Introduction Following from their teachings that
God created Adam as a "little god", and that
the Lord Jesus was re-born in hell, Word-Faith teachers go on to
assert that the born-again believer is not "in" Christ, but
actually "is" Christ:
"If you believe that man is divine,
and that he lost his divinity at the Fall, then it is
but a short step to reclaiming that divinity at
salvation. If Jesus Christ was re-born as a man
anointed with the Spirit, then we all as Spirit-filled,
re-born men and women share the very same divine power,
authority, and attributes as Jesus Christ - we are
literally re-born as a god, on an equal footing with
Jesus" [source]. |
I apologise that there are quite a
lot of quotes from the Word-Faith teachers below, but it is
necessary to be sure that what we are considering here is indeed a
standard Word-Faith doctrine and not just one or two stray comments
from one or two teachers which may simply have been misunderstood or
taken out of context.
Kenneth E. Hagin:
"Jesus is the first person that
was ever born again" [How
Jesus Obtained His Name, (No Date), audiotape
#44H01], "There
is a real incarnation in the new birth"
[Zoe: The God-Kind of Life,
(1982), p.42],
"In the new birth God imparts His
very nature, substance and being into our human spirits"
['The Virgin Birth', Word of
Faith, (Dec 1977), p.8 / 'Walking in the
Light of Life', Word of Faith, (Jan1978), p.3],
"Every born-again man is an
incarnation, as much an incarnation of God as was Jesus
of Nazareth" ['The
Incarnation', Word of Faith, (12 Dec 1980), p.14],
"The believer is called Christ ...
that's who we are ; we're Christ"
[Zoe: The God-Kind of Life,
(1989), p.41],
"The church hasn't realized yet
that they are Christ. That's who they are.
They are Christ" [As Christ
Is - So Are We, (No Date), audiotape #44H06],
"The Church is Christ. It is
the incarnation of Christ, and we need to realise that
in order to save the world"
[quoted at
source]. |
Kenneth Copeland:
"Jesus was born again - the
first-born from the dead the Word calls Him"
['The Price Of It All', Believer's Voice of Victory,
(Sept 1991), p.4],
"It is important for us to realise
that a born-again man defeated Satan"
['Jesus: Our Lord of Glory',
Believer's Voice of Victory, (April 1982), p.3],
"Jesus is no longer the only
begotten Son of God ... Jesus is known as the first
begotten from the dead. If there is a firstborn,
then there has to be a secondborn, a thirdborn, a
fourthborn, etc" [Now We Are
In Christ Jesus, (1980), p24],
"And the whole New Testament calls
Him the firstborn ... The word 'born' began to ring in
my spirit ... the Spirit of God spoke to me. And
He said, 'Son, realize this: Now follow me in this,
don't let your tradition trip you up ... A born-again
man defeated Satan. The firstborn of many brethren
defeated him. You are the very image and the very
copy of that one. ... If you'd had the knowledge of the
Word of God that He did, you could have done the same
thing 'cause you're a reborn man too" [Substitution
and Identification, (1989), audiotape #00-0202, side
2 / What Happened From the Cross to the
Throne, (1990), audiotape #02-0017],
"Jesus was the first man to ever be
born from sin to righteousness"
[What Happened From the Cross to the Throne,
(1990), audiotape #02-0017],
"I say this with all respect so
that it don't upset you too bad, but I say it anyway.
When I read in the Bible where [Jesus] says, 'I AM', I
just smile and say, 'Yes, I AM too!'."
[Believer's Voice of Victory,
broadcast on TBN, (9 July 1987)].
|
Benny Hinn:
"When you were born again the Word
was made flesh in you. And you became flesh of His
flesh and bone of His bone. Don't tell me you have
Jesus. You are everything He was and
everything He is and ever He shall be. ... [The new man]
says, 'I am as He is.' That's what it says.
As He is, so are we in this world. ... Don't say, 'I
have.' Say, 'I am, I am, I am, I am, I am'."
[Our Position in Christ #2: The
Word Made Flesh, (1991), audiotape #A031190-2, side
2, emphasis in original],
"I am a 'little messiah' walking on
earth" [Praise-a-Thon,
TBN, (6 Nov 1990)]. |
Paul Crouch:
"That new creation that comes into
new birth is created in His image. ... It is joined,
then, with Jesus Christ. Is that correct?
And so in that sense - I saw this many years ago -
whatever that union is that unites Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, He [Jesus] says, 'Father, I want them to be one
with Me even as You and I are one in Us.' So
apparently, what He does, He opens up that union of the
very godhead, and brings us into it!"
[Praise the Lord, TBN, (15 Nov
1990)]. |
The statements above are from some of
the more prominent Word-Faith teachers. We now need to
consider what the Bible says about them...
The Only Begotten
Son
The Bible tells us that we are merely
the adopted sons into God's family. Christ is the
only begotten Son of God. We are mortal; only the begotten
Son is Divine:
"...the glory of the only begotten of
the Father, ... the only begotten Son, which is in the
bosom of the Father" (John 1:14b,18b),
"For God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son, ... in the name of the only
begotten Son of God" (John 3:16a,18b),
"...ye have received the Spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15),
"God sent forth His Son, ... that we
might receive the adoption of sons" (Galatians 4:14-15),
"Having predestined us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself"
(Ephesians 1:5). |
The word "begotten" in Greek is
monogenes:
"Monogenes (3439) comes from
monos = only, and geno = to form, to make.
The genos from which genes in monogenes
is derived means race, stock, family, and comes from
ginomai = became ("and the Word became flesh").
This is in distinction from gennao = to beget,
engender, create, which is the result of birth. ...
Monogenes means the only one of the family, as in
Luke 7:12 referring to the only son of his mother; and
in Luke 8:42, the daughter of Jairus. ... John uses
monogenes to describe the relation of Jesus to God
the Father, presenting Him as the unique One, the only
One (monos) of the family (genos). ...
Jesus is never called 'child' of God as the believers
are. Jesus called God His very own Father.
He was not a Father to Him as He is to us. He
never spoke of God as the common Father of Himself and
of believers. ... In monogenes we have genos:
Jesus Christ designated as the only One of the same
stock in the relationship of the Son to the Father" [Spiros
Zodhiates, Lexical Aids to the New Testament,
(1991)], "The relationship
between Father and Son is described as a unique
relationship with the phrase 'only begotten'. This
is something that can 'only' be for Christ; no-one else
can have such a relationship - it is unique. He
cannot be one among many, because there can be no-one
else like this. If we can be the same as Christ on
this earth - [i.e. if Jesus were simply] a man filled
with the Holy Spirit - this Scriptural title would be
shown as false. This is the 'only begotten'; ...
and it is a relationship that the Son has had with the
Father since before time began"
[source]
|
The Church is
Christ or the Church is Christ's?
The Church is continuing part of
Christ's earthly ministry, but that does not mean we are
Christ. We are merely representing Him before the world; we're
acting on His behalf. If someone is a servant of a master who
goes away for a time, the servant may temporarily be made his
master's representative; the servant may even have use of some of
his master's tools, or be in touch with the master, but the servant
is not the master in any real sense!
Though we are "one body in Christ"
(Romans 5:12), we are not His actual body any more than we
are actual stones or actual sheep or actual
olive (or vine) branches. Christ still has His own body:
"For in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). |
Jesus the Pattern
Son and the Way Show-er
Resulting from this belief that we
are no less Christ than is He Himself, is the teaching that the Lord
Jesus was the 'Pattern Son':
"I had to have
that copy and that pattern ... so that I could recreate
a child and a family and whole new race of mankind.
You are in his likeness" [Kenneth
Copeland, Substitution
and Identification, (1989), audiotape #00-0202, side
2 / What Happened From the Cross to the
Throne, (1990), audiotape #02-0017], "Jesus
... was the pattern
of a new race of men to come"
[Kenneth Copeland, What Happened From the Cross to the Throne,
(1990), audiotape #02-0017],
|
Copeland is saying that Jesus is our
example who shows us how to become the Perfect Man
that He is and how to get to heaven and obtain eternal life if we
will just learn the 'Revelation Knowledge' (the "faith" or 'Sense
Knowledge') that He had. Thus,
Jesus is not 'The Way',
but the 'Way Show-er' in the same sense as the Buddha is, or as the
practice of Yoga take us into Brahman.
"If the incarnate Christ is now
present in this world, saving the world, defeating the
powers of evil and ruling on behalf of God [then] what
is the point of Jesus Christ returning in the flesh?
None! The work of restoring the glories of Eden is
in our hands, and Jesus is a mere figure-head in this
task. God has become an 'icon' of belief, a
beloved 'father figure' in OUR fight to overthrow Satan
and take the nations for Christ. Jesus Christ has
become a Type, a Pattern, the one who went on ahead to
show us how to achieve godhood"
[source]. |
We see this idea reflected in some of
the songs sung in the church today. For example, in the song
Lord, I Lift Your Name on High, the words: "You came from
heaven to earth / to show the way" promote Word-Faith (also
Manifest-Sons-of-God) thinking. If we are to eschew false
doctrine, we cannot sing this song as it stands. The Lord
Jesus Christ does not merely "show" the way; He IS the Way.
Thus, we can make the song accord with Scripture by changing these
unbiblical words to biblical ones: "You came from heaven to earth /
to be the Way" or "You came from heaven to earth / You are the Way".
Identification
What the Word-Faith quotes at the
beginning of this article are teaching is the concept of
'Identification'. It is true that this concept was first
popularised by the Deeper Life conventions of the Keswick Movement
in the later 19th century, but the Word-Faith movement interprets
'Identification with Christ' differently. Whereas
"the Keswick movement teaches that to
be identified through faith with Christ's redemptive
work is to be 'in' Christ ... [Word-Faith] denies the
physical nature of the atonement, asserts that Christ
became a demoniac and was 'born-again' in hell, and
teaches that believes can be transformed into
incarnations of God (i.e. deification). ...
Through his Identification with Jesus' 'spiritual
atonement', the believer is deified ... transformed into
gods" [Dan Connell, The Promise
of Health and Wealth: A Historical and Biblical Analysis
of the Modern Faith Movement, (1990), pp.117,121]. |
For
E.W. Kenyon, from whom every subsequent Word-Faith teacher has
effectually learnt his doctrine, 'Identification' meant not simply
salvation and sanctification - as it did for the Keswick Movement -
but rather "To be born again"
is to receive "the nature and life of God
in one's spirit"
[E.W. Kenyon, The Hidden Man,
(1970), p.26].
If Kenyon did not get his idea of
Identification from the Bible, or from the Keswick Movement, then
whence did it come? We have perhaps already seen the answer in
our consideration of
the roots and history of the Word-Faith Movement:
"Christian Science, Theosophy, New
Thought and Modern Unitarianism teach, consciously or
unconsciously, the Incarnation of the human family, that
is, they teach that every man has a God in him. If
a man has God in him then he and God are in union, and
if united, Incarnated" [E.W.
Kenyon, 'Incarnation', Reality, (Dec 1911),
p.49]. |
Word-Faith teachers take this
doctrine extremely seriously, as can be gauged from the reaction of
Kenneth Copeland to the death of someone who questioned it:
"That fellow is dead today.
Now I said that to warn you. Don't criticise
people for preaching [Identification]. If you
don't understand it, keep your mouth shut and pray"
[Kenneth Copeland, How to
Receive Revealed Knowledge, audiotape]. |
The Plug and the
Socket
Christ abides in us, if we abide in
Him, but this does not make us Christ - any more than a plug abiding
in a socket becomes the socket (or vice versa). He said,
"...without me ye can do nothing"
(John 15:5), |
And Paul said,
"Not
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing
as of ourselves" (2 Corinthians 3:5a). |
Neither do the gifts which the Holy
Spirit gives make us Christ. And, it goes without saying that
we should seek to become Christ-like in character, having our
minds and hearts transformed to be more like His. But none of
this makes us Christ.
For Many Shall
Come in My Name...
The Lord Himself warned us:
"Take heed that ye be not deceived:
for many shall come in my name, saying, I Am ... [G]o ye
not therefore after them" (Luke 21:8). |
Elizabeth McDonald
March 2016
©
Bayith Ministries
http://www.bayith.org
bayith@blueyonder.co.uk
|