Jesus or Satan ?

by carla 45 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Hellrider
    Hellrider

    Young people ask:

    Now what should I do now that you have shown me a change in our understanding? LEAVE the Org? Stop attending the meetings, stop reading the bible, start going to a church, stop worshipping Jehovah, start believing that Jesus is God, Start swearing, smoking, lying, cheating, stealing again?

    We now bring a heart of wizzdom on this matter. Just put your faith in Jehovah and his prophetic organisation on earth, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and it`ll all be alllright. Yes, in the words of Bob Marley: Everythings gonna beee alllright. ..

  • Cygnus
    Cygnus

    dfed, a lot of Witnesses during the time when that old light about Romans 13 was being taught endured much persecution. My father was a young Witness then and remembers this all too well.

    The Watchtower was more than simply wrong. They were adamant to the point of using that erroneous teaching in an attempt to buttress their argument that they were selected as God's people:

    ***

    w58 7/15 p. 441 Beware that You Do Not Lose Your Place! ***

    If spiritual Israel, represented today by the remnant, together with their good-will companions are to avoid the disaster that overtook ancient Israel, then they must be obedient to the "superior authorities," Jehovah God and Christ Jesus.

    ***

    w61 3/1 p. 146 The Congregation in the Time of the End ***

    IDENTIFYING THE CONGREGATION

    The evidence is clear that the body of Christian men and women now known as Jehovah’s witnesses has in its more than eighty years of doing God’s will experienced the fulfillment of these and many other prophecies... Their being gathered and growing in the light of truth from the 1870’s to 1918 was a preparing of the chosen ones for the coming of the Lord Jehovah to his temple... But in 1919 they began to be reorganized and restored to the "land" or condition of God’s favor... By this time the understanding of Jehovah’s servants had been cleansed of many incorrect ideas concerning doctrine and their relationship to Jehovah and Christ Jesus as the superior authorities.
  • AK - Jeff
    AK - Jeff

    Legolas -

    Thanx for posting those letters. So many of those reasons for leaving mirror my own. Thanx again, it brought tears to me.

    Jeff

  • carla
    carla

    This was the one I was thinking about. I forgot to say what site this is from. I originally found it somewhere else but this will suffice. I thought there was at least one other instance where they were unsure if the person being spoken of was Satan or Jesus or had flip flopped on it. I remember also pointing out to an elder where the wt said Christendom was 'chirrping' like birds or something to that effect (chirrping was in original) and later went on to believe and teach exactly what the rest of Christendom had been teaching all along.

    1. The sower in the Matt. 13 parable is Satan or Jesus?
    2. The sower of the mustard seed is Satan
      1. "It is the fake “kingdom of the heavens,” the counterfeit, namely, Christendom, that is filled with these symbolic birds, “the sons of the wicked one.” Today it is big enough to hold them all. In the parable, the “man” that sowed the mustard grain pictures the “wicked one,” Satan the Devil. Outstandingly in the fourth century C.E. Satan the Devil planted or specially cultivated this symbolic “mustard grain” of contaminated, adulterated, imitation Christianity." (Man's Salvation Out Of World Distress, 1975, p. 208).
    3. The sower of the mustard seed is Jesus
      1. "In the days of Jesus Christ and his apostles the nation of Israel was just as apostate as in the days of Jeremiah and Hosea. In fact, it was the generation of Israel that brought about the death of Jesus the Messiah and that persecuted his apostles and first-century disciples. Such Israelites especially were the ones to whom Jesus, as well as Isaiah, referred as having their eyes plastered shut, their ears unresponsive and their hearts unreceptive so that there was no spiritual healing for them. (Isa. 6:9, 10; Matt. 13:13-15; Acts 28:24-28) Hence that apostate generation suffered national calamity in 70 C.E. So, now, does anyone ask the question, How could Jesus as the Sower of the parable plant the symbolic mustard grain and yet have it become a tree of a foreign kind, the corrupt counterfeit called Christendom? The experience of Jehovah God with the ancient nation of Israel gives the divine answer to such a questioner!" (Watchtower, 10/1/1975, p. 600).

      Here is the parable

      1. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; 32 and this is smaller than all other seeds; but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches,” (Matt. 13:31).
  • AK - Jeff
    AK - Jeff

    Carla -

    I was surprized to see that these contradictions occur in the very same year!

    Jeff

  • carla
    carla

    Dfed, you mean everybody who leaves goes on to smoke, and steal and basically become immoral in your mind? you too would not be able to tell right from wrong without the twelve men in Brooklyn to tell you how to live your life? Do you mean you are not mature enough to make basic decisions in your life? Please don't try to tell me it is all based on Bible teachings, teachings according to Gorp maybe. How can you go knocking on peoples doors and ask them to examine their beliefs and churches when you are unwilling to do the same? Because you don't mind being a hypocrite? Do not tell me you have looked into your org and truly examined it or otherwise you would have known what I was talking about and pointed me to where they made this 'little' mistake of confusing Jesus with Satan.

    Hijacking thread? aw, I don't mind, feels like home! just kidding you. I know full well how these conversations go. I think the jw's do not really care about the flip flop on the Romans 'authority' issue, rather they care more that their org has 'special interpretation' powers and 'see, we admit mistakes'. They don't understand that they have been misrepresenting God for a long time. And then they can blame God Himself when they screw up, cause afterall, it's His org!

    carla

  • carla
    carla

    Legolas, I forgot to say what excellent letters those were! carla

  • Legolas
    Legolas

    Your welcome guys! They were one of the first things I found after I left, they helped me alot!

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    About the "Higher Authorities" change, I made this comment in another thread just yesterday: This is pretty amusing in a sad way.

    "Years before Nazism ascended to power in Germany God's people had learned that not national or even international governments were the 'higher powers' to which Christians must be subject, but that this high title belongs only to Jehovah God and His King Christ Jesus. The leading article in the previous issue of the Consolation showed the complete failure of Nazism to budge Jehovah's witnesses from this Scriptural view of matters" (Consolation, 26 September 1945, p. 1).

    The Nazis could not do it with all their concentration camps, but the Governing Body easily did it with the flick of a switch years later when they changed the "higher powers" teaching back to the very view disputed here.

    About possible flip-flops between Jesus and Satan, how about earlier statements identifying the figure of Apollyon in Revelation? That seems to be a good place to start.

  • aniron
    aniron

    defd states

    Thank God they are humble enough to stand corrected and change.

    Ok ak that ONE article was enough. I saw that we at one time had a wrong understanding.

    The Divine Plan of the Ages (SS-1) 1916 ed., p. 266

    "Knowing this to be the purpose of God, neither Jesus nor the apostles interfered with earthly rulers in any way. On the contrary, they taught the Church to submit to these powers, even though they often suffered under their abuse of power. They taught the Church to obey the laws, and to respect those in authority because of their office, even if they were not personally worthy of esteem; to pay their appointed taxes, and, except where they conflicted with God's laws (Acts 4:19; 5:29), to offer no resistance to any established law. (Rom. 13:1-7; Matt. 22:21.) The Lord Jesus and the apostles and the early Church were all law-abiding, though they were separate from, and took no share in, the governments of this world. Though the powers that be, the governments of this world, were ordained or arranged for by God, that mankind might gain a needed experience under them, yet the Church, the consecrated ones who aspire to office in the coming Kingdom of God, should neither covet the honors and the emoluments of office in the kingdoms of this world, nor should they oppose these powers."

    The Watchtower, June 1, 1929, p. 167

    "This proves that the higher powers are Christ Jesus and Jehovah and that the supreme power is Jehovah God...The apostle could not mean that the 'higher powers' are the Gentile powers...Those who have insisted that the apostle referred exclusively to the Gentile powers when he said, "The powers that be are ordained of God,' cite in support thereof the words of Peter, to wit; 'Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man [human creation, Greek] for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.'"

    Riches, 1936 ed., p. 219

    "A misunderstanding of what constitutes 'the higher powers' has caused many persons to be held in restraint or in Babylon's prison...Those inspired words do not refer to the governments or rulers of the nations of earth. That scripture is addressed 'to all that be...called to be saints' (Romans 1:7) and to no others, and the 'higher powers' over such are Jehovah God and Christ Jesus, that is, God and his royal house in heaven."

    Make Sure, 1953 ed., p. 369

    "Rom. 13:1-4 'Let every soul be in subjection to the superior authorities [Jehovah God and Christ Jesus], for there is no authority except by God [only Christ Jesus and his theocratic organization recognized by God]; the existing authorities [not political governments] stand placed in their relative positions by God [not 'divine right of kings']. Therefore he who ranges himself up against the authority [Christ Jesus] has taken a stand against the arrangement of God; those who have taken a stand against it will receive judgment to themselves [annihilation from Christ Jesus].'"

    Jehovah's Witnesses In The Divine Purpose, 1959 ed., p. 91

    "There were many false doctrines and practices that had not yet been cleaned out of the organization. Not all of them were recognized at once, but gradually over the years that followed it became evident to what extent the brothers had been in Babylonish captivity at that time. With considerable misunderstanding they had accepted earthly political governments as the 'superior authorities' that God had ordained according to Romans 13:1..."

    The Watchtower, November 15, 1962, p. 690

    "So, when Christians subject themselves to Gentile 'superior authorities' with their different systems of government and law, they conform themselves to those laws that show the work of conscience according to what God originally wrote in man's heart. Since the Christians' subjection to worldly 'superior authorities' is only relative, it does not obligate them to obey any worldly laws that go contrary to the laws of the Supreme Lawgiver, Jehovah God...From our look into Bible history and from our study of Bible prophecy as fulfilled among the Gentile nations, we find Romans 13:1 truthful in saying: 'The existing authorities stand placed in their relative positions by God.' Jehovah the Most High is not the God of the worldly nations and of their 'superior authorities,' and yet he has a control over them."

    "Babylon The Great Has Fallen!", 1963 ed., p. 548

    "In spite of the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, God permitted the political authorities of this world to continue as the 'higher powers' or the 'powers that be,' which are 'ordained of God.'"

    Make Sure, 1965 ed., p. 474

    "Humans Exercise Authority Only by Permission of Jehovah; Rom. 13:1 'Let every soul be in subjection to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except by God.'"

    The Watchtower, May 15, 1980, p. 4

    "At Romans 13:1 we read: 'Let every soul be in subjection to the superior authorities,' that is, to governments."

    The Watchtower, May 1, 1996, p. 13-14

    "'Neither Jesus nor the Apostles interfered with earthly rulers in any way...They taught the Church to obey the laws, and to respect those in authority because of their office,...to pay their appointed taxes, and except where they conflict with God's laws (Acts 4:19; 5:29) to offer no resistance to any established law'...This book correctly identified 'the higher powers,' or 'the superior authorities,' mentioned by the apostle Paul, as human governmental authorities...This was understood by some to mean total submission to the powers that be, even to the point of accepting service in the armed forces during World War I...In 1929, at a time when laws of various governments were beginning to forbid things that God commands or demand things that God's laws forbid, it was felt that the higher powers must be Jehovah God and Jesus Christ.

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