Assessment of Positive Confessionism

The first part will deal with doctrinal positions that have resulted from a failure to employ proper hermeneutical procedures.  The second part will be concerned with the interpretive process itself and will spotlight unacceptable hermeneutical procedures.  The doctrinal positions will often prove to be confused, confusing, errant, and at times even heretical; the interpretive procedures arbitrary, ill-advised, deficient, and at times even damaging.  A cross section of examples should suffice to document the disarray prevailing in much of present day Word/Faith preaching.  The doctrines of man and of justification will serve as samples to indicate deficiencies caused by improper hermeneutical procedures.

MAN

In a recent publication, the trichotomous nature of man (i.e., the view that man consists of three parts:  body, soul, and spirit) was defended on the basis of Hebrews 4:12 and I Thessalonians 5:23.  But neither passage, properly interpreted, supports the weight of this position, which, as R.C. Sproul has pointed out, is essentially Gnostic and has been rejected by orthodox Christianity.  Hebrews 4:12 does not inform us that the Word of God is so sharp that it divides the soul from the spirit, as if they are two separate entities, but rather that it pierces so deeply that it splits even the soul, the non bodily part of man, or the spirit, that same part but now designated as non-material down to its very root.  The focus of the verse is the piercing capability of the Word of God and not the nature of man.

Similarly, in I Thessalonians 5:23 -- which is somewhat of a "sign-off" -- the nature of man is not the issue either, but rather the sanctifying process.  Paul emphasizes that it is all-encompassing.  It easily could have read, "may God...sanctify you through and through.  May your whole spirit, soul, body, mind, heart, emotions, and so forth, be kept blameless."  That language would hardly have justified the conclusion that man consists of seven constituent elements.  No, the two passages under consideration do not even come close to teaching that man is trichotomous.

It is important to recognize this point especially in the light of the constructs the positive confessionists build on their misinterpretation of these verses.  They treat the body, soul, and spirit, as well as the corresponding physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of man, as unrelated entities.  They further hold that God has no immediate contact with either the mind or the body.  He communicates with man only through the spirit.  This concept is dangerously akin to the Gnostic view of the spirit as the "divine" aspect of man.  Incidentally, the communication the positive confessionists speak of is not just a matter of illumination of Scripture, but rather of substantive revelation.  In their view, Scripture merely addresses the mind with a view to moral renewal, whereas spiritual realities are seen as being conveyed immediately by God to the spirit.  Such a misunderstanding on the part of the positive confessionists puts both the necessity and the sufficiency of Scripture in serious jeopardy.

Quite in line with their view that the body, soul, and spirit are unrelated elements and their misunderstanding the nature of God's communication to man, the positive confessionists do not acknowledge the body as the temple of the Spirit.  The designation appearing in I Corinthians 6:19 is only conceded to be true in a derived sense in as much as the Spirit indwells the human spirit, which in turn is connected with the body.  Further, the positive confessionists hold that when the Spirit-filled spirit controls the body, the result is a committed Christian, whereas when the body dominates the spirit, a "carnal" Christian emerges. This misinterpretation has Gnostic overtones as well and is as much a misreading of Scripture today as it was in the second century.

The trichotomous view also has serious consequences for the doctrine of Christ.  In the incarnation, God, who is a Spirit, is portrayed as adopting the body of a man.  This interpretation represents a type of appollinarianism (another ancient heresy) that was condemned centuries ago.  In that same incarnation, furthermore, Christ is said to come into the possession of an actual sinful nature.  As a result, He was severed from God and became a man who was spiritually dead and physically mortal.  That condition required before anything else, the transformation of His nature that took place in the resurrection, which constituted His rebirth and paved the way for the rebirth of others (apparently no-one was ever born again in the Old Testament).  This interpretation, of course, is totally unacceptable to orthodox Christians anywhere.

Clearly, the insistence upon the trichotomous nature of man in the preaching of the positive confessionists produces a staggering amount of damage.  It paves the way to continuing revelation that qualitatively transcends Scripture, and it saddles the church with a heretical view of the Person and work of Christ.



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