The Two Door Gospel of John Hagee

Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through Me.”

John Hagee, on the other hand, teaches, “The Jewish person who has his roots in Judaism is not going to convert to Christianity.” To present Jesus as the way of salvation, according to Hagee, would be “a waste of time”.

Does this constitute a different gospel (Gal 1:6)? And why would John Hagee teach this apparent two-door approach to salvation? This article is an examination of these very questions.

John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, is certainly a prominent leader in the present evangelical scene. His messages are often heard on TBN. There is no doubt that he is in the mainstream of modern American Dispensationalism, often seen teaching from his involved eschatological charts which are reminiscent of those of Scofield and Clarence Larkin. They are very detailed, but perhaps the lines drawn between the Church and Israel are drawn a little bit too heavily. Hagee has the reputation of being a careful and thorough student and teacher of the Word of God, especially in his eschatology. But is this the case?

Though I view this dispensationalism as already a departure from Biblical Christianity, and from the Reformational enlightenment, I want to focus in this article on Hagee’s views of the Jewish plan of salvation and his dual-track eschatology. Here is where John Hagee’s gospel is indeed most questionable. The accommodations that Hagee makes for his pet Jewish beliefs requires him to sacrifice the purity and uniqueness of the Gospel. This error is much more serious than the other aspects of his modern dispensationalism.

In his effort to honor the Jews, he instead devalues them and the Gospel as well.

It might seem ludicrous that I would say this of a man that has done so much outward good for the Jewish people. He has raised over a million dollars for Soviet Jews to resettle in in Israel. He was honored as “Humanitarian of the Year” by the B’nai B’rith Council in San Antonio.

Yet his theology is no help to the Jews. It in fact encourages their intractable hardness to the only Gospel that can save them. Bringing the Jews from Russia to Israel is certainly commendable. It would be infinitely better if Hagee would go all the the way and bring them, by his money and his teaching, to the Mount Zion of God.

But this John Hagee will not do, because he believes that the Jews do not need this Good News. The Gospel need not be presented to them since they already have access to God; they already have a covenant with Him. This is the Two-Door gospel of Hagee’s teaching. I use the term “two-door” to point to the incongruity of this theology with verses like Jesus’ “I am the way” and “I am the door of the sheep” and Peter’s “there is no other name under Heaven whereby we must be saved”. This teaching also goes under the name of “Two Covenant” or “Dual Covenant”.

Honoring the Dishonorable?
John Hagee’s actually dishonors the spiritual Jew and honors the carnal unbelieving ones. CBA Marketplace Magazine panned Hagee’s book “Final Dawn Over Jerusalem”, writing:

“In his long list of Jewish people who have blessed the world, Hagee makes no distinction between individuals who simply have a Jewish background and those who truly fear and seek God. He lists Goldie Hawn, Dustin Hoffman, and Barbara Streisand, among others, as Jews who have proven the Scripture ‘in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.’ The contributions of these entertainers can hardly be seen as a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis. Hagee also goes as far as branding anti-Semitic those who don’t agree with his enthusiastic support of Israel.”

But who are the honorable Jews? They would be the ones like Simeon and Anna of Luke 3, ones who recognized in the Christ child the spiritual culmination of all Jewish desires and the Answer to all God-given promises. These two – and all modern Jews who likewise discern that Christ is the “Yes and Amen” of all promises to Israel are the ones that Hagee should honor, not unbelieving movie stars who often take part in productions that actually belittle the Gospel.

A Prior Covenant: The Cross not Necessary
John Hagee insists that “The law of Moses is sufficient enough to bring a person into the knowledge of God until God gives him a greater revelation.” Moreover. he told the Houston Chronicle, in a recent interview:

“I believe that every Jewish person who lives in the light of the Torah, which is the word of God, has a relationship with God and will come to redemption.”

Lest he be misunderstood, Hagee says later in the interview:

“I’m not trying to convert the Jewish people to the Christian faith.”

Further quoting the Chronicle:

“In fact, trying to convert Jews is a ‘waste of time,’… ‘The Jewish person who has his roots in Judaism is not going to convert to Christianity. There is no form of Christian evangelism that has failed so miserably as evangelizing the Jewish people. They have a faith structure.’

Everyone else, whether Buddhist or Baha’i, needs to believe in Jesus, he says. But not Jews. Jews already have a covenant with God that has never been replaced by Christianity, he says.”

According to Hagee, Paul quit trying to even reach reach his fellow Jews at a certain point. This was when he went solely after Gentile converts. Presumably at this point, according to Hagee’s view at least, Paul allowed the Jews to come to God in their own time and in their old way.

Lest we overstate,or oversimplify his theology, we need to also add that Hagee insists that

“All people will gain entrance into heaven through Christ. The question is one of timing.”

But does this help his position? This seems to be going from Dual-covenant salvation to outright universalism. In all fairness to him, I don’t believe he believes that every single person will be saved. Yet, even granting that he only means that every Jew will be saved, this is a tremendous error as well, doing away with the necessity of faith for all of God’s people. God will not drag people into His kingdom, kicking and screaming against the Christ many of them clearly hate. And how can “timing” help the Jew who dies in his sin? How could there not be an urgent need to proclaim to all Jews we meet (as well as all Gentiles) that they need to repent and that there is no other name whereby we may be saved but that of Jesus Christ?

Right now, the vast majority of Jews – as well as the vast majority of gentiles, is blind to Gospel and blind to the only Way of salvation, Jesus Christ. Hagee says this is not true, maintaining instead that the Jews are only blind as to who their Messiah is. As if this missing piece is only a minor one! That little area of blindness made most Jews of the 1st century fall under utter condemnation. The truth of who He was was tragically “hidden from their eyes”. Hagee’s downplaying of this present blindness is actually anti-semitism, since it encourages them in their obduracy instead of allowing them to turn to Christ.

This blindness needs to be taken seriously. It is what, God’s intervention notwithstanding, confirms unbelievers in their Hellward spiral. Paul tells us that only the Holy Spirit can take away this blindness (2 Corinthians 3:14-18).

Reader, do you love the Jews? Tell them that the truth is only in Jesus Christ. Lovingly and patiently, by your words and life (the two MUST go together), point to the Messiah as the promised remedy to their separation from God. All the promises to them – and to us – are “Yes!” and “Amen!” in Jesus Christ, the promised seed of the woman. Abraham, seeing Christ as the Promised Seed, rejoiced to see His day.

The Two Door Gospel of John Hagee

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