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| ~.^.Saba Gracile.^.~... |
 Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:55 am |
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...To the Witness, salvation is conditional and comes through acquiring "an
accurate knowledge of the truth." This is the most essential principle of
"Jehovah's arrangement." The "Truth" as the Society defines it involves an
intensive period of daily study and frequent interaction with "brothers and
sisters" who reinforce their grasp of it. Witnesses are taught to believe
that God's personal Name is Jehovah, and that the sanctification of that
name is God's chief concern. Jesus Christ was actually Michael the Archangel
who became a man and who died to save man from his sinful nature, not his
own committed sins. Being a created being, he could never be mistakenly
attributed as actually being the great Jehovah God Himself, who is the only
true God. Jesus was never bodily and literally resurrected; instead, there
was a spiritual resurrection. Jesus spiritually rose from the dead and now
lives and reigns at Jehovah's right hand and will never return to earth
bodily, having "invisibly" returned in 1914.
In these last days, Jehovah, the One true God, has devised only one channel
through the people of earth may learn of Him, this being the Watchtower
Society (through which Witnesses are kept in fellowship through active
participation in the work of the local Kingdom Hall). They base this need
for "accurate knowledge" on John 17:3 which the Society's Bible versions -
the New World Translation and Kingdom Interlinear Translation - utterly
mistranslate, as we shall see. Prospective converts are taught that to prove
their loyalty to Jehovah, they must be loyal and obedient to the "truth" as
they receive it through the Watchtower Society organization. Several months
of study and the lifestyle changes (which also involve rejection of "pagan"
holidays such as Easter, Halloween and Christmas, refusal to salute flags,
change of attitude toward friends and family, etc.) must first ensue before
the new convert can be said to have gained the "accurate knowledge" and are
baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit-Directed Organization
(this is the literal baptismal formula). Aggressive and vigorous
door-to-door, street, and personal witnessing hawking this "Gospel of the
Kingdom" as well as Watchtower publications is seen as the major measuring
stick for one's level of faithfulness.
Ultimate salvation, therefore, can come only to the Witness as he "endures
to the end" (Mt. 24:13). Through a lifetime of suffering, sacrifice, and
service, the Jehovah's Witness will prove his loyalty by enduring all that a
scornful and apostate world heaps upon them. They must also strive to
survive an impending Tribulation and Armageddon which they will have to
experience. Those who endure will live on into the Millennium and help build
" the Kingdom" on the rubble of a planet devastated by judgment and needing
to be restored. This is why Witnesses emphasize the prophetic views of
Scripture concerning the paradise conditions of the Biblical Millennium so
often. The "escape" from divine wrath through a pre-Tribulation "rapture"
(as most Evangelical Christians believe) is absent from their hope; instead,
they are going to have to endure to the bitter end. And only after all of
this, at the final judgment in which a general resurrection of the dead
occurs, will the Witnesses on earth ever know if their faithful work and
loyal devotion has merited them worthy of receiving everlasting life. A
Witness will live out his life in this world never knowing if he will ever
receive it!
...
The "Gospel Of The Kingdom" And The Biblical Gospel
As we have seen, the Watchtower's grasp of what it calls "the Truth" and
hence, "the Gospel" has been most uncertain over the years. Now the most
important question we can ask is this: is the Jehovah's Witness "Gospel of
the Kingdom" the same as the Gospel preached by the early Christians? To
put the matter simply, imagine a wheel with spokes radiating outward from
the center. Imagine that the wheel represents the totality of Christian
preaching. At the center (at the hub of the wheel) is the gospel. The gospel
is the central theme of the Church's worldwide message. It is the key
doctrine from which all other doctrines flow. But picture the same wheel
with the words "1914 INVISIBLE ENTHRONEMENT" at its center and you will have
a clear picture of the doctrinal system preached around the world by the
Jehovah's Witness sect.
Is this record of false prophecy and doctrinal flip-flopsthe same picture we
see when we look at the preaching of the Apostles and the early church? When
we consider the question "what is the gospel" we cannot do better than to
examine the preaching of Paul, the man who said, "woe is unto me, if I
preach not the gospel" (1 Cor. 9:16). What was the central theme of Paul's
preaching? What was Paul's gospel? Paul told the Corinthian Christians very
plainly what his gospel was when he wrote to them "we preach Christ
crucified" (1 Cor. 1:23). A few verses later in the same epistle he repeats
the same idea, saying "I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus
Christ, and him crucified." The meaning here is not that Paul did not
address other topics or doctrinal issues as the occasion arose, but rather
that the doctrine of Christ's sacrificial atoning death on the cross was the
central theme of his preaching. In other words it was his Gospel. Paul even
goes so far as to refer to his message as "the word of the cross" (1 Cor.
1:1 .
The gospel message (the "good news") preached by Paul was the wonderful
message that the penalty for man's sins had been paid for by Christ's death,
and that man could now, through simple faith in Christ and his atoning
sacrifice, stand spotless and pure before the bar of God's justice. Paul
refers to this as "being justified" in Romans 5:9 and in many other places.
In Second Corinthians 5:18 Paul refers to the entire Christian ministry as
"the ministry of reconciliation" because it has at its core a message (the
message of Christ's atoning death) that is able to reconcile man to God. For
the Apostle Paul, the Gospel is synonymous with "the word of the cross" or
"the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:19). If one were to imagine the total
body of Paul's preaching as a wheel, it is quite clear that the "message of
the cross" (i. e. the atoning death of Christ) would be at the hub of the
wheel.
Now is this the same picture we see when we examine the preaching of the
Jehovah's Witnesses? Paul's gospel was "the word of the cross." The
Jehovah's Witness gospel is "the Kingdom message of the invisible
enthronement of Christ in the year 1914." Do the members of the Jehovah's
Witness religion preach the same "gospel" that Paul preached? This question
assumes great importance when we consider what Paul wrote to the Galatians:
"I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the
grace of Christ unto another gospel; Which is not another: but there be some
that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. BUT THOUGH WE, OR
AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN, PREACH ANY OTHER GOSPEL UNTO YOU THAN THAT WHICH WE
HAVE PREACHED UNTO YOU, LET HIM BE ACCURSED. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have
received, LET HIM BE ACCURSED (Galatians 1:6-9, emphasis mine).
Based on the above Scriptures, we are compelled to reveal the sad and
undeniable truth that all members of the Jehovah's Witness religious sect,
in spite of their admitted sincerity and zeal in the distribution of
Watchtower literature and propagation of Watchtower doctrine, are
nevertheless guilty of preaching a false gospel, and are therefore under the
curse of Jehovah. We take no pleasure in this awful situation. Our heartfelt
desire is that someday they might come to place their full and complete
trust in the real gospel of Jesus Christ, the only message that can truly
bring them "peace with God" (Romans 5:1).
The Watchtower's Lip-Service To The Atonement
Jehovah's Witnesses may argue that they do believe in the atoning death of
Christ (which they call the "ransom sacrifice"). But the Jehovah's Witnesses
professed faith in "the ransom sacrifice" is fatally flawed, in two
significant ways. First, by denying that the ransom sacrifice is "the
gospel," they effectively subordinate the atoning death of Jesus Christ to
the more important "gospel" message of the 1914 invisible enthronement. This
is inexcusable. Second, it should be pointed out that the Judaizers (i. e.
the false teachers condemned by Paul in his letter to the Galatians, see
Gal. 1:8,9) most likely did not altogether reject the atoning death of
Christ. In all likelihood, they only sought to load additional "baggage" on
top of Paul's gospel. (In other words, these false teachers were saying,
"you must believe in Christ and be circumcised in order to be saved").
Jehovah's Witnesses, like their spiritual forefathers (the Judaizers), also
seek to impose an additional, unnecessary requirement on top of the simple
Gospel mesage of Christ's atoning sacrifice. Members of the Jehovah's
Witness sect (also known as "kingdom publishers") preach, for all practical
purposes, "except you believe in Christ's sacrificial death and the
invisible 1914 enthronement of Christ (as currently taught in the pages of
The Watchtower magazine) you cannot be saved." This, too, is inexcusable and
would certainly have been condemned by Paul.
An "Invisible" Reign?
Did Jesus really begin to reign invisibly over his kingdom in 1914? This is
the foundation upon the Watchtower's preaching and teaching is based. Yet
after having carefully investigated the historical and scriptural "proofs"
advanced by the Jehovah's Witness sect we must conclude that it is
impossible to believe that Jesus Christ embarked on an invisible Heavenly
reign over the world in the year 1914. Why?
(read explanation on why 1914 is incorrect and more:
http://www.spiritwatch.org/jwgospel.htm )
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