The RCCG And The Word of God

This is one of those pieces you wished you never had to write. But since the Truth is actually higher than any human being or institution, we have to obey the Lord’s commands in 1 John 4:1. In case any of the readers is wondering what we have in 1 John 4:1 I repeat it here:

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world”.

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We must not believe, then examine; but examine first, then believe, if what we see align perfectly with the written word of God. If, in the course of our examinations we come across any doctrine, practice or belief we cannot justify in the light of the written words of God, we have to raise the alarm.

This is the reason why we must examine all the teachings of the Redeemed Christian Church Of God, RCCG, as we do the same for other churches without exception. The judgment of God is far different from that of man. What He has done to help us know His simple but strict standards is to give us His words. I shudder each time I read Revelation 22:18-19,

“For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book”.

If that passage does not cause you to fear, you need to check yourself again. You cannot take from or add to whatever is written in the Bible, no matter how high you think you are here on earth!

The first place to start in examining the teachings of the ‘Redeemed’ is the Statement of Beliefs posted by the RCCG on its website: www.rccg.org. In one of the headings we have the following:

The RCCG And “BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

All born-again souls should ask for the Holy Spirit from above, as the Apostles were ordered to wait in Jerusalem until they were filled from above. It is the promise of the Father. It is God’s gift which He gives to those who obey Him – Luke 24:49; John 4:14-26; Acts 1:4-5; Acts 5:32; Acts 8:14-17. It is God’s promise unto those who are far and all whom the Lord shall call – Acts 2:38-39. Any Christian who receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit must speak in tongues – Acts 2:4; Acts 10:34-36; Acts 19:2-6.”

This is a grievously erroneous statement.

It is not true!

Much of this rebuttal will be based on the beginning and the ending of that Statement of Belief.  Much of what is written in between are supporting sentences. From the beginning of that statement we have: “All born-again souls should ask for the Holy Spirit from above..” This is an error.

Please read this piece very carefully. If you do not have the Holy Spirit, you have NOT been born again. That is what is repeated over and over in the New and the Old testaments! It does not get more categorical than what you have in the last sentence of Rom 8:9

“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”.

If I may repeat: you are NOT a Christian if you do not have the Spirit of Christ. It is either you have the Spirit of God or you are not a Christian at all: there is no mid-way house anywhere. No one is a ‘ born-again soul’ without having the Holy Spirit since it is the coming of the Holy Spirit into a person’s heart that signals he is born again. This is the same Spirit you have in the following passages:

“John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me:

John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”

It is the same Spirit the Lord Jesus Christ was describing in John 3:3-12. It is the same Spirit that Prophet Jeremiah wrote about in Jer 31

Jer 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

Jer 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jer 31:34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Ezekiel prophesied in Eze 11:19

“And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:”

and

Eze 36:26

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”

The Bible does not know ANYONE who is born again since the inception of the New Testament without having the Spirit of God.  Teachings that people can be born again under the new testament without having the Spirit of God are unknown to the Bible. It is not possible. You either have Him or you don’t. The doctrine of a second re-birth is an error: it was never taught by the Lord Jesus Christ or any of the Apostles. The RCCG is teaching an error begun in the time of the Wesleys, the founders of Methodism. The RCCG is confusing the coming of the Holy Spirit at the inception of the New Testament period with the second birth of people who are born again after the Spirit was already given.

Apart from the apostles and followers of Christ at His ascension to heaven, NO Christian was ever recorded being asked to wait for the Holy Spirit after they were born again.

The RCCG is propagating an error you cannot find in the Bible. All men who became true Christians after Pentecost were given the Holy Spirit immediately and automatically. Readers should click on Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 4:20 and 2 Cor 1:22 and note if the Bible has any waiting period between salvation and been sealed with the Holy Spirit. For those who really got their sins forgiven by God, there is no such waiting period.

Anyone teaching any other thing is into another gospel. This calls into serious question the genuineness of the “born again” experience of anyone claiming such experience under the ‘ministry’ of pastor Adeboye and the Redeemed.

The RCCG, Fake  Baptism And Fake Tongues

I now return briefly to the concluding sentence of the RCCG on this statement of belief: “Any Christian who receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit must speak in tongues”. I have written quite a few things on the error of tongues on this site. The reader is advised to re-visit those articles, teachings and sermons on this essentially 20th century evil introduced to the Church of God by the devil from Hinduism since we all know it is not the human-knowable tongue of Acts 2:4-8 and 1 Cor 12 to 14 that the RCCG is talking about but satanic gibberish.

The audacity of the RCCG in writing the following statement: “Any Christian who receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit must speak in tongues” when the answers to the rhetorical questions from Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 12:29-30 can only be negative is alarming.

Does the RCCG  know something in Christianity that Apostle Paul did not know?

What ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ that runs contrary to what God, by special fiat revealed to Apostle Paul and other Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the RCCG talking about?  For the sake of  readers, here is the quote of the verses:

1 Cor 12:29 Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?

1 Cor 12:30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?

Do all speak with tongues?  No.

Since the Bible generally answers its own questions, the writings of Paul in the same chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians  are relevant:

“1 Cor 12:10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

1 Cor 12:11 But all these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will”.

It must be noted the ‘tongues’ the Bible is talking about here are, indeed, unlearnt human languages spoken by men on earth, never indecipherable gibberish, Acts 2:4-8.

Lying Signs And Wonders

If you need any interpreting of that passage: God, the Holy Spirit, gives everyone of His children whatever spiritual gifts and abilities He, the Holy Spirit, thinks the person needs to fulfill His mission on earth. The RCCG is into cultism  and clearly shows its hands as a part of the Pentecostal evil when it categorically states that everyone of its followers must speak in unbiblical tongues. If, however, the RCCG and other churches preaching this error sincerely believe speaking in ‘tongues’ is the confirmation of the coming of the Holy Ghost, they should not only speak the tongues the bible recognizes,  they should insist on the visible tongues of fire and thunder claps that accompanied the first New Testament Pentecost each time their followers experience the ‘baptism of the Holy Ghost’: they cannot pick and choose which supernatural experience to affirm, which to reject, from the same story.

Since, as I stated earlier, I know no one in RCCG that speaks with the Bible’s tongues, I will leave this at this point.

Mr David Oyedepo, The Redeemed Christian Church of God, and Dominionism and Health And Wealth Teachings

The following thoughts will not be strange to readers of this site given a few things I have written in the past about the teachings of Dominionism and Wealth and Health heresy doctrines in various churches in Nigeria. Readers are advised to revert to those articles or do more personal research on Christian heresies on the internet.

Just like he appeals to the training he received from Kenneth Hagin, this Dominion and Health and Wealth preacher never fails to mention the pastor of the RCCG as one of his ‘spiritual fathers’. Since pastor Adeboye was also schooled by Kenneth Hagin, pastor Enock Adeboye is one of the proponents of the Dominion and occultic Word-of-Faith doctrines.

Some direct quotations from this preacher’s sermon in the RCCG March 2016 Holy Ghost Service are appropriate here.

“My kingdom (supposedly quoting Jesus Christ) through prosperity will be spread throughout the world.”

Perhaps the reader may be able to pick out where that is recorded in the gospels or the epistles: we cannot find any passage in the New Testament where  the Lord Jesus Christ was supposed to have said anything of this sort.

“New birth has repositioned us to an ever-winning life. “

“We are far above the realm of defeat.”

“We are far above the realm of torment.”

It is very possible this preacher’s bible does not have the following passages:

“Dan 7:25 And he (Satan’s representative)  shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

Rev 13:7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.”

The stories of Pastor Orji of Maiduguri beheaded by the Boko Haram forces at the beginning of their insurgency and of millions of other Christians in the North-East of Nigeria who now live in caves because of their faith may bring the error of this teaching a little home. The millions of Chinese Christians who live every day of their lives either in jail or in perpetual fear of the authorities would wish our Dominion and Health and Wealth preacher were correct.

“It takes the word to do sign.”

This is blatant word-of-faith devil doctrine being preached on the pulpit of the RCCG. The word  the Dominion and Health and Wealth preacher is referring to in that quote is not God’s word but words from him or his listeners.

Do you have some words in your mouth that result in signs? That is possible only if you deal in the occult: otherwise that power belongs only to God.

“There is a giant in each one of us.”

Giant? Don’t confuse his ‘giant’ with the Holy Spirit: he is not referring to God’s Spirit; he is talking of an in-born power in him and in each of his listeners. That should scare the hell out of anyone that knows a little of his Bible.

“Without me you can do nothing”, is what I have in my own Bible, not any power, or wisdom or grace independent of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He doles out these at His own pleasure and only for His own glory and at His own time.

And Paul confirmed the same basic truth about man by saying  “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing”  Rom 7:18 . The Bible maintains the same dire state of the heart of man in Genesis 6:5 and Jeremiah 17:9.  So where is Mr Oyedepo getting the good and powerful giant living in his hearers from?

The above quotes are not made up by me or any other antagonist. You can hear them and many more directly from the video of the sermon posted on the internet at

These are just a very small list of errors dished out to the listeners of this main proponent of Dominion and Wealth and Health teachings in Nigeria every day.

Every  member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God will answer before Christ why these teachings are acceptable in their service.

 

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