New Moon 1/2/34/120

Dear Friends

We have commenced to deal with the issues of the Koran (Qur’an) and the nature of God in the Bible and the Koran.                                                                                                       

The early Church was Biblical Unitarian and worshipped the One True God and prayed to Him in the name of Jesus Christ (see the paper Teach us to Pray (No. 111)). It believed in the Resurrection of the Dead (see the paper The Resurrection of the Dead (No. 143)). It taught that anyone who said that when they died they went to heaven was not a Christian (see the paper The Original Doctrines of the Christian Faith (No. 088)).

The previous Sabbath we dealt with the doctrine of Radical Unitarianism being introduced to Christianity and to Islam. Originally this heresy that taught that Christ had no pre-existence prior to the womb of Mariam was never taught in Christianity (see the paper The Pre-existence of Jesus Christ (No. 243)).  It did not gain currency until the Radical Unitarianism of the Reformation and most Unitarians of the Reformation were NOT Radical Unitarians. They were Biblical Unitarians that taught that Christ pre-existed as the Angel of Yahovah and they were often wrongly accused of being Arians by their Trinitarian opponents. It is only of recent years that the Radical Unitarians of Universal Unitarianism have gained notoriety and presented this heresy more openly, however, just as incoherently.

It is important that the previous Sabbath Message is read in conjunction with this message and that the prior reading is studied. What is important to understand is that the Churches of God were all Biblical Unitarians until 1940 when Herbert Armstrong introduced Ditheism into the Churches of God (see the paper Ditheism (No. 076B)). Even the SDAs were Biblical Unitarians until 1978 when they formally adopted Trinitarianism in their Q and As. They had been penetrated among their ministry by Trinitarians but had remained largely Biblical Unitarian among the laity. The entire system of the Churches of God for 1912 years was Biblical Unitarians. They were often mislabelled Arians by the Trinitarians when they gained ascendency in 451 from Chalcedon. That was done to misrepresent their doctrines and to mislead Christianity into and keep the Trinitarian system in the heresy and maintain the teachings of the Sun cults. These teachings had commenced from the teachings of Attis and the Sun cults in Rome from 170 CE. These also came from Adonis in the East and Osiris and Isis in Egypt at Alexandria (see the paper Binitarian and Trinitarian Misrepresentation of the Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 0127B)). We should understand that the heresy of the Ditheist and Binitarian systems entered the Churches of God from Churches of God in the USA and the chief of these heretics was Herbert W. Armstrong. The later heresies in the Churches of God (Seventh Day) (COG (SD)) and the Seventh Day Adventists (SDAs) and the Seventh Day Baptists (SDBs) merely followed him or were in tandem with him. Most followed him and much later. The Denver Conference of the COG (SD) did not declare its Binitarianism until 1995 and declared Trinitarianism in 1999. Most of its African churches left it in disgust and joined CCG as did the churches of the SDBs and the SDAs in Africa.  The Sabbatarian Churches were penetrated by the Trinitarians and the Masons in the US and effectively destroyed. The offshoots are still in their grip and most have no idea of the doctrinal problems they have created, or the solution to the problem. They simply don’t know enough and many don’t care. They are so far in the grip of the false and pagan system that they can’t break free of it.

In 451, from Chalcedon, the Trinitarian system was established. By 475 in Syria the Sun cults established the Christmas system as it had done in 192 with Easter under Victor and caused the great schism of the church (see the paper The Quartodeciman Disputes (No. 277)). The Sabbath system was still established outside of the Roman system. By 475 the Roman Empire collapsed and the Sabbatarian churches had become entrenched in the West in the Vallenses and across Europe into the North and in Asia Minor among the Paulicians and in Arabia. By 475 the Sabbatarians of Abyssinia under Bishop Meuses had spread into India and from there into China. The Sabbatarians in Ethiopia and what is now the other nations of the Horn of Africa and into East and Central Africa were the most widespread of the Sabbatarians’ systems and stretched into China. They are only now emerging to take up the position they once held. Their history is dealt with in the works General Distribution of the Sabbath-keeping Churches (No. 122) and the Role of the Fourth Commandment in the historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170). In the sixth century the Sabbatarian Church of God spread from headwaters of the Nile into Arabia and Asia Minor into India and the Middle East. From 610 a Monophysite Christian convert was raised and educated as a priest. He was named Qasim (later Abu or Father Qasim) bin ‘Abdullah, bin ‘Abdul-Muttalib bin Hashim) of the tribal group of Hashim his great grandfather. He was converted to Sabbatarian Christianity (see also the paper Descendants of Abraham Part III: Ishmael (No. 212C)).

The line was of the four great divisions from Abraham to Ishmael, to Kinana to Quraish to Hashim to Qasim. He was made a baptised member of the Sabbatarian Church of God in Arabia and was made one of the twelve of the Muhammad or Body of Christ. He was later erroneously referred to as Muhammad which was never his name but rather a title of the body of the Church of God.

He educated the Arab tribes into the Body of Christ and set up the body of the church under the twelve. He had to fight the Jewish monarchy over the Arab tribes and the pagans who allied with them. He formed the church as the Surrender to God or Al Islam. He was succeeded by four Rightly Guided Caliphs or successors. Then the system was destroyed by so called converts who were in reality Arab pagans who compiled a false system called the Hadith and destroyed the meaning and structure of the writings that were compiled as a record of the Arab church. The murder of Ali was committed to ensure the suppression of the true faith in Arabia.

The story is told outline in the paper Introduction to the Commentary on the Qur’an (Q1).

The Koran enjoined Baptism and the proper keeping of the Laws of God as laid down in the Bible both the Torah and the Gospels and the keeping of the Covenant (see the paper The Koran on the Bible, the Law and the Covenant (No. 083)). The Christ as the Messiah plays the central part of the Koran and is proclaimed as the Messiah and the saviour in the Koran (see the paper Christ in the Koran (No. 163)).

The prophet enjoined Sabbath-keeping on the faith and all Islam is required to keep the Sabbath (see the paper Sabbath in the Qur’an (No. 274)). The prophet also enjoined the keeping of the Temple Calendar and the Day of Atonement. We know for a fact that the prophet and the church fasted according to the New Moon as determined by the Temple Calendar and we know that the Conjunction was kept as the New Moon according to the inscriptions in Mecca made after the establishment of Islam (see the paper Hebrew and Islamic Calendar Reconciled (No. 053)).

The misunderstanding in the Koran regarding the sacrifice of Isaac is also explained in the text Genesis 22, Judaism, Islam, and the sacrifice of Isaac (No. 244). It was Isaac that was mentioned as the intended sacrifice and not Ishmael as taught by the Hadith.

The calendar of the Church of God in Arabia was destroyed by the Hadith and the pagan Arabs after the death of the last Rightly Guided Caliph and the Crescent Moon was not introduced to Islam and its rituals for almost a thousand years after the formation of the faith there.

From this New Moon onwards we will issue a commentary on the Koran or Qur’an and place footnotes with each Surah explaining the ayats or verses and the relevance to the quotations from the Bible. In many cases the verses are direct references to the Bible both OT and NT and in their relevance to the Church in Arabia. Once the Commentary is issued the faith will be shown as it was once delivered to the saints of God. The Imams of the Hadith will be seen to be just as much frauds as the Trinitarian systems they oppose or even more so.

Please pray and support this effort now in the faith and the exposition of the faith once delivered and the restoration of the Sabbatarian system in Africa and Arabia across to Asia and into China.  
 
Wade Cox