The Kingdom

Another big difference of the church from the “world” was their unusual doctrine on exactly what the Kingdom of God was. One of the scriptures that they claimed was difficult had to do with a scripture in the book of Luke, in Luke 17:21.

Luke 17:21 states that the Kingdom of God is in the hearts of men.

The Church taught that the Kingdom of God is NOT in the hearts of men. In their booklet entitled “difficult scriptures”, they even so much as said so – in print. The church even taught that the Kingdom of God cannot be in the hearts of any human heing, saying that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, quoting 1 Cor 15:50. The church, of course, thought physically – that the Kingdom consists of a ruler, subjects, territory, and laws – and that these four things cannot be in the hearts of men.

The key to this, of course, is thinking spiritually, not physically, which the church was always prone to do. The principles and commands of the New Testament are spiritual, while the principles and commands of the Old Testament are physical. The context was about the Resurrection – not about the state of the Kingdom. The question was about “Where is the Kingdom, when will it come”? Not knowing that Jesus was right there – He was the Kingdom, and the Kingdom was among them – even in spirit.

In reality – the problem with the church's interpretation of the Kingdom of God was entirely of how they looked at it. They interpreted the word “kingdom” with the word “government” - Government was a big thing in the church, including structure, rank, and hierarchy. With this background, the church looked at the kingdom not as a spiritual body but instead as a physical government – in just about every possible way. This “physical” approach of looking at the kingdom, in my opinion, blinded them totally to the spiritual Kingdom that was taught and discovered through faith by believers.

The Church taught the physical aspects of a physical kingdom. They taught that the Kingdom had a ruler, had laws, had a government, had a people to literally rule over, had discipline, and – had the wonderful world tomorrow as the land and territories that the members of Armstrongism would literally rule over. The church severely overemphasized the physical kingdom from the aspects of a spiritual kingdom – as the physical part seemed to be the only part to them that they could really grasp and understand.

This habit of taking interpretations to the literal of all that was said was taken down to many details in the Bible. The details of prophecy, such as the prophecy of Zachariah. The details of the millennial prophecies of Isaiah chapter 11 concerning the Lion and the Lamb, and tame animals. The details of planning cities and territories in what they called the literal “Wonderful World Tomorrow”. This near obsession with the physical details of scripture made blind the spiritual implications of scripture as were taught in the New Testament. And because of the intense physical nature of the prophecies of the Old Testament – because they made more sense to the church – the old Testament scriptures were often used as primary to interpret the New Testament scriptures which became secondary. The reasoning was to follow the “Whole word of God”, not allowing the new to interpret the old. This embarrassingly simple mistake tended to blind the entire church to the entire mission of Jesus Christ and exactly what his gospel was – using Old Testament theology as the end-all interpretations of new testament teachings.

PARADISE

One of those teachings had to do with the concept of Heaven and the Soul – which did exactly that – used the Old Testament beliefs to interpret New Testament teachings, such as that of the Apostle Paul.

Concerning the subject of Paradise: The Church taught that Christ did not go to paradise the same day He was crucified – that he went to the grave. They use Acts 2:31 for their proof. Acts 2: 31 says:

“David was looking into the future and predicting the Messiah's resurrection. He was saying that the Messiah would not be left among the dead and that His body would not rot in the grave”. (NLV). We are talking about his physical humanity – not the fullness of God that was within Him. They use the scripture in John 20:17 to prove He did not go to heaven – but this verse does not say this. It simply states that at that time, Jesus was with them, and has not yet ascended to the Father. It does not say that He had not been in Paradise – it simply says he has not yet ascended to the Father. The Church taught that Jesus - God - was "Fully Dead", unconscious - mortal, and ceased to exist before the Resurrection. God is life. Jesus is life. Though the body died to death, God is Spirit, and not subject to physical laws!

The scripture used – 2 Corinthians 2:4 – states that Paradise was in the presence of God's throne. This verse does not say this. It actually uses supporting scripture that says Paul's received vision or revelation had him caught up into the third heaven – whether in body or spirit – Paul did not have the answer – but that he was caught up in Paradise and heard astonishing things that could not be revealed. It did not say Paul was with the Father when He was in Paradise, and neither did Jesus say He was with the Father when He was in Paradise. Jesus said he would be with the thief on the cross in Paradise – but had not yet ascended to the Father. This is all it says.

The church taught the whole scripture hinged on a punctuation error – but this in context is a senseless interpretation bordering on desperation.