Heretic?
The Tamaki show hit the headlines his week with Cultwatch's Mark Vrankovich revealing an expose on Tamaki teaching that he says went awry in 2010. Vrankovich is no stranger to Destiny-baiting despite Tamaki's disingenuous "who is he?" put down in his subsequent press release. So these 2 have history.
At issue is Tamaki's statement in a sermon in 2010:
"You must get out of your mind that, that Jesus Christ is now, ah, is still Jesus of Nazareth ... But Jesus did not come out of the tomb. The flesh Jesus died in the tomb."
Vrankovich says that this amounts to a denial of the resurrection.
Tamaki's response has been to affirm the bodily resurrection of Christ and he has done this both publicly through the newspapers and more privately with other Christian leaders.
But what is curious in all this are Tamaki's statements that the teaching under scrutiny amounted to something new that required preparation of the congregation and would disturb theologians. What's more it would require special revelation for Destiny people to "get it" because of "too many forces and too much teaching and too much backlog of religion". It seems that he was expecting a backlash and yet his actions in the media suggest he is sensitive to the thought that this new teaching might be might amount to heresy.
"Theologians would have great difficulty with me. A lot of reverends, pastors, vicars, bishops, and Pentecostal pastors would all curl right now, um, because they would have difficulty with this. The first thing they would do is that they would immediately move into a spirit of condescension. They, they would say, 'you cannot say that'."
Odd.
What Tamaki actually said - well what he says he said was:
"The body of Jesus was definitely transfigured at his resurrection into a glorified body, same body that was Jesus of Nazareth that died, but different substance."
There are many recorded instances of Jesus' bodily activity after the resurrection that suggest in some way his body changed - for example, he seems able to walk through walls!
Which is mostly what the Catholic church has taugh forever on this subject...that Jesus was not merely resuscitated or brought back to life, nor that his body was relaced but rather that it was glorified - the same body transformed.
And plenty of other theologians from all across the spectrum would say similar things. So. Am I missing something here? Well it all depends on whether what he said back then, is what he is saying he said, now! Cos he also said,
"So, so Jesus of Nazareth had to put off his flesh body, so the Christ that was always there could now be a life giving spirit."
Which does rather give the impression of a non-bodily resurrection. And may take us to the Nestorian heresy. Google it, you know you want to...
You can listen to the whole thing on Destiny's website for a small sum. Having looked at a bit of what he said and is saying now, I'm happy to take him at his word that he is not denying the bodily resurrection of Christ - I suspect he is actually a poor communicator and says things that he doesn't mean to - thats certainly how it seems to come across. And there's a lack of sophistication in these areas, simply because it is genuinely difficult to not accidentally utter heresy about the nature of Christ's divinity/humanity, because language is limiting when it comes to explain mystery.
What might be more interesting in what he said in the same message about us all being little Christs...that sounds a lot like...perhaps another post?
Maybe you don't care? Maybe its not really relevant? I just get asked a lot what do you think...so here's my thoughts so far! Disclaimer: I haven't footnoted or put links cos this is not wikipedia and you can research it yourself if you really want to..basically I'm just too lazy to do it today...
