Faith Teaching in the Light of the Message of Grace

Before I came to hear the grace message, I was obsessed with Word of Faith, particularly Kenneth E. Hagin. Hagin's a true man of God and his teachings are truly wonderful. Pastor Prince acknowledges Hagin more than any other Bible teacher. However, I believe that Hagin's teaching is rather imbalanced and altogether impractical.

Faith for Healing

Hagin revealed to the world that faith was just as real, practical and life-changing as it was when Jesus Himself walked this earth. Hagin was bedfast at the age of seventeen suffering from a deformed heart and an incurable blood disease. Hagin’s journey into faith all started when he found out what the Bible said about healing. He dared to believe the Word and claimed his healing. Hagin was then miraculously healed.

It is only natural, therefore, that the whole focus of Hagin’s teaching around the subject of faith, was on healing. This would typically involve repeating Bible verses such as 1 Peter 2:24 and Matthew 8:17.

Faith for Finances

Hagin left a good church which he pastored in order to enter into the field ministry. Obviously, he was not supported by regular tithes and offerings from church members. Therefore, Hagin had to trust God for his finances. Hagin eventually reached a point whereby he would claim the exact amount that he needed. He would find that the offering that a church took-up for him, would either just about cover the amount claim, or would exceed it. So naturally, Hagin’s used of faith also focused on finances.

Hagin would often back-up his teachings with powerful and impressive testimonies – typically involving spectacular ways in which God had blessed him personally. However, as far as I am aware, Hagin would never claim money for something he did not need. Hagin had a wife and two children to support; he had to rely on God to meet his needs.

What Went Wrong?

What I feel has happened in the Body of Christ in response to Hagin’s style of faith teaching, is that they involve their own selfish wants, using Biblical confession to put God to the test and to get things with the wrong motives. I will admit that I read all about the amazing, supernatural occurrences in Hagin’s books and desiring the same kind of things happening in my life. I glibly attributed this desire for the supernatural, to my desire to see God move on the earth so that His name would be glorified. But in actual fact – I was just curious.

If I will be really honest, I would say that I just wanted to prove that God was in my life, that I was special, that God cared about me and loved me. I suppose it was a subconscious want for approval. Whenever a person becomes convinced that they must do something or have something that they don’t already experience in their life, in order that they may be fulfilled and gain the respect of others, it just becomes a frustrating, never-ending pursuit - no wonder God did not answer my prayers to give me the gift of interpreting tongues and the power to heal the sick!

What about Righteousness?

I must admit that Hagin taught more about righteousness in Christ, more than all the other Bible teachers I had come across. So praise God for that!

But what I don’t like about faith teaching is the platitudes it comes out with. It is just assumed that a person can stop sinning with a simple effort of the will. This in my mind is pride. I know full well what it is like to struggle with bad habits, only to be patronised by other people who tell you, “Just stop sinning, it’s not right – okay?”

My question is this: why on earth didn't Hagin and others teach more on having faith in Jesus bearing our sin on the cross as our means of being free from it? After all, Word of Faith teachers such as Hagin go to great lengths to teach about Jesus bearing our sickness, which we have no or little, conscious control over. So why don't people teach about Jesus taking away our sin, which we cannot deal with and have hardly any control over?

That's why I'm saying Hagin's teaching was imbalanced. I mean, if a person is struggling with sin and they are sick - how on earth are they going to believe in God for supernatural healing if they can't even believe that Jesus took away their sin and made them right with God? Perhaps what is making them sick in the first place is the sheer weight of guilt and condemnation that they are feeling.

The conclusion that I have come to now is that as believers, we simply cannot go beyond our knowledge and assurance of our right-standing in Christ. Any attempt to “believe God” for something, without a foundation of believe that God accepts us as we are, is just going to become anxious and frenzied grasps at things we are convinced we need.

Maybe the Word of Faith Critics had it Right All Along?

I used to be strongly against anyone who criticized Word of Faith teaching. But maybe, just maybe – they actually had a point? It always seemed to be a war-of-words between the two opposing sides. The crux of the argument would usually fall upon the subject of finances. Word of Faith would accuse its critics of advocating a policy of poverty and lack for Christians. Whereas, the Word of Faith critics would go to the opposite end of the spectrum, and accuse Word of Faith of seeking after riches more than Jesus, as well as believing that every Christian was meant to be spectacularly rich.

Now, if the critics of the faith movement would have had something enticing for believers, something that was more attractive than signs and wonders and the like – then they would have got my attention. But no – they just seemed to be focused on arguing with everything that was good and positive about faith; they just seemed to focus on humility. Humility? What Christian wants humility when they are seeking fulfilment through the pursuit of people, power and possessions as a means of fulfilment?

It is a Question of Motives

Hagin's teaching conforms to a predictable and practical pattern: a scriptural text, and explanation, followed by a relevant anecdote. Hagin would teach that if you had a need, you could find what the Bible says about it and confess that it is yours. Hagin would advise people to have the right motives. But unfortunately, Hagin (and many others) have failed to identify the fact that wrong motives are a big subject in themselves and, I believe, the reason why we don't see God's power manifest in our lives.

An Emphasis on “Great Faith”

Did you know that unbelief and a lack of faith are two different things? The Bible says that we only need a mustard seed of faith. Hagin would often write in his books that as soon as he got someone to see that they were already healed, most of the time they would get their healing straightaway. Despite this, Hagin’s teaching seemed to give the impression that believers needed to do something in order to get “great faith”.

This “great faith” was to be achieved by studying, meditating upon and confessing the Word. However, if a person does not take the basic steps to find peace by seeking to know they are right with God – they end-up going on a pursuit of performance, achievement and material gain. Then, when their efforts come to nothing, they assume that they don’t have enough faith, and so the cycle of reading the Bible, buying Christian books and confessing the Bible, continues. When these efforts seize-up, believers then revert back to doing good works in order to earn brownie points with God; or perhaps they see about increasing their financial offerings to the church.

We try to offset unbelief by reading the Word and confessing the Word, often to an obsessive degree - I know I did! But this does little to overcome a person's unbelief. When I talk about unbelief here, I am talking about the existence of contradictory belief - this is where the wrong motives come into force.

So, Hagin would write that he had a legitimate financial need. He would read the Bible about it, and simply make a statement of trust that he already had it and bingo -he received it. I believe this is a true application of faith.

I remember reading in one of Hagin’s books*, that he tried to “pray through” one time, and he got rebuked by the Holy Spirit about it. So, instead of making a performance about praying for a need he had – he simply acknowledge God’s faithfulness and trusted in him to meet his need – then he walked away, believing that it was already sorted out.

Turning Faith Teaching into a Formula

When anxious and frustrated Christians read faith teaching, they bring all of their unmet needs and unhealed hurts along and try to get things and make changes things with the belief that it will make things better. They then try to apply those faith "formulas" to get things that they think will make them feel more secure, loved, appreciated, fulfilled and happy. These people identify these so-called needs with things they can name-and-claim. They read faith teaching and believe that prosperity is something they must have in order to be genuine and effective Christians - a philosophy that fits in well with the secular way of thinking.

I cannot help but feel that these faith “formulas” become a subtle way of gaining control over the church. If the main focus is not on the grace of God in Christ – it will become some form of control. Sometimes I think that the church believes that it is things like miracles, healing and tithing that holds the church together. But this just takes the focus off Jesus and onto what man can achieve.

A Change of Focus

The focus needs to be on relationship with God, knowing His love for us, escaping a works mentality and the need to keep rules. Without condemnation we are able to fulfil the Law of Christ. I think that Word of Faith often achieves the goal of maintaining the myth of needing to keep rules, and therefore, condemnation, because it has the gift of the supernatural and provision, attached. It is the brilliance of miracles and provision that has many Christians blinded to the truth of the message of grace.

Blessings and Miracles

In "real life" it is better to live a blessed life, according to what I call the "everyday supernatural": something good happens in your life that others can pass-off as good luck, but you know that it was God.

What helped me understand this perspective of living according to blessings rather than miracles, was Andrew Wommack’s MP3 series "Blessings and Miracles" available for free download on his website: http://www.awmi.net/extra/audio/1000

Challenging Fixed Mindsets

If you look back on the miracles in Hagin's books, they mirror to some extent those that we read of in the Bible. The whole purpose of those miracles was to show us that the God of the Bible is the same God that loves us and participates in our lives today.

My only misgiving on this matter is that it can get people into extremes in that they seek the blessings more than the Blesser. What the miracles of the Bible were intended for was to take the limits off God. Without those limits, we are no longer restrained by fixed patterns of thinking.

These testimonies can, however, become repetitive and predictable, to the point whereby they actually constrain our thinking, I’ll give you an example:

I went through a period of several years during the charismatic movement in the late nineties, whereby I would always hear testimonies on financial provision in the same format: someone in full time ministry would have a need; they would pray to God or make the usual confessions. Then, someone in the congregation would give that minister an envelope with exactly the right money in it. It sounds ridiculous, but I honestly believed that in order to get my financial needs met I needed to go into full time ministry and pray that someone gave me an envelope with money! I couldn't see any other way because I was so used to a particular type of testimony. See how we limit ourselves?

Groundbreaking Teaching

What I've been considering recently is that it is likely that Hagin's style of faith teaching is probably not "wrong" as such and the teaching itself is not the issue.

With Hagin's teaching what we have is something of a "snapshot" of the highlights of a great man of God and his life and ministry over 5 decades or so. We don't get to read about some of the mistakes he made and all of the lessons that God, and life, taught him, which made him who he was.

Hagin was something of a "prototype" Christian (if I can use that word) in that he brought in-depth teaching of God's Word and the practicality of living faith, during a time that people still thought that the blessings and power of God were earned through works or were simply a rare and random occurrence.

I am seeking after balance, and although I'm tempted at times to feel let down by Hagin's style of faith teaching, I'm coming to see that it was right for the time. Hagin made a breakthrough with a controversial message that challenged the religious legalism at the time.

Hagin showed the world that Christian faith was a powerful, abundant and practical way of life. Hagin was left to die of illness at the age of 17 by a church that could not help him; he had to battle against a religious system that didn't believe in practical faith, miracles and spiritual gifts.

To a great extent, when it comes to Bible teaching, a lot of the time there is no such thing as right or wrong, just progression or evolution. Now, in the light of grace teaching, we can look back on Hagin's teaching and see how much we have moved on from there.

Conclusion

In summary, I believe that faith teaching by the likes of Kenneth E. Hagin is rather accurate. However, it is the misapplication of it that is the biggest problem. In light of this, I believe that Hagin's teaching is rather unbalanced and flawed for this reason. If a person tries to live according to Hagin's teaching only - he will not get very far with it, unless his motives are perfect and he is a very stable and strong character. For the rest of us, it is best to stick with Bible teachers who teach the message of grace, such as Joseph Prince, Andrew Wommack, Rob Rufus, Paul White and Bertie Brits - and any other good grace teachers, of course.

* Understanding How to Fight the Good Fight of Faith, by Kenneth E. Hagin.