Beware of the Deadly Leaven of the Pharisees as Jesus warned. The Deadly Leaven of False Doctrine.

Many who came into or grew up in the churches of God that sprang from the Worldwide Church of God under Herbert W, Armstrong and now in the many splinter groups led by ministers trained by Him are readying for the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread. These Annual festivals are found in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16. They were commanded observances for the ancient Israelites who had just come out of Egyptian slavery by the delivering hand of God.

You probably were never taught by your ministers that Jesus and later the Apostle Paul condemned this?!? No, neither was I during my 45 year journey through the Churches of God (COG). 

The Churches of God teach that observance of the Old Testament Annual Sabbaths, or Feasts, are commanded by God for New Covenant Christians. This doctrine was introduced by Herbert W, Armstrong while he was still and elder in the Sabbath keeping Church of God Seventh Day in Oregon. This was several years before he started the Radio Church of God, later renamed the Worldwide Church of God. From the founding of the Christian Church on Pentecost 31 A.D. to today the true church of God did NOT observe the Old Covenant Laws of Moses. Many writers and Biblical Scholars have written histories of the true church and confirmed this. There are many volumes that are available on the internet that confirm this fact. 

The Sabbath Keeping Waldenses, under the leadership of Peter Waldo in the 12^th century shunned these Old Testament rituals as Pharisaical and knew they had been ended at the cross (Colossians 2:14). Catholic Church documents confirm this. When the Sabbath keepers were martyred for rejecting the Catholic Church, it was noted that they also rejected Judaism and the law of Moses as Pharisaical. They were being burned at the stake for their belief in salvation by Grace through Faith and nothing else. Rejecting  both Judaism and Popish legalism.

Jesus himself taught against this practice. His teachings at the Well of Jacob in Samaria were pivotal in the establishment of the new covenant with Jesus as the mediator. This event is found in the Gospel of John chapter 4:21-24 where Christ taught clearly that the Temple worship ended at that very hour and God must be worshiped in a new way. In  spirit and truth, because God is spirit. Jesus said, no longer would worship be with physical rituals in physical temples.

John 4:21-24 (KJV)

  ²¹Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. ²²Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. ²³But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. ²⁴God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (On this mountain referred to Mt. Girazim where a Samaritan Temple once stood that rivaled the Temple in Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time.  Both the Samaritans and the Jews worshiped the same true God in Christ’s time, the Samaritans were more strict in many ways than the Jews)

Why then does the ministry of your church contradict Jesus’ own words?  Jesus also taught that the Law and the Prophets were only prophetic of Him and the coming of Salvation through Faith.

Matthew 11:13; (KJV)

 ¹³For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. Not after. This passage is Jesus referring to John the Baptist that prepared the way for Christ to begin His ministry.The law and the prophets came to a sudden end at Christ. Christ was the End of the Law at His crucifixion. Romans 10:4. 

What does the Apostle Paul teach about Christians going back to the Law of Moses, and what does  Paul say about those who teach Christians they must? 

Galatians 5:1-6; (KJV)

¹Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.  ²Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.  ³For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.  ⁴Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. ⁵For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.  ⁶For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.  ⁷Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?  ⁸This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.  ⁹A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

Paul is fighting against Jews who came to the churches in Asia teaching they had to go back to the law of Moses for salvation. This issue was discided by the Apostles of the Jerusalem Church in Acts 15. The law was not required for salvation. Only The Grace of God and our Faith in Christ crucified was required. Anyone going back to the old covenant laws and practices were fallen from grace 

I repeat Paul's words, "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."

A very dire warning that your ministers ignore!

While being diligent in removing leavening from your homes you actually bring in another leaven that is far worse as Paul writes in verses 8 and 9;   This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.  ⁹A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. ⁷Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?  Paul is clearly telling us that keeping the old law is teaching us to NOT OBEY the truth that he taught the new Christians.

In fact, the True Doctrine of Christ is the opposite of what your ministers teach you! These ministers are blinded by a veil over their minds that Paul writes about. It is there and will remain blinding them until they accept Jesus through Grace exactly as God offered through His Grace and not our works of the law.  Notice especially verses13-18.

2 Corinthians 3:1-18, (KJV)

 ¹Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?  ²Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:  ³Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.  ⁴And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: ⁵Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;  ⁶Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.  ⁷But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:  ⁸How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?  ⁹For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.  ¹⁰For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.  ¹¹For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.  ¹²Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:  ¹³And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:  ¹⁴But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. ¹⁵But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.  ¹⁶Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.  ¹⁷Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  ¹⁸But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

By reading from the Torah, or Law of Moses, and thus teaching Christians that they must observe abolished and obsolete rituals and customs cuts the believer off from Christ and is left fallen from Grace. This was a prophesied stumbling stone to the Jews who loved the fact that they had the Law of Moses. They rejected and murdered the prophesied Messiah because they lacked the Faith to accept Him. But they were in fact blinded by the veil over their understanding.  The Churches of God follow this false doctrine of blaspheming the Words of Christ and the Apostles. They do this denying men access to the Kingdom of God and eternal life through faith IN Jesus Christ,  Our Only Passover!

Christ has been victorious over sin for us, we ARE the unleavened now. All of these things were fulfilled in Christ as prophesied.  It is not the leaven of yeast that the Christian has to fear now, but the deadly spiritual leaven of FALSE DOCTRINE that infests the Churches of God! 

Beware of the Deadly Leaven of the Pharisees as Jesus warned. The Deadly Leaven of False Doctrine.

The Book of Galatians and Pauline Theology - A Thorn in the Side of The Churches Of God!

My Personal Bible Study for today, which I want to share,  had to do with the New Testament and the order of the writings. Some believe the earliest writings were the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Actually the letter to the Galatian Churches was the earliest to be penned in about 48-49 A.D. Some experts say it could have been as late as 55 A.D.  The events contained in the Gospels of course occurred first but the teachings that the Law was abolished at Christ's death that Paul proclaims to the Gentiles and Jews in Asia came before any one of the Gospel writers began recording their accounts of Jesus and His ministry. From Acts 9 to the end of Acts Paul's teaching is dominant. 


The Churches of God (COG) do all they can to avoid teaching Paul's true doctrine of Christ. Paul teaches that believers are saved through Grace by our Faith in Christ and not by deeds of the law (Galatians 3:11). The COG's teach God commands us to keep the Annual Sabbaths or Feasts found in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16. 

Peter and Paul had both seen that God was calling the Gentiles just like the Jews through Faith. The Apostles decided in Acts 15 that the law of Moses, the burden spoken of in verse 10 by Peter was not required any more. He said it was "testing God" to put the burden of the law on the neck of the disciples. It was grace now that replaced the Law of Moses, grace and faith in Jesus offered  the only path to salvation. See my self-study guide What The New Covenant Is Not


As the Passover draws near in the COG's, read for yourself what the apostles really teach about salvation...it may surprise you. Better to be surprised now rather than later.

Sour Wine, A Metaphor That Symbolized The End Of The Old Covenant

Was Sour Wine a Metaphor? If So For What?

Did you ever wonder like I did, why sour wine was offered to Christ on the cross? Was it only to quench Jesus' thirst or was there more to it? You will soon learn, there was much more to it!

The story I refer to is found in Matthew 27:46-51, the actual event is in verse 48. We break into the account of the crucifixion of Christ in verse 46 where we find Jesus on the cross and near the end of his life;

46And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 47Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. 48And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. 49The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. 50Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;(KJV)


In verse 48, We read that Jesus is offered sour wine, or vinegar, after He cries out for someone the people think is Elias. But there is no indication that Jesus ever took any of the sour wine offered on the sponge before He died, only that it was offered. Sour wine was a common beverage of the day and a common drink of the Roman soldiers.

Throughout the ministry of Jesus beginning at the wedding feast in the town of Cana of Galilee, with his first miracle of turning water into wine, He frequently used parables and analogies to teach lessons. Most of these were lost to the readers because God was not calling everyone to accept Christ at that time.Many people heard the parables and stories, but did not understand. Even his own disciples often misunderstood requiring Christ to explain. The metaphors Christ used were often intentionally used to obscured  understanding from the Pharisees. His use of  Wine as a metaphor is one He used to teach a number of powerful spiritual lessons that went mostly over the heads of the hearers.

This article will reveal the lesson that Jesus was revealing through the use of Wine as a metaphor concerning the Old and New Covenants of God.


But first we need to collect some background information to begin our understanding of this subject.

1) To begin, It must be understood by the reader that the New Testament teaches that  when Christ died He ended the Old Covenant, or the Law of Moses, the Jews know this as the Torah. The Commandments "contained in  ordinances" as Paul writes in Ephesians 2:15; "...having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances..." Both the Apostles and Jesus Himself taught this clearly. Armstrongism teaches a contradictory doctrine of Christ that the Old Covenant was not replaced by the New Covenant but merely modified by Jesus and not fulfilled and abolished which is not scriptural. Paul taught this clearly in Colossians 2:14 concluding the matter.


Christ used wine in metaphorical ways to demonstrate the process in the plan of God concerning the ending of one covenant and the beginning of another as we will see.

2) Secondly,   we need to understand what Christ taught about the New and Old Covenants using wine in a metaphorical way found in Luke 5:37;

  ³⁷ “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. ³⁸ New wine must be stored in new wineskins. (NLT)

 

The lesson: The old wineskins are symbolic of the old covenant given at Mt. Sinai. More specifically the wine skins were symbolic of the statutes and ordinances that contained the commandments.[1] Jesus taught that all of the Law and Prophets hang on these commandments (Matt. 22:40).The new wine is the new covenant that replaces the old covenant. Paul taught that the old covenant had served it's purpose as tutor of Israel (Gal. 3:24) and prophetic of Christ (Gal. 3:19). Beyond usefulness and  stretched to it's limit it could not contain the symbolic new wine, or new covenant. The old skins, like the old covenant, had no more usefulness. The new wine would be contained within the believer on a spiritual level. The body of the believer became the Temple of the Holy Spirit. God is writing his law in the hearts and minds of His children as He teaches in Jeremiah 31:33;

"But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people."[2]

The science and physics involved here is that wineskins were made of animal skins in those days not synthetic materials.  Wineskins were elastic and could stretch a considerable amount.They were good for wine storage being both water tight and elastic. Therefore the wine was kept safe.

Even after the initial fermentation ends the wine stored in a sealed, air tight skin, gives off carbon dioxide gas which stretches the skin like a balloon, eventually being stretched to the maximum.  And like a balloon, the skin could pop spilling the contents. Reusing the old wine skins for new wine risks bursting and the wine will spill and be lost. A very expensive loss considering the time and effort involved. So the practice was to use new wine skins that can stretch adequately for new wine, preventing lost of the wine.

3) Third is the lesson of the old verses new wine found in Luke 5:39; “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.”

Here Jesus is using Old Wine as a metaphor for the Old Covenant and New Wine as a metaphor for the New Covenant. The very first miracle that Jesus performed was  to turn water into wine. When Jesus and His disciples were attending a wedding in the city of Cana in Galilee, His mother informed Him they had run out of wine. He proceeded to turn water that the servants had collected in six thirty gallon water pots into wine. This account is found in John 2:1-11.

The amazing part was that when the Master of the Feast tasted the wine he found it was better quality that the first wine that had been drunk up. The wine that Christ had made from the water was high quality, BETTER TASTING THAN THE OLD WINE. This was to set the stage for the metaphorical application of wine to the covenants throughout Jesus' ministry.

The majority of Jews were unwilling to receive the good news the  new covenant contained. They preferred the old covenant, the old wine. They said it is just fine. Therefore they rejected the message  God sent to them through His Son. By rejecting Jesus, they also rejected God, the Father. 

4) Fourth, Jesus used Wine as a symbol of the blood of the new covenant. Many things were consecrated or set apart for special religious purposes with blood in the Old Testament. See Exodus 29:20-21 as an example. The blood of a slaughtered ram was put on the tip of the right ear, on the thumb of the right hand, and on the big toe of the right foot, and sprinkled on the garments of Aaron and his two sons to consecrate them as the ministers to God, as Priests.

When Christ introduced the new covenant, he used wine in Matthew 26:28, as the symbol for this concentrating blood. But the blood of the new covenant  was his own shed blood. When He was scourged (Matthew 27:34) before he was crucified He was marred like no other man. This gory scene was depicted in The Passion of Christ movie by Mel Gibson some of you may have seen. But it was probably worse in real life!

Christ was smeared from head to foot with  His own consecrating blood. On his right ear, his right thumb, his right toe, and all over His body. Thus the  new covenant fulfillment of the consecration of Christ as or new High Priest replacing the Aaronic Priesthood of Exodus 29 above.

5) Christ was offered bitter wine which he rejected just before He was crucified as recorded in Matthew 27:34. Here the soldiers offered Jesus wine  mixed with gall to drink. But after tasting it, he refused to drink it. Gall is a very bitter substance similar to bile in the stomach. The combination of Wine and Gall was said to numb the senses of the condemned person. A type of pain killer.

Christ refused it for three reasons which were:

A)  The Priests were forbidden to drink wine when they were on duty in the Tabernacle. Leviticus 10:9. Jesus Christ had replaced the old priesthood, becoming our new High Priest. He followed all of the Laws of the old covenant including  those that pertained to the priesthood.

B) Christ stated at the introduction of the new Passover symbols of bread and wine that He would not drink wine again until it was new in the kingdom found in  Matthew 26: 29. Some passages say sour wine, or vinegar, but this is wine for this passage. Later on the cross they offered Him sour wine which was the common beverage of the Roman Soldiers of the day and it was to quench his thirst rather than kill the pain.

C)  Christ was carrying the grief and sorrows of all mankind brought on by sin. He was intentional in this and would not accept a pain killing potion that would diminish His suffering and lesson the value of His sacrifice in any way. Isaiah 53: 1-10, ".. He suffered for us."


At the very end of Christ's life while on the cross He had one more thing to fulfill concerning the old covenant. This is found in John 19:28, He said, "I thirst." But why did he say that?  Verse 28 explains; "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst."


What He set out to fulfill, and had fulfilled at this point in His own words was the Law and the Prophets.  Jesus told us He had not come to destroy the Law and Prophets, but to fulfill them. Read this in Matthew 5:17-18;  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (NIV)   

At this point Jesus had fulfilled all of the old covenant requirements that He referred to in the prior passage. He spoke in John 19:28 of this fulfillment. 

With the Old Covenant being thus ended, the metaphorical old wine that the Jews thought was just fine was no longer acceptable to God. There was a new Priest and that required new laws, Hebrews 7:11-12. In another place we see God's stated purpose that led to this. Christ was born at the appointed time, of a woman, UNDER the law (Gal. 4:4). He obeyed the Law of Moses perfectly without sin, without transgressing even the least of the laws or commandments during His life. Christ told the disciples that He had fulfilled all of the above in Luke 24:44. 

Before Christ's last breath the sour wine was lifted to His lips and without accepting the  offered drink, He uttered His last words which were, "It Is Finished."  The old wine had become sour wine, or vinegar, and no longer acceptable. The old wine had gone bad, and was replaced by the new wine of the new covenant and of the Kingdom of God that would dwell in the hearts of the believers from then on for all who would accept Jesus Christ as their Atonement.

In the beginning of this article I mention several verses in Matthew 27,  verse 51 was the rest of this story; “And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the  top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;”

Immediately after Christ said, "It is finished" there was a violent earth quake and the veil in the Temple was rent. The veil refers to a curtain that blocks the entrance to the most holy place, or holiest place in the Temple where the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord is kept and upon it the mercy seat. (see Exodus 26:33-34 for details) Only one time a year on the old testament Day of Atonement did the High Priest enter to sprinkle the sacrificial blood there as a very special offering. No one else could go in because the presence of God was there on that day. Anyone else entering at that time or any other time was killed. 

The veil being torn at Jesus' death represents a change in access to God. Now saints, the baptized believers in Christ, may freely approach the spiritual mercy seat in heaven at the throne of God where Christ is now the full time High Priest performing intercession for us continually in a spiritual sense. He hears our prayers continually. Believers are no longer required to go through the  old  priesthood to petition and worship God the Father. Now we have direct access. This is what Hebrews 4:16 explains: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." 

Also Hebrews 7:26-28: 26 For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; 27Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. 28For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; ...but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.

Thus marking the end of the Old Covenant, the end of the Priestly system of sacrifices, the end of  first fruits and tithes,   the end of the annual Sabbaths and all other aspects of the Law of Moses and now beginning the new covenant of Grace.  All being fulfilled by Christ, consecrated for evermore, as our new High Priest. The sour wine that was offered to Christ on the cross before He died was a metaphor for the old wine or the Old Covenant which now ended at the cross. It is now the New Wine, the New Covenant,  that He will drink again with us in the Kingdom.

[1] The Decalogue also known as the ten commandments are found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.The statutes and Ordinances are found in various places in the first five books the old testament known as the Law, the Torah, or Pentateuch. These books are believed to have been written by Moses. Places in the Pentateuch where the statutes and ordinances are found; Numbers ch.28-29, Exodus ch. 20-40, Numbers ch 17-19, Deuteronomy ch. 5-8, 12-34.
[2] Translations used in this article; King James Version, New Living Translation, 21st Century King James Version.

I HAVE BEEN TOLD GOD COMMANDS CHRISTIANS TODAY TO OBSERVE THE JEWISH PASSOVER. IS THAT TRUE?

A short blog with a short answer....No Christians Do Not. 

New Covenant Christians have the sacrifice and shed blood of Jesus Christ as their passover. It was done once for all by the Son of God on the cross. All you need to do is accept Him as your savior, be baptized in the name of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, and you will receive  the Holy Spirit.  Salvation is through Grace and Faith in Christ, not through laws.

Christ fulfilled and ended the requirements of the Old Covenant completely  (Colossians 2:14, Ephesians 2:15).  Jesus explained what He did in Luke 24:44 to His disciples after His crucifixion and resurrection from the dead. In this He explains what he told them earlier in Matthew 5:17-18, that He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to Fulfill them, which He did. In Matthew 11:13 Christ also explained that the Law and the Prophets were only prophecy until John the Baptist, until, not afterward.

There is no requirement to keep the Old Testament Festivals or any of the other commandments contained in statutes and ordinances  including the upcoming Passover and Days  of Unleavened Bread.

Today the fulfillment of the Commandments of our Lord is the Christian requirement. He commanded us to, "Love one another as I have Loved You." John 15:10 " If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."

His Father's commandments that he kept  and the ones that He commanded us to keep are not entirely the same. They are different as He says.  In verse 12 Christ gives us His commandments, "that you love one another as I have loved you." Christ repeats the same commandment in verse 17. 

Christ gave the commandment to us in John 13:43, 14:15,21. "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me." said Jesus. 

What about a communion service with the symbols of the new covenant recorded in Luke 22, Matthew 26 and Mark 14 with the bread and wine? Once a year or several times, as long as bread and wine are taken in a reverent manner as a memorial of Christs sacrifice. Only in I Corinthians 11:26 is any frequency attached to this ritual of remembrance, and Paul simply states, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. And the occasion is not the Lords Supper being recorded in this passage, only a potluck type meal in this church that experienced a degree of disharmony.

With the Passover being fulfilled on the 15th of Nissan with Christ's death on the cross there is no longer a  reason to observe this event in an old covenant fashion while under the new covenant. Christ was the end of the Law of Moses, the end of the old covenant (Romans 10:4). The date and ritual became obsolete. Heb 8:13, "He has made the first obsolete.

In the New Covenant we fulfill the Whole Law by Loving your neighbor as your self.

However, If you think that is easy, think again. Christ's command not only included treating others as you want to be treated, but goes far beyond that....Christ died for you and for me.