The Bible says that a believer has everything needed for life and godliness, through the direct revelation of God. People don’t need to have people to govern their lives, as God is the one who governs. Man’s opinions are not always correct, only God is a refuge.
In all the ages past, God has worked through prophets and apostles, men who received direct revelation from On High and who had authority to act in God’s name. Keep in mind that the scripture you cite did not negate the fact that the church then had apostles, men who were called, ordained, had the requisite authority and were known to the church. The next verse (2 Peter 1:4) tells us: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” In short, this is what the Orthodox mean when they say that “God became what we are so that we may become as He is.” And that’s what Adam and Eve lacked in the Garden of Eden, and is what they needed to become like God. But again, man has never been able to do it alone.
Accordingly, the church was led through divine revelation received by those who are in authority. Thus, when Jerusalem fell to the Romans and were slaughtered by the tens of thousands, the Christians had been led away to places such as Pella, not by individual revelation, but by revelation to the leaders of the church. As a result, zero Christians were killed by the Romans.
Later, however, the church fell into apostasy. Not from without, but from within, by wolves in sheeps’ clothing not sparing the flock. Bishops and other officers, called and ordained by the Lord’s servants, found themselves competing against those chosen locally, and were in competition with the apostles and other officers.
Everything that was said in those years, in the Kingdom Halls and conventions regarding the impending ‘Battle of Armageddon’ was all backed up scripture, (a text, without context, is just a pretext for anything you want it to mean). It’s true that the Society didn’t cross [its] t’s and dot [its] i’s in [its] prophecy of 1975 but they did prophecy it. In those years I, like so many others gave up our further education so that we could learn trades, carpenters were especially wanted ‘to build the log cabins’ that were going to be needed after the destruction and desolation that was going to come very shortly.
It’s amazing how many were victimized by the irresponsible prophecies of the false prophet, but that’s the nature of false prophets...to prophesize falsely. I’ve been researching the polygamous cults in Utah, Colorado, Texas, Mexico and Canada, and every time their leaders issue false prophecies, the members rationalize it away and set themselves up for further deception. This happens because members are isolated from the outside world by not being allowed to watch television, read newspapers or talk to non-members. They’re kept in line by church leaders who employ force, threaten to break up families and who hold the salvation of members in the palms of their hands.
The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses are most likely good, decent, honest people, but they are still blind guides leading the blind. In the days of Moses, the people saw the great miracles of the prophet. They became actual witnesses of God’s dealings with them. Not only did they see the parting of the Red Sea, seventy elders of Israel (Exodus 24) not only saw God, but dined in his presence. In the New Testament days, the apostles witnessed the many healings wrought by Jesus; they saw Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration and later the glorious resurrection of the Savior. My point is that when God leads a people, he does so through revelation and the law of witnesses. That way, there’s never any doubt. In the case of Muhammad, or Joan of Arc, or Ann Lee, or Ellen G. White, or Herbert W. Armstrong, there were NO other witnesses except them, and we’re expected to take their word for it. Also, in each of these cases, they lived, they made their claims, then died, leaving no successors, but fractured claimants. I don’t know if the Jehovah’s Witness leadership ever purported to receive divine communication, but now they seem to think they're led by an inspiration that not even they can understand. The notion that in 1919, Jesus inspected the religions of the world and chose the Jehovah's Witnesses is absurd, for if so, where are the two or three witnesses by which all things would be established? Instead, everything in the religion is done "spiritually" or "invisibly." That's not the way it was done anciently, neither is there any prophecy to support the WTS, and that's a problem since not only shall 1) "in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established; but 2) "the Lord God will do nothing, save he reveal it to his servants the prophets." The WTS fails in both respects.