David Yonggi Cho is an analysis of this false prophet’s errors and wrong conduct.
Se Church Growth through Cell Groups (Posts on Aug 16, 2021)
Cho (born in 1936, still living) is a Pentecostal pastor in South Korea. He is the founder or creator of the Church Growth Movement involving cells (Castellanos is another major player here). Cho has boasted that his church is the largest in the world, with 850,000 members, 11 choirs, 600 assistant pastors (400 of them are women), and 50,000 cell groups (of which 47,000 are women). Cho is plainly a Pentecostal in his beliefs and practices, with a mixture of Hinduism entering in at points. He believes in standard Pentecostal fair, healings, miracles, speaking in ecstatic tongues, all the charismatic gifts as being active today like in apostolic times, etc.
See also.
Tract: David Cox – Ch31 The Three “B”‘s of Success: Buildings, Bodies, and Bucks.
He has two main areas of doctrinal problems, first those of the Pentecostal movement (especially the Word of Faith sub-movement within the Pentecostal movement), and secondly the strong influence of Hindhuist beliefs in all that he does. Even his own Pentecostal denomination has investigated him and rebuked him for these Hindhuistic leanings in his teachings.
Pentecostal Problems
Cho’s problems begin with his Pentecostal foundation, and particularly that arising from the Word of Faith movement which he is dead center in that movement.
Riches are an absolute promise of God for ALL believers.
Whereas God warns believers about the power and danger of riches or possessions in controlling and dominating their lives, thus the encouragement of God to not let them become very important, Cho and his followers make this a center piece of every faithful Christian’s life.
Physical health is an absolute promise of God for ALL believers.
Cho uses passages like Isa 53:4, and 1Peter 2:24 to understand and insist that any sickness any believer has, God will unilaterally without question heal, and only Christians who lack faith will not take advantage of this benefit of salvation. For Cho and other in this movement, God’s salvation is from sickness and poverty much more than from sin and its consequences. We try to examine Paul’s define of sin in 1Cor 15:1-5 to find these elements in Paul’s thinking, and Paul’s gospel totally lacks these absolute promises, or even mention of them.
See also:
Tract: David Cox – ch19 The Marks of a False Prophet
2. Cho’s Gospel and Salvation
Cho preaches what Pentecostals call “the Full Gospel” or “the Five Part Gospel”, and this is the belief that the Gospel as Paul presents us in Gal 1:6-9; 5:2-12 isn’t sufficient. They believe that without “faith causing miracles and powers”, their spiritual life is incomplete, so they seek these supernatural experiences to compliment and broaden their religious experience. Without these injections of spiritual emotionalism, they feel their salvation experience is “dead.”
Faith and Miracles
Cho rejects the concept that the Bible defines as faith (based in and centered in the Person and work of Jesus Christ in the cross), and describes “useful faith” as what they believe in and what they understand the Bible to really teach. His view is that without a constant personal experience of actually being present when miracles and healing are performed, then that Christian is incomplete and spiritually weak. Equally so, they dictate that any Christian who doesn’t experience the “blessing” of economic riches isn’t really a good Christian, not what he should or could be.
While Cho and his gang define salvation and faith in their twisting Hindistic ways, Paul puts the spiritual activity of love at the center of his gospel and Christian experience (1Co 13:2). For Paul, the power to move mountains isn’t useful if the person hasn’t understood, captured, and is living the love of Christ (after all, God defines Himself as being “love”). To be saved in Paul’s understanding is to show and give God’s love to the world. Cho’s idea at the center of his “Christian faith” is the insistence and obtaining of good health and riches (the health and wealth gospel), which in reality is the same strong stubborn willfulness against God’s will that Lucifer showed in his character since the beginning.
3. Cho’s Doctrine of Sin-Man.
Cho follows the Hinduistic belief that man has inherently within himself undiscovered powers, making him in essence a “god” (or with the potential to reach “godhood” or deity). Cho remarks in one of his books, that every morning that he looks at his own image in the mirror, he greets himself with “Hello God”. Cho’s focus is on man accomplishing his own will, and he totally lays aside as important man’s submission to God’s plans or will, since man is a god in himself.
Other abhorrent thoughts here is that animals don’t have spirits and God doesn’t (cannot) have a physical body (Heb 10:38; Eccl 3:21).
4: Cho’s Doctrine of Angels
Cho has invented a doctrine called the “Fourth Dimension” which is a type of dualism. His theory is that besides our physical existence, their is another dimension which is pure spirit. He sees this Fourth Dimension as controlling our real world. A few gran masters like himself can learn to manipulate our real world by learning techniques to control the Fourth Dimension to make miracles happen in the real world. This is squarely in the witchcraft-Druidism beliefs of witches and warlocks, that by techniques (spells or chants) they can manipulate the spiritual world to force them to obey their commands in our real world.
Moreover Cho believes that Satan is equal with God, even though God shows a greaterness than Satan many times in Scripture (God expels Satan from the garden Gen 3:1; out of heaven in Isa 14:12; and God will defeat Satan in Rev 20:2, and throw him in the lake of fire Rev 20:10). He also believes all the unsaved are demon possessed, and that the devil is the source of all sickness and sin.
5. Cho’s Visualization.
This Cho took directly from Buddhism (and he even admits it), so basically he sys that what a person can visualize in his mind will come to pass. For Cho many religions have erred in not using this “power of faith” (which is faith in faith, not in God). They use God to make the rule of faith is power, but thereafter they “throw God and His will away” because they use their God given faith to do their own will, and ignore and rebel against God’s will. Cho says, “You can create the presence of Jesus with your mouth… and he is bound by your lips and words… Remember that Christ depends on you, and what words you speak to bring his presence.” (Paul Yonggi Cho, The Fourth Dimension, Volume 1, página 83). See the post on Visualization
6. Cho’s Church Growth Cells.
Cho invented the system of Growth through cells which his church uses. What marks this system is the small individual cells groups which meet in houses to teach the Bible during the week days. This is a system which “grows” the church, yet while these cells group members are counted because they attend during the week, they go to their own churches on Sunday, unless they finally break with their old churches and join Cho’s group. This is sheep stealing clean and clear, and the doctrines of Cho are not what bring these people to him, but the deceit and tricks of these cells groups.