It was there all along. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Hodges’ “crossless” gospel: hidden in plain sight.
What do I mean? What I mean is that Hodges publicly stated that in his view, “the gospel” does not include the cross. What! Really? Yes, and actually it’s worse than that, because he didn’t believe “the gospel” includes the resurrection either.
I documented this in my article “Zane Hodges vs. Paul on the Gospel”1, specifically when Hodges said:
“the facts surrounding the gospel message–such as the death and resurrection of Christ–are important facts for what they tell us about the reasons for trusting Christ. But believing these facts doesn’t save anyone. People are only saved when they believe that Jesus gives them eternal life the moment they believe in Him for that.”2
That statement shows that Hodges’ view of “the gospel” did not include the cross or the resurrection.
How so, you ask? Because notice carefully that Hodges doesn’t say these are the facts “of” the gospel message, but the facts “surrounding” it. By definition, what surrounds an object is not the object itself. Hodges has structurally relegated the cross and the resurrection to a place outside the boundaries of the gospel message.
CROSSLESS!
Thus, all this “pearl-clutching” and hand-wringing and quite frankly just whining on the part of crossless gospel advocates about how the label “crossless gospel” is a “pejorative misnomer” is proven false by Zane Hodges himself.
Someone might object by saying that Hodges made other statements about how Paul’s gospel included the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Yes indeed! But in light of Hodges’ statement quoted above, it just shows that Hodges’ gospel is different from Paul’s gospel! That’s exactly what I pointed out in my article “Zane Hodges vs. Paul on the Gospel”. Thus, Hodges’ own words bear witness against him and highlight how he preached “a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6-9, NKJV).
Bob Wilkin also made it evident that his “gospel” is crossless when he said: “Jesus made it clear that the only condition [for salvation] is being convinced that He guarantees eternal life to all who believe in Him. Add anything to that and you have a different gospel.”3
Thus, the gospel preached by Zane Hodges and Bob Wilkin–which they told us excludes the cross–is by their own admission “a different gospel”!
ENDNOTES
1 Jonathan Perreault, “Zane Hodges vs. Paul on the Gospel” (FGFS, November 23, 2023).
2 Zane Hodges, “How To Lead People To Christ, Part 2,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society (Spring 2001), p. 11.
3 Bob Wilkin, “Saving Faith in Focus,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society (Autumn 1998), p. 45, emphasis his.
To believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah , the Son of God (divine and human), also requires a correct understanding of who this JESUS is, and what qualifies Him (for lack of a better word) to be the Savior of the world. He must be virgin born, sinless life, crucified, died, buried, and resurrected to life. To tell people to believe in "the promise of eternal life " as the BULLSEYE of the Gospel is false doctrine. Thanks for being bold enough to continue to expose the error's of the GES.
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