Sabbath 6/9/26/120
Dear Friends,
This Sabbath I will continue the discussion regarding the foundation of the faith of the Churches of God on the worship of the One True God through His son, Jesus Christ. I was asked this week by a minister of the Churches of God to explain in a nutshell the distinction between the Radical Unitarian position and the original classical Unitarian theology of the Bible, and the Churches of God from the beginning.
The Bible position is very clear. It is written on the undisputed authority of Christ and the Apostles, and appears in various texts of the NT, that no one has ever seen God. John says it in John 1:18. He explains in that chapter who Christ was and how he came to reveal the Father. He was in the world and the kosmos was made through him, but the world knew him not. This text shows that God used Christ in the creation. In most texts he is the instrument of this age or the aeon, but here the text uses the term kosmos and is the only place where such a concept occurs. He created the principalities and powers, as we see in Corinthians, but he did not create the beings themselves. In other words, the Father generated the spiritual creation and then used the elohim, which is the plurality of the sons of God, to create the physical creation (see the paper How God Became a Family (No. 187)). Christ had pre-existence (see the paper The Pre-Existence of Jesus Christ (No. 243)).
Christ says out of the pen of John that the Father, who sent Christ, Himself bore witness to Christ. “His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen; and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe him whom He has sent” (Jn 5:37 RSV).
The concept is clear, that no one has seen God. Paul reiterates this fact in his letter to Timothy where he says of God that He alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light and no man has ever seen or can see Him (1 Tim. 6:16).
It is this physical aspect of seeing God that is at the heart of the matter. No human can see God and live. It is the power of the glorification of the Spirit in physical terms that makes us unable to see Him. Moreover, Christ carried this concept on with Moses where even the Glory of the Spirit, which the being who gave Moses the Law possessed, was unable to be viewed in its full power. That is why Christ made Moses experience the view in the form of the hinder parts of his being whilst in radiance, and even that exposure was enough to cause his face to glow. John carries the concept of seeing God in one another. In his epistles, John says that NO man has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us (1Jn 4:12). It is through this that we know that we abide in Him and He in us because he has given us of His Own Spirit (1 Jn 4:13).
This very fact is where the Radical Unitarians misapprehend the problem of
the manifestation of God. John says that he who does good is of God and that
he who does evil has not seen God. Thus, it is implied in Radical Unitarian
reasoning that the beings who do good have seen God. The answer is that they
have seen God because they look upon one another in the Holy Spirit and, in
that sense, they have seen God because the Holy Spirit conveys the Glory of
God, which Christ possessed. Christ said he who has seen me has seen the Father.
How so? Because the Holy Spirit was in Christ and, in that way, we have seen
God as John explained.
The Radical Unitarians then take this error to the next stage. They then say
that the God of the Old Testament was the Father, and that the Father was the
God who appeared to the Prophets and Patriarchs. To get around the purely unscriptural
nature of this view, they explain that God has never really manifested Himself
properly to mankind. Thus, He really only appeared in limited form and whispered.
Thus, no one really saw Him or heard His real voice. That is totally contrary
to the witness of the NT texts. It is also totally contrary to the witness of
the OT Scripture itself.
Herbert Armstrong also made a serious error in the development of his Ditheism when he said that the being who was the God of the OT, was Jesus Christ. He taught that the Father was not known in the OT. Now that view is also totally contrary to Scripture. The issue of Father and Son was also known in Scripture as we see from Proverbs 30:4-5: “Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name and what is His son’s name if thou canst tell?” Verse 5 goes on directly to answer the question of the name of God, and that name is Eloah. The text says: “Every word of Eloah is pure. He is a shield to them that put their trust in Him.”
The Scriptures also teach that the God of the OT was the God of Jesus Christ,
and the NT explains that.
Psalm 45:6-7 says that: “Thy throne O God is forever and ever. The sceptre of
thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness:
Therefore God, THY GOD hath anointed thee with the oil of Gladness above thy
fellows.” We know from Hebrews 1:8-9 that this text is speaking of Christ. Thus,
David’s elohim was Christ, who himself had a God who had appointed him and anointed
him as an elohim above his fellows or partners or comrades. How can Christ not
have had pre-existence and been David’s elohim? How can the Father not be known
in the OT when this text is quoted in Hebrews?
We know that it was the subordinate God of Israel who appeared to the Patriarchs and Prophets. It was he who bore the name Yahovah and was appointed by Yahovah of Hosts who was his God. We know beyond doubt that that being spoke for God and was called both Yahovah and elohim, and The Angel of Yahovah. When Israel blessed Joseph through Ephraim and Manasseh he said: “God before Whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long until this day, The Angel Which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth” (Gen. 48:15-16).
This being was the angel who wrestled with the Patriarchs as we see from the texts. In Genesis 32:24-25 we see that Jacob wrestled with an elohim and was blessed, and became Israel because he had prevailed. Hosea 12:4-5 reveals that this elohim was the Angel of Yahovah. The Angel of Yahovah was called elohim and also Yahovah. He was given Israel as his inheritance when God divided the nations according to the number of the sons of God (Deut. 32:8 RSV cf. DSS and LXX).
The Radical Unitarians then try to get around the fact that Christ was the Angel of Yahovah by reference to Hebrews 1:4-6 where the distinction between the son and the angels is made. However, the text says that it is not with angels that God is concerned now but with the sons of Abraham. The angels are listed as ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation (Heb. 1:14). Thus, the phase of the incarnation is misunderstood. The position of Christ prior to the incarnation was lesser than the position afterwards. His entity had by necessity to encompass humanity so that he who sanctifies and they who are sanctified are of one origin (Heb 2:11). By definition, this covers the entire host and redemption is extended to the host in Christ also. The text in Revelation regarding the 24 elders at the Throne of God also demonstrates that fact.
It was not only the Angel of the Lord who bore the name Yahovah but also the other angels that appeared for God, in speaking with mankind, that were termed Yahovah. In the account of the angels with Abraham and Lot and the destruction of Sodom, we see that the three angels were termed Yahovah by Abraham when he spoke with them. One remained and the other two went on and were themselves referred to as Yahovah and, when they left Sodom, fire came down from Yahovah in heaven. Thus, there were four beings that were at the same time called Yahovah and one of those beings was God in Heaven. Thus also, the sacred names usage of Yahweh is also incorrect. These aspects have been examined in the paper The Angel of YHVH (No. 24).
Yahovah himself said when he spoke to Zechariah and revealed his intention of saving Jerusalem in the last days that he was sent by Yahovah of Hosts. He said: “Ho Ho, come forth and flee from the lands of the north, saith the Lord: for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the Lord. Deliver thyself O Zion, that dwellest with the daughters of Babylon. For thus saith the Lord of Hosts; after the glory hath He sent me unto the nations, which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye. For I will shake Mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me” (Zech. 2:6-9). So Yahovah has a Yahovah himself, who is Yahovah of Hosts. Thus, Yahovah is a delegated title. We know its form also from the ancient manuscripts (see the paper The Sign of Jonah and the History of the Reconstruction of the Temple (No. 13)).
It is thus absurd to suggest that the God who appeared to Israel in the OT, was the Father. However, it is equally absurd to suggest that the Father was unknown in the OT.
It is also contrary to known history and the Bible text to suggest that Christ was not understood as the Angel of Yahovah of the OT. Justin Martyr says this himself in his apology to the Roman Emperor (1Apol. Ch 70) (see the original views in the papers Original Doctrines of the Christian Faith (No. 88) and Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127)).
We have seen that Christ is identified as the spiritual force that was with
Israel in the wilderness in the Exodus. Israel was baptised into Moses in the
sea, and they all ate of the same spiritual meat, and they drank from the same
spiritual rock, and that rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4).
The Radical Unitarians have always had trouble explaining these texts and, in fact, their explanations are puerile, resting on distortions of language and philosophy and the ignorance of their adherents. The Socinians were actually a bit further advanced in their explanations of the Greek texts as we know from the discussion. We also know that the Unitarian arguments always centred on the distinctions of the names of God. And even in the NT the fact that the definite article is never used, regarding Christ in the Greek, is attacked by the Trinitarians of the Roman Catholic persuasion e.g. in the fn to 1 John 5:20 in the Heydock commentary to the Catholic Bible. In that they try to assert that the definite article and the term for God refers to Christ, which it does not.
The text in Philippians also shows that though Christ was in the form (morphe) of God, he did not see equality with God as being something to be grasped after, but made himself of no account and took the form of a man and humbled himself being obedient unto death, even death on the stake (Phil. 2:5-8). How can something that does not exist other than as a notional idea in the Mind of God, as the Radical Unitarians assert seek to grasp equality with God or make himself of no account and humble himself taking the form of a man? The assertion makes nonsense of the use of language.
Radical Unitarianism was never even advanced seriously in Islam until the Hadithic commentaries got into full swing. It is really another disguised attempt at attacking the doctrine that Christ gave the Law to Moses, and hence the Laws of God stand immutable. It is really Trinitarianism in another form. The Trinitarians seek to claim that Christ was just another manifestation of the Being that was God in the forms Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now, we have seen that this is really the doctrine of the worship of the gods Attis, Adonis and Osiris among the Mysteries, and is another aspect of the cult of Jupiter Enyalius, the Triune God, which was the original religion at Babylon as Josephus tells us. James Frazer has examined much of the aspects of the gods Attis, Adonis, and Osiris in his Golden Bough Part IV, Vols. I and II. The view came into play in the Reformation and an antinomian attack on the Laws of God as advanced by the Church. That is why the same Radical Unitarians today attack the Laws of God as being done away, but still masquerade among us allegedly keeping the Sabbath and Feasts, not because they have to, but because they allegedly “want to keep them.” They are simply antinomians trying to undermine the faith as they have done since the sixteenth century. The views are used by the Trinitarians because they actually match the doctrines, in that both make Christ an aspect of the one God in a dual form, either as a Trinity or as the modal structure of the Binitarianism of Attis, who was both Father and Son as aspects of the same God. The aspect of Son was the one who assumed human form. This is the true doctrine of Antichrist, as we know from the historians as the Bible text was corrupted so that the divinity of Christ could be separated from his humanity. The aspect is covered in the Statement of Beliefs of the Christian Faith (A1).
It is quite incorrect to assert that the being who spoke to the prophets in the OT was the Father, and it is equally absurd to suggest that the OT did not know the Father and the Son. The text in Ezra from Ezra 4:24 to 7:26 shows that the God of the OT was Eloah, which is the singular form and refers only to the Father. It shows that the Law proceeds from the Father and that the Temple at Jerusalem was where the Father placed His name and issued His laws. The priests serve Him and worship Him and the Temple is His. The text of the Companion Bible shows the words for God at a glance, and the word is rendered in the print in old English through the text there.
We have always had the same doctrines on the nature of God until the late twentieth century, and in that time we collapsed through infiltration and the greed and ignorance of a conditioned ministry. This did not just happen in one church, it happened in many.
The Church of God needs to repent and turn to the One True God and relearn
its doctrines so that we are all able to give an account of the hope and faith
that lies within us all.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
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