False Teachings
That Are Destroying the Church
Note:
You will see at the end of some paragraphs the words “Important
Notes” followed by text in italicized
font and in parenthesis (
). This information was
not “preached” during the sermon, but remain helpful in terms of filling out
important themes that could not be fully discussed.
Also, at the end of this document is a long list of resources.
Acts 20:28-31: “28 Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the
Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the
Galatians 1:8-10: “8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”
2 Pet 2:1-3: “2
But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false
teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even
denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. 2
And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth
will be blasphemed. 3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive
words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction
does not slumber.”
2 Tim 4:1-5:
“2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke,
exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they
have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will
turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be
watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,
fulfill your ministry.”
This will not be your usual sermon. As
a matter of fact, it is more or a lecture than a sermon.
I plan on speaking for well over 1 hour about some grave issues that
confront the
Many Christians today listen, follow, and even financially support certain
T.V. preachers and ministries that are found on the Trinity Broadcasting Network
(or TBN), and I am sure that many of you here today do as well.
I’m convinced that the reason you and many other Christians do this
though is for one simple reason: you
love Jesus, you want to hear more of the Word of God, and you want to support
the spread of the Gospel. And can I
say to you beloved, those are indeed wonderful things.
The problem though is that while your and other Christian’s motivation
is noble, the “well” to which many Christians run to and are drinking from
to satisfy their thirst for Jesus and His Word is polluted and even toxic.
I know that is quite a statement to make, but believe me when I say that
the false teachers and their teachings that appear regularly on TBN have been
examined and confronted for many years by many well-respected ministries within
the Evangelical community. The
false teachers and their teachings have been examined and confronted for many
years by many well-respected Evangelical ministries.
Not all of the teachers that come on TBN are false teachers. The problem is that the sound biblical teachers are few and far between, and before long it becomes difficult to distinguish between truth and error. As for those false teachers, they all in one form or another subscribe to an aberrant theology known as Word of Faith. This is also identified as “positive confession,” “name it and claim it” or the “health and wealth gospel.” Some of the personalities that I am sure you will be familiar with that subscribe to this are Paul and Jan Crouch, Kenneth Copeland, Frederick Price, Jesse DuPlantis, T.D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Juanita Bynum, Paula White, and Myles Monroe, to name just a few.
I realize that these are some
of the more popular personalities and teachers today that appear on TBN.
Unfortunately, much of what they teach is not only in error, but it
actually rises to the level of heresy, and the consequences to those who follow
their flawed teaching is serious.
The reason I distinguish between
error and heresy is because while all heresy
is error, not all error
is heresy. A heresy is an
error that is so serious that it denies an essential, foundational truth of the
Christian faith, and as such denies Christianity altogether.
Error on the other hand is a departure from Biblical Truth, but generally
one not so serious as to deny the historic Christian Faith. So,
for example, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, and Pentecostals may disagree
with each other on a number of important doctrinal issues, but none of those
issues are thought to outright deny the historic Christian faith, and thus would
not rise to the level of heresy because they all hold to the essential doctrines
that mark the clear boundary line between Christian and non-Christian (such as
Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, etc.).
Our concerns then are not over
relatively secondary doctrinal matters where there has historically been, and
currently is, room for discussion and disagreement (such as baptism, whether is
it by immersion, sprinkling, or pouring; or whether infants should be baptized,
or the proper form of church government, or details concerning end time events,
etc.). Rather, the concern is with primary, essential, and foundational
Christian doctrines that pertain to the nature of God, the nature of man, and
the person and work of Jesus Christ, things that if contradicted or denied, you
would no longer have Christianity.
(Important
Notes: Joel Parkinson, in his outstanding pamphlet entitled Orthodoxy and
Heresy: Where to Draw the Line makes some excellent observations. With
reference to orthodoxy, Parker says that orthodoxy is, “…the system of
beliefs necessary to maintain the basis and essence of the true Gospel and way
of salvation.” (p. 17).
Please note that the word “orthodox” or “orthodoxy” is derived
from two Greek words, ortho, which means straight or correct, and “dox”
which means doctrine. Thus, the
church historically has used this word to describe and define “correct
doctrine.” Gleaning from Mr. Parker’s pamphlet, I have provided below a
summary statement of the essential doctrines that all Evangelical Christians,
regardless of denominational affiliation, would agree upon and that make up the
Christian faith. In other words,
these are the heart and soul of the historic Christian faith, and if any thing
here is denied, then the Christian faith itself is denied (note: much more could
be said about each article of faith that I provide below; what I provide is,
what I believe, the bare minimum that must be believed):
1.
God - There is one God perfect in
every aspect of His nature and character (i.e., He is omnipotent, omniscient,
omnipresent, sovereign, holy, loving, longsuffering, etc.). In the unity of the
Godhead there are Three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost: The Trinity. One God in Three
Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2. The Holy Bible - The Holy Bible, including the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament, is the infallible and inerrant, Word of God. The Scriptures are the only infallibly authoritative rule and guide of all Christian life, practice, and doctrine.
3. God the Father - God the Father is the Creator of heaven and earth. By his word and for his glory, he freely and supernaturally created the world from nothing, and daily sustains all creation and all his creatures. He rules over all and is the only Sovereign. He is faithful to every promise and in his unfathomable grace gave his Son, Jesus Christ, for the redemption of sinners. He made all things, to include man, for His own glory, and intended that all creation should live to the praise of his glory.
4.
Jesus Christ - Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, the second person
of the Trinity. Through him all things came into being and were created. In the
fullness of time, He took to Himself a human nature without divesting Himself of
His deity, being supernaturally conceived and born of the virgin Mary, one
person with two distinct natures, being fully God and fully man, perfect in
nature, teaching, and obedience. He
is the only Savior; there is no other name given among men by which we must be
saved. He lived a perfect sinless
life, performed miracles, and He voluntarily atoned for the sins of people by
dying on the cross as their substitute, thus satisfying divine justice.
He rose bodily from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven and sat down
at the right hand of God the Father where He ever lives to make intercession for
His people. He will return one day in power and glory.
5.
The Holy Spirit - the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life, who
unites believers to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ by applying the
redemption wrought by Christ on the cross. The
Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, and regenerates, indwells, empowers,
comforts, leads, guides, teaches, and sanctifies believers.
The Holy Spirit is to be worshipped as God.
6.
Man – Man is created in the image of God. All mankind participated in
Adam's fall from his original sinless state and is thus lost in sin and totally
helpless. That historic fall brought
all men under divine condemnation. Man's
nature is corrupted, and he is, therefore, totally unable to please God, and he
must be regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit.
7.
Salvation – The salvation of man is not, in whole or in part, by human
works or power, but is wholly the work of God's grace through faith alone, in
and by Christ alone. In
justification, the undeserving sinner has the perfect righteousness of Christ
imputed to him, and is both pardoned for his sin and declared (not made)
righteous by God forever.
8.
End Times/Consummation - The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ
to earth in power and glory and in the resurrection of both the saved and the
lost. They that are saved shall be
raised unto the resurrection of everlasting life, and shall live and reign with
Christ for eternity. They that are
lost shall be raised unto the resurrection of damnation--everlasting punishment
in a literal Hell.
The
above statement of faith is one where Evangelical, theologically conservative Baptists,
Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Pentecostals (not Oneness Pentecostals
though, who deny the Trinity), Charismatics, etc., would all be in agreement
with. All of these groups disagree on a number of important issues, but they all
stand in unity around these essentials and have the bond of brotherly fellowship
around these things.
Also,
as it relates to end times/consummation (eschatology), there are a variety of
end time views: amillennial, historic premillennial, postmillennial, and
dispensational premillennial (this is the view that is seen for example in the
Left Behind books and has become the most popular view in the Christian media,
and teaches, among other things a “secret” rapture of the church, followed
by a seven year period of Tribulation, followed by the second coming of Christ,
etc. Hence, whereas
Dispensationalists view the second coming of Christ in 2 phases, historically
the church has taught that the second coming of Christ is one
event. See these links: http://www.reformed.org/eschaton/index.html?mainframe=/eschaton/Not_So_Secret.html;
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Second-Coming/
). Incidentally, the Dispensational
view is a relatively new position in church history, not appearing in the church
until around the 1830’s (http://www.upres.com/LessofJohn/docs/dispensation.pdf).
That’s right: the most
popular eschatological view in the Christian media (not necessarily the church
as a whole) is one that didn’t even exist until over 1,800 years of church
history had come and gone! Yet, it
is often presented and defended by its advocates as though it has always been
the unquestionable view of the Christian church since the very beginning, when
nothing could be further from the truth. Please
note: Premillenialism existed, but Dispensationalism did
not. While all
dispensationalists are premillennial, not all those that are premillennialists
are dispensational (see this link for Historic Premillenialism, which is a far
more biblical (and historic!) view than Dispensationalism: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Eschatology/Historic-Premillennialism/).
Not
only that, but many Dispensationalists I’ve encountered and/or heard via
sermons, e-mail exchanges, etc., have
made outrages charges against those that disagree with their unique theology,
and some go so far as to label those that disagree with them as anti-Semitic, or
as being Full Preterists (a view that teaches that the second coming of Christ
occurred in the 1st century. This
view has been universally condemned as unorthodox though! See this critique: http://www.reformed.org/eschaton/index.html;
http://www.reformedreader.org/preterism.htm).
There
are a number of things that define Dispensationalism, but probably the
foundational aspect of Dispensationalism as opposed to every other view is that
it posits that God has two different
peoples; an earthly people (Jews) and a heavenly people (the Church) and two
different redemptive plans; an earthly plan (for Jews), and a heavenly plan
(for the church). Lewis Sperry
Chafer, one of the most prolific Dispensational theologian’s states:
“The
dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct
purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives
involved which is Judaism; while the other is related to heaven with heavenly
people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity ...”
(Chafer,
Dispensationalism, 107).
Hopefully just
given those facts one can begin to see some of the problems with this view.
Contrary to classical Dispensationalism, there are not two plans of
salvation (one for the Jews, and one for the Gentiles), and there are not two
peoples of God. There was, is, and
always shall be one plan, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
of all (i.e., Jew and Gentile alike). God’s
redemptive purposes are not set on restoring Israel to a physical land (God
fulfilled that promise almost 3,000 years ago; see Joshua 21:43-45), but on
gathering His sheep, both Jew and Gentile alike—people from every nation,
tribe and tongue—unto Himself. God’s
purposes are not to rebuild a physical Temple where the sacrificial system will
be reinstituted; rather, Christ Himself is the Temple, and Christ’s people are
built into a spiritual house with Christ Himself as the chief cornerstone; the
Great High Priest who forever has abolished the types and shadows of the Old
Covenant system with its ceremonies and sacrifices, being Himself the one and
only sufficient sacrifice that was sacrificed once and for all over two thousand
years ago.
Rev.
Fred Klett, himself a Jewish believer and a former Dispensationalist, has some
interesting things to say with regard to this.
He wrote an article entitled “Not Replacement, But Expansion!” (http://www.chaim.org/xpansion.htm)
Here are some key things he
notes (remember, this is a Jewish believer writing this (is he
anti-Semitic now!). Also, I have
italicized certain relevant phrases):
God
has had one purpose and plan for mankind ever since the Fall: to restore a
people for Himself from fallen humanity through Messiah Jesus. Because of the
Fall of Adam we have all come under the curse of God, or as the Puritans put it
"through Adam's Fall sinned we all". The Jewish people, and ultimately
the Jewish Messiah, brought to the world the Abrahamic promise of blessing to
redeem us from the curse of the Fall. Jesus brought the blessings of Abraham
"first to the Jew" and then expanded the blessing "also to the
Gentile" (see Galatians 3:14 and Romans 1:16). There
are not two sets of Covenant promises and Covenant obligations, one for Jewish
believers and one for Gentile believers, there is one New Covenant people and
one faith (Eph. 2:16 and 4:5).
God has had but one
program from the beginning: salvation through Jesus.
God purposed to restore blessing once again to a cursed world. The core of the
Abrahamic promise was to bring a restoration of blessing to all peoples through
the seed of Abraham. This seed is ultimately the King of
National and ethnic
The point is
that the true
“14
I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.
15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My
life for the sheep. 16 And other
sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and
they will hear My voice; and there
will be one flock and one shepherd.”
Much more can
be said, but for now I
will simply refer you to these links which provide helpful analysis:
http://www.wrfnet.org/articles/printarticle.asp?ID=1304
http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/apologetics/Covenant%20Theology%20&%20Justification/Ligons_covtheology/09.htm
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Dispensationalism/Grover-Gunn-Series-on-Dispensationalism/
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Dispensationalism/
Now,
given the fact that Dispensationalism is relatively new in church history in
itself doesn’t make it wrong; it simply means that since the church universal,
for almost 2,000 years, did not adhere to it, it should give Christians
considerable pause, and cause us to at least stop and consider the teachings of
Dispensationalism before following it just because it happens to be in vogue in
the Christian media, and our favorite preacher teaches it.
What I have discovered is that when one does “stop and consider” the
teachings of Dispensationalism, they run the hazard of being severely ostracized
and misrepresented, all for having the audacity to disagree with
Dispensationalism and embrace a view which finds more support in church history
(and I might add, Scripture). I have
witnessed this firsthand. And this is what concerns me deeply because, sadly,
many who hold to Dispensationalism elevate their truly unique theology and brand
of eschatology as an essential element of the Christian faith, and some, which
again I know from firsthand experience, even wrongly label all those that hold
to Reformation theology/Calvinists (http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Calvinism/Doctrines-of-Grace/)
as Full Preterists. Not only is this
incorrect (since many Dispensationalists are also Calvinists!), but it displays
a serious lack of basic knowledge of theology and church history, flawed
scholarship, and a complete lack of integrity,
and is most ironic given the fact that the dispensational view itself has
undergone modification since it first hit the scene in the 1830’s (see
especially Progressive Dispensationalism, which is a move in the right
direction: http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/progdisp.htm).
Also, let me say that though I am not a Dispensationalist,
Dispensationalism is a view that falls within orthodoxy. In other words, it does
not deny the Christian faith. I would maintain that it is error, not
heresy. Of course, my Dispensationalist friends would beg to differ, and
would say that it is I who is in error! And with that said, let me also make it
clear that I have a great deal of respect for many godly Dispensational teachers
that have contributed to my spiritual growth. I received a bachelor degree in
Religion from Liberty University, a Dispensational school (and of course I was
“schooled” in the teachings of Dispensationalism. Far from turning me into a
non-Calvinist Dispensationalist though, my experience at
The
statement I provided above then is one wherein all end time views can accept,
and which really are the essential things to believe.
Other end time views, such as Full Preterism (as distinguished from
Partial Preterism), would be considered unorthodox because it denies the future
return of Christ, among other things. Partial
Preterism on the other hand is
an acceptable view because it holds to the future coming of Christ.
Again, many Dispensationalists I have encountered wrongly label all those
that espouse Reformation theology as being Full Preterists, which is an outright
lie. One would hope that given these
facts that Dispensationalists would begin to exercise a bit more restraint and
integrity in their statements, particularly in light of the fact that classical
Dispensationalism is problematic itself on a number of different levels (which
the links I provided above easily and ably demonstrate).
By the way, I would categorize myself as Amillennial, a view which finds
an ample amount of support in church history and in Scripture:
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Eschatology/Amillennialism/
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Eschatology/Already/Not-Yet/.
I also highly recommend the book A Case For Amillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger: http://www.monergismbooks.com/amillennial435x.html.
This link contains numerous other books you can purchase: http://www.monergismbooks.com/003eschatology.html
The turning point though came in
April 1999 when the church I was ordained at began to teach a Bible study on the
topic of Faith, and the material was drawn from Word of Faith guru Kenneth
Hagin. It was then that I made aware
of the full scope of the error taught on TBN.
Word of Faith teaching states that man has the power to create his own
reality through the power of his “faith-filled words.”
God Himself is reduced to a faith Being—He Himself must exercise faith
to accomplish things! God is
on the outside looking in, He can’t do anything unless we give Him permission,
and we have the power to create reality itself by speaking things into
existence. We were taught to say, "I'm a believer; I'm not a doubter.
I have a measure of God kind of faith.
I have a measure of the kind of faith that created the worlds in the
beginning." This is what was being taught in this study, and I remember
I kept saying to myself, “where’s God in all of this,” and “I thought
God was sovereign.” And that’s
when it really hit me. Everything
that was being taught directly undermined and contradicted the nature and
sovereignty of God.
So I embarked on a rigorous study
of these things through the Bible, and I began to study Systematic Theology (in
particular Wayne Grudem's work: http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/2487/nm/Systematic+Theology:+An+Introduction+to+Biblical+Doctrine+(Grudem),
and studied the teachings of the Protestant Reformers of the 16th
century, and I came to see the severity of the errors being taught, and
eventually I joined a church that was biblically sound and was thoroughly
grounded in the theology of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th
century.
(Important
Notes: You can see more of my
testimony here: http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/whycalvinist.
See more articles related to the theology of the Reformation here: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Calvinism/Doctrines-of-Grace/
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Calvinism/Reformed-Theology/
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Five-Solas/).
With that said then, let’s begin
our examination of the false teachings of the Word of Faith movement.
I. Basic Tenets of the Word of Faith Movement:
A. As mentioned, it also
called the Name it and Claim it, and Health and Wealth Gospel.
B. Those names give a better
insight into the motor that drives the theology which is nothing less than a
self-centered, self-glorifying, God-dishonoring, Christ and Gospel-denying, and
blasphemous twisting of biblical truth. It
is all geared toward the believer achieving
positive results as gauged by
worldly standards: success
in the Christian life is gauged by whether or not you have achieved significant
financial gains and experience perfect divine health.
C. The means to achieve these
ends is the believer himself through what is called his “god-like” faith.
This faith is described as force, and the words that we speak are said to be the
containers that release this “force” of faith to create a positive reality.
D.
God is often described as possessing a physical body, and as one who
legally cannot do anything on earth without man allowing him to.
Man is described as an exact duplicate of God who, after the fall,
attained a Satanic nature.
E. Jesus, according to these teachers, came to earth not as God but only
as a man in order to restore man to his original god-like status. To do this
Jesus went to the cross took on the nature of Satan, and Jesus’ work on the
cross was not sufficient to atone for sins.
Instead, Jesus had to be taken to hell where He was tortured for 3 days,
and then finally released, and in hell Jesus became the first born again man.
After this, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit so that believers could themselves
become little gods as God had originally
intended, and so that you too can now get every material possession that you not
only desire, but, they say, you deserve.
Let’s look first at the Word of
Faith’s:
II. False Teaching About Faith
As I alluded to earlier, Word of Faith theology teaches that
believers have a measure of “God-like” or “God-kind of faith,” and it is
through our words that this force of faith is released and we could create financial
prosperity and perfect health. Listen
to these quotes:
Kenneth Copeland said: "Faith is a power force. It is a tangible force. It is a conductive force." (The Force of Faith [Fort Worth, TX: KCP Publications, 1989], 10.) http://craom.net/kennethcopeland.htm
Creflo Dollar says:
"You have a miracle in your mouth. You have money in your mouth...You can have what you say." and he says, "…There is creative power invested in every word you speak and when we put God's word in our mouth we participate in the same creative process God used to create this physical earth…" (Creflo Dollar, "Establishing the Word of God Part 2," January 30, 2005, Product Number: 8442091) http://www.gospelgrace.com/falseprophets/creflodollar/creflodollar.htm
“Now, God used faith substance to make everything that He made…in every one of those words they were filled with faith substance, because words are nothing but containers...” (Changing Your World program, Sept. 20, 1998) http://www.letusreason.org/Wf41.htm
Joyce Meyer said: “Now I want you to realize that words are containers for power
and they carry either creative or destructive power and we need to be very
careful about the words of our mouth." And she says, “What you say is what you get.” (Joyce Meyer, Life In
the Word television program, 7/03/2003: http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/meyer/wants.htm#2).
T.D.
Jakes said, “My brothers and sisters the
power of life and death is in the tongue. You can have whatever you
say." (T. D. Jakes, T. D. Jakes During Intermission of "The Bone
Collector Part II," TBN, August 12, 2004) http://www.forgottenword.org/jakes.html
In order to prove these kinds of statements, these false teachers twist a
couple of key texts, in particular Mark 11:22, Rom 4:17, and Prov 18:21.
With reference to Mark 11:22, which states "Have faith in
God..." these false teacher claim that it actually reads, "Have
God-like faith" in the Greek. Translated
in this way, the Word of Faith teachers maintain that God Himself has to
exercise faith. They claim that when
God created the universe, it was an act of faith when He spoke it into
existence.
They then reason that since we are created in the image of God (a teaching
which they also distort, because they blasphemously claim that we are exact
duplicates of God), and God is a faith being who through His faith-filled words
created the universe, we too then are endowed with the same kind of power. All
we have to do speak, and by our "God-like" faith, we will be able to
“speak things into existence.”
So, what about Mark 11:22? Does
the Greek really mean to say “have God-like faith” or the “faith of
God,” or does it mean to say have faith in
God? Given the fact that these false teachers try to examine the “real”
meaning of this verse in the Greek (which none of them are Greek scholars by the
way), let us then turn to those who actually know biblical Greek, to see if the
Word of Faith teachers are correct. According
to the finest biblical Greek scholarship, there is absolutely no basis for
translating that verse "God-like faith," or “faith of God.” For
example, renowned Greek scholar A.T. Robertson (cited in Christianity in Crisis,
p. 90), very adequately shows that the phrase is not to be translated in the
manner suggested by these false teachers, and he goes on to insist that
translating the verse in this way is preposterous.
He says, "it is not the faith that God has, but the faith of which
God is the object."
Robertson is not the only Greek scholar to hold this view. Whole
teams of Bible translators from a wide cross-section of Christianity reject the
translation suggested by Word of Faith advocates as demonstrated by the fact
that not one reliable
English translation translates Mark 11:22 as “Have God-like faith,” or
“Have the God-kind of faith…” Not the KJV, NKJ, NIV, ESV, or the NASB; not
one translates this verse that way.
Even the popular paraphrase The Living Bible translates the verse, “If
you only have faith in
God…” and a Roman Catholic translation, The New American Bible, translates
the verse, “Have faith in God…” Are we to believe then that all of these
translation teams, each composed of Geek scholars from every major segment of
Christianity, from different periods in Church history, are wrong, and the Word
of Faith advocates, among whom there is not one that would be considered a Greek
scholar, are correct?! I hardly
think so!
Another one of the favorite mantras of Word of Faith false teachers is to
“call those things that are not as though they were,” which is a direct
quote from the second portion of Romans 4:17.
The idea is that we must continue to speak those things that we desire
(which have yet come to pass) as though they have already come to pass.
And of course the thing we are told to speak into existence is something
related to health and wealth.
There is a huge problem here though, and the problem is the text itself.
When one closely examines Romans 4:17 and the context that it is found
in, we get an entirely different picture of what this verse is saying.
Roman 4:16-17 reads:
“16
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the
promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but
also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all 17(as
it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations") in the
presence of Him whom he believed -- God,
who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though
they did…”
Thus, as we examine the full scope of what this text says, one thing
becomes immediately clear: it
isn’t we who “call
those things that are not as though they were” rather, it is God. The
only one who possesses the power to call those things that are not as though
they were, and to “speak things into existence” is God Himself!
Man is utterly incapable of doing those things for a very simple reason:
He is not God! He is a mere
creature! God alone is Almighty,
sovereign, and omnipotent and as such only God has the power to do such things.
For mere mortals to even begin to think that they could do that which
only God Himself can do is both the height of presumption and the height of
heresy.
Not only are we incapable of doing those things but what makes us so
arrogant to think that we know what the absolute best thing is to speak into
existence in any given situation? I’ve
also frequently wondered why it is that those who claim to have this “power”
never “speak” world peace into existence, or speak into existence the
abolishment of famine, racism, homelessness, death, sorrow, or pain.
If they have spoken to these things, then they have failed miserably!
What they are usually found “speaking into existence” is those things that
will benefit them temporarily: health
and wealth (what some of their teachers describe as having “Rolls Royce
faith”).
Romans 4:17 has absolutely nothing to do with us speaking anything into
existence. Rather, the entire point
of the passage is an eloquent exposition and defense by the apostle Paul of the
doctrine of justification by faith alone and the imputation of the righteousness
of Christ to all who believe, which is the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. The text is teaching us that
Abraham is an example of what true saving faith is because when God promised to
make him the father of many nations, Abraham, though he and his wife were old
and had “dead” bodies in terms of child bearing (see verse 19), nevertheless
did not “waver” at the promise of God (verse 20), because He knew that God
was all-powerful and could bring life out of death (verse 21 with verse 17).
Because Abraham believed, it was then “accounted to him as
righteousness” (verse 22). Now,
please note what Paul then says in verses 23-25:
“…it
was not written for his [Abraham’s] sake alone that it was imputed to him
[Abraham], but also for us. It
[righteousness] shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus
our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was
raised because of our justification.”
In these last verses, Paul sums up why he even mentions Abraham in the
first place! It is written for
“us” so that we might understand that just as righteousness was imputed to
Abraham when he believed, so it will be imputed to us who believe in “Him who
raised up Jesus our Lord from dead.” Thus, these heretics take one of the most
profound and eloquent expositions on the very heart and soul of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, and turn it into New Age occultic formula that is nothing more
than a get rich quick scheme aimed fleecing the flock and lining the pockets of
their hand made designer suits so that they can pay for their multi-million
dollar estates and their multi-million dollar private jets!
As for Proverbs 18:21, which reads “Death and life are in the power of
the tongue,” this has absolutely nothing to do with creating anything by your
words! It doesn’t mean that if I
say I am sick that I am then creating sickness, or if I say that I am healthy
then health will be created! Such a concept as this is taken right out of the
New Age cults! One of the key tenets of New Age mysticism is that:
“The
human mind has deep levels and vast powers, which are capable even of overriding
physical reality. You create your own reality. Nevertheless, this is subject to
certain spiritual laws, such as the principle of cause and effect (karma). The
ultimate level of human potential has only been realized by a few spiritual
masters.”
(quoted by wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age
and drawn from Reality Shifters: http://realityshifters.com/pages/news.html).
The point of the Prov 18:21 is that with our words we can speak things
that lift each other up and are edifying (life), or we can gossip and backbite
and assassinate a person’s character (death).
And this is exactly the point James makes in James 3:9, “With the
tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been
made in God's likeness.”
True biblical faith then is
not some mystical force through which we create our own reality, rather, it is
simply an absolute trust in God,
and it is also trusting in God despite the circumstances that come into our
lives, or when the answer we get isn’t exactly what we would have thought or
wanted. And when we say
we have faith to “move mountains,” we are saying that we have an unwavering
trust and confidence in the object of our faith, the sovereign King of the Universe, and in His
power. It isn’t my “naked” faith that moves the mountain, as if it
were some supernatural, mystical force. Rather, it is God who
moves the mountain in response to my faith in Him, and in only accordance with
His sovereign purposes. His purposes then must become my purposes.
My faith then is a means,
not the force, through which a sovereign God will accomplish His
preordained plans and purposes. Faith
is not some mystical force whereby we manipulate God into doing our bidding.
Manipulating God is bad enough, but Word of Faith theology is even worse
than that. It is isn’t so much
manipulating God as it is completely ignoring Him, as the individual confronts
the circumstances of his life by speaking to those circumstances, using the name
of God and Jesus as magical code words to be used at the whim of the individual
to bring about whatsoever he desires. And
if we suffer in any degree, whether by sickness, or persecution, etc., it is
because we have a lack of faith!
Yet, every trial, every point of suffering, and yes, every sickness
that comes into our lives was ordained by God from before the foundation of the
world, and He has ordained it for a purpose, and that purpose ultimately is our
conformity to Christ!
And that’s the part we don’t like. We can’t understand how it is that we can have faith, and still suffer in any way. Yet, that is precisely what the Bible teaches. You can have all of the faith in the world and still not get the thing that you are praying for because what you might be believing and praying for is not in accordance with God’s sovereign will. And that is the part that we forget. We forget, ignore, or diminish the absolutely sovereign nature of God. Yet, it is in this aspect of faith where we acknowledge that we are not in the driver’s seat, and we acknowledge that God is God, and we are not. It is this aspect of faith whereby we come down off of the Potters chair, and affirm His right as the only true Potter, and His right as the Potter to do with the clay as He sees fit.
There can be dire consequences when we lose sight of these things. Hank Hannegraff, in his book Christianity in Crisis tells of Larry and Lucy Parker, followers of Word of Faith teaching. Their son, Wesley had diabetes, but they refused to give him insulin because they had been warned about the dangers of making a negative confession. Thus, they continued to “positively confess” Wesley’s healing until the time of his death. Even after his death, the Parker’s, undaunted in their “faith,” conducted resurrection services rather than a funeral. Eventually, the Parker’s were convicted of manslaughter and child abuse. This is some of the fruit that comes about as a result of this teaching.
Here are some summary thoughts on the consequences of the
Word of Faith teaching on faith:
1. The believer now has faith in his "God-like faith" and not faith in God.
2. The believer
doesn't focus on what God's will is, but on whatever his fickle mind conceives
of wanting to have (as a matter of fact, Frederick Price and the rest say we
should never pray to God "Your will be done" because we have the right
to speak things into existence!).
3. The
believer, in essence, robs God of the Glory that is due to Him alone, because
the believer will attribute every positive thing in his life as being the result
of his own "God-like" faith. In
other words, the believer gets the glory for removing the "mountain"
and not God. And, of course, if the
believer doesn't get something He spoke (notice, not asked for), then he just
didn't have enough of the "God-kind of" faith.
If I may say tongue-in-cheek, God must be very impressed with the
believer who had sense enough to exercise his "God-like" faith…I
mean, how else is anything good in the world ever going to come about; God
certainly doesn’t possess the power to change anything.
Guess it’s a good thing God has us
here to make positive confessions and speak things into existence…
4.
The Sovereignty and Providence of God are directly attacked, and
effectively removed. In other words,
God isn't in control of anything, believers are by their "positive
confession." What we are left
with is a god who is the eternal watchmaker.
He winds up creation, builds into it certain laws, and then goes off to
read the newspaper, allowing the universe to govern itself by those laws.
The Bible teaches that while God did create the universe orderly and with
certain "laws" and general principles, it also teaches that God is
actively involved in every facet of His creation during every millisecond of
time. Nothing happens outside of
God's sovereign control.
5. If God has faith, then who or what does God have faith in? To say that He has faith in Himself is a non-sense statement. Faith, by definition, requires that a being place trust in something outside of itself, and faith is only as good as the object that you place it in. So, if God has faith, what object outside of Himself is He placing His faith in? Is this object good? If it is good, then why isn't it God? If God has “faith,” then He really isn't God.
This takes me then to:
II. False Teachings About God and Man
A. False Teaching About
God: Who or what is God?
That is a very basic question, and one that has been given many different
answers. On one side is the Biblical
view of God, and on the other is man’s
idea of who and what God is as seen in all of the false religions,
philosophies, and non-Christian cults. Suffice it to say that the Word of Faith
movement has some very different ideas about the nature of God, and their ideas
have far more in common with the false gods of New Age thinking and the
anti-Christian cults than they do with the Bible.
In Word of faith theology God is often described as possessing a physical
body, and as one who legally cannot do anything on earth without man allowing
him to. Man is described as an exact
duplicate of God who, after the fall, attained a Satanic nature.
Listen to these statements about the nature of God:
Kenneth Copeland said: “So you see, that faith didn't come billowing out of some giant monster
somewhere. It came out of the heart of a being that is very uncanny the way he's
very much like you and me. A being that stands somewhere around 6'-2”, 6-3”,
that weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of hundred pounds or a
little better…” (“Spirit
soul and a body” KCM 1985 audio #01-0601 side 1: http://www.letusreason.org/popteac9.htm.
See also Christianity in Crisis, p. 121)
Benny Hinn said: “Man, I feel revelation knowledge already coming on me here. Lift your hands. Something new is going to happen here today. ...God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person; separate from the Son and the Holy Ghost. Say, what did you say? Hear it, hear it, hear it. See, God the Father is a person, God the Son is a person, God the Holy Ghost is a person. But each one of them is a triune being by Himself. If I can shock you - and maybe I should - there's nine of them. Huh, what did you say? Let me explain: God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person with his own personal spirit, with his own personal soul, and his own personal spirit-body. You say, Huh, I never heard that. Well you think you're in this church to hear things you've heard for the last 50 years? You can't argue with the Word, can you? It's all in the Word.” (Benny Hinn program on TBN, 10/30/90 spirit: http://www.letusreason.org/popteac9.htm).
Now, please note, I have not seen where the other false teachers I have mentioned say things like this. However, none of them has taken Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland to task for these blasphemous statements even though they know full well that they made them. And even though they may not believe what Copeland and Hinn say here, they all nevertheless reduce God to a faith being whose hands are tied by man. Listen to these words:
Kenneth Copeland : "As a
believer, you have a right to make commands in the name of Jesus. Each time you
stand on the Word, you are commanding God to a certain extent because it is His
Word." (Our Covenant with God [Fort Worth, TX: KCP Publications,
1987], 32.) http://craom.net/kennethcopeland.htm
Frederick Price
said: “God has to be given permission to work in this earth realm on
behalf of man…Yes! You are in
control! So, if man has control, who
no longer has it? God.” (Frederick
Price, quoted in Christianity in Crisis, p. 11).
Myles Munroe said: "So, even though God can
do anything, He can only do what you permit Him to do…” (www.deceptioninthechurch.com/MylesMunroe.html)
Mark
Chironna: “May the One who created the world be given permission to create
again in YOU!” (article entitled “Faith Food”: http://www.markchironna.com/caffeine/uploads/files/MCM-FaithFood.pdf).
I cannot image praying to the Lord, “Lord, I give you permission to
create in me!” Who
is God here?!
Benny Hinn said: “God will not move
unless I say it. Why? because He has made us coworkers with Him. He set things
up that way." (Benny Hinn, The Anointing.
Simply put, the “god” that is proclaimed and worshipped by these false teachers is not the God of the Bible; rather, the “god” of these false teachers is little more than a glorified superman who must Himself exercise faith and ask man’s permission to get anything done. No wonder then that Kenneth Copeland would say this: "I was shocked when I found out who the biggest failure in the Bible actually is....The biggest one is God..." ("Praise-a-Thon" program on TBN [April 1988].): http://craom.net/kennethcopeland.htm, here is the audio clip: http://www.letusreason.org/sounds/KC%2026.mp3.
B. False Teaching about
Kenneth Copeland said: “...All of God's
attributes, all of God's authority, all of God's faith, all of God's ability was
invested in that man.” (Kenneth Copeland, Authority of the Believer IV
(Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1987, audiotape #01-0304), side 1) http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/quotes.html
Creflo Dollar said:
“…I am going to say to you right now you are gods,
little "g", you are gods because you came from God and you are gods.
You are not just human. The only human part about you is this physical body that
you live in.” (an excerpt from Creflo Dollar's program "Made After His
Kind", dated Sept. 15, 22, 2002: http://www.forgottenword.org/dollar.html).
“…When God made
Adam all he did was make an exact imprint of hisself. He duplicated himself,
he was the image and from his image came hisself.” Our equality with God
through Righteousness 1/21/2001). http://www.letusreason.org/Poptea16.htm
"I have equality with God, that’s my way of thinking. Now somebody
says, "Well, it's hard to think that way," Well, keep saying it,
"I have equality with God" talk yourself into it! You've talked
yourself into other things!" …”(Audio clip from,
"The Bible answer-man," Hank Hanegraaff July 10, 2003) http://www.forgottenword.org/dollar.html
Benny Hinn said:
"Are
you ready for some real revelation knowledge... you are God" ("Our
Position In Christ", tape # AO31190-1)
“Are you a child of God? Then
you are divine!…Then you’re not human.” (PTL, Dec.1,1990.
"So, I'm Benny Jehovah" (Spiritual Warfare Seminar Jubilee Christian Center,
San Jose Ca., May,2 1990).
See this link: http://www.letusreason.org/Wf1.htm
for above quotes from Hinn.
Bishop Eddie Long says, "That's the reason why when you look in the mirror, you ought to
say, 'Good morning God.' (Bishop Eddie Long, “God Is After Himself,” Tape from his ministry) http://www.pulpit-pimps.org/archives/2005/09/21/long-on-heresies-short-on-orthodoxy.
See also: http://www.victorstephens.com/victorstephenswebsite_021.htm
Paul Crouch,
the president of the TBN states, "Christians are little gods.” ((Praise
the Lord (TBN), recorded 7/7/86). http://www.forgottenword.org/crouch.html
(this link contains other shocking things Paul Crouch has said and done!).
Joyce Meyer said: “…If He’s God, what’s He going to call them [man] but the
god-kind?’ I mean, if you as a human being have a baby, you call it a human
kind. If cattle has another cattle, they call it cattle-kind. So, I mean,
what’s God supposed to call us? Doesn’t the Bible say we’re created in his
image? Now, you understand I am not saying you are God with a capital G.” http://www.wfial.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.file&fileID=14
(this is the audio).
Well, that’s nice to know Joyce; the problem is that you and the others
I quoted are still saying that man is divine in some sense, which is complete
blasphemy and heresy.
These teachers completely destroy the concept of what the Bible means in
Genesis 1:26 when it tells us that man is created in the image of God. These
teachers teach that man is an exact duplicate or reproduction of God, which is
not only false, but is rank heresy as they completely obliterate the distinction
between the Creator and the creature and turn God into a man, and man into a
god. When the Bible says that
we are created in the image of God, it does not mean that we are exact
duplicates of God. Rather, it means
that we are created with certain moral and spiritual attributes that are found
in God, such as holiness, righteousness, love, justice, goodness, and it is also
seen in how man has dominion over the earth. As such, we are to reflect the
character of God as those that have been uniquely created in God’s image and
likeness. The fact that man reflects
God, or is an image-bearer of God does not mean that man is divine.
Matthew Henry, the Puritan commentator of the 17th century
notes that man was made:
“…in the likeness of his Creator; yet still between God and man there
is an infinite distance. Christ only
is the express image of God's person, as the Son of his Father, having the same nature.”
(from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition,
Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
(this article is good as well: http://www.geocities.com/mnapologetics/ImagoDei.htm.
Also, check out these brief video clips: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.240;
http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.241).
These false teachers also twist the words of Jesus in John 10:34-36. Jesus, responding to the charge of blasphemy against Him for declaring that He was the Son of God states:
“34…"Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? 35 If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came-and the Scripture cannot be broken- 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?”
Jesus is quoting from Psalm 82.
In that Psalm, God, the supreme Judge of Heaven and Earth, rebukes the
unjust human judges in
“In the Old Testament, human judges could be called “gods” because they were viewed as acting in God’s place in dispensing justice. The Hebrew word “Elohim” is used not only to refer to the one true God but also to denote false gods, angels, and very rarely, men exercising divine functions…” (commentary note on John 10:34-38)
Hence, these judges had been called to act
faithfully as God’s representatives to administer God’s justice; they were
to exhibit godly characteristics and to be godly judges, but
instead they proved to be corrupt judges. Jesus
then is using Psalm 82, which his critics knew full well, to essentially condemn
them as being false judges because they did not recognize the one, Jesus, who
was truly God in the flesh. Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, states:
“…recognizing that this passage is talking about unjust human rulers removes this passage from the realm of possible passages to cite in support of a plurality of gods, and certainly, Jesus was not, by citing this passage, calling His accusers true divine beings…Jesus is saying His accusers are, right then, the judges condemned in Psalm 82. And what kind of judges were they? Unrighteous judges, who were judging unjustly. Jesus was calling His accusers false judges, and they well knew it.” (emphasis mine. Also note that Dr. White was responding to a Mormon on this very passage. Word of Faith teaching is very similar to Mormonism on the nature of man): http://aomin.org/Psalm82.html
The descriptions of God and man
given by these false teachers is not just “error,” but is heresy.
The God of the Bible is a Spirit, and those that worship Him must do so
in Spirit and in truth. The
God of the Bible is not some glorified superman, nor is He some cosmic bellhop who stands in need of man and caters to all of mans
selfish desires. Rather
He is, to quote the Westminster Confession of Faith:
“[the]
only one living and true God, who is infinite in being
and perfection. He is a most pure spirit, invisible, with neither body, parts,
nor passive properties. He is unchangeable, boundless, eternal, and
incomprehensible. He is almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, and most
absolute. He works all things according to the counsel of his own unchangeable
and most righteous will, for his own glory…and [He] “has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself
all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he has made, nor
deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto,
and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and
to whom are all things; and has most sovereign dominion over them, to do by
them, for them, or upon them whatsoever [He] pleases.”
http://opc.org/documents/MESV_frames.html
The God of the Bible is not an
impotent bystander who nervously paces the halls of Heaven hoping and waiting
for puny little man to give Him permission to do anything!
Rather, the God of the Bible is the sovereign
master and ruler of the universe, and as such He does as He pleases, when He
pleases, and how He pleases, with whoever He pleases.
He is, as the Westminster Confession of Faith again states:
“…the great Creator of all things [who] upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least [and] He exercises this most wise and holy providence according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and unchangeable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”
http://opc.org/documents/MESV_frames.html.
Here is just a
sampling of what the Bible says about God:
Job 23:13-15
- >“13 But He is unique, and who can make Him change? And
whatever His soul desires, that He does. 14 For He performs what is appointed
for me, and many such things are with Him. 15 Therefore I am terrified at His
presence...”
Psalm 33:8-11 - Let
all the earth fear the LORD…9 For He
spoke, and it came to be; He
commanded, and it stood firm. 10 The LORD foils the plans of the nations; He
thwarts the purposes of the peoples. 11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm
forever...”
Isaiah 14:27 -
“For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is
stretched out, and who can turn it back?”
Isaiah 43:10-13
-" Before me no god was formed, nor wiill there be one after me. 11 I, even
I, am the LORD…Yes, and from ancient days I am He. No one can deliver out of
my hand. When I act, who can reverse it?"
Isaiah 46:9-10 - “…for I am
God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the
end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,
saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.”
Jeremiah 32:17 -
"…Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great
power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”
Dan 4:34-35 - “His dominion is
an eternal dominion; His kingdom endures from generation to generation. 35 All
the peoples of the earth are regarded
as nothing. He does as
He pleases with the powers of heaven and
the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him:
"What have you done?"
Proverbs 16:9 “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”
Proverbs 21:1 “The
king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse
wherever he pleases.”
Lamentations 3:37-38:
“37 Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? 38
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things
come?”
Romans 11:33-36
“33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! 34 "Who has
known the mind of the Lord? Or who
has been his counselor?" 35 "Who has ever given to God, that God
should repay him?" 36 For from
Him and through Him and to Him are all
things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.”
1 Tim 1:17 “Now
to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for
ever and ever. Amen.”
1 Tim 6:15-16 “15
God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who
alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or
can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.”
(Important
Note: for my own commentary on
most of those verses, see this link: http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/calvinismdefendedsg)
That’s the God of the Bible! That
is a God who is worthy of all of our praise, all of our adoration, and all of
our devotion! Don’t tell me about
a “god” that stands on the outside of his creation; who relinquishes His
control and is unable to do anything unless man, by his supposedly sovereign
free will “lets”
him! Don’t tell me about a God who
is bound by laws! Don’t tell me about a god that is nothing more than a faith
being who must be given permission by “almighty” man to do anything!
(Important
Note: to see the biblical position on the nature of God’s sovereignty and
the human will, see these articles: http://www.monergism.com/directory/search.php?action=search_links_simple&search_kind=and&phrase=sovereignty&B1=Go
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Free-Will/Compatibilism/
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Sovereignty-of-God/Multimedia/
- there are number of audio lessons/files hhere.
And when I look in the mirror, I see a lot of things, but one thing I can
assure you that I do not see is God!
No! When I look in the
mirror, I do not see a self-existent and independent “Johnny Jehovah!” When
I look in the mirror I see a mere man whose life is but a vapor.
When I look in the mirror, I do not see the Potter, rather I see a piece
of clay that is fashioned according to the sovereign purposes and good pleasure
of the Potter!
When I look in the mirror, I do not see one who creates reality by
speaking things into existence, rather, I see one that has himself been created
by the one and only
Creator who spoke and the universe sprang into existence, who alone
upholds all thing by the word of His power!
When I look in the mirror, I do not see one that determines the steps of
the Almighty Ruler of Heaven and earth by giving Him “permission” to do
anything! Rather, I see a mere
creature that is totally
dependent upon God for the very breath that he breathes, and one whose
steps are determined by the Lord! When
I look in the mirror, I see one in whose flesh dwells no good thing; a sinner
that is saved is by grace alone, and is who he is by the grace of God alone.
The bottom line is that God is God, and man is not, and God
actually does do according to His will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and God really did, does, and shall perfectly
accomplish all of His eternal purposes without fail, because He is God, and we
are not, and as such He does as He pleases, when He pleases, how He pleases,
with whom He pleases.
Unfortunately time does not permit me to explore even more errors, such as
the denial of the doctrine of the Trinity by many of these teachers, in
particular T.D. Jakes, Rod Parsley, Creflo Dollar, and Benny Hinn.
Briefly though let me just state that the doctrine of the Trinity teaches
that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, and throughout church history the doctrine of the Trinity
has always been looked upon as a foundational doctrine of the church, and any
one who denied the Trinity was considered to be outside of the church, and a
member of the kingdom of the cults. As
for the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity, it has been said that almost
every theological heresy can be traced back to a denial or misunderstanding of
the Trinity (see this link for example: http://www.letusreason.org/Trin2.htm).
(Important
Notes: As for the false teachers
that I listed that have either outright denied belief in the Trinity, or made
statements that expressly deny the Trinity, here is a sampling:
1.
T.D. Jakes is one who is self-consciously and by confession one who
denies the
Trinity,
because his statement of faith is decidedly non-Trinitarian, and when confronted
about this, he nevertheless persisted in maintaining his views.
His statement of faith is an explicit denial of the doctrine of the
Trinity:
“God
-There is one God, Creator of all things, iinfinitely perfect, and eternally
existing in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
http://www.thepottershouse.org/v2/content/view/18/32/.
At
first glance, a person that is not well read or versed in theology may think
that this statement is Trinitarian, but, it is not.
Please note carefully that Jakes says that there is one God in three manifestations,
not persons. This is known as a “Modalistic” view of the
Godhead (as opposed to a Trinitarian view), which was condemned by the early
church. Modalism teaches that there
is only one person in the Godhead, and this one person sometimes
manifests Himself (or appears) as Father, other times as Son, and other times as
Spirit. The Christian Apologetics
and Research Ministry elaborates further:
“Modalism
is probably the most common theological error concerning the nature of God.
It is a denial of the Trinity which states that God is a single person
who, throughout biblical history, has revealed Himself in three modes, or forms.
Thus, God is a single person who first manifested himself in the mode of
the Father in Old Testament times. At
the incarnation, the mode was the Son. After
Jesus' ascension, the mode is the Holy Spirit.
These modes are consecutive and never simultaneous.
In other words, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit never all exist
at the same time, only one after another. Modalism
denies the distinctiveness of the three persons in the Trinity even though it
retains the divinity of Christ. Present day groups that hold to forms of this
error are the United Pentecostal and
This links contain a helpful description as well: http://www.theopedia.com/Modalism,
while this link provides a helpful biblical response to it: http://christiandefense.org/oneness.htm.
As I mentioned, T.D. Jakes has been taken to task for his
anti-Trinitarian views. This article
is a fantastic overview: http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/tdjakes.
These two links provide more details: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/j11.html;
http://www.letusreason.org/popteac9.htm.
One
will also note that T.D. Jakes was ordained through the
Many Christians today when confronted with the knowledge of these things
simply ignore these facts, and I even had one sister in Christ say, “Well, I
just know he’s anointed!” My
response was a rhetorical question, “does God “anoint” heresy?”
I hardly think so.
There
are at least two things that disturb me about this issue with T.D. Jakes. First,
it’s the complete lack of concern by such a large number of Christians about
his beliefs. While modern Christians
seem to have a complete disregard for seemingly trivial matters as the nature of
God, historically, Jakes’ beliefs are considered non-Christian
and would have been condemned as heresy, and it would be stated clearly that the
god and Jesus that Jakes is proclaiming is a different god and a different Jesus
than that of the Bible. Yet, God’s
people put up with it because Jakes is a gifted communicator who tickles their
ears and gets them excited. I know
that the church has in the past been weak-kneed when it came to orthodoxy in
other eras, but my guess is that it has never been as weak-kneed as it is today.
The second thing that saddens me is that Jakes himself is just being
completely disingenuous about his beliefs. He
knows full well that his beliefs are anti-Trinitarian, yet he continues to
deceive people, and even has the audacity to appear on a network that has the
word “Trinity” in it! As one
author notes:
“[After
criticism] Jakes refused to make a definitive public statement on whether he
accepts or rejects the Trinity…Jakes intentionally avoids being up-front about
his rejection of the Trinity because that would alienate many of his
followers.” (Shayne Lee, America’s New Preacher, 146-7. Mr Lee is Assistant
Professor of Sociology and African Diaspora Studies at Tulane University, as
quote here:
http://jmoorhead.blogspot.com/2005/07/t-d-jakes.html).
Jonathan
Moorhead, who wrote a thesis on T.D. Jakes for seminary (which I referenced
above as a fantastic overview) also states on his blog in response to comments
posted on his site:
“Since
I am in
http://jmoorhead.blogspot.com/2005/07/t-d-jakes.html
I couldn’t agree more. Truly,
it is a sad state of affairs when a confessing Modalist can be received with
open arms by so many Christians.
As for the other teachers I mentioned (Parsley, Dollar, and Hinn),
Parsley and Dollar have made statements that reflect a Modalistic view of the
Godhead, while Benny Hinn takes the cake for the truly unique view of the
Godhead wherein he says there are 9 of them!
2. Benny Hinn: “Man, I feel
revelation knowledge already coming on me here. Lift your hands. Something new
is going to happen here today. ...God
the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person; separate from the Son and the
Holy Ghost. Say, what did you say? Hear it, hear it, hear it. See, God the
Father is a person, God the Son is a person, God the Holy Ghost is a person. But
each one of them is a triune being by Himself. If I can shock you - and maybe I
should - there's nine of them. Huh, what did you say? Let me explain: God the
Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person with his own personal spirit, with his
own personal soul, and his own personal spirit-body. You say, Huh, I never heard
that. Well you think you're in this church to hear things you've heard for the
last 50 years? You can't argue with the Word, can you? It's all in the Word.”
Benny Hinn” program on TBN, 10/30/90) “God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Ghost—three separate individuals, one in essence, one in
work—and, may I add, each one of them possess His own spirit-body. You don’t
like it?” (Benny Hinn, Praise the Lord program on TBN (October 23, 1992).
3. Creflo Dollar:
“The trinity is of course God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. We
have to be careful because religion has us sometime thinking we have three
different Gods. You know there’s God here...hey holy ghost- hey Jesus…its
God one God one faith one baptism not three Gods, not three faiths, not
baptism’s every time you mess up, one. God the father, one God, three
functions one and different functions God functioning as a father, God
functioning as a son, God functioning as the holy ghost. I am Creflo Dollar
I’m a husband to my wife I’m, a father to my children I’m a pastor to gods
sheep. Right now I’m not functioning as husband, I am not functioning as a
father, I am functioning as one of the 5 fold ministry gifts to God’s sheep.
Same guy other functions you follow me. One God other functions.”(Feb.19, 2001
World Changers program Lesea broadcasting) www.letusreason.org/Poptea16.htm
4.
Parsley also said: “God the
father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, God three in one. The Holy Ghost is no
different than Jesus and Jesus is no different than the Holy Ghost … water you
see it… if you take that to a scientists and ask it to analyze that and tell
you what it is. He won’t tell you its water he’ll say that’s two parts
hydrogen one part oxygen. That’s H2O now if take this and boil it and I
capture the steam and I take that to the scientist he won’t say its steam
he’ll say its H2O if I take this and put it in the freezer and take it to the
same scientist hand it to the scientist say analyze this for me he won’t say
that’s ice he’ll say that’s H2O they’re all H2O but there different
manifestations of the same thing.” (Breakthrough 9/19/2000) www.letusreason.org/popteac9
As for Dollar and Parsley, their illustrations are classic illustrations
used to illustrate Modalism. I know
many Christians may use these to try and makes sense of the Trinity, but again,
these actually deny the Trinity. The
truth of the matter is that there is no adequate analogy that we can use that
accurately describes the Trinity! If
Parsley and Dollar had done any reading at all in theology, they would surely
know this as well. How one could
desire to pastor God’s sheep, and to not even be vaguely familiar with a
Systematic Theology text and/or without studying such important things is beyond
me.
As I have stated, the doctrine of the Trinity is indeed a foundational
doctrine of the church, and the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity cannot
be overstated. Here, briefly, are a
number of reasons why this doctrine is so foundational and important:
A.
Authority of Scripture – Man is not autonomous; he must accept who God
says He is.
B. The Nature of God – This
is the true God. Other
conceptions of God are false gods.
C.
D. Worship – We must
worship the true God; other conceptions of God are idolatry.
E. The Gospel – Salvation
itself is a Trinitarian work wherein each person has a distinct role.
Dr. James White, in his book The Forgotten Trinity, states:
“The
Gospel is the means by which the Father, in eternal love and mercy, saves men
through the redeeming work of the Son, Jesus Christ, and draws them to Himself
by the power and regenerating work of the Spirit.
The Gospel, as it is proclaimed in Scripture, is Trinitarian.
Remove the Son, and the Gospel ceases to exist.
Remove the Spirit, and the Gospel has no existence.
There is no separating the work of the triune God in salvation from the
truth of the Trinity itself…the true Gospel must be based upon the work of the
one true and triune God. Without
that basis, the Gospel cannot stand.” (The Forgotten Trinity, p. 195)
This
article also elaborate more on the importance of the Trinity: http://www.probe.org/content/view/913/145/).
This
link contains numerous articles on the Trinity: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Trinity/Essays/
This link contains numerous audio lessons/sermons on the Trinity: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Trinity/Multimedia/
I now turn my attention to:
III. False Teachings About Jesus and the Gospel
The Word of Faith’s teaching on the person and work of Jesus Christ is
nothing short of blasphemous. First:
A. To the question of who
is Jesus, these teachers deny
that Jesus came to earth as God.
Kenneth Copeland: “Why didn't Jesus openly
proclaim Himself as God during His 33 years on earth? For one single reason. He
hadn't come to earth as God, He'd come as man.” (K. Copeland,
Believer's Voice of Victory magazine, Aug. 8, 1988. p.8: http://www.letusreason.org/Wf22.htm)
And again: “Jesus
existed only as an image in the heart of God, until such time as the prophets of
the Old Testament could positively confess Jesus into existence through their
constant prophecies.” Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue,
pp. 8-10, http://www.letusreason.org/Wf22.htm.
This is a direct denial of the preexistence of Christ as God, a direct denial of
the doctrine of the Trinity, and a is in fact language that is borrowed from New
Age mysticism. Complete heresy!
Creflo Dollar said: “…If Jesus came
as God, then why did God have to anoint Him?
Jesus came as a man, that’s why it was legal to anoint to Him...” (Creflo
Dollar, "Jesus' Growth into Sonship," December 8, 15, 2002, Product
Number: 3422093, 3132094: www.craom.net/CrefloDollar.html
These views are noting new. They
are in fact a revived form of an ancient heresy known as Nestorianism, which
stated that Jesus exists as two persons, the man Jesus and the divine Son of
God, rather than as a unified person, and it was only the man Jesus who suffered
on the cross. This view was condemned at the Church Council of Ephesus in 431.
As one source notes, “The problem with Nestorianism is that it
threatens the atonement. If Jesus is two persons, then which one died on
the cross? If it was the "human person" then the atonement is
not of divine quality and thereby insufficient to cleanse us of our sins.” www.carm.org/heresy/nestorianism.htm
The “Jesus” then that these heretics preach is not
the Jesus of the Bible! The
apostle John tells us in John 1:1-4, 14: “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2
He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made…” And
then in verse 14: “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth…” and Paul tells us that that in Christ, “dwells all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily”
(
The Jesus of the Bible is not some
image in the mind of God that had to be positively confessed into existence!
He is the eternal
Son of God, the second person of Trinity. The Jesus of the Bible is the Alpha
and Omega, who is, was, and is to come; the Almighty. The Jesus of the Bible did
not come to earth as a mere man who at some point attained divinity!
The Jesus of the Bible is the
Great I AM, the eternal, sovereign Creator of the universe who, when the
fullness of time had come, sunk Himself into human flesh without divesting
Himself of one single attribute of deity. The
Jesus of the Bible is the Light of the world, the way, the truth, and the life,
and the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world! The Jesus of the
Bible, far from never claiming that He was God, said: “I and the Father are
one” and “before Abraham was, I
AM.” Much more could be quoted from the Bible. For now, let me
just quote of the great theologians and creeds from church history:
The Westminster
Confession of Faith: “The Son
of God, the second person of the Trinity, being truly and eternally God, of one
substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time had come,
take upon himself man's nature, with all its essential properties and common
frailties, yet without sin. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in
the womb of the virgin Mary and of her substance. In this way, two whole
natures, the divine and the human, perfect and distinct, were inseparably joined
together in one person without being changed, mixed, or confused. This person is
truly God and truly man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and
man.” http://opc.org/documents/MESV_frames.html
Martin Luther:
“That article of faith shall remain, that Christ is true God and true
man, and thus you shall be safe from all heretics…” http://www.apuritansmind.com/Reformation/LutherMartinDisputationChrist.htm
John Calvin:
“the Son of God did not begin to exist when He appeared to the
world…For He already was, from all time and before all time...when Jesus
Christ came into the world, it was our Eternal God who came, who redeemed us to
Himself.” http://www.lgmarshall.org/Calvin/calvin_sermondeity.html
B. To the question of what Jesus did these false teachers teach the following
things:
1. Jesus took on a satanic nature while He was on the cross:
Benny Hinn: “Jesus Christ knew the only way He would stop Satan is by becoming one in nature with him.” (Benny Hinn” program, TBN, 12/15/90) http://www.letusreason.org/Wf23.htm
Kenneth Copeland: “…He
[Jesus] accepted the sin nature of Satan in His own spirit.” (quoted from
Christianity in Crisis, p. 158. Kenneth
Copeland, “What Happened from the Cross to the Throne (Ft. Worth, TX: Kenneth
Copeland Ministries, 1990, audiotape #02-0017, side 2).
2.
Jesus died spiritually on the cross, which evidently meant that He
lost His divinity at that point, and as such did not finish the work of
atonement on the cross. In other
words, Jesus didn’t pay the penalty for sins at the cross; and did not redeem
anyone by His work on the cross. Listen
to these quotes:
Frederick
Price:
"Do you think that the punishment of our sins was to die on the
cross?…No, the punishment was to go into hell itself and to serve time in hell
separated from God" (K. C. Price, Ever Increasing Faith Messenger, June
1990, p. 7). http://www.intotruth.org/wof/Word%20of%20Faith.pdf.
Kenneth
Copeland said: “Jesus death on the
cross was not enough to save us” and “When His blood poured out it did not
atone.” (quoted in article at http://www.letusreason.org/Wf23.htm:
Kenneth Copeland: From a personal letter to D.R.McConnell, dated 12/3/79. Cited
in A Different Gospel, p.120)
3.
Instead, since Jesus died spiritually, He had to go to hell as an
unregenerate, unsaved man, and He was tortured there for 3 days.
It was here where Jesus is said to have finished the work of atoning for
sins:
Kenneth Copeland
says, “Satan conquered Jesus on the Cross and took His spirit to the dark
regions of hell." (Quoted in Christianity in Crisis, which exposed these
false teachings. Kenneth Copeland, Holy Bible: Kenneth Copeland Reference
Edition (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1991), 129)
Joyce Meyer: “During
that time He entered hell, where you and I deserved to go because of our sin. He
paid the price there. ...no plan
was too extreme. ...” (The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make p. 35,
J. Meyers): http://www.letusreason.org/Wf23.htm.
The source from which I drew this quote goes on to note the following:
“To her credit she
also says: “that sinless blood had
been shed to pay for man's sins.” (p. 38). But she then writes, “For
three
days He was alone paying for our sins as “only a man.” It’s
somewhat confusing on what she actually believes. Which is it, the cross or the
cross plus. To say he atoned for our sins as “only a man” seems to deny the
hypostatic union of the two natures in the person of Christ as well.”
http://www.letusreason.org/Wf23.htm
Actually, it not only denies the
hypostatic union (that Christ is one
person with two
natures, being fully divine and fully man), it also is a different
Jesus and a different Gospel, for she also says that Jesus went to hell and the
paid the price there and it took three days to pay the price.
She never denies or retracts that heretical statement.
It seems to me that Joyce has a great deal of theological confusion in
her thinking, and she essentially wants to try and straddle the fence between
orthodoxy and heresy. Somewhere
along the line (if my facts are correct, she grew up in the
4. God
caught Satan on a legal technicality, and Satan had to release Jesus.
As a result, Jesus became the “first born-again and redeemed man.”:
Kenneth
Copeland said that Jesus, “was literally being reborn before the devil's
very eyes…Jesus was born again--the firstborn from the dead the Word calls
Him…He took his keys and his authority away from him."
("The Price of it All," Believer's Voice of Victory 19, 9
[September 1991]:4.) http://craom.net/kennethcopeland.htm.
Joyce
Meyer:
God rose up from His throne and said to demon powers tormenting the
sinless Son of God, “Let Him go.” Then the resurrection power of Almighty
God went through hell and filled Jesus….He was resurrected from the dead — the
first born-again man. (The Most
Important Decision You Will Ever Make: A Complete And Thorough Understanding Of
What It Means To Be Born Again (
Benny
Hinn said: “… Jesus was reborn...He had to be reborn…If He
was not reborn, I could not be reborn.” (Benny
Hinn, Our Position ‘In Christ,’ Part 1
1991) www.letusreason.org/Wf1.htm
In order to prove the first point, that Jesus took on a satanic nature while He was on the cross, they completely obliterate one of the most important verses in the Bible as it relates to the very heart of the Gospel, 2 Corinthians 5:21, which reads, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” When it is said that Jesus was made to be sin for us, the heretics take this to mean that Jesus actually became a sinner in His nature, and to them this means that He took on a satanic nature. But this is utterly false! When it is said that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, it does not mean that Jesus Himself became a sinner in His nature. Rather, it means that Jesus had the guilt of our sin imputed to Him. In other words, as the Reformation Study Bible states, “God as Judge assigned the responsibility of our sin to Christ, making it possible for Him to be punished justly for that sin. The verse shows that Christ was our substitute, accepting the penalty of sin in our place.”
Further, to suggest that Jesus took on a satanic nature is blasphemous in at least two senses: first, it turns the eternal Son of God, the Holy One of Israel, the Great I AM, into a satanic being. It is, in essence, to say that Jesus became a devil! The thing that baffles me isn’t that people teach this drivel, it’s that well meaning Christians put up with it, even after they have been told about it! Secondly, if Jesus took on a satanic nature on the cross, how could one that is a devil atone for sins?! Answer: he can’t! As a matter of fact, these false teachers realize this, which is why they then have to say that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was not enough to save, but instead He had to go to hell and suffer at the hands of Satan. I will deal with that a bit later.
For now though, what does the Bible say about Jesus and His nature on the cross? Well, far from being one who was by nature a sinner and who was some demonic being on the cross, Jesus was the perfect, sinless, Lamb of God, a Lamb without blemish. 1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold…but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Jesus is referred to as the Lamb without blemish by virtue of His perfect nature and perfect sinless life. If Jesus became “blemished” at any point, He would no longer suffice as an acceptable sacrifice for our sins, and we would still be dead in our sins! Not only then do these heretics blaspheme the nature of Christ by turning Him into a satanic being, they also completely rob the cross of its true power and significance, and as a result, are preaching a false Jesus and a false Gospel. May I remind you of the words of the apostle Paul:
“I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted -- you may well put up with it!” (2 Cor 11:3-4)
And again:
“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:6-9)
And we also see how one error begets another error. Having stated Jesus took on a satanic nature on the cross, they then have to say that Jesus died spiritually on the cross, which evidently meant that He lost His divinity at that point, and as such did not finish the work of atonement or redemption on the cross. So, what about this?
First of all, if Jesus died spiritually, and lost His
divinity, that would mean that the doctrine of the Trinity is effectively
dismantled. Remember, Christianity
teaches that there is one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity; One God who
eternally exists as three distinct,
not
separate, persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If one of the
persons of the Trinity dies spiritually and/or ceases to be divine at any point,
what does that do to the nature of God? Answer:
It causes Him to cease to exist!
(Important
Note: the church has always been
careful to say that the persons of the Godhead are “distinct” not “separate”
in defining the Trinity. The word
“separate” conveys the idea of complete disunity, while the word distinct
maintains unity. For example, man has a soul and a body.
The soul is distinct from the body, for it is not the body; however, it
is not separate from the body, but is one with it (when we die physically, our
soul/spirit is absent from the body and present with the Lord.
One source notes: “…we must guard against separating the three
personages (tritheism)…they are Distinct but not separate. The church has
always maintained the indivisibility of God, being so united that they are three
inseparable persons.” http://www.letusreason.org/Trin7.htm).
Secondly, as for Christ not finishing the work atonement on
the cross, the Bible clearly teaches that the work of Jesus Christ was something
foreordained by God before the foundation of the world, and it was that
work that Christ was sent to accomplish, and it was at the cross where
Jesus made a full, perfect, and substitutionary atonement for sin as He fully
paid the penalty for sin! When Jesus
uttered the words, “It is finished” from the cross, He did not mean that He
had to then
be dragged down into hell to be tortured by Satan in order to complete the work
of atonement, and that by chance He would somehow be freed from Satan’s
clutches. No!
The words “it is finished” come from the Greek word “tetelestai.”
Dr. D. James Kennedy notes that in the ancient world “the word
“tetelestai” was printed across an item that had been paid in full.
Hence, it can be said that when Jesus said, “it is finished,” He was
also declaring that by His death He paid the penalty for our sins.”
(Evangelism Explosion, p. 93). In a sermon entitled “Tetelestai,” (http://www.calvarymemorial.com/sermons/SMdisplay.asp?id=412)
Dr. Ray Pritchard cites 8 other
things that these words “it is finished” allude to, I will just mention a
couple here:
1. The sufferings ordained by God were finished.
2. All the Old Testament types and prophecies were fulfilled.
3. The price of sin was paid in full.
4. The work of redemption was now complete…The death of Christ provided 4
things:
A. Full satisfaction for sin
B. Fatal blow to Satan
C. Fountain of grace opened that will flow forever
D. Foundation of peace laid that will last forever
Now that my friends is quite a different picture than what the heretics paint. And notice, instead of the cross being the place that empowered Satan and his minions, it was the place where a fatal blow was dealt to Satan. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Col 2:13-15: “13 He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
It was at the cross; by the blood of Christ that our salvation was perfectly accomplished! Still need proof? Listen to just a small sampling of verses that speak to these things:
The Blood:
Matthew 26:28 "For this is My blood of the new
covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
Romans 3:25 "whom God set forth to be a propitiation by
His blood, through faith. . ."
Romans 5:9 "Much more then, having now been justified by
His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."
Ephesians 1:7 "In Him we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His
grace."
Ephesians 2:13 "But now in Christ Jesus you who once
were far off have been made near by the Blood
of Christ."
Colossians 1:20-23 “and by Him to reconcile all things to
Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through
the blood of His cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and
enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in
the body of His flesh through death.
The Cross
1 Cor 1:18: “for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
1 Cor 1:23-24: “23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
1 Cor 2:2: “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
Gal 6:14-15: 14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
As for the teachers saying that Jesus became the first born again man, this, like everything they’ve taught about these things is nothing but rank heresy. When the Bible uses the language of being born again, it is speaking of the miracle of sovereign grace wherein a fallen sinner who is dead in trespasses and sins is spiritually regenerated, or made spiritually alive, and is given the gifts of saving faith and repents, which immediately results in the person turning to God and receiving Christ as Lord and Savior. To suggest then that Jesus also had to be born again, something that can only be said of fallen, unregenerate sinners, completely destroys the biblical view of Jesus, and as such is a different Jesus and a different Gospel.
These teachers come to their conclusions again by
distorting yet another glorious text in Col 1:18 which states: “He is the head
of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things He may have the preeminence.”
This verse itself is found in one of the most glorious Christological
(relating to the person and work of Christ) passages in the entire Bible (
“…Some kind of challenge to the true nature and deity of Jesus Christ had been put forward…[to] minimize if not negate the preeminence of Christ as Lord of all…we may have in Colossians a reflection of a Jewish-Christian misunderstanding of the role and nature of Christ by those who desired to hold to Jewish monotheism while dealing with the implications of a divine-human redeemer and concocted a very confused philosophy which would make Jesus little more than an angel…” (p. 1053).
As it was in Paul’s day, so it is in ours. But the great irony is that the false teachers today actually use the very text that refutes their own misunderstanding of Jesus Christ as a proof-text for their heresy, and they make Him even less than angel, by claiming He was merely a man! And scores of Christians, illiterate in the Bible and sound doctrine, nod their heads in agreement, shout Hallelujah, and send in their “seed” to continue supporting the heresy. Amazing!
As for the verse 18, these false teachers take the words “firstborn from the dead,” and change it to say “reborn,” or “born again.” Hence, Jesus was the first born-again man. But is that what the text is teaching? Absolutely not! Again, the entire passage itself (Col 1:15-20) is a glorious passage that demonstrates the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ, who alone is the express “image of the invisible God” (compare with Hebrews 1:3) by whom and for whom all things were created and all things are subjected, and in whom all things consist. Bible teacher and Pastor Dr. John MacArthur, in his sermon The Child Who was God, states with reference to this:
“Every one of those statements that is made from verse 15 through verse 19 is absolutely exclusive. They are true of Him and nobody else. And the sum of them all is at the end of verse 18 where it says that He is to have the first-place in everything. No one else is the image of the invisible God, no one else can be the first-born of all creation. No one else can be the creator of things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible. No one else sits over the thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities. No one else is before all things and held...and holds all things together. No one else is the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the first born. No one else has all the fullness dwelling in Him to the pleasure of the Father. Those are all absolutely exclusive statements. And what they tell us is that Jesus Christ is utterly unique. There is no one like Him. He is beyond everyone else. He is infinitely beyond everyone else.” http://www.biblebb.com/files/mac/80-127.htm
And when the text says that Christ is the “firstborn from the dead,” it is referring to the bodily resurrection of Christ, not the Jesus was the first born-again man! The NIV Study Bible with reference to this verse states, “Christ was the first to rise from the dead with a resurrection body.” Others that were raised from the dead, such as Lazarus, were not raised with resurrected bodies, and as such they eventually died again. To suggest then that this passage is teaching that Jesus was reborn or born again is not only wrong, but again it is utterly blasphemous because to say that Jesus had to be born again is to first of all say that He was not divine. If Jesus is not divine, He cannot save anyone, and He certainly should not be worshipped in any sense, for He would be a mere creature like the rest of us!
Secondly to say that Jesus had to be born again is to say that Jesus, the sinless, perfect Son of God became at some point, in His very nature, an unregenerate sinner. In other words, it is not that Jesus bore the sin of unsaved men, but that Jesus was Himself, in His essence and nature, an unsaved man who had to be saved Himself!!! But if Jesus at any point ceased being the spotless lamb, and ceased being the eternal Son of God, and did in fact become in His essence and unsaved man, He would Himself stand in need of an atonement. Who then would “atone” for His sin? Who saved Jesus?
(Important
Note 1: There are some very
careful lines that must be maintained and others not crossed in relation to the
atonement of Christ. The false
teachers wrongly say that in His nature
Jesus became a sinner, and took on even a satanic nature.
However, as with so many errors, there is usually a key element of the
truth that we must not lose. Here, we must understand that though Jesus did not
become a sinner in His nature (for He was innocent and perfect in nature),
nevertheless when our sin was imputed to Jesus on the cross, it was at that
point that Jesus, as the apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 3:13 became “…a
curse for us…” The
key here, as in other passages such as 2 Cor 5:21 which we looked at earlier, is
the words “for us.”
In other words, Jesus was not cursed for His
sin, but for our sin. Jesus
did not become a sinner in nature, but was viewed from the Father’s
perspective as one concentrated mass of sin when He had every one of our sins;
sins of commission and omission, whether by word, thought, or deed, transferred
to His account as it were, and at that point Jesus became fully
identified with that sin.
If Jesus had not taken that sin to Himself, God could not have justly
punished Him in my place. And
it is because of this fact, this total identification with us and our sin, that
Jesus was actually cursed and forsaken by the Father as my substitute, as Jesus
endured the full wrath of God against sin.
Jerry Bridges, in his book The Gospel for Real Life, says:
“Jesus
was forsaken by the Father because of our sin.
He drank the cup of God’s wrath to endure the judgment and punishment
that was due to us…God the Father laid our sins—every one of them—on
Christ, and He willingly for our sake bore them on the cross.
However, as we contemplate with wonder Christ being made sin for us, we
must always keep in mind the distinction between Christ’s sinlessness in His
personal being and Hi sin-bearing in His official liability to God’s wrath.
He was the sinless sin-bearer. Though
He was officially guilty as our representative, He was personally the object of
the Father’s everlasting love and delight.” (pp. 54, 55).
And it is in
this as well where we can say that Jesus endured hell; he endured hell while He
was having the wrath of God poured out upon Him for our sin.
This is in opposition to what the false teachers say when they teach that
Jesus was taken to hell by Satan and tortured there.
This is false for a number of reasons, among which is that Satan
doesn’t “rule” hell. Hell is a
place of judgment, not a place where Satan and his minions do whatever they
want. Further, Hell is not the
complete absence of God (for God is omnipresent; as David said, “Where can I
go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into
heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there (Ps
139:7-8),” rather, hell is a place of judgment where unsaved sinners, and
fallen angels, will know God in the fullness of His anger and judgment against
sin. This is what drove Jesus to
sweat drops of blood in the
It is this
aspect of God’s nature and the atonement that many people ignore if not deny
altogether. Many people when they
look at the cross have a tendency to view it solely in terms of something God
did out of His love. It is certainly
true that God’s love was most definitely involved, but what is often forgotten
is the fact that the cross is also a display of God’s infinite holiness and
justice, and the place where His wrath against sin was poured out (as a matter
of fact, as I will elaborate upon a bit later, some Christians today seem to
think that God is only loving and possesses no wrath whatsoever, which is a
complete travesty in light of the many Scriptural texts that clearly teach it,
and if true, would completely destroy the Gospel).
In terms of the relationship of God’s love and His justice that
required satisfaction, it has been said that the cross of Christ is in fact the
place where God’s infinite love and His infinite holiness meet.
Theologian J.I. Packer in his book Knowing God comments:
“The
basic description of the saving death of Christ in the Bible is as a
“propitiation,” that is, as that which quenched God’s wrath against us by
obliterating our sins from His sight. God’s
wrath is His righteousness reacting against unrighteousness; it shows itself in
retributive justice…Redeeming love and retributive justice join hands, so to
speak, at Calvary, for there God showed Himself to be “just, and justifier of
him that hath faith in Jesus.”” (p. 189).
Dr. R.C.
Sproul, in his book The Holiness of God, also crystallizes this truth:
“The
cross was at once the most horrible and the most beautiful example of God’s
wrath. It was the most just and the
most gracious act in history. God
would have been more than unjust, He would have been diabolical to punish Jesus
if Jesus had not first willing taken on Himself the sins of the world.
Once Christ had done that, then He became the most grotesque and vile
thing on this planet. With the
concentrated load of sin He carried, He became utterly repugnant to the Father.
God pour out His wrath on this obscene thing.
God made Christ accursed for the sin He bore.” (p. 121).
If we want to
know what a holy God thinks about sin, all we have to do is look at the cross of
Christ, where He had sin “crucified.” Again,
Jesus fully identified with us as our representative and substitute, while at
the same time remaining sinless in His nature.
And as He was bearing the penalty for our sin, He really was forsaken by
God, and He really did endure the curse of God on our behalf (see Galatians
3:10-14). Many of the old hymns
reflects these truths (see especially the hymns Stricken Smitten and Afflicted;
Alas and Did My Savior Bleed; When I Survey the Wondrous Cross; O Sacred Head
Now Wounded, etc., as do some modern worship songs such as these two that really
are great:
Jesus, Thank You
Words and music by
Pat Sczebel
The mystery of the
cross I cannot comprehend
The agonies of
You the perfect
Holy One, crushed Your Son
Who drank the
bitter cup reserved for me
Your blood has
washed away my sin
Jesus, thank You
The Father’s
wrath completely satisfied
Jesus, thank You
Once Your enemy,
now seated at Your table
Jesus, thank You
By Your perfect
sacrifice I’ve been brought near
Your enemy You’ve
made Your friend
Pouring out the
riches of Your glorious grace
Your mercy and Your
kindness know no end
Lover of my soul
I want to live for
You
Listen to a brief
clip of it: http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=M4130-07-51
You
Are My King
I’m
forgiven because You were forsaken
I’m
accepted, You were condemned
I’m
alive and well, Your Spirit is within me
Because
You died and rose again
Amazing love, how
can it be
That
You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing
love, I know it’s true
It’s
my joy to honor You
In
all I do, to honor You
You are my King
You
are my King
Jesus,
You are my King
You
are my King
http://play.rhapsody.com/newsboys/adorationtheworshipalbum/youaremykingamazinglove
(Important
Note 2: with reference to being
born again, or the doctrine of regeneration, it is important to note that a
person does not become born again when they receive Christ; rather, they receive Christ because they are born again!
In other words, a person does not believe in order to become born again;
rather, he is born again so that he can believe. Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher
of the 19th century, in his sermon Faith and Regeneration, said:
"Faith in the living God and his Son Jesus
Christ is always the result of the new birth, and can never exist except in the
regenerate.”( http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0979.htm).
Hence, a person does
not become a sheep because they believe; they believe because they are
Christ’s sheep! (Please note that Jesus, when He was speaking to his enemies,
says in John 10:26-27: “But you do not believe, because
you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.
My sheep hear My voice,
and I know them, and they follow Me.” The
reason they rejected Jesus was because they were not His sheep (which had been
given to Jesus before time began; see John 6:37, John 17; Eph 1:3-6, etc.).
Regeneration
then is an act of sovereign grace; a miracle that is bestowed upon whosoever God
chooses to bestow it upon. Just as man has no power to bring about his physical
birth, so he has no power to bring about his spiritual birth.
This is the entire point of Jesus’ words in John 3:1- 8.
Jesus is speaking to a Pharisee named Nicodemus.
Jesus
tells Nicodemus that a man must be born again if he is to see the
This is in perfect accord with what John tells us in 1:13, where he says that the ones that receive Christ and believe in His name are those “who were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Please don’t miss what is being said there. It does not say that receiving Christ results in one becoming born again. It states that only those that were/are born of God receive Him. The ones that receive Christ do so not because of the will of their flesh, but because they are born of God…only those that are born of God will receive Christ. It is only in this way that we can maintain that salvation is not just by grace (that is, it is undeserved), but that it is, as the Protestant Reformers taught, all of grace (it is undeserved, and it is entirely the work of God alone, not a cooperative effort between God’s Spirit and man’s will). Unfortunately, in the years after the Protestant Reformation, a sect of Protestants known as the “Arminians” essentially denied this foundational plank of the Reformation in favor of an essentially Roman Catholic view that regeneration is effected through something that man does. The Arminians reversed the biblical order, and said that regeneration is dependent upon what man does; a person first exercises faith, and then becomes born again. This has had huge ramifications right down to our day in the Evangelical church. See this link to read more about the doctrine of regeneration: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Regeneration/Essays/.
Well, let me move from the absurd, to the just the plan “sad.” When Joel Osteen was interviewed on national T.V. by Larry King in 2005 (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/20/lkl.01.html.), he was given an opportunity to take a stand for the true Gospel (of course, the “gospel” that Osteen preaches is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sadly though, it is men like Joel Osteen that the world turns to hear something about what the Christian message and Gospel is all about). Listen to what happened:
“KING: What if you're Jewish or Muslim, [and] you don't
accept Christ at all?
OSTEEN: You know, I'm very careful about saying who would and wouldn't go to
heaven. I don't know ...
KING: If you believe [that] you have to believe in Christ…[then] They're
wrong, aren't they?
OSTEEN: Well, I don't know if I believe they're wrong. I believe here's what the
Bible teaches and from the Christian faith this is what I believe. But I just
think that only God will judge a person's heart. I spent a lot of time in
Let me help out our false prophet here.
Salvation, Mr. Osteen, is not based on how sincere a person is.
The one true and living God has revealed Himself in creation, in His
Word, and most significantly in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who was
sent to die on the cross to the penalty for sins and secure a place in heaven
for His people. And the God of the
universe doesn’t say to you, or to anyone else, “well, you just keep
worshipping the false gods you’re worshipping, and as long as you’re
sincere, I’ll let you into my heaven when you die!”
No! Jesus Christ is the way,
the truth and the life, and no one can come to the Father except by Him.
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven
given to men by which we must be saved." And God doesn’t simply issue an
invitation to men to kind of mull over in their heads to see if they want to
“accept Jesus” or not. Instead,
He issues a command that He requires to be complied with immediately, as Acts
17:30 states, “He commands
all people everywhere to repent, and the promise of Scripture is that “He who
believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
And so, Larry King asks, “What
if you're Jewish or Muslim, [and] you don't accept Christ at all?”
Answer: Then that person
stands condemned and is only storing up for himself wrath for the day of
judgment (Rom 2:5). Larry King asks,
“If you believe [that] you have to believe in Christ…[then] They're wrong,
aren't they?” Answer: Absolutely!
By the way, there were many more things Mr. Osteen said that were
extremely problematic from a biblical perspective.
You can read it for yourself if you like.
(Important
Note: part of the problem is that people like Joel Osteen, and many
Evangelicals have lost sight of the Holiness of God and the fact that He has
real wrath for sin. I’ll never for
an e-mail I received from a person who disagreed with a comment I made in one of
my sermons about God’s wrath. He
wrote: “I did not know that God had a wrathful presence, and will be present
in the lake of fire as well, tormenting those he did not choose to receive
salvation. The presence of God
tormenting really does paint a very sadistic picture of the character of our
loving God. That does not sound like
the character of God that I know.” Click
here to view my response to that: http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/wrath.
Also, that response will also prove helpful in dispelling the notion that
Satan is somehow in hell ruling things, and that hell is that place where Jesus
being held captive.
There is much, much more that can be said. The bottom line is that these false teachers have completely gutted the work of Christ on the cross, and the gospel itself because they have a completely man-centered theology that exalts both the power and prestige of man and Satan while at the same time turning God into a clueless idiot who seems to be making up His plans as He goes along, and hoping that everything turns out the way He’d like them to. But the Bible’s teaching on the person and work of Jesus Christ is glorious beyond our wildest imaginations, and it will take eternity to plumb the depths of it all. The cross was not a Divine afterthought, where God sent His Son to die, crossed His fingers, and hoped that Satan might release Him and that someone might “accept” Him. It was the place where Christ made a full, complete, all-sufficient, all-powerful, and perfect sacrifice, and finished the work of atonement whereby He completely and fully satisfied the wrath of a Holy God and, and really, not potentially, atoned for all, not some, of the sins of His people. Creation and history itself is nothing more than the outworking of God’s sovereign plan of redemption that He initiated before time even began—a plan that makes Christ an actual Savior instead of merely a potential Savior; a plan that makes God the perfect Architect of a perfect plan that comes about precisely as He has determined; a plan that ascribes all of the glory to God, and to Him alone; a plan that makes Christ a true Savior who didn’t just make people savable, but actually saved them without fail!
(note:
for more information about the work of Christ on the cross, see
information at this link: http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/actualatonement).
IV. False Teachings About the Christian Life
The bold claim by Word of Faith teachers is that God’s will for the
Christian is to live in perfect health and prosperity.
I will first look at their teachings on health:
A.
Healing: Let me first state that with regards to health, this is a
very difficult area because we
all have friends and loved ones that may be afflicted with an illness, and we
want them to be delivered from any pain they may be experiencing.
And if you are sick, or know of someone who is, I want to encourage you
to pray to the Lord for healing. God
does heal, and bids all
of His children to seek Him for healing (and, as I will elaborate upon later,
God heals through a variety of means, to include using doctors and medicine).
So, let me begin by saying that I believe with all of my heart that God
does heal. Not only do I believe it;
I know it, because just
in my own life I can look back and see the many things God has healed me of,
whether it was the common cold or flu, or rheumatic fever when I was a child
through the “miracle” anti-biotic known as penicillin.
And I have seen dear saints that I and others were asked to pray for be
healed of cancer, wherein the Lord was pleased to bring healing through the use
radiation treatments, bone marrow transplants, and chemotherapy.
But while all of that is true, we recognize that sometimes God, according
to His own sovereign purposes, determines not to bring healing to us or our
loved one. And this can be an
extremely painful thing. Nevertheless,
we stand on the promise of God that He indeed causes all things, to include
sickness, to work together for good to those that love Him and are the called
according to His purpose, and the good that it He is working these toward is our
conformity to Christ (see Rom 8:28-30).
Thus, we see a delicate balance that is struck:
we trust God to heal, but also recognize His sovereign right not
to heal, and that all of His purposes and reasons for not giving us the healing
we desire are good and wise. Now,
that is a difficult thing, especially when I or someone I know is going through
something severe. We can say that we
trust God no matter what the situation, and that He has ordained all things that
come to pass, and causes all things to work together for good, but that my
friends is not an easy truth to accept when you suffer, or you have to watch a
loved one suffer, or you witness something horrific.
And frankly, I’m convinced that we will not fully understand how
anything like the intense suffering we may see someone endure could possibly be
used by God for good until we get to Heaven.
But, I believe that this is the balance that God would have us see, and
the place where true peace and comfort in this matter is found.
We rest in the sovereignty of God, recognizing that He has indeed
ordained all things that come to pass, to include my sickness, and we recognize
as well that He has called us to pray for those that are sick or suffering, all
the while keeping in mind that God reserves the sovereign right to either heal
or not heal.
(Important
Note: I have used the phrase
“God has ordained all things that come to pass.”
This phrase is found in such historic creeds and confessions of the
church as the
“God,
from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will,
freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: (Psalm 33:11: Eph.
1:11: Heb. 6:17) yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, (Psalm
5:4; James 1:13-14; I John 1:5; see Hab. 1:13) nor is violence offered to the
will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken
away, but rather established. (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28: Matt. 17:12; John 19:11; Prov.
16:33)”
The
phrase is an apt summary of the Bible’s teaching on the providence of God.
Not only does this phrase accurately represent the Bible’s teaching on
the matter, but it is in fact the historic position of Christianity.
The statement is also, among other things, simply an affirmation of
theism (any belief in God) over and against atheism (a belief that there is no
God).
As elementary and basic as this truth is, it has nevertheless
fallen on hard times in recent years even among otherwise sound Evangelicals,
whom I have personally heard deny this truth in their quest to attack historic
Reformation theology, which is also known as “Biblical Calvinism.” (this
link contains articles I’ve written on the topic: http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/musings;
these links contain great articles and overviews: http://faith.propadeutic.com/calvinism.html;
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Doctrines-of-Grace/.
This link contains audio lectures that explain and defend Calvinism:
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Doctrines-of-Grace/Audio-and-Multimedia/
For
example, a popular evangelist named Junior Hill preached a sermon at a Pastors
Conference in Jacksonville FL in 2007 on Romans 8:28, “And we know that God
causes all things to work
together for good to those who love God…” (NASB).
It was a bit confusing to follow Mr. Hill, because on one hand he seemed
to acknowledge that the “all things” here meant “all things without
exception.” However, Mr. Hill
began to tell a heart wrenching story of a tragic event which resulted in the
death of a little girl. It was then
that he stated that God did not
ordain all things that come to
pass. Of
course, no exegesis of key texts was forthcoming; it was purely an emotional
appeal all aimed at dissuading the audience from believing that God ordains all
things that come to pass (and therefore, what was implied, that Biblical
Calvinism should be rejected).
Please
note again though, the truth that God has ordained all things that come to pass
is not a uniquely Reformation/Calvinistic idea.
It simply affirms in the final analysis that there is a God who has
determined what will transpire on earth and who controls all things, which
Christians from every era and theological perspective have always affirmed
(until now, of course!). For example, James Arminius, the father of Arminian
theology, who objected to certain articles of the Reformed church/Calvinists in
the 1600’s, nevertheless stated:
“of Divine Providence, I by no means deprive it of any particle of those properties which agree with it or belong to it; but I declare that it preserves, regulates, governs and directs all things and that nothing in the world happens fortuitously or by chance…nothing can be done without the will of God, not even any of those things which are done in opposition to it…even all actions whatever, concerning evil, that can possibly be devised or invented, may be attributed to Divine Providence employing solely one caution, "not to conclude from this concession that God is the cause of sin."” http://www.godrules.net/library/arminius/arminius8.htm.
Thus,
Junior Hill, and others like him, aren’t even consistent Arminians.
The only other place to go on the theological landscape is the condemned
heresy of Pelagianism, which is in essence nothing but Atheism dressed up in
Christian terminology.
Hopefully
by now we can see that there are a number of serious problems with Mr. Hill’s
statement. First, it conveys a
serious ignorance of one of the most basic truths of theism in general. As noted
above, the phrase that God has ordained all things that comes to pass is simply
a statement that any person who believes in God must believe,
because it is statement that is denies atheism.
The reason this statement is a direct denial of atheism is simple: If an event occurs
that God did not beforehand determine would occur, then that event occurred all
by itself, by mere chance…without
God. This is
precisely what every Atheist is saying: all
things occur…without God, because to them, there is no God.
Of course, Mr. Hill wants to assert that at least some
things occur that God has
ordained, but evidently other things occur atheistically and by mere chance,
which is complete absurdity, both logically and theologically, particularly in
light of the fact that we are told that it is in God that we “live and move
and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and that God works “…all things
according to the counsel of His will” (Eph 1:11,
see also Rom 11:36). As
noted, not even Arminius was that extreme, and he even rightly saw that “nothing
in the world happens fortuitously or by chance.”
And that can only be true if God has indeed ordained all things that come
to pass! Thus,
Mr. Hill, you can’t have it both ways, and you can’t pick and choose the
thing or things that God does or does not ordain to take place.
There are no maverick molecules or autonomous atoms running around in the
universe, for if there were, then at that point God is not in control, and
whatever point that God is not in absolute control, He is not God, pure and
simple (this is in fact the entire problem we have been examining with the Word
of Faith movement. I have always
maintained, and I do not think it is an overstatement to say, that Word of Faith
theology is just non-Calvinism taken to its logical conclusion because once you
diminish God’s sovereignty in any way, that means that man, and/or Satan, must
fill the sovereignty “vacuum.”). The
bottom line is that we are either going to bow the knee to an absolutely
sovereign God (because there is no such thing as partial sovereignty), or we
will not, and if we do not, all we’re left with is, in essence, Atheism (as
the Word of Faith movement says, “God is on the outside looking in.”
Is this not Atheism?).
Secondly,
if God is all-knowing, then obviously He knows all things that are going to take
place. So unless Mr. Hill wants to
deny God’s omniscience as well, he has no choice but to affirm that God has
ordained all that comes to pass (because after all, God already knew what would
take place, and yet still
decided to create the universe). But
now we must ask how it is that God knows what will take place.
Did He go to the big Blockbuster Store in Heaven and rent the DVD
entitled, “What Will Transpire on Planet Earth” and then sit back with a bag
of popcorn and watch the movie, and because He watched it, He now knows what
will happen and how things will turn out? Obviously
no! Yet, as ridiculous as this
notion is, it seems to be the view that many people like Mr. Hill have (the
classic Arminian expression of this is that “God looks down the corridor of
time to see what will happen.”). The reason God knows what will happen in the
future is not because He look down the corridor of time (whatever that means),
or because He saw the “movie.” The
reason He knows the future is because He decreed
what would take place in space and in time before the foundation of the world.
In other words, the reason God knows the future
exhaustively is because He has exhaustively determined what will occur in the
future. Everything that transpires
in time is according to the determinate counsel/set purpose/predetermined plan
of an infinitely wise, holy, loving, and sovereign God, who has ordained the
end, as well as the means to reach the end (consider the following texts: Gen
50:20; Dan 4:35; Is 14:27,
45:7, 46:9-10; Jer 18:6,
32:17,27; Lam 3:37-38; Mt 10:29-30,11:25-27; Acts 2:23, 16:48; Rom
8:28, Eph 1:11; 1Ti 6:15; 2 Tim
1:8-10; Rev. 4:11,19:6.).
Many more texts could be cited.
Third, could you imagine a universe in which God did not ordain all that comes to pass? We would have no basis for hope because there would be things that we see unfolding in space-time history that have no rhyme or reason; there would be no purpose for anything. If God did not ordain the accident that resulted in the little girls death that Mr. Hill mentioned, then that means that this just happened by chance, and that there is no purpose to be found in it. And if he wants to say that Satan made it happen apart from God’s sovereign ordination, then that means that Satan is in control of things, not God. A.W. Pink, in his classic treatise The Sovereignty of God states:
“Who
is regulating affairs on this earth today—God, or the Devil? That God reigns
supreme in Heaven, is generally conceded; that He does so over this world, is
almost universally denied—if not directly, then indirectly. More and more are
men in their philosophizing and theorizing, relegating God to the
background…” Pink goes on to say, “The
conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who
profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous
travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless,
effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God
of the popular mind is the creation of a [tearful] sentimentality. The God of
many a present day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe inspiring
reverence… To throw the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the
difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is
Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being.” (this book is must reading! It
can be found on line at these links: http://www.sovereign-grace.com/pink/0-index.htm;
http://www.reformed.org/books/pink/).
If Mr. Hill is correct, we could never take the comfort that Romans 8:28 is meant to give us; that all things do work together for good to those who love God, to those who have been called according to His purpose, if in fact God does not have any predetermined purpose by which He works all things. In this regard, I have stated before that the absolute sovereignty of God forces us to trust God absolutely. That is never more true than in the midst of suffering. Some, such as Mr. Hill, try to relieve God from any role in the suffering that enters our lives, by claiming that God did not ordain those things to occur. Sentiments such as these only make things more difficult though, because if something came into our lives that God did not in some way ordain, then that means that the universe is out of control, and that ultimately there is no purpose for my suffering. To me, that is the unbearable thought; to think that suffering is not ordained by God. If we take hold of the fact though that God is indeed absolutely sovereign, and as such He has ordained all things that come to pass, to include suffering, then we know and can trust that God has a morally sufficient reason for ordaining all that He ordains, and that He is, as the apostle Paul said, "causing all things to work together for good." (Romans 8:28, NAS). Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher of the 19th century sums it up well when he said:
“There is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of his own hands—the throne of God, and his right to sit upon that throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the Sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and to make stars. They will allow him to be in his almonry to dispense his alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends his throne, his creatures then gnash their teeth; and when we proclaim an enthroned God, and his right to do as he wills with his own, to dispose of his creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter, then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on his throne is not the God they love. They love him anywhere better than they do when he sits with his sceptre in his hand and his crown upon his head. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon his throne whom we trust…" http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0077.htm.
And
finally, the words of this hymn stand in direct contrast to any “atheism”
that some Christian preacher may proclaim:
Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His holy will abideth;
I will be still whate’er He doth;
And follow where He guideth;
He is my God; though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.
Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to Him I leave it all.
As we turn out attention to the false teachers, we note that the key
problem is that there has been a loss of balance on this matter such as I
articulated above concerning healing, as the false teachers have taught that it
is God’s will for all of His people to experience perfect health.
This teaching is not only wrong, but it is a serious distortion of the
Biblical teaching on this matter, and it can have significant negative
consequences in the lives of believers, as they are driven to desperation, and
even despair, when the healing that they are told is theirs, and that they are
seeking with tears, is not forthcoming, and the reason it is not forthcoming,
according to these teachers, is because these people don’t have enough faith.
We also remember the story about the young boy Wesley who was refused
insulin. Situations like that (and
there have been others: see this
startling article which documents hundreds of such deaths: http://www.letusreason.org/Wf25.htm)
are the result of being taught that it is God’s will for you to be in perfect
divine health, and that you can have what you say as you positively confess
healing into existence.
The question is not whether or not God heals, but whether or not God
physically heals everyone now.
The Biblical answer to that question is no, and the reason it is no is
because we all live in a cursed creation, where disease, decay, and death are
the order of nature and every one of us is subject to that order.
Listen carefully to the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:18-23 “18
For I consider that the sufferings
of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in
us… 21the creation itself also will be delivered from the
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22
For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together
until now. 23 Not only that, but we
also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, eagerly waiting
for the adoption, the redemption of our
body.”
Notice, Paul tells us that right
now we endure sufferings, but those sufferings Paul tells us are nothing
compared to the glory that will be revealed in us. Paul
is obviously speaking of something that is still
to come in the future, and the glory that is to be revealed that is
still future is our ultimate glorification at the end of time, which Paul calls
“the redemption of our bodies.”
Our salvation then encompasses both the spiritual and the physical. God’s
plan is not that we would merely be disembodied spirits that float around in the
clouds for eternity. The full scope of our salvation involves the fact that when
Christ returns we shall receive resurrected, glorified bodies…bodies that are
no longer subject to sin, sickness, and death.
As the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51-57:
“...
For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be
changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable
has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has
been swallowed up in victory." 55
"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"”
The problem is that some Christians want to bring what relates solely to
our glorification, such as perfect health, into the here and now.
The Bible though simply doesn’t allow that.
The only escape from sickness, suffering, and death for Christians will
be when Christ returns, or we die, whichever one comes first. As it is now, we
all live in a fallen creation, and we all experience first-hand the effects of
that fall. One of the effects is
that our bodies decay in various ways, and we are also susceptible to getting
sick or contracting diseases. I
marvel at the preachers who tell people that God guarantees perfect “divine
health” and encourages people to just have enough faith to receive their
healing, yet the preacher himself must wear his eyeglasses just to be able to
see the congregation he’s addressing! With
the advent of the contact lens though, I guess this dilemma has been solved for
these liars.
Creflo Dollar Says – "Command
your body to do things...Your healing is in your mouth! Your deliverance in
every area is in your mouth!...Every cell in your body has to obey the Word of
God that's coming out of your mouth. Every cell in your body has to obey."
(Creflo Dollar, "Establishing the Word of
God Part 2," January 30, 2005, Product Number: 8442091) http://www.gospelgrace.com/falseprophets/creflodollar/creflodollar.htm
And
again: "I don't have to tolerate sickness! I don't have to tolerate
bondage! I don't have to tolerate debt! I don't have to tolerate lack! I don't
have to tolerate insufficiency!” (Creflo
Dollar, "Growing Up In God," April 4, 2004, Product Number: 6512091).
http://www.gospelgrace.com/falseprophets/creflodollar/creflodollar.htm.
One commentator states in response to
this: “Why does Creflo Dollar wear glasses? Why are his eyes sick? Why
does he tolerate it? Why doesn't he release his "Faith" for
healing…?” Indeed; why doesn’t he? I’m
sure Mr. Dollar will come up some excuse in order keep people sending him money.
Or maybe he’ll just hit us with the ole “do as I say, not as I do” line,
while gullible Christians, excuse the pun, turn a “blind eye” and “deaf
ear” to his shenanigans, and just shout “Bless God, Hallelujah!
Creflo may be lying through his heretical teeth, but he is just so
anointed!”
One of the key texts quoted to prove that physical healing is guaranteed
is Isaiah 53:5, which states “...and by His stripes we are healed.”
Unfortunately, this verse is taken out of context to make it say
something it was never intended to teach. A
few basic principles in interpreting a passage is that we must discover what the
writer meant by what he wrote; we must always interpret passages in their
context; and we always interpret Scripture with Scripture (this 9 minute video
is a must see with reference to interpreting Scripture: http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=a29b1bdbab0f2a1a94af).
When we apply those very basic principles to the verses in question, it
is absolutely clear that physical healing is not
in view. Rather, it is the healing
of the soul, which has been corrupted and held in bondage and captivity to sin
that is in view.
Isaiah 53:5-"...and by His stripes we are healed…" is given
its meaning first by the immediate context that the verse is found in Isaiah 53,
and secondly the meaning is brought to light even more clearly when we interpret
Scripture with Scripture, by seeing how, for example, the Apostle Peter uses
this verse. First, let's examine the
immediate context of Isaiah 53:5. Isaiah
53:1-6 reads: Isa 53:1-6:
“1
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2
For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry
ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty
that we should desire Him. 3
He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not
esteem Him. 4 Surely He
has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our
peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like
sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD
has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
In this passage, the prophet
Isaiah, writing 800 years before the birth of Christ, describes the life and
ministry of the Messiah. Look at
verses 1-4a. Isaiah describes a bit about the kind of person this Messiah would
be and the kind of ministry He would have, as well as the reaction people would
give Him. There would be
nothing in terms of outward appearance that would attract people to Him.
Not only that, but he would be one that would be despised and rejected by
men, and we know that all throughout Jesus’ ministry on earth He was
constantly opposed.
In terms of His ministry, He would
be one that would “bear our griefs and carry our sorrows.” What does that
mean? Well, let’s turn to Matthew 8:17. After
recording various miraculous healings, Matthew then tells us in Chapter 8:17
that these were done, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah
the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our
sicknesses." Matthew is
directly quoting Isaiah 53 verse 4, (not
Isaiah 53:5!), and the griefs and sorrows mentioned in Isaiah 53:4 are to be
understood as infirmities and sicknesses. In
other words, Matthew is telling His readers:
“Listen,
you’re looking for the Messiah, and the prophecy in Isaiah tells us that one
of the ways you can identify who this Messiah would be is by the fact that He
would be a healer. This Jesus, who
performed these miraculous healings, fulfills what Isaiah said, and is in fact
the Messiah that is spoken of in Isaiah 53:4.
You’re search for the Messiah the is over!”
Isaiah 53:4 then only speaks of one aspect that would mark the actual
ministry of the Messiah, namely, that He would be a healer. It does not refer to
Jesus' work of atonement on the cross, which is how the Word of Faith advocates
take it to mean. And despite the
fact that Jesus did all of these miraculous things that proved who He was, He
was, nevertheless, as Isaiah tells us, “despised and rejected by men.”
And this takes me back to Isaiah 53.
Look at verse 4 again: “Surely
He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him
stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” In other words, the Suffering
Servant would be a healer; He would do amazing things, YET, not only would
He be despised and rejected, He would also be considered as one stricken,
smitten, and afflicted by God. These
words relate specifically to the crucifixion of Christ.
To the Jew, it was thought that anyone who suffered crucifixion was in
fact cursed by God Himself; he was, as Isaiah says, thought to be stricken,
smitten, and afflicted by God. This
is why the Scriptures speak of how preaching Christ crucified was an offense and
stumbling block to the Jews, because, as the law says, “Cursed is everyone who
hangs on a tree.” (see Gal 3:10-13).
So we have here a point of irony: “Surely
He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (that is, He was healer); Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and
afflicted (even though He did these mighty things, we find Him hanging on a
cross, cursed by God!). If Isaiah
ended the passage here, there would be no hope.
But alas, it does not end there! He says: “But He was wounded for
our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” With the word
“But,” Isaiah introduces us to the reason why
the Messiah was stricken, smitten, and afflicted:
He was wounded and bruised for our transgressions and iniquities, and it is by his
stripes, that is, by the totality of the suffering and affliction that He
endured on the cross, that those for whom the Messiah died are now healed!
Healed of what? Healed of
what it was that the Messiah was crucified for: the
text tells us: our transgressions and iniquities, and the chastisement of our
peace!
In context then, the phrase “by His stripes we are healed” does not
primarily relate to being healed of physical
sickness, rather, what is
in view here is the substitutionary work of atonement by the Suffering Servant
(Christ) on the behalf of His people. The
"healing" mentioned is given in the context of the words
“transgressions,” “iniquities,” and “chastisement for our peace.”
This all has to do with the sin that has separated people from God and
has placed them at enmity with Him. It
is through Christ's work of atonement on the cross (i.e., His stripes) that we
are now healed; that is, the "sickness" that caused spiritual death
has now been removed (i.e., healed), that we may now experience peace
(relationship) with the One whom we were previously at enmity with.
Verse 6 further highlights this. Look
back at the text: “5 …by His
stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned,
every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us
all.”
Not only does the immediate context of the phrase “by His stripes we are
healed” prove that this is speaking of spiritual and not physical healing,
when we interpret Scripture with Scripture, we discover the same thing.
As a matter of fact, the phrase, “by His stripes we are healed” is
only quoted one other time in the Bible, and it is by the Apostle Peter in 1
Peter 2:24. Peter speaks about
Christ, "who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we,
having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by
whose stripes you were healed."
Peter directly quotes the phrase “by whose stripes you were healed”
to summarize what he had just stated, namely, that Jesus bore our sins on the
cross, and that having died to sins we might live to righteousness.
Thus, if there were still doubt as to what Isaiah was referring to with
the phrase "by His stripes we are healed," the Apostle spells it out
here in no uncertain terms: by his
stripes you are healed is speaking not of temporal, physical healing, but of the
substitutionary work of atonement by Christ on behalf of His people.
Now as I alluded to earlier, as
with so many errors, there is usually a key element of the truth that we must
not lose. In this case, the
key element that we must be careful not to lose is the fact that while the
verses I mentioned concerning the atonement do not specifically refer to
temporal physical healing, we
must be careful to maintain that Christ, by His atonement, secured
our ultimate physical healing (our glorified bodies!), and He also provided
for any temporal healing that we may receive.
Hence, ultimate physical healing, i.e., glorification, is secured and
guaranteed by Christ’s work on the cross, while temporal physical healing is
provided for, but not guaranteed. The
reason this is important to maintain is because the cross of Jesus Christ (which
entails the totality of His work, to include the resurrection) stands as the
centerpiece of our faith, and every grace that we received accrues to us through
the cross. What is objected to
is that Christ secured perfect divine health for Christians to experience prior
to their glorification. Christ did
purchase complete healing in all facets of our being, but the fullness of that “healing” will not be fully realized
until we enter into a state of glorification.
It is then that our physical bodies will undergo a complete
transformation (healing if you will). Evangelical scholars D.A. Carson and Wayne
Grudem who provide helpful statements in regard to this matter:
D.A. Carson:
“Of
course there is healing in the atonement. In exactly the same sense, the
resurrection body is also in the atonement – even though neither charismatic
nor noncharismatic argues that any Christian has the right to demand a
resurrection body right now. The issue is not "what is in the
atonement," for surely all Christians would want to say that every blessing
that comes to us, now and in the hereafter, ultimately flows from the redemptive
work of Christ. The issue, rather, is what blessings we have a right to expect
as universally given endowments right now, what blessings we may expect only
hereafter, and what blessings we may partially or occasionally enjoy now and in
fullness only in the hereafter.” ( D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A
Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14; Baker Books, 2000 (original:
1987); p. 175-176.
Wayne Grudem writes:
“All Christians would probably agree that in the atonement Christ has purchased for us not only complete freedom from sin but also complete freedom from physical weakness and infirmity in his work of redemption. And all Christians would also no doubt agree that our full and complete possession of all the benefits that Christ earned for us will not come until Christ returns: it is only "at his coming" (1 Cor. 15:23) that we receive our perfect resurrection bodies. So it is with physical healing and redemption from the physical sickness that came as a result of the curse in Genesis 3: our complete possession of redemption from physical illness will not be ours until Christ returns and we receive resurrection bodies. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology; Zondervan Publishing House, 1994; p. 1063). In a footnote, Grudem adds, "When people say that complete healing is 'in the atonement,' the statement is true in an ultimate sense, but it really does not tell us anything about when we will receive 'complete healing' (or any part of it)."
The
key to remember is that, as stated, Christ has indeed “healed” us in every
conceivable way, but again, the
fullness of that healing will not be realized until our glorification at
Christ’s return--that's when we can say "everyone is physically
healed;" when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts
on immortality. It is only then that
there will be no more suffering (1 Cor 15:42-58; Rev 21:4).
I want to now just
make some summary statements about healing:
1.
Nowhere in the Bible is temporal physical healing guaranteed.
What is guaranteed is the complete forgiveness of sin and eternal life
for those who place their trust in the finished work of Christ alone.
While temporal
physical healing is not guaranteed, ultimate
physical healing is
guaranteed, but will not occur until we receive our resurrected bodies at the
last day, when, as the Revelation 21:4 says, “God will wipe away every tear
from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There
shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."
2.
God can and does miraculously intervene in some instances to heal
someone. It is perfectly acceptable
to pray for physical healing in the here and now, and to expect God to respond
in answer to prayer. However, to use
these verses as the basis that God has willed to physically heal every single
believer of every sickness in their temporal, physical lives is not only
incorrect, but is harmful. We should
also not forget that God heals through a variety of means, such as medicine, so
that anytime we are healed of any ailment, whether through prayer, or through
medicine, God receives all of the glory for it, because He is Lord of all
creation and has made medicine itself possible.
3.
We must keep in mind that every physical healing that occurs is temporal.
Eventually, the person will develop some other ailment (since his body is
steadily “decaying”), and eventually die.
I have said on many occasions that a person can experience a miraculous
healing, and maybe even many miraculous healings, and yet still miss Heaven.
My point is that while a physical healing is exciting, and is to be
prayed for, it is nevertheless not the best
thing, nor even the most important thing that can happen to a person.
We need to have an eternal perspective, not a temporal one always keeping
in mind that the greatest healing a person can have is a spiritual healing,
because the true sickness that truly causes death (not merely temporal, but
eternal) is sin. Unless the disease of sin is cured, we have absolutely no hope.
We must to take the attitude of the Scriptures that declare the glories
of a Sovereign God who has ordained all things, even sickness, for His own
purposes. He has, in His
Sovereignty, told us to pray for healing, but He has, in His Sovereignty, also
taught us that not every thorn we pray to have removed will be removed, that His
grace is sufficient for us, that His power is made perfect in our weakness, and
that as the Apostle Paul says in 2 Cor 4:17-18, “…our light and momentary
troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen
is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
I believe that we must have faith that God will heal, but also have faith
in His Divine prerogatives. In other
words, I will trust God that He can, and indeed will heal me, but if He
doesn’t I can know that He has a morally sufficient reason as to why He
didn’t. The difficult thing is to
rest in whatever purpose God has, even if that purpose is that I not be healed,
and then try to use that infirmity as a means to bring glory to God.
Joni Eareckson Tada (http://www.joniandfriends.org/)
serves as a tremendous example of this. Paralyzed
at the age of 17 due to a diving accident, she sought her healing with tears.
When it was not forthcoming, she proceeded to use her wheelchair as a
vehicle for glorifying God. Multiplied
thousands of people have been impacted for Christ through her life’s work,
which may not have been had it not been for her wheelchair.
Someone has said, "healing is not a divine obligation, it is a
divine gift." I think that really sums it up…the receiver of the gift can
make no demands.
V. Wealth
In terms of financial prosperity, these false teachers claim that every
Christian should be rich, and physical prosperity is seen as a sign of God’s
favor to the obedient. People are
taught to positively confess good finances into existence. Every sermon as a
matter of fact seems to revolve around the same theme:
“your breakthrough is just around the corner!” By breakthrough they
mean that if you just keep “positively confessing” and most importantly, if
you just keep “planting your seed,” God is going to line your pockets with
money. And as Hank Hanegraaff
explains:
“…planting
a seed” is virtually synonymous with “mail me the money.” The seed faith
gimmick is little more than a give-to-get gospel of greed.” (Christianity in
Crisis, p. 196).
And so if you do all of that, then maybe, just maybe, if you have enough
faith, you can be just like them and own multi-million dollar homes, your own
private jet, and the finest jewelry and designer suites and clothes.
Yep! The good life…you
know, the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and God wants to give it you…through
them! After all, your life does consist in the abundance of things that you
have…oh…wait a minute, the Jesus of the Bible
said “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not
consist in the abundance of his possessions."
(Luke 12:15).
Speaking of possessions, sadly, I do not have time to speak about the over
the top extravagant lifestyles of people like Creflo Dollar, T.D. Jakes, Joyce
Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn, and the lack of financial integrity and
extravagance of TBN. Trust me when I
say, it is startling, as these false teachers abuse and twist one Bible verse
after another and beg the faithful for money so that they can live in the lap of luxury (the list of resources
I provide at the end of this sermon provide information).
These teachers blasphemously turn the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ
into a get rich quick scheme. The Good News is not that you have been delivered
from the penalty of sin, or that you have been brought into a relationship with
the Lord of the universe. The Good
news is not that you have been reconciled to Him through the precious blood of
Christ, and that there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ
Jesus. NO!
The “Gospel” to these wolves in sheep’s clothing is about
money and health. It’s all
about you getting your blessing! Creflo
Dollar says, “the Gospel is the Good News about the power of God on Jesus to make you
whole and get you out of your poverty, whether it's poverty in health or poverty
in money. This anointing is ready to deal with poverty…I'm
telling you this anointing is ready to put some money in your pocketbook
because He's ready to remove the burden of lack.” (Praise
The Lord, July 20, 1999: http://www.craom.net/CrefloDollar.html).
By the way, the “anointing” is
not some mystical cosmic power that can be tapped into and manipulated by us
so that we can get all of the worldly things that we covet.
When something was anointed in the Bible, it simply signified holiness
and separation unto God for sacred use, and as the apostle John makes clear in 1
John 2:20, the term “the anointing” was associated simply as the Holy
Spirit, when he says, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you
know all things.” In context, the
“all things” that we know by the anointing that we have received is not the
power to get our wealth, rather, it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is the
power of God unto salvation to all who believe.
As for Mr. Dollar’s statement,
do you know what really saddens me: it’s that statements like this, and the
statements that we have seen and will see, actually have to be proven
wrong to many Christians. Any
person with even the smallest, most obscure knowledge of the God of the Bible
knows that when it comes to these ministries, something is rotten in
With that said, let me provide
some quotes from some of these teachers:
Kenneth Copeland leads his congregation in an affirmation "Money come unto me NOW" three times. (Dec.4, 1999 Voice of victory telecast) http://www.letusreason.org/Wf3.htm. But Jesus, speaking about God and money said, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (Matt 6:24)
Creflo Dollar says: “Money is trying right now
to get in your hand even as I speak.” http://www.letusreason.org/Wf45.htm.
Let me ask you a question:
Did Jesus ever preach like this? Did
any of the apostles? Can you even
imagine them saying anything even remotely close that?
Whereas Mr. Dollar says, “Money is trying right now to get in your hand
even as I speak.” http://www.gospelgrace.com/falseprophets/creflodollar/creflodollar.htm
Jesus told the rich young ruler
in Luke 18:22, “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you
will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
Creflo
Dollar Says - "When you are
living and walking in the presence of Almighty God, sickness has to go…When
you live in His presence, poverty and insufficiency must flee. There can be no
lack in the presence of the God Who made heaven and earth." http://www.gospelgrace.com/falseprophets/creflodollar/creflodollar.htm
But the apostle Paul says,
“Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I
take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in
persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am
strong.” (2 Cor 12:9-10)
Benny Hinn:
“God's love for me is directly related to His intense desire to bring
financial blessing to my life so that I will know no lack.” http://www.bennyhinn.org/yourlife/financial-freedom/
(see second paragraph of this article written by Hinn). So let me get this
straight: God’s love is directly
proportional to the amount of financial blessing in a person’s life?
I guess Donald Trump, Bill Gates, wealthy atheists, wealthy Arab sheiks,
and Osama Ben Ladin are really experiencing
the love of God in their lives, while the multiplied thousands of Christians
over the course of history who experienced abject poverty and material
“lack” as they had their worldly possessions taken away and were slaughtered
just for being Christians never experienced God’s love!
Lack has nothing to with money; it has everything to do
with God Himself. And,
as Proverbs 28:6: “Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one
perverse in his ways, though he be rich.” God’s love for me is directly
related to His intense desire to conform me to Christ, to mature me in the
faith, to grow me in the grace and knowledge of Christ, that I might not lack in the greatest
treasure that money can’t buy: God
Himself! Ps 73:25-26, “Whom have I
in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My
flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion
forever.” And the apostle Paul says: “I have learned to be content whatever
the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to
have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every
situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I
can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:11-13)
Joyce Meyer:
"If you stay in your faith, you are going to get paid…I’m living
now in my reward." http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/special/joycemeyer.nsf/0/C5099399D2FCC5FA86256DDF00661C5F?OpenDocument
. Can it get any crasser than that? The
faith isn’t about denying yourself and loving the Lord simply for who He is;
rather, it’s about getting paid!
What a travesty! Jesus
said, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth
and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where
thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart
will be also.” (Matt 6:19)
Creflo Dollar says: “The Bible makes it so very clear: Preach the Gospel to the poor. What's the Gospel to the poor? You don't have to be poor anymore!” (stated in an interview with BusinessWeek, May 23, 2005: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_21/b3934016_mz001.htm. Just who are the poor, Mr. Dollar? Do you preach this “gospel” to the wealthy atheists at the country club? In other words, your false gospel is only aimed at those that are poor materially, implying that those that are wealthy in material possessions/money do not need the “gospel!” The context and entire tenor of Scripture clearly demonstrates that the poor in view is not those who are impoverished materially, but those who are impoverished spiritually, and the ensuing blessing that comes from the Gospel is not the treasures of this world which are perishing, but a relationship with the Creator of the universe. The apostle Paul said: “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” (Philippians 3:8-9)
Creflo Dollar:
“I didn’t come here to get something from you. I’m already wealthy.
I’m loaded, I got more than enough.
I’m blessed. I didn’t
ride here on Delta. I rode here on
my own airplane.” (see video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs0OvGKr8cM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecreflodollarexposed%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F
Jesus said, “You say, 'I am rich; I
have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you
are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked...” (Rev 3:17-18)
Paul Crouch:
If you’re broke, if you’re at your wits end, if you’re out of a job…let
me tell ya. Not only are we gonna
bless the world and preach Christ to millions…but you can be saved yourself,
by planting a seed in this fertile soil called TBN.” (Christianity in Crisis,
p. 201)
What an amazing
statement! Here Paul Crouch actually
teaches that if a person gives to TBN, they can be saved!
What blasphemy! I’ve got
news for you Mr. Crouch: God’s
salvation is not for sale, and there is one Savior, and His Name is Jesus
Christ, and as the apostle Peter tells us, we were not “redeemed with
corruptible things, like silver or gold…but with the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. ( Peter 1:18-19).
The apostle Paul tells us Paul say in 1 Tim 6:10:
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some
have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through
with many sorrows.”
Juanita Bynum on TBN: “You need to send a
thousand dollars. If you can’t send a thousand, send five hundred… if all
you have is a nickel, wrap it in tissue and put it in an envelope. If all you
have is your clothes, send them…If you want the power, you have to sow the
seed…I need [to give] because I need favor. I need it because I need an
anointing. I need it because I need power. I’m giving because I want my
daughters to be daughters of
Uh, Ms. Bynum, by the authority of
the Word of God, not the figment of my vain imagination that I then have the
audacity to call “prophesy,” God’s salvation, and His Holy Spirit are not
for sale! As the apostle Peter told
a false teacher just like you whose name was Simon Magnus who wanted to give
money to get the Holy Spirit: But Peter said to him in Acts 8:20-23, "20
May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift
of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry,
because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this
wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a
thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness
and captive to sin."
And may I say that applies to all
of these prosperity teachers. Oh, and did I mention that her “doctorate”
“degree” is from a non-accredited, Trinity denying “bible college.”
http://www.truthbiblecollege.org/,
http://www.truthforliving.org/ministries/tbcs.html
Believe me when I say that I could be here for days providing one quote
after another. The bottom line is
that the focus has been placed on the
temporal instead of the eternal. It
is all about getting wealth and feeling good, while the cross of Jesus Christ
has either been removed altogether, or it has been blasphemed and rendered
powerless and useless. And the consequences of this false teaching is
staggering. Scores of Christians are
being taught to focus on money instead of the Master, the gift instead of the
giver of the gift, and the comforts of all that the world has to offer instead
of Christ and Him crucified. What is
being taught beloved is nothing less than outrage against the true Gospel.
I recently heard something from Dr. John Piper that absolutely sums up
the outrage rather well. Dr. Piper
says:
“I don’t know what you feel about the…health,
wealth and prosperity Gospel. But
I’ll tell you what I feel about it…HATRED!
It is not the Gospel! It’s
being exported from this country to Africa and
http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/665_americas_ugly_exported_gospel/
Let
me give you a few more verses that speak further to the issue of wealth and how
the Bible so clearly contradicts what these heretics teach:
Prov
30:7-9: "Two things I ask of
you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep falsehood and lies far from
me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. 9
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD?'
Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.
I Corinthians 4:11
"Even to the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly
clothed, and beaten and homeless."
I Timothy 6:5-8
"… men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that
godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself. But godliness with
contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is
certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with
these we shall be content."
Heb 10:34:
“You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation
of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting
possessions.”
Hebrews 13:5-6 says:
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you
have, because God has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?"
James 2:5-6 says:
“Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in
faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But
you have insulted the poor.”
James 5:1-4
“5:1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is
coming upon you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3
Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and
eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.”
Revelation 2:9 "I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich). . ."
And finally, listen
to these words from the great Protestant Reformer John Calvin:
“As
there is nothing in the world but what is fading, and as it were for a
moment…they who seek their happiness from it, make a wretched and miserable
provision for themselves, especially when God calls us to the ineffable glory of
eternal life; as though he had said, “The true happiness which God offers to
his children, is eternal;” it is then a shameful thing for us to be entangled
with the world, which with all its benefits will soon vanish away.” (from
Calvin’s commentary on 1 John)
Instead of the perfect divine health and wealth and life of ease and
comfort that is preached by these false teachers, the Bible makes it abundantly
clear that not only are our lives not to be centered on and consumed with those
things, but that in actuality our lives are to be marked by cross-bearing
self-denial. Jesus summed this up
when He said in Mark 8:34-37:
“34
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If
anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to
gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in
exchange for his soul?”
When we take these words seriously and begin to truly put Christ (and not
our own felt needs, etc.) first, it will very often result in the exact opposite
of what the Word of Faith teachers claim is to be the ideal Christian life.
Listen to the words of the Apostle Peter in1 Peter 2:20-21:
“21 But when you
do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. 21
For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example, that you should follow His steps…”
Is this not in direct contradiction to the “lifestyles of the rich and
famous” life that the Word of Faith teachers say is God’s will for us?
Suffering, not riches, is what we have been appointed to.
Somehow though that just doesn’t sound too glamorous…this whole
“cross” and “suffering” thing. And
that is why you won’t hear anything mentioned about it by these teachers.
They are all about appealing to the felt-needs and selfish desires of the
crowd, and saying precisely what the “itching ears” of many Christians want
to hear.
Not only that, but given our market-driven, bigger is better (and
blessed!) mentality, many people wrongly gauge the legitimacy and success of
these ministries not on whether they are preaching the truth, but on how big
they are and by the numbers of people that flock to hear them spew their toxic
doctrine. We seem to forget that
anybody can attract a crowd by
saying what people want to hear, or by saying that God wants everyone to be
rich! The fact that someone
attracts a large crowd does not mean that they are “blessed” by God.
For example, the Mormons attract a crowd.
Islam attracts a crowd. Are
we to then suppose that they have the blessing of God upon them?
Instead of looking at a large crowd, and reasoning that because the crowd
is large, God is therefore blessing, maybe seeing a large crowd flock to hear us
should cause us to take stock of our message.
Yes, God does send large crowds to some who truly preach the Gospel, but
that seems to be the exception and not the rule.
People are more attracted to the sensational and things that appeal to
their fleshly desires and temporal concerns than they are to anything that
seriously challenges their presuppositions and/or comfort level (check out this
mini-video: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.239).
As a matter of fact, the whole
concept that our Christianity is supposed to be “attractive” to unbelievers
can be misleading. What is so
attractive about losing your life for Christ?
What is so attractive about persecution and suffering?
Again, the message of the cross is offensive.
It is true, Jesus attracted large crowds, but the reason wasn’t because
of the good news of the Gospel, it was because the people were excited to see
yet another miracle from the hands of the prophet from
The mark of a successful ministry
then is not the number of people that it attracts, but whether or not it is
doctrinally sound (adhering to and not compromising, at the very least,
fundamentals of the faith as expressed earlier), is preaching the true Gospel of
Christ, and is actively engaged in the work of the Great Commission.
And when we turn to the Scriptures, we discover that a church that is
serious about those things, and church members who have had their lives changed,
are for the most part anything but attractive to the unbeliever.
Instead, as it regards those who are perishing, we are, as the apostle
Paul says, “...the aroma of death
leading to death...” (2 Cor 2:15-16).
The fact of the matter is that the message of the cross is an offense (1
Cor 1:18), and the preaching of the cross will “attract” not earthly riches,
but persecution of one form or another (2 Tim 3:12; 1 Pet 4:14).
One need only examine the lives of the apostles, those listed in the
“hall of faith” (Hebrews 11), and Jesus Christ Himself, to see what kind
of attraction they brought to themselves. All
of the apostles, save one, suffered a martyrs death; many of those listed in
Hebrews 11 “were tortured…had trial
of mockings and scourgings, yes and of chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, sawn in two, were tempted, and slain with the
sword...” (Heb 11:35-37), and Jesus was brutally tortured and put
death! (see this short video; it is an absolute must see: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.665)
It is to suffering
then, not worldly riches or perfect divine health, that we have been appointed
to beloved. These quotes and
Scripture texts help to bring this truth out more clearly:
In
the profound depth of affliction (James
Meikle, "Solitude Sweetened" 1730-1799):
Christians,
when shut up in the depths of affliction, have their eyes on God alone, who can
bring them out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay. Then their thoughts
ascend to heaven, and heaven shines down into their souls; while the world, in
all its glittering vanities which strike the carnal eye--is cut off. In the dark
night of adversity, there are spiritual beauties seen, which were never seen in
the broad day of prosperity. O desirable distress! which discloses and magnifies
heavenly excellences--and diminishes
earthly
vanities!
In no place better than in the profound depth of affliction, does
the
heir of future glory see… the love, the goodness, the mercy, the
wisdom
of God, the excellency of true religion, the beauty of divine things,
the danger of prosperity, the deceitfulness of riches,
the vanity of created things, the happiness of the world to come…”
Acts 5:41-42 41 “So they departed from the presence of
the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His
name.”
Acts 9:16 “For
I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."
Rom 8:16-17 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be
glorified together.”
2 Cor 1:3-7 3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who
comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the
sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our
comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation;
if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient
endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm,
because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in
our comfort.”
Phil 1:29 “For it has been granted to you on behalf of
Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,”
1 Tim 4:10-11 For to this end we both labor and suffer
reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men,
especially of those who believe.”
2 Tim 2:8-10 “Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of
David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, 9 for which I suffer
trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not
chained.”
2 Tim 3:12 “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in
Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
2 Cor 11:21-30
“21 What anyone else dares to boast about-I am speaking as a fool-I also dare
to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are
they Abraham's descendants? So am
Heb 11:24-26 “24 By faith Moses, when he became of age,
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to suffer
affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26
esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for
he looked to the reward.”
1 Peter 4:12-14 “12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at
the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening
to you. 13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that
you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
C.J. Mahaney states:
“Scripture
calibrates the Christian life around the cross. It was in the cross of Christ
alone that Paul rejoiced and boasted…His religious trophy case was emptied out
"because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord"…the cross - being the center of Paul's life - was no mere personal
preference. The Apostle reminds Timothy (and all pastors by application to
"guard" the gospel, and warns that flirting with a slanted gospel is
to flirt with damning lies. Paul's hope for the spiritual transformation of
sinners was centered in the gospel… (Living the Cross Centered Life
by C.J. Mahaney):
http://www.monergism.com/living_cross_centered_life_mahaney.php
False
Prophecies
If time permitted, I could also speak about the volumes of false so-called
“prophecies” that have been uttered by the teachers that I have mentioned
that claim to be speaking direct revelation words from God Himself.
For example, Benny Hinn “prophesied” on one occasion that the
homosexual community would be destroyed by the mid-1990’s, and on another
occasion he prophesied that Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator, would die in the
1990’s (see http://biblelight.net/tbn.htm).
Obviously, those both turned out to be false (remember, the test in
Scripture to see if a person was a true prophet was 100% accuracy, and if he was
inaccurate, he was to be stoned!).
Also please note, many if not all of these teachers, because they have an
unbiblical view of divine revelation itself, all claim to be speaking under the
direct inspiration of God. How many
times have you heard some of these teachers say, “the Lord told me” or
“the Lord dropped this in my spirit” or some other similar phrase?
So, they want us to believe that what they are about to say is straight
from the throne room of heaven. Yet,
what pours out of their mouths is a direct contradiction of the only infallible
divine Word, the Bible.
I also marvel at the very general/non-specific nature of most of these
so-called “prophecies.” They are
general/non-specific because they want to give people the impression that God is
speaking through them, yet, what they say can never be verified.
One wise Christian made this observation that really hit the nail on the
head:
“Every
year, usually at the New Years Eve service you know a lot of “prophecies”
will come forth and will go something like this: “This is the year that God is
gonna release a supernatural outpouring of His Spirit and the saints are gonna
take back what the devil stole from them.(Now I never knew that Satan stole
anything from me). There are gonna be businesses starting, a financial harvest
is coming and this year the wealth of the wicked will be released to the saints.
Those of you who have been bound will be set free…..” and you know the rest.
Oh yeah and an occasional: this is the year of the saints.”
Yes, that about sums it up. As
stated, I will not explore this aspect for now.
The important thing to stress is that today, with the Canon of Scripture
closed, such divine “revelation” has ceased.
If we want to hear what “thus sayeth the Lord,” we are now to go read
the written Word of God. It is there where God has spoken definitively,
authoritatively, sufficiently, and finally.
If one wishes to deny this, then they must be willing to say that what
comes forth from people who claim to be “prophesying” is just as equally
authoritative of Scripture, and if they are consistent, is in fact Scripture.
One will note that just about every one of the non-Christian cults, such
as Mormonism, has a view of revelation where it is said that special revelation
did not cease with Scripture, but continues on even today.
Much more can be said, but I will leave it at that.
Here are some articles for further consideration/study:
http://www.9marks.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID314526%7CCHID598016%7CCIID1552702,00.html
http://www.thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/99954.qna/category/th/page/questions/site/iiim
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Sola%20Scriptura/
Conclusion:
Beloved, believe me when I say
that everything that I have just shared is just the tip of the iceberg!
What I have listed above is really just a brief introduction into what is
today the most dangerous heretical movement to be found within the church
itself. Chris
Hand of the Evangelical Times sums it up beautifully when he says:
“Much more could
be said. The worldly fund-raising methods and false prophecies typical of this
movement would fill the pages of a hefty volume.
The stage-managed meetings, replete with showmanship, self-promotion and
manipulation, breathe another spirit than the biblical model of ministry and
preaching. Miraculous claims go unsubstantiated or collapse on closer
investigation. Sick and suffering people return disappointed from the meetings,
some having been told that their lack of faith explains their failure to be
healed. With the wild excesses of so-called ‘ministry times’ — marked by
‘slayings in the Spirit’ and hysterical laughter — the unbiblical nature
of this movement screams aloud.…The casualties of ‘Word-faith’ teachings
tell another story and deserve to be heard more often than they are.” http://www.evangelical-times.org/Articles/July03/jul03a12.htm
My heart grieves for the
You may be asking yourself how it
is that these things could be accepted by so many Christians today.
The reasons is because sadly, the
My heart yearns to see the day when the false teachers are fully exposed, and when Christians come to embrace sound doctrine and biblical Christianity that they might grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.
If you are a follower of one of the above teachers, all I ask is that you
consider what I have stated here today, and investigate the matter for yourself.
If you find the analysis that I provided is correct, I encourage you to write
these teachers with your concerns, and cease supporting their ministry. If
you find that my analysis is not correct, I am more than willing to dialogue
with you, and if I am wrong, I will immediately issue a public apology.
At the end of this sermon will be a period for questions and answers, and
I will attempt to answer any questions and concerns you may have. No
question is off limits.
Soli Deo Gloria,
John Orlando
Resources
Word of Faith Resources:
General Overview:
http://www.justinpeters.org/seminar.htm
- 35 minute video overview of the false teaachings of the Word of Faith movement
http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/665_americas_ugly_exported_gospel/
- 3 minute video/audio clip of sermon excerrpt from Dr. John Piper.
Short but powerful!
http://www.smallings.com/Books/ProspENG.html
on-line book refuting Word of Faith
http://www.scionofzion.com/wof.htm
- brief article overview of Word of Faith tteaching.
http://www.erwm.com/Word%20of%20Faith.htm
– numerous articles exposing the Copelands, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Joel
Osteen, Paul White, Mike Murdock, John Hagee, Creflo Dollar, TBN, etc.
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/quotes.html
- tons of quotes
http://op.50megs.com/audio.html
various audio clips
http://www.trinityfi.org/index.htm
- info on many, to include John Hagee, Don Stewart, and Paula White
http://www.intotruth.org/contents.html
http://craom.net/overviewPG.htm
http://craom.net/Teachingsofwordfaith.htm
http://www.intotruth.org/links/other-wof.html
http://www.gospeloutreach.net/wordfaith.html
http://www.letusreason.org/Wf38.htm
http://www.truthwatch.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=19
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/141-prosperity-health-and-wealth-teachings
http://www.christianissues.com/roots.html
http://watchman.org/reltop/rprtldie.htm
- atonement
Creflo Dollar:
http://www.creflodollarexposed.blogspot.com/
- has some video clips
http://www.biblelight.net/Creflo-Dollar.htm
http://www.gospelgrace.com/falseprophets/creflodollar/creflodollar.htm
- numerous quotes
http://www.truerepentance.org/heretic/prosheresy/cdollar.html
- brief overview of quotes
http://www.forgottenword.org/dollar.html
Joel Osteen
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2005/08/apprising_joel_1.html
http://www.equip.org/audio/monolog20051103.wma
http://www.kfuo.org/mp3/Issues4/Sep_26a.mp3
http://www.kfuo.org/mp3/Issues4/Sep_26b.mp3
Benny Hinn
www.cbc.ca/fifth/media/miracles.wmv
- 40 minute investigative video of the abusses of Benny Hinn.
http://www.pfo.org/prophecy.htm
Kenneth Copeland:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D74VHiVLROM&mode=related&search=
Video exposing financial abuses of Kenneth Copeland.
http://www.forgottenword.org/copeland.html
- Kenneth Copeland overview
http://www.pulpit-pimps.org/archives/2007/06/02/pimps-on-broad-way
- clip of dust in the wind
T.D. Jakes:
http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2625875/k.B807/DJ900.htm
- overview by the Christian Research Instittute
http://www.forgottenword.org/jakes.html
http://www.ministrywatch.com/mw2.1/H_Home.asp
Joyce Meyer:
http://www.wfial.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=resources.meyer
– Joyce Meyer
http://phillyflash.wordpress.com/2007/03/24/joyce-meyer/ - Joyce Meyer
http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2634591/k.BA24/DM472.htm
http://www.pfo.org/preacher.htm
http://www.trinityfi.org/index.htm
Rod Parsley:
http://www.pfo.org/parsley.htm
- Rod Parsley
Juanita Bynum:
Bio found here: http://www.dfdesign.com/conference%20broc._sm.pdf
– note, the bible college that awarded her degree is here:
(info on the non-traditional accrediting agency ACI that Truth Bible
College says carries its accreditation:
http://www.truthbiblecollege.org/contact.htm
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/dm3.html
http://www.pulpit-pimps.org/archives/2006/11/20/juanita-bindem-and-the-trashing-floor
Paula White:
http://www.trinityfi.org/index.htm
Recommended Ministries/Resources:
Pastors/Teachers/Writers:
Dr. R.C. Sproul: http://www.ligonier.org
Dr. James White: http://www.aomin.org
Dr. John Piper: http://www.desiringgod.org
Allistair Begg: http://www.truthforlife.org/site/PageServer
C.J. Mahaney: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/About/LeadershipBios/CJBio.aspx
Mark Dever: http://www.capitolhillbaptist.org/CC_Content_Page/0,,PTID324006%7CCHID687064%7CCIID,00.html
D.A. Carson: http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/bio/dacarson.html
Arturo G. Azurdia III: http://spiritempoweredpreaching.com/
John MacArthur: http://www.gty.org/index.php
Steve Lawson: http://www.cfbcmobile.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=110&sec_id=377
Jerry Bridges: http://www.bestwebbuys.com/Jerry_Bridges-mcid_2121387.html?isrc=b-authorsearch
Mark Driscoll: http://theresurgence.com/md_blog
Various
Ministries:
White Horse Inn: http://www.whitehorseinn.org/about.htm
The Founders: http://www.founders.org
Theologically Correct: http://theologicallycorrect.com/index.php
Reformed Blacks of
Darkness to Light Ministries: http://www.dtl.org/
Stand to Reason: http://www.str.org
Greg’s Couch: http://www.gregscouch.homestead.com/
Theologue: http://www.theologue.org/
Lampmode: http://www.lampmode.com/?page_id=25
– this is the website of my former co-worker who is a Christian hip-hop
artist. Great music
Various
Websites:
The Threshold – http://www.monergism.com
Old Truth – http://www.oldtruth.com
Spurgeon – http://www.spurgeon.org
Various Video clips: http://www.godtube.com/uvideos.php?UID=6206&type=public
Various Audio Clips: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/.id.2.sid.23
All of Grace (my
web site): http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/
For
Women:
Joni Eareckson Tada:
http://www.joniandfriends.org/
Kay Arthur: http://www.precept.org/
Elizabeth George: http://www.elizabethgeorge.com/george/default.asp
General articles: http://www.bible-researcher.com/links11.html