Truth Magazine

By Bobby Witherington

Any history of the Worldwide Church of God (so-called) must, of necessity, include biographical information regarding Herbert W. Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong is to the Worldwide Church of God what Joseph Smith is to the Mormons, Ellen G. White to the Adventists, Mary Baker Eddy to the Christian Scientists, and what “Pastor” Russell is to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Armstrong is its “founder,” “prophet,” “chosen apostle,” “ambassador,” and “head.”

Herbert W. Armstrong was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 31, 1892. His parents were members of the Quaker Church, and in that religion he “grew up.” At age 16 he first felt the urge to “become somebody important.”(1) Prior to that time Armstrong had been `only an average student, but after his awakening he started spending extra hours at the public library, forming a lifelong habit of study.”(2)

However, at age 18 he decided to forego formal education for a career in advertising. “During the next 16 years he enjoyed several periods of success in business. He traveled, became a successful copywriter and rubbed elbows with some of the elite of the literary and business worlds. But at the end of those 16 years, he found himself in Portland, Oregon, with his third business failure behind him, unemployed and on the brink of poverty. In such circumstances he soon lost the last vestiges of his `cocky and self-confident’ attitude. Years later he decided that he was being `softened’ for an unconditional surrender to God: `It seemed, indeed, as if some invisible and mysterious hand were causing the earth to simply swallow up whatever business I started. And, indeed, that is precisely what was happening! God was knocking me down! But I was not yet out!”(3)

Of course, diligent Bible students, who compare Armstrong’s teaching with the Bible, as well as his overall manner of life, would question his implied “unconditional surrender to God.” And those who have heard him preach over the years and/or have read his writings are prone to doubt his having “lost the last vestiges of his `cocky and self-confident’ attitude.”

Prior to his “third business failure,” while visiting his parents in Salem, Oregon, his wife (Loma) became acquainted with an elderly lady who seemed to be an avid student of the Bible. In Mrs. Armstrong’s studies with this elderly lady she supposedly made a great discovery: “obedience to God’s spiritual laws summed up in the Ten Commandments is necessary for salvation.”(4) The lady who influenced Mrs. Armstrong was “Mrs. Ora Runcorn, a member of the Church of God (Seventh-day).”(5)

Mrs. Armstrong was delighted with the results of their study, but Herbert W. was very displeased. He angrily determined to prove his wife wrong on the Sabbath question. In his words: “I studied the Commentaries. I studied the Lexicons and Robertson’s Grammar of the Greek New Testament. Then I studied history. I delved into encyclopedias – the Britannica, the Americana, and several religious encyclopedias. I searched the Jewish Encyclopedia, and the Catholic Encyclopedia. I read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, especially his chapter 15 dealing with the religious history of the first four hundred years after Christ …. I left no stone unturned.”(6) Of course, Armstrong knew nothing about rightly dividing “the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), and still doesn’t – as evidenced by his insistence on observing the rites of the Mosaic law which Jesus fulfilled (Matt. 5:17, 18), and which was nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14). Moreover, it seems that he was really studying everything else but the Bible. Hence, it is not surprising that some six months later he emerged from his studies concluding that “his wife had found the truth after all.”(7)

Anyway, however false his conclusions, his studies paved the way for a great change in the future course of his life. After further study `he was ordained, by and under the authority of, the Oregon Conference of the Church of God.”(8) “Following his ordination in 1931,” Herbert Armstrong began writing and doing evangelistic work in Oregon. He soon began to encounter difficulties with “the Church of God, with headquarters in Stanberry, Missouri (now Denver, Colorado), the original parent body of the Oregon Conference of the Church of God.”(9) The difficulties were partially triggered by his wild, wide-eyed British Israelism heresy, and his disillusionment with the tactics employed by fellow preachers in these “evangelistic campaigns.” So “in August 1933 he severed all direct connection with the Church of God and entered the independent evangelistic field. A few weeks later, on October 21, 1933, a new independent Church of God was organized by approximately 20 of his friends, who named him pastor.”(10)

On the first Sunday of 1934 Armstrong launched “The World Tomorrow radio program which provided him with the springboard for his remarkable success.”(11) How did his radio program begin? “On this, Armstrong relates that during the summer of 1933, while living in Oregon, he planned `a series of lectures’ in and around Eugene, Oregon, and walked out over the country side inviting neighbors to attend. `A little later,’ he adds, `an invitation came to lecture over radio.’ Afterwards, the owner of `an 100-watt station called him in and suggested a regular half-hour program, at a cost of only three dollars per hour. `That,’ he writes, `was the start of The World Tomorrow program. It could not have started smaller.'”(12)

Thus Armstrong claims to believe the first week of 1934 was one. of the most important dates in all of history. Please observe what this humble preacher, who had “lost the last vestiges of his `cocky and self-confident’ attitude,” says: “On the first Sunday in 1934 God’s time had come. God opened a door! Jesus Christ Himself had foretold this event! Millions have read his prophecy . . . . What really occurred that Sunday morning precisely at 10 o’clock, was a momentous event. It was the fulfillment of a definite cornerstone prophecy of Jesus. More than that, it was the initial start-off event of the fulfilling of some 90% of all the prophecies in the Bible! And approximately a third of the whole Bible is prophecy!”(13) According to Armstrong this date was the first time since 69 A.D. “that the true gospel of Christ” had been heard! Hence, for obvious reasons, Armstrong named his church the Radio Church of God. It was later re-named the Worldwide Church of God.

One month after beginning his The World Tomorrow radio program Armstrong began publishing Plain Truth. He and his wife, Loma, were the complete staff. The first edition “totaled about 250 copies. It was an eight-page, mimeographed issue.”(14) Today The Plain Truth, a 46 page publication, boasts “a monthly circulation of more than five million copies worldwide in six languages,” going “into 202 nations and associated states around the world.”(15)

Suffice it to say, notwithstanding the falsity of his doctrines, Armstrong has been very successful in getting them before the people. His ability as an editor and as a radio speaker, by anyone’s standards, has to be unquestioned. And even today, notwithstanding his highly publicized inconsistences, troubles, and defections within his empire, his money collections, radio and TV coverage, and his Plain Truth circulation seeems to be at an all-time high. “Income has soared from $90.3 million in 1980 to $108.4 million in 1981.”(16) His messages are aired on hundreds of radio and TV stations in the United States, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, and other international areas.

What is his magic formula for attracting followers? “A blood-and-doom message supposedly prophesied in the scriptures, delivered with an urbane professionalism that moves all but the well-informed and the very sophisticated to the edge of despair. This is followed with the promise of a `wonderful world of tomorrow,’ a bright and shining utopia without poverty, war or disease, which lies only, a few short years ahead, so near that they will live to see this promised land.”(17) Then, too, this long time broadcast of daily alarms – such as droughts, tornadoes, floods, world-wide changes in weather patterns, wars and rumors of wars, overpopulation, ecological disasters, famines, earthquakes, spiritual degeneration and moral decay when delivered by such articulate, positive-sounding voices, with almost perfect timing, naturally attracts and retains the interest of listeners.

In addition to his magazine, radio broadcasts and telecasts, Armstrongism is disseminated by way of his colleges. In 1947 he founded Ambassador College. According to his deceived follower, Roderick C. Meredith, “Ambassador College, located on campuses at Pasadena, CA, and Big Sandy, Texas, is the only educational institution on earth where the real answers to life’s biggest problems are clearly disseminated.”(18)

But all is not well within the Armstrong empire. Time wounds all heels! “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). “On January 3, 1979, at 9 o’clock in the morning, the Government of God went into receivership. In yet another conflict between Christ and California, state agents seized fiscal control of the Worldwide Church of God and its affiliate institutions, Ambassador College and the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation, charging the church’s eighty-seven-year-old founder, pastor, and `Only Apostle for Our Time,` Herbert W. Armstrong, and his beloved disciple, Stanley R. Rader, with misappropriating church funds. The state alleged that Armstrong and Rader, with help from trusted acolytes, had bled the body of Christ for millions of dollars, which they had spent on astronomical salaries, luxury houses and cars, year-round first-class travel, and extravagant gifts to foreign dignitaries.”(19) Rader had been Armstrong’s legal counsel. Finally, in 1975 Rader was baptized in a bathtub in Hong Kong’s Mandrin Hotel, after which Herbert W. began to speak of him as “my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”(20) Others, however, believed Rader was a convert to mammon, not to God. Space forbids discussing the apparent power struggle, the conniving manipulations of Rader, and the shake-up within the Armstrong empire. Rader was eventually relieved of his responsibilities. Also the charges of then Attorney General Deukmejian were eventually dropped. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Armstrong, now nearly 91, can not long continue at the top. His son, Garner Ted, is on the outs with his father, or vice versa, and no one else seems to have the charisma to take his place. That, coupled with the realization that time has proven his prophecies false, surely must be a source of inner agony to Herbert W. – unless per chance he has totally seared his conscience.

His Connection With Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses

“. . . Mr. Armstrong is an off-shoot of an off-shoot of the Seventh-day Adventist church.” “. . . The neighbor lady who revealed the great discovery to Mrs. Armstrong was a former member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church . . . .” “Mr. Armstrong’s theology in many areas paralleled Seventh-day Adventism, such as his insistence upon obvservance of the Seventh-day Sabbath, abstinence from certain articles of food as unclean, a general Adventist system of prophetic interpretation (albeit with his own peculiar modifications), his extreme legalism and the observance of feasts, and new moons, and his denunciation of the doctrines of hell and eternal punishment for which he has substituted the Adventist doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked. Mr. Armstrong owes a considerable debt to Seventh-day Adventism as he does to Jehovah’s Witnesses (with whom he agrees in his denial of the doctrine of the Trinity and the bodily resurrection of Christ) and the Mormon Church, whose teaching that man may become as God, was appropriated by Armstrong without even the slightest acknowledgment to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.”(21)

Herbert W. Versus Garner Ted

In 1955 Garner Ted Armstrong, the youngest of the four Armstrong children, began broadcasting on the “The World Tomorrow” program in a voice that sounded so much like his father’s that many could not tell them apart. This continued until April of 1972 when Garner Ted was suddenly taken off the air. Herbert W. soon sent a letter to his ministers to read before their congregations saying his boy was “in the bonds of Satan.” Adultery headed the list of the circulated rumors regarding the things of which Garner Ted was guilty. According to Barry Chase, a minister who defected from the WCG, the church was told that “Garner Ted’s birth was foretold in the scriptures and that his adultery was prophesied in Malachi 2:14.”(22)

However, after a few months Garner Ted was back on the air and in 1973 was designated by Mr. Armstrong as his “divinely appointed ‘successor, ” with the senior Armstrong rationalizing that “Ted is divinely called” and “above the scripture.” But Garner Ted’s ascendancy was brief. In the spring of 1978 Stanley Rader announced that Ted’s television program would be canceled, and that he would also be removed from his position as head and board member of the college and the church. To his shame, Garner Ted turned around and formed his awrr church, The Church of God International (CGI) with headquarters in Tyler, Texas. Within weeks he was back on the air, preaching on a network that grew to twenty stations within six months. “Like father, like son!”

One suspects that Garner Ted’s fall was not so much over his adultery as his differences with his father over other matters – especially his father’s globe-trotting visits with foreign dignitaries, upon whom he lavished expensive gifts. Of this aspect of his father’s labors Garner Ted says, “never in the history of human endeavor… has so much money been spent by so few for so little. Those trips are just glorified autograph-hunting tours–window dressing, like AICF and QUEST. My father has gone on and on about the great good these trips were doing, but it might come down to a thousand dollars a word for some lecture on the `Seven Laws of Success’ to the Civitan Club of New Deli or the Rotarians of Nairobi. Dad has boasted about how he does not mention the name of Jesus Christ on these visits. If this is the case, why bother?”(23)

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the complete history of Armstrongism cannot be written, for, like sin and error in general, this “ism” is still around. Because many people “will believe anything if it is not in the Bible,” multitudes will continue swallowing this amalgam of religious error. As long as Armstrong is alive many will doubtlessly regard him as “God’s Only Apostle for Our Time.” No one can fully foresee the devastating trauma his empire will experience when he dies as, indeed, he must. How tragic that in his quest to become “somebody important” he became one of Satan’s most effective preachers!

Endnotes

1. The Preachers, James Morris, p. 322.

2. Ibid., p.322

3. Ibid., p.322

4. The Kingdom of the Cults, Walter R. Martin, p. 295

5. Encyclopedia of American Religions, J. Gordon Melton, 1978.

6. The Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong, Vol. 1, pp. 285-295.

7. The Inside Story of the World Tomorrow Broadcast, p. 48.

8. The Preacher, James Morris, p. 323.

9. Ibid., p.331.

10. Ibid., p. 332.

11. The Armstrong Error, C. F. Deloach, p. 8.

12. The Plain Truth, August, 1969, p. 2.

13. The Plain Truth, Jan. 1959, p. 3.

14. The Plain Truth, Feb. 1983, p. 5.

15. Ibid, p. 5.

16. Christianity Today, Aug. 6, 1982.

17. The Preachers, James Morris, p. 321.

18. The Plain Truth, Jan. 1983.

19. Atlantic Magazine, March, 1980, Article: Father, Son, and Mammon, Wm. C. Martin.

20. Ibid., p. 60.

21.Newsweek, Oct. 20, 1980.

21. The Kingdom of the Cults, Walter R. Martin, pp. 296, 207.

22. Newspaper article in The Sower, July 1974.

24.Note: Endnote notation not found in original document. “Atlantic Magazine, Article, `Father, Son, and Mammon,” p. 60.

25. Note: Endnote notation not found in original document. Ibid., p. 61.

23. Ibid., p. 63.

Guardian of Truth XXVII: 11, pp. 321, 341-342
June 2, 1983

By Raymond E. Harris

Jesus commanded the apostles, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mk. 16:15, 16). In Romans 1:16, the apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: For it’s the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” And in 1 Corinthians 1:21, it is written, “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by .the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

When we consider all the foregoing and remember that James said, “. . . Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21), it would seem that preachers would be awed and driven to fulfill their great responsibility to preach. You would think that every professed preacher would be motivated to accept the charge to “be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine (2 Tim. 4:2).

However, in our perilous times, it seems that many professed preachers have little time to preach. Many are so busy running off to “retreats,” going camping, taking the young people skating, to amusement parks and to workshops that there is little time left to prepare or deliver sermons. Some are so busy promoting boy scouts, homecoming celebrations or blood donation programs that gospel preaching is neglected: Some are so busy with marriage counseling, community services or local politics that there is precious little time left to tell anyone the grand old story about Jesus. Many are so involved in promoting schools, aggrandizing themselves as professed miracle workers or amassing money through secular endeavors, God’s word goes begging.

What a shame that the world’s masses are going off to hell while professed preachers go off to the retreat, the camp or the convention.

Guardian of Truth XXVII: 10, p. 313
May 19, 1983

By Dick Poplin

During the War Between the States, General Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army won a decisive victory at Perryville, Kentucky, in October of 1862 over the Union forces, but instead of holding his ground or advancing against his adversary, Bragg chose to withdraw to Tennessee which, he seemed to think, could more easily be held. The end of the year found Bragg facing Union General Rosecrans at Murfreesboro, and the battle that followed again was counted as a victory for the South. But again Bragg retreated to make his stand on the line of Tullahoma, Wartrace and Shelbyville. In the spring when the Union army advanced to meet him, he withdrew toward Chattanooga, always, it seems, searching for a more advantageous place to make a stand.

This is not written as a history lesson on the War Between the States, but to point out that we, like Bragg, can have the means to stand our ground and instead of doing so make a “strategic withdrawal” to what we have been convinced is a more defensible position. Instead of standing firm for the truth we may allow ourselves to be maneuvered into making a retreat to a false position.

We are admonished to put on the whole armor of God in order to stand against the enemy of our souls (Eph. 6:11, 13), to watch, stand fast, act like men and be strong (1 Cor. 16:13; Phil. 4:1; 2 Thess. 2:15).

Let us think of the question asked in Luke 18:26, “Who then can be saved?” We might answer something like this: those who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, have been baptized for the remission of sins and who follow the word of God in respect to life, work and worship.

That is a position we can stand on, ground which we can hold against the enemy. But some will say it is too narrow. They wish to include those who have been baptized for the remission of sins but use the instrument of music in the worship, support human organizations out of the church treasury, teach premillennialism, and such like. “Let us unite as baptized believers and all work together,” they would say.

Suppose, then, we retreat to the position that God accepts all who have been baptized for the remission of sins whatever their teaching, worship and practice in carrying on the work of the church. It will not be long before someone takes us to task again for our narrow views.

“There are godly people who believe in Jesus Christ who have not been baptized for the remission of sins. Some have been baptized because their sins are forgiven, some to get into a denomination, some have been sprinkled or poured, and some have had nothing they call baptism, but they are sincere people who believe in Christ. Do you say that they will be lost?” they ask.

So we retreat again and accept as saved all those who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Then there will be those who are disturbed because we are taking the position that leaves sincere and pious Jews and Unitarians outside the realm of salvation. “Surely,” they will say, “all those who worship Jehovah God as we do, the one true God, will be accepted of Him even though they do not believe in Christ.” Remember all the furor a few years back about the statement that God would not hear the prayer of a Jew? The highest office holder in a large denomination had to take backwater on that statement.

Again we retreat to take in all those who worship the one true God, thinking that now we are in a position we can surely maintain.

But even among those who claim to be Christians, who say they believe in Jesus Christ, there are those who say “Ours is not the only religion.” There are religious people, they will argue, who do not know about Jehovah God, but they worship a god. Surely God will recognize in their misguided worship as reaching out to Him and will accept their sincere worship as well as ours.

We fall back to include the pious Shintoists, Buddhists, Moslems, Confusianists and all the rest. But to some we will still be too narrow. The life is what counts. If a person lives a good life, is honest, treats his neighbor right, he will be acceptable to God even though he might be an agnostic or atheist. God will accept them because of their morality, we often hear.

Surely, then, if we take in the atheists who follow the golden rule, no one will find we are too narrow. Then comes the Universalist who says all men will eventually be saved. “God is too good to send any of his children (all mankind) to eternal punishment.” We withdraw to the ultimate false position. Our backs are to the wall. We have now come to the position that all will be saved.

So we turn again to the Bible and not to what men say about what we believe. The New Testament is our standard of truth. We must test these positions by it.

Will All Men Be Saved?

Jesus said, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able” (Lk. 13:24). There is a wide and a narrow way (Matt. 7:13, 14). Many are those who go in at the wide gate and follow the broad way that leads to destruction, and few are those who find the narrow way which leads to life eternal. All men will not be saved. The judgment scene in Matt. 25:46 shows that some will be lost. Paul said the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9).

Will all moral men be saved? Cornelius was a good moral man. He had done many alms deeds and even prayed, but Peter was sent to tell him words whereby he and his house would be saved (Acts 11:14). Those who come to God must believe that He is (Heb. 11:6). The moral man who does not believe in God will not be saved.

Can one be saved by believing in and worshipping just any god? There is one God (Eph. 4:6; 1 Cor. 8:4; Deut. 6:4). And one must believe in the one God (Heb. 11:6).

Will those who believe in the one true God be saved? Jesus said, “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (Jn. 8:24). Life is through His name (Jn. 20:30, 31). Again Jesus said, “I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (Jn. 10:9). There is salvation in no other name (Acts 4:12). One must believe in Christ to be saved.

Will those who only believe in Christ be saved? We are not justified by faith alone (Jas. 2:19, 24). Mark 16:16 puts both faith and baptism before salvation and Acts 2:38 puts both repentance and baptism before the remission of sins. In order to be saved one must put Christ on in baptism (Gal. 3:27), and be baptized into His death where the benefit of the blood shed for the remission of sins is found (Rom. 6:3).

Is it enough just to believe and be baptized? “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by him” (Col. 3:17). In the name of the Lord means that we must do all by His authority. We must have authority for whatever we do. If we are doing many things, as some have said, for which we have no authority, we ought to stop it.

Jesus said, “And why call me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). Paul pointed out many things in his first letter to the church at Corinth which were to be corrected. Five of the seven churches of Asia were given strong warnings by the Lord (Rev. 2, 3). One was told to repent or she would have her candlestick removed. Another was told to repent or He would come quickly and fight against her with the sword of His mouth.

John said, “Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9).

There is no authority for mechanical instruments of music in the worship. We are commanded to sing (Eph. 5:19, Col. 3:16). There is no authority for societies through which to do the work of the church, no organization above the local church, no authority for sponsoring churches or centralized elderships or “brotherhood” projects. There is no authority for churches to provide recreation and entertainment for their members.

We are not to retreat from the truth, but to stand. It is better never to retreat in the beginning. Lost ground is hard to recapture. When General John B. Hood took over the Army of Tennessee in Atlanta, after others had retreated that far, he tried to swing around and retake Nashville, but after disastrous battles at Franklin and Nashville he was forced to turn back. The war was already lost. Many think that if Bragg had seized the advantage he had in Kentucky history might have been different. Whether that would have been best for the nation is beside the point. The point is that we as Christians should not retreat from the truth or we may lose the war. It is hard to regain lost ground.

Guardian of Truth XXVII: 10, pp. 305-306
May 19, 1983

By Larry Ray Hafley

One of the proofs of the Deity of Jesus is that He was the master of every circumstance. Regardless of the situation, fie was without limitation; He always acted without hesitation or equivocation. As certain also of our own poets have said, “Whether the wrath of the storm tossed sea, or demons or men or whatever it be, no storm can swallow (or swamp) the ship where lies the Master of ocean and earth and skies.”

All of us have areas of relative expertise. We know we are proficient in some fields and deficient in others. We recognize our limitations. However, Jesus never encountered a challenge that He could not challenge and, if need be, change. He was never puzzled or flustered as to what should be done or said. He never became irritated, exasperated, or frustrated because a problem was too difficult to deal with. Note some examples which show the perfect control that Jesus had at all times in all events.

In The Physical, Material Realm

When waves of the sea sought to overwhelm and overthrow the boat, Jesus calmly awoke, arose and rebuked them. “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” (Matt. 8:27). That exclamatory question has never been answered by scoffing, scorning skeptics. Jesus manifested His power over disease, death and distance. Time and space had no borders to hold Him in check. His authority overcame all obstacles and restraints. He was not bound by time, space or mass (Matt. 9:20; Jn. 2:6; 4:46; Mk. 6:37-44). Truly, He was “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).

In The Intellectual Realm

No issue was too touchy, knotty, or controversial for Jesus to handle. The Pharisees sent their wiliest, sharpest debaters to entangle Him in His talk (Matt. 22:15). They carefully plotted and planned their trick questions. They asked questions and outlined situations for Jesus to unravel which had dual dilemmas of difficulty. Whatever Jesus replied, they would ensnare Him with another side of the response. Their preparation was intense, secure; their case was tight; their traps were hair-trigger, ready to slam shut! Thus, with fiendish glee and flattering tongue, they inquired, “What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?”

If Jesus says, “No, give no taxes to Caesar,” the Romans will arrest Him. If He says, “Pay your taxes,” the Jews will despise Him. Now, they have Him, or so they think. “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things which are God’s. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way” (Matt. 22:18-22).

Next came the Saducees to try their hand. Jesus put them “to silence.” A lawyer of the Pharisees came forth. He wanted to know what the greatest commandment in the law was. If Jesus had specified any certain one, the lawyer would have merely mentioned another and showed that it was just as important. It is like asking, “What is the most important thing in an automobile?” If you say, the battery, someone will say that it will not do any good to have a battery if you do not have any gasoline. That is the kind of predicament Jesus would have been tangled and balled up in. But He did not fall for it. Then He turned on the Pharisees and asked them a question they could not answer. See McGarvey’s Commentary on Matthew 22:15-40. Jesus’ mastery over the wise and wily men was complete, “neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.” “Truly this was the Son of God.”

In The Prophetic Realm

Jesus spoke of His impending death as we would speak of something that occurred ten minutes ago. He knew the form or mode of death He must suffer. He knew where it would take place – in Jerusalem. He knew how long he would be entombed and interred – three days. He knew that His death would involve and include suffering and abuse. He knew who would mistreat Him – “elders and chief priests and scribes.” Jesus spoke confidently of the fall of the Jewish nation. He foretold their abandonment and abasement. He knew His cause would prosper when all signs spelled defeat. He spoke of the events of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2 with as much certainty as a gospel preacher of today. No man could guess, surmise, or know all these things, but Jesus knew them and spoke of them. “We know that thou art a teacher come from God.”

Conclusion

Numerous other facts could be cited to show that Jesus was unlimited in His mastery and majesty. Time and space “would fail me to tell of” Matthew 12:1-8; 22-30; 21:23-46, and of John 9. And many other things truly did Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, which are not written in this article, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through His name.

Guardian of Truth XXVII: 10, pp. 304-305
May 19, 1983