Bill Johnson’s big argument in his book, When Heaven invades Earth, is that we are meant to experience the bit in the Lord’s prayer “Your kingdom come, on earth, as in heaven”, here and now. What does this specifically mean? Well, very early on, in the first chapter, in fact, Johnson tells the story of a wedding at Bethel where he had been encouraged by the bride and groom to be ready to perform lots of miracles, to heal the sick who would be there. Johnson concludes after telling stories of healing after healing:
“Although that kind of wedding remains unusual, our church’s deliberate pursuit of the poor and the miracles are common. This story is true, and it is closer to the normal Christian life than what the Church normally experiences. The lack of miracles isn’t because it is not in God’s will for us. The problem exists between our ears. As a result, a transformation—a renewing of the mind—is needed, and it’s only possible through a work of the Holy Spirit that typically comes upon desperate people.”[1]
Foundational to Bethel’s ethos is the belief that the miraculous, and the experience of revival is meant to be the normal Christian experience. This is rooted in an understanding of who Jesus is and why he came. If Jesus came to bring God’s kingdom, then that means that earth is meant to be like heaven and we are meant to be like Jesus. This leads to an understanding of what it meant for Jesus to come, what was the nature of his incarnation? Johnson states:
“Jesus could not heal the sick. Neither could He deliver the tormented from demons or raise the dead. To believe otherwise is to ignore what He said about Himself, and more importantly, to miss the purpose of His self-imposed restriction to live as a man. Jesus Christ said of Himself, “The Son can do nothing.”2 In the Greek language that word nothing has a unique meaning—it means NOTHING, just like it does in English! He had NO supernatural capabilities whatsoever! While He is 100 percent God, He chose to live with the same limitations that man would face once He was redeemed. He made that point over and over again. Jesus became the model for all who would embrace the invitation to invade the impossible in His name. He performed miracles, wonders, and signs, as a man in right relationship to God…not as God. If He performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unattainable for us. But if He did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue His lifestyle. Recapturing this simple truth changes everything…and makes possible a full restoration of the ministry of Jesus in His Church.[2]
Later, he will say:
“Salvation was not the ultimate goal of Christ’s coming. It was the immediate target…the marker in the lane. Without accomplishing redemption, there was no hope for the ultimate goal—which was to fill each born again person with the Holy Spirit. God’s desire is for the believer to overflow with Himself, that we might “… be filled with all the fullness of God.”[3]
It is important to highlight here that all of this has implications for Bethel’s understanding of the Gospel and we will return to that later. However, before we come to that, I want you to spot the implications that this has for our understanding of Christ’s identity (Christology) and more than that, our understanding of who God is and the Doctrine of the Trinity.
The crucial point is this. Johnson does not believe that Jesus did his miracles as God, rather, he did them as a man, from within his human nature. However, human beings cannot do miracles and so, Jesus could not do these in his own strength, therefore he was completely dependent on the Holy Spirit to be able to do anything miraculous.
Johnson is arguing for a form of “Kenosis theory. Later he will state that:
“Jesus lived His earthly life with human limitations. He laid his divinity aside3 as He sought to fulfil the assignment given to Him by the Father: to live life as a man without sin, and then die in the place of mankind for sin.”[4]
Kenosis theory is based on an interpretation of Philippians 2:5-8 which says:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
The flow of the argument there would point to us understanding the reference to Jesus emptying himself as meaning an emptying of status because the consequence of his emptying is that he takes “the form of a servant.” However, the phrase has been interpreted to mean that Jesus emptied himself, if not completely of his divine nature, in some way of the attributes of divinity. This is not a new idea, think of the lyric “emptied himself of all but love” in the hymn “And can it be”. Kenosis theory has been around for a long time and arguable shows up in popular thinking and teaching as well as old hymns. However, it is seriously problematic and so is considered at least error and probably heresy. Why? Well to help us understand that we need to consider two things about who God is and one thing about who Jesus is.
- God is Simple
You and me are complex entities. There are a lot of different ingredients that go into us. If something is complex, then it’s possible to remove part of it and it can still function even if the function is inhibited. Despite what many Bradford City fans might have thought, Bradford City is not Andy Cook. The striker has played a significant role in the club’s recent history, scoring many goals. However, take him out of the team and they are still Bradford City. In fact, the team coped pretty well without him and got promoted before climbing to the higher echelons of League One whilst he was out injured. I might not like the idea of losing a limb and so I do all I can to avoid freak accidents but if I did lose an arm, I would still be me. That’s good news for many people who have had to have organs like kidneys removed or, like myself (corneas) receive transplants. I’m still Dave Williams, just with bits of someone else’s eyeballs.
God is not like that. We say that God is simple. He is not made up of different body parts, in fact he is spirit. This also means that God’s all attributes are essential to him. God is love, justice and holy. God is all powerful, all knowing and infinite. This is the God who does not change and indeed, God’s simplicity is key to that because he cannot lose or gain attributes. God never lacks anything in himself.
This is important because whilst those who agree with kenosis theory might argue that Jesus kept some attributes, specifically love, once you have entertained the possible loss of some attributes, willingly or otherwise then you have created the possibility that God may not always be love, not always just, not always holy. Some have sought to counter this concern by arguing that love is God’s one essential attribute. However, what that is to do is to reduce God to a concept, love becomes God.
So the idea of Jesus willingly letting go of aspects of his divinity leaves us with a reduced God. We are left asking the questions: 1. In what sense can we really still call him God? And what then was the purpose of him coming to earth as God. If this is so, then whatever is intended, it leaves us with difficult questions to answer about whether Jesus was really fully God and therefore whether it was a fully God and fully man that he went to the Cross.
- God is Trinity
At first glance, it might seem that Johnson honours the doctrine of the Trinity. After all, Jesus becomes dependent on the other persons, the Father and the Spirit. However, it is important to remember what we mean by the Doctrine of the Trinity. We mean that there is one God in three persons and this means that there can be no denial of God’s oneness, the distinction of the persons and the equality of the persons. People tend to go wrong with their doctrine of the Trinity when they over emphasise one of these at the expense of another. Modalists, for example, over emphasise the oneness but lose the distinction between the persons. Kenosis theory leads to an over emphasis of the distinctions at the expense of oneness.
John 5, one of the passages badly misunderstood by Johnson is helpful to this. You see, Johnson makes a big thing of the bit that says “the son can do nothing” but does not pay enough attention to the implications of what comes next, “of his own accord” (John 5:19). Jesus goes on to say that the Son does only “what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father[e] does, that the Son does likewise.” The point here being that he does the same things. Note that the Son gives life, just as the Father gives life.
Out of this arises two important doctrines, inseparable operation and perichoresis. The first means that the Father, Spirit and Son are not doing different works but the same work. The latter, that the persons of the Trinity mutually indwell each other, so that wherever one person of the Trinity is present, so too are the others. This means that when God made the World, Father, Son and Spirit created. It means that it is Father, Son and Spirit involved in the atonement and it means that when you invited Christ into your life, you welcomed Father, Son and Spirit in.
So, the idea that the Spirit has to help the Son out because he relinquishes something of his divinity is nonsense. The Father and Spirit always were fully involved in the work of the Son.
- Jesus is one person with two natures
We have got to be careful that we don’t end up thinking of Jesus the person acting as some kind of interface with the world with two operating systems behind it, in such a scenario, the operator must decide which system to access through the interface, the divine or the human. No, Jesus lived as one full person, fully God, fully man and it is as that one person that he taught and performed miracles.
So, kenosis theory leaves us in an abject mess and is best avoided. One can understand what Bethel are seeking to achieve through using it but it just takes us into dangerous waters and is best avoided.
[1] Johnson, Bill. When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles (p. 22). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
[2] Johnson, Bill. When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles (p. 24). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
[3] Johnson, Bill. When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles (p. 78). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
[4] Johnson, Bill. When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles (p. 88). Destiny Image. Kindle Edition.
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