To my friends from the Worldwide Church of God, students and alumni of Ambassador College or anyone else who has an interest to understand the mysteries of the Bible, you might be amazed at how Paul’s words, which were written around 53 A.D., can have such a significant meaning for us today.

As Paul signed off his letter in 1 Corinthians 16:22, he said this: “If any man love not our Lord Yahshua Anointed, let him be Anathema Maranatha”. Most people just gloss over this strange passage, clueless as to what it could possibly mean. What makes it even harder is the fact that each of these words “anathema” and “maranatha” only appears once in all of scripture, here in this verse, so there are no other passages to compare their meanings in any other place in the Bible.

To begin to understand what Paul was conveying, we must first dissect what he wrote, in the original language it was written, as well as the meaning of each word. This text, originally written in Hebrew: אם כל אדם אוהב לא את האדון ישוע המשיח, תן לו להיות אנתמה מרנתה transliterates into this: “If anyone not is-being-fond [of] the Master Yahshua Anointed let-him-be anathema MARAN-ATHA”.

According to Strong’s Concordance, “anathema” is defined as “accursed”, or “bind under a great curse”. It also says “a person or thing doomed to destruction” and “a man accursed, devoted to the direst of woes”. “Maranatha” simply reads “our Lord comes, will come or has come”. So, it obviously means that anyone who doesn’t love the Lord is cursed, right? Not exactly. There’s much more to Paul’s warning than that.

Okay, but what do these two words have to do with either the Worldwide Church of God or Ambassador College? Everything. Because, if one were to reject our Saviour, Yahshua Anointed, deliberately, Paul says that that person will bring this curse upon himself. Did that happen? Consider this—

The person who built both the Worldwide Church of God and Ambassador College was Herbert W. Armstrong, a.k.a: HWA. In the early 1930’s, he had been a member of the Seventh Day Church of God in the state of Oregon. While there, two church ministers—Andrew N. Duggar and Clarence O. Dodd—were highly respected minsters, but they had opposing views on the subject of the name of our heavenly Father. Mr. Armstrong agreed with Mr. Duggar.

Mr. Dodd insisted it was important that the church refer to the Father as Yahweh and he told Mr. Armstrong about his findings. But, HWA rejected this idea, primarily because he “did not think the people would go for it”. Whether this was the reason he left that church or not, I cannot say. Regardless, armed with this new information, he departed the Seventh Day Church of God and formed his own church.

The Worldwide Church of God originally began in 1933 as the Radio Church of God with its first radio station broadcast on Jan. 7, 1934. From that moment forward it grew at a 30% rate for almost 40 years. From its inception, Mr. Armstrong always used the expression “The Eternal” rather than “The Lord” when speaking about the Father. Did he have a gut feeling that Mr. Dodd was right?

In 1947, he opened Ambassador College in Pasadena, CA, and then later opened campuses in Texas and England. By 1968 he changed the church’s name from the Radio Church of God to the Worldwide Church of God. His TV program, The World Tomorrow, was seen on 382 U.S. TV stations and 36 TV outlets internationally. How did his new church become so successful?

As he said many times, when he first came to the realization that most churches were teaching incorrect doctrine, based on what he discovered in the Bible, he professed his “faith in Jesus Christ and he surrendered to God” (from his autobiography).

By the 1970’s the church’s growth began to slow. A major prophetic event, expected to occur in 1975, failed to materialize. Several church doctrines were changed and this began to weaken some member’s respect for Mr. Armstrong’s doctrinal accuracy. He always said “If the Bible says it, I’ll preach it, no matter how difficult it might be.” But, this bedrock principle was about to be tested and it is best understood through the prism of history and an article that HWA wrote 15 year later (seven months before his death) that described those troubled times.

One church publication was the Worldwide News newspaper. A Special Edition was published on June 24, 1985 that was entirely written by Herbert Armstrong, which you can read in its entirety here, by scrolling down to WWN 1985 (No. 13) Jun 24s. In it, he rehashed the doctrinal disagreements that had begun in the 70’s and his explanation of how/why the church growth came to a halt. “Late in 1971, many of our members became confused over PROPAGANDA [emphasis, mine] reaching our people over a ‘sacred names’ teaching.” Reading further in this article, Mr. Armstrong explained why this was wrong, but upon doing so, he cited no scripture. He merely used his human reasoning. Oddly, this was in stark contrast with his earlier insistence that we should prove all things, using scripture as our guide. In an effort to silence the critics, he appointed a Doctrinal Research Committee to remove all doubt on the subject.

Then, something unexpected happened. Rather than the Doctrinal Research Committee affirming the long-held beliefs of the Worldwide Church of God, they began discovering that the Bible reinforced as facts what HWA mocked as “propaganda” in his future article. They were unable to rebut the argument and the crucial importance of what scripture said vs. what HWA said.

Apparently, Mr. Armstrong did not like the conclusions the committee came up with. So, a decade later, when this article was published in the Worldwide News, he resorted to character assassination in describing that former committee. He alleged that the person who introduced this topic “suffered from an inferiority complex” and he mocked that person’s doctoral degree in Theology from another university, chiding him as if that academic pursuit was to disguise his inferiority. Wow. HWA argued that the Bible as we have it today, was handed down to us from the Greek language, so if it was good enough to say the Father’s name in Greek, why all the fuss about saying it in Hebrew? This was human reasoning, not based upon scripture, and this rationalization ran contrary to everything he had ever done and said in establishing his church.

Neither Mr. Armstrong, nor church publications ever made public the scriptures that caused such dissent amongst the ministers and throughout this committee. But I assert that the following are but a small sample of blunt scriptures which may have prompted such discussion:

· Isa. 42:8—I am Yahweh: that is My name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.

· Eze. 39:7—So, will I make My holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute My holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am Yahweh, the Holy One in Israel.

· Exo. 20:7—Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy Elohim in vain; for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. [“Vain”: false, empty, vapid]

· Isa. 52:6—Therefore my people shall know My name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am He that doth speak: behold, it is I [in triplicate, for emphasis].

· Rev 14:1—And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.

· Acts 4:12—Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

· Prov. 30:4—Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if thou canst tell?

· James 2:7—Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which Ye are called?

· Zech. 14:9—And Yahweh shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Yahweh, and His name one.

· Jer. 23:27—Which think to cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal. [“The Lord”]

· Matt. 6:9—After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in haven, Hallowed be THY NAME [emphasis, mine].

Unable to accept the prospect that the church’s doctrine might be incorrect, he doubled down. The “troublemakers” were either sent away to become pastors of small congregations far away from headquarters in Pasadena—“into the field”, as it was called—or they were disfellowshipped and removed from the church entirely. Either way, he silenced anyone who dared question church doctrine by using the very tool he had instructed them to use (the Bible) and as graduates with theology majors from the very school which he had founded (Ambassador College).

As stated above, from the time that he left the Seventh Day Church of God, HWA began to refer to God the Father as “The Eternal” rather than “The Lord”. Suddenly, an issue that HWA thought had been put behind him four decades earlier had emerged once again. This time, it was threatening to destroy his church and he was determined to prevent that. There’s ample evidence to suggest that the events of this decade had caused him to see the truth privately, but deny it publicly.

Further into the 1985 article, he wrote that the church grew at 30% for 35 years. But, according to him, it slowed in the early ‘70’s because that’s when liberals took over the church. How? He says that he was just too busy, traveling around the world, meeting heads of state and preaching the gospel that he didn’t have time to be bogged down in the administrative issues back home.

This is just silly.

I was living in Pasadena–the headquarters of the church–during the years of 1974 to 1980 and Mr. Armstrong was there most of the time.  In fact, my dormitory was on the same street as his home, barely 300 yards away.  Throughout the academic year, he’d regularly invite about 12 seniors to his home for dinner until the entire senior class had eventually shared that memorable evening with him.  We always knew when he was home and when he was away.  His travels lasted for days or weeks, but each time he returned back to Pasadena and was fully capable of overseeing such important issues as fundamental church doctrine.

By 1974, the church’s finances had stopped growing and for the first time, experienced a 1.6% decrease in income. (That’s a measure of the validity of your doctrine?) Then, revenues dropped another 4.8% the following year. He did not blame this on doctrinal issues. He blamed it on troublesome ministers.

He cited Matt. 7:16-17, where it reads, in part “…ye shall know them by their fruits….” as an explanation that the liberals who had taken over the church were the reason for its reduced income. He never understood the irony in citing that scripture, that perhaps Matthew was exposing Mr. Armstrong himself by rejecting this important truth that was presented to him—now twice—and by doing so, it soon led to the destruction of everything he had built for over 50 years. Everything was soon destroyed: The church, the TV program, Radio programs, Ambassador College, the Plain Truth Magazine, the Good News Magazine, The Correspondence Course, the Worldwide News newspaper, everything.

His assertion was that this entire difficult period in the church’s history was one of a dispute over the structure of “God’s government in the church”, rather than a sincere doctrinal disagreement. That was a straw-dog argument. The opposing positions consisted of a group of ministers sincerely searching for the truth and another group (lead by Mr. Armstrong) determined to hang onto power and squash any opposition.

For the second time in his life, Herbert Armstrong was faced with either accepting or rejecting the true name of our heavenly Father, Yahweh. And, for the second time, he refused to accept it and he rationalized his reasons why. In one church publication printed around 1964, he actually used the name “Yahweh” when referring to the Father. In a later edition, around 1984, of this same publication, that rendering was changed to “YHWH”. Why? Was he trying to erase any reference to Yahweh? I contend that it was for this reason, that this entire enterprise was taken away and destroyed shortly after his death.

As more evidence to show his rejection of the true names of our heavenly Father and Son, he also blamed the church’s decline of the 1970’s on liberalism, but this was really just a pretext to ignore their findings. He cited the Apostle Paul in his description of the structure of the church, how it should be one body without division. Mr. Armstrong failed to see the irony once again in his use of Paul as his foundation. After all, it was Paul who was the first to understand certain mysteries that the Holy Spirit revealed to him—that the gospel and the message of salvation were to go to the entire world, including the Gentile nations, not just to the Jews (Eph. 3:6). This ran contrary to the doctrine of that time so Paul had his work cut out for him, having to convince the “pillar” Apostle, Peter, of this truth.

Paul returned to Israel and strongly argued with Peter to convince him that his (Peter’s) beliefs were wrong because Peter was still hanging onto the message as it was taught by Yahshua. Eventually, Peter came to see the light and voiced his full-throated support of Paul in 2 Pet. 3:15-16– “…even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the WISDOM given to him hath written unto you…in his epistles speaking…of these things; in which are SOME THINGS HARD TO BE UNDERSTOOD….” This is, to me, Peter’s admission that he himself had a hard time understanding the truth of what Paul had revealed.

If Peter were like Mr. Armstrong, he would have held a Doctrinal Conference in order to discredit and silence Paul, and if that were unsuccessful, he would have kicked Paul out of the church. Mr. Armstrong never admitted that he might have been wrong, while Peter accepted Paul’s inspired revelation.

The Worldwide Church of God began to decline even while Mr. Armstrong was still alive, but shortly after his death in 1986, the church began to rapidly lose membership. Ambassador College was closed again for the second time, but this time it was permanently. Church assets were sold and what was once a worldwide operation practically disappeared overnight.

Anathema Maranatha. You can certainly conclude that a curse had caused the destruction of everything Herbert Armstrong had built. He understood the truth of the names of our Father and Son in heaven as Yahweh and Yahshua. He had known this for all of his adult life. But he rejected it and became a “person doomed to destruction”. Mr. Armstrong continued to insist that “the Lord is coming”, rather than “Yahshua is coming.” When ministers of his own church discovered this truth and he refused to publicly accept it and teach it throughout the world, his fate was sealed.

For over 40 years, he was blessed beyond comprehension, more than any comparable religion before or since. If he would have acknowledged what scripture actually says, those blessings could have continued. Instead, he became cursed, proving once again the truth of the Bible and its literal revelations, showing cause and effect.

One of the final assets to be sold was the former college campus of Ambassador College in Pasadena. It was sold to a nearby High School in the San Gabriel Valley. The name of that High School?

Maranatha High School.

Maranatha: “The Lord is coming”. If Herbert Armstrong would have acknowledged that Yahshua is coming once the Holy Spirit revealed it to him, what would have become of the empire he had built? Nobody will ever know that answer because now, everything is gone.

Since he refused to accept the truth of the names of our Father and His Son, Yahweh and Yahshua, “Anathema” became his fate. Paul told us this would happen when he wrote his letter.

Anathema Maranatha. This literally means: You will bring a curse upon yourself if you continue to proclaim “the Lord is coming” after you’ve discovered that our Messiah YAHSHUA is coming.

The church in Corinth had swerved away from their original teachings and had become idolaters. Paul corrected them about this erroneous practice earlier in his book. To emphasize the importance of abandoning that practice and loving Yahshua Anointed, it was the final thought he left them when he finished this book. It is a message he has left for us today too.