ARE CHRISTIANS EQUAL WITH GOD?
by David McAllister
Last Updated 2/5/02
[c] The Belfast Berean 2002
Sounds all
so familiar? As we move back down through the corridors of time and remind
you of the
very first created
being who ever dared to think such a though! "How thou art fallen from
heaven, O
Lucifer, son
of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground....For thou hast said
in thine heart, I will
ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also
upon the mount of the
congregation,
in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the
most High."
[Isaiah 14:12-14]
Whilst Lucifer
believed he could be like the most High. There are those within the church
who teach
we are already
like the most High. These teachers Messrs. Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland
encourage Christians
to quit belittling themselves, and the Almighty God with a 'filthy rags'
mentality
and recognize
their equality with Jesus and God. Dollar and Copeland not only claim that
man is an
exact duplicate
of the image of God, but a exact duplicate including size and shape, who
has an
ability to create
with words as God did.
They reason that
because Jesus Christ said that God was His Father and claimed to be equal
with
God, that Christians
are also equal with God. Why and How you may think? Because God is our
Father, and
we are sons and daughters of God through our faith in Christ Jesus, so
we also have the
same equality
with God that Jesus Christ has.
What teachers
like Dollar and Copeland don’t seen to understand is that God is a Spirit,
and invisible
[Rom 1:20; Col
1:15-16; 1 Tim 1:17; Heb 11:27] how then could man be made exact duplicates
of the
image of God
including size and shape? Yet the Bible could not be more clearer in Isaiah
43:10 that
no god or little
god has ever been formed. The Bible could not be more clearer in Isaiah
46:9 when
God says "I
am God and there is none like me". However Kenneth Copeland and Creflo
Dollar
somehow seem
to miss this. How no one can tell?
Yes it is true
that in this world there are those who call themselves 'gods' or 'little
gods', and there are
those who are
called 'gods' and 'lords' in this world by others. But to the true evangelical
'Born-Again
Bible Believing
Christian', their is but ONE GOD and they would totally reject these teachings
as the
same lie of
the serpent in the garden of Eden to the Woman in Genesis 3:4-5.
Dave Hunt in
his book Occult Invasion, page 345 writes "To teach that man is God, a
god ,or equal to
God, and that
faith is a force that works according to certain laws, differs little from
atheism. Either way,
there is no
being in the universe who is man’s superior."
The God of the
Bible through His prophet Isaiah makes it abundantly clear that He alone
is the only
true and living
God, and their is none like unto Him, and their are no other 'gods' or
'little gods'
beside Him.
It is written "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom
I have chosen;
that ye may
know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no
God formed,
neither shall
there be after me." [Isa 43:10] It is written in 1 Cor 8:5 "For though
there be that are called
gods, whether
in heaven or in earth, [as there be gods many, and lords many,] but to
us [Christians]
there is but
one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord
Jesus Christ, by
whom are all
things, and we by him." The only true and living God says "I am the first,
and I am the
last; and beside
me there is no God....Is their a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I
know not any."
[Isa 44:6-8]
and again "I am the Lord, and their is none else, there is no God beside
me....I am the Lord,
and their is
none else....and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour;
there is none
beside me. Look
unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God and their
is none
else" [Isa 45:1-22]
and again "Remember the former things of old: for I am God; and there is
none else; I
am God and there
is none like me;" [Isa 46:9]
Faith teachers
like Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland reject the counsel of the Almighty.
We
received the
following e-mail from the ministry of Creflo Dollar in response to the
above article
'KENNETH COPELAND
and CREFLO DOLLAR EQUAL WITH GOD?' In the E-Mail we are told 'We pray
that the following
information will bring you even greater understanding concerning the subject
of our
equality with
God.' However as one reads down the list of pretexts used to support this
teaching, one
can quickly
see how faith teachers like Dollar are apt at talking a biblical text out
of its context, whilst
paying scant
heed to the context of the passage it has been lifted from. Below we will
look carefully at
each text that
Dollar has used and show within the context of that passage that what Dollar
is teaching
is wrong.
The E-Mail reads:
'....The Bible states that Jesus Christ called God His Father thus making
himself
equal with God
(John 5: 17-18). As sons and daughters of God through our faith in Christ
Jesus, we also
have equality
with God. (I John 3:2). a.) John 5:17-18 Jesus called God "Father " thus
making himself
equal with God
b.) Ps.82:6 You are gods and children of the Most High God c.) John 10:34-36
Jesus
quoted Ps. 82:6
and The Jews wanted to stone him for blasphemy d.) Ps 8:4-5 Man was created
a little
lower than the
angels (angels-Heb. word "Elohim"- God - The Creator of all Physical things.)
e.) Gen.
1:26-27 Man
was made in the image and likeness of God f.) "It's understood that you
and I are not God.
There is only
one God. However, as His children, we are like him. He's the big "G", and
we're the little
"g". (Dr. Creflo
A.. Dollar from his new book-The Image of Righteousness-pg.91). g.) "You
are an exact
duplicate of
the image of God. This does not mean that you are God. It means that you
are made in
God's image
and His likeness, with an ability to create with words as God did. (Dr.
Creflo A.Dollar from
his new book-The
Image of Righteousness-pg. 83)....'
John 5:17-18
John 5:17-18
"But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore
the Jews
sought the more
to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that
God was his
Father, making
himself equal with God."
This is the first
instance were Creflo Dollar pays no heed to the context of the passage
in question,
and he fails
to understand what Jesus Christ was claiming when He said God was His Father
making
himself equal
with God!!
J.Sidlow Baxter
explains "He [Jesus] claims equality in seven particulars: [1] Equal in
working: "What
things soever
he [the Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise" [v 19]. [2] Equal
in knowing: "For
the Father loveth
the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth" [v20]. [3] Equal
in resurrecting:
"For as the
Father raiseth up the dead.....so the Son quickeneth whom he will" [v 21
with vv.28,29]. [4]
Equal in judgement;
"For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the
Son" [v.
22 with v. 27].
[5] Equal in honour. "That all men should honour the son even as they honour
the Father"
[v23] [6] Equal
in regenerating: "He that hearth my word, and believeth on him that sent
me....is passed
from death unto
life" [vv. 24, 25]. [7] Equal in self existence: "For as the Father hath
life in himself; so
hath he given
to the Son to have live in himself" [v. 26].".
Hopefully faith
teachers may now understand what blasphemy it is to claim to be equal with
God in the
context of this
passage, or any other for that matter? Is Creflo Dollar Equal with God
in Working? Equal
in Knowing?
Equal in Resurrecting? Equal in Judgement? Equal in Honour? Equal in Regenerating?
Equal in Self
Existence? Of course not!
Philippians 2:5-6
Philippians
2:5-6 "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who being
in the form of
God, though
it not robbery to be equal with God"
This passage
does not encourage Christians to think they are equal with the Almighty,
the passage
deals with the
deity of Jesus Christ and warns that just because Jesus Christ made himself
of no
reputation,
becoming a servant made in the likeness of men, does not mean He became
less than
deity. Is not
the key to this passage in v[6] 'Who being in the form of God'? The reason
that Jesus
Christ though
it not robbery to be equal with God due to the fact he is God? As the text
suggests?
God is not telling
Christians to have the like mind of Christ when He thought it not robbery
to be equal
with God, but
instead to have the like mind of Christ when He humbled Himself and made
Himself of
no reputation
becoming a servant to all.
In the Hebrew-Greek
Key Study Bible [KJV] we read "What is to be understood here is that Christ
merely relinquished
His glory which he had due to the fact that He was deity. Prior to His
death, He
asked the Father
to glorify Him in a position next to God with the glory which He had even
before the
world was created
[John 17:5].... The Lord lacked recognition and glory by men while He was
on earth
as the Incarnate
God. However, as far as God was concerned, Christ never lost His position
before
God."
Psalm 82:6 &
John 10:34-36
Psalm 82:6 "I
have said, ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most high. But
ye shall die like
men and fall
like one of the princes"
John 10:34-36
"Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods?
If he called them
gods, unto whom
the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken: Say ye of him,
whom the
Father hath
sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest: because I said,
I am the Son of
God?"
We ask the simple
question was Jesus Christ confused? Is their another god beside him? Is
their
really another
like unto him? Is Jesus Christ contradicting himself because he had already
taught to
the Jews beforehand
that there is only one God in Mark 12:29?
Again Dollar
pays very little heed to the context of the Psalm in question. In fact
God has nothing
good to say
about those 'gods' in Psalm 82. God is clearly unhappy and warns "How long
will ye
judge unjustly,
and accept the persons of the wicked? Defend the poor and fatherless: do
justice to the
afflicted and
needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked."
[v2-4] Would
these same judgements
by the Almighty apply to ‘god’ Dollar and ‘god’ Copeland?
In the book of
Jeremiah 10:11 we read "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods [Dollar and
Copeland]
that have not
made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth,
and from under the
heavens." We
need to remind Creflo Dollar that he like other faith teachers only quote
half of Psalm
82:6 and leave
out the other half "But ye shall die like men and fall like one of the
princes."
In the book Christianity
in Crisis, page 115, Hank Hanegraaff gives some good advice "...if Faith
propents want
to take Jesus literally when He makes His ironic statement about being
gods, why not
take Him literally
when He calls the Pharisees "snakes"[Matthew 23:33]?"
As a Christian
pointed out to me If it really were true that we are gods, why then did
the woman not
rebuke the serpent
in Paul Crouch style by saying "I am a little god! Critics, be gone!" Creflo
Dollar
explains? Dollar
says that the real deception of the serpent was not in telling the woman
she would be
like God, but
to blind the woman from the truth that she was already like God. Dollar
warns that this
deception still
runs rife in the church today by those who do not want people to understand
that they
are already
gods. In fact the real truth is that serpent tempted the Woman promising
"ye shall not
surely die....ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
In the book Occult
Invasion by Dave Hunt, page 352, we read "It was Satan, not God, who had
promised godhood
to Eve and not that she would be God, "but as [the] gods" [Genesis 3:5].
Ah, there
was the catch!
There is only one true God. The gods are all false, They are the pretenders
after
godhood, the
followers of Satan, who have believed his promise of godhood."
While the serpent
promised the woman "ye shall be as gods", Faith teachers like Dollar and
Copeland
say "we are
gods". Whilst Lucifer believed he could be like the most High. Copeland
and Dollar teach
we are already
like the most High. What’s the problem then? We just need to realise we
are gods.
In fact this
very teaching is found at the heart of the New Age Movement. We are all
gods, but have
forgot that
we are gods and through Transcendental Meditation [TM] a form of Yoga one
can realise
that they are
god. Through TM one experiences that they are god and can structure their
lives the way
they want creating
reality with their minds.
In the book of
Acts some of those who witnessed God heal the impotent man through the
Apostle
Paul cried "The
gods are come down to us in the likeness of men." Unlike Copeland and Dollar
the
Apostle Paul
rebuked those who were about to do sacrifice with the people and said "We
also are
men of like
passions with you" and preached "that...[they] should turn from these vanities
unto the
living God,
which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein"
Acts [14:11-15]
In the Believers
Bible Commentary by William McDonald [Edited by Art Farstad], page 675,
we read
"In Psalm 82,
rulers and judges are addressed by God as gods. Actually they are not divine,
but
because of their
position as God's ministers, they are dignified with name of gods. Their
greatest
distinction
is that the word of God came to them, that is they were officially ordained
by God as higher
powers concerned
with government and justice [Rom 13:1]. If the name gods could thus be
loosely
applied to men
like them, how much more fully and accurately can the name God be applied
to the Lord
Jesus."
In the HEBREW-GREEK
STUDY BIBLE [KJV], page 760, we read the following: "Some people attempt
to explain the
phrase 'ye are gods' to mean that human beings can be gods as equal to
God in His
essence. The
solution to this misinterpretation of these words is found in the proper
interpretation of the
word 'god' in
Hebrew. It is the word Elohim [430] which is used of God referring to His
office as a Judge
and Diviner
of justice. In the establishment of the office of judge in the OT, men
were given the
responsibility
of representing this office of God. Thus, the usage of the term Elohim
would not be
confusing to
one who understands that the man merely represents God. In this psalms,
however, God is
condemning those
who had perverted justice and had abused their God-given privilege to hold
the office
of a judge.
The warning given in verse seven is that though they be 'gods,' though
they hold this
honourable office
among men to rule over them as God's representative, yet they are but men
and will
die like all
other men."
In the book Christianity
in Crisis, page 113, Hank Hanegraaff writes "One thing is certain: A literal
interpretation
of the term "god" in Psalm 82:6 is clearly ruled out by the context. It
is hard to miss that
this passage
opens with a strong denunciation of the injustices perpetrated by the judges
of Israel [v2].
As representives
of God [cd.Exodus 4:15,16; 6:28-7:2], they should have been just; instead,
they were
dishonest. How
unlike God men are!"
I John 3:2
1 John 3:2 "Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be;
but we
know that, when
he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."
Some time in
the future, [and not now] all Christians will receive the same glorious
resurrection body
that Jesus Christ
received at his resurrection. Our vile bodies shall be made like unto his
glorious
body and Christians
will be morally like Jesus Christ.
Psalm 8:4-5
Psalm 8:4-5 "What
is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest
him? For
thou has made
him a little lower than the angels, and has crowned him with glory and
honour."
The text says
it all, God made man a little lower than the angels. The truth is man is
not even equal to
the angels,
never mind being equal with God. Again we must take the time to remind
Copeland and
Dollar of very
first created being ’Lucifer’ a angel who dared to think in such a way!
"How thou art fallen
from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground....For
thou hast said in
thine heart....I
will be like the most High." What will happened to Lucifer? God says "Yet
thou shalt be
brought down
to hell, to the sides of the pit"! What do you think the most High will
do with any other
wannabes like
Copeland and Dollar?
Gen. 1:26-27
Genesis 1:26-27
"And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness....So God
created
man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
Creflo Dollar
teaches that man was made in the image and likeness of God, and is a exact
duplicate
of the image
of God with an ability to create with words as God did. Kenneth Copeland
teaches that
man is an exact
duplicate of God, including size and shape, and he can speak things and
they come
to pass. Faith
teachers like Copeland could not possible be correct, as God is a Spirit
and therefore
invisible [Rom
1:20; Col 1:15-16; 1 Tim 1:17; Heb 11:27] Paul in the book of Romans warns
about
those who would
changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like to
corruptible
man. Romans
1:21-23.
Creflo Dollar
states "It's understood that you and I are not God. There is only one God.
However, as His
children, we
are like him. He's the big "G", and we're the little "g". We ask Creflo
Dollar the question
again is God
confused? Is their really another god beside him? Is their really another
like unto him?
Creflo Dollar
"You are an exact duplicate of the image of God. This does not mean that
you are God. It
means that you
are made in God's image and His likeness, with an ability to create with
words as God
did." Creflo
Dollar seems to be talking in forked tongues. In one hand he says ‘you
and I are not God.
There is only
one God....’ and then on the other ‘we are like him. He's the big "G",
and we're the little
"g".’
Hank Hanegraaff
in the book Christianity in Crisis, page 115, writes ".....Satan is also
referred to as a
"god" in 2 Corinthians
4:4. But surely no one assumes that this means that Satan is an exact duplicate
of God."
Is it not written
"Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any." [Isaiah
44:8] Dollar
and Copeland
say the Almighty is mistaken!
Is it not written
"Remember the former things of old: for I am God; and there is none else;
I am God and
there is none
like me;" [Isaiah 46:9] Dollar and Copeland would say the Almighty is in
error we are like
Him!
Is it not written
"...there is no one like me in all the earth"? Dollar and Copeland say
OH NO wrong
again! We are
exact duplicates of you!
Is it not written
Exodus 9:14 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
my ways,
saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher that
your ways, and
my thoughts
than your thoughts." [Isaiah 55:8-9] Dollar and Copeland respond in Paul
Crouch like
fashion with
"I am a little god! Critics, be gone!"
Finally Creflo
Dollar makes the very mistake that the Apostle Paul warn about in Romans
1:21-23
"Because that,
when they knew God, they glorified him not as God neither were thankful;
but became
vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves
to be wise, they
became fools,
And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like
to corruptible
man."
The truth is
that man was made to reflect certain aspects of the image of the invisible
God! Love,
justice, truth,
holiness. mercy, morality, knowledge...etc. Man is not divine or can he
ever be! Man is
not omnipresent,
omniscient or omnipotent like God, and neither does he have an ability
to create
with words!
Only God has these abilities. May Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland reject
these silly
notions once
and for all.