Truth in Focus
Word of Faith Movement

Introduction
Word of Faith Movement who are they? What do they preach or teach? Are such teachings Scriptural? How did they originate? What should genuine believers do with these preachers?

Simply put, the Word of Faith Movement is the 'positive confession' or 'faith' people. They emphasise so much on 'faith and grace' and emphasise little or nothing on righteous living. Their adherents strongly believe that one can access what he wants (health, wealth, riches, success etc) through a ‘forceful’ faith backed by positive confession. They believe that to be poor or be sick is not of God. They teach their followers that faith is a creative force that can be used to shape our world that we live in, just like God through faith created the universe. There is hardly anyone who does not know this word of faith preachers. They are the 'say it' you 'have it' ministers. They are the motivational - prosperity preaching ministers who tell you to sow into "God's kingdom": that 'the more you sow, the more you'll reap'. They tell their followers that confession of Christ and belief is just enough for salvation, that the way you live afterwards does not matter. Repentance from sin and righteous living are not in their scheme of teaching.

This Word of faith teachers and preachers include but not limited to Kenneth Hagin (who can be regarded as their father); Kenneth Copeland; Morris Cerullo; Benny Hinn; Creflo Dollar; Paula White; Joyce Meyer; KC Price; Paul Crouch; Joel Osteen; TD Jakes; David Oyedepo; Christian Oyakhilome and Joseph Prince. They have hundreds of millions of followers and adherents all over the world. Their influence have become so pronounced and embedded in Christendom to the extent that their teachings have shaped the thinking of most Christians in this generation. Many denominations that hitherto were Bible based teaching ministries have turned to their pernicious ways. While relegating repentance, salvation and holy living to the background, many pastors are now prosperity preaching and motivational ministers.

What do they believe and teach?
Not in any particular order, many of them believe and teach that:
1. Believers are little gods

2. Jesus Christ was not God while on earth, but just a man. They state that Jesus Christ suffered both a spiritual and physical death: that His death on the cross was insufficient to atone for the sin of man, but He had to go to hell where He was punished by satan and He became born again before His resurrection.

3. Like God, their followers are able to decree things (wealth, health and prosperity) into existence. In other words, man possesses a creative power.

We shall in this message, examine each of these cardinal points and see if they are consistent with Biblical Christianity.

Word of faith movement says that:
1. Believers are little gods

Kenneth Hagin said "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." [Kenneth Hagin, Word of Faith, Dec 1980 p. 14]

Earl Paulk said that "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.... Until we comprehend that we are little gods and we begin to act like little gods, we cannot manifest the kingdom of God" [Earl Paulk, Satan unmasked, Atlanta: K Dimension, 1984, pg 97]

Kenneth Hagin stated thus "man was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of inferiority ....... God has made us as much like Himself as possible ..... He made us the same class of being that He is Himself."

One will hear other faith preachers like Benny Hinn make statements like "I am a god-man"; and Creflo Dollar telling his church members to say "ye are gods".

What the Bible says to this belief. (The Biblical Position)
The first time the word 'gods' was mentioned in the Bible was by Satan the serpent in the Garden of Eden when he came to deceive Eve. He said to Eve in Genesis 3:5 "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Because man wanted to be as gods he went ahead to eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil: which was against the commandment of God and brought death upon himself. This desire of man to be like gods has not changed, this the devil knows very well. He has therefore brought this back to man through the word of faith movement.

It should be noted that Jesus Christ the Lord never referred to His disciples as gods. The only time He used a statement that referred to humans as gods was in John 10:34, where He reminded the Jews of their tradition of calling their judges gods: that if they (the Jewish people) have no difficulty in calling their judges, gods [Psalm 82:6], why then are they finding it difficult to accept Him as the Son of God [John 10:34-36]? Christ was in no way advocating that men should be referred to as gods.

Our Lord Jesus Christ never referred to any of His disciples as 'god' or 'man-god' or 'little god'. Rather, He counselled His disciples to see themselves as servants [Matthew 23:11]. No writer of the New Testament referred to believers as gods. The early apostles never called themselves 'gods'. The teaching that believers are gods is therefore not biblical Christianity. Why then should the Word of faith movement use this term? It is because they do not belong to Christ. They belong to the New Age movement that seeks to belittle God and elevate man. They are of the devil. The deeds of their father they will do: he has always been a liar and remains a liar [John 8:44]. He used this trick in the Garden of Eden [Genesis 3:5-6], he is still using the same old trick today through the word of faith movement and many have fallen prey to this. This is very sad and pathetic!

Word of faith movement says that:
2. Jesus Christ was not God while on earth, but just a man: that Jesus Christ suffered both a spiritual and physical death: that His death on the cross was insufficient to atone for the sin of man, but He had to go to hell where He was punished by satan and He became born again before His resurrection.

Hagin said "spiritual death means having satan's nature ..... (Jesus) ... is the first one who was ever born-again." [Kenneth Hagin, The New Birth, [Tulsa, Okla: Hagin Ministries, 1975], p.10; The Word of Faith, April 1982, p.5].

Another word of faith teacher K.C. Price said "do you think the punishment for our sin was to die on a cross? If that were the case, the two thieves could have paid your price. No the punishment was to go into hell itself and serve time in hell separated from God ..... Satan and all the demons of hell thought that they had Him bound, and threw a net over Jesus and dragged Him down to the very pit of hell itself to serve our sentence." [Frederick Price, Ever Increasing Faith Messenger, [June, 1980], p.7].

Kenneth Copeland said that Jesus "allowed Himself to come under satan's control" [Kenneth Copeland, Voice of Victory, [September 1991]. He also said that God told him [Copeland] would have redeemed man the same way Jesus Christ did if he had the knowledge of the Word of God that Jesus Christ did, because he [Copeland] is a reborn man too."

This is what the Bible says to this belief. (The Biblical Position)
Jesus Christ is the only Incarnate Son of God. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin and is called JESUS who saves His people from their sins. [Matthew 1:18, 21; Luke 1:31-35]. As God in human form, Jesus Christ was both man and God on earth [John 1:1, 14; Philippians 2:5-6; Hebrews 1:3]. Christ as God in human form made the redemption of man through Him possible. If He was just man, He would have been as every other man on earth and would never have been able to redeem man. Our redemption is entirely dependent upon the Deity of Christ.

Matthew 1:21 "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins."

John 1:29 "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

There is no passage of the Bible that suggests that The Lord Jesus Christ died a spiritual death, was sent to hell and was punished by Satan and demons. These statements are blasphemous.

The Bible teaches that the work of man's salvation was completed by Christ on the cross.

Jesus Christ blotted out our transgressions [Isaiah 43:25; Acts 3:19]. He did this when He bore our sins on the cross and shed His blood for the remission of our sins. He became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [2 Corinthians 5:21]. Let us note very carefully that Christ did not become a sinner as erroneously and heretically taught by the Word of faith Movement. The phrase "He made Him sin for us" in 2 Corinthians 5:21 means that He bore our sins in our stead and took them away by shedding His blood for us. It was a vicarious death that was essential for man's atonement. This was accomplished on the cross as He said "It is finished" [John 19:30], that is the work needed for the salvation of
man has been accomplished; Satan and his network of demons have been defeated [1 John 3:8] and man has once again been reconciled to God. The way of salvation is now open to as many as call upon the Name of The Lord and draw upon the finished work of Christ on the cross.

Word of faith movement says that:
3. Like God, their followers are able to decree things (wealth, health and prosperity) into existence. In other words, man possesses a creative power.

This is what the Bible says to this belief. (The Biblical Position)
The Bible teaches that Christ has given believers power over demonic and other diabolical powers [Mark 16:15-18; Luke 10:18-19]. This power we should note very carefully is not ours but a delegated one. We exercise this power as we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost and engage in spiritual warfare. The Bible does not teach us to decree physical wealth upon our lives. In fact, the Bible is against our praying with wrong motives: that is praying only on what gives us pleasure (James 4:3). There is no passage of the Scriptures that suggests that believers are able to control the weather, decree wealth and other things into their lives through their confessions of faith. If believers are able to control weather as taught by this movement, why then do we have natural disasters, earth quakes, hurricanes, cyclones, storms etc in the world, including America where there are loads of word of faith people? If believers are able to ward off sickness as they claim through the power of positive confession, why do we still have people falling sick among their members while many had died and are still dying like every other person? Brethren don't get me wrong. There is definitely nothing wrong in praying against sickness, pains, death etc. The Bible enjoins us to "pray (not decree) without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We are taught in the Bible that "The effectual fervent prayer (not decree) of a righteous man availeth much." [James 5:16]. But all these are still subject to the will of God [Matthew 26:39, 42].

Brethren, the bible teaches that God is sovereign and exercises His prerogative without consultation with anybody [Daniel 4:35; Romans 11:33-36]. The God, who allowed Herod to behead James the apostle, is the same God who delivered Peter from the same Herod [Acts 12:1-10]. The God who made Paul to be caught up into paradise where he heard unspeakable words, which were not lawful for anyone to utter is the same God who allowed a thorn on the flesh of Paul [2 Corinthians 12:2-4]. The God who allowed Elisha to fall sick such that he died from that sickness [2 Kings 13:14] is the same God who used the bones of dead Elisha as a point of contact to raise a dead man who was about to be buried [2 Kings 13:21].

Man does not have the ability to create things out of nothing. Whatever man has made came from other things that were already in existence. The ability to create something out of nothing is only resident with God [Genesis 1:1-3]. God alone is He "who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were."[Romans 4:17]

Conclusion
Let us conclude this message by having a look at the origin of this movement. Like we said earlier, Kenneth Hagin (the father of the movement) was the student of E.W. Kenyon. E.W. Kenyon is therefore usually regarded as the originator of the Word of faith Movement. Who was E.W. Kenyon? According to Wikipedia, E.W. Kenyon (1867-1948) was a Methodist minister who later became a Pentecostal minister. He studied the metaphysical New Thought teachings of Phinehas Quimbyo. He then combined the mind science (where 'name it' and 'claim it' originated) with Pentecostalism, to give birth to this mysticism called 'Word of Faith Movement'. Rev. Robert S. Liichow, stated that E.W. Kenyon taught the concepts of ‘(1) the creative power of words, (2) Jesus ministering as only a man anointed with/by the Holy Spirit, (3) Jesus defeating Satan as a born-again man, a man like you and I, (4) and Jesus was born again from sin (Jesus became an actual sinner according to Kenyon) into new divine life. These and several other bizarre, unbiblical and heretical concepts are rooted in Kenyon’s ideas of what transpires when we become “new creations” in Christ.’ Note that these beliefs of Kenyon all fall in line with what we had earlier stated as the beliefs of this movement.

The 'faith' being propagated by the faith-word movement is therefore not biblical faith. It is nothing but positive confession, which has no scriptural basis. It has its origin in metaphysics of which E.W. Kenyon (the founder of word of faith movement) was a part of. In an official statement by the Assemblies of God, USA in 1980 on 'The Believer and Positive Confession', it stated that the word-faith theology 'are in conflict with the Word of God'. It correctly pointed out that true biblical faith considers the will and sovereignty of God which can be discerned from a sound biblical interpretation.

Our Lord Jesus Christ says in Matthew 7:18b that a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. The Word of faith movement is founded on mysticism and not on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their teachings are anti-scriptures and are not built upon the foundation of the early church apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief corner stone [Ephesians 2:20].

No true child of God will have anything to do with these false apostles and deceitful workers, who pretend that they are apostles of Christ but are actually children of the devil [2 Corinthians 11:13-15]. They are wolves in sheep's clothing [Matthew 7:15]. They are enemies within. They are dangerous. Since they do not abide in the doctrine of Christ, they do not have God [2 John 9]. The Bible warns believers from associating with these workers of iniquity. Whoever does that becomes a partaker of their evil deeds [2 John 11; Romans 16:17]. According to one minister of the gospel, ‘This false gospel has found its way into many supposed believers because it feeds the natural fallen nature of man. This movement is a false betrayal of Christianity. It should be abhorred by anyone who says that he or she is a child of God.’ This means that if you are in their church, leave! They will lead you to hell. If you promote their teachings on the social media, in your church or through other means, stop it! If you are a word-faith teacher, repent and stop teaching heresy. Ask God for forgiveness.

Maranatha! The Lord comes!

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear [Matthew 11:15].

God bless you.



Please watch this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZWYG0JfaFk

Endtime pastors. Imaging Joseph Prince condemning confession of sins according to 1 John 1:9. He said confession of sins does not bring salvation.