Saturday, October 3, 2009

Pack is the Angel to the Church of Laodicea?

In the last post we saw how Pack is now claiming to be Joshua the Priest. But there's more. LCG apologist Bob Theil's source now reveals the following:
He alluded to a connection between his “office” of High Priest and his last name meaning “Passover.” It seems that he believes he makes intersession for the Church in some way (I really wish I was joking or exaggerating, but he actually does make this insinuation).

He has also taught for some time that he is the “angel to the church of Laodicea” of Revelation 3 and that he is the last end time Apostle. With this latest discovery of himself in the pages of the Bible, he seems to be going more and more the way of Gerald Flurry.
So Pack now says he is the "angel to the church of Laodicea." What is he talking about? This makes reference to one doctrine HWA taught in Mystery of the Ages that is rarely brought up.
In that book he adds an unusual twist to the seven church era doctrine:
"Of the Philadelphia era of God's true Church we read: "To the angel of the church...." This word angel translated from the Greek aggelos means messenger or agent. This is not necessarily always referring to a spirit angel but can refer as well to a human agent....it may also apply to the human messenger or agent God has raised up to lead this era of his Church [HWA]." (Mystery of the Ages, Chapter 6, under the heading 'Restoration of God's Truth to Church.')
Clearly Pack has used this doctrine, assumed that HWA was right, assumed that HWA is the "angel (messenger) of the church (era) of Philadelphia," and then applied the label "angel to the church of Laodicea" to himself.

Where did HWA get this idea from?

The Watchtower.

I discussed this topic in a previous post. Here is some of what is written there.
On the grave of Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the members of which would later be named Jehovah's Witnesses, it is declared that Russell was "The Laodicean Messenger."

While HWA was only willing to identify the Philadelphian messenger (himself), the Watchtower Society went even further than HWA and claimed to identify each of the seven messengers. They were Paul, John, Arius, Waldo, Wycliffe, Luther and Russell. Notice what is related here.

"While [Russell] implies that there were precursors to his work (who of course had a very different theology than Russell accepted [very similar to HWA's "church history" doctrine]), it was only in The Finished Mystery (Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. 7) published after his death that a direct line is sketched from Paul and John through Arius, Waldo, Wycliff, and Luther to Russell." (Gene Edson Ahlstrom, The Church in the Thought of Charles Taze Russell, under the heading 'Sectarianism and Church History.')
So we see that, just like HWA, Pack is imitating the Watchtower Society. Pack is unconsciously taking up the mantle of Charles Taze Russell.

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