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Mike Bickle's Romantic Jesus

IHOP's Bridal Paradigm

Recently I was given a CD of Mike Bickle speaking to a youth group at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) Passion for Jesus Conference in Kansas City. Bickle is full of zeal and passion as he speaks of the "Bridegroom Jesus" he has found in the Song of Solomon through "spiritual interpretation." The message is central to his ministry as IHOP sees this new revelation of the "Bridal Paradigm" being extremely important for individual Christians to grow in God and to fulfill God's plan for them in the end times. Through his discoveries in the Song of Solomon Bickle believes he has found new ways to enhance his spiritual passion, and IHOP is eager to share his discoveries with today's youth seeking greater meaning in Christianity. The trouble is that the bridegroom "discovered" in IHOP's Bridal Paradigm is not the Jesus of the Apostles and their scriptures. Mike Bickle is asking us to fall in love with an imposter—the spiritual romantic Jesus he imagines to be hidden in the Bible.

"Jesus the bridegroom" hidden in the Song of Solomon is only found there via "spiritual interpretation", which Bickle describes as "a symbolic interpretation to see the spiritual truths in our relationship with Jesus behind the natural love story." ¹Through spiritual interpretation Bickle believes Song of Solomon explains Jesus' relationship to the individual, Israel and the church. First and foremost for Bickle it "is the relationship between Jesus and the individual believer. This approach gives spiritual principles that aid us in our progression of holy passion."² IHOP claims that the theme of the Song of Solomon is to receive the kisses of God's Word as spiritual experiences and misquotes verse 1:2 to "prove" it: "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth (Word)." While Hebrew words have a range of meaning, it does not follow that they can mean anything at any time simply because someone wants them to. It is a stretch to make one verse that confuses mouth with word as the cornerstone of an entire revelation of Christ. Neither the immediate context nor the entire book describe how a woman was ravished about the words of scriptures. In contrast, passion for the Word of God is central to Psalm 119 but is not described in sexual terms. Song of Solomon is about tangible physical love between a man and woman.

Sola Scriptura – scripture alone

Bickle's "spiritual interpretation" is a repudiation of the basic concept of the Reformation, namely sola scriptura—the authority of scripture alone. This error enables popes or anyone else, including Bickle, to make scriptures mean whatever they think they should mean. In addition, while Bickle embraces his own "spiritual interpretation," he is also tolerant of competing interpretations and states, "We bless different interpretations as long as they exhort others to grow in wholehearted love for Jesus."³ That IHOP blesses different interpretations as long as they exhort others to grow in wholehearted love for Jesus is self-condemning—not all interpretations are true, and neither should they be blessed. Why? The true meaning of the scriptures that is valid and binding is restricted to what God intended the passage to mean. The correct interpretations of scripture actually define the Jesus that we are commanded to obey and to love. A good Mormon may feel a wholehearted love for Jesus, but it is the wrong Jesus because he embraced a wrong interpretation.

The concept of the "inspiration of scriptures" is not mystical people using automatic writing to convey God's words, but authors who chose words in their language to convey specific meanings to their intended audience. The Song of Solomon was a Jewish love poem and a repudiation of the doctrine of demons that forbade marriage.⁴ Using it as the basis for a training guide for the individual "bride of God" is misguided and utterly lacking in support. God in the Old Testament spoke of corporate Israel as a bride, and we find the concept of the bride also to be corporate in the New Testament. Ultimately, in Revelation 12:9 the "bride" clearly identified as the New Jerusalem.

Then one of the seven angels… spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

The bride of Revelation is not an individual but a city populated by those whose names are written in the book of life—it is a corporate bride clothed in the righteous acts of the saints. The bridegroom of this city is the Jesus that scriptures reveal to us. He is a man with a glorified human body that is actually sitting on the throne of a tangible city. The citizens of His bride have real glorified bodies and physically enter and exit the walls of His city. The scriptures do not reveal the bridegroom of the individual, yet that is the primary spiritual interpretation that Bickle teaches.

Sensual spiritual intimacy

By seeking spiritual guidance in order to increase individual spiritual passion in a book about sexual love, Mike Bickle is confessing a different Jesus than the one revealed in scripture—the God who came in the flesh as a man. The Jesus that John describes in 1 John 1:1 is not the passionate spiritual bridegroom of the individual. IHOP has been seduced by a substitute Jesus imagined in their "spiritual interpretations", and they have wandered from the Word of God. They have even created their own language to describe their "Jesus experiences" and have published a 63-term online dictionary to explain them to outsiders.⁵ Here are two of them

Spirit of burning — [IHOP–KC phrase] This is a cycle of maintaining a passionate desire for Jesus so that you are in a place of emotional pain whenever He is absent; hope and excited expectancy because of the knowledge that He loves to come to the hungry and thirsty heart; real experiential encounters with His beauty and presence causing you to have an even greater intense desire to be close to Jesus.

Captivated/fascinated/ravished heart — [literal phrase] In the context of the Bridal Paradigm, this refers to someone who is wholeheartedly in love with God. In the natural, this refers to a heart moved with deep emotion and love due to the actions of their lover.

This IHOP "spirit of burning" concept is missing in scripture because Jesus is absent and will remain absent until He returns again. This "spirit of burning" is simply a description of a deep lust for spiritual experiences and a spiritualizing of 1Corinthians 7:9. You can also see that IHOP uses terms from physical romance as the goal for their training to deepen their spiritual passion.

When we reference the scriptures Bickle posts on his Web site as proof of his revelations, the scriptures also need to be interpreted according to IHOP's "spiritual interpretation" in order to be relevant. It is through this "bait with the Word and switch the meaning" that Bickle discovers a different Jesus, a spiritual, sensual Jesus for the individual. Bickle claims his "spiritual interpretations" give us additional power to resist sin and states, "If we do not feel loved and in love, we can still be born again. However, when we feel His love then we resist compromise with greater consistency."⁶ This is the message of the Galatians, where they started with the gospel then switched to something else for sanctification—a false gospel. Passion for spiritual experiences of the highest level is what Bickle is after through his spiritual interpretation of scripture: "We want the deepest things that God will give the human spirit in this age. We receive the kisses of God's Word by pray-reading God's Word or in meditation."⁷ Mike Bickle is using scriptures describing physical sexual love as the paradigm to teach individual spiritual intimacy with the hidden Jesus he imagines in the Song of Solomon.

Bickle's romantic Jesus

I am not claiming that IHOP intends to promote a sexual Jesus; their motives may be pure. It is inescapable, however, that Bickle is painting a sensual picture of Jesus through his allegorizing of the Song of Solomon when he feels obligated to warn us saying, "We are not to think of kissing Jesus on the mouth⁸." This warning is like the legal disclaimers following television drug commercials—this may cause death or injury and the cure may be worse than the disease. The warning itself paints the picture. The Bible doesn't need to warn Christians "not to think about kissing Jesus on the mouth" because the true teaching of Jesus doesn't provoke these lusts. True biblical intimacy with God doesn't provoke these lusts either. The fact that IHOP feels it necessary to issue this warning is proof that their teaching is doing exactly that—creating lustful appetites for a sensual Jesus. Their Jesus is an imposter, and the spiritual experiences they enjoy are not "intimacy with God" but spiritual fornication. Let us be clear: passions, desires, emotions, and feelings are sensual, and creating an appetite for sensual spiritual experiences is the goal of IHOP's Passion for Jesus Conference. This passion is directed at a spirit Bickle believes is hidden in the sexuality of the Song of Solomon, not the man Jesus that John knew and described in 1 John 1:1. The bridegroom of Mike Bickle is not the Jesus of the Apostles. It is not the Jesus that Peter preached to the Jews in Acts 2, nor is it the Jesus that Paul preached to the Gentiles later in Acts and throughout His epistles. Bickle is confessing a different Jesus than the One found in the Bible—his own sensual Jesus, a romantic Jesus.

Prom with a Romantic Imposter?

Bickle's campaign to teach Christian youth spiritual intimacy with his "Bridal Paradigm"—a campaign that carries a muted warning "not to think about kissing Him on the mouth"—is like a father sending his daughter to the prom with a seductive ladies' man and hoping they don't kiss. Tragically, this is exactly what is happening as parents send their youth to Bickle's conferences to learn how to become intimate with God. The method of growing in intimacy with the true Jesus is to read what those who knew him on earth have to tell us and to believe what they wrote. We come to know the "Jesus come in the flesh" through the words of those who walked and talked with Him. As we come to understand and believe, we love this true Jesus and see His death on our behalf and the love that He demonstrated in coming to save us. Through the words of His apostles we have true fellowship; we change and become conformed to His image. The apostle John was not kidding when he wrote of the true Jesus in 1 John to warn us of defective teaching:

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. (1John 1:1-3)

John also explained how we are to know and avoid any romantic Jesus impersonating the true one in 1 John 4:1.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist (1John 4:1-3)

IHOP fails this test. The Jesus confessed in Mike Bickle's "spiritual interpretations" at IHOP is not the "Jesus Christ come in the flesh." Bickle's "Bridal Paradigm" Jesus is not the Jesus of the Apostles, but a substitute Jesus of his own imagination and found only in imaginary interpretations. Those who embrace and love the Jesus of Bickle's imagination are cultivating intimacy with an imposter. Their feelings of love may grow and be sincere but they are misplaced because God's word does not give us the Jesus that Mike Bickle is asking us to worship.

Issue 107 - July / August 2008

End Notes

1. IHOP’s View of the Song of Solomon Ibid.
2. Ibid.
3. 1 Tim 4:1-3
4. Learning IHOP-ese http://www.ihop.org/Mobile/default.aspx?group_id=1000008264&article_id=1000002954 (Accessed August 2008)
5. International House of Prayer- The Bridal Paradigm http://www.ihop.org/Mobile/default.aspx?group_id=1000008264&article_id=1000010559 (Accessed August 2008)
6. IHOP’s View of the Song of Solomon http://www.ihop.org/Mobile/default.aspx?article_id=1000010560(Accessed August 2008)
7. Ibid.

Published by Twin City Fellowship

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Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1988, 1995 The Lockman Foundation.