The Rising Force of Rectification
March 15, 2024
This past week new commentary on the Mike Bickle – IHOP-KC affair came forth from none other than Jack Deere, an early participant in and proponent of the Kansas City prophetic movement. You will remember that I mentioned Deere in my recent commentary series on this situation. You may find his commentaries here and here. I strongly encourage you to read them in light of what I wrote you and what we discussed, especially in respect to Paul Cain. Deere’s conclusions of the whole are extremely confirmatory of what I wrote concerning the protecting of ministry persona, helping to assure that what I have perceived from a distance is indeed accurate.
Those who have continued following this saga through the Roys Report already know that much more has come forth since I concluded our series on this issue in January. Mike Bickle’s “forays” out of bounds are now known to have been quite earlier and more extensive than anyone first knew based in the initial reports between October and December. The mounting tide of evidence has served to expose a basic invalidity underlying the perspective by which Mike has explained himself, and by which most of the body of Christ has been handling relationally divisive issues of this nature. That invalidity was captured for me by one particular word in Jack Deere’s recent commentary:
“The disclosure of how passages like Matthew 18:15-17 have been twisted to silence abuse victims within the church underscores the need for transparency and justice....Without transparency, claims of remorse are empty, underscoring the biblical mandate for justice and righteousness...."Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:24)...[This] call for withholding support is not made lightly but arises from a deep concern for justice, the protection of the vulnerable, and the integrity of spiritual communities.”
You will note throughout these statements the word “justice.” This one word turns the entire Bickle-IHOP saga on its head, bringing it before a higher bar of accountability than the body of Christ ever allows itself to stand. For generations now, the church has been using the concepts of love, forgiveness, mercy and reconciliation to obliterate rather than to satisfy this most sacred precept of the divine nature. God’s justice stands next to His holiness in force and effect regarding human relationships. All his other traits, including love, flow from this.
True love, forgiveness and mercy all satisfy justice. That is why God’s love is primarily defined by His atonement through the death of His Son (I Jn. 4:9-10), not by His “feelings” for man as Mike Bickle and the passionist intercessory-worship community portray it. God’s loving reconciliation is framed only with respect to the standard erected by divine justice, a reality on which we have already written an entire series. Love appeases, not denies, God’s justice. True love hates iniquity (Heb. 1:9), and proves it by obliterating or otherwise severing itself from the iniquity, not from justice.
The passionist view of God’s love however has worked rather, not to cover sins by true atonement, but to cover up sin by hiding from justice in the name of forgiveness and mercy. This is what has marked the IHOP-KC culture and has been promoted throughout the superficial Charismatic world. All modern mainstream Spirit-filled churches and movements operate on this justice-denying definition of love, defending against justice by charging the quest for justice as “judgmentalism.” This is practiced down to the level of every personal relationship, leading to superficial pretentious “reconciliations” that never satisfy the breaches committed by offending parties.
The judgmentalism label sticks to everything pursuing justice by painting justice only in terms of punishment. But what really is justice? Justice is not primarily about punishment. It is about rectification. It is about making things right. Such rectification may in the end require punishment of the recalcitrant. But in all cases, it means to make right that which is unjustly broken. It requires restitution, the making whole of something, where that is possible. Justice always deals in transparent truth. Facts are fully aired and vetted. Nothing is hidden or held back. Everything comes out in the light. Full confessions are made. And on this basis, justice then makes satisfying reconciliation.
But without transparency before the truth, nothing can be truly reconciled, and any superficial “rush to reconciliation” is, as Jack Deere paints it, empty. It is unjust. It is a sham. Yet sham reconciliation is what characterizes so much church-based relational “healing,” especially at the leadership level where it is too costly to the ministerial persona to get real. Buried wounds remain deep, lying to fester, until they can remain submerged no more. That is what finally happened last Spring (2023) with “Jane Doe” concerning Mike Bickle. God’s inner cry for justice orchestrated the whole thing, not satan.
Thus it is that now God is stepping forth as if out of a whirlwind beginning at IHOP. He is coming forth to declare, “No more! You will no longer stand in my Presence on the basis of your sham relationships built on superficial reconciliations and cover ups of iniquity.” This rise of the power of rectification is indeed God’s own arising to bring forth “judgment beginning at His house” (I Pt. 4:17).
For many, yes, it will result in punishment; but for all it will result in exposure of motives and a revisiting of never justly healed relational fractures. The truth is no longer going to be buried under “great moves” of the Spirit. No longer will great “power ministries,” however genuinely origined in God’s anointing, be allowed to serve as cloaks for failed relational rectifications, for hidden sinful lifestyles, and for perpetuating false prophetic personas. (Again, Jack Deere’s no-holds-barred testimony concerning Paul Cain speaks to this).
Again, this will come into force at all levels of relationship, but especially at the leadership levels in churches and movements. And anyone who is watching what is happening at Kansas City should take heed. Now is the time to unbury the skeletons hidden under superficially imposed face-saving mantras of “forgiveness” and “mercy” to truly make right what has never been made right. The hollow charges of “judgmentalism” used to protect relational injustice are no longer going to stop the Lord’s piercing gaze from exposing what really lies in the hearts of His people. (For more on relational injustice, please see my past article Under Assault: The Just Nature of God.)
Chris Anderson
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org3/24
BACK TO TOP
Webmaster littleflock@netzero.net
Page created March 20, 2024
