Has God Surrendered His Power and Authority to Us?

 


 

Has God emptied Himself of His power and authority to give them to us, such that He can no longer answer our prayers? This is the position of many in the Word-of-Faith (WoF, or the “Prosperity Movement”) movement exalt 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 (CRJ), B. Hunter)
 
•    “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.” (CRJ)
 
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).
 
•    “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. According to Jesus, the best of us are unworthy:
 
•    “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:10)
 
Paul claimed that we are nothing, apart from God:
 
•    For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. (Galatians 6:3)
 
A powerful Roman centurion admitted that he was not deserving of the Lord’s presence:
 
•    "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. (Matthew 8:8)
 
For his humble acceptance of the truth, Jesus had commended him. However, WoF preachers suggest that we shouldn’t regard ourselves as lowly. 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)
 
Do we presently have such great authority or must we await Jesus’ return? 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 often equated Himself with God and always received worship, even from demons.
 
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. (Horton,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.” (Horton; R.C. Sproul quoting K. Hagin)
 
However, Hagin’s assertions are contradicted by Scripture. Apart from Jesus, we are helpless to do anything of any spiritual value:
 
•    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)
 
In contrast, WoF offspring, Andrew Wommack, claims that we ourselves have healing power apart from God:
 
•    God has already placed His healing power within us, and it is now under our authority. It isn’t up to God to determine who receives healing; it’s up to us! (“Faith For Healing Is Based On Knowledge”)
 
•    The Lord never told us to pray for the sick in the sense that we ask Him to heal them. He told us to heal the sick,” and “Jesus told us to heal the sick, not pray for the sick. (http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/authority_releases)

•    [The ignorant] “When see that some sickness, disease, tragedy comes into their life, instead of taking their authority and rebuking the devil and commanding him to leave, instead they go to God … and they beg God, “Oh God please change this situation. Oh God please get the devil off my back.’ And it’s not within God’s power and authority. He gave us that power and authority.” (“The Believer’s Authority,” part 3)
 
According to Wommack, God has surrendered His authority to us. Consequently, God is now unable to help us. Therefore, instead of trusting in God, we should trust in our own powers and authority. However, this does not agree with the Scriptures”
 
•    He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. (Psalm 62:6–8)
 
•    Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!
 (Psalm 37:3–7)
 
The Gospel is about finding peace and joy through trusting in Him, not in ourselves:
 
•    do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)
 
According to James, we lack such authority and, instead, are an insubstantial mist:

•    Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13–16)

Consequently, We should thank God for any good, instead of taking credit for it ourselves:

•    But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

•    Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:17–18)

•    But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22–23)

We must not take credit for the gifts and workings of God. Nor must we degrade God in favor of ourselves, as the WoF does, whose fruit is inevitably disappointment, despite it popularity. Wherever this movement has gone, it has resulted in the loss of credibility and influence of the Church.