Tag Archives: ransom theology

Sep 16 2013

Joyce Meyer and Unsound Doctrine

Unsound doctrine may be a soft statement. Her teaching is in the realm of heresy.

The popular 70-year-old Charismatic speaker and author holds to prosperity teaching which focuses on material wealth as a result of God’s blessing for authentic Christians.  Even though such teaching is wrong, this is not the worst of Meyer’s teaching.

Joyce Meyer holds heretical positions with respect to the person of Jesus and His work towards our salvation.

It is a shame when a leftist news site like Huffington Post publishes a piece (with references) on how heretical Meyer’s teaching is when compared to historical Protestant Christianity.

She teaches that Jesus literally stopped being the Son of God on the Cross:

“He could have helped himself up until the point where he said I commend my spirit into your hands, at that point he couldn’t do nothing for himself anymore. He had become sin, he was no longer the Son of God. He was sin.”

The truth is that Jesus Christ was, is and always will be God.  Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  He does not change.  Ever.

Apostle Paul explains that Jesus continued to be God throughout the entire sacrifice on the cross, even His death: “…Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Phil 2:6-8

She teaches that Jesus had to be born again (like a sinner):

“The minute that blood sacrifice was accepted Jesus was the first human being that was ever born again. Now that was real it happened when he was in hell.”

This is impossible.   Jesus could not have been born again.  John 3 explains that the new birth is necessary to enter the kingdom of God.  Jesus did not need a new birth because He was without sin.  John says: “You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” 1 John 3:5

She teaches that one needs special revelation from God to understand her teaching, revelation which is NOT found in the Bible

“The Bible can’t even find any way to explain this. Not really. That’s why you’ve got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I’m telling you. I’ve got to just trust God that He’s putting it into your spirit like He put it into mine.”

The Bible is clear with respect to testing any revelation, prophecy or teaching against the Bible itself.  There is no revelation that can supersede the Bible.  The Word of God is the ultimate revelation for us (Heb 1:1, 1 Thes 5:21, 2 Tim 3:16).

Delight in Truth has nothing personal against Joyce Meyer, but false teaching must be exposed in order to protect the church.  You can read more in the Huff post article.

Then there is the prosperity gospel… a critique of that on a different occasion.

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Mar 29 2013

Theology 101: Did Christ Descend Into Hell Prior to Resurrection?

There is a heretical view of Christ’s atonement that encapsulates a theory commonly referred to as Ransom Theology or Ransom Theory, which states that Christ paid a ransom to Satan in His death in order to buy the rights to save humanity which has fallen captive to Satan.

Throughout the ages, this view became increasingly recognized as heretical as it is readily apparent that Satan is himself a rebel who cannot hold any claim on humanity, and therefore God does not owe him anything but eternal punishment.

The problem is that certain peripheral aspects of Ransom to Satan Theory have persisted to this day in some denominations.

Some hold that after His death on the cross, Jesus descended into hell to proclaim victory (possibly evangelize) to those who perished in ancient times, based on 1 Pet 3:18-20

“18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah…”

This view is not acceptable for the following reasons:

1. Christ’s work of redemption was finished on the cross for EVERYONE to see: God the Father, angels, heavenly creatures, humans, demons, and Satan.  In John 19:30, Jesus proclaims in the final seconds of His life: “IT IS FINISHED.” There is no other work to be done for proclamation of victory or redemption.  Heaven and hell were witnesses.  There is no need for Christ to descent into hell for any proclamation or evangelism.

2. When Jesus died on the cross, He went straight to the Father.  Again, in the final seconds of His agony, Luke presents the following:  “Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last (Luke 23:46).

3. A descend by Christ into hell opens the door to heresy.  Proclamation of victory or evangelism in hell presents similar ideas to purgatory and possibility salvation of unrepented sinners after death.  This is against sound Christian doctrine which views death as a final decisive event with respect to outcome of salvation or damnation.

So what did Peter mean when he said that Christ went to proclaim to the “spirits in prison?”

A close examination of 1 Peter 3 shows that the context of this affirmation is linked to the preaching of Noah in the pre-flood era.

Here is the ESV commentary explanation:

a. Peter calls Noah a “herald of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5 ), where “herald” represents Greek kēryx, “preacher,” which corresponds to the noun kēryssō, “proclaim,” in 1 Pet. 3:19

b. Peter says the “Spirit of Christ” was speaking through the OT prophets ( 1:11 ); thus Christ could have been speaking through Noah as an OT prophet.

c. The context indicates that Christ was preaching through Noah, who was in a persecuted minority, and God saved Noah, which is similar to the situation in Peter’s time: Christ is now preaching the gospel through Peter and his readers (v. 15 ) to a persecuted minority, and God will save them.

Christ finished His work on the cross and did not need to descend into hell for any further work.

He said it “IT IS FINISHED.”

And it was finished.