NEW PACKAGE, SAME OLD HERESIES

Joyner’s concepts are not just repackaged Latter Rain ideas but have even deeper roots. Though the prophetic and apostolic movement is being called new, most people are not aware that this whole move of super apostles and super prophets is not new at all. Satan constantly puts new window dressing on old errors. Every heresy (even the repackaged ones) has been met and refuted by the early Church.

The Apostle Paul faced this very thing in Corinth as we see in 2 Corinthians 11. He confronted men who boasted that they were super apostles. Frederick Dale Brunner explains the situation as described by Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:5-15:

“For the first time in this letter Paul ventures a name for the new evangelists in Corinth: they are ‘superlative apostles’ (huperlian apostoloi, v. 5). They were spiritual ‘hupermen.’ They were superlative because they claimed to go beyond Paul (and others) in both message and life. Paul made Christians in name, they made Christians in Spirit; Paul accented a crucified Messiah who gave grace, they brought a glorified Messiah who gave power; Paul brought the Spirit, but they brought him fully; Paul, in other words, brought something of the gospel, but they brought the full gospel. Yet Paul now declares — and the fact that he must even say it strikes us as somehow pathetic — ‘I think that I am not the least inferior to these’ (II Cor. 11:5)! However, his commendable self-control will not last much longer.”41

Brunner continues:

“Paul finally explodes: those who found him worldly because weak, less Christ’s because less their ‘more,’ and who knew how to make full what he only knew how to begin, i.e., to over-(huper)-do him, he must now call by name: they are not only superapostles, they are ‘sham apostles’ (pseudapostoloi) and ‘crooked in all their practices, masquerading as apostles of Christ’ (11:13 NEB).”42

So the new pseudo-apostles step on and disregard God’s Word and promise not only new revelations but dominion over the unsaved world through their promises of utopia. They claim to be greater than Paul and the biblical prophets.

At the “New Millennium Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders” held November 30, 1999, 12 “prophecies” were brought forth, some as muddled as the television psychics or the supermarket tabloids about floods and earthquakes. The “Apostolic Council” present consisted of C. Peter Wagner, Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheets, Tommy Tenney, Mike Bickle and Jim Goll. (Other members not present but on the council include Paul Cain, James Ryle, John and Paula Sanford, Bill Hammond and Gwen Shaw.)

A report ????ted by council member Goll included:

“This move of God will be so powerful that the church will gather in stadiums to worship, both the church in given regions as well as some local churches which will grow so large that they will fill stadiums for their celebration worship services. ... The Government of God [sic] kingdom will be established through the apostolic and prophetic authorities in cities and nations. ... We will see tremendous transfers of wealth into the Kingdom of God through the ministry of market apostles (those with apostolic anointing for business and other areas of society).”43

Surely these are strong delusions of grandeur.

There is no doubt that Joyner has aligned with the growing chorus of those who malign and destroy biblical authority and set themselves above the Word of God. Their agenda seems to be — get rid of ????ure and ????ural authority since something new and more direct has come. This they do by exulting their self-proclaimed “prophecies” as a way of finding truth and direction today. Even though they may drop in a line at times about following the ????ures, it seems to be only gratuitous against the larger agenda.

Joyner’s stated view is that we will need this direct revelation and prophecy “to accomplish the last-day mandate of the church.”44 The Church has found the ????ure adequate for its mission for 2,000 years (2 Timothy 3:15-17), however that is no longer good enough for doctrine and practice according to this new message. We now have a more up-to-date and immediate “prophetic vision for the 21st century” given by Joyner.

Why bother with the Bible when we have men with a direct pipeline to heaven? Joyner reiterates in his 1999 Prophetic Vision the claim he made a decade earlier:

“I have experienced a considerable amount of prophecy in my own life. After my conversion in 1971, I have had, at times, an ability to foresee certain future events accurately, but usually in a very general sense. I could also occasionally look at people and know details about them, such as problems they were having or spiritual callings on their life.”45

Joyner here sounds like a garden-variety fortune teller, tea leaf reader or hotline psychic.

In 1994, Joyner offered another example of his “buckshot” prophecy:

“These great prayer movements will result in such extraordinary advances for the church, and deliverance for the world, that the world’s great and mighty will come to the church for prayer. Even the public schools in the United States will beg for prayers to be made in their halls again.”46

The indefinite time frame adds to the aura of the prognostication.

During his hiatus “from the Lord,” Joyner’s prophetic skills likewise abated. Joyner describes to his readers the resurgence of his revelatory abilities:

“Then, after seven years with no prophetic revelation, I had a three-day prophetic experience in which I felt the Lord tried to catch me up on all I had missed. ... Since then, I have had other visions and revelations that were published in books like The Final Quest and The Call. ... All of a sudden, I knew many details about future events, as though they had been poured into me. In all of this, I have been trying to determine God’s call on my life and His purpose for His church.”47

How sad that a Christian leader would try to determine God’s call and God’s purpose for His Church apart from ????ure. All that Joyner talks about could be produced by sleep loss, a vivid imagination, Satan or deceiving spirits, emotions run riot, drugs, hallucinations or just out and out deception. Man’s emotions and experiences are no determiner of truth since “God’s Word is truth” (John 8:32, 17:17). “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” the Apostle Paul declared (Romans 10:17).

Joyner also overstates the role of apostleship in saying “Because apostles are called to be evangelists, prophets, pastors and teachers, they usually have a more balanced nature, and are given for the purpose of keeping the Church on the right path.”48 The twelve apostles did not fit into all these categories and there is no ????ure teaching that they did. Ephesians 4:11 is clear that some can fill any one of these offices but no one is all of them. By Joyner’s own definition (“keeping the Church on the right path”), he cannot be an apostle because as this article demonstrates, he has led us down many wrong paths.

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT

We need to pause to deal with the fundamental concern as to whether we ever will get beyond the need of the ????ures at any point in time. Consider Christ’s “Great Commission” which is really the marching orders of the Church. Having “all authority in heaven and on earth” Jesus commands His apostles and followers in Matthew 28:20 to teach new disciples “all things that I have commanded you.” This is the ongoing job of the Church, that is to teach the teachings of Christ to others — all of His teaching.

How long is the Church to do this? It becomes clear when we listen to Jesus and take His words seriously. He says, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (v. 20). Jesus is clear that this commission is age-long. As long as we are in the age of grace and until Jesus comes, we are to keep teaching His Word and commands. These are only found in the Bible so we conclude that we are to teach the Bible until the Second Coming. There is no question. Who would dare to supplant and usurp the sayings of Jesus? Only the arrogant new apostles and prophets.

Further Paul warns: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing. ... from such withdraw yourself” (1 Timothy 6:3-5).

Still further, Paul says his words (in the Word) are the commands of God (1 Corinthians 14:37), as does Peter (2 Peter 3:2). It is clear what the new prophets are up to. Paul commanded the emotionally driven Corinthians “not to think beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:16).

DOING THE TWIST

Even when Joyner does handle the Word of God, he distorts it terribly and comes up with weird subjective interpretations. The interpretations are esoteric, off the mark and ignore the cultural setting and context. Everything is twisted to fit into the Dominion message. His ideas have been variously labeled as Joel’s Army, Kingdom Now and Dominion Theology, although it is more gnostic ramblings than theology. So much of the repackaged Latter Rain teaching demotes Christ and the ????ures and deifies man.

One of the keys to understanding Joyner is realizing that his earlier books were more conservative, biblical and mainstream. In fact, in his 1992 book, The Journey Begins, he has three pages on the “Fundamentals of Bible Interpretation.” His ideas have definitely evolved or more correctly devolved since then.

Joyner is at times reckless in his use of ????ure. He sets up a most unlikely scenario that the Apostle Peter equals the early Church, Paul equals Church History until now and the Apostle John equals the end time prophetic move preparing the Church for Christ’s return.49 This kind of spiritualizing or allegorizing the biblical text is pathetic. We must never make a “spiritual” premise at the price of proper interpretation of ????ure. Using this type of interpretation, one can make the ????ure say or mean anything. It is just a made up and self-serving eisegesis.

Pentecostal minister and host of the Open Bible Dialogue radio broadcast, Joseph Chambers concurs and says of Joyner’s books:

“Reading his material is similar to reading New Age materials. His approach is to take anything in ????ure and make it mean anything that suits his theological aims. There is no faithfulness to established facts of interpretation. It is a smorgasbord of ideas loosely connected with the generous use of out-of-text ????ure to prove his point.”50

Joyner also twists ????ure to teach a convoluted view of two “gospels.” He is very confused as he bends to the breaking point the statement of Hebrews 6:5 concerning, “the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.” Joyner claims that “the good word of God and the powers of the age to come” were preached both by John the Baptist and Jesus but became obscured after the first century A.D. He then connects this message willy-nilly to Revelation 11:15 and says this true message “will soon be released in the church.”51

In reality, “the good word of God and the powers of the age to come” is something believers have already tasted. Joyner connects this to the recovered message of the new prophets causing the Church to be equipped to do exploits, like the ability to “walk on water” and even “walking on air,”52 though they are not doing that just yet.

The Apostle Paul declared: “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). We cannot improve on that and that message has never been lost. Even a superficial study of the Church Fathers shows a continuity of message. Though muddled during the Middle Ages, the Reformation corrected the course.

The idea that the true Gospel message has finally been found by Rick Joyner after 1900 years is no different than the position of every quasi-Christian group of the past two centuries. Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith Jr., Ellen G. White, Charles Taze Russell and Herbert W. Armstrong have claimed the same thing.

Joyner says that “the church will be a great hospital with the power to heal every kind of wound and disease. She will have a cure for every plague,”53 though they are not doing that either.

Unfortunately for Joyner, the concept of “the world to come” was a common well-known phrase in the first century and is still known by orthodox Jews today. It is a synonym for the Messiah’s millennial reign and the new heaven and new earth or the golden age of the Messiah. The “age to come” will not be the work of Rick Joyner, his prophetic colleagues, or any other human as Greek scholar and linguist Kenneth Wuest explains:

“The age to come is the Millennial Age. What a change there will be when God the Son reigns on earth personally, and His Chosen People are saved. These Hebrews had seen attesting miracles performed, the performance of which proved to them that the New Testament was from God. This was another factor which made their guilt so enormous. It is interesting to note in passing that attesting miracles will again be performed in the Millennial Age when the Lord Jesus comes back to earth.”54

Most commentators agree that the age to come is just that — the age to come and identify it with the Millennium or heaven or both.55 The age to come will not be ushered in by kings of the earth but by the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16). Joyner is confusing his ambitions with the return of Christ. The first century world had a “taste” of the “age to come” in Christ and His miracles. We have a “taste” of the age to come in the recorded events of Christ and the Apostles as well as all the biblical promises of a bright and glorious future at the return of Jesus (Romans 8:23, Philippians 3:21, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15). The Christian’s urgent message is the Gospel (Romans 1), not Millennium Now or heaven on earth.