Covenant Loyalty, Righteousness In Faith

I have stumbled across an idea that interests me. I was listening to a podcast during my commute. For whatever reason, when the podcast ended, I decided I wanted to listen to it again from the middle. Something told me I had not paid sufficient attention to it. I did that again two more times. I was certain I'd missed something good, I just didn't know what it was. (Obviously! Because I'd missed it.) On the fourth go around, I finally caught on.

Today, I want to investigate the relationship between covenant, loyalty, obedience, disloyalty, transgression, righteousness, and faith. They are interwoven. Is that a lot? Let me simplify. I want to look at how our righteousness can be from faith in the New Covenant. Righteousness from faith is a difficult concept for people like me, from legalist backgrounds. I think it's important for any Christian from any system to understand.

When you think of righteousness, what comes to mind?
I would guess you are saying to me, "Moral behavior, right thinking, obeying God's laws etc." You wouldn't be far from what most readers of this blog would say.
When you think of transgression, what comes to mind?
I would guess opposite things from righteousness, "Breaking God's laws, sinful thinking, immoral behavior, etc."
No doubt you have at least one Bible verse in mind. So would I!

I am going to ask you to consider tweaking your response just a bit, by being acutely aware of the concept of a covenant at the center of your responses. In our responses above, we never mentioned faith. We should have started with that. This is a post about how righteousness and faith are linked.

Funny how this all ties in so well with my post "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?".

THE MISSING DIMENSION IN LAW

In Armstrongism, the system I was once in, we were taught the way to follow God is to keep His laws. That seems reasonable enough. You want to be a good Christian, right? Of course you do! How? If you want to know how to live rightly, why not turn to the Old Testament and ask the law what to do?

(DEU. 7: 9, 11) 9 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; ... 11 Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.

(JON. 14: 15) If you love Me, keep My commandments.

See? Not only is Jesus blatantly insinuating that He is God, but He says if you love God, you will do what He commands. Seems reasonable that this refers to the law.
Well, you know, 2% of the law, anyway. Most of the time.

But there's something missing here: the Covenant.
The missing dimension is the commandments, statutes, and judgments - in other words, the law - are the Covenant. Along with the promises; the blessings and cursings. The law is the Covenant and the Covenant is the law.

Look at how God speaks to Abraham (this is not the Old Covenant but the Abrahamic):

(GEN. 17: 9) This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised...

Covenants are contracts, and they have terms. Terms are things you have to do to satisfy the covenant. For man's side of the Abrahamic Covenant, circumcision is the only term. The rest was up to God.
The terms are the covenant and the covenant is its terms. Because it is. Because that is the nature of covenants.

This same thing happens with the Old Covenant:

(DEU. 4: 13) So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

Here that same peculiar language is. The terms are the covenant and the covenant is its terms. For the Old Covenant, those terms are called "laws", because they apply to a nation - the nation of Israel.

The same thing happens in the opposite direction, from the perspective of breaking the terms.

If you did not keep the term, then you broke the Abrahamic Covenant:

(GEN. 17: 14) And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.

And if you did not keep the terms, then you broke the Old Covenant:

(JER. 11: 10) They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers who refused to hear My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.

Keeping the terms is keeping the covenant; breaking the terms is breaking the covenant. Because the terms are the covenant and the covenant is its terms.

When an Israelite broke a law, did they break a law only or did they violate the Old Covenant? They violated the Covenant! That is how James was able to say if you've stumbled in anything, you've broken everything (JAS. 2: 10). Transgressing a term defaults the entire agreement. You've been disloyal.
Or, think of it in marital terms. If you commit adultery, did you transgress the adultery rule only, or did you violate the entire marriage covenant? You violated it all! Only an idiot would say, "All I did was commit adultery. I kept most of the marriage covenant. It's just one rule out of many. It's not so bad in the grand scheme." You were disloyal to the marriage covenant as a whole.

Failing the outward signs, transgressing the laws, changing ordinances, committing idolatry - it is all breaking the covenant. Because the law does not exist apart from the covenant. The covenant is the law and the law is the covenant.

Do you see how obedience, loyalty, transgression, disloyalty, and covenant are all related? They are covenant words. Loyalty to God is through loyalty to the covenant God made with you. You want to be considered righteous? Then be loyal to your covenant. Don't want to be loyal to your covenant? That's considered wickedness. Do you see how it all relates?

It all comes back to covenant. Covenant is the missing dimension in law.

WHICH COVENANT?

People in our time - who are not Israelites and not party to the Old Covenant - will take those covenant terms (the laws) and remove them from their covenant context (the Old Covenant). Then they claim the laws continue forever, apart from the covenant. Laws just leap like a deer from covenant to covenant, all on their own. Then they divide the laws up, throw most of them out, and claim they are keeping the law.
But that is not how any of this works.

"The seventh-day Sabbath is a sign between God and His people," the Sabbatarians say. The Sabbath was a sign, yes, but a sign of what? Of loyalty to a covenant. If you kept the Sabbath, it was an outward sign that you were loyal to that covenant. "It shows we are God's people," they say. Yes, a sign does identify loyal people. That was it's purpose. But not apart from the covenant. The sign shows you are loyal to God by being loyal to the covenant. It was a sign of covenant loyalty.
But you aren't a part of that Old Covenant. No one is.

Tell me, which books of the Bible did you read about the Sabbath being a sign of the covenant? Exodus and Ezekiel. Those books were part of what Testament? The Old Testament. And which covenant was in effect then? The Old Covenant.

Loyalty to terms of a covenant identifies which people are members of the Covenant. The weekly Sabbath was one of the two outward signs of the Old Covenant. It is difficult to know who is coveting, but it is easy to know who is circumcised or resting on the seventh day. If you are keeping the Sabbath as a sign of loyalty, and using proof-texts from Exodus and Ezekiel to back it up, then what covenant are you showing loyalty to? The Old Covenant! Of course you are using Old Covenant dialogue to back it up, because it is an Old Covenant sign.

But which Covenant are we supposed to be loyal to? We are supposed to be loyal to the covenant we are in: the New Covenant! The weekly Sabbath is never once at any point made a term of the New Covenant, by anyone, ever. It is not the sign of the New Covenant. What is?

(JON. 13: 35) By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

Love is the New Covenant sign of loyalty.

I had to speak about covenant in this article because it is critical. I hoped to take your mind off of "The law! The law! The law!" and refocus it on "The covenant! The covenant! The covenant!"
I want you to keep in mind this phrase: covenant loyalty.

RIGHTEOUSNESS IS IMPUTED

We've talked about covenants. We've talked about loyalty to your covenant. Now let's talk a little about the nature of righteousness. There is something critical we need to be very much aware of. Righteousness does not come from what you do. It is always imputed.

You already know about the "faith chapter", Hebrews 11. People were heroes for having faith. You already know that righteousness was imputed to Abraham because he believed. But you might not know the same happened to Israel because they were loyal to their covenant.

(DEU. 6: 25) 24 And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. 25 Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.’

That doesn't say they will become righteous. As if to say their fallen nature will be changed. It says it will be their righteousness. As if to say righteousness will be imputed. Sacrificing and resting and blue thread in your clothes does not make you a good person. But if that is your covenant loyalty, then righteousness is imputed to you for those things.

Some tried to keep the covenant and some did not. Altogether, however, the law did nothing for what they were inside.

(PSA. 14: 2-3) 2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. 3 They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.

Psalm 54 repeats this. No, they did not become righteous.

So, how does the Bible say out of one side of its mouth that some people were righteous, and out of the other side of its mouth that no one is? It says none are righteous because none of us are righteous, it's true! We tend towards wickedness by nature. God alone is righteous by nature. But to those with covenant loyalty, righteousness was imputed. You never really deserve it. It's given to you. It is given even though you don't really deserve it.

Why is this so important to understand? Because the question shouldn't be about how we become righteous, but how we get that righteousness imputed to us. The way to imputed righteousness is loyalty to the covenant you are in. It is not through some covenant you are not in. You want righteousness? Be loyal to the covenant you are in. God is not going to impute righteousness to you for things He didn't ask you to do.
"God, I didn't really do what you asked me to do, but I did like 2% of those things you told those people to do. I knocked it out of the park, too. I went above and beyond. Now, give my my inheritance." How about no.

Back when I was an Armstrongist, I tried to be right with God by keeping the law (some of it ... some of the time). I had such good intentions! I only wanted to be a good and faithful person. I went about it all wrong. I listened to people who told me to get righteousness by keeping Old Covenant laws; terms of a covenant none of us were in. I was doomed to fail before I even started. The very base assumption - that God wants us to obtain righteousness from the Old Covenant law - is not correct under the New Covenant.

The people I was listening to told me the terms of the Old Covenant pretty much were the terms of the New. "The laws are brought forward into the New Covenant unless otherwise stated," they said. That was simply not correct. If you want more about why not, please read our post "Confusing the Covenants". Since that post explains this, I will skip it here. Suffice it to say, that is not at all how covenants work. Terms do not jump from covenant to covenant all on their own. Two different covenants, two different sets of terms, two different sets of promises.

In the Old Covenant, Torah was the means to covenant loyalty. So long as they also had faith, that is. But there were issues. Law-keeping was insufficient to please God (LUK. 17: 10). The law does not justify us (GAL. 2: 16). The law made nothing perfect (HEB. 7: 18-19a). The law made no one truly righteous (ROM. 8: 3). The law wasn't enough for the Rich Young Ruler, it wasn't enough for the Pharisees, it wasn't enough for Israel, and it isn't enough for us. Is that the law's fault? No! The law is good and just. It's our fault. The law from outside of us could not change our sinful nature. That is why we need a Savior.

(GAL. 2: 21) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.

Do you understand the magnitude of what this verse says? It means if we could accomplish our goal of pleasing God through the law, then Jesus died in vain! That means the law only ever showed us our own inability to obtain righteousness by our own efforts. It also means Jesus' death fundamentally altered the entire landscape.

I was proving God right. "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (ROM. 7: 24). Where is the solution??

FAITH!

RIGHTEOUSNESS IN FAITH

'What?! xHWA, do you mean to tell me, this whole time, I just do nothing and believe, then I will be right with God?"
No.
I mean to tell you that this whole time if you are loyal to your covenant, then you would have been right with God.

Faith is not about doing nothing. That is something legalists say to make faith look bad. "Greasy grace" and other slanders. Everyone needs faith, even a legalist. A law-centered person looks at a grace-centered person and says they aren't doing anything because they don't keep the law. But they are doing something -- they are being loyal to the covenant they are in.

We are saved by our faith. We are called to love. Do you think love is easy??

Hebrews 11, "the faith chapter", talks about a lot of people who had faith and were right with God, but none of them did nothing. Even some people who kept the law are listed, but not because of law-keeping, rather because of their faith. None of them did nothing. Some of them, like Rahab, did quite risky things. All of them let their faith manifest as action. But what action is expected of us? The action required by our Covenant. We must follow the Holy Spirit into works of charity and love, that's what we do (GAL. 5: whole chapter). But it starts with faith.

Righteousness is loyalty. Transgression is disloyalty. Loyalty or disloyalty to what? To God, via His covenant. Which covenant? It depends on who you are and when you lived. For us today, it's the New Covenant. What are the terms of the New Covenant? Faith and love! Loyalty to God via loyalty to His New Covenant means having faith in God and following the Holy Spirit into acts of love to one another. We are saved by faith, we are called to love. That is our covenant loyalty. Not Sabbath. Not circumcision. Covenant loyalty in the New Covenant is faith and love.

This is why the New Testament talks about obedience to the faith (ACT. 6: 7; ROM. 1: 5-6). This is also why the New Testament talks about judgment for those who do not "obey the Gospel" (ROM. 10: 6; II THS. 1: 8; I PET. 4: 17 ). What do you mean "obey the Gospel"? It means believing Jesus is who He said He is and will do what He said He will do, and then becoming His disciple. Not Moses' disciple but Jesus'. Obeying the Gospel does not even factor in under the Old Covenant system, but it factors heavily into New Covenant system and only makes sense under that system. (Are you sure the Gospel isn't for today? Not even a little?)

I think some people have an issue with righteousness imputed for faith because in their minds they see righteousness being directly related to things we do. In other words, works. We do good works, and that makes us good people. Like I said at the very start of this post,

When you think of righteousness, what comes to mind? I would guess you are saying to me, "Moral behavior, right thinking, obeying God's laws etc."

But here is the thing -- righteousness is not caused by things we do. The things we do are a result of the righteousness imputed to us by faith. More specifically, works are a result of us following the guidance of the Holy Spirit in-dwelling.

The focus is backwards in some people. They think faith → works (in other words law) → righteousness, when it really is faith → righteousness → works (in other words love).

That is why I want to impress upon you the idea of covenant loyalty so much. Righteousness is always imputed. God alone is good. Righteousness is not imputed for law-keeping, but for covenant loyalty. Your covenant loyalty is faith and love. Faith IS our obedience, and it is expressed in love. That will be righteousness to us.

For people in the New Covenant, to try and obtain our righteousness from law is to stumble at the stumbling stone (ROM. 9: 30-33). That stumbling stone is Jesus Christ - the guy you're tying to please by failing at keeping the law you weren't asked to keep.

So, to summarize --
Righteousness is imputed to us by faith, and that faith is expressed in works of love as we follow the direction of the Holy Spirit. That is our New Covenant loyalty.

CONCLUSION

What was the idea that interested me? Righteousness is imputed to us for covenant loyalty. Our way to be loyal to the New Covenant is faith. Our visible sign is love.

At the start, I said, "Today, I want to investigate the relationship between covenant, loyalty, obedience, disloyalty, transgression, righteousness, and faith. They are interwoven."

Do you see how this all comes together? Do you see how this all relates?

Covenant loyalty. Imputed righteousness in faith. Evidenced in love.
Before, it was by law. Now, it is by faith. Righteousness and faith are linked in the New Covenant. Our righteousness in our covenant is from faith.

Do you want to be a good Christian? The trick is to be mindful of what Covenant you are in. The Bible was not written directly to us, but it was written for us. The wise know the difference. There are so many lessons in the Old Covenant for us, but it was not given to us. It was given to Israel. We were given the New Covenant. Faith is how you remain loyal to the covenant you are in. The outward sign of your faith is love. I hope the phrase "covenant loyalty" helps you to understand.

"Covenant! Covenant! Covenant!" not "Law! Law! Law!"

Good thing I listened to that podcast the fourth time! Or I would have missed it.

Do you know what the truly mind-bending thing in all of this is? If you follow the Holy Spirit, and pursue covenant loyalty through faith and love, you will end up fulfilling the whole law - the very thing the legalists hoped to do in the first place (ROM. 3: 31; GAL. 5: 14).
Like I said in the post "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?":

"Am I throwing Matthew 5: 19 out the window? No. I am not telling you to break the commandments. I am telling you the only way you can possibly hope to keep them as expected."

No doubt many will have lingering questions. If you have questions about the law being eternal, we have two posts for that: "Common Legalist Arguments - Part V" and "Common Legalist Arguments - Part VI". If you have questions about moral laws continuing into the New Covenant, we have posts for that: "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?" and "What Use Is The Old Law?". If you have questions about the sabbath rest that remains, we have a post for that: "The Sabbath Rest of Hebrews 4". And don't forget we have a general FAQ Page where we answer some standard questions.

This post is dedicated to Angela. God bless you.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Review - Written By The Finger of God

Given my recent foray into the Seventh Day Adventist view of "The Law (the Ten Commandments)", I thought it would be interesting to see if SDA ideas and interpretations had already made their way into Armstrongism. It only took minutes to answer that question. Yes, they have. And for quite a while now, at that.

Today's post is going to be a companion to the post I just linked to. If you haven't read that post, you won't fully understand this one. And if you haven't read that post recently, you will miss some parallels in this one.

In that post, I received a comment from a long-time reader, Child Survivor. They say, "Their [the SDA's] reasoning for distinguishing the 10 from the rest is simple. It was written in stone by the finger of God."
I decided if I was to learn if Adventism has infected Armstrongism this would be where I start looking. It wasn't long until I found an article on the United Church of God's Beyond Today site, entitled "Written By The Finger of God", authored by one Robert Berendt, and posted July 3, 2001.
All of my quotes from Mr. Berendt will be from this publication. It is web-based, so there are no page numbers to reference.

Herbert Armstrong, it is said, got his inspiration from God by borrowing material from other churches. One of his favorite sources was the COG7's "Bible Advocate" magazine. We talk about this in our article "This Has All Happened Before". Could it be the tradition of taking ideas from other churches lives on at the UCG? I suspect so.

There are three things you should keep in mind as you read this:
1) All the Old Covenant law, including the Sabbath, only exist as terms within a covenant. God didn't bring laws on their own. God brought a Covenant. That covenant had terms.
2) The Old Covenant was for Israel only and excluded the Gentiles almost entirely.
3) The Sabbath was not a day to go to church. It was a day of rest. It's about resting from normally assigned tasks, not going to corporate worship.

IT'S LIKE SO AMAZING

"It is quite amazing that we humans do not recognize the importance of the Biblical statement that the Ten Commandments were written by the finger of God."
-Robert Berendt

Is it truly that important, though, or is this just rhetoric? Is it true that, specifically because they were written by the finger of God, we can set the Ten above all other laws? Is that the critical MISSING KEY (to borrow a phrase from Herbert Armstrong)? What other evidence supports this?

Moses didn't think it was that important when he smashed those tablets. The Jews don't think it to be critically important. All 613 mitzvot are equal to them. When Jesus was asked what are the great commandments in the law, He did not respond, "Why, the Ten, of course, because I wrote those with my own finger." No, He spoke of other laws on which all the law and the prophets hang. The Apostles never mentioned it. Paul didn't feel the ministry of death was any less deadly just because it was written and engraved on stone by God (II COR. 3: 7), or any less the law of sin and death (ROM. 8: 2). It wasn't emphasized in the early church. Even Herbert Armstrong didn't make a big deal about it. What Armstrong made a big deal about was the "Law of Moses - Law of God" issue. Rod Meredith wrote the Worldwide Church of God's official booklet on the Ten Commandments. Although he does say the Ten are the spiritual law, he didn't base that on the finger of God. He didn't base it on anything, really. He didn't mention the finger of God at all. In fact, it didn't seem to be all that important to anyone anywhere until the Seventh Day Adventists decided to make it a big deal. This is a claim they make central. The UCG only borrows the notion.
Bear this in mind the next time you say, "I don't care about the traditions of men."

It's as if it only has importance when you're already a Sabbatarian surrounded by other Sabbatarians and you're trying to reinforce what everyone already agrees on. In a phrase, confirmation bias. Perhaps what is amazing is that people think it's amazing.

You can see this is mere confirmation bias from questions such as this:

"Do we comprehend the magnificence of the Ten Commandments? Why would God take the time to speak them and then write them twice?"
-Robert Berendt

Because Moses broke the first set. That's why He did it twice. It's no grand mystery.

Someone might ask, was it not amazing, though, that God wrote these Himself? I would say it was a direct divine act, and so, yes, it was amazing. But, then again, so is "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin". Am I supposed to hold those words in incredible regard, too? Since those words were written by the finger of God, are they universal moral law, too? Amazing, yes, but to what end?

"But xHWA," one might say, "the Bible doesn't say those words were written by the very finger of God."
Oh please. In Exodus 18: 9, it says the plague of lice were the "finger of God." Do we really need to parse the use of "finger of God" to see if it is literal or idiomatic? I would rather not. A disembodied hand writing on a wall in a language no one but Daniel can interpret is plenty miraculous no matter how you argue about exactly whose finger it was.

There is no justification for the type of emphasis people are putting on the Ten. "God wrote them Himself, therefore they are moral and special above all other laws, and eternal, and binding on all mankind" simply does not make logical sense.

We've already reviewed this in our series "Is Ceremonial Law Removed?" and "Are the Ten Commandments Removed?"

Let me ask you this question. Which is more amazing: that God wrote on stone, or that God became man and died and was resurrected and now puts the Holy Spirit into your heart? I don't know about you, but I'm choosing the latter. Writing on stone just isn't the amazing, crucial thing the author is trying to build it into. At the end of the day, those laws could not accomplish God's purpose (ACT. 13: 39; ROM. 8: 3; GAL. 3: 21), and the Old Covenant is gone (HEB. 8: 6, 31).

Don't get me wrong here. I am not making the case that there is nothing at all unique about the Ten. What I am saying is, I do not see any evidence that being written by the finger or God conveys any special powers on the Ten, or makes the Ten somehow timeless and binding on all men. In other words, this claim just doesn't do what the author hopes it will. We just do not see that in the other evidence we have. It seems like a gross overstatement of the case.

WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY

Before I get too far in, I want to acknowledge that not everything Mr. Berendt writes is wrong. For example, he writes:

"It is astonishing to think that humans can presume that God would allow them to change His commandments ... there are those who try to change the commandments such as moving the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday."
-Robert Berendt

Well, yeah. I agree. Anyone who thinks Sunday is the Sabbath, or even the Christian Sabbath, simply does not understand the difference. Sunday is not the Sabbath and never has been. It's precisely this kind of misunderstanding that got us into this mess with Sabbatarianism in the first place.

I want to briefly and roughly explore the history which got us to the problem we face today. If you think history is boring, just skip to the next section.

Shortly after the Reformation, the common person had access to the scriptures but had no access to original languages, or formal training, or understanding of proper hermeneutics, or most any resource whatsoever they would need to correctly interpret what they were reading. They started from the false premise that Sunday is the Sabbath, which it is not, and things only got worse from there. They opened their Bibles and what did they see? Lo and behold, the seventh day is the Sabbath. "Hey," they thought, "it says right here Saturday is the Sabbath. My church is wrong!" And the solution in their less than expert opinions was, "We should be going to church on Saturday."
This is the genesis of Sabbatarianism and all those "you can't change the 4th commandment" complaints.

The problem we face today comes directly from people forcing Sunday to fulfill the 4th Commandment, compounded by other people who shouldn't be making doctrinal decisions trying to resolve the issue and coming to a very wrong conclusion that everyone must go to church on Saturday.

In the 1500s, small groups of people in Europe start going to church on Saturday. In the 1600s, we have evangelists like Stephen Mumford travelling to New England to convert Sunday Christians to Saturday. In the 1700s, we have Seventh Day Baptists in New England. In the 1800s, a few Seventh Day Baptists converted a few Adventists to Sabbatarianism. And then a few Seventh Day Adventists split to form the COG7, and then Herbert Armstrong was fired from the COG7 and formed his own church, and today you're reading my blog.

We see starting from a false premise leads to wild conclusions.

I don't know when Sunday started being viewed as the Christian Sabbath and the new way to interpret the 4th Commandment. I cannot find anything like that in the first few centuries. I owe yet another thanks to Terracet, who sent me an email a while ago. In the email, Terracet mentioned this footnote from Philip Schaff:

"i.e. Saturday. Sunday is never called ‘the Sabbath’ by the ancient Fathers and historians, but ‘the Lord’s day’ (κυριακε)."
-Schaff, Philip, "Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers: Second Series", Edinburgh, 1890.
Specifically, footnote 789, "The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus", Book V, Chapter XXII.
On Sacred-Texts, https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/202/2020187.htm#fn_788.

I agree with Schaff on this point. Reading early works such as "The Didache" or Justin Martyr's "Dialogue With Trypho", we can see a very clear distinction between the Lord's Day and the Sabbath. As we learned in our study into the Quartodecimans, they were also not the Sabbath keepers we were led to believe they were. The Quartodecimans had a radically different view of Sabbath-keeping than Armstrongism.

Some people want to create a hard dichotomy in the early years. They imagine there were either people who went to church on Saturday, or on Sunday, but not both. That is not true. Most people did things on both days. There were Jewish converts who rested on the Sabbath per their national heritage and observed the Lord's Day. It is possible to do both. More than that, there were many who treated neither like a Sabbath day. The Jewish Sabbath just did not exist for most Gentiles. The rest given us by Christ is the Sabbath rest that remains. Even so, they did not treat Sunday like a new Sabbath. That started later on.

Some say the one who first came up with the notion was Origen. But what did Origen mean when he said, "On Sunday none of the actions of the world should be done"? Was it work, or sin?

Some prefer to blame Constantine. We write about that in our article "Constantine vs The Sabbath". The answer is not entirely there, either. Constantine did make Sunday into a day of rest, but in a purely civil capacity not a religious one, and not for everyone because farmers were still allowed to farm. We have to look elsewhere for the full reason Sunday became a day of rest within the church.

The first genuinely unmistakable thing I find is in the Council of Laodicea (about 365 AD), Canon 29, which is translated:

"Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ."
-Schaff, Philip, "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers", Second Series, Vol. 14.
On Christian Classics Etherial Library, https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214/npnf214.viii.vii.iii.xxxiv.html

This makes me somewhat comfortable in accepting the change happened in the 4th century. But, again, farmers were allowed to farm on Sunday. So, a more complete change must have happened later still.

Note: I am not saying Sunday as the Lord's Day started in the fourth century. That started early in the first century. Nor am I saying the bulk of people moved from Saturday to Sunday in the fourth century, as if there were some great shift at that time. I know someone out there will read what I wrote and conclude, "See! xHWA just said Sunday worship started in the 4th century!" No. I did not say that. I said treating Sunday like it fulfills the 4th Commandment seems to have started in the 4th century.

If Archbishop James Cardinal Gibbons, about whom we write in our article "Rome's Challenge", wanted to flex against the Protestants, he would have done better to say the Protestants observe Sunday as a Sabbath due to the authority of the Catholic Church. Sabbatarianism is a direct response to this. So, if you think about it, Sabbatarianism is built on the authority of the Catholic Church.

We should talk about that for a second. The Catholic Church does not hesitate to claim it is the church Jesus started and it has the authority to make doctrinal decisions. Same goes for the Orthodox. The Unified Church (the church before the Catholic/Orthodox split in 1054 AD) made this decision at Laodicea. The Council of Laodicea is an "ecumenical council". So, we have to decide whether they have the authority to bind or loose these kinds of things on their own adherents. Maybe you think they have no right to bind it on you, but do they have the right to bind it on themselves? They think they do. All churches make decisions for themselves, or else there wouldn't be any denominations. The COG splinter churches do the exact same thing all the time. And I'm sure you and I make decisions for ourselves. So, was it entirely unreasonable?
But that debate is outside the scope of this post.

If that one change had been avoided, Protestants wouldn't have retained it, other Protestants wouldn't have reacted to it, and there would be no Seventh Day Adventists - just Adventists only, with their failed prophecies - and Armstrong never would have been converted to it. All of this nonsense we are mired in today could have been avoided. And best of all, I wouldn't have to blog about it and you wouldn't be here reading and being angry at me.

What Jesus did with the Sabbath Day was dissolve it when He ended the Old Covenant at His death. He is our eternal Sabbath rest. Perhaps it should have been left at that.

ONE COVENANT

"There is a huge difference between all that Moses later relayed to Israel from God and the Ten Commandments that were written by the finger of God."
-Robert Berendt

Ummmmm ... no. There is no difference.

Mr. Berendt here is trying to distinguish the Ten above all other laws. Correction, he is trying to distinguish the Sabbath Day - because we all know Sabbatarianism isn't a quest to get the world to stop bearing false witness. They bear false witness all the time. Let's not pretend this is about anything other than the Sabbath day.

There is no functional difference at all between "all that Moses later relayed to Israel from God" (and by "later" we mean over the next several weeks) and the Ten Commandments. Why is there no difference? Because there is only one Covenant.

All were part of one Covenant made with Israel at Sinai. Period. Full stop. All the whole law are co-equal terms of one and the same Covenant. We've said it here a thousand times -
      The law does not exist apart from the covenant.
The individual laws do not stand alone. The whole Old Covenant law only exists within and because of the Old Covenant. The law is the singular body of terms of the singular covenant. The covenant is what binds the law on the people. They agreed to the terms of the covenant (the law, plus the promises, ie. blessings and cursings).
Sabbatarianism simply ignores the Covenant altogether in favor some of its terms.

We have gone over all of this many times before. I suggest you read "The Covenant and the Testimony".

Here is what the Jews believe about their law:

"All 613 of those mitzvot [laws] are equally sacred, equally binding and equally the word of G-d. All of these mitzvot are treated as equally important..."
-"Aseret ha-Dibrot: The Ten Commandments", Tracery R Rich, Judaism 101. Accessed 6-2024.

James, a Jew and zealous for the whole law not just the Ten (and in the very next breath reminds us the law was not binding on Gentiles), tells us if you've stumbled in any of the whole law, you've broken it all (JAS. 2: 10). The law is one unit. The law is not divided by the Bible into the moral law, the national law, and the ceremonial law. Those are manmade constructs. Helpful, but manmade. It's the same thing here. The law is not divided into the Ten and all those other ones over there somewhere. There is no functional difference at all. There is no difference because regardless of who wrote them or when they were given, they are all terms of one Covenant.

If you aren't keeping all the law, then you aren't keeping the law at all. (GAL. 3: 10)

TRANSGRESSION

"The Ten Commandments define sin and give guidelines for humans to live by."
-Robert Berendt

Ummmmm ... what??

I don't know where Mr. Berendt gets this idea that the Ten define sin; the Ten specifically. Not from the Bible! He might grab his King James Version and open to I John 3: 4, which reads:

(I JON. 3: 4) Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

We address the horrendous translation of this verse in the KJV in several articles. We recommend "Antinomianism and Motivation of Heart". In short, that mistranslation is not what the Greek means.
But Mr. Berendt does not grab his KJV to support his claim. He does not use this verse to support his claim at all. He does cite this verse later in his article, but from another version which translates it very differently. If the author didn't get his claim from this verse in the KJV, where did he get it? He doesn't say. He just makes the claim as if it is axiomatic and we are all just going to agree with it. But it isn't obvious at all.

I will tell you where he gets it. He gets it from Herbert Armstrong. 

"...the TEN COMMANDMENTS, God's great SPIRITUAL LAW..."
-Herbert Armstrong, "What Is The True Gospel?", 1972, p. 10

The main justifying verse Armstrong used was Matthew 19: 17-19, where Jesus tells the Rich Young Ruler to keep the Ten Commandments in order to enter into life.

Except! The Rich Young Ruler replies he has been doing that his whole life. Clearly this was a set up. Jesus was leading the young man to something. Jesus then tells him to sell everything he has and follow Him, which saddens the man, who then walks away. The point was never the Ten. Jesus knew the man was already keeping the Ten. It is good that he did so! He was a Jew in the Old Covenant period, after all. It just wasn't sufficient. The point was faith. Jesus demonstrated that even the Rich Young Man's best actions and intentions were insufficient where salvation is concerned, and encouraged him to place his faith in Him. The man didn't like that and went away. He had the Commandments, but refused faith. The "great SPIRITUAL LAW" got him precisely nowhere.
When the Apostles asked Jesus about all of this, His point was not at all about keeping the Ten Commandments. It was entirely about faith. This is the same chapter and selection where you get these two very popular sayings:

“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (v. 26)
"But many who are first will be last, and the last first." (v. 30)

Martha goes into more detail on this topic in her article, "Who Requires What For Salvation?"

That is where Mr. Berendt gets his claim about the Ten Commandments - from Herbert Armstrong bungling a proof-text.

What Mr. Berendt does here is the exact same thing the Adventists do when they say "the law (the Ten Commandments)". They take the whole law, throw away almost all of it, and limit it to the Ten only. We talked about this very thing in my article in the link at the start of this post. Clearly, Adventism has infected Armstrongism. My fears seem confirmed. But where do the Adventists get it? Nowhere! They just make it up and expect us to accept it.

"Can we humans discard or change that which God wrote?"
"Can we add to the laws or take away portions? I think not!"
-Robert Berendt

Well, apparently yes, we can. Because he's doing it right here! He is discarding 98% of the law and retaining 2%.

And it's not just here. Armstrongism changes the law all the time. Just look at how Armstrongism flagrantly changes the law in order to receive tithes. For example, read my post "Who Pays Tithe of a Tithe?"

Again and again and again we see legalism wants it both ways. They don't want anyone to touch the Sabbath, claiming the law is eternal and inviolable, but they immediately discard or change the vast majority of the other laws. And if you want to really split hairs, they change the Sabbath, too. They change it from a day of rest to a day of church and other activities.

This approach of the Ten defining sin causes more issues than it solves. If the Ten define sin, anything not mentioned in the Ten cannot be sin. That is a terrible issue for a legalist system. If the Ten define sin, then you can ignore tithing, meats, holy days, and etc. And, to split hairs again, you can ignore what day you go to church because the Ten do not tell you when to go to church. Whoops!

What did we just explore in the previous section? That the Ten are not above and beyond the rest of the law. Peculiar among the laws in how they were given, yes, ten that represent the entire body of Covenant law, yes, but above and beyond the rest of the laws, no. There, Mr. Berendt drove a wedge between the Ten and the rest of the laws, but at least he kept the rest around. Here, Mr. Berendt replaces all laws with just the Ten. I cannot agree that is how the Old Covenant functioned. More importantly, I cannot agree that is how the New Covenant functions.

Bear in mind, we can debate all day long about how the Ten were this or that, or how the Old Covenant operated this way or that, but the Old Covenant is gone. There is no Old Covenant anymore. We are not under that Covenant. We are in the New Covenant. Everything we are discussing here is purely academic.

But if you think what Mr. Berendt did in this section is unorthodox, just you wait. It gets worse.

AD ABSURDIUM

"Hebrews 8:5 reveals that what God instructed Moses to make was a COPY of that which is in heaven! Moses was to be careful of each detail. Can we not see that what was within the ark was also a copy?"
-Robert Berendt

Again ... what??

For some background, Mr. Berendt is trying to build a case for the Ten by saying they are special in that they are a copy built after a master original in Heaven. The Bible never says this. The Bible never even remotely says this.

Mr. Berendt starts by saying the Ten were placed in the earthly Ark. And they were. That much is true. What Ark? The Ark of the Covenant. The Ten, which represent all the terms of the Old Covenant, were placed in the Ark, the container, of the Covenant. Again, the star of this show is the Covenant, not the Ten.
Mr. Berendt proceeds to point out God told Moses to make a careful copy of things in Heaven. And this is true. But not in Exodus 25: 10-22, where the construction of the Ark was described. In the case of the Ark, God never said to make a careful copy. Mr. Berendt's implication is that the Ark and the Ten are copies of originals that exist in Heaven. For his proof text, he cites Hebrews 8: 5. Let's read that for ourselves:

(HEB. 8: 5) They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."

Mind the details! It says sanctuary. Does it say the Ark is a copy? No. More importantly, does it say the tablets are copies? No. They also put the Book of the Law in there (DEU. 31: 26). Nothing says that was a copy. Aaron's rod that budded was in the Ark, too. Does it say the rod that budded was a copy? No. "But xHWA," I hear someone saying, "Moses didn't make the rod that budded." Correct. He also didn't make the tablets. Remember, Mr. Berendt spent most of his time emphasizing how God wrote on the tablets, not Moses. Why, God's participation is the very thing at the center of this entire post, is it not? But now it's Moses making the tablets. Did God make them or did Moses? Can't have it both ways!

What does it say? The tabernacle, the sanctuary where the Levites served, was a copy. It wasn't that the Ark was a copy, but the sanctuary, the place where the Ark was kept, was a copy. Nowhere does the Bible say God sits on a box with two cherubs over His head. Even when we see representations of God's mobile throne, does it look like the Ark (EZE. 1: 4-28)? No. So, how are the Ark and the two tablets an exact copy? They aren't.

And again, let's read how Paul continues his point:

(HEB. 9: 23-24) 23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.

Does it say Christ entered the Ark? No. Does it say Christ entered the tablets? No. It says He entered a sanctuary. Were the tablets purified with blood every year at Atonement? No. The altar was purified with blood, but not the contents of the Ark.

To support his claim of the Ark being a copy, Mr. Berendt points to Revelation 11: 19, where the Ark is seen in Heaven. He uses this as support that the Ark was always in heaven and the earthly one was just a copy. That is indeed a novel way to interpret this verse. I am unconvinced. I had always been taught this was the Ark that Moses made. We can't find it because it's in Heaven. Yet, I have never found that convincing, either. The Catholics say that is Mary. I am not getting into that here. Just mentioning it as a curiosity and to show there are other ways of interpreting this verse. I interpret Revelation 11: 9 as being just more apocalyptic symbolism.

So, was Paul's (or whoever authored Hebrews) point that absolutely everything, right down to the Ten, is a copy of heavenly originals? No.
The point had nothing to do with the greatness of the Ten, but the superiority of Christ  - particularly the the Priesthood of Christ, the blood of Christ, and the New Covenant in His blood (HEB. 9: 15) - even over Torah. Jesus was greater than the Priesthood and Torah. That is the point.
If Mr. Berendt read Hebrews 8 & 9 and came away with the notion that it demonstrates the superiority of the Old Covenant, I must doubt that he was paying any attention at all.

In our rush to glorify the Ark, let's not forget what Jeremiah said about it:

(JER. 3: 16) “Then it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days,” says the Lord, “that they will say no more, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore."

The Lord doesn't seem too concerned over it.

Mr. Berendt starts at a definite and extrapolates to the completely unnecessary.

Personally, I do not think the copies are meant to be understood as exact copies. For example, I don't think there is a tent in Heaven, or a mobile table for bread, or that there was a curtain obscuring access to the throne, or that the throne was on a box. I get the sense that what Moses was told to make are representatives of ideas. God has a temple, so Moses made a tent for a temple. God has an alter, so Moses made a mobile table for an incense altar. He had to be careful to do exactly what He was told, but they aren't exact copies, they just represent things that are in Heaven. That's just my opinion.

ALL COMMANDMENTS ARE THE TEN COMANDMENTS

The rest of the article is pretty much a grand finale of proof texts containing the English word "commandments" - that do not mean what he takes them to mean - and a bunch of talk about writing the Ten Commandments on hearts - to the exclusion of all other law - and an exhortation to love the Sabbath. Errrr, the Ten, I mean. Typical fare.

As for the English word commandments, we refer you to our article "If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments". It is well past time we get a better quality of discernment in here about this word. I would remind you that the Ten Commandments were never called "commandments" to begin with. That is a mistranslation. Again, I will quote Judaism 101:

"In the Torah, these words are never referred to as the Ten Commandments. In the Torah, they are called Aseret ha-D'varim (Ex. 34:28, Deut. 4:13 and Deut. 10:4). In rabbinical texts, they are referred to as Aseret ha-Dibrot. The words d'varim and dibrot come from the Hebrew root Dalet-Beit-Reish, meaning word, speak or thing; thus, the phrase is accurately translated as the Ten Sayings, the Ten Statements, the Ten Declarations, the Ten Words or even the Ten Things, but not as the Ten Commandments, which would be Aseret ha-Mitzvot."
-"Aseret ha-Dibrot: The Ten Commandments", Tracery R Rich, Judaism 101. Accessed 6-2024.

We cannot give the Ten a new name in English, then use that new name as a basis for interpreting every instance where the English word commandments appears. "Look, these laws are called 'Ten Commandments' now, and there is the word commandments over there, so they are the same thing!" Uhhh .. no. That isn't how proper Bible interpretation works. That is far beyond irresponsible handling of the Word.

As for writing the law on our hearts, we need to think about when God said that. The quote comes from Jeremiah 31: 33. What was the law at that time? Was it the Ten only, or the Ten plus all of those other laws over there somewhere? Obviously it was the whole law. Do you feel like Armstrongists who quote this verse have all 613 laws in mind? No. Does Mr. Berendt have all 613 in mind? No. They all have taken the law, split it into three groups - moral, ceremonial, and national - then evaporated 2/3. We can see every legalist who pulls this proof text fails to believe it themselves. It sounds great when you want to support Sabbath-keeping, but not so great when you understand that package comes with a requirement for New Moons, Gentile exclusion, three trips to Jerusalem every year, booths, shofars, tzitzit, and a Sanhedrin (just to mention a few things). So, I say no legalist who cites this verse really believes it.
My old catch phrase seems particularly relevant here, "The law! The law! Just not that law."

For more on the law being written on your heart, see Bill's article "The Spirit of the Law".

CONCLUSION

Did you keep those three items in mind form the start of this article? Do you see how nothing in this entire article changes any of those three? 

In his article, Mr. Berendt took an idea, blew it grossly out of proportion, and hoped the wonder and glamour of it would sufficiently distract you from noticing there is no substance to it.
The main thrust of this article is the mere fact that the Ten were written by the finger of God makes them superior to all other laws, replacements for all other laws (the ones we don't like), universally applicable to all mankind, and all people should go to church on Saturday. The biggest flaw in the article is the main idea is unproved. He never proved that being written by the finger of God has those results.

I counter "written by God therefore universal" makes no sense, because then anything written by God would need to have those same attributes, including "mene mene tekel upharsin". And "written by God therefore they replace all other laws" makes no sense, which should be self evident, because that should have been true from the very start yet the rest of the law was given after the Ten. If the rest of the law was so replaceable, why give it at all? And "written by God therefore part of the New Covenant" makes zero sense at all, because they were specifically given for the Old Covenant. That just isn't how covenants work. And "written by God therefore go to church on Saturday" makes no sense, because the Sabbath was about rest not church. Going to church on Saturday is a tradition of men.

Are the Ten special? I think so. They were written and engraved on stone separately from the rest. Those Ten represented the entire body of terms of the Old Covenant. Not replace, but represent. So, they are special. I just don't agree that gives them all these attributes Mr. Berendt and the Adventists claim it gives them.

I find the argument that God wrote the Ten with His own hand to be much less convincing than most other arguments. It seems like a grand stretch to me. It definitely bears the marks of confirmation bias. Even when taken with the totality of the rest of the claims of Armstrongism, I just cannot find enough to convince me. Too much other evidence has to be altered or ignored or redefined, or in some cases outright lied about, and that is something I just can't get past. After all that effort, in order to get the Ten to be binding on all mankind, the author is still left trying to find something in the New Covenant that ties the Ten to Gentiles. Being written by the finger of God at Sinai just is not that something.

As for the article itself, it was merely typical at best. Nothing in particular stood out to me. Clearly, it was written for people who already believe like the author. I agreed with the part where he claimed the Sabbath cannot be changed to Sunday. It cannot. I was most disappointed at the section where the author tried to claim the Ten are a copy of originals in Heaven. They were not. That was just taking it too far for my taste. And I believe all this mess stems from unqualified Protestants in the 16th century coming to regrettable conclusions. But at the same time, the article wasn't particularly ridiculous or poisonous like other articles I've reviewed. One particularly bad example would be "Review of COGWA's Origin of Easter". That article was really bad!

The main reason I came to this article in the first place was to see if Adventism had infected Armstrongism in this specific topic, due to a comment by Child Survivor on my earlier post "The Law (The Ten Commandments)". It is the Adventists who make a big deal about the finger of God. Sadly, we can see that, yes, the infection has spread. A little. Good thing not too many Armstrongists seem to be more excited about this particular claim than I am.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Common Legalist Arguments - Part VI

In my last post in this series, which was but a few moments ago in geological time, we went over the idea that if portions of the law predated Sinai then those things are binding after Sinai. We saw that this argument does not work. The point is to find a way to bind Christians to the Sabbath, or tithing. The Sabbath did not long predate Sinai but other things did, like animal sacrifice. That existed from the very start. Cain and Abel, Noah, and Abraham all practiced animal sacrifice. We know animal sacrifice is no longer required today. Abraham was circumcised, and circumcision is no longer required today. Therefore, it is not true that if things were done prior to the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai then they are required today.

This time, I would like to address what I consider to be a very strange approach that many take to validate their views on law keeping - claiming that since God is eternal then the law is eternal, too.
I have recently started seeing this claim quite frequently.

ARGUMENT #6
God is eternal, therefore the law is eternal.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with logic. I think anyone who wants to think deeply on any subject at all should be familiar with logic. Logic helps us form our thoughts correctly.

It is especially good to learn about logical fallacies. These are guidelines to help you recognize and avoid poorly formed arguments. Understanding logical fallacies help us to understand such things as why name-calling is not a valid argument. "You're wrong because you're a Nimrod worshipper," falls down for specific reasons. It's good to understand why.

One particularly useful logical fallacy is "non-sequitur". That's Latin for "does not follow". This is when someone mistakenly claims one thing is caused by another unrelated thing.
For example, a blatant non-sequitur would be, "It just rained, therefore I need to buy a cat."

What in the world does the one have to do with the other? Nothing. You might search and find maybe one instance where the person had some good reason for buying a cat after a rainstorm. It's possible. But finding one instance does not mean purchasing a cat naturally flows directly from rainy days, as if "rain, therefore cat". You could say, "It just rained therefore the grass is wet." That follows naturally. Wet grass does come from rain. "Rain, therefore wet." Or, you might say, "It just rained, therefore wipe your feet when you come inside." Dirty feet come from mud and wet grass. That follows. But buying cats? No.

In this same way, saying the law is eternal because God is eternal is a non sequitur.

We will grant God is eternal. He is. But so what is that to the law? God is not the law and the law is not God, so what does God's eternality have to do with the law? Nothing. It does not follow that because God has an attribute, therefore the law also has that attribute. The law doesn't get that attribute any more than you or I do. God is merciful, was the law merciful? No (HEB. 10: 28). The law had no provision for mercy. The law might have told humans to be merciful, but the law itself was not merciful. God is graceful, but the law was not. Grace came through Jesus (JON. 1: 17). God has attributes the law did not, so why does God being eternal make the law eternal? It does not.

Certain big concepts flow by necessity from God's nature - goodness, wisdom, justice, love, intellect, etc. The specifics of Torah law do not flow by necessity from God in the same way things like mercy, authority, or numbers do. It does not follow that because God is good therefore a shofar must be blown on the first day of the seventh month.
"God is good, therefore shofar" is just as non sequitur as "rain, therefore cat".

The entire argument is at its very core completely illogical.

ETERNAL IN THE PAST

Knowing that right now someone is out there complaining, "Logic is created by men and doesn't apply to God because words words words....", I will move on to looking into the workings of the claim. If the law proceeds from God's being necessarily, then it has to be eternal in the past because God is eternal in the past.

Some laws cannot possibly have been eternal in the past. Have you read the list of Torah laws? Any national law for Israel could not possibly have been eternal. You cannot have a national law for Israel before there was an Israel. You cannot have a law about tassels on garments before there were garments or weaving.

Any ceremonial law could not be eternal in the past. You cannot tithe before there were humans and increase. You cannot rest before there was creation and work. You cannot sacrifice animals before there were animals, or burn incense before there was incense, or travel to Jerusalem three times in a year before there was a Jerusalem or a year.

If the law was eternal in the past, then how can Paul claim it came 430 years after God made a promise to Abraham (GAL. 3: 17)? He could not. Paul did not say it was written down, or given, 430 years later. Paul's point was unambiguously that the promise predated and superseded the law. He then goes on to the law "was added" (v. 19). In Romans 5: 13 he says "until the law" and "there is no law". How can Paul speak this way if the law was eternal in the past? He cannot.

Anyone who continues to claim the national and ceremonial laws are past eternal have created an issue. Laws that exist before the things they govern exist. So, what are the implications of this? This can only mean one of two things:
1) There are untold myriads of hidden laws out there, existing for no good reason, governing things that have yet to come into existence, or might never come into existence. We have no way of knowing what legions of laws there might be. Clearly, this is ridiculous.
2) The 613 Torah laws are perfect and are the only ones that flow from God's being. No more and no less. For some reason, because God is such and such, therefore the thread in Israelites and only Israelites clothing had to be blue. "God, therefore blue thread." But not other colors of thread, and not other people. Blue is the perfect color because God is such and such. For some reason, God is such and such, therefore the High Priest is prohibited from marrying a widow. That's just how things had to be. "God, therefore no widows." Clearly, this is also ridiculous.

I am not saying the laws are ridiculous. I am saying making them past eternal and tying them directly to God's being is ridiculous.

The sheer absurdity of this claim should be coming into focus.

ETERNAL IN THE FUTURE

If the law proceeds from God's being necessarily, then it has to be eternal in the future because God is eternal in the future and unchanging. If the law is eternal in the future, then no law can be removed or altered.

Are parts of the Old Covenant law no longer binding? Yes. Name one. Circumcision. Then the law isn't eternal. Most people will readily admit the ceremonial and the national laws are gone. That's 2/3 of the law gone! The law cannot be both eternal and gone. That violates the law of non-contradiction. Hebrews 7: 12 says:

(HEB. 7: 12) For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law.

What! A change? Yes, the unchanging law has changed. That means it's not eternal.

When Jesus died, the veil to the Holy of Holies was torn in two (MAT. 27: 51), signifying the way to God was now open. No more Day of Atonement with its ritualistic national cleansing would be necessary (HEB. 10: 19-22). None of these laws are eternal in the future.

But it wasn't merely some slight alteration. The entire Levitical system, with its Temple and its ceremonies and its tithes and offerings and its appointments and its holiness rituals and its condemnation, was removed. Not just changed , removed. Read II Corinthians 3: 7-16. The old ministry and all its laws have passed away, replaced by a whole new system. Therefore, not a single one of those many laws can be eternal in the future.

So, not only is the premise incorrect that the law is eternal, but it is easy to see the argument "God is eternal, therefore the law is eternal," is non-sequitur.

THE SABBATH DAY

Let's not be coy here. We all know the one law many people are really after is the Sabbath day.

When we start defining what is moral law, we have to start defining why certain things are moral. Once we start scrutinizing the Sabbath, we see it has no moral component at all. The only thing in the world it has going for it is that it's in the Ten Commandments. We explored that in the article. "Is Ceremonial Law Removed?". The argument "Ten Commandments, therefore moral" is just as non-sequitur as "God, therefore the law is eternal". Let's briefly scrutinize the eternality of the Sabbath.

If the moral law is eternal, and the Sabbath is a moral law, then the Sabbath is eternal. Yay! But...

Genesis 1: 5, God created day and night. How can the Sabbath day exist before there was day? Let alone the seventh one. It cannot. Most Sabbatarians point at Genesis 2: 2 to justify the Sabbath day. How can we look here in Genesis for the Sabbath yet it existed eternally before that?

In the Kingdom there will be no day or night or need for the sun (REV. 21:22 - 22: 5). No day or night means no weekly Sabbath day. The Sabbath day is utterly dependent on day and night - by definition and by law! It could not exist before there was a sun, and it cannot exist after the sun is gone. How can the Sabbath be eternal when we can demonstrate from the Bible that the concept of day and night are not eternal?
You could also look towards the point of the Sabbath - rest. How can we have a rest when there is no longer any toil to rest from? The definition of a Sabbath rest is not simply rest, it is rest from assigned regular duties. No toil, no point to rest. Just like in Eden. What did Adam have to rest from? He was in paradise! So it will be in the future.

This is an exercise in contradictions.

Now, we have but three choices:
1) Revelation is wrong. If the Sabbath is eternal because God is eternal, then day and night must also be eternal because the Sabbath needs them. So, you get an eternal Sabbath at the cost of Revelation being wrong.
2) The Sabbath is not a moral law. If all moral laws are eternal, and the Sabbath has a beginning and an end, then the Sabbath is not a moral law. Because day and night had a beginning and will have an end, we cannot say the Sabbath is eternal. If all moral laws are eternal then the Sabbath cannot be a moral law.
3) The Sabbath is redefined contrary to the law and reason into something utterly unlike what we read in the law. Some people do this in order to claim the Sabbath exists outside of time (e.g., "angels keep the Sabbath" - proof please). That's not what the law says, though. We are talking about the law.

Take your pick.

MORAL LAW

Maybe by this point you are thinking, perhaps the national and ceremonial laws aren't eternal but the moral law has to be. Supposedly the moral law flows naturally from God's own moral nature, therefore the moral law is eternal because God's moral nature is unchanging. Then why not say that? Why not claim "the moral law" instead of "the law"?

I'll tell you why. People do not make this argument to get others to stop murdering or coveting. What they want is to justify the non-moral laws on their cherry-picked list, like tithing, meats laws, holy days, and the weekly Sabbath.

Let's ask that tough question. Is the moral law eternal?

What about the law against adultery?
That's a law everyone can agree is a moral law. How could that exist before there was marriage? In the future, no one will marry (MAT. 22: 30). The law about adultery does not exist if marriage does not exist. Just like the Sabbath without days.
The moral law prohibiting adultery is not eternal.

What about the law against murder?
How can the law against murder exist before humans could die, or continue on after all humans are immortal? All humanity will eventually be immortal (I COR. 15: 26). The law about murder does not exist if mortality does not exist.
The moral law prohibiting murder is not eternal.

What about the law against covetousness?
How can the law against covetousness exist after the fullness of the Kingdom has come, and we have fully received the inheritance we are promised in Jesus, and we are fully possessors of all things? How do we covet what is already ours? In the future there will be no such thing as limited resources. Everyone will have more than plenty, and then some. The law about covetousness does not exist if limited resources does not exist.
The moral law prohibiting covetousness is not eternal.

What about the law against idolatry?
How can the law against idolatry exist after everyone lives in the direct presence of the true and living God? Who among us, when we live in the fullness of the Kingdom of God, would ever, ever turn back to worshiping anything less? It's absurd! The law against idolatry does not exist if the worship of other gods/things/etc does not exist.
The moral law prohibiting idolatry is not eternal. This one has the best chance of being eternal, but it seems somewhat childish to me to presume perfected beings will need a law.

"But those acts are still wrong even if they are impossible to commit," someone is no doubt saying right now. That's like saying it's a sin to kill a dinosaur. There are no dinosaurs, but it's still a sin to kill one. Makes sense? No. And here we go, back to myriads of unknown laws governing things that do not and might never exist.

"The law is eternal..." STOP! No, it isn't. Not even the moral laws are eternal.
Turns out eternality is not an attribute of moral law and this claim never mattered in the first place. This entire argument is a pointless exercise in futility, and a distraction.

This is a problem some people solve by leaving it obscure and refusing to deal with it. Somewhat reminds me of the situation in my last post, "Willful Ignorance". It is easier to bury the head or to make sweeping generalities than to investigate it and realize you've invested so much of your time, energy, and money in a mistake.

LACK OF EVIDENCE

Now that I feel we've examined plenty of evidence against the eternality of the law - where is the evidence supporting this claim? Where is the proof it is eternal?

In the "Willful Ignorance" post, I complained about a person who was demanding a proof text so he could avoid studying a topic that threatened his preferred interpretations of scripture. Here today, I am demanding some kind of evidence, but not so I can avoid the evidence, rather because I would like some and cannot find any. Show me a proof text that the law necessarily emanates directly from God. Show me the proof that the law existed eternally in the past, or will exist eternally in the future.

There is none. This is what we call a baseless assertion. Something is just said to be true and that's that.

It only makes sense that the ones making the claim should prove their claim.

THE SOURCE OF THE LAW

If the law is not eternal, and does not proceed from God necessarily as if to say "God, therefore law", then where does the law come from? This is a critical piece of understanding for you. Critical!

>>>>>     It isn't God therefore law, it's Covenant therefore law.     <<<<<

The law is not an attribute of God, as if to say the law exists because of God's nature. Also, the law does not exist as an entity all on its own. People get caught up partly because the body of law was given a name and is called Torah. Torah is not some thing that exists all on its own apart from anything else. God did not come down to Sinai to give Moses two tablets, then went away for a bit, and returned later on with a covenant to keep those laws. No. He came to Sinai and gave the Covenant ...which consists of the laws, and the blessings and the cursings.

If you want more on why the Ten Commandments are the Old Covenant, read our article "If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments".

In Armstrongism, people regularly take a verse out of its context, create a whole new context for it, then hold it up as proof of their point. We call this "proof texting. The law has a context, too. That context is the Old Covenant. The law is not an attribute of God but of the Old Covenant.
It is wrong to extract the law from its proper context then invent a whole new context for it. "Here ya go! I've taken the law out of the Covenant, and now it stands all on its own and it's eternal and it's binding on everyone. Yay!" No. That's not how this works.

The Old Covenant law only exists within the bounds of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is the framework within which the law exists, along with blessings for keeping them and curses for breaking them. The Covenant is what makes it binding. We cannot just extract the law from its context, give it a whole new context (like it stands all on its own), and then proclaim what a wonderful thing we've done. Doing that might it look like we've gained ourselves a Sabbath day, but in reality it butchers the narrative and dissolves the law. It's the doctrinal version of proof texting.

And what does Paul say about the Covenant?

(HEB. 8: 13) In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

And so it is.

So, I say once again, it isn't God therefore law, it's Covenant therefore law.

RIGHTEOUSNESS APART FROM THE LAW

I would leave it at that, but I know there's someone reading this who is still bothered by something. Something is still irritating the back of their mind. You are bothered by the relation between God's morality and our responsibility to behave appropriately, and how that correlates to moral law. So, I want to finish up by fleshing out this moral law thing a little bit more. I think it deserves the attention.

God is a god of goodness. Not all things are goodness. There is good and there is evil. Anyone who is on "team God" agrees to behave in a manner consistent with God's morally good nature. We call this morality.

One side says the moral law must remain because God's nature is moral and the law is the expression of that morality. This is why some people say the law is eternal. They are trying to explain this relationship between God's morally good nature and our obligations to behave in a morally good manner. They believe law, specifically the Old Covenant law, is the only way that morality can be expressed.
The other side (including me) says the Old Covenant law was but now is no longer the expression of that morality, and the Covenant is gone along with all its laws ...yet morality remains.

How? How can you remove the law that says "you shall not murder" and yet murder remains wrong?? How can there be morality but not be a specific moral law??? Does not compute!

Remember in the article "What Use Is The Old Law?" when we saw how sin existed before the law? 

(ROM. 5: 13-14a) For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses...

Sin exists apart from the law. The law did not create or define sin, it only gave a knowledge of sin.

Just like sin, righteousness also exists apart from the law.

(ROM. 3: 21) But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law

The very idea that the moral law is necessary for morality is contradicted here. Furthermore, Paul openly says the law is not where righteousness comes from.

(GAL. 2: 21) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.

Sin doesn't come from the moral law, AND righteousness doesn't come from the moral law? How?? To be as blunt as I can - the law is not the essential component that many people think it is.

God doesn't need law to be good. That's obvious! Goodness is simply one of His attributes. He is goodness. But if God can do it without law, then law is not this essential thing people assume it to be. There is something greater than the moral law, something that does emanate directly from God's nature: love.

(I JON. 4: 8) He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

You must divorce both sin and righteousness from the Old Covenant law. Laws are not the only way to achieve moral goodness. You can tap directly into God's nature.

It's not like the ones who insist on the moral law are completely wrong. The moral law was good. It was a reflection of morality. There are definite similarities between the Old and New Covenants. But the Old Covenant law was only meant to be for a certain people in a certain place for a certain time until a certain goal could be achieved, and that goal was the first coming of Jesus Christ (GAL. 3: 19, 25).

The problem is people put all of their eggs in the basket of law when there is a better basket. The Ten Commandments aren't the only way to define morality. The entire moral law in the Old Covenant isn't the only way to define morality. Can they help? Sure! But they aren't essential. There is another way. The moral laws of the Old Covenant were replaced by something even older, even greater, even more foundational. What came after them is what came before them. The new law is the oldest law. Specifically, the Royal Law of Love.

(ROM. 13: 8) Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.
(ROM. 13: 10) Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
(JAS. 2: 8) If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well
(I JON. 4: 21) And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

We are not called to lists of laws, but to liberty. Even so, morality remains.

(GAL. 5: 13-14) 13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

When Paul says, "the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law" THIS is what he means. He means the law witnessed to love. (MAR. 12: 29-31)

Is "love" as specific as we would like it to be? No. We like instructions, details, particulars. Finding few in the New Testament, we start digging in the Old Covenant, and there we stumble if we aren't careful, not understanding covenants. Please read our article "What Use Is The Old Law?"

So, how then do we know what to do? We grow up and no longer need the school master, that's how. We walk by faith. We follow the Holy Spirit.

(ROM. 7: 6) But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
(GAL. 5: 16) I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

All this talk about getting to the more foundational principle of love means the law is not the eternal, essential component it is claimed to be.

If you really want to burn your biscuits, read our articles on how our righteousness before God does not come from obeying the New Covenant laws, either. Our righteousness comes from our participation in Jesus Christ by faith. It is His righteousness imputed to us that makes us righteous before God. We are considered righteous because He is righteous, and He is in us. Any obedience to the royal law of love is merely a result of our relationship with God, not some cause of it.
I suggest you read Martha's article "Abraham's Faith and Works - or Faith and Parachutes, Part 3". She knocks this idea out of the park.

But that is too much for this already lengthy article. I leave you with what I've already said.

CONCLUSION

"God is eternal, therefore the law is eternal," is illogical and incorrect. God is not the law, and the law is not God. Righteousness does not come from the law.

The laws of the Old Covenant, good as they were, are not mandatory results of God's nature, as if to say "God therefore Old Covenant law". The moral law does not exist as necessary extensions of God's nature. Sin and righteousness exist apart from the law. So, we cannot say that just because God is eternal, or even God's nature is moral eternally, therefore the law is eternal. It does not follow.

The assertion is baseless. No evidence is given for why the law is eternal, it is just an empty claim people make.

I have shown how the law cannot have existed eternally in the past, and cannot exist eternally into the future, therefore the law is not eternal. The premise being false means the conclusion is false.

Every single Old Covenant law, whether ceremonial, national, or moral, was a term of that covenant. When that Old Covenant ended, all of its terms were dissolved. We are now under a New Covenant, with new terms. We are called to liberty, but not to vice.

What, then, defines righteousness if not the moral law? The answer is faith, love, and our relationship with God in-dwelling. God is not law, God is love.

Love finds its expression in good works. We were made for this! But these are results of our relationship with God. They are results of righteousness, not causes of it. All of this is apart from law. 

You probably need an ice pack on your head after this post. I can relate. None of this made sense to me at first, either. It is supremely difficult for a person conditioned to thinking in terms of law to stop that and think in terms of faith. I really do recommend you read Martha's series. It will help.

I leave you with a prayer. I pray that God helps you to understand, after prayerful consideration. God bless you.

[Also see Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, & Part V]

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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The Gospel and The Powers In Heavenly Places

(EPH. 3: 9-11) ... 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord...

Have you ever noticed these verses? I know you've read them and had them read to you, but have you ever stopped to contemplate them? There are some very deep, very strange ideas in there.

What do you see in that verse there? There are (at least) three very important points:
1) Something was hidden from the very beginning.
2) It is now being revealed by the church to the "principalities and powers in the heavenly places".
3) It has to do with what Jesus accomplished.

VERY deep stuff there.

How often have you heard messages about this? God has sent the church to deliver a message about what Jesus has done not necessarily to the world (only) but to some vague spiritual authorities. Not often, I'd wager.

What do you not see there?
The law.

You can imagine these verses to be speaking about a range of things, but among the least likely is the Old Covenant law.

Was the law hidden? No. The law was a lot of things but hidden is not one of them. So the thing hidden was not the law.
Was the law being revealed? No. It was never hidden, so it was not being revealed by the church. One thing Armstrongism has stressed over the years in order to maintain its own sense of election is that the law is only revealed to those who have the Holy Spirit in-dwelling. If the law is being revealed to those outside the church, that claim would have to be false.
Was the law what Jesus accomplished? Jesus did fulfill the law! Of these three points, the law only seems to fit here. That would be fine if this point stood alone, but it does not. Taken all together, the law only fits 1/3 of the equation. So, it is not a good fit after all.
Just look at the target audience - spiritual authorities. Are spirit beings going to be surprised by a weekly Sabbath? "Curses! Foiled again by doing nothing for one in seven days! Why didn't we see this coming? If only there had been like a Decalogue or something." No. The law is not a good fit.

If the law is the least likely, what is the most likely to fit all three?
The Gospel.

CHRISTIANITY 101

I need to briefly remind you of the Gospel.

If you are not from an Armstrongist background, you might be wondering why I am about to explain the Gospel. The answer is because what Mainstream Christianity understands the Gospel to be is not what Armstrongism understands the Gospel to be.

As a rapid summary, Armstrongism believes the Gospel to be about the coming Kingdom of God and how those who follow Herbert Armstrong's message of Old Covenant law-keeping will be promoted to rulers in the Millennial period. They teach the Gospel is not about Jesus Christ or His accomplishments or the salvation by faith. Now, many will say that's a grossly oversimplified summary. Granted. It is. But it is nonetheless accurate, and this post is not about what Armstrongism believes the Gospel to be. I am only mentioning this at all to show the contrast.

If one were to ask us at ABD how we would summarize the Gospel, we would say it is thus:

“Jesus was a literal man as well as literally God. The second person of the godhead became a man, lived to fulfill the law and the prophets, died as a propitiation for our sins, and was resurrected in fulfillment of scripture on the third day. This was planned before the foundation of the world. His death destroyed the Old Covenant and ratified the New Covenant. He now lives in Heaven as the executor of the promises of God towards us, the undeserving beneficiaries. Man was hopelessly condemned to death, and the Gentiles disinherited from any participation with God and given over to the rule of idolatrous gods. Israel was called as a means to bring the Messiah into the world. Jesus the Messiah paid the ransom in full to redeem mankind from death and idolatrous gods, to tear down all that separates Jew from Gentile, fulfill God's justice, to offer God's mercy and grace, and to finish the work of salvation. The Gentiles are at long last again invited to participate with God. By humble faith in Jesus Christ, a Christian receives absolute forgiveness of sin as well as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and with the Holy Spirit comes participation in the body of Christ, and with participation in Christ comes inheritance with Christ in such things as the promise God made to Abraham. The proof of the Spirit's involvement is fruitful Christian growth throughout our lifetime; we will never come near to perfection in this flesh. Therefore, salvation is absolutely guaranteed - for the faithful who remain in faith - by the life, death, and life of Jesus Christ our Savior, and nothing besides. It is by promise, not by law. This is God's good pleasure. Glory to God!”

Do you see how that fits better than law? That Gospel message was hidden but not impossible to find, it was revealed by Jesus, and it is an affront to the powers. And that's what Paul leads with in Ephesians 3.

We have a lot more detail on the Gospel at the very top of our FAQ page.

THE GREAT COMMISSION

I needed to briefly review the Gospel so I could review the Great Commission.

The Great Commission, which most people recognize, is:

(MAT. 28: 18-20) 18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Armstrong taught "observe all things that I have commanded you" is a reference to the Old Covenant law. I disagree. But that's beside the point. I want to focus on something else. Once again, there is something hidden here. It is hidden in plain sight, and it goes hand-in-hand with Ephesians 3.

Note how it starts with a declaration of Jesus' authority. Why? Because, precisely as Paul says in Ephesians 3: 10, one of the purposes of all this is for the church to proclaim a message to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. It is not just God's wisdom, it's not just His accomplishments on the cross, it's not just the gift to mankind, but His intent and His authority to accomplish His intent.

To say this as plainly as I can --
God disinherited the Gentiles after Babylon, giving them over to idolatry and demons. Israel alone was kept by God as His people (DEU. 32: 9). With Jesus, the Gentiles are now reclaimed by God, taking them away from idolatry and demons. That message to be delivered is, to take a phrase from the television show The Apprentice, "You're fired!" The church by its very nature proclaims this message to those powers.

So, when I say the Gospel fits all three, I hope you can now see why I say that.

The commission Jesus gave to the Apostles was to get the ball rolling. The time of the powers is over. Go into the world and win people back to God away from the powers in heavenly places that oppress them. And the Apostles would call disciples to join themselves to the Body of Christ, and they would call others, and so on and so forth until this very day.

When Jesus was here, He took the Apostles to the temple of Pan at Caesarea Phillipi and that is where He purposefully initiated a conversation that led to Peter confessing He is the Son of God, and where He predicted His death and resurrection, and where He told them to follow Him (MAT. 16). This is yet another summary of the points Paul made.
This was all done for an important reason. He stood at a temple of the powers and proclaimed His identity, His authority, and His mission right in front of them. He declared war. The powers were about to be replaced and their people taken from them. And from this point on, His ministry was headed full-steam to the cross.

In the same way, Jews from areas controlled by these powers were preached to by Peter on that first Pentecost. In the same way, Paul was sent to areas controlled by these powers. These were all the same areas mentioned in Genesis 10, which we call "the table of nations."

Do you see how it all fits? All was for a reason. All had a purpose. All the biblical narrative flows. God is working in stages to restore Eden.

NOT THE LAW

The law, which was introduced to guard Israel during that period between Abraham and Jesus, was never intended to reclaim the Gentiles. The Old Covenant and its law specifically excludes the Gentiles. It cannot be the message spoken of here. It was only intended to guard Israel until their destiny could be realized (GAL. 3: 19). The law is not the message to the powers in heavenly places that their reign over the Gentiles has ended. The church being joined to Jesus in faith is.

God called Abraham shortly after the Babylon event. He called a Gentile first to be the father of Israel and later to be the father of all the faithful. Israel, as rebellious as it often was, is owed a debt of gratitude by all Gentiles for the purpose they ultimately fulfilled despite themselves - the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah had come and the usefulness of the Old Covenant was depleted. The New Covenant was instituted. (Read all of Galatians 3.) The breach at Babylon is healed, the Gentiles are no longer disinherited, and God is taking back what is rightfully His.

This was always the plan. It was a hidden plan.

(I COR. 2: 6-8) 6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

The law we knew. It excluded us and killed us. The Gospel, on the other hand, we did not know. It welcomes us and gives us life.

CONCLUSION

Did you know you are to give a message to powers in heavenly places? You do now!

This message is one the powers will not appreciate receiving - Jesus is Lord and He is taking back what is His.

This is a post about the Old Covenant law and the Gospel, and how the message of Christianity is not about Sabbath-days and meats. The Gospel really is about Jesus Christ after all, and our participation with Him in faith.

The base message of Armstrongism is primarily in two parts: the Old Covenant law, and the second coming of Christ. In this view, from the days of the Apostles until the second coming, the church is a tiny and insular group that practically hides form the world. Its main message is to sit around once a week avoiding pork and making sure "Church of God" is somewhere in your group's name. How is this of value given what we read in Ephesians 3?
It isn't. Only the Gospel explains what we read in Ephesians 3.

Once again, we find what Herbert Armstrong taught is off the mark.

Now, don't hate me for this, but I intentionally left this post a little vague. I am not going deep into explaining these things. I am not reviewing the details of how God's intent was hidden in plain sight from Abraham's day. I am not telling you who these powers are. I am not explaining why Jesus had all authority at his resurrection but to this very moment we still we see these powers are active in the world. I am not touching on the second coming and what ultimately is the end of these powers. I do this for a reason. I hope to whet your appetite to explore this line of thinking more deeply on your own.

This is a gigantic topic, dear reader. If you want to explore it you might want to be ready for a wild ride. Take my word for it!

God bless you and keep you.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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