Below is a chapter from a forthcoming anti-prosperity book, called the "Money God", authored by Anton Bosch. My comments are in red.
Abraham’s blessings
The arguments and verses that prosperity preachers use most often come from the Old Testament. They take all the positive promises that were made to Abraham and his descendents and apply those to Christians in a literal way[i].
For example, they use Galatians 3:13-14 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”. Their argument is that Jesus took the curses of the Old Testament on Himself and then transferred the blessings of the Old Testament and of Abraham, in particular, to Christians.
Unfortunately they make a few fundamental errors in their exegeses. First, the text does not say that Christ redeemed us from the curses of the Old Testament, but He redeemed us from the “curse of the Law”. Verse 10 says “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse”. The subject of Galatians is the Law and the Law is the thing that Christ redeemed us from. The whole point of the book of Galatians is that we are not in the Old Testament and therefore should not go back to it. Yet, they use this verse to do the exact opposite of the message of the context. You cannot apply a meaning to the text that is not in the context.
The author reflects a shallow understanding of the context of Galatians and its relation to Deuteronomy 28. Deuteronomy 28:15ff is explicity discussing the "curse of the Law":
15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:
16 Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.......
In fact, God refers to the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15ff as a singular curse (i.e. the "curse of the law"):
Deut 11:26 ¶ Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
Deut 11:28 And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.
Deut 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing (literally 'a curse'): therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Deuteronomy 28:15ff is the curse of the law, not a curse of the Old Testament. The phrase "curse of the Old the Testament" is non-existent. The curse is specifically related to disobedience to the commandments. It's funny the author quotes Galatians 3:10 to support his case that the context isn't related to Deuteronomy, when Galatians 3:10 itself is taken directly from Deuteronomy 27:26 -- "Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen." This verse immediately precedes Deuteronomy 28 which then spells out exactly what that curse consists of. How could it get any clearer that the curse Paul is speaking of is the Deuteronomic curse of the law?
Secondly, the text says that the blessing comes “in Christ Jesus”, not through Christ, but in Christ. If it was through, then we may be able to speak of physical and material blessings, but it comes in Christ, which means that the blessings are not material but spiritual. This is confirmed by Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ”.
This is terrible argumentation... Where in the Bible does it say that promises that are "in Christ" are strictly confined to the spiritual sphere? Nowhere! This is what I would call an unwarranted universal. This is a false hermeneutical method -- finding one instance that uses the phrase "in Christ" applied to spiritual blessings, and then falsely universalizing it. Many "in Christ" promises are physical. Perhaps the author did a search on the English phrase "in Christ" rather than the using the proper word study method of searching for the Greek phrase ἐν Χριστῷ (translated in KJV as "in Christ" and sometimes as "by Christ"). Looking for the Greek phrase ἐν Χριστῷ , you'll find a crystal clear example of a material promise that is ἐν Χριστῷ (KJV -- "by Christ", Young's literal -- "in Christ"). The passage is Phillipians 4:19. I'll include the context so you can clearly see that Paul is thanking the Phillipians for their generous gift and promising that God will subsequently supply their material needs ἐν Χριστῷ:
KJV:17 Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.
18 But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.
19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
YOUNG'S LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Php 4:17 not that I seek after the gift, but I seek after the fruit that is overflowing to your account;18 and I have all things, and abound; I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things from you — an odour of a sweet smell — a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God:19 and my God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus;
Thirdly, Galatians 3:13-14 is only read or quoted up to “…that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles…”. But that is not the complete quote. The text adds “…in Christ Jesus” and then explains what the blessing is: “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”. Note it does not speak of blessings (plural), but of blessing (singular) and then explains that the blessing is the promise of the Spirit. Therefore the blessing is to be found in Christ and it is the promise of the Spirit. This has nothing to with material things.
Fourthly, if you reject Paul’s statement that the blessing to the Gentiles is the promise of the Spirit, and claim that the blessing is a material one then you have to revert to all of the details of God’s promises to Abraham. These were two very specific things: He would become a great nation and he would inherit the land. Therefore, anyone who claims the literal promises of Abraham must be married and have children, and they must relocate to Israel. Because that is obviously absurd, their claims are invalid.
One simply cannot read the word “blessing” and assume it means whatever you wish. It has a specific meaning, based on the context and the specific promises God made to Abraham. Neither can one cut-and-paste various parts of the Bible to make a new version that suits one’s own ideas or agenda.
The author has a very shallow understanding of the general idea of blessing. Even the wisdom literature, which is usually detached from a specific covenental context, speaks of God's ultimate desire that His people prosper:
Proverbs 13:22 ‘A sinners wealth is stored up for the righteous’
Proverbs 28:8 ‘He who increases his wealth by exorbitant interest amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.
Ecclesiastes 2:26 ‘To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God’
Ps 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 word "prosperity" in Ps 35:27 is shalom. If you ask any Hebrew scholar what shallom means, they'll tell you it means more than just "peace", but rather a welfare, soundness, completeness in all realms of life. This is God's ultimate will for His church which will be ultimately reached in the millenial reign. It is no less His will right now.
The author also has a shallow understanding of the promises of prayer in the wisdom literature, as well as in the New Testament:
Ps 37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Joh 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Joh 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Joh 14:14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
Joh 16:24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
Mk 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
1 Jn 5:14 ¶ And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
Notice the word "Desire" (or "will") in these verses. Also notice the words "whatsoever", or "anything". I don't see any "non-material" qualifications. The qualifications I see are:
1) Delighting in the Lord
2) Asking in the Name of Jesus
3) Abiding in Christ and having His words abide in us
4) Asking according to His will (both written and personal as revealed by the Spirit)
5) Asking in faith (i.e. belieing you receive)
You see, as we delight in the Lord, He'll place desires in our heart. These desires will line up with His plan for the end time harvest of souls. Will that entail some material desires to accomplish that? Of course it will. The physical manifestation of God's will on earth will entail physical resources. Now if someone is praying for shear selfish things apart from God's kingdom plans, they are in greed and sin. But if they truly have a desire to take the wealth back from the wicked and advance God's economy on the earth, then they are delighting in God and His plans, and their desires will be granted.
If you are going to claim Abraham’s covenant as a literal covenant for the Christian, then it has to be taken literally and in detail. You cannot extend it to include things that were not part of the original covenant or delete parts that were an explicit part of that covenant. You can also not modify the agreement unilaterally to mean whatever you choose it to mean.
In order to prove material blessings from this verse, it has to be twisted at so many levels that it becomes totally unrecognizable from the original.
The author is only presenting one side of the story. He sounds like a strict literalist/dispensationalist. The bottom line is, we must see the Bible as progressive revelation! Thus the Pauline revelation should give us a proper perspective on how to view the Old Testament promises and prophecies. Paul says that we are the seed of Abraham (Gals 3:29), and that there is neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ(Gal 3:28). There is only one "Israel of God" (Gal 6:16) -- THE CHURCH. The promises to Abraham were not ultimately to the ethnic seed of Israel, but to the Israel that is not of Israel, or the true remnant in Christ (Rom 9:6). Therefore any promises that have not yet been fulfilled in the Old Testament will be fulfilled in the latter days in the context of the Church, not literal Israel (as dispensationalists try to claim). When we understand this, we can see the promises of the coming harvest and wealth transfer applying to the church. I'll just put a few from Isaiah alone:
Isaiah 23:18 And her [Tyre's] merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
Isaiah 60:5 ‘The wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come’
Isaiah 60:11 ‘Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring the wealth of the nations ‘
Isaiah 61:6 ‘You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast’.
Isaiah 66:12 ‘I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream’.
When we look at the above verse in Isaiah 60:11, for example, we know that John applies this same imagery to the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:25. John uses much of Isaiah's imagery in the book of revelation, including the lake of fire imagery in Rev 20 (cf Isa 66:24), and the idea of reigning over our oppressors (Rev 5:10, cf Isa 14:2). So it's obvious that the restoration promises in Isaiah apply to the church, the "Israel of God", not to ethnic Israel. If that's the case, then the above promises of wealth transfer also apply to the church. Prosperity is God's end time plan for the church. The millenial reign will be the climax. All wealth will once again be in the kingdom of Christ. The kingdom's of this world will be the kingdoms of our God.
Old Testament blessings for New Testament people?
Can we legitimately claim the Old Testament promises for Christians in the New Testament? The short answer is no and here are the reasons:
Abraham and his descendants were a literal, physical, nation.
You bet we can claim Old Testament promises. The disciples applied many of them in the New Testament. Consider Eph 6:1ff which contains a promise of wellness and longevity directly from Exodus 20:
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
2 Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)
3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
Peter, in 1 Peter 3, applies the promise of Psalm 34 to New Testament believers:
10 For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. {against: Gr. upon}
13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?
I'm afraid the author hasn't consulted his cross reference Bible. Old Testament promises are all over the New Testament. You see, the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Everything points to the new in some form or fasion. Yet not everything is abolished or merely spiritualized with the onset of the New Testament. Some promises have been fulfilled in a spiritual fasion, and many (as seen above) are direct carry over.
There were exceptions who came from other nations and who were “adopted” into the nation and became proselytes. But in order for “adoption” to become valid, these Gentiles needed to fully accept the nation of Israel as their nation and, more importantly, had to accept the God of Israel as the only true God. Ruth is one such example: “Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God” (Ruth 1:16). These “proselytes” would then be fully integrated and assimilated into the nation.
But the vast majority of Israelites were physically descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They shared the physical DNA of Abraham and of Sarah. Even Ishmael who sprang from Abraham but not from Sarah, was not entitled to the inheritance (Galatians 4:30). Abraham’s offspring were physical and only physical and it was demonstrated through the physical act of Circumcision.
Apparently our author has not understood Romans 9. Romans 9 is a discourse that Paul wrote about God's remnant, the true Israel. Through the Old Testament, there was always a "false Israel" and a "true Israel". That true Israel (i.e. the True Obedient People of God) has always been entitled to God's blessing in every aspect of life in both the New and Old Testaments. Paul argues in Romans 9 that God's promise has not failed to Israel -- the true "Israel of God" (Gal 6:16).
The promises of blessings to Abraham, which were later confirmed and elaborated to the Nation, were mostly physical promises. These promises included:
• Abraham would physically produce many nations (Genesis 17:4-6). God is specific in that He will make these “nations of you, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:6). These are physical and literal nations and kings which include the Ishmaelites and Edomites.
• Abraham and his descendants would receive a land. This was a literal land (Canaan) with physical boundaries (Genesis 17:8, 15:18).
These promises are made to physical, flesh-and-blood descendants of Abraham. Unless you are born a Jew, you have no right to claim these promises. Evan though Gentile Christians are spiritual children of Abraham, the literal promises are nowhere transferred to spiritual children. They are literal promises to literal seed – to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their genetic descendants.
As a Christian, you cannot claim these promises as they were not made to Christians. Even if you did claim these promises as yours, they are very specific, physical promises. The first deals with a great nation and many nations. It just cannot be translated to mean financial prosperity. The second of the promises is a promise of the Land. If you want to claim this promise you have to move to the land of Israel for there to be any possibility of that promise being fulfilled. Obviously that would be a waste of time since the promise was not to you to begin with. Once again, this promise cannot be altered to mean a big house in Nigeria or America or a Rolls Royce.
The author has such a shallow understanding of what true prosperity means. Prosperity is God raising up a people who will reign with Him as priests and kings in the age to come. Now don't tell me that in the millenial reign the church won't have all the physical wealth of the world. Prosperity is about the spread of the kingdom of God; being "blessed so that you may be a blessing" (Gen 12:2). This promise wasn't made to Abraham's literal seeds (plural), but to Christ, the seed (Gal 3:16). Since Christians are "in Christ", we are also joined to that seed (Gal 3:29). Galatians 3 is the ultimate proof that the covenant to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ and His church. Abrahamic prosperity is all about the global Harvest for the kingdom of Christ -- "in thee [Christ] shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Gen 12:3). Until the gospel has reached every crevice of every nation, kindred, and tongue -- this promise is not fulfilled. Only a prosperous church has the resources to change the entire world in all spheres (media, print, education, etc.). It's so funny that these anti-prosperity advocates who are bashing prosperity teachers don't even comprehend the global evangelistic success that these very prosperity teachers are achieving.
There was a third component to the covenant – circumcision. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham and his children. Those who believe that they have inherited these physical promises must therefore be physically circumcised. And this is not for medical reasons, but as a sign of the covenant. The problem with circumcision (other than for medical reasons) for the Gentile Christian is that the moment you become circumcised, you have denied Christ and have fallen from grace! (Galatians 5:2-4). This may sound strong, but this is part of the central message of the letter to the Galatians.
As you can see, there are three components to God’s promises to Abraham. A literal nation, a literal land and literal circumcision. None of these have anything to do with non-Jews. Gentile Christians have no right to any of these physical promises to Abraham.
Again, this author is making all kinds of assumptions that are unwarranted. God always had "spiritual circumcision" in view.
Ro 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Ro 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Ro 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
God even prophesied the "spiritual circumcision" in Deut 30:6, right after rehearsing the blessings and curses by the way.
Deut 30:6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
God knew that ethnic Israel would ultimately fail under the Law, the "schoolmaster". He thus provided Christ as the means to abolish the ritual law, and provide the blessings He always wanted to give to the His true Israel (i.e. the Old and New Testament church).
The author needs to quit thinking of literal Israel and physical circumcision. There is no more Jew nor Greek in Christ. This is wrong theology. The middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile is abolished in Christ (Eph 2:14ff). All Old Testament promises and prophecies which have not yet been fulfilled (which are numerous by the way), will not be fulfilled in a future literal Israel in a future little Jerusalem, in a future literal temple, with literal sacrifices (thus nullifying grace by faith). No, they will be fulfilled rather in the Church, the "Israel of God" (Gal 6:16), who is the New Jerusalem (Isa 60:14, Rev 21:2, 9), and who has already come to Mt. Zion (Heb 12:22).