An Analysis of T.D. Jakes

T.D. Jakes’ Background, Influence, and Ministry Reach

T .D. Jakes. Who is T .D. Jakes? Bishop Thomas Dexter. T .D. Jakes was born in 1957 and he's a popular African-American preacher and evangelist who is the main pastor of the Potter's House Church in Dallas, Texas, which was founded in 1996 with a congregation of actually over 30 ,000 members.

He comes from a United Pentecostal or Oneness Pentecostal background. He has written over 30 books with many on the New York Times bestseller list. He has been in numerous TV interviews and has been featured in Times, Forbes, and Essence magazines, the Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, Fox News, and many more.

He also hosts conferences and events such as Women Thou Art Loosed and Manpower and Megafest, which thousands of people have attended. So he's a very influential individual. He also has a weekly television broadcast called the Potter's House, which is televised on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and various other networks.

Among his many honors, T .D. Jakes is also ranked by the Church Report as being among the 50 most influential Christians in America. So in analyzing T .D. Jakes, I don't want to just mention the negative aspects of him.

I do want to show credit where credit is due. I believe that Bishop Jakes is actually desiring to speak truth and he wants to reach out to people. And I've heard a lot of positive things about people who have come to Christ actually through his teachings.

But even though there are positive aspects of him, we're still going to have to look at some negative aspects of what he teaches. So let's start with some good things that T .D. Jakes has done. Interestingly, his church has been involved in numerous community outreach events both locally and internationally.

That's something definitely to be commended for. Locally, to just name a few of his church's contributions, the Potter's House reaches out to AIDS victims through education and assistance and also has a large outreach to prison inmates.

Internationally, the Potter's House launched the Faith for Africa campaign, which is a program to reach out to the physical and spiritual needs of people near Nairobi, Kenya. Again, this is just a small picture of the positive impact that Jakes has made through his church.

The Trinity and Modalism in T.D. Jakes’ Teaching

So while there are positive aspects, there are some very serious problems with T .D. Jakes' teachings. And those are the issues that I need to address right now. First of all, T .D. Jakes denies the Trinity.

Jakes unfortunately adopts an incorrect view of the nature of God. At the Potter's House's website, under their statement of faith regarding God, they state the following, there is one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now pay attention to that word manifestation. The key words here are three manifestations. If Jakes believed in the Trinity, he would use words like simultaneous, co-eternal, or co-equal in reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But instead, T .D. Jakes' view on the nature of God is known as modalism, which is an ancient heresy which teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not simultaneously exist as three distinct persons.

Rather, God is sometimes the Father, He's sometimes the Son, and He's sometimes the Holy Spirit. It's like a mask on an actor in a play. He puts on the mask of the Father, He puts on the mask of the Son, puts on the mask of the Holy Spirit.

In contrast to Jakes' incorrect view of the Trinity, Karm defines the Trinity clearly as the follows, there is one God in whom there are three eternal simultaneous persons. The Father, the Son, who is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

All three are one God, co-eternal, co-equal, etc. Yet there is only one God, not three gods, and not one person who took three modes or form. So Karm is very clear on that issue. Karm's statement of faith is correct, but T .D. Jakes' statement is unfortunately incorrect.

So even as a result of various criticisms of Jakes' teachings, Jakes still will not affirm the Orthodox position on the Trinity. Instead, he skirts the issue and continues using the manifestation terminology.

In one interview on a Los Angeles radio station, he even implicitly denies the Trinity and advocates a oneness theology view of God. So with all this said, why is the Trinity really important? Like, what's the big deal?

Well, the modalism view of T .D. Jakes is a very serious biblical error for a number of reasons. First, the Trinitarian view of God is the correct biblical view of God, which Jakes rejects. Second, with the modalistic view of God, we are left with many errors regarding the incarnation of Jesus, or of God becoming man.

When Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane to the Father, some oneness theologians argue that Jesus' flesh is praying to his divine self. If this is the case, then Jesus' divine self has not been truly incarnated.

The incarnation is then not a true incarnation of God, if sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, and then sometimes the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was incarnated on the earth, he was fully divine the entire time.

His divine self did not leave his human self to go govern the universe, etc. Third, according to Scripture, Jesus was eternally the Son. Hebrews 13 says Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Also John 1 in the beginning was the Word, the Word is with God, the Word was God. So Jesus always was the divine Son. He didn't become the Son at his incarnation. He always was. According to oneness theology, the being that is incarnating is not the eternal Son, but the eternal Father.

That's a serious problem. Fourth, for the sacrifice of God the Son, Jesus, on the cross to have any significance, he must atone for sinners before God the Father. If Jesus is dying to reconcile people to himself, it is incompatible with the biblical view where Jesus dies as a substitute to satisfy the wrath of God the Father.

That's found in 1 Peter 2 24, 1 Peter 3 18, Romans 5 9, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 3 through 5, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 10, and 1 Thessalonians 5 9. So while Jesus does say he wants to draw men to himself, that is true, but he's still dying to satisfy the wrath of God, who is a distinct and it's very important to understand that in Christian theology.

So while one does not have to necessarily positively affirm the Trinity or understand completely all aspects of the Trinity to be saved, if one denies it, he or she is in serious biblical error and should not be teaching on a major television network like TVN.

Furthermore, it is true that the doctrine of the Trinity is not fully comprehensible by humans, which I totally agree with, but it is problematic when people like Jakes deny the Orthodox teaching of Scripture even after numerous warnings and specific clarification.

Baptism, Tongues, and Salvation Ambiguity

So, Jake's first problem is the Trinity. The second major problem I see with T .D. Jakes is his unclearness on certain issues. This other issue is water baptism, speaking in tongues in relation to ship to salvation.

On the Potter's House website, there's a statement of faith. Unfortunately, like many ministries, the statement of faith on this website is vague in a number of key theological areas. For one, it is unclear whether Jake's believes with his one is Pentecostal heritage, which believes that baptism and speaking in tongues are necessary for salvation.

That's water baptism and speaking in tongues. So, Jake's really isn't clarifying this. Regarding salvation, the Potter House site states the following, the shed blood of Jesus Christ and his resurrection provide the only grounds for justification and salvation for all who believe, and only such as receive Jesus Christ by faith are born of the Holy Spirit and thus become children of God.

So, it doesn't really say what actually saved you. It says you're saved through Jesus. Okay, well how is that grace, how's that means of grace brought to you? The vagueness continues in their statement about man.

Man was created in the image of God, but fell into sin and is therefore lost, and only through regeneration by the Holy Spirit can salvation and spiritual life be attained. The question is, how does that regeneration take place?

What's the cause of it, or what's the means of it? The statement of faith apparently indicates that water baptism and speaking in tongues are not necessary for salvation, but there's no clear statement one way or the other.

The statement of faith states regarding baptism, water baptism by immersion soon after accepting Christ as personal Savior is a testimony of a death to sin and resurrection to a new life. What does this testimony to sin actually mean?

Is baptism a symbol, or is it a means to salvation as some Oneness Pentecostals believe? It would be helpful if Jakes would actually clarify his position on baptism and speaking in tongues, since he comes from a Oneness Pentecostal heritage.

In the statement of faith, basically there is no statement on the church views on whether speaking in tongues is necessary for salvation. Again, this is something that Oneness Pentecostals hold to. They think you have to speak in tongues to be saved.

While it is within biblical orthodoxy to believe that tongues are operable today, as some Pentecostals believe today, it is heretical to teach that they are necessary for salvation. You can look at many articles on karm .org that address that topic.

Women Pastors and Unclear Ordination Practices

The third main issue with T .D. Jakes' teachings is his ordination of women as pastors. While most of the pastors of the Potter's house are males, the Potter's house ordains women pastors. You can find that on their website and the reference will be on the screen.

I'm not sure exactly to what extent Jakes allows women pastors to teach and preach to men in a senior pastor position, but his ministry explicitly supports women ministering as senior pastors. Again, this is found on one of their websites.

Again, that practice is against biblical teaching. You can look at 1 Timothy 2, chapter 2, and Titus 1, which clearly talk about that issue. Again, you can look at the karm .org website for a complete refutation of that position.

Summary of Orthodox Beliefs and Remaining Concerns

So I want to give a summary of T .D. Jakes in the Potter's house, or the Bishop Thomas Dexter Jakes, known as T .D. Jakes. He's orthodox in the following teachings. First, he believes the Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God.

He also believes the Bible is the final authority on issues of doctrine. He believes that Jesus is God. He believes that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. He believes that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.

He believes that there will be a personal, imminent, pre-millennial return of Christ. He believes that there will be a bodily resurrection of the dead. And finally, he believes that believers will go to everlasting conscious bliss, but unbelievers to everlasting conscious torment.

Again, these are some of the good beliefs that T .D. Jakes has. They're orthodox. They're solidly biblical, and we applaud him for that. But, unfortunately, T .D. Jakes also has some unorthodox teachings.

First, he denies the Trinity. Second, he allows the ordination of women as pastors. And third, he baptizes in the name of the Lord Jesus, rather than in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20 talk about.

And you can see further articles in Karm, which talk about that issue in depth. Also, thirdly, Bishop Jakes is very unclear on some of his beliefs regarding whether baptism is necessary for salvation or not, and whether speaking in tongues is necessary for salvation or not.

So, since he's from one of his Pentecostal roots, we would like him to clarify that issue, so that we understand what his stances are on that. So, in conclusion, should you listen and sit under the teachings of T .D. Jakes?

My recommendation would be an emphatic no. Should we pray for him, love him, and want to reach out to him? Absolutely.