God and Man Are Not On Par

This post resulted from an expose on the error of the Word of Faith movement that I read over at Mike Ratliff's Possessing the Treasure blog and is a slightly modified and expanded version of a comment I left in response to his missive.

In times past I used to wonder where to begin when the errors were as manifold and various as those espoused by the apostate, heretical leaders and followers of the word faith movement. More recently however I've come to realize the root of their error is centered squarely on their utter failure to comprehend the Word of God, which can only be understood by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

... in thy light shall we see light. (Psalms 36:9)

This failure to properly exegete God's Word and faithfully teach His precepts is a clear indication that these people are unregenerate unbelievers who are playing word games with the Bible. I shudder to imagine the condemnation and hot coals they're literally heaping upon themselves by their abominable activity. Yet the word faith gurus aren't alone in their perverse predilection for peddling spiritual pornography, not by a long shot. They're almost mystically joined in their low view of scripture and lofty view of man by the emergent / seeker sensitive / purpose driven cabal who are all guilty of formulating and espousing a man-centered non-gospel message of self esteem.

This seemingly "new" and "culturally relevant" Nerf theology is a familiar stranger to the true church of Christ. This is because it's the same old pack of lies that the devil has been repackaging, dusting off, and trotting out for ages. Whether Gnosticism, modernism, post-modernism, or plain old fashioned easy-believism (pick your -ism) it's a lie from the pit of hell.

Let it be known that God does not "discover" truths about Himself, or about the world or anything else for that matter. God doesn't "dream dreams" that He'd like to make into reality with man's help. The very notion is simultaneously so absurd and so nauseating that it's difficult for me to even entertain without becoming righteously indignant.

The God of the Holy Bible is the self contained and comprehensive Ultimate Ultimate. He is and He makes the truth that men come to know and He has always - fully and completely - known Himself from all eternity. God didn't simply find out the truth earlier or in greater measure than men and then make a legal or procedural mistake (the fall of man) which forced Him to reconsider the matter afresh and come up with a solution to the problem He created (Christ's incarnation and the atonement) as suggested by the raving demoniac Kenneth Copeland! God doesn't change or correct His course because of mankind, Satan, or anything in all of Creation! God is unfolding history precisely as He has always planned and ordained and nothing can thwart His perfect and sovereign will.

I'd also like to comment on the deeply flawed and closely held belief within the word faith movement that there is "new" or "personal" revelation available to men outside the canon of scripture. When I hear those perverse clowns regurgitate the contents of their visions, ecstatic visitations, and otherworldly messages I have no doubt that they're truly experiencing genuine spiritual manifestations, unfortunately for them and their deceived followers those manifestations are manifestly demonic.

The whole system of God's truth is set forth in the Holy Bible and the witness of the Holy Spirit alone is able to convince men of its divine origins and enlighten their spirits through regeneration in order that men might be able to receive the truth of God's self attesting Word. The Word attests to Christ, and Christ attests to the Word, in fact Christ was the Word made flesh! As any Christian ought to know the writers of scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit to set forth God's unique system of truth and thus the system of truth is self-attesting, period, end of story - no more "new revelation", no more "new light", zip, zilch, nada.

Therefore with the irrefutable truth that the Bible is God's inerrant, infallible and plenary Word established we can know for certain that the testimony or influence of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man cannot be in the nature of attesting to or providing "new" (meaning extra-Biblical or supra-Biblical) information. Otherwise if the Spirit gave additional information the scriptures would no longer be self attesting, and we know that God cannot deny Himself.