The ABC’s of the Gospel was written in 1997, by Ernest L. Martin. He was associated with the World Wide Church of God ( Herbert Armstrong) for a number of years, and then branched off and with his own ministry. The book is 124 pages in length, with nine chapters. I will do a brief synopsis of each chapter with areas of agreement and/or disagreement.
Chapter One – How Mankind Got Saved
Martin is an expert at taking verses out of context. His major premise in this chapter is that all mankind ” were saved in Christ”, before the foundation of the world.(II Timothy1:9, Acts 15:18, Ephesians 1:3-5). Martin has built a theology and twists the Scriptures to fit his theology. In other words, he practices eisegeis rather than exegesis.http://www.gotquestions.org/exegesis-eisegesis.html He takes verses that were written to Christians and applies them to everybody. For example – ” The purpose of God in creating mankind (both men and women) is to bring forth his own children who will be part of his divine family- individuals who will be just like he is.” (p.8) Just like he is ! That is not taught in the Bible, as we are not God,and never will be. There is an impassable gulf between the Creator and the created. God’s incommunicable attributes (omnipotence, omniscience,etc, are not to be given to humans.
Chpt.2- What is the Family of God?
Martin teaches that Christ is the first- born, in the sense of first created. In this he borrows from the ancient Arian heresy that has been popularized by the Jehovah Witnesses. He quotes Colossians 1:13-17, to back this up. First born comes from the Greek word prototokos. It can mean first -born, and can mean pre-eminent one, superiority of position. The easiest way to refute the teaching that Jesus was a created being, and not co-eternal with the Father, is to go to the following verses:
- John 1:1-5 ” the Word was with God and the Word was God” back before time began.
- Colossians 1:15-17 – ” He is the image of the invisible God…”
- Hebrews 1:1-8- where the Son is ” the radiance of God’s glory, the very expression of God’s essence”…in vs.8, ” but to the Son, He says, Your throne O God, will last forever and ever…”
- Phillipians 2:5- 11- which ends with ” that in honor of the name given Yeshua,every knee will bow-in heaven, on earth and under the earth- and every tongue will acknowledge that Yeshua the Messiah is ADONAI – to the glory of God the Father.”
Obviously Martin does not believe in the Trinity, the deity of Christ, nor the personality of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, he states that the reason Christ came to die was in order to make “all humanity(every single person),to be like Christ and the Father in composition and character. We are to become like they are.(p.14) It is one thing for Christians to have a glorified body, and to be ” conformed to the image of Christ”, it is quite another to make the leap of asserting godhood for every human being. ( echoes of Satan in the Garden perhaps?)
Chapter 3 – Mankind is destined to be Deity
He actually lays a strong foundation for the Trinity in trying to explain how there can be one God and yet plural useages of the word Elohim, and the singularity and plurality used with the word church. However, he is trying to establish how humans can be gods. ” We are destined to be deity, God will then be all in all… God will finally be all humans and all humans will then be considered as being in the Lord, to be a part of the Godhead itself.”(p.23)
Since Armstong ( and Martin) define God as a family, we have a ” family of gods” and have now moved to a polytheistic worldview. This is a radical departure from biblical Christianity. Some of the early church fathers used deification language (improperly), but only in the sense ” that the Holy Spirit dwells within Christian believers and transforms them into the image of God in Christ, eventually endowing them in the resurrection with immortality and God’s perfect moral character.” ( Robert M. Bowman Jr. Christian Research Journal, Winter,Spring 1987,p.18)
No comments:
Post a Comment