The Theology of ESOAL

The Honor Academy believes ESOAL will help interns reach the death and burial of their flesh, followed by a resurrection. They call this experience BAR. In this talk from the last year, Dave explains the reasons behind ESOAL to facilitators.

(2021 Update: Video has since been taken down)

@11:57 We want everyone at ESOAL to be brought to a low point where their emotions are screaming at them to stop, and we want them to actually then die to themselves.

@12:40 That’s where they learn to bury their flesh and then they resurrect from that and this is where the joy of the Lord starts working through them….once people make that switch they can go on forever. Really they can, until their bodies just flat give out. In fact, by the time you get to about Sunday morning… we’re not pushing you very hard because it wouldn’t matter what we did to you. We could break your legs and you’d be like, “Ok, I guess I’ll have to use my arms.” Because you just get to this place mentally where you’ve been buried and resurrected.

So, burying your flesh and experiencing resurrection sounds like a great thing, right? But does this method reflect Scripture?

As believers, the truth is that we have already died and resurrected. Jesus gave us a sacrament that symbolizes the truth of this death, burial and resurrection. It’s called baptism.

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans 6:3-4

Notice the past tense use in these verses – we have already died with Christ. Our new life is His resurrection life living in us.

…having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. Colossians 2:12-13

Our flesh has already died. It died with Jesus. We have already been resurrected! In John 11, Jesus goes even farther saying that He IS the resurrection:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” John 11:25

If Jesus is the resurrection, and he lives in us – then why do we need to punish our bodies and emotions in an attempt to find a resurrection life that we already possess?

Paul reinforces this idea when he says that he is actually dead and the only one living through him is Christ.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Gal. 2:20

What did he do to “achieve” this? He believed Jesus. That’s it! In fact, for anyone who would try to add requirements to this, he says:

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Gal. 2:21

So, if you are doing any religious activity (including ESOAL) in an attempt to earn something that Christ has already freely given you, you are saying that simple faith in God is not enough. You are saying that righteousness can be gained by your efforts and that Christ died for no reason.

Secondly, there are other verses that seem to discuss our death and resurrection in more experiential terms. Probably the most popular is:

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 2 Cor. 4:8-11

This sounds like ESOAL, right?

Wrong.

Paul is describing the trials he experiences in his ministry to the Gentiles. God’s grace and resurrection life are manifesting in him as he experiences severe physical persecution. Is this resurrection life manifesting in him because he is choosing to “manage his emotions?” No. This life is manifesting in him because He is doing God’s work in God’s way – not because he wants to complete an obstacle course in the middle of nowhere that has zero impact for the Kingdom. He is doing God’s work, so God is giving him the strength. God never promised to give us strength for doing our own activities, no matter how much we try to pretend they are Scriptural.

Thirdly, Dave’s understanding of resurrection life is distorted at best. Jesus never told us that we could beat our bodies into the ground – for no actual ministry purpose – and expect him to supernaturally make it ok. We are never called to beat other believers up either. The idea is ludicrous.

The “burial and resurrection” that Dave Hasz promises is not rooted in Scripture. Neither does it have any historical precedent. Of course, when someone starts a “Christian” event by saying this is the only event like it in the entire body of Christ, that is probably reason for caution.