Jesus Christ died for PEOPLE not for an organization or to establish a religion, church, papacy, building program, publishing society ....
The selfish nature of the WTBTS is easily shown in that it says that no ones salvation is guaranteed, but the organization's is! THEY ARE A CORPORATION - technically in law, a stack of papers that is given the powers of a person to own, buy, make contracts, hire people, earn and spend money. If the laws regarding corporations change, so does a corporation. Corporations are psychotic sociopaths based on their entirely selfish behaviors - should they actually have been a live person.
Just about every religion in existence has reformed people. Its not an exclusive claim. The Watchtower's Works + Faith = salvation is a sham.
John 3:16" For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
NOT: "exercising faith" with the Watchtower's long list of required behaviors and works implied. (They admit to that heretical alteration of John 3:16 with a bogus claim of a technicality in the tense of the word.)
Ephesians 2:4-10 "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
It was intended for us to be good in our behavior - good deeds can not save us from Gods wrath even after only one sin. Only faith qualifies us for salvation. Thinking that the blood shed by Jesus wasn't enough, as if we could augment that great a sacrifice by any number of works which we couldn't perform perfectly anyway, is a great insult to God and a sin in itself.
Leviticus 17:11 "it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life."
1John 1:7 "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."
ALL SIN. Ephesians 2:8,9 - NO WORKS needed to QUALIFY or augment or maintain salvation. Bad behaviors sufficiently heinous do DIS-QUALIFY. Belief that failure to perform some sort of good deeds or works DIS-QUALIFIES makes works necessary for salvation by implication. Only believing that Jesus paid the penalty IN FULL qualifies one for salvation.
Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." A wage is earned, a gift is not.
Romans 4:4-5 "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness."
It can't work both ways - salvation by faith alone (based on Apostle Paul's elaboration) AND salvation by works + faith (based on a mis-interpretation of James words. Good works prove their is a heart-beat and brain-wave and thus a living faith. Performance can't create faith.)
IS YOUR FAITH IN SALVATION BASED ON MEMBERSHIP OR ASSOCIATION IN AN ORGANIZATION?
Curtis Thompson and his supporters thought so. Both have thus failed to actually have FAITH in the full value of Jesus blood.
I quoted the NIV but prefer the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Read a Bible translated by person's who aren't intent on forcing you into a mold of service to a publishing corporation. Especially such a one as the Watchtower that constantly re-arranges it's "truth", endorsing sociopathic behaviors and requiring a belief that faith wasn't enough. Didn't the Watchtower's editors in fact expect you to believe that God misled us about how to get saved and they explained it more correctly?
The NIV, Holman and numerous others can be read at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=
I just had to go there, Salvation IS by faith alone, in Christ alone.
Regards,
Fuzzy Paul