The Demotion of Christ
In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His disciples who people say that He is. Some claimed he
was a teacher, a prophet and a number of other possible theories. Then Jesus brought the
question home, "But who do you say that I am". This one question must be answered by
every man or woman who will ever walk the earth. How we answer this question
determines whether or not Jesus is our Savior or just another teacher we pass by. This
question is the foundational issue of Christianity. If we get this wrong, nothing else
matters.
Jesus is Jehovah
Satan will always attack the identity of Christ. If we miss the mark on who Jesus is,
everything else becomes mere religion. We recently completed a study on the doctrine of
the Trinity. One section was devoted to deity of Jesus. Even though Jesus veiled His
glory to become flesh and die for our sins, the Bible makes no mistake about it - He was
God in the flesh. There are pages of passages that testify to the fact that Jesus is God in
the flesh. Since I have already hashed this out in an earlier study, I will only use a few
reminder passages here. The Gospel of John in the first chapter tells us that the Word was
God, became flesh and dwelled among us. This agrees with Zechariah 2
10 " Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will
dwell in your midst," says the LORD.
11 "Many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and they shall become
My people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the LORD of
hosts has sent Me to you.
The word ’LORD’ is the Hebrew word YHWY or Jehovah. In this passage Jehovah is
declaring that His people should rejoice for He will dwell in their midst and they will
know that Jehovah has sent Him. Jehovah has sent Jehovah to dwell with His people.
John 1 uses similar wording:
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:10 tells us that the world was created through Him but did not know Him.
Colossians 1:16 states, "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are
on earth". This agrees with Isaiah 45:
18 For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed
the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who
formed it to be inhabited: "I am the LORD, and there is no other.
Three times in Isaiah God calls Himself the ’First and the Last’. In Revelation, Jesus calls
Himself the ’First and the Last’. There are many more examples of how the Bible
identifies Jehovah (God) and Jesus Christ as being the same. In spite of this, Joseph Good
of the United Pentecostal Church states:
Yeshua [Jesus] we do not see as being God when walk here on earth. We see him
as a man. A man anointed by God and sent by God. In his resurrection, he is not
God - we do not see him as God. He was a man anointed by God and restored by
God. There is nothing he or his disciples said that would cause one to believe that
he was deity."
I think the key phrase in this statement is, ’we do not see’. I would like to point out that
there is a big difference between the United Pentecostal Church (UPC) and other
Pentecostal denominations. The UPC openly denies the deity of Christ and has many
teachings contrary to the Bible. The reason I am using Joseph Good as an example is
because he was affiliated with the Word Faith movement but has since moved to the
’Christian’ satellite broadcasting company called ’Prime Time Christian Broadcasting’.
As we will see, the Jesus of the Word-Faith movement is not any more divine than you
and I are. The majority of Word-Faith teachers divide into two main views concerning
Jesus - He is a mere man or He is divine and so are we.
No Right?
Even with the departure of Joseph Good, the Word Faith doctrine openly demotes Jesus
Christ. Here is an example:
Here is where we are going to depart from ordinary church (i.e. Historic
Christianity). God is injecting His word into the earth to produce this Jesus. This
faith filled words that framed the image that’s in Him. He couldn’t just walk on to
the earth and say, ’Let it be’ because He doesn’t have the right. He had to sneak it
around the god of this world...It had to be put in here as a mystery. -Kenneth
Copeland
In one statement, God is demoted, Satan becomes a god and Jesus is reduced to a created
being formed by faith filled words. In the previous section we saw that the Bible refutes
Faith teacher’s claims that God does not have the right in this world. Did God have to use
deception to sneak Jesus around Satan? Could Satan have hindered God? Does God have
the right to do as He pleases? Isaiah 14 answers these questions:
24 The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying, "Surely, as I have thought, so it shall
come to pass, And as I have purposed, so it shall stand:
25 That I will break the Assyrian in My land, And on My mountains tread him
underfoot. Then his yoke shall be removed from them, And his burden removed
from their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth, And this is the
hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts has purposed, And who will annul it? His hand is
stretched out, And who will turn it back?"
Who is the owner of this land according to Word-Faith teachers? Satan. Whose land is it
according the God’s word? God said, "My land and My mountains". According to
scripture, God does not sneak around to fulfill His purposes but He executes His plans
with an outstretched arm that no one can turn back. In fact, Isaiah 48:16 refutes this
Word-Faith teaching directly. Faith teachers say that God had to secretly sneak Jesus into
this world, but concerning Jesus’ coming, the Bible says,
Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From
the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit Have sent
Me".
It is not hard to see that this doctrine about Jesus did not come from scripture and does
not agree with scripture.
Do Words have Power?
The Bible does not teach anywhere that words themselves have power. The Bible does
teach that by your words you are justified and by your words you are condemned. In the
last section we look at this Word-Faith quote:
Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and that’s when
the action takes place because that is when the spiritual force is brought up out of
the mouth...
The principle taught by the Word-Faith doctrine is that words spoken have the power to
create. However, let’s examine what Jesus said in context and then we will understand
that words are not the power, but rather are a testimony to what is in our heart. Look at
Matthew 12
34 "Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
35 "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things,
and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
36 "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give
account of it in the day of judgment.
37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be
condemned."
The intent of this passage is not to put the focus on words, but to put the focus on the
heart. Sin is born in the heart and the words we speak will inevitably reveal what we have
in our heart. This passage teaches just the opposite of what Faith teachers claim. We are
not being taught that our words create reality, but rather that we should measure our
words because one day we will give an account for every word we speak. We just saw
that Word-Faith doctrine demotes Christ into a created being, but many Faith teachers
take it a step further. Instead of God creating Jesus (which is blasphemy in itself), some
claim that the prophets used words to create Jesus. Here is an example:
"The Bible says the prophets spoke the word, not knowing what they were saying.
But 4,000 years past when the word became a human being and walked and
talked and moved. The spoken word became a human being. The spoken word
became flesh. The spoken word got arms on, legs, eyes, hair, a body. Now instead
of saying, "thus saith the Lord", he was saying, "I say unto you!" The word that
was spoken through the lips of the prophets was now walking on the shores of
Galilee." -Benny Hinn
Now it is no longer the Word of God that has become flesh, it is the word of man that has
become flesh. Through positive confession, the prophets created the body of Jesus which
was indwelled by their words of faith. This is far from Christian doctrine. Jesus has now
been reduced from God incarnated by His own power to a mere man created by the
power of man through man’s positive confession. The Bible says that Jesus Christ spoke
the heavens and the earth and all that is in it (including man). Word-Faith teaches that
man spoke Jesus into existence. Only one of these two doctrines can be true.
Did Jesus became one with Satan?
This belief is consistent among all the prominent Word-Faith teachers. They believe that
Jesus became one with the very nature of Satan on the cross. I have audio of dozens of
comments from most major faith teachers, but I will include only 2 here.
A serpent is the symbol of Satan. Jesus Christ knew the only way to defeat him
was to become one in nature with him. He did not take my sin, He became my sin.
Sin is the nature of Hell. Sin is what made Satan. He became flesh that flesh may
become like Him. He became death so dying men could live. He became sin so
sinners can become righteous in Him. He became one with the nature of satan so
that those who have the nature of satan can become partakers of the nature of
God. - Benny Hinn
Ken Hagan -"Why did Jesus say on the cross, ’My God’? It was because God
wasn’t his father anymore. Jesus took on the very nature of Satan."
Let’s examine scripture to see how these statements add up. We will look at the
redemption and the cross in the next section. The cross is the central theme of the Bible
and the power of Christianity. If the cross is polluted, true Christianity is void. The
doctrine surrounding redemption and the cross is absolutely vital; therefore we will soon
go into great detail on topic. For the remainder of this section we will look at 1. Did Jesus
become one with the nature of satan? 2. Is Sin the nature of Hell? 3. Did God cease to be
Jesus’ Father? 4. What does it mean, ’He became sin for us?’
1. Did Jesus Become One with Satan?
I challenge anyone to find a single verse in the Bible that remotely implies that Jesus
became satanic. Jesus warned the Pharisees of the eternal consequences when they
claimed that His work was a part of Satan. Now will we do the same thing? They
attributed His ability to cast out demons with the power of demons, now we have teachers
that attribute the cross to Satan. This is a very serious claim. If we are wrong, we are
committing blasphemy against God. We have heard the Word-Faith teachers speak, now
let’s let the Bible speak. Hebrews 13:8-9a tells us,
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about
with various and strange doctrines.
Can Jesus become the nature of Satan and still remain the same yesterday, today and
forever? We hit on this earlier, but a foundational doctrine in scripture is that God does
not change. His word does not change. He is our immovable, unchangeable Rock. Sin is
sin because it is contrary to the nature of God. God cannot change because God’s nature
cannot change. People often ask, "Is there anything God cannot do". The answer from
scripture is yes. God cannot lie. God cannot sin. God cannot change. God cannot violate
His own word. Therefore, to claim that Jesus (God in the flesh) took on the nature of
Satan violates everything that God has revealed to us about Himself. Any search of
scripture will put to rest any idea that God could become sinful in nature on any level.
The Word-Faith doctrine challenges the first sentence in the above passage and fits
perfectly in the warning of the second sentence - ’do not be carried about with various
and strange doctrines.’
2. Is Sin the nature of Hell?
Sin is not the nature of hell. Hell has no nature at all. Frequently you will hear Faith
teachers talk about the demons and the devil torturing Jesus in hell, but this only shows
that they don’t understand what the scriptures reveal about hell. Satan has no throne in
hell. Satan is not the ruler of hell. God is the ruler of all things - including hell. In Luke
8, Jesus was about to cast out demons and they begged him not to send them into the pit.
Clearly, this is not a place of Satan’s dominion, but a place of judgment to await a greater
judgment. 2 Peter 2:4 says:
For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment
Hell was created for the judgment of Satan; it is not where Satan lives. Matthew 25
makes it clear:
41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ’Depart from Me, you cursed,
into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
Our sin nature comes directly from our own fallen human nature. We don’t inherit
Satan’s nature; we inherit Adam’s sin. Satan may have deceived Adam at his fall, but
Satan’s fall has absolutely nothing to do with our own sinful nature. Man is not paying
the price for Satan’s fall. We pay the price for our own fall. Examine the scriptures and
you will see that sin is always called ’of the flesh’. It is not spiritual - though it does
affect our spiritual lives. Our flesh is sinful, but our spirit comes from God. Our entire
life is a struggle to die to the flesh and live in the spirit. Adam’s fall did not change the
fact that we are still in the image of God and we are still called to reflect God’s glory.
Our sin is in the body or flesh. 2 Corinthians 5:
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may
receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good
or bad.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ
Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
...
4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not
walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The Bible makes it clear that the nature of sin is according to the flesh, not according to
the spirit and not according to Satan’s nature. Outside of a relationship with Christ, it is
impossible to walk in the spirit. Galatians 5 explains:
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these
are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
As Christians, we have been given the power to be led by the Spirit instead of being
driven by the flesh. Outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ, no one can be Spirit led.
3. Did God cease to be Jesus’ Father?
"at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eloi, Eloi, lama
sabachthani?" which is translated, ’My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’"
All we have to do is read the rest of the story and we see that the Father - Son
relationship had not changed. Jesus’ last words on the cross were, "Father, into Your
hands I commit My Spirit". According to Word-Faith doctrine, Jesus remained one with
Satan until after three days of torture in hell. How then did He triumphantly declare, "It is
finished (or literally, ’it is paid in full’) and then commit Himself into the Father hands at
His death on the cross? Clearly, Jesus could not have taken on the nature of Satan and
committed His spirit to the Father.
The word Jesus used on the cross to declare it is finished is the Greek word ’Tetelestai’
which is an accounting term that is stamped on a receipt indicating that what is owed has
been paid. From the cross, Jesus is literally shouting, "the debt has been paid in full!" If
Jesus shouted that the debt was fully paid, what more needed to be done to redeem us?
Was Jesus estranged from God as Faith doctrine teaches? Why did Jesus cry out, ’My
God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?’ instead of calling Him Father as before? I
believe the answer is clearly seen in Psalm 22. Jesus was making it clear that the
prophecy of Psalm 22 had been fulfilled. In this passage, we are given the privilege of an
inside look as to what happened on the cross.
Psalm 22:1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far
from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning?
...
24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has
He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard.
Jesus is quoting prophecy from the cross so that we could look to Psalm 22 and see what
God has done. Even though He had the presence of mind to reveal to us the prophecy
being fulfilled, we still know that Jesus suffered immensely on the cross. He did not
shield Himself from all the human agony He chose to endure. Jesus bore our pain and
that pain included the emotions of rejection and feelings of separation. However, if we
read through this prophecy, we see that God has not despised Him nor did He turn away
from Jesus on the cross. As Jesus cried out, the Father was answering. The darkness of
emotions does not nullify the truth of God’s grace and mercy. Look at Isaiah 53:
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did
not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him
stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
...
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You
make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His
days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My
righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
Who counted Jesus as despised and who considered Him as stricken and rejected? It was
not God, but man. Every man abandoned Christ and alone He went through the pain of
the cross. Man failed, but God was always there. Understanding this is essential in order
to understand how God deals with us. If Jesus bore the sins of the world and God did not
turn His back on Him, then I know for certain that He will not turn from me. Contrary to
common belief, God can look upon sin. Sin does not affect God; God affects sin. It is sin
that cannot stand before God, not the other way around. Sin becomes my barrier, not
God’s. Because of this, God can look upon me as a sinner and hear my prayer of
repentance, forgive me and cleanse me. If God turned His back on sin, I would be
hopelessly lost in my sins. Since only God can make me righteous, how can I become
righteous enough to come before God? No, the Bible teaches that we come just as we are
and He purifies and justifies us. I can never remove my sin. As a sinner, I come before
God and He takes my sin and covers me with His own righteousness.
4. What does it mean, ’He became sin for us?’
When the Bible states that Jesus became sin for us, does this mean that He took on a
sinful nature? This is not possible. We have already seen that God does not change and
the Bible clearly says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is God, and
God cannot change, therefore Jesus cannot change. To understand what this means, let’s
begin by looking at Colossians 2:
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which
was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the
cross.
15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of
them, triumphing over them in it.
This passage tells us that Jesus took our sins and nailed them to His cross in triumph.
Ephesians 2 gives us another piece to the mystery of God’s revelation:
14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down
the middle wall of separation,
15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments
contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two,
thus making peace,
16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross,
thereby putting to death the enmity.
Notice verse 15. He abolished our sin in His flesh. Sin has put us at enmity (or at war)
with God. Romans 5:9-10 echoes this by saying that we were enemies of God but are
reconciled through His blood. To understand the cross, we have to go back to the Old
Testament. God painted a picture of salvation through the sacrifices in the Old
Testament. When Adam sinned, God sacrificed an animal and used the skin to cover
Adam’s shame. This is a picture of the cross. Isaiah 61:10 tells us that God covers us with
the robe of His salvation and the garments of His righteousness.
Abraham’s covenant was sealed with a sacrifice, once again pointing to the cross. When
God made the covenant (Genesis 15), Abraham killed the animal and made the
preparations as God commanded, but Abraham was not allowed to participate in the
actual covenant. The blood was spilled by man, but the covenant was between God and
Himself. Abraham benefited, but God swore by Himself (Hebrews 6:13). Neither
Abraham’s sin nor the sins of his descendents could nullify the covenant because he was
not allowed to be the one to seal it. This points to the cross. It was man’s sin; it was man
who shed the blood; but our salvation is a covenant between God and Himself with us as
the beneficiary.
When Moses received the command to observe the Passover sacrifice, it was a symbol of
the cross. The lamb was sacrificed and the blood was splattered on the head of the door
and both sides. This is a foreshadow of the greater work of the Lamb of God dying on the
cross. When scripture says that Jesus became our sin, it doesn’t mean He took on the
nature of Satan, nor did He take on our sinful nature; it means that He became the
sacrifice for our sin in our place. The Old Testament sacrifices did not become possessed
by the devil. They were not the nature of Satan. The wages of sin is death, therefore the
sacrifice was judged in the place of the sinner. They were counted as sin in the place of
the person obeying God out of faith. In other words, the sacrifice was credited with sin so
that the person being atoned could be credited with righteousness through Christ.
This is an important point to note, the Old Testament saints were not made righteous by
the sacrifice. They were made righteous by faith in God’s provision for sin which pointed
directly to Christ. Hebrews 10:3-4 tells us that it is impossible for the sacrifice of an
animal to take away sin. These were only a reminder of their sins and acts of obedience,
but the atonement would ultimately be paid by Jesus Christ. Just as Adam was shown that
the wages of sin is death when God covered his shame, Old Testament saints also were
shown the wages of sin through the yearly sacrifice. A bull does not have the
righteousness of God, so it cannot take my sin and exchange it for His righteousness.
Righteousness has always come by faith in God’s promise. Romans 4 explains:
3 For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted
to him for righteousness."
4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.
5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is accounted for righteousness,
So we can see that Jesus became sin for us by being credited (or accounted) with our sin.
We become the righteousness of God by being credited (or accounted) with His
righteousness. He is still God and we still have a flesh nature. We are born into God’s
kingdom - or born again. To be born again simply means that the spirit God dwells
within us and we are made alive through Christ. Romans 8:10 puts it this way:
And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life
because of righteousness.
Until you are born into the Spirit through Christ, you cannot live according to the spirit.
Was Jesus Born Again?
Because almost all Word-Faith teachers call Jesus the first born-again man, I believe it is
necessary to examine this as well. Word-Faith doctrine teaches that Adam had the nature
of God and was reborn into the nature of Satan when he sinned. In turn, Jesus took on the
nature of Satan on the cross and then had to be reborn into the nature of God. We have
already seen that Adam did not have Satan’s nature and Jesus did not take on Satan’s
nature. We do take on a spiritual nature, but it is not God’s nature - at least not the way
Word-Faith believes. (This will be covered when we get to the deification of man
section). Here are a few quotes that describe the Word-Faith doctrinal belief that Jesus
was a born again man.
Frederick Price - He was born again in the pit of hell. He became the first man to
be born again.
Benny Hinn declared that he was receiving a direct revelation of the Holy Spirit.
"Jesus is in hell. The Bible says He was begotten. You know what the word
begotten means? It means reborn. Do you want another shocker? Have you been
begotten? So was He. Don’t let anyone deceive you. Jesus was reborn. He had to
be reborn. If He was not reborn, I could not be reborn. Jesus was born again."
Kenneth Hagan
"Why did He [Jesus] need to be begotten or born again? Because He became like
we were - separated from God. Because he tasted spiritual death for every man
and because his spirit and inner man went to hell in my place. Physical death
wouldn’t remove your sins. He’s talking about spiritual death. Jesus was the first
born again man. Why did his spirit need to be born again, because it was
estranged from God."
Kenneth Copeland - The Spirit of God spoke to me and He said, realize this. Now
follow me in this and don’t let your traditions trip you up. A twice born man
whipped satan in his own domain. You are the very image and copy of that one
[Jesus Christ]. I said, ’You aren’t trying to tell me that I could have done the same
thing?’ He said, Oh yeah. If you had the knowledge of the word of God, you could
have done the same thing that He did.
It is not hard to see the serious errors that arise when we begin to allow false teaching to
go unchecked. The born-again heresy alone has reduced Jesus to a mere man; it claims
that He died spiritually (which we will study later); the transformation of our spirit and
new life in God’s kingdom has been lost; and man becomes the redeemer rather than the
redeemed. A Word-Faith teacher is actually claiming that he could have redeemed
mankind if he had known what Jesus knew - Jesus just beat him to the punch. As we saw
in the first study, this is not the Spirit of God talking.
When someone claims that Jesus is the first born again man, it is clear that they do not
understand scripture. Jesus cannot be born again because He cannot sin. To be begotten
does not mean to be reborn. Begotten comes from the Greek word ’monogenes’ which
literally means, single of its kind. This is a term used only to refer to sons or daughters.
Simply put, it means to have a child that is yours by birth as opposed to adopting a child.
If we compare this to our place as children of God we see a big difference. We are called
adopted children. We are called children of adoption in Romans 8:15, 23; Romans 9:4,
Galatians 4:5, and Ephesians 1:5.
The Bible compares our adoption to the legal adoption of that time. In Roman law a son
or daughter inherited the same legal right as a natural son. As a child, there was no legal
distinction between the two. When we compare this to Christ, we are called joint heirs
together with Him. We are not as He is, but we are partakers in His kingdom. We don’t
become a god, nor does He descend to the same level as man. It is a legal inheritance that
God has given to us as a promise. We know that Jesus was veiled in His glory and the
Bible tells us that He will return as King of kings and Lord of Lords. Every knee will
bow in heaven, earth and under the earth. No exclusions. Even Satan will bow. So we
know that it is the promise of our inheritance that we share with Christ, not His Godhead.
Eddie Snipes
Exchanged Life Outreach
http://www.exchangedlife.com
