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Information about the Worldwide Church of God
AUTHOR: Unknown
PUBLISHED ON: April 29, 2003
DOC SOURCE: CCN

The following information about the Worldwide Church of God was extracted from
the pamphlet titled, The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error, which is
available from Moody Press.

All Scriptures quoted here were taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION (C) 1978 by the New York Bible Society, and used by permission of
Zondervan Bible Publishers.

The Worldwide Church of God was founded by Garner Ted Armstrong and is
commonly referred to as Armstrongism.

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                      From the Teachings of Armstrongism

                                    GOD

God is a Family, a Kingdom, not a limited trinity (The Plain Truth, Aug 1958,
p. 17).

The doctrine of the Trinity is false, pagan (The Missing Dimension in Sex,
37).

God is a family: God is reproducing Himself and man was created to literally
become God (What it Means to Be Equal with God, p. 43).

At the present time there are only two beings in the God Family, (1) God the
Father, Father of Jesus Christ, (2) God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One
who became Jesus Christ, God the Son (“The God Family” in Tomorrow’s World,
May 1971).

You can become God (“God’s Power” in Tomorrow’s World, Nov 1971, p. 12)

But quantitatively, man will never equal God the Father, just as surely as God
the Creator (Jesus Christ) will Himself never quantitatively equal God the
Father (What it Means to be Equal with God, p. 44).

YAHWEH was the God of Israel.  They (Israel) did not know God the Father (“Is
Jesus God?” in The Plain Truth, Sept 1958).

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                            From the Word of God

                                    GOD

GEN 1:1  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

DEU 4:35  You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is
God; besides him there is no other. 

JOH 4:24  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in
truth. 

1TI 2:5  For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus.

MAT 28:19  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

MAT 3:16-17  As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At
that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a
dove and lighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom
I love; with him I am well pleased.” 

GEN 11:7  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not
understand each other. 

ISA 48:16  Come near me and listen to this: “From the first announcement I
have not spoken in secret; at the time it happens, I am there.” And now the
Sovereign LORD has sent me, with his Spirit. 

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                      From the Teachings of Armstrongism

                                JESUS CHRIST

Before Jesus was conceived by Mary, He was not the Son of God (“Just What do
You Mean–Born Again?” p. 43 in Tomorrow’s World, Oct 1971).

God the Creator (Jesus Christ) Himself will never quantitatively equal God the
Father (What it Means to be Equal with God, p. 45).

Jesus Christ was born a Son of God by a resurrection from the dead . . . and
as a born son of God, Christ is God!  God Almighty His Father is God.  They
are two separate and individual persons (Why Were You Born? pp. 21-22).

God the Father did not cause Jesus Christ to get back into the body which had
died.  Jesus Christ was dead . . . and the resurrected body was no longer
human.  It was Christ resurrected, immortal, once again changed (The Plain
Truth, Apr 1963, pp. 10, 40).

Christ’s body disappeared.  Christ was raised as a divine spirit being (If You
Die, Will You Live Again?, p. 6).

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                            From the Word of God

                                JESUS CHRIST

JOH 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. 

MAT 1:18  This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary
was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was
found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 

ISA 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be
with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 

1TI 3:16  Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared
in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached
among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. 

JOH 1:14  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen
his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of
grace and truth. 

JOH 1:18  No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the
Father’s side, has made him known. 

ROM 1:4  and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be
the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 

1CO 15:17  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are
still in your sins. 

HEB 7:25  Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God
through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 

ACT 1:11  “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the
sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back
in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” 

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                      From the Teachings of Armstrongism

                                HOLY SPIRIT

The Father and the Son are in definite locations with respect to each
other . . . spirit proceeds from them and fills the entire universe.  Spirit
is God’s life (How You Can Be Imbued with the Power of God, p. 5).

Theologians have blindly accepted the false doctrine that the Holy Spirit is a
third person–the heresy of the trinity.  This limits God to Three Persons!
(Just What Do You Mean–Born Again?, pp.17, 19).

God’s Spirit dwelling in you is God’s own divine love (What Do You
Mean–Unpardonable Sin?, p. 9).

Whenever we become members of God’s begotten family, we receive a portion, a
seed or germ, of the Father’s Holy Spirit.  Notice that the Holy Spirit, the
germ by which we are begotten, comes from the Father (How You Can Be Imbued
with the Power of God, pp. 3, 4).

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                            From the Word of God

                                HOLY SPIRIT

JOH 15:26  When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. 

JOH 16:8  When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin
and righteousness and judgment.

JOH 16:13  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all
truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he
will tell you what is yet to come. 

JOH 14:26  But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said
to you. 

ROM 8:11  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in
you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal
bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. 

EPH 5:18  Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be
filled with the Spirit. 

ROM 8:9  You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the
Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the
Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 

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                      From the Teachings of Armstrongism

                                    SIN

In literally hundreds of places in your New Testament, Jesus Christ and His
inspired apostles teach absolute obedience to all of the Ten Commandments (The
Plain Truth, p. 18).

We must repent of sin, repent of transgressing God’s law, which means turning
from disobedience as a prior condition to receiving God’s free gift (The
Inside Story of the World Tomorrow, p. 48).

Sickness is only the penalty of physical transgression, and whenever one is
sick, he is paying that penalty.  Healing is nothing more or less than the
forgiveness of sin.  God is the only real physician!  Scripture labels other
modes of healing idolatry.  Medicine has a pagan origin (Does God Heal Today?,
p. 8).

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                            From the Word of God

                                    SIN

ROM 3:10  As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.

ROM 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

1JO 1:10  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his
word has no place in our lives. 

1JO 1:8  If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is
not in us. 

1JO 3:4  Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 

1JO 5:17  All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death. 

ROM 14:23  But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his
eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin. 

JAM 4:17  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it,
sins. 

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                      From the Teachings of Armstrongism

                                  SALVATION

Jesus alone, of all humans, has so far been saved (Why Were You Born?, p. 11).

The blood of Jesus Christ does not finally save anyone.  It saves merely from
the death penalty (of sin)(All About Water Baptism, pp. 1-3).

Baptism is an essential ordinance for salvation.  You must be baptized to
become a true Christian (“This is the Worldwide Church of God,” in Tomorrow’s
World, Feb 1971, pp. 16-17).

Along with the physical act of baptism is promised the Holy Spirit, through
the laying on of hands (Tomorrow’s World, Apr 1971, pp. 41-42).

One who is born of God is merely begotten spiritually.  He is not yet really
born.  Only those who develop spiritually shall finally be given
immortality . . . at the second coming of Christ (All About Water Baptism, p.
2).

When Jesus Christ returns to this earth, He will, for the first time, set His
hand to save the world.  He will offer salvation (to all people) (There is a
Real Hell Fire, p. 6).

A majority of those who die without Christ will be resurrected and gain
opportunity to believe during the Millennium (Predestination–Does the Bible
Teach It?).

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                            From the Word of God

                                  SALVATION

ACT 16:31  They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be
saved–you and your household.” 

JOH 1:12  Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he
gave the right to become children of God.

JOH 3:18  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not
believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of
God’s one and only Son. 

JOH 3:36  Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects
the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him. 

TIT 3:5  he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because
of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the
Holy Spirit.

EPH 2:8-9  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can
boast. 

ROM 3:24  and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that
came by Christ Jesus. 

ROM 10:4  Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for
everyone who believes. 

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                      From the Teachings of Armstrongism

                                  REDEMPTION

The purpose of life in us is that God is really creating His own kind,
reproducing Himself.  At the time of the resurrection we shall be
instantaneously changed from mortal into immortal.  We shall then be God!  You
will actually be God, even as Jesus was and is God.  You are setting out on a
training to become Creator, to become God (Why Were You Born?, pp. 21-22).

We . . . will generate eternal life intrinsically within ourselves (What It
Means to Be Equal with God, p. 43).

Furthermore, we will counsel and advise our Creator-Father (What It Means to
Be Equal with God, p. 45).

Physical human beings in Tomorrow’s World . . . will worship before the feet
of God’s present-day human servants (Your Destiny–The God Family, p. 37).

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                            From the Word of God

                                  REDEMPTION

EPH 1:7  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,
in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.

1PE 1:18-19  For you know that it was not with perishable things such as
silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down
to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb
without blemish or defect. 

REV 1:5-6  and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn
from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us
and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom
and priests to serve his God and Father–to him be glory and power for ever
and ever! Amen. 

HEB 9:22  In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with
blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. 

COL 1:20  and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things
on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the
cross. 

HEB 10:12, 14  But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for
sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.  Because by one sacrifice he has
made perfect forever those who are being made holy. 

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                      From the Teachings of Armstrongism

                                RETRIBUTION

When a human being dies, he is DEAD, which means that his body, mind, and soul
are all dead.  He simply stops being (Do You Have an Immortal Soul?, p. 41).

The wicked will be resurrected at the close of the Millennium, but only to be
annihilated (Lazarus and the Rich Man).

Rebellion against the Law of God means eternal punishment and everlasting
death.  God will save no person He does not rule (Which Day Is the Christian
Sabbath?, pp. 35, 58, 93, 94).

“Everlasting” means “age-ending.”  The translation “everlasting” is
misleading, since the fire itself will not burn forever.  The concept of
“hell” is part and parcel of the folklore and mythology of the whole
world . . . as a place of punishment and torture of the wicked (Tomorrow’s
World, pp. 14, 18).

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                            From the Word of God

                                RETRIBUTION

ROM 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

DAN 12:2  Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to
everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 

HEB 9:27  Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face
judgment.

REV 20:12  And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne,
and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The
dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 

2TH 1:7-10  and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This
will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with
his powerful angels.  He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey
the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  They will be punished with everlasting
destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of
his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be
marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you
believed our testimony to you. 

MAR 9:45  And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you
to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 

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