On April 29, 2006, Norbert Link will give the sermon from Oregon, titled, “Keys For Successful Prayers.”
The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org at 12:30 pm Pacific Time (which is 2:30 pm Central Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
Robb and Laura Harris wish to announce the forthcoming birth of
their second child–due in December! Robb, Laura and their son, Caymus,
live in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Norbert Link will be visiting
the church in Oregon by the end of April. He is scheduled to leave
Thursday morning, April 27, and to return Monday night, May 1, with
stop-overs of several hours in San Francisco. Please pray for Mr.
Link’s travel, as mass demonstrations at several U.S. ports have been
announced for May 1.
Our new booklet, “The Mysteries of the
Bible,” has been completed and sent to our printer in England. The
booklet has been posted on the Web.
Please continue to pray for
our public Bible lecture in Fort Collins, Colorado, during the evening
of May 21, 2006. This presentation, by Norbert Link, will be held at
the Hilton Fort Collins Facility, and will be based on our new booklet,
“The Mysteries of the Bible.” Please pray that the printed booklets
will arrive in time for the lecture.
As recently announced, we have been placing most of our StandingWatch programs on “Video Google.”
The
most watched programs have been, so far: “Ghost of Departed Ones?”,
“What Is Happening in Germany?”, “The Pope Is Dead–What Is Next?”,
“Afghanistan’s Radical Islam,” “What Is the Church?” “Germany in
Prophecy” and “Europe and the Middle East.”
The most watched
programs during the week ending April 15 were: “Afghanistan’s Radical
Islam,” “The Pope Is Dead–What Is Next?”, “Evolution or the Bible?”,
“Da Vinci, Judas and a Fish,” and “Ghosts of Departed Ones?”
by Kalon Mitchell
How many times do we, as humans, limit God?
How many times do we think that, maybe, God would help us in a certain
situation, but yet still don’t ask Him about it? Throughout my short
time before becoming baptized, and even sometimes afterwards, I have
limited God and gone and done what I thought best, or just didn’t get
an answer. But yet each time I have put my full faith, confidence and
trust in God, He has answered me in amazing ways that I hadn’t thought
of or even imagined to be possible.
God tells us throughout the
Bible that He will take care of us in every way if we put our faith and
confidence in Him and ask Him for help. So the question I have for us
is simply this: Are we limiting God? The problem is: We are human. We
have sometimes an attitude of thinking that we know it all, and that we
don’t require any help. Some may feel that they know everything! But
yet God requires of us to become meek, humble and obedient.
So
let us all, in the following days, weeks, months and years, come before
our Creator with humility, and let us lay our problems, hopes and
dreams before Him, asking Him for His help and guidance.
To answer this question, we need to describe the historical background briefly.
As we pointed out in the Q&A of Update #137, dated April 2, 2004, the Bible distinguishes between the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. Both are annual Feast days, to be kept once a year. The Passover is to be observed at the beginning of the 14th day of the first month (which month is called Abib or Nisan), according to the Hebrew calendar (Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 28:16). The First Day of Unleavened Bread is to be observed at the beginning of the 15th day of the first month, according to the Hebrew calendar (Leviticus 23:6; Numbers 28:17). It was during the Passover night–the night of the 14th day–that the death angel passed over the Israelites who were in their houses (hence the name, “Passover,”), while killing the firstborn of Egypt (Exodus 12:6-13). But it was on the 15th day–“on the day AFTER the Passover”; that is, one entire day LATER–that the Israelites went out of Egypt, and it is on THAT day (at the beginning of the 15th day of the first month) that we are to celebrate the Night To Be Much Observed (Exodus 12:42; Numbers 33:3). (Remember that according to the Hebrew calendar, days start and end with sunset.)
Today’s Jewish community is totally confused about this distinction. In fact, they keep the PASSOVER at the END of the 14th and in the beginning of the 15th day, TOGETHER WITH the Night to Be Much Observed, as if the two distinct events were one and the same. But this is not according to Scripture. As stated, Scripture commands that we partake of the Passover at the BEGINNING of the 14th day, while observing the Night to be Much Observed at the beginning of the 15th day–one entire day LATER! God said that at the END of the 14th day (or in the beginning of the 15th day), we are to eat unleavened bread until the END of the 21st day–that is, for seven days (Exodus 12:18).
As the Passover is to be kept one day before the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread, why do we teach that the New Testament Passover symbol of the bread has to be unleavened? For instance, many Christian organizations allow for leavened bread during their “communion”–which they also observe more than once a year, which is another clear violation of Scripture.
Some point out that in New Testament times, the Passover was sometimes included in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but then the entire time was counted as lasting eight days, not just seven days. One of the reasons why the day of Passover was included as an “unleavened” day was that the Jews, when leaving their homes to go to Jerusalem, had to remove all leaven from their homes, before they left (Exodus 12:19). But this would not compel us to abstain from eating leavened bread, per se, during the day of Passover. Just based on Scripture, there is NO COMMAND for us today to remove all leaven from our houses before the first day of Unleavened Bread. Scripture only requires that all leaven must be removed, at the latest, DURING the Passover DAY, so that no leaven is to be seen in our houses for seven days, BEGINNING with the First Day of Unleavened Bread.
Still, the Church teaches that we must use unleavened bread, when partaking of the SYMBOLS of bread and wine during Passover. Why?
There is both a spiritual and a literal reason for this command:
From a spiritual standpoint, leaven, during the Passover season, is symbolic of sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Matthew 16:12; Luke 12:1-2), and Christ was sinless (Hebrews 4:15). To use leavened bread as a New Testament symbol for His broken body would not convey the spiritual significance of His sinless life. The same would be true for the practice of some Christian churches, which, during their weekly “communions,” don’t partake of wine at all–maybe only the ministering priest does–or they partake of white wine. However, in order to stay with the symbolic meaning of the wine, as representing Christ’s blood, the wine needs to be red; it needs to be received by baptized Church members during the Passover night; and in that religious setting, it must only be partaken of ONCE a year, and NOT more often than that. After all, Christ did not change the Passover, which is an annual celebration–He only changed the SYMBOLS to partake of DURING the annual Passover celebration.
In addition, the Bible specifically prohibited the Israelites in the Old Testament to eat leavened bread together with the Passover meal. This proves that there was no leavened bread available during the Passover MEAL (as distinguished from the rest of the Passover day). As Christ and His disciples partook of the regular Passover meal that night (Luke 22:14-16), Christ would not have had available leavened bread, when He introduced the New Testament symbols during the Passover meal (Matthew 26:26-28). This can clearly be seen, when analyzing the Scriptures of Exodus 12:8 and Deuteronomy 16:1-3:
In Exodus 12:8, God told the Israelites that they had to eat the Passover lamb (verses 3, 6) with “unleavened bread.” In Deuteronomy 16:3, God commands that “no leavened bread” shall be eaten “with it”–that is, with the Passover lamb compare verse 2). The rendition of the New King James Bible is confusing here, as they insert a paragraph between verses 2 and 3, and translate the passage as follows: “(2) Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the LORD your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to put His name. (3) You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction…”
However, the insertions of these paragraphs are arbitrary, as they cannot be found in the original. Notice how the Tanakh (The Jewish Bible) translates this passage, without placing a paragraph between verses 2 and 3: “(2)You shall slaughter the passover sacrifice for the LORD your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD will choose to establish His name. (3) You shall not eat anything leavened with it; for seven days thereafter (Lit. “upon it”) you shall eat unleavened bread…” This rendition makes it very clear that nothing leavened was to be eaten with the Passover lamb; and that nothing leavened was to be eaten during the seven days of unleavened bread, following the day of Passover. This proves that the bread which Christ gave His disciples during the Passover meal was UNLEAVENED, based on the INSTRUCTIONS in God’s Word. In following Christ’s example and the godly commandment, we, too, must partake of unleavened bread and red wine during the annual Passover service.
Lead Writers: Norbert Link and Dave Harris
On April 22, 2006, Dave Harris will give the sermon, titled, “All Knowledge.”
The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org at 12:30 pm Pacific Time (which is 2:30 pm Central Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
A new StandingWatch program was posted on the Web. It is titled, “Da
Vinci, Judas and a Fish.” It discusses the common source and origin of
the Da Vinci Code, the “Gospel of Judas” and the Theory of Evolution,
which just announced that the fossil of a shallow water fish allegedly
constitutes the “missing link” between fish and land animals.
Before analyzing the passage in Romans 5:12, 19, let us very briefly
discuss the concept of “original sin.” It was developed by Augustine,
based on a wrong translation of the Greek text in Romans 5. The
Broadman Bible Commentary points out, in Vol. 10, on page 195:
“Augustine, who knew very little Greek, followed the Latin
translation… and, on the basis of this mistranslation, developed his
doctrine of original sin, understood as inherited guilt, and the result
was a lurid picture of unbaptized infants in limbo. It is significant
that even Roman Catholic scholars, plagued most by this disaster, are
now saying bluntly the doctrine is not in Scripture.”
Simply put,
the concept of the original sin holds that we all “inherited” guilt or
transgression from Adam and Eve who “originally” sinned. According to
that concept, we inherited eternal death–which is the penalty for sin
(compare Romans 6:23)–even though we ourselves did nothing to deserve
this penalty. In other words, Adam and Eve’s original sin was somehow
arbitrarily transmitted to all, down to the last baby born before
Christ returns. From this UNBIBLICAL concept derived additional ideas,
namely:
— the Catholic concept that a baby must be baptized to
be freed from the “inherited” guilt and penalty for the original sin of
Adam and Eve (Biblical baptism is not for babies or children, however,
as clearly explained in our booklet, “Baptism–a Requirement for
Salvation”).
— the Catholic concept of the “immaculate
conception” — the idea that Mary had to be free from original sin from
the moment of her conception, as otherwise Jesus had to have been born
with inherited guilt and transgression. As sex in marriage is
considered by the Catholic Church as less than ideal, the further
concept was developed that Mary remained a perpetual virgin even after
Christ’s birth. (This concept is unbiblical, as explained in our
booklet, “Jesus Christ–a Great Mystery.”)
The wrong concept of the inherited “original sin” is described by the Nelson Study Bible, as follows:
“Through
[Adam] sin entered the world. Sin brought death. The result is that
death is now a universal experience… In Adam, we all sinned… The
result is physical and spiritual death for everyone. From Adam we
inherited a sin nature. Furthermore, as a result of our sin in Adam, we
face a common judgment–death.” The commentary goes on to say that
Adam’s sin “brought death upon us all,” and that it is not necessary
that we sinned individually.
This concept is blatantly wrong and unbiblical.
Romans
5:12, 19 is used as the proof verse of original sin. It reads, “…
through one man sin entered in the world, and death through sin, and
thus death spread to all men… by one man’s disobedience many
were made sinners…”
However, this passage does not tell us that
we are guilty of eternal death, just because of Adam’s sin, and without
any personal responsibility. Rather, an important part of the Scripture
was left out in the above quote. Romans 5:12 reads, in its entirety:
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death
through sin, and thus death [the penalty for sin] spread to all men,
BECAUSE ALL SINNED…”
This passage does not say that all sinned
only “in Adam”– that is, that only Adam sinned, and that his sin was
somehow transferred to all. Rather, the passage says that all have
sinned, individually. Romans 5:14 says that “death reigned from Adam to
Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the LIKENESS of
the transgression of Adam.” But, they DID sin. Verse 13 says that sin
is not imputed when there is no law. Since death reigned from Adam to
Moses, and beyond, there WAS a law, and sin WAS imputed. Sin is the
transgression of the law (1 John 3:4, Authorized Version), and the
penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23). Romans 3:23 tells us that “ALL
have sinned [not just Adam] and fall short of the glory of God.” And
Romans 14:12 makes it clear that we will have to give account to God
for what WE have done–we don’t have to give account for the sin of our
forefather Adam.
The idea that eternal death reigned over us even
though we did not sin, individually, is absolutely unbiblical and
misrepresents God’s very character. God is fair. If He was to hold us
responsible and make us pay for something we did not do, He would be
terribly UNFAIR.
We read in Ezekiel 18:20: “The soul who sins
shall die. The son shall NOT BEAR THE GUILT OF THE FATHER [or his
forefather Adam, who is the “father” of the human race, see Luke
3:23-38].” This text PROVES that the concept of the inherited original
sin is FALSE.
In an old article by Herbert W. Armstrong, titled, “Are People Lost Because of Adam’s Sin?,” it is stated:
“”…
it says in plain language that death passed on upon all men because all
have sinned. The death penalty is passed upon you–it is passed upon
everyone of us, because we have sinned–because we have lived the wrong
way and have not turned to God. The Scripture does not say that the
penalty of Adam’s sin is eternal death for you and me–but the penalty
for your sin, of my sin, of our sins, is death! But God so loved this
world that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever
believeth on him should not perish, but should have the gift of eternal
life (John 3:16). The way is to repent– to repent of sin– and
acknowledge Jesus Christ as personal Savior.”
But Adam and Eve’s
sin DID do something to this world. The concept of “inherited” original
sin is clearly wrong–but notice what DID happen when they sinned. In a
brief article in the Plain Truth magazine of September 1963, the
following is accurately explained:
“… Adam and Eve… sinned.
They were driven from the Garden of Eden. By sinning, they cut
themselves off from the guidance, authority and knowledge of God (Gen.
3:24). Adam not only cut himself off–he was responsible for cutting
his children off–from the help and instruction of God. Even his own
son became a murderer (Gen. 4:8)… So Adam’s sin was unique in that it
was the first human sin–it was he who cut man off from God… We have
not been forced to sin because Adam sinned!”
But the sad fact is
that we all followed Adam’s wrong example: We all sinned and brought
upon us the penalty of ETERNAL death, and so we read that “by the one
man’s offense many died” (Romans 5:15), and “by one man’s disobedience
many were made sinners” (Romans 5:19).
As we sinned by following
Adam’s example, we can live righteously by following Christ’s example.
We read that through one Man’s obedience [that is, the obedience of
Jesus Christ who never sinned and who never disobeyed God’s law] many
will be made righteous (Romans 5:19). However, this does not happen
automatically. As Adam’s sin and the consequential death penalty were
not automatically transferred on us via “original sin,” without any
individual responsibility, Christ’s obedience and His righteousness are
not just automatically transferred on us without individual
responsibility, either. Rather, we must repent of our sins and believe
in Christ’s Sacrifice and His gospel message, in order to obtain
forgiveness of our sins, so that we can be freed from the death
penalty. Following this, we are to be baptized into His death (Romans
6:3). We are not to continue in sin (Romans 6:1) after we have died to
sin (Romans 6:2). Rather, after having been baptized and “raised from
the [spiritual] dead,” we are to “walk in newness of life” (Romans
6:4). Christ only became the author of eternal salvation to all “who
OBEY Him” (Hebrews 5:9).
We are responsible for our actions. We
can continue living in sin, by following Adam’s example, or we can
begin and continue to live in righteousness, by following Christ’s
example. The choice is ours.
Lead Writer: Norbert Link
On April 15, 2006, Norbert Link will give the sermon, discussing “temptations.”
The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org at 12:30 pm Pacific Time (which is 2:30 pm Central Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
On Wednesday, April 19, 2006, is the Last Day of Unleavened Bread. Robb Harris will be giving the sermon in the morning from Colorado, and Edwin Pope will give the sermon in the afternoon from San Diego.
The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org at 9:00 am and 1:30 pm Pacific Time (which is 11:00 am and 3:30 pm Central Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
A new member letter
has been written and sent out via mail. It has also been posted on the
Web. In the letter, Edwin Pope discusses important principles regarding
Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. Also included is a write-up
about our recent Church conference. The write-up was submitted to the
Journal for publication.
The new StandingWatch program, “Uproar in France,” was posted on the Web.
We
received this update from Rey Coria in the Philippines: “I’m happy to
inform you that we had distributed your booklet “Are you Predestined to
be Saved” to some old-time members. We had positive feedback from them.
In fact, we photocopy that booklet along with other booklets for
distribution. I would like to wish you in advance a happy Days of
Unleavened Bread. We’re preparing for the Passover season. Give our
regards to all of you.”
by Phyllis Bourque
Many years ago, as a new 28-year-old
convert, and the mother of a newborn and a toddler of 18 months, it was
no small challenge to get ready for church. My mate was not being
called as I was, and so Sabbath preparations rested entirely on me. One
particular Sabbath, the children were fussy, I was tired, and it was
raining…all good reasons to stay home, or so my still somewhat
“Protestant mind” thought. Missing church that day didn’t seem as
big to me as the hassle of getting everything ready to go. So, I stayed
home.
The next week when I went to church, many of the ladies
flocked around me, very interested in my well-being and the children,
as was their custom. They mentioned how they had missed us the last
Sabbath and wondered if any of us had been sick. I explained that such
was not the case, but that the challenge of getting the children ready
to go out on a rainy day was a bit more than I could handle. And then I
said, “….but God understands.”
An elder’s wife among the group
quickly spoke up and said, “Oh, He understands, alright. He understands
where your heart is.” Her words were well-chosen and very
powerful, and they echo in my mind to this day. I came to realize
then how my actions were related to my conviction.
In the ensuing
years, I have been faced with diverse trials–trials that I never could
have predicted, nor would I have chosen had I known the details ahead
of time. But through those trials, God has given me ample opportunities
to learn much-needed lessons in order to grow in my conversion, showing
Him where my heart was and is, as I go through those trials. I
certainly cannot claim perfection in this area, but I keep trying, and
those very powerful words from a friend have been helpful along the way.
Yes,
God does understand where our heart is. Every day we show Him
where it is, in what we think, in what we say, and, most of all, in
what we do.
