Word-Faith Movement
by Clete Hux
Founder/Founding date: As a movement rather than an organized group, there is no founder or founding date, per se. The philosophical roots extend to Gnosticism. E.W. Kenyon (1860-?) was perhaps the earliest modern exponent to blend the movement's eastern mystical and New Age elements with Christian teaching.
Official Publications: None. Two prominent publications are Kenneth Copeland's "Believer's Voice of Victory" and Kenneth Hagin's "The Word of Faith" magazines. There are scores of books, newsletters, pamphlets by various authors Hagin, Kenyon, Copeland, Capps, Price, etc.
Organizational Structure: Has no key universally acknowledged leader or central headquarters. The teachers of the movement all have their own churches and followings.
Unique Terms: The God-kind of faith; the force of faith; the Anointing; spirit-man; spiritual death of Christ; born-again Jesus; authority of the believer.
Other Names: Word-of-Faith, Positive Confession, Faith-formula, Health & Wealth Gospel.
HISTORY
Born in 1860, E. W. Kenyon is generally recognized as the founding father of the modern Word-Faith Movement. Beginning as a Methodist, he became quite ecumenical, associating with the Baptists. Some of his work even resulted in the founding of a few Primitive Baptist Churches. Late in life, Kenyon moved into Pentecostalism. At the same time, he combined elements of the metaphysical cults, such as Christian Science, New Thought theology, and Unity School of Christianity (D.R. McConnell, A Different Gospel, pp. 31-35). "The doctrines of correct thinking and believing accompanied by positive confession, with the result of calling a sickness a symptom (denial of reality supported by a Gnostic dualism) are not found in Christian writings until after New Thought and its offspring had begun to develop them. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to state that the doctrine originated and developed in these cults, and was later absorbed by Christians in their quest to develop a healing ministry" (H. Terris Neuman, An Analysis of the Sources of the Charismatic Teaching of Positive Confession, p. 43).
Though obviously not the movement's originator, some have also called Kenneth Hagin the "grand-daddy of the faith teachers" (Sherry Andrews, "Kenneth Hagin ‹ Keeping the Faith," Charisma, October 1981, p. 24). In a survey of readers of Charisma (a major Charismatic magazine) concerning those ministers that influence them the most, Kenneth Hagin was 3rd, ranked behind only TV evangelist Pat Robertson, and the heir apparent to the Word-Faith movement throne, Kenneth Copeland (Kenneth Hagin, Jr., Charisma,"Trend Toward the Faith Movement," August 1985, pp. 67-70).
DOCTRINE
God
Word-Faith teachers claim that God operates by spiritual law and is obliged to obey the faith-filled commands and desires of believers. He not only reveals prosperity teaching supernaturally to the Word-Faith teachers, but personally and verbally confirms their unique interpretations of Scripture (Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, pp. 60-62).
They say the Abrahamic Covenant is the basis for commanding God to do His part in the covenant. Robert Tilton says, "we make our own promises to do our part, then we can tell God, on the authority of His word, what we would like Him to do. That's right, you can actually tell God what you would like His part in the Covenant to be" (God's Miracle Plan for Man, p. 36). Kenneth Copeland says, "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, p. 32). Copeland goes so far as to say that "God was the lesser party and Abraham was the greater" in the covenant between them (Copeland, Legal and Vital Aspects of Redemption, 1985, Audio Tape #01-0403).
The Faith teachers also make God into a big man. Copeland says, "God is...a being that stands somewhere around 6'-2," 6'-3," that weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of hundred pounds, little better, and has a hand span of nine inches across" (Spirit, Soul, and Body, 1985, Tape #01-0601). Morris Cerillo, in an alleged out-of-body experience, describes God: "Suddenly, in front of this tremendous multitude of people, the glory of God appeared. The form that I saw was about the height of a man 6 feet tall, maybe taller, and twice as broad as a human body, with no distinguishing features such as eyes, nose, or mouth" (The Miracle Book, pp. x-xi).
Man
Word-Faith teachers say that not only is God a big man, but man is a little god. Kenneth Hagin has asserted, "man...was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of inferiority.... He made us the same class of being that He is Himself.... He lived on terms equal with God.... The believer is called Christ, that's who we are; we're Christ" (Zoe: The God Kind of Life, pp. 35-36, 41). "God's reason for creating Adam was His desire to reproduce Himself...He was not a little like God. He was not almost like God. He was not subordinate to God even" (Copeland, Following the Faith of Abraham, 1989, Tape #01-3001). He also proclaims, "You don't have a God in you ‹ you are one!" (Copeland, The Force of Love, 1987, Tape #02-0028). Morris Cerillo says "the whole purpose of God was to reproduce Himself. ...you're not looking at Morris Cerillo, you're looking at God, you're looking at Jesus" (The End Time Manifestation of the Sons of God, Audio Tape 1, Sides 1 &;2).
Christ
The deity of Christ is compromised. Kenneth Copeland, in relating what Christ supposedly told him, says, "don't be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you are God...the more you get to be like Me, the more they are going to think that way of you. They crucified Me for claiming that I was God. But I didn't claim I was God. I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was with Me" (Copeland, "Take Time to Pray," Believer's Voice of Victory, #15, 2 February 1987, p. 9). "Jesus was on the earth just a man, not the son of God" (Frederick K.C. Price, Tape #RP 19, May 1993). And Kenneth Hagin says, "You are as much the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was" (The Word of Faith, December 1980, p. 14).
Atonement
The very important doctrine of the atonement of Christ is distorted. Frequently Word-Faith teachers unduly over-emphasize the spiritual death instead of the physical death of Christ. "Physical death will not remove sins" (Hagin, The Name of Jesus, p. 29). In other words, it took the spiritual death of Jesus to atone for sins. "Do you think that the punishment of our sins was to die on the cross? If that was the case, the two thieves could have paid our price. 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).
According to Word-Faith teachers, when Adam rebelled, or "committed high treason," he not only betrayed God by turning over to Satan what God had given him, he also took on the nature of Satan. So, to redeem mankind and creation from Satan's legal control, Jesus, as the second Adam, had to die not only physically but spiritually. This may be acceptable among some evangelicals. But where it has led Word-Faith teachers is not. They say Jesus not only bore our sins on Calvary, but also took on the actual nature of Satan himself. "Just as Adam died spiritually, Jesus died spiritually. The spiritual death He suffered caused His physical body to die.... When Jesus accepted the sin nature of Satan into His Spirit He cried 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' He was separated from God... He was ushered into the bowels of hell" (Kenneth Copeland, Classic Redemption, p. 13; emphasis added). "Spiritual death means having Satan's nature" (Hagin, The Name of Jesus, p. 31).
Just a man on earth, and taking on the nature of Satan at the cross, Jesus becomes just a sinner in need of redemption. At the resurrection Jesus is a born again man from the pit of hell. "Jesus was born again in the pit of Hell....The Church started when Jesus was born again in the gates of Hell" (Charles Capps, Authority In Three Worlds, pp. 212 13).
Other Doctrines
1) Positive Confession: The Theology of the Spoken Word (Rhematology), or thought actualization, is commonly known as positive confession. It stresses the inherent power of words and thoughts. Each person predestines his own future by what he says verbally and by how well he uses spiritual laws. As such, it is as if we live in a mechanistic universe instead of a personal one (see, Kenneth Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, p. 15; Charles Capps, The Tongue A Creative Force, pp. 117-118; Releasing the Ability of God, pp. 98-99, 101-104).
2) The Gospel of Health: Isaiah 53 is used to justify blanket coverage for the physical healing of every Christian who has enough faith. "...it is the plan of our Father God in His great love and His great mercy that no believer should ever be sick, that every believer should live his life full span down here on earth and that every believer should finally just fall asleep in Jesus" (Hagin, Seven Things You Should Know About Divine Healing, p. 21). Hagin also denies having a headache for forty-five years, labeling such as "simply symptoms rather than any indication of a headache" (In the Name of Jesus, p. 44).
3) The Gospel of Wealth: A central tenet of the prosperity gospel is that God wills the financial prosperity of every Christian. If a believer lives in poverty, he/she is living outside God's intended will. "You must realize that it is God's will for you to prosper" (Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, p. 51).
BIBLICAL RESPONSE
1) God is the unique, Sovereign of the Universe (1 Timothy 6:15). God is pure spirit (John 4:24). There is no biblical basis for teaching that God has His own body, as an essential part of His nature or being. This would be more in line with Mormonism than orthodox Christianity.
2) Man is unique from the rest of Creation, but is not Divine. He was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 27; 9:6), but bearing God's image does not make him a "little god." By definition, God is an "uncreated" or self-existent Being. Obviously, humans were created and therefore are not self-existent or divine; only God has a divine nature (Galatians 4:8; Isaiah 1:6-11, 43:10, 44:6; Ezekiel 28:2; Psalms 8:6-8).
3) Christ is Eternal, the Only Begotten Son, and the Only Incarnation of God (John 1:1, 2, 15; 1:14, 18; 3:16; 1 John 4:1). In Him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). By receiving the limitations of humanity (Philippians 2:6-7) Jesus forwent the exercise of some of His prerogatives as God. But He did not cease to be God. It is also impossible for the natures of God or man (Christ was both on earth) to cease being what they are.
4) The nature of the atonement had to do with Jesus' physical death on the cross being the payment for sins (Hebrews 9:22). Christ said, "It is finished" (John 19:30), which translates tetelistai meaning "paid for in full." Payment for our sins took place on the cross (Matt. 26:28; 1 Pet. 2:24; Col. 1:20-22; Heb. 10:10, 12, 14, 19 20). There was nothing more to pay beyond the cross (Heb. 10:18).
5) God is the only One who ever created reality by the power of His Word (Genesis 1:3). He does not have or need "faith." Faith is depending on something outside ourselves. If God depends upon something outside Himself, He is not Supreme and therefore not God. Man, not God, is in need of faith. The faith referenced in Mark 11:22 and Hebrews 11:3 is clearly "the faith which has God as its object," not "the kind of faith that God has
6) The use of words for Positive Confession ‹ One may help or hurt another by words of encouragement or condemnation, by telling the truth or misleading, etc. But to treat words as if they were some "star wars" type weapon by which reality is manipulated or altered is not biblical, but occultic.
RESOURCES
A Different Gospel (Updated Edition) D.R. McConnell. Warns of the movement's cultic nature in its doctrine of healing and its understanding of the atonement, and demonstrates how far the movement's doctrine of prosperity is from Scripture's true teaching. Chapter end-notes, Bibliography, 195 pages, softcover.
Christianity in Crisis, Hank Hanegraaff. Documents the antibiblical doctrines of the Word-Faith Movement and shows their systematic subversion of the historic Christian faith. Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Scripture and Subject indexes, 447 pages, hardcover.
© Copyright 2000 Watchman Fellowship, Inc..
Showing posts with label Word Faith Theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Word Faith Theology. Show all posts
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Word Faith Theology and Mormonism
Teaching that God, who is pure spirit (James 4:24), has His own spirit body is to teach something definitely not found in Scripture. There is no biblical basis for such a teaching. This teaching would be more in line with Mormonism than orthodox Christianity.
CREATION
Kenneth Copeland teaches that God created the Universe, and everything therein, out of a spiritual substance known as faith, by forming a mental picture of the creation in "the insides of Him," then by using words as containers for His "faith," projected the image outwardly into the reality of creation.
For example, in his tape, Spirit, Soul, and Body, Copeland says, "Faith is real, is a power, is a force. It's used by God at His will. This world and everything in it was created by Him and He used His faith to do it. Now you couldn't really and truly say that He created it out of nothing because faith is something, the whole thing was born out of the force of faith that was resident inside the being of God."
Copeland's misunderstanding of faith and creation has a New Age ring to it. If the universe was created out of God's faith, and if this faith is the actual life and personality of God, then the creation is merely an extension of God (pantheism or panentheism), thus making all things divine.
In his tape, Following the Faith of Abraham, Copeland asserts, "You don't think God created man in His image and created the earth in some other image, huh? There's nothing under the whole sun that's new-This is a copy of home-a copy of the mother planet. Where God lives, He made a little one just like it and put us on it."
Evidently to Copeland, God lives on a big earth just like the smaller one humans live on, since everything images the things of God.
There is a striking similarity here to Mormonism which teaches that "God is supposed to have lived on a planet near a mysterious star called Kolob" (Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 428).
LITTLE GODS
Gloria Copeland, Kenneth Copeland's wife, stated in The Believer's Voice of Victory that, "when God breathed the breath of life into Adam, He transmitted His very self into him. God imparted the same spiritual substance of which He is made into Adam's being" (Believer's Voice of Victory, June, 1986, p. 10).
In his sermon tape, Following the Faith of Abraham, Kenneth Copeland teaches that God created Adam a god (having the same attributes as God Himself): "And Adam is as much like God as you can get, just the same as Jesus when He came into the earth. And I want you to know something ¾ Adam in the garden of Eden was God manifested in the flesh." We now see that Brigham Young of Mormonism isn't the only one who has taught the Adam-God theory (Deseret News, 16 June 1973), but also Kenneth Copeland. (parenthesis mine).
In The Force of Love, another sermon tape, Kenneth Copeland states, "You don't have a god in you, you are one."
Kenneth Hagin in Word of Faith says, "You are as much the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was. Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth" (December 1980, p. 14).
Earl Paulk of the Harvester Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in his work, Satan Unmasked, explains it like this: "Adam and Eve were placed in the world as the seed and expression of God. Just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God has little gods; we have trouble comprehending this truth. Until we comprehend that we are little gods, we cannot manifest the kingdom of God" (p. 97).
In his book Agony of Deceit, Michael Horton has documented Kenneth Copeland in a 19 July 1987 crusade as saying, "I say this and repeat it so it don't upset you too bad. When I read in the Bible where He (Jesus) says, I AM, I say, Yes, I am too!" (p. 268). In John 8:58, I AM is a self proclamation of Jesus' own unique Deity from Exodus 3:14, 15.
Dave Hunt, in his book Seduction of Christianity, documents Casey Treat, pastor of Seattle's Christian Faith Center, as saying in his tape series Believing in Yourself that we're exact duplicates of God. "I'm an exact duplicate of God! When God looks in the mirror He sees me! When I look in the mirror, I see God! Oh, hallelujah! You know, sometimes people say to me, when they're mad and want to put me down. You just think you're a little god. Thank you! Hallelujah! You got that right! Who'd you think you are, Jesus? Yep!...Are you listening to me? Are you kids running around here acting like gods? Why not? God told me to! Since I'm an exact duplicate of God, I'm going to act like God!"
One of WOF's proof texts for them being little gods is Psalms 82:6. If one looks carefully, it is apparent that God is mocking the judges (gods) who had perverted justice. He (God) says, "I say ye are gods, nevertheless, you will die as mere men" (vss. 6 & 7). This is the same proof text the Mormons use to say one can become a god.
It is also a contradiction that if one is a god that one should die as a man. God is mocking and in a real sense condemning those that would arrogantly try to lift themselves to such status.
As is seen with Casey Treat, another problem with WOF teachers is their misunderstanding of the meaning of man being made in the image of God. To use Treat's own illustration of looking in the mirror, when one does look, what one sees is one's own reflection. The image is not reality. The image is only a reflection of one's reality. One reflects God's image (some of His qualities) but one is not God.
Granted that man is the apex of God's creation and as such is completely different from the rest of creation, but being God's image does not mean that one is a little god. Humans are not divine by nature. God is divine. "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods." (Galatians 4:8, also see Isaiah 1:6-11, 43:10, 44:6; Gen. 1:26, 28, 3:4-5; Ezekiel 28:2; Psalm 8:6-8).
THE BORN AGAIN JESUS
Michael Horton points out in Agony of Deceit, that "any teaching that denies that Christ as `the only begotten Son, the One and Only incarnation of God' is heresy" (p. 269; John 3:16, 1:14,18; I John 4:1). It is important to point this out.
Kenneth Copeland, in Believer's Voice of Victory, in relating to what Christ told him says, "Don't be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you're God -the more you get to be like me, the more they're going to think that way of you. They crucified me for claiming that I was God. But I didn't claim I was God, I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in me" (August 1988, p. 8).
The early Gnostic heretic, Cerinthus, taught that Jesus was just a man, becoming divine only at Baptism. At the cross, the Holy Spirit left Him, leaving Jesus devoid of His divine nature - once again He was just a man (Baker's Dictionary of Theology, Corinthians, p. 113).
Copeland seems to advocate the same thing in the same Believer's Voice of Victory, Aug. 1988 issue when he says, "He voluntarily gave up that advantage, living His life here not as God but as a man. He had no innate supernatural powers. He had no ability to perform miracles until after He was anointed by the Holy Spirit as recorded in Luke 3:22." This is needed to understand the WOF's teaching on Jesus' spiritual death.
In God's Will for You, Gloria Copeland states, "Jesus experienced the same spiritual death that entered man in the garden of Eden" (p. 3). This can not be so because Adam's death in the garden was due to disobedience where Jesus' death on the cross was due to obedience. (Phil. 2: 8b).
In The Name of Jesus, Kenneth Hagin defines spiritual death as "something more than separation from God. Spiritual death also means having Satan's nature¼Jesus tasted death - spiritual death - for every man" (p. 31).
To many in the WOF movement, the emphasis is not on the physical death of Jesus (which is what the Bible emphasizes, i.e., "without shedding of blood is no remission," see Hebrews 9:12, 14, 15, 22) but on the spiritual death of Christ.
On his tape, What Happened From the Cross to the Throne, Copeland says, "When (Jesus) said, `It is finished' He was not speaking of the plan of redemption. The plan of redemption had just begun. There was still three days and three nights to be gone through before He went to the throne" (parenthesis mine).
This is in direct opposition to what Christ said on the cross, "It is finished" (John 19:30). The word is tetelistai meaning "paid for in full." There was nothing more to pay for beyond the cross. If there was, Jesus would not have said to the thief on the cross, "To day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43), but instead would have said, "Today you will be with Me in hell."
© Copyright 2000 Watchman Fellowship, Inc..
CREATION
Kenneth Copeland teaches that God created the Universe, and everything therein, out of a spiritual substance known as faith, by forming a mental picture of the creation in "the insides of Him," then by using words as containers for His "faith," projected the image outwardly into the reality of creation.
For example, in his tape, Spirit, Soul, and Body, Copeland says, "Faith is real, is a power, is a force. It's used by God at His will. This world and everything in it was created by Him and He used His faith to do it. Now you couldn't really and truly say that He created it out of nothing because faith is something, the whole thing was born out of the force of faith that was resident inside the being of God."
Copeland's misunderstanding of faith and creation has a New Age ring to it. If the universe was created out of God's faith, and if this faith is the actual life and personality of God, then the creation is merely an extension of God (pantheism or panentheism), thus making all things divine.
In his tape, Following the Faith of Abraham, Copeland asserts, "You don't think God created man in His image and created the earth in some other image, huh? There's nothing under the whole sun that's new-This is a copy of home-a copy of the mother planet. Where God lives, He made a little one just like it and put us on it."
Evidently to Copeland, God lives on a big earth just like the smaller one humans live on, since everything images the things of God.
There is a striking similarity here to Mormonism which teaches that "God is supposed to have lived on a planet near a mysterious star called Kolob" (Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 428).
LITTLE GODS
Gloria Copeland, Kenneth Copeland's wife, stated in The Believer's Voice of Victory that, "when God breathed the breath of life into Adam, He transmitted His very self into him. God imparted the same spiritual substance of which He is made into Adam's being" (Believer's Voice of Victory, June, 1986, p. 10).
In his sermon tape, Following the Faith of Abraham, Kenneth Copeland teaches that God created Adam a god (having the same attributes as God Himself): "And Adam is as much like God as you can get, just the same as Jesus when He came into the earth. And I want you to know something ¾ Adam in the garden of Eden was God manifested in the flesh." We now see that Brigham Young of Mormonism isn't the only one who has taught the Adam-God theory (Deseret News, 16 June 1973), but also Kenneth Copeland. (parenthesis mine).
In The Force of Love, another sermon tape, Kenneth Copeland states, "You don't have a god in you, you are one."
Kenneth Hagin in Word of Faith says, "You are as much the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was. Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth" (December 1980, p. 14).
Earl Paulk of the Harvester Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in his work, Satan Unmasked, explains it like this: "Adam and Eve were placed in the world as the seed and expression of God. Just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God has little gods; we have trouble comprehending this truth. Until we comprehend that we are little gods, we cannot manifest the kingdom of God" (p. 97).
In his book Agony of Deceit, Michael Horton has documented Kenneth Copeland in a 19 July 1987 crusade as saying, "I say this and repeat it so it don't upset you too bad. When I read in the Bible where He (Jesus) says, I AM, I say, Yes, I am too!" (p. 268). In John 8:58, I AM is a self proclamation of Jesus' own unique Deity from Exodus 3:14, 15.
Dave Hunt, in his book Seduction of Christianity, documents Casey Treat, pastor of Seattle's Christian Faith Center, as saying in his tape series Believing in Yourself that we're exact duplicates of God. "I'm an exact duplicate of God! When God looks in the mirror He sees me! When I look in the mirror, I see God! Oh, hallelujah! You know, sometimes people say to me, when they're mad and want to put me down. You just think you're a little god. Thank you! Hallelujah! You got that right! Who'd you think you are, Jesus? Yep!...Are you listening to me? Are you kids running around here acting like gods? Why not? God told me to! Since I'm an exact duplicate of God, I'm going to act like God!"
One of WOF's proof texts for them being little gods is Psalms 82:6. If one looks carefully, it is apparent that God is mocking the judges (gods) who had perverted justice. He (God) says, "I say ye are gods, nevertheless, you will die as mere men" (vss. 6 & 7). This is the same proof text the Mormons use to say one can become a god.
It is also a contradiction that if one is a god that one should die as a man. God is mocking and in a real sense condemning those that would arrogantly try to lift themselves to such status.
As is seen with Casey Treat, another problem with WOF teachers is their misunderstanding of the meaning of man being made in the image of God. To use Treat's own illustration of looking in the mirror, when one does look, what one sees is one's own reflection. The image is not reality. The image is only a reflection of one's reality. One reflects God's image (some of His qualities) but one is not God.
Granted that man is the apex of God's creation and as such is completely different from the rest of creation, but being God's image does not mean that one is a little god. Humans are not divine by nature. God is divine. "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods." (Galatians 4:8, also see Isaiah 1:6-11, 43:10, 44:6; Gen. 1:26, 28, 3:4-5; Ezekiel 28:2; Psalm 8:6-8).
THE BORN AGAIN JESUS
Michael Horton points out in Agony of Deceit, that "any teaching that denies that Christ as `the only begotten Son, the One and Only incarnation of God' is heresy" (p. 269; John 3:16, 1:14,18; I John 4:1). It is important to point this out.
Kenneth Copeland, in Believer's Voice of Victory, in relating to what Christ told him says, "Don't be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you're God -the more you get to be like me, the more they're going to think that way of you. They crucified me for claiming that I was God. But I didn't claim I was God, I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in me" (August 1988, p. 8).
The early Gnostic heretic, Cerinthus, taught that Jesus was just a man, becoming divine only at Baptism. At the cross, the Holy Spirit left Him, leaving Jesus devoid of His divine nature - once again He was just a man (Baker's Dictionary of Theology, Corinthians, p. 113).
Copeland seems to advocate the same thing in the same Believer's Voice of Victory, Aug. 1988 issue when he says, "He voluntarily gave up that advantage, living His life here not as God but as a man. He had no innate supernatural powers. He had no ability to perform miracles until after He was anointed by the Holy Spirit as recorded in Luke 3:22." This is needed to understand the WOF's teaching on Jesus' spiritual death.
In God's Will for You, Gloria Copeland states, "Jesus experienced the same spiritual death that entered man in the garden of Eden" (p. 3). This can not be so because Adam's death in the garden was due to disobedience where Jesus' death on the cross was due to obedience. (Phil. 2: 8b).
In The Name of Jesus, Kenneth Hagin defines spiritual death as "something more than separation from God. Spiritual death also means having Satan's nature¼Jesus tasted death - spiritual death - for every man" (p. 31).
To many in the WOF movement, the emphasis is not on the physical death of Jesus (which is what the Bible emphasizes, i.e., "without shedding of blood is no remission," see Hebrews 9:12, 14, 15, 22) but on the spiritual death of Christ.
On his tape, What Happened From the Cross to the Throne, Copeland says, "When (Jesus) said, `It is finished' He was not speaking of the plan of redemption. The plan of redemption had just begun. There was still three days and three nights to be gone through before He went to the throne" (parenthesis mine).
This is in direct opposition to what Christ said on the cross, "It is finished" (John 19:30). The word is tetelistai meaning "paid for in full." There was nothing more to pay for beyond the cross. If there was, Jesus would not have said to the thief on the cross, "To day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43), but instead would have said, "Today you will be with Me in hell."
© Copyright 2000 Watchman Fellowship, Inc..
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