I have an axe to grind. Please indulge me for a moment.

Spurgeon once remarked, “Holy Scripture requires searching—much of it can only be learned by careful study.” He went on to say, “There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write “damnation” with your fingers.”

The false notion that careful study and sound exegesis of scripture is not necessary is a belief that originates in the mind of Satan himself. This “anti-intellectual” attitude running rampant in the church today and coming from pulpits across America is nothing more than a mix of mysticism, gnosticism, mindless spirituality and superstition. It is an emotionally driven, superficial, false message that is justified by pointing a pragmatic finger at pseudo-miracles, catchy music and of course Sunday attendance.

I recently finished reading a book entitled “When Heaven Invades Earth” written by self-proclaimed apostle Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding California. This is quite possibly the most heretical bunch of garbage I have read since “Love Wins.”
This “apostle” goes to war in his book against the two biblical truths of the deity of Christ and redemptive work on the cross. And you see, as a Christian, that just won’t fly with me.

Mr. Johnson stands resolutely against responsible scholarship based on sound exegesis of Scripture. According to “Apostle Billy”, such practices will bring you into bondage and spiritual death. He points to an often misused verse, “…for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Mr. Johnson uses this to promote the idea that careful study of scripture will kill you spiritually. The twisting of 2 Corinthians 3:6 has a long history of being used as a launch pad for mysticism and subjective religious experiences. The context of verse 3 shows that Paul was speaking of the letters written on stone. In other words: the Decalogue. Paul explains in Romans 7:5,6 how the law “kills.” However, it kills because of our sinful nature that it exposes. It doesn’t kill us when we study to discover what it actually means.

Johnson, like many heretical Word-Faith teachers, asserts that Jesus set aside his divinity and became a mere man. He downgrades Jesus and writes, “Jesus did everything he did as a man, laying aside His divinity in order to become a model for us.” He teaches that if Jesus was only an anointed man, then we can do everything that He did and more! He believes that God is raising up an elite group of spirit-anointed believers that can equal and even do more than the mere man, Jesus, for they too are anointed or as he says, “Christed”

Might I add here, the use of the divine title “Christ” being regarded as just another term for “anointed” is offensive in the most obscene way.

Of course, there is the pesky little problem that if Jesus was able to simply “stop being God” then he never truly was God. “God” denotes infinite, and infinite cannot simply become finite. While we do acknowledge that Jesus temporarily laid down some of his rights as God, he never stopped being God. Divinity was not taken away from Jesus. Rather, humanity was added to Him. What is more, if Jesus lived his earthly life as a mere “anointed man”, his substitutionary and vicarious death on the cross in the place of sinners is made totally fruitless, irrelevant and impotent of its meaning. And once more, no one can be saved in Jesus.

Only the God-Man could bear the burden and pay the penalty of sinful humanity.

Sorry Bill, theology matters. Words have meaning and beliefs have consequences. If that is the flag you fly at Bethel Church, you are teaching heresy. Accusing the faithful of “creating doctrine to justify their lack of power” speaks to your Biblical ignorance and ineptitude. No amount bird feathers falling from your church rafters will change that.