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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The Perspicuity of Scripture

Perspicuity is a fancy word for "clarity."  The Reformers insisted that, in most cases, the clearest interpretation of a text is the correct one.  The Bible isn't a puzzle.  It is not designed to lead the "initiate" into a maze of obscure or ambiguous passages.  One does not need a Ph.D. in theology to understand that the Bible teaches we are sinners in need of the atoning work of Christ.

Though we believe in the basic clarity of Scripture, we do not mean by this that all parts of the Bible are equally clear.  The Bible teaches some very complex and difficult things.  Though its essential message is clear, there is enough complexity in the Bible to keep the sharpest minds busily engaged for a lifetime.  The message of the Bible may be simple in its essence, but the Bible as a whole is anything but simplistic.  To be able to handle the whole of Scripture, with all of this complexity, is a difficult task.  It requires diligent study and, for the vast majority of serious students, years and years of disciplined training.  Hence, James' warning, "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly" (James 3:1).

God requires us to love Him with all of our minds.  To apply our minds diligently to His Word is hard work.  There is no magical (or superstitious) substitute for that work.  "Words of knowledge" do not suffice when we have the final "Word of Knowledge" (the Bible) to teach us.  Thinking is not "carnal" or "unspiritual."  But it is hard work.  That is one reason people find it so easy to turn their minds over to a high powered preacher who convinces them that he is "plugged in" to the Divine intelligence.  Pious appeals to direct supernatural insights are often, if not always, spiritual masks for our own indolence.  It requires far less effort to listen to private subjective hunches than to pay the price of mastering Greek, Hebrew, historical backgrounds and the science of hermeneutics.

For more information on Victory Churches and the Faith Movement, go to the Reference Library.  Click on any book title to get a brief overview of the book.  All books on the list are available through www.amazon.com. 

Knowing Truth

Neglecting the serious questions for cheap thrills, one way some televangelists have settled for less is by depreciating the mind, centering almost entirely on feelings.  Sometimes the impression is given that faith and intellect are in a state of war.  "The mind," says Hagin, "is something that might trip you and cause you to fall."    Yet, in truth, though our minds are fallen, they are the door to our heart, our conscience, our feelings, and our actions.  What we believe determines how we feel and act.

The call Jesus gave to love God "with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind" is not at all foreign to Christianity.  Some of the greatest intellects of all time have found no contradiction between faith and reason. Since God is the author of both, faith and reason can (indeed should) be as compatible as a left and a right hand.

Many argue that it is more spiritual and faithful to believe without any intellectual reasons.  "Just love Jesus," they say, apart from any serious knowledge of who this Jesus is or what He accomplished.  Their argument, of course, is wrong.  Paul wrote, "We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."  (2 Cor. 10:5).  In other words, it is a profoundly spiritual task to critique the philosophies that hold us back from knowing God and His Son, Jesus Christ.  It is actually a sign of a lack of spiritually that makes one fail to provide a well argued alternative to secularism in our universities and in our culture.

Christians often object to studying philosophy (and even theology!) on the basis that in Colossians 2:8, Paul warns us to beware that no-one takes us captive to such deceptive principles of the world.  Although Paul did issue such a warning, the only way for one to beware of the negative influence of some philosophy is to study and understand it thoroughly.  In order to beware of philosophy we need to be aware of it.  If we understand the competing ideologies well, we will know when they are affecting us.  For instance, because the preachers under criticism in this book apparently do not know church history, they are unaware that they are repeating the errors of past ages.  Because they do not understand Greek philosophy or Oriental mysticism or 19th theosophy, they do not know how seriously they have been affected by such thinking.  To take thoughts captive we have to think.


For more information on Victory Churches and the Faith Movement, go to the Reference Library.  Click on any book title to get a brief overview of the book.  All books on the list are available through www.amazon.com.