Resurrected state?

by MidwichCuckoo 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • MidwichCuckoo
    MidwichCuckoo

    ''for in the resurrection neither do men marry nor women be given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven'' (Matthew 22 v 30)

    I was taught that this scripture means that the resurrected will be unmarriageable. (I state what appears to be the obvious, as I have since heard that God would be cruel to disallow the 'reunion' of a happy couple separated by death).

    As I understood this Scripture to mean the resurrected would be celibate, it made sense to me that they would not have the appearance of 'survivors'. Imagine. You are one of 6,000,000 who have survived Armaggedon. Another 30 billion (give or take, lol) are to be resurrected, and you are needed to help with this task. The resurrected now outnumber the 'living'. NOW, as you remained single in the 'Old System', you decide to find a mate. You spend 4 hours chatting up a member of the opposite sex in a bar club casino park, and then he/she turns around and tells you he/she is resurrected! Sheeesh. On the plus side, you could always PRETEND to be resurrected to 'knock someone back'.

    Seriously. How cruel would it be? To be resurrected and gradually gain your youth and all that it brings. You are beautiful - and would have to spend eternity saying 'no'? As I was taught to believe this Scripture, I imagined that all resurrected would be brought back in an androgonous state.(Did anyone see 'Constantine' - Angel Gabriel?) When I suggested such, I was told it was a ridiculous idea!

  • rebel8
    rebel8

    If you can get a hold of the Watchtower article of June 1, 1987, pages 30-31, you will see it stated that the New System will probably not entail marriage. Little known fact.......I think people ignore it. I remember when that article came out and having one of those "aha" moments about the borg. My recollection is that it would apply to everyone, resurrected or not. If someone can post a scan, we can see what it says. Memory fuzzy after all those yrs.

  • Gill
    Gill

    Hi MC -If I remember their crazy logic correctly, the resurrected are meant to be like the angels, having no male or female.

    HOWEVER - wasn't it a bunch of sex crazed angels that came down to the earth for a bit of 'rumpy pumpy?'!

  • MidwichCuckoo
    MidwichCuckoo

    rebel8 - Gosh, you were quick off the mark finding that so quickly - yes, I just looked at it on the CDROM. Just in 'questions from readers' The amount of times I have heard couples say they will wait till the New System to have children....what a waste then.

    Gill - you're so right. How COULD that have slipped my mind. ..and they were ALL bloke angels too. Maybe then the resurrected can have a bit of 'rumpy pumpy', but just not marry eh?

  • prophecor
    prophecor

    Biggest reason why I was determined to live through the end of this system. Life without the benefits of sex was a fate worse than death in my view. Though, as I've gotten older and more settled in years and sexual relations are not the primary central focus in my life, as some of flair in relations has slackened off, I can see where one could easily see himself as the champion of the animals in the new world. Isaiah 11:6-9 6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
    the calf and the lion and the yearling [a] together;
    and a little child will lead them.

    7 The cow will feed with the bear,
    their young will lie down together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

    8 The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
    and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.

    9 They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
    for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
    as the waters cover the sea.

  • Ingenuous
    Ingenuous

    Another version of this account is found @ Luke 20:34-36:

    34 Jesus said to them: “The children of this system of things marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who have been counted worthy of gaining that system of things and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 In fact, neither can they die anymore, for they are like the angels, and they are God’s children by being children of the resurrection.

    It's telling that Jesus said these resurrected ones cannot die and that they are "God's children." This makes me think Jesus is talking about persons resurrected to heavenly life, as opposed to those who would live on earth. Heavenly life was the "one hope" Christians were supposed to share in common (Eph. 4:4), with them putting on immortality upon their resurrection. (2 Cor. 5:1-4 and such.)

    Didn't the Org recently do some backpedaling on the "married resurrected" issue?

  • Gill
    Gill

    Ingeneous - The bOrg, 'back peddle on an issue!!!!! N'est pas possible!!!!

  • Ingenuous
    Ingenuous

    OK, Gill, I walked right into that one.

    BTW - The reason I focused on the "neither can they die anymore" part is because those who read Revelation and surmise that there will be a group resurrected to earth also conclude that those earth-bound people are subject to the "second death" - eternal destruction. That would make the earth-bound resurrected ones different from the heaven-bound resurrected ones.

  • Terry
    Terry

    The baseline problem with this sort of discussion is that is pre-assumes the scripture itself has any authority of fact about it.



    The Church Fathers were a creepy lot. They assembled their Jesus stories, miracle working tales, histories, legends and then had to sew up a theology out of it that was palatable FIRST OF ALL TO THEMSELVES.



    How do you know for sure which descriptions (in scripture) were not the pious frauds of lice-infested lunatics who self-flagellated away their own sexual impurities before breakfast each morning?



    Listen to me, people--can't you just entertain the idea that NOT EVERYTHING you read in the magic book is the actual Divine Word OF ALMIGHTY GOD?

    Has anybody ever read A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ? An innocent shopping list is found and thought to be Holy Writing.





    anticle opens 600 years in the future, long after a mid-20th century nuclear holocaust known as the Flame Deluge. Humanity has survived -- barely -- the coming of Hell's fires, the ensuing Fallout, and then the inevitable Simplification, when men and women of learning were hunted to near extinction and when almost all knowledge was deliberately erased.

    Throughout the book burnings and witch hunts, a small religious order founded by I.E. Leibowitz -- one of the scientists whose work enabled the war and who later found religion, only to die for his beliefs -- labored in secret to preserve what knowledge it could from the past. By laboriously copying, memorizing and storing any texts they came across, the monks create a Memorabilia that might one day help humanity emerge from its self-imposed Dark Age. Ironically, the monks understand little of what they find, leading one to label it the Inscrutabilia.

    Canticle itself actually comprises three novelettes that follow the Leibowitz order over the course of a thousand years, with roughly 500 years between each story. The monks serve as a vehicle for Miller to both chronicle the state of humanity and to comment on it, and ultimately they may play a part in the physical salvation of the human race as well. But within this greater scope they also muddle through the chores of daily existence as everyone must, driven by a higher purpose but nonetheless prone to the everyday taxes and tolls of human existence. And it is this existence that ultimately serves as the "canticle" for Leibowitz, and for all humanity.

    God, or at least His servants, is in the details

    Few novels have tackled the future of religion in any way that approaches Canticle 's attention to the everyday, and Miller skillfully uses his self-created microcosm of a small abbey to reflect the macrocosm of the human condition.

    However, none of this is apparent from the first few pages. In fact, the book starts out innocuously with the tale of a none-too-savvy would-be monk on his Lenten vigil in the desert. That this monk will play a pivotal role in the future of his order seems unimaginable as he bumbles his way through a chance meeting with a person who will turn out to be a figure of historic importance, and then discovers priceless artifacts that will one day bring him to New Rome and a meeting with the Pope himself.

    As readers segue (not particularly smoothly, it should be noted) from one story to the next, it slowly becomes apparent that this is not a simple story. Rather it's an incredibly successful attempt to explore the uber-concepts of religion, humanity and survival through characters that are utterly human and mundane. The story eventually builds to a climax that is more cerebral than physical, and so profound that it may leave readers with the urge to flip back to the beginning and read again. An altogether excellent idea.


    Review by
    Craig E. Engler

  • googlemagoogle
    googlemagoogle

    the resurrected will be unmarriageable

    who cares. as long as they are effffable...

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