The Word of Faith Doctrine

We like to call this doctrine the “what you say” doctrine. What it teaches is that since we were made in God’s Image, we must be “little gods,” as a result. “Since we are little gods,” we then must have the power to create with our words. Therefore, anything that we speak, we speak into existence and create all desired results and futuristic situations for ourselves.

There are many things wrong with this doctrine, but all stem from the same premise that any false doctrine does and that is: it excludes the Finished Work of Christ. The general rule of thumb for any believer should be, is to always look for Jesus and what He did at the Cross. It really only takes a simple twist or creasing of the Word of God to make it only partially true, instead of completely true. What is something that is only partially true? If something is partially true, then the statement being made is completely false.

What this doctrine states are some true things: We are made in the Image of God, but we are not the Creator, God is. Since the fall of man, every man has actually been made in the image of Fallen Adam, which is sinful. Sinful flesh can never make something good. Corruption breeds corruption, it does not breed incorruption. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit on it’s own. For instance, look at anything that man creates: does any of it last forever? No, rather it all falters, fails, rusts, falls apart, and disintegrates. There is nothing that man has ever created that last and lives forever.
If we have received Christ into our hearts and have been born again, then we would be made in the Image of God, because Christ is God’s Expressed Image. But in no way are we like God without Christ. This may seem like it is incredibly too technical, but we must understand these things before we try to build our belief something on upon something that is man’s doctrine and not God’s doctrine. Otherwise what we wind up believing and proclaiming is not complete true, but a lie.

There are scriptures that the propagators of this doctrine use to support their doctrine:

The first is often “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Yes, this is true. The Word of God also states in Ja 3:8 that no man can tame the tongue, which should let man know that even when he wants to say something that could bring forth life, he has no ability to do so. Now in Christ, we can pray things and God says that He will do it, because we are doing the “will of the Father.” What is the Will of the Father? Christ coming to this earth, and exchanging His Perfect life for us. In Christ we can do anything, because God is with us and there is nothing that shall be impossible for God. The key is, always be sure that Christ is the one doing the creating, because we can’t do anything without the Lord’s help. Here’s another example: Ever find yourself getting a cold and decide that you are not getting a cold? Did you get the cold? Yes, chances are you did. But if you were steady in your rebuking the devil, proclaiming God’s Word over yourself, and believing that you were not going to get sick, then why did you get sick? Don’t you have the power? When we say that it our power is in our own spoken words and not in what Christ has done for us, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We are no match for the devil. But the devil is not match for Christ. Our faith should be anchored in the Finished Work of Christ, and not in our personal ability to quote scripture or the quantity of faith that we think we have to do things.

Next, church people love to say, “We need to call those things that be not as though they were!” This is great if you are desiring to see your family saved, because the scripture that they are quoting in Rom 4:17 speaks of the world being God’s children (even when we weren’t His Children yet), because to whomsoever will receive Jesus, will have Him and all He has to offer His Bride. Unfortunately, many Christians that use this scripture think that there is power in quoting scriptures, as though because they said it, it will happen. In using this scripture, they always leave out the most important part, which states that it is God that calls things into existence, not man. The part of the equation that is still missing in this “creative words” doctrine is that they are excluding the only One that can make such things happen, which is Jesus! Jesus was and always will be the Middle Man between God and us. He is called our Mediator. Without Christ between God and us, God will not accept us or anything that we do.

Another very commonly used scripture by “word of faith” preachers is Rom 10:8 which states, “But what do you say, the word is near to you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach.” The “word of faith” is talking about the “Finished Word of Christ” at Calvary, not the words that we speak.


There is another aspect of this doctrine that involves less scripture, but still the outward professions of faith. We were flipping through Christian television recently and stopped to hear what this female preacher had to say. She and her daughter pastor people and are constantly selling things on their show, claiming that because they have prayed a certain prayer of blessing over this blanket (or whatever product they are peddling), the purchaser will have certain blessings from God as a result of buying if from them. It is ludicrous what they are doing, because unsuspecting Christians that are not well grounded in the Word of God will buy that blanket, thinking somehow that either the blanket or the words of that woman will be the thing that brings them victory in their life. We can put our faith in that object or that woman, but the object doesn’t save and neither does that woman. All that this really does is destroy the faith of those that believe in what these preachers are peddling. It’s deceptive what they are doing, because in no way is Christ even mentioned in this transaction. The only blessings that we can receive, are through Christ and what He did at the Cross. There is no other method! If we need healing, we’re healed by His Stripes. If we need blessing, we have it because He became the Curse for us, (Gal 3:13).

During the same sermon, we heard this dear lady talking about sin and how to overcome the devil. Her idea of how to overcome the devil was to “not commit” certain acts of sin. Then at the end of her sermon, she had her church write down two of their re-occurring sins on a piece of paper, tear them up, throw them on the floor and stomp on them while proclaiming a certain scripture. Folks, this sort of thing does not give the child of God victory. Again, the most important person was left totally out of this summation of steps, which is Christ and what He has done for us at the Cross. If a person is born again, then they are Christ’s. If they are Christ’s, He bought for us all that we need and is our sole Provider. We don’t need these silly self-remedies, when we have the One with every answer to our every dilemma living inside of us. God is not some distant being up in the sky that we have to do stupid things outwardly in order that we get His attention. He has not left us here to our own devices, but rather gave us more than just a man when He gave us Christ. He gave us the Spirit of Life that comes to live in our hearts, which does all of the work that we need. If we are committing certain sins, we need to continue believing that Christ erased it all at the Cross and we have Him in our hearts. We shouldn’t love sin; in fact we should hate it. But when we see our constant failures, (and we will, because we are still human), we need to receive God’s Grace, that’s what it is for. We are to know that He loves us and accepts us, because He accepts Christ in us. God knows what we have need of, He will take that thing out eventually, we don’t need to get our hands involved in His Finished Work. God doesn’t need our help.

It’s all right to pray and speak the Word. There is nothing wrong with claiming certain scriptures to be special to us in our personal walk with Christ. But Christianity is not a self-help program. It is a place where we depend solely on Christ and what He has done for us. Child of God, know that you are not by yourself anymore, you can rest in Him now.