A coherent defense of the
practices of Commandment-keeping, sectarian
Christians can be developed by bringing together
various theological assumptions that many of the
currently scattered groups share. These
fellowships base their beliefs and practices on
scripture. A typical service often involves a
sermon quoting extensively from the Bible. The
expectation of the speaker is that the listeners
have Bibles with them and are looking up each
reference for themselves. It is essential to
refer to a few biblical passages as part of a
discussion of the theological propositions
discussed in this chapter. Commandment Keepers
expect a religious discussion to be based upon
exposition of scriptures. When scriptures are
quoted in this chapter, it is not with the
intent to claim that they must be understood in
a particular way. The citations will serve to
illustrate why Commandment Keepers believe that
their beliefs and practices are scripturally
derived.
An important starting
point for a Commandment Keeper is that nearly
all human beings will ultimately be given
eternal bliss, salvation, if you please. In
expounding upon prophecies relating to a coming
millennium of divine rule, Don Henson, a United
Church of God pastor, writes:
God is "not willing that
any should perish but that all should come
to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). These
prophecies reveal that God will make His
gift of salvation available to all who have
lived (Henson 1999, 7).
There are, in the theological
scenario of the Commandment Keepers, three
categories of people. Some people will be alive
when Christ returns and will survive into the
millennium. It is presumed that most of them
will eventually accept the religion of Jesus
Christ:
This is the time God has
set to really start to save the people.
Blindness will be removed; the people will
see God's mercy and love clearly. All who
are blinded today, but who live into that
period, will have their first opportunity
for salvation. Christ will come with "ten
thousands" of His saints to execute
judgement and convince all that are ungodly
of their ungodly deeds (Jude 14, 15). The
devil will be chained so he cannot deceive
people (Revelation 20:1-3). The saints will
be ruling the nations here on earth (Dan.
7:27; Luke 19:17; Rev. 2:26, 27; 5:10)
(Worldwide Church of God 1972, 3).
Those who have already died
are at present unconscious. The Commandment
Keepers are generally hostile to the doctrine of
an immortal soul that continues to live in
heaven, hell, or purgatory:
We believe that humanity
was created in the image of God with the
potential to become children of God,
partakers of the divine nature. God formed
humanity of flesh, which is material
substance. Human beings live by the breath
of life, are mortal, subject to corruption
and decay, without eternal life, except as
the gift of God under God's terms and
conditions as expressed in the Bible (United
Church of God 1998, 9)
Their generally accepted
teaching is that after the millennium, nearly
everyone who lived and died will be resurrected
to physical life on a renewed physical earth to
then have an opportunity to live in full harmony
with God's laws. It is presumed that most of
them will commit themselves to the religion of
Jesus Christ:
This scene in Revelation
20 pictures the climax of God's plan'the
great white throne [of] judgment, when the
vast number of unsaved people will be
resurrected and be given their first chance
for salvation-all those millions and
millions who have lived and died since the
time of Adam up through our age, and have
not known the true way to eternal life.
(Worldwide Church of God 1972, 4)
Incorrigibly wicked people
will die and no larger exist. Eternal death is
their eternal punishment, not eternal life
enduring some sort of pain:
The first place we find
nephesh referring to mankind is in the
second chapter of Genesis: "And the Lord God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis
2:7).
The word translated
"soul" in this verse is again the Hebrew
word nephesh. Other translations of the
Bible state that man became a living "being"
or "person." This verse does not say that
Adam had an immortal soul; rather it says
that God breathed into Adam the "breath of
life," and Adam became a living soul. At the
end of his days, when the breath of life
left Adam, he died and returned to dust. In
death his life and consciousness
simultaneously ceased.
The soul (nephesh) is
not immortal, because it dies. This is clear
in the Bible. For example, the prophet
Ezekiel quoted God: "Behold, all souls are
Mine; the soul of the father as well as the
soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins
shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4, see also verse
20). (D'Alessandro, et al. 1997, 10- 12).
The generally accepted
doctrine of Commandment Keepers concerning the
ultimate destiny of the wicked is termed by some
theologians, "annihilationism." A major American
news magazine recently reported that this view
is growing in popularity among conservative
Protestant theologians (Sheler 2000, 50).
According to the
dominant theology in the Commandment-keeping
community, God has chosen a relatively small
number in human history to be a part of the
Church of God:
Nowhere is there any
prophecy that the one true Church should
become great and powerful, exerting
influence in this world. Rather, Jesus
called it the "Little Flock," persecuted,
scattered by the world'separate from the
world! (Hoeh 1978, 3)
When Christ returns the
faithful members of God's Church throughout
history will be resurrected to life as spirit
beings. Those still alive will be transformed
from being physical to being spirit:
When Jesus Christ returns
to earth in full supreme power and glory of
the Creator God, he is coming, this time, to
save the world, spiritually. (Armstrong
1985, 344)
The resurrected saints will
assist Jesus Christ in ruling the physical world
for the thousand-year period and the additional
periods of judgment previously described.
According to this
teaching, when the plan is completed, all people
who have accepted God's rule will be
spirit-beings, living forever as God's daughters
or sons. Human beings were created to become
eternal members of a divine family. Life in the
physical realm is believed to be a prelude to
life in the realm of the spirit. Those who are
unwilling to live in harmony with the laws of
God, the father of the divine family, will never
be given life in the spirit realm. They will be
sentenced to a death from which there will be no
escape by a resurrection. They will simply cease
to exist.
Most human beings will
be confronted with that choice, eternal life or
eternal death, in a post-millennial world, after
they have already lived during pre-millennial
history. In their first physical life they will
not have been forced to make a final commitment.
They will be resurrected to a second physical
life in a paradisical world governed by God's
laws. The environment at that time will be
conducive to successful adherence to the beliefs
and practices that prepare human beings for
eternal life in the divine family.
Because of this world
view, Commandment Keepers are not engaged in a
frantic effort to convert non-members. They
remember John 6:44:
No one can come to me
unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and
I will raise that person up on the last day.
There is a related scripture
nearby that also should be cited at this point,
John 6:65:
And he said, "For this
reason I have told you that no one can come
to me unless it is granted by the Father."
Conversion is looked upon as
coming from God and as something that only a
small minority of humans will experience this
side of the Second Advent. It will be a common
experience after that climactic event.
As has already been
mentioned, there are scriptures in Revelation 20
that are interpreted to refer to a resurrection
of saints, a thousand years of peace, and then a
general resurrection to judgment, the period of
"The Great White Throne Judgment":
Then I saw thrones, and
those seated on them were given authority to
judge. I also saw the souls of those who had
been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus
and for the word of God. They had not
worshipped the beast or its image and had
not received its mark on their foreheads or
on their hands. They came to life and
reigned with Christ a thousand years.
(The rest of the dead
did not come to life until the thousand
years were ended.) This is the first
resurrection.
Blessed and holy are
those who share in the first resurrection.
Over these the second death has no power,
but they will be priests of God and of
Christ, and they will reign with him a
thousand years.
Then I saw a great
white throne and the One who sat on it; the
earth and the heaven fled from his presence
and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead,
great and small, standing before the throne,
and books were opened. Also another book was
opened, the book of life. And the dead were
judged according to their works, as recorded
in the books. (Revelation 20:4-6; 11-12)
It is believed that this
post-millennial period is being alluded to in
Matthew 12:41-42:
The people of
Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with
this generation and condemn it, because they
repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and
see, something greater than Jonah is here!
The queen of the
South will rise up at the judgment with this
generation and condemn it, because she came
from the ends of the earth to listen to the
wisdom of Solomon, and see, something
greater than Solomon is here! (Matthew
12:41-42)
The condemnation spoken of
there is assumed to be the start of a process by
which repentance and reconciliation with God can
be ultimately achieved.
A further implication of
this optimism concerning human destiny is that
Commandment Keepers understand that God has
allowed human beings some slack, some loopholes
should they prefer to use them. Most people are
not being confronted with enough of God's truth
so as to be forced to decide yay or nay
regarding their own commitment to God's ultimate
purpose for them. In other words, some aspects
of Commandment-keeping are motivated by a desire
to please God, to have a better relationship
with God, and to be a better person in an
effective community. Not all conduct will be
justified as a logician might justify a
philosophical argument. It is not a matter of,
"You're cornered!" but, rather of what option is
most spiritually edifying. It must be added,
however, that many Commandment Keepers, if not
most, believe that for them, with their
understanding of scripture, to violate the
Sabbath and annual holy days would be considered
sin and would severely disrupt their
relationship with the Deity:
For love to be meaningful
it must be accurately defined and
understood. That is the purpose of God's
law, especially the Ten Commandments.
(Foster 1998, 3)
The next logical point of
discussion is the role of the Church.
Commandment Keepers believe that the ancient
nation of Israel was offered natural greatness
in return for the acceptance of a divinely
revealed code of law. The issue at Mount Sinai
was not eternal life, but national greatness.
Israel was to be a model nation, interacting
with other physical nations of the world in a
godly manner:
In ancient Israel God gave
them knowledge of his law, but not his
Spirit. Their minds were not converted or
changed. They were still carnal. The 37th
chapter of Ezekiel reveals how those of
ancient Israel will receive the Spirit of
God, if willing, in the Great White Throne
Judgment. (Armstrong 1985, 239)
Commandment Keepers would
generally agree that it was apparent by the time
of Jesus that Israel had been unsuccessful in
fulfilling its divinely appointed role. In the
millennium Israel will have a second opportunity
to be an international role model, but under far
better conditions and with far greater potential
results. Israel's conversion will begin the
process by which all nations will accept the
true religion.
After discussing the
historical and prophetic role of Israel, as
necessary background, theological expositions by
Commandment Keepers can be expected to focus on
the role of the New Testament Church. It began
with Jews but is not based on ethnicity. Its
members are offered individual salvation.
Herbert W. Armstrong
declares:
Remember God has set out a
7,000-year master plan for accomplishing his
purpose. We have stated that his purpose is
to reproduce himself. But actually
reproducing himself means converting the
world from sin into God's righteousness. It
means instilling within God's potential
children the perfect spiritual character of
God. They would become finally born sons in
the God family. (Armstrong 1985, 227-228)
Relating the master plan
specifically to the Church, he writes:
And just as God has not
created all at once, but in successive
stages, so he is bringing salvation to the
world in successive stages. The Church is a
necessary instrumentality preparatory to,
and in order to, bring salvation to
humanity. Therefore, once again, let it be
emphasized that the purpose of the Church is
not merely to give salvation to those called
into the Church, but to teach and train
those predestined and called into the Church
as instruments God shall use in bringing the
world to salvation. (Armstrong 1985, 228).
Contemporary disciples of
Herbert W. Armstrong do not generally cite the
writings of Stanley Hauerwas. Yet, it would be
useful at this point to remind the reader that
Hauerwas (1989 and 1996) has written two books
referring to contemporary Christians as
analogous to "resident aliens." That term aptly
describes the perspective of sectarian Christian
Commandment Keepers. The Church is a witnessing
community, illustrating a better way of life but
not promoting it politically. Its members are
following God's commandments in preparation for
an eternal life, which will begin with their
administrating the Kingdom of God under Jesus
Christ for a thousand years:
The family of God will
grow. As kings and priests, the Church on
the resurrection will be co-rulers under
Christ in restoring the government of God
over all nations. But we shall also be, as
priests, co-saviors with him in saving the
world. (Armstrong 1985, 240).
In these pre-millennial times
in which we live, Church members are
representatives of a government which will
ultimately come by force to take over the world.
They do not attempt or expect to exercise
significant authority over non-members until
that time:
The CHURCH, then, is that
body called out from Satan's world being
prepared to restore, with and under Christ,
the GOVERNMENT of God. That shall be a time
when Satan shall have been removed. It shall
be a time when all living shall be called to
repentance and salvation with eternal life
through the Holy Spirit of God! The CHURCH
immortal shall be RULING with
Christ'replacing the present role of Satan!
(Armstrong 1985, 255) [Emphasis in the
original]
Since the Church is not
seen as a political force, it has limited
options for maintaining internal discipline.
There are positions of leadership, and members
could be expected to maintain good standing so
as to be qualified for these positions. Also,
there would naturally be peer pressure within
the community to maintain proper standards and a
ministry which, among other functions, would be
expected to consistently persuade the membership
to maintain its commitment to
Commandment-keeping. In accordance with the New
Testament examples, the major instrument of
discipline in the community is the exclusion of
flagrant violators of Church standards from
participation in Church functions. This practice
has been mentioned in Chapter Three. In general
circles, this practice is often referred to as
excommunication. In Sectarian Church of God
circles it is usually called disfellowshipment.
Romans 16:17 states:
I urge you, brothers and
sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause
dissensions and offenses, in opposition to
the teaching that you have learned; avoid
them.
Commandment-keeping
groups use this verse as the basis of taking
note publicly of individuals who are
deliberately disrupting the peace of the
community in their behavior by, for example,
circulating hostile material at services or
aggressively recruiting for other religions.
Such open disputing will cause the leadership in
the community to bar that individual from
services and to warn the membership about that
person's fractious behavior.
In Chapter Three this
dissertation dealt briefly with the problem of
the anti-democratic way in which this policy has
been administered for half a century in the
Worldwide Church of God and many of its spin-off
organizations. Within the Commandment- keeping
community some adherents are now teaching that
if someone is to be excluded from a congregation
for an extended period of time, the decision
should be made by a representative body of the
congregation rather than by one individual. It
is understandable that perhaps the whole
community should not be aware of what problem
has caused the action to be taken. Yet it is
still valid, according to this view, that a duly
authorized council or committee should be
responsible for such disciplinary measures, not
just one man. That is the precedent established
by ancient synagogue practice (Wigoder 1989,
247).
A critical aspect of the
role of the Church is to proclaim the coming of
God's rule:
And Jesus came and said to
them, "All authority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me. Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them
into the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to
obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the
end of the age." (Matthew 28:18- 20)
This proclamation is important
for various reasons. It gives hope to a
suffering humanity. It may influence people to
live life in a better way, even if they do not
become Church members. Some few will respond to
the message by actually becoming members
themselves, future rulers of the millennial
earth:
Jesus expects His
followers to carry out His work of spreading
the gospel of the Kingdom of God (Matthew
24:23-24, 26) and sharing His truth and
commandments with the world (Matthew
28:18-20). We are to wait for His return
with faith and patience (Luke 21:19),
knowing that "he who endures to the end
shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13-15)
(Schroeder 1999, 11).
Another function of the
proclamation is to show that society as a whole
has historically been unwilling to live in
harmony with biblical laws, thus showing
humankind in retrospect the cause of its major
problems. Thus, a general rejection of the
message is looked upon as normal and necessary
for the ultimate good of human society. It is
expected that a humbled humanity which rejected
God's religion in pre-millennial times will be
even more receptive later. People will compare
the fruits of their moral rejection of God's
religion with the wonderful results of their
acceptance of it during the millennium. A
stronger commitment to God's way of life will be
produced.
Commandment Keepers
expect that shortly before Christ's return, two
powerful prophets, the Two Witnesses of
Revelation 11, will dramatically confront the
leaders of the world and their subjects in
general with a powerful warning to change their
wicked ways or face divine punishment:
These two witnesses are
two human beings who are given extraordinary
power for 3 « years just prior to Christ's
return (verse 3).
Their mission will be
to give one final warning to the governments
of this world that man's ways, cut off from
God, can never see peace. (Worldwide Church
of God n.d., Two Witnesses, 1)
The general rejection of the
warning, persecution of the Church, and
worldwide conflict with the threat of total
destruction, will lead to the return of Jesus
Christ. The immediate act of defiance
precipitating this heavenly invasion will be the
martyrdom of the Two Witnesses.
It is believed by
Commandment Keepers that the world began as a
physical paradise. Human rebellion against God
caused a kind of back up plan to go into effect.
Human beings were allowed free rein to develop
their own civilizations. Thus, the millennium
and post-millennial periods will be an effective
contrast.
Such a belief does not
encourage active support of attempts to
politically alter society. While such movements
may accomplish much good, they are ultimately
not the solution to societal woes. Only the
change in human nature that the millennium will
bring will solve civilization's most persistent
problems. There is an analogy to the teachings
of the great Marxist ideologue of a century ago,
Daniel DeLeon. He taught that social democratic
reforms were a distraction, like washing the
garbage before throwing it away. Commandment
Keepers need not worry about throwing away the
world's civilizations. They believe that God
will accomplish that supernaturally. In the
meantime, humankind is learning the lesson that
none of its humanly devised civilizations can
bring happiness:
The gospel of the
Kingdom of God reveals that Jesus Christ
will set up His Kingdom on earth with His
resurrected saints to give everyone the
opportunity for eternal life. God's desire
is for everyone to inherit the Kingdom of
God, each in his or her own time (2 Peter
3:9; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26).
The true gospel
reveals that the saints'the faithful
followers of Jesus Christ resurrected to
eternal life at His return'will be actively
involved in ruling with Jesus Christ in the
Kingdom of God when it is established
(Revelation 5:10). Prophecies in the book of
Isaiah reveal that Christ will begin working
with the human beings left alive after His
return to teach them His ways. The
resurrected saints will assist Christ in
bringing about complete spiritual and
physical healing of the nations (Isaiah
30:20-21; 35:1, 5-6). (Treybig 1999,
Gospel, 35).
Israel functioned as a
nation among other nations under the Old
Covenant. The Church is not functioning now in
that way. Church members are to be apolitical
and non-violent. In common with certain other
religious communities, they are conscientious
objectors. Moreover, their distinct holy days
and dietary habits would cause them to avoid
participating in organizations that maintain a
tight discipline and unity of conduct. They
would, therefore, tend to avoid even a
non-combatant role in the military.
As noted earlier, the
prophet Jeremiah promised Israelites a divine
solution for their sinfulness. A New Covenant
would be made that would change their very
nature. This change of nature would cause them
to desire to obey God's commandments from within
themselves rather than as a result of externally
imposed disciplinary measures.
Eternal life is the gift
God has in store for those who turn from the
way of sin and begin obeying Him from the
heart. (Foster 1999, What is Your
Destiny?, 5)
This New Covenant would
involve forgiveness for their past offenses.
Commandment Keepers expect that the millennium
will begin with a mass conversion of the
descendants of ancient Israel and Judah and
their reunion and restoration to national
greatness as the first step in the conversion of
all humankind. It is believed that at that time,
as has already been stated, those who were part
of the pre-millennial Church of God will be
spirit- beings possessing eternal life.
It would be useful to
point out that most Commandment Keepers believe
that the Anglo-Saxons, Celts, and many people of
the politically democratic nations of northwest
Europe are descendants of the northern ten
tribes of Israel who were forcibly expelled from
their territory by the Assyrian Empire in the
late eighth and early seventh centuries BCE. The
most effective presentation of this belief can
be found in the 1986 edition of The United
States and Britain in Prophecy, published by
the Worldwide Church of God. This form of Anglo-
Israelism means that the Anglo-Saxons, Celts,
and certain other related ethnic groups will
someday merge with the Jewish people and observe
many practices commonly thought of as Jewish
today, such as the Saturday Sabbath, Old
Testament Holy Day seasons, and Old Testament
dietary laws. Other nations all over the world
will eventually follow this example while not
losing their specific ethnic identities:
I will put my spirit
within you, and make you follow my statutes
and be careful to observe my ordinances.
Then you shall live
in the land that I gave to your ancestors;
and you shall be my people, and I will be
your God. . . .
then say to them,
thus says the Lord God: I will take the
people of Israel from the nations among
which they have gone, and will gather them
from every quarter, and bring them to their
own land.
I will make them one
nation in the land, on the mountains of
Israel; and one king shall be king over them
all. Never again shall they be two nations,
and never again shall they be divided into
two kingdoms'.
My servant shall be
king over them; and they shall all have one
shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances
and be careful to observe my statutes.
(Ezekiel 36:27-28, 37:21-22, 24)
To these passages can be
added the following scripture from Zechariah
14:16:
Then all who survive of
the nations that have come against Jerusalem
shall go up year after year to worship the
King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the
festival of booths.
Adherents of those
religious organizations carrying on the legacy
of Herbert W. Armstrong generally share the
following encapsulated summary of a large number
of scriptures. Under the Old Covenant ancient
Israelites had agreed to obey the Torah.
Generally speaking, ethicists would agree that
some of its laws still define appropriate human
conduct such as prohibitions against stealing
and murder. There is a critical question
dividing mainstream Christians from Commandment
Keepers. That question is how many of the laws
of the Old Testament continue to define
appropriate behavior for a contemporary
Christian who seeks to live in harmony with
God's will for her or him as much as possible.
According to this view,
the world is destined to be blessed nation by
nation with a proper relationship with God. This
process has already begun with the selection of
the people of Israel as the vanguard nation,
which someday will accept the responsibility of
being a proper example for other nations to
follow:
Here is good news! Here is
part of the Gospel message. Blindness is
happened to Israel, not forever, but until
the full number of Gentiles who are to be
converted in this age comes into the
Kingdom. Then Israel shall be forgiven and
the vast majority of Gentiles shall seek God
("Worldwide Church of God 1970, "The Coming
Utopia," 4).
Right and wrong behavior
and a proper relationship with God are not
dependent upon specific physical promises. The
Old Testament is still relevant to conduct even
though many historical conditions have changed.
A further dimension to add is that generally
communities are defined by shared festivals and
dietary habits. It should not be unreasonable to
believe that those who seek to identify the
Church of God might look for such signs to
designate that community. Looking to God to
define certain cultural norms is a way to
demonstrate one's commitment to God's
sovereignty. Also, it evinces desire for an
intimate relationship with God:
A converted person is a
person with a totally changed, or converted
mind. A converted mind in which the very
mind of God is joined with the human mind as
God says through the apostle Paul, "Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). The Holy Spirit is the
spirit of a sound mind, which is a
completely changed mind. It has made an
about-face in its desires, purposes and
intentions. (Armstrong 1985, 238)
Commandment Keepers
believe that to accept their entire body of
beliefs and practices does not require being
convinced beyond a doubt. They only need to show
the reasonableness of their positions and the
problems with other positions. They believe that
total surrender to God is the result of a divine
miracle. Argumentation plays its part, but it is
not enough to really convert a human mind to the
religion of Jesus Christ. It is believed that at
any given time people may become baptized
members of the Church who have not really been
converted.
Baptism is for adults
who have repented of their sins and accepted
Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Master.
Commandment Keepers believe that counseling with
a minister or Church representative should
precede baptism. Sometimes a delay may be
recommended:
Now about children. You
can't immerse children, but anyway children
are not mature enough to have truly
repented. Baptism is for those who have come
to enough of an adult mind to have truly
repented. (Armstrong 1979, 4)
Fallible humans, however, are
conducting the procedure, on earth; mistakes can
be made. Some people may be convinced
intellectually but not spiritually converted.
Such people potentially can be unconvinced in
time:
Anyone who "joins the
church of his choice" has not come into
God's true Church. One cannot just "join"
the TRUE Church of God. One is first
selected and drawn by God the Father through
his Spirit, brought to a complete
heartrending repentance, and changed in his
total life-style, and has also not only
believed in and accepted Jesus Christ as
personal Savior, but also has believed
Christ. (Armstrong 1985, 229)
This dissertation began
with an allusion to the second chapter of the
book of Acts. That chapter describes a mass
baptism that occurred on what might be called
the official inception of the New Testament
Church. That event is recorded as taking place
on the festival known to Christians as
Pentecost. Those baptized were devout Jews (Acts
2:5, 41) who did not need to learn about the
practices that new converts today generally
learn about from Church members.
The previous paragraph
is not intended to imply that new converts must
be thoroughly grounded in the beliefs and
practices of Commandment Keepers. What is looked
for is a genuine desire to make whatever changes
are necessary. Usually this becomes obvious by
the adherence to one or more of the distinctive
practices, such as the Saturday Sabbath, or the
avoidance of Christmas and Easter observances:
Changing our lives to
submit to God'what the Bible refers to as
repentance'is based on the conviction that
He will intervene in our lives and
ultimately grant us eternal life. Faith,
which includes understanding and action, is
required for salvation. After all, God will
not give eternal life to someone who does
not believe or obey Him. Such a person would
bring misery on himself and others for all
eternity. Faithlessness is hopelessness (Treybig
1999, You Can Have Living Faith, 9).
In the literature of the
old Worldwide Church of God and its contemporary
offshoots, the concept of faith is closely
linked with obedience. God's true Church is
motivated by faith to keep God's Commandments:
The special and holy
people of God, like Abraham are obedient
people'selected from all nations'who have
chosen not to live by bread alone, "but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God" (Matthew 4:4). Their trust in God comes
from the heart and is demonstrated by their
obedient actions. God's Spirit works in them
to produce faith and obedience, making them
special to God. (Foster 1999, The Church
Jesus Built, 15)
Our culture generally
appreciates someone who can disagree without
being disagreeable; so do Commandment Keepers.
They seek open minds and environments conducive
to polite discussion. It is not their style to
be "in your face" or to provoke confrontation.
They expect persecution to come at times, but
they do not seek to court it or wallow in it.
Generally, a discussion with an American member
of the community will show that the members love
and appreciate their country and its freedoms.
They are anticipating a coming rise of
dictatorial nations, which will restrict the
freedom of Commandment Keepers to practice and
promote their religion. For these sectarians,
our present era is a period of respite in a
sordid history of religious persecution
punctuated by martyrdom. In that sense their
history parallels that of world Jewry with whom
many of them feel a special empathy.
Generally speaking,
Commandment Keepers enthusiastically study
biblical prophecy and are thus aware of
Zechariah 8:23:
Thus says the Lord of
hosts: In those days ten men from nations of
every language shall take hold of a Jew,
grasping his garment and saying, "Let us go
with you, for we have heard that God is with
you."
In the history of
Christianity there have been periodic eruptions
of sectarianism. It seems to have traveled from
Armenia to the Balkans to the Alpine regions
prior to the Protestant Reformation. Commandment
Keepers have sought to research the sects of the
past for evidence of shared beliefs and
practices and have developed sketchy historical
writings tracing many of their doctrines from
the first century CE through to this century. As
we have seen in the previous chapters, it is
easier to pick up their story in
post-Reformation Europe.
Commandment Keepers see
in such institutions as the Inquisition a
prophesied persecution of the true followers of
Jesus Christ. As a student of the history of
religion, I find the history of Christianity
remarkable for the magnitude of religiously
motivated violence in the light of the early
pacifistic teachings of Jesus. Sectarians,
seeking to establish the legitimacy of their
dissent from the mainstream, often cite this
history. As an aside I would remind the reader
that different religious affiliation within
Christianity has been a factor in recent
violence in Yugoslavia and certainly has played
a critically important role in the inter-group
conflicts in Northern Ireland.
It has already been
mentioned that Commandment Keepers often display
a certain affinity for Jews. This doesn't mean
that the community is free of negative feelings
and stereotypes. Such feelings are also
displayed from time to time, but a general
philosemitism emerges from two sources. One is
the belief among people of northwest European
origin that they and the Jews share a common
ancestry, a common ancient history, and a future
reconciliation. The second is due to many shared
beliefs and practices and a common heritage of
persecution for some of those practices.
Anti-Semitism continues to be a problem in our
contemporary world. Other Christians have
classified many Commandment Keepers as Jewish.
Acquiring that label sometimes has led to
negative consequences for the Commandment
Keepers.
This issue of the
Jewishness of Christianity is currently being
widely discussed. One reason is the
post-Holocaust sensitivity of Christianity to
its heritage of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism has
played a role in the rejection by many Christian
communities of Old Testament practices and their
replacement by practices that often originated
in paganism. That reality is a theme in the
literature of the Christian sects that observe
the ancient Hebrew Sabbath, festivals, and
dietary laws.
For example, here are
some comments concerning the final authorization
of Sunday as a day of a rest in the Roman Empire
and the abandonment of the Saturday Sabbath by
mainstream Christianity:
This change was
legislated in A.D. 321, on the seventh of
March. On this day an unusual edict was
issued by the Roman Emperor Constantine. The
edict is often designated as the earliest
Sunday law. It read as follows: "On the
venerable day of the sun let the magistrates
and people residing in cities rest, and let
all workshops be closed. In the country,
however, persons engaged in agriculture may
freely and lawfully continue their pursuits;
because it often happens that another day is
not suitable for grain sowing or for vine
planting; lest by neglecting the proper
moment for such operations the bounty of
heaven should be lost"; (Codex Justinianus,
lib. 3, tit.12, 3; translated in History
of the Christian Church, Schaff, vol.
III, 380).
Then finally, in A.D.
365, it actually became illegal to keep the
seventh-day Sabbath. A convention of
ecclesiastical authorities was held in what
is today the nation of Turkey. It was called
the Council of Laodicea and was convened to
settle, among other matters, the Sabbath
question. One of its most famous canons was
the twenty-ninth which read as follows:
"Christians must not judaize by resting on
the Sabbath, but must work on that day,
rather, honoring 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" (Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. XIV, 148).
(Worldwide Church of God n.d., Sunday
Observance)
One of the fundamental
presumptions of Commandment Keepers is that
there should have been a greater continuity
between the original Jerusalem church and what
has followed. They argue that Christianity
should finally overcome anti-Semitism and return
to its roots.
Along these lines I
would like to cite an analogy with Islam.
Although it is a universal religion, it is still
closely associated with Arabic geography,
history, and culture. Its most holy city is in
Arabia. Its scriptures are in Arabic. Throughout
the world, even in non-Arabic speaking nations,
the Muslim call to prayer is broadcast in
Arabic.
Christianity could have
retained a closer tie to Judaism and Hebraic
culture and still have become widely diffused.
Of course, the New Testament was written in
Greek, but its authors generally were
well-grounded in many practices thought of today
as Jewish, and generally not practiced by most
professing Christians. The abandonment of these
practices by mainstream Christianity was not
inevitable. Commandment Keepers believe that
many of those practices are essential to the
authentic Christian way of life prescribed by
the New Testament.
It should now be pointed
out more explicitly that the Commandment-keeping
sectarians under discussion believe that
Christianity early became confused and corrupted
and ultimately departed from the original faith:
The churches of today have
changed drastically from Christ's pattern!
(Armstrong 1985, 205)
These sectarians believe that
the problem already existed in New Testament
times:
The Church was infiltrated
during the First Century with another
gospel. (Armstrong 1985, xii)
The Commandment Keepers see
themselves as a restoration of the original,
authentic Christian Church. Quite representative
of the views of many of these sectarians are the
words of Mario Seiglie concerning Christmas:
Dec. 25 was arbitrarily
selected, not because Jesus was born on that
day, but because it was already popular in
pagan religious celebrations as the birthday
of the sun. (Seiglie 1995, 19)
The origins of Christmas
cannot be traced either to the teachings or
practices of the earliest Christians. The
biblical feast days of Jesus Christ and the
apostles were neglected by later religious
leaders who instituted a new set of holidays
in their place. (19)
There is an outstanding
weakness in the position that Sabbath and
Torah-based observance is incumbent upon
Christians. That weakness is the lack of
explicit exhortation to do so in New Testament
scriptures and the lack therein of any warnings
against not doing so. On the other hand, it can
be argued that since Old Testament festival
imagery is so important in the theological
expositions and prophecies of the New Testament,
observance of those festivals should at least be
a recommended policy for Christians.
It can also be argued
that the apparent omission of condemnation for
non-observance of the Sabbath and the festivals
of the Torah was an escape hatch provided for
those minds not totally surrendered to God's
will. Even though a Christian should want to
follow the example of Jesus Christ and the early
Church, societal pressures can make it difficult
to do so completely. Some well meaning people
might find the observance of the ancient
Israelite festivals to be too much of a
challenge. Perhaps such people have not yet been
selected for pre-millennial membership in God's
Church. They will have an opportunity for
conversion in another age.
It is also possible to
criticize the apolitical stance of most
Commandment Keepers, since they do benefit from
the political activity of others. Additional
criticism can be levied against the pacifism
that is generally typical of the movement. Law
and order in society and, most everyone would
agree, internationally, is maintained by the use
of force. This topic is relevant in various
aspects to other religious traditions and is
beyond the scope of this dissertation. Even if
Commandment Keepers were involved in politics,
and even if that involvement extended to
participation in military activity, the
community could still maintain that it should
not use force to compel obedience to the divine
laws. It could still insist that millennial
conditions would be needed before such a policy
should be instituted. There is an analogy with
Rabbinic Judaism which, for example, has never
in the Common Era attempted to enforce a Jubilee
Year in the Jews' ancestral homeland. It is
believed that conditions are not yet appropriate
for the revival of that ancient biblical
institution (Wigoder 1989, 392).
One of the most
difficult challenges for Commandment Keepers is
where to draw the line. Which Old Testament
practices ought to be continued and which may be
discarded? The Commandment Keepers' three major
criteria for this determination have been
introduced previously and will be discussed in
chapters five, six and seven. Their hermeneutic
provides that all relevant scriptural data be
collected and weighed when making such
decisions. Sometimes gray areas remain. For
example, to what degree should a farmer strive
to obey the commandment to rest his or her land
every seven years? Does the law apply outside of
the Promised Land? Does it apply in a society
whose land policies and economic policies are
established on a different basis from those of
the Old Testament?
Commandment Keepers
prefer living with such gray areas to scrapping
practices like the Saturday Sabbath that they
believe are clearly mandatory for true, faithful
followers of Jesus Christ. As has already been
stated, such issues can be confronted by
weighing all the related scriptures and applying
them to the contemporary scene, keeping in mind
the theological perspective already discussed.
It would be unfair to categorize such analysis
as necessarily so arbitrary as to invalidate the
overall religious system.
As a point of interest,
the Worldwide Church of God at one time ran
agricultural operations on two college campuses,
one in England, and one in Texas. The land
sabbath was observed on each campus. Positive
articles concerning the experience were written,
at the time, in official church publications (Good
News, 1967; Worldwide News, 1973).
Another "gray area"
involves the commandment in Deuteronomy 22:12 to
wear fringes on the corners of one's garment. It
also appears with more elaboration in Numbers
15:37-41. If such a law is obligatory for New
Testament Christians, various administrative
decisions would need to be made in order to
apply it consistently in a community. For
example: Does it apply to males and females? To
what sort of garments does it apply? Does it
involve a specific time of day?
Rabbinic Judaism has
developed a standard approach to this law in the
form of a four-cornered garment with fringes,
also called tassels. It is donned by Orthodox
Jewish men as they rise from bed and is worn
while they are awake. So, it is jokingly said,
Judaism is a religion with strings attached. The
Hebrew word for the tassel is often
transliterated as tzitzith.
The long form of the
commandment to wear tzitzith appears in a
context of many incidents of Israelite rebellion
against divine authority. It can be seen as an
enforcement procedure, an external discipline.
In fact, the explanation given for it is that it
is intended to serve as a memory aid:
You have the fringe
so that, when you see it, you will remember
all the commandments of the LORD and do
them, and not follow the lust of your own
heart and your own eyes.
So you shall remember
and do all my commandments, and you shall be
holy to your God (Numbers 15:39-40).
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes:
In the simplest sense,
then, the Tzitzith serve as a reminder. We
bind them to our garments just as one might
tie a string around his finger or belt in
order to remember something. Some say that
the Tzitzith is reminiscent of a lash,
serving to remind us that we are ultimately
accountable for all our deeds and misdeeds.
We wear them as a constant reminder that we
must obey God's commandments, and not be led
astray by our desires. (Kaplan 1984, 2)
From a Christian
perspective then, the tzitzith can be
seen as a physical type of the spiritual
antitype, God's Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
motivates Christians to keep on the straight and
narrow path to salvation. The ancient tassels
were a reminder of a formal commitment that a
nation had made to God. The tassels functioned
on the level of the community as well as for
each individual who wore them. The tzitzith
can be seen as a disciplinary measure that was
commanded as a response to disobedience, not as
a part of that body of laws that are necessary
to define righteous living.
As if in anticipation of
this issue, John 14:26 states:
But the Advocate, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you everything, and remind
you of all that I have said to you.
Thus it can be argued that the
influence of God's Spirit under the New Covenant
supersedes the wearing of the tzitzith
and makes such a practice redundant, or even
somewhat disrespectful to the new relationship
that the ministry of Jesus Christ has
accomplished for Christians. This argument is
based upon the biblical context in which the
commandment was originally given. It was given
to remind Israelites to obey other commandments
already in force, such as the holy days and
dietary laws. It can be reasonably contended
that the wearing of tzitzith represents
an additional layer of obligation more purely
disciplinary in nature.
Ironically, while few
evangelicals wear biblical tassels, some
communities are encouraging young people to wear
bracelets with the initials W.W.J.D., which
stand for, "What Would Jesus Do?" This
mainstream practice is a de facto return to the
tassel in another form. It is not a practice of
the Commandment-keeping sectarians that are the
subject of this dissertation. They would view
such an innovation to be inconsistent with their
relationship to God under the New Covenant.
One of the difficulties
found among Commandment Keepers is a lack of
scholarly writings produced from within their
community. Also, there are elements in the
community which can be accused of racism,
anti-intellectualism, cultism, legalism, and
self- righteousness. Such internal problems
within the community should not be used
opportunistically by critics to obscure the
sincerity and essential decency of so many
Commandment Keepers. Nor does the existence of
these problems refute the theological positions
of these Christian Sectarians.
In recent years, there
has been an effort among some elements within
the community to upgrade the educational level
of their ministry and to encourage advanced
academic study for those who will be
ecclesiastical instructors. The scattering of
many Commandment Keepers into smaller groupings
has hindered that effort. Lack of appropriate
education in the ministry remains a serious
problem as the community enters the twenty first
century, with no quick solution on the horizon.
Having briefly discussed
salvation history according to Commandment
Keepers, it should be repeated again that for
them, the annual festivals of Leviticus 23, when
properly understood, foreshadowed that history,
and thus to continue to observe them is
critically important. The observance of those
festivals serves as a tool to remember God's
plan of salvation for humanity. To replace the
cycle of Israelite Festivals with another can
cause the Church to obscure or forget very
important spiritual knowledge. For this
community, the fact that other religious
groupings have a different understanding of
salvation history reinforces the commitment to
observe the festivals commanded in the
Pentateuch, while avoiding mainstream
replacements or additions.
It is also believed that
observance of these days from year to year can
deepen one's understanding of their spiritual
significance, and that God will bless their
obedience by supernaturally revealing more
understanding. Such understanding comes to the
minds of the obedient as they study, meditate,
and discuss, not through extraordinary means
such as visions or voices.
In recent years there
has been a greater utilization of Jewish
writings for insights into the significance of
the annual festivals. Some groups have been
receptive to incorporating traditional Jewish
symbols in their festival observance. For
example, few Commandment Keepers spend the Feast
of Tabernacles in a traditional sukkah or booth,
as do Orthodox Jews. Yet, at some festival sites
one such booth is constructed as a symbol of the
festival season. Some use has also been made of
educational material emanating from Bible
expositors associated with Messianic Judaism.
It can be seen that if
we were to isolate the various aspects of
Commandment Keepers' beliefs, there would be
common ground with various distinctive
communities within Christianity such as the
Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and
the Mennonites. Putting the entire package
together defines a unique community. Commandment
Keepers keep the same weekly Sabbath as the
Seventh Day Adventists but insist on not
celebrating Christmas and Easter and likewise
insist on celebrating the annual festivals in
Leviticus 23. While there are Adventists who
observe in some way the festivals of Leviticus
23, at present these festival keepers are a
relatively small minority in their denomination.
The Adventist tradition
includes the writings of Ellen G. White, who is
not included as a credible Bible expositor in
the Commandment Keeper tradition. While
withdrawing from what is perceived as paganism,
Jehovah's Witnesses do not observe a weekly
Sabbath day, let alone insist on observance of
Saturday. Mennonites have a tradition of
non-violence but they also do not observe a
Saturday Sabbath. Nor do they reject mainstream
holidays and embrace Mosaic holy days. As
previously stated, the community under
discussion believes that more than any other, it
most accurately reflects the apostolic Christian
Church.
