Our next sampler from the buffet of falsehood:
“Adam was not subordinate to God….” “When Adam originally sinned he gave his God-nature to Satan. God could not intervene since He had made Adam the God of the earth. God was left on the outside looking in.”
Kenneth Copeland’s message:
Following the Faith of Abraham; Tape #01-3001
See the May 3 blog entry for our first offering and the ground rules for our discussion.
What Say You?
This is ridiculous. Clearly God is not limited by Satan, man, circumstances, or time. The Bible is very consistent on this. Heb 1:3 says “He (Jesus) upholds all things by the word of His power.” In Gen 18:14 and in Jer 32:27 God Himself rhetorically asks, “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” In Job 1:8-12 we see God offer up Job to Satan and set strict parameters as to how Satan is allowed to treat Job, and Satan follows them to strictly. Again, in Job 2:4-6 we see God offer up His servant Job to Satan. This time we see a clearer picture of how this works. After God offers Job up, Satan asks God to “stretch out Your (God’s) hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he (Job) will surely curse You to Your face!” Without the Almighty God stretching out His omnipotent hand, feeble Satan could do nothing. God is clearly in control of everything, including Satan and what he is and isn’t allowed to do.
Finally in Psalm 33:8-11 we read “Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.” This is not a God on the outside looking in!
Flaw #1: Adam was not subordinate to God…
Logically, this would mean that Adam was a either a peer of God or superior to God. Genesis 2:16 shows God giving the man commandments. One commands a subordinate, not a peer or a superior.
Incidentally, if Adam was not subordinate, why, then, were Adam and Eve tempted by the idea that they could be “like God?”
Flaw #2: When Adam originally sinned he gave his God-nature to Satan.
(Note to the reader: Copeland is making a claim that he ought to defend. If you run into someone who makes claims like this, the burden of proof is on him to support it – don’t let him off the hook and shoulder the burden yourself to prove him wrong! With that said…)
This is a little like the person who says, “so when did you stop beating your wife?” It assumes a false starting point and tries to focus all attention on the sensational consequence of the statement – in other words, “if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with baloney” (or something like that). Don’t be baffled.
First of all, the only way Adam had a “God-nature” was if Adam was a peer or superior of God. We took this one out already. It sounds superficially like the idea that we are created in the image of God, but nature and image are two very different things.
Second, if Adam sinned, against whom did he sin? If you say, “God,” then you have just strengthened the argument against Flaw #1. If he sinned against his “God-nature,” whatever that means, what in the world is the point? If he sinned against his own “God-nature,” and thereby gave that nature to Satan, of what value was that “God-nature” to Satan, Adam, God, or anybody?
Flaw #3: God could not intervene…
Not only could God intervene, He did: Genesis 3:23 tells us “…the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden…”
Flaw #4: …He had made Adam the God of the earth.
Genesis 1:26 says that God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion … over all the earth…” To have dominion is very different from being God.
Flaw #5: God was left on the outside looking in.
Poor, helpless, daft, feckless, nearsighted God! Like a cosmic Dr. Frankenstein, He’s gone and made Adam so powerful He can’t do anything about the mess Adam is making. He’s gone so far as to give Adam the “keys to the kingdom,” so to speak, so that Adam could commit the cosmic blunder of handing the keys over to Satan. Not only that, but God’s omniscience was so limited that he couldn’t even foresee any of this! I call this “Homer Simpson theology” – “Let there be–D’OH!”
Seriously, Copeland should have to defend this claim. How do you arrive at the idea that God is impotent? I cited Genesis 3:23 above as evidence that God had the power to act, and did – the burden is on Copeland to reconcile the Biblical portrait of an active and almighty God with his dopey deity.
So let’s put it all together: Copeland is saying that God made Adam at least equal to Himself, but somehow Adam couldn’t carry the weight of this supposed divinity. However, Adam was powerful enough to keep God at bay so that God couldn’t do anything about it all while Satan came in and ripped off Adam’s divinity. So now what? Is Satan greater than God? How is God able to redeem anyone? Is God worthy of our worship if this is the case? I’m confused.
Or maybe Copeland is wrong.