Psalm 35:27 *Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant*
the prosperity of his servant* *IS THERE A PROSPERITY GOSPEL*? (B)
Previously, we examined the bad news that occasioned the good news( gospel). The bad news was that man fell into sin and brought death upon himself. He could not save himself from the consequences of death(spiritual&eternal), then a saviour appeared to salvage the situation.
The coming of a saviour to help out of sin and its consequences is the gospel- the goodnews. Let's examine what the gospel is and what it entails from scriptures.
1 Corinthians 15
[1] *Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the GOOD NEWS I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it*.
[2] *It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place*.
[3] *I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS, just as the Scriptures said*.
[4] *He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said*.
According to the text above, what did Paul call gospel? It is the death of Christ for the sins of mankind, his burial and resurrection. Meaning that the gospel is the message about how God solved the principal problem of mankind which is sin.
*Poverty or lack is not the principal problem of mankind. Before Christ died, there were wealthy men. Even after his death and resurrection, there are millions of unsaved wealthy men who do not lack money. Do you think you have a message If what you have to say to such men is all about how salvation will make them rich*?
*Preaching a 'gospel of prosperity' to such men will not yield the intended result because they have what you are promising they'll get in abundance. However, there is a universal problem that is common to the rich, poor, educated and uneducated- the problem of sin. Every man on earth desires to be free from sin and that is where the gospel becomes relevant*.
Romans 4:25 (NLT) says, *"He was handed over TO DIE BECAUSE OF OUR SINS, and he was raised to life TO MAKE US RIGHT WITH GOD*".
From this text, did you see what the gospel is? Primarily, the gospel is God's love story about what He has done through Christ to save mankind from sin and its consequences.
Let's examine what I call the Nightingale text of the gospel, the popular John 3:16: *“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have ETERNAL LIFE *" (NLT).
*When we believed in Jesus, eternal life is what we received not money, wealth or material things. That doesn't nullify the truth that God blesses materially but that was not what he gave us at salvation.*
In summary, the totality of the gospel is centred around how Christ rescue man from sin and its consequences. It is the story of man's rescue from death and how he can receive eternal life. The biggest gift a man can receive from God is not money or material possession but eternal life.
So, If the bible's definition of the word gospel is centred on salvation from sin and its consequences, to now tag that word with prosperity is a misnomer. It will make people focus on the ephemeral instead of the eternal.
Biblically, there is nothing like prosperity gospel or gospel of prosperity. The bible never mentioned it. The Gospel is simply THE GOSPEL- it is all about salvation from A-Z.