Speaking of Dwight Moody and his associates, Pastor Russell wrote:
“It is our thought that the Lord used these men, and through their ministry the fore-ordained number was completed at the fore-ordained time, 1881.”
Why 1881?
What did Russell mean by this statement?
by LogCon 13 Replies latest jw friends
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sparrowdown
I always got the idea that these "ordained" dates and "completed numbers" like the 144000 etc were based on their greed
in keeping the number going to heaven (and subsequent"ruling class") small.
Even in the early days they were power hungry and wanted all the "good oil" kept for a select few.
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AndDontCallMeShirley
*** jv chap. 28 pp. 631-632 Testing and Sifting From Within ***
Using Bible chronology that had first been laid out by Christopher Bowen of England, they thought that 6,000 years of human history had ended in 1873, that thereafter they were in the seventh thousand-year period of human history, and that they had surely approached the dawn of the foretold Millennium. The series of books known as Millennial Dawn (and later called Studies in the Scriptures), which were penned by C. T. Russell, drew attention to the implications of this according to what the Bible Students understood from the Scriptures.
Something else that was seen as a possible time indicator involved the arrangement that God instituted in ancient Israel for a Jubilee, a year of release, every 50th year. This came after a series of seven 7-year periods, each of which ended with a sabbath year. During the Jubilee year, Hebrew slaves were freed and hereditary land possessions that had been sold were restored. (Lev. 25:8-10) Calculations based on this cycle of years led to the conclusion that perhaps a greater Jubilee for all the earth had begun in the autumn of 1874, that evidently the Lord had returned in that year and was invisibly present, and that "the times of restitution of all things" had arrived.
— Acts 3:19-21, KJ.
Based on the premise that events of the first century might find parallels in related events later, they also concluded that if Jesus’ baptism and anointing in the autumn of 29 C.E. paralleled the beginning of an invisible presence in 1874, then his riding into Jerusalem as King in the spring of 33 C.E. would point to the spring of 1878 as the time when he would assume his power as heavenly King. They also thought they would be given their heavenly reward at that time. When that did not occur, they concluded that since Jesus’ anointed followers were to share with him in the Kingdom, the resurrection to spirit life of those already sleeping in death began then. It was also reasoned that the end of God’s special favor to natural Israel down to 36 C.E. might point to 1881 as the time when the special opportunity to become part of spiritual Israel would close.
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LogCon
ADCMS
Thank-you
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zeb
Because he was using an old kerosine lamp not 'new-light'.
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Finkelstein
The real honest Truth of the matter was Russell instituted the anointed heavenly class as a attainable reward for spreading
his version of the Gospel for those who helped him distributing his literature door to door.
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Focus
Why 1881?
Why 1873?
Why 1874?
Why 1903?
Why 1911?
Why 1914?
Why 1915?
Why 1916?
Why 1918?
Why 1921?
Why 1925?
Why 1943?
Why 1975?
Why 2000?
Answer: To keep the scam going.
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Focus
("WHACK!" Class)
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kramer
@focus, do you have a reference for the 2000 prediction, I haven't seen that one
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Witness My Fury
"in this 20th century" or similar in the WT inside page header. i.e armaggedon by the millenium.
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AndDontCallMeShirley
Finkelstein:The real honest Truth of the matter was Russell instituted the anointed heavenly class as a attainable reward for spreading
his version of the Gospel for those who helped him distributing his literature door to door.
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And Rutherford invented the "Earthly Class", the "great crowd" of non-anointed who'll live on a paradise earth, for the very same reason.
(this, of course, because he had no other way to deal with the fact that the WT organization was growing beyond 144,000 members and there was no where to put everyone else in god's plan. Poof ! We'll just invent a paradise home where all the 'extras' will live). Problem solved.