Copeland Deifies Man

(The following is taken from a message sent to members of our mailing list on 02/09/2004. Now that we have created this blog, we will use our mailing list to send out only major updates. If you would like to subscribe, please send a blank message to subscribe@rmiweb.org.)

I received an advertisement that includes a "prophecy" by Kenneth Copeland. I have not been keeping up with his organization, so I started to read it to see what he had to say. It was so bad that I did not finish reading.

Below is a recent quotation from Kenneth Copeland, I think spoken on or around New Year’s Eve:

Adam was created in the image of God. He was not created almost in the image of God. "But after all, no one could be equal with God." That isn’t true. That’s not true, that no one could be equal with God. And we took a lot of criticism for that. I had people gunning at me for years: "Ah, Kenneth Copeland said that we’re God!" No, I didn’t. I just quoted Jesus, he was the one who said it. Adam was created exactly like God. He was not short anywhere in his likeness of God. He had the very creative power of God in him and on him. We know that Jesus thought it not robbery to be called equal with God, and he was called the last Adam. Jesus and Adam were exactly alike.

Of course, this is a terrible distortion of what the Bible teaches about the nature of God, the image of God, and the nature of Christ — thus messing up theology, anthropology, and christology in one short paragraph.

We talk about the menace of Mormonism, Catholicism, and other such damnable religious cults, but what is this?! Certainly we cannot call it evangelical, or even Christian. At least Mormonism teaches that we might become gods later; Copeland says that we are already gods, or exactly like God and equal with God.

The cure? Systematic theology.

Recommended:

Ministry Spending and Favoritism

Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology

Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Philippians

John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos

Robert Bowman, The Word-Faith Controversy