Protestia noted that Steven Furtick, the lead pastor of Elevation Church, was recently recognized at the 68th Grammy Awards as a co-writer for “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” which won Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song. This was his sixth nomination and second win in the past five years. Got Questions said he is “a talented performer and a personable, charismatic speaker.” Elevation Church has grown to become one of the ten largest churches in America, with 21 campuses in the United States and Canada. However, he also seems to promote belief in the little gods doctrine.
In “Heresy Alert! Steve Furtick Says Whatever God Is, ‘You Are Too,” Protestia said he was promoting his new book Do the New You in a February 11, 2024 sermon when he said:
This is written so I can come home with you. Sounds kind of weird. This is where I get to coach you. This is where I get to be a voice in your life that reminds you that you are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ; the voice in your life that helps you realize you are more than the math of what is against you.
That you are more than the mistakes that you have made, that the Great I Am lives in you and whatever He is, you are too.
Protestia said Furtick is ‘dipping his toes’ into ‘little gods’ theology. But when he compares himself to God and seeks to co-opt His attributes for himself, he jumps right in. “Far from merely suggesting that we share some attributes of our creator, Furtick is engaging at best in some ‘little-god’ theology,” which was taught by Word of Faith teachers like Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland. At worst, he’s directly comparing himself to God and seeking to co-opt all His attributes for himself. See a short video in the article that was excerpted from his sermon, “My Maker Is My Mirror” in 2019, where Furtick said when God told Moses (Exodus 3:14), “My name is I Am, he was trying to get him to see ‘you are as I am.’”
It seems that Furtick misuses the metaphor of a mirror, when he said we go to the wrong mirrors; the mirrors of our failures. In his sermon he said: “You become what you behold;” and “it’s not how big you see God it’s how much you believe that God is in you.” Then he said: “My Maker is my mirror. . . You’ve been looking in the wrong mirror; you’ve been consulting the mirror for your flesh. . . But what about what’s in you?”
Then he referred to the book of James, where James urged his listeners to be doers of the word, and not just hearers. Furtick said if you listen to the Word and don’t do it, you’re like a man who looks at himself in a mirror—then he raised his bible before his face and quoted John 1:1—then said again: “My Maker is my mirror.” Speaking to his audience, he said God was raising them up and was doing it through a process. The level they settled on would be the level where they saw themselves. It made him so sad to think how many times they all had gone to the wrong mirrors.
Quoting Genesis 1:26, he said: “God said let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” Then apparently speaking to those who lack faith, he said: “You are not my maker. You will not be my mirror.” Furtick then referred to when God spoke to Moses before the burning bush, and said God was trying to get him to see “You are as I am. That’s what a mirror does. I want to see myself in you.”
Scripture Through a Distorted Mirror
Note how the rhetoric and use of the mirror metaphor by Furtick in his sermon can lead you to the little gods doctrine. Got Questions said Furtick’s teaching relies heavily on “pop psychology, motivational platitudes, and feel-good directions for building one’s self-esteem.” In “Are Christians ‘little gods’?” Got Questions said similar to Mormon belief, the little gods heresy holds that humans are actually divine, created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We are of the same “spiritual class” as God Himself.
This sense of divinity, of being of the same “spiritual class” as God Himself, leads to the belief that when we ask something of God in faith, He is compelled to fill the request. As so-called “little gods,” our words have power. The Scriptural basis for the little gods claim is based on two verses, Psalm 82:6 (I said, You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you) and John 10:34 (Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?”).
In John, Jesus cited Psalm 82:6 in his dispute with the Jews who wanted to stone him because he said he was the Son of God (John 10:33, 36). The context described a confrontation between Jesus and the Jews at the Feast of Dedication. They asked him to plainly say whether he was the Messiah. His response was that his actions prove he is the Messiah, and said “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The Jews picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy. Jesus then quoted Psalm 82:6 and asked if God called them ‘gods’ (and the Word of God cannot be broken), who were the ‘gods’ of Psalm 82:6?
In “What Does the Bible Mean by ‘You Are Gods,’” Got Questions said the Hebrew word translated “gods” in Psalm 82:6 is elohim. This term most often refers to the one true God of Scripture, as it does in Genesis chapter one, but it also has other uses. Psalm 95:3 says “For the Lord (Yahweh) is a great God (El) and a great King above all gods (elohim). It can refer to angels (Job 2:1; 38:7); demons, idols, and foreign gods (Genesis 35:4; Deuteronomy 32:17; 1 Kings 11:33); and even the disembodied dead (1 Samuel 28:13). There are two main views of its meaning in Psalm 82:6.
Either the “gods” of Psalm 82 are human magistrates, judges and rulers with authority in the earth, or they are supernatural beings who rule under God. If they are supernatural beings in the divine council (Psalm 82:1), God seems to warn them who continue making unjust decisions that they will die like mortal men and fall like other rulers (Psalm 82:2, 6-8). If they are human authority figures, they are cautioned to act with impartiality and true justice, because someday they will stand before the Judge. Men in positions of authority are considered as gods by the people (Exodus 7:1).
Calling a human magistrate a “god” indicates three things: 1) he has authority over other human beings, 2) the power he wields as a civil authority is to be feared, and 3) he derives his power and authority from God Himself, who is pictured as judging the whole earth in Psalm 82: 8. Human rulers are to remember that, even though they are representing God in this world, they are mortal and must eventually give an account to God for how they use that authority.
When Jesus quotes Psalm 82, he said God called them gods “to whom the word of God came” (John 10:35)—those who received the message of God are called “gods.” In effect, Jesus is saying the Jews can charge him with blasphemy because he used the title “Son of God,” but the Scriptures apply the same term to others besides God. “If those who hold a divinely appointed office or those who have a divine position in the spiritual realm can be considered “gods,” how much more can the One whom God has chosen and sent (John 10:34-36)?” The context of both Psalm 82:6 and John 10:34 does not suggest humans can become divine, little gods. This is the lie of Genesis 3:5, that our eyes will be opened, and we will be like God.
This was a half-truth. Their eyes were opened (verse 7), but they did not become like God. In fact, they lost authority, rather than gaining it. Satan deceived Eve about her ability to become like the one true God, and so led her into a lie. Jesus defended His claim to be the Son of God on biblical and semantic grounds—there is a sense in which influential men and spiritual beings can be referred to as “gods”; therefore, the Messiah can rightly apply the term to Himself. Human beings are not “gods” or “little gods.” They will never become gods. God is God, and we who know Christ are His children.
Perhaps, Steve Furtick, when we look in the mirror, we can see what we will be when our Maker returns and the former things pass away, and He makes all things new (Revelation 21:4-5). But God was never trying to get Moses to see “you are as I am.” And you were wrong to say, “I am God almighty!”
