The Alpha Course in the light of Scripture 2
By Gordon Ferguson
Gordon Ferguson is minister of South Grove Free Presbyterian Church, Walthamstow.
A Confusing Gospel Message
The second problem I want to identify is that the Alpha Course gives a confusing Gospel message. It fails to show the true nature of sin. Tim Chapman who taught the course says, “Sin is presented as being the mess we make of our own lives. The problem is explained as “the rubbish that clutters up our lives and clutters up our world” and “pollution of the soul.” and Chapman says, “For all its Biblical use of words, Alpha fails to define sin Biblically. It does so by concentrating on the consequences of sin rather than on what sin actually is. To define the root cause of sin as broken relationship does not identify why the relationship is broken or who has done the breaking. Man without God is the subject of God’s wrath. We are not slightly displeasing to Him with the occasional foible. Rather, by nature we are the objects of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), because we have offended against God and broken His holy law. The root cause of sin is our rejection of our relationship with Him as our Creator and rightful ruler. It is that rejection of Him for which we are culpable and which deserves His rightful justice, rather than its result. Alpha allows me too easily to distance myself from the culpability of rejecting God as holy King over His creation.” So there is a failure to see sin as it really is.
When a person is brought into the Alpha course, the suggestion is, “You are very wretched. You are a miserable creature in a miserable world, and there is no point to your life.” It is all very much man-ward. In fact, one of the men who was very close to Nicky Gumbel was a man called John Wimber. Wimber, when he spoke of his conversion, again depicted God in terms of weakness, with a great concentration on the present, rather than on eternity.
We need to have a true view of sin. What is sin? t is “any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” (Shorter Catechism). We break the law of God, we defy God. By defying God, by breaking His law, we are sinners. We were born with a sinful nature. It all began in the Garden of Eden when God told man that he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and man put forth his hand in rebellion against God and sinned. From that moment all mankind has been sinful. It is not just a broken relationship; God hates sin and He must, and will punish sin.
Recently, I preached on Romans 3:25-26, and we looked at God’s remission, or passing over, of sins that were committed in Old Testament times. The Greek word means “deliberately overlooking.” It is borrowed from the Will that was made in days gone by. Somebody who made a Will might leave out one of the family. When the will was read after the person was dead, the family-member left out might wonder why he was not a beneficiary. He had been passed over. Maybe he had offended. In the Old Testament age, God held back His judgment; He passed over the sins of certain people – and there are many examples. Noah was a sinner; nothing was exacted for Noah’s sins and yet Noah went to heaven while millions perished in the flood and went to hell. Nothing was exacted for Abraham’s sins, yet Abraham went to heaven and the people of Ur of the Chaldees, who were idolaters like Abraham had been, were sent to hell. There are others whose sins were passed over and they went to heaven. God deliberately passed over their sins.
How can God be just if He passes over the sins of some people and punishes others? It is because of the cross. God knew that Jesus Christ would pay the price for those trusting in Him to deal with their sins. With Christ, a promise was as good as a performance. He would not fail. In the mind of God He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God could not send to hell those people who were trusting in the coming Saviour because He knew that Christ would pay the price in full for their sins. God at Calvary demonstrated His righteousness in overlooking the sins that were committed in the Old Testament age by His people. He overlooked deliberately, because He knew that Jesus Christ would pay in full for those sins. But the principle involved is: God is a just God, Who must and will punish sin. If you have a light view of sin then you will not see the absolute need for Jesus Christ, you will not see the absolute power of such a Scripture as, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” You will not see the force of John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
I am not alone in saying this. It is written by someone who taught the course; and it is the view of others who have analysed the course. Sin is seen in terms of the misery it brings to us. The testimonies of some who have done the Alpha Course have been that they have done wrong, are wretched, and their relationship with God was broken. But they do not see the great offence that sin is to God and the fact that a holy God must punish sin and that therefore there is a hell. The result is that Alpha testimonies are not clear. Chris Hand has a very good section on this. He says: “The lack of focus on Jesus is seen very clearly in the testimonies people give, testimonies which Alpha puts, with approval, in its literature.” Let us look at Alpha’s, or you could say Nicky Gumbal’s, quotation of testimonies of people that profess to have been converted through Alpha. He is quoting them, so they must be authentic.
The first of the five main testimonies is particularly revealing. It reads,
The one thing that stuck in my mind was how the work of the Holy Spirit was described as of paramount importance. I knew in my heart I had to have this power in my life at any cost, so I found out where the church was, enrolled on the course and focussed on the weekend. I felt like a dying man waiting for a life-saving operation. Never mind the weeks of pre-med, I just had to get into the operating theatre.’
That is interesting! What is this man talking about? The weeks of pre-med are the weeks of teaching about Jesus; teaching about sin, the necessity of the work of the cross. I have said that it is set out in a very shallow way – this person dismisses even that fairly light presentation as “the pre-med.” He was waiting for the real thing. That is something that you need to remember about Alpha, it is very much experience-orientated. There is a focus on experience, and that is dangerous. Those who focus on experience seem to think that speaking in tongues is the all-important thing, forgetting that lots of heretics speak in tongues. We do not believe that the tongues they use are Biblical, but they say, “You are speaking in tongues; you are filled with the Spirit of God, so you must be a Christian.”
Here is a man: what is he looking for? Teaching? No. He doesn’t want “the pre-med,” he wants to get into the operating theatre, he doesn’t want to go through all this business of getting little injections in his arm, getting dressed up in the gown – everything like that – and the nurse taking his temperature and telling him how ill he is and the doctor coming round and explaining the operation. No, he wants to leave that out and get into the operating theatre where the power of the Holy Ghost comes down. Now this is quoted with approval in Telling Others. This is what Alpha sees as the man’s testimony, he is giving it. Then he goes on to say,
I looked at the order of play (as if it was a Test Match!) and saw that the third session, which I identified as the main one, was at 4.30 pm, and simply hung on like a marathon runner beating his way up the final straight but with nothing but the finishing tape as the focus of his attention. I will never forget that session, I felt as though I was being torn in two. Halfway through I could not stand it anymore, the prize was so near but we were getting there so slowly. I literally wanted to scream out, “Do it now, do it now.” I could not hold out any longer, I am not exaggerating when I say I was in agony. Then God came, and then came the relief.’
Tim Chapman adds, “This is deeply troubling. This person regards the talks on ‘Who is Jesus’ and ‘Why did He die?’ as pre-med. The focus of his attention is specifically identified as being not the Lord Jesus, not the cross, not even the Holy Spirit, but the third session, ‘How can I be filled with the Spirit?’” “‘Sadly,’” he says, “‘such a testimony is repeated again and again.’”
Physical heat sometimes accompanies the coming of the Spirit and people experience it in their hands or some other part of their body. The experience is described as “glowing all over. Liquid heat burning in my arms, but I was not hot.” Still another said, “I did not want to come to the weekend and I did, but I would call myself a Christian now. I would say that I felt the Holy Spirit, I was feeling I was loved. It was really a tremendous over whelming feeling of love.” “Again,” writes Chapman, “what is conspicuous by its absence in so many of these testimonies is any mention of Jesus and His atoning sacrifice on the cross, which is the heart of the Biblical Gospel.” You see, it is about feeling, and they talk about this hot sensation, this liquid burning, being on fire – it seems almost literal. So there is a failure to see sin as it really is and to feel deep conviction. They want the feeling of glowing warmth, and to feel “I am loved,” but have they really repented of their sins?
Remember what happened when Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost. There was not much of a warm feeling initially there; indeed there was deep sorrow. People were really troubled. Three thousand were converted but thousands, perhaps many more than three thousand, cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter had shown them who Jesus was; he had shown them that by wicked hands He had been crucified and slain, and he says, “This same Jesus, you took Him and by wicked hands you have crucified and slain Him.” He came to a great climax in that message and said, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” In the original it ends in a very powerful way, because it says that “God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ,” and the last words in the Greek are, “whom ye crucified.” After showing that He is the Lord of glory and has risen from the dead, he really, in a sense, stabs them right through the heart with the statement, “You crucified Him.” The Bible says, “When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.” It was just as if a sword had gone through them. They were pricked to the heart and they cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” They were under deep trouble of soul.
Paul spoke about “the exceeding sinfulness of sin” in Romans 7:13, and if we are to be converted we need to see sin in its true colours. We need to see that God hates it, and will judge it, and will sin us to hell. A man undergoing true conversion does not speak about not wanting the pre-med: “Just let me have the feelings. Just let me have that warm glowing feeling. Let me feel I am loved, and all is well.” Before any heart-warming there must be heart-breaking. And in godly sorrow, coming to the Cross of Christ as guilty, hell-deserving sinners. Then, and only then, are we lifted up and can know true rejoicing.