HERESY? YES, HERESY – By Dr Chris Kang & Wilfred Yeo (Dated 8 Oct 2021)

 

Rev George Ong’s Comments:

 

I heartily applaud Dr Chris Kang (Ex New Creation Church Member) and Wilfred Yeo for their labour of love to expose Joseph Prince’s heresies at the scholarly level.

 

As this essay is rather meaty, it needs to be read in an unhurried manner, pausing every now and then, to let the richness of it sink in.

 

In his submission of the essay to me, Dr Chris Kang wrote:

 

Dear Rev George, led and inspired by the Holy Spirit, I have co-authored a seminal essay with my dear brother in Christ, Wilfred Yeo, from Australia. This essay critically examines and demolishes the heretical Christology of Joseph Prince, with a call for decisive action on the part of local and global church leadership who are under-shepherds of the body of Christ.

 

In the concluding statement to the essay, Dr Chris Kang & Wilfred Yeo wrote:

 

Based on the above argument, it is self-evidently clear that Prince has been advancing a heresy built upon an erroneous view of the person of Christ, who according to Prince, has God’s blood (a divine but material substance) circulating in him. We conclude that Prince’s Jesus is neither fully God nor fully human but a demi-god. This is doctrinally unacceptable and threatens the very foundations of the Christian faith.

 

We hope that this short but politically impolite essay has shown that Joseph Prince is preaching a different Jesus than the one we confess in our historic Christian creeds and confessions.

 

For this reason alone (apart from all other doctrinal errors and falsities), we should as members of the body of Jesus Christ swiftly disavow Prince’s heresy, with church leadership in all countries taking seriously the destructive impact that such heresy has on the spiritual and ecclesial life of the body of Christ.

 

Under-shepherds of the body of Christ need to take immediate concrete actions to confront this heretical virus that has infected and spread throughout the body. We pray that there would be decisive action taken, for the good of, and, as an expression of love to fellow members of the body of Christ and the world.

 

HERESY? YES, HERESY – By Dr Chris Kang & Wilfred Yeo

 

This essay aims to show that the Jesus of Joseph Prince is not the Jesus of historic Christian faith. Put another way, we argue that Prince proclaims a Christ that is not fully human nor fully divine, with a confusion of human and divine substances in the body of Jesus in Mary’s womb. As such, this cannot be the Christ asserted and proclaimed in historic Christian creeds and confessions. For the person of Christ is a core fundamental doctrine upon which the entire faith is built, a doctrine over which church fathers and leaders have contended vigorously through the ages against heretical teachings of the same.

 

We will begin with a portion of the transcript (7:16-8:49) of Joseph Prince’s sermon on 23 December 2012:

 

[7:16] Jesus Christ had to come. He had to have a body. Without a body there is no blood to wash away our sins. But the blood cannot be sin-stained blood. Every man born from Adam ever since Adam sinned has been, his blood has been tainted with sin. Therefore, he must be born of a virgin. Back then people did not understand, like I shared last Sunday, that it must be a virgin because now we know that when Jesus was planted in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit, the foetus was planted there to come together with the egg of, the ovum of Mary [underline authors’], and the baby developed his own blood, alright, and there’s a placenta attached to the mother. There was a time that people thought that the mother gave food to the baby through the placenta and also blood. Now medical science has proven beyond the shadow of any doubt that the baby in the womb of the mother does not receive one drop of the mother’s blood. Therefore, Mary’s sin-stained blood never reached Jesus. The placenta brings in food from the mother, not blood, and takes away wastes from the baby though the placenta in the mother. The wisdom of our God! How unsearchable are his ways! Amen. So his blood came all from his heavenly father. There’s no sin in his blood [underline authors’]. And that blood, he was born to die. He will shed his blood on the cross. [8:49]^[i]

           

Whether it be a biological oversight on Prince’s part or not, the fact remains that he spoke of the “foetus” of Jesus being planted by the Holy Spirit into Mary’s womb to “come together” with Mary’s egg or ovum. This clearly implies some kind of divine substance of a material nature being implanted into Mary by God.

 

More than that, Prince claimed that Jesus’ blood was entirely from “his heavenly father” and that there was “no sin in his blood.” Again, Prince is clearly speaking of a divine yet material substance in the form of divine blood being infused into the foetal Jesus. We quote a portion of sermon notes based on Joseph Prince’s sermon on 23 December 2018, six years after the sermon highlighted above:

 

If Jesus had been born from His earthly father Joseph,

(1) He would have sinner’s blood.

(2) He would not be able to sit on the throne because of the curse.

But Jesus wasn’t born of Joseph. His was a virgin birth—He was born of Mary.

Medical science today tells us that a baby’s blood comes from his/her father, not mother. The virgin birth meant that not a single drop of blood from His earthly father Joseph went into Him. Jesus’ blood was divine blood. He was placed there in the virgin’s womb by the Holy Spirit.^[ii]

 

Here again, Joseph Prince repeats his claim that Jesus does not have human blood, given that his blood comes from God and not from his mother, Mary.

 

At first sight, this might seem logically and theologically acceptable. But further reflection would demolish this claim and show the deeply erroneous teaching that it is. This is not simply a heresy based on variant theological interpretations of Scripture but one that goes to the heart of who we claim Jesus to be, the very person of the incarnate Christ. If we get the person of Jesus wrong, we get the whole gospel and everything that flows from it wrong. Put another way, we would have to fully dismantle all that we believe and practice, individually as a believer and corporately as a church, if we get this truth wrong.

 

Given the seriousness of this issue, let us examine the claim made by Prince in these sermons above.

 

First, is it medically proven that the blood of a baby comes from the father and not the mother? No, not at all. In fact, the baby produces his/her own blood as early as during the embryonic stage.^[iii] To be fair, Prince did mention that the baby produced their own blood in the sermon dated 23 December 2012. But this was not evident in the quote of the sermon excerpt dated 23 December 2018.

 

That said, medical science tells us that the blood type of the baby is determined genetically by contributions from both father and mother. Thus, both parents have a part to play in constituting the baby’s blood type.^[iv] The baby produces his/her own blood, but the genetics of blood typology are sourced from both father and mother. While in the womb, the foetus derives oxygen and nutrients from his/her mother while exporting wastes and carbon dioxide via the placenta and umbilical cord (which Prince did mention in his 2012 sermon). A webpage from the University of Rochester Medical Center explains:

 

The placenta is the organ that develops and implants in the mother’s womb (uterus) during pregnancy. The unborn baby is connected to the placenta by the umbilical cord. All the necessary nutrition, oxygen, and life support from the mother’s blood goes through the placenta and to the baby through blood vessels in the umbilical cord. Waste products and carbon dioxide from the baby are sent back through the umbilical cord blood vessels and placenta to the mother’s circulation to be eliminated. … Blood flow in the unborn baby follows this pathway: oxygen and nutrients from the mother’s blood are transferred across the placenta to the fetus through the umbilical cord. This enriched blood flows through the umbilical vein toward the baby’s liver. There it moves through a shunt called the ductus venosus. This allows some of the blood to go to the liver. But most of this highly oxygenated blood flows to a large vessel called the inferior vena cava and then into the right atrium of the heart.^[v]  

 

All this goes to show that the baby derives their blood type from both father and mother; and that the enriched blood flowing through the unborn baby is largely dependent on oxygen and nutrients coming from the baby’s mother. Constitutionally, the mother is central to the baby’s body and blood type.

 

Moreover, given that blood is the life of the body (for a body without blood cannot live), it is reasonable to assume theological equivalence between blood and body. Hence, theologically speaking, the blood of the baby is tantamount to its body or physicality.

 

Secondly, since it is true that the baby produces his/her own blood from the embryonic stage, with blood type genetically determined by genes inherited from both father and mother, this means that Jesus must have had his blood type determined (at least in part) by Mary’s genetic make-up.

 

The assertion that Jesus has divine blood from the heavenly Father misses the wonder and mystery of the Word becoming flesh, the Word becoming a human being. Just because a person has divine blood does not make that person divine. If so, then Greek demigods Hercules and Theseus would be considered divine and not demigods. Divine blood joined to human flesh at most can only produce a demigod, a third kind of separate entity or person, neither fully human nor fully divine. Such a being cannot be the Christ of historic Christian faith.

 

The apostle John’s understanding of Jesus is clearly expressed as: “In beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us …” (see John 1:1, 14). This Word enfleshed is Immanuel, God with us, in Matthew’s gospel (see Matthew 1:23). This is Paul’s Christ in whom the fullness of Deity dwells bodily.

 

The early church has consistently affirmed that the Word becoming human was through the agency of the Holy Spirit and Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (see Luke 1:35). Paul in Galatians 4:4 expressed it as ‘made’ or ‘coming into being’ of or out of a woman. In short, gospel evidence clearly shows the Word of God (who is God) assuming full humanity (that is of Mary) by the spiritual agency of the Holy Spirit.

 

In contrast, what Prince is asserting about Jesus possessing divine blood from God the Father is stridently amiss as a doctrine and blatantly contrarian to the assertions of the gospels and Christian creedal confessions.

 

Prince’s Christology is eerily akin to a fourth century heresy called Eutychianism, a set of theological ideas promulgated by Eutyches of Constantinople (c. 386-456 C.E.) on the relationship between divinity and humanity in the person of Christ.

 

The Eutychian view of the person of Christ is theologically named monophysitism or miaphysitism (with qualification), where the divine and human natures of Christ had merged to such an extent that Jesus was of one substance (Greek: homoousion) with the Father but not of one substance with humanity.

 

The church’s response to Eutychianism in the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 C.E. gave birth to the statement of faith known as the Chalcedonian Creed. A historically and theologically significant statement, the Chalcedonian Creed upheld the view of dyophysitism—the view that unambiguously distinguished the person from their nature, such that the person of Christ had two distinct natures of being divine and human at the same time. The Chalcedonian Creed proclaims that the two natures are “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”^[vi]

 

This is not the place for a historical survey of Christian church history but it is important to highlight a few key points of crucial interest in our discussion. As the church grew in complexity and maturity, it was inevitable that variant interpretations and understandings of the person of Christ would emerge and develop. Various forms of Christology (literally: ‘study of Christ’) appeared and the need for the church to establish an unmistaken and correct view of the person of Christ became an imperative.

 

The First Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea (325 C.E.) contested the heretical view of Arius and produced the Nicene Creed that established emphatically the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

The Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus (431 C.E.) refuted any doctrinal attempt, specifically Nestorianism, to champion the duality of the two natures (divine and human) of Christ over and against the unity of Christ’s person.

 

Suffice to say here that over the course of history, the historic Christian church has prevailed against various heretical challenges as Shelley so describes: “So against Arius the church affirmed that Jesus was truly God, and against Apollinaris that he was truly man. Against Eutyches it confessed that Jesus’ deity and humanity were not changed into something else, and against Nestorius that Jesus was not divided but was one person.”^[vii] 

 

This historical fact alone should garner our mindful attention and vigilance as we, the church of Jesus Christ, navigate these treacherous waters of our contemporary times when a cacophony of voices from self-styled prophets and apostles threaten to drown and chisel out the hard-fought and hard-won, rigorously-theologized and devotedly established foundation rocks of biblical truth. Are we going to let this happen? We certainly hope and pray not.

 

Now, let us return from our brief excursion into church history to refocus on the highly problematic pseudo-Christology of Joseph Prince.

 

Theologically, we can say that the incarnate Christ assumed the humanity of Mary (which was our humanity) but was nevertheless without sin. Despite assuming Mary’s humanity, Jesus had a sinless humanity, a testament to the hypostatic union of humanity and divinity in the person of Christ in a way not fully comprehensible to us.

 

Biologically and theologically, the foregoing discussion plainly shows that Jesus assumed a real humanity, which included his blood type, deriving from the genetic material of his mother, Mary. Also, Jesus had his humanity hypostatically united to his divinity (Greek: homoousion), such that he was both fully human and fully divine in an inseparable but unconfused way, and yet utterly devoid of sin. 

 

Taken together, these points above refute Prince’s claim that Jesus had divine blood, as biologically suspect and doctrinally heretical.

 

It is biologically suspect because Jesus’s blood type is determined (at least in part) by his mother’s genetic material. It is thus erroneous to claim that Jesus had only “divine blood” from God and no human blood, assuming that blood here refers to blood type.

 

It is doctrinally heretical because Prince’s claim is tantamount to the fact that Jesus did not assume our full humanity but was in effect a divine alien pumping divine blood throughout his body, one that was a seemingly human shell that was not truly his. We have seen earlier how blood can be theologically equivalent to the body, which renders Jesus’ body a non-human one given his non-human blood. For Jesus, as Prince claimed, had only divine blood from God and no human blood from his mother, Mary. Would this not make Jesus a divine alien and Mary a surrogate mother of an alien who had no part to play in her son Jesus’ genetic constitution? If so, what sort of humanity would Jesus possess? What kind of person would Jesus be by Prince’s estimation? 

 

Not a historic Christian confessional one, sad to say. According to Prince’s discourse, we would end up with a Jesus who is neither fully human nor fully God, but a demigod! We would have a Jesus with a shell of a human body filled with substantially divine blood from God the Father. Prince’s Jesus would have divine and human substances mixed and confused.

 

Besides, would it not be theologically and biblically implausible to speak of God the Father—who is essentially Spirit—as having blood that is essentially material? In short, we would not have the person of Jesus confessed in the Apostle’s Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, and all the Confessions of historic Christian faith through the generations. Rather, we would have a non-biblical, non-Christian, demi-god Jesus whose humanity was unreal and whose mother was a surrogate holding an alien in her womb.

 

This wrong heretical view on the person of Jesus has grave implications on the salvific work of Christ for humanity. Prince’s Jesus is neither fully human nor fully divine. Such a Jesus would not have fully assumed our humanity in its entirety in order to redeem that very humanity. If so, Prince’s Jesus, who is not fully human nor fully divine, cannot have the capacity to redeem us to the uttermost. The Cappadocian church fathers have made their views emphatically clear on this issue. For example, Gregory of Nyssa (335-after 394 C.E.) had this to say:

 

What Christ has not assumed, He has not healed … If only half Adam fell, then which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole of Him who was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.^[viii]

 

For though He took our filth upon Himself, He is not Himself defiled by the pollution but in His own self He cleanses the filth.^[ix]

 

Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 C.E.), another Cappadocian church father, stresses unequivocally the full humanity of Christ:

 

The Word of God united with Himself the whole nature of men that He might save the whole man. For what has not been taken up has not been saved.^[x]

 

Apart from these early church fathers, it is instructive to note that the Roman Catholic Church has always held the position that Jesus’s flesh including his blood derives from his mother, Mary. On the deep mystery of Jesus’ blood, Barbour writes that it “… is essentially the mystery of the Incarnation of God taking to himself a human nature in its entirety: body, blood, and soul, along with his own eternal, divine Person.”^[xi] Given this mystery and the centrality of Christ’s humanity to Christian faith, it is therefore not surprising that much controversy historically surrounds the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary.

 

As another case in point, let us quote an excerpt from the Westminster Confession of Faith pertaining to the incarnation of the Son of God:

 

The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance [bold authors’]. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.^[xii]

 

Comparing Prince’s statements with the Westminster Confession quoted above, it is obvious that Prince has seriously misconstrued the person of Christ by adopting the view that a divine substance (i.e. blood of God) has been infused into the body of Jesus in Mary’s womb.

 

Concomitant with this erroneous idea is the absence of contribution of Mary’s substance to the person of Jesus, if not in full then at least in part. As such, there is a composition and confusion of divine and human natures in Prince’s Jesus, even as there is an attempt to separate the two natures by geospatial location (i.e. the blood of Mary physically separated from the divine blood of Jesus via the placental barrier), which is not at all an actual distinguishing of natures but a sleight-of-hand move of physical distancing that obfuscates our theological vision.

 

Renowned Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck cogently described the work of the Holy Spirit in the incarnation of Christ in this way:

 

The Holy Spirit, the author of all physical, psychic, and pneumatic life, is deemed—in Matthew 1:18, 20, as is evident from the preposition έκ—to be the efficient cause of that conception, while it is attributed in Luke 1:35 to the power that will proceed from God the Most High and come over Mary. From this it is evident that the activity of the Holy Spirit with respect to this conception did not consist in the infusion of any heavenly or divine substance in Mary but in a demonstration of power that made her womb fertile in the act of overshadowing her as with a cloud (cf. Exod. 40:34; Num. 9:15; Luke 9:34; Acts 1:8.^[xiii]

 

And again, Bavinck stressed the utter and unambiguous humanity of Jesus thus:

 

But Scripture clearly states that Jesus was completely human and ascribes to him all the constituents of human nature, not only a  body (Matt. 26:26; John 20:12; Phil. 3:21; 1 Pet 2:24), flesh and blood [bold authors’] (Heb. 2:14), bones and a side (John 19:33-34), head, hands, and feet (Matt. 8:20; Luke 24:39) but also a soul (Matt. 26:38), spirit (Matt. 27:50; Luke 23:46; John 13:21), consciousness (Mark 13:32), and a will (Matt. 26:39; John 5:30; 6:38; etc.).^[xiv]

 

Bavinck is unequivocal in asserting, in line with historic Christian confessions, that Jesus possesses a full humanity that is not unlike our own. There is definitely no infusion of divine substance into Mary in the conception of Jesus or any combination of divine blood with human bodily receptacle. In the same vein, we concur with Bavinck and assert that Jesus cannot and must not be a demi-god akin to those of Greek mythology. Thus, there can be no composition or confusion of divine and human substances in Jesus as the unborn child in Mary’s womb.

 

Based on the above argument, it is self-evidently clear that Prince has been advancing a heresy built upon an erroneous view of the person of Christ, who according to Prince, has God’s blood (a divine but material substance) circulating in him. We conclude that Prince’s Jesus is neither fully God nor fully human but a demi-god. This is doctrinally unacceptable and threatens the very foundations of the Christian faith.

 

We hope that this short but politically impolite essay has shown that Joseph Prince is preaching a different Jesus than the one we confess in our historic Christian creeds and confessions.

 

For this reason alone (apart from all other doctrinal errors and falsities), we should as members of the body of Jesus Christ swiftly disavow Prince’s heresy, with church leadership in all countries taking seriously the destructive impact that such heresy has on the spiritual and ecclesial life of the body of Christ.

 

Under-shepherds of the body of Christ need to take immediate concrete actions to confront this heretical virus that has infected and spread throughout the body. We pray that there would be decisive action taken, for the good of, and, as an expression of love to fellow members of the body of Christ and the world.

 

If you have missed reading Dr Chris Kang’s testimony about how he came out of New Creation Church, please read it here (click).

 

NOTES