There is a growing controversy over elements in John Hagee’s most recent book, In Defense of Israel. The teaching in this book that Jesus never intended to be the Messiah of Israel is a serious departure from basic Christian doctrine, as well as the clear testimony of Scripture. There is an abundance of Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, as well as the Lord’s own Words recorded in the New Testament and the apostolic Epistles, that very clearly refute this teaching. How something so clearly and abundantly stated in Scripture could be distorted by one of such visibility and influence in the body of Christ is a question that demands our attention. If we will address this question in truth and the right Spirit, it can do much good for the church and help deliver many others from such destructive teachings.

Because the teaching in John Hagee’s book dilutes and changes the very purpose and place of Jesus as the Messiah, and so blatantly and irrationally distorts the clear teaching of Scripture, it could not be overlooked as even new believers have challenged its errors. This is encouraging, and therefore has forced the church to address this issue. The reaction to this has understandably been one of a great shock, grief, and outrage, but when emotions subside we will see the path to a great victory for all involved, including John Hagee.

First, let me address the three main problems with the teaching in this book:

 
Before we completely dismiss John Hagee, especially if you get a copy of just the portion of the book that is the point of controversy, this book has many brilliant and well-articulated insights. Also, Hagee’s overall goal is a noble one—the refuting of anti-Semitism, the error of replacement theology, and confronting one of the most tragic evils in church history, the persecution of the Jewish people by Christians. Of course, it is a concern that this book has now done great damage to these causes. Let us hope not, but it is even more important that we defend the basic doctrines of faith that the teaching in this book undermines—especially the place of Jesus as the Messiah. Concerning this we are told most boldly in I John 2:21-22:

  
This is not to imply in any way that John Hagee is antichrist, but the spirit behind this teaching is without question antichrist. The Hebrew word translated “Messiah” in the Old Testament is translated “Christ” in the New Testament, which was written in Greek. Therefore, to deny that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah is a most serious matter. It is the antichrist spirit that is continually attacking and trying to dilute His place as the Messiah because this is the most basic way that the salvation He brought as the Messiah can be denied to mankind. We may have different opinions about some doctrines and interpretations of Scripture, but this is not one of them. Nothing will so undermine the very foundations of the faith that lead to salvation as the surrendering of the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. Because the prophecies of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament make clear that He is being sent to Israel, to deny this is to deny that He is indeed the Messiah.

In his book, Hagee asserts that Jesus was the Messiah to the Gentiles and not the Jews, so therefore the Jews did not reject Him. The way that he attempts to establish this is quite bizarre. I sincerely do not mean to be disrespectful to anyone, but this book is written as if he did not think that anyone with any serious knowledge of the Scriptures, or power of reasoning, would be reading it. The way that the ministry of Jesus is interpreted is so contradictory to the testimony of the Gospels that it is hard to believe something like this could be written by a serious teacher, and it may be hard for Hagee to be taken seriously as a teacher to the body again after this. That would be a defeat for us all. My prayer is that it is handled in such a way that he is trusted even more, but that must be because he has been found trustworthy in the way he handles this. This is no small error.

The way that this section of the book is written could be evidence of what is working here. This does not seem to be John Hagee. As stated above, the book has many brilliant and well-articulated insights, but then you hit this one section in which it seems as if someone else has taken over the writing and reduced it to a level of spiritual foolishness that I do not believe I have ever witnessed in the writings of such a well-respected teacher and preacher before. Though this may be presented in a way that we think is an insult to our intelligence, I don’t want to be insulted; rather I am grieved, and I want to understand how this happened, because it can happen to any of us if we become arrogant. A great champion has fallen and may be wounded, but the victory will be to see him standing in the fray again, stronger than ever. That must be our prayer and our resolve in this.

Israel was promised the Messiah, and though the prophecies do include the fact that He would also be a light to the Gentiles, the promises were overwhelmingly given to Israel. There are extensive works being prepared by others to refute the teachings Hagee promotes in this book, and there are many Scriptures to draw from which do this, but the following are just three Scriptures from the New Testament that very basically confirm the teaching that Jesus came to be the Messiah of Israel. 

 
These are fundamental truths that have been and will continue to be under constant assault, but which we must never compromise. There is salvation in no other name! When we compromise this truth, we are denying men their salvation. To deny that Jesus came to Israel is to deny Israel the salvation of God which He provided for them—and there can be no worse form of anti-Semitism than that.

Though Hagee does distort and undermine some of the most important and basic truths of Christianity in his book, and though this must be considered a most serious heresy, again we must not give up on John Hagee. In fact, if he can be delivered from this deception that has come upon him, he could be one of the strongest defenders of the truth. An example of this in Scripture is Peter.

Peter received the revelation that Jesus was the Christ, and the Lord told him how blessed he was, and how He was going to build His church on this revelation and promised to give Peter the keys to the kingdom (see Matthew 16:13-23). First, the church is built upon the revelation of Jesus as the Christ. This is the foundation of the church, and the truth that will shut the gates of hell as the Lord states here. This truth can never be compromised or diluted without opening the gates of hell. Then, right after Peter receives this greatest of blessings and the promise of the keys to the kingdom, he opens the gates of hell and gets called “Satan” by the Son of God!

I do not presume to know what is in John Hagee’s mind or heart. However, falls like this are usually caused the same way that Peter was caused to fall here—the fear of man, or seeking man’s approval, as we read in Matthew 16:23, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's." When we become overly concerned about gaining the approval of men, we are in jeopardy of this kind of fall.

Even many years after Jesus Himself had called Peter “Satan” because of this, Paul, the youngest of the apostles, had to rebuke Peter publicly at Antioch again for basically the same influence, fear of the Jews, which had caused him to get so carried away that Paul said “he stood condemned” (see Galatians 2:11-15). If you read the Epistle leading up to this, Paul is resolutely teaching how their faith must be built on the revelation of God and the fear of God, and not the fear of man, as he states in Galatians 1:10, “If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” The compulsion to please men is one of the most basic ways that we depart from being true bondservants of Christ.

The Jewish believers coming to Antioch caused Peter to get carried away in hypocrisy so that he was even denying the basic truth of the gospel, raising a dividing wall between the Gentile and Jewish believers at Antioch, which the truth of the gospel came to tear down to bring forth the “one new man” in Christ. Jesus is the Messiah of all, the Savior of all, and the Lord of all, including the Jews! As Peter concluded in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).

Without question, some of the most diabolical doctrines and acts to arise in church history have been the persecution of the Jewish people by Christians, or at least those who claimed to be Christians. This is a most terrible blight in our history, which we do need to address and learn from. However, the teaching that Hagee asserts in his book, that Israel did not reject Jesus as Messiah since He did not come to them as their Messiah, because they already have a covenant with God and do not need a Messiah, not only denies Israel her Messiah and the salvation He came to give them, but it also attacks the most basic Christian truths upon which our faith and the true church must be built. Hagee’s methods of biblical interpretation contradict the overwhelming testimony of Scripture so much that it undermines the authority of Scripture as well. 

Hagee asserts in his writings and in the first rebuttals against the outcry coming from this book—that he is a champion of the gospel and a most resolute preacher of Jesus as Lord and Savior. I have no doubt that he sincerely sees himself in this light, and I also greatly appreciate some of the bold stands he has taken, especially to honor Israel and combat the tragic persecution of the Jewish people by Christians. I in no way want to belittle the seriousness of this present issue, but before we write Hagee off as a heretic, we need to pray for him to be restored. False teaching is a serious issue, especially one of this magnitude that so attacks the foundations of the Christian faith, but as we are exhorted in Galatians 6:1:

Note that is says here “any trespass.” So, if anyone stumbles in any way, the spiritual will always seek to restore them, doing it in the right spirit, and not becoming arrogant or self-righteous because such pride will open the door for our own ultimate temptation. This is not an option. We must not give up on anyone, regardless of what they have done or what they have taught, but seek their restoration.

There is a great danger to us if we do not seek John Hagee’s restoration. There is a ditch on either side of the path of life, and sometimes, by overreacting to the ditch on one side, we end up falling into the ditch on the other side. It seems that in his attempt to honor Israel, there has been a very basic dishonoring of the Lord Jesus Himself, the One who came to be the Redeemer, Savior, and Lord of all, including Israel. Even so, this is not the real John Hagee, who I believe has been and will yet be, one who greatly honors the Lord and the gospel. By seeking to restore him to this, we also resist the tendency to overreact, which can leave us in just as much a ditch as he seems to be in now. Let us seek to pull him out, and keep out of these ditches ourselves.

Let us also consider that the Lord promised Abraham that his seed would be a blessing to all of the people on the face of the earth, and the Jewish people have been just that. They not only were used to bring forth the greatest blessing of all—Jesus the Messiah, but they gave us the Scriptures, as even the New Testament was written by Jewish believers. The Jewish people have also been a great blessing in every place where they have been found, bringing a love of learning, culture, and science, and yet they themselves have often been treated terribly, especially by those claiming to be Christians. I personally pray that in this rising controversy, Hagee’s commendable attempt to honor and love Israel is not lost. This is very important for the church to do. Just as Paul warned in Romans 11 for believers not to become arrogant toward “the natural branches,” lest we be cut off, we can find at the root of many terrible tragedies and deceptions entering the church this arrogance toward the natural branches, the Jewish people.

Even though John Hagee denies it, what he promotes in his book is classic “dual covenant theology.” As stated, this is the basic teaching that the Jews did not reject Jesus as their Messiah because He did not come to be their Messiah, because they already have a covenant with God and do not need a Messiah, which is what is taught in the first edition of this book. The prophecies of the coming Messiah to Israel are so clear that He is either the Messiah of Israel or He is not the Messiah at all. He is the Messiah of Israel, and of all, and this must never be compromised.

In the first responses of John Hagee to the challenges in this of his book, In Defense of Israel, he claimed that this was a problem with wording, that some things were stated poorly. Then, in an attempted rewrite, it was presented that Jesus came to Israel as the suffering Savior, and not the reigning Messiah, implying that this is really a matter of semantics. This seemingly profound misunderstanding of how serious the errors promoted in this book have understandably caused even more alarm. I confess that I have not read anything that I can remember being so troubled about, and the initial responses have been even more troubling. This is much deeper and much more serious than that, and at this writing, it is obvious that John Hagee simply does not understand how serious it is.

Even so, if he comes to understand just how serious this error is, and clearly renounces it, I will trust him even more, not less. Though I have received many requests to respond to this issue from believers and Christian leaders, I waited for several weeks until I felt that I had the peace of the Lord, a love for John Hagee, and an appreciation for all that he has done for the church. An overreaction to this can be dangerous too, but it is even more dangerous not to challenge such a profound error being promoted in the body of Christ. 

So what good is going to come from this? Certainly the Lord is able to deliver John Hagee from this great deception. If he sees his error and repents of it with the zeal and openness that such repentance deserves, just as the Apostle Peter made some very grave mistakes but was also used to open the door of the gospel to both the Jews and the Gentiles, John Hagee may yet make his greatest contributions to the kingdom. He has been a champion of the faith in many ways, and we must not give up on him.

An even greater good that can come from this is a serious challenge for all of us to sink our roots deeper into sound biblical truth. The church has been greatly shaken because of issues of integrity and morality surfacing. The faithful did not fall away or become bitter because of this, but humbled themselves before the Lord and asked for His help in these matters and became stronger. This controversy has the potential to shake the church as greatly as the issues of integrity and morality have and maybe even more. Let us use this to resolve to be even more devoted to truth and sound doctrine. The noble will use such things to search the Scriptures to see what is really true.

The very first tactic of Satan to cause the fall of mankind was to get Eve to doubt God’s Word. She must have already lightly regarded it because she had added to it. The Lord had simply told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge, but she added “or touch it” (see Genesis 3:3). To doubt His Word, or to lightly regard it, is the open door that will lead to a fall. There is a constant and unrelenting assault on the Scriptures from many directions, but they are sure, they are the truth from God Almighty who cannot lie, and His truth will prevail. Let us build our lives on the Rock that cannot be shaken.
 
There are other issues and challenges that have arisen because of Hagee’s new book and all of them can likewise cause us to come out of this much stronger if we address them rightly, in the right Spirit. There are extensive rebuttals being written to challenge this book from different perspectives, and the ones I have seen are well worth reading if for no other reason than to strengthen our foundations in the Scriptures. Even so, let us be sure to only hold to what is clearly biblically based and resist the overreactions that will cause us to fall into the ditch on the other side.