Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
Day 95
Yes,
that’s the way I’m feeling today. It is almost overwhelming to think of the
Journal Journey I have taken responding to BJ’s book. I’m going to begin
writing some thoughts with the idea that this might be the only post some
people read. I want to give a good and fair review of the garden path we have travelled,
and a legitimate critique based on my own personal experience of the journey.
I just
checked my computer folder and found that my first post was on April 28, 2024.
My last day of working on the book itself was today, September 1, 2024. I just
checked the calendar and April 28 was a Sunday, today is a Sunday, and that
makes 18 weeks from beginning to end. Whew! I’m glad I’m done the book, and I’m
in no hurry to complete this retelling of the adventure.
As I
begin sharing this summary of Brad Jersak’s book, please remember that the
previous ninety-four posts explain in detail how I responded to specific
statements, claims, and scriptural quotations. For anyone who may be reading
this post as their first view of my travels, you may be disappointed that I’m
not sharing my proofs for why I believe what I do. All I can say is that I have
already done so and my Journal is open for anyone to read. My purpose in this
conclusion is to simply present my observations in the hope that a few will
take to heart the warnings and spend some time checking things out for
themselves.
My
BJ History
My
first encounter with Brad Jersak was watching two or three interviews when he
was a guest on the “It’s a New Day” Christian TV program back in the day (I
can’t remember what years I watched it, but it seems like quite a while ago). The
result of hearing what he had to say was that the warning lights were going
off, sirens were sounding, and I had enough of a sense that he was a false
teacher that I lost interest in the show.
My
next notice of him was most likely in early December of 2023 when a new friend
in the Lord started posting quotes from BJ’s writing. My heart sunk to see
them. I couldn’t recall why I had already concluded he was a false teacher, but
these posts quickly reminded me. I was literally heartsick about it.
In
working on how to explore the differences in our beliefs, our friends asked if
I would read this book, Brad Jersak’s, “A More Christlike Word”. I agreed, and
four months later I’m ready to share my journey.
Beginning
with the Ending
If you
can picture a guy coming home from a long time away, perhaps visiting another
country on an extended vacation, when he gets his people together for the
slideshow, I imagine the family and friends first wanting to know the general
feel of the trip. Was it a good time? Would they go again? Did they have a
favorite place to visit? That kind of thing. In a sense, people want us to
begin with the conclusion and then fill in the details afterwards.
That
is what I am feeling here, that I want to share some things I came to as
conclusions, and then go back and do some ‘splainin’ (you would need to know
what Ricky Ricardo sounded like talking to his Lucy in the “I Love Lucy”
episodes way back in the day).
BJ’s
Different Jesus
At
some point in this Journal Journey, I felt it had become obvious enough that
Brad Jersak was talking about a different Jesus than we find in our Bibles that
I started posting this Scripture as the intro to all the rest of my journaling
posts:
“For
if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if
you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a
different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.”
(Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
What began with a vague recollection of how
Brad Jersak was a false teacher turned into a crisp and clear clarification
that he was indeed exactly what Paul was warning us about. And his avid
followers deserved Paul’s rebuke of, “you put up with it readily enough”! I
didn’t start there, but to know how my journey went, I need to make this
conclusion my focus. I am now warning people about Brad Jersak as a false
teacher.
Keeping
“the Word” and “the word” Together
A
second reminder I began posting in every Journal entry was this clarification:
|
The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
|
The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
This was because I came to realize that Brad
Jersak was clearly pitting Jesus as “the Word” against Scripture as “the word”.
It wasn’t apparent immediately why this was so necessary, but as we travelled
further down the garden path I realized that BJ could not support his views
about Jesus without this division. He needed us to believe that he had access
to a Jesus who was outside “the word” (Scripture) and who could reinterpret
Scripture to match BJ’s view of him.
What I
started clarifying is that there is no conflict between Jesus as “the Word” and
Scripture as “the word”. Instead of dividing the words, we simply need to keep
them in order. We get to “the Word” (Jesus) through “the word” (Scripture). All
the way through the rest of the journey to the end of the book it became
increasingly clear that I had to keep BJ’s false filter in the spotlight
alongside the Biblical filter of how we get to know Jesus Christ as head of his
church.
A
Wanted Poster for a Determined Imposter
Later
(not sure how long) I became even more convinced of what Brad Jersak was doing
to undermine Scripture as the breathed-out word of God. I began to hear the
tone of many of his questions, suggestions, what-ifs and maybes as identical to
the serpent’s first words in the Garden of Eden, “Did God actually say…?” That
led to preparing this warning:
The purpose of
the BJs’ writings is to demoralize people’s faith in the authority of Scripture
as the breathed-out words of God. They continue the serpent’s question in the
garden, “Did God actually say…?” to replace what God said with what the “evil
people and imposters” are peddling for unjust gain.
Yes,
after reading and interacting with the whole book, checking sources, reading
contexts, waiting for substance and evidence that never appeared, BJ is not
merely mistaken. He doesn’t have a valid-but-opposing viewpoint on some
doctrine that isn’t clear enough in Scripture. He is deliberately leading
people to question what is written in God’s word, and both Jesus and the
apostles warned us about such people.
When
“Literally” Literally Does Not Mean Literal
Another thing I noticed along the way is that BJ consistently presented
only two possible viewpoints, what I call the “pendulum extremes” on any issue.
I also noticed that BOTH viewpoints were HIS!
|
BJ’s Literal Sense |
|
BJ’s Literalism |
|
Claims “literal” but means
“tropological” (moral of the story), his “different gospel” (from outside of
the Scriptures), and “typological” (allegorical), none of which mean
"literal". |
|
BJ puts people here who
ascribe to the plain meaning of Scripture as if they are stifling the Holy
Spirit and missing the point of the divine and human authors.
|
The position
BJ held to was the “Literal Sense” view which made no literal sense since none
of it meant taking the Bible literally! However, he pitted this against his own
invention of “Literalism” which sounded like a misrepresentation of people who
tried to warn him about giving up taking the Bible literally (meaning, take it
to mean what it says in whatever genres it is expressed). By calling it
“Literalism” it felt like he was pinning the “literal meaning” to the dart
board. Then, by doing the Strawman routine of misrepresenting the “literal
meaning” folks into ridiculous stiflers of the word and the Spirit, BJ set the
stage for people to choose his option instead of… well… his other option!
Between these two pendulum-extreme viewpoints I shared the
Historical-Grammatical sense (or Grammatical-Historical sense).
|
BJ’s Literal Sense |
The Historical-Grammatical
Sense |
BJ’s Literalism |
|
Claims “literal” but means “tropological” (moral of the story), his
“different gospel” (from outside of the Scriptures), and “typological”
(allegorical), none of which mean "literal". |
The grammatical-historical
method means reading the Bible in a plain manner, respecting grammar, word
meanings, and other factors with an emphasis on context, Context,
CONTEXT. |
BJ puts people here who ascribe to the plain meaning of Scripture as
if they are stifling the Holy Spirit and missing the point of the divine and
human authors.
|
For
the rest of the book, Brad Jersak continued to claim there were only two
choices. However, I hoped that when people saw what the plumbline option looked
like, they would realize that neither of the author’s options was viable. And I
hope that some have already returned to trusting the word of God as we are
taught.
Hiring
a Heretical Hermeneutic
Somewhere along the way, Brad began teaching us his hermeneutic, how he
felt we should interpret Scripture. It looked something like this:
|
BJ’s “Another Jesus” Emmaus Hermeneutic |
|
|
We need a precondition to
reading Scripture that comes from outside Scripture so we can rewrite
Scripture to make a god in our own image who neither executes justice against
sinners nor gives us a Savior who satisfies God’s justice against our sin. |
|
Alongside this I presented another option:
|
BJ’s “Another Jesus” Emmaus Hermeneutic |
Monte’s “True Lord Jesus” Emmaus Road Experience |
|
We need a precondition to reading Scripture that comes from outside
Scripture so we can rewrite Scripture to make a god in our own image who
neither executes justice against sinners nor gives us a Savior who satisfies
God’s justice against our sin. |
We need to come to
Scripture with the precondition that it is the breathed-out words of God that
tell us in the harmonious and rhyming thoughts of the Scriptures how Jesus,
the Word, continually used Scripture (the word) to tell us who he is and what
he has done for us in our great salvation. |
My
reason for this was that it was becoming quite apparent that whenever Brad
Jersak gave a reason for why I should believe him, it was him. It was outside
of Scripture and what he was telling me to believe. He was denying what
Scripture said very plainly (I discovered that he does not like people reading
Scripture for its plain meaning!). He claimed Scriptures said something, but
when I read them myself, including in context, I consistently found that they
did not say what he claimed.
Now
here’s my claim about this: in the cases where the author presented a Scripture
to prove his point on something, 100% of the time the Scripture did not say
what he wanted it to say. He wanted me to believe his view even though reading
the Scripture for myself contradicted him. That is NOT a good hermeneutic!
An
Uninspiring View of Inspiration
One of
the biggest reasons for this is that Brad Jersak moved where “inspiration”
happens from where the Bible puts it, to where he wants it. This diagram
illustrates the difference:
The
apostle Paul said that “all Scripture is breathed out by God”. Peter said that
no Scripture came about by the will of a man but was given by men who were
carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down God’s words. This is often
summarized as “inspiration”.
However, all of that must happen on the left side of the diagram. God
breathed out the words he wanted in Scripture through the writers onto the page
(parchment, scroll, whatever was used first time round). That meant that what
was on the page, the script that was written down, the Scripture, was already
breathed out by God. It is God’s word; it is authoritative over God’s people.
BJ
says that he is a greater authority than Paul and can move where “inspiration”
happens so that it is a subjective thing that takes place between the words of
Scripture and the person reading them. When we pick up our Bibles and start
reading, the words in print are not considered God’s words but a “God/man
hybrid”. According to the author, it is whatever thoughts go through our minds
when we read those words that is the inspired part.
I will
need to elaborate on this in a separate post to show how clearly it is shown
that what we have in the Bible is the authoritative word of God, not a God/man
hybrid that can be interpreted subjectively by every group that reads it. For
the moment, I hope it is obvious that BJ’s view is NOT what the apostles Paul
and Peter wrote, and that should be of concern in the “you put up with it
readily enough” variety.
The
Asinine Antics of Anthropomorphic Accusations
One of
the concerning online posts from my friend introduced this idea that God’s
attributes (or the ones the BJs don’t like) are anthropomorphic. Somehow
this means they are a description of a human trait to help us understand God,
but God isn’t really like that. Here is how I summarize BJ’s claims:
|
The Anthropomorphic God |
|
|
Select traits are treated
as human qualities applied to God for illustrative purposes alone. |
|
|
God’s “divine anger,
judgment, or wrath” are “ever only anthropomorphisms of parental love aimed
at restoration” (p. 52). |
|
|
Needs to be corrected by
BJ’s “another Jesus” whenever the biblical writers describe Yahweh in what BJ
determines is unjust or immoral acts of subjugation or violence. |
|
Hearing this from my friend’s online post, and then reading Brad
Jersak’s explanation, was my first introduction to the art of writing off God’s
“undesirable” traits as “Anthropomorphisms”. I don’t mean that I had not
heard of Scriptures speaking of God in anthropomorphic terms, but that I had
never heard the term applied to inherent attributes of God.
In fact, I can still recall my experience of
wonder as a young pastor reading Stephen Charnock’s “Existence and Attributes
of God” and being in complete awe at the depth of understanding that I had
never encounter before. To now hear some self-appointed authority take these
inherent attributes of God and write them off as anthropomorphisms was
angering, particularly because the author expected me to treat him as an
authority when he gave me no grounds to do so!
To
rebut this weird view, I shared a summary statement on the opposing view, what
I believe is the historical understanding of God’s attributes
(characteristics).
|
The Anthropomorphic God |
The God-is-who-he-is God |
|
Select traits are treated as human qualities applied to God for
illustrative purposes alone. |
All characteristics of God
described in God’s word, the Bible, are inherent qualities of his nature. |
|
God’s “divine anger, judgment, or wrath” are “ever only
anthropomorphisms of parental love aimed at restoration” (p. 52). |
All characteristics of God
described in God’s word, the Bible, are inherent qualities of his nature and
mean exactly what they say they mean. |
|
Needs to be corrected by BJ’s “another Jesus” whenever the biblical
writers describe Yahweh in what BJ determines is unjust or immoral acts of
subjugation or violence. |
The same God we see
revealed through the Scriptures we now call the Old Testament is revealed in
an in-person way by the true Lord Jesus Christ in both his first and second
comings. |
We easily see what an anthropomorphism is when
the psalmist prays, “hide me in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 17:8). We know
God doesn’t have wings, so a trait from something created is used to illustrate
a characteristic of God. We get the picture that the psalmist wants to be
protected by God the way a mother hen protects her chicks under her wings.
The problem with claiming that traits of God
like his justice and wrath are anthropomorphic is that BJ claims that this
means God is NOT like that when anthropomorphisms are telling us that God IS
like that! God is LIKE a mother hen covering her chicks with her wings. God is
LIKE an eagle carrying us on its wings. God is LIKE a man with a strong right
arm. Anthropomorphisms are always telling us what God IS like!
Isn’t that weird?! Jersak says that God’s
undesirable traits are anthropomorphisms and then totally turns the meaning of
an anthropomorphism around so that… oh yeah… it makes HIM the authority on what
anything means!
Yes, this is one of the many glaring
deceptions in the book when all we are dealing with is the author does not like
that God feels wrath against unrepentant sin, criminal nations, and adulterous
and idolatrous people (when they are unrepentant, of course). I hope everyone
can see that to believe the author is to make him the authority because nothing
in Scripture agrees that an anthropomorphism means God is NOT like something. They
always mean God IS like the quality picture in the illustration.
The Arrogant Assassination of Authority
I believe that one of the biggest crimes of
the Brad Jersak trilogy is the arrogance to claim that God, the Bible, and the
Way of Christ all need to be made “more Christlike”. And then, when I read what
the author is peddling, it’s all his opinions. He is the authority. We lose the
authority of Scripture because Brad Jersak is going to make it better. We lose
the authority of “thus says the LORD (Yahweh)” because Brad Yersak is going to
make him more like his “another Jesus”. And we lose the authority of “the Way”
that is IN Scripture because Brad Jersak is the authority outside Scripture who
is going to tell us what to believe and why we should not believe the Bible.
And the whole while, the Triune God, their
word, and their salvation, are already revealed within the Scriptures as the
most glorious and just and loving and gracious plan of salvation anywhere in
the world. That is, until Brad Jersak twisted it back to the serpent’s “Did God
actually say…?” version that is now no different than every other religion!
Stay tuned in my next summary post as I
tackle the specific focus on what happens when we give up Scripture as the word
of God, particularly because someone from outside Scripture tells us to trust
him and just do it. My contention is that the Bible is not only full of
authoritative claims to BE the word of God, but that it proves itself to be
exactly that. And, when it becomes plain (love that word) that God’s word IS
authoritative over us all, we understand why Paul was grieved that people put
up with false teachers like Brad Jersak so readily!
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
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