Anyone who knows anything at all about church history will realize that this “new revelation” is not new at all. In fact, another popular minister had the same enlightening experience as Hemphill. This minister’s name was Arius of Alexandria. His doctrine became so popular, in fact that it came close to completely subverting the Christian Church.
Arius’ revelation led eventually to the calling of an Ecumenical Council in 325 near Constantinople. Out of this Council came the Nicene Creed. While one cannot correctly say that this Council ended the controversy stirred by Arius, it certainly laid the foundation for ending his heresy.
Of course, I can hear the disgruntled hullabaloo of the Restorationist crowd decrying the Creed as being a “Catholic” invention imposed upon the pure, unsullied Apostolic faith. Only sheer and/or willful ignorance of the pre-Nicene period could allow someone to come to such an inane conclusion.
David Bercot, editor of A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, correctly sums up the available data: “the Nicene Creed is an encapsulation of what the pre-Nicene church believed about the Father and the Son.” (p. 113). A few quotes should suffice to prove this point:
Ignatius of Antioch
“For there are some vain talkers and deceivers, not Christians, but Christ-betrayers, bearing about the name of Christ in deceit, and “corrupting the word” of the Gospel; while they intermix the poison of their deceit with their persuasive talk,… [and] say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the creation is the work of God, not by Christ, but by some other strange power.” [ANF 1.68]
What did the venerable Antiochian bishop instruct Christians to do in regards to this kind of poisonous doctrine?
“Be on your guard, therefore, against such persons. And this will be the case with you if you are not puffed up, and continue in intimate union with Jesus Christ our God, and the bishop, and the enactments of the apostles.” [ANF 1. 68-69]
Justin Martyr
“For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God.” [ANF 1.184]
Hippolytus
“For the Son, being the power of God the Father, endued the temple of His own body again with life. Thus is He said to have been saved by the Father, as He stood in peril as a man, though by nature He is God, and Himself maintains the whole creation, visible and invisible, in a state of wellbeing.” [ANF 5.166]
Since there are hundreds of more examples, I will leave off with these few. Now, let us consider why Mr. Hemphill has made such an egregious doctrinal error considering all the evidence to the contrary.
And there is the crux of the problem: he has not considered all the evidence to the contrary. Rather, in his “wisdom” and “revelation” he has found sufficient warrant to disregard the Church and to interpret the Bible all on his own without regard to anyone before himself.
What gives him the right to disregard the wisdom of all the saints and Fathers of the Church? How can he consider his interpretations of the New Testament as more valid than the very church who gave us the New Testament?
What we have here is a classic case of Protestantism gone to seed. Since we have no creed but Christ and no authority above our own personal interpretation of God’s Word, we interpret ahistorically, without any reference to all that have gone before us. In our pride, we assume we know better what was said and what it meant than our predecessors. Once we disregard the authority of the Church under the direction of the Holy Spirit to interpret Scripture correctly, we are then left to our own “infallible” interpretations. May it never be!
Having learned nothing from history, such interpreters are bound to fall into the same pitfalls and errors that others have fallen into before now. The Church, led by the Holy Spirit, gave us a sure way to avoid such errors; when we ignore the Church, we leave ourselves open to any and all doctrines of demons. The new revelations are generally nothing but old heresies! If we would only hearken to the voice of history and the Holy Spirit in the Church, we could easily avoid the heresies and cling to the Truth.
