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

* * *

24
Tkach's Big Heresy
Part 3

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!

Tkach writes as though faith in Christ fulfils all our obligations. Faith in Christ is all you need to fulfil God's righteous requirements, he claims. Paul wrote that "the righteous requirements of the law" are to "be fully met in us" (Rom 8:4, NIV). How? By faith in Christ alone? No. Notice how:

...who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit (Rom 8:4 NIV).

Tkach omits to emphasise what Paul emphasised. Nowhere was Paul undermining or lessening God's requirements for righteousness. Paul was not saying that any of the commandments were now irrelevant under the N C. He was pointing out that the Spirit faithful believers are now given enables them to come into a new sphere of righteousness.

Tkach doesn't understand that there are two parts to righteousness. He only recognises one.

• 1. The imputed righteousness of Christ, which comes by faith in His atoning blood:

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5:21, NKJV).

Yet this is only half the story. You can have faith in Christ to save you, but that faith moves you to DO something positive too. It moves you to fully obey His commandments. Ezekiel prophesied of this:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws (Ezek 36:26,27, NIV).

The love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5) and that love causes us to respond in righteous obedience. John confirmed this:

This is love for God to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God has overcome the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith (1 Jn 5:3,4, NIV).

John did not separate faith in Christ from obedience to God's commandments. Nor did James or Peter, or Paul, or any of the apostles. Yet Tkach does.

Why? Because he is a heretic.

By cleverly isolating faith in Christ from duty, he is opening the door for lawlessness to enter.

• 2. So what is the second part to righteousness? It is practical righteousness - doing what you should.

You can't keep any of God's commands properly in the spirit if you are not prepared to obey them in the letter too. Faith in Christ does not absolve you of obligation to keep the 'physical' aspects of God's moral code. It actually increases your moral obligation.

Faith in Christ alone will not keep you sinless. You have to deliberately fulfil what God reveals as your essential and elementary duty - to obey His commandments as best as you can and submit to His Spirit in doing so. That doesn't make you righteous or save you without His blood, but it is the only fitting response.

He died for your sins. Are you going to repeat those sins, claiming that your faith in His blood covers your wilfulness? That's going back to the vomit!! That's not true faith in Christ. It is a damnable counterfeit: a lie!

And this is the despicable heresy Tkach is now promoting as New Covenant theology!

Taking Tkach Apart

In Part 2, we were investigating Tkach's thesis and analysing it point by point. I will continue that here.

• 7. The Sabbath does not appear in any of the "sin lists" in the New Testament (PGR, 5-1-95, p 2).

It doesn't need to. It is so elementary that there should never be any question. The "sin lists" of the NT (e.g. Gal 5:19-21) highlight the attitude side of our sinful nature. The Sabbath command is a relatively easy one to keep in the letter. It can even be kept by those who have any of these gross "attitude" sins. The Pharisees demonstrated that.

But Tkach is deliberately misleading his readers by saying the Sabbath does not appear in "sin lists". He should know that there is a succinct condemnation of Sabbath breaking in 1 John 3:4. The KJV put it well:

Sin is the transgression of the law.

One clear aspect of the law is the need to keep the Sabbath holy (Ex 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15).

• 8. At creation, God rested on the seventh day and sanctified it. But we also need to understand that at creation, God gave no command to human beings regarding keeping the day as a Sabbath (PGR, 5-1-95, p 2).

What a diabolical statement! How does Tkach know that? He doesn't! It's an assumption.

Just because there is no record in Genesis of God commanding man to observe the Sabbath day does not mean He did not give such a command. Absence of proof is not proof of absence!

The very fact that Genesis 2:3 states "God blessed the seventh day and made it holy" is strong inference that mankind was informed about the Sabbath, and was expected to keep it holy.

To add to his pernicious insinuation, Tkach then goes on:

The day is not called the Sabbath at creation; it is called the seventh day.... there is simply no biblical teaching that a Sabbath commandment existed before God formed a relationship with the Israelites... at Sinai (ibid.).

What a cunning, devious way to try and assert that there was no Sabbath-keeping until Sinai. Genesis 2:3 makes it clear that the seventh day was made holy. Exodus 20:8 commands that it be kept holy. No other day of the week was ever regarded in such terms, so it is clear to any reasonable, objective person than the seventh day and the Sabbath are one and the same.

But then, we have to make allowances for Tkach. He is neither objective nor reasonable. His thesis is sly, cunning and deceitful. It is designed to cast doubt in the minds of unstable people, to erode their foundations of true biblical understanding!

• 9. Even if the Sabbath were a command from creation, which it isn't. Colossians 2:16-17 tells us that the Sabbath is the shadow, and that Christ is the reality to which it pointed. Now that the reality, Christ, has come, the shadow, as a binding law, is no longer in force (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Here, he compounds one lie with another two. He hasn't proven that the Sabbath was not a command from creation. Nor does Colossians 2:16-17 say that the Sabbath was a reality which pointed to Christ's first coming. It doesn't say that! The full reality of Christ's coming, the fullness of His salvation and all that it will bring, does not occur until His second coming. That has not occurred yet.

Paul says nothing in Col 2:16-17 about the binding laws of the Sabbath, new moons and holy days being no longer in force. Tkach is reading all this INTO the text. It simply is not there!!

• 10. The point in Colossians, Galatians, 2 Corinthians and Hebrews is that this reconciliation [to God] comes about not by keeping the shadow, but by faith in the reality, Jesus Christ (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

That is deceptive. It is another half truth. While it is true Paul was emphasising that legalistic observance of anything will not justify, he was not saying that Sabbaths are irrelevant now we are in Christ. The points of contention were not these holy days God gave Israel, as Col 2:16 makes clear to an objective reader. The problem in Colossae was a reversion to accepting pagan ritualism into their worship. Notice it:

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world [Sabbath and holy day convocations were never of the world, they were given by God!], why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? [The problem Paul was addressing was about details of their worship.] These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings (Col 2:20-22, NIV).

Sabbaths and Holy Days which God gave Israel were not the issue! The Colossian heresy revolved around accepting humanly-devised ritualistic aspects into their conduct.

Tkach makes the mistake of so many other Bible commentators and 'scholars' - he reads into the text what he presumes, based upon a wrongly assumed premise, instead of reading out of it what Paul was intending. In his ignorance, Tkach wrecks Paul's meaning by extracting parts and reading them out of context.

Satan used this technique 1900 years ago:

[Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort... to their own destruction (2 Pet 3:16, NIV).

Satanic distortion continues today!

• 11. The way into that glorious freedom, the promised Sabbath rest, the rest sanctified at creation.... (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Hang on a minute! Tkach said a moment ago that the Sabbath was not the rest sanctified at creation. He claimed it was just the seventh day - whatever that is supposed to mean!

Do you see how this man is messing up people's minds? He is casting doubt on something, to try to undermine every reason God gives in scripture to uphold His Sabbaths for man. Tkach is not expounding scripture. He is expunging it. And one of the best methods is by subtle double-talk. Undiscerning minds, who trust him, don't perceive what is happening. They are becoming confused and less sure what IS the real truth.

He continues:

...the rest sanctified at creation. has been made possible by the work and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and it is entered into by the elect of God through faith in Him. We have, through faith in Christ, entered the spiritual reality of the Sabbath (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Here he goes again! He's back on his deceptive hobby-horse, galloping off in the wrong direction with faith alone.

Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law (Rom 3:31, NIV).

But Tkach nullifies the law by his teaching.

True faith in Christ is expressed in obedience to God's law:

...he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does (Jas 1:25. NKJV). So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty (Jas 2:12, NKJV).

You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe - and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? (Jas 2:18-20, NKJV).

Why doesn't he quote these scriptures which totally contradict his thesis? He's either too blind or too self-willed to do so, or both! God calls him a fool, for that is what he is!

• 12. It is not a question of the Sabbath "being done away" [he knows he can't get away with that claim in the WCG, just yet!] as though the Sabbath has no meaning or value. It is a matter of understanding the identity, the work and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

That sounds good, doesn't it? Analyse it! It's nothing but deceitful double-talk. It's contradictory. It's a conglomerate of half-truths, mixed together. Confusion!

Here he is saying that the Sabbath is not done away, yet in statement 9 he claims it "is no longer in force"!

The man is a fool! Just as James said of those who claim that ethereal faith in Christ is all you need.

• 13. Faith in Christ brings freedom from sin and therefore fulfils what the Sabbath symbolized. That is the New Testament keeping of the Sabbath (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

No, it isn't! Jesus demonstrated a part of His keeping of the Sabbath through a physical act (Luke 4:16).

Faith in Christ, without corresponding actions of practical righteousness, is worthless. It is not true faith in Christ. Real faith in Christ produces visible fruit, and one of the fruits is obedience to God's commands (1 Jn 5:3).

If faith in Christ alone fulfils what the Sabbath symbolised, as Tkach claims, then the Millennium should be here now. There is no need for any practical obedience because Jesus has done it all for us. All we need is this ethereal, dream-world "faith" and we are there!

This is rubbish! Faith in Christ does not fulfil the Sabbath or the Millennium. It will take His conquering and our co-operation to do that! The Sabbath is a commandment, not just a symbol!

• 14. The Sabbath is expanded in the New Testament to its full and glorious meaning and intent. [That's true.] To think that it, as an old covenant command [derogatory implication by association with O C] is still a requirement for the people of God, is to miss the point of it [no, it isn't], to minimize the coming of the Messiah [no, it isn't], and is no better than going back into animal sacrifices and circumcision [no, it isn't!] (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

What absolute rubbish! But how devious! He starts with a wonderful truth, then he adds his heresies. This beguiles the unstable.

There is an O C command in Leviticus saying:

You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself (Lev 19:18, NKJV).

Is this no longer a requirement for the people of God because it is part of the O C? No. Jesus said it was very relevant (Matt 19:19).

Leviticus 19 also contains this:

Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and keep My Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God (Lev 19:3, NKJV).

There is no separation here. There is no distinction between the fifth command and the fourth. They are of equal importance. And they were both in the O C, and observed by Jesus.

Yet, Tkach fantasises: "To think that it, as an old covenant command, is still a requirement for the people of God, is to miss the point of it". Not at all. Jesus regarded the O C commands as a requirement (Matt 3:15) and never missed the point of any of them! The point of obedience is to bring unity - something he has destroyed in the WCG!

The point of the Sabbath was not merely as a symbol of the Millennium, which is Christ's glorious 'rest' on earth, but as a means to enjoy meaningful contact with God and be reminded of Him continually.¹

If keeping the Sabbath day holy is a reversion into ritualism akin to insisting on circumcision and animal sacrifices, then so is refusing to murder, to steal, to commit adultery, or not to set up an idol and bow down to it.

Keeping God's commandments as they are literally laid out is not ritualistic reversion. The spiritual reversion is in Tkach for claiming such a thing!

• 15. We therefore keep the Sabbath voluntarily (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Who doesn't? I have never kept it for any other reason. Can a man force you to keep the Sabbath if you don't want to keep it? Not for long! And for most people, not at all!

What is Tkach's statement meant to prove? It leads the gullible reader into making an assumption - that Sabbath observance has been an imposition, something forced upon him, an aspect of bondage which he needs to throw off.

All the years I was in the WCG, it was never an imposition. I kept the Sabbath because God showed me that it is very relevant. I love God, so I have no problem accepting anything He tells me from His Word.

To infer that it is a forced imposition misleads. There WERE forced impositions in the WCG, however. These were usually subtle impositions on members to submit to the leadership. Leadership domination was an abuse, but Sabbath-keeping wasn't - except as individual members wrongly observed it. (An abuse which is not limited to Sabbatarians.)

We keep the Sabbath voluntarily, recognizing it as a biblical pattern for worship (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Tkach is lying again. If he recognised it as a biblical pattern for worship, why has he said that it is merely a shadow, and "no longer in force"? It is clever double-talk, meant to confuse.

• 16. If we make it a requirement for salvation or for membership, we are misusing it and imposing it in an inappropriate way ... (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Once again this is a mixture of truth and error, the potent concoction.

If God has revealed to your mind that the Sabbath is relevant - He removes from your eyes the deception that blinds the majority in Christendom on this point - then He holds you accountable to keep it. But if He has not, naturally you are not expected to keep it. There will be many Christians who will inherit salvation never having kept a Sabbath holy in all their lives. But once God unlocks your understanding to perceive the truth that the Sabbath is as relevant a command as not stealing or honouring your parents, He holds you accountable to keep it.

It is true that church membership should not be denied a person on this basis alone, but church membership is immaterial anyway. The body of Christ is not identified by church membership. You don't need to belong to a church organisation to belong to Christ. Churches tend to be groups of people who believe similarly, so a person who doesn't keep the Sabbath is highly unlikely to want to be a member of a church which does. So, Tkach's statement is incongruous.

• 17. Some of us have made significant sacrifices to keep the Sabbath.... No sacrifice made for God is in vain. But God has now brought us to the point of truly understanding that salvation is by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and there are no strings attached (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

God has brought you to this point? No He hasn't. Satan has, because you are encouraging lawlessness! He has deceived you. Faith in Christ does lead you to make sacrifices to obey God.

We are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8), so that no man can boast of his own works. But no one will be in the Kingdom who does not have works to show for His faith in Christ (Rev 22:12; Matt 25:14-46), so there are "strings attached".

• 18. God knows the love his people have for him (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

What about your love of the truth? (2 Thes 2:10.)

• 19. ...just because we suffered in the past with certain misunderstandings doesn't mean Christ would forgive me for just continuing to bind that on everyone else (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Tkach's approach is still wrong! He has no authority to bind anything on anyone! This fundamental misconception about authority in the church has led to many problems. THAT is the source of more difficulties than the Sabbath ever was.

• 20. At conversion, we enter into full allegiance to Jesus Christ, living no longer according to the desires of the flesh, but according to his commands... (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Here's more double-talk. If Tkach lived according to God's commands he would not be throwing out the fourth one in favour of a nebulous substitute that is pure symbolism, not practical substance.

One desire of the flesh is to disregard the sanctity of the Sabbath.

• 21. ... we walk according to his will, which is made manifestly plain in the New Testament (PGR, 5-1-95, p 3).

Tkach doesn't walk according to His will. And he certainly doesn't make God's will manifestly plain to WCG folks. They're more confused than ever about what is a pattern for true obedience about the Sabbath.

• 22. But the Sabbath and the Holy Days, along with the other ceremonial observances of the old covenant are fulfilled in Christ and are not binding in their physical observance in the new covenant (PGR, 5-1-95, pp 3,4).

Here he goes again, mixing up truth with error. The Sabbaths were not ceremonial observances like the sacrifices, washings and other ritual ordinances which were part of the Levitical duties for that time only.

If the Holy Days were abandoned when Christ came (although this suggestion is not found anywhere in Paul's letter to the Hebrews), why were the disciples gathered to keep Pentecost? (Acts 2.) Why were Gentiles and Jews (not just Jews) still congregating at the synagogues on Sabbaths? (Acts 13 and 14.) Tkach's lawless claim is not supported by scripture!

If the Sabbaths were fulfilled in Christ, then so are the other commands of God, so we don't have to obey anything. This is the logical outcome of this satanic reasoning. It gives rise the ultimate doctrinal folly – of believing that everyone will be saved and that it doesn't matter what one's conduct, so long as you "profess Christ" you will be saved.

• 23. Christ expects me as the leader of the Church.... (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

Did you catch that blasphemy!? Tkach is saying that he is in Christ's place! Jesus is the leader of His Church. He is its Head (Eph 1:22). But Tkach claims that papal office for himself.

"... not to bind unnecessary burdens on the members" (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

This presupposes:

1) that the Sabbath is an unnecessary burden, which it is not. It is an honour and a delight to those who love God (Is 58:13), and

2) that Tkach has a right to bind things upon others. He has no such right. No man has. Every person has free moral agency. They must choose. Lording it over others is scripturally outlawed (Matt 20:25,26).

• 24. We will continue to assemble on the Sabbath and on the Holy Days (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

Why, if they are now unnecessary? Because it would be too hard to persuade all the members not to. It's easier to keep control of the people while that habit remains. Perhaps later he will be able to introduce Sunday keeping?! One WCG congregation is already having Sunday services. Understandably, not all Worldwiders are ready for the transition.

• 25. The Sabbath and Holy Days become holy time for us as we devote them to God (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

So, WE make things holy now. Not God! This is rank blasphemy! God says in scripture what is holy and what we should KEEP holy. Men make nothing holy.

• 26. But we do not need to, and should not, judge one another with respect to the days we devote to God (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

That's going to be difficult to prevent now Tkach has pronounced that Sabbath-keeping is no longer relevant. Those who follow Tkach are going to tend to look down on others who feel it is right to keep the Sabbath. His teaching has drastically divided the church. So much so that many have left to join off- shoot churches which adhere to the biblical teaching about the Sabbath.

• 27. The Sabbath commandment pointed back to the perfect creation and ahead to the perfect redemption, forgiveness of sins, and reconciliation that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

Tkach has left something out. The Sabbath depicts creation, redemption AND restoration: past, present and future. He omitted the latter. Why? It detracts from his thesis. He wants you to believe that the Sabbath pointed forward to Christ, not that it points forward to Jesus' second coming and the Millennium to follow. To emphasise the last point erodes his claim that it is an observance of the past, not the present!

I hope you can perceive how devious this is!

• 28. We must allow for differences of understanding and practice within the Church (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

Of course, he would say this now, wouldn't he? He wants members to be tolerant of him and his heresies. This approach is a complete U-turn from former WCG intolerance to those of different belief. It is also rank hypocrisy. Tkach junior does not tolerate ministers preaching their doctrinal views from the pulpit. He throws them out of the church! He disfellowshipped a large number of ministers who honourably resigned over this issue. Instead of being tolerant of them and their views, he made sure he blackened them in the eyes of WCG members!

• 29. The sign of true Christians is faith in Christ (PGR, 5-1-95, p 4).

That's a new one! Chapter and verse please!? Can't find it. Actually, it's the presence of the Spirit which is the sign (Rom 8:14; 1 Cor 14:22; Mark 16:17) but Tkach doesn't have that!

To be continued.

Jacob I Myers

¹ Our Sabbath Rest is a complete exegesis on the biblical teaching of the Sabbath and its observance throughout history. This 74-page book can be obtained for £3.00 from Midnight Ministries, PO Box 29, Aylesbury, HP17 8TL, UK.