Heavenly Mother Heresy In Namibia

This blog comes as a response to having encountered a number of people who have asked me about the World Mission Society Church of God’s (WMSCOG) rampant teaching among college and university students. All cults and heresies are notorious for being outrageously spreading some kind of exclusively new information. These claims are as a result of seeing the Bible as simply a book of random thoughts with no internal self-coherence, thus giving themselves the licenses to read their own thoughts into it.

WMSCOG is centred on the concept of a “heavenly mother” and the teaching of the true bride of Christ. The cult was founded in 1964 by Ahn Sahn-Hong in Korea. His followers believed him to have been Christ i.e. the second coming of Christ in the world but this time in the far east. Ahn died in 1985,  which led to his spiritual wife Zahng Gil-Jah becoming the head of the cult. She took upon herself the title of “heavenly mother” erroneously basing this title on  Galatians 4:26 and Revelation 21:9-10;22:17.

What is wrong with the “heavenly mother” claim? Well, the Bible nowhere teaches that there exists a heavenly mother. Instead God is referred to as the “Heavenly Father” (Luke 11:2) and the church is the bride (metaphoric language) of Christ (Ephesians 5:25-33) not Zahng Gil-Jah. The passage in Revelation 21:2 speaking of the wife of the Lamb are figures of speech. Moreover, wife of the Lamb and the New Jerusalem are synonymous terms thus making the wife figurative rather than literal. Jerusalem is not a person but a city comprised of many people, thus referring to the church of Christ, whom he loved so dearly and redeemed with his own blood (Ephesians 5:25-33)

Secondly, when Paul speaks of the Jerusalem that is above and our mother in Galatians 4:26 one has to ignore the context of this passage to interpret it like the WMSCOG. The text is self-explanatory if you have an understanding of the Old and New Covenants. Paul uses an illustration to help the Galatians understand their salvation and freedom under the New Covenant. So he contrasts Hagar (slave woman representing bondage) with Sarah (Abraham’s wife representing freedom). Paul argues that those who follow the Old Covenant are under bondage and do not know the true freedom that Christ brings. However, those who believe the gospel are free under grace, because they are citizens of heaven (thus making Jerusalem their mother). We speak of Namibia being our mother land but no intelligent person would say that Namibia is a woman and Paul is using the same figure of speech to communicate our citizenship as Christians and that we are not to enslave ourselves to the things of this world.

So “Jerusalem our mother” is a figurative representation of Christ’s kingdom not a person.

 

Ruling:

The WMSCOG is a group that practices deceit by creating a personage of a “heavenly mother” that requires our worship and by literally creating an individual as the “bride of Christ.” This group is a cult which spreads many other heresies alongside its “heavenly mother” heresy. It leads people to focus on non-essentials of the Christian faith and undermines the nature of the person of God.

Well, they may wear all smiles and be smart looking and point from one verse to another. However, they are brutal wolves dressed in sheep skin, a bunch of people who don’t know their left from their right when it comes to handling the Word of God. These are not our Christian brothers, they worship another Christ of their own making under the guise of using the Bible as their premise.

We have a responsibility to the people of God to unleash an offense against them and warn our young people. The way to do this is to preach the gospel faithfully and teach Scripture. Therefore we cannot undermine the importance of expository preaching in our churches and it’s time to break off from topical sermons and begin teaching people the Bible for it is the only defense against heretics who have not regard for the authority of God’s Word.