Chapter Five – More Gospel Errors

You may have supposed that adding Jesus’ person is the only error today pertaining to the gospel. This is far from true. Chapter Five contains three more big ones.

Another Confusing Error

The first statement begins with a paragraph used in the previous chapter. It is repeated to give the setting of a larger statement that best introduces another “gospel” error—one that always must eventually accompany the mistake of placing Jesus into the gospel. (All bolding is mine):

“In other words, not one of them knows what spiritual salvation really is, what the KINGDOM OF GOD (Christ’s whole Gospel) really is, WHY God put humanity here on earth: WHAT is our real ultimate human POTENTIAL, or HOW we shall reach it. They know not God’s PURPOSE, nor His MASTER PLAN for working it out. They do not know why we are here, where we are going, or THE WAY. Those are the BIG, MAIN branches of the tree of knowledge. They are the MISSING DIMENSION in knowledge.”

“Of course I always did, from the very beginning of this WORK OF GOD, proclaim the good news of the COMING KINGDOM OF GOD.

“The original apostles proclaimed the KINGDOM OF GOD, but they also put very special emphasis on something that specially applied only to their time, right then. They were personal EYE WITNESSES to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In THEIR day, the chief opposition and persecution came from those Jewish leaders who rejected Christ as the promised Messiah. [Author’s note: In other words, if the apostles did not first establish that Christ was the Messiah, no one would even consider the message that He brought. The Bible—God’s RECORDED WORD—now witnesses what the apostles had to personally report. Mr. Armstrong will momentarily make this point, with the last paragraph of this quote adding more.]

“DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND. The Jews as a whole did not reject Christ. Indeed, virtually all His followers—the 120 that were WITH HIM and the apostles (Acts 1:15) from which the church started—all were Jews (or proselytes). The church BEGAN as almost 100% JEWISH. The Apostle Paul always went first to the Jews, and most of his churches started out as Jewish. The persecution was not so much from the rank and file of Jewish people, as from their Jewish RULERS, who held political jobs under the Roman government—the Pharisees—and also the scribes and Sadducees.

“Nevertheless, the EARLIEST opposition and persecution the apostles faced at the BEGINNING of the church was from these officials who REJECTED Christ as the promised Messiah. The apostles were EYE WITNESSES to His life, death and RESURRECTION. They spent 40 days with Him AFTER His resurrection.” [Author’s note: Remember this paragraph.]

Co-Worker Letter, November 19, 1976

“Originally there were 12 apostles. The principal work of the 12 apostles, if you will read carefully in the book of Acts and if you will analyze their sermons, included not only the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, but they put emphasis on the big question at that time in Judea—Jesus’ messiahship.

“The Jews had been influenced by the Pharisees and Sadducees to not believe in the existence of Jesus as the Messiah. Now the Pharisees knew, as Nicodemus said in the third chapter of John, that Jesus was the Messiah. But they feared Him because they had government positions over their own people.”
“Now the common run of the people were not told that Jesus was the Messiah. And the 12 apostles—God needed 12 because they were eyewitnesses of the resurrection—put main emphasis during the first years of their ministry on the fact that they were eyewitnesses of the resurrection, proving that Jesus was the Messiah.”

“So, though the Church is a spiritual organism, it is organized not on a carnal human pattern, but on God’s spiritual pattern. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the message that Christ proclaimed. That message was the Good News or the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. That is the message He preached, the restoration of the Government of God by the coming Kingdom of God.

“The apostolic Church from A.D. 31 proclaimed it. They proclaimed that message but with special emphasis, as I said, on the resurrection of Jesus Christ of which they were eye-witnesses. It required 12, as in a 12-man jury, to make it absolutely certain and to convince the people in Judea.” [Author’s note: Also remember this most important paragraph.]

WWN, Congress Of Leading Ministers, March 6, 1981

A Stark Contrast!

This is all very clear. Now notice how LCG has perverted all that Mr. Armstrong explained by inserting the idea of witnessing Jesus today as part of the gospel. This is made more incredible by the fact that Roderick Meredith constantly describes how he knew Mr. Armstrong better than everyone else, bragging time and again of having “spent thousands of hours with him.” Of course, this is gross exaggeration, and Mr. Armstrong deliberately avoided this man almost entirely for the last 14 years of his life. But as you read, ask—what was this man hearing from Mr. Armstrong? Here is what this “presiding evangelist” wrote:

“After His resurrection, Jesus added a further dimension to the gospel message. He told the disciples that they were to be witnesses to the world that His suffering, death and resurrection were necessary for the forgiveness of sin (Luke 24:44-49). Yet even after His resurrection, Jesus continued to focus on the Kingdom of God, as did His disciples (Acts 1:3, 6). The apostolic Church understood and taught both about the coming Kingdom of God and the things concerning Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12; 28:23, 31). Sadly, the ‘mainstream Christian’ world has lost sight of the gospel of the kingdom, and has mistakenly focused only on the life and person of Jesus Christ. Many churches have missed half of the gospel message because they have followed misguided leaders who have lost the proper focus.”

Living Church News, Nov.-Dec. 2006
Does this unscriptural, half-and-half, witnessing-Jesus “gospel” sound remotely like what Mr. Armstrong taught? In fact, with the last sentence above in mind, it reduces MR. ARMSTRONG to a “misguided leader” who “lost the proper focus.” The first sentence—the premise—is utterly false. Without it, the rest of the paragraph would be true—until the last sentence. This conclusion—written with the typical cunning wording we saw so often with the apostates—is also completely false. In other words, written to appear to disagree with, and distance itself from, the Protestants, it in fact endorses them. Reread it until this is clear—and see the dangerous mixture of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” at work.

Rejecting and Retaining the Wrong Things!

Mr. Armstrong’s statements explaining the 12 apostles’ role as eye-witnesses introduces a curious confusion that grips almost the entire world of Christendom—and this now includes thousands following leaders like Roderick Meredith. It has to do with the definition of apostles and their early additional responsibility to personally witness events surrounding Christ’s last days.

Let’s understand. Virtually no theologians or ministers of the world’s churches will accept that there could be apostles after the first century. This is because they define this office solely as men who were personal eyewitnesses of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Ironically, on the other hand, they do believe there remains a responsibility beyond the apostolic age to “witness for” or to “profess” Jesus Christ, or more accurately as this is done today, to witness or profess the name of Jesus Christ everywhere. Obviously, even such misguided religionists recognize that no one can now speak as a direct eyewitness to what only the apostles saw. But they read instruction that should be seen as solely given to the original apostles, such as Acts 1:8-9, 22, 2:32, 4:33 and others, and use it as authority for their own re-invented “witnessing Jesus Christ” agenda.

So, they have it backwards on both counts. The world’s churches threw out what they should have kept—and kept, but with a twist, what they should have left behind for application 19 centuries ago!

Let’s make this more plain: There can still be apostles after the first century (God’s people certainly recognized Mr. Armstrong was one), because the office of “one sent” involves infinitely more than being an eyewitness to events immediately surrounding Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. However, while there is no further needto establish Christ’s Messiahship through eyewitness accounts (the Bible now does this), there has never been either any instruction or a command to profess—or witness—Jesus Christ! After all, what would be the point, since people must be called to Christ by the Father (John 6:44, 65). The practice of modern witnessing became anecessary invention that was the automatic next step for those who placed Jesus’ role into the gospel. If Jesuswere the gospel, they had to “preach” their “gospel”—i.e. “witness” Him. (Instead, Christians are to confessChrist, but only when put to the test— I Pet. 3:15; >Matt. 10:32-33; Phil. 2:11; Rom. 10:9-10.)

Can you see this? Do you see how Satan’s spirit is leading LCG, and others, straight toward the thinking of hisministers and his churches? Can you see why—how—and in what way—these Laodicean organizations are falling further into error?

The Protestants in Their Own Words

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