In the 15 October 1995 Watchtower the Society brought out 'new light' that although Christ sat down as King in 1914, but he did not sit down on his 'glorious throne' mentioned at Matt 25: 31 in that year.
I can’t understand why the Society bothered to make this change in 1995? This change was in some ways more damaging to them than the ‘generation’ change, because the Society essentially sawed off the branch they were sitting on by announcing this 1995 ‘new light’. Let me explain:
What this change meant is that Matthew 24: 30 & 31 (Jesus coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory) and Matthew 25: 31-33 (Jesus arrives in glory to sit on his glorious throne) are BOTH to be fulfilled in the future, whereas previously Matt 25: 31-33 was stated to have been in fulfillment from 1914.
This change forces JW’s to accept a GLARING CONTRADICTION about Jesus arrival and coming spoken of in Matthew 24 & 25.
Here is the striking contradiction: The Society relies almost exclusively on Matthew 24: 45-47 for it’s authority. It repeats this passage of scripture frequently to assert its leadership over JW’s. It states that in 1914-19 Jesus appointed the Watchtower Society as his faithful and discreet slave, as spoken of in Matthew 24: 45-47. Now compare Matt 24: 46, 46 with Matthew 25: 31
Matthew 24: 46 + 47 reads: “Happy is that slave if his master on ARRIVING finds him doing so. Truly I say to you, He will appoint him over all his belongings.”
NOTICE: These scriptures are taught by the Society to have been fulfilled SINCE 1914-19!
“Matt 25: 31 reads: “When the Son of man ARRIVES in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne.”
NOTICE: From 1995, this scripture is taught by the Society to have a FUTURE FULFILLMENT!
This striking contradiction completely undermines the Society’s proclamations that from 1914-1919 onwards Jesus appointed them exclusively over ‘all his belongings’ in fulfillment of Matt 24: 45-47. The Society's entire authority structure rests almost exclusively on this claim, a claim they repeat frequently.
There are other passages in Matthew 25 that talk about the ‘arrival’ of the groom, etc, which are also still linked to 1914 by the Watchtower Society. Plus, the Society insists that Jesus' ‘presence’ referred to in Matt 24: 39 also started in 1914. Yet both passages where Jesus specifically describes his arrival and coming (Matt 24: 30 & 31 & 25: 31-33) as a glorious king are BOTH said to have FUTURE events!!!
These disturbing contradictions in how the Society treats Jesus’ words about his own arrival and coming has gone almost completely unnoticed by JW’s. In fact, the Society appears to have deliberately announced this 1995 ‘new light’ about the throne Jesus sits on in Matt 25: 31-33 at the same time as the change to the understanding of ‘this generation’ in a deliberately to divert attention away from this damaging contradiction. By bringing out the ‘generation’ change around the same time as this change about Matt 25: 31-33, attention was diverted from the contradictory mess that the Society had created about the timing of Jesus arrival. The gross incompatibility of Jesus arriving in the future to sit on his throne at Matt 25: 31 with his arriving to reward the faithful and discreet slave was buried under all the attention focused on the ‘generation change’.
With this 1995 new light the Society basically sawed off the very branch they were sitting on by claiming that Jesus' arrival in Matt 24: 45-47 to appoint them as the 'faithful and discreet slave' occurred in 1914-19.
Clearly, Jesus has not yet arrived to reward any faithful and discreet slaves.
Glaring contradiction between 1995 new light and Society's authority as FDS
by yaddayadda 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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yaddayadda
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garybuss
Proclaimers chap. 10 p. 137 Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the Truth
As the events following 1914 began to unfold and the Bible Students compared these with what the Master had foretold, they gradually came to appreciate that they were living in the last days of the old system and that they had been since 1914. They also came to understand that it was in the year 1914 that Christ's invisible presence had begun and that this was, not by his personally returning (even invisibly) to the vicinity of the earth, but by his directing his attention toward the earth as ruling King. -
Leolaia
So where did Jesus have his attention directed BEFORE 1914, if not the earth? Was he then ruling as the sovereign King of the twin planet of Alpha Centauri? Or maybe the gas giant orbiting around Tau Orion Seven?
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garybuss
I suppose he was doing whatever it was he and Jehovah were doing in heaven for "billions of years". We know from the Bible that Jesus enjoyed camping and mountain climbing. Maybe there's a heavenly camp ground . . .
"Consider the relationship between Jehovah and Jesus. They were together in heaven for perhaps billions of years."
The Watchtower, August 15, 2005
Page 27, Paragraph 15 -
apocalypse
The Watchtower has played a shell game, and the vast majority of dubs are far too numb to see it.
To keep the spin on this teaching, Watchtower has had to move the coconuts very often.
Take for example Mt. 24:45-46. The supposed answer to the slave question in verse 45 is found in verse 46, "on arriving" he appoints the slave. Here the WT uses their famous word "arriving" to point the reader back to 1914-1918. Yet, when you carefully examine the verse, right from the NWT reference edition, there is an asterisk on the word "arriving*" which takes you to the bottom of the page. The reference says "46* Lit., "having come." Gr., el-thon'.
In other words. the Literal translation from the Greek is "having come" which puts the fulfilment of verse 46 squarely in the future as fully in context with the verses before and after. Verse 42 says "Keep on the watch... your Lord is COMING." Verse 44 says "... the son of man is COMING" Verse 46 says "...on having COME he finds him doing so" and verse 50 says "...the master of that slave will COME on a day that he does not expect and in an hour that he does not know..." which takes us back to verse 36 "Concerning that day and hour NOBODY KNOWS..."
But dubs are too numb to see it.
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Mary
What I think is most incredible is that one one hand, they're still teaching that Jesus returned invisibly in 1914 and that the Last Days started in 1914. In Luke, Jesus said "When you see these things START to occur.....your deliverance is getting near."
To those of us passing through these dire times since the marked year 1914 Jesus said: "But as these things start to occur, raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near."*** w52 5/1 p. 276 Evidences of the Year’s Correctness ***
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ka chap. 16 pp. 330-331 Completion of the Foretold "Sign" Nears *** Have we of this generation seen "these things start to occur"? Have we seen "these things" occurring throughout the decades since 1914 C.E.? Inasmuch as we have done so.....It is the time to lift our heads up heavenward and see in the brightening light of the Holy Scriptures that contains Jesus’ prophecy the evidences of a most reassuring future for mankind. The meaning of these evidences is unmistakable: Deliverance is at hand!Common sense dictates that if it was the generation of 1914 that saw the beginning of these things, then it MUST be that generation who would see The End. The way they teach it now is an impossibility when you stop and think about it: We're still holding on to 1914 but we want to to ignore the scripture in Luke.
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bob1999
After doing just 5 minutes of research.
From 10/1/80 WT page 27
"THE MESSIANIC KING AND HIS SHEEPLIKE SUBJECTS
9 In his prophecy concerning “the conclusion of the system of things,” Jesus referred to his kingship in a full sense. According to the apostle Matthew’s account, Jesus closed his prophecy by giving the illustration of the symbolic sheep and goats. At Matthew 25:31, 32 he opened up the illustration by saying: “When the Son of man arrives in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people [not nations] one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” This takes place after Satan the Devil and his demons are ousted from their heavenly location and privileges down to our earth’s vicinity by the enthroned King Jesus Christ. All of this is as prophetically pictured in Revelation 12:5-9. As to what that accomplishment means, we read:
10 “And I [John] heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our God! And they conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their witnessing, and they did not love their souls even in the face of death. On this account be glad, you heavens and you who reside in them! Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.’”—Rev. 12:10-12.
11 What informed person can deny that such extraordinary “woe for the earth and for the sea” has marked our 20th century since 1914, the year in which, according to all evidences, the so-called “four horsemen of the Apocalypse” began their ride? (See Revelation 6:1-8.) That must be an unmistakable “sign” that in 1914 the “last days” of this world system of things began and that we have entered the “conclusion of the system of things.” Certainly, also, since the ouster of Satan the Devil and his demons from heaven, it has been the “last days” for them before they are hurled into the abyss before the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah Jesus. (Rev. 20:1-3, 7) Plainly, World War I of 1914 and World War II of 1939 and the scores of wars that have followed since 1945 throughout the earth are a modern parallel of the “wars and reports of wars” (along with famines, pestilences and earthquakes) that Jesus said would make the years of 29 to 70 C.E. the “last days” of the Jewish system of things that revolved around Jerusalem and its rebuilt temple.
12 The agonizing distress that befell Jerusalem in 70 C.E. fell short of being what Jesus described in his prophecy of Matthew 24:21, 22. But today the antitypical Jerusalem (Christendom), yes, the whole world empire of false religion, yes, the entire global system of things, is headed for the “great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again.” Not strange, then, that we see undergoing fulfillment the prophecy that the apostle Paul made about 65 C.E. and set down in 2 Timothy 3:1: “You [Timothy] may be quite sure that in the last days there are going to be some difficult times.”—The Jerusalem Bible."
So, "....... Satan the Devil and his demons are ousted from their heavenly location and privileges down to our earth’s vicinity by the ENTHRONE King Jesus Christ."
And "What informed person can deny that such extraordinary “woe for the earth and for the sea” has marked our 20th century since 1914......'
But if Christ has not (according to New Light) taken His throne yet, how can the Devil and his demons be ousted to cause all this trouble?
Yaddayadda, you are right. They have shot themselves in the foot, big time. -
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SirNose586
So let me get this straight:
33 AD: Jesus goes to heaven where he sits at his Father's right hand.
33-1914 AD: Jesus hangs out in heaven, catching up with Dad, while organized religion in his name tortures and kills millions of people. Meanwhile Satan, his archenemy, can still hang out in heaven. (Maybe Satan gets the cold shoulder?)
1914 AD: Jesus comes back in power, and his first act is to kick out Satan in October, but Satan leaves earlier in the year "just to make things easy for the Big Guy." But unlike kings who sit on thrones, he just has this weird "parousia" and has a "presence" (like what the Jedi masters feel). There's a throne there, and he sits down on it to judge. But wait! He can't do anything else just yet!
1918 AD: Out of all the religions claiming to follow him, he chooses one headed by a wealthy philandering pyramidologist. The rest don't get chosen because they went to war, but apparently this wasn't a problem during the 33-1914 years of dominance when Jesus was cool with all of it. He tests them by putting the heads of said religion under trial for violating treason laws, for which there is plenty of evidence.
1919 AD: Said publishing religion leaders come out of jail and vow to fix their errant ways, but take their sweet time. They are just following example, really...
1995 AD: Correction: There was a throne there in 1914, but he couldn't sit on it yet.
I'm really confused. The Society has made so many "comings" and "standings" and "sittings" that it's hard to keep track...
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bob1999
3/1/04 WT
"19 What are the belongings over which the newly crowned Master appointed his faithful slave? All the spiritual things that belong to Him here on earth. For example, two decades after Christ’s enthronement in 1914, “a great crowd” of “other sheep” was identified. (Revelation 7:9; John 10:16)"
They can't even keep their own story straight.
10/15/95 WT
"25 This means, then, that Jesus’ ‘sitting down on his glorious throne’ for judgment, mentioned at Matthew 25:31, applies to the future point when this powerful King will sit down to pronounce and execute judgment on the nations"
How can "Christ sitting down on his glorious throne" be in the future (1995) when in 2004
they say it happened in 1914?