Armstrongism: Truth and Error Compared
This article is part of a series examining what various religious movements teach on seven foundational doctrines, compared with what the Bible actually says. Source material for cult positions is drawn from Keith L. Brooks and Irvine Robertson, "The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error" (Moody Press, 1985).
Armstrongism refers to the theological system developed by Herbert W. Armstrong (1892–1986), founder of the Worldwide Church of God and its media arm, The Plain Truth magazine. Armstrong taught a unique mixture of sabbatarianism, British Israelism, law-keeping as a condition of salvation, and the doctrine that humans can literally become God. After Armstrong's death the Worldwide Church of God renounced many of his core teachings, but splinter groups continue to propagate them. Citations below use abbreviations from the original source: PT = The Plain Truth; TW = Tomorrow's World; WWYB = What Will You Be?; WMEG = What Will Man Eventually Be?; AAWB = All About Water Baptism; HYIPG = How You Can Be Imbuded with the Power of God.
1. God
What the Bible Teaches
Scripture presents one God eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). God is unchanging (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7–10), and not a created or evolving being. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Psalm 90:2).
What Armstrongism Teaches
"God is a Family, a Kingdom, not a limited trinity" (The Plain Truth, Aug. 1958, p. 17). "The doctrine of the Trinity is false, pagan" (The Missing Dimension in Sex, p. 37). "God is a family: God is reproducing Himself and man was created to literally become God" (What It Means to Be Equal with God, p. 43). "At the present time there are only two beings in the God Family: 1) God the Father, Father of Jesus Christ, 2) God Family, the Son (who became Jesus of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One who became Jesus Christ, God the Son)" ("The God Family" in Tomorrow's World, May 1971). "You can become God" ("God's Power" in TW, Nov. 1971). "But quantitatively, man will never equal God the Father, just as surely as God the Creator (Jesus Christ) will Himself never quantitatively equal God the Father" (WMEG, p. 44). "YAHWEH was the God of Israel. They (Israel) did not know God the Father" ("Is Jesus God?" in PT, Sept. 1958).
2. Jesus Christ
What the Bible Teaches
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Jesus is the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh (John 1:14). He was physically raised from the dead bodily: "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39). He is coming again bodily (Acts 1:11).
What Armstrongism Teaches
"BEFORE Jesus was conceived by Mary, He was not the Son of God" ("Just What Do You Mean — Born Again?" in TW, Oct. 1971, p. 43). "God the Creator (Jesus Christ) Himself will never quantitatively equal God the Father" (WMEG, p. 45). "Jesus Christ was born a Son of God by a resurrection from the dead . . . and as a born son of God, Christ is God! God Almighty His Father is God. They are two separate and individual persons" (Why Were You Born? pp. 21–22). "God the Father did not cause Jesus Christ to get back into the body which had died. Jesus Christ was dead . . . and the resurrection body was no longer human. It was Christ resurrected, immortal, once again changed" (PT, Apr. 1963, pp. 10, 40). "Christ's body disappeared. Christ was raised as a divine spirit being" (If You Die, Will You Live Again? p. 6).
3. Holy Spirit
What the Bible Teaches
The Holy Spirit is a distinct person of the Godhead (John 14:16–17; 16:13–14). He indwells every true believer (Romans 8:9) and is not merely "God's life" or an impersonal force.
What Armstrongism Teaches
"The Father and the Son are in definite locations with respect to each other . . . spirit proceeds from them and fills the entire universe. Spirit is God's life" (How You Can Be Imbuded with the Power of God, p. 5). "Theologians have blindly accepted the false doctrine that the Holy Spirit is a third person — the heresy of the trinity. This limits God to Three Persons!" (Just What Do You Mean — Born Again? pp. 17, 19). "God's spirit dwelling in you is God's own divine love" (What Do You Mean — Unpardonable Sin? p. 9). "Whenever we become members of God's begotten family, we receive a portion, a seed or germ, of the Father's Holy Spirit" (HYIPG, p. 4). "Notice that the Holy Spirit, the germ by which we are begotten, comes from the Father" (Ibid., p. 3).
4. Sin
What the Bible Teaches
"There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). The law cannot save; it reveals sin and points to Christ (Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:24).
What Armstrongism Teaches
"In literally hundreds of places in your New Testament, Jesus Christ and His inspired apostles teach absolute obedience to all ten of the Ten Commandments" (PT, Nov. 1959, p. 8). "We must repent of sin, repent of transgressing God's law, which means turning from disobedience as a prior condition to receiving God's free gift" (The Inside Story of the World Tomorrow, p. 48). "Sickness is only the penalty of physical transgression, and whenever one is sick, he is paying that penalty. Healing is nothing more or less than the forgiveness of sin. God is the only real physician! Scripture labels other modes of healing idolatry. Medicine has a pagan origin" (Does God Heal Today? p. 8).
5. Redemption
What the Bible Teaches
"We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7). Christ "offered one sacrifice for sins forever" (Hebrews 10:12). Salvation is a gift, not a process of self-deification (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8–9).
What Armstrongism Teaches
"The purpose of life in us is that God is really creating His own kind, reproducing Himself. At the time of the resurrection we shall be instantaneously changed from mortal into immortal. We shall then be God! You will actually be God, even as Jesus was and is God, and His Father, a different Person, also is God. You are setting out on a training to become Creator, to become God" (WWYB, pp. 21–22). "We . . . will generate eternal life intrinsically within ourselves" (WMEG, p. 44). "Furthermore, we will counsel and advise our Creator-Father" (Ibid., p. 45). "Physical human beings in Tomorrow's World . . . will worship before the feet of God's present-day human servants" (Your Destiny — The God Family, p. 37).
6. Salvation
What the Bible Teaches
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). "By grace are ye saved through faith . . . not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8–9). Salvation is complete in Christ, not deferred to a future resurrection or dependent on organizational membership.
What Armstrongism Teaches
"Jesus alone, of all humans, has so far been saved" (WWYB, p. 11). "The blood of Jesus Christ does not finally save anyone. It saves merely from the death penalty (of sin)" (All About Water Baptism, pp. 1–3). "Baptism is an essential ordinance for salvation. You must be baptized to become a true Christian" ("This is the Worldwide Church of God," in TW, Feb. 1971, pp. 16–17). "Along with the physical act of baptism is promised the Holy Spirit, through the laying on of hands" (TW, Apr. 1971, pp. 41–42). "One who is born of God is merely begotten spiritually. He is not yet really born. Only those who develop spiritually shall finally be given immortality . . . at the second coming of Christ" (AAWB, p. 2). "When Jesus Christ returns to this earth, He will, for the first time, set His hand to save the world. He will offer salvation to all people" (There Is a Real Hell Fire, p. 6). "A majority of those who die without Christ will be resurrected and gain opportunity to believe during the Millennium" (Predestination — Does the Bible Teach It?).
7. Retribution
What the Bible Teaches
"It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). The wicked face "everlasting destruction" (2 Thessalonians 1:9) and "everlasting punishment" (Matthew 25:46). Hell is a place of unquenchable fire (Mark 9:45).
What Armstrongism Teaches
"When a human being dies, he is DEAD, which means that his body, mind, and soul are all dead. He simply stops being" (Do You Have an Immortal Soul? p. 41). "The wicked will be resurrected at the close of the Millennium, but only to be annihilated." "Rebellion against the Law of God means eternal punishment — everlasting death. God will save no person He does not rule" (Which Day Is the Christian Sabbath? pp. 35, 58, 93, 94). "'Everlasting' means 'age-ending.' The translation is misleading, since the fire itself will not burn forever." "The concept of 'hell' is part and parcel of the folklore and mythology of the whole world . . . as a place of punishment and torture of the wicked" (TW, pp. 14, 18).
All Bible quotations are from the King James Version. Cult citations are taken directly from the source documents as reproduced in Brooks and Robertson.