What Is Positive Confession?

Positive confession, and the saying “name it and claim it,” is the claim that what a believer says in faith is what that believer receives. Kenneth Copeland Ministries (1) tells readers that Jesus said they can have whatever they say. E. W. Kenyon (2), in lines his publisher prints, says a confession of God’s supply must not be cancelled by a confession that the rent is unpaid. The Assemblies of God (3) say the extreme form of this teaching goes beyond Scripture. This page quotes both. It does not decide.

Key points

• Copeland’s page (1) says to speak to a mountain in the reader’s life and to believe it removed, and it says, “He said I can have whatever I say.”
• Kenyon’s publisher says The Power of Your Words was previously published as The Power of Positive Confession of God’s Word, and it prints Kenyon’s account of holding one confession instead of two.
• The Assemblies of God paper (3) of 19 August 1980 says positive confession, in this extreme, means owning desirable situations, and negative confession means acknowledging sin, sickness, or poverty. It says the teaching tells a person who wants money or healing to confess it even when it is not the case.
• The paper also says the Assemblies of God have always taught faith, and that healing and material needs are among the provisions received through faith. The paper says it is not rejecting confession.
• Mark 11:23–24Close^11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. ^11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.Mark 11:23–24 · King James VersionOpen source (4) is the passage both the confessions page and the church paper are arguing about. James 4:15CloseFor that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.James 4:15 · King James VersionOpen source (5) is the sentence the Assemblies of God put beside it: “If the Lord will.”
• The movement around this practice is What Is the Word of Faith Movement?. The giving practice is What Is Seed Faith?.

What the teachers tell people to confess

Faith Confessions (1) tells the reader to command a named trouble out of life, body, relationship, or job, and to believe it is received by faith. It says the reader has the God kind of faith, that God’s word is in the heart and in the mouth, and that the reader believes the thing is received even when the physical results are not yet seen. The closing thanks God that Jesus “said I can have whatever I say,” and tells the reader to speak the word of God over the situation.

That is the “name it and claim it” sentence in this ministry’s own words: name the mountain, say it is removed, claim it is received. They present it as doing what Jesus did, and as trust that God will move. What Is the Word of Faith Movement? quotes the line on that page about the force of faith.

Kenyon’s publisher (2) prints this from him:

In reality I had two confessions: first, a confession of my perfect healing and redemption in Christ, and second, that the redemption and healing were not a fact. Then came the great battle to gain the mastery over my confession, until I learned to have but one confession. If I confess that “My God shall supply every need of mine” (Philippians 4:19), I must not nullify that confession by saying, “Yes, God supplies my needs, but I cannot pay my rent, and I cannot pay the telephone bill.”

A later paragraph on the same page says faith holds fast to the confession of the Word, and sense knowledge holds fast to the confession of physical evidences. If he accepts physical evidence against the word of God, he says, he nullifies the word as far as he is concerned. He tells the reader to stand by the confession through good report and evil.

Kenyon is telling a person whose body or budget contradicts the promise not to say the contradiction out loud. He thinks the second sentence undoes the first. The publisher also says the reader can have everything that God says the reader can have. The book is coauthored with Don Gossett. The page attributes the confession paragraphs to Kenyon.

What the Assemblies of God say that teaching is

The General Presbytery of the Assemblies of God approved The Believer and Positive Confession (3) on 19 August 1980. The paper says the fellowship has always given faith a prominent place, because Scripture does. It lists salvation, baptism in the Holy Spirit, preservation, the inheritance of promises including healing and material needs, and witness as provisions received through faith. It says extremes on a biblical truth do not honor the doctrine.

It then describes the teaching it is answering. Confession, in that teaching, starts from a dictionary sense, to acknowledge or to own. The negative is acknowledging sin, sickness, poverty, or other undesirable situations. The positive is acknowledging or owning desirable situations. The paper’s summary of the conclusion is that the unpleasant can be avoided by refusing negative confessions, and the pleasant can be enjoyed by making positive ones. It says the believer is told he will be sick only if he confesses he is sick, that God wants believers to wear the best clothing and drive the best cars, and that the believer can have whatever he says, spiritual, physical, or financial. It says people are instructed to start confessing even though what they want may not have been realized. If a person wants money, he is to confess he has it even if it is not true.

The paper’s answer is that Bible statements isolated from their context distort the truth. It says Paul admitted weakness, and that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. It says Jesus taught disciples to pray for daily bread, which is a promised blessing, rather than only to confess it. It quotes James 4:15CloseFor that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.James 4:15 · King James VersionOpen source (5): “Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” It says getting what the believer wants is not as simple as repeating a positive confession. It says some heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 suffered and died through faith and were commended for it. It says statements that make man sovereign and God the servant put man in the position of using God. “No one will compel God to action.”

The paper is a position paper of one Pentecostal fellowship, not a claim about every church that speaks of healing. What Do Pentecostals Believe? is that wider confession. What Do Churches Say about the Prosperity Gospel? sets this paper beside Lausanne, the Southern Baptist Convention, and a Catholic journal.

The verse they are both using

Mark 11:23CloseFor verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.Mark 11:23 · King James VersionOpen source (4) says that whoever shall say to this mountain, Be removed and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass, shall have whatever he says. Mark 11:24CloseTherefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.Mark 11:24 · King James VersionOpen source says, What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them. Copeland’s page takes that as words the reader speaks at a situation. The Assemblies of God say the desire of the heart is not always the will of God, and they put James’s “If the Lord will” in the same conversation.

Mark 11:22CloseAnd Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.Mark 11:22 · King James VersionOpen source says, Have faith in God. Mark 11:25CloseAnd when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.Mark 11:25 · King James VersionOpen source says, when you stand praying, forgive. The biblical page reads those verses in that chapter, beside the fig tree and the temple, and beside 1 Timothy 6 and Hebrews 11. This page does not add a ruling after the two accounts.

Frequently asked questions

Is “name it and claim it” a verse?

It is not a sentence in the King James Version. It is the popular name for the practice Copeland’s page describes when it says Jesus said the reader can have whatever he says, and that the Assemblies of God describe when they say the believer can have whatever he says.

Does the Assemblies of God reject healing?

The 1980 paper says healing and the provision of material needs are among the promises received through faith. It rejects the claim that a person is sick only because he confessed sickness, and the claim that words compel God. James 5:14–15Close^5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: ^5:15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.James 5:14–15 · King James VersionOpen source still tells the sick to call the elders and to pray.

Where does Kenyon fit the longer history?

Where Did the Prosperity Gospel Come From? quotes King and the argument about New Thought. Is Manifesting a Sin? is the law-of-attraction claim, which puts the creating act in a human thought. Kenyon’s sentences put the confession on God’s word, and forbid a second confession that matches what the senses see.