Christianity, Cults and Culture

COGR – Don’t worship us, worship God but…….

January 26, 2024

Good day! I am writing a series of short reviews of abbreviated COGR video clips. I am looking for input and comments. If it makes it easier, I will be glad to supply a Word document so comments can be put in the document, and we can communicate directly. My email address is lattema@icloud.com. I hope you find these reviews helpful.

Transcript:

The four and twenty elders, keeps talking about them set before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, bless their hearts. They worship God. The elders worshipped God. The elders worshipped God.

Commentary:

There are two issues in this short transcript. The first is that Stephen is attempting to assure those hearing him that the apostles are worshiping God and not being worshipped. This is helpful to the apostles because, at this point, most of their congregation would likely be uncomfortable worshipping the apostles. However, what Stephen seems to give with one hand he takes away with the other. It is part of the COGR’s mythology that the apostles are both the 12 end-time apostles and 12 of the 24 elders. So, when he tells us the elders are part of God that creates two dilemmas. The first is that the apostles are “part of God” and have some organic/spiritual to God that humans do not. This would suggest they could be worshipped, and they are certainly on a different plane than normal people. The second is that they are redefining the nature of God. All orthodox Christians are Christian theists. This means that they understand that God is outside of his creation. He has created the universe and all that is in it, but none of the universe is a part of God. If the elders and the thrones emanated from God, that would mean that everything is at least in part God, and we would be looking at some form of pantheism.  That theology is problematic. Not only does this suggest that the apostles have a divine nature of some sort but that they are part of God. It is only a short step from there to being worshipped.

This is like an earlier comment where Stephen says,

So God is sitting on the throne. Do not think of God himself as separate from his throne. Think of this as a vision of God himself. And what we’re going to see is one vision of everything that is locked away in the heart of God. So, the throne is not something just that he sits on; it’s given that way as a symbolic representation to us, and he certainly is seated there. But the throne is something that proceeds out of God as a part of God so that we know who God is and how he reigns.

However, if Stephen intends to spiritualize or allegorize the throne, he cannot so easily do that with the elders.  And here we have Stephen claiming the elders are part of God. Ray will later tell us that the throne, elders, and four beasts represent the church. That poses some interesting questions when we ask how the congregants are to understand the church and the apostles. Fully developed this theology would endorse both the church and the elders as part of God. If we are to follow the rules of the English language, the church would be, by extension, a part of God. It is hard to see how that would not lead to veneration and worship once people accept the idea. And who speaks for the church (God)? Ray does.

This is treacherous theology. We see the divinization of the church and the apostles and a basic change in the nature of God. The practical aspect of this is an elevation of the “apostles” with the “nebulous” heavenly Jesus being pushed further into the background and Ray moved to the foreground.