The C.O. mentioned in his talk last week that the Jews, who had the name "Jehovah's Witnesses" applied to them, killed Jesus. I found that a particularly revealing admission, simply from the way he said it. "Jehovah's Witnesses killed Jesus," he said.
He went on to explain that the coveted title of "Jehovah's Witnesses" was taken from the Jews. He acknowledged that nowhere in the Bible are Christians called "Jehovah's Witnesses", but he still felt that the prophecy about God "taking a people for his name" was fulfilled, not with the first-century Christians, but with 'us today'.
The peculiar fact here is that Christians got their name "by divine providence". Bearing witness to Jesus, whose name means "Jehovah Is Salvation", was good enough to Jehovah back then. Why is it that divine providence is not good enough for the self-proclaimed only true Christians on earth today? Why would Jehovah's Witnesses want to assume the title of those who delivered up the Lord Jesus to be murdered? I can think of a good reason.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the graves of the prophets and decorate the memorial tombs of the righteous ones, and you say, 'If we were in the days of our forefathers, we would not be sharers with them in the blood of the prophets'. Therefore you are bearing witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets."--Matthew 23:29-31
Funny what organization does for you--makes you desperate to maintain your authority at all costs. I often said to people that if Jesus came to the earth today, people would simply kill him again. I never fully understood that in no place would that be more likely than amongst Jehovah's Witnesses. The Society would experience the same desperation as the Pharisees did in their time. And they would find a way to railroad Jesus--let me guess, the beard? As did the Pharisees, anyone who disagrees with their teaching is labeled as a sinner, out only for fleshly interests and denying God altogether. Blind ones who claim they are the only ones who see.
Jehovah's Witnesses killed Jesus in modern times, too. They put words in his mouth, attribute falsehoods to him, removed his very name from the cover of their main advertising tool, The Watchtower. They block the approach of millions who wish to reach the Lord Jesus, as if they themselves are the door of the sheep, instead of Christ. Indeed, those who pierced Christ Jesus will see him upon his return. We needn't have any doubt of that.
--Christopher