The Mystery Doctrines of Roman Catholicism!
by Robert Schmid, November 2003

Roman Catholicism has long been recognized to have its roots in the Babylonish mystery religions so that it is not surprising that in order to be Catholic one MUST accept the Three Principal Mysteries of the (Catholic) faith which are:

1) The Blessed Trinity
2) The Incarnation
3) The Holy Eucharist

Thousands of people, including myself, owe their understanding that God is not a Trinity to the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong. HWA (and others before him) recognized that the Spirit of God is not a separate center of thought, is not a third person, and therefore there can be no Trinity. His teaching was that God is a Family and not a Trinity.

Describing the Holy Trinity, even Catholic doctrine says: “No mortal mind, with its intellectual limitations, can fully comprehend this mystery.” In other words, what they are saying is that God is a mystery and can not be understood.

But, what about the Incarnation doctrine? What is an Incarnation? Webster’s definition says:

a) endowment with a human body; appearance in human form
b) effectuation of the hypostatic union through the conception of the second person of the Trinity in the womb of the Virgin Mary
c) any person or animal serving as the embodiment of a god or spirit.

The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible says: “Incarnation signifies the assumption by a divine being of human or animal form”, “Gods becoming men”.

Describing the Incarnation, Catholic doctrine says: “The Incarnation is one of the dominant mysteries of the Christian Revelation.” Of course, the word “Incarnation” like the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. In fact the Incarnation, just like the Trinity, is not a Biblical concept at all and is as mysterious a doctrine as is the Trinity. Nevertheless, the Churches of God have embraced this doctrine with their teaching that Jesus pre-existed as a separate center of thought, as a second God Being before the fullness of time, before He was born of God.

What’s wrong with this Incarnation doctrine? Everything, because if Jesus, an existing, co-equal God being only came to earth in human form and flesh, then Jesus is not really and not literally the Son of God. One does not become a “son” via an incarnation. One can only become a “true son” via procreation, i.e., to be born of someone.

Jesus Christ is our example in ALL things and the most important example He gave was that He was the first to be born of God. He then encouraged us, no, He commanded us that we too must be born of God in order to become true Sons of God.

What about the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist? Catholic doctrine states that: “The Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, is the Sacrament which contains Christ, the Son of God, under the outward appearance of bread and wine.” “Christ is absolutely present – body, blood, soul, and divinity – in the Holy Eucharist. This Sacrament is not symbolic; it contains the Real Presence of Christ.”

This doctrine is also known as the “Mystery of Transubstantiation”. Protestantism, HWA and the Churches of God have rejected this doctrine for good reason. The bread and wine used at the Lords Supper (Protestantism) or at the Passover (Churches of God) are considered symbols of the body and blood of Christ, God being present through the power of His Holy Spirit.

However, HWA (unwittingly?) retained the Mystery of Transubstantiation doctrine with his teaching that Jesus Christ existed as a second “Supreme Personage”, existed as a “second God being” before He was born of God, before the Word of God became the Son of God.

In the N.T., one of the prove texts used for the pre-existence of Jesus Christ is 1 Cor. 10:4 which says: “ For they drank from that supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Lets ask the most obvious question: If the Rock was Jesus Christ, why turn Jesus Christ into a Rock? Or, we could ask: Was the lamb at the Passover a lamb or was it Jesus Christ? On the one hand the answers are self evident that the rock and lamb are symbols, on the other hand they are not self-evident because the Churches of God teach that the rock was not just a rock, but that the rock literally was an existing Being, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here then we have the third mystery of Catholicism, which is the mystical transubstantiation of a symbol - a Rock, into Christ’s real presence, a second God Being, when in reality the “Rock” was no more a “distinct conscious entity” than is the “Lamb” or the “Word” or the “Spirit” or the “Wisdom” of God.

The teachings of the Incarnation and Transubstantiation, like the Trinity, fail the test of scripture and can not be substantiated in the things that have been made. The Word of God BECAME the Son of God through procreation which is clearly taught in scripture and is fully substantiated in the things that have been made. It was God who created the process of birth and it is God who said that: “You must be born again.”

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