Home Christian News ‘Blasphemous!’—Jesse Duplantis’ Christmas Sermon Draws Accusations of Heresy

‘Blasphemous!’—Jesse Duplantis’ Christmas Sermon Draws Accusations of Heresy

jesse duplantis
Screenshot from YouTube / @Jesse Duplantis Ministries

Prosperity gospel preacher Jesse Duplantis recently applied the text of Isaiah 9:6, an Old Testament passage often quoted during the Christmas season as a prophecy about Jesus, in a way that some people took as blasphemous. 

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders,” says Isaiah 9:6. “And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

“Where is the government now?” asked Duplantis in his sermon, “The Gift That Jesus Gave To His Father,” which was published to social media Dec. 26. “It’s on us. The government of the world is on mankind, and because we’re made in God’s image and in God’s likeness, you can call us Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Christ in us, the Everlasting Father, whoo! The Prince of Peace. That’s what it means to be the gift that Jesus gave to you.”

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Jesse Duplantis: We Are Jesus’ Gift to God

Jesse Duplantis is a Word of Faith preacher based out of Destrehan, Louisiana, who runs Jesse Duplantis Ministries (JDM) and is known for promoting a prosperity gospel. Duplantis made headlines in 2018 for asking his supporters to donate money so that his ministry could afford a $54 million private jet—the preacher’s fourth one. Duplantis said the reason he needed the jet was to continue his ministry and spread the gospel. 

In 2021, Duplantis appeared in a four-day fundraising event on Kenneth Copeland’s VICTORY Channel. During the event, Duplantis mentioned that he is a multi-millionaire and said that viewers could speed the return of Jesus by donating money. “I honestly believe this,” he said, “that the reason why Jesus hadn’t come is because people aren’t giving the way God told them to give.” 

In his Dec. 26 sermon, which appears to have been previously recorded at Covenant Church, an outreach of JDM, Duplantis wore a Christmas bow to illustrate his main point that Jesus gave people (presumably believers) as a gift to God the Father. 

As he began the sermon, Duplantis told the congregation that God had told him to preach “the December partner letter.” According to the JDM website, “partners” are people who “regularly pray and sow financial seeds” into the ministry. Partners receive from Duplantis a monthly letter “filled with exactly what God has put on his heart to share with his Partners.”

Duplantis explained that before God created the world, he created angels in heaven—“I call it ‘Planet Heaven’”—and “many, many servants.” The members of the Trinity had a “business meeting” to discuss the creation of humanity and decided to give people free will, through which sin came into the world. During this discussion, God said he could never “touch sin,” and the Holy Spirit said the same. Jesus then “took over the meeting” and offered to die to save all people.