WATCHTOWER JAN 2025: WHY IS THE WATCHTOWER OBSESSED WITH THE RANSOM?

by raymond frantz 75 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Sea Breeze

  You said: If the only possible outcome of exercising free will is catastrophe, what good is it?

  Moments before Eve sinned, she decided of her own free will not to believe God. That was within her agency to do so.
  

  By contrast, Hundreds of Millions of people believe God, also out of their own free-will; especially after he resurrected himself from the dead, while he was dead. They now have eternal life as an inheritance, simply by believing God.

  So, How can you claim that the only outcome of free will is catastrophe ?
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  Duran

  Free will?

  There is a beautiful girl over yonder. I want to be with her, I am going to go over ask her to marry me, hope she says YES of her own free will.

  1. She said YES, great!

  2. She said NO, I said well okay go on about your life.

  Free will?

  ____________________

  Free will?

  There is a beautiful girl over yonder. I want to be with her, I am going to go over ask her to marry me, hope she says YES of her own free will, but I will also let her know if she says NO that I am going to kill her if she does not say YES.

  1. She said YES, great! Wait, did she say YES out of her own free will or because she didn't want me to kill her?

  2. She said NO, I killed her.

  Free will?
• 

  Sea Breeze

  The new covenant is for the forgiveness of sins as clearly described in Mt. 26: 27–28

  It is a blood covenant, to the death of both Signatories, the believer and Jesus. It is a permanent oath of irrevocable authenticity. Jesus mediates the problems that God and man have with one another, and with his own blood, comes up with a solution acceptable to both parties. Jesus substitutes his death penalty (that he didn’t deserve) for our death penalty (that we do deserve)

  Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that they can get you into God’s Kingdom with out it, by some other way. Jesus says no:

  “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ - Mt 22: 11

  And here:

  “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber… Then said Jesus…. I am the door". - John 10
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  Touchofgrey

  Typical circular argument back to quoting the bible instead of answering people's questions.

  There was no miracle worker called jesus,so no ransom needed to be paid to anyone.

  The four gospels were written by unknown authors many decades after the so called events so not eyewitnes accounts that those events happened and that those words were ever uttered.
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  TonusOH

  Sea Breeze: So, How can you claim that the only outcome of free will is catastrophe ?

  If we were incapable of committing sin, everyone would be loyal to God and no one would suffer. The world would be a utopia, the afterlife would be spent in heaven with God for eternity.

  If people are capable of committing sin, everyone suffers during their lives. They disappoint God and let him down frequently. It got so bad that at one point God wiped out almost all human life on the planet, and doing that did not stop the sin and the suffering. In addition, many people will suffer eternally as a result of exercising free will to commit sin.

  How is the second outcome not a catastrophe?
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  Sea Breeze

  If people are capable of committing sin, everyone suffers during their lives. They disappoint God and let him down frequently.

  Not if they believe God. When a person accepts God's offer to make him / her a family member, God gives then a new spirit which cannot sin.

  This is the "YOU" that God interacts with after regeneration. God is not disappointed in my new spirit he installed at salvation. This is the ultimate meaning of circumcision. The old spirit is sliced off, like a foreskin, and a new spirit is installed. This is called the circumcision of the heart.

  Col. 2 - "For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

  12having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15He disarmed the rulers and authoritiesb and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him."

  1 John 3: 9 - Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

  Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV

  And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

  Romans 2:28-29 ESV

  For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit...
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  TonusOH

  Sea Breeze: When a person accepts God's offer to make him / her a family member, God gives then a new spirit which cannot sin.

  So, eventually, he takes away our free will. Why make this conditional on an offer? The offer is unnecessary if he makes us incapable of sinning in the first place. Why not do that from the beginning?

  What benefit is there to being able to sin?
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  Vanderhoven7

  The new creation (Christ in you) does not sin. The old man (nature) is dead (Romans 6)....but unfortunately resurrects itself if left uncrucified.
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  TonusOH

  Vanderhoven7: The new creation (Christ in you) does not sin.

  All I am asking is why this would not have been so from the beginning. What good comes from allowing people to sin? Especially if the eventual outcome is that our nature is changed to be incapable of sin? Why not start at the end and skip the part where people suffer? Especially when many of them will keep suffering forever and ever?
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  Sea Breeze

  TonusOH,

  I speculate that it is a consequence of the nature of love, which must be given voluntarily.

  How much is love worth if it is simply an artifact of programming?

  My computer “loves” me, but it is not the same as a warm smile from my wife.