Exposing one of America's Greatest False Teachers
by Lee Edward Enochs
Chairman,
The Evangelical Debate Society
Southern California
"Be dilligent to study yourselves approved unto God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the Word of Truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).
"Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves" (Matthew 7:14-15).
In the Epistolary letter of 2nd Timothy, just before his execution at the hands of the prosecutorial and grotesquely pagan Roman government led by the extravagantly profligate and quite insane Emperor Nero, the beloved Apostle Paul, missionary extraordinaire to the Gentiles, in giving parting pastoral instruction to his young protégé and fellow laborer in the Gospel, warned that perilous times would come wherein rebellion, rampant immorality and doctrinal and spiritual apostasy would proliferate at astronomical levels of declension. Paul the Apostle eloquently wrote,
“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.”
2 Timothy 3:1-9
Perhaps this will reveal my particular eschatological reference point; however, I do believe we are living in the last days mentioned by Christ and His Apostles. I believe the Evangelical Church in America is inherently lethargic spiritually and doctrinally and that false teachers and false prophets are abounding throughout the Evangelical Church and very few Bible Believing Christians care enough to do anything about it.
We here at the Evangelical Debate Society are primarily a Collegiate Debate Society dedicated to defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ against the hostile forces of secularism in the academic arena and to the promotion of the Gospel of Christ on college and university campuses throughout North America through hosting formal academic debates where the Gospel and the truths of Evangelical Christianity are defended in a Biblical, intellectually rigorous and relevant manner.
We presently have in place, a tactical plan to establish 25 different chapters of The Evangelical Debate Society on some very strategic University and College Campuses across Southern California in the next few years and have several academic and theological debates planned near and on the Campuses of the University of California –Riverside, California State University San Bernardino and Riverside Community College here in the Inland Empire over the next year.
We are dedicated to reaching university and college students and the secular academic community with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, thus, we care most about what is transpiring amongst College students and faculty and want to see Jesus Christ and His glorious Gospel flourish in a dark and desperately needed place.
However, from time to time, issues arise outside of our academic and collegiate debating and apologetics mission that needs to be addressed since they pertain to the theological and spiritual health of Americans and college students from all walks of life.
From time to time we will make mention of various important theological and political developments that are transpiring throughout America including the false teachings of some of Americas leading pastors and theologians. Unfortunately, one such famous individual that has dramatically arisen to national prominence and is currently being touted by many as “the Next Billy Graham” and “America’s Pastor”, is the Reverend and “Bishop” T.D. Jakes (born June 9 1957 in South Charleston, West Virginia), internationally famous Televangelist and Senior Pastor of the 28,000 member mega church known as the “Potter’s House” in Dallas Texas.
Many of us know Bishop T.D. Jakes as the always passionate, ever exuberant and immensely gifted speaker whose dramatic and fiery oratorical abilities rival that of the late Nobel Peace Price laureate and eminent civil rights activist Martin Luther King himself.
However, what many unwitting Evangelical Christians do not know is that T.D. Jakes is a Oneness Pentecostal who denies the historic Christian Doctrine of the Trinity and espouses the heretical doctrine known as Sabellianism or Modalism. According to an excellent article on the online encycopedia “Wikapedia, Sabellianism or Modalism teaches the following things,
In Christianity Sabellianism (also known as modalism, modalistic monarchianism, or modal monarchism) is the nontrinitarian belief that the Heavenly Father, Resurrected Son and Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of one God (for us only), rather than three distinct persons (in Himself). God was said to have three "faces" or "masks" (Grk. prosopa). The question is: "is God's threeness a matter of our falsely seeing it to be so (Sabellianism/modalism), or a matter of God's own essence revealed as three-in-one (orthodox trinitarianism)?" Modalists note that the only number ascribed to God in the Holy Bible is One and that there is no inherent threeness ascribed to God explicitly in scripture. The number three is never mentioned in relation to God in scripture, which of course is the number that is central to the word Trinity. The only possible exception to this is the Comma Johanneum, a disputed text passage in First John known primarily from the King James Version and some versions of the Textus Receptus but not included in modern critical texts. It is attributed to Sabellius, who taught a form of this doctrine in Rome in the third century. Hippolytus knew Sabellius personally and mentioned him in the Philosophumena. He knew Sabellius disliked Trinitarian theology, yet he called Modal Monarchism the heresy of Noetos, not that of Sabellius. Sabellianism was embraced by Christians in Cyrenaica, to whom Demetrius Patriarch of Alexandria, wrote letters arguing against this belief.
The chief opponent of Sabellianism was Tertullian, who labelled the movement "Patripassianism", from the Latin words pater for "father", and passus from the verb "to suffer" because it implied that the Father suffered on the Cross. It was coined by Tertullian in his work Adversus Praxeas, Chapter II, "By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father."
It is important to note that our only sources extant for our understanding of Sabellianism are from their detractors. Scholars today are not in agreement as to what exactly Sabellius or Praxeus taught.
Historic Sabellianism taught that God the Father was the only person of the Godhead, a belief known as Monarchianism Sabellianism has been rejected by the majority of Christianity who instead accept Trinitarianism
Oneness Pentecostalism teaches that the Father (a spirit) is united with Jesus (a man) as the Son of God. However, Oneness Pentecostalism differs significantly by rejecting sequential modalism and by the full acceptance of the begotten humanity of the Son, not eternally begotten, who was the man Jesus and was born, crucified, and risen, and not the deity. This directly opposes Patripassianism and the pre-existence of the Son, which Sabellianism does not. Oneness Pentecostalism can be compared to Sabellianism as both are Nontrinitarian but they do not correctly identify each other.
At Potters House, T. D. Jakes states the following: "There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three Manifestations: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." (Potters House Ministries Belief Statement) What does T. D. Jakes mean by stating God is eternally existing in three manifestations? Closely comparing this with what the UPCI states it is clear that T. D. Jakes has the same theology as he did when he was involved with the Greater Emmanuel Apostolic Church.
At Potters House, T. D. Jakes states the following: "We believe in one God who is eternal in His existence, Triune in His manifestation, being both Father, Son and Holy Ghost AND that He is Sovereign and Absolute in His authority." (Potters House Ministries Doctrinal Statement)
T. D. Jakes was interviewed by Living by the Word on KKLA, hosted by John Coleman, Aug. 23, 1998 and was asked the following question: "My first question would be, the Trinity would be defined as one God Who's revealed Himself in three distinct Persons, each co-equal and co-eternal. How important is it for the believing Christian to hold to this belief?" T. D. Jakes response to this question was: "The Trinity, the term Trinity, is not a biblical term, to begin with. It's a theological description for something that is so beyond human comprehension that I'm not sure that we can totally hold God to a numerical system. The Lord said, "Behold, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one, and beside Him there is no other." When God got ready to make a man that looked like Him, He didn't make three. He made one man. However, that one man had three parts. He was body, soul and spirit. We have one God, but He is Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit in regeneration."
(Click Here for this information) This is the same as what the United Pentecostal Church International states concerning their doctrines on who God is and their beliefs concerning the Trinity.
The official teachings of the United Pentecostal Church International state the following concerning who God is and what they believe about the Trinity: "In distinction to the doctrine of the Trinity, the UPCI holds to a oneness view of God. It views the Trinitarian concept of God, that of God eternally existing as three distinctive persons, as inadequate and a departure from the consistent and emphatic biblical revelation of God being one...Thus God is manifested as Father in creation and as the Father of the Son, in the Son for our redemption, and as the Holy Spirit in our regeneration." (from www.upci.org/about/index.asp)
It is clear from the above primary source references from T.D. Jakes own ministry, in his own words, that he denies the doctrine of the Trinity and teaches heresy regarding the Godhead. Every Christian in America should avoid the ministry and teachings of T.D. Jakes at all costs.
The Historic Christian Church has always believed in the Doctrine of the Trinity, that in the one, true and living God and within God Almighty exists the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who share the same spiritual essence. This is the clear teaching of the Bible and a pilar of Historic Christian orthodoxy. To deny the Doctrine of the Trinity will incur the wrath of Almighty God for eternity. It is my prayer that T.D. Jakes and all of his followers will repent of this heresy and embrace the clear Trinitarian teaching of the Bible.
by Lee Edward Enochs
Chairman,
The Evangelical Debate Society
Southern California
"Be dilligent to study yourselves approved unto God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the Word of Truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).
"Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves" (Matthew 7:14-15).
In the Epistolary letter of 2nd Timothy, just before his execution at the hands of the prosecutorial and grotesquely pagan Roman government led by the extravagantly profligate and quite insane Emperor Nero, the beloved Apostle Paul, missionary extraordinaire to the Gentiles, in giving parting pastoral instruction to his young protégé and fellow laborer in the Gospel, warned that perilous times would come wherein rebellion, rampant immorality and doctrinal and spiritual apostasy would proliferate at astronomical levels of declension. Paul the Apostle eloquently wrote,
“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.”
2 Timothy 3:1-9
Perhaps this will reveal my particular eschatological reference point; however, I do believe we are living in the last days mentioned by Christ and His Apostles. I believe the Evangelical Church in America is inherently lethargic spiritually and doctrinally and that false teachers and false prophets are abounding throughout the Evangelical Church and very few Bible Believing Christians care enough to do anything about it.
We here at the Evangelical Debate Society are primarily a Collegiate Debate Society dedicated to defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ against the hostile forces of secularism in the academic arena and to the promotion of the Gospel of Christ on college and university campuses throughout North America through hosting formal academic debates where the Gospel and the truths of Evangelical Christianity are defended in a Biblical, intellectually rigorous and relevant manner.
We presently have in place, a tactical plan to establish 25 different chapters of The Evangelical Debate Society on some very strategic University and College Campuses across Southern California in the next few years and have several academic and theological debates planned near and on the Campuses of the University of California –Riverside, California State University San Bernardino and Riverside Community College here in the Inland Empire over the next year.
We are dedicated to reaching university and college students and the secular academic community with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, thus, we care most about what is transpiring amongst College students and faculty and want to see Jesus Christ and His glorious Gospel flourish in a dark and desperately needed place.
However, from time to time, issues arise outside of our academic and collegiate debating and apologetics mission that needs to be addressed since they pertain to the theological and spiritual health of Americans and college students from all walks of life.
From time to time we will make mention of various important theological and political developments that are transpiring throughout America including the false teachings of some of Americas leading pastors and theologians. Unfortunately, one such famous individual that has dramatically arisen to national prominence and is currently being touted by many as “the Next Billy Graham” and “America’s Pastor”, is the Reverend and “Bishop” T.D. Jakes (born June 9 1957 in South Charleston, West Virginia), internationally famous Televangelist and Senior Pastor of the 28,000 member mega church known as the “Potter’s House” in Dallas Texas.
Many of us know Bishop T.D. Jakes as the always passionate, ever exuberant and immensely gifted speaker whose dramatic and fiery oratorical abilities rival that of the late Nobel Peace Price laureate and eminent civil rights activist Martin Luther King himself.
However, what many unwitting Evangelical Christians do not know is that T.D. Jakes is a Oneness Pentecostal who denies the historic Christian Doctrine of the Trinity and espouses the heretical doctrine known as Sabellianism or Modalism. According to an excellent article on the online encycopedia “Wikapedia, Sabellianism or Modalism teaches the following things,
In Christianity Sabellianism (also known as modalism, modalistic monarchianism, or modal monarchism) is the nontrinitarian belief that the Heavenly Father, Resurrected Son and Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of one God (for us only), rather than three distinct persons (in Himself). God was said to have three "faces" or "masks" (Grk. prosopa). The question is: "is God's threeness a matter of our falsely seeing it to be so (Sabellianism/modalism), or a matter of God's own essence revealed as three-in-one (orthodox trinitarianism)?" Modalists note that the only number ascribed to God in the Holy Bible is One and that there is no inherent threeness ascribed to God explicitly in scripture. The number three is never mentioned in relation to God in scripture, which of course is the number that is central to the word Trinity. The only possible exception to this is the Comma Johanneum, a disputed text passage in First John known primarily from the King James Version and some versions of the Textus Receptus but not included in modern critical texts. It is attributed to Sabellius, who taught a form of this doctrine in Rome in the third century. Hippolytus knew Sabellius personally and mentioned him in the Philosophumena. He knew Sabellius disliked Trinitarian theology, yet he called Modal Monarchism the heresy of Noetos, not that of Sabellius. Sabellianism was embraced by Christians in Cyrenaica, to whom Demetrius Patriarch of Alexandria, wrote letters arguing against this belief.
The chief opponent of Sabellianism was Tertullian, who labelled the movement "Patripassianism", from the Latin words pater for "father", and passus from the verb "to suffer" because it implied that the Father suffered on the Cross. It was coined by Tertullian in his work Adversus Praxeas, Chapter II, "By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father."
It is important to note that our only sources extant for our understanding of Sabellianism are from their detractors. Scholars today are not in agreement as to what exactly Sabellius or Praxeus taught.
Historic Sabellianism taught that God the Father was the only person of the Godhead, a belief known as Monarchianism Sabellianism has been rejected by the majority of Christianity who instead accept Trinitarianism
Oneness Pentecostalism teaches that the Father (a spirit) is united with Jesus (a man) as the Son of God. However, Oneness Pentecostalism differs significantly by rejecting sequential modalism and by the full acceptance of the begotten humanity of the Son, not eternally begotten, who was the man Jesus and was born, crucified, and risen, and not the deity. This directly opposes Patripassianism and the pre-existence of the Son, which Sabellianism does not. Oneness Pentecostalism can be compared to Sabellianism as both are Nontrinitarian but they do not correctly identify each other.
At Potters House, T. D. Jakes states the following: "There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three Manifestations: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." (Potters House Ministries Belief Statement) What does T. D. Jakes mean by stating God is eternally existing in three manifestations? Closely comparing this with what the UPCI states it is clear that T. D. Jakes has the same theology as he did when he was involved with the Greater Emmanuel Apostolic Church.
At Potters House, T. D. Jakes states the following: "We believe in one God who is eternal in His existence, Triune in His manifestation, being both Father, Son and Holy Ghost AND that He is Sovereign and Absolute in His authority." (Potters House Ministries Doctrinal Statement)
T. D. Jakes was interviewed by Living by the Word on KKLA, hosted by John Coleman, Aug. 23, 1998 and was asked the following question: "My first question would be, the Trinity would be defined as one God Who's revealed Himself in three distinct Persons, each co-equal and co-eternal. How important is it for the believing Christian to hold to this belief?" T. D. Jakes response to this question was: "The Trinity, the term Trinity, is not a biblical term, to begin with. It's a theological description for something that is so beyond human comprehension that I'm not sure that we can totally hold God to a numerical system. The Lord said, "Behold, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one, and beside Him there is no other." When God got ready to make a man that looked like Him, He didn't make three. He made one man. However, that one man had three parts. He was body, soul and spirit. We have one God, but He is Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit in regeneration."
(Click Here for this information) This is the same as what the United Pentecostal Church International states concerning their doctrines on who God is and their beliefs concerning the Trinity.
The official teachings of the United Pentecostal Church International state the following concerning who God is and what they believe about the Trinity: "In distinction to the doctrine of the Trinity, the UPCI holds to a oneness view of God. It views the Trinitarian concept of God, that of God eternally existing as three distinctive persons, as inadequate and a departure from the consistent and emphatic biblical revelation of God being one...Thus God is manifested as Father in creation and as the Father of the Son, in the Son for our redemption, and as the Holy Spirit in our regeneration." (from www.upci.org/about/index.asp)
It is clear from the above primary source references from T.D. Jakes own ministry, in his own words, that he denies the doctrine of the Trinity and teaches heresy regarding the Godhead. Every Christian in America should avoid the ministry and teachings of T.D. Jakes at all costs.
The Historic Christian Church has always believed in the Doctrine of the Trinity, that in the one, true and living God and within God Almighty exists the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who share the same spiritual essence. This is the clear teaching of the Bible and a pilar of Historic Christian orthodoxy. To deny the Doctrine of the Trinity will incur the wrath of Almighty God for eternity. It is my prayer that T.D. Jakes and all of his followers will repent of this heresy and embrace the clear Trinitarian teaching of the Bible.
Christians believe in the Doctrine of the Trinity simply and finally because the Holy Scriptures teach this and for no other reason.
The Bible teaches that there in one true and living God (Deuteronomy 6:4, 1 Kings 8:60 and John 17:3)
The Bible teaches that the Father is God (Matthew 28:19-20, John 6:27 and Romans 1:7).
The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is God (Matthew 1:23, John 1:1-14, 8:58, Acts 20:28, Romans 9:5 and Col. 1:16-17).
The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is God (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 5:1-5 and 2 Corinthians 13:14)
Thus, we orthodox Christians reject the heresy of T.D. Jakes and other Anti-Trinitarians and come to the conclusion that the Historic Christian Faith is correct and that there in God exists the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the true and living God, world without end amen.
We believe in the historic Trinitarian Christian Faith. We believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. We Evangelical Christians believe in justification by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone based on the authority of the Bible alone. Amen. This is our faith, the historic Evangelical and Protestant Christian faith, this is what we believe amen.
I want it to be made clear that I personally have nothing against T.D. Jakes, the "Potter's House" and any of Jakes followers. My beef with them is that T.D. Jakes denies the Trinity and that's heresy folks...
Next Time: The Gospel According to Joel Olsteen
