Compounding this is a further deviation held by some COG groups (though not the majority or original Armstrong teaching in its strictest form): the pre-incarnate Christ (the Logos/Word) is viewed as a created creature, not originally and eternally God in the full sense. In these circles, the Father alone is the ultimate eternal God, and He created the Logos as the first and highest of His spirit creations (often likened to or preeminent among the angels/sons of God). This created being later became “God” (or the Son) through a process of begetting or elevation, and only then created everything else.
A prominent example is Wade Cox, Coordinator General of the Christian Churches of God (CCG). Cox explicitly teaches a Unitarian/Arian-style Christology: God the Father created Jesus Christ (the pre-incarnate Son) at the same time as all the other angels/sons of God. Jesus has been a “Son of God” since His creation and is of the same created order as the angels, though preeminent among them. Cox states that the Father alone is immortal and the only true God in the full sense; Christ is not God “in any sense that God the Father is God.”
Another example is Ronald Weinland of the Church of God — Preparing for the Kingdom of God (COG-PKG). Weinland teaches that Jesus Christ is not the eternal Yahweh of the Old Testament and was not eternally God. He asserts that Jesus “was not the ETERNAL (Yahweh) of the Old Testament” and emphasizes that when Jesus was in the tomb, “He had no life in Him. He was not eternal! God, His Father, had to raise Him from the dead.” This reflects a view in which the pre-incarnate Christ was created by the Father in the eternal past to serve as God’s agent in creation — a created, exalted being (not co-eternal or fully divine in the same sense as the Father) who was later elevated.
Bob Thiel of the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) holds the classic Armstrongist binitarian view: there are two divine Beings (the Father and the pre-incarnate Son/Word) before the creation of the universe. Thiel strongly affirms that Jesus (the Word) “was God” from the beginning (citing John 1:1) and rejects the idea that Jesus was merely an angel or created out of nothing in the way Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. However, Thiel’s writings and CCOG materials explicitly link this binitarianism to semi-Arianism. They describe their position as consistent with historical semi-Arians, who taught that the Son is “similar” or “of like substance” (homoiousios) with the Father but subordinate — not co-equal and co-eternal in the full Trinitarian sense. CCOG states that Jesus “was always God and forever with the Father, but once begotten, became the Son,” and they defend binitarianism as the original early-Christian view while associating it with semi-Arian history and Sabbath-keeping groups that rejected the Nicene Creed’s homoousios (“same substance”). This subordinationist framework still treats the Father as supreme and the Holy Spirit as non-personal power rather than a co-equal Person.
These teachings (“humans become God” + variations on the nature and origin of Christ) are closely linked in the logic of these groups. If the pre-existent Christ is subordinate, non-eternal in the fullest sense, or follows a path of elevation (whether explicitly created as in Cox/Weinland or begotten/subordinate as in Thiel’s binitarian/semi-Arian view), then it makes sense (in their system) that faithful humans can follow a similar path and be “born” into full Godhood as additional members of the expanding God family.
Why Both Teachings Are Biblically and Theologically Wrong
From the perspective of historic, biblical Christianity (shared across Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions), these ideas are serious errors that undermine core doctrines of God, Christ, creation, and salvation:
God Is Unique, Eternal, Uncreated, and One in Essence Scripture repeatedly declares that there is only one true God — eternal, self-existent, incomparable, with no beginning and no possibility of “more” Gods being added.
- Isaiah 43:10: “Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.”
- Isaiah 44:6: “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.”
- 1 Timothy 6:15-16: God alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light.
The Full, Eternal Deity of Christ Is Non-Negotiable
The Bible unequivocally teaches that the pre-incarnate Word (Christ) is eternally God, not a created being who was later elevated or a subordinate “like-substance” Being:
- John 1:1-3, 14: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … Through him all things were made… The Word became flesh.”
- Colossians 1:15-17: Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (supreme, not first-created). “For in him all things were created… He is before all things.”
- Hebrews 1:2-3, 8: The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, the exact representation of His being, addressed as “God” with an eternal throne.
- John 8:58: “Before Abraham was born, I am!”
Salvation Makes Us Like Christ — But Never Equal to or Identical with God
Believers are adopted as children of God by grace (John 1:12; Romans 8:14-17), conformed to Christ’s image (Romans 8:29), and will be “like him” (1 John 3:2). We will reign with Christ and participate in God’s glory — but always as redeemed creatures worshiping the Creator (Revelation 22:3-4). The “God family” reproduction analogy fails because God has no created “kind” that reproduces into additional Gods.
Connection to Legalism and a Future-Only Salvation
Connection to Legalism and a Future-Only Salvation
These errors often accompany an emphasis on law-keeping and “enduring to the end” as co-conditions for ultimate salvation and Godhood, shifting focus from Christ’s finished work (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 3–5).
By blurring the infinite gap between Creator and creature, Armstrongism and its offshoots (whether in the more extreme forms of Wade Cox and Ron Weinland or the semi-Arian-tinged binitarianism of Bob Thiel) open the door to a subtle form of polytheism dressed in Christian language. They replace the awe-inspiring truth of the triune God with a narcissistic fantasy of human deification.
Armstrongism’s teaching that humans will become “God as God is God” is wrong because it violates God’s unique, uncreated oneness, blurs the Creator/creature divide, and over-literalizes adoption language into ontological deification. The related views in some COG groups — including the created/subordinate Christ teachings of Wade Cox and Ronald Weinland, as well as the binitarian framework defended by Bob Thiel of the Continuing Church of God (which explicitly links binitarianism to semi-Arianism) — compound the error: they either deny or significantly weaken Christ’s eternal, co-equal deity, making the Savior a subordinate being rather than the eternal God-man, and logically open the door to humans “becoming God” in the same way. Both ideas ultimately replace worship of the one true, triune God with a vision of an expanding divine family.
Armstrongism’s teaching that humans will become “God as God is God” is wrong because it violates God’s unique, uncreated oneness, blurs the Creator/creature divide, and over-literalizes adoption language into ontological deification. The related views in some COG groups — including the created/subordinate Christ teachings of Wade Cox and Ronald Weinland, as well as the binitarian framework defended by Bob Thiel of the Continuing Church of God (which explicitly links binitarianism to semi-Arianism) — compound the error: they either deny or significantly weaken Christ’s eternal, co-equal deity, making the Savior a subordinate being rather than the eternal God-man, and logically open the door to humans “becoming God” in the same way. Both ideas ultimately replace worship of the one true, triune God with a vision of an expanding divine family.
The Bible offers something infinitely better: not the empty promise of becoming gods, but the glorious reality of being redeemed children of God, forever enjoying intimate fellowship with the one true, eternal, triune God through the finished work of the eternal Son.
This is not a matter of interpretive preference. It is a matter of truth versus error, of worshiping the Creator rather than aspiring to replace Him. Those who have been influenced by these teachings are urged to examine them honestly against Scripture and turn to the historic, biblical gospel: salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in the eternal Son of God alone — who became man to save us, not to show us how to become gods.
Scripture offers believers something far better and more humbling: eternal life as glorified sons and daughters of God, reigning with Christ, seeing Him face-to-face, and enjoying perfect fellowship with the eternal Creator — forever His people, never His equals. The invitation is simply to trust in the finished work of the eternal Son, Jesus Christ (John 17:3; 1 John 5:11-13).
Silent Pilgrim
This is not a matter of interpretive preference. It is a matter of truth versus error, of worshiping the Creator rather than aspiring to replace Him. Those who have been influenced by these teachings are urged to examine them honestly against Scripture and turn to the historic, biblical gospel: salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in the eternal Son of God alone — who became man to save us, not to show us how to become gods.
Scripture offers believers something far better and more humbling: eternal life as glorified sons and daughters of God, reigning with Christ, seeing Him face-to-face, and enjoying perfect fellowship with the eternal Creator — forever His people, never His equals. The invitation is simply to trust in the finished work of the eternal Son, Jesus Christ (John 17:3; 1 John 5:11-13).
Silent Pilgrim
12 comments:
Wow, essie! You either have a secret stash of writings for which you've been seeking an outlet, or you're on a bigtime roll! Good stuff. Keeo it up!
Thank you SP for this. That we can be God as God is, is simple folly. For it is clear we have a beginning and will have an end, as all men. But God is eternal, has always existed and will have no end. That we will be raised at the resurrection, at the last trumpet by His power alone shows us our own helplessness. It is simply astonishing to consider that He did this and gave this free gift to us corrupt humans to enable us to reside with Him for ever is…….As Paul wrote it has not entered into the mind of man what is ahead for him. How arrogance of us to presume we will be as He is. Except you become as little children you shall not enter into the kingdom. No works can save us, except that which Christ did at the cross. It’s rather simple. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever should believe in Him should not perish….., perhaps I just maybe understand ever so slightly this verse now, and yet many Armstrongites criticised Christianity as a whole for using this as it sounded so wish washy lol. But to be as God is God, a bridge too far. My two cents worth, cheers.
Silent Pilgrim
Excellent essay. I especially appreciated your survey of the beliefs about God found in some of the lesser-known splinter groups. I did not know that Arianism or Semi-Arianism was so explicit in these groups. I do not read their literature. I recognize that Arianism was a problem in the early Adventist Movement and this seems to have been passed down to some later generations of Millerites. I do not believe that Armstrongism is Arianist. I do believe Armstrongism is, however, Subordinationist. Both these views are ideologically cognate and reflect a diminishing of Jesus Christ. It is worth noting that Arianism was at one time widely believed in early Christianity. Some scholars believe that it was at one time the default belief and was replaced by the Nicene view, perhaps, through the use of creedal statements.
The thinner spot in you presentation is in the section titled “The Full, Eternal Deity of Christ Is Non-Negotiable “. The scriptures that you cite are interpreted differently by Arianists. In their view, these scriptures support the idea of Jesus as a great and powerful created being. And they acknowledge his divinity but view it as bestowed and not inherent.
The fact is, Jesus nowhere explicitly states in scripture that he is co-equal with God or that he is God. In the Greek usage at the time when the New Testament was authored, the term Theos could be used in many senses. It could be used of a human being, for instance, who was recognized as noble in some respect. The use of the article with Theos makes it a reference to the great and only God. This would be “ho Theos” which we would translate as “the God.” This is referred to as the articular form. And the articular form is used implicitly to refer to Jesus only one place in scripture. That is in John 20:28. Doubting Thomas refers to Jesus as ho Theos. And Jesus does not correct him in this privileged usage. While this is wholly convincing to me, Arianists will claim that it is not persuasive.
Scout
Silent Pilgrim,
Amen! I am in complete agreement with this post. Jesus said, "The Father and I are one." He also told his disciples that he was in the Father, and the Father was in him. Then he went on to say: "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you." The Holy Spirit is God in us - the spark of eternal life which is ONLY available to us through what Jesus Christ has done FOR us. Our "works" are simply the evidence that we have accepted Christ's gift and received the Holy Spirit! NO ONE will be saved by the works of the Law.
The early history of the Christian church reveals the mainstream beliefs of today did not exist back then. They gradually evolved over hundreds of years.
The original Jewish Christians were close to the current COG beliefs.
You study too much and you stop believing any of this is true.
I understand why Dennis came to believe the way he does, since the same progression happened to me.
The Father is greater than I.........John 14:28.
AND, there are only 3 feasts/festivals, not 7 - Ex 23:14-16. The first feast is not 8 days, only 7, and the feast is not two feasts as Passover and DUB. The second feast is Pentecost, fixed on "Sunday". The third feast is not a season of 4 feasts, but one feast 7 days. The other times are sabbaths, not feasts, and all, both feasts and sabbaths, are fixed times (Hebrew moed/mowed - and indicating the calendar has been fixed from Adam).
The First Century Church did not have access to the collection of writings which we refer to as the "New Testament." In the Second and Third Century, these writings began to be distributed and come together, and it wasn't until the Fourth Century that our notion of a canon of the New Testament appeared.
Now, while it is accurate to point out that Christian theology developed over hundreds of years, it would be inaccurate to state that First Century Christians were wholly unfamiliar with some of the things we are discussing. They may not have been familiar with some of the terminology (unitarian, binitarian, trinitarian) which we now take for granted, but it is very clear that the writers of the gospels and epistles believed that God was Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Finally, it is more accurate to say that a small group of Jewish Christians who insisted that Gentiles be required to keep the commandments of Torah were very similar to current COG beliefs. This group of Jewish Christians were responsible for the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), and the trouble that the Apostle Paul experienced among the Galatians.
Early Jewish Christians did worship Jesus, prayed to Him, and spoke of Father–Son–Spirit in ways that Armstrongism seems to reject.
Early Jewish Christians did not require Gentiles to keep Torah and preached the gospel of Jesus which is different to the one Armstrong invented as he didn't like it being about Christ.
As pointed out by another the coming of the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended to the Father had a profound effect upon the early church and they so recognised. Liturgical blessings illustrate.
Early Jewish Christians invoked the Spirit in blessings, spoke of fellowship with the Spirit, and treated the Spirit as a personal divine agent.
Re the Binitarian picture…the Messiah sits at the RH of God the Father not His left hand lol
Better that the Silent Pilgrim remain silent.
Bravo 7:40:00
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