We’ve spent the last few weeks going over the World Mission Society: Church of God (WMS), better known as the “cult” going around asking people about “God the Mother.” Last week we went through their colorful history, and how it already reveals serious problems with their beliefs. But what are their actual beliefs? How do they make their case from scripture? Does the Bible teach that there is a “God the Mother,” as they claim?
Next week, what should be my last post on this subject for a while, will go over their other views on what they consider major salvation issues, like Sabbath and Passover. Also, once again, for a more in-depth look at all of this, go watch the material Mike Winger put out.
If you are approached by someone from the WMS, “God the Mother” is probably the first thing you’ll talk about, so you want to be well versed on the subject. The WMS are polytheists, claiming there are two Gods; God the Father and God the Mother. They have a list of cherry-picked verses used to support this claim. Despite the long list, most of them are easy to see through even if you don’t know your Bible very well.
Read Everything in Context
Here is a basic tip to help you in any situation where people are throwing Bible verses at you. Carefully read the passage before and after the verse. There are plenty of examples where a verse by itself sounds explicit until you read the context. For example, one of the verses they may use to support their claim is Jeremiah 7:18, because it mentions doing things for the “Queen of Heaven.” But if you read the full paragraph, you can tell pretty easily that this passage is explicitly telling us not to do this, because the “Queen of Heaven” is a pagan idol. This simple idea will help you a lot, but there are two verses they point to that take a little bit more effort to make sense of.
“Make Man in Our Image.”
One of the first verses they showed me when I talked to them was Genesis 1:26, where God says “Let us make man in our image.” Sure, that sounds a bit odd coming from God, but there are plenty of other explanations besides polytheism. The most common interpretations are that God is talking to either other spiritual beings like angels, or the other two members of the trinity. To immediately say that this proves that there are two gods is a few steps too far. Also don’t let them trip you by saying that God is male, and thus could only create a male image, so a mother was needed to create a female image. God is not literally male. Even if he was, that doesn’t mean he is incapable of understanding and creating women.
Who is “The Bride?”
The other primary verse they use is Revelation 22:17, where at the very end of the Bible it mentions the Spirit and the Bride saying “Come.” They read this as the Father and Mother welcoming all the faithful into Heaven. First, just as some general advice, be careful with Revelation. It’s an unusual book, and it can be difficult to gain firm teaching from it. That said, this is not the only time that scripture mentions “The Bride.” Several times in the New Testament, the analogy is used that the church is like a bride waiting for its groom, Jesus. Scripture is pretty clear that we are the Bride of Christ. However, the WMS are aware of this issue, and will point out that only God can grant salvation, so how can humans be saying this? It must be “God the Mother.” But that’s not necessarily what is happening in this passage. Instead, this could easily just refer to evangelism, something for which both the Holy Spirit and the church regularly are saying “Come.” Once again, this passage is vague, in a difficult book to interpret, and has other ways to read before resorting to polytheism.
Where’s the Rest of It?
Setting those verses aside, notice something here. First, these verses are not explicit. You have to do weird mental gymnastics to reach their conclusion. Second, there are very few verses in discussion here. Do you really think that if there was an entire 2nd God in the Bible, we would only be able to see it from two unclear verses? This isn’t some minor doctrine they’re claiming. If this teaching was true, you would see mention of it all over the place. Instead, we consistently read explicit passages about how there is one God, and how he created everything by himself, and it’s only by him that we are saved. (John 5:21, 6:40, Psalm 100:3, Genesis 1:31, Isaiah 44:24, etc)
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