religious systems choke on, especially the New Age religion: the fact that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.

Some insist that Jesus never actually claimed to be God. I've heard sincere people—particularly Muslims—jump up and down screaming that Jesus never said any such thing. And it's true in a sense: You cannot point to any one verse in the Bible where Jesus actually says the words "I am God."

The prophets said it all: The fact that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah sent from God does not depend on whether or not Jesus ever actually said He was God. Jesus' genealogy, birth, life, ministry, miracles, death, and resurrection all fulfilled hundreds of Old Testament prophecies to the letter, and would still positively identify Him as such even if He never said a word about being the Son of God.

But did He? That's the question. Well, let's see what the Bible says.

In John 5, we read that Jesus made a lame man walk on the Sabbath, and then told the guy to pick up his mat and walk (which Jesus knew was an obvious violation of the Pharisees' long list of picky little rules concerning "keeping the Sabbath"). And sure enough, just as Jesus knew they would, it wasn't long before some religious Jews spotted the man toting his mat around:

Jesus wanted to convey to them that He was the sovereign Lord over all of creation, including the Sabbath, a commandment from God that the Jews took very seriously. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus explains that...

In John 8, Jesus had just called a group of hard-hearted, unbelieving Jews "sons of the devil" because they wouldn't receive His teaching, and the Jews countered with righteous indignation that they were sons of Abraham:

Now, don't miss this. The Jews knew their Old Testament—they knew exactly what Jesus meant when He said "I AM." Even though John recorded Jesus' words in Greek, the Jews knew He was referring to the Hebrew name that God revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus—the name represented by the four Hebrew letters yod-hey-waw-hey, or YHWH, and typically read as "Yahweh" (Exod. 3:13–14).

There's no getting around this one—every Jew present understood that Jesus was saying, in no uncertain terms, that He existed as God along with God the Father, Yahweh, from eternity past.

In other words, Jesus was saying that He was nothing less than the physical manifestation of God. And let there be no doubt—this was blasphemy of the highest order, and every Jew in Judea knew that it was punishable by death. Notice that the instant Jesus spoke the words "I AM," the Jews were immediately ready to stone Him on the spot. End of conversation. That's how clearly they grasped the import of what Jesus had just said.

I could go on with a list of verses as long as my arm, but I trust you're getting the flavor of it. Repeatedly throughout the New Testament Jesus made it crystal clear to the Jewish religious leaders that He was literally God in the flesh—the only human to ever fully manifest the essence of God the Father—because God the Father quite literally was His Father.

Incidentally, not only did Jesus make it clear to them that He was God in the flesh, but in numerous places throughout the New Testament Jesus is both worshiped (Matt. 2:11; 14:33; 28:9; John 9:38; Heb. 1:6) and prayed to (Acts 7:59; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 10:12–14), both of which were absolutely restricted to God alone in Jewish culture.

So, if you're still not satisfied that Jesus claimed to be God, don't tell that to the first century Jews—they repeatedly accused Him of blasphemy and sought to kill Him, and ultimately succeeded in getting the Romans to arrest and execute Him for it (only because the Jews had lost their formal legal authority to carry out capital punishment).

Now, it's true that the Pharisees and other Jewish religious leaders were intensely jealous of Jesus and hated Him with a passion because the people recognized that, unlike the Pharisees, Jesus taught as one with genuine spiritual authority. Not only that, but Jesus routinely made it a point to expose them in public as self-righteous fools and hard-hearted hypocrites who had strangled the truth of God's Word with petty legalism.

But think about it: If Jesus never implied or suggested in any way that He was in fact the Son of God—God in the flesh, then why did they keep accusing Him of blasphemy? They could have conspired to have Jesus arrested and put to death on trumped up charges of murder, robbery, treason, insurrection, or whatever. It's not difficult to imagine them framing Jesus for any number of heinous crimes.

Yet their legal accusations against Him consisted of charges of blasphemy. That is a documented historical fact. Make no mistake: The Jews were out to get Jesus for nothing less than representing Himself as the physical manifestation of their God Yahweh—the essence of God in a body of flesh.

Two thousand years later, the world is still out to get Him for the same thing.

No, Jesus wasn't just some great master. Keep reading.

Nice try, but Jesus is not a "consciousness"—He is the Son of God. He always has been and He always will be. He alone.

Jesus is the second Person of a triune Creator, a concept also referred to as the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three are God, and all three together are God. This is the reason why one of the Hebrew words that is translated "God" in the Old Testament is plural: Elohim. And no, it doesn't mean God is a race of aliens—it means He has a triune nature.

If that causes you problems, here's one way to think of it: You see a triune being every time you look in the mirror. Why? Because God created you in His image. You are a spirit, you possess a soul (intellect, emotions, and will) and you live in a body. In certain situations, each could be considered you. But all three together are you, too.

Look, I can't fully explain the Trinity. Nobody can. Our puny little three-dimensional pea-brains are simply not equipped to fully grasp it.

But the Bible does make it clear that Jesus (not as a physical man, but in the spiritual realm) existed as God from eternity past, from before the foundation of the world. God the Father sent His Son into the world to be born of a virgin as a man two thousand years ago—a fully human man in a body of flesh in whom dwelt the full essence of God, that is, the visible image of the invisible God—in order to die to take the punishment that was due sinful men.

I don't want to drift too far into theological waters here, but be aware that the fact that Jesus was fully human and fully God is biblically required for two critical, fundamental reasons:

First, He had to be fully God (and He was through His Heavenly Father) in order for His sacrifice to be of sufficient value to pay the penalty for man's sin against an infinitely holy God. Since Jesus had not inherited a sin nature from Adam, He was the only one so qualified. That is, perfect justice requires a perfect sacrifice to satisfy an offense against a perfectly holy God.

Second, He had to be fully human (and He was through His mother Mary) to be qualified to take man's place in judgment. That is, justice requires that a man pay man's penalty.

Think of it this way:

• A perfectly holy God couldn't tolerate man's sin, which is not merely certain behavior—it springs instinctively from man's sin nature.

• A perfectly just God had no choice but to judge man's sin.

• A perfectly loving God chose to inflict the penalty for man's sin on His own perfect Son, who was willing to take on the form of a man in order to do it.

The Bible says it pleased God to crush Him, and God did it so that He wouldn't be forced to punish us. If we are willing to (a) admit that we are sinners in need of forgiveness and (b) believe in faith in what Jesus did for us and ask for the forgiveness that Jesus purchased for us with His blood, God will forgive our sins, impute His Son's righteousness to us, and the Holy Spirit will take up permanent residence in our spirit. Then we are born again, born of the Spirit.

That's how we are adopted into God's family, and it's pretty much that simple.

If you were under the impression that it was complicated, you may have been exposed to Roman Catholicism, heaven forbid. Not to bash the Catholics or anything because there are plenty of Catholics who are good people, but the Roman Catholic Church—as an institution—has been knocking itself out to bury the gospel message under ton after tedious ton of pious, man-made rituals and the useless traditions and superstitions of revered yet unregenerate men for over fifteen centuries—and they're good at it.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ is as simple as it is life changing.

Life changing, yes. Complicated, no.

I pray that the message of the gospel—in all its child-like simplicity—would penetrate the heart of every person who hears it through the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, New Ager or otherwise, because that's what it takes to break the bondage of sin and throw off the yoke of Satan's lies.

Yeah, sure you can. Look, truth is truth, and cannot be dependent on what any one individual believes. If you can create your own truth, then what about other people? If you create your truth and I create my truth, and your truth contradicts my truth, somebody doesn't have the truth. True? I mean, look me in the eyes and tell me this one isn't stupid.

It just sounds good (as long as you don't think about it too hard).

On the other hand, we have God's authenticating signature of fulfilled prophecy to confirm that the Bible is indeed God speaking His truth to us.

Maybe we should listen.

This is moral relativism, a close cousin of No. 4—and like no. 4, the longer you think about it, the less sense it makes. God is perfect, and so are His laws: If you break one, you are as guilty as you can be...

The very reason God gave us His law in the first place was to convince us that we couldn't possibly keep it! He did it in the hopes that it would make us realize that our only hope of salvation was to repent of our sin and put our faith in the fact that Jesus died to take our just punishment.

And just to be clear—if you do not, that judgment remains in effect and will ultimately be carried out on you-know-who.

By the way, I sometimes hear people demand to know what people were supposed to do before Jesus came:

"So, Mr. Smarty Pants Bible Dude, how did people get saved before Jesus was crucified? Do you expect us to believe that every single person who lived before Jesus went to hell? Hmph...that's some loving God you got there."

Relax, nobody got a raw deal from God. Before Jesus, if Jews had faith in God and in His promise of a coming Messiah who would take away their sin and demonstrated that faith by offering the appropriate sacrifices according to the Law of Moses, their sin was temporarily covered and God considered them righteous. In other words, although they didn't know Him because His appearance was yet future, they were in essence still saved by faith in Christ—the only way anyone ever has or ever will be saved.

When Jesus was crucified, He became the perfect sacrifice and faith in His finished work of atonement was all that was required for salvation. The law was fulfilled, and sacrifices which temporarily covered sin became obsolete because the work of Christ that they foreshadowed had come to pass. Since then, only belief in faith in Christ's finished work on the cross is required.

No, you don't have a divine nature. Keep reading.

No, that's not your only sin. Keep reading.

Co-creator with God. Ground Control to Major Tom... This is almost as stupid as no. 4 about creating your own truth. Keep reading.

Nos. 6, 7, and 8 basically grow out of this one. Pantheism (God is everything and everything is God) and panentheism (God's essence is in everything) are bedrock principles of the New Age religion. Whichever one happens to be espoused, the result is pretty much the same—God's "divine essence" is within you. OK, so maybe God is a little bit goddier than you are, but hey...

Congratulations! You have a divine nature!

Well, isn't that special.

Do not, I repeat do not bite on this one.

This is the one error that has sent and will continue to send more legions of people to hell than any other single error. This is the crowning jewel in Satan's Treasure Chest of Deception, and it has been Satan's go-to tactic ever since the Garden of Eden.

The concept that you already have God's essence dwelling inside you—so you can cultivate it and become like God—is so intoxicatingly self-inflating that once people buy into it, it's difficult for them to flush it out of their system.

Unfortunately, there is nothing that so completely undermines and obviates the simple message of the gospel—that you are a sinner in need of a Savior.

You see, if you already have the "divine essence" of God dwelling within you, then that whole sinner-in-need-of-a-Savior thing (which, by the way, is the entire message of God's Word from start to finish) kinda doesn't make any sense, now does it? And that's not the worst of it.

It makes God less than the Creator.

It makes Jesus a liar or a lunatic.

It makes God's Word laughable nonsense.

But it makes sinful men feel great about themselves just the way they are (with no need to worry about things like sin, repentance, hell, or any of that cornball fire-and-brimstone jazz).

Please tell me you see a pattern developing.

God alone is worthy of glory, and we certainly don't exercise any control over Him—we were created by Him. But we are sinners, and because we are sinners our initial interaction with God is the conviction of the Holy Spirit that (hopefully) leads to repentance.

The pursuit of altered states of consciousness is the bread and butter of all forms of mysticism, and the Bible flatly prohibits it. Why? Because Satan is the god of this world and the prince of the power of the air, and is temporarily in control of the earth and the lower realms of the spirit world (but not for too much longer).

When people naively monkey around with mysticism and pseudo-spiritual practices, I'll give you one guess who is standing by, ready to masquerade as an angel of light.

We're not "evolving" toward anything—we are sinners in need of the Savior. That's all we have ever been and that's all we will ever be, unless and until we repent and believe the gospel. But as soon as we do...

The "higher self" is nothing but a trendy name for the spirit, which by nature is sinful and is thus separated from God—and all the meditation in the world can't change that.

The Bible says we are to die to self and walk by faith in Him:

Your "self" is in direct opposition to your spiritual growth because it's hopelessly infested with sin, wars against the Spirit, and strives to get its own way...

Your "self" (sin nature) is precisely what God wants you to gradually overcome in this life with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who indwells all believers.

The Bible quickly dismisses reincarnation as a lie:

So, don't waste your time worrying about whether or not you will be born again physically after you die—get born again spiritually before you die!

Incidentally, as far as heaven is concerned...

The Bible makes it clear that heaven will be far more wonderful than anything we can even imagine. So, my question to all those who believe they will be reborn multiple times back into this fallen, sin-sick world that is under the control of Satan is simply this:

Why would you even want to??

The New Age religion tries to find creative (and wholly unbiblical) ways to neatly sidestep or reinterpret the cross, and the reason is simple: They have to. The cross—and what Jesus did there two thousand years ago—is the one thing that can save you, and the one thing that completely demolishes everything that the New Age religion teaches.

The cross is the vehicle through which Jesus redeemed us from sin's penalty:

It's the linchpin of God's plan of redemption. It's the flashpoint in the spiritual battle for men's souls. It's the epicenter of the spiritual earthquake that shook the world to its core two thousand years ago.

With the cross of Christ,
we can be saved.

Without the cross of Christ,
we die in our sins.

It's that simple. Game over—we lose. And "eternal destiny" is a game we can ill afford to lose.

The indisputable historical fact of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an in-your-face reminder that God really did send His Son into the world to die and be resurrected exactly as prophesied centuries earlier to atone for the sins of mankind.

Not only that, but the fact that 40 days after the Resurrection the disciples watched dumbstruck as Jesus ascended back to heaven where He now sits at the right hand of the Father proves one thing: His sacrifice was accepted.

On the other hand, of course, maybe all the Old Testament prophets were incredibly lucky and Jesus was just a deluded nut job who died for nothing.

Your call.

Like a lot of Satan's lies, it's half true. There is a period of time coming to the earth that will be characterized by peace and enlightenment, and it will last one thousand years: the Millennial Kingdom, during which Christ will reign.

What New Agers don't realize, however, is that Daniel's 70th Week (or the Tribulation) will precede it. The Tribulation has several basic purposes:

• Bring Israel back into its covenant relationship with God the Father.
• Judge the nations that have sought to destroy His people Israel.
• Judge a Christ-rejecting world in general.
• Cause Israel to recognize their Messiah, Jesus Christ.

At its conclusion, Jesus will physically return to the earth to establish His kingdom and when He does, one of the first things He will do is execute what is often referred to as the Sheep and Goat Judgment (Matt. 25:31–46).

The Church will have already been raptured before the Tribulation starts. However, Gentiles who become believers during the Tribulation, maintain a faithful testimony, and survive till the end (the sheep) will enter into the kingdom. Everyone else (the goats) will be sent away to eternal punishment.

So, if there is anything like an "age of enlightenment" coming, it's what comes after the Tribulation. And it really will be a thousand years of veritable heaven on earth (at least up until the end, when Satan is released and allowed to lead one final—and unsuccessful—rebellion against God).

Sadly—and perhaps ironically, those who reject God's offer of grace and instead fantasize about the man-made New Age version of "heaven on earth" (aka "the Age of Aquarius") won't be here to enjoy it.

I gotta admit...this is actually a fairly clever lie concocted by Satan to explain away the Rapture.

I hope you're not here to fall for it.

I know I won't be.

One thing that just jams the gears of all other religions, especially the über-tolerant, all-embracing New Age religion, is the perception that true biblical Christianity is exclusive and intolerant of different paths.

Well, duh...

Is Christianity "exclusive"? YES!

Is it "intolerant of different paths"? YES!

YES! YES! YES! YES! Y-E-S!!

That's precisely the point!

Imagine you're on an aircraft with some other people. Suddenly you realize the plane is going down, and everyone starts grabbing parachutes. All except one guy, that is, who seems to be gazing out the window of the plane in deep contemplation. You grab an extra parachute and hand it to him.

"Here, take this! You gotta put this on! The plane is going down!"

But still he refuses to take it, insisting that he's found a "different path."

Q. Are you being "exclusive"?

A. Yes, because you know that's the only way he's going to make it. You understand that there is simply no other way.

Q. Are you being "intolerant of different paths"?

A. You sure are, because you know without a doubt that any other "path" he takes will lead to certain death.

Here's the thing: God only conceived of one plan of redemption. He only provided one way for your sins to be forgiven, so there is only one way for you to be reconciled to Him. It required one perfect sacrifice, made by only one Messiah—and His name is Jesus. Bottom line—there's only one path.

If someone insists on believing they have found a different path that will enable them to become one with God, or spend eternity with God, or spend it floating around the universe, what am I supposed to say?

I just wish they would do us a favor and stop accusing us of being "exclusive" and "intolerant of different paths."

Look, we know that exclusivity and intolerance of different opinions is usually a bad thing. In fact, it's almost always a bad thing. We get it.

But there's only one path!

Get over it. And get on it—while there is still time.

This is closely tied to no. 18, and comes back to this perception that Christians insist that the Bible is the only truth, Jesus is the only way, only Christians go to heaven, and everybody else goes to hell. So there.

Whew, it does sound pretty bad when you say it like that.

But no matter how offensive that may seem to our human sensibilities, one stubbornly persistent truth remains—the elephant in the room, so to speak.

Documented historical facts clearly and incontrovertibly support the fact that the Bible is filled with prophecies that have been and continue to be fulfilled in detail, and in ways that defy human intervention or manipulation.

Scoff-athons notwithstanding, there is simply no intellectually honest way around it.

God tells us He uses fulfilled prophecy to confirm His Word—and then He does it. Over and over again. And that begs the question:

What are we supposed to make of that?

Looks to me like it comes down to two basic choices:

1. Blithely blow it off as coincidence or fraud without further investigation, and pin our hopes on man-centered philosophy or fanciful religious musings.

2. Come to terms with the fact that the Bible is true and go from there.

I think it's telling how the New Age religion singles out Christians for special ridicule and condemnation. They proudly and openly embrace virtually every other (mutually contradictory) religious system on earth in a sort of feel-good Burger King gospel where you are free to "have it your way."

But biblical Christianity is the lone exception.

You will never hear New Agers pick on Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, Taoists, Shintoists, Agnostics, atheists, pagans, or, to the best of my knowledge, Satan worshipers. All are welcome to seek their own path.

But if you have the intolerant audacity to believe that the only way to have a spiritual relationship with a loving but holy and just God is to be forgiven of sin by faith in the finished work of atonement that His Son Jesus Christ made on your behalf, they're gunning for you. You're a danger to society.

And atheist author Christopher Hitchens accused us of wishful thinking...

The Bible makes it thunderingly (and sometimes graphically) clear that not only are heaven and hell very real places, but every person who ever lived will spend eternity in one of the two.

Mr. Hitchens (whose wit and candor I genuinely enjoyed, in spite of the fact that I completely disagreed with him) was one who refused to believe in a Creator, scoffed at Jesus Christ and the gospel, contemptuously dismissed the Bible and religion as fairy tales for intellectual weaklings that did little more than cause wars, and sought man-made philosophical answers for the questions of our existence and destiny.

Forgive me for being blunt, but I dare say it is people like Mr. Hitchens who need to engage in some serious wishful thinking, not people like me who have been spiritually regenerated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit through faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. We don't need to engage in wishful thinking for the simple reason that...

If you are a born-again believer, you should be nodding your head right now because you should understand—but trying to explain this to unbelievers is like trying to explain color to someone who can only see black and white.

If you are not a Christian, the point I desperately want you to see is that faith in Jesus Christ is not "wishful thinking"!

The absolute last thing in the world I need to do is to wish. Why?

Because I know.

By the way, I'm genuinely sorry to report that Christopher Hitchens died on December 15, 2011 from esophageal cancer.

Now he knows, too.

As we witness the development of the gospel 2.0, we would do well to recall the words of the apostle Paul to the Galatians:

The point is simply this:

The gospel 2.0 is exactly that—another gospel.

Another gospel. And notice that Paul doesn't mince words: He scolded those who were naive enough to believe it, and then excoriated those who were depraved enough preach it.

There are people sitting in pews today who need to re-read that first part.

And preachers standing behind pulpits who need to re-read that last part.

And when they're finished, they both need to get back to the gospel 1.0—the only gospel there has ever been or ever will be.

It's the only gospel we need.

Greg Lauer — JUN '13

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