Milk and Honey: An Observation of the Prosperity Gospel

I was saved in March 2003 while deployed to Al Udeid AB, Qatar. Immediately following my conversion, I grew an insatiable thirst for biblical knowledge. I remember participating in three different bible study groups, one of which was for married men and I wasn’t even married. Also, I read the Bible cover-to-cover in three months (the New Testament twice). I read every available Christian book and resource I could find in that literal desert. Needless to say, it did not take me long to come into contact with teachings I later discovered to be called the “Prosperity Gospel.”

There are many books available today that specifically, or unintentionally, promote the Prosperity Gospel. If you walk blindfolded into a Christian bookstore and throw a dart at random, the odds are extremely high of hitting a book that supports this teaching.  The basic message of the Prosperity Gospel is: If you have faith in God, then God will take care of you by giving immeasurable riches, both material and physical in nature--All blessings are for the Christian here and now. When this teaching is unfolded, it turns the entire underlying message of the Bible into God genuinely wanting to provide for His children, by curing all illnesses and granting material riches in the form of money, houses, cars, and whatever else postulates worldly success.  There are many church leaders today who teach this form of Christianity, such as Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, and T.D. Jakes to name a few.

My intention in this post is not to critique the Prosperity Gospel as a movement, but to return our eyes back onto the beauty of the Gospel by showing how all earthly blessings fall short in comparison to all the blessings we receive in Jesus Christ.

“Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:13-15).

When Jesus came to initiate the New Covenant, many of the Israelites (Pharisees included) were greedy and covetous towards the wealth of others. In fact, their greed violates the commandment to not covet. How is it that such “holy” men, like the Pharisees, who follow the Law of Moses so strictly, turn out to be greedy and covetous? The Mosaic Covenant is bilateral, meaning there are two parties involved—God and the nation of Israel. The fulfillment of the covenant was contingent upon the obedience of Israel (Lev. 26). If they obeyed, God would grant them a land flowing with milk and honey, and many more blessing on earth. On them would shine the glory of their God before other nations. They would have more prosperity than all other nations--supernatural protection from famine, war, and drought.  However, disobedience would incite the opposite. In a religious covenant such as the Mosaic Covenant, it is understandable to see how they could come to view material possessions as a means to an end. What is not immediately perceived, however, is that the Mosaic Covenant was a temporal covenant—it was only supposed to lead Israel to their true Savior, Jesus, not Moses. All things in the Mosaic Covenant were shadows (signs) of the coming Christ. In fact, the Mosaic Covenant (the Law), was never intended to be a permanent Covenant (Gal. 3:23-26).

In the magnificent book, “Sacred Bond”, Michael Brown and Zach Keele claim that in the Mosaic Covenant “The blessings God promises Israel for obedience have ‘other-worldly’ character to them.”_ Furthermore, they emphasize what in fact is “other-worldly” about the blessings of the Mosaic Covenant:

“All these holy and blessed aspects of the Mosaic Covenant point to heaven and our ultimate salvation (Heb. 11:9-10). In the New Jerusalem, God’s people will be glorified to reflect God’s holiness, and no unclean thing will enter that holy place (Rev. 21:27). In glory, there will be no disease, poverty, or adversary, and we will lack no good thing. We will live in God’s intimate presence in righteousness. The land of God’s presence flowing with milk and honey was an earthly picture of the goal of ultimate salvation.”

Natural Religion. At this point, I can attempt to delve into the anthropological arguments about the nature of sin and the idolatry of mammon, or I could excuse materialistic behavior based on psychological arguments, such as Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” arguing that it’s necessary for self-preservation. For the sake of time and space, I want to primarily focus on a root issue of the doctrinal error of the Prosperity Gospel, as well as all individuals who see God as a means to prosperous living.

The natural religion in man is that he/she can do good works to save him or herself from the wrath of an angry God. This belief system infiltrates every religion in the world except orthodox (confessional) Christianity. Christianity is the only religion (I’d argue is the only true religion installed by the One True God), where salvation is given to us instead of us having to earn it. The elements of natural religion (generally speaking) are as followed:  1) God gives laws for man to follow; 2) Man attempts to follow them in order to receive blessings from God. 3) When man violates those laws (which are inevitable), he must satisfy God’s justice through some form of sacrifice, to include animal and human sacrifices, followed by behavioral changes to align with God’s originally intended law. These ideas are communicated differently in the cornucopia of religions today. They will all vary in quality and/or quantity of these three elements, but they are incorporated (some belief systems simply try to do away with the entire concept of sin, or the concept of God—yet they still create certain religious laws to live by proving the natural religion in themselves). Christianity has these elements as well, however, instead of man satisfying the third element, God satisfies it for us by sending His Son as a sacrifice for our sins and also imputes to us His righteousness instead of our own behavioral modification.  Unfortunately, many people group Christianity with the other religions without perceiving its glaring difference. This can be attributed to man’s natural religion and desire to complete step three by their own means. It is foolishness to them that God would require a set of laws they could not eventually satisfy. This is why the Apostle Paul stated “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

The Covenant of Moses was laid out in this pattern of natural religion. As previously stated, this covenant was not permanent—there was a shelf-life attached, by which Christ fulfilled and replaced with the New Covenant. As Israel failed in element two, they would not receive God’s blessings, but His curses—natural progression would lead them to element three, of which they still could not satisfy, thus bringing them back to element two, and rinse, wash, repeat. The Covenant of Moses, much like all natural religion, should not lead us to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” to please God, but it’s original intent was to bring us to God’s mercy seat to seek forgiveness and righteousness not found in ourselves.  Israel, under the Mosaic Covenant, never permanently dwelt in the land flowing with milk and honey, because the blessing was only as permanent as Israel’s righteousness. Therefore, our true “milk and honey” land is not here on earth, but in eternity with Him (Hebrews 11:16).

Believers of the Prosperity Gospel, whether they admit it or not, consistently desire the earthly temporal blessings more than the heavenly; they desire the temporal blessings of a covenant put in place by God to point us to heavenly realities and a wonderful Savior. By craving the material blessings of Moses, they prove their lack of faith in Christ and all His accomplishments. In other words, they esteem Moses over Christ, in that the benefits of Christ is not enough for them (heavenly realities of salvation), they need Jesus to satisfy all the Law’s requirements so they may receive their true desire—enjoyment of earthly pleasures and riches. In contrast to the greed of the Pharisees, who strived to gain these “blessings” by satisfying the Law on their own abilities, Prosperity Gospel followers use Christ to get them. The author of Hebrews warned Israelites, who became Christians, to not return to the Mosaic Covenant since Christ was the fulfillment: “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gifts, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

 My heart breaks for those who fall into this gross corruption of the gospel of Christ, and my anger burns towards those who promote it. The true gospel is cool water for those who cannot satisfy the Law of God, but desperately seek His mercy. For them, God has offered an escape from His wrath, and He has prepared for them a land flowing with milk and honey, for all eternity.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19-21).