THE RELIGIONS OF MAN AND THE RELIGION OF GOD

The religions of man flatter the ego by exalting man. To make room for us at the top, God is demoted. This is also true for the cults. The Mormons teach that God hadn’t always been God. Instead, He had to strive, like us, to attain this status:

·       “God undoubtedly took every opportunity to learn the laws of truth and as He became acquainted with each new verity He righteously obeyed it…As He gained more knowledge through persistent effort and continuous industry, as well as absolute obedience, His understanding of universal laws continued to become more complete…until He attained the status of Godhood…He became God by absolute obedience to all the eternal laws of the Gospel.” (“The Gospel Through the Ages”)

According to Mormon doctrine, God didn’t create this world. Instead, He had to learn about this world and master it. However, according to the Bible, God is the Creator:

·       In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Nor did He have to learn about the creation. Instead, from the beginning, He had been perfect in knowledge, as the Prophet Samuel had informed King Saul:

·       “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind." (1 Samuel 15:29)

In contrast to Mormonism, God is and has always been all-knowing:

·       And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13)

According to the Mormons, Jesus had also attained to Godhood (and we can do the same):

·       “He [Jesus] was the most faithful and the most Godlike of all the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father in the spirit world.”  (“Gospel Through the Ages”)

However, Scripture teaches that Jesus too is changeless:

·       Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)  

Besides, He too is the Creator:

·       In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1:2; Col. 1:15-20)

According to Mormon doctrine, consistent with the exaltation of man and the demotion of God, we are not part of the creation. Instead, we are co-eternal with God:

·       “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.” (“Doctrines and Covenants”)

However, Scripture contradicts this claim:

·       Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

The Word-of-Faith (WoF) movement also exalts man at the expense of God. Creflo Dollar taught that Jesus isn’t God but became God:

·       “Jesus didn’t come as God, He came as man, and He did not come perfect.” (Christian Research Journal, B. Hunter)

However, Scripture indicates that Jesus the Messiah had been from everlasting:

·       But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity." (Micah 5:2; NASB)

This reminds us of what Jesus had told the Pharisees about His eternality, for which they wanted to kill Him:

·       Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." (John 8:58)

Jesus had no beginning. Instead, He is co-equal with the Father and the Spirit:

·       Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. (Philip. 2:5-7)

However, the Word-of-Faith preachers exalt us to godhood:

·       “I’m gonna say to you right now that you are gods, little ‘g.’ You are gods because you came from God and you are gods.” (C. Dollar; CRJ)

Although we are created in the image of God and shall be God-like (2 Peter 1:5; 1 John 3:2), we are not god, nor can we attain to godhood:

·       "You are My witnesses," says the LORD, and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me. (Isaiah 43:10)

R.C. Sproul claimed:

·       “[Kenneth] Copeland writes, ‘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.’” (Michael Horton, “The Agony of Deceit,” 44). 

Also:

·       “You don’t have a god in you. You are one!” (92). “Jesus is no longer the only begotten Son of God.” (100)

Clearly, there is much that sets us apart from God:

·       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. (Galatians 5:17)

Instead, we must walk in the light and accept the truth of our humble status, as the centurion had done:

·       Matthew 8:8 The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

For his humble acceptance of the truth, Jesus had commended him. However, WoF preachers suggest that we shouldn’t regard ourselves as so lowly and needful:

WoF TV evangelist, Copeland, offered an alleged prophecy from Jesus Christ Himself:

·       “Don’t be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you are God…They criticized me [Jesus] for claiming that I was God. But I didn’t claim that I was God; I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in me. Hallelujah, that’s what you’re doing.’” (101)

Elsewhere, Copeland claimed:

·       “He never made the assertion that He was the most High God. In fact, He told His disciples that the Father God was greater and mightier than He. Why didn’t Jesus openly proclaim Himself as God during His 33 years on earth? For one single reason. He hadn’t come to earth as God, He’d come as man.” (114)

However, Jesus had no problem in receiving the worship reserved for God alone:

·       And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)

Although Jesus never explicitly said “I am God,” He said many things that were equivalent to this:

·       “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.” (John 5:22-23)

However, deceased WoF evangelist, Kenneth Hagin, had claimed that we are not different from Jesus:

·       The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth. (112)

·       “Even many in the great body of Full Gospel people do not know that the new birth is a real incarnation, they do not know that they are as much sons and daughters of God as Jesus…So He was in the flesh a divine-human being. I was first human, and so were you, but I was born of God, and so I became a human-divine being.” (R.C. Sproul quoting K. Hagin)

However, Hagin’s assertions are contradicted by Scripture:

·       Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is NOTHING, he deceives himself. (Galatians 6:1-3)

We are nothing, a mere speck of dust in the universe of billions of galaxies, apart from Christ. Apart from Him, we are helpless:

·       Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

·       Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. (2 Cor. 3:5)

Instead, teaching that we are gods smacks of the devil’s work:

·       “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5)

·       “You were in Eden, the garden of God…You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you…Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. (Ezekiel 28:13-17)

·       “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:14)

This is the religion of man – the insistence that we are good and worthy. We believe that we can ascend to become like God. Some religions/cults believe that we can ascend through knowledge and enlightenment; others believe that the steps of their ladder are good deeds and successfully following certain laws; still others believe that it is a matter of the goodness of our heart or the extent of our love and self-sacrifice.

However, the Biblical message claims that we are incapable of even getting to the first rung (Romans 3:10-18), and that we are even enemies of God (Romans 5:8-10; 8:6-8; John 3:19-20). For us, there is no ascending. Instead, salvation is a matter of God descending and providing for us what we could not provide for ourselves – the payment for our damning sins.