w93 1/15 5 'Caught Away to Meet the Lord'-How? ***
The Watchtower has
consistently
presented evidence to honesthearted students of Bible prophecy that
Jesus’ presence
in heavenly Kingdom power
began in 1914.
w84 12/1 14 Happy Are Those Found Watching! ***
Russell and his associates
quickly understood that Christ’s presence would be invisible. They disassociated themselves from other groups and, in 1879, began publishing spiritual food in
Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence. From its first year of publication, this magazine pointed forward, by sound Scriptural reckoning, to the date 1914 as an epoch-making date in Bible chronology. So when Christ’s invisible presence began in 1914,
happy were these Christians to have been found watching! For over a century, this magazine, now called
The Watchtower—
Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom, has helped an ever-increasing number of true Christians to "keep looking" and "keep awake." (Mark 13:33)
Proclaimers book 47 5 Proclaiming the Lord's Return (1870-1914) ***
To counteract wrong views regarding the Lord’s return,
Russell wrote the pamphlet The Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return. It was published in 1877. That same year Barbour and Russell jointly published
Three Worlds, and the Harvest of This World. This 196-page book discussed the subjects of restitution and Biblical time prophecies. Though each subject had been treated by others before, in Russell’s view this book was "the first to
combine the idea of restitution with time-prophecy."
It presented the view that Jesus Christ’s invisible presence dated from the autumn of 1874 .
God’s Kingdom of a Thousand Years… 186-8 11 "Here Is the Bridegroom!"
In the following year (1877) Russell joined with one Nelson H. Barbour, of Rochester, New York, in publishing a book entitled "Three Worlds, and the Harvest of This World." In this book it was set forth that the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 C.E. would be preceded by a period of forty years marked by the opening of a harvest of three and a half years, beginning in 1874 C.E. This harvest was understood to be under the invisible direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose presence or parousia began in the year 1874. Shortly afterward was understood to be the beginning of the great antitypical Jubilee for mankind, that had been foreshadowed by the ancient "jubilee" observances of the Jews under the law of Moses. (Leviticus, chapter twenty-five) According to the Bible chronology that was thereafter adopted, the six thousand years of man’s existence on the earth ended in the year 1872 but the Lord Jesus did not come at the end of those six millenniums of human existence, rather, at the start of the antitypical Jubilee in October of 1874. The year 1874 was calculated as being the end of six millenniums of sin among mankind. From this latter date mankind was understood to be in the seventh millennium.—Revelation 20:4.
7
From that understanding of matters, the "chaste virgin" class began going forth to meet the heavenly Bridegroom in the year 1874, as they believed him to have arrived in that year and to be from then on invisibly present. They felt that they were already living in the invisible presence of the Bridegroom. Due to this fact, when Charles T. Russell began publishing his own religious magazine in July of 1879, he published it under the title "Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence." He had already become familiar with Wilson’s The Emphatic Diaglott, which translated the Greek word pa·rou·si'a as "presence," not "coming," in Matthew 24:3 and elsewhere. The new magazine was heralding Christ’s invisible presence as having begun in 1874. This presence was to continue until the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 , when the Gentile nations would be destroyed and the remnant of the "chaste virgin" class would be glorified with their bridegroom in heaven by death and resurrection to life in the spirit. Thus the class pictured by the five wise virgins would enter through the door into the wedding.
(BTW it wasn’t until 1943 that the WTS did away completely with the 1874 date for Christ’s presence)
