Getting the Gospel Right, Pt. 3

In Distinction to Tom Stegall

and the Groundless Gospel

 

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In recent years, a new distortion of the Free Grace gospel is being spread from a small sect of non-traditional Free Grace advocates.[1] I’ve labeled their view of the gospel the “groundless gospel” because in 2007 they removed the burial of Christ from their church’s doctrinal statement on the “SOLE CONDITION FOR SALVATION”. The main proponents of this aberrant view of the gospel are Pastor Dennis Rokser and his protégé Tom Stegall. These men rightly advocate many tenets of Free Grace theology, but unfortunately their view of the gospel is a distortion of the biblical gospel (see 1 Cor. 15:1-5). The mixing of truth with error makes their gospel all the more deceptive. If you look online, they have many hours of YouTube videos calling out the false teaching (and false teachers) of the so-called “crossless” gospel, but ironically Rokser and Stegall advocate their own distortion of the gospel! If you listen carefully to what they say, and read their writings, they also preach a partial gospel lacking vital elements “of first importance” (see 1 Cor. 15:3ff). For example, in a recent YouTube video titled “Talking Gospel Truth with Tom Stegall and Dennis Rokser”[2], when they explain the facts of the gospel from 1 Corinthians 15 (and Acts 13) they avoid including Christ’s burial in their gospel like it’s the plague! Oh, they will sometimes mention it when reading a passage of Scripture (see Isa. 53:9; 1 Cor. 15:4; Acts 13:29), but they don’t really believe it’s part of the gospel. In their view it’s only a proof of the gospel, not really part of the gospel. Apparently they don’t realize that it’s not a choice between one or the other (that’s a false dichotomy) – in reality, the “proof” is also part of the gospel![3] They divide up the gospel into essential and non-essential elements, and thus you need THEM to tell you which is which.[4] Their gospel is like a cipher or a cryptic message that the reader must decode with “the virtual mirror reflections” of Stegall’s Triforce triangle.[5] But if you just read the biblical text, 1 Corinthians 15:3b-5 is the saving gospel. But not according to Rokser and Stegall. Much of verses 3b-5 is not really the gospel, according to them. They are distorting it. They say the same thing in regards to the twice repeated phrase “according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). In their view, these phrases are just proofs of the gospel but not really part of it. According to groundless gospel advocates, the twice repeated phrase "according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3, 4) marks out the content of the gospel but is not included in that content itself. Is it any wonder that a man-made gospel doesn’t even include the references to “the Scriptures”?! It’s truly a tragedy that they exploit “the Scriptures” in this way. They are deceiving many. Remember, Satan was masterful at twisting the Scriptures and leaving bits and pieces of Scripture out (see Gen. 3:1-4; Lk. 4:10-11, compare Psa. 91:11-12), just like Rokser and Stegall do with the gospel. The Free Grace theologian William R. Newell warns against distorting the gospel when he says: “This story of Christ’s dying for our sins, buried, raised, manifested, is the great wire along which runs God’s mighty current of saving power. Beware lest you be putting up some little wire of your own, unconnected with the Divine throne, and therefore non-saving to those to whom you speak.”[6] Newell goes on to say: “Therefore, in this good news, (1) Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, (2) He was buried, (3) He hath been raised the third day according to the Scriptures, (4) He was manifested (1 Cor. 15:3 ff),—in this good news there is revealed, now openly for the first time, God’s righteousness on the principle of faith. We simply hear and believe: and, as we shall find, God reckons us righteous; our guilt having been put away by the blood of Christ forever, and we ourselves declared to be the righteousness of God in Him!”[7] The apostle Paul says: “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his trickery, your minds will be led astray from sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, this you tolerate very well!” (2 Cor. 11:3-4, NASB.)

Just to give one example of how Stegall selectively quotes Bible scholars to give a veneer of credibility to his novel view of the gospel, take the following statement by Frederic Godet from his commentary on 1 Corinthians. In Stegall’s book The Gospel of the Christ, he (Stegall) cites Godet as a credible source.[8] But notice what Godet specifically says about Christ’s burial in the gospel, in contrast to Stegall’s no-burial view of it. Godet writes the following in regards to 1 Corinthians 15:4, “and that He was buried”. Godet says, “Ver. 4. It is asked why the burial of Jesus occupies a place among these few essential facts. It is certainly not with a view to the spiritual application which is made of it, Rom. vi. 4; for this belonged to a more advanced stage of teaching. Neither is it to establish the reality of the death [!], for interment does not exclude the possibility of a lethargy. But the fact of interment [i.e. burial] ever recalls ‘that empty tomb on which, as has been said, the Church is founded,’ and which remains inexplicable by all who deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus.”[9] Notice here that Godet actually disagrees with Stegall’s view that in 1 Corinthians 15:4, Christ’s burial is merely a proof/evidence of His death. Godet specifically says that the inclusion of Christ’s burial “among these few essential facts” is NOT “to establish the reality of the death”! In Godet’s view, the mention of Christ’s burial is to be understood rather as a reference to the empty tomb on which the Church is founded! But Stegall omits this important information as it obviously contradicts his groundless gospel.

Furthermore, if the Church is founded on the empty tomb as Godet indicated, then think logically about what that means. If you don’t have the burial, then you obviously don’t have the empty tomb. And if you don’t have the empty tomb, then you don’t have the Church! It’s pretty simple if we just let the Bible speak for itself without giving it a theological twist. Let’s not complicate what is so simple. The burial of Christ is part of the gospel. It points to the empty tomb on which the Church is built. Take the burial out of the gospel and in so doing, you also take the empty tomb out of the gospel. That’s a big problem because the Church is founded precisely on the empty tomb! In other words, if you take the burial out of the gospel then by extension you are also taking the empty tomb out of the gospel. But that’s a huge problem because if you take the empty tomb out of the gospel then the Church cannot be built! The words of Lewis Sperry Chafer are appropriate: “Beyond all this—especially for those who have spiritual discernment—is the New Creation reality [i.e. ‘the Christian Church’] which is built, not on a mere belief in the resurrection of Christ, but on Him who arose from the grave.”[10]

 

References:

 

[1] For more information see my article: "Is Tom Stegall's Gospel the Traditional Free Grace Gospel?" (FGFS, March 10, 2012).

 

[2] “Talking Gospel Truth with Tom Stegall and Dennis Rokser” (Grace Zone, Grace Zone Live – Episode Three), www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ipjvuhx7A (accessed July 13, 2023).

 

[3] Warren Wiersbe has well said: “The burial of Jesus Christ is as much a part of the gospel as is His death (1 Cor. 15:1-5), for the burial is proof that He actually died.” (Wiersbe, Be Comforted [Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2009], p. 162.) For more information see my article: “Christ’s Burial in the Gospel: It’s More Powerful Than You Might Think!” (FGFS, June 16, 2023).

[4] For more information see my article: "How to Decipher the Groundless Gospel" (FGFS, February 26, 2015).

[5] For more information see my article: “The Strange Beliefs of Stegall’s System” (FGFS, October 31, 2010).

 

[6] William R. Newell, Romans Verse-By-Verse (Chicago: Grace Publications, 1945), p. 21. Note: This book was originally published in Chicago by Moody Press, © 1938. 

[7] Ibid., p. 24.

[8] Thomas L. Stegall, The Gospel of the Christ (Milwaukee: Grace Gospel Press, 2009), p. 571.

[9] Frederic Godet, Commentary on St. Paul’s First Epsitle to the Corinthians (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1887), 2 Vols., Vol. 2, p. 331, brackets added.

[10] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948, 1980), 8 Vols., Vol. 5, p. 243.