Sabbath Message 14/2/31/120. 28th day of the Omer Count according to the Temple Calendar.

 

Dear Friends,

Theological and Philosophical Discussion in the WCG and its Splinter offshoots:

Over the last twenty years we have watched many of the branches of the Churches of God advance theories that have no historical basis or which themselves are later incorrect theories advanced as fact and the members of those churches have taken them on as facts simply because they were told those things by ministers they wanted to trust.

The following things are fact:

1. Herbert W. Armstrong had no formal accredited academic training either in Religious Studies or the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics and neither did any of his senior ministry including those referring to themselves as “Dr”. Armstrong had no formal academic training at all.
2. None of the theologians of the major Churches of God has such training with the exception of CCG. One person who is not a church theologian claims graduate-level training in early church theology but his writings do not reflect such training.
3. Much of what these people say is complete misrepresentation of historical fact.
4. Much of what they said has been discredited or withdrawn by the writers. Some publications, such as the United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy are straight plagiarism (in this case from J. Allen’s Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright).
5. Each offshoot is comprised of people that have a combination of views on the nature of God. For example, UCG has ministers and members that are comprised of Radical Unitarians, Ditheists, Binitarians and Trinitarians. The other offshoots such as LCG and RCG are comprised of mixtures of the same groups. Conflicts are also arising on the Calendar issue.

Definitions.
Radical Unitarianism: A Radical Unitarian denies the pre-existence of Jesus Christ and defines Christ as being a product of the Father from the time of the conception in the womb of Mariam (called Mary by them).

Unitarian: A Biblical Unitarian is one who holds to the existence of One True God and acknowledges that He created the Host and He sent Jesus Christ to mankind. Any Monotheist also qualifies as a Unitarian (cf. Universal Oxford Dictionary art. Unitarian). Monists are logically excluded from such a definition.

Ditheist: A Ditheist claims that there were two true Supreme Gods in existence who were both co-eternal and co-equal. Zoroastrians and Manicheans held they were in opposition. The later doctrine of Herbert Armstrong held that one of these two Gods agreed to come down to earth and become the son of the other to be sacrificed and hence become the Christ. The Christ or Messiah only exists in his function from the incarnation. Prior to that he was the co-equal, co-eternal god existing beside the other who became the Father (cf. also Univ. Oxf. Dict.). This is logically a form of polytheism. The doctrine was published by WCG in the Good News Magazine prior to Tabernacles 1991 and was given as a sermon by Gerald Waterhouse in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) during the Feast of Tabernacles 1991.

Modalism:  The Sabellian doctrine that the distinction in the Trinity is ‘modal’ only, i.e. that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are merely three different modes of manifestation of the Divine Nature (Univ. Oxf. Dict.)

Binitarian/Binitarianism: Of or belonging to a belief in a Godhead of two persons only (Univ. Oxf. Dictionary), it was used by Loofs in 1898 as the German binitarisch. Within the understanding of the Churches of God a Binitarian is a believer that one God existed and sent part of Himself to the earth, which element was Christ. The original doctrine of this being was that of the worship of Attis, Adonis and Osiris. This view of the Godhead did not enter Christianity until its formal adoption at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Kirk and Rawlinson (Ess. Trin. and Incarn) refers to this matter and on p. 215 refers to the Binitarianism of Tertullian’s earlier Catholic thought (Oxford English Dictionary Supplement Vol. 1 A-G, p. 263).

This view was essentially the doctrine of Antichrist in that it sought to separate the humanity from the divinity of Christ. 1John 4:1-2 was altered by those seeking to separate the humanity of Jesus Christ from his divinity (Socrates VII, 32, p. 381.) (It can be reconstructed from Irenaeus ANF, Vol. 1, fn. p. 443.)
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ came in the flesh is of God: and every spirit which separates Jesus Christ is not of God but is of Antichrist (cf. also Statement of Beliefs (A1) 4th ed., p. 7).

Trinitarian. A1. Belonging to the order of the Holy Trinity. 2. Theol. Relating to the Trinity; holding the doctrine of the Trinity (opp. To Unitarian) 1656. 3 Forming a Trinity: triple or threefold. B. sb (with a capital T). 1 A member of the religious order of the Trinity; = Mathurin 1628 2. Theol. One who holds the doctrine of the trinity of the Godhead; a believer in the Trinity 1706 Hence Trinitarianism, Trinitarian belief (Univ. Oxf. Dict.  p. 2248).

The doctrine of the Trinity was not developed until the Cappadocians, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil. They developed it and it was presented for the Council of Constantinople in 381 CE. Prior to that time it was unknown in Christianity.

Some of the followers of Armstrong are now trying to claim that he was a Binitarian and that he and his ministry advocated Binitarianism. This is an absolute lie. Armstrong and his ministry taught that God was a family comprised of two beings who were both co-eternal and co-equal and one of whom agreed to become the son of the other and die as a sacrifice to redeem mankind. They taught that the elect of the Churches of God would also become part of this God family as elohim. The writer has studied their material since 1964 and has degrees in Philosophy and Religious Studies and the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, among other qualifications. It is beyond question that these people were not Binitarians and, indeed, until the writer began to quantify their religious structure and the history of the Churches of God they had never used and seemingly had never even heard of the term.

The claim is now being made that they exclusively used the term elohim to refer to this Binitarian structure. It is a matter of absolute fact that the Long Bible Correspondence Course taught for decades that the original name for God was Eloah and that was a singular name and the extension of that name to Elohim was to include Christ as the son. The absolute conflict between the Unitarian position espoused in the Long Course (L. 8) (which remained in situ for some forty years and was still in use under Joseph Tkach Snr.) and the God Family Dietheist position merely demonstrates the theological ineptitude of the senior ministry and the conflict in their views. They had Unitarians, Radical Unitarians, Ditheists and Trinitarians in their ministry and they rarely taught on the Nature of God because it was too disruptive given their uncertain theology. What is certain is that the Church was never Binitarian except as a transitional position in the final death throes of inducing people to accept Trinitarianism under Tkach. It was used by Trinitarians, who either never understood and repented of their error, or who came into the Church of God to deliberately undermine it. There were many of these people and they are still at work in the offshoots.

The Churches of God were not Binitarian in their formation nor in their general beliefs over two thousand years. That view was the basis of the Athanasian faith, which came to power for two short years in 325 BCE under Constantine and then finally in 381 BCE at Constantinople. Constantine reinstated the Unitarian structure in 327 BCE and was himself baptised a Unitarian on his deathbed by Eusebius of Nicomedia. Trinitarians term these people Arians to disguise the antiquity of their faith. The structure of the Faith was presented to the Friends of the Sabbath as the paper The Role of the Fourth Commandment in the Historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170) in 1996. Despite being warned in 1994, the Church of God (Seventh Day) declared itself Binitarian in 1995. It had been Unitarian as had the Seventh Day Baptist Church before it. The Unitarian Structure of the pre-Reformation Churches of God can be seen clearly from the work Sabbatarians in Transylvania (CCG Publishing 1998). The assertion that LCG is Binitarian is a last-minute attempt at formulating a false historical position and using a faulty theology.

Modern Jewish or Hillel Calendar.

The Hillel calendar was never in place during the Temple period. It was brought to Hillel II by two Babylonian rabbis in 344 CE.  Hillel authorised its introduction to Judaism in 358 CE. It was altered as late as the 12th century by Maimonides (Rambam) to correct errors.  It is not the calendar that Christ and the Apostles kept. It is based on the Babylonian system of intercalation and is incorrect most of the time in relation to the Temple system.

Some of the Armstrongite Ministers have deliberately misrepresented the system as being in operation during the Temple period. That is a blatant and provable fabrication.

Obedience.

If God gave us a Book of Laws and told us to keep the days in that book holy and to keep the festivals and the Jubilee system holy, is it permissible for us to change those days and devise a calendar of our own choosing?

The answer to any sane thinking person is no. If our children used that reasoning on us we would discipline them.

In the same way the implementation of a theological structure of Ditheism or Binitarianism or Trinitarianism is a punishable offence.

No theologian has ever claimed the Bible is anything other than a Unitarian structure. The great theologians (e.g. Calvin, Harnack, Brunner) agree that Rational Theism, Judaism, the Bible, and Islam are Unitarian (cf. Christ and the Koran (No. 163)).

Why was this fallacy invented by the WCG under Armstrong and why does it persist? The answer is that it was invented for the same reasons it was invented as Modalism and then as Binitarianism in the Roman system. That reason was to appeal to the masses who were corrupted by the worship of Attis and Adonis and the Mystery and Sun Cults. The doctrine that God consisted of two elements of father and son, and of which the son came down to earth to be sacrificed, was not biblical. It was the doctrine of Attis and Adonis. It was a doctrine of the gods of the corn and the oil and wine as James Frazer has so amply demonstrated. The portraits of Christ and Mariam that proliferate the icons of the Trinitarians are simply a carry on from the Mother goddess and the dying God (Attis and Adonis) with the cross of pine that was the unhappy stake of pine used for their deaths. They had long hair and looked effeminate in their icons, as did their castrated priests. Christ did not have long hair and he was a Jewish man, not this castrated eunuch the Trinitarians flout, which was their Binitarian God introduced by stealth.

The same sort of slippery reasoning we see in the web sites of the people claiming to be of the Churches of God.

One writer, B. Thiel, Ph.D. (not in theology, philosophy or religious studies), who writes as an independent writer and claims membership of the Living Church of God, has written two articles seeking to claim that the early Church was Binitarian. The articles are titled:
 “Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning” at:
http://www.cogwriter.com/binitarian.htm and
 “Unitarianism:  Is it Taught in the Bible And Was it the Position of the True Church?” at:
http://www.cogwriter.com/unitarian.htm

Both papers differ slightly but have similar subsections and use the same material interchangeably almost word for word. The papers start with the same introduction and then place the heading Old Testament and then in that section use a quotation from one paper to attempt to selectively discredit CCG’s position and my writing on the subject when there are many more papers that deal with the subject and the position of the early Church more thoroughly and in a rigorous way that shows Thiel’s writing to be deliberate misrepresentation and an attempt to appeal to the readers ignorance and mistrust of the OT writings.

Thiel also discusses those who claim to be part of the Church of God yet espouse Unitarianism, although despite his rhetoric allows in the section Philadelphia and Beyond that concerning the Laodicean era it “may be possible that it may contain some confused Unitarians”.  His incoherent rambling is quoted as follows:

Philadelphia and Beyond
The next church in succession in Revelation 3 was Philadelphia. Most outside of the Sardis era of the Church of God, who believe in Church eras, believe that this was what was once known as the Radio Church of God, and for most, the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) under Herbert W. Armstrong. A major portion of the remnant of this era became the old Global Church of God and then the current Living Church of God (LCG). As the beginning of this article has pointed out, LCG is clearly binitarian (as was quoted in the beginning of this article) as was the Radio Church of God and the old WCG. In the letter to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, Jesus states, "you have not denied my name" (Revelation 3:8). And while this also has something to do with governance, this may also be distinguishing the fact that the true portion of the Philadelphia church never denies Jesus' deity (perhaps, unlike some who might be part of other eras).
The last church in succession in Revelation 3 is Laodicea. This is to be the predominate church at the time of the end. While its major branches, splinters, and independents are binitarian, it may be possible that it may contain some confused unitarians, though this may be doubtful (see Acts 4:12).

His discussion of the era system of the seven churches of Revelation adopts Armstrong’s claim to be the Philadelphia Church of God and the Church of God (7th Day) was Sardis. He conveniently overlooks the serious facts of Christ’s condemnation of the marker Church of the Sardis era that has the name of being Living yet is dead. It is a fact that his own church, the Living Church of God, is the only church in history to adopt that name and Christ specifically mentions them as being Sardis and being dead.
 
The Introduction and the quotation referred to are as follows: 

Introduction
What is God? How is God one? Are the Father and Son God?
This article will attempt to provide biblical and historical evidence on the nature of God and contrast it with unitarian teachings.
This article will discuss the Bible, unitarian views, and the writings of certain historians to provide biblical and historical proofs to see if unitarianism should be considered to be the correct view of the Christian Godhead.
While Islam is the largest "unitarian" religion in number of adherents, this article will focus on unitarians who claim to be Christian. (One reason that Islam will be ignored is that it teaches that the essentially the entire Bible has been corrupted by Jews and Christians, hence no statement from the Bible would be considered conclusive from the perspective of Islam.)
This article will also discuss the beliefs of some who claim to be in the Church of God--yet who espouse unitarianism.

The Old Testament
To begin this, we will start with the beginning of the Bible:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1, NKJV throughout, unless otherwise noted).
The Hebrew word translated as 'God' in the above passage is 'elohiym (or sometimes spelled elohim). So the first time God is mentioned in the Bible, the indication is that God is mentioned as plural ("indication" because in some places 'elohim can refer to singular).
And to make sure the plurality of God was known, Genesis 1:26 states,
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
Genesis 1:26 shows that 'elohim above refers to "Us". Us is also plural.
Thus, there is no doubt that from the beginning of the Bible, the plurality of God was shown. And this is accepted by both binitarians and trinitarians.
However, one unitarian assertion is (bolding mine),
There is no doubt that the elohim are a plural structure and that they are the messengers in the Bible texts referred to as angels and that Christ himself was the Angel of the Presence or the Angel of YHVH. It is thus absurd to suggest that no angel was referred to as creator when Christ was admitted to be creator and was also the Angel of YHVH. Moreover, there is no indication that the plural terms involving creators were confined to two Beings which were God and Christ. This is an unsupported assumption that is contrary to the Bible. It is, moreover, a basic assertion of Binitarianism, which is logically absurd and conveys within its structure the logical inevitability of Trinitarianism. This error entered the Church some 30-40 years ago and some people cannot divest themselves of their paradigm (Binitarianism and Trinitarianism (No. 76) (Edition 3.0 19941112-20001202). Copyright 1994, 2000 Wade Cox. Christian Churches of God).

The quotation ignores the earlier comments that show the structure of the name of God and its singular origin.

We have re-issued the paper Binitarianism and Trinitarianism (No. 76) to deal with this fiction of the WCG offshoots. It is a complete fabrication to assert that the early Church was Binitarian and an examination of the papers will demonstrate that fact. The claims re Constantine and the Council of Nicaea by these people are also fiction taken from writings of people who were not qualified. Constantine revoked the Binitarian position and their bishops within two years and by 327 had installed Unitarianism and was himself baptised a Unitarian on his deathbed by Eusebius of Nicomedia. No Binitarian or Trinitarian emperor ever sat on the throne nor was that faction in power until Theodosius was appointed by Gratian and convened the Council of Constantinople in 381. The Canons of Nicaea were lost or more correctly thrown out and they had to be re-invented from the Canons of Constantinople.

It is clear that the early Church was not Binitarian but Unitarian and to claim otherwise is a fabrication. The prominent Theologians also agree that is the case (see also the Appendix to the Statement of Beliefs of the Christian Faith (A1)). Theology was developed by the Catholics to defeat the Biblical Unitarianism so that the Athanasian Bintarianism could be developed into the Trinitarian model by the Cappadocians. Refer also to the papers Original Doctrines of the Christian Faith (No. 88); Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127); Arianism and Semi-Arianism (167); and Socinianism, Arianism and Unitarianism (No. 185).

Wade Cox
Coordinator General