False Prophesies and a "Born-Again" Jesus

Those who teach the "little gods" heresy have also embraced other serious errors.  Among them are (1) the teaching that Jesus never claimed to be God when on earth and (2) the belief that Jesus died on the cross spiritually as well as physically, assuming the nature of Satan, going to hell, suffering punishment at Satan's hand, and being "born again" in the resurrection.  All of this had to happen, it is said, for our Lord to be our complete Saviour.  Deriving such blasphemies from E.W. Kenyon, Kenneth Copeland offered his followers and alleged prophesy from Jesus Christ Himself:  "Don't be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you are God. . . .  They crucified me  for claiming that I was God.  But I didn't claim that I was God;  I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in me.  Hallelujah, that's what you're doing."

Elaborating on this later, Copeland declared, "I didn't say Jesus wasn't God.  I said He didn't claim to be God when He lived on earth."  In response to his many critics, Copeland said, "Search the Gospels for yourself.  If you do, you will find what I say is true."  Having done just that, we find that what he says is not true and that Jesus contradicted him in the Gospel of John by affirming He was the great I AM of Exodus 3, for which the Jews sought to stone Him, claiming blasphemy as their ground.  They understood what apparently escaped Kenneth Copeland (i.e., that Jesus claimed deity).  Prophesies such as Copeland's do not originate with Christ or the Holy Spirit, and Scripture flatly rejects them as false.  We are, therefore, warned not to fear false prophets (Deut. 18:22).

In his Phillipians epistle, Paul confirms Christ's own self-understanding:  "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:  Who, [existing or never ceasing to be in the form of God] nevertheless: took upon Him the form of a servant." (2:5-7, KJV).

The "born-again" Jesus concept perverts, on the other hand, the doctrine of Christ's finished work on the cross, as demonstrated in the following quotations:

It was not sufficient for Christ to offer up only His physical life on the cross.  His human spirit had to  "descend into hell" . . . .  While Christ was identified with sin, Satan and the hosts of hell ruled over Him as over any lost sinner.  During that seemingly endless age in the nether abyss of death, Satan did with Him what he would, and all hell was "in carnival." (Billheimer, Destined for the Throne, pp. 83-84.)

Jesus is the first person ever to be born again.  Why did His spirit need to be born again?  Because it was estranged from God . . . .  What is spiritual death?  The opposite of spiritual life . . . .  Spiritual death means something more than separation from God.  Spiritual death also means HAVING SATAN'S NATURE . . . .  When one is born again, he takes upon himself the nature of God.  Sin is more than a physical act; it is a spiritual act.  He became what we were, that we might become what He is . . . .  His spirit was separated from God.  And He went down into hell in our place.  (Kenneth E. Hagin, The Name of Jesus, pp. 29-32)

If Jesus paid the full penalty of sin on the cross only, that is, by His physical death alone, then sin is wholly a physical act . . . .  Jesus' work was not finished when He yielded up His physical life on the cross.   (Billheimer, Destined for the Throne, p. 94.)

It is unnecessary to analyze this error further.  It proclaims itself.  When Scripture speaks of Christ's being made sin for us (II Cor. 5:21), both the context and grammar indicate that He became a "sin offering,"  of which Isaiah spoke (Isaiah 53:4-7, 10) and which is duly recognized by a footnote on the passage in the New International Version.


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