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A few months ago, John Hagee put out a book called In Defense of Israel, in which he set forth the idea that Jesus was not really the Messiah--at least not to the Jewish people. His conclusion was that therefore, the Jews did not really reject Jesus as the Messiah at all. His goal was to try to defend the Jews in their Judaism and, I suppose, to promote Christian Zionism at the expense of Scripture.
Rick Joyner of Morningstar Ministries analyses this idea and correctly concludes that it is the spirit of antichrist. He writes:
"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."
To read the whole article, go to:
http://www.morningstarministries.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?id=1000024424