Rapture

robmoore88

Hello everyone,

I'm wondering what the WTS teaches about the Rapture and Tribulation. Does that tie in with their "Paradise Earth" doctrine somehow?

Robert

darkuncle29

Hello Robert.

The concept of the Rapture as taught in other Christian churches is alien to the WTS. They do not believe in it.

There is a scripture that mentions having a spiritual body sown in incoruption in the tinkling of an eye...blah blah. They use that scripture to refer to the Anointed 144,000.

Well that's my sloppy answer to your question. If anybody else knows, please step up.

robmoore88

Thanks, Uncle-

So, they don't believe in the Tribulation, either? If you read the Bible to be taken literally, it seems clear that it's comming.How do they explain away the book of Revelation? And Daneil?

Robert

amac

The Rapture, yeah, they're a great band. I particularly like the tracks Killing and Olio.

czarofmischief

They believe in the Tribulation, but not in the Rapture.

The rapture as stated by fundamentalist christians is a relatively new understanding of Paul's scriptures, I think it came around in the seventies. So, it was after the dubs decided to follow Freddie Franz as the Oracle of the Org and not seek wisdom anywhere else. So, it's not a part of their dream.

Remember, they only think that 144,000 people are going to heaven, and the rest are going to live forever on a paradise earth. The world will be populated by those who are brought out of the great tribulation.

As far as the tribulation, I don't know what their current belief structure is - I know that they have a fairly complicated mythology about it, but I've been out for almost four years so with all the new light, I can't see a damn thing.

Something about false religion being destroyed by the UN, and then the UN turning on Jehovah's Witnesses, and the UN being destroyed for it.

I couldn't defend it anymore - really, you should go to their website or talk to e-watchman or something. They are in love with the apocalypse. Gonna start any day now... yeah...

CZAR

Sentinel

Think of your worse nightmare about the end of this planet and then put it to writing, adding a bit of religious hype. There you have it, "revelation".

No doubt, some of us are guided by enlightenment of "source", but most just eat too much chocolate or drink too much wine before going to bed. Others are religious psyche cases.

I believe in reality and what makes the most common sense. We can only control what we do right now.

/<

Celia

I believe Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the organization, believed and taught the rapture.... Didn't he put on a white robe and waited to be ushered up, on such and such a day ? Got to go look....

Celia

I found this site : http://www.bible.ca/jw-history.htm

this is the paragraph about the rapture :

Russell and Barbour believed and taught that Christ's invisible return in 1874 would be followed soon afterward, in the spring of 1878 to be exact, by the Rapture-the bodily snatching away of believers to heaven. When this expected Rapture failed to occur on time in 1878, The Herald's editor, Mr. Barbour, came up with "new light" on this and other doctrines. Russell, however, rejected some of the new ideas and persuaded other members to oppose them. Finally, Russell quit the staff of the Adventist magazine and started his own. He called it Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence and published its first issue with the date July, 1879. In the beginning it had the same mailing list as The Herald of the Morning and considerable space was devoted to refuting the latter on points of disagreement, Russell having taken with him a copy of that magazine's mailing list when he resigned as assistant editor.

Celia

another site : http://scripture_truth.homestead.com/

this paragraph :

In 1882 Russell began leading Watch Tower readers away from Christian orthodoxy. Russell openly rejected the doctrine of Hell and the Trinity as "totally unscriptural." The Watch Tower and Russell's books included much of Barbour's end time timeline, using 1874 as the beginning of Christ's invisible "presence," and predicting other end-times events by calculating from that date. He Called the Great Pyramid of Gizeh," God's Stone Witness and Prophet". Russell used measurements of it in his calculations to predict that believers would be raptured in 1910.

Celia

...freeminds site : http://www.freeminds.org/doctrine/datelist.htm

this snippet :

1881
Rapture of the saints, including Russell and other Bible Students. WT Jan 1881 [repr p180], Dec 1880 [repr p172], compare May 1881 [repr p224].
Abandoned and even denied from May 1881

Rapture

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