Is Bishop Td Jakes a Born Again Christian

AURORA, Sick. (BP) — Bishop T.D. Jakes says he has moved abroad from a "Oneness" view of the Godhead to embrace an orthodox definition of the Trinity — and that some in the Oneness Pentecostal motion now consider him a heretic.

Jakes — long a controversial figure among evangelicals considering of his by unwillingness to assert the Trinity — stated his belief Wed (Jan. 25) at the 2d-almanac Elephant Room (theelephantroom.com), an event that brings together Christian figures from different backgrounds for what organizers phone call "conversations yous never thought you'd hear." This year'south Elephant Room was held at Harvest Bible Chapel in Illinois and was simulcast to other locations nationwide.

Jakes, founder and senior pastor of The Potter'southward House in Dallas, was the focus of a motion at Southern Baptist Convention annual meetings in 2009 and 2010 by a messenger who wanted LifeWay Christian Stores to stop selling his books. One was ruled out of order by the SBC president, the other referred to LifeWay for written report.

Jakes — who once made the cover of Time magazine, which asked if he might be the next Billy Graham — said he was saved in a Oneness Pentecostal church building. Oneness Pentecostalism denies the Trinity and claims that instead of God being three persons, He is one person. In Oneness Pentecostalism, there is no distinction between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. It is also called "modalism," and it is embraced past the United Pentecostal Church International.

[[email protected]@180='I began to realize that there are some things that could be said about the Father that could not be said almost the Son.'
— T.D. Jakes]"I began to realize that at that place are some things that could exist said most the Male parent that could not be said about the Son," Jakes said. "In that location are distinctives between the working of the Holy Spirit and the moving of the Holy Spirit, and the working of the redemptive piece of work of Christ. I'k very comfortable with that." [Come across the transcript of Jakes' comments at the end of this story.]

The doctrine of the Trinity — embraced past all 3 historical branches of Christianity — holds that God is three persons, each person is distinct, each person is fully God, and that there is one God.

Several fundamental Bible passages, Jakes said, impacted his transition.

[[email protected]@180='It is encouraging to see T.D. Jakes moving away from the heresy of modalism. However, we should pray for him and exhort him privately and publicly to motility into biblical orthodoxy without equivocation.'
— Malcolm Yarnell]"Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, for example, coming up out of the water [and] the Holy Spirit descends similar a dove, the Father speaks from heaven — and we come across all three of them on one occasion," he said, "or in Genesis [where God said,] 'let u.s.a. make man in our ain likeness' or Elohim — He is the one God who manifests Himself in a plurality of ways. Or what Jesus says, 'I am with the Male parent, and the Father is in me.'"

Jakes added: "That began to make me rethink some of my ideas and some of the things that I was taught. I got kind of tranquillity about information technology for a while. Because when y'all are a leader and you are in a position of authority, sometimes you have to back up and ponder for a minute, and really think things through."

James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle interviewed Jakes.

Not everything Jakes said will make Trinitarians happy. He said he considers both sides of the issue to be Christians, and that his church building has affiliations with both camps. He also said "we're all saying the same affair." But under questioning from Driscoll, Jakes once more affirmed the Trinity:

Driscoll: "Practice you believe this is the perfect, inspired, last authority Give-and-take of God?" [Driscoll held up a Bible.]

Jakes: "Absolutely."

Driscoll: "So you believe in that location's one God, 3 Persons — Begetter, Son and Holy Spirit? You believe Jesus was fully God, fully Man?"

Jakes: "Absolutely."

Driscoll: "You believe He died on the cross in our place for our sins?"

Jakes: "Absolutely."

Driscoll: "You believe He bodily rose from death?"

Jakes: "Absolutely."

Driscoll: "Yous believe that He is the gauge of the living and the expressionless?"

Jakes: "Yes."

Driscoll: "And you believe that apart from Jesus there is no salvation?"

Jakes: "Admittedly."

Jakes said he prefers the term "manifestations" instead of the term "persons" — a position he has stated before.

He also said that "many of the circles that I came from would never allow me in their pulpit [at present] because they consider me a heretic."

Southern Baptist leaders applauded Jakes' transformation while too saying Jakes isn't fully where he should be on that and other bug.

"It is encouraging to run into T.D. Jakes moving away from the heresy of modalism," said Malcolm B. Yarnell III, director of the Centre for Theological Research at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. "Withal, we should pray for him and exhort him privately and publicly to motion into biblical orthodoxy without equivocation. Much of what Jakes stated about God the Trinity in this interview was correct. For instance he noted the simultaneous but distinct movements of the Begetter, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the baptism of Jesus. This is very true, though I might have described it differently."

Yarnell said Jakes incorrectly interprets i Timothy three:16, which says "He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the earth, taken upwardly in celebrity." Jakes uses that poesy to fence for his usage of "manifestations," but Yarnell says the passage is speaking simply of Jesus — not the other members of the Godhead.

"The simply 'manifestation' to which i Timothy 3:16 refers is the incarnation of God in Christ," Yarnell said. "… Jakes just does not offer a proper exegetical footing for his unique theological term." [Yarnell's complete statement on Jakes' comments follows this story.]

Russell D. Moore, dean of the school of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said he takes "Bishop Jakes at his word that he holds to Trinitarianism."

"But there's still some elephants left in the room," Moore said. "Outset of all, Bishop Jakes isn't a new convert being discipled in the nuts of the Christian faith. He is a celebrity mega-church building pastor. Moreover, Trinitarianism isn't the 'meat' of some avant-garde doctrine, only the most foundational doctrine of the Christian faith. A Christian pastor affirming least-mutual-denominator Christian doctrine should hardly exist news, much less an elephant in the room. This tin only happen in an American evangelicalism that values success, novelty and celebrity more than church accountability."

Moore added, "At that place still stands the result of the prosperity gospel Bishop Jakes preaches. Joyce Meyer and Kenneth Copeland are Trinitatians but their health and wealth gospel is dissimilar from the message of Jesus and His apostles."
–30–
Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press. DVDs of the Elephant Room II can be purchased at TheElephantRoom.com. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).

Following is the transcript of the chat between T.D. Jakes, Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald on the Trinity, beginning after Jakes was asked well-nigh his background:

Jakes: My father was Methodist. My mother was Baptist. My father's family was Methodist every bit far dorsum every bit I can remember. I was raised in a Baptist church building. Just I was raised in church building but I really didn't accept a real committed experience with Christ until my father died. When my begetter died, I had a real experience with Christ — a real conversion in Christ, and I had it in a Oneness church.

Driscoll: Past Oneness meaning [what]? — for those who do not know all the theological terms.

Jakes: Well it would be like, how do I explain information technology? Information technology was not a UPC [United Pentecostal] church building, in spite of the blogs. It was not a UPC church building, only somewhat similar.

Driscoll: Jesus only, modalism?

Jakes: "Jesus simply — modalism" which is still a theological term. … But Christians and Christians [who] believe in Jesus Christ, believe He died and rose from the dead, coming back again — all the same things that y'all exercise. Pentecostal Christians by its virtue. Only how they described and explained the Godhead in a traditional oneness sense is very, very dissimilar from how traditional Trinitarians depict the Gospel. And I was in that church and raised in that church for a number of years. My problem with it as I began to go on and every bit God began to develop my ministry, I started preaching from that church and from that pulpit and that sort of thing. Only I'thousand likewise informed past the infiltration from my Baptist experience and my Methodist feel, so I ended up Metha-Bapti-Costal in a mode. So I'm kind of like a mixed breed sitting up hither, OK? And what I began to discover out [is that] it is easy to throw rocks at people that you don't know, but the more you really get to know them and come across Christ work in their lives, regardless of their conventionalities system, y'all begin to try to exist a span-architect. … When you endeavour to build bridges between people who've been fighting for hundreds of years — hundreds of years before you ever even got into the discussion. There is an old aphorism that says 'he who stands in the centre of the route gets hit past both sides.' So as I began to progress, I began to understand that some of the dogma that I was taught in the Oneness movement was very dogmatic and very narrow and really not the best description of how I at present understand the Godhead. I yet did not want to switch teams and commencement throwing rocks back across the street, considering much of what nosotros do today is teach people to accept sides. Simply I believe we are called equally the Body of Christ to reconcile wherever possible.

MacDonald: Alright, but before we even get into — and I think what you lot're leading us into is wise and helpful and it reflects why nosotros're hither — how we relate to people who differ is on subject. Before we fifty-fifty become to that, I'd love to give yous an opportunity to just — like there were some detail Scriptures that began to inform you, you began to move and develop in what yous personally believe. I'd similar to just hear you clear that.

Jakes: My struggle later on I was ordained and consecrated in the Oneness church was in several passages, sometimes the doctrine fits; sometimes it doesn't. And when the doctrine becomes the primary thing yous force it into many places where information technology doesn't fit. I really at this point in my life don't want to force my theology to fit within my denomination. I am open to hear whatever God is maxim. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, for example, coming up out of the water the Holy Spirit descends like a dove, the Father speaks from heaven — and we run across all 3 of them on one occasion, or in Genesis "let us make human being in our own likeness" or Elohim — He is the one God who manifest Himself in a plurality of means. Or what Jesus says, "I am with the Father, and the Male parent is in me" and agreement — or attempting to sympathize. And that began to make me rethink some of my ideas and some of the things that I was taught. I got kind of tranquility about it for a while. Because when yous are a leader and you are in a position of dominance, sometimes you have to dorsum up and ponder for a infinitesimal, and really think things through. I began to realize that there are some things that could be said about the Father that could not be said nigh the Son. There are distinctives between the working of the Holy Spirit and the moving of the Holy Spirit, and the working of the redemptive piece of work of Christ. I'm very comfy with that. You and I accept talked; [Jack] Graham and I accept talked; there is very little difference in what I believe and what yous believe. But here is where I notice the problem: I don't call back annihilation that whatever of us believes fully describes who God is. And if we would ever humble down to admit that we in our finite minds cannot fully describe an infinite God.

Driscoll: … We all would agree in the nature of God there is mystery, and it's similar a dimmer switch: how much certainty, how much mystery. But within that, Bishop Jakes, for you the issue between Trinitarianism and Modalism at its essence is one God manifesting Himself successively in three means? Or ane God 3 persons simultaneously existing eternally. … And I understand, in that location is some mystery — for sure. Would you say it's One God manifesting Himself in three ways, or One God in iii persons?

Jakes: I believe that neither i of them totally did it for me, but I think the latter i is where I stand today.

Driscoll: Ane God, three Persons?

Jakes: One God, three Persons. I God, Iii Persons, and here is why — I am not crazy about the word "persons." … My doctrinal statement is no dissimilar from yours except for the …

Driscoll: The word "manifestation."

Jakes: Manifest instead of persons. Which you depict as modalist, and I draw it as Pauline. Let me evidence you what I'yard saying. When I read 1 Timothy 3:16, I didn't create this. … "And without controversy," which I remember we have been grouse about something that is what Paul describes as a mystery, and I don't think nosotros should do that. "And without controversy cracking is the mystery of godliness. So God was manifest in the mankind." Now Paul was not a modalist, but he does not think that it is robbery to the divinity of God to say God was manifest in the flesh. And I retrieve maybe it's semantics. Just Paul says this before this fight was started. Only He also says God "was manifest in the mankind, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached until the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up into glory." Now, when we start talking about that sort of thing, I recall that information technology is important that we realize that in that location are distinctives between the Father and the working of the Son. The Father didn't bleed, the Father didn't dice — [that happened] only in the person of Jesus Christ. Coming dorsum for us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has with us, but only indwells us through the person of the Holy Spirit; we are baptized into the body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't think whatever of that is objectionable to any of the three of the states.

MacDonald: Non at all.

Jakes: Then that is consistent with my belief system. I'chiliad with you. I have been with you. I teach/preach that all the fourth dimension. At that place are many people within and outside quote unquote denominations that are labeled Oneness that would describe that the same way. There are some that would non. Simply when we become to know people past their labels, and then comes all the luggage of how nosotros define that characterization. … information technology's almost like the stereotypical ideologies nosotros accept about races. We have trivial ideas about denominations and movements. The reason I applauded what y'all said before almost people who accept dual affiliations: We are taught in gild that if we disagree with any movement, we leave. We sever. Oh, you said something I disagree with we autumn out and and so we walk away. I withal have fellowship, associations, relationship, and positions within and without Trinitarian and Onenness movements, considering I believe that until nosotros bridge the gap betwixt our thinking and humble both sides and say, "Nosotros are both attempting to describe a God we love, that we serve, and that we take not seen. And that we are viewing Him through the context of the Scriptures, just that with a glass darkly." Why should I fall out and hate and throw names at you when all that I know and sympathize, be information technology very orthodox, is still through a glass darkly? And then face to face. None of our books about the Godhead or anything else will exist on auction in heaven. You know why? Because we're only authorities downward here, with our little kingdoms in this world. I think it's and then important that nosotros realize that our God is across our intellect. And if you can define Him and completely describe Him and say y'all are the end-all definition of who God is, then He ceases to be God. Because the reason Paul says it is a mystery, is that we deify the fact that God does things that don't fit our formulas.

Driscoll: Let me spring in here. I want to say a couple of things. Thank you for joining us. You lot don't have to be there. Yous were on the cover of Fourth dimension mag. You have options of where yous go.

MacDonald: This isn't your biggest gig ever? [laughter]

Driscoll: Information technology takes a lot of courage and humility to put yourself in an unscripted situation and to exist outside of your normal tribe. And the fact that you showed up to dinner last night, I was shocked. I was like, "T.D. Jakes is coming to dinner?" I loved you. I enjoyed you. I really appreciated hearing your story of your family in context and your upbringing. And I walked away going, "I actually appreciate getting to encounter and know and enjoy that man. So thank-y'all for being gracious; thank-you for being courageous; and thank-you lot for being apprehensive. And I think it might be helpful because, You're coming out of a Oneness background and out of a different context than a lot of united states of america are. You've demonstrated humility, maxim "I've been studying the Bible and I'1000 even irresolute some thinking as I'thou studying." A lot of pastors will just defend their get-go position to death rather than humbly reconsidering it biblically. Maybe to help others understand you, on the flip side, How have you been treated and what has the response been from some who were friends that you don't want to throw rocks at, but because of your transition.

Jakes: That'southward what's funny near this, that'south what's actually funny to me.

Driscoll: Are you the heretic to them?

Jakes: Oh, very much then in many circles.

Jakes: … Many of the circles that I came from would never permit me in their pulpit because they consider me a heretic. I have to read the article to encounter which heretic I am.

MacDonald: We'd exist honored if you'd come be with us and let'south all grow together.

Jakes: OK, and that'd be great. But I think the time has come for us to be willing to take the heat to have a conversation. Because if we do non do this, and we continue to separate ourselves past ourselves and compare ourselves with ourselves, we practise it at the expense of decreasing numbers of new Christians in our state. We have to mobilize. Just for your consideration: This is the just thing that Jesus prayed that we can respond. He only prayed, "Father, I pray that they may exist i fifty-fifty equally You and I are too one." And this is the one thing that is within our power to answer, and we do not practise it.

Driscoll: Tin can I enquire a couple of quick questions, and and so we tin can practise whatever you want. Do yous believe this is the perfect, inspired, final authority Word of God? [Driscoll holds up a Bible]

Jakes: Absolutely.

Driscoll: So yous believe there's 1 God, Iii Persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit? You believe Jesus was fully God, fully Homo?

Jakes: Absolutely.

Driscoll: You believe He died on the cross in our place for our sins?

Jakes: Admittedly.

Driscoll: Y'all believe He bodily rose from death?

Jakes: Absolutely.

Driscoll: You believe that He is the judge of the living and the dead?

Jakes: Yes.

Driscoll: And you believe that Apart from Jesus at that place is no salvation?

Jakes: Absolutely.

Driscoll: Thank-you. [applause]

MacDonald: That was crazy! I've just want to say this: I am so weary of people thinking they know — they don't know I call up you lot award us and you apprehensive us, a man of your stature and delivery to the Gospel and fruitfulness would come and sit in this room, permit you and me ask him what he believes? … I just desire to say this, I think you've honored us, and yous've shown immense humility, and I want to be in the world where I believe that Jesus Christ stands. And He's told the states again and again He stands with the apprehensive. "Get to those people who love my Son, who believe my Word, who express humility." And I'yard honored to hear what you said. I want to merely say, further, Marker, if I could contribute to this, that I feel deeply in my heart that God is both three and 1. Three and 1. I believe the Scripture is very clear when we get to heaven, we are going to come across Jesus — the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Male parent, He has declare. Jesus is the only God we will e'er meet. When I was studying Revelation last year I was struck by the number of times that I saw in the volume of Revelation that it virtually seems in the text like the Begetter and the Son are on the same throne, and when I start to call back about this, I believe in God eternally existing in three persons. But, the more I recall almost information technology, the more I feel like my head is going to explode, and I get a little weary of people who experience that they demand to erase mystery and supercede it with certainty every bit a test of orthodoxy. If what we have heard today doesn't satisfy, then the person is insatiable, and I'm ready to move on to a new bailiwick. I believe that very strongly.

Jakes: Let me only make ane piffling comment: One of the things that you said at the end, fifty-fifty every bit we talked about it earlier, and I've heard Jack Graham say this, likewise, that at that place is going to exist i throne and there'south going to exist one God nosotros tin see. And I thought the more than I hear everybody arguing about this, we're all saying the same affair. And we like fight about it to the death, and I merely retrieve that in the world that we're living in today, if we could merely connect, and I know that there volition always be distracters and there will always be people who define themselves past their differences rather than their connections, who are more comfortable with beingness known past what they are confronting than by what they are for. Just when I hear yous say that there's going to be 1 throne and one God on that throne, My soul leaps in celebration, and I hear both of u.s. stumbling trying to explain how God does what He does like He does. I think THAT stumbling is worship. I recollect THAT stumbling is worship. I think the fact that nosotros would humble ourselves and say, "Your thoughts and ways are beyond human comprehension" is what makes worship fill the room.

*****************

Post-obit is Malcolm Yarnell's full statement:

In response to T.D. Jakes' recent statements on the Trinity, nosotros can assert vii things, though with some cautionary statements included, specially nigh proper biblical exegesis:

First, the goal of unity in Christ (John 17:21-23) is both laudable and necessary. Yet such unity must exist founded on the "truth" (John 17:17) revealed by God in Jesus Christ and recorded in the Word inspired by the Spirit. True unity requires that we confess the true Christ, the 2nd person of the Trinity revealed in Scripture, and not a Christ of our ain fashioning.

2nd, the telephone call for civility in Christian discourse is besides much appreciated. We ought to restrain ourselves from loosely casting around such terms equally "heretic" or "heresy." Before using these terms, we should be absolutely certain what the terms hateful and that they actually utilize.

3rd, Jakes is correct that Scripture should shape our theology and not that nosotros should make Scripture fit into our theology. And though I agree with him on this in theory, he has unfortunately misread Scripture to fit his purpose of "building bridges."

Quaternary, Jakes is correct that nosotros must know and speak about what we are for rather than what we are against. This is living with our optics on the positive nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Fifth, it is encouraging to see T.D. Jakes moving away from the heresy of modalism. However, we should pray for him and exhort him privately and publicly to motility into biblical orthodoxy without equivocation. Much of what Jakes stated about God the Trinity in this interview was correct. For instance he noted the simultaneous but distinct movements of the Begetter, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the baptism of Jesus. This is very true, though I might accept described it differently.

On the other hand, Jakes also speaks errantly. This derives from the fact that he is effectively trying to hold ii positions without seeing that his proffered mediating category is ultimately untenable. Jakes stated he wants to accept "dual affiliations" with both Oneness and Trinitarian churches. This is the goal backside his equivocation, and he relies on unique terminology to enable his dual theology. Although stating he is willing to use "persons" to describe the Trinity, he is too articulate he would prefer not to do so. (In that location have been orthodox theologians who too registered difficulty with the term "person," just typically they object to modernist meanings attached to the term, meanings different from the classical Christian understanding. Jakes, withal, is rejecting the term not because it has been misunderstood but because it is offensive to Oneness Pentecostals, whom he deems Christian.)

T.D. Jakes wants to have both Trinitarians and Oneness Pentecostals, who are Unitarian Modalists, classified every bit brothers in Christ at the same time. But yous cannot affirm both are in the realm of truth without removing the Trinity every bit a fundamental ground of the Christian faith. You cannot take both behavior at the aforementioned time: either God is both three and one (as Trinitarians believe and Unitarians deny) or God is only i (every bit Unitarians like Oneness Pentecostals believe and Trinitarians deny). There is no bridging this divide without losing the Trinity itself, for He is the God we worship.

Instead of using the term "persons," Jakes has long confessed he believes the "one God" is "eternally existing in 3 manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (see Potter'southward House Belief Argument at http://world wide web.thepottershouse.org/Local/About-Us/Belief-Argument.aspx). Jakes so proceeds to use "manifestations" in ways he hopes that both Trinitarians and Unitarians might find acceptable. Jakes, moreover, argues that "manifestations" derives from 1 Timothy 3:16. But he misuses the term'southward meaning in that passage, wrenching information technology from its Christological context and transferring it to the Trinity. The only "manifestation" to which i Timothy 3:16 refers is the incarnation of God in Christ. God was "manifested" in the flesh of Christ; this Christ was "justified" or "vindicated" past the Spirit through the Resurrection; this Christ was "received up into glory." The manifestation of God was Christ in one Timothy 3:16, not the Father and not the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Spirit are indeed at piece of work in this passage but not as "manifestations." Instead, the Father and Spirit work through the Son, who is God manifested in mankind and so we can encounter and hear and impact Him. Jakes simply does not offer a proper exegetical basis for his unique theological term.

6th, with regard to the aforementioned biblical passage, let us recognize that although there is "mystery" in Scripture, this is no reason to paper over real differences in theology. Where God reveals, there is no more than hiddenness in the mystery, for the mystery has now been disclosed, for us in Scripture. The indicate of i Timothy iii:xvi is not to say that the Trinity is an undisclosed mystery but that the incarnation, expiry, resurrection, and rising of Christ is the mystery of God now disclosed. An appeal to a continuing mystery in this passage really subverts the passage's meaning. Moreover, to claim that Scripture is dark is a repudiation of the Reformation rediscovery of the clarity of Scripture. Scripture is articulate and God has sent His Spirit to lead us into all the truth He inspired the apostles and prophets to tape therein (John 14:26, 16:12-15).

Seventh and finally, as a fallen man saved past grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, I concur with Jakes that theology, the homo attempt to explain divine revelation, is a "stumbling" matter. I also agree with Jakes' interlocutors that we are all growing in our theology. Nonetheless, I must disagree with T.D. Jakes when he says, "we're all saying the same thing," because Trinitarians and Unitarians definitely are non proverb the same thing. But I hope he keeps reflecting on Scripture, which he has been doing, for it clearly and unequivocally reveals the eternally Triune God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, into whose unabridged name orthodox Christians are baptized.

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Source: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/t-d-jakes-says-he-has-embraced-doctrine-of-the-trinity/

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