Today is the Church of God version of Yom Kippur, Atonement, one of the most holy days for the Jewish people. Various churches are afflicting their bodies today by abstaining from food and drink. Some COG groups however have already celebrated Atonement a few weeks ago. As usual the church cannot agree upon anything.
Today the most arrogant and legalistic of the official church Pharisees, James Malm, made the following proclamation on behalf of the self-made creature god he follows.
What does it mean to be “cut off from your people”? It means that if we do not fast on this day we shall be rejected from being a part of the Covenant people; rejected from being a part of the bride – the Ekklesia of the faithful!So there you have it. Because you took a drink of water, had some orange juice or a bagel this morning you are damned to the lake of fire. There is no chance for you now.
A comment from a 2013 posted on this blog had this:
Rather than realizing that the Old Covenant shadows were fulfilled and no longer required to be kept, HWA instilled marketing elements into them to further his own empire and purposes. These marketing elements modified their ancient Jewish significance by injecting Herbert Armstrong's exclusionary Revelation-based understanding of Jesus' nature and personality into them. He also tainted them with his non-Holy Spirit motivated "government from the top down" and British Israelism.
Probably the Jews and Messianics in temple today are receiving better, more accurate insights into these shadows. In most of the ACOGs, unfortunately, chauvinism is being created and nurtured.
Relive those fun days by listening to this:
"What does it mean to be “cut off from your people”? It means that if we do not fast on this day we shall be rejected from being a part of the Covenant people; rejected from being a part of the bride – the Ekklesia of the faithful!"
ReplyDeleteHaha, I less than don't care about being imaginarily special. There's no such thing as an "ekklesia" (except perhaps in Greece), there's only some people who have self-nominated themselves to be part of something that doesn't exist, and in so doing, have assumed that it does.
And no Day of Atonement can be complete without animal sacrifices.
ReplyDeleteBe sure to bring the two goats. One is to be sacrificed, the other is to have all the sins of Roderick... uh... the congregation laid on it and led into the wilderness to get lost.
There are those who think the Azazel goat is not Satan, but Jesus Christ. Now it is Jewish tradition that the man leading the goat into the wilderness tossed him off the cliff for good measure to insure its non return.
If that goat represents Jesus, then, even if he wasn't thrown from a cliff, he was lost for good and won't return ever.
You know, some of these nutty ideas could be avoided with just a smidgeon of logic.
And since no one can be certain of the actual date of the Day of Atonement and there is no more Levitical priesthood to declare which day it is, chances are good that if you do try to keep it by fasting (which is not enough, since it does require animal sacrifice as do all the Feasts / Holydays), you will get it wrong and hence, being under the Law, ultimately you will be exterminated.
Oh, and don't forget: No temple, no sacrifices / feasts.
Good luck. Your kidneys may need it.
Glynn's story is sooooooo accurate!
ReplyDeleteI am going to eat an early dinner at a local buffet. I will be "at-one with", a tasty meal!
ReplyDeleteThose who have kidney failure as a result of keeping the Day of Atonement will be healed instantly each time and every time immediately after being anointed.
ReplyDeleteThe truth will not be suppressed and the healing will show that God is absolutely behind the Armstrongist churches of God.
You can absolute confidence that you will be healed when you anointed each time and every time, no qualifications and no matter what... always.
Oh, yeah, so it is. I'm not afflicting my soul one little bit. Gave up that looney tune garbage decades ago. I didn't whirl any chicken around to put my sins on it either like a lot of Jews do. I wonder that I could have once been so stupid as to fall for all that nonsense. Sounds like Louisiana voodoo to me now. I'm not going charging off somewhere to be shouted at for eight days about theological garbage either. Had quite enough of that in the past, thank you.
ReplyDeleteAllen C. Dexter
Traditionally Jews will not bathe or wear leather on Yom Kippur, and the fast will go for close to 25 hours (a Shabbat isn’t finished until around 45 minutes after sunset). I remember giving a friend a ride to synagogue on Yom Kippur, and she told me to drop her off around the block, because you had to walk to services as well.
ReplyDeleteIn one of his videos, Bob Thiel made an elaborated point about Jews using the name Yom Kippur, and the Hebrew says Yom HaKippurim (Day of Atonements). So while he considered the Jewish shortening of the name to Yom Kippur wrong, he didn’t suggest COGs change to using the name Day of Atonements.
And Bob likes to quote from Hebrews “…impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin…” as proof that sacrifices aren’t necessary. But, “blood of bulls and goats” is a reference to the Day of Atonement(s) – nothing to do with forgiveness. The day was to provide national atonement for Israel.
I told Bob years ago his deduction was flawed, as again he used Greek rather than Hebraic logic. But that’s expected; my first WCG bible study was HWA going through the book of Hebrews. It was the first time I'd ever studied Hebrews, so HWA’s explanations seemed to make perfect sense.
One thing about fasting on the Day of Atonement is that it keeps elephants away. At least, I never encountered any elephants wandering up and down the street on any of the past Days of Atonement. And, that makes just about as much sense as any of the statements that ever came out of Armstrongism about it.
ReplyDeleteBB
Glynn is indeed a gifted storyteller.
ReplyDeleteIn an odd way I get a little touch of pride when listening, because we were in the same wacky cult!