Articles for the Benefit of Members and Ex-Members of the WCG

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23
Tkach's Big Heresy
Part 2

In 1995, Jo Tkach, 'pontiff' of the Worldwide Church of God, sprung a massive heresy upon his faithful followers. Armstrong would have turned in his grave to hear the new leader of the WCG pronounce the Sabbaths no longer binding under the New Covenant! Here is the real truth!

The Pastor General of the Worldwide Church of God, Joseph Tkach, claims that because we are no longer living under the Old Covenant, that we are not obligated to obey the laws God gave Moses for Israel. We can now take our authority from Jesus alone. If Jesus didn't clearly sanction something, then we can ignore it.

Can we? Is that correct? What did Jesus Himself say about the Old Covenant?

His first major recorded teaching is in Matthew 5, 6 and 7. There He says plainly:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.... (Matt 5:17a, NIV).

Yet, Joseph Tkach is suggesting you think just that - that Jesus did come to abolish the Law (the authority of the Torah), and by inference the Prophets, too, because the Prophets confirmed the necessity of being obedient to the law of Moses.

Jesus tells you one thing. Tkach tells you another. Who are you going to believe?

This is the $24,000 question that all Worldwiders face at this time. It is the cruncher, the test. Jesus was tried in the wilderness before His ministry. He proved Himself to God. He proved that He would not play with the Word of God, that He would never compromise its sanctity and that He would uphold every precept written there. He said every word of God is true and to be obeyed (Matt 4:4).

But Tkach is telling you that not every word of God is true. He is suggesting, by clever insinuation with the use of half-truths, that because we are now under the New Covenant, the principles contained in the Old are no longer valid principles to live by. We live by the principles Jesus gave us, he claims.

Yet, the principles Jesus espoused and which He lived by, WERE the very principles Tkach is condemning from the Old Covenant! Tkach is a biblical illiterate and a deceiver!

Here is the truth about his massive heresy concerning the Sabbaths, and the contrasting truth from God's Word which Jesus upheld.

Which do you want to follow? You must decide!

Jesus Upheld Old Covenant Principles

From now on, for convenience, I will abbreviate Old Covenant to O C. Jesus' first main recorded discourse about O C law is to be found in Matthew 5:

Do not suppose that I have come to set aside the law or the prophets. I have not come to set them aside but to fill them up to the brim [picture of O C teaching as an unfilled cup, but filled by Jesus]. For I solemnly say to you, heaven and earth would sooner pass away than the dotting of an 'i' or the crossing of a 't' from the law, until it all becomes in force. Whoever, therefore breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others so to do, will be ranked as least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices them and teaches others so to do, will be ranked as great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:17-19, Charles B. Williams translation).

Jesus came to fill up the 'cup'.

This pivotal passage of New Covenant scripture is very revealing. Firstly, Jesus reveals that the Old Covenant was imperfect because it was unfinished. The wording conveys that the O C was like an unfilled cup. Jesus came to fill it up.

What was missing was the Spirit by which the Israelites could fulfil the conditions of the Covenant they had agreed with God. Only with that Holy Spirit are we able to obey the spiritual laws God has given. And the Spirit is not given to those who will not be bridled.

Spiritual laws, if they are merely observed in the letter, are relatively worthless, unless they are also obeyed in the spirit. The intent of each command is to protect people from spiritual harm. If the intent of a law is disobeyed, even if the letter does not seem to have been contravened, then the law has been broken and a penalty incurred. To avert incurring a penalty, the only way is through a spiritual submission to God's law. This can only come by spiritual impartation.

Thus, the O C cup needed to be filled up, which is why Jesus came.

Besides filling believers with His Spirit (the Spirit was not made freely available under the O C, but was poured out on believers after Jesus' death), Jesus also came to show the imperfections in traditional 'obedience'. He highlighted various areas of human behaviour that needed closer scrutiny, showing how obedience in the spirit is imperative. This teaching is contained in Matthew chapters 5 through 7.

To take just one example, Jesus enhanced the law against adultery. He said if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he "has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt 5:28, NIV). Jesus' teaching added to the law. Spiritually, He filled up the empty cup and made its teaching meaningful and relevant. In this way, He magnified the law and made it honourable, as was prophesied of Him (Is 42:21).

It is ridiculous to assert, as Tkach does about the fourth commandment, that Jesus has dispensed with the letter of the law so that we can keep it in the spirit. He claims:

...the Sabbath and the Holy Days... are fulfilled in Christ and are not binding in their physical observance in the new covenant (Pastor General's Report Jan 5, 1995, pp 3, 4.)

...the physical keeping of the Sabbath is not part of our new covenant obligation... The spiritual keeping of the Sabbath [is] (Ibid. p 2).

Can you commit adultery in the flesh without doing so in the spirit? Or, to put it another way, can you obey the spirit of the law against adultery while you break it in the letter? No!

How can you truly keep the spirit of the fourth commandment without keeping the letter of the command? There is only one way. That is in ignorance. A person who sincerely tries to keep the Sabbath holy but who is ignorant about the right time to observe it, is not condemned by God. But Tkach is not in ignorance. He has the full history and treatise about Sabbath observance from WCG archives, but he prefers to ignore all that to pursue his own lawless path - and, what is worse, to indoctrinate others in his error.

"Do not suppose..."

Another fact which Jesus reveals above is condensed in His words "Do not suppose..." This was prophetic. God knew that people would think the law and prophets had been disbanded or made obsolete by Jesus' coming. It is one of the biggest misconceptions in Christendom today - that Jesus came to do away with the Old Testament law!

He also warned believers to beware the prevalence of human teachers who would deceive the many (Matt 24:4,5). His words have been fulfilled and continue to be proven right every day! Almost every church endorses the view that the O C is irrelevant today. The teaching takes its various forms or shades, or course, but the overall prevalent view is that the principles upon which the O C was founded have been superseded by better ones Jesus brought.

This confusion has arisen because many fail to distinguish between 1) the Levitical regulations governing animal sacrifices and other ritual ordinances that were only relevant to the nation under a Levitical priesthood, and 2) the binding commandments and statutes which are valid for all time (Deut 5:29; 29:29; Ps 119:89,111; 2 Cor 9:9).

Tkach makes this mistake. He confuses the minds of his readers like this:

...now that He [Christ] has come, now that we have the reality and have entered into it, there is no more requirement for the physical figure, just as there is no more need for the physical sacrifices (PGR, 5-1-95, p 2).

....the Sabbath and Holy Days, along with other ceremonial observances of the O C, are fulfilled in Christ... (PGR, 5-1-95, pp 3,4).

The ceremonial Levitical procedures were additional to the Sabbaths. The Sabbath was a commandment, of the highest legal order for man to obey. The Holy Days were given after the commandments and there is N T evidence to show that they were not disbanded after Jesus' death.¹ But the regulations which were given purely for the Levitical priesthood to perform are no longer relevant. Tkach makes no differentiation between the two, thus confusing the issue and people's minds! Either he is abysmally ignorant, or he is abominably deceitful.

The letter to the Hebrews explains that the Levitical ordinances have been superseded since Christ's death by His sacrifice and by our giving ourselves as living sacrifices to God. But, the sacrifices have not been done away. Notice that one imperfect physical type has been superseded by a better sacrifice. Jesus has paid the price of sin through the sacrifice of Himself (Heb 10:12).

That does not mean that the standards of righteousness have changed at all. They have not been abolished. Not even the dotting of an 'i' or the crossing of a 't' has been altered. The O C law is just as relevant today as it was in 1450 BC or in Jesus' day.

"How, then, do you square that with your statement above that Jesus has put an end to animal sacrifices, etc. Isn't there a contradiction here?" No. Because sacrifice has not ceased. Animal sacrifices have now ceased as reminders of the debt due for sin. An inferior type has been superseded by a better one.

Jesus' sacrifice was greater than the sum total of all human and animal lives put together. There could be no greater sacrifice because He was God. God gave His own life for you and me on that cross!!

Besides that, we are admonished to give greater sacrifices to God today than Israel ever did. You and I are commanded to lay down our own lives as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1), to be crucified daily (Gal 2:20; Gal 5:24; 1 Cor 15:31). The cost of a ram or bullock was great as a reminder of what Israelites owed God as a result of their sins. But a human life is greater still. Your human life does not pay for your sins, but it is a requirement that you surrender it to God, otherwise you will not inherit the better life He offers you ahead.

So, you see, even sacrifices have not been abolished. There is merely a change in 'administration'.

Jesus did away with nothing from the O C. If anything seems to have been removed, it has been replaced with a more complete and appropriate fulfilment as part of the New Covenant (N C).

Tkach - A Heretic Condemned

Notice also what Jesus said in Matthew 5:19. Jesus did NOT say that it doesn't really matter what is taught. He affirmed that obedience to God's law is high on His agenda for man. Anyone who teaches that obedience to any of God's laws is unimportant - even ones we might consider "least" - "will be called least in the kingdom of heaven".

Tkach fits that bill. He considers some commands to be "least" - in fact, so irrelevant that he encourages people to disregard them! What is his esteem in the eyes of God? According to Jesus, here, it is very low. According to the ratings of men, judging by the accolades he has received from various evangelical quarters, it is very high!

But don't forget what Jesus said to religious leaders:

You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God (Luke 16:15, NKJV).

Paul also declared the fierceness of God's judgement on those who have contempt for His law:

[God] will render to each one according to his deeds: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honour and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness - indignation and wrath... (Rom 2:6-8, NKJV).

Moses reminded Israel of the irrevocability of God's Word:

Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it (Deut 12:32, NKJV).

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you (Deut 4:2, NKJV).

Tkach is a heretic. He has deliberately undermined the authority of God's Word about aspects of obedience to His law. Such a move may be humanly expedient, but it is execrable!

His clever words have taken away from God's Word so that (according to him) you need not keep one of the commandments. He has removed the foundation of obedience to the Sabbath command and put in its place the authority of the church.

The Basis for Your Belief

Having said that there is no need for you to keep the Sabbath today in a physical way, he then says:

Does this mean that we should stop keeping the Sabbath? No, it doesn't. We will continue to keep the Sabbath (PGR, 5-1-95, p 2).

Why say this? He's already said that there is no need to keep the Sabbath physically. Now he is saying that the WCG will keep doing so.

He has put himself in place of God. By undermining God's command on Sabbath observance and giving the command to continue to keep the Sabbath, his authority is what is paramount. He has dispensed with what God says and put in its place what HE says! This is no different from what the fore-runner of the Catholic Church did when they gave approval to Sunday as a day of rest in place of the Sabbath. The change from Sabbath to Sunday occurred long after the apostles were dead, and after the fall of Jerusalem.

This change was given great political support through the 'conversion' of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made a decree in the fourth century AD that people were to be given a day of rest on Sunday. For those who do not know this already, it was the Roman Emperor - not God, nor the early Church - which made this changeover 'legal', and established it as a Church tradition. Yet there is no scriptural authority for altering a command of God. Man simply does not have that authority! It is blasphemy to alter anything God has laid down. The man of sin is condemned in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4 for this crime of putting himself in place of God.

Do you see what now establishes Sabbath worship in the WCG? It is no longer God's Word. It is Tkach's word. It is the command of the church leader which is taken as final. Tkach has taken God's place in the Church.

Church tradition established by the church leader - not true biblical tradition - is thus established as the basis for WCG behaviour and conduct. Do you realise that the Greek word for "tradition" used in the N T carries the number 666 in its gematria?

That should tell you something about how serious this very subtle change is to God. You are given a warning in Revelation 13:18 about the number of man which identifies the "beast" and aspects of unacceptable worship which are a part of the "beast's" system. That number is 666.

He... forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead... which is the name of the beast or the number of his name (Rev 13:16,17, NIV).

Do you see that Tkach has very subtly forced you - if you are a current WCG member - to accept this mark of the beast? If you comply with his heresies, if you give him honour by remaining part of the WCG in its heretical position, you are giving allegiance to him and also to the devil who has inspired him in his erosion of truth.

The mark of the beast is submission to human concepts in place of the divine, or acceptance of a human form of worship, in compromise of the truth which God wants you to unequivocally accept and live by.

The basis of your belief should not be what a man says, but what God says in His Word - unadulterated by the subtle fallacies added to it by what church leaders say, or which detract from it.

Taking Tkach Apart

To demonstrate to you that what Tkach is saying is demonic heresy, we must carefully scrutinise his words and compare them with the yardstick of God's Word. Here are his heretical statements, and those which seem innocuous but which instill doubt in the reader. They are followed by my comments which give substantiation from God's Word.

• 1. Why don't we find the Sabbath commanded in the new covenant? (PGR, 5-1-95, p 1).

Because there was no need. The nation to which Jesus came was keeping that commandment strictly. The N C does not make obsolete the precepts of the Old. Furthermore, Jesus made several statements which indirectly reveal His approval of Sabbath- keeping. These are Matthew 19:17, Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 24:20, Revelation 12:17. There are also several references in Luke's book of Acts which demonstrate that the early Church was keeping the Sabbath (e.g. Acts 13:5,14,42-48; 14:1,2; 15:9,21; 16:13; 17:1-4; 20:6,16; 21:19-25; 27:9; 28:17,20-22.)²

• 2. Colossians 2:16-17 tells us that the reality or substance, is Christ, and now that he has come, now that we have the reality and have entered into it, there is no more requirement for the physical figure, just as there is no more need for the physical sacrifices (PGR, 5-1-95, p 2).

We have already shown why this spurious analogy with sacrifices is so misleading, under the heading Do not suppose...

If you read Colossians 2:16 carefully, it actually says the opposite of what Tkach is inferring:

Let no one, then, be judging you in food or in drink or in the particulars of a festival, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths... (Col 2:16, Concordant Literal Translation of the Greek New Testament).

Clearly, the Colossian Christians were keeping God's festivals, new moon observances and Sabbaths and Paul reminds them to be careful how they observed such events so that no one would have a justified reason to criticise them for the way they kept them. Notice that it is not the festivals which are in question, but the particulars of their observance - the minor physical aspects of what was being eaten or drunk, or how they did so. He continues:

... which are a shadow of those things which are impending (Col 2:17, CLNT).

What is impending? What is to come? The Millennium when Christ rules, when Satan will be banished, when the nations will understand God's truth, when utopia will occur on earth, and God's plan come to fulfilment. All that is foreshadowed by the Sabbath and the Holy Days. So, there is excellent reason to be observing them as reminders of what is coming.

Jesus has not yet returned to set up His Kingdom on earth, so all this is future. Hence "the reality is found in Christ" (Col 2:17b, NIV). The total fulfilment will be achieved through Christ's reality being seen and felt on earth. The real body, the real substance of all that these days prefigure is to be found in the fulfilment ahead. That is not a reason to dispense with these days, but to observe them!

Therefore Paul says these observances ARE a shadow, not as the NIV wrongly renders the Greek, they "were" a shadow (Col 2:17a). They are current!

If you use the sly reasoning Tkach does that, because the fullness has already come (which it hasn't yet - Jesus' second coming is still ahead of us) "there is no more requirement for the physical..." then you can commit the physical act of adultery - just make sure you keep that command in the spirit. Or you can murder: so long as you don't hate. Or you can steal if it's justified. What trollop! What heretical reasoning! Do you see how deep is the evil behind such insinuation?

• 3. Paul's point [in Col 2:16,17] is that to bring the physical figure back in, as a requirement for salvation, is to minimise the value of the true reality (PGR, 5-1-95, p 2).

That was not his point at all! The physical figure never went out, so it was not being brought back in! Paul was condemning legalism, not the keeping of the Sabbaths or holy days. He was countering ritualism which some were relying upon as a substitute for true Spirit-led worship. And some of that ritualism was derived from paganism - from human tradition (Col 2:8). The Sabbaths and holy days were never human tradition. They were correct godly tradition. They were never "hollow and deceptive philosophy" (2:8).³

Tkach is the one presenting hollow and deceptive philosophy! How the tables have turned full circle! The WCG was once legalistic in its Sabbath doctrine. Now the problem is not legalism but liberalism!

• 4. ... the physical keeping of the Sabbath is not part of our new covenant obligation (Gal 4:1-31). (PGR, p 2.)

It is - because it was part of Jesus' obligation. He was obedient in all points and was without sin (Heb 4:15), and we are to follow in His footsteps (1 Cor 11:1).

Paul said we ARE under an obligation (Rom 8:12, NIV), and that obligation involves being obedient to all aspects of the law - in the letter and the spirit:

[Jesus] condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit (Rom 8:3,4, NIV).

It is misleading to use Galatians 4, to try and substantiate Tkach's claim. Galatians was written to address legalism which was creeping into that church, and drawing people away from Spirit-directed worship. Two aspects of legalism were being added to the faith. One was drawn from paganism (Gal 4:9,10)³ and the other was Abrahamic circumcision. Galatians 4 does nothing to disprove that we are obligated to keep the Sabbaths. Its emphasis concerns allowing the direction of the Spirit and shunning these legalistic additions which are works of human effort (Gal 3:3).

Tkach knows nothing about allowing the direction of the Holy Spirit because he is devoid of the Spirit. He is ignorant about Spirit-led worship. He doesn't permit Spirit-led worship in meetings because it would show him up for the charlatan he is. WCG meetings are always humanly directed. There is no power of the Spirit present!

The analogy of Sinai versus heavenly Jerusalem or Hagar versus Sarah (Gal 4) is not meant to imply that the commands given at Sinai are now irrelevant to Christians, but to show that we must go on from simple obedience in the letter to Spirit-led obedience which encompasses all our thoughts and attitudes.

• 5. The spiritual keeping of the Sabbath [more religious clap-trap!] - the entire new life lived through faith in Christ - is what is commanded (PGR, 5-1-95, p 2).

Does faith in Christ alone keep you sinless? No. Not without an appropriate fulfilling of our obligation. We are physical beings and it is inevitable that some of our worship will be reflected by a physical response. You cannot spiritualise away all obedience. One aspect of faith in Christ is shown by obedience to the Sabbath command, just as it was for Israel, who by keeping it, expressed faith in God as the One who sanctified them (Ex 31:13).

• 6. The old covenant is not applicable to Christians.

This is a half truth, added to mislead. Tkach has already wrongly conditioned minds to equate the O C with obedience to the Sabbath command. So, wherever he hints at the O C in derogatory terms, he prejudices minds against Sabbath observance.

Tkach is laying a foundation for further heresy, more daring, more dastardly. He dare not throw out the Sabbath in one move. WCG minds would not accept that yet.

To be continued.

Jacob I Myers

¹ This is contained in a leaflet entitled The Early Church Kept Israel's Commanded Assemblies, available from Midnight Ministries, PO Box 29, Aylesbury, HP17 8TL, UK.

² For a fuller explanation, refer to The Early Church Kept Israel's Commanded Assemblies, available from Midnight Ministries, PO Box 29, Aylesbury, HP17 8TL, UK.

³ A more complete exegesis is provided in a 54-page booklet, The Controversy Concerning Law and Grace, available for £2.00 from Midnight Ministries, PO Box 29, Aylesbury, HP17 8TL, UK, and also in Our Sabbath Rest, available for £3.00 from the same address.