Post by pitbull on Nov 6, 2008 5:26:34 GMT -5
DAILY WISDOM
“For the commandment [is] a lamp; and the law [is] light; and reproofs of instruction [are] the way of life:” [Proverbs 6:23]
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
FAITH AND WORKS
James 2:14-26
Salvation is by faith and not by works, but a truly saved person produces works. (Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 3:5,8)
The key is found in Galatians 5:1-6, faith has to be energized by love.
Faith is the flashlight, love is the batteries, and the light is our works. (Matthew 5:16; 1 Corinthians 13:13)
RELIGIOUS AWARENESS
ARMSTRONGISM
This group founded by Herbert W. Armstrong has been made famous by his magazine, The Plain Truth, and radio broadcast, "The World Tomorrow." Its full name is the Worldwide Church of God, which has its headquarters at Ambassador College in Pasadena. Armstrongism is a blend of prophetic interpretation that applies a version of the teaching of British Israelitism to the American situation and a variety of other doctrines culled from Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Many of the members of the Worldwide Church of God regard the writings of Herbert W. Armstrong as being equal to the Bible. Armstrongism was split over internal disputes between Herbert W. Armstrong and his son Garner Ted. These involve accusations of widespread immorality and corruption. It suffered more splits when the Worldwide Church of God decided in the early 1990’s to renounce many of its teachings and change its view on many of the following positions:
1. ADVENTISM
Adventism is most commonly used, however, to denote the movement which sprang up in the 1830s from the teachings of William Miller, a Baptist minister in New York. Miller confidently prophesied the imminent return of Christ and set 1843-44 as the time for the event. The Millerite movement spread rapidly among the churches of the Northeast. When the expected return did not occur as Miller originally had predicted, a reinterpretation of the Scripture set Oct. 22, 1844, as the correct date. The faithful met in their local gathering places on the appointed day worshipping and waiting. The "Great Disappointment" which followed the failure of the prophecy led many Millerites to forsake the movement and slip back into the churches from which they had never formally dissociated themselves. Miller himself acknowledged his error and dissociated himself from the movement and all further attempts to redeem it.
A series of new signs, visions, and prophecies, however, fed the lagging spirits of those who refused to give up their adventist hopes. As early as the day following the Great Disappointment, Hiram Edson, an adventist leader, had a vision which confirmed the prophetic significance of the Oct. 22, 1844, date, but indicated that it marked a heavenly rather than an earthly event. On that day Christ had moved into the holy of holies of the heavenly sanctuary to begin a new phase of his ministry of redemption. That ministry was ultimately defined in the adventist doctrine of investigative judgment; Christ entered the sanctuary to review the deeds of professing Christians to determine whose names should be included in the Book of Life. Other revelations subsequent to the Great Disappointment came to Ellen G. Harmon, a young disciple of Miller in Portland, Maine. She was quickly accepted as a prophetess and her teachings were accepted as authoritative. The revived movement also adopted sabbatarianism and the belief that the acceptance of the seventh-day sabbath was the mark of the true church. Seventh-day observance and Christ's ministry of investigative judgment, confirmed by the prophetic revelation of Mrs. Ellen (Harmon) White, completed the foundations of contemporary adventism. Most adventist groups also adhere to belief in soul sleep and annihilation of the wicked. Their strong emphasis on Old Testament teaching also led to a strong traditional concern for diet and health.
2. ANNIHILATIONISM
The word is from the Latin nihil, "nothing," and expresses the position of those who hold that some, if not all, human souls will cease to exist after death. This point of view may take three main forms:
1. That all human beings inevitably cease to exist altogether at death (materialist)
2. That, while human beings are naturally mortal, God imparts to the redeemed the gift of immorality and allows the rest of humanity to sink into nothingness (conditional immortality)
3. That man, being created immortal, fulfills his destiny in salvation, while the reprobates fall into nonexistence either through a direct act of God or through the corrosive effect of evil (annihilationism proper).
The distinction between conditionalism and annihilationism, as indicated above, is frequently not observed, and these two terms are commonly used as practical synonyms. A fourth form of advocacy of the ultimate extinction of evil is the view that God will finally redeem all rational beings (universalism). Over against all the above positions, historic orthodoxy has always maintained both that human souls will eternally endure and that their destiny is irrevocably sealed at death.
The question whether or not man is naturally immortal pertains to the subject of immortality. God alone, it is urged, has immortality (1 Timothy 6:16; 1:17). This argument, if it proves anything, proves too much. In fact, God who alone has immortality in himself may and does communicate it to some of his creatures.
Immortality, it is urged, is represented as a special gift connected with redemption in Jesus Christ (Rom. 2:7; 1 Corinthians 15:53-54; II Timothy 1:10). The same may be said of life, or eternal life (John 10:28; Rom. 6:22-23; Gal. 6:8; etc.). It is freely granted that in all such passages life and immortality are represented as the privileged possession of the redeemed, but it is claimed that in these connections these terms do not represent merely continued existence, but rather connote existence in joyful fulfillment of man's high destiny in true fellowship with God (John 17:3).
Cessation of existence, it is urged, is implied in various scriptural terms applied to the destiny of the wicked, such as death (Rom. 6:23; James 5:20; Revelation 20:14; etc.), destruction (Matt. 7:13; 10:28; 1 Thess. 1:9, etc.), perishing (John 3:16, etc.). But these expressions do not so much imply annihilation as complete deprivation of some element essential to normal existence. Physical death does not mean that body or soul vanishes, but rather that an abnormal separation takes place which severs their natural relationship until God's appointed time. Spiritual death, or the "second death" (Revelation 20:14; 21:8), does not mean that the soul or personality lapses into nonbeing, but rather that it is ultimately and finally deprived of that presence of God and fellowship with him which is the chief end of man and the essential condition of worthwhile existence. To be bereft of it is to perish, to be reduced to utter insignificance, to sink into abysmal futility. An automobile is said to be wrecked, ruined, destroyed, not only when its constituent parts have been melted or scattered away, but also when they have been so damaged and distorted that the car has become completely unserviceable.
It is inconsistent with God's love, it is urged, to allow any of his creatures to endure forever in torment. Furthermore, the continuance of evil would spell some area of permanent defeat for the divine sovereignty, a dark corner marring perpetually the glory of his universe.
These considerations are not without weight, and a complete answer may not be possible in the present state of our knowledge. They are not adjudged by traditional orthodoxy as sufficient to overthrow the substantial weight of scriptural evidence to the effect that the wicked will be consigned to endless conscious sorrow. This is apparent from the expressions:
1. "fire unquenchable" (Isa. 66:24; Matt. 3:12; Luke 3:17)
2. "that never shall be quenched" (Mark 9:43, 45)
3. the worm that "dieth not" (Isa. 66:24; Mark 9:44, 46, 48)
4. "the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36)
5. As well as from the use of "everlasting" or "forever," applying to chains, contempt, destruction, fire or burning, punishment, torment (Isa. 33:14; Jer. 17:4; Dan. 12:2; Matt. 18:8; 25:41, 46; II Thess. 1:9; Jude 6-7; Revelation 14:11; 19:3; 20:10).
It is worthy of note that, in the biblical record, those who spoke most about future punishment in its irrevocable finality are Jesus and the apostle John, the very ones who also represented most glowingly the supreme glory of God's love and the unshakable certainty of His ultimate triumph.
3. SABBATARIANISM
The view that insists that one day of each week be reserved for religious observance as prescribed by the Old Testament sabbath law. Strict or literal sabbatarianism contends that God's directive concerning the Old Testament sabbath law is natural, universal, and moral; consequently the sabbath requires mankind to abstain from all labor except those tasks necessary for the welfare of society. In this view the seventh day, the literal sabbath, is the only day on which the requirements of this law can be met. Historically, we see a trend toward sabbatarianism in the Eastern Church during the fourth century and the Irish church of the sixth century when, interestingly, a dual recognition of both sabbath and Sunday was stressed. It was not until the Reformation, however, that we meet the quintessence of sabbatarianism. Luther opposed the doctrine, pointing out (in his "Letter against the Sabbatarians") the legalistic pitfalls inherent in the view. Calvin agreed in principle with Luther's stance.
The Transylvania unitarians adopted strict sabbath observance during the seventeenth century, later moving to a total acceptance of Judaism. The Seventh-day Baptists originated in 1631, bringing sabbatarianism to England and later to Rhode Island and New York. The most notable proponent of strict sabbatarianism at the present time is the Seventh-day Adventist Church; several smaller adventist groups hold the same or similar views. Adventists believe they have been raised for the express purpose of proclaiming that God requires all men to observe the sabbath. Their arguments for the universally binding character of the sabbath law are these: it (1) is part of the moral law, (2) was given at the creation, and (3) was not abrogated in the NT. Some adventists see in Sunday observance a fulfillment of the prophecy (Revelation 14:9ff.) which states that deluded mankind will be forced to accept the mark of the beast (Sunday observance) in order to survive during the days prior to Christ's second advent.
The main flaw in this argument is not recognizing that the Old Testament regulations governing Sabbath observances are ceremonial, not moral, aspects of the law. As such, they are no longer in force, but have passed away along with the sacrificial system, the Levitical priesthood, and all other aspects of Moses' law that prefigured Christ. Here are the reasons most Christians are not sabbatarians:
1. In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul explicitly refers to the Sabbath as a shadow of Christ, which is no longer binding since the substance (Christ), has come. It is quite clear in those verses that the weekly Sabbath is in view. The phrase "a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day" refers to the annual, monthly, and weekly holy days of the Jewish calendar (cf. 1 Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 2:4; 31:3; Ezekiel 45:17; Hosea 2:11). If Paul were referring to special ceremonial dates of rest in that passage, why would he have used the word "Sabbath?” He had already mentioned the ceremonial dates when he spoke of festivals and new moons.
2. The Sabbath was the sign to Israel of the Mosaic Covenant (Exodus 31:16-17; Ezekiel 20:12; Nehemiah 9:14). Since we are now under the New Covenant (Hebrews 8), we are no longer required to observe the sign of the Mosaic Covenant.
3. The New Testament never commands Christians to observe the Sabbath.
4. In our only glimpse of an early church worship service in the New Testament, the church met on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7).
5. Nowhere in the Old Testament are the Gentile nations commanded to observe the Sabbath or condemned for failing to do so. That is certainly strange if Sabbath observances were meant to be an eternal moral principle.
6. There is no evidence in the Bible of anyone keeping the Sabbath before the time of Moses. There are not any commands in the Bible to keep the Sabbath before the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai.
7. When the Apostles met at the Jerusalem council (Acts 15), they did not impose Sabbath keeping on the Gentile believers.
8. The apostle Paul warned the Gentiles about many different sins in his epistles, but breaking the Sabbath was never one of them.
9. In Galatians 4:10-11, Paul rebukes the Galatians for thinking God expected them to observe special days (including the Sabbath).
10. In Romans 14:5, Paul forbids those who observe the Sabbath (these were no doubt Jewish believers) to condemn those who do not (Gentile believers).
11. The early church fathers, from Ignatius to Augustine, taught that the Old Testament Sabbath had been abolished and that the first day of the week (Sunday) was the day when Christians should meet for worship. This is contrary to the claim of many seventh-day sabbatarians who claim that Sunday worship was not instituted until the fourth century.
12. Sunday has not replaced Saturday as the Sabbath. Rather the Lord's Day is a time when believers gather to commemorate His resurrection, which occurred on the first day of the week. Every day to the believer is one of Sabbath rest, since we have ceased from our spiritual labor and are resting in the salvation of the Lord (Hebrews 4:9-11).
So while Christians still follow the pattern of designating one day of the week a day for the Lord's people to gather in worship, we do not refer to this as "the Sabbath." We shall correctly refer to Sunday as “The Lord’s Day”.
4. SOUL SLEEP
Psychopannychy, the doctrine that the soul sleeps between death and resurrection. It has been held sporadically in the church. It is not a heresy in the narrower sense, due to the paucity of Scripture teaching on the intermediate state, but it may be called a doctrinal aberration. Some Anabaptists endorsed it. In the Forty-two Articles of Edward VI, which preceded the Thirty-nine Articles, the following statement, as the Fortieth Article, was included: "They which say that the souls of those who depart hence do sleep being without all sense, feeling or perceiving till the Day of Judgment, do utterly dissent from the right belief disclosed to us in Holy Scripture."
The case for soul sleep rests principally on these considerations: (1) Human existence demands the unity of soul and body. If the body ceases to function, so must the soul. (2) The use of the term "sleep" in Scripture for death is alleged to point to the cessation of consciousness. (3) A state of consciousness between death and resurrection, characterized by bliss or woe, unwarrantably anticipates the judgment of the last day, when the basis for these experiences provided.
There are several reasons that this view is not generally accepted as Biblical:
1. On the contrary view, while the normal state of man is admittedly a union of soul and body, the possibility of disembodied conscious existence is firmly held, both on the analogy of God's existence as pure spirit (man being made in his image) and on the basis of such passages as Heb. 12:23 and Revelation 6:9-11.
2. As to the word "sleep," it is intended to apply to the body, even though the individual as such may be said to sleep in death. This is clear from Matt. 27:52; John 11:11; Acts 13:36, etc.
3. On the third point, it may be replied that the exclusion of the possibility of bliss or woe from the intermediate state, on the ground that the divine judgment which justifies such reactions will not yet have been pronounced, would logically rule out the joyful assurance of salvation in this life as well as the foreboding of judgment to come. But see John 5:24; Phil. 1:28.
4. Continuing consciousness after death seems to be a necessary (rather than an accidental) element in Jesus' account of the rich man and Lazarus, and also in our Lord's promise to the dying thief.
5. The clearest and strongest passages, however, are in Paul's writings (Phil. 1:23; II Corinthians 5:8).
6. If it be contended in the case of the former passage that the sleep of the soul so effectually erases the interval between death and resurrection that the prospect of being with Christ, even though actually long delayed, could produce joyful anticipation, in any event the same thing can hardly be said for the second passage, where not only the resurrection body but the intermediate state is directly contemplated, being a less desirable alternative than the change to the resurrection body without death (vs. 4).
5. BRITISH ISRAELITISM
The ideas of this group can be traced back to John Sadler's book, The Rights of the Kingdom (1649), but its modern form originated with John Wilson's Our Israelitish Origin (1814). The first society to propagate British Israelite views was the Anglo-Saxon Association founded in England in 1879. Today British Israelitism is in decline and only a few scattered groups remain; however, their influence in a somewhat distorted form is to be found in publications like Herbert W. Armstrong's The Plain Truth.
There is no authorized version of British Israelitism, but the following outline summarizes their main views. In the Bible, God promised Abraham that as long as the sun and moon and stars endure Israel would survive as a nation. From promises found in the Old Testament it is clear that Israel must exist somewhere today and must have had a continuous existence as a national entity right back to the time of Abraham. This required continuity means that the state of Israel, which came into existence in 1948, cannot be the nation of Israel. The present state of Israel is Jewish and therefore must not be confused with the historic nation of Israel. Marshaling a variety of arguments from the Bible and history, British Israelitism argues that the Anglo-Saxon people are the true Israel.
British Israelites claim that after the destruction of David's kingdom, Zedekiah's daughters (Jer. 41:10) escaped death in Egypt (Jer. 44:12-14) and took refuge (Isa. 37:31-32) in one of the "isles of the sea" (Jer. 31:10) to which they sailed in a ship with Jeremiah. These "isles" were Ireland, from where their descendants reached England and became the royal house. Thus the British royal family is directly linked to the house of David. The common people, however, reached England after wandering through the continent of Europe, where they were "sifted through many nations" (Amos 9:9). In the course of this sifting some true Israelites remained in western Europe, enabling British Israelitism to claim members in Germany, the Netherlands, and other parts of the Anglo-Saxon world.
With the Israelite origins of the British people established, Old Testament prophecies are applied to the history of the British Empire. America is included in the scheme by the application of Gen. 49:22, which is said to predict the emigration of the Pilgrim fathers, who left their relatives behind to establish a new nation. In addition to taking a highly literalist view of the Bible, British Israelites that the Great Pyramid of Egypt enshrines these truths in its measurements, which are sacred.
British Israelitism is not a sect or a cult but rather a fellowship that is to be found in many churches. At its height, around 1900, it claimed over two million members. Today its membership consists of several thousand rather elderly people. A careful examination of the texts used by British Israelites to support their arguments shows that they flout the rules of biblical exegesis. Even if their arguments were true, Paul's comment in Col. 3:11 would indicate that they are unimportant. British Israelitism fails to recognize that the promises of God in the Old Testament were sometimes conditional (Deut. 28:58-68; I Sam. 2:30), while in other places prophetic language has a symbolic or poetic quality. The historical arguments of British Israelites are equally tenuous and no reputable historian supports them. Although the Bible does not explicitly state the fact, it is clear that the so-called lost tribes of Israel were largely absorbed into the tribe of Judah.