by onlycurious 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
What happened to all the people who died before C.T. Russell? For thousands of years, there were no J.W.'s. Then poof, new doctorine, a new religious sect I suppose and now only a 144,000 get the big seat in heaven.
How do they explain that, or is it that nobody asks the question?
I believe they think that there were only very few faithful christians between the first century and russel. All the rest are supposed to be part of christendom.
Basically, JWs believe that there are two classes of Christians. There are the annointed remnant, and the "other sheep". The annointed remnant are made up of 144,000 born-again Christians.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that they are the only true Christians on earth. They believe that most Christians throughout history (post Apostolic period) were not true Christians; therefore were not part of that annointed remnant.
This doctrine is very closely tied in with the Faithful and Discreet Slave doctrine. The Faithful Slave are the 144,000 annointed remnant; begining at Pentacost. JWs believe that there were always some members of the Faithful Slave throughout history; and that C.T. Russell was one of them.
JWs believe that these "Biblical truths" were always present within the Scriptures, but it took C.T. Russell to revive these teachings, and for the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses to make these "truths" known to mankind.
There's so much more that can (and should) be said about these doctrines, but that is all I have the time for right now. Hope that clears some things up for you.
I'm going to try to write this without giving myself (or anybody else) mental whiplash.
The gist of it is: There have always been a few members of the F&DS alive on earth, although they can't tell you who any of them were or how they accomplished their preaching work. Everybody that dies before Armageddon (except Apostates and maybe, or maybe not, the people who lived in Sodom and Gomorah) will be resurrected. Once resurrected they will have an opportunity to learn about Jehovah. Even though there are reports of hundreds of thousands of Christians living in the first couple of centuries there were not more than 100,000 of them. We know this because the total annointed in modern times totals about 44,000.
Don't Quote me on this but this is how i believe they “ explain ” it. All first century christians get the ticket to heaven. Then apostacy supposedly took over and christianity plunged into darkness. Well thankfully russell came along to save the day and open up the gates to heaven lol... well numbers started skyrocketing and by the 1930s they had to explain the reason for many true christians so they made up the great crowd theory and called it new light and told everyone that heaven was full and that they'd be stuck on earth cleaning up corpses after the big-A
Thank you.....this leads my to another question.
Apparently there are people who 'know' they are one of Jehovah's annointed. My jw friend said if you have to ask if you are one of the 144,000 then you aren't. It's that simple.
She said she knows one of the 144,000 and you can just tell. By the way, this is a woman who is part of the elite crowd.
Is this what is taught, that you will just 'know'?
Apparently there are people who 'know' they are one of Jehovah's annointed. My jw friend said if you have to ask if you are one of the 144,000 then you aren't. It's that simple.
Is this what is taught, that you will just 'know'?
Yes, this is exactly what is taught. They believe that Jehovah's Holy Spirit is what causes them to know this. As far as being able to look at someone and "be able to tell", that they are annointed; this is a stretch of the immagination. I have known and met many "annointed" ones of whom I would have never guessed they were annointed had no one mentioned it to me.
When Barbara Anderson was tasked with finding evidence of a continuous line of "FDS class"-worthy groups throughout the nearly 1800-year gap, she found out that not only were there no string of worthy groups to make up the FDS, but there were no groups that had beliefs comparable to JW doctrine during this gap.
You can find her story here under "Scandal" then "Pedophilia."
I remember reading a series of WT articles a long time ago featuring various sects that broke away from Catholicism through the years (the Waldenses come to mind, but there were others as well) that were known to have engaged in The Preaching Work™ and followed the biblical commands more closely than the Catholics and denounced the hypocrisy of the Catholic church.
The articles claimed that these groups were proof that The Truth™ was preserved through the centuries by these groups and was able to come to the 20th century to a select group (why, the Bible Students, of course!) that was approved by God.
Though their numbers are not large, there are still some Waldensians around in South America, Italy, Germany and a couple of congregations in the United States. I bet they would be surprised to know that they are Jehovah's Witnesses.
