Joyce Meyer – Shocking False Teachings and Quotes
Joyce Meyer is a Word of Faith Charismatic / New Age teacher who preaches along the lines of Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Fred Price, Charles Capp, Benny Hinn, Paul and Jan Crouch, and those who appear on Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), etc.
Listen to the audio below for a full a list of all her most serious heresies: (Jesus tortured in hell, Jesus first born again man, Jesus became sin on the cross and stopped being the son of God, our sins atoned in hell and not on the cross, etc., and Joyce Meyer teaches that she is sinless.]
[audio:http://www.discerningtheworld.com/images/wpi/Joyce-Meyers-Shocking-Doctrine-by-Fran-Sankey.mp3|titles=Joyce Meyer – Shocking Heresies]Note: Audio above posted by DTW is not an endorsement of the author, their website, ministry or any links therein. Readers are cautioned to use discernment at all times and test everything by the Word of God.
Joyce Meyer also teaches that we are little gods, see this article: Joyce Meyer is a Little God With a Big Christ Consciousness.
But this is one of the latest quotes (2010) from Joyce Meyer and quite an incredible statement:
[audio:http://www.discerningtheworld.com/images/wpi/Joyce-Meyer-All-Seeing-Eye.mp3|titles=Joyce Meyer – All Seeing Eye – 31/5/2010]Transcript:
Time: 00:14:19 “We’re never going to mature and develop godly character until we learn to live….. with the All-Seeing eye on us all the time.” — [Joyce Meyer – Transcript – Enjoying Everyday Life – Be Imitators of God – 7/10/2010]
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This symbol of theAll-Seeing eye is the single most important symbol of the Illuminati, for it exemplifies the supernatural power they wield from Satan himself. The All-Seeing eye CANNOT be interpreted as being that of the Christian God. No where in the bible do we read about the All-Seeing eye , but we do know about the All-Seeing eye in the occult….
“The All-Seeing eye represents the Egyptian Osirus, let’s look at who Osiris is. He committed incest with his sister, Isis, which resulted in the birth of Horus … the Egyptian god of the dead as well as a Sun God .. Osiris is known by many other names in other countries … In Thrace and Greece, he is known as Dionysus, the god of pleasures and of partying and wine … Festivals held in Dionysus’ honor often resulted in human sacrifices and orgiastic sexual rites. The Phrygians know Osiris as Sabasius where he is honored as the solar deity (a sun god) who was represented by horns and his emblem was a serpent. In other places, he is know by other names: Deouis, The Boy Jupiter, The Centaur, Orion, Saturn, The Boy Plutus, Iswara, The Winged One, Nimrod, Adoni, Hermes, Prometheus, Poseidon, Butes, Dardanus, Himeros, Imbors, Iasius, Zeus, Iacchus, Hu, Thor, Serapis, Ormuzd, Apollo, Thammuz, Atus, Hercules, Shiva, Moloch, and believe it or not, BAAL!” —-Burns, Masonic and Occult Symbols Illustrated, pg. 359 [Emphasis in the original]
God condemns Baal worship in no uncertain terms, a worship associated with the All-Seeing Eye.
Jer 32:35; “And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” [KJV 1611]
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Very good expose of Meyer’s heresy.
To those who say Joyce meant “God’s eyes” when she says “All seeing eye”..you are deceived. But you are deceived because you have no knowledge of where the term comes from. I started a deep study of the New World order a number of years back. This term belongs to lucifer. Wake up before it is too late. Just recently I started wondering if they had also infiltrated the Church and I am heartbroken to say “yes”. I feel like I am in mourning. .Cognitive Dissonance all over again? Probably..I went through this when I first started studying on the NWO. The truth set me free but it has hurt quite a bit. .just being honest..thank you for having this site up..it has been refreshing to me..
Kelli wrote:
She is NOT God’s anointed.
Kelli wrote:
You are taking a scripture about King Saul out of context. It says ‘touch not my anointed.’ He was God’s anointed King of Israel.
1st. Joyce is not the King appointed by God. 2nd. It’s yet to be known whether or not JM is anointed of God or not. 3rd. The Word tells us to judge people’s fruits. We are not to judge hearts but fruit.
Please know the Word prior to quoting. Accuracy is key.
Diane wrote:
The Bible does not say we are not to judge God’s anointed. It says “Touch not (don’t harm) mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” (1 Ch 16:22). God’s anointed spoken of here are not kings but the nation of Israel as a whole and especially his prophets. In fact, the previous verse clearly says that God reproved kings for Israel’s and the prophets’ sake.
There are two kinds of judgments – a wrong way and a wright way. The wrong way is to sit in judgment over people and say they are going to hell. Because the most heinous sinners can and sometimes do repent and receive forgiveness for his sins, we cannot say they are going to hell.
The right way has to do with discernment and discipline. An example of the latter is 1 Cor 5:12,13 “For what have I to do to judge them also that are without (the church? do not ye judge them that are within (the church)? But them that are without (the church) God judgeth.” (1 Co 5:12-13)
If you fail to judge you are not a spiritual Christian.
We are commanded to judge the words (teachings) of every person who claims to be a teacher (including Joyce Meyer).
It ought to be plain to those who love Scripture that Joyce Meyer is NOT God’s annointed.
She obviously rejects 1 Cor 14:34 & 2 Tim 2:12.
There is a big difference from women who write for the Lord and teach on-line and the like. That is not going against those Scriptures. Actually, many women teachers stick like glue to the Scriptures. Debs is a good example of that. Joyce Meyer, on the other hand, does go against them–and a lot of other Scriptures!
It doesn’t matter what kind of authority a person has in a church. They must be resisted and even rebuked if they contradict Scripture. Not to do so is to put those so-called teachers before God. Those who do that have gods as their God! That is idolatry and strictly forbidden by Scripture.
We must bear in mind Prov 3:4-5, 1 Thess 5:21 and 1 John 4:1. (As they are in the imperative verbs that means they are orders, not suggestions.) Then we will not fall into any kind of idolatry. We should also bear in mind 2 Peter 1:20–which, if people kept those first three Scriptures of this paragraph in the forefronts of their minds–they would know that Joyce Meyer totally ignores or rejects 2 Peter 1:20.
People who fall for Joyce Meyer’s claims and those of others who wrest Scripture (which the Bible says they do to their OWN destruction–2 Pet 3:16) are the ones who are skating on thin ice. That’s because they are likely not heeding those above Scriptures.
It is interesting that they make statements like “Do not touch the Lord’s annointed” when it should be obvious who is and who is not annointed to any Bible literate. They ought to study and find out what the Bible term “annointed” actually means. They ought also to find out what “touch” means (in Psalm 105:15). It has nothing to do with mere words. The Hebrew word in that Scripture is “naga” and it means to touch a person violently or strike physically.
So those who use that Scripture to silence objective criticism are either deliberately being deceitful or they are arguing from ignorance. Either way, it disqualifies them from teaching Scripture.
(Where in the world would a secular teacher be allowed to work if they argued from ignorance!?) There are only two kinds of criticism: fair, therefore true, and unfair, therefore false. Anything else is just waffle.
Ironically, often people who have discernment are accused by those who have none of being judgmental. Those who call discening people judgmental do so because they do not understand the context of “Judge not lest thou be judged” [Matt 7:1; Luke 6:37]. The same Jesus Who made that statement castigated those who did not judge with righteous judgment [John 7:24].
The Apostle Paul reminds us [1 Cor 6:1-5] how we should judge. He says it was to the shame of those Corinthians that there wasn’t one wise enough to judge between the brethren [verse 5].
If a person tells another, “Judge not lest though be judged” they themselves had better know the difference between judging and passing unrighteous judgment. If not they will be doing the exact thing of which they have accused another! Doing what we accuse others of doing is Jesus’ Own definition of hypocrisy [Matt 7:5; Luke 6:42].
That’s why we need to take the Scriptures seriously. 2 Peter 1:10 needs to be thought out seriously. If we heed it, meditate and even pray on it, it will mean we can be truly objective. We will become exegetes and not eisegetes, the likes of those who pray on the spiritually gullible.
I agree with the writer above about her rejection of the passages that forbids women preachers. Everything else is irrelevant since she is setting herself in the place of a man.
She is to be silent when the preaching is done, and that by men. See 1st Corinthians 14:33-40. Furthermore, she is forbidden to teach or to have authority over the man in a religious worship (1st Timothy 2:11,12). This law of God is forever set in concrete because it is based in the creation and the fact that woman lead man into sin in Garden of Eden (1st Timothy 2:13,14). Paul the apostle also states the same reason, order of creation, as the reason the woman must cover her head in worship (1st Cor. 11:7-10). Joyce Meyer also violates the passage that teaches that women should have longer hair in comparison to the man. Her long hair is her natural covering and her glory. Joyce Meyer throws off what shows her distinction and submission to man (1st Cor. 11:14,15). These teaching are the commandments of Christ (1st Cor. 14:37). The only way around this is to simply not believe it. So there you have it, the last word in the Bible on the matter of New Testament worship and the role of women.
I’m reading these comments because a relative admires Joyce Meyers – so I thought I should be informed about her teachings.
Interesting posts. There seems to be a lot of hair-splitting here about doctrines of all kinds.
Suggestion: Just read the Bible. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. A red letter bible would be good. (All of Jesus’ quotes printed in red ink.)
Just follow Jesus’ teachings.
Jean wrote,
When it comes to doctrines hairsplitting is very good.
You can’t be saved if your doctrine of salvation is wrong.
Hey Martin Horan,
if you truly followed scripture you would not have left the Catholic Church. You would know that Christ himself founded the Church and had Peter be the leader of the church. The church you belong to cannot claim to have been founded by Christ himself.
Your form of Christianity did not exist until a few centuries ago. The Catholic Church has existed since the first century AD, and history proves it.
The True Church
Catholics usually refer to the apostolic succession to prove that the RCC is the only true church. Here’s the truth and I’m quoting from Dave Hunt’s book “A Woman Rides the Beast.”
This my friend, is your 2000 years of history and billions of people that share your Faith. It is fraught with lies, deceit, inconsistencies, and anti-biblical and anti-God declarations. This is what really happened to your more than 2000 years of pristine tradition in your church. Again, I am quoting from “A Woman Rides the Beast.”
Also read this.
The True Church wrote:
Your so-called true church has a bloody history of inquisitions, holocausts under Hitler and Mussolini and many other modern-day atrocities.
Read here.
Do you believe the following from the Code of Canon Law?
Given these indisputable facts, no evangelical could call Roman Catholics born-again Christians.
I suggest that you leave your so-called one true church as soon as you can. Run from it as you’ve never ran before. They are leading you straight to hell.
Ha. Dave Hunt is an unreliable source. Just read what he believed and went through:
Dave Hunt is an excellent example of the incoherence of the anti-Catholic fundamentalist position: He damns the Catholic Church but doesn’t realize that his own spirituality is ultimately of Catholic derivation through William Law, the 18th-century high-church Anglican mystic and spiritual writer whom Hunt deeply admires. If we are to witness effectively to fundamentalists like Hunt, we must point out the incongruity of their position. And in order to do that, we must take a look at the historical and personal origins of Hunt’s opinions.
Hunt is a “dispensationalist,” a follower of John Nelson Darby (who founded the Plymouth Brethren, the denomination in which Hunt was raised). Darby was an Anglican clergyman in Ireland. Ordained in 1826, the parson of a poor country parish in County Wicklow, he grew increasingly dissatisfied with Anglican formality and externalism, as well as with the socio-political position of Irish Anglicanism. Though a militant anti-Catholic Protestant, Darby (to his credit) was appalled by the Protestants’ treatment of the Catholic peasants whom he was seeking to evangelize. Intent on converting Irish Catholics to his understanding of true Christianity, Darby came to see the established Anglican church as fatally compromised by the world.
But disillusion with the established church was having quite other effects, notably in the Oxford Movement. The leaders of this movement (John Henry Newman, John Keble, and others) found the Establishment’s accommodations to the times driving them in a more Catholic direction, while Darby in Ireland went the other way, toward a radically sectarian and otherworldly Protestantism. Darby concluded that “Christendom, ..was really the world and could not be considered as ‘the church.'”
For Newman, Rome became the solution to the Anglican puzzle. For Darby, Rome was the cause of it: The Church of England shared in Rome’s apostasy by retaining too much from the Catholic past — particularly its privileged status in affairs of state. True Christianity, as envisaged by Darby, would be practiced by small fellowships, who worshiped in simplicity, with no ordained clergy and no fine church buildings. Since the Devil is the prince and god of this world, said Darby, the large and powerful churches were not only apostate but were positively in the service of the Antichrist who was to come.
The exegetical system worked out by Darby is known as dispensationalism. The central idea is that God has offered salvation to mankind on a different basis in each successive era or “dispensation” of human history. These are Innocence (in Paradise), Conscience (after the Fall), Government (in which men were subject to rulers), Promise (Abraham and the patriarchs), Law (Moses at Sinai), the Church (ever since the Resurrection), and the Kingdom (a millennium during which Christ will reign in Jerusalem).
Catholics and Reformed Christians acknowledge that some of these represent stages in salvation history, but to call them unique “dispensations” is to break up the story. The unity of God’s saving plan — culminating in Christ, the Savior of both the Old and the New Testaments — is thereby undermined or rejected outright by Darbyites.
Dispensationalists like Hunt deny the Catholic and Reformed belief that the Church is the Kingdom already mysteriously present in the world. They define authentic Christianity as radically otherworldly and discarnate — to a degree that far exceeds the attitude of the original Protestant Reformers themselves. The rapture doctrine — the dispensational teaching that true Christians will be assumed into heaven before the final tribulation and the reign of the Antichrist — is part and parcel of such a radically otherworldly understanding of Christianity.
The rapture doctrine is much more for Hunt than an opinion: It is inextricably tied up with the entire Darbyite system of biblical interpretation and with the church’s relation to the world. If true Christians are to be raptured out of the world — removed from the fray — in the end times, there is little reason to be concerned about social and political responsibilities, or about building up Christian culture and institutions: The time is short, and we won’t be around anyway. Evangelism matters, but everything else, says Hunt, distracts from the Gospel message and leads evangelicals toward Catholicism or its offshoots in the rest of apostate Christendom.
Hunt is aware of Calvinist and Lutheran opposition to Darbyism, but he regards his Protestant opponents as dupes of Rome. The Catholic Church, by claiming to be the visible People of God, is self-evidently for Hunt the enemy of authentic Christianity. Hunt recognizes that, if the Church in the present age is the People of God, then by analogy the Old Testament worship, law, and polity have valid analogues in the life of the Church today. That is what Catholics and Reformed Christians have always maintained. But the entire dispensational system is premised upon the denial that this is even possible.
The dispensationalists claim that the messianic prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel concerning the restoration of Israel must be fulfilled literally for the Jews as a people. According to the Darbyites, all things pertaining to the visible People of God belong only to the Jews. The Church of the gentiles is merely a parenthesis in God’s plan for human history; therefore, the Catholic claim to be the People of God marks the Roman Church as apostate. Of course, by such a standard, the Reformed and Lutheran churches are no less apostate; but the Catholic Church is always the real enemy.
In A Woman Rides the Beast, Hunt attributes the Catholic Church’s historic pre-eminence to political factors. He fails to comprehend that both John Darby and John Henry Newman were dismayed by the Church of England’s politico-religious compromises, and that Darby’s descent into radically sectarian, anti-Catholic reaction may have been less logical and less inspired than Newman’s ascent to Rome. Because most American fundamentalists are Darbyite dispensationalists, the mentality of Darby still keeps them from following Newman’s path into the Catholic Church — even when their spirituality actually points Romeward.
Rome is ever at the center of Hunt’s thoughts. According to Hunt, the Catholic Church will play a crucially villainous role in uniting all the world’s religions in the service of the anti-Jewish and totalitarian Antichrist. By that time, the true Christians will have been raptured into heaven; the Jews in Israel will then return to the center of the historical stage. The Antichrist will turn against the Whore of Babylon (the Catholic Church and her allies) and destroy her. Then the Jews will recognize Christ at last, and Christ will come on the clouds to establish His millennial Kingdom in Jerusalem. Such are the end times, according to Dave Hunt.
Strangely, Hunt is zealous in defending the Protestant Reformation but does not realize that his own emphasis on “deciding for Christ” inescapably implies the possibility of co-operating with the grace of justification — a possibility the Reformers constantly condemned but upon which the Catholic Church insists. Also, dispensationalism’s radical distinction between Law and Grace, and its choice for the latter over the former, is implicitly an invitation to a lawless or antinomian spirit among Christians. Some dispensationalists even say that the Ten Commandments are not meant for gentile Christians in the present age. For this the dispensationalists are condemned as heretics by real Calvinists such as the late John Gerstner, who called dispensationalism “spurious Calvinism and dubious evangelicalism.” Gerstner saw that the Church-Israel dichotomy caused dispensationalists to “retreat into a hyper-spiritual Gnosticism which spurns the structures of the visible church which God has graciously given His people.”
The crucial role of the Jews in the last dispensation leads, understandably in the aftermath of Nazism, to the question of the Jews’ survival as a people. Another of Hunt’s charges against the Catholic Church is that her claim to be the People of God is the source of ideological anti-Semitism:
Roman Catholics were taught they had replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people. The land of Israel, promised by God to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, now belonged to “Christian” Rome. She became the “new Zion,” the “Eternal City,” and “The Holy City,” titles which God had given to Jerusalem alone (A Woman Rides the Beast, p. 335).
The Catholic claims, says Hunt, put the Church “in direct conflict with God’s promises concerning the true City of David.” In Hunt’s Darbyite scheme, Rome and Jerusalem are eternal enemies and rivals for spiritual supremacy in the world. Catholics respond that anti-Jewish hostility has no necessary link to Catholic doctrine and that pre-Christian pagans and post-Christian Nazis were anti-Semitic. This response doesn’t faze Hunt because he sees Catholicism as the paganization of Christianity. Hunt blames Catholic doctrine and ecclesiology for the Holocaust — at least in the sense of preparing the way for it.
Oddly enough, in making this accusation, Hunt agrees with anti-Catholic secular liberals and with radical neo-Modernist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. In her 1977 book Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roofs of Anti-Semitism, Ruether maintained that anti-Semitism is the “left hand” of New Testament Christology and of the Pauline and patristic doctrine of the Church as the New Israel. Predictably enough, Ruether proposes that the New Testament itself be subjected to a hermeneutic of suspicion — i.e., to ideological cleansing — and that Christian doctrine concerning the Messiahship and incarnate divinity of Christ be radically revised to suit the post-Holocaust era. Ruether acknowledges that modern racial anti-Semitism is the by-product of the secularization of the Christian world, but she nevertheless sees anti-Semitism’s remote origins in the New Testament and the Fathers.
The very idea of Dave Hunt and Rosemary Ruether agreeing about anything is astonishing. Anti-Catholicism makes strange bedfellows! But upon closer inspection, dispensationalism is, in certain ways, akin to neo-Modernist theology. Let us recall that the early liberal Protestants and the Catholic Modernist Alfred Loisy asserted that Jesus preached the Kingdom of God — but we got the Church instead.
Dispensationalists say much the same thing: Jesus offered Israel an earthly kingdom but was rejected and crucified and then rose and ascended to Heaven. The Church of the gentiles is not heir to the prophecies of the Old Testament. Loraine Boettner — no friend of Catholicism — makes the following pointed observation:
Dispensationalism contains a strong element of Modernism, even to the extent of asserting that in the Kingdom age salvation is possible apart from the work of Christ on the Cross. That man can be saved apart from the suffering of Christ is in fact the very heart of the Modernistic heresy, and there is no doctrine of Scripture that the Modernists would more gladly be rid of than that of blood atonement (The Millennium, 1957).
Ruether, seeing Scripture through her radical humanist-feminist lens, and Hunt, reading the Bible through the lens of dispensationalism, don’t seem to realize how much of the Scriptures they have tacitly rejected.
As for anti-Semitism and the Church, one notes that anti-Catholic writers like Hunt condemn the Church for her involvements in politics but also condemn the Church for not doing enough about the Holocaust. Question: How can Hunt demand that Catholics be political and apolitical simultaneously?
It puzzles me that while Catholics readily recognize writings such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as incitements to anti-Semitic prejudice and hatred, and vociferously condemn them, Catholics have said little about Dave Hunts anti-Catholic writings, writings which are, ironically enough, very much like anti-Semitic propaganda: They demonize an entire group of people and, in apocalyptic fashion, trace every evil in 2,000 years of history back to the international conspiracy called Catholicism. It is time for Catholics to respond.
And to whom are we responding? A brief look at Dave Hunt’s personal spiritual journey may help us understand him and his concerns. (The facts come from a 1992 study by William DeArteaga entitled Quenching the Spirit.) Hunt was raised in a devout Plymouth Brethren home which looked askance at the enthusiasms of the Pentecostals, and Hunt continued to share these sentiments through his college years and marriage. He majored in mathematics, served in the Army, and eventually became a certified public accountant. He hoped to become a prosecuting attorney but had to change plans when, as general manager of a financially troubled lumber and real estate company, he became legally responsible for the company’s debts.
In this desperate situation, he prayed to God for help and received assurance that all would be well. According to DeArteaga, “that began several years of living on a financial precipice, where one miracle after another saved the business from folding.” This experience, followed by a physical healing in answer to prayer, convinced Hunt that the Plymouth Brethren’s cessationism (i.e., the view that miracles ceased after the apostolic age) was a dead faith: “Would I be left with the emptiness of an orthodox ‘faith’ that contents itself with beautiful prayers and songs about a God who hides far away in heaven and waits to free men after death, but who plays no real part in their here and now?”
Hunt’s new opinions about the gifts of the Holy Spirit put him on a collision course with his Brethren congregation. When the elders at Hunt’s church found out about his attendance at a charismatic home group, they charged him with heresy and excommunicated him. But soon Hunt began to see some of the dangers of enthusiasm in his charismatic prayer group: the lack of spiritual discernment, the “easy believism” without discipleship or commitment, and the lack of both love and unity.
Hunt began to look for a via media between the charismatics and the more conventional (cessationist) evangelicals. He read the writings of the South African evangelist Andrew Murray, whose teaching on the Holy Spirit derived from the writings of the Anglican mystic William Law, whom Hunt began to study assiduously. In 1971 Hunt produced an edition of Law’s book An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy, under the title The Power of the Spirit. Hunt saw Law’s teaching as the golden mean between cessationism and the charismatic renewal. In his introduction to this work. Hunt wrote:
He [Law] would rebuke, ..both camps…. To the mainline denominational adherent he would press home the necessity of the sovereignty and power of the Holy Spirit for today; and upon the Pentecostal he would impress the fact that the power of the Spirit is bestowed primarily to witness and to live a holy life.
Without realizing it. Hunt was groping toward the Catholic position on faith, grace, and the special charisms in the life of the Church. If only Hunt were not prejudiced by Darby’s dispensationalism, he might see this and recognize the substantial Catholicity of Law’s spiritual teaching.
The missteps of the Protestant Reformation have created the problematic situation Hunt has, in part, correctly recognized. He even sees part of the answer in the spirituality of William Law. The Catholic tradition that Hunt excoriates is itself simply the Holy Spirit—guided elucidation of the revealed Word. Like the Virgin Mary, the Church is filled with the Holy Spirit and treasures the Word in her heart, that it may remain in all its purity for all generations. Hunt’s identification of Catholic tradition with “mere traditions of men” is wide of the mark. It could be more aptly applied to the eccentric doctrinal system of dispensationalism, the very system Hunt unquestioningly accepts.
By 1985 Hunt came practically full circle to near-cessationism, almost to where he had begun. In alarm at the advance of New Age ideas, Hunt began to oppose the enthusiasm of the charismatic renewal, which he saw as influenced by occultic and Gnostic assumptions (putting faith in faith rather than in Christ, and such). Hunt still sees practically all political involvements as participation in the establishment of the New Age—dominated reign of the Antichrist — with the help of Catholicism and Christian Reconstruction, no doubt.
There is a final irony in Dave Hunt’s story. He remains a follower and admirer of William Law, the high-church Anglican mystic who refused to swear allegiance to the House of Hanover. As a nonjuror, Law lost his career in the Church of England but remained a faithful Anglican of basically Catholic sympathies: His writings reflect the influence of Thomas a Kempis, Ruysbroeck, and other medievals. Law also commended the religious life of consecrated celibacy and poverty as found among monks and nuns, and he emphasized the indwelling of Christ in the soul of the Christian. William Law’s spiritual teaching is essentially Catholic. It is therefore not surprising that Law’s writings profoundly influenced John Henry Newman and other members of the Oxford Movement in their attitude toward both the spiritual life and the Establishment. Though Law, as a nonjuror, was disqualified from church office, he disapproved of schism and dissent.
The problem with men like Darby and Hunt — the burden they bear and the burden they impose onus—is that they are perpetually looking for some pristine Christian purity and constantly accusing others of falling prey to pagan influences. And yet, at some point in their ever-renewed protest against Catholicism, they arbitrarily assert that one or more parts of Catholic Christianity has remained incorrupt — it may be the authorizing of the canon of Scripture, the gifts of the Spirit, the mystical tradition, or the reality of miracles.
A.W. Tozer, the great evangelical pastor, is another figure whom Hunt deeply respects and commends as a model of spiritual discernment. But Hunt conveniently ignores the fact that Tozer gratefully acknowledged his spiritual debt to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and Brother Lawrence. Is it likely that such a godly evangelical was deceived by false Catholic mystics? If Catholicism is truly apostate, as Hunt shouts from the rooftops, then how can the Catholic mystics be reliable guides in the spiritual life?
We must say to Dave Hunt, as to all anti-Catholic Protestants: If the springs of Catholic tradition are as poisoned as you say, why do you drink from them when you need to slake your spiritual thirst?
Protestants like yourself have had over 30000 sects and theologies since the 16th century; how can you say your form of Christianity is the same one Jesus and the apostles taught?
The Catholic Church is just ONE. More and more protestants are going back to the Church Jesus founded. I know many former evangelicals who just converted to Catholicism.
True Church
I need to congratulate you on your lengthy comment on history which for the most part is untrue. For instance, you said:
Hunt never believed that salvation is possible apart from the work of Christ on the cross during the Kingdom age. The irony is that the RCC believes that salvation is not possible without Christ PLUS baptism, indulgences, prayers to and worship of Mary, purgatory, the Mass etc. etc. etc. I asked you a question which you conveniently ignored.
Please answer the question. Moreover, your statement “Without realizing it. Hunt was groping toward the Catholic position on faith, grace, and the special charisms in the life of the Church. If only Hunt were not prejudiced by Darby’s dispensationalism, he might see this and recognize the substantial Catholicity of Law’s spiritual teaching,” with regard to “the fact that the power of the Spirit is bestowed primarily to witness and to live a holy life” is equally biased and ironical. The Internet and other newspapers and magazines are replete with articles on the rampant paedophilia among priests and clergy, not to mention the unholy lifestyles of many previous popes. Vicars of Christ??? You must be kidding me.
True Church wrote:
You’re telling us that Jesus and his apostles and Paul taught the following? Really??? Yes, another Jesus – a Jesus that cannot save – taught this heresy.
You say ” I know many former evangelicals who just converted to Catholicism.” What does that prove? I’ll tell you what it proves. It proves that the Bible is truly the infallible Word of God that predicted many centuries ago the apostasy which you love to emulate.
This is a perfect description of the so-called true church you belong to.
True Church
Read this article.
“The Internet and other newspapers and magazines are replete with articles on the rampant paedophilia among priests and clergy, not to mention the unholy lifestyles of many previous popes. Vicars of Christ??? You must be kidding me.”
So have many Rabbis, Imams, gurus, and yes, protestant pastors. The only thing it proves is that there are bad people in all religions.
Just answer the following:
Where did the Bible as you know it came from?
What makes you sure you and Hunt follow the right form of Christianity, rather than one of many heresies?
Why is there no historical evidence of evangelical, dispensationalist Christianity before the 16th century, if that is the Christianity that Jesus and the apostles taught?
Protestant pastors do not pretend to be infallible and the Vicars of Christ on earth.
The Bible definitely did not come from the Roman Catholic Church.
Read here, if you will.
Here are the facts about dispensationalism. Read here.
Please answer my question.
Do you believe the following from the Code of Canon Law?
But protestant pastors claim to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit!
And you keep using the same unreliable source.
If the Church Fathers believed in the dispensation as you do, the Catholic Church would no doubt believe in it.
As for your question… http://lonelypilgrim.com/2013/06/03/let-him-be-anathema-not-what-many-protestants-think-it-means/
True Church wrote:
Dave Hunt wrote:
Your source tries to corroborate its view of anathema with that of the Bible (Paul). According to the Bible anathema means to be accursed. Barnes describes the word as follows:
Greg Durel writes:
You are playing a very dangerous little semantic game with the word anathema. By the way you honed in on the word “anathema”.” That is not what I asked you about. I asked you whether you believe one must be saved by Jesus PLUS the sacrifice of the Mass for the living and the dead. YOu still haven’t asked me OR do I misunderstand the meaning of the living and the dead as well?
So what? You play games of semantics with anything to suit your rapture/dispensation beliefs, whether they’re in the Bible or not.
Still, we Catholics have something you lack: almost 2000 years of history. Your heretical beliefs only go back 200 years; they are even considered fringe among most protestants.
No matter what nonsense you show me from dubious anti-Catholic sources, we’re the original AND true church.
No! You are wrong. You don’t have 2000 years of history. You have more or less 6000 years of history. Your church started in the time of Babylon with Nimrod and Semiramis who established the abominable mother and child worship.
Are you still going to base your salvation on the assumption that your church has a more pristine history and tradition than the Protestant churches? No one is so blind as those who will not see.
True Church wrote,
What is the matter with you? I quoted to you what some of your own popes had said in the past. Are they also dubious anti-Catholic sources?
There’s dirt to be found in every single Christian movement. Just because some did wrong doesn’t mean the whole institution is false or corrupt.
And LOL at your conspiracy theories. Babylonian? I’ve heard that one a thousand times before; disproven even by non-Catholic scholars.
If the Catholic Church is wrong, ALL of Christianity is wrong. We’re the original church, like it or not.
True Church,
You still don’t get it, do you? It is not about the dirt of individuals in a religious movement. It is about getting the Gospel wrong. If you get it wrong you cannot claim to be saved. Let me ask you again.
Do you believe the following from the Code of Canon Law?
This is NOT the Gospel. It is another Gospel. It cannot save. You can have millions of years of history and tradition. It won’t benefit you one little bit if you get the Gospel wrong.
Newsflash: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WROTE THE GOSPEL, not Luther, or Calvin, or Darby, or anyone in the last five centuries. The Vatican established Christianity’s most important doctrines: the Virgin Birth, Original Sin, the Trinity, the current NT canon, etc. Things like the pre-trib rapture, sola scriptura, salvation by faith only, and other evangelical doctrines have more in common with heretical sects than what the Church Fathers believed.
True Church,
Thanks, you have now shown your true colors when you said “Things like . . . salvation by faith only . . . have more in common with heretical sects than what the Church Fathers believed.” Rubbish! Paul of Tarsus said precisely just that –
Paul did not say “But without faith AND WORKS it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is AND DO GOOD WORKS, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him AND DO GOOD WORKS. (Heb 11:6).
As I said before, your gospel is another gospel which is no gospel at all.
Read here.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WROTE THE GOSPEL????? Really???? I thought the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles and Paul wrote the New Testament. I’m sure you are going to say they all belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Now that would truly be an historical event you would need to research more diligently, won’t you?
Thank God, it wasn’t Luther, Calvin or Darby who wrote the lies that Mary had an immaculate birth and that she had no original sin. That’s blasphemy because it denies one of the fundamental truths of the Gospel, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
I suggest you read the following passages:
Matthew 5:20 Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 12:37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
Matthew 16:27 For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.
Matthew 19:17 If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.
Matthew 25:41-46 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Luke 10:26-28 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
John 5:29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
Romans 2:6, 13 Who will render to each one according to his deeds. … For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified.
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the jugment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
2 Corinthians 11:15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
Philippians 2:12 Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
James 1:22 Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves
James 2:14, 17, 21-25 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? (v.14)
Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (v.17)
Was not Abraham our father justified by works? You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rabab the harlot also justified by works? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (vv.21-25)
1 Peter 1:17 The Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work.
Revelation 2:23 I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
Revelation 20:12-13 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Revelation 22:14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life.
As the Bible says, BOTH faith and works are required for salvation, even St. Paul said so.
Fun fact: Martin Luther tried to remove James from the NT because it contradicted his “faith only” doctrine.
True Church,
I suggest that you understand the following passages exegetically correctly.
Jesus Christ was referring to His own righteousness which we need in order to be saved and NOT our own good works that should exceed those of the scribes and Pharisees as your church suggests. Only Christ’s righteousness imputed to believers through faith alone exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.
If you do not have his righteousness which is imputed to you by faith alone in his finished work on the cross and which is much greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the Kingdom of God.
And by the way, our best works (own righteousness) are but like filthy rags (menstrual rags).
Did you see that? ALL YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESSES are as filthy rags. ALL OF IT, my friend.
Look at the context. The context is given in verse 32 “And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. (Mat 12:32).
A divine Person living among men would naturally not be fully appreciated. Allowances were made for speaking out against his humanity (the Son of Man). The power of his miracles evidenced that He is more than a mere man. When the Pharisees attributed his miracle to Satan while it evidenced his divinity, they not only spoke out against His divine nature but also the work of the Holy Spirit who performed the miracles through Him. That is the unforgiveable sin. The verse does not refer to good works but the things you say about Jesus’ divinity. A good example is the following.
This is a classic example of how speaking out against the divinity of Jesus Christ blasphemes Him. It denies the sufficiency of his divine work on the cross when the Mass is elevated to a level of propitiatory value.
He was not speaking about works you need to do in order to be saved. He was speaking about the works that follow salvation. The rewards spoken of here is not eternal life but the rewards saints will receive when they loyally do the works He prepared for them to walk in before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 2:10). The main work for a saint to do is to believe.
You conveniently omitted the first part of the verse “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God” If God alone is good then He alone is/was capable of keeping all the commandments 100% every moment throughout his life. That’s why He said: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” As God He was the only one who could keep all the commandments 100%. Jesus was leading the man to a knowledge of his deity but when that did not help, He advised him to keep the commandments himself, suggesting that He should either acknowledge that He alone was able to keep the commandments on his behalf and thus be saved, or keep them himself. This too did not help because the man boasted that he had kept all the commandments since childhood. It was then that Jesus said to him “One thing thou lackest.” (Mark 10:21). You can boast as much as you like. You cannot possibly keep all of God’s commandments because if you break one you have broken them all. There will always be something you lack in doing the commandments of God. Indeed, the Commandments was not given to enter into life but to lead you to Christ. (Gal 3:24).
The reason why you cannot understand this passage in its proper context is because you shun dispensationalism and in particular the Rapture, the seven years tribulation period and the future Kingdom of God on earth. The Bible Knowledge Commentary explains it as follows:
You should really learn to read Scripture in its proper context. The expert in the Law who came to Jesus and asked “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” was not sincere. He merely wanted to test Jesus to see whether He was a real Rabbi who was well-schooled in the Law. This man only wanted to justify himself (Luke 10:29) in the very same way you are trying to justify yourself. Jesus answered his question with two other questions, forcing the Law expert to go back to the Old Testament. The Law expert answered correctly when he quoted to Him Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18. Jesus affirmed that he would live IF the man did all this. Did the man do all this? If he truly loved God, he would have acknowledged that Jesus was the One of whom Moses prophesied when he said “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” (Deut. 18:18). Instead of being convicted of his feigned love for God in supposedly keeping the essence of the Law and to ask “How can I do this? I am not able to. I desperately need help,” he tried to move the focus from his own self-righteousness by asking “And who is my neighbour?” That’s what happens when you try to justify yourself.
The verse cannot possibly mean that salvation can be earned by doing good deeds. If it had, it would have contradicted verses such as John 3:17-21 and 6:28-29. It simply means that those who are saved by grace through faith alone in the finished work of Christ on the cross will obey him in doing his will whilst the unbelievers can only continue to do evil.
Once again, the notion that good deeds attribute to one’s salvation contradicts many other passages in Scripture. Your habitual conduct, whether good or evil, reveals the condition of your heart. Eternal life is not rewarded for good living; that would contradict, as I said, many other Scriptures which clearly state that salvation is not by works, but is all of God’s grace to those who believe (Rom. 6:23; 10:9-10; 11:6; Eph. 2:8-9; Tit. 3:5). A person who continually does evil and REJECTS THE TRUTH shows that he is unregenerate and therefore will be an object of God’s wrath. Good works do not lead to salvation; salvation leads to good works.
Once again, you do not understand the true meaning of this verse because you shun with contempt dispensationalism, especially the Rapture and the things that are going to transpire in heaven after the Rapture. The first thing which is going to take place after the Rapture is the Bema Throne judgment in heaven. This judgment is for believers only and has nothing to do with salvation. Those who are going to appear before Christ’s judgment seat are raptured believers and the purpose thereof is to decide who will receive rewards and crowns.
Of course false prophets will be condemned for their works. What are their works? They reject the true Gospel and supplant it with another one based on works and not faith alone.
I really wish you would take the context into consideration when quoting verses. First of all, Paul’s letter was addressed to believers. They were already saved. Therefore he could not have told them to work for their salvation, or to work good deeds in order to be saved. He said “WORK OUT” your own personal salvation because God has already endowed you with the means and power to work OUT your salvation. He simply said that they should put into practice OUTWARDLY what God had already put into them INWARDLY when He saved them. It’s as simple as that.
The key word here is “obedience.” It simply means that those who are truly saved will not only listen to the Word of God but also do it (practice it). James then continues to give an example. In verse 26 he says that a man who does not control is tongue to speak according to the oracles of God, his religion is vain and means nothing. Barnes says it thus-
James is merely saying that true faith is evidenced by works. He is not saying that good works are necessary for salvation. Again, this would contradict many other passages in Scripture that clearly say that faith alone in Christ’s finished work on the cross saves repentant sinners. He offers two examples of true faith – Abraham and Rahab.
Abraham’s salvation by faith alone (Gen. 15:6) prior to circumcision (Gen. 17:11; Rom 4:9) proves that he had been redeemed by faith alone in God. However, the proof of his salvation (which, by the way, was what James was arguing for in contrast to Paul who was arguing for the priority of faith), was revealed when he sacrificed his only son, Isaac. Indeed, he was not saved because he sacrificed his son; he was saved because he acknowledged through the sacrifice of his son that God would provide his own Son, Jesus Christ, for our salvation. Abraham’s own sacrifice of his son proved that his faith alone in Christ and his sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for his own and our salvation. Works serve as the barometer of justification, while faith is the sole basis for justification. Similarly Rahab’s faith in God was evidenced by her actions when she hid the Israeli spies. To gain spiritual maturity a believer must be what God wants him to be and to do what God want him to do. Jesus words in Luke 6: “Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. (Luk 6:47-49). Acting upon the word of God is the evidence of one’s salvation through faith alone in the finished work of Christ on the cross. You cannot say you need to observe the Mass, indulgences, prayers to Mary and the likes in order to be saved because it contradicts Christ’s Word.
If, as you believe, good works are necessary for salvation and not only faith, then Abraham’s killing of his son was a good work. The goodness of the work lies in the fact that Abraham obeyed God even to the point of believing that He had the ability to raise him from the dead (Hebrews 11:71-19). Where did this faith come from? Did his faith unto justification and righteousness become a reality when he sacrificed his son or was his salvific faith already a reality unto justification and righteousness when it was imputed to him the moment he believed? Verse 23 provides the answer: “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. (Jas 2:23). This verse does not refer back to verse 21 but to Genesis 15:6 before Isaac was born.
Peter does not teach that works (as you understand it in the RCC) lead to salvation. In fact, he does not teach what you ought to do; he teaches what you ought not to do to please God. Verse 16 explains it perfectly: “Be ye holy, for I am holy” Holiness means to be separated unto God and his will for your life. In turns it means to separate yourself from everything that displeases Him.
Considering the ecumenical thrust of the RCC (John Paul II even went so far and kissed the Qur’an), one may ask whether the RCC is obeying Christ? I don’t think so. Indeed, it is a faith without the works of Christ in doing his will and his will alone.
Once again I must reiterate that you do not understand this passage because you do not believe in a literal 1000 years of Christ’s reign on earth and that the unbelievers will be judged AFTER the 1000 years.
Unbelievers are going to be judged at the White Throne judgement seat of God according to their works. Why according to their works? Because their works are the only things they will have to try and pacify God and revert his judgment. They never believed in Christ for their salvation as the means to justify entrance into the Kingdom of God and therefore they will of necessity rely on their works. Hence, God must of necessity judge them according to their works. He is going to say to them “OK, you relied on your works to justify yourself in my sight. Let’s look at them one by one because I had written them down one by one. I have recorded every single work you had done during your life on earth.” IN this way God is going to confront unbelievers with their own works and prove beyond any reasonable doubt that their works were always evil, even those whom they themselves regard as good (Gen. 6:5).
Revelation 7:14 makes the doing of his commandments in order to have access to the tree of life abundantly clear, “And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” , (Rev 7:13-14). The phrase “that do his commandments” is just another way of saying “they washed their robes in the blood of Christ (believed on Him for their salvation). (John 6:29).
Faith alone is required for salvation. The works that evidence salvation follows it.
Martin Luther misunderstood James.