Last edited on Sun Nov 11th, 2007 01:19 pm by Credo Catholic

Last edited on Wed Nov 14th, 2007 11:46 am by Ken Follis

Last edited on Mon Nov 12th, 2007 04:23 pm by TotusTuus

The most preposterous doctrine taught was not the one stating Jesus wants us all to be financially wealthy and was wealthy Himself but Hagin's many visits from Jesus wherein he is instructed that part of our redemption was obtained in Hell where Jesus suffered there for our sins and not just on the Cross.  I believe this to be contrary to orthodox Christianity.

He found Himself in a state of condemnation and abandonment . . . He actually and in truth offered Himself to the eternal Father to be consigned to eternal damnation for us. His human nature did not behave differently from that of a man who is to be condemned eternally to hell. On account of this love of God, God at once raised Him from death and hell, and so He overcame hell.

[Grisar, Hartmann, Luther, vol. 1 of 6 (translated by E.M. Lamond, edited by Luigi Capadelta, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 2nd edition, 1914,, 239-240; from Commentary on Romans (1515-1516); edition of J. Ficker, Leipzig: 1908, 218 ff.)

But Christ took upon Himself all of our sin, and thus He died upon the cross. Therefore he had to become that which we are, namely a sinner, a murderer, evildoer, etc. . . . For insofar as he is a victim for the sins of the whole world, He is not now such a person as is innocent and without sin, is not God's Son in all glory, but a sinner, abandoned by God for a short time; Psalms 8:6.

[Detailed Explanation of the Epistle to the Galatians, part 2, fourth argument, Walch edition, vol. 8, p. 2165, nos. 321-324; cf. Commentary on Galatians, translated by Erasmus Middleton, ed. J.P. Fallowes, London: 1850; reprinted by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI, 1979, 164-165]

The popish sophisters do spoil us of this knowledge of Christ . . . when they separate Him from sins and sinners . . . But we must wrap Christ, and know Him to be wrapped in our sins, in our malediction, in our death, and in all our evils, as He is wrapped in our flesh and blood . . . if it be not absurd to confess and believe that Christ was crucified between two thieves, then it is not absurd to say also that He was accursed, and of all sinners the greatest [he then cites 2 Cor 5:21].

[Commentary on Galatians, translated by Erasmus Middleton, 165; on Gal 3:13]

Christ . . . did put upon Himself our person, and laid our sins upon His own shoulders, saying, I have committed the sins which all men have committed . . .

[Ibid., 171]

We must not then imagine Christ to be innocent, and as a private person who is holy and righteous for Himself alone, as do the schoolmen, and as nearly all of the fathers have done. True it is that Christ is a person most pure and unspotted; but thou must not stay there: for thou hast not yet Christ, although thou know Him to be God and man . . .

. . . He putting off His innocency and holiness . . .

[cites 2 Cor 5:21] And although these sentences may be well expounded after this manner: Christ is made a curse, that is to say, a sacrifice for the curse; and sin, that is, a sacrifice for sin: yet, in my judgment, it is better to keep the proper signification of the words, because there is a greater force and vehemency in them. For when a sinner cometh to the knowledge of himself indeed, he feeleth not only that he is miserable, but misery itself: not only that he is a sinner, and accursed, but even sin and malediction itself. For it is a terrible thing to bear sin, the wrath of God, malediction and death. Wherefore that man who hath a true feeling of these things (as Christ did truly and effectually feel them for all mankind) is made even sin, death, malediction, etc. . . . guilty of all our malediction, our sins, and all our evils . . .

[Ibid., 174-175]

Although death remained in that flesh on our account, the leaven of sin was nevertheless purged out, and it became the purest flesh, purified by the Holy Spirit and united with the divine nature in one Person. Therefore it is truly human nature no different from what it is in us . . . The Holy Spirit wanted Him to sink into sin as deeply as possible. Consequently, He had to be besmirched with incest and born from incestuous blood.

(Luther, Commentary on Genesis, 1544, footnote 81: Luther's Works 7:13)

. . . God is at once completely above and completely below. He is the creator and the Lord and yet at the same time the lowest creature and a servant subject to all men, yes, even to the devil. This man Jesus who bears the wrath of God, the sin of the world, all earthly trouble, yes, hell itself, is at the same time the highest God. The mystery of Christ cannot be expressed without these paradoxes. This is especially true of Christ's sufferings on the cross . . . Luther had to come to terms with Christ's assertion on the cross that he was forsaken by God. In a sermon in 1537, he understands it in this way: The deity has certainly not departed from the humanity (deity and humanity are inseparably united in Christ); but 'the deity withdrew and hid . . . the humanity was left alone, the devil had free access to Christ, and the deity withdrew its power and let the humanity fight alone.' Elsewhere Luther says that Christ on the cross did not feel his deity but suffered purely as a man. The second statement can be reconciled with Luther's thought that the deity suffered in Christ but the former cannot, at least not in the form that the deity 'withdrew.' This does not do justice to the mystery of the suffering of the deity in the sufferings of the man Jesus Christ; that can be expressed only in paradoxical terms. The deity of Christ specifically did not withdraw while the man Jesus was suffering but is present in him both in his suffering and victory . . . his dogmatic theory which describes Christ as true God and true man is not unified within itself but displays contradictions. Theology had to go beyond it.

Christ does not stop loving God above all things even though he fully experiences being forsaken by God, being under God's wrath, and the hell of being far from God . . . Certainly he feels as the damned feel. He trembles before God and would like to flee from him; but at the same time is able to love him . . .

Christ suffers hell and the wrath of God and overcomes them with the power of his love of God. This is how Luther understands the Article of Christ's descent into hell. It is part of Christ's death agony. Through it Christ gains the victory over hell . . . Luther also teaches a descent of Christ into hell after his death. This two-sidedness brings him into difficulty. In spite of this, there is no doubt that luther's own personal understanding of Christ's descent into hell relates it to the passion, Gethsemane, and Golgotha. Calvin adopted this understanding and it was accepted in some confessions of faith of the Reformed Church. In distinction from Luther, Melanchthon understood the descent into hell as Christ's triumphal victory march into hell. Christ terrifies the devils and the damned by showing them his power. Lutheran orthodoxy developed this idea. The descent into hell is the first stage of Christ's exaltation. Thus Luther's deep understanding is abandoned. Lutherans, for the most part, opposed the Reformed understanding of the descent into hell as part of the humiliation without realizing that they were also polemicizing against Luther.

Luther's doctrine of the cross transcends all earlier theology through the radical seriousness with which he allows Christ to suffer both hell and being totally forsaken by God . . . He who wills to be our Savior must also have suffered our own hell. This hell is not a future condition or place but a present reality which a terrified conscience experiences under the wrath of God. Christ who has experienced both hell and being forsaken by God is directly involved in the distress of all men under the wrath of God and their distress is directly involved in his passion.

(Ibid., 206-208)

But we must seek a surer explanation, apart from the Creed, of Christ's descent into hell. The explanation given to us in God's Word is not only holy and pious, but also full of wonderful consolation. If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. No -- it was expedient at the same time for him to undergo the severity of God's vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his just judgment. For this reason he must grapple hand in hand with the armies of hell and the dread of everlasting death . . . No wonder, then, if he is said to have descended into hell, for he suffered the death that God in his wrath had inflicted upon the wicked! . . . he paid a greater and more excellent price in suffering in his soul the terrible torments of a condemned and forsaken man.

(Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, XVI, 10, vol. I, 515-516, in the edition edited by John T. McNeill and translated and indexed by Ford Lewis Battles, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960)

Here certain untutored wretches, impelled more by malice than by ignorance, cry out that I am doing a frightful injustice to Christ. For they hold it incongruous for him to fear for the salvation of his soul . . .

Our opponents, refuted, jump to another misrepresentation: although Christ feared death, he did not fear God's curse and wrath, from which he knew himself to be safe.

(Ibid., II, XVI, 12, vol. 1, 517, 519)

. . . The prevailing interpretation of this article of the Creed was that of Aquinas." They cited precedents for Calvin's view in Nicolas of Cusa and Pico della Mirandola, and state that "Luther adopted the view that Christ, as God and man, literally entered into hell. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, sec. 49, following Aquinas, states that Christ liberated the (Old Testament) fathers and other pious men from imprisonment in limbo.

Last edited on Tue Nov 13th, 2007 07:47 pm by Ken Follis

The most preposterous doctrine taught was not the one stating Jesus wants us all to be financially wealthy and was wealthy Himself but Hagin's many visits from Jesus wherein he is instructed that part of our redemption was obtained in Hell where Jesus suffered there for our sins and not just on the Cross.  I believe this to be contrary to orthodox Christianity.

It sure is. Kenneth Copeland teaches this blasphemous notion, too. Also (this may shock many to learn), so did Luther and Calvin.
Thanks, Dave! I retract what I said earlier, Rhema is more Reformed than I previously imagined. 

I would love to hear Hannegraff try to defend Luther and Calvin in this regard.  He, Michael Horton and James White disappoint me because they get it right about the heresy of Hagin in their books but refuse to see that of Calvin, Luther and their own.
:?

Last edited on Tue Nov 13th, 2007 07:52 pm by Ken Follis