Symbol and Meaning

Symbol and Meaning

Symbol is something I have thought about for a long time. It goes back to studying marketing, branding and the use of symbol to project power, wealth, influence, solidarity and belief. The COGs love to criticize others for the use of symbols. An obvious example is the cross. The COGs say that the cross is a Pagan symbol that goes back to the worship of Tammuz in Babylon and other various Pagan connections. The COGs also mock the use of the cross as a symbol because it was a Roman instrument of cruelty and death. The "reasoning" goes that if Christ was killed with a machine gun or an electric chair, would Christians wear those around their necks?

It shows a fundamental ignorance of what symbol is, how it functions and why. The question I would ask is: Does a symbol define its meaning, purpose and use for people or do people define the meaning, purpose and use of a symbol? The obvious answer is that people define symbols. A symbol in and of itself cannot ascribe anything to itself. With that in mind, does it make any logical sense to try and attribute Pagan meaning to the cross for a people who decided that the cross represented the sacrifice and resurrection of their Savior? It does not.

Because individuals define symbols, it is an arrogant offence to tell someone else what a symbol should mean to them. Try going up to someone with a tattoo and tell him what his ink means and you will probably get a deserved punch in the face. And yet it is what the COGs do constantly in their "gospel" message and wonder why the church continues to shrink.

A day can be a symbol we attach meaning to. God defined what the seventh day was to mean to Israel. Saturn is a planet as well as a god and is commonly attributed to be a symbol of Satan. We even call the day "Saturday" and go to worship God on "Satansday" but if anyone was to try and use the kind of reasoning we do concerning the cross, for example, against us, we would be offended. We don't worship Satan or Saturn and they have nothing to do with the Sabbath and the God who defined its' meaning in the Old Covenant...as far as we are concerned.

When the COGs are criticized for having "Winter Family Weekends" at Christmas time, they  get offended. It has nothing to do with Christmas as far as they are concerned and they are correct. Yet! They will turn around every December and tell Christians who observe Christmas that they are celebrating a pagan holiday and somehow bolstering an ancient practice of roasting babies in fires and eating them like Babylonians or Canaanites did 4000 years ago or supporting drunken sexual orgies practiced at this time of year by Greeks and Romans 2000 years ago.

With no Sola Scriptura establishing time as a symbol in the New Covenant, Christians were free to set aside any time they chose for religious purposes. The Gentile Christians who were regularly assaulted by Jews and Jewish Christians about the Old Covenant, the Sabbath and circumcision, naturally developed an aversion to Saturday and an affinity toward Sunday as a day to get together since Paul started the custom to gather offerings for Jerusalem on Sundays and the Christians knew Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday.

I know Sunday-keepers today elevate Sunday in the way Jews elevate the Sabbath. But the early Christians did not transmigrate the symbolism, meaning and purpose of the Sabbath into another day (Sunday). Neither Christians, nor Pagans observed any day as a day of rest. Later generations of Christians chose to define what Sunday was to them and how to use it. Rome imposing its will and meaning on Sunday observance has no bearing on what it meant to Christians for 300 years beforehand.

It is interesting that the two annual observances that Christians did create was:

1. Celebrating the Resurrection (called "Easter" later)2. Celebrating the Incarnation (called "Christmas" later)

Both observations are practiced annually by Christianity but largely ignored by COGs. I don't think I have ever heard a minister rehearse the Incarnation in a sermon. And the only time I hear sermons concerning the resurrection is to simply try to prove that a Friday crucifixion-Sunday resurrection is wrong. Look at what Paul says in I Corinthians 15:1-4

"Now brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to Scriptures, that he was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." 

Paul says this is the most important part of Christianity and this is exactly what is embodied in the observance of Easter and Christmas every year. The COG's two annual main focuses are on Jesus being the Passover Lamb acknowledging His death and His prophetic return as King of Kings. Not saying this is wrong but is it any better than a focus on the Incarnation and Resurrection?

Focus on prophecy was confusing people in Thessalonica (II Thess. 2). Paul and Peter both had to walk back their false assumptions about the immediacy of prophecy. COG focus has always been Old Covenant (Seventh Day) and Prophecy (Adventists) which, in my opinion, has only brought back into focus, first-century confusion caused by Jewish Christians, no matter how well-meaning.

If you consider Judaism and Mainstream Christianity at opposite ends of a spectrum, the COGs seem to exist somewhere in a confused middle because they refuse to articulate a clean break from the Old Covenant. Supposing all three positions miss the mark, where is the sweet spot? Some think it's inching closer to Judaism. We see it in a growing Hebrew Roots Movement. I know some here would say completely off the spectrum. I personally lean closer to mainstream Christian scholarship and historical research instead of HWA's 6-month library study but fully realizing fundamental flaws in Catholic and Protestant doctrines.

I think if Paul were around today, he would be telling us all to leave each other alone about the observance of days. I feel no inclination to observe Easter, Christmas or Sunday but I also see no benefit in harassing well-meaning Christians that do. Some may say I am wandering too far off the COG farm but I would just ask anyone with eyes to see if they see the churches of God growing in grace or knowledge or in fruits of the spirit? Have we set any better of an example of what Christianity should be than Catholics or Protestants? Since growth in the "work" was established as a measuring stick by HWA, is there growth in the works being done by the petty, infighting, AC alumni we call ministers?

The unpleasant truth is we are the descendants of an Adventist Movement started 176 years ago on the foundation of a false prophesy and that has continued to provide additional false prophets along the way. Are we really "the" church or are we just "a" church? Are we really a church or are we the dying aftermath of a personality cult? If we are a dying remnant of a cult, can we be salvaged and reformed into a church? Should we seek to be grafted back into the parent church started by Gilbert Cranmer? Will the church of God movement as it exists right now, spread a Sola Scriptura gospel to the whole world and usher in the return of Christ?

"Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to dispute over doubtful things...Who are you to judge another's servant?...One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind...He who observes a day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe a day to the Lord, he does not observe it...But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother?" --Romans 14:1, 4, 5-6, 10

I think everyone under the fundamentalist umbrella trip over themselves because they all declare Sola Scriptura but no one actually abides by it rationally, nor accept that Scripture does not plainly answer many questions. Approaching the Bible with a spirit of grace allows us to accept our vast ignorance and resist telling everyone else what's what. Sola Scriptura in the hands of narcissists and psychopaths is a "thus sayeth the Lord" cat o' nine tails in each competing and divided church of God that demands their work be your god, their thoughts be your meditations, their cross be your burden, their days be your idols, their private interpretations be your doctrines and their every precious heresy be your sin; sucking the free will out of hapless souls over doubtful things.

Gerald Weston used his Winter Weekend message to attack tattoos and vaping again. But I digress.

Stoned Stephen Society