Bill Johnson

[NorrinRadd]

John MacArthur's Heresy Regarding Christ the Son:

John MacArthur teaches that although Jesus is eternal, He is not the eternal Son of God. He writes, “Son is an incarnational title of Christ. It is an analogy to say that God is Father and Jesus is Son … God’s way of helping us understand the essential relationship between the first and second persons of the Trinity … Christ was not a Son until His incarnation.” (Commentary to the Hebrews, pp. 27, 28)


I think if we examine every word by every pastor we get
some statements that seem like heresy.
But we have to look at the spirit behind it and try to
get to the actual truth.

I believe Walter Martin also held this view.

 

[Craig de CrossWise]

Why would I care? It is unmistakably either "tension" (to use the common circumlocution) or "contradiction."

I'd think you should care. Certainly the Bible is not self-contradictory. You must put EX 33:11 in proper context by including vv 18-23. Same with Numbers 12. These are anthropomorphisms and/or theophanies. There is no "tension" in John 1:18 as you claim. John 1:18 is plain in that no one sees God. Yet Jesus DID see God, and not only did He see God, He did what He saw the Father doing.

The Gospel writer's theological point is that Father and Son were ontologically equivalent in Being/essence. Jesus' words in 5:19ff were to solidify the understandings of the Jews as identified in vv 5:16-18, who wished to kill him for his 'blasphemous' claim of calling God His own Father, thereby equating Himself with God. In 5:19ff Jesus was agreeing with them, showing His solidarity and equality with the Father, as well as His temporal dependence on the Father, while having the ability to "see" the Father.

 

[Craig de CrossWise]

John MacArthur's Heresy Regarding Christ the Son:

John MacArthur teaches that although Jesus is eternal, He is not the eternal Son of God. He writes, “Son is an incarnational title of Christ. It is an analogy to say that God is Father and Jesus is Son … God’s way of helping us understand the essential relationship between the first and second persons of the Trinity … Christ was not a Son until His incarnation.” (Commentary to the Hebrews, pp. 27, 28)


I think if we examine every word by every pastor we get
some statements that seem like heresy.
But we have to look at the spirit behind it and try to
get to the actual truth.

I'm not here to defend MacArthur in full (as I have other points of serious disagreement); however, he was person enough to change his position regarding the eternal generation of the Son:

http://www.gty.org/Resources/articles/593

If only Bill Johnson would amend his ambiguous and self-contradictory statements.

 

[simonthezealot]

Ok, I want to say something as I look through the examples of quotes by Bill which you're trying to pick apart. The above is what the Lord means when He talks of how people try to make someone "an offender for a word".

the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought. - Isaiah 29:20-21

In so many cases of what's written about Bill Johnson, all I see is a lot of 'reaching' to try to find him guilty of some horrible treason against God. This argument barely makes sense. It's almost like Bill Clinton arguing over the definition of the word "is".. It's all in how you're interpreting what he's written.

Typical...
The position you follow get's put under scrutiny and instead of defending your position and reasoning with people you target the character of the person who opposes you.
SMH

 

[simonthezealot]

Furthermore you ought to be careful, within the context of the verse you are attaching to me, you'd better be awfully sure that i'm doing something other than defending the truth of scripture against a false teacher.....And if my understanding aligns with scripture which it does and I am calling out BJ for his false teaching which it is, then you are attaching a righteous work to evil...And that's no small thing.

This is what you've attached to me.


20 The ruthless will vanish,
the mockers will disappear,
and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down—
21 those who with a word make someone out to be guilty,
who ensnare the defender in court
and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

 

[simonthezealot]

We are called to fight to help prevent doctrinal apostasy in the Church, and to answer the false claims of cults and religions and teachers….

 

[sunlover1]

I'm not here to defend MacArthur in full (as I have other points of serious disagreement)

That's not my point.
The point is, we have our "pet" teachers that teach bad doctrine
yet we overlook that, then pick on men over made up claims
of heresy.

however, he was person enough to change his position regarding the eternal generation of the Son:

I don't really know what he changed. He's wrong and teaching heresy on
other points as well. I refuse to listen to him but I sure don't go around
making websites to warn the masses of his "heresy" Good grief.
There's not enough WWW space to list all of the errors in Christan teachers.
Is THAT our calling? To condemn men of God who's theology
we disagree with?

If only Bill Johnson would amend his ambiguous and self-contradictory statements.

I know right. Shame on him for being as ambiguous as the rest of us.
When you get to know someone, it's easier to understand them.
If you don't understand them, probably not a great idea to condemn them.

We are called to fight to help prevent doctrinal apostasy in the Church, and to answer the false claims of cults and religions and teachers….

Well Johnny Mac is teaching heresy, let's treat everyone with the same passion and zeal.

 

[simonthezealot]

Well Johnny Mac is teaching heresy, let's treat everyone with the same passion and zeal.

Want me to start a thread about it?
Far as I know JM does not deny any of the 5 fundamentals of orthodox christianity, which is different than what I can say for Bill...
But yeah if as you claim he is teaching heresy it should be exposed.

 

[Craig de CrossWise]

sunlover1,

You assume Johnson is a man of God. I don't. When an individual misrepresents the divinity of Christ, then I have a reason to have concern. When his Christology is so consistently ambiguous (if not seemingly self-contradictory) such that it can be construed as equivalent to occult/New Age doctrine, then I have reason to warn about his false teachings. And that's what I've done. I've not "condemned" him, as you say.

I've been critical of MacArthur on my blog as well:

Thoughts on Craig Keener’s Review of MacArthur’s ‘Strange Fire’ | CrossWise

As a side note: I have to say that your tone is decidedly un-Christian. A hallmark of being led of the Spirit is gentleness, self-control, etc. (Gal 5:22-26).

 

[simonthezealot]

Jesus didn't consult people,

Good grief when would i have ever said that?

 

[simonthezealot]

sunlover1,

You assume Johnson is a man of God. I don't. When an individual misrepresents the divinity of Christ, then I have a reason to have concern. When his Christology is so consistently ambiguous (if not seemingly self-contradictory) such that it can be construed as equivalent to occult/New Age doctrine, then I have reason to warn about his false teachings. And that's what I've done. I've not "condemned" him, as you say.

I agree Craig...
watch out though some on here will start taking pot shots at you personally, because their teacher is going under scrutiny, it will turn into a character assasination on anyone trying to expose Johnsons falsehoods.

 

[simonthezealot]

I am quite confident the defenders of BJ don't realise that only the Biblical, orthodox view of the incarnation (and the Hypostatic union) allows for Christ's atoning blood to cleanse us from all sin...
That's the dangerous aspect of Johnson's teaching.

 

[Craig de CrossWise]

I agree Craig...
watch out though some on here will start taking pot shots at you personally, because their teacher is going under scrutiny, it will turn into a character assasination on anyone trying to expose Johnsons falsehoods.

Ad hominem attacks are never fruitful, and I don't generally allow those on my own blog, though certainly, some have. I sometimes use these personal attacks as object lessons to others. Most usually, those sorts of comments come from 'drive-by' commenters.

Let's examine the words, not do character assassinations.

 

[sunlover1]

sunlover1,

You assume Johnson is a man of God. I don't. When an individual misrepresents the divinity of Christ, then I have a reason to have concern. When his Christology is so consistently ambiguous (if not seemingly self-contradictory) such that it can be construed as equivalent to occult/New Age doctrine, then I have reason to warn about his false teachings. And that's what I've done. I've not "condemned" him, as you say.

I'm talking about taking his words out of context and projecting
something that's not there but that can be misconstrued as such
IF the seed is planted by you.

I've been critical of MacArthur on my blog as well:

Thoughts on Craig Keener’s Review of MacArthur’s ‘Strange Fire’ | CrossWise

Is there NO room for human error then?
From what I hear JM is a great teacher/man of God.
Bless your heart but maybe God has more for you than
a ministry of condemnation.

As a side note: I have to say that your tone is decidedly un-Christian. A hallmark of being led of the Spirit is gentleness, self-control, etc. (Gal 5:22-26).

Ad hom much?
smh.
TBH, I am very patient and what you see is me speaking without
taking the time necessary for the niceties, icons, warm fuzzy add ins
that I try to do sometimes.
You don't know me and so i can see why you'd think i am using a
harsh tone. Harsh is a word that you'd never use if you heard me
in person.
I'm not 'angry' but my use of caps for emphasis PROBABLY isn't
a good plan.
So anyhow, forgive me if I've offended you in any way. I think you're
very well spoken and articulate AND intelligent and well read from what
I've seen.
I disagree with some of the conclusions you've arrived at, we have
a muc different understanding of God and what's pleasing to him as
I appear to be somewhat of a 'charismatic' Christian (According to
my very close friend SimontheZealot, who I love like a bro.. well
better than that even ) ETA,, eww that sounded creepy upon
my re reading it lol. I meant that brothers can sometimes be a pain
in the behind. LOL
And so we're certainly going to have different understandings of
what Scriptures mean.

eternally God says to me that he believes that Jesus is God.
Talking about the anointing, I ALWAYS assume a man is talking
about the HOly Spirit when he speaks of the anointing, No reason
I can see that you'd say this particular man is not.

Perhaps your argument is weak because I am SO open to find truth
about this guy. I am MOST definitely NOT cool with the feathers
and gold dust, but because of things I've read in the Bible, I wont
just dismiss them out of hand, so I want to give the MAN a fair
shake.
ANY man who may be a friend of God for that matter.

 

[Craig de CrossWise]

Ad hom much?
smh.
TBH, I am very patient and what you see is me speaking without
taking the time necessary for the niceties, icons, warm fuzzy add ins
that I try to do sometimes.
You don't know me and so i can see why you'd think i am using a
harsh tone. Harsh is a word that you'd never use if you heard me
in person.
I'm not 'angry' but my use of caps for emphasis PROBABLY isn't
a good plan.
So anyhow, forgive me if I've offended you in any way. I think you're
very well spoken and articulate AND intelligent and well read from what
I've seen.
I disagree with some of the conclusions you've arrived at, we have
a muc different understanding of God and what's pleasing to him as
I appear to be somewhat of a 'charismatic' Christian (According to
my very close friend SimontheZealot, who I love like a bro.. well
better than that even )
And so we're certainly going to have different understandings of
what Scriptures mean.

eternally God says to me that he believes that Jesus is God.
Talking about the anointing, I ALWAYS assume a man is talking
about the HOly Spirit when he speaks of the anointing, No reason
I can see that you'd say this particular man is not.

Perhaps your argument is weak because I am SO open to find truth
about this guy. I am MOST definitely NOT cool with the feathers
and gold dust, but because of things I've read in the Bible, I wont
just dismiss them out of hand, so I want to give the MAN a fair
shake.
ANY man who may be a friend of God for that matter.

I've not made any ad hominem attack on you, any more than I've "condemned" Bill Johnson, MacArthur, etc. Pointing out harshness in another's tone is merely just that. You've pretty consistently been using words such as "attack,", "condemn," etc. whenever someone criticizes the words of Bill Johnson. You claim that you are after truth, but time and again you dismiss any criticism of BJ (usually by pointing to someone else who is exhibiting other errors not even germane to this conversation) or minimize the problems, many times using sarcasm in your responses against the writer in question. That's hardly any way to further discussion.

While you've at least conceded my points re: John 5, even in that, rather than pursue it to its Biblical ends, thereby seeing the fallacy in Johnson's proof-texting of a portion of John 5:19, you just gloss over it, saying you'll make it the subject of another post. Why not discuss it further here?

Is God a God who is 'emptied of divinity', that is, is God non-divine? Of course not. That's an oxymoron. God is a divine Being, hence to be 'emptied' of divinity means emptied of deity or God-ness. It matters not how many times Johnson wishes to state Jesus is eternally God when BJ consistently states He "laid aside His divinity" or "emptied Himself of divinity." This is a heresy that really gained traction in the mid-1800s, including an initial claim of eternal deity, yet a concurrent claim of temporal non-divinity (or possessing some but not all divine attributes during the Incarnation).

 

[sunlover1]

I've not made any ad hominem attack on you, any more than I've "condemned" Bill Johnson, MacArthur, etc. Pointing out harshness in another's tone is merely just that. You've pretty consistently been using words such as "attack,", "condemn," etc. whenever someone criticizes the words of Bill Johnson. You claim that you are after truth, but time and again you dismiss any criticism of BJ (usually by pointing to someone else who is exhibiting other errors not even germane to this conversation) or minimize the problems, many times using sarcasm in your responses against the writer in question. That's hardly any way to further discussion.

Sarcasm?
Which post is that?
And I "usually" point to someone else who's exhibiting other errors?
Once is usually? (Is that sarcasm? Because to me that's me asking
a question incredulously)

While you've at least conceded my points re: John 5, even in that, rather than pursue it to its Biblical ends, thereby seeing the fallacy in Johnson's proof-texting of a portion of John 5:19, you just gloss over it, saying you'll make it the subject of another post. Why not discuss it further here?

Im sorry, I didn't want to turn THIS thread into another topic.

Is God a God who is 'emptied of divinity', that is, is God non-divine? Of course not. That's an oxymoron. God is a divine Being, hence to be 'emptied' of divinity means emptied of deity or God-ness. It matters not how many times Johnson wishes to state Jesus is eternally God when BJ consistently states He "laid aside His divinity" or "emptied Himself of divinity." This is a heresy that really gained traction in the mid-1800s, including an initial claim of eternal deity, yet a concurrent claim of temporal non-divinity (or possessing some but not all divine attributes during the Incarnation).

[/QUOTE]
And there is an entire thread devoted to just this topic.
I posted the link to you originally.
That's a MUCH more logical place to discuss that
As you can see on that thread, we certainly have some
many different understandings of Just HOW that relationship
works (trinity/divinity/humanity). Have you bothered to
look at that thread?
Forgive me for not wanting to turn this thread into a debate
on every known Christian topic.
It's already been ruined by arguing over some guys words
that you read one way and I AND others cannot even begin
to see.
If I were the only one who was seeing this, it would be one
thing but i'm not the only one AND, I don't believe that the
others who can't see it are fans of BJ either.
So it's not that we're trying to defend some pet teacher.
I don't know the guy and from what I've seen, the others
aren't followers of his.
(Except one, SparkPlug likes Bill Johnson very much and
seems to be quite familiar with him.)

 

[Nanopants]

Christians don't exactly have the cleanest track record when it comes to exposing heresy, and pretending to be ignorant of that just adds fuel to the fire in a multi-denominational forum.

I have noticed how a few posters here seem to be itching to pull the "arianism" trigger on Johnson, though nobody has been able to respond to my argument, that the best they can do is show him to be contradicting himself.

When you all will be able to disconnect yourselves from false teachings and their teachers, so as not to imagine yourselves as holy crusaders out to disspell the lies of the devil and his minions, let me know and maybe we can have a real, and interesting conversation.

 

[sunlover1]

I've not made any ad hominem attack on you,

Being told I sound "unChristian" might be considered ad hom.

 

[Craig de CrossWise]

Being told I sound "unChristian" might be considered ad hom.

This is where you misunderstand. I was very careful with my wording. Having an "un-Christian" tone, could be stated, perhaps, not having a Christ-like tone. It's not calling you a non-Christian, or something of that sort. And, I can certainly be guilty of having an un-Christian tone (I did the other day with my boss).

You asked about showing you examples of tone, sarcasm, etc.:

"IOW, you are more scholarly than the lexicons?"

"...You may have an agenda that's different than mere fact finding."

"We should use the same rules to read this
as we did to read what BJ stated, right?
Stand alone statements count. Never mind
context."

On the above, you kept insisting I was taking BJ's words out of context, yet I included the full context initially, only asking you to reconcile the following, the very first sentence in the quote:

…While Jesus is eternally God, He emptied Himself of His divinity and became a man (see Philippians 2:7)....

At this point it seems you think I'm reading something into it, but I see that you are actually reading into it. I'm not saying you are doing this obstinately, but it seems you think Johnson does not mean literally emptying of divine attributes, yet that's what the quote says at face value:

Jesus is eternally God (eternally divine), yet He emptied Himself of divinity (became non-divine) and became man.

He can't be "eternally God" (eternally divine) yet have divested Himself of divinity in becoming man! That's either an oxymoron or...

Now, you did state the following early on, so I'll cut some slack (though you should not endeavor to be rude! - I'm sure you were just kidding):

"And thank you for your gentle spirit. I know
that I can be so curt and forget to be warm
and fuzzy when I am discussing things.. forgive
me, I'm not mean, just rude I'll try harder."

 

[sunlover1]

This is where you misunderstand. I was very careful with my wording. Having an "un-Christian" tone, could be stated, perhaps, not having a Christ-like tone. It's not calling you a non-Christian, or something of that sort. And, I can certainly be guilty of having an un-Christian tone (I did the other day with my boss).

You asked about showing you examples of tone, sarcasm, etc.:

"IOW, you are more scholarly than the lexicons?"

Sorry I didn't mean to be sarcastic.
I'll try to figure out a better way to ask you but, the question remains.
And I remember your answer. But I think you're being quite narrow
in your understanding

"...You may have an agenda that's different than mere fact finding."

You may. How's that sarcasm?

"We should use the same rules to read this
as we did to read what BJ stated, right?
Stand alone statements count. Never mind
context."

Totally serious, no sarcasm intended.

On the above, you kept insisting I was taking BJ's words out of context, yet I included the full context initially, only asking you to reconcile the following, the very first sentence in the quote:

…While Jesus is eternally God, He emptied Himself of His divinity and became a man (see Philippians 2:7)....

The reason that I say this is because if you look at the ENTIRE statement,
it shows that he isn't saying Jesus isn't God but that he's using his own'
way to try to say that Jesus did not do His works AS God.
I started a thread about that a short time ago.

At this point it seems you think I'm reading something into it, but I see that you are actually reading into it. I'm not saying you are doing this obstinately, but it seems you think Johnson does not mean literally emptying of divine attributes, yet that's what the quote says at face value:

Jesus is eternally God (eternally divine), yet He emptied Himself of divinity (became non-divine) and became man.

He can't be "eternally God" (eternally divine) yet have divested Himself of divinity in becoming man! That's either an oxymoron or...

Right. I do see it differently than you because of his OVERALL attitude of
the subject. You seem to be quite familiar with his work. Does he indeed
say that Jesus is not God or imply it in any way in any of his statements
some where that we can compare

Now, you did state the following early on, so I'll cut some slack (though you should not endeavor to be rude! - I'm sure you were just kidding):

I'm sorry that i may be 'curt' and 'non warm fuzzy' again if we continue
to engage so i hope you will not hope for much in the way of warm fuzzy
and just have to be content with knowing that God is our judge and He
alone knows my heart and is able to keep me in line