Second Galatians One

G.K. Chesterton once said about orthodoxy that, "There never was anything so perilous or so exciting." How right he was. The church's struggle to keep the orthodox faith has been one wild ride, flinging her from the extremes of legalism (self-righteousness disguised as law-keeping) to the excesses of antinomianism (lawlessness disguised as liberty). My story chronicles a struggle with legalism in the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) founded by the late Herbert W. Armstrong.

Prior to 1995, WCG practiced what church historians recognize as judaized Christianity whose followers, according to the Life Application Bible, defined Christians as ". . . .Jews who have recognized Jesus as the promised Savior. Therefore, any Gentile desiring to become a Christian must first become a Jew. " When WCG repudiated most of its major doctrines, the effects were no less seismic than those recorded in Acts and Galatians when groups of Jewish believers squared off against the Apostle Paul over what rules and regulations Gentile converts were required to follow. The New Testament records the apostles' encounters with judaized Christianity first in Acts 15, then in the Apostle Paul's letter to the Galatians. Church historians have since referred to the belief as Galatianism,

Between 1986, when Herbert Armstrong died, and 1995 when his successor, Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. announced the doctrinal changes, I shared the church's struggle to wrest itself from legalism's grip. By the grace of God, and after much soul-searching and prevailing prayer, and despite losing two-thirds of its clergy and lay members, WCG changed its doctrinal focus from a works gospel to faith in Jesus Christ alone. That same year, a church historian commented that the change was without precedence in modern church history.

Today, like the first-century church, WCG is learning to walk in the freedom of God's grace. Not surprising, many of the hurdles the church continues to face are rooted in residual teachings still embedded in members' minds.

Legalism's Face in WCG
Members were convinced that Herbert Armstrong's view of the law, a hybrid mix of old and new covenants with particular emphasis on the old, was the quintessential "faith once delivered" described in Jude 3. True Christians (which, of course, meant only WCG members) lived with one foot in the new covenant, where we recognized Christ as Savior but believed that the new covenant would take effect only at His second Coming, and the other foot in the old covenant, which we believed still held sway over Christians regarding certain Old Testament laws and worship practices.

Church historians are well aware that the early church continued to observe the Hebrew festivals after the church's birth in A.D. 33, although with a perspective altered by the church's new-found faith in Jesus Christ. According to the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, "The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemoration of events which those festivals had foreshadowed."

Had WCG allowed scripture to dictate its theology, instead of history, it would have understood, as did the writer of Hebrews, that (1) the early church's view of the scope and magnitude of Christ's redemptive work was obstructed by the temple (Hebrews 9:8, NIV) and (2) the depiction of the new covenant as a "new and living way" (Hebrew 10:20) was intended to contrast the old covenant which, even as the temple stood, was considered obsolete, aging, and ready to disappear (Hebrews 8:13 NIV). And disappear it did after the temple's destruction in A.D. 70.

Although WCG believed that its view of the law restored the teachings of the first century church, its practices resembled those of ancient Israel who substituted the law for God's election, as authors Paul J. Achtenmeier and Elizabeth Achtenmeier point out in The Old Testament Roots of Our Faith:

From the time of Ezra onward . . .the understanding of the place of the law in Israelite life was now completely transformed, and essentially the law took the place of the election. No longer was membership in Israel a gift of God, given by his gracious acts in history. Now every Jew had to prove he or she was elected by obeying the commandments. Only as individual persons obeyed the law did they become members of Israel.

The New Covenant teaches plainly that salvation through Christ requires neither Jewish nor Gentile Christians to observe special days (Romans 14, Galatians 4). On what, then, did WCG base its teachings? Most of the church's doctrine centered on a philosophy known as British Israelism, which, briefly stated, posits that most of the people of Western Europe are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. Once converted, these "physical Israelites" become "spiritual Israelites" who, like Abraham's physical descendants, are required to observe Old Testament religious practices. (All others are "gentiles" who, after accepting Christ, are grafted into spiritual Israel and thus required to observe Jewish worship practices.)

Between Grace and Galatianism
Few teachings set WCG apart from the rest of Christendom more than its celebration of Passover/Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth). WCG used I Corinthians 5:7 to prove that Christians are commanded to observe the Passover:

Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast-as you really are. For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. (I Corinthians 5:7, NIV)

Ministers never expounded this verse beyond the phrase, "keep the Festival." Had they done so, they would have discovered that, rather than commanding brethren to ceremonially observe the Passover, Paul was urging them to live the Passover by ridding themselves of sin and replacing it with righteousness.

With our eyes fixed on "Let us keep the Festival," we scrupulously cleaned our homes removing all leavening agents. The evening before the first day of the festival, members gathered together in groups to celebrate a Night of Observance (based on Exodus 12:42). By the time the first service rolled around, I was usually exhausted.

Keeping Old Testament laws and worship practices created a complex maze of hurdles which constantly changed. When we discovered that swordfish are born with scales that later disappeared, the fish was pronounced "clean" (Leviticus 11:19; Deuteronomy 14:9). Even so, some members couldn't bring themselves to eat it. For years, we were instructed to eat unleavened bread daily during the Passover season. Later, the church reinterpreted the scripture to mean that daily consumption was not required as long as any bread eaten during the seven-day period was unleavened.

On the Day of Atonement, members were expected to fast totally for 24 hours. Although members with health problems were cautioned to avoid fasting, there were some who fasted anyway--often out of fear of having their faith questioned--and suffered for days afterward.

Of course, there were the good times. The highlight of the year was the Feast of Tabernacles. During the Labor Day weekend, choir members from several states would gather for a pre-Feast rehearsal at the director's home. Members would rekindle old friendships as we looked forward to the eight-day celebration.

New Wine in New Wine Glasses
The heart and core of WCG's doctrinal distortion was its inability to focus on the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Even in its view of the gospel, WCG claimed that the true gospel (which only we preached) was about the Kingdom of God and considered any gospel about the person of Christ as false. Christ was merely a messenger of the gospel (though how it is possible to preach about a kingdom and not its King was never explained.)

When ministers began to preach about the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ and being born again at conversion (WCG's former doctrine taught that Christians are born again only at the resurrection), some members stalked out of services. At festivals and conferences, one of the most-asked questions was "What's all this Jesus stuff?"

Some congregations still struggle over which worship events should predominate: the Exodus events which typify Christ or the Christ events which celebrate His birth, death, and resurrection. Some church scholars believe that both sets of events are instructive. Thomas Davis, in an essay entitled, "The Traditions of Puritan Typology," quotes William Tyndale, the 14th century Bible translator, on the importance of types:

. . .though sacrifices and ceremonies can be no ground or foundation to build upon; that is, though we can prove nought with them, yet when once we have found out Christ and His mysteries, then we may borrow figures, that is to say allegories, similitudes, or examples, to open Christ, and the secrets of God hid in Christ. . . . For similitude's have more virtue and power with them than bare words, and lead a man's wits farther into the pitch and marrow and spiritual understanding of the thing, than all the words than can be imagined

As Tyndale suggests, types can deepen the church's understanding of how Christ fulfilled the Old Covenant. In Israel's Scripture Traditions and the Synoptic Gospels, Willard Swartley, suggests that the festivals contributed to the development of the synoptic gospels:

. . .there appears to be some evidence that the Synoptic writers wished to tell the story of Jesus in such a way as to correlate its plot development with the cycle of [Jewish Christian festal celebrations], thereby providing Christian readings to extend the celebrations of Israel's faith.

Recently, theologians have discovered that Passover's roots extend deep into new covenant theology. In The Exodus Applied, Ligon Duncan compares what Passover signified (the first exodus) to the Lord's Day (the new exodus):

The Passover relieved Israel's captivity and constituted Israel as a nation, so its commemoration was to be of the first priority. This event also has direct relevance for our understanding of the Lord's Day. Because our Lord Jesus accomplished a new exodus in His death, there is a day of celebration and worship linked with that great redemptive event: the Lord's Day. As Christians, we cheerfully set aside the first day of the week as a day of worship because of the deliverance accomplished by Christ on that day.

In The Greatest Rescue of All, Robert Barnes connects Passover with the Lord's Supper. Speaking of the Passover, he asks:

But why did God institute this celebration? Did He simply want another nice tradition, another ceremony for the Hebrews to struggle to keep? No. God knew that the Hebrews would need to remember their constant need for rescue, especially in the good times that were to come after they conquered Canaan. Jesus took the Passover meal with His disciples. . .on the same night He was betrayed, forever connecting His shed blood and death with this meal. The tragedy is that we have forgotten the connection Jesus strained so hard to make. The providence of God has written on the pages of history that the Lord's Supper and the death of Jesus were to be seen through the Passover. God wants us to remember when we come to the table that, by the perfect life and perfect sacrificial death of Christ, we are rescued from the righteous wrath of God and from the poverty and slavery of our sin.

Clearly, the exodus events and the Christ events are critically related to each other. WCG erred in that it tried to make the exodus events conditions of salvation. Of course, it is not the only denomination guilty of what is often called "Jesus plus" teachings. According to evangelical historian Mark Noll, one of Christianity's biggest problems is its failure to distinguish between distinctives-such as traditions or practices which may characterize a group of believers, and essentials-beliefs and practices which the Bible clearly state are foundational to the Christian faith. Festivals, holy days, and dietary preferences may distinguish one congregation from another, but are not enjoined on a believer. With the exception of the Lord's Supper and baptism, the new covenant commands no special observances.

Law, Grace, and Orthodoxy
Prior to 1995, WCG's ministers frequently accused mainstream Christianity of having rejected God's laws, statutes, and judgments. One seldom heard a message on grace. Not surprising, the favorite topic was church government. Members were frequently admonished to be obedient to the church's leadership, and many feared bucking the minister's authority for fear of being dis-fellowshipped. (Since WCG was the only true church, getting kicked out was serious business: unless reinstated, a member would be lost forever in the lake of fire.)

Of course, the law-versus-grace struggle continues in other churches as well. Personally, I see the argument not as either-or but as an issue of Lordship. Pastors who focus on "the law of the spirit" which Paul defines as "a life in Christ Jesus," which frees us from the "law of sin and death" (I Corinthians 8:9) vaccinate their congregations against the many viral forms of legalism and antinomianism that constantly threaten the Body of Christ.

From the first century until today, the church has waged constant war against distorted theologies bent on subverting the simplicity of the gospel (II Corinthians 11:3). Permutations of judaized Christianity notwithstanding, the Hebrew festivals have been fulfilled in Christ. True, they may enhance our understanding of Jesus' stupendous work of salvation, but they are ill-equipped stand-ins for the Holy Spirit, and can neither establish one's identity in Christ nor serve as the basis for a relationship with Him.

Maintaining what Chesterton called the wild truth of orthodoxy will always be Christianity's primary preoccupation. My prayer is that WCG's transformation is a permanent shift in spiritual and doctrinal focus and not merely a flip from one set of mandated distinctives to another. Assuming the former, WCG will be uniquely positioned to help other churches who, in their struggle to separate salvation from works, toggle between grace and Galatianism.

Residual teachings-and feelings-die hard. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is here to remind us that the Author and Finisher of our faith is not a type, a ceremony, or a time period, but Jesus Himself. And if my experience in WCG has taught me nothing else, it is that Christ will strip away anything that obscures our vision of Him, no matter how "holy" that thing may seem to us. As the poet Francis Thompson stated so eloquently in "The Hound of Heaven,"

All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms

And from what better place is there to seek the face of Christ than the circle of His arms? []

[Our guest writer is Deborah A. Dessaso, a brilliant free-lance writer and native of Washington, DC.. She loves to write poetry, essays, and complaint letters. She graduated from Southeastern University in Washington, DC with a Bachelors in Business Administration, and the University of the District of Columbia with a Masters in English Composition and Rhetoric. We hope to hear from her again soon.]