Dear Brethren and Friends,
As the end of this age approaches, we in God’s Church should “sharpen our focus.” As the Living Church of God, and the Work of this Church become more influential and more recognized, it is vital that we speak clearly to the world why we are “different” from mainstream Christianity—and why and how we must be different in order to genuinely be the Church of God.
Many times I have noted that self-appointed critics of Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong would usually accuse him of being a “syncretist.” A syncretist is one who blends or merges together different ideas, often from differing sources. As many of you know, Mr. Armstrong was often accused of getting the Sabbath idea from the Seventh Day Adventists, the understanding about Christmas and Easter being pagan from the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the concept of becoming God from the Mormons. As one who knew Mr. Armstrong extremely well for more than 35 years, I can wholeheartedly tell you that those charges are absolutely false!
Mr. Armstrong learned about the Sabbath from the Seventh-Day Church of God. This is thoroughly documented in his Autobiography, and I also personally talked to some of the earliest members of the Church, who also attested to this fact. The understanding about the world’s pagan holidays was also in their literature, although not universally understood and practiced by their membership. Mr. Armstrong had virtually no contact with the Mormons. I was privileged to be in the Graduate School of Theology when Mr. Armstrong began to explore—hesitantly at first—the possibility that God was reproducing Himself through humankind. He came at this subject in a totally different way than the Mormons do. His conclusions, and how they apply to us, are quite distinct from the Mormon ideas on the subject.
But the “key” issue here is: why are we “different” from mainstream religion? Is there a logical and coherent biblical structure to our entire theology?
The answer, of course, is surprisingly simple—and is easily “provable” for those with open hearts and minds. For it is not the Church of God that has “put together” different ideas and philosophies to make up fundamental teachings and a way of life—rather, that is exactly what the so-called “mainstream” churches have done!
As noted historian Will Durant wrote:
“Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity... and a personal immortality of reward and punishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed; there, too, Christian monasticism would find its exemplars and its source. From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps, the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving god.... The Mithraic ritual so closely resembled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds. Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.... [The Eucharist] was a conception long sanctified by time; the pagan mind needed no schooling to receive it; by embodying the ‘mystery of the Mass,’ Christianity became the last and greatest of the mystery religions” (The Story of Civilization, Vol. 5, Durant, pp. 595, 599).
In the fourth century after Christ, the Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as his religion. More properly, one might say that he “adapted” it, since the religion changed under his imperial influence.
Under Constantine’s direction, the Council of Nicaea was held in 325ad. Though he had not yet been baptized, Constantine presided over the council’s opening session and took part in its discussions, believing that it was his duty as emperor to oversee the establishment of doctrine for the church. But was Constantine presiding over the council as a former pagan now turned Christian, or did he use the council of Nicaea to infuse his pagan background into what would become “official” Christianity? Respected historian Paul Johnson has observed the following regarding Constantine’s religious views:
“There is some doubt about the magnitude of Constantine’s change of ideas.... He himself appears to have been a sun-worshipper, one of a number of late-pagan cults which had observances in common with the Christians. Thus the followers of Isis adored a madonna nursing her holy child; the cult of Attis and Cybele celebrated a day of blood and fasting, followed by the Hilaria resurrection-feast, a day of joy, on 25 March; the elitist Mithraics, many of whom were senior army officers, ate a sacred meal. Constantine was almost certainly a Mithraic, and his triumphal arch, built after his ‘conversion,’ testifies to the Sun-god, or ‘unconquered sun.’ Many Christians did not make a clear distinction between this sun-cult and their own. They referred to Christ ‘driving his chariot across the sky,’ they held their services on Sunday, knelt towards the East and had their nativity-feast on 25 December, the birthday of the sun at the winter solstice. During the later pagan revival under the Emperor Julian many Christians found it easy to apostatize because of this confusion; the Bishop of Troy told Julian he had always prayed secretly to the sun. Constantine never abandoned sun-worship and kept the sun on his coins. He made Sunday into a day of rest....” (A History of Christianity, Johnson, 1976, pp. 67–69).
If you read the above historical quotes carefully, you will understand that by the end of the appropriately named “Dark Ages,” nearly all the aspects of paganism had been introduced into professing Christianity. And false concepts of the “mystery of the mass,” the worship of the Virgin Mary patterned directly after the worship of the pagan goddesses, the idea of a “little Lord Jesus” born on December 25, calling December 25 “Christmas” and connecting it with the pagan rituals of the Saturnalia—all these false concepts and more had begun, even before the Dark Ages, to be woven into what became “mainstream” Christianity.
Centuries later, the Protestant “reformers” were able to see a few of the problems of this Roman religion. But most of these pagan concepts were so thoroughly inculcated into their minds that the reformers made only a very few “surface” changes.
The true Church of God never allowed itself to be given over totally to the pagan philosophies and practices which increasingly infiltrated the early Roman Catholic Church. For, of course, the early true Church was guided by the original Apostles of Jesus Christ! They knew—and knew that they knew—the exact teachings and practices of Jesus Christ. For they had spent three solid years being personally trained by the Son of God. And their example and their specific teachings—along with Jesus’ teaching and example—are the very basis for all true Christianity.
You would think that people could figure that out! But they cannot! For, indeed, Satan “deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). So only the true Church of God—which is called out of this deceived world and is headed by the living Jesus Christ—has consistently understood and practiced the Truth.
A Key Concept
Frankly, the “little flock” (Luke 12:32)—the true Church of God—has always understood the need to pattern itself after the teachings and examples of Christ and the Apostles. Although very few have seriously attempted to follow this pattern, many scholars and religious historians have understood the concept of the “Jerusalem Church of God.” This is a vital concept to understand if we are sincerely interested in contending “for the faith once delivered.”
The Apostle Paul was inspired to write to the Thessalonians: “For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 2:14). The book of Acts makes it clear that for many decades, the earthly “headquarters” Church of God was the Jerusalem Church. It was here that the Holy Spirit was originally poured out on the true Christians (Acts 2). It was here where Peter, James and John carried on most of their ministry for many years (Acts 4:1; 8:1; 11:1–2). Later, it was to the leadership at Jerusalem that Paul and Barnabas came to settle the major question of circumcision for the Gentiles, and other related questions (Acts 15:4).
As renowned historian Edward Gibbon wrote: “The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews; and the congregation over which they presided united the law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent” (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 15, sec. 1, p. 389).
As indicated above, the only major ministerial conference described in the New Testament was held at Jerusalem. Here lived the leading original Apostles. Here (not at Rome!) was the true “mother” Church. And it was to Jerusalem Paul and Barnabas had come even earlier, lest, as Paul had put it, “I might run, or had run, in vain” (Galatians 2:1–2).
After the major Jerusalem conference, Paul and Silas traveled through Asia Minor visiting the churches. “And as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep, which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem” (Acts 16:4).
Paul Looked to Jerusalem
Clearly the original Apostles and the Jerusalem Church of God set the inspired “pattern” for true Christianity—not just for that time, but for all time! Contrary to the heretical Protestant idea that God later used the Apostle Paul to “reinvent” Christianity, the real Apostle Paul of the Bible constantly showed deep respect for the original Apostles, and deferred to the leadership at Jerusalem in all major matters! And it was the Apostle Paul who wrote to the primarily Gentile church at Corinth: “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters” (1 Corinthians 7:19). Noted historian Carl Von Weiszäcker wrote in 1895:
“Paul was far from confining his interest to the Gentile Christian Church which he had himself founded. His thoughts were much too lofty to leave Jewish Christianity to itself. He toiled not merely for his own work, but for the Church of God… the whole Church. He never forgot for a moment the true birthplace of the gospel. And for him the Christians in Jerusalem were always the [saints]…. He did not however merely entertain a grand policy of ecclesiastical union, but his first and constant thought was that the primitive Church was the foremost divine institution under the Gospel…. In the early Apostles he saw… the Apostles of the Lord. From them the testimony of the Resurrection emanated (1 Corinthians 15:1 ff.). They were ever the apostles, whom God had placed at the head of His Church, the first of those divinely commissioned men who held the leading office in the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:28)” (The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church, pp. 12–13).
Brethren, most of us know from our own study of his letters that the Apostle Paul never attempted to do away with God’s law. But it is important that all of us familiarize ourselves with a number of facts and quotes such as I have cited above. Why? Because mainstream “Christianity” has based its entire understanding of justification and salvation on a distorted view of the Apostle Paul’s teaching. They insist that Paul advocated a doctrine of salvation without obedience to the Ten Commandments. And they have manufactured all kinds of clever reasonings to support this totally unscriptural teaching. But if we can show that quite a number of respected theologians and church historians acknowledge that the Apostle Paul in no way opposed the clear teachings of Jesus Christ, Peter, James and John, then we will be better able to assist many confused people in their quest for Truth. As Peter tells us, we should “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).
All of us need to understand and stress the fact that our Church believes in “Apostolic Christianity”—the Christianity taught and practiced by all the Apostles, including the Apostle Paul. I urge all of you brethren to read and re-read our booklet Restoring Apostolic Christianity.
This fundamental concept can help new brethren, prospective brethren and outsiders realize that the Living Church of God did not get its doctrines “here and there,” but that we are definitely following the entire pattern and example of the original Apostolic Church. This understanding can be a powerful “tool” in helping and solidifying thousands of others whom God may be beginning to call. So, again, I encourage all of you to really study this topic, as it is one of the key themes and truths that makes our Church distinct.