G12, or Government of 12,

in five points
In these final days, previous to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for his beloved, when the resurrection of the dead in Christ will take place, and those (of us) who are alive in Him will be transformed, and jointly with them, we will be raptured (caught up) by him to receive the Lord in the clouds, (1 Thes 4:13-18), right then in these moments, is when an ample section of the church advances in an opposite direction to that of the Church that is prepared and is expecting the coming of the Lord. We ask ourselves why.
The enemy of our souls knows that there is little time left. He has set two goals, which he is desperately trying to achieve. The first one is to get the maximum number of Christians to remain on the earth when the Lord comes for his remnant.
The second one is to raise up the false world church of the Beast Antichrist, lead by the False Prophet. (Rev 13) The latter can sound very strange to some, but that doesn’t mean it’s less certain.
For this reason, the devil, through his agents, who are many; many thousands spread out all over the world, have devised different strategies, especially through recent years. For the Church, however, almost all of them sound a priori very scriptural, and despite this, and with the excuse “of bringing Heaven to Earth”, they have been raised up in the end to encourage them to put their eyes in the values and concepts of this world.
In the evangelical environment, a very exaggerated yearning sometimes exists in the pastors and members in general, to see numerical growth, as well as an increase in the economic resources in the churches. There is nothing wrong with wishing for growth as long as everything is done according to the will of God, and is not propelled by the flesh.
However, my concern is centred in the deceit capable of being believed by all those Pastors and Christians in general, who, or either by ignorance or by greed, have decided to embrace strategies which are not of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it will good for us to analyze and to learn about the subject so that we are not deceived, or to put aside all error that we have believed so that we are not deceived.
In all these strategies of the devil, diverse points in common exist, and what is certain is that they are very much based on the old Gnosticism, and therefore, loaded with Illuminism and Mysticism. Let us see some of them:
(1) an exclusive and supposed “new” revelation from God on which this new movement or model is based.
(2) That new mentioned revelation, that contains a new vision.
(3) That vision includes its “spirit”, who is the one that gives the power to implement it.
(4) the vision, inescapably tries to take to the church that adopts the model, to total success.
(5) Supposedly, all the truth of God is concentrated in the vision, because the vision, they say, is of God.
Mainly, the pivotal point is the exaltation of numerical growth over many considerations, that the moment having arrived, would be important to consider from a purely Biblical perspective.
However, the fruit that in the end is generated is, among another one: Blindness, pride, division and rupture; the way of apostasy for many; in the process, all of it impregnated with euphoria and a triumphant sentiment.
The Government of twelve, in five points
Among all those strategies or movements that exist, the one that is emphasized excessively in these days is called G12, abbreviation for the “Government of Twelve” or “Government of the Twelve”. Therefore we will stop in this one in this article, and speak about it.
Indeed, the G12, founded by Cesar Castellanos Domínguez and his wife Claudia Rodriguez de Castellanos, both very outstanding Colombian politicians, and also leaders of an enormous charismatic neo-Pentecostal congregation of ecumenical tendency, called Charismatic Mission International, of Bogota, Colombia, at least, perfectly fulfils the five points previously mentioned. Therefore, we will analyze them one by one
1 - A exclusive and supposed new revelation from God on which that new model is based
Cesar Castellanos, assures that God himself presented to him a new revelation, and in an exclusive way; the “lost link”, according to him, God’s way to take the Church of Jesus Christ in these days to total success. He himself narrates it like this “I cried to the Lord: “Lord, I need something that can accelerate the growth of the congregation”, and the Lord showed me the concept called G12, that is to say, the Government of twelve>> 1
That revelation absolutely falls short of fundamental doctrine. According to Castellanos, the revelation of the “government of the twelve” is necessary and essential so that God can bring the new and spectacular world-wide awaking for these last times.
On the other hand, since God gave that key himself to Castellanos in a personal form and in exclusive right, that would make Cesar Castellanos the prophet and apostle par excellence of the Church in these days.
However, the novel revelation that Castellanos said he received from God,
cannot be so, The Lord does not contradict himself when the same written Word assures us that nothing can be added to nor removed from it.
Curiously, that revelation of number 12, was previously received by the founder of Opus Dei, Javier Escrivá de Balaguer, who began his movement being he himself the leader of twelve.
One thing that absolutely cannot be dismissed is the dovetailing between G12 and the Roman Catholic Church. For this, we should look into it well, because sufficient information exists, fruit of recent investigation.
2 - That mentioned new revelation, entails a vision
From the revelation, later the vision comes. The vision is already the development of the concept, in this case, the concept of terrestrial ecclesiastic/spiritual government, based on the number twelve´.
G12 proposes to structure all its organization on the number 12, adducing that the secret is in the number 12, and that organizing itself that way, the churches that follow that vision, are guided by the “spirit” of that vision, and will obtain numerical growth without precedent.
According to Castellanos, <<In the spiritual kingdom, the group of 12 exists that gives complete authority, government and maturity to us … >> 2 In a “spiritual kingdom” assumption, of which Castilian does not reveal its origin, he says that a “group of twelve” exists which is granted all those graces and virtues that the author mentions. If what he intends is to say to us that the base of all this is a numerical exposition, in this case, the one of number twelve, we do not have anything else here other than numerology *
* (numerology is an occult science of divination, that seeks the esoteric interpretation of the things that surround us by means of numbers. It says that the key numbers contain powerful truths about positive and negative aspects of true nature the destiny)
3 - That vision includes its “spirit”, which is the one that gives it the power to implement it
Indeed this vision of G12 includes its own “spirit”, which is the one that empowers it. Castellanos calls that spirit ¨Spirit of the Vision¨. Here we are already brushing with the spiritual world, since we are speaking about a “spirit”.
In the spiritual world, only two sources or origins of spirits exist: from God, or from the devil. Let’s see therefore what this is all about, because if the mentioned vision isn’t from God, then we have to conclude then we have to conclude that the spirit of the same is not either.
However, we read this on behalf of a follower of G12: ‘The “Spirit of the Vision”, is related to the public relation of the believer with the kingdom of Jesus Christ. The recognition and subjection to the established order, the authority and the apostolic and prophetic government’ 3
So, as we can see, the “spirit of the vision” takes us to an imaginary hierarchy in the true Church of Christ, formed by supposed apostles and prophets; here we have again “Kingdom Now”, that is to say, “Dominion Theology”; which incidentally is plain and pure Roman Catholicism.
But the “spirit of the vision” of G12 is more than that. The Pastors interested in G12 are so convinced that they travel to Colombia to receive the “spirit of the vision”. When that has happened, they return to their countries of origin and their congregations, and euphorically impart to all the congregation what they have received: the ¨spirit of the Vision¨, and they are already under the influence of that spirit, which obviously is not the blessed Holy Spirit.
4- The vision inescapably tries to take the church that adopts the model to success.
The question we must first ask ourselves is ¨What is the Biblical concept of Success?¨ The immediate answer is ¨to please God, each one fulfilling His will.¨
However, the concept of success of G12 is very different. Castellanos understands success to be the following, as he defines it: <<To implement the model of the twelve implies leaving the traditional thing and being sent to conquer a totally different world, but it is effective because through it, growth is guaranteed...>> 4
Part of the vision of G12, is to leave the traditional thing, that is to say, what it has always been, to do church, and to ¨conquer a different world¨. This type of secularized language of conquest and dominion is very typical in G12. It also speaks to us of numerical growth being guaranteed. The latter mainly, is the success concept.
It seems that what is primary here is numerical growth. They think highly of the success concept. They do not consider that the devil himself can with no problem fill the congregations with people who are only pious in appearance, thus causing great ruin in the long term in that church (1 Jn. 5: 19b). That is not absolutely new, it already happened at the beginning of the Catholic Church, when the Christian temples became filled with all types from the emperor Constantine. Augustine of Hippo himself complained about it in the fourth century, saying
<< man who enters the church is forced to see drunk, avaricious, roguish, assiduous players,
adulterers, fornicators, people taking amulets, clients to the fortune tellers and to the astrologers… It must be made known and warning given, that the same multitudes which crowd to enter the churches for Christian services, are the same that fill the theatres for pagan celebrations >>
The defenders of the G12 will say that this does not happen in its churches, but do not know that in the origins of what we know today as the Church of Rome was still not happening, but began to happen shortly afterwards.
But, the word SUCCESS, which G12 employs so much, is a basically secular word, as for
example, the word happiness, coming from Greek and Latin. It only appears four times in the
Bible, in the Old Testament and nothing to do with the concept of numerical growth (1 Sam.18:
30, 1 Kings.22:13, Neh. 1: 11, Dn. 11: 17).
The Word says that it is God Himself who adds to the church those who have to be saved (Acts
2: 47). We conclude by saying that numerical growth in a congregation is not necessarily a
sign of divine blessing, and therefore, should not be the final and supreme aim of any church or Christian movement, but rather to truly seek to please God, according to the purest affection for His will.
5. Supposedly, all the truth of God is concretely in the vision, because the vision, they say, is from God.
In the case of G12, it is more than obvious that this is the case. In the website of the Elim
Cathedral, Jose Ferrada writes of G12:
<<The ¨Cellular Vision¨ is a Vision delivered by God to pastor Cesar Castellanos from the
city of Bogota, Colombia, in order to put life into the church of the third millennium, and
to help it be so much more fruitful and prosperous than the church was in the first century.
Pastoring a church of a hundred and twenty thousand people, the Reverend Castellanos has
sufficient experience and testimony to tell us what to do to see our congregations prosper.>>
According to what Ferrada says, one man, that is, the founder of G12, has the exclusive
authority and message from God to ¨tell us what to do to see our congregations prosper¨. In
other words, we should do what this man says, because supposedly he says it on behalf of
God, but doesn’t all this contradict the principles of the Word itself, when it says that we should not trust in man, nor in the supposed truth which he brings with him? (Jer.17: 5).
The word teaches us that, as God spoke to his people in Old Testament times through the
prophets, in this time, he has spoken to us through His Son (Heb. 1: 1,2). The cannon of the
Bible is closed, and extra biblical doctrine and dogma cannot be formulated. If this is done,
it is falling into error and deception.
And notwithstanding, Castellanos himself implicitly gives his revelation and vision an
authority similar to the Bible itself, when he insists on saying: <<The model of twelve
is very jealous, and is taken in its totality, or not at all; there is no medium term>>. 5
Let us take account that only from the Bible nothing can be added or removed, and despite
this, Castellanos says just this regarding his model of G12.
The truth about G12
The devil is a specialist in taking truths out of context and, extrapolating them, making
them become lies. This is what happens with the concept of the twelve. Biblically, the
number twelve is synonymous with perfection of government. From it the twelve tribes of
Israel, the twelve gates of the city of the new Jerusalem, the twelve names of the twelve
apostles of the Lamb (Rev. 21: 11-14). This is not put in doubt.
But twelve, as the number of perfect government, is only attributable to God. Only He
has the attributive capacity to be able to give form and establish this government, which
we shall call Theocracy. Such government will take place when King Jesus Christ returns in
glory and establishes His Kingdom on this earth, which we call the Millennium (Rev. 20);
previously the church will already have been glorified.
To claim to advance the Millennium to our days, teaching that the Kingdom is Now, when
Christ has still not returned, and establishing it all based on the number twelve, number of
perfect government and theocracy, is the work of the devil and of those who let themselves
be deceived by him.
Listen well, brother, if the church in this time should necessarily organize itself in 12, who will dare occupy the place of Jesus?... He who dares to do this, is (an) antichrist.
Meditating over all this, we arrive at the firm conclusion that an implicit chain reaction exists: When the revelation is false, the vision is also false, the ¨spirit¨ is false, the aim is false, and the supposed truth is also false.
Somebody here will tell me that there is truth in the teaching of G12. Of course there is
scriptural truth in G12, because how can people be deceived only with lies? Certain truth
is necessary, giving it the necessary Christian appearance; but the appearance does not
conform to the reality. Let us not deceive ourselves.
Appealing to the ego and the flesh
Let us flee from false models, which only attempt to appeal to the ego and the flesh. Castellanos, exalting his vision of the ¨government of the twelve¨, says the following:
<<When someone discovers the power and authority which can be developed being leader of
twelve people, then he is concerned to enable himself, commit himself, and that his twelve
also achieve this>> 6
We see that, according to Castellanos, the motivation to enable and commit oneself is to arrive at having ¨power and authority¨. We see that the motivation here is not that of serving, but that of having power and ¨authority¨, calling all of this ¨success¨. That is to say, many people filling the places of worship, and many leaders exercising ¨power and authority¨ over many. Thus one succumbs to the temptation of the devil. How this reminds me of Roman Catholicism of always!
Better, let us go to the simplicity and efficiency of the Word of God, the Bible, and let us not move from there, fleeing from all temptation of megalomania.
Blessings to all.
© Miguel Rosell Carrillo, Centro Rey, Madrid, Spain
November 2005
(Translated by Ian Monk and Phil Fisher)
Notes:
1 Cesar Castellanos, ¨Successful Leadership Through the Twelve¨
2 Cesar Castellanos, ¨Effective Leadership¨
3 Jose Ferrada, Elim Cathedral, Chile
4 Cesar Castellanos, ¨Successful Leadership Through the Twelve¨ p 246
5 Ibid, p 247
6 Ibid, p 152