I have been doing some more research and thinking about the topic of salvation. What got me working on this, is that I have been conducting a Bible study, with my family. I decided a good topic would be the overall theme of the Bible. I broke the Bible down into 5 key points.
1. There is a God, and He created the universe.
2. Man rebelled against God, thereby consigning mankind to a life apart from God, which ultimately ends in our death.
3. God sent His son to pay our debt, by sacrificing Himself in our stead.
4. There will be a judgement, where those who are faithful, believe in 1 and 2, and repent from sin, will have everlasting life. Those who choose to remain in rebellion will have everlasting death.
5. The original order will be restored.
After 3 years of studying with the dubs, my children were completely ignorant , and oblivious to the fact that they will face judgement from God. I think this is because the jw foster a false sense of security, in that if you are in good standing with the "visible organization", then you are worthy of salvation. Maybe that is why you have folks leading double lives. They think as long as thier standing with the org is ok, their standing with God is ok?
I did a search on the word in the WT cd. One article came up in 2000. Before that there wasn't one hit on that word since 1960, I believe. That struck me as awfully odd. What purpose does a church provide if not to help an individual develop a relationship with God, and through that relationship, be granted salvation.
I think that is really a weak spot for them. My wife says that it is not required that a person be a dub, to gain salvation. That is the current "light", is that not correct? But then that begs the question, why does a person need to be a jw then?
I also read about salvation in the Reasoning book. They seem to admit that there are faithful (therefore worthy of salvation in other churches). And they will likely admit that there are those among them that are not worthy of salvation. Doesn't that imply that God's people are not all those who are faithful/unfaithful in a certain organization. Rather it is those truly faithful, regardless of who they worship with.
The next one they hit, is the whole "get out of the harlot" deal. So the gist of that, is if you go to other churches you will be destroyed with them.... even if you are one of the faithful? So God is going to destroy His faithful, because they are attending the "wrong church", only to resurrect them and grant them eternal life?
The more I think about it, the more clear it becomes to me why the discussion of judgement and salvation are not hot topics. If the topic is explored in depth by the faithful, they might realize that they don't need the "visible organization" at all.
Let me know if I am misunderstanding any of this.
