BRITISH ISRAELISM - FACT OR FICTION? PART 2
by Richard Burkard
Philadelphia Church of God leader Gerald Flurry has said one of the denomination's most requested items is The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Herbert Armstrong wrote decades ago about how (in his view) those countries came to exist, and what God will do with them in the future. Many other Church of God groups still embrace the basic teachings of that book - and in 2013, so did conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck.
Yet as we've reviewed the book more than 25 years after Mr. Armstrong's death, we've found his view has several obvious flaws - along with other areas which at least are open to different interpretations.
Our first article in this two-part review took an in-depth look at roughly the first half of the book, stopping at the end of chapter IX. This article picks up the story from there, beginning with Chapter X (page 105 in the 1980 edition). It ends with what's prophesied to "happen now" to the U.S. and U.K. To borrow from another PCG book - was he right?
PAGE 106: "Notice again the original promise: 'A nation and a company of nations shall be of thee' (Gen. 35:11)."
WHAT ABOUT ISHMAEL? Church of God groups seem to bypass Scriptures noting Ishmael also was to be "the father of twelve rulers" (Genesis 17:20; KJV says "princes") -- sons named in 25:13-18. COG's seem to settle for Ishmael's "great nation" being the Arab world. But if the rulers can be traced to separate countries, no group seemingly has done it.
PAGE 108: "Many of these [denominations] will say: 'We are a NEW Testament church,' supposing Old Testament prophecies pertained only to Old Testament times, having no meaning for us today. That is an error and a delusion!"
POTENTIALLY MISLEADING. Listen long enough to Christian radio (especially stations which emphasize Bible teaching) and you'll find a number of them give modern-day interpretations to Old Testament writings. Through the Bible with the late J. Vernon McGee (a program based in Pasadena, of all places) is one example of this.
PAGE 115: "So the living Christ is now coming soon to be the Mediator of the new covenant.... But the NEW covenant will not be made with human mortals who do not keep their promises."
MISLEADING. Mr. Armstrong uses Hebrews 8 and 9 to support this view, while ignoring Hebrews 7:18-19: "The former regulation is [present tense] set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God."
Disagreement about the "new covenant," of course, was one of the core matters which tore apart the old Worldwide Church of God during the 1990s. Are Christians under it now? Only in the future? Are they somehow under both old and new at the same time? We have an article reviewing that issue in detail.
PAGE 120: "But in the days of Samuel they rejected God even as their national King.... This probably took place near the end of 1112 B.C."
SPECULATION. The NIV Study Bible offers "an approximate chronological framework" for this era in its introduction to I Samuel (1995 ed., pp. 370-71) - and it shows Samuel was born in 1105 B.C.
PAGE 121: "There is ample evidence that he [King Jeroboam] also changed God's Sabbath from the seventh to the 'eighth' day (first day of the week). This will be shown in a later chapter."
WRONG. Mr. Armstrong makes this claim again on pages 143-144 - but never presents any evidence to support it! Not even a single Bible verse!
PAGE 122: "Now continue in Leviticus 26.... This expression 'seven times' is translated into the English from a Hebrew word which conveys a dual meaning. The original Hebrew word Moses wrote is shibah. It is defined as 'seven times' and also as 'sevenfold.'"
YES, BUT.... Leviticus 26:18 indeed says, "And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins." Strong's Exhaustive Concordance shows the Hebrew word can mean both those things. BUT there's a separate Hebrew word for "sevenfold," which ironically occurs seven times in the Old Testament.
That "sevenfold" word occurs earlier in the Torah, referring to punishment for whomever might kill Cain (Genesis 4:15, 24). Curiously, Strong's and BlueLetterBible.org disagree on which Hebrew word is used for "seventy and sevenfold" in that same chapter. But it leaves us to wonder why God didn't inspire that word for "sevenfold" to appear in Leviticus 26 if that's what the kind of punishment He meant. Only Psalm 12:6 has that sort of "crossover" meaning in KJV.
"Now understand the 'seven times' - or seven prophetic 'times.' For this is a prophecy. In prophecy, a 'time' is a prophetic 360-day year."
NOT APPLICABLE. The word "times" was added to the text by the King James translators. It's NOT in the original Hebrew -- as Mr. Armstrong later admits on page 162! So he's building a big prophetic contention out of a word which isn't there!
PAGE 123: "....it is evident both by its manner of wording in the sentence and by the fact of actual fulfillment that is was speaking of a DURATION of seven prophetic 'times', or YEARS. And on this 'year-for-a-day' principle, it becomes seven 360-day years - a total of 2520 days."
NOT SO FAST. The author never explains how this point is "evident." And recall the phrase "seven times" occurs four times in Leviticus 26. Why not take that phrase literally, as COG's normally do with "ten times" in Numbers 14:22 -- or accept a more specific "day-for-year" punishment, as spelled out in Numbers 14:34 or Ezekiel 4:5-6?
(We'd also invite mathematicians to figure out for us how the "sabbath years" of Leviticus 26:34-35 computes into all this.)
PAGE 124: "Five 30-day months are precisely 150 days. So months, then, were 30-day months!"
NOT ALWAYS. The traditional "Jewish calendar" which most COG's use to compute the annual Holy Days has 29-day months in the second, fourth and sixth month.
Mr. Armstrong refers here to the great flood of Genesis 7-8. Could we not conclude the water going down in 8:3 and the ark coming to rest in 8:4 are separate events?
"In Revelation 13:5 (referring to the same event but a different amount of time) this same period of 1260 days being fulfilled in 1260 solar years is known as "forty and two months."
YES, BUT.... Keep in mind the traditional Jewish calendar also includes occasional 13-month "leap years."
PAGE 125: "....in Revelation 12:14.... The 'time' is one prophetic year; the 'times' is two more prophetic years; and the whole expression is 3½ prophetic 'times,' which is a literal 1260 days - or 3½ years of 30-day months."
A PUZZLING SHIFT occurs here - as verse 6 of this chapter is not considered literal by the author, but prophetic (as in 1,260 years). No clear explanation is given about why such a switch in interpretation occurs within this chapter.
PAGE 127: "Did you ever wonder why, after Acts 15, we read no more of the 12 apostles?"
HUH?!? Paul refers to Peter in Galatians 2:11-14 - not to mention Peter writing two epistles and John authoring four books at the end of the New Testament.
"'But go rather to the LOST sheep of the house of Israel' (Matt. 10:5-6). Yes! The lost Ten Tribes."
DID JESUS GO? The verse above quotes the Lord, who also said in Matthew 15:24, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." Do we have proof Jesus went toward the British Isles during His human life? The Biblical evidence for that seems lacking. Perhaps a better explanation is found in Luke 19:10: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
PAGE 131: "Only part of Judah went back. And those who returned were all of the three tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi."
NOT EXACTLY. See our note on page 72 from our earlier article - along with Numbers 26:29, referring to the Gileadites.
"The apostate religious system, founded by Semiramis, flowed into all nations."
UNPROVEN. The author gives no proof here, or anywhere in the book -- and you won't find that name in the King James Bible.
PAGE 132: "This special identifying COVENANT, then, ordained FOREVER, applies to all Christians today...."
WHICH ONE?! The author is referring to the Old Covenant (especially the Sabbath part), while Hebrews 8:13 refers to one that is "new" with the old one "obsolete and aging [and] will soon disappear."
"The Eternal calls the Sabbaths 'my sabbaths.'. The Sabbaths are His - they did not belong to Israel - they are not our days, but the Lord's."
NOT QUITE. The "holy day" chapter of Leviticus 23 says concerning the Day of Atonement: "you are to observe your sabbath" (23:32). See also Lamentations 1:7 (KJV), 2:6 and Hosea 2:11.
"If we appropriate it [Sabbath] for ourselves - for our own use, whether work, pleasure, or whatever - we are stealing that time from God!"
WHAT ABOUT REST? Some people delight in sleeping a lot when Sabbath comes. Some certainly need that rest to recover from busy weeks. But if "The Sabbath was made for man," as Jesus said in Mark 2:27, does rest steal time away from worship?
PAGE 134: "God commanded His people to keep the Sabbath as a sign.... It is the sign that IDENTIFIES to them who is their God!"
MISLEADING. It may seem nit-picky, but Mr. Armstrong turns "a" sign into "THE" sign (as in one and only) within a paragraph. (Keep in mind he made a big deal about "a" versus "the" day of salvation in Scripture.) Here we arrive at another big point of division in WCG during the 1990's - is God's identifying sign of New Testament Christians Sabbath-keeping? Or is it Jesus?
"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign," says Isaiah 7:14. "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" - a name meaning, "God with us." This is an Old Testament sign of a great New Testament event: the coming of Jesus.
Yet a word study of "signs" in the Bible reveals both sides of the argument may be missing something. "And these signs will accompany those who believe," Jesus said in Mark 16:17 - and the Lord goes on to list several, from driving out demons and speaking in "new tongues" to healing the sick. I Corinthians 14:22 adds, "Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers."
We could judge various COG groups based on this list, but we will not. Compare these signs to the congregation you attend, and consider whether it's living up to them.
PAGE 137: "And, further, nowhere in the Bible does God tell us to celebrate the day of Christ's resurrection!"
YES, BUT.... Since many COG's believe the "three days and three nights" of Jesus's death and burial occurred from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, wouldn't a Sabbath afternoon worship service happen to occur around the resurrection time?
PAGE 140: "The Old Covenant.... made at Mt. Sinai imposed upon the people certain terms and conditions to be performed: obedience to the Ten Commandments.... We do not come to the making of this special eternal Sabbath covenant until seven chapters later. It is, therefore, NO PART of the Old Covenant!"
HUH?! Considering Sabbath-keeping is the fourth commandment (Exodus 20:8-10), to claim it's not part of the Old Covenant sounds absurd.
"'Perpetual' means continuous and unbroken.... 'It is a sign between me and the children of Israel FOR EVER.'" [Exodus 31:16-17]
DEFINITION QUESTION. Both "perpetual" and "ever" in these verses come from the Hebrew word olam. In our study on the word "forever," we show that word can be taken in several ways - including some which are not really everlasting. For instance, how many COG's still burn the "perpetual incense" specified in Exodus 30:8 (KJV)?
PAGE 141: "Even if one tries to argue that the Old Covenant is 'abolished' and that therefore the Ten Commandments are abolished...."
PAUL MAY HAVE. What else was he describing in Ephesians 2:15, when he referred to Jesus "abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations"?
Yet the Greek root word for "abolish" katargeo admittedly can be interpreted a lot of ways. It's used in II Timothy 1:10 to declare Jesus "has destroyed death" - yet we all realize death still occurs, and will until Christ destroys that "last enemy" at His second coming (the same word, in I Corinthians 15:26).
PAGES 141-142: "Now, does God have TWO KINDS of Christians?.... Didn't Jesus say a house divided against itself will fall?"
POTENTIALLY TRUE - on both questions. The Acts 15 conference ended with "Gentile believers" being given four basic requirements to follow (15:19-20, 23-29). It's interesting to note Sabbath-keeping and water baptism are NOT mentioned there -- nor for that matter is "accepting Christ as your Savior"! Perhaps they were a "given" for everyone, as verse 21 mentions Sabbath in passing.
The NIV Study Bible explains in this chapter, "four stipulations were laid down.... These were in areas where the Gentiles had particular weaknesses and where the Jews were particularly repulsed by Gentile violations" (p. 1678).
Another study Bible adds: "The Jewish Christians are to recognize that Gentiles are not to be bound by Jewish ceremonial law." (Reformation Study Bible posted at BibleGateway.com, comment on Acts 15:18)
Jesus indeed warned against divided houses in Matthew 12:25 - and it's easy to conclude that's become a fulfilled prophecy in the years since Herbert Armstrong's death, with the old WCG shattering into several smaller groups. Ministers such as David Pack promoting a grand restored union are looked upon with great skepticism.
PAGE 142: "Are there TWO KINDS of Christians? Read Galatians 3:28-29...."
"ALL ONE in Christ Jesus," that passage confirms. But how? By worshiping on Saturdays, which is the author's focus at this point? No - "through faith in Christ Jesus," verse 26 says.
"Why is the Sabbath called, disrespectfully, sneeringly, 'the Jewish Sabbath'?"
BLAME THE BIBLE - at least in part. The gospel of John refers to several God-ordained events as "Jewish" (NIV) or belonging to the Jews (KJV), such as the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2) and the Passover (2:13 and 11:55). But admittedly no verse labels the weekly Sabbath that way.
PAGE 143: "Also Jeroboam changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the eighth.... Thus he set the day for worship to coincide with the pagan DAY OF THE SUN, now called Sunday!"
STILL UNPROVEN. As we mentioned at page 121, no Bible verses are listed to support this claim -- and not even evidence from a secular source, such as a Bible commentary.
PAGE 146: "SIN is defined by GOD as the transgression of HIS LAW (I John 3:4)."
NOT ENTIRELY. Many COG's teach this standard line of Armstrongism (which is in Adventism to some extent as well) - when a word study shows it's not the only Biblical definition of sin. We encourage you to do such a study of "sin" and see much more. For instance, King David realized he sinned after taking a census (I Chronicles 21:1, 8). Was that anywhere in the Law?
"To work on the Sabbath.... is a MAJOR SIN, punishable by ETERNAL DEATH! The Jews were without excuse."
PERHAPS NOT. Lamentations 2:6 offers these intriguing words: "The Lord has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and her Sabbaths...." Could it be that God made Judah forget, to accomplish His great purpose - just as Pharaoh seemed to forget Joseph in prison, in the book of Genesis?
(Oh, and to add a P.S. - based on James 2:10-11, are there really any "minor sins?")
PAGE 147: "But Ezekiel never took that message to the lost house of Israel. He couldn't. He was a slave among the Jews."
NOT SO FAST. "Go now to your countrymen in exile and speak to them." God told the prophet in Ezekiel 3:11. And he did go somewhere. "I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Abib near the Kebar River" (verse 15). Ezekiel presumably could have sat among the exiles silently for seven days, like the friends of Job - but the Bible doesn't specifically say that.
PAGE 148: "The entire emphasis here is differentiating between God's statutes, judgments and sabbaths on the one hand, and their fathers' different sabbaths, statutes and judgments. They were observing a different day from God's Sabbath!"
OPEN TO INTERPRETATION. This section refers to Ezekiel 20, where God through the prophet says Israel "desecrated my Sabbaths.... their hearts were devoted to their idols" (20:16). Does that necessarily mean Israel switched to a different day of worship? The author never cites any other "idol" gods, to which Israel turned.
PAGE 152: "Earlier we quoted the correct Fenton translation [of Genesis 22:17].... the 'gates' of enemy nations are the strategic SEA GATES of entrance to or exit from these nations."
NOT NECESSARILY. To say "gates" should be plural has support from several better-known translations, such as NIV and CEV. BUT those translations use the word "cities" instead of "gates" (Moffatt has "seats"). And consider other uses of "gate" in KJV, such as Genesis 19:1. Lot sat "in the gate of Sodom" - yet Sodom's exact location is a matter of speculation; one online atlas puts it well away from the Dead Sea.
PAGE 153: "HOW SIGNIFICANT, then, that Robert Fulton operated the first steamboat in 1803 - precisely when Britain and America suddenly began to MULTIPLY in national wealth!"
OPERATED IN FRANCE. History shows that's also where Fulton sailed the first working submarine - although his later naval work was in Britain and the U.S., beginning in 1804.
"As explained before, since the birthright pertains to NATIONS, the 'GATE' of our enemies would be such passes as.... Suez...."
NOT REALLY. History again shows Britain opposed building the Suez Canal - and has never owned more than 44-percent control of it.
PAGE 162: "But will America and Britain heed [Leviticus 26:20]? They never have!"
WRONG - based on Mr. Armstrong's own words a few pages earlier! He wrote during the U.S. Civil War, "God heard and answered that great national prayer offensive" sparked by President Lincoln to preserve the Union (page 156).
"....Because of the very different sentence structure and because there cannot now be another 2520-year WITHHOLDING of what has now been bestowed, it is just as certain that the shibah of [Leviticus 26] verse 21 refers to a sevenfold INTENSITY of punishment.... This time it is not worded 'seven times for your sins,' [verse 18] but 'seven times more PLAGUES'."
NOT NECESSARILY. We don't claim to be knowledgeable in reading Hebrew, but a comparison of the Masoretic text at BlueLetterBible.org indicates the word "more" is present in verse 21 -- but NOT in verse 18.
PAGE 163: "....the United States has stopped winning wars...."
DISPROVED BY HISTORY. A dramatic test for this claim came almost exactly five years after Herbert Armstrong's death, when the U.S. began an international intervention of Kuwait on 17 January 1991 (Kuwait time; the evening of the 16th U.S. time).
"Gulf War I" is how some now recall it - yet as a WCG member and cable news writer, I faced an awkward situation. Recalling the HWA prophetic statement, "America has won her last war," I felt compelled to wait for leaders of an "antiwar" church to announce whether Kuwait was a war or not! (Especially since Congress never approved a formal declaration of war against Iraq.)
Pastor-General Joseph Tkach Sr. eventually wrote that it was "a prolonged war in the Persian Gulf" (Worldwide News, 2/11/91 pg. 1) - only to write one month later, "Let's thank God that the war in the Persian Gulf is over" (WN, 3/11/91 pg. 1). Using the longtime statement that there's "government from the top down" in God's Church, that settled the wording issue for me.
Yet we could say in the case of Kuwait, both Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Tkach were shown to be wrong! But I suppose other COG members might contend Mr. Armstrong remains right, since the U.S. Congress has not declared a war since December 1941.
PAGE 168: "Remember that dew and showers [mentioned in Micah 5:7] are absolutely necessary to agricultural productivity and are a symbol of national BLESSING and WEALTH from God!"
MISLEADING CONTEXT. HWA actually emphasizes the "remnant of Jacob" in this verse, as referring to a people - as opposed to climate conditions.
PAGE 169: "....until the turning point of the Korean War at the end of 1950.... neither America nor Britain has come out on top in any major skirmish since that time!"
DISPROVED BY HISTORY. Even before Mr. Armstrong's death, the "Falkland Islands war" was a Plain Truth cover story in June-July 1982. While Britain reclaimed the South Atlantic island chain from Argentina, Gene Hogberg's article still declared "Another Sea Gate Gone" with the islands "lost in the long run.... for all practical purposes...." (pp. 41-42).
Read the whole article via HerbertWArmstrong.org to see claims and warnings which have never materialized. Sometimes I wonder if deep in their brains, COG leaders actually want Britain to surrender the Falklands - so they can declare their prophetic view finally has been proven accurate
PAGE 173: "....CHRIST is coming to deliver modern Britain and America from the now-impending Babylonish slavery. (See Deuteronomy 18:15....)"
FIRST OR SECOND? The verse cited in Deuteronomy seems more fitting for the first coming of Jesus: "a prophet like me from among your own brothers." COG ministers often point out the Lord's second coming will be much more dramatic, dynamic and powerful.
PAGES 173-174: "Her KINGDOMS over which she ruled were called 'The Holy Roman Empire' of A.D. 554 to 1814, briefly revived by Mussolini and SOON to have a last and final 'resurrection'...."
OPEN TO INTERPRETATION. As we've addressed in another article on this site, many COG's still accept the Armstrong view of seven kings from Revelation 17:10 - "Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come...." The "one is" is considered Benito Mussolini from the World War II era. But this presumes no one was able to understand this prophecy before Mr. Armstrong, around 1940.
Other commentaries take a different view - that the "one is" should be understood for the time John wrote these words, around 90 A.D. They say it could be Rome as the sixth great world-ruling empire, or Nero as the sixth emperor of Rome. We'll leave open this question: Given everything else we've seen in Mr. Armstrong's book, which line of reasoning seems more plausible to you?
PAGE 175: "The Great Tribulation is this sevenfold intensity of collective punishment which God is now soon going to lay on Britain-America! Notice a few brief excerpts from Ezekiel's description of it!.... (Ezekiel 5:12-13)"
ABOUT JUDAH - as opposed to "Israel!" We know this from verse 8: "I myself am against you, Jerusalem...." Didn't we learn from pages 62-63 of HWA's book that Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah, while the ten tribes of Israel went away?
"Joel's prophecy.... shows a plague of different kinds of locusts.... (Joel 1:7)."
WRONG. While Joel 1:4 refers to locusts, the verse cited refers to "a nation" (verse 6) doing destructive things to the land.
PAGE 182: "And the British government has NO POWER whatsoever to prevent the manyfold INTENSITY of corrective PUNISHMENT a loving God is going to cause to strike!"
NOT NECESSARILY. Couldn't a British government do what ancient Nineveh did in Jonah 3, and call for national repentance after the warning of a prophet?
PAGE 183: "World War III will start with nuclear devastation unleashed on London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, without warning!"
WHAT ABOUT DANIEL? Doesn't Daniel 11:40-43 indicate "at the time of the end... the king of the North will storm out" against the king of the South in battle, with many countries toppling?
If we are to believe loyal Armstrong follower Gerald Flurry of the Philadelphia Church of God, Cyprus will "very probably" trigger World War III as a member of the final ten-nation European Union -- thanks to a shocking world leader coming on the scene in Germany "probably this year" [2013]. Mr. Flurry also has said Iran will "start" World War III [2008].
Yet Herbert Armstrong's book which PCG offers says on page 171: "God will use a Nazi-Fascist Europe to punish Britain-America." He never mentions Iran along these lines, and certainly not Cyprus. Why would the Europeans respond to a provocation by Iran against Cyprus by bombing British and U.S. cities?
We offer that side note to point out how end-time prophetic preaching can be confusing and occasionally self-contradicting - even in the old WCG. A careful review of The United States and Britain in Prophecy brought to light several examples of this. It also showed how indeed Herbert W. Armstrong was wrong with some of the things he wrote. It only proves anew what Mr. Armstrong said time and again during his broadcasts: "Don't believe me - believe your Bible!"
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