Below are two statements which were broadcast on the Family Radio Family
Bible Study. The statements were spoken by Harold Camping as their teacher
and both of these statements contain the false teaching of Open Theism.
December 14, 2006
“We are very, very, very slowly continuing our process down the calendar
of time and are looking at what the Bible has to say about the church age.
When we study the Bible we find that God never anticipated that the
church age would be a great and wonderful success…”
December 15, 2006
“We have been going along in our timeline of history very slowly, very
slowly, we have been thinking, searching the Scriptures during these last
studies trying to see what’s what is the biblical anticipation, God
knows the end from the beginning, He has written about it in the
Bible. What is the anticipation for the local congregations? As I have said
several times, it began, the whole church age began auspiciously when on the
Pentecost afternoon in A.D. 33 about three thousand were saved and that on
the face of it, it looks like its going to be a tremendous time, yet as we
have searched the Bible, we found that God nowhere anticipated that
the church age was going to be a great and glorious age when countless
people would become saved.
What is Open Theism?
Open Theism is the belief held by some which teach that God does not
have full knowledge of the future. It is based basically upon free will
tenets stating that man is free to make choices and if God knew what those
choices were, then man would not truly be free. One of the teachings of Open
Theism is that God did not know ahead of time that Adam and Eve would fall
into sin.
The Above Statements of Camping’s
The word “anticipation” means “the act of looking forward” or a
“visualization of a future event or state” and “a prior action that takes
into account a later action.” Basically, anticipation is looking forward to
something. Now Camping makes a statement, repeats it twice that God never
anticipated that the church age would be a great an wonderful success and a
great and glorious age.
What Camping is suggesting is totally heretical in that he claims that
God had no knowledge of what was going to happen to the churches as we head
toward the last day. He claims that because the “church age” started with
three thousand people getting saved, God had no foreknowledge of the future
entire history of the churches. Camping precedes his statement of December
15 with “God knows the end from the beginning.” If God knows the end from
the beginning, how can you turn around in the same breath and claim He
doesn’t.
(Isa 46:10 KJV) Declaring the end from the beginning, and
from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying,
My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
(Acts 15:18 KJV) Known unto God are all his works from the
beginning of the world.
(1 John 3:20 KJV) For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our
heart, and knoweth all things.
(Heb 1:10 KJV) And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the
foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine
hands: