I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you die prior to Armageddon you won't be resurrected. Please read my latest blog article to find out why this is so according to the Watchtower beliefs.
http://smmcroberts.net/blog/you-wont-be-resurrected/
You Won't be Resurrected.
by smmcroberts 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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smmcroberts
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mP
Of course you wont...
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undercover
Well.... shit. Just ruined my day.
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finally awake
well there go my plans for the weekend
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TD
The 6th Day is another good movie for making the same point. A copy of you is not 'you'
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smmcroberts
Thanks, TD. I don't think I've seen The 6th Day, I'll have to check it out.
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blondie
*** w56 7/1 p. 401 par. 18 What Dedication Means to Me ***So each one of you undedicated persons has today the same freedom to choose, a choice of life or death. If you deliberately refuse to dedicate yourself to Jehovah God in this judgment day of his in which we now are living, your life will end at Armageddon, if not before, as a condemned sinner without right to life and even without hope of a resurrection.
CHANGED
*** w95 10/15 p. 22 par. 22 How Will You Stand Before the Judgment Seat? ***Does this parable apply when Jesus sat down in kingly power in 1914, as we have long understood? Well, Matthew 25:34 does speak of him as King, so the parable logically finds application since Jesus became King in 1914. But what judging did he do soon thereafter? It was not a judging of "all the nations." Rather, he turned his attention to those claiming to make up "the house of God." (1 Peter 4:17) In line with Malachi 3:1-3, Jesus, as Jehovah’s messenger, judicially inspected the anointed Christians remaining on earth. It was also time for judicial sentence on Christendom, who falsely claimed to be "the house of God." (Revelation 17:1, 2; 18:4-8) Yet nothing indicates that at that time, or for that matter since, Jesus sat to judge people of all the nations finally as sheep or goats.
If we analyze Jesus’ activity in the parable, we observe him finally judging all the nations. The parable does not show that such judging would continue over an extended period of many years, as if every person dying during these past decades were judged worthy of everlasting death or everlasting life.It seems that the majority who have died in recent decades have gone to mankind’s common grave. (Revelation 6:8; 20:13) The parable, though, depicts the time when Jesus judges the people of "all the nations" who are then alive and facing the execution of his judicial sentence.
In other words, the parable points to the future when the Son of man will come in his glory. He will sit down to judge people then living. His judgment will be based on what they have manifested themselves to be. At that time "the distinction between a righteous one and a wicked one" will have been clearly established. (Malachi 3:18) The actual pronouncing and executing of judgment will be carried out in a limited time. Jesus will render just decisions based on what has become evident about individuals.—See also 2 Corinthians 5:10.
Understanding the parable of the sheep and the goats in this way indicates that the rendering of judgment on the sheep and the goats is future. It will take place after "the tribulation" mentioned at Matthew 24:29, 30 breaks out and the Son of man ‘arrives in his glory.’ (Compare Mark 13:24-26.)
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At one time the WTS taught that from 1914 to when the "great tribulation" broke out was a judgment period or a judgment day and non-jws who died during this period would not be resurrected but would descend into Gehena, everlasting destruction. They "reasoned" that the sheep and goats were being identified and separated since 1914. Of course, that teaching changed in 1995 when the WTS started teaching that the sheep and goats would be separated shortly after the great tribulation started and thus 1914 to now was not a judgment day or period during which people were being identified as goats worthy of eternal destruction. They had compared this time to the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, periods during which people died and had no hope of a resurrection.
With this change in WTS doctrine, it became beneficial then to die as a non-jw before Armageddon, their resurrection into the paradise was assured.
Blondie
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Christ Alone
That's interesting smmcroberts. I've thought the same. According to the Watchtower you are merely recreated with the same memories and personality. But that's not resurrection... In the same line of reasoning, Jesus wasn't resurrected either. He was recreated. I know that many of you don't believe in the Bible, and that's fine, but this talk is interesting to show the implications of the Watchtower's belief about the soul and resurrection. It might be something even non believers can hold on to to help other questioning JWs. I think someone posted this on here before, but I just watched it again the other day and thought it was good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts7fXPXhuws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc_4voD_qks&playnext=1&list=PL6B8F3472251DD0F3&feature=results_video
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breakfast of champions
Aw snap!
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Cold Steel
Very good point. I had the same thoughts about the transporter in STAR TREK. The transporter can break down your body and your intellect and then create an exact duplicate on the other end. You'll be reconstructed down to the very molecule, only it won't be you. It will be a copy. In fact, when one of the Away teams picks up something that causes them to age rapidly, the problem is fixed by deconstructing their aged bodies and replacing them with the last matrix that was stored in the transporter. In short, the Captain, Spock and the rest were disintegrated and replaced by the previous copies. And of course their memories only went up to the point where they previously used the transporter.
I think McCoy understood this from the beginning, and that's why he hated using the transporter. Who knows? Perhaps he was on to something.In all seriousness, the JW belief is ridiculous. Man has a spirit and he not only exists after death, he lived for countless generations before the Earth was created. Man's intelligence is eternal and can never be destroyed. When resurrected, his spirit and body will be reunited and all will have physical bodies. The righteous will become coheirs with Christ and they will receive all that the Father has.
Not only was this taught by the apostles John and Paul, it also was taught by the early church fathers. See also:
Deification in Greek Patristic Thought:The Cappadocian Fathers’ Strategic Adaptation of a Tradition
Irenaeus (115-202)
"While man gradually advances and mounts towards perfection; that is, he approaches the Eternal. The Eternal is perfect; and this is God. Man has first to come into being, then to progress, and by progressing come to manhood, and having reached manhood to increase, and thus increasing to persevere, and persevering to be glorified, and thus see his Lord." That is, "We were not made gods at our beginning, but first we were made men, then, in the end, gods. "
This is why the notion of being resurrected to live in a garden paradise is so illogical. Did God create man to live in a garden? Not according to either the scriptures or the early church fathers. Man is a spirit with a tabernacle of flesh and blood. After the resurrection, he will be a spirit with a tabernacle of flesh and bone (blood being the corrupting element). There will not be two classes of resurrected beings. That is a false doctrine. If man was just a temporary creature, you would be absolutely correct about resurrected beings being just copies.
It reminds me of an epitaph on a grave in Old Hill Cemetary, Plymouth, Mass. It reads:
IF I WAS SO SOON
TO BE DONE FOR,
WHAT WAS I EVER
BEGUN FOR?And these, by Epicurus
I WAS NOT,
I WAS.
I AM NOT, I CARE NOTDEATH IS NOTHING TO US, SINCE WHEN WE ARE,
DEATH HAS NOT COME; AND WHEN DEATH
HAS COME, WE ARE NOT!