þ A Profile Of The Word-Faith Movement

Positive Confession and the Word Faith Movement
-Compiled by Clete Hux

Positive Confession is the belief that if a believer speaks
"spiritual" or "faith-filled" words then he can have what he
says. Unfortunately, this influence has invaded the church
and continues to cause much turmoil and confusion.

Many of the teachers of this movement believe that words are
so powerful that they can influence the physical and
spiritual worlds. For example:

In "The Tongue, a Creative Force" (1976), positive
confessionist Charles Capps, teaches that there are powerful
"spiritual words." Such words, which are ordinary words, can
under certain circumstances, become vehicles for creative or
supernatural power.

When faith-filled spiritual words are spoken (as words of
power), they can alter the physical and spiritual world.
Capps says, "You see there is more to it than just saying
it. The words must originate from the inner man where
spiritual power is released through words."

He goes on to state that "spirit words can control both the
spirit world and the physical world. Because the words
themselves have power, they will work for either God or man
in the same manner." He goes on:

 "The spirit of man is not of this world, it is of the
spirit world. The creative ability of man comes through his
spirit... He speaks spirit words that work in the world of
the spirit. They will also dominate the physical world. He
breathes spirit life into God's Word and it becomes a living
substance, working for him as it worked for God in the
beginning. These spirit words dominate the natural world."
(p.117-118).

What Capps is alluding to in the above statement is his
teaching that since God, "by His faith" (using words) spoke
this physical world into existence - the believer, using
faith, can do the same. That is, the believer can speak
things into existence.  However, God's word is already
"quick and powerful" {Hebrews 4:12}and it is referred to as
the "Word of Life" {Phillipians 2:16}. It is not necessary
to activate it by speaking words of  faith as though it were
asleep or dead! Rather, it is by hearing the "living" word
that one is brought to salvation through faith in
Christ.{Romans 10:17}.

A number of the prosperity teachers believe that the
spiritual world controls and continually forms the physical
world. So, if one can learn to control the spiritual world,
then he can learn to control the physical world as well.
This teaching then becomes the foundation for securing
individual prosperity.

That's why in "Releasing the Ability of God," Capps states,
"You can have what you say!... (because) the powerful force
of the spiritual world that creates the circumstances around
us is controlled by the words of the mouth. This force comes
from inside us... the confession of our mouth will cause you
to possess it. (pp.98-99, parenthesis mine). This is why he
teaches, "Discipline your vocabulary," and "today your word
is god over your circumstances." (pp.101-104).

Capps also teaches that the power within a Christian, within
one's spirit, functions according to unchangeable laws. He
says "These principles of faith are based on spiritual laws.
They work for whosoever will apply these laws." (The Tongue,
p.103)

D.R. McConnell, in his book, "A Different Gospel," directly
traces the origin the spiritual laws taught in positive
confession to the metaphysics of E.W. Kenyon, a man of 50-60
years ago whose theology was that of Pentecostal Christian
Science.( A Different Gospel, pp. 3-56).

McConnell records Kenneth Copeland in "The Laws of
Prosperity," ( p.98, 101), saying, "You can have what you
say! In fact, what you are saying is exactly what you are
getting now. If you are living in poverty and lack and want,
change what you are saying. It will change what you have...
Discipline your vocabulary... God will be obligated to meet
your needs because of His word... If you stand firmly on
this, your needs will be met." (Ibid, p.173).

McConnell further states, that E.W. Kenyon's New Thought
classmate, Ralph Waldo Trine, attributes the confession of
prosperity to "occult power." He says that "Trine believed
that thought is a force, and it has occult power of unknown
proportions when rightly used and wisely directed." (Ibid,
p.174).

The usage of occult powers is, of course, a practice that
the Faith teachers would publicly reject. And of course,
this is not to say that those offering these teachings are
occultists. They are teachers who may never have thought
through the implications of the practices they advocate.
They may be unaware of the similarities between certain
aspects of positive confession and occultic practices.
Nevertheless, the similarities do exist, and these practices
are neither Biblical or Christian.

John Ankerberg's issue of "News and Views," June 1988, p.1,
reports that these words are used in religious rituals to
influence both the spirit world and the material world. The
report quotes occult magician David Conway discussing the
power of magical words to affect these worlds:

 "Unseparable from magical speculation about words is the
theory of vibrations, which supposes that certain sounds
have a powerful acoustic impact on both the spiritual and
astral worlds... Like the spiritual world and astral plane
can in some circumstances be affected by sound, so that
verbal magic may be said to derive its power not only from
the idea contained in certain words, but from the peculiar
vibrations these words create when spoken." ("Magic: an
Occult Primer", pp.74-75).

Occultists, of course, have long claimed the true inner
nature of man is powerful, capable of exercising divine
ability. This is why New Ager Benjamin Creme says, for
example, "One doesn't pray to oneself, one prays to the God
within. The thing is to learn to invoke that energy which is
the energy of God. Prayer and worship as we know it today
will gradually die out and men will be trained to invoke the
(inner) power of deity." ("The Reappearance of Christ and
the Masters of Wisdom" pp. 135-136, parenthesis mine)

The reason that positive confessionists, like the
occultists, can place so much emphasis on the inner man and
his divine power is that they think the believer is a god.
Kenneth Copeland says, "You don't have a god in you, you are
one" (Copeland's sermon tape "The Force of Love"). And
Kenneth Hagin says, "The believer is as much an incarnation
of God as Jesus Christ." (Hagin, "Word of Faith", p.14).

To the positive confessionist, scripture passages such as
Proverbs 18: 21,  "Death and Life are in the power of the
tongue;" and James 3: 8-10 are taken as proof of this
doctrine, because they believe as "little gods" they have
the same power as God.

Is it any wonder that Charles Capps says "The confession of
your mouth even after you have prayed correctly will
determine whether or not you receive... You can release the
ability of God through the words of your mouth." ("Releasing
the Ability of God," 1978, pp.93, 96.)

For Christians words and faith are important, but there is a
limit to what words can do.

It can help or hurt a close friend or a total stranger by
what one says, but to treat words as if they were some "star
wars" type weapon by which one alters or manipulates reality
is not biblical, but occultic. If one could change reality
by the power of words spoken, then that would put man on the
same level with God.  This is exactly what teachers of the
"positive confession," or word-faith movement, claim.

We are told by God Himself that He spoke the creation into
existence (Genesis 1).  He has not given that power to
anyone else!

                     UNDERLYING BELIEFS:
GOD

To some of the Word of Faith (WOF) leaders, God is a
tritheistic being. For instance, Benny Hinn said in a sermon
broadcast on TBN on October 13, 1990 that "God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all have their own
spirit body, soul and spirit... if I can shock you and maybe
I should, there's nine of them."

Teaching that God, who is pure spirit (James 4:24), has His
own spirit body is to teach something definitely not found
in Scripture. There is no biblical basis for such a
teaching. This teaching would be more in line with Mormonism
than orthodox Christianity.

CREATION

Kenneth Copeland teaches that God created the Universe, and
everything therein, out of a spiritual substance known as
faith, by forming a mental picture of the creation in "the
insides of Him," then by using words as containers for His
faith, projected the image outwardly into the reality of
creation.

For example, in his tape, "Spirit, Soul, and Body," Copeland
says, "Faith is real... is a power... is a force... It's
used by God at His will... This world and everything in it
was created by Him and He used His faith to do it... Now you
couldn't really and truly say that He created it out of
nothing because faith is something... the whole thing was
born out of the force of faith that was resident inside the
being of God."

Copeland's misunderstanding of faith and creation has a New
Age ring to it. If the universe was created out of God's
faith, and if this faith is the actual life and personality
of God, then the creation is merely an extension of God
(pantheism or panentheism), thus making all things divine.

In his tape, "Following the Faith of Abraham," Copeland
asserts, "You don't think God created man in His image and
created the earth in some other image, huh? There's nothing
under the whole sun that's new. This is a copy of home a
copy of the mother planet where God lives, He made a little
one just like it and put us on it."

Evidently to Copeland, God lives on a big earth just like
the smaller one we live on, since everything images the
things of God.

There is a striking similarity here to Mormonism which
teaches that "God is supposed to have lived on a planet near
a mysterious star called Kolob" (Bruce McConkie, "Mormon
Doctrine," p.428).

LITTLE GODS

Gloria Copeland, Kenneth Copeland's wife, stated in "The
Believer's Voice of Victory," that, "when God breathed the
breath of life into Adam, He transmitted His very self into
him. God imparted the same spiritual substance of which His
is made into Adam's being" ("Believers Voice of Victory,"
June, 1986, p.10)..

In his sermon tape, "Following the Faith of Abraham,"
Kenneth Copeland teaches that God created Adam a god (having
the same attributes as God Himself): "And Adam is as much
like God as you can get, just the same as Jesus when He came
into the earth... And I want you to know something - Adam in
the garden of Eden was God manifested in the flesh." We now
see that Brigham Young of Mormonism isn't the only one who
has taught the Adam-God theory ("Deseret News," 6/16/1873),
but also Kenneth Copeland (parenthesis mine).

In "The Force of Love," another sermon tape, Copeland
states,  "You don't have a god in you, you are one."

Kenneth Hagin in "Word of Faith" says, "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."("Word of Faith," December 1980, p.14).

Earl Paulk of the Harvester Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in
his work, "Satan Unmasked" explains it like this: "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... we have trouble comprehending this
truth... Until we comprehend that we are little gods, we
cannot manifest the kingdom of God" (p.97).

In his book "Agony of Deceit," Michael Horton has documented
Kenneth Copeland in a July 19, 1987 crusade as saying, "I
say this and repeat it so it don't upset you too bad... When
I read in the Bible where He {Jesus} says, I AM, I say, Yes,
I am too!" (p.268). In John 8:58, I AM is a self
proclamation of Jesus' own unique Deity from  Exodus
3:14,15.)

Dave Hunt, in his book "Seduction of Christianity,"
documents Casey Treat, pastor of Seattle's Christian Faith
Center, as saying in his tape series "Believing in Yourself"
that we're exact duplicates of God. "I'm an exact duplicate
of God! When God looks in the mirror He sees me! When I look
in the mirror, I see God! Oh, hallelujah!... You know,
sometimes people say to me, when they're mad and want to put
me down... You just think you're a little god. Thank you!
Hallelujah! You got that right! Who'd' you think you are,
Jesus?  Yep!...Are you listening to me? Are you kids running
around here acting like gods? Why not? God told me to!...
Since I'm an exact duplicate of God, I'm going to act like
God!"

One of WOF's proof texts for them being "little gods" is
Psalms 82:6. If one looks carefully, it is apparent that God
is mocking the judges (gods) who had perverted justice. He
{God} says, "I say ye are gods, nevertheless, you will die
as mere men" (vss.6 & 7). This is the same proof text the
Mormons use to say one can become a god.

It is also a contradiction that if one is a god that one
should die as a man. God is mocking and in a real sense
condemning those that would arrogantly try to lift
themselves to such status.

As is seen with Casey Treat, another problem with WOF
teachers is their misunderstanding of the meaning of man
being made in the image of God. To use Treat's own
illustration of looking in the mirror, when one does look,
what one sees is one's own reflection. The image is not
reality. The image is only a reflection of one's reality.
One reflects God's image (some of His qualities) but one is
not God.

Granted that man is in the apex of God's creation and as
such is completely different from the rest of creation, but
being God's image does not mean that one is a little god.
Humans are not divine by nature. God is divine.  "Howbeit
then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which
by nature are no gods". (Galatians 4:8, also see Isaiah 1:6-
11, 43:10, 44:6; Gen.1:26, 28, 3:4-5; Ezekiel 28:2; Psalm
8:6-8.)

THE BORN AGAIN JESUS

Michael Horton points out in "Agony of Deceit" that "any
teaching that denies that Christ as 'the only begotten Son,
the One and Only incarnation of God' is heresy" (John 3:16,
1:14,18; I John 4:1). It is important to point this out.

Kenneth Copeland, in "Believer's Voice of Victory"  in
relating to what Christ told him says, "Don't be disturbed
when people accuse you of thinking you're God... the more
you get to be like me, the more they're going to think that
way of you. They crucified me for claiming that I was God.
But I didn't claim I was God, I just claimed I walked with
Him and that He was in me. (August, 1988, p.8).

The early Gnostic heretic, Cerinthus, taught that Jesus was
just a man, becoming divine only at Baptism. At the cross,
the Holy Spirit left Him, leaving Jesus devoid of His divine
nature - once again He was just a man. ("Baker's Dictionary
of Theology," Cerinthians, p.113)

Copeland seems to advocate the same thing in the same
Believer's Voice of Victory, Aug. 1988 issue when he says,
"He voluntarily gave up that advantage, living His life here
not as God but as a man. He had no innate supernatural
powers. He had no ability to perform miracles until after He
was anointed by the Holy Spirit as recorded in Luke 3:22."
This is needed to understand the WOF's teaching on Jesus'
spiritual death.

In "God's Will for You," Gloria Copeland states, "Jesus
experienced the same spiritual death that entered man in the
garden of Eden" (p.3). This can not be so because Adam's
death in the garden was due to disobedience where Jesus'
death on the cross was due to obedience.(Phil.2: 8b)

In "The Name of Jesus," Kenneth Hagin defines spiritual
death as "something more than separation from God. Spiritual
death also means having Satan's nature... Jesus tasted death
- spiritual death - for every man" (p.31).

To many in the WOF movement, the emphasis is not on the
physical death of Jesus (which is what the Bible emphasizes,
i.e., "without shedding of blood is no remission," see
Hebrews 9:12, 14, 15, 22) but on the "spiritual death" of
Christ.

On his tape, "What Happened From the Cross to the Throne,"
Copeland says, "When {Jesus} said, 'It is finished' He was
not speaking of the plan of redemption. The plan of
redemption had just begun. There was still three days and
three nights to be gone through before He went to the
throne" (parenthesis mine).

This is in direct opposition to what Christ said on the
cross, "It is finished." (John 19:30). The word is
"tetelistai" meaning "paid for in full." There was nothing
more to pay for beyond the cross. If there was, Jesus would
not have said to the thief on the cross, "Today shalt thou
be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23: 43), but instead would
have said,  "Today you will be with Me in hell."