Dake's Bible Exposed!

12/30/12 Dake's Bible EXPOSED!

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Dake's Bible EXPOSED!

The Jesus Of The Dake Annotated Reference Bible

by Jeff Spancer

From time to time, this article can be found online. However, the article moves

around so much that it often is hard to find - and certainly hard to keep up with

the address changes. Therefore, we are also reproducing it below.

Finis Jennings Dake (1902-87) was a Pentecostal pastor, teacher, and author

whose most influential work is the Dake's Annotated Reference Bible. This study

Bible, containing notes on the entire Old and New Testaments, was first published

in 1963. The Dake Bible is considered the top "Pentecostal Study Bible" by many. In

fact, the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements says, "His 'notes'

became the 'bread and butter' of many prominent preachers and the 'staple' of

Pentecostal congregations." Dake is very important within Pentecostal/Charismatic

circles.

Dake was a man devoted to the study of the Word of God. In fact, the back

cover of one of his books says, "His supernatural ability to flawlessly quote

Scripture earned him a reputation as the 'Walking Bible.'" Dake himself claims a

supernatural knowledge of the Bible that came soon after his conversion—even

before he began to study the Word of God. Dake asserts:

I was immediately able to quote hundreds of Scriptures

without memorizing them. I also noticed a quickening of my

mind to know what chapters and books various verses were

found in. Before conversion, I had not read one full chapter

of the Bible. This new knowledge of Scripture was a gift to

me, for which I give God the praise. From the time of this

special anointing until now, I have never had to memorize

the thousands of scriptures I use in teaching. I just quote a

verse when I need it, by the anointing of the Spirit.

It has been said that he put more than 100,000 hours into Scripture study during

his career. The commentary notes in the Dake Annotated Reference Bible are

certainly the main fruit of his work. The preface to this extensive study Bible

states, "The purpose of this work is to give in ONE volume the helps a student of

the Bible needs from many books—Bible commentaries, Atlas, Dictionary, complete

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d46.html

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/dakes_bible.htm#


http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/dakes_bible.htm#yaxis



the Bible needs from many books—Bible commentaries, Atlas, Dictionary, complete

Concordance, Dispensational Truth, Topical Text Book, Bible Synthesis, Doctrines,

Prophetic Studies, and others." This volume certainly follows through with its

promise. It is a massive collection of facts, figures, and encyclopedic findings

contained in "nearly 9,000 informative headings . . . , 500,000 cross references

throughout 35,000 notes and comments . . . , 3,400 note-columns—over 8,000

outlines on a great variety of subjects, and 2,000 illustrations."

The fact is clearly seen that Mr. Dake put much work into this reference tool.

However, there are severe problems with the theology contained in this work.

For instance, heresies abound concerning subjects such as the nature and attributes

of God, Soteriology, and Christology—just to name a few. Furthermore, many

word-faith teachers, such as Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland, have verifiably

used Dake as a source of their quizzical doctrines. The scope of this paper,

however, is not a complete, systematic analysis of the Dake Annotated Reference

Bible, but an analysis of what it says about Jesus.

It must be stated that Finis Jennings Dake and those who follow his teaching

are not yet considered a cult. However, much of the teaching in Dake's Bible is

considered cultic because it falls far outside the walls of orthodox Christianity. To

be sure, there are many heretical claims concerning Jesus found in this study Bible.

And with about 30,000 Dake Bibles being sold each year, this is a subject that

needs to be addressed. This exploration of Dake's teaching on Jesus will be

subsumed under two broad topics: Dake and the Trinity, which will exegete Dake's

teaching about the very nature of Jesus before He was Incarnated into a body of

flesh, and Dake and the Incarnation, which will present Dake's teaching about the

Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity.

DAKE AND THE TRINITY

The trouble with the Jesus of the Dake Bible begins long before His birth in

Bethlehem. Dake's aberrant view of Jesus begins with an incorrect theology of the

Trinity and the very nature of God. And since Jesus is the eternal Second Person of

the Trinity who possesses the very nature and attributes of God, we are certainly

concerned with what Dake teaches about this subject.

Finis Dake's teachings on the Trinity are assuredly not considered orthodox. In

fact, his dogma on the subject is positively cultic. His deviation from the orthodox

doctrine of the Trinity stems from his perversion of the term "Person." In his book

God's Plan for Man, Dake tells us that a "person" is "a rational being with bodily

presence, soul passions, and spirit faculties." In other words, a person is a being

with a body. With this in mind, we turn to Dake's definition of the Trinity:

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/h27.html

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/w00.html#wordf

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/h01.html

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c53.html


http://www.apologeticsindex.org/j20.html

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c09.html

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/o00.html#orthodoxy

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/t10.html



What we mean by Divine Trinity is that there are three

separate and distinct persons in the Godhead, each one

having His own personal spirit body, personal soul, and

personal spirit in the sense that each human being, angel, or

any other being has his own body, soul and spirit.

In view of Dake's definition of "person," this quotation is claiming three

"beings" in the Trinity which is undeniably Tritheism. Similarly, in his book God's

Plan for Man, Dake says:

There are over 500 plain scriptures that refer to the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as being THREE SEPARATE AND

DISTINCT PERSONS, each with His own personal body, soul,

and spirit in the sense that all other persons have them. . . .

If two or three persons are referred to in all these passages

and they are called God, then we must understand them as

referring to this many divine persons, as we do when the

same statements are made of two or three persons of the

human race.

Dake's Trinity is clearly three separate, distinct Beings, each called God. Dake

states that it is a "fallacy" to believe "that there is only one person or one being

called God." He also claims that it is a "fallacy" to believe "that there is a

difference in meaning of three human persons and three divine persons." In other

words, just as each human person is a separate and distinct being, each member of

the Trinity is a separate and distinct Being unified only in purpose or goal. Allow

me to depict Dake's view in this way: According to Dake, if we were to go to

heaven and see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, there would be three

different Beings bodily present on three different thrones, just like three kings

would be seated on three distinct thrones on earth. The members of the Trinity

are separate, distinct Beings. Dake argues from the analogy of man as created in

God's image:

Is God bodiless? If so we can conclude that man is also

bodiless. Is God only one being made up of several persons

or beings in the one being? If so, we can conclude that man

is one person or being made up of many.

The obvious conclusion to which Dake is trying to lead his flock is that God is

three separate beings—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—and each of these

beings has His own personal body, soul, and spirit. What about the "oneness" of

God? The Bible certainly claims that, in some sense, God is one (Deut. 6:4-6). Dake

explains that the three separate Beings in the Trinity are one in unity or purpose:



The word one means one in unity as well as one in number. .

. . There is one God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, and

one Holy Ghost. Thus there are three separate persons in

the divine individuality and divine plurality. . . . As

individual persons each can be called God and collectively

they can be spoken of as one God because of their perfect

unity. The word God is used either as a singular or a plural

word, like sheep.

Dake believes that the oneness of God is in the fact that "these three (beings)

are in absolute unity and 'are one' as believers are supposed to be (John 17:11, 21-

23)." Thus, the Godhead is three separate beings, a plurality like "sheep," who are

one in unity, the same way that the body of Christ is one in unity—a collection of

persons with the same goal or purpose. Therefore, the unity of the one God,

according to Dake, is not ontological oneness shared by three persons, as

orthodoxy claims, but a functional unity found in purpose or direction.

Moreover, Dake, expounding his theology to its logical conclusion, believes the

Bible distinctly teaches God has a body. The "Walking Bible" claims:

He (God) has a personal spirit body, shape, form, image and

likeness of a man, bodily parts such as, back parts, heart,

hands and fingers, mouth, lips and tongue, feet, eyes, hair,

head, face, arms, loins, and other bodily parts. He has

bodily presence and goes place to place in a body like all

other persons. He has a voice and countenance. He wears

clothes, eats, dwells in a mansion and in a city located on a

material planet called heaven.

It is not surprising that Dake, whose teaching implicitly denies the Trinity by

redefining it, can also be found explicitly denying the orthodox doctrine of the

Trinity. He claims that the writers who support the orthodox doctrines of the

nature of God and the Trinity exhibit "the modern trend to make God too mystical

to understand." He goes on to teach that the orthodox understanding of the spirit

nature of God and the Trinity is "foolish and unscriptural, to say the least."

Furthermore, Dake charges that the Trinitarians "make such ridiculous propositions

about God that it is impossible to comprehend them." The problem that the

Trinitarians have, claims Dake, is that they fail to take the Bible literally when it

speaks of God having bodily parts. Dake asserts "The expressions which tell us that

God has bodily parts are real and literal and not figurative."

In summary, the Jesus of the Dake Bible, before the Incarnation, was one of

three divine Beings who composed the Trinity. Each of these separate, distinct


www.jesus-is-sav ior.com/Bible/dakes_bible.htm

Beings has His own body (legs, arms, head, lips, etc.), soul, and spirit and are

unified only in purpose or direction. We now move our focus from Dake's view of

the Trinity onto the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity—Jesus Christ.

Dake's unusual understanding of the Trinity and the nature of God lays the

foundation for his deviant doctrine of the Incarnation.

DAKE AND THE INCARNATION

Finis Dake teaches several disputable doctrines concerning the Incarnation of

Jesus. First, he denies the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ by teaching that Jesus

became the Son of God when He was born into flesh at Bethlehem. Second, Dake

teaches that Jesus became the Christ at His baptism. To put it another way, Jesus

was not the Christ from all eternity, but was appointed with the office of Christ at

His baptism. Third, Dake denies the deity of Jesus by stating that He totally

emptied Himself of the attributes of God when He came to earth.

Eternal Sonship

The first doctrine to be examined in this section is Finis Dake's position on

Jesus as the eternal Son of God. In essence, Dake asserts that Jesus was not the

Son of God from all eternity, but became the Son of God when He was incarnated.

Dake begins by defining the word "son." In his note on John 1:14 ("the Word

was made flesh"), Dake alleges that, "This made Him God's Son, for sonship in

connection with Jesus Christ always refers to humanity, never to deity." To put it

another way, Dake is saying that the title "Son of God" does not refer to Jesus as

God, but Jesus as man. This definition of the term Son of God is found throughout

Dake's writings. In an extended footnote on Luke 1:35, Dake argues for his position

in great detail:

Sonship with Christ always refers to humanity, not to deity.

As God, He had no beginning; was not begotten or He would

have had a beginning as God; and was not God's Son. But as

man, He had a beginning, was begotten, and was God's Son.

. . . Multiplied problems increase and become unanswerable

with Scripture if we hold to the theory of eternal sonship,

but all questions are clear when we accept the plain

statements of Scripture that sonship refers to humanity and

not to deity.

Dake believes that Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity became the Son of



God when he was conceived in Mary's womb. The Pentecostal pastor contends that

the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem "was when God had a Son through Mary. This

happened on a certain day, 'This day I have begotten thee,' and therefore, we

cannot say that God had a Son before this time." Dake concludes his argument

against the Eternal Sonship of Jesus by stating:

As man and as God's Son He was not eternal, He did have a

beginning, He was begotten, this being the same time Mary

had a Son. Therefore, the doctrine of eternal sonship of

Jesus Christ is irreconcilable to reason, is unscriptural, and is

contradictory to itself. . . . The word Son supposes time,

generation, father, mother, beginning, and conception. . . .

If sonship refers to deity, not to humanity, then this person

of the Deity had a beginning in time and not in eternity.

The Christ

In the same way that Dake denies the Eternal Sonship of Jesus, he also denies

that Jesus was the Christ from all eternity. Dake teaches that, just as Jesus

became the Son of God, He became the Christ. It was God who "anointed" Jesus to

be the Christ at a certain point in Jesus' earthly life.

In the very first note found in the New Testament of Dake's Bible, Dake sets

the stage for his teaching about the "Christ." Concerning the title "Christ," Dake

contends, "Like the name 'Jesus,' it has no reference to deity, but to the humanity

of the Son of God, who became the Christ, or the 'Anointed One,' 30 years after

He was born of Mary."

Dake's book God's Plan for Man contains the same teaching, but takes it a step

further by telling us the exact point in Jesus' thirtieth year that He was anointed

"the Christ":

The word "Christ" literally means "anointed" and is a name

applied to Jesus when He became the anointed of God.

Jesus became the anointed of God or Christ 30 years after

He was called Jesus. . . . History records that the time He

became the "Anointed" was at His baptism.

Dake concludes his argumentation that Jesus became the Christ at His baptism

with an explanation for all the passages that seem to say that Jesus was Christ

from eternity. He comments:



Passages such as Luke 2:26; Gal. 3:17; 1 Pet. 1:11 should be

understood in the same sense as we would say that President

George Washington was a surveyor. He was not this when

he was president, but since he became president we could

speak of any event of his life before he became president as

what President Washington did. So it is with Christ. Since

He became God's Christ we can now speak of Christ doing

certain things even before He was anointed.

Therefore, according to Dake's understanding of the term "Christ," there was a

time when Jesus was not the Christ. Then, when Jesus was thirty He was

baptized, and at that time, God anointed Him as the Christ. Also, Dake holds that

any passages that seem to refer to Jesus as being the Christ before His baptism are

merely using the term retroactively.

The Deity of Jesus

After reading the content above, it probably is not shocking that Finis Jennings

Dake in some way denies the deity of Jesus Christ. He does this, however, not in

an explicit, obvious way, but implicitly. Many times in his notes on the New

Testament, Dake affirms that Jesus is God in the flesh. But, a close examination of

some of his claims about Jesus reveals that Dake, in effect, denies the deity of

Christ by some of the deductions he makes about certain passages.

For instance, in Dake's notes on Philippians 2:5-11, the passage about Jesus

making Himself "nothing" in the Incarnation, Dake denies that Jesus was God while

He was here on earth. On the one hand, concerning the self-emptying of Jesus, or

the kenosis of Christ, Dake correctly surmises, "Of what did Christ empty Himself?

It could not have been His divine nature, for He was God not only from all

eternity, but God manifest in flesh during His life on earth." But on the other hand,

Dake contradicts his first statement by saying, "Christ emptied Himself of . . . His

divine attributes and outward powers that He had with the Father from eternity."

In other words, Jesus became man by becoming something less than God. His

divine attributes were displaced by human attributes when He transformed Himself

into, or was "limited to the status of a man." Thus, the Incarnation is a subtraction

from His divine nature. Dake clearly expresses this in his book God's Plan for Man:

The various doctrine books teach that Christ possessed all

the glory, nature, and attributes of God during His earthly

life just as much as when He was in the form of God. They

give us proof for their conclusion that Christ had:



1. Omnipotence (Matt. 8:16, 26-27; Luke 4:35-41; 5:25; 7:14-

15; 8:54-55; Eph. 1:20).

2. Omniscience (Mark 2:8; Luke 5:4-5, 22; 22:10-12; Jn. 1:48;

2:24-25; 4:15-19, etc.).

3. Omnipresence (Matt. 18:20; 28:20; Jn. 3:13; 14:20; 2 Cor.

13:5; Eph. 1:13).

4. Eternity (John 1:1; 17:5; 8:58; Mic. 5:2; Col. 1:17; Heb.

13:8; 1 Jn. 1:1).

5. Immutability (Heb. 1:12; 13:8).

Upon examination of these passages it can be seen that not

one passage teaches that Christ had or used these attributes

of Himself while on earth. . . . The true Biblical teaching of

the kenosis of Christ is that in taking human form He

divested Himself of His divine attributes. . . .

Dake assuredly believes Jesus was divested of His divine attributes, and thus,

had no divine powers or characteristics. Therefore, Dake must necessarily

conclude "He (Jesus) had no power to do miracles until He received the Holy Spirit

in all fullness." Dake also argues that Jesus "did not claim the attributes of God, but

only the anointing of the Holy Spirit to do His works." Furthermore, Dake says, "He

could do nothing of Himself in all His earthly life. He attributed all His works,

doctrines, powers, etc., to the Father through the anointing of the Holy Spirit." To

put it another way, Dake believes that the only way Jesus, a mere man, could do

miracles was by the anointing of the Holy Spirit who performed all the miracles

through Him.

To support this premise, Dake states, "All scriptures related to His earthly life

(the miracles, etc.) can be explained as referring to the exercise of the gifts of

the Spirit and not natural attributes." The Holy Spirit was the miracle worker in

the pages of the four Gospels, and Jesus was merely the instrumental agent, or

willing accomplice. Dake emphasizes this point by this reasoning:

Is it necessary for God to be anointed with the Holy Spirit to

do what He is naturally capable of doing? If it became

necessary to anoint Jesus during His earthly life, then it

proves He did not retain His former glory and attributes

which He had from all eternity when He emptied Himself to

become like men in all things.



ANSWERING DAKE

It is not difficult to discern that Finis Dake on the subject of Jesus falls far

outside the confines of Christianity. In this section, I will provide brief apologetic

answers to the teachings of Dake, thereby proving that the Jesus of the Dake

Annotated Reference Bible is not the Jesus of Christianity.

ANSWERING DAKE'S DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

As stated above, Finis Dake's view of the Trinity is actually an implicit denial of

the Trinity by way of redefining the term "Trinity" into Tritheism. Dake's Trinity is

not composed of one Being, or nature, consisting of three Persons, but three

separate and distinct Beings, each a separate and distinct God: the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are one only in purpose.

Monotheism vs. Tritheism

Dake, who claims that he gets all of his teachings from a plain, literal reading

of the Bible, results with the decidedly unorthodox claim of three separate,

distinct beings in the Godhead. This cannot be true. I will argue against Dake's

Tritheism from two different angles: reason and revelation, which both show that

it is not possible for there to be more than one Being in the Godhead.

Philosophical Arguments for Monotheism. Three arguments for the existence

of only one God were forwarded by Catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas

Aquinas. The first of Aquinas' arguments is from the simplicity of God. God's

simplicity is the attribute that states God is not composed of parts in His being,

and is, thus, indivisible. To put it another way, God cannot be divided into parts.

Aquinas argued that God must be one because to be more than one, there must be

parts, and simple beings have no parts. Therefore, God is one.

St. Thomas also argued for monotheism from the position that God is infinite in

His perfection. For if there were more than one God, there would have to be

some difference between them. In other words, one would have what the other

one lacks. But an absolutely perfect Being cannot be lacking in any perfection—a

being that lacks is not a God. If Beings do not differ in any perfection, they would

not differ at all. And to not differ in anything at all is to be the same. Therefore,

there can be only one God. Tertullian, in his writings against Marcion, illustrates:

That which shall be valid as the highest greatness, that must



stand unique and must have no equal, in order not to cease

to be the highest essence. . . . But as God is the supreme

essence our ecclesiastical truth has with justice declared: If

God is not One then there is no God.

The third argument Aquinas advanced was from the unity of the world. He

stated that there is a diversity of things in the world. But this diversity of things is

"seen to be ordered to each other since some serve others." In other words, the

diverse world has an ordered unity. Therefore, concludes Aquinas, there must be

One who accomplished or created the order among diverse things. The

philosophical argumentation of Aquinas combined with the biblical proof below

provide powerful evidence for the existence of only one absolutely perfect Being,

the God of the Bible.

A Theological Argument for Monotheism. In concert with philosophical

argumentation, the Bible reveals God as one Being in distinction to Dake's three. It

is a foundational doctrine of both the Old and New Testaments that there is only

one God. For instance, the first chapter of the Old Testament is an apologetic for

the existence of one God. Some see the creation account in Genesis 1 as an early

apologetic against all the polytheistic creation accounts. Further, Deuteronomy

6:4, the Jewish Shema, states, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is

one!" In Isaiah 44:6 God says, "I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is

no God." Moreover, Isaiah 43:10 declares that God is one in the claim, "Before Me

there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me." It is undeniable that the

Jews were strict monotheists. In fact, much of the Old Testament, especially the

book of Isaiah, is a warning against abandoning the one true God to chase after

false gods. To be sure, it was because of the Israelites stubborn determination to

serve false gods that the one true God sent them into exile in Babylon as

punishment.

The New Testament also affirms monotheism. The Apostle Paul, himself a strict

monotheistic Jew, reacted strongly against Gentile polytheism with powerful

declarations of the existence of only one God. In 1 Corinthians 8:4 Paul states, "We

know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one."

Furthermore, in Ephesians 4:6 Paul states that there is "one God and Father of all,

who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Finally, Paul declared in 1

Timothy 2:5, "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the

Man Christ Jesus." There are many other Scriptures in the New Testament that

teach that there is only one Being called God (cf. Mk. 12:32; Acts 7:35; Rom. 3:30;

1 Cor. 8:6; Jas. 2:19). These Scriptures combined with those from the Old

Testament show beyond doubt that the teaching of the Bible, from cover to

cover, is Monotheism. Therefore, Dake's postulation that the Bible teaches three



Beings that are each a God is absolutely false and foreign to reason and revelation.

Dake's error will be made more clear by examining the Christian doctrine of the

Trinity.

The Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity

The contention found in the writings of Finis Dake that God is three separate

beings who are one only in purpose is heretical and certainly not compatible with

Christianity. Dake denies the doctrine of the Trinity, which is one of the essential

doctrines of the Christian Faith, by redefining it as Tritheism. However, a look at

the Christian definition of the Trinity will expose Dake's tritheistic teachings as

cultic. In fact, Dake's teaching on the Trinity is very close to the Mormon Trinity.

A concise definition of the Trinity can be stated as one God who eternally

exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is one in

nature, or essence, and three in person. This is in distinction to Dake's views that

God is three Beings that are one in purpose only. To put it another way, God is

one in one sense, His nature or essence, and He is three in another sense, His

personage. These separate persons are equal, have the same attributes, and are

equally worthy of worship, adoration, and faith. It is the distinction between

essence, or being, and person that Dake fails to make. This distinction keeps the

doctrine from violating the law of non-contradiction and, thus, being heretical.

The affirmation that God is one in essence and three in person is really an

affirmation that God is one What and three Whos. His What (What He is) is His

essence, nature, or being, while His Whos (Who He is) are the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Spirit.

Notice that the three Whos (Persons) all share the same What (Essence). So

God is a unity of essence with a plurality of persons. Each person is different, yet

they share a common nature. We affirm one God who is three in person, one of

whom is the Son, Jesus. It was only the Son who took on a human nature, and

thus, has a body. Therefore Dake's claim that each member of the Trinity has a

body is false. For the Bible states that God is spirit (John 4:24), and a spirit does

not have flesh and bones (Luke 24:39). Furthermore, if God has a body, that would

necessarily mean that He is not omnipresent or eternal. A body would confine Him

to one place at one time. Yet, the Bible declares that God is both omnipresent and

eternal. Therefore, Dake is fatally mistaken in his teaching that God has a body.

What about those passages that seem to teach that God has a body or different

body parts? Those passages contain a literary device called anthropomorphisms. An

anthropomorphism is "a figure of speech whereby the deity is referred to in terms



of human bodily parts or human passions. To speak of God's hands, eyes, anger, or

even love is to speak anthropomorphically." The biblical picture of God is an

immutable, eternal, infinite Being. Yet, having a body would compromise all of

these characteristics. Thus, the references in the Bible to God's bodily parts and

activities are clearly figures of speech. Dake's denial of anthropomorphic

references to God is the very heart of his theological misgivings and the source of

much of his heresy.

The Christian understanding of the Trinity is certainly not "foolish" as Dake

charges. Yet, as I have shown, Dake's understanding of the Trinity as Tritheism is

nowhere close to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In addition, Dake's

understanding of God as having a body is certainly theologically and philosophically

flawed as well. Therefore, based on this doctrine alone, Dake and his disciples

should be classified into the kingdom of the cults along with Mormons who teach

the same thing about the Trinity—three separate and distinct gods who have

bodily parts.

ANSWERING DAKE'S DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION

Eternal Sonship

The doctrine of eternal Sonship "declares that the second person of the triune

godhead has eternally existed as the Son." This is in opposition to the teaching of

Dake, who denies the eternal Sonship of Jesus by saying that Jesus became the

Son of God when He was placed into the womb of Mary. This is formally known as

"Adoptionism," which was condemned by the Plenary Council of Frankfurt in 794 A.

D. The eternal Sonship of Jesus will be proved by demonstrating the biblical

meaning of the term "Son of . . ." and by showing clear scriptural evidence that

Jesus was the Son before the Incarnation. Thus Dake's position will be verified as

false.

The Meaning of "Son of. . . ." Dake comes to erroneous conclusions about the

eternal Sonship of Christ by beginning with the wrong definition of the term "Son

of God." As we have seen, he holds that sonship refers to the humanity of Jesus

Christ and not the deity. This is simply untrue. The term "son of . . ." as used in

the Old Testament often refers to the exhibition of certain characteristics in a

person. Thus, the terms "son of valor" (1 Sam. 14:52) or "son of wise ones" (Isa.

19:11) mean that the person exhibits valor or wisdom. Furthermore, the term "son

of . . ." is used to show that the person possessed the same nature as his father.

For instance, Numbers 23:19 tells us, "God is not a man, that he should lie: neither

the son of man, that he should repent. . . ." The term "son of man" in that verse is

used to show that God does not possess the nature of a man. Consequently, when



Jesus is referred to as the "Son of God" it is a direct assertion that he exhibits the

characteristics and nature of God. He is as fully divine as the Father.

The Sonship of Jesus, in contradistinction to the allegation of Dake, is a

declaration of His deity. Jesus is the Son of God in that He is God—He possesses

the nature and attributes of God. Jesus certainly claimed this by referring to

Himself as the "Son of God." The Jews certainly understood that Jesus was making

Himself ontologically equal with God when He did this. In John 19:7, the Jews told

Pilate concerning Jesus, "We have a law, and according to our law He ought to

die, because He made Himself the Son of God." The reaction of the Jews was the

desire to kill Jesus for making Himself "equal to God" (John 5:18; 10:28-36; 19:7)

by claiming to be the Son of God. Therefore, the term "Son of God" when used of

Jesus indicates His absolute deity. This was the finding of the Nicene Council,

which, according to theologian Charles Hodge, declared that Jesus "is the Eternal

Son of God, i.e., that He is from eternity the Son of God."

Scriptural Proof that Jesus was the Son before the Incarnation. By examining

the Semitic meaning of the term "Son of . . .", it is clear that the Son of God is not

something Jesus became, but something He is in His very nature or being. In

opposition to Dake, the Scriptures teach that Jesus was the Son of God before His

Incarnation. For example, Hebrews 1:2, Colossians 1:16, and John 1:3 tell us that

"all things" were created by the Son. This implies that Jesus was the Son of God

prior to Creation, which is long before His birth in Bethlehem. Furthermore, the

New Testament shows Jesus was Son of God before Bethlehem by the language

used when interacting with others. In the famous exchange between Martha and

Jesus after the death of her brother Lazarus, Jesus asked, "I am the resurrection

and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And

whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" To this

Martha declared, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God,

who is to come into the world." This statement by Martha "reflects a sense of

movement of the Son of God—from the realm of heaven and eternity to the realm

of earth and time." Likewise, in John 3:16-17, it is stated that God gave His Son

and God sent His Son into the world. Apologist Ron Rhodes argues:

Recall the discussion with Nicodemus in John 3, for instance,

when he (Jesus) said: "For God so loved the world that He

gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him

shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send

His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save

the world through him" (John 3:16-17, italics added). That

Christ, as the Son of God, was sent into the world implies

that he was the Son of God before the Incarnation.


14/29

The orthodox Christian position on Jesus' Sonship is that He is the Son of God

from all eternity. This is because the term "Son of God" is a reference to His deity,

proving that Jesus is one in nature with the Father. It is also a clear teaching of

the Scripture that Jesus was the Son before the Incarnation. Therefore, Dake's

position that Jesus became the Son when He was incarnated should be rejected.

Professor and theologian John F. Walvoord sums up the doctrine of eternal

Sonship:

The consensus of the great theologians of the church and

the great church councils is to the effect that Christ has

been a Son from eternity; and the theory that He became a

Son by Incarnation is inadequate to account for the usage of

the term. . . . The Scriptures represent Christ as eternally

the Son of God by eternal generation. While it must be

admitted that the nature of the generation is unique, being

eternal, sonship has been used in the Bible to represent the

relationship between the first Person and the second

Person. . . . The scriptural view of the sonship of Christ, as

recognized in many of the great creeds of the church, is

that Christ was always the Son of God.

The Christ

Not only does Dake assert that Jesus became the Son of God, he also teaches

that Jesus became the Christ at His baptism. As with Dake's view of Sonship, his

view of Jesus as the Christ can be soundly refuted when examined in light of the

biblical record. I will do this by first showing what it means for Jesus to be the

Christ, and second, by showing that Jesus was the Christ before His baptism.

The Meaning of the "Christ." The term "Christ," meaning "anointed one," is the

Greek equivalent to the Hebrew term "Messiah." "Messiah" and "Christ" refer to the

same person—Jesus. Furthermore, the Old Testament is clear that the coming

Messiah is to be none other than Jehovah Himself. Norman Geisler clearly

demonstrates this point:

Jehovah is called "king" (Zech. 14:9) and it is the "angel of

Jehovah" who will redeem them (Isa. 63:9). Jehovah is the

"stone" and yet the Messiah is to be the rejected "stone" (Ps.

118:22). The Messiah is spoken of in the Old Testament as

"Lord" when it is written, "Jehovah saith unto my Lord" (Ps.

110:1), a passage which the New Testament writers apply to

Christ (Acts 2:34, 35). Isaiah provided a messianic challenge



to the Jews, saying, "Behold your God!" (40:9). Indeed,

there is no clearer messianic passage on the deity of Christ

than Isaiah 9:6: "For unto us a child is born . . . and his name

will be called 'Wonderful, counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting

Father, Prince of Peace.'" With these predictions the New

Testament writers concur, declaring Jesus to be "Emmanuel"

(which means God with us) (Matt. 1:23, from Isa. 7:14). In

brief, the Old Testament Messiah was Jehovah and the New

Testament writers identify Jesus with the Old Testament

Messiah.

It is a clear teaching of the Old Testament that the Messiah is God Himself and

Jesus is the God-Man who is the Messiah/Christ. According to this information, the

obvious conclusion one must draw is that Jesus, the Christ, has been the Christ

from all eternity. Therefore, since He was forever the Christ, He could not have

become the Christ at His baptism as Dake claims.

Jesus as the Christ before His Baptism. It is rather simple to show in the Bible

that Jesus was the Christ before His baptism. The Bible is clear that Jesus did not

become the Christ, but He was the Christ from the beginning. For instance, in

Luke 2:11, when the angel announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds in the

field, he said to them, "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you;

he is Christ the Lord." This shows that Jesus was Christ long before He was

immersed in the Jordan. Furthermore, Luke 2:26 records the instance when Mary

and Joseph took Jesus to the temple soon after His birth. There a man named

Simeon declared Jesus was the Christ. This was because God had promised Simeon

that "he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ." Moreover, the

Apostle Peter explains that we were all redeemed "with the precious blood of

Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was

foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet. 1:19-20a). In this

passage, Jesus is clearly portrayed as being Christ the Lamb before creation. Paul

concurs with Peter in 2 Timothy 1:9-10, as he explains that we were saved "not

according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was

given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the

appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ." Again, Jesus is portrayed as being the Christ

before time began. Furthermore, the Incarnation was a revealing or "appearing" of

the Savior Jesus Christ. This implies He was the Savior and Christ before He was

revealed or appeared in the Incarnation.

Since the biblical record is clear that the Christ was to be God in the flesh,

and that Jesus was called the Christ long before His baptism—even before the

beginning of time, it is reasonable to infer that Jesus was the Christ, from all


www.jesus-is-sav ior.com/Bible/dakes_bible.htm

eternity. Thus, Dake's aberrant teaching should be rejected.

The Deity of Christ

Finis Dake undeniably denies the deity of Christ. In his teaching of the kenosis

of Christ, Dake has stripped Jesus of every divine attribute He had before the

Incarnation and created a mere man that was "anointed" by the Holy Spirit in order

to do miracles. Dake's assertions are blatantly false. What happened when Jesus,

the Second Person of the Trinity, came to earth as a man? The orthodox Christian

answer to this question will prove Dake to be a false teacher that has more in

common with the kingdom of the cults than the Kingdom of God.

The Doctrine of the Incarnation. The teaching of the Christian Church about

the Incarnation of Christ has been attacked by heresies throughout the centuries.

Dake's heretical view of the Incarnation is merely one among many. To answer

Dake's claim that Jesus gave up all of the attributes of God in order to become

man, I will present the orthodox teaching concerning the Incarnation of the Second

Person of the Trinity. This will expose Dake's view of the Incarnation as flawed.

Jesus Christ is the eternal, immutable, infinite God—the Word who became

flesh—two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. This is one of the deepest and most

beautiful truths in Christian theology. The Incarnation has been defined as "the act

whereby the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, without

ceasing to be what He is, God the Son, took into union with Himself what He

before the act did not possess, a human nature, and so He was and continues to be

God and man in two distinct natures and one person, forever." The Council of

Chalcedon (A. D. 451) stated that the one person of Jesus Christ possessed "two

natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,

the distinctiveness of the natures being by no means removed because of the

union, but the properties of each nature being preserved."

Orthodox Christian theologians have never claimed that God gave up His

divine attributes and "became" a man as Dake suggests. God cannot "become"

anything because He is pure actuality, with absolutely no potentiality for change.

He is immutable, therefore, cannot change. The Incarnation is not an instance

where God shed His attributes and changed into man. There was absolutely no

change in the divine nature of the Son in the Incarnation. However, the Son of

God did take on the nature of man in addition to his divine nature. Consequently,

there are two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, present in one person,

Jesus Christ, the God-Man. It can be said, therefore, that the Incarnation of God

into human flesh is not a giv ing up of divinity or divine attributes, but the taking

of an additional nature of man in union with divinity. In his book Knowing God, J.

I. Packer explains that the Incarnation is not a subtraction of deity, but an addition

of humanity:

The Word had become flesh: a real human baby. He had not

ceased to be God; he was no less God then than before; but

He had begun to be man. He was not now God minus some

elements of His deity, but God plus all that He had made His

own by taking manhood to Himself. He who made man was

now learning what it felt like to be man.

The main problem with Dake's theology of the Incarnation is his separation of

the attributes of God from His divine nature. There is a major flaw in Dake's

premise that Jesus gave up all the attributes of God, yet held on to His divine

nature. In short, this statement contradicts itself. This is because the divine

attributes of God "are essential characteristics of His being. Without these

qualities God would not be what He is—God." In other words, without the

attributes that He possesses, God would not be God. God minus even one divine

attribute equals non-God. Apologist and author Norman Geisler explains that, "God

is by his very nature an absolutely perfect being. If there were any perfection that

he lacked, then he would not be God." Theologian R. L. Reymond concurs by

pointing out, "Divine attributes are not, however, characteristics separate and

distinct from God's essence that he can set aside when he desires." Since Dake's

Jesus gave up all His divine attributes, then Dake's Jesus is not God. Dake's

problem stems from the fact that he is altogether mistaken when he asserts that

God's attributes can be divorced from His being and God still be God.

Philippians 2:5-11 and the Kenosis of Christ. If the Incarnation is the taking on

of an additional nature of man by the divine Second Person of the Trinity, what

can be made of Philippians 2:5-11, which teaches that Jesus "emptied" Himself in

some way when He came to earth as man? Dake holds that the meaning of the

passage is that Jesus emptied Himself of all of His divine attributes. This is

patently false because, as we have seen above, if Jesus lost or gave up even one

divine attribute, then He immediately ceased to be God. Therefore, in the

Incarnation, Jesus, God in the flesh, kept each and every attribute of divinity.

What was it, therefore, that Jesus "gave up" when He "made Himself of no

reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men"

(Phil. 2:7)?

Apologist and professor Ron Rhodes provides insight to this often debated

issue. In his book Christ Before the Manger, Dr. Rhodes suggests three areas in

which Jesus "emptied" Himself when He took on the additional nature of man. He

explains:



Paul's statement that Christ made himself "nothing" in the

Incarnation (Phil. 2:7) involves three basic issues: the veiling

of his preincarnate glory, a voluntary nonuse of some of his

divine attributes, and the condescension involved in taking

on the likeness of men.

Jesus Veiled His Preincarnate Glory. The first way in which Jesus made

Himself "nothing" is that He veiled His preincarnate glory. This is the glory Jesus

spoke of in John 17:5, "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with

the glory which I had with You before the world was." The glory is Christ's divine

power and majesty. He necessarily had to veil His glory because if He did not, He

could not have interacted with man as He did. Dr. Rhodes comments on this point:

Had Christ not veiled his preincarnate glory, mankind would

not have been able to behold him. It would have been the

same as when the apostle John, over fifty years after

Christ's resurrection, beheld Christ in his glory and said: "I

fell at his feet at though dead" (Rev. 1:17); or, as when

Isaiah beheld the glory of Christ in his vision in the temple

and said, "Woe to me! I am ruined!" (Isa. 6:5a; see John

12:41).

Though His glory was veiled, Jesus occasionally gave His followers a glimpse of

it. Just before He raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said to Martha, "Did I not

say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?" (Jn. 11:40).

Here, as throughout the New Testament, Jesus exhibits the very power of God.

Furthermore, on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus pulled back the veil and

revealed His radiant glory to Peter, John, and James (Mt. 17:2-5). Additionally,

when Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus in His glory, Saul fell to the

ground and went blind (Acts 9:1-9). Thus, it was necessary that Jesus veil His glory

most of the time so that He could dwell among His own. John the Apostle summed

it up this way, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld

His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth"

(John. 1:14).

Jesus Submitted to a Voluntary Nonuse of His Divine Attributes. The second

category suggested by Rhodes through which Christ made Himself "nothing" is a

voluntary nonuse of His divine attributes. This is the heart of the disagreement

with Dake. He claims that the attributes were cast off, but this cannot be the

case, because to cast off even one attribute would be a forfeiture of deity for

Christ. Instead of relinquishing His divine attributes, Christ limited the use of

them. However, Jesus did use His divine attributes from time to time. Rhodes



explains:

Though Christ sometimes chose not to use his divine

attributes, at other times he did use them. For example, on

different occasions during his three-year ministry, Jesus

exercised the divine attributes of omniscience (that is, all-

knowingness—John 2:24; cf. 16:30), omnipresence (being

everywhere-present—John 1:48), and omnipotence (being

all-powerful, as evidenced by his many miracles—John 11).

Thus, it is clear that Jesus did not "give up" His deity, or divine attributes, in

any form or fashion. The Incarnation is not a case of giving up anything, but the

taking on of an additional nature—a human nature—by which Jesus can be said to

be fully God and fully Man.

Jesus Condescended by Taking on the Likeness of Men. Finally, Jesus made

Himself "nothing" by condescending to take on the likeness, or form, of man. By

this, Jesus was truly human. Jesus spoke of Himself as a man (John 8:40), and the

New Testament certainly recognizes His full humanity. For instance, Jesus claimed

to possess typical human traits as a body and soul (Mt. 26:26, 38). It is also said of

Him that He developed in mind and body as a normal human does (Lk. 2:40). Jesus

also evidenced the limitations of humanity in that he became tired (Jn. 4:6),

thirsty (Jn. 19:28), and hungry (Mt. 4:2). Thus, it can be truly said that "the Word

became flesh." Jesus, the Son of God, took to Himself the nature of man. This is a

remarkable and loving condescension for the eternal Second Person of the Trinity.

Though Jesus "made Himself nothing," in the Incarnation, this, in no way,

involved the giving-up of His divine nature or divine attributes as Dake suggests. In

opposition to Dake, reformed theologian Louis Berkhof writes concerning the fact

that the "Word became flesh":

The verb egeneto in John 1:14 (the Word became flesh)

certainly does not mean that the Logos changed into flesh,

and thus altered His essential nature, but simply that He took

on that particular character, that He acquired an additional

form, without in any way changing His original nature. He

remained the infinite and unchangeable Son of God.

CONCLUSION

The above research only scratches the surface of the heresy that is contained

within the pages of the Dake Bible. Dake's view of Jesus, from His teaching of the

preincarnate nature of Christ to his teaching of Christ Incarnate, is filled with

contradictions, confusion, and doctrinal chaos. The Jesus of the Dake Annotated

Reference Bible is demonstrably not the Jesus of the Bible. What makes this so

troubling is that Dake and his aberrant teachings are accepted within the confines

of the orthodox Christian community. In fact, never have I seen so much heresy

contained in the teaching of one man, and that man still be considered Christian.

The reason for this is either ignorance of what Finis Jennings Dake actually taught

or a church that is so biblically illiterate that it cannot tell Living Water from

deadly poison. If more believers were informed about Dake's heresies regarding

such topics as the nature of God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the deity of

Christ, then the Dake Annotated Reference Bible would quickly fall off of the

best-seller chart and into a place where it belongs—the garbage bin, alongside

other best-selling editions that promote principles that can be at home only in the

kingdom of the cults. It is my desire to be a voice used by the Lord to help

accomplish this feat.

ENDNOTES

1. Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee, Dictionary of Pentecostal and

Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids: Regency Reference Library, 1988), 235. An

edition containing the entire New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, and Daniel was

published in 1961.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Finis Jennings Dake, Heavenly Hosts: A Biblical Study of Angels (Lawrenceville,

GA: Dake Publishing, 1995).

5. Finish Jennings Dake, A True Story [article on-line]; available from

http://www.dake.com; Internet; accessed 10 June 1997.

6. Ibid.

7. Finis Jennings Dake, The Dake Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA:

Dake Publishing, 1961), preface. The Dake study Bible is divided into 3 sections:

The Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Concordance. Each section is

numbered separately (i.e., the New Testament page numbers do not begin where

the Old Testament page numbers left off, but with the number 1). Therefore, any

reference from the Dake Bible must include the page number as well as the section

(Old Testament, New Testament, Concordance). Old Testament will be referred to

as "OT," the New Testament will be referred to as "NT."



8. Ibid.

9. For example, Dake claims that God has a body and lives on heaven, which is a

physical planet. He states "The Bible declares that God has a body, shape, image,

likeness, bodily parts, a personal soul and spirit, and all other things that constitute

a being or a person with a body, soul, and spirit. . . Heaven itself is a material

planet having cities, mansions, furniture, inhabitants, living conditions, etc."

(Dake's Annotated Reference Bible: New Testament, 280; cf. Old Testament,

622).

Many Word-Faith teachers, such as Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn, teach

the very same thing. For instance, Kenneth Copeland teaches that God is a "being

that stands somewhere around 6'-2", 6'-3", that weighs somewhere in the

neighborhood of a couple of hundred pounds, little better, has a [hand] span of

nine inches across" ("Spirit, Soul, and Body I" Fort Worth, TX: Kenneth Copeland

Ministries, 1985, audio-tape #01-0601, side 1). Copeland also states that "Heaven

has a north and south, and an east and a west. Consequently, it must be a planet"

(Ibid.). Dake's teaching is demonstrably very influential among Word-Faith

teachers with regards to this topic and many others.

10. For example, Dake clearly teaches a works-salvation. On numerous occasions

throughout the voluminous notes of the text, Dake gives many conditions of

receiving eternal life. For instance, on page 100 of the New Testament, the note

for John 6:27 is entitled "23 Conditions of Eternal Life." The 23 conditions one must

meet to get eternal life, according to Dake, are:

Come to Christ Sow to the Spirit.

Eat His flesh-drink His blood. Fight the good fight.

Labor. Be sober and hope to the end for

it.

Reap - win souls. Endure temptations

Hate (love less) the life in this

world.

Let the promise of it remain in

you/ continue in Christ

Know God and Christ. Love everybody.

Enter right gate. Keep yourself in the love of God.

Cause no offense. Overcome sin.



Keep commandments. Be faithful unto death.

Forsake all. Believe and obey the gospel.

Live free from sin. Be born again, hear Christ, and

follow Him.

Continue in well doing and seek

eternal life

The only condition one must meet to obtain eternal life, according to the Bible, is

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." The difference between Dake's soteriology and

biblical soteriology is that one must work to earn salvation in Dake's theology.

According to the Bible, however, all the work for salvation has been done on the

cross by Jesus. When He said, "It is finished," in John 19:30, he was referring to

this very thing. Subsequently, all one must do to receive the free gift of eternal

life is to believe, or trust, in Jesus and the finished work on the cross. Needless to

say, the Gospel according to Dake is not the Gospel according to Jesus and the

Apostles (cf. Galatians 1:6-10).

11. Even a cursory study of the Dake Study Bible reveals that the theology in the

study notes and the theology of the Word-Faith movement are almost identical.

For instance, beliefs that are found in both Dake and the Word-Faith movement

are: 1) God has a body and lives on a planet called heaven. 2) Each member of the

Godhead has his own body, soul, and spirit. 3) Man is a little duplicate of God,

having the same attributes and powers. 4) Health and wealth are provided in the

atonement, thus, it is the will of God in every case that the Christian be healed of

disease as it is the will of God that the Christian be wealthy. These are only a few

of the similar doctrines that are shared by Dake and the Word-Faith theologians.

Because of this, I believe that the Dake Bible should be renamed the "Word-Faith

Study Bible."

12. A cult is a group that denies one or more of the essentials of the Christian

Faith (The Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Deity of Christ, the Physical Resurrection,

Salvation by Faith Alone in Christ Alone, and the Second Coming). After completing

the research for this paper, I am fully convinced that Dake and his disciples,

namely the Word-Faith Movement, should be considered a cult. This is because

Dake and company deny such essentials as the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and

Salvation by Faith Alone in Christ Alone. In fact, Dake's view of the Nature of God

(see footnote 9) is very close to the Mormon position on the Nature of God. It is

my opinion that the Christian apologetic community either needs to classify

Dake/Word-Faith as a full-blown cult, or we owe the Mormons an apology.



13. Dake, Dake Bible NT, 50.

14. Ibid., 280. An old saying is, "Whatever the parent does in moderation, the

children will do in excess." This can be clearly seen in a sermon by Benny Hinn. He

says:

I feel revelation knowledge already coming on me. . . . God

the Father is a person, God the Son is a person, God the

Holy Ghost is a person, but each of them is a triune being by

himself. If I can shock you and maybe I should, there are

nine of them. . . . God the Father is a person with his own

personal spirit, with his own personal soul and his own

personal spirit body. You say, 'I never heard that.' Well, do

you think you're in this church to hear things you've heard

for the past 50 years? You can't argue with the Word, can

you? It's all in the Word (Benny Hinn, quoted in G. Richard

Fisher and M. Kurt Goedelman, The Confusing World of

Benny Hinn [Kearney: Morris Publishing, 1995], 95).

Benny Hinn, in an interview with Charisma magazine admitted that he got this

teaching from the writings of Finis Jennings Dake. Speaking of the very quote

above, Hinn said, "In Finis Dake's book God's Plan for Man, he teaches that each

member of the Trinity has his own spirit, soul, and body. One Sunday when I was

speaking on the Trinity, I repeated that teaching. . . ." It should be noted that

much of the book God's Plan for Man was condensed and used as the notes in the

Dake's Annotated Reference Bible.

15. Finis Jennings Dake, God's Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales,

Inc., 1949), 498, emphasis in original. This massive work is described by Dake

Publishers as "designed as a correspondence course, God's Plan for Man is

equivalent to a three-year Bible college program. . . . sane, scriptural teaching for

intelligent people. . . . clear, well-arranged, and doctrinally sound" (Inside jacket

cover of God's Plan for Man). It is this volume that was condensed into the notes

of the Dake Annotated Reference Bible. What may be alluded to in the reference

Bible is often fully explained in God's Plan for Man.

16. Dake, Dake Bible NT, 280. It is important to the understanding of Dake's view

of the Trinity to remember that he uses the terms "person" and "being"

interchangeably. This statement militates against the monotheism of the Bible.

17. Ibid. As each human person is a separate and distinct being, each member of

the Trinity is a separate and distinct being who are unified only in purpose or goal.



18. Ibid.

19. Ibid. Underlined words in original. Amazingly, Dake claims that the word God

can be used as a singular referent to one Person of the Godhead, or a plural

referent to all three, much like sheep or fish can be used as a singular or plural.

While it is true that the word for God in the Old Testament, Elohim, is a plural

word, it is not a reference to three separate, distinct beings. It is called a "plural

of majesty," and denotes the absolute sovereignty, power, and majesty of God.

20. Dake, God's Plan for Man, 500.

21. Ibid., 97, 96. It is interesting to note that he accepted his nickname, "The

Walking Bible," as a figure of speech. Otherwise, he would be advertising himself

as a being composed of many pieces of paper bound together between two

leather covers.

22. In short, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one in nature,

being, or essence (one in WHAT He is), and three in person (three in WHO He is).

Dake does not make a distinction between the terms "being" and "person" and

therefore, uses the terms synonymously. A "person" is a "being." Thus, when Dake

speaks of the Trinity as being three persons, he is making the claim that the

Trinity is three separate and distinct beings, which is the heresy called Tritheism.

23. Dake, God's Plan for Man, 53. This doctrine is certainly not a "modern trend." It

has been formally expressed for almost 2,000 years!

24. Ibid. The exact statement that Dake calls foolish and unscriptural is "It is clearly

revealed in Scripture that God is ONE BEING CONSTITUTED IN THREE PERSONS. . .

. God as a spirit is incorporeal, invisible reality; has no body or parts like human

beings; nothing of a material or bodily nature . . . God cannot be seen with the

material eyes; nothing on earth to resemble Him; without parts, without body,

without passions. . . . The image of God consists only in intellectual and moral

likeness; when God is spoken of as having hands, feet, eyes, hair, and other bodily

parts, these are figures of speech and mere human expressions trying to convey

some idea of God." (God's Plan for Man, 53, emphasis in original). These quotes

were gathered by Dake from "books on the great doctrines of the Bible that are

widely used," and speak of the orthodox understanding of the nature of God and

the Trinity. Thus, Dake separates himself and his teachings from orthodox

Christianity.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., 54.




28. Ibid., 57.

29. Ibid., 139.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., 1.


33. Ibid.

34. In other words, Dake uses the term "Christ" much in the same way the term

"doctor" is used in the claim that "Dr. Norman Geisler once worked in a factory in

Michigan." He was not a doctor when he worked in the factory, but acquired the

degree at a later date. But when referring to his life before he became a doctor,

we still refer to him as Dr. Geisler. In the same way, Dake believes that any

reference that refers to Jesus as being the Christ before He was anointed at His

baptism is using the term in this way.


36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.



40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, IL: Tan Books and

Publishers, 1960), 32.

45. Peter Kreeft, ed., Summa of the Summa (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990),

112.


46. Lewis Sperry Chafer and John F. Walvoord, Major Bible Themes (Grand

Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974), 40.

47. The philosophical law of non-contradiction states that "A" cannot be "A" and

"non-A" at the same time and the same sense. God is not one and three at the

same time and the same sense. We do not claim that God is one Being in three

Beings or one Person with three Persons. This is blatantly contradictory . We do

claim that God is one in being and three in person. He is one Being revealed in

three Persons. Therefore, the orthodox understanding of the Trinity is not a

contradiction as Dake claims. It is ironic that Dake uses the same arguments against

the Trinity as Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons do.

48. Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam (Grand Rapids: Baker Book

House, 1993), 265-66.

49. Omnipresence is that attribute of God by which He is everywhere present. He

is not localized on a planet called Heaven going to and fro in his body. He is an

everywhere present spirit. This is clearly seen in the biblical record is the

following Scriptures:

1 Kings 8:27: "But will God indeed dwell on the earth?

Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain

You. How much less this temple which I have built!"

Psalm 139:7-8: "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where

can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You

are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there."

Jeremiah 23:24: "Can anyone hide himself in secret places,

So I shall not see him?" says the LORD; "Do I not fill heaven

and earth?" says the LORD."

Furthermore, the claim that God is eternal is to say that He is not temporal. God is

without beginning and without end, and without succession in a constant,

undivided "now." There is no past, present, or future with God—only a constant

"now." Time involves change—a before and an after—but God is changeless, and is

therefore, eternal, or beyond time. This is seen in the following Scriptures:

Psalm 90:2: "Before the mountains were brought forth, Or

ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from

everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

John 8:58: "Before Abraham was, I AM."



Hebrews 13:8: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,

and forever."

Another classic attribute that Dake implicitly denies by claiming the God has a

body is the Simplicity of God. This is the attribute that states that God is not

composed of parts and is thus indivisible. But a body is composed of parts and is

divisible. Anything that is composed of parts can be decomposed or divided.

Therefore a composed God is a God which can be decomposed, or die.

Furthermore, if God is composed of parts, this presupposes another composer.

One cannot compose one's self because one would have to exist prior to one's self

in order to compose one's self. Therefore, Dake's theology logically dictates that

there is another being who composed God.

Furthermore, Dake's God cannot be an Infinite God because a body is a finite

thing. An infinite body is an oxymoron. A body, by nature, is confined to one place

at one time. Therefore it cannot be infinite in any sense of the term. Dake's

contention that God has a body goes against reason and the entire revelation of

God.

50. Merrill C. Tenney, ed., The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible,

Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976), 177.

51. George W. Zeller and Renald E. Showers, The Eternal Sonship of Christ

(Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1993), 26. The following chart is found on pages

10-11 in Zeller and Showers' book and it emphasizes the contrast between the

orthodox Christian view of the Sonship of Jesus and Dake's view of the Sonship of

Jesus:

ETERNAL SONSHIP INCARNATIONAL SONSHIP (Dake)

He was always the Son of God. He

is the eternal Son.

Before the Incarnation, He was not

the Son of God

"Son of God" is Who He Is "Son of God" is What He Became

His Sonship is essential to his true

identity and cannot be divorced

from the person He is.

His Sonship is not essential to His

inherent identity.

"Son of God" is who He is in His

being of beings.

"Son of God" is merely a title and

role that He assumed.

His Sonship directly relates to His His Sonship directly relates to His



deity. Incarnation.

"Son of God" means equal with

God, indicating likeness or

sameness of being.

"Son of God" means subservient to

God, less than God.

God the Father has always been

God the Father.

God the Father did not assume the

title and role of Father until the

Incarnation.

Before the Incarnation the Son was

ever in the Father's bosom.

Before the Incarnation God had no

Son, nor was He the Father.

The Father/Son relationship has

eternally existed in the godhead.

Before the Incarnation there was

no Father/Son relationship in the

godhead.

The Father sent His Own Son into

this world (see John 3:16-17;

Galatians 4:4; etc.).

The One who would become the

Father sent the One who would

become the Son into this world.

The triune God has eternally

existed in three persons—the

Father, the Son, and the Holy

Spirit.

The triune God has eternally

existed in three persons, but not as

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These

were roles that were assumed in

time.

52. Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 156.

53. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology Volume 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans

Publishing Co, 1995), 471.

54. Ron Rhodes, Christ Before the Manger (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,

1992), 32.

55. Ibid., 31.

56. John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord (Chicago: Moody Press, 1969), 39, 41-

42.

57. Walter Elwell, ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker

Book House, 1994), 711.

58. Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,



1976), 336.

59. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 555.

60. Ibid., 556.

61. J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 57


63. Norman Geisler, Creating God in the Image of Man? (Minneapolis: Betheny

House Publishers, 1997), 28.


65. Rhodes, Christ Before the Manger, 195.

66. Ibid., 196.

67. Lois Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Co., 1993), 334.

SOURCE

Problems With The Dake Bible

The King James Bible Defended

http://www.exorthodoxforchrist.com/finis_dake_2.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/dake_bible2.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/1611_authorized_king_james_noeffect.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/

Dake's Bible Exposed!

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