Another Neo-Evangelical Heretic Graces the Pulpit of EBMC Churches
Updated Sept 1, 2024
In November of 2022, Charles Price preached a series of sermons on “Spiritual Life” and "Deeper life" at the Mennonite denomination Evangelical Bergthaler Mennonite Church (EBMC). Price preached a total of five sermons at these “Spiritual Life Meetings” also referred to as a "Deeper Life Conference," which were based on “The overall theme of . . . The Fullness of Christ.” Terminology such as these lean strongly to Keswick theology, and that is exactly what was noted in his sermons. The true theme of these sermons could be, "Corrupting the doctrine of sanctification while attacking the Word of God."
Who is Charles Price? Price is the former pastor ("Minister at Large") of the compromised, neo-evangelical, emerging church-type rock and roll, heretical Peoples Church of Toronto, which he pastored from 2001 to 2016 but employs both men and women in pastoral positions. Originally haling from England, Price a gifted orator with a strong captivating English accent has always been a neo-evangelical at heart, compromised to the core, tainted by the world, corrupted by the false teachers he adores, and has always preached a buffet of heresies including Keswick-type of sanctification error in his sermons, which are watered-down and shallow at best, along with exercising the dishonouring and unBiblical method of interpretation known as eisegesis. This heretical form of reading and teaching the Bible puts into Scripture rather than pulling out and allowing the Scriptures to teach the subject. It makes the preacher the arbiter of truth, instead of the Holy Spirit of truth relaying the truth of what the scripture means, in harmony with the rest of the Scriptures.
Not only were these sermons overall egregious concerning sanctification, but they were also so concerning interpretation methodology, adding to Gods Word and subtle attacks on Gods Word, including a perverted gospel. I find it astonishing that people listen through such unscriptural teachings without protest, without reproof, but that is merely a reflection on the state of today's “spirituality” in evangelicalism land. In this report, I will cover some of the more egregious elements of the sermon series.
It bears importance to once again remind you dear reader that as a servant of Christ (Gal 1:10) and ambassador for Christ (2 Cor 5:20) I am commanded repeatedly in the Word of God to expose error, teachers of error, heretics and apostates that I come into contact with and all who willfully teach false doctrine and pervert the Word of God (Rom 16:17; 2 Tim 3:5-9; Eph 5:11; Ju 1:3; etc) and to not be silent in the face of such danger. I do so unapologetically. That includes Charles Price. I do not need to go to him first and talk to him, nor do I need to talk to the church leadership of the church he is preaching at first before exposing him. I also don't weigh anything good that he teaches against that which is bad (none of the apostles mentioned the positive and truthful things being taught by the many compromised and heretical men they were exposing). The bible does not demand any of this of me. The passages referenced above do not give such qualifiers, for these are man-made qualifiers created by man-centred men who are compromised, spineless and many times heretical themselves. I would suggest you cast aside such unbiblical and illusional philosophies and beguilements, and cease handling the Word of God deceitfully and renounce walking in craftiness (2 Cor 4:2) and obey the Word of God with an undivided heart. If you cannot do that, if you cannot cease and renounce such things, or its counterpart, you cannot manifest the truth (2 Cor 4:2), then salvation is clearly your issue, for “if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2 Cor 4:3-4). Many profess to be Christian but very, very few actually belong to Christ (see Matt 7:13-14, 20-23; Lk 13:23-24).
Everyone needs to change, including me, and to do that, people need patience, doctrine and longsuffering. Sometimes however patience and longsuffering become an excuse. Though it may be hard, confrontation, exposure, and separation are absolutely necessary. We don't want to do that because we all want to be liked. We don't want to be alone. Yet Jesus, the Creator of all the world, the Saviour of mankind, God the Son manifest in the flesh, was almost completely alone. His creation rejected Him, His family rejected Him, and then after 33 years on earth, three of which were continual ministry, he was left with simply "a little flock" (Lk 12:32). We read of "about an hundred and twenty" (Ac 1:15) after Christ's ascension. He never failed to preach the truth and do what God's Word demands. In the last epistle of Paul, towards the end of his sojourn on earth, immediately preceding his execution, after having "turned the world upside down" (Ac 17:6) with the truth and gospel of God's Word, very few men stood with him (2 Tim 4:10-18). It seems horrible and stupid that we enable bad stuff by accommodating. Years ago, in the early years post-conversion, I did that but I don't think like that anymore. I'm not going to give my history but I did put up with some associations that were wrong, because I thought it was appropriate. I don't think so any more.
Without further ado, let us begin.
1. The Keswick heresy of Christ living the Christian’s life through the restoration of the God life into human experience, and other errors concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.
(a) Price teaches what is the traditional possession doctrine of Keswick in which you are fundamentally possessed and controlled by Jesus, supported by proof-texting passages such as Gal 2:20, Col 1:27, 3:4, and 2 Cor 4:10-11. This occurs allegedly by the restoration of the God life into human experience. This is the false teaching that the Christ-life is Christ Himself living the Christian life for the Christian. It’s deeply entrenched in Keswick theology and evangelicalism (and among revivalist-type Baptists) but it’s absolutely unscriptural and nonsense.
Imagine a Christian life you don't actually live or have to live. Jesus lives it for you. You can't please Him yourself. Rather, you just access the very life of Jesus and the life that Jesus lived by faith (or even do simply nothing, quietism, since Jesus is living the life) or by preaching the gospel fluently to yourself repeatedly (part of the lingo). (This strange phenomena reminds us of the neo-evangelical heretic Steve Janz [who likewise preached at EBMC] and other reformed Calvinists who remind their audience to keep preaching the gospel to themselves to make it through their day, whenever they have a debbie downer moment — yikes, that’s what the Bible refers to as “dead faith,” Jam 2). This is the bread and butter of Keswick preachers such as the Van Gelderens at Baptist College of Ministry and Falls Baptist Church and the revivalist “evangelist” Rick Flanders and many, many more across the IFB world, in fact the majority of them are of the Revivalists flavour.
The Keswick teaching and illegitimate extrapolation of Christ living the Christians life through receiving the very life of Jesus in us, Whom then lives our Christian life, is found throughout his sermons:
“The gospel is certainly being forgiven of our sin. It is certainly receiving that gift of the eternal life which is the life of God, and we become united with Him, and we live forever, that is true, but the real substance of the gospel is that the life of Jesus Christ is restored to human beings and we live in the strength and power of His life.” (Sermon 1)
“So the nature of the gospel is the restoration of the righteousness of God into human experience, by the restoration of the life of God into human experience.” (Sermon 2)
“What is necessary for salvation to take place is that the life of God that was lost in the garden of eden is restored into human experience. That the life of God is restored into human experience. . . . Salvation . . . is about restoring the life of God as Romans 8 says,” which he then quotes out of some modern perversion of scripture, and then continues, “He that does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ, it’s his life indwelling us that equips us to be what we are supposed to be.” (Sermon 1)
“[T]he life of Jesus Christ is restored to human beings”?! Does that mean we are like little gods, a blasphemous heresy which seems to be fairly popular among evangelicals today (e.g. Joyce Myer, Francis Chan). No, we are not little gods, nor is Christ' life restored to saints. Receiving the imputed righteousness of God is not the same as the life of God restored in a person.
Is it true that “receiving that gift of the eternal life which is the life of God”? Receiving eternal life is not “the life of God.” Eternal life mostly refers to the quantitative, I.e. receiving life that never ends. It is the promise received at conversion, what God gives His child through the new birth, that we will never die the second death and be cast into the eternal lake of fire, but rather live with and be with God in heavenly mansions for ever (Jn 4), without end. In another sense, eternal life incorporates knowing God, but it doesn’t mean what Price is saying here. Salvation is about being made right with God and receiving His righteousness and Spirit, NOT receiving the literal life of God! God is God and we are not; we are made in His image. This again is the “little god” theory that false teachers propel to the people. Price has believed Satans lie that we shall be "as gods" (Gen 3).
It is a falsehood that “the real substance of the gospel is that the life of Jesus Christ is restored to human beings and we live in the strength and power of His life.” Nowhere does the Bible even remotely relate to what he says here, including the gospel. Both points are egregious, but worse, it is a false gospel being promoted by Price. Christ's life is not restored to human beings, since humans never had His life to begin with. We receive His righteousness, which enables the saint to live in righteousness. His Spirit enables us to do good works and live for Him, as Paul's declaration made clear, which declaration is modelled after the pattern set by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who stated “I can of mine own self do nothing” (Jn 5:30) and “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (Jn 5:19). The Lord Jesus, in His human nature, was entirely submissive to and dependent upon the enablement He received beyond measure from His Father. One sees, however, extremely active labour for the Lord in the incarnate Christ. The Divine Person of the Son also did not work independently of the Person of the Father, but nonetheless the Son of God actively did whatsoever He saw the Father do.
Rom 8 does not teach that the life of God is restored at salvation. The life of God is never given to any human being, saved or unsaved. The righteousness of God is not merely an abstract philosophy to be experienced but rather imputed into the saint so that he is able to live a godly and righteous life. It becomes his life. For instance,
"If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him." (1 Jn 2:29)
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works," (Rom 4:5-6)
This avoidance or corruption of biblical and historical sanctification takes the doctrine of imputation to a new and different level. It isn't just positional righteousness imputed to you (which I don't think Price even believes since it is never mentioned, even though it should've been mentioned many times based upon the text and context of his sermons), which is Biblical, but your whole practical righteousness too, which isn't. Instead of doing the hard thing, the struggle, the giving of your body to subjection and a living sacrifice, pressing toward the mark, fighting the good fight, and mortifying the deeds of the flesh, you just contemplate the cross and imagine that life you couldn't live to be already lived. It is done. Jesus is doing it for you. It is argued that this belief and position honours God and Jesus more because He's the one who does the living. It's virtual Christian living where you just click on the faith button.
In this unscriptural view of free-grace and Keswick theology-type of passive sanctification by way of osmosis, all the pressure is washed off for you to obey all those imperatives of the NT. There are no expectations. No worries about judgment. No need for approval. That was already settled at justification and it remains settled. It's already done because Jesus is doing it for you. No need to feel judged by anyone, as also explicitly stated by Price in his fourth sermon, using Rom 7:1-3 as his backdrop, claiming that the new life in Christ apparently never condemns anyone. The one that is under the control of the Spirit apparently never condemns or judges. They don't want to feel some kind of guilt-driven anxiety as they waste away, and not get to "enjoy" their life. Disobeying or dishonouring parents brings no guilt, neither does ghosting people and then casting them out of church because they reproved your false doctrine and ways, nor a wife not submitting to her husband, or even for not practicing the Great Commission, because Jesus paid it all. You preach that to yourself and the guilt is gone. Jesus was checked in, while you were checked out. Apparently, this is true freedom, unchained from the expectations of good works for sanctification. The false judgment dovetails with the corrupted view of the Christian life. Rom 7:1-3 doesn't teach this but the very opposite, as does the rest of Scripture. Those that are spiritual, which means those that are saved, “judge ALL things” (1 Cor 2:14). They are commanded to judge (Jn 7:24; Lk 12:57; 1 Cor 5:12; 6:1-4; 10:15). In fact, "It is joy to the just to do judgment:" (Pr 21:15a).
Yet another example. After Price had asked for "love" and "joy" and "peace" and "power" and other things from "the catalog" (a pejorative reference to to the Bible, covered under point four) and had exacerbated these things (they all wore off he says) “after several years” in frustration of this going back and forth and these things not enduring in him, all of which started immediately after making a profession of faith upon hearing Billy Graham on cassette, he says he finally came to understand the truth of it all:
“God gave me only one thing; He gave me Himself. And it was the life of Jesus Christ had come to indwell me like the hand that comes to indwell the glove. . . It is the principle, 'it is not I but Christ,' as Paul said about his own Christian life. . . .But the principle is that the restoration of the righteousness of God into human experience is the restoration of the life of God into human experience. We are living now in the power of His indwelling Spirit, His indwelling life.” (Sermon 1)
What Price is describing here is right out of a textbook on Keswick theology. The new birth under such environments doesn't really produce anything besides an empty profession. And that seems to be fine and even expected, because second blessing theology will correct what salvation couldn't. All the many things that come with the new birth, with the reception of Jesus Christ, and more than just the Person of Christ, such as justification, imputation, reconciliation, adoption, sanctification, peace with God, fruit of the Spirit (joy, love, peace, kindness, longsuffering, etc), eternal blessings, the abundant life, kings and priests unto God, children, inheritance, servants of Christ, ministers, power and strength and courage and boldness, etc., have little to no reality in this person, for God apparently doesn't give these things; He only gives His Son, Himself. That is apparently what Paul meant by, "it is not I but Christ," actually he said, "yet not I, but Christ" in Gal 2:20, as translated from the Greek Textus Receptus, which is different than what the modern perversion says that Price is using (which could be really any of 500+, because the Bible has little value to this false teacher). And then since the Son is all that is allegedly received, He will literally fulfill these things in the Christians life, living out the life of the Christian. Of course it is all a lie and falsehood concocted by someone who very likely doesn't actually know what true conversion is. Everything listed, including the things Price was missing and couldn't grasp (love, joy, peace and power) are specifically given to the new believer at the very moment of their conversion.
When Paul declared in Gal 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me," the “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" did not mean that Paul actually did not live the Christian life and that the Lord Jesus lived it instead of him. (Nor does it mean that the very life of God is somehow restored into that person.) Such a conclusion would neglect the fact that Paul specifically says “I live,” and further neglect the remainder of that passage and Scripture. Paul did not say, “Christ liveth instead of me,” but “Christ liveth in me.” (The proposition "en" or "ἐν" is employed, not "αντί για" or "αντί να"). The “yet not I” clause simply means that Paul did not have strength and power sourced in himself to follow the Lord (e.g. Eph 1:19), but rather the power (Eph 1:19) and grace (Ti 2:11-12) received from Christ to enable him to “work out [his] own salvation with fear and trembling [since] it is God which worketh in [him] both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). Paul, like all truly born again believers, had received spiritual life, his spirit having been quickened (Eph 2:1-3) so that now he was spiritually alive, that he “might live unto God,” (Gal 2:19-20b). The “I” who was now alive was not the same “I” as before his conversion (cf. Rom 7:7-11, 17), in that Paul was no longer a sinful, ungodly, unregenerate person, a natural man and a slave of the old covenant, as he had been when he was under the law (Rom 3:19-20). He was now dead to sin and alive to God (Rom 6:6-11), whereas he had once been a slave to sin, he was now a slave to righteousness (Rom 6:17-18). But all the good in his life was not sourced in himself, but in the grace of God, "I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." (1 Cor 15:10). He now had a new principle within him and was a new man. The born again believer cooperates with God in yielding to Him and living for Him, but the strength, power and grace to enable that comes from God alone, the indwelling Christ and Spirit of God being the source of spiritual life and strength for him (Gal 2:20). Repeatedly throughout the Pauline texts and others, one develops an understanding of the “not I, but Christ” portion of Gal 2:20, describing the believer doing good works for his Lord while the power and grace to enable this being sourced in the Triune God, so that He alone gets the glory, found in passages such as 1 Cor 7:10, 15:10, Rom 7:17, 20, Gen 45:8, Ex 16:8, etc.
Paul, or any other NT writer for that matter, does not prove that somehow he does not live the Christian life but Christ lives it instead. Paul, and all born again Christians, are given strength and grace from Christ, apart from whom they can do nothing good (Jn 15:5), and by this means they are enabled to live by faith, which is living in obedience to the Word of God. Nowhere in Scripture does it say that somehow the Christian does not live his life but rather Christ Himself, a false teaching that undoubtedly grieves the Holy Spirit and displeases the Lord. This sort of serious error only confuses Christians, hinders sanctification and magnifies the potential for serious Christological error.
As bad as the above is, it actually gets worse, Price illustrating what he really means. In his fifth sermon he contrasts 1 Jn 3:9 with 1 Jn 1:8, stating:
“So what does John mean. One born of God does not sin, and will not sin, and cannot sin [referring to 1 Jn 3:9], but when you claim to be without sin you are deceiving yourself [referring to 1 Jn 1:8] there is only one satisfactory answer, and that is to ask the question ‘who is born of God’ and the answer is, John gives us the answer in that same letter, the one who is born of God is Jesus Christ born into you. Because spiritual life is not something that we receive, it's someone, it is the life of Jesus Christ. Reads 1 Jn 5:11-12.”
He goes on to argue that this life, born of God, is Jesus Christ, from 1 Jn 1 and then 1 Jn 5:20, because this latter passage says, “He is the true God and eternal life because eternal life is the life of God.”
This is not only unscriptural, it is foolish, heretical and blasphemous. When a repentant sinner is born again (Jn 3:3-7), Jesus Christ is not born into that person! Neither 1 Jn 3 or 5:11-12 teaches what he is saying here. When we are born again, an actual instantaneous event that occurs in the repentant sinner and changes him forever (see Jn 3:3-21; Ti 3:3-7), we receive Jesus Christ but not his actual life, nor is He born into us. This is the blasphemous little gods teaching and illustrates the false gospel that Price embraces and propagates. He appears to not understand salvation. When we receive Jesus Christ, we receive life, that is, our spirit is quickened (made alive) and we are given eternal life, thus "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (1 Jn 5:11). When John said, "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son," he was not referring to what Price blasphemously claims. God gives us eternal life, that is life without ending because heaven is our eternal home and not the second death in the lake of fire, and this life is completely wrapped up in God's Son, because it is through the Son that we receive this life. He was the sacrifice and propitiation for our sins. He was the succourer of the repentant sinner. If we have the Son, we have this life; if we have not the Son, we have not this life. It is for that same reason what we read 1 Jn 5:20 that Jesus Christ "is the true God, and eternal life." Had Price read, quoted and understood the entire passage, he might've noticed that "we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ." That means Jesus couldn't even be born into us if we are in Him. At any rate, it is not true but a pack of lies. The indwelling Christ and Spirit of God, Christ’s advocacy and High Priestly prayer (Jn 17) and ministry towards His saints (Heb 1) also encompass the eternal life that we receive in Jesus Christ. Besides that, we receive many things at salvation, some of which are listed further above. In fact, we receive ALL things that pertain unto life and godliness, for we can't be without anything if God owns everything and we're in God and God is in us.
"According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Pet 1:3-4)
Thus, spiritual life is both something and someone that is received, which then means Charles Price is lying and baking up a story that doesn't derive from the Scriptures but from Keswick theological fables. One who wishes to make and twist “the life . . . of Jesus” (2 Cor 4:10-11) into the personal life of the Lord Jesus Christ would have great difficulty in making Paul’s experience of “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus” (2 Cor 4:10) into the Apostle enduring the physical and personal death of the Lord Jesus.
Similarly, the “life of God” (Eph 4:18) for the believer is freedom from the sins of the unregenerate (Eph 4:16-18), putting off the old man and putting on the new man, having God renew the spirit of his mind, living a holy and righteous life, telling the truth and having holy speech instead of lying and having ungodly speech, and so on (Eph 4:20ff.). The believer does not have the personal life of the eternal Trinity living the Christian life instead of him.
As for the alleged discrepancy between 1 Jn 3:9 and 1 Jn 1:8, there is none. Understanding our state and standing in Christ explains the difference, even as these passages themselves relate. The Scripture's are replete with contrasting saved and the unsaved, which we see in the context, but Price always misses it (as do majority of false teachers -- unsaved people cannot understand this truth to any depth). For example, Jn. 2:29, “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.” 1 Jn. 3:10a, “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.” These passages are teaching that one that characteristically lives in genuine righteousness (as laid out in Scripture) after having experienced the new birth, is a child of God, while the false professor who lives hypocritically, remains a child of the devil. This teaching on the routine lifestyle of the saved and the unsaved continues on in 1 Jn. 3:1-9, which is talking primarily about a type of person. "Committeth" (v. 4), "abideth" (v. 6), "doeth" (v. 7), "committeth" (v. 8), "is born" (v. 9) are all nominative participles. This is describing not just an action, but the type of person. "The committing one…” Again, 1 Jn. 3:7, “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” The one who is truly born again will characteristically practice righteousness as a lifestyle because he is perfectly righteous, even as God is righteous because of the imputed righteousness received at the moment of conversion, faith, and regeneration. But that doesn't mean he never sins. Never at any point in the Christian life do we live and walk in sinless perfection. For the true believer, sin is not only constrained to the sins of commission, but also to the sins of omission (i.e., when we know to do good but we do it not, like sharing the gospel with someone, it becomes sin to us -- the unsaved is not held to this same accountability because he is not expected to preach the gospel or seek after the lost). Those that believe we can attain sinless perfection, claiming to have no sin, have deceived themselves and are in fact unsaved. This is the message of 1 Jn 1:8: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." That means they are unsaved, since all saved people have the truth in them, dwelling in them, forever. "For the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever." (2 Jn 1:2). Throughout John's epistles we see that a lifestyle of righteousness results from the life and light of God in someone — it's how you know that you are saved. Imputed righteousness through justification produces works; good and godly works (cf. Jam 2:14-19; Ti 2:11-14; Ti 3:3-4; 1 Jn 2:3-5; Matt 7:21; etc).
This fact exists all over Scripture. Jn 8 for instance we have "Continue in my word" (v. 31) which means to walk in obedience to God's Word and not continuing in sin. Then in v. 34, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." "Committeth," again, is present tense. If you commit sin characteristically as a lifestyle, you are a servant of sin, and thus not continuing in His Word. If someone is set free by the truth, he is set free from the bondage of sin: "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. . . . If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (vv. 32, 34). He won't be sinning as a lifestyle anymore because he doesn't have to. The power or "seed" (1 Jn 3:9) that dwells inside of him stops the desire and dominion and power of sin. This is in the same sense as "Committeth" in 1 Jn 3:6-9, which is a present tense verb, so it is talking about continuous sin, sin as a lifestyle, habitual sin. It's why John didn't use the aorist tense. Tense of verb in the Greek is about kind of action more than it is about time. This doesn't seem hard to understand. People who believe in Jesus Christ will keep following Him, and they can, because it is grace, not works. God's grace enables that. If someone doesn't continue, He hasn't been saved, because He can't continue. He may pretend, even his whole life, but his heart is not very deep into it (and today with the extreme shallowness and apostasy, its not very hard to imitate and pretend among worldly and heretical "Christians"). This is how it reads all through the NT.
We do not receive the very life of God, nor are we living the life of Jesus Christ, nor is He living His life in us, for us. What Price seems unable to comprehend is what God does in the true born again believer at the very moment of his or her conversion, which then enables the saint to live for God. It’s not being a walking puppet or Christ manifest in the flesh in the person of every true believer (which is where this heretical teaching would naturally go), but Gods imputed righteousness in the regenerate believer and the believers regenerated, quickened and circumcised body, soul and spirit, and hence new heart/life, coupled with the indwelling Spirit of God and the grace of God that enables the saint to live for his Lord.
A similar, and common refrain heard from evangelicals giving testimony, is “Its not me, but Christ in me." But is it Biblical? Is this actually salvation? When the Bible indicates that the sure necessity of salvation is the imputation of God’s righteousness, is that what this is referring to? No. It's not God's life but His righteousness that is imputed.
One cannot avoid the heretical implication of Christ, not the believer, living the believer’s life by simply affirming that the believer fails to perfectly access the Lord Jesus’ personal life, and for this cause the Christian still sins, for this accessing of Christ must be part of the Christian life—indeed, according to the advocates of the view that the Lord Jesus lives the Christian life, accessing the Saviour is the essence of Christian life. How then, can Christ fail to do this accessing for the believer, but be the One who lives the Christian life? Yet further, what can such a notion possibly mean—is Christ accessing Himself as He allegedly lives the Christian life?
It is difficult to ascertain what the meaning is of such affirmations. It would seem to lead to either the heresy of the absolute perfection of the believer in his will, nature and in all his acts, for Christ considered in His human nature is absolutely perfect in His will, nature and His acts, or to the heresy that Christ fails and Christ sins when the believer fails and sins, since, allegedly, Christ, not the believer, is living the believer’s life. What we do know for certain, since no text of Scripture states that Christ lives the Christian life instead of the believer, neither heresy has any support whatsoever from any Biblical text or principle. It's a fable made up in the minds of false teachers who understand not Scripture, and then propagated by the same. We also know this heresy is very common in Keswick theology right from its founding people. For instance, it is perfectly in line with Quaker quietism, mysticism, and doctrine of the Inner Light and Voice of Hannah W. Smith.
In his last sermon, Price attempts to skirt around the above charges, i.e. sinless perfectionism or Christ becomes a sinner, by arguing the following. He fallaciously argues that because eternal life means without beginning or end, this can only be a reference to God, since God alone is without beginning or end. He further argues the premise that since receiving eternal life is by receiving Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is perfect and without sin, then our new nature is also perfect and without sin because that very nature is Jesus Christ. He attempts to downplay this realistic charge that Christ becomes a sinner by claiming that Christ lives alongside the sinful nature of the Christian, but in so doing completely denies many, many things about salvation, such as the new birth itself which involves regeneration, the new man, the new heart, the quickened spirit, the spiritual life that is derived from Christ, and the power He gives believers to will and do of His good pleasure, all of which are glorious truths found throughout Scripture, and all of which are associated with the sinner turned saint, NOT the Lord Jesus Christ indwelling the person.
“Oxford dictionary . . . defines eternal without beginning and without end. Everlasting is life that last forever but it presupposes a beginning. Well if eternal means without beginning and without end, there is only one eternal life that has no beginning and no end and that is the life of God. We can have everlasting, we have life that won’t end by receiving the only eternal life there is which is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ is planted within us by the Holy Spirit, which is why Rom 6:23 says the gift of God is eternal life. Now don’t misread that. Not the gift from God where God is only the giver, but it’s the gift of God, God is the gift. He gives Himself to us. And that life that He gives to us is a life which does not sin, and will not sin, and cannot sin, and if we need further evidence that John is talking about Christ in this sense he says in 1 John 3:5 in him is no sin, and that sinless life comes to indwell us, but in coming to indwell us, He lives alongside the old natural you and me which does sin, and can sin and will sin, and if we dare say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, and His to the letter. I have a sinless life indwelling me, the life of the Lord Jesus Christ with all the appetites He brings, the hunger and thirst for righteousness and so on.”
First of all, this is some serious digging at and misusing proof texts to booster his point. He has to corrupt the meaning of words, twist the meaning of words and doctrine, and create something different that occurs at salvation than what God's Word outlines. For instance, "gift of God"does not mean that it's God Himself that is the gift. He is twisting the meaning of the preposition "of," which doesn't require God to be the gift but the gift giver, which is how the word is used mostly in Scripture. He is also wresting the Scriptures, taking passages such as 1 Jn 3:5 out of its context. Indeed this passage is referring to Jesus, "he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin," but the very next verse which speaks also of no sin, is not referring to Jesus, but to the born again believer: "Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him." (1 Jn 3:6). How could he ignore this clear human-referring passage? Of course he had to in order to argue his case. And another, v. 9: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." No, these passages are not explained away by claiming that it's God that lives the Christian life, like Price does. Further above we discuss what 1 Jn 3:1-9 mean.
Secondly, the words “eternal” and “everlasting” both carry the meaning of something perpetual or “for ever.” The Bible does not support Price's frivolous and false claims that "eternal" does not apply to mankind or that "everlasting" and "eternal" have different meanings. The very same Greek word was inspired of God to translate both "eternal" and "everlasting." Of the 71x the Greek word aionios appears in the NT, it is translated "eternal" 42x and "everlasting" 25x and also translated into "began" 2x (both referring to the world), and "world" itself once, likewise "for ever." Majority of the times this word appears it is referring to the quantity of life that God gives to a repentant sinner at salvation or an unrepentant sinner at death. The Greek eis + aion or aionios phrases for “for ever” and “eternity/everlasting” respectively—not to mention eis ton aionon ton aionon (“for ever and ever”), always signify a literal eternity in the future. Thus, when God says that He saves to “eternal" or "everlasting life” and that the smoke of the torment of the wicked ascends up for ever and ever, or that lost men on earth are in eternal fire, it means exactly what it says. It's referring to the life that God gives measured by quantity. For example, “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:15), “should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16), “is not condemned” (Jn. 3:18) but “hath everlasting life” (Jn. 3:36; 5:24) -- all describe the nature of salvation as being for ever in time. Furthermore, the same word translated eternal or forever in the NT is also translated from a Greek phrase which could also be translated “into the ages” (Jn. 6:51, 58; 8:35, 51; Rom. 16:27; Rev. 1:6; 20:10). As God’s plans and ages roll forward in endless succession, His redeemed people will serve Him in perfect joy for ever (Rev. 22:3). This is eternal life (Jn. 17:2-3). In Price's egregious claims, he is calling God a liar for using the wrong word to describe salvation. But He didn’t. It is Price that is wresting the words of God to argue his false narrative.
The idea that Jesus Christ lives out the Christian's life, not the Christian, has other severe problems as well; for example, the Lord Jesus, as He is in heaven, does not live by faith, as He has personal sight of all the glory of God and knows everything (omniscient), so the Christian on earth would not have to live by faith. Again, there is no text of scripture that supports this heretical doctrine, though a number of passages are habitually proof-texted towards that end (e.g. Gal 2:20; Col 1:27; 3:4; 2 Cor 4:10-11), and other passages are manipulated and wrested (i.e., Scripture that refers to Jesus Christ as eternal life), in spite of being debunked repeatedly by many over the generations. Nor is there any Biblical support for any sort of distinguishing between an upper class of Christians who have entered into a deeper life or second blessing and a lower class who have not done so. Passages such as Gal 2:20 are true for every true Christian, who is legally dead to sin, and has his life hid with Christ in God (Col 3:3-4).
One thing I failed to write upon initially posting this report, is the following crucial point: what happens to the spirit and soul of the person that Price describes as allegedly saved but has Christ living his Christian life as He indwells that person? What happens to the body, soul and spirit of this person who allegedly has the very life of Christ in him Who does all the work for him, Christ having apparently been born into that individual so now that indivivual has no need or obligation to be personally born again? If all the passages that speak of the new birth, regeneration, justification and so on apply only to Jesus Christ, as Price certainly indicates, since it is Christ's life that does the living and winning, and Christ is born into that person (Prices interpretation of being born again), what about the body, soul and spirit of this individual? Does it remain dead? Does it remain only sinful, as Price also suggests? When does it get saved, for this human-three in one must be saved before it can enter the kingdom of God? Of course many times Price speaks of the forgiveness of sins and other things that apply to the individual, but that doesn’t jive with these other teachings of his. There is a clear contradiction.
The Bible tells us that its the whole of body, soul and spirit that is saved at the moment of the new birth, indicated plainly by Paul in this passage:
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Th 5:23)
Obviously the body, soul and spirit of the saint must be saved in order for it to be sanctified and persevered blameless.
The Bible also indicates that the spirit of the repentant sinner is quickened, which means made alive, at the very moment of the new birth, with no reference concernering this to the Lord Jesus Christ:
“And you hath he quickened , who were dead in trespasses and sins; . . . Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph 2:1,5)
The idea that Christ’s own personal holiness is imparted to Christians has properly been rejected by Baptists as unbiblical. In the words of the London Baptist Association in 1704,
“It is the opinion of this Assembly that the doctrine of sanctification by the impartation of the holiness of Christ’s nature does, in its consequences, render inherent holiness by the Holy Spirit unnecessary, and tends to overthrow natural, as well as revealed religion” (Bye-Paths in Baptist History, J. J. Goadby, 2005, Ch. 8, p. 171)
The false teaching that the Lord Jesus lives the Christian life instead of the believer is either abominable heresy or mystical gobbledygook that cannot be given any clear propositional content. It certainly does not help the believer live a holy life. I am convinced, not only based upon the above but what else is to come, including his blatant attack on Scripture, that Charles Price is an unregenerate heretic that doesn't actually know what he is teaching. He is a confused false teacher and that is why we are exposing him, in perfect accordance to Scripture (Rom 16:17; 2 Tim 3:8).
(b) Price claims that Jesus became the worst of all sinners, even worse than Hitler and Stalin. After reading 1 Jn 4:17 he states,
“But we will be confident in the day of judgement because in this world we are like Him. Why? Because one day He was like me. Every sin I have ever committed Jesus Christ took upon Himself. Jesus Christ became the worst sinner you can imagine. He became Adolf Hitler. He became Stalin. He became you. He became me. He who knew no sin, was made to be what I am so that I might become what He is.” (Sermon 2)
What?!? 😳 He became Stalin?! He became Hitler?! He became the worst sinner you can imagine?! Wow. U.n.b.e.l.i.e.v.a.b.l.e. I'm speechless. This is utterly ridiculous and blasphemous, a serious perversion of the character of Christ and attack on his deity. This paragraph alone condemns Price as a heretic and false teacher, demonstrating he doesn't understand what he is teaching. Yes, Jesus took upon Himself every sin you have ever committed (if you have been genuinely converted--its only efficacious to those who have repented), but Jesus was never "like me" in the sense of being a sinful person. He did NOT "become the worst sinner you can imagine," for He was NEVER a sinner! He was among sinners, yet sinless. Just because Jesus took our sins upon Himself did NOT make Him a sinner, or anything like sinners! In the only sense he was like me in His humanity, is that He was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Heb 4:15). And because "he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." (Heb 2:18). Jesus was not a sinner. Sinners are unsaved people, going to hell, lest they repent. That was me before the Triune God converted me. Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God who was “without sin” (Heb 7:26-27)--as stated specifically--did NOT BECOME A SINNER! There was never a need for Him to repent because He never sinned. A sinner is someone that has sinned. This is basic English and Bible theology, and must offend anyones intellect that is familiar with Christ's deity. I cannot imagine though how this evil heresy offends God!
"For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself." (Heb 7:26-27)
What part of, “[Jesus] was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15), does he not get? Without sin = not a sinner. Jesus “bear[ing] the sins of many” (Heb 9:28) doesn’t make Him an actual sinner and it certainly doesn’t make Him the worst of all sinners!
rice clearly must not understand what Jesus sacrificing Himself for our sins means. Or what 2 Cor 5:21 proclaims:
“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
Again, Christ was never a sinner, but He did bear our sins in the sense of taking the punishment due for our sins. Christ was NOT made sin but He was made TO BE sin for us even though He Himself “knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus being made to be sin for us does not make Him a sinner. He was made to be sin for us because He took our sin upon Himself. That also doesn’t make Him a sinner. God forbid. Jesus is God. He cannot sin, nor be a sinner. He was made by God to be the victim for our sin, made to take our place in judgment. Christ fulfilled the Father's will in sacrificing Himself in accordance to His will.
Price is actually proclaiming here that God can be tempted with evil, since Jesus Christ, God the Son, was allegedly the most evil sinner that has ever lived, surpassing Hitler and Stalin! But God forbid!
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:" (Jam 1:13)
I think men like Price enjoy saying these kind of things, adding some shock value to their preaching, click-bait stuff, exalting themselves on some pedestal for having the “nerve” to just say what they really feel about Jesus, and putting one on God and making Him more like us, more in our image. The whole 'Jesus lives my life for me' relates to this, Jesus becoming something like a slave to the "saint" and a goody meister, serving you all the things you want to have, giving you your hearts desires. There is a reason why they reject Lordship Salvation, the only salvation that the Bible teaches, for they abhor the idea of genuinely submitting their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, though they may give lip service to it. Their actions and doctrine speak otherwise.
It’s evil. Plainly evil. A diabolical attack on the Person of God the Son.
(c) Jesus died for His Father?
“Why does there have to be a cross involved? It is for this reason. It is not we that demand the cross, it is God that demands the cross, and Jesus in the first instance died for His Father. He died to address the judgment of His Father. That is why this word propitiation is an important word.” (Sermon 2)
The Bible says Jesus died according to the will of the Father, but not for the Father. The Father did not need His Son to die for Him, but for lost mankind. So in the first instance, Jesus died for OUR sins, that is human sins, and the Father is not a sinner. In the second instance, Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins. That means He fully satisfied God’s wrath towards our sins, and thereby turning God’s wrath away from us. Thats not the same as dying for the Father. He died according to the Father's will.
Rom 3:25,
“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;”
1 Jn 2:2,
“And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 Jn 4:10,
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
Truly, "A little leaven leaventh the whole lump" (Gal 5:9).
2. The Keswick Perversion of Sanctification and Faith, Including the Implication Something is Missing in the Christian Life Not Received at Salvation.
(a) You need the fullness of Christ.
The theme itself lends to the false philosophy that not everything is received at the moment of conversion:
“The overall theme of these sermons is The Fullness of Christ.”
“Maybe you know Him but your walk is a little off keel. He is looking for you, in love, to bring you into the richness and fullness that He has for every one of us.” (Sermon 1)
The fullness of Christ is true in every true believer at the very moment of their new birth. Price however is implying here that all believers do not have the fullness of Christ, and that is how the five sermons went. In fact, this is a major theme of Keswick theology, where many things remain missing in the believers life after his alleged salvation. Salvation is not enough to have a successful Christian life, according this theology. For that you need more. That is, if you want to live the Christian life. If you want to over come sin and see great things happen, you will definitely need more.
You have to attain a higher plane of spiritual existence. You have to want it bad enough. You have to fervently pray for it more, and attend more "revivals." Maybe even fast. You will have to work harder for it. You will have to sacrifice to obtain it. You have to be sold out. Become dedicated. Maybe even a disciple of Jesus. It's a secret, and it has a key. You have to let go and let God. Why settle for mediocrity or mundane or regular, when you could have great or greatness?
This is the moment Keswick theology or second blessing theology with its corrupted sanctification steps in and brings the spiritual "success" you need. Biblical verbiage is used, but not without corrupting the truths and passages of Scripture. You will need "vision." Without it, the people perish. You don't want to be lacking in this, and risk a whole bunch of perishing. The "vision" might come if you have the "unction." You need to pray and seek after the unction from on high, where you are drawn into a kind of super Christian existence. There is non-unction Christianity and then there is unction Christianity. Without unction, you were merely "word only," while with unction, you could be Christianity with "power." And power meant success because power is fresh oil. It is achieving the "fulness of the Spirit." You will now go beyond your ability or even beyond asking or thinking for spiritual success. Greatness is just around the corner. Power is like extra voltage. You are operating in your Christian life at a certain amp, but you could increase your amps if you kept asking and asking for it. And in so doing you could get "revival." Revival meant that everything was aligned spiritually to channel the blessings of God that you would not have heretofore obtained.
That experience is the Keswick one. I believe many have convinced themselves that this is a true version of Christianity. Keswick theology creates two-tiered Christianity, the kind of "Christianity" promoted by Price in these sermons and by almost all evangelical preachers (including this one at EBMC), and very many Baptists (among others). There are two categories of Christians, the spiritual haves and have-nots, the spiritual Christian or the carnal Christian. By some descriptions, you go through two crosses, the cross of salvation and then the cross of dedication. Both crosses are necessary to which to come in order to have a supremely successful Christian life. Salvation produces one thing and then some post-salvation crisis or some moment of time produces another. The idea is people who are saved need some experience after salvation that will cause the salvation to flourish and be fruitful. Some have it and others don't, but even those who don't have it -- they're still saved. Salvation is accepting Jesus as Saviour. After accepting Jesus as Saviour, you are apparently ready to die, because you would apparently go to heaven. You have apparently been saved from the penalty of sin, which is hell. But you need more. If you want to get the full benefits of your salvation, or move from a carnal Christian to a spiritual one, there is another experience and that is the accepting of Jesus as Lord at some point in the future. You need to become His disciple. You need to achieve power over sin. When you are dedicated or achieve the higher life or deeper life or sanctified life or crucified life (et al), the second blessing, which happens post conversion, Jesus becomes your Lord, not just Saviour. Salvation apparently allows Jesus entrance into your life, but at the moment of dedication or discipleship, you give him a seat on the throne of your life. When He is on the throne, then you will get the special blessing from God to be greatly used of Him. When you see someone reach a pinnacle of success in their Christian life, e.g., experiences many professions of faith, or has a big and numerically growing church, or receives many high fives and words of praise after preaching, or the aisles fill up at his alter call -- he must have received the deeper/ higher/ crucified/ sanctified/ et al life and the "unction." He has paid the price. Salvation is free, but the second blessing is going to really cost you something. You'll have to sell out for that. And if you haven't got it, it's because you haven't sold out. You haven't tried hard enough. The price to be paid is really immeasurable. Keep the cord plugged into the power source until it's obvious you are fully charged. You'll have power like Simon the sorcerer (Ac 8:8-24).
What I'm describing above seems very close to the Charismatic movement and to Charismatic experiences, and that is because it is really that close. They certainly overlap. In fact, many times where Keswick theology lives, Charismaticism lives, and that includes The Peoples Church that Price pastored for many years (e.g. Charismatic music, preaching, second blessing theology, associations, female "pastors,"etc). This doesn't come as a surprise since the entire Charismatic movement and Pentecostalism came out of Keswick theology and the Keswick movement. Their own history books admit to it. Another name for Keswick theology is revivalism. Revivalists very often, if not always, are, like Charismatics, a form of continuationism. Sign gifts continue today in certain respects, and occurrences of the eras of miracle can also continue today. Revivalists evangelicals (really charismatics) like Price often speak about God speaking to them or telling them things. They operate according to these voices, like they heard God talking to them. God tells them to build buildings, begin special promotions, start outreach campaigns, and what to preach on, etc.
Many false teachers and misled compromised men and women have advanced these heresies over the last two centuries. For instance, A.W. Tozer, William Boardman, Charles Trumbull, John Wesley (really the father of this theology along with Charles Finney, long before it was named and popularized by the welsh revival in the early 20th century), C.I. Scofield, Alan Redpath (who is quoted and exalted by Price in his last sermon), Hannah Whitall Smith, Roy Hession, Hudson Taylor, Oswald Chambers, Billy Graham, John R. Rice, Watchman Nee, Evan Roberts, Jesse-Penn Lewis, Evan Hopkins, Andrew Murray, Amy Carmichael, Brother Lawrence, Bernard of Clairvaux, Madame Guyon, Warren Wiersbe, A.W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, G.H. Moule, F.B. Meyer, A.B. Simpson, W. H. Griffith Thomas, R.A. Torrey, Charles Ryrie, William Boardman, John A. MacMillan, Stephen Olford, Major Ian Thomas, Ruth Paxson, Vance Havner, Theodore Epp, Lewis Sperry Chafer, James O. Buswell III, John Walvord, Kenneth Wuest, Charles Feinberg, Arthur Glasser, L.E. Maxwell, Harold J. Ockenga, Andrew Murray, etc.
That experience described by Price is the Keswick one. I believe many have convinced themselves that this is a true version of Christianity, like other false views have. I don't want to have anything to do with what I'm describing above. I want to stay as far away from it as I can. I don't see it, as a whole, as Christianity. I think you may have some true Christians in these churches and organizations, but overall it isn't Christian.
There are ONLY two categories and classes of people in the Bible and the world, spiritually speaking. You can read about this in greater detail here: There are Only Two Classes or Categories of People in God’s Word, Not Three. Keswick theology on the other hand characteristically teaches three categories: the unbeliever, the spiritual Christian and the carnal Christian. But it's a fable, invented by false teachers and then propagated by the same. All forms of Keswick and second blessing theology need to be rejected, primarily because it clashes with what the Bible teaches. Revivalism or Keswick theology contradict a grammatical historical interpretation of scripture. Outside of the direct perversions and corruptions of the gospel, this is likely the most dangerous false teaching in Christianity. It is that dangerous because it is so close to the truth. And it's everywhere. Essentially all mainstream Christian writers and preachers and commentaries, contain varying amounts of this theology. It has flooded all pulpits, pens, papers, and preaching, and many don't even know it. Keswick theology is woven into practically all denominational and non-denominational evangelical, protestant and baptist churches today, and others. In any given church, both Keswick and non-Keswick theology lives. Sermons may be Keswick or non-Keswick. Scripture is given different interpretations: one Keswick/revivalist and one not. They can't both be right, but there is the sense that both are considered to be so.
Every true born again blood-bought saint of God is complete in Jesus Christ. He or she has the fullness of Him, and always will. The Bible is extremely clear on that. At the moment of one's conversion, simultaneous with his justification, someone receives in that instance everything he needs to live the Christian life. Every genuine believer is a have. There are no have-nots. Nothing more is necessary than what he already possesses from that moment on. We can read of that in 1 Cor 1:4-7, these members of the church at Corinth were enriched by Jesus Christ in every thing -- in all utterance, and in all knowledge. They come behind in no gift. They did not lack anything spiritually. Eph 1:3, those in Christ are blessed by God with all spiritual blessings. All. Col 1:1-6; 2:9-10, in Jesus Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, and since you are in Him; therefore, you are complete in him. Complete. Full. Lacking nothing. 2 Pet 1:1-4, everyone justified has obtained like precious faith. No born again believer's faith is different than any one else's. And faith is not quantitative. You either have it or you don't. At the very moment of your justification your faith tank is full, 100%, right at the instance of conversion. It doesn't need any more additions to it, because it never fails being full. His divine power has given unto believers all things that pertain unto life and godliness. All things. No thing missing. All true converts are partakers of the divine nature.
The message of the NT isn't that we need more resources of any kind after we are saved. We have the Holy Spirit, God Himself, indwelling us (Rom 8:9; Eph 1), and God is infinite in every way. We can't be missing anything if God owns everything and we're in God and God is in us. If we have everything, if we possess all that we need to be everything we need to be and do all that we need to do, then what is the problem or what is the issue? It isn't that we don't have what we need. It is that we must yield what we have to Him. We must cooperate with God in what we have. With everything God has done and is doing, you have to cooperate with Him, with "all diligence." (2 Pet 1:5). You have faith, but you still have to exercise faith, live by the faith that you have. When you do, you experience the blessing. We hold things back or not walk in obedience, and so we don't experience the blessings that we possess. We have those blessings, but we don't experience them in our disobedience, our lack of yielding to the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, you have the blessing, but you don't experience it, because that occurs when you obey. You don't have to sacrifice to get anything you need to live how you should live. You have all of that the moment you are converted. What you need to do is yield to God what you have been given. Presenting your body a living sacrifice results from the mercies of God (Rom 12:1). Rom 1-11 describes the completeness of everything that a born again believer possesses in Christ. Yes we need to grow, but we are growing in something that we already have. The growth is within the sphere again of having everything. Do we need to learn it and do it? Yes. But that is, again, yielding. Keswick or second blessing theology says that you've got to keep doing and doing and doing certain things or you won't have available the resources you need for living at the height of your Christian life. This is not true. Its a lie. And the most common reason for the lie is because people that embrace this false teaching have never been genuinely converted. Not all, but many. They are attempting to obtain what is only obtainable through the new birth. They strive after it, because they have actually never experienced the new birth. Nor will they arrive if they keep down this path, because it doesn’t lead to the new birth but to self deception and imitation.
(b) The distortion and corruption of faith.
Price corrupts faith and its meaning and application. He provides many definitions in sermon three, but never gives a true Biblical definition, as noted for instance in Heb 11:1. The false teaching that sanctification is by faith alone is popular in the Keswick movement, and Heb 11:1 or Col 2:6 does not support it. Though I have not heard him say this, I wouldn't be surprised if he believes this based upon what he taught here.
In his third sermon he states,
“People say, ‘I wish I had more faith.’ I’ve talked to people many times who say ‘I don’t have enough faith.’”
From here he goes on to illustrate mustard seed size faith. But he distorts what the Bible means by mustard seed size faith. His comparison of Biblical faith to unsaved people flying in an airplane, doesn’t square. Unsaved people don't have faith. The comparison doesn’t jive with Biblical faith. He partially quotes the passage out of Luke 17, where Jesus speaks about “faith as a grain of mustard seed” (v. 6), in response to the request: “Increase our faith” (v. 5). Like majority neo-evangelical type theologians, he stops right there and corrupts this passage to fit presuppositions on Keswick-type Christianity, while ignoring the actual context where Jesus describes what that faith of a mustard seed actually is. But this is always how false teachers flow. Either they cannot see it and understand or they ignore it, but they almost always corrupt the text even when the context gives the explanation, which it virtually always does. Verses 7 through 10 is Christ actually explaining how to increase faith, in response to the question in v. 5 and explanation of how to have the “faith as a grain of mustard seed” but of course the neo-evangelical heretic doesn’t like what those verses say, it doesn’t fit his narrative and most certainly don’t like this complete reference to obedience. That is “law” talk, as Price will dive into in his next sermon. What do verses 7-10 say? Let me quote it so some of you don’t have to pull out your corrupted version of Scripture, which may only compound the perplexity:
“But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”
In the event of some sort of cognitive dissonance and denial, here is the context, vv. 5-6, that leads up to the above vv. 7-10,
“And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. But which of you ... ” (Lk 17:5-7ff.)
They said, "Lord, Increase our faith," so the Lord tells them how to have true and increased faith that moves trees. Summed up in one word: Obedience. Obeying whatsoever the Lord hath said in His Word, regardless of reward, cost or consequence. We just do it because God says. He is God and it is our duty and responsibility to obey Him regardless of the reward or cost, since, after-all, that is the whole duty of man: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." (Eccl 12:13). It is our duty as unprofitable servants, for the glory of God. "Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” (Lk 17:9-10). What God says in His Bible, not in opinions or imaginations. What Scripture says, listening, keeping and doing whatsoever the commands, decrees and principles of Scripture are. That is how you have mustard seed size faith. True faith obeys and is exercised by obedience, which is what "the just shall live by faith" (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38-39) means. That is faith, living by faith. Everything evolves around obedience.
"Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." (Heb 10:38-39)
Even salvation requires obedience — obedience to the gospel (Rom 10:16; 2 Th 1:8; 1 Pet 4:17). God commands us to repent and believe, and when we do, we are obedient to the gospel. And this was noted in Christs explanation of the “faith of a grain of mustard seed,” where He likens this faith to obedience as we continue reading there: “ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.” (v. 6). True faith obeys Gods Word. In everything. Period. And isn’t grievous either for the true believer, the one truly “born of God” (1 Jn 5:1):
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” (1 Jn 5:3).
People want faith, and so they say, but really not the faith that is found in Scripture. That is why they inquire after it by asking people, or seek after a crisis or some human experience, rather than going to the Word of God for it. Price even alludes to this in his third sermon, seemingly driving people away from studying the Bible because that is what Pharisees do. True faith requires true conversion where self is denied and dies, the cross is carried, and sin is fled from, all in surrender to the King of kings and the Lord of lords, followed by single eyed obedience to the Master as He commands in His Word, the sheep following his Shepherd, the soldier following the Captain of his salvation, the farmer following his Master Husbandman, the fisherman following his Captain of the seas.
But this is where the great and perplexing problem is for neo-evangelicals, including Price. Obedience. They don’t obey the whole counsel of God and don't really want to either. They pick and choose what they will obey, their false division of essentials and non-essentials entering into the picture for such a purpose. For instance, their love for ungodly and worldly dress (women dressing like men, immodestly, keep short hair like men), worldly music (ungodly CCM), worldly endeavours (riches, popularity, tolerance, marriage perversion, etc), and so on are all adhered to based upon ignoring what the Scriptures command the professing believer, a majority backing, and then arguing away the truth of God's Word by wresting Scripture (2 Pet 3:17-18) and creating logical fallacies or scoffing at the truth (2 Pet 3:3). And they wonder why they have so many problems in their churches and homes.
Another Keswick-related theological error, God is looking for those that He has saved, to give them, again, something that they allegedly don't have. They are missing things.
“Maybe you know Him but your walk is a little off keel. He is looking for you, in love, to bring you into the richness and fullness that He has for every one of us.” (Sermon 1)
God is looking for the saved person? I think the Bible says He has already found the repentant sinner turned saint and they have found Him (Is 55:6). True believers "know God [and] . . . are known of God," (Gal 4:9). There is never any description or definition of what is meant by “off keel” such as disobedience or sin, or whether there is chastisement. Such things aren’t mentioned at all. These things oppose the agenda of the Keswick theologian and neo-evangelical.
God is not looking for those He has saved, since they are His and He is theirs, a mutual relationship based upon the new birth. God never stops working in His saints and the saint is never left to himself (Ps. 18:24-26; 48:14; Jer. 32:37-41; Jn. 10:1-5, 26-27; Rom. 8:28-39; I Cor. 1:6-9; Eph. 1:11, 13; 3:20; Phil. 1:6; 2:12-13; 1 Th. 2:13; 5:23-24; 2 Th. 2:12-17; 3:2-3; 2 Tim. 1:12; 4:18; 1 Pet. 1:5; Heb. 13:20-21). God the Spirit, who indwells the saint, leads, teaches, guides, directs, convicts, chastises the saint at all times, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Rom 8:14). God never stops chastising His own (De 8:5-6; Job 5:17; Pr 3:11-12; Heb 12:5-11; 1 Cor. 11:28-32), which is what He actually does when “your walk is a little off keel,” whatever that actually means. Noted in Heb 12:5-11,
“And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us , and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”
Price purveys Keswick lies about the strength of the believer, which dovetails with the heresy of Christ living the Christian life and being our life, distorting Biblical faith:
“God doesn’t give us power, He is our power, He is our strength. Never ask God to give you strength; Scripture repeatedly says the Lord is my strength, He is my strength, not gives it, it’s His own presence within us.” (Sermon 2)
Later he repeats this again,
“We don’t ask God to give us strength, the scriptures say He is our strength.” (Sermon 5)
Price is blatantly lying between his teeth here or extremely ignorant to what Scripture teaches, the latter the more merciful conclusion. He attempts to argue his case with Ex 15:2 and Ps 28:7; 118:14; Is 12:2; 33; Hab 3:19; all of which say “the Lord is my strength” or “our strength.” God is indeed our strength for He is the source of our strength and power but that doesn't mean that strength is automatically demonstrated or even accessible without asking. Indeed we still ask God for both. That requires faith. And this is exactly how Scripture reads, everywhere. God does give His children strength, noted throughout the Bible.
Phil 4:13,
"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
It is Christ that strengthens the believer to endure all things. A person is strengthened in the strength God has given. In Eph 6, the regenerate believer is commanded to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” (v. 10). Here the servant of Christ is commanded to be strong, which obviously necessitates the need to ask since the source of that strength is the Lord, "in the power of His might." But it's not God Himself exercising that strength, so a totally different concept to what Price is proclaiming, not a nuance. God gives strength so we can be strong, and it is meant for His glory.
The recipe for increasing in strength is given to us in 2 Pet 1:5-8ff.,
" And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
What is ironic here is that the person is adding, not God. That means that the person has already received all of these things. The Greek word translated "add" (epichoregeo) has the understanding of "supply" and "furnish" and "contribute" and that is how it is used elsewhere. This is not quietism, where a person just "lets go and lets God" do everything, the unscriptural and erroneous motto of Keswick theology, coined by John MacMillan, likely where Price derived these beliefs from. Strength is required to advance in the Christian life, and that is exercised by the God-strengthened believer.
Strength is not the only Scriptural doctrine where this is true. We have grace, but are commanded to be strong in it. We have the Spirit but are commanded to be filled with Him (i.e. yielded full to Him). We have power, but must rely on that power of God, not our own. This is all accomplished practically by learning the Word of God, denying self, and doing God's will, as revealed in the Word, from the heart. The corruption of truth always leads to corruption of Scripture (2 Cor 2:17; 2 Pet 3:16-17), and vice versa, a revolving door, until the whole is leavened (Gal 5:9).
The entire concept of "Let go and let God" with Christ living our the believers life, does not represent biblical or historical sanctification. They are another, modern iteration of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, which is the apostasy of 2 Peter 2 and Jude. They take away responsibility to obey the commands of the NT, fulfill the law of Christ, and turn it over to Jesus. It just isn't true. The NT doesn't teach it and it certainly doesn’t teach that it’s the very life of Jesus that dwells in the believer.
In his third sermon Price states,
“I know folks who have a strong doctrine of salvation by faith, but an extremely weak understanding of living by faith. They think living by faith is something for missionaries who don’t get paid.”
They have an “extremely weak understanding of living by faith” because of false teachers like Price who corrupt this teaching and create nothing but confusion and falsehoods, not only concerning sanctification but also the false gospel. That is very likely the origin, the foundation, and the worst of it, and then a necessity for the distorted sanctification and methods. The gospel, sanctification, and then methods always interrelate.
3. Price's Perversion of the Gospel and Scripture that Teaches the Gospel/Salvation.
Many of the theological components of the Keswick movement are lies and falsehoods, but there is an underlying and foundational lie to this movement, and that is about salvation. In so many cases the gospel has been twisted as a corollary to this false view of sanctification.
No one should accept any of this. It does matter.
(a) Missing important elements of the gospel, which makes it a false gospel.
The gospel preaching was vague, watered down, anemic, at best. Barely skin deep, but what was missing makes it perverted and corrupted. Only once by the way side was the word repentance even mentioned, but never was it actually preached, or described or it’s principles discussed or stated, even though the first two sermons were supposedly to do with salvation, and even though there was much mention of “faith.” Faith however without repentance is dead. It is demon faith (Jam 2:14-19). There is no salvation without repentance: Lk 13:1-5; Matt 21:28-32; Mk 1:15; etc. When Jesus preached His gospel, He preached repentance:
“From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt 4:17).
When He sent out His apostles to preach His gospel, He told them to preach repentance:
“And they went out, and preached that men should repent. . . . And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the gospel,” (Mk 6:12; Lk 9:6a — same account).
When Jesus commissioned all born again believers, He told them to preach repentance:
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.” (Lk 24:47-48)
You could say that repentance is the very foundation of salvation. Everything to do with true conversion hinges on it. But Price, like vast majority of his neo-evangelical kin (and the rest of Christendom), doesn’t preach repentance. In the rare time of mention, it is corrupted. This point alone makes him a false (2 Cor 11:4) and accursed teacher (Gal 1:6-9),
"[T]here be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. . . . To whom ["false brethren"] we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you." (Gal 1:7b-8; 2:5)
Naturally when repentance is corrupted or denied altogether, the Lordship of Christ is likewise corrupted or denied. Charles Price doesn’t preach repentance or who Jesus is, He is Lord, and so he doesn’t come with the gospel that is found in the Word of God. Why not? Because he is a false teacher that promotes a false gospel that caters to the lost. And that would explain also why he endorses other serious sinful heresies (such as ungodly, satanic CCM, female pastors, transgenderism in women) and corrupts the Bible via eisegesis and additions, etc, as we have seen.
Read more here on the irrefutable proof that no repentance or false repentance and not teaching the Lordship of Christ is most certainly a false gospel:
Unsurprising, the watered down statement of faith on the church website he pastored for sixteen years has nothing on repentance or Christ's Lordship under the heading "Salvation." And of course, nowhere on the website can one find any gospel presented to the unsaved, which should have its own tab. But a tab to "Give" exists because, well, that is important.
This point alone condemns Price as a false teacher, so no real need to go into other elements of his false gospel, such as the easy believism that he embraces and promotes, but there is a few other thing that require mentioning.
(b) Corrupting the gospel by adding a works element to it.
He claimed in the first sermon, which was titled “Experiencing the Righteousness of God,” that,
“The actual substance of the gospel is that the righteousness of God is restored to human experience.”
No it’s not. He is actually teaching a false gospel here. “The actual substance of the gospel” is the imputed righteousness of God, what both Abraham and David received (Rom 4:1-8) and what all truly repentant sinners receive (Rom 4:22-25), a chapter that Price corrupted in the sermons to fit his false gospel and sanctification. Imputed righteousness of God is the matter, subject and essence of the gospel. It isn’t the same as what he is saying. Big difference -- the difference between grace and works for salvation. What imputed righteousness produces is practical righteousness, which is “human experience,” but that isn’t the gospel. That is the fruit and evidence of true conversion (Jn 14:15-24; 1 Jn 2:3-5; Eph 2:8-10), "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Eph 2:10). Gods imputed righteousness, without works, is the gospel. What Price is explaining here as being the substance of the gospel is actually the consequence of the gospel, the good works and righteousness that comes out of that position, being righteous, which comes from having the imputed righteousness of God and being justified, which is to be declared righteous. Abraham sacrificing his only son in obedience to the Word of God was an illustration of the practical righteousness (Jam 2:17-26; Gen 22:1-18) that comes out of imputed righteousness (Rom 4:1-5; Gen 15:1-6)
Rom 4:1-8,
“What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”
The gospel is all about the imputed righteousness of God, and do notice that practical righteousness isn’t even mentioned at all here in Rom 4, besides those who attempt to work for their reward of salvation, though it’s a necessary consequence of imputation and justification.
(c) Price does not seem to understand nor able to discern between saved and unsaved, which is all the difference in the world.
He gives an account of a woman who felt unworthy of teaching Sunday school because of ongoing sinful problems, for not just years but decades. She stated that “sin has plagued me all my life. Its damaged my marriage, its spoiled my family. I couldn’t possibly teach in a Sunday school or serve God in any way.” Price said she “felt condemned for thirty years. Thats not the voice of the Spirit of God. Thats the voice of Satan.” (Sermon 2)
This is simple-minded foolishness. Naivety to extreme. He gives no argument as to whether this woman was actually, truly, born again, since vast majority who profess Christ are unsaved according to Scripture (e.g. Matt 7:13-14; Lk 13:23-24), and the NT plays that out, as has history. In no other time has this been more true than ours. This is the first place where this must be taken, because there is an obvious reason why she is feeling condemned and convicted, and because of the great apostasy upon us. Someone that feels condemned, is condemned. "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (Jn 3:18). The Spirit of God is convicting her of her sin and desperate necessity to repent and be genuinely converted, vs the placebo that she has embraced and been fed by men like Price, but, like Elymas the sorcerer (Ac 13:6-8), he is turning this lady away from the true faith. I would say to him what Paul said to this ole false prophet:
"O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" (Ac 13:12)
Very aptly spoken for so many heretical men in these last days of apostasy!
In the third sermon he gives another example of people he coins as saved people, but are not actually saved:
“I know folks who have a strong doctrine of salvation by faith, but an extremely weak understanding of living by faith. They think living by faith is something missionaries who don’t get paid."
"The just shall live by faith" (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38-39) is not some abstract thought or addition to the Christian life. It is the Christian life. And faith is grown and exercised by obedience. someone that doesn't understand how to live by faith or that its only what missionaries do, does not understand what faith is, nor is his "strong doctrine of salvation by faith" anything besides an intellectual knowledge. Based upon what we know of the intellectual-only gospel preached by Price (even if that), we know that these people are almost guaranteed to be unsaved. The Bible tells us who is saved and who is not. Entire epistles are written for that purpose, such as John's epistles and James. In the following report, we cover the Evidence of Salvation in John's Epistle’s.
(d) The Keswick heresy of corrupting and wresting salvation passages, by turning them into something post-salvation, for discipleship or practical sanctification.
I call this a Keswick heresy because it is so common among Keswick adherents, and many of the original Keswick teachers were instrumental in popularizing the perversion of these salvation passages,
The best example out of these sermons is found in his third sermon, “Living by Faith,” where Abrahams salvation in Rom 4 is twisted into Abrahams sanctification, using the sacrifice of Isaac as the context of Rom 4.
In his second sermon, “Living under the Wrath of God," he in a summarily fashion went through Rom 1 to 3 up to v. 21 and implied what he was reading there was referring to saved and unsaved alike. He didn’t make any distinction, consistently using the first person injunction. This is plainly heretical. The Bible always diffeentiates between the saved and the unsaved. The difference is as big as the difference between heaven and hell, but unregenerate people playing at Christianity cannot know the differences in Scripture like a truly saved person does. They might know great moral differences, but even there the lines are blurred.
But this is heresy. Plain heresy. Romans 1 all the way to Romans 8 are all referring to salvation, or contrasting saved with unsaved.
Another similar example from sermon 3, referring to Romans 4,
“Now Abraham if giving to us here in this chapter is an example of what it means to be both justified by faith and sanctified by faith. . . .
He corrupts Rom 4 severely, eisegetically interpreting what is occurring with Abraham as events occurring after his salvation, for practical sanctification, but nothing in this chapter had to do with Abraham’s sanctification. The entire chapter has to do with salvation.
Almost always, doctrinal problems with sanctification derive from soteriological issues. Very commonly the gospel/salvation is corrupted in some fashion, salvation scripture passages are practically always twisted into something post-salvation, i.e. practical sanctification, and any professed testimony of faith is tainted with Biblical inconsistencies. That is what we see time and time again, and Price is no exception.
Perverting the Scriptures that teach salvation is a perversion of the gospel.
4. Price's Heresy on the Law.
His fourth sermon was all about corrupting the law of God, proving that he really doesn't know what he is talking about.
He states,
“To the Old Testament the law is utterly good. You come into the gospels and Jesus affirmed the law in Matt 5:18 in a similar manner” which he then quotes out of some perverted version of Scripture, and then continues, “So far the law is good. When we get into the writings of Paul, the law becomes a dirty word. Particularly in Galatians but also in Romans, let me quote you Gal 3:10” which he does from some perversion of Scripture, which said, “‘All who rely on observing the law are under a curse.’
Paul said the law is good, NOT "a dirty word." In Rom 7:12-14 Paul stated, “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” These verses say that the law is holy, just, good, and spiritual. Sin is still the transgression of the law, though we thankfully as the redeemed don’t have to reap the reward of the law breaking penalty. In Gal 3:21 Paul said, “Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.”
What Price is pejoratively proclaiming is a very different message than Jeremiah or Moses or even God the Sons sermon on the mount where He stated,
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:17-19).
What Christ says about His law is quite different than Price. Price says its "dirty" but Jesus said He came to fulfill it and all would be fulfilled in time, and that we as believers fulfill the law by keeping His commandments.
Gal 3:10 doesn’t say, ‘All who rely on observing the law are under a curse,’ but rather:
“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”
It's those who are working the law in attempt to benefit with God and merit their salvation that are under the curse (like most of the Jewish people over the course of their history, and Roman Catholicism, and many other Christian groups, denominations and sects), not for merely “observing the law” like his perverted version of the Bible says. Paul addresses this concerning his kin of the flesh and contemporaries in Rom 10:1-4. Saved people are commanded to “fulfil the law” (Rom 3:31), which has the same idea as observing the law, which then makes it untrue what he quoted from the perverted version of God’s Word. Saved people observe God's law, specifically the moral elements of His law, NOT to be saved but because they are saved (Eph 2:10). Rom 8:4 further elaborates Rom 3:31,
“That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
This is one of thousands of reasons why every modern Bible perversion needs to be thrown into the fire. They massively corrupt God’s Word, teach false doctrine, contradict Scripture, and more. And here we see it in action. Dispose of these spoons, not swords, before they destroy you.
The law, Mosaic law as he called it, apparently only consists of the Ten Commandments according to Price, reflecting some of his confusion on the law. A great degree of Prices misunderstanding could be alleviated by simply understanding what “the Law” actually is in scripture, and realizing that it refers to more than one thing. It does not only refer to the ten commandments, as simple-minded professors (Pr 1:20-30) frequently proclaim. Sometimes we know that “the law” is the first five books of the Bible, also referred to as the Torah or the Pentateuch. We see this clearly in Jos 8:31, which reads: “as it is written in the book of the law of Moses.” We also get this usage in the NT, as noted in 1 Cor 9:9, “For it is written in the law of Moses.” On other occasions, when Scripture says “the law” it means merely one particular regulation of God, such as in Lev 14:57: “To teach when it is unclean, and when it is clean: this is the law of leprosy.” Other times, “the law” is some other place in the OT. What Isaiah wrote in Is 28:11-12 wasn’t Mosaic law: “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.” However, Paul calls it “the law” in 1 Cor 14:21 when he targummed: “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.” Thus “the law” is clearly referring to the Word of God. But that's not all. Consider 1 Jn 3:4: “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” Sin is breaking God’s law and Adam sinned (Rom 5:12). Adam broke God’s law, so the law was already in existence before Moses. Rom 4:15 says that “where no law is, there is no transgression.” What law did Adam transgress? He ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, an act that God had plainly prohibited. Rom 5:14 tells us that “death reigned from Adam until Moses.” Death was the result of sin and sin was the transgression of the law. Adam broke “the law” before Moses was ever born. Consider what Paul wrote in Rom 7:1-2: “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.” Paul declares that “the law” says the woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, which means NO divorce or remarriage (two options ONLY: remain separated or reconciled -- I wonder how many people are divorce and remarried in Prices church). What OT passages say that? Gen 2:24 “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” That was not only written before the Mosaic law was given but even before Adams fall. Jesus also refers to this specific point in Mk 10:9, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” There is more but based on this alone we can conclude that all the commands, statutes, ordinances and judgments of God in the Bible are “the law.”
Towards the end of that fourth sermon Price attempts to argue that the law was a command under the old covenant but a promise under the new covenant, which is nonsensical and a lie. He gives an example of a man in England who allegedly got saved while in jail, was released in due time, and randomly goes to the first church he finds (perhaps an Anglican Church), sits down and observes the Ten Commandments written on the wall. This apparently bothered him, saying to himself,
“that’s the last thing I want to see. . . . the last thing I want to do is read those laws that only condemn me. But as the service went on, he did read them and he found his reading them very differently. Why? Previously when he read them, they said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT STEAL’ [stated in a louder, rougher, more abrupt voice]. It was a command. This morning when he read it, it said, ‘you shall not steal” [which was stated in a quieter, softer, and more patient voice]. It was a promise.”
Price goes on to hypothetically speak, “if I could put words in his mouth,” about what he may have said, he may have thanked the Lord for putting the law in his mind, right on his heart and that He would be his God. Price again reiterates the alleged difference between the command (OT) and the promise (NT) concerning the law, this time using a different one of the ten commandments, using the same two tones of voice again, and this man once again would have been thankful, “why? Because Christ in you is your hope now. Its hitting the target.” He once again reiterates the alleged difference between the command (OT) and the promise (NT) and this time uses yet a different one of the ten commandments, using the same two tones of voice again, and again the man thanks the Lord. Why? this time its because “I put my Spirit in you and I will move you to follow my decrees and keep my laws.”
There is so unscriptural on so many levels, with so much wrong with what Price says here, one could literally write a thesis about it. I will attempt some points with some brevity.
Wow. From where does he get this heresy? And whats with the brazen attempt to manipulate and mock who God is, clearly implying that God the Father of the OT was harsh, rough, mean, while God the Son of the NT is gentler, softer, more patient and gracious. If this isn't an attack on the Triune God, I'm not sure what it would be. But it is very, very common in neo-evangelicalism. On the one hand they cry "God doesn't change" to fit some kind of fleshly lust or opinion, while on the other they claim that God of the OT was different, mean, harsh, genocidal, homicidal, and more, reflecting their true nature of mockery, scorn and scoff (see Pr 1:20-32; 2 Pet 3:3).
In all that he said, he completely missed the most important aspect of the law, and I mean most importantly by a million long shot. What is that? All the law and prophets is fulfilled by love, the “great command in the law” (Matt 22:36). The neo-evangelical with his false love cannot even mention that the command (yes it is a command, NOT a promise!) “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” which is “the first and great commandment” and “the second” to “love thy neighbour as thyself” are the two greatest commandments because “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40). And that’s a great shame and disgrace, and reflects precisely what I’m repeatedly hammering home here and in my reports concerning these neo-evangelical camps with all their heresy, half-truths, compromise, inability to understand and perceive the truth. When there is finally an actual opportunity to speak the truth about love, not one peep. The silence is deafening.
No truly saved person looks at the ten commandments, or any other of the hundreds of commandments of God, in the fashion described of this ex-convict. Someone that is truly born again loves the law and recognizes that it was their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ (Gal 3:23). They do not have disdain towards being commanded what not to do, like these snowflake, pansy-footing, compromised heretics of the “evangelical” world.
Neo-evangelicalism hates being told what to do, commanded to do or what not to do. They hate rules and thus the Lordship of Christ, while embracing the false Jesus of their imagination. Hence all the worldliness, rejection of separation, perversion of Scripture, ungodly music, abominable dressing standards, and the list goes on. The “Christianity” they embrace is antinomianism, where God’s chief goal is to make you happy. Some of this heresy is adapted from heretics such as reformed calvinists neo-evangelicals such as John Piper.
If what he says here is true then no one was saved under the Old Covenant. But that is absolutely false. The chief examples of salvation we have in the very context of his preaching, is king David and Abraham. In fact, we are told that if we believe like Abraham, then we will be justified like Abraham was (Rom 4:21-25). At the very least, this preaching massively confuses peoples vulnerable and simple-minded minds even further about the laws place in the life of the saved person.
There are no two distinguishing voices concerning God’s commandments, the voice before salvation and the voice after. That is made up in the neoevanjelly flubber mind of the neo-evangelical heretic.
It is a ridiculous argument that it's now a promise and not a command any more. Its always been a command and never a promise! Jesus mentions these commandments intentionally in the NT because they stand. If we logically think through what he is saying, what happens when the “promise” isn’t kept? Who is responsible now? Is it God because He made the “promise”? The byproduct of wresting the Scriptures (2 Pet 3:16-17) is blasphemy. Charles Price is a blasphemer.
There are bad consequences in teaching such heresy. If there is no law of commandments, only promises, then there is no transgression (Gal 3:23; Rom 3:19-20). How could sinners be guilty of transgressing the law, since “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law” (1 Jn 3:4a), when “where no law is, there is no transgression” (Rom 4:15)? Removing the law, removes the means of sinners condemnation, reproof and guilt, what Rom 3:19; Jn 6:7-11 teach. If this were true, there are thousands of passages of scripture that are untrue. “God forbid: yea, let God be true,” and whosoever teaches this sort of error, “a liar” (Rom 3:4). Price is a liar. The ten commandants are tied into all other commands, 613 in the OT and >2,000 in the NT. Denying the law, destroys the law. Turning the law from a law of commandments into a law of promise, is destroying God's law, as far as the ten commandments and other such commandments are concerned. Consequently, true believers won’t need to “fulfill the law” as Paul proclaimed (Rom 3:31), or obey God’s Word (demonstrating ones love for God and the new birth), which completely opposes the truth (Jn 14:23-24; 1 Jn 2:3-5; Jam 2:14-26). The premise to error (leaven) is greater error (leavening). Not only would salvation and righteousness be nullified with no law, i.e. no condemnation of sin or righteousness fulfilled, but the corollary follows that there would be no salvation period. Destroying the ten would accordingly destroy the two greatest commandments, for “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mat 22:40). To “inherit eternal life” (Lk 10:25) requires man to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, . . . soul, . . . mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mat 22:37-39). This has always been the foundation of the law (De 6:5; 10:12-16; 13:3; 30:6, 19-20; Lev 19:18). Salvation produces love for God and our brethren, for in conversion God “circumcise[s] thine heart . . . to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live” (De 30:6) and “are taught of God to love one another” (1 Th 4:9). No more law, no salvation. Only the eternal lake of fire.
For further reading on the law and its relationship to the born again believer read: What is the Born Again Believers Relationship to the Law?
5. Price's Serious Undermining and Attack on God’s Word, both Directly and By Wresting and Eisegesis, and also in his Adoration and Advocation for Modern Bible Perversions.
Misuse and abuse of Scripture by wresting and twisting and eisegesis.
Eisegesis in how he handles Scripture, adding to Gods Word with fanciful tales and fables, twisting scripture out of its context, and wresting the Word of God.
His adding to Gods Word is absolutely frightful. It’s even rubbed off on his wife, who audaciously claimed (as told by Price) that Abraham left early in the morning when he went to sacrifice Isaac so as to not frighten his wife (Gen 22). No, Abraham is nothing like these corrupted spineless effeminate charlatans who are afraid of their own spouses, and shadows, and cower under the authority of their pants-wearing feminist wives.
In his last sermon in its conclusion, he claimed Rom 8:5 is written only to believers because “this is the same section”as Rom 8:2 (which he had just quoted and spoken to). He starts quoting this passage out of the very perverted NIV,
“‘those who live according to the sinful nature,’ he is talking about believers now, ‘according to the flesh, the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires…’”
Rom 8:5 does not refer only to believers; Paul is contrasting true believers and false believers in this entire context from v. 1 to v. 9. The carnally minded individual is lost (Rom 8:5-9), “to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” (vv. 6-7). Price believes the carnally minded "believer" to be saved, because that is how his Keswick theological influenced mind has been indoctrinated and brainwashed. It's not Scripture that teaches Price but men, for after all, we wouldn't want to suddenly be found worshipping scripture now would he. This is definitely an unsaved person, the carnally minded, who are contrasted with the saved, the spiritually minded, even as vv. 8-9 tell us, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. [9] But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." A person without the Holy Spirit is lost. The entire context, vv. 1-9 makes this abundantly clear, the carnally minded are those “in the flesh” who “cannot please God” (v. 8) with v. 9 clarifying the matter perspicuously. Carnal professors are lost and Rom 8 makes that crystal clear and no 1 Cor 3 does not teach contrariwise. Rom 8 should be the basis for what we read in 1 Cor 3, which then perfectly harmonizes with the rest of Scripture as well (e.g. Rom 6:1-23; 7:4-25; Ep 2:1-5; 4:17-32; Ti 2:11-14; 3:3-7; 1 Jn 2:3-5; 3:1-10). Rom 7 says the same: “For when we WERE IN THE FLESH, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” (v. 5). So much in Rom 7 and 8 plainly says a carnal Christian doesn’t exist. The truly saved isn't after the flesh. He doesn't mind the things of the flesh. He isn't carnally minded or in the flesh any longer, as pre-conversion. Did you also notice what that last sentence of v. 7 says? “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God.” If there is any person this is describing, it would be the one who rejects the law of God and makes mockery of it. He isn’t subject to the law because he is still under its condemnation. Price appears to mock God's law, as discussed in another section.
So everything Price says about Rom 8 is untrue. Its false. Its wrested out of its meaning and context. He is purveying a second type of Christian, the "carnal Christian," though he doesn't use that speceific phrase in the sermons.
Concerning Rom 4 which he again utterly corrupts, unable to tell the difference between passages that refer to salvation and ones that refer to practical sanctification, he claims,
“Now Abraham if giving to us here in this chapter is an example of what it means to be both justified by faith and sanctified by faith. . . .
He goes on to twist the entire chapter on its head, perverting salvation passages into something post-salvation, which is an extremely common error by false teachers of Keswick theology stripe, but it is an "error of the wicked" Peter says in 2 Pet 3:17-18, and obviously wicked people are not regenerate believers. If he was referring to sanctification at the new birth, he would be right. But he isn’t. Price is referring to the sanctification that occurs after being saved, the practical side to sanctification. Thus he corrupts Rom 4 in a serious manner, eisegetically interpreting what is occurring here with Abraham as events occurring after his salvation, for practical sanctification, but nothing in this chapter has to do with Abraham’s sanctification. The entire chapter has to do with salvation. Completely. ONLY. And that importantly includes Rom 4:18-25, passages extremely frequently misinterpreted as post salvation sanctification. But the words used in these verses are exceedingly clear on justification, not post-conversion sanctification, a subject covered by us here.
Price continues in this sermon to make a mockery of Abraham, turning again the holy into something sacrilegious. Also plenty of story telling and fables with no basis in scripture. This is very common in evangelicalism, preaching anecdotally with zero support from scripture. Many times what they say exposes their heretical and worldly manner of thought and practice. Speaks as if Abraham was alive when his grandchildren were born. He wasn’t. Abraham died when he was 120. In one fable he claimed Isaac had no interest in girls. This is eisegesis for the Bible doesn’t say that. This entire sermon in fact was an exercise of eisegesis, fanciful story telling and taking great liberty with Gods Word.
False teachers wrest the Scriptures (2 Pet 3:18). Why? Because they cannot understand the deep things of God, things that all saved people know because their eyes are open to the truth (Ac 26:18) and the Holy Spirit is their Teacher (1 Jn 2:20-21, 27).
Serious attacks on God's Word.
Besides whats been mentioned in other points, this is directly in what he says about Scripture. He calls the Bible "a catalog," which is making the Holy Word of God into something sacrilegious. It appears as if the Scriptures are merely of secondary importance to Price.
In his third sermon towards the end, he seriously attacked the Word of God, which was no shock since he'd already been taking potshots at Scripture. Here is what he said:
“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That’s why we read the Bible. Not to get to know the Bible but to get to know Christ. That’s why we have meetings like this. Not to get to know the Bible, but through the written will we know Christ the living Word. It’s Christ we trust. That’s why Jesus criticized the Jews for studying the Bible on one occasion when He said you study the scriptures because you think in THEM you have eternal life but they witness to me and you refuse to come to me. You should study the Bible to get to know me, you study the Bible to get to know the Bible and that makes you Pharisees. You get to know me and the more you know about me, the more you can trust me.”
(a) First of all, what is he attempting to prove with this hog wash about studying the Bible makes you Pharisees, or his hangup and red herring on the word "them"? I do study the Bible to get to know the Bible and I am unapologetic about that, because the Bible is God's revelation to mankind, and its perfect and its every word is pure, inerrant, infallible, perfectly preserved as promised. It's also greater than God's own Name (Ps 138:2), which indicates how critical and important the Scriptures really are. No one becomes a "Pharisee" by studying the Word of God, a word, again, he doesn't seem to understand -- (very likely he would also consider a Pharisee to be someone that observes strict obedience to Scripture, as majority of neo-evangelicals do, but that is certainly not what the word means, covered in this report: “Legalism” and “Phariseeism” — Evangelicals Convenient Excuses for Sin, False Doctrine and Practice). So yes, study the Bible! But study the right Bible, and not the perverted versions promoted by heretics like Price!
(b) Secondly, he maliciously and fallaciously attempts to make a big deal about the word "them," a word actually properly translated as noted in God's inspired and preserved Greek Textus Receptus (yaaa! one word for sure that the "evil beasts" [Ti 1:12] that translated from the Critical Text got right). Nothing he says about "them" however found in Jn 5:39 ("Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me") is actually true. I say "maliciously" because it is an intentional attack on God's Word. The Bible does tell us how to have eternal life and that we can find it within its pages (by the way, "eternal" and "everlasting" mean the exact same thing -- Prices straw man and falsehoods about them meaning two different things is a blatant lie and another attack on God's Word, covered in a previous section). For instance: Jn 3:15-16, 36; 5:24; 6:28-68; 10:28-30; 12:25; 17:2; Rom 5:21; Mk 10:30; etc; etc. E.g., “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:15), “should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16), “hath everlasting life” (Jn. 3:36; 5:24). God gives eternal and everlasting life to every repentant sinner that surrenders to the Lord Jesus Christ, placing his faith in the gospel of Christ. Jesus is indicating to the Pharisees that they think they have eternal life through the Scriptures, because the Scriptures testify to eternal/everlasting life throughout its pages, but they actually don't because they won't repent and turn to Him (Jn 5:38-42). Over and over Jesus preached for them to repent, and they would not, but it had NOTHING to do with them worshiping the Bible rather than Jesus, but EVERYTHING to do with with their refusal to repent of their false religion and self-perceived righteousness (as Scripture presents clearly, e.g., Rom 10:1-4; Jn 8:31-36; Lk 18:10-14). False teachers always interpret passages out of context, and here is yet another example of Price doing that. The immediate context is Jn 5:37-43ff. These attacks on Scripture and word games by the Price is Wrong create serious confusion at best. But it is done intentionally, and it is heresy. Clearly he either rejects or doesn't understand what passages like Rom 10:17 mean, though he quotes it, but he doesn't actually believe it. When God's Word says we are born again through the Word of God and faith comes through hearing the Word of God, it means exactly that: we obtain faith and salvation through Scripture! Hence, "the preaching of the cross" (1 Cor 1:18) and "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." (1 Cor 1:21), the cascade to believing: Rom 10:13-17. Faith comes by hearing Scripture, which is preached by one that is saved and sent by God to preach, which is all true born again believers (Rom 10:13-17; 2 Cor 5:17-20). Salvation comes through the preaching and hearing of the written Word of God. There are a lot of Scripture that comes this subject, and all of it condemns Price as a false teacher. The allegory he gave that followed this quote doesn’t get any better. He gives an example of having an instruction manual for his car, allegoricalizing the example, and allegoricalizing God's Word as a simple car manual. First it was a catalog and now it's a car manual. Go figure.
In a much more serious attack on Scripture and the Apostle Paul, he mocks and scorns Paul in Rom 7 and completely lies about him, fabricating a tale that has zero support, even as the chapter itself clearly shows. In his last sermon, he makes a serious red herring about Paul’s use of “I” and “me” and “my” in Romans 7, 38x he says, and then attacks Paul and the truth of Rom 7. He actually makes a big mockery of Paul’s use of “I” as he goes off as a broken record attempting to implicate and charge Paul as being completely selfish, self-dependent and not trusting in God, only referring to self.
“38x in 10 verses, “I”, “I”, “I”, “I”, “I”, “I”, “me”, “my”, “I”, “me”, “I”, “I”, “me.” Nothing about God, nothing about the Holy Spirit, nothing about the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a man trying to live the Christian life by his own ability.”
First of all, he completely misses the point. Paul was penning the real struggle that occurs and exists in every true born again Christians, NOT "a man trying to live the Christian life by his own ability.” Because he doesn't understand the text, he corrupts the text and changes it to fit his Keswick theological presuppositions.
Secondly, what about Paul's uses of “I” and "me" that reflect his conversion or new nature? Like when he speaks of being filled with the Spirit? Is that also Paul trying to live by his own ability? Verse 9 says, "when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." This is a good thing. Sin was made to be exceedingly sinful because of the law (v. 13). This led to Spirit-led conviction, God granting repentance and Paul dying to himself, which he repeats two more times in the next two verses: "And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." vv. 10-11) This is absolutely necessary for salvation, for The True Gospel is the Gospel of Self-Denial and Self-Abandonment while The False Gospel is the False Gospel of Self-Fulfillment. How about v. 22, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:"? Or v. 25, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God;" Nothing about the Lord Jesus Christ?!? What about the "I's" of this passage? Every one of these "I's" and "me's" is absolutely good and Biblical and necessary for true conversion or reflective of glorifying God, and NOTHING to do with "a man trying to live the Christian life by his own ability”!! Absolutely nothing in this chapter even remotely reads like what Price is pejoratively proclaiming. He is lying and slandering Paul the Apostle and perverting the Scriptures. He is doing that because he doesn't understand the Scriptures and because he is a false teacher.
This is a diabolical attack on Paul by the Price is Wrong, and yet another attack on Scripture by this Keswick- neo-evangelical false teacher. Charles Price is a liar and false teacher, and once again the proof is all over the wall.
I would imagine these types of attacks are fairly common in his preaching, attempting to preach to the same level of "Christianity" of his listeners and certainly doesn't want to suddenly exalt God's Word by accident.
Adoration for Modern Bible Perversions.
His adoration for modern Bible perversions totally fits his heretical narrative of the Bible being only of secondary importance, if even that. In this he is also appealing to the heresy and False Practice of Ranking Doctrine into “Essentials” and “Non-Essentials,” another popular heresy in evangelicalism. This is what he implies repeatedly in his sermons. In sermon number one he even irreverently referred to the Bible as a "catalog."
Multiple times in the second sermon he used the ESV to get the word “propitiation,” but states he normally uses the NIV, even in these sermons. Later in the same sermon he tells us why he is using the ESV here, because of the word “propitiation.” Both the ESV and NIV are heretical and blasphemous perversions and corruptions of God's Word, though the later is worse.
Quite clearly the Bible does not hold much weight to neo-evangelical heretics. Are they that dull and simple of mind that they cannot comprehend the fact that two versions of the same thing are not the same? Surely they must be able to exercise their intelligence to such a degree, though it really be rock bottom low. Things that are different are not the same. Two or more versions, actually about 500, means that they all differ enough to be their own version of the book. Is that how many "Gods" they worship? By the number of versions they use, since they are all different versions of God's Word, and thus inspired differently? And clearly they are different enough for them to attend to different ones to find the right verse to fit their agenda and narrative. Have they never thought this through? I am afraid that the same Satanic deception and self-delusion that keeps them in an unsaved and false professing state, is what keeps their eyes and mind closed to this critical subject of the Bible and versions. In the report Why Modern Bible Versions are Corrupt, and the King James Version is Not, we cover crucial reasoning for these arguments.
He quotes from the heretical The Living Bible (TLB), because it fit the point he was attempting to make. Eisegesis is what they master at, making the Bible say something it doesn't, and that is exercised even in their picking and choosing of Bible perversions. The TLB is a wicked and demonic perverted paraphrase of Scripture, not a translation, even though it is touted as a Bible, as if it's a translation. Not only does it derive from the corrupt Critical Text, the translation methodology is that of dynamic equivalence, which is simply wicked, taking God's words (or what they perceive to be God's words) and interpreting them by thought process. What the "translator" thinks God meant. It completely fails to actually purvey what God inspired. In this particular perversion done by Kenneth N. Taylor (first published in 1971), he didn't even go to the Greek Critical Text as his basis but to another perversion translated from that false Greet Text, the of the American Standard Version of 1901. The ASV was translated from the wicked Westcott and Hort, the mother of the Critical Text.
There is no issue more important than the very Word of God, the Bible, the Holy Scriptures. The undermining and ignorance to the Bible version issue is appalling and unacceptable. Many, maybe all, would be offended when someone blasphemes the name of Jesus, and rightfully so, yet are not equally offended or even at all at the corruption and perversion of the words in God’s Word, of what concerning God says is magnified greater than His own name (Ps 138:2). Such is the state of the awful, nauseating apostasy of our day.
6. Heresies and sinful practices in Price’s ministry, outside of this sermon series.
UnBiblical music and worship. Embraces sinful worldly "Christian" Contemporary Music (CCM) music. The Bible however tells us to “hate every false way” (Ps. 119:104) and to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” (Eph. 5:11). That would mean to hate this CCM/“Christian” rock stuff and other worldly ungodly music and to reject professing “Christians” and “Churches” that compromise and apostatize with it. But instead of seeing that, we see adoration and love for these things that God hates. We must hate what they do and the way they do it, but Price doesn't hate. He is too busy loving these things so as to accomodate the world of Christ rejectors (which his church is full of). He doesn't hate the philosophy of ministry that this music represents and the way it misrepresents the God of the Bible. He doesn't hate the way it deceives the people with whom it is involved and what it does to churches. He doesn't hate the way that it harms and even ruins discernment and the way that it perverts a biblical or true understanding of spirituality and love and salvation. He doesn't hate the way that it endorses false worship. Instead, he tolerates it and has to do with it. It's disgusting. Nauseating of the face-in-palm kind. But he appears to love what God hates, quite the opposite of what is written in Ps 119:127-128.
“Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.”
Price and the church he pastored and continues to preach and teach at loves ungodly, worldly "Christian" Contemporary Music (CCM), music that offends a Thrice Holy God who has commanded the singing of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph 5:19) and to love obedience to His Word greater than gold and and to “hate every false way” (Ps 119:127-128), and to “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good” (Rom 12:9), rejecting this faux music masquerading as "Christian" for the plain fact that ALL so-called “Christian” Contemporary Music is entirely of the world, of the flesh and of the devil, and nothing about it is Biblical, not its lyrics, not its musicians, not its melody of syncopation, not its beat, not its attraction or adoration, not its flaunting sensual style, and that it altogether has a worldly, non-judgmental, anti-separatist, ecumenical and ungodly philosophy that is most definitely contrary to the sound apostolic doctrine and faith of God’s Word (Rom 16:17), operating in complete opposition to the holiness and godliness and righteousness of the grace of God (Ti 2:11-14). They also sing their songs in sensual and syncopating, un-resolving tones, which is further sinning against God, not obeying His Word, and demonstrating not loving Him.
God the Son said true believers "worship the Father in spirit and in truth" (Jn 14:23-24). Neither "spirit" or "truth" is present in CCM worship.
Other reports that expose the ungodliness and unrighteousness of CCM music include: Judging Music: Judging “Christian” Contemporary Music (CCM) to be Strange Fire and Unfruitful Works of Darkness and The Incongruity of Contemporary Worship Music (CCM) and Country Music (High Valley) with God's Word and Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), Is It Honouring to God?
Homosexuality. Serious false gospel and perversion and compromise concerning homosexuality in a sermon published on Living Truth. He can’t come out and speak the truth, because he is a compromiser and heretic. His allegiance was to his audience, not to God, nor has it ever been. Instead of speaking the plain truth as to why people are homosexual, he gives the people a long winded thesis on acceptance in love of homosexuals. This sermon alone proves Price is a heretic and wolf in sheep’s clothing, since God’s Word is very, very plain on the subject: Lev 20:13; Rom 1:18-32; Gen 13:13; Ju 1:7; 2 Pet 2:6.
Love of the world. Besides the music (which extends beyond CCM into any and all genres of worldly music), other entertainment, appearances, manners, associations, past times, etc. He doesn't seem to troubled or concerned about how the appearances of the people, men dressing irreverently, and women appearing as men, offends God (Gen 3:7-11, 21). He doesn't seem to concerned how that non-gender distinctive clothing (women dressing as men or men as women) are an abomination to God (De 22:5) and how that women's immodest dressing might be a stumbling block to men. What behooves him is not considering what you wear reflects the nature of your heart (Pr 23:7) and how the practically truly saved saints live after the Spirit and not after the flesh, for “the old man [the flesh] is crucified with [Christ]” (Rom 6:6; Gal 2:20; 5:24) and so “they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,” (Gal 5:24), and that dress relates to the gospel, in that the true grace of God that saves (Ti. 2:11) also “teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts,” and to “live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;” so Christ can “purify unto [Himself] a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Ti 2:11-14) and further relates to the gospel as to who God is (Holy, Righteous, Just) and how the gospel changes someone's life completely and immediately, the fruit of true saving repentance which is a new creature, new heart, holy, godly, righteous, just, old things passed away and all things are become new (2 Cor 5:17) and the believer's affections for God and love for Christ unto obedience, loving the things that God loves, and hating the things that God hates. God the Father testifies of His Son, "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." (Heb 1:9). Therefore His people will likewise "Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." (Rom 12:9).
We don't see separation from the world and its allurements occurring in neo-evangelical churches and the absence of true regeneration is the cause of it.
Ecumenicalism. Preaches in any church regardless how heretical or worldly or unbiblical it is. In his last sermon he spoke of speaking at a YWAM in Cape Town, South Africa, but YWAM iw worldly, heretical and loaded to the brim with unregenerate heretics, hypocrites and professors. We expose YWAM in the following report: Exposing the Unbiblical, Ungodly, and Heretical Youth with a Mission (YWAM).
His affinity for Keswick theology, besides the doctrine that already so clearly establishes this fact, is further illustrated by his love for Alan Redpath, a Keswick theological preacher with victorious Christian living as his primary theme one could say based upon the books he wrote, of whom Price says,
“Alan Redpath was a great influence on me as a young man.”
Church governance. Keswick heresy and neo-evangelicalism fits with a certain view of church government. Female "pastors" in direct rebellion to God's Word which very clearly commands only male leaders and women to keep silent in the church (1 Cor 14:33-35; 1 Tim 2:11-15) a subject covered in further detail here: Should Women Ever Hold Authority Over Men? A board of directors, which means they run their mega-institution as one would run a secular business. The church also needs an operator, who can keep it all going, to keep it all in alignment. He is the circus-meister. He must hold tight reigns on everything, since the grace of God will not. There must be a means to produce the look of true sanctification. Some of the behaviour is right, but it is caused by a system that isn't.
This is only a scratch at the surface. The tip of the icerberg. But its enough to prove the point.
True Biblical love obeys the truth. That is what the new birth does. There are many who speak glowingly of their "love" for Jesus Christ and even for their fellow men, but in Jn 14:15, 21-24, the Lord Jesus stresses that obedience to His Truth (the whole of God's Word) is the only means of loving your neighbour:
"If ye love me, keep my commandments. . . . He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. . . . If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. " (Jn 14:15, 21, 23-24).
This teaching which is really found throughout Scripture, is God's acid test or litmus test of love and faith — does a man obey the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ? This is the meaning of, "The just shall live by faith" (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38). Believing, keeping and obeying the words, decrees, judgments and commands of our Lord, is living by faith, and loving God. It makes no difference how much we talk about our "love" if we do not obey the Lord Jesus Christ. Talk is cheap, just like the "grace" exhibited by neo-evangelicals. It is obedience that counts first and foremost, not words, though our words will also either justify or condemn us (Matt 12:37). And only those that are truly born again, will actually truly love the Lord Jesus Christ and thus obey Him. That means, and what John 14 is clearly teaching, among many other passages of Scripture, only those who are truly born again love the Lord Jesus Christ, which they demonstrate by obeying His words in the Word of God. Whatsoever He says. And that is also how we demonstrate love to our neighbours, by loving God through keeping His Word. This means speaking the truth, confronting error and false teachings, and exposing, warning, separating from those Scripture commands, which is obedience to Gods Word.
"By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." (1 Jn 5:2-3)
"And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk after his commandments." (2 Jn 1:5-6a)
Conclusion.
I have no doubt that Price profoundly detests me exposing him and warning publicly about him, seeing that he also embraces the judge-not neo-evangelical heresy, unsurprisingly. Towards the end of his fourth sermon, using Rom 7:1-3 as his backdrop, Price claimed that the new life in Christ apparently never condemns. The one that is under the control of the Spirit apparently never condemns. I wonder what Bible he reads! We know it's not the KJV! This is a wicked and demonic lie. The very opposite is in fact true. Those that are spiritual, which means those that are saved, “judge ALL things” (1 Cor 2:14). He doesn't like getting judged because it condemns him, for he is a false teacher. That is how false teachers (2 Pet 2:1) develop a large following of their pernicious ways (2 Pet 2:2) and those in "the way of truth shall be evil spoken of." (2 Pet 2:2). Judging and condemning is seen as way to negative. We must be positive, not negative. Negativity brow beats, discourages, depresses, oppresses, saps joy, bludgeon's happiness, and so on. What unsaved hypocrites completely miss in all this is the Biblical fact that people who are truly born again are encouraged, NOT discouraged by negativity, since 2/3 of the Bible is negative, and the Holy Spirit is quite negative I must say in His ministry (e.g. Jn 16:7-11; Pr 1:20-32; etc). It is a paradox to the truly regenerate. They are positively encouraged when they hear "negative" preaching. Concerning judging, it is actually true godly “love . . . [that] abound[s] yet more and more in knowledge and in ALL judgment” (Phil. 1:9-10). Oh boy, what does godly love do? It grows and abounds in both knowledge and JUDGMENT! Indeed, that word "love" that neo-evangelicals are parading in their perversion, abounds or grows in knowledge and judging. God’s Word says ”It is joy to the just [the saved] to do judgment:" (Pr. 21:15). Only those that are saved don’t mind to be judged, and will faithfully judge, since “he that is spiritual [saved] judgeth all things” (1 Cor. 2:14-15), judging righteous judgment (Jn 7:24).
According to Scripture, we get discouraged and judged when we don’t walk in the truth of Gods Word, which is habitual for neo-evangelicals. All I’m doing is preaching the Word of God, which is what brings the conviction and hate. Every born again believer loves the truth, and thus “hates every false way” whether it be doctrinal error (Ps. 119:104, 128; 2 Tim. 4:1-4) or sin and unrighteousness just like his Lord and Saviour (Rom. 12:9; Heb. 1:9). Those that don’t “hate every false way” (Ps. 119:128) and “Abhor [hate with disgust] that which is evil” and “cleave to that which is good” (Rom. 12:9) and “love righteousness, and hate iniquity” (Heb. 1:9), do not love the truth, regardless of the lip service they give to it. And those that don’t love the truth are not saved, they have never been born again but have deceived themselves and are deluded and have believed a lie (2 Th. 2:10-12). We live in the last days of the last days apostasy, and the Bible warns over and over that the vast majority of those who profess to be Christian are actually unsaved (Matt. 7:21-23; Lk. 18:8; 17:26-37; 2 Tim. 3:1-7; 4:3-4; Ju. 1:4-18).
I do not believe that this man is a true teacher of God. I don’t believe he is a saint, but an imposter. I say that not out of malice or any ill intentions or any other nefarious reasoning, but because it’s the most loving thing to say in the face of eternity and the awaiting lake of fire, with the hope that he will read this and examine himself and realize that he has never been truly, actually, born again. I do not believe it for a second. His purveyance of an utterly corrupt, false view of sanctification does not bode well for his justification or glorification. If he doesn't like the kingdom of Jesus Christ now, living it out on earth in his sanctification, why would you think you would enjoy it in the future? He loves this present world, not the future one.
I do believe Charles Price is a false teacher. Without even considering what has been written here, and just a superficial examination of The Peoples Church of Toronto, where Price pastored for 30 years and presently sits as “Minister at Large,” reveals this analysis to be true. That church is neo-evangelical and emergent to the core, and reflective of Laodicea, which was a spiritually dead church though the pastor and most of its people were blind to it (Rev 3:14-18). In fact, I think Laodicea was much closer to the truth than this church. That church actually had saved people within its walls, which is much more than majority of these apostate contemporary churches, including Price's. Noted, in a very cursory overview, is the Rock and roll CCM so-called worship, female pastors and even a board of directors!, worldly cool hip-hop appearances, transgenderism of the women, immodesty, very watered down and corrupted gospel presentations, etc. If God will vomit out a church like Laodicea, what will He do will these apostate emergent neo-evangelical social-justice institutions they call churches?!
One other reason I believe this to be true, besides what is mentioned above, is because of how he describes his conversion, which allegedly occurred at a young age while listening to a Billy Graham speech. Billy Graham was a heretic and an apostate who believed all religions would be saved by Christ, even treating Roman Catholics as true believers. Though I believe that Billy Graham did at one point early in his ministry preach a true gospel or very close to a true gospel, enough for people to be genuinely converted (for I know of multiple people that were genuinely converted upon hearing his preaching), I believe the false professions far exceeded the true ones. After the early years, I believe vast majority would have been false simply because how compromised and watered down his preaching became. In the case of Price, in the first sermon he goes on to describe what occurred in his life for several years after his alleged conversion, reflecting something deeply wrong. He didn't have peace but he wanted it, so he went to "the catalogue" to ask for it. He also didn't have joy, so back to "the catalog" he went. Those are his actual words. Yes, he actually called the Bible a catalog. A fearful lack of reverence for God's Holy Word, of which God says is greater than His own name (Ps 138:2).
Truly saved people don’t need to go to the Word of God (“catalog”) to experience peace and joy. They just have it. It’s there because of their new birth. It comes with conversion, regeneration, justification, the indwelling Spirit of God, etc. They don’t need to drum it up in circumstances where it would normally exist in truly regenerate people. Scripture does verify this truth but it doesn’t make it true in those that are actually unregenerate. Putting lipstick on the pig doesn’t change the pig, but that is what neo-evangelicals (and Protestant denominations and many Baptists, who are really no different anymore than the others mentioned) truly specialize at today. Hence the churches loaded with false believers/teachers and the appalling apostasy.
Of course peace and joy will have its time where it’s not as evident as it was at salvation, yet it will characteristically be present, and certainly not absent for extended periods of time, especially not in the time period immediate to conversion, and especially not for any length of time, and certainly not years. Such absence is entirely and all-together different than what the Bible illustrates in conversion. People that don’t have true, genuine and divine peace and joy that is not somehow obtained by having faith in faith, are very likely unsaved. “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” (1 Cor 14:33).
Peace and joy are inseparable from salvation (Rom 5:1; Ac 10:36). Peace is the immediate consequence of justification (Lk 7:50; 8:48; 14:27; 16:33; Ac 10:36; cf. Rom 3:17; 8:6; 10:15; 14:17; 15:13; Eph 2:14-17; etc), as is joy (Jn 15:11; Ac 13:52; Rom 14:17; 15:13), given by the indwelling Spirit of God, Who resides in the saint from the very moment of the new birth. Consider a few of these.
Lk 7:50,
“And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”
Rom 5:1,
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:”
Jn 14:27,
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
And in the following we see both peace and joy as the products of salvation, both immediate and ongoing:
“For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Rom 14:17)
Nothing about his profession or alleged evidence rings true to scripture, and Is 8:20 warns,
“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
In the beginning of the first sermon, the pastor of the host church joked that he had treated Price as a scammer after receiving numerous phone calls from Toronto, thinking that’s what those phone calls were. As it turns out, he probably wasn’t so far off on that after all, seeing how Price is scamming the people out of the truth of God’s Word. The Price is not right.
I hate this neo-evangelical stuff and what it represents and the terrible reproach to the name of Christ it brings. The error, false doctrine, false teachings, worldliness, false worship, impunity, unmitigated disobedience, false professions, false Keswick-type sanctification, ungodliness, unholiness, and unrighteousness, and the hypocrisy causing the lost to blasphemy the name of God, is disgusting, vile, and nauseating, of the kind spewed out of God’s mouth (Rev 3:15-16). Scripture is questioned repeatedly, denied, doubted, and eventually rejected in these environments. God says one thing, while they wilfully reject and disobey it and do the opposite. The Bible calls them "scoffers, walking after their own lusts" (2 Pet 3:3), wilful rebels agains the truth of God (Rom 1:18-26). Majority in these churches are typical neo-evangelical hypocrites and false professors, that have some kind of “Christianity” while exhibiting great difficulty telling the difference between good and evil, clean and unclean, truth and error. They tolerate and compromise over many things because they have zero backbone or boldness, both of which are derived from the Spirit of God in those who actually have Him indwelling them.
I believe Paul's two warning obout this sort of behaviour in Col 2 is very apt:
“And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. . . . Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (vv. 4, 8)
The heresies we have described above are very common among revivalists. For instance, modern Keswick advocate John R. Van Gelderen writes:
“Keswick . . . was for the deepening of spiritual life. To accomplish this purpose a definite theological position was taught—sanctification by faith, sometimes called holiness by faith. The focus of the theology was on Christ as one’s life. This was sometimes called ‘The Higher Life’ or ‘The Deeper Life’ or ‘The Victorious Life.’ . . .[T]he ‘Higher Life’ . . . is a Life. That Life is a Person, and His name is Jesus! Jesus is the ‘Higher Life.’ Jesus is the ‘Deeper Life.’ Jesus is the ‘Victorious Life.’ How can it be otherwise? Sanctification or holiness by…
A most ironic thing occurred today. While doing some further research on Charles Price this evening, I came across a sermon that he had preached.....today. This morning, September long weekend. Now get this. He preached this, of all places..... America's Keswick! Really, indeed. That is where he preached this morning, America's KESWICK in central New Jersey. Their website (https://americaskeswick.org) says "While England’s Keswick and America’s Keswick have no connection today, the name of our ministry was inspired by England’s Keswick." England's Keswick is where the heretical movement began.
Besides the theological heresies, false sanctification and salvation, this group is neo-evangelical, emergent and charismatic to the core, with all its truckloads of heresies and rock and roll false worship, illustrated on…
Wow, and I say wow! Thank you for the hours of work on this. I think I watched this guy a couple of times right after I was saved, and I can't remember who recommended him (wish I could). I don't even remember his sermon, and I don't listen to him today. I do remember his voice drew me in, that I remember. Blessings~