Is Watchtower totally off base on Armageddon?

by Vanderhoven7 41 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  peacefulpete

  Rattigan...This may be a first but yes, that is how the Gospel John (16) deals with this. The 4 times repeated phrase 'little while see again' is defined as 'figurative'. It never clarifies in this section what was meant but we have to believe it is either reference to Jesus being with them in heaven or in a spiritual sense. Chapt. 14 promised the arrival of the Holy Spirit who in Johannine thought was another of the pleroma of God as the Word was. The initiated among the readers would recognize all of the story to be figurative.

  I know it is a leap but read the Apocryphon of John to see how this conceptualization of Divinity progressed in just a couple decades in the Johannine community.

  The Secret Book of John (Apocryphon of John) (gnosis.org)
  
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  Duran

  [ 9 After he had said these things, while they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud caught him up from their sight. 10 And as they were gazing into the sky while he was on his way, suddenly two men in white garments stood beside them 11 and said: “Men of Galʹi·lee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus who was taken up from you into the sky will come in the same manner as you have seen him going into the sky.”]

  [24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling out of heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. 26 And then they will see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.]

  [31 “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.]

  [ 28 so also the Christ was offered once for all time to bear the sins of many; and the second time that he appears it will be apart from sin, and he will be seen by those earnestly looking for him for their salvation.]

  [ 7 But you who suffer tribulation will be given relief along with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels]