Beware of another Jesus

2 Corinthians 11:1-4 I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

There is one gospel, one Jesus, and one spirit and Paul is refuting anyone that preaches a different gospel or a different doctrine of Jesus or a more powerful gift of the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 1:6-9 Paul admonishes anyone who would preach another gospel and states there is no other gospel. This gospel affirms that salvation is from God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The person and work of Christ as he is presented in the Holy Bible saves sinners that place their faith in his atoning sacrifice as a substitute for their sin debt. This is the good news of the gospel.

When false teachers, cults, and false religions change and tweak the gospel, it is no longer a gospel at all. Paul says plainly that anyone that proclaims another Jesus is teaching a false gospel. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the second person of the trinity and the infinite God-Man that was and is fully God and fully man. Therefore, the Jesus of the Koran, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, and others is not the Jesus of the Bible. Such a Jesus is another Jesus and has no power to save according to Paul.

In spite of these warnings by Paul, there are many who deny Christ’s atonement as a sacrifice for their sin debt and prefer to be called a follower of the way of Christ or a postmodern Christian. Still some, of the so-called free grace thinking, assert that the “other Jesus” as he is presented in the Koran is a saving Jesus as long as a person has faith in such a Jesus. It does not require too much logic to discern that a person that believes in Allah of the Koran and denies the trinity is placing faith in a Jesus that is false and what Paul calls another Jesus. A few years ago a Methodist Bishop proclaimed on national television that there were other ways to salvation than faith in Christ. Paul says no. Within the past week a Catholic Bishop stated that Christians should refer to God as Allah to show good will toward Muslims. The list goes on and on as politically correct pluralistic thinking is celebrated in our culture. Such thinking may make a person popular, but it is a disaster for the soul.

I would encourage all Christians to read and apply 1 John 4:1 which states, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Go to Scripture and not to false teachers for the truth.