ERRONEOUS TEACHING

This section covers a number of erroneous teachings found within the Christian church.  While some such as the belief in a pre-tribulation rapture are nonessentials, others may heretical and/or harmful.  We hope this guide will assist others in their quest for truth.

Deathbed Embodiment
Eternal Sonship
Free Grace
Pre-Tribulation Rapture
Total Depravity

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Deathbed Embodiment

I have labeled this false teaching as "Deathbed Embodiment" since I have been unable to find an official title already in use for this erroneous teaching.  The basic premise of this doctrine is that when we die, we immediately receive a new body from God and that our old body is destroyed, never to rise again.  To further complicate this teaching, they often insist that we are all really resurrected at the same time since they hold to the view that God dwells outside of time, which ultimately means we all will get to heaven at the same time.  When you die, you will not only find yourself in heaven with your new body, but with all your Christian friends and family as well.  Time is only relevant to us here in the earthly realm.

The major passage used to solicit support for this doctrine is 2 Corinthians 5:1-8, which reads:

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)  We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Those who interpret this passage to imply that we get a new body at death are missing the point of the passage entirely.  Paul is telling the Corinthians the exact same thing he told them in the first letter, in 1 Corinthians 15, that when the body dissolves, the body still remains in a spiritual form we cannot see until the resurrection.  Our hope is to receive this body, the same body in which we now dwell, but changed and transformed.  This "groan" of which Paul speaks is for the resurrection when we will receive this new body (also cf. Rom. 8:23).  When Paul then goes on to discuss the absence from the body is to be present with the Lord, he has moved on to an entirely new thought, that of the here and now.  When we die, our spirit departs to be with God and the body remains in the earth.  At the resurrection, our hope of the heavenly body will be realized.  It is very important that this passage, as any, is read within the context of the surrounding verses, as well as well taking into account what Paul had already explained to the Corinthians in his first letter.

One of the serious problems with this teaching is that it implies the victory of death over mankind.  Even if we do get a new body when we get to heaven, the old body has died and death has been victorious over this body.  In order to refute this serious error, we will use Scripture to dispel its foundation on both of its erroneous claims.  The first and major premise is that the body we are in now dies and is never again to be resurrected, but instead we get the new body immediately upon death.  This teaching is extremely contrary to scripture which insists that we are raised in the same body, though this body is transformed.  Jesus was raised in the same body in which he died.  In addition, an earthquake was necessary during his death to open the graves of the saints whose bodies were raised with Jesus after his resurrection (Matt. 27:51-53).  Scripture makes it clear that the dead bodies will arise from the graves and the sea at the resurrection (John 5:28-29; 1 Cor. 15:51-55; 1 Thes. 4:14-17; Rev. 20:13).

The second premise used to support the first is that since God dwells outside of time, we all get there at the same time.  This seems to be a poor attempt to make this doctrine line up with other passages that imply a passage of time between death and the general resurrection when everyone gets a new body.  This secondary supportive teaching is also lacking any support in the biblical text.  If God dwells outside of time and everybody gets there at the same time as they profess, then we must have Elijah and Moses leave eternity to appear on the Mountain of transfiguration with Jesus while in eternity everybody is already there, including the apostles who witnessed this event.  Actually, according to their hypothesis, even we ourselves must now be up there with those who have already died.  You can see how this begins to sound like a bizarre science fiction novel rather than truth as conveyed in Scripture.  In addition, it makes it very clear in Revelation that we don't all get there at the same time and that there is passage of time in heaven as well (Rev. 6:9-11; also cf. Rev. 12:12).

Eternal Sonship

This teaching arose as early as the second century of the church and has been the result of confusion and misunderstanding about the true nature of the pre-incarnate Word of God ever since.  It was responsible for the Arian heresy of the early church as well as the modern equivalent of Arianism found in the teachings of the Jehovah Witnesses.  The basic premise is that the Sonship of Jesus is eternal, having always existed within eternity, finding its expression in identifying Jesus in the creeds as "begotten before all the ages," a clear self-contradiction of equality in power and rank with God the Father.  Though the Word (or logos) of God is identified as eternal, sonship was not established until the incarnation when the Word became flesh.  Though most Christians still hold to this false teaching of the early creeds, many scholars in the last century or so have come forward to denounce eternal sonship and insist that though Jesus was eternal as the Word, that he is not called the Son until the incarnation.  The famous Walter Martin who battled the cults is one of those who have denounced this serious error.

Free Grace

This is the doctrine that claims a genuine believer can believe upon Jesus Christ and fall away at some point in the future even to the point of no longer believing in Jesus Christ and yet still be saved. Their definition of repentance is simply a change of mind about Jesus and has really nothing to do with genuine repentance as described in the Bible.

Pre-Tribulation Rapture

The belief that Christians can be resurrected any minute and that they will escape the coming persecution of the Great Tribulation is not only lacking any real biblical support, but this false belief has never even been contemplated in any records of church history until the last 200 years or so.  The attempt of some to produce earlier church documents in support of the pre-tribulation rapture have only been accepted by some who believe this because they have simply failed to read the supposed supporting documents for themselves and are simply taking the word of the proponent that these documents support their belief when in fact they do not.  I have studied such documents and have yet to see any early document that shows such a belief.  Though a rapture or resurrection is clearly taught in the Bible, a pre-tribulation rapture is not.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians to clear up the confusion apparently caused by his first letter discussing the resurrection:

Now we beg you, brothers, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together to him, That you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (2 Thes. 2:1-4)

According to Paul, that day will not come until a falling away and the man of sin is revealed.  And though the return of Christ will come like a thief in the night, this is only for the world, not for Christians.  As Paul explains:

But of the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that I write to you.  For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.  But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. (1 Thes. 5:1-4)

As the righteous in the days of Noah and Sodom & Gomorrah knew the end was coming, so will it be for us as we see the signs that the end is approaching.

Total Depravity

Total Depravity is the erroneous teaching that man is born so totally depraved that he cannot have a desire to seek out God without the intervention of God.  Though the definition among total depravity varies among some of its proponents, this is the basic premise held by most of them.  Many also believe that you cannot do anything good at all, that our nature is so depraved that we are incapable of any genuine good without God first changing our nature.  It is important that one understand that total depravity is a doctrine that goes way beyond the biblical teaching that we have a sinful nature.  It doesn't just imply that we are born with a sinful nature, which is true, but that we are totally depraved in all aspects of our being as well.  For more information on this false teaching, read Total Depravity and Free Will by Ira Benjamin Hezekiah available in our store.