The Gospel of
Billy Graham

Billy Graham remains the most admired man in the evangelical camp and one of the most admired in the world. He has kept himself free of the love of money that has made "Christian" television a byword for hypocrisy. Not even his enemies have been able to tar him with scandal and are forced to pointing to the past wayward antics of his son, or using various forms of quilt by association or straw-man attacks.

In recent years he has made some remarks that indicate his reasoning has not remained as sharp as his sense of compassion, but considering his age and health, we must grant him some latitude.

This article does not question the character of the man, nor his sincerity. However it is my purpose to question the message he has consistently preached along with that of the vast majority of the Evangelical/Fundamentalist camp. Graham's theology of salvation is also representative of most of the pentecostal/charismatic denominations. Whether Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, Paul Crouch, Benny Hinn, or Robert Schuller and the late Jerry Falwell and D. J. Kennedy, you'd be hard pressed to find those who disagree fundamentally with Billy Graham. I won't bother to question the gospel message of mainline churches as I haven't been able to discern one.

Here is my fear:

"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it."
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME...'"
(Mat 7:13,14,21-23)

Jesus emphatically warns that the great majority will choose the wrong road, and only a few will be able to find the way that leads to life. He warns that MANY who think they are His servants will be cast out into outer darkness, having been deceived into believing a false gospel and following a false Jesus. Everyone who dares to preach must examine his message to ensure it is the true message of Jesus and His Apostles.

Well, what's wrong with that?

Is it the Gospel laid out by Jesus Christ? "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3:5) Does this 4 steps to peace with God really produce the spiritual rebirth Jesus insists is absolutely necessary? And can a person come to God without the intervention of the Holy Spirit? (John 6:44)

Is

One,Two,Three,Four,
pray this prayer and
you're through the door

the narrow and difficult way Jesus warned we must seek out?

After becoming a pastor, I would sometimes listen carefully to Billy Graham's sermons, wanting to learn something from such an exceptional evangelist. But with time a question began to form in my mind. If Billy Graham is truly preaching the message of Christ, why is he so popular and esteemed even by the world? The New Testament clearly teaches that the world will reject the disciples of Jesus and His message even as it rejected Christ Himself.

I also noticed that Billy Graham's messages actually had very little content. Oh, he always talked about sin and the cross, but it seemed to always be in the abstract, never personal. Sin was not that terrible evil that required an awful death of the Son of God to overcome. Like the BGEA web site, sin is not explained nor examined too closely. It seems it is sufficient to state that we are all sinners, that sin separates us from God, and that sin is "going our own way." Sin is "going our own way!" True but it does not make clear what that way is, or why we deserve death for taking that road? This is not the biting condemnation of Paul when in Romans chapter 1 he indicts the world, and then in chapter two immediately changes the pronoun from "they" to "you" and makes the judgment of God both personal and universal.

Until we can see the depths of our own depravity, it will always remain impossible for us to see the depths of God's love, mercy, and grace in Jesus Christ. Without this knowledge, the Cross is transformed from a bloody altar to appease the justice of Almighty God and enable Him to save us, into a nice gesture, a symbolic but incomprehensible act. Nor does Graham force us to face the fact that WE nailed Jesus to the tree. We are the ones who betrayed God. And in spite of knowing today what Jesus did for us, we continue to refuse of obey God and instead persist in our thefts and murders, lies and perversions.

Like the evangelical/fundamental movement as a whole, Billy Graham has cozied up to the powerful, choosing the role of pastor over prophet. No bony finger in the face of the king shouting "thou art the man!" (2 Sam. 12:7) In making that choice, the fact that one cannot be pastor to the lost was overlooked. Evangelist or prophet, but not pastor. Pastors are only for the sheep. And sheep do not sit the the seat of power in this world, only wolves.

But, back to the Gospel. Now here is a verse from Romans that evangelicals and fundamentalists almost never quote:

Romans 2:5
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS:o those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.

Judged by our deeds! Very ungracious of God! And far too Roman [catholic]. This is not the theology of the Reformation! Rather they quote:

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

With an emphasis on FREE. And it indeed is (for us that is, it was not free for God). But free is not the same as cheap. It is possible for something to be both free and costly. Free because it is so far beyond our ability to purchase that it can never be earned, only received as a gift from someone who could purchase it. And costly to us as a marriage is costly even though it is not purchased. It involves the loss of an old life and the beginning of a new life. It involves a loss of independence and liberty. It involves the giving of allegiance to another and a death to self. (joining the army is free too, but it is also costly!)

Romans 2:5 may not be the theology of the Reformation, but it is the theology of Paul. Grace cannot be separated from a radically changed life. If Grace does not produce the fruit of righteousness and obedience, it is not the Grace of God. Repeatedly in Romans Paul refers to the gift of righteousness, grace, and salvation. But the meaning most often attached to it is in opposition to Romans 2:5-8. This is because almost all evangelicals and all fundamentalists hold to the idea of justification as a forensic (declaratory) act by God. God declares us saints while leaving us sinners. Or to use Martin Luther's illustration, we are like a pile of manure covered with new fallen snow. From above we look beautiful, yet inside we remain stinking shit.

The Reformation, in its eagerness to distance itself from the false earned righteousness of Rome, stumbled over different stumbling block, and failed to see that when God saves, He saves not just from the consequences of sin (judgment and death), but from its source (self/sinful nature). In their zeal to fight works, the Reformation separated faith from obedience, something impossible to do as the Greek word pistis mean both.

The salvation Christ purchased for us on the Cross includes not only complete forgiveness of sin, but also a new life, with a new heart and a new spirit. And the indwelling of God Himself in the Holy Spirit! It is this new life which produces the fruit of obedience and righteousness. It bears fruit! What good is a forgiven sinner as long as you leave him a sinner? You must change him into a saint. That is what the New Covenant is: God fixing both what we've done, and what we are.

Now to the point: Does the gospel of Billy Graham and evangelicalism/fundamentalism produce saints? Or does it merely tell sinners that they are now saints and going to heaven because they said "the sinner's prayer?" Do the followers of this gospel remain sinners in heart and practice? If so, they cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

Just as justification is not a simply forensic declaration by God, declaring us righteous when we're not; neither is faith simply believing some facts about Jesus Christ and calling Him 'lord.' He Himself asked many of those following Him, "Why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord' but do not do what I say?" Jesus makes it absolutely clear, a teaching reiterated by His Apostles, that to have faith and to obey are the same thing. For a person to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died on the Cross for their sins, and rose from the dead as a demonstration of who He was and is, and yet to not give their allegiance and obedience to Him is something worse than unbelief. Yet many are those to go to church Sunday after Sunday and refuse to obey Him weekday after weekday.

Will you receive Jesus Christ right now? Here is how you can receive Christ: 1. Admit your need (I am a sinner). 2. Be willing to turn from your sins (repent). 3. Believe that Jesus Christ died for you on the Cross and rose from the grave. 4. Through prayer, invite Jesus Christ to come in and control your life through the Holy Spirit. (Receive Him as Lord and Savior.)

This is the gospel according to Billy Graham and millions of evangelicals/fundamentalists. "just as I am, with-o-u-t one plea ... with every head bowed and every eye closed..." (Ya, wouldn't want anyone to know you want to follow the Son of God!) Is this really sufficient to save? Is this the Gospel preached by Jesus and His Apostles? Let us examine it

1. Admit your need (I am a sinner).

Admit your need! Not CONFESS your GUILT! "Well, yes, I suppose I am a sinner. Everyone is a sinner, right?" How about confess your lies, your thefts, your murders (whether in fact or in heart), your greed, your lust. Or is that too personal? Too much of a confession? I tell you this, when the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin, you will either drop to your knees broken, or you will harden your heart and flee into the darkness of the world. And unless it is the Holy Spirit that brings you to Christ, you cannot come. This is perhaps the great error of the gospel of Billy Graham and the evangelical/fundamentalist movement - they dump the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit can save someone without a preacher, but I assure you, you will never see anyone saved without the Holy Spirit!

2. Be willing to turn from your sins (repent).

Be willing to turn from your sins? The Gospel calls us to repent, not repent of of sins. Repentance is a change of mind, first of all from arguing with God, to agreeing with Him. We must accept what God says about us. Salvation is about turning to Jesus, not simply turning away from sins. And it is not sins, but SIN we need to be freed from. Yes, freed from! Sin is a master, and the sinner is a slave. It takes a person mightier than you and I to break the bonds forged in the furnaces of hell. I was a junkie, and possessed by evil spirits, and Billy Graham says I must be willing to turn from my sins! HA! I could not turn, though I begged to be free. Might as well tell a leopard to change its spots. I needed a much better physician than Dr. Graham and a much stronger prescription. I read Graham's book How to be Born Again, but wasn't. It wasn't until the Holy Spirit showed me Jesus Christ hanging on the cross for me that my blind eyes opened and the chains fell from my arms.

3. Believe that Jesus Christ died for you on the Cross and rose from the grave.

OK. I was taught this in Sunday School. But it did not save me. At least in my case it required the Holy Spirit to reveal personally to me that Jesus was on that Cross for me and because of me. The other thing is that we must "believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead", believing in the head is insufficient. (By the way, this 4 step gospel doesn't seem to require you believe anything about the deity of Christ.)

4. Through prayer, invite Jesus Christ to come in and control your life through the Holy Spirit.
(Receive Him as Lord and Savior.)

At least Dr. Graham mentions receiving Jesus as Lord, there are more than a few who reject the lordship of Christ, even though Jesus explicitly warned that He would reject them. (Luke 19:14)

"Through prayer", where does the New Testament even once say we are saved through prayer? This is a completely human invention. Never, in all the accounts of conversion and salvation in the New Testament is prayer the means of entering into the New Covenant. It is always by repentance and faith in Christ and usually associated with baptism (*baptism is God's ordained pledge of allegiance and betrothal to Christ, i.e. entering the covenant, baptism being the prescribed act of faith, not "going forward") - something not mentioned by Graham. To "confess Jesus as Lord" is not sheepishly saying "I believe in Jesus" before the congregation, let alone a private "prayer of salvation." When the Philippian jailer asked Paul, 'what must I do to be saved?' Paul replied "believe in the Lord Jesus" and then Paul immediately baptized him and his family. Just before this in in Philippi, Lydia was the first to have her heart opened by the Lord, and Paul immediately baptized her. One may almost say that to "confess Jesus as Lord" is to be baptized.

This is what the BGEA web site says about baptism: Q: Is baptism necessary for salvation? A: Mr. Graham has stated: "I believe baptism is important, and I have been baptized. But I think we violate the Scriptures when we make baptism the prime requirement for salvation ... Paul's central theme was Christ and His saving power. Although he spoke of baptism, he said: 'I thank God that I baptized none of you ... lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name' (1 Corinthians 1:14-15)." "Baptism is a conclusive act of obedience and witness to the world that we are Christ's. I believe in it wholeheartedly. In our crusades we don't baptize because we feel that this should be done by the local pastors—and that if I baptized, some people would say they had been baptized by me, and that would be putting the emphasis on the wrong person. To one who has received Christ, baptism is a necessary and meaningful experience. But, I must say with Paul: 'Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel' (1 Corinthians 1:17)." "You may know that we urge immediate and extensive Bible study for each convert. As the Scripture is reviewed, the place of baptism will surely be discovered. If baptism were a requirement for salvation, we would certainly say that. But you couldn't support that knowing, for example, that the thief on the cross had no opportunity for baptism or church membership. Yet on his confession, paradise was secured. Jesus said to him, 'Today shalt thou be with me in paradise' (Luke 23:43)."

To begin with "Mr. Graham has stated" carries no authority with God. He is not impressed with the theology of His servants. And it is God we have to answer to, not Billy Graham, nor the pope, nor any other man or woman. The Bible does not make baptism "the prime requirement for salvation" but faith, which includes commitment and obedience. Faith that does not produce works is dead. A faith that does not lead a person to obey Christ by committing to Him in baptism (assuming they understand Jesus commanded this) is not faith at all.

Graham, like most baptists, has disassociated baptism from faith and salvation. Does the New Testament do this? (before you think I believe in baptismal regeneration, see the footnote below) In the New Testament, to be baptized was to confess Christ (see baptism for more information) before God, His angels and the Church.

Graham says baptism is "a witness to the world"! When was the world ever invited to attend a baptism? Graham and many others separate baptism and receiving Christ both because they don't understand the Scriptures sufficiently and perhaps misinterpret their own experience. They often mistake the conviction of the Holy Spirit and His invitation to salvation for salvation itself. (read the parable of the seeds - Matthew 13) Is a proposal of marriage the same the wedding? It may be thrilling and joyful, but there is no marriage until the vows are said. God may accommodate our ignorance, but that does not mean its OK.

A wedding may not be strictly necessary for a marriage, but it is not normal to begin a marriage without a wedding! Nor would anyone in the New Testament have be considered a disciple of Jesus (Christian) who was not baptized. As a wedding declares the union of the man and woman, so also baptism declares the union of Christ and the Christian. And it has the authority of God, for Jesus commanded His disciples to "baptize in the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit." It is not merely a testimony of salvation as too many ignorantly affirm. (neither is a wedding for infants, pedobaptists) One must ask if their wedding ceremony was merely an affirmation of what had already been consummated? (I know that is hitting below the belt, but it is called for) I too, once accepted the baptist position, until the Holy Spirit led me to the Scriptures and understanding the Jewish context of the first century.

At the very least, most fundamentalists/evangelicals and Billy Graham have discarded the command of Christ to "go and make disciples, baptizing...", making neither disciples, nor baptizing as part of conversion, in favor of their invention of the "altar call." Simpler, more convenient, and definitely dryer. But they apparently have forgotten what happened to Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:1-3) when they ignored God's directions for what was more convenient. In spite of the commands of the Lord, Graham leaves "baptism to the local pastors." Perhaps fewer would come forward if it meant getting their clothes wet. (if you watch his crusades carefully, the 'workers' are the first to rush forward from all over the stadium, an obvious bit of utilitarian psychology, but is it of God?)

In his defense, Dr. Graham is merely repeating the bad theology he was taught, but that is a problem with seminaries and bible colleges: they can perpetuate error as easily as truth. The misunderstanding of the importance of baptism is a result both of not understanding baptism in the 1st century Jewish context, and not understanding the meaning of baptism as a pledge of allegiance and a wedding vow. (by the way, no Christian should ever pledge allegiance to anyone or anything but Jesus Christ)

"Invite Jesus Christ to come in and control your life through the Holy Spirit" Send Jesus an invitation! This is standing the Gospel on its head. It is Jesus who invites you, not you who invites Him! Nor does He take "control of your life through the Holy Spirit." The Christian life is an active following of Jesus Christ, not a passive que será, será. The Holy Spirit is the Parakletos, the one that stands alongside to help, not a possessing spirit that subjects us to His will by force. The Holy Spirit does not TAKE CONTROL.

And this shallow, (no, worse than shallow, for it deceives and damns) evangelical gospel is exactly what is preached in hundreds of thousands of churches. No clear declaration of the awfulness of sin, no clear declaration of the indictment of the Law of God and the awful sentence of death and hell hanging over every person outside the covenant of Christ. No clear declaration of God's New Covenant that Jesus Christ purchased at the terrible price of death on a cross. No clear declaration of the cost and way of entering into this covenant, which alone can save from the wrath of God, now heated seven fold because no longer is judgment based on the Law but on our rejection of the grace and love of God has shown forth on the cross.

Instead of a ringing call to repent and be baptized (Acts 2:38), these have substituted a call to "come forward" and repeat the "sinner's prayer." There is no admonition to count the cost, rather an eager rush to count the "converts.'' A signature card now being the evidence of salvation, rather than a life bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit. But woe to the person who expects that signature card to be accepted at Heaven's gate! And woe to that pastor who preaches a cheap gospel and a cheaper conversion! Perhaps he will spend eternity with his flock. Will they still shower him with praise as they weep in the eternal darkness?

A tree is known by its fruit. And an evangelist or purported gospel must be measured not by the 'converts' that come to the 'altar', but by the disciples of Jesus produced. Not measured by the amount of 'fruit', but by type and quality. Not by the acceptance and approval by the world manifest in crowded stadiums, well financed television productions, and invitations to the Whitehouse, but by the acceptance and approval of God.

Pastor, have you searched the Word of God before you stand before the flock, or are you standing on what they taught you at some bible college or seminary? Have you chosen the will of the people as Aaron did with the Golden Calf, or do you walk under the burden of the cross? As a man condemned to death?

And you sheep or you who dress like one! Do your ears itch? Have you chosen a pastor that "builds you up" and comforts you while you live like the world, or have you a pastor that makes you squirm in your seat when you're not walking in holiness? Have you sold out to Jesus? Given Him your hand in marriage? Vowed to love, honor, and obey? Or are you playing a children's' game of pretend christianity? Are you ready for prison, or death for His sake if need be? Or have you already chosen the way of comfortable christianity, acceptable in society, if not in Heaven?

If you don't know whether you are saved, perhaps read some of the articles here, but definitely turn to the New Testament and the words of Jesus and His Apostles, for that is where you will find the truth. If you sincerely want the truth, the Holy Spirit will guide you.

Finally, much of what Billy Graham has taught is true, as is much of what is taught by the Roman Catholic Church, the Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, and others. All affirm Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead three days later. And that through faith in Him we can obtain forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We all affirm Jesus brought about a New Covenant that we all celebrate. The question is: how do we enter into that covenant? And the answer to that question is the difference between Heaven and Hell.

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*The physical act of baptism does not save, it is the response (faith=belief+obedience) to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the true message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that moves a person to be baptized that saves. The evidence of being saved is not the fact that a person has been baptized but that a person has the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. Baptism is a declaration of allegiance to Jesus Christ and a vow to "love, honor, and obey." Without this being from the heart, the physical act means nothing. For those unable to be physically baptized, it is the heart that God looks at. Those who understand the purpose of baptism and yet refuse to be baptized, prove they neither love, nor obey, nor honor Jesus Christ.