Dear Brethren and Friends,
I recently watched a video production by the “Living Hope Ministries,” titled, “Called to Be Free.” The broadcast featured numerous present leaders of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), as they gave testimony about their adoption of doctrinal changes after the death of the Church’s late human leader, Herbert W. Armstrong, in 1986. I know personally many of those who speak out on that tape, and even though I am very well aware of the changes, which prompted and forced me, and many others, to leave WCG, I became first angry and then sad when listening to the taped “testimonials” and “confessions.” (To clarify, the Bible does allow for righteous indignation in certain circumstances, compare Ephesians 4:26; 2 Corinthians 7:11; Mark 3:5).
I became angry at first when I heard one man call Mr. Armstrong a false prophet and a heretic, and when several others belittled or mocked the original teachings of the Church, calling the Church under Mr. Armstrong a cult and implying that they had to be freed from the “slavery” of Mr. Armstrong’s “errors.” I became angry at first when some falsely alleged that those who did not embrace the changes refused to accept them, without even considering them. But then, I began to feel sorry for those who exclaimed with joy that they were no longer under the “yoke” of the law—that they were now under grace, which freed them from any duty or obligation to keep the Sabbath or the Holy Days, and that they were now free to accept the Trinity and to pray to the Holy Spirit. I felt sorry for them, knowing that God will not hold those guiltless who mock Him and His Word (compare Romans 6:15, 23; Galatians 6:7-8).
I listened to the current leader and his personal assistant stating that they had to accept the many Scriptures showing that the Holy Spirit is God and a Person. However, I can’t recall that they ever gave ANY Scriptural proof for this claim, even though they desperately TRIED to “come up with something.” I remember listening to the week-long lectures of one (believed-tobe) “Greek scholar” in WCG, during which he very clearly stated that the Trinity, as taught by the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant churches, was wrong. He did not teach the Roman Catholic concept of One Person in Three Persons (which is really an old pagan concept). Rather, he taught the Greek Orthodox understanding of the nature of God—which holds that there is only one God Being, who always consists in three modes of being or Hypostases (which is another old pagan concept). I hasten to add that that Greek-Orthodox teaching of the Trinity is equally as heretical as the Roman Catholic and Protestant Trinitarian teaching.
The Biblical TRUTH is simply this: God is a FAMILY, presently consisting of Two Persons or God Beings—the Father and the Son, while the Holy Spirit is not a Person nor God, but it is, rather, the mind and the power of God. And it is the potential of man to join the Family of God, by becoming born-again members of the God Family—something today’s WCG does of course not believe anymore, either.
The false Greek-Orthodox teaching of the so-called “Greek scholar,” which the leadership embraced and imposed on the WCG membership, raised all kinds of unanswered questions (one WCG minister called it, “Unfinished Business,”), such as, who was Jesus Christ? If God is only one being, consisting always in the “modes” of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and if Jesus was the Son, then the Son (Jesus) did not die, as God cannot die. This would mean, you and I have no Savior! Later, WCG changed their original heretical Greek Orthodox teaching of One Person in Three Hypostases, by adopting the equally heretical Roman Catholic belief of One Person in Three Persons, without EVER attempting to “prove” this “switch” from Scripture. When I asked a longtime WCG minister about this “switch,” he responded in his unique way: “This change has never been explained.”
But we DO explain in our free booklet, “Are You Already Born Again?” who and what really brought about the recent apostasy in WCG, and why. You might want to review the true history of WCG’s changes, by reading pages 30-34 of our booklet. We show how one seemingly minor doctrinal change led to the next change, until virtually EVERYTHING that we once believed had been—intentionally and purposefully—demolished and replaced by a counterfeit—a wrong gospel message—which, of course, is not another, but those who had come to power in WCG became successful in perverting the true gospel of Jesus Christ (compare Galatians 1:6-7).
THAT is the reason why it is SO important that we do NOT compromise in doctrine, even in seemingly little things. That is why we are NOT to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine (compare Ephesians 4:11-16). That is why we are NOT to have itching ears, to embrace human fables—such as the “Trinity,” Christmas, Easter, or Sunday worship, while rejecting the Truth of God (compare 2 Timothy 4:1-5). The bitter lesson of the past must teach us—those who have stayed loyal to the truth and who have not bowed to the pressure from false teachers—that we must not give in one iota to wrong doctrine.
God’s true Church just celebrated the annual Holy Day of Pentecost. On that day in 31 A.D., God’s Holy Spirit was given to the New Testament Church (Acts 2:1-4). God’s Spirit enables us to OBEY the Law of the Ten Commandments, which God pronounced to ancient Israel on the Day of Pentecost, according to Jewish tradition. God’s Spirit is a Spirit of TRUTH (1 John 4:6; compare also 1 Peter 1:22). God’s “true worshippers” must worship God the FATHER in spirit and TRUTH (John 4:23-24). When we begin to compromise and to REPLACE the truth for the lie and ERROR, then we become disqualified to continue worshipping God in TRUTH.
THAT is why I began to grieve for those poor souls who may think that they are “free,” while they have become again the slaves of error and deception (compare Romans 6:15-16, 20-21). May God, in His great mercy and compassion, show them, in His due time, the TRUTH and give them a willing and repentant heart to accept it, and let us also pray that God will continue to keep US far from the doctrinal ERRORS of this world.
In brotherly love,
Norbert Link
