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jonathan dough
JoinedPosts by jonathan dough
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Annointed JW Website Responds to "New Light" on FDS
by Eustace inon october 7, 2012, we received the following comment and inquiries:.
today there is a new post [on another website] commenting on the "new light" of the governing body about the identity of the "faithful discreet slave.
" i think this "new light" from the governing body is intended to weaken the new stand of witnesses who are partaking in the emblems.
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Annointed JW Website Responds to "New Light" on FDS
by Eustace inon october 7, 2012, we received the following comment and inquiries:.
today there is a new post [on another website] commenting on the "new light" of the governing body about the identity of the "faithful discreet slave.
" i think this "new light" from the governing body is intended to weaken the new stand of witnesses who are partaking in the emblems.
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jonathan dough
New Essay on the New Light doctrine. Comments welcome.
Of all religious denominations which claim to be Christian, none change their doctrinal beliefs as often or as profoundly as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Jehovah's Witnesses. In a league of its own, Watchtower doctrine has undergone such radical transformation during the last 130 years, outsiders rightfully question the Society's claim to be God's only visible organization on earth, the sole spokesman for the Almighty, and His exclusive prophets assigned the task of dispensing truth to the rest of mankind.
They write: “Whom has God actually used as his prophet? …. Jehovah's witnesses are deeply grateful today that the plain facts show that God has been pleased to use them …. It has been because Jehovah thrust out his hand of power and touched their lips and put his words in their mouths.” (w59 y15 pp.40-41 pars. 13-14) Elsewhere they proclaim, “As Jehovah revealed his truths by means of the first-century Christian congregation so he does today by means of the present day Christian congregation. Through this agency he is having carried out prophesying on an intensified and unparalleled scale. All this activity is not an accident. Jehovah is the one behind it all.” (w64 6/15 p. 365 par 22)
The Watchtower Society has a long track record of claiming it is God who put His words into their mouths, in 1906 writing in part, “... the truths I present, as God's mouthpiece ….” Zion Watch Tower, July 15, 1906, 230), and “Today, Jehovah provides instruction by means of the 'faithful steward,'” (Pay Attention to Yourself and to All the Flock, 13). They also claim that “No man can properly interpret prophecy, and the Lord sends his angels to transmit correct information to his people.” (Watchtower, February 15, 1936, 32). The Watchtower Society teaches that it is “... commission[ed] to speak as a 'prophet' in His name … “ (Watchtower, March 15, 1972, 189), and that they “are commission[ed] to serve as the mouthpiece and active agent of Jehovah …. commissioned to speak as a prophet in the name of Jehovah.” The Nations Shall Know that I Am Jehovah, 55, 62. And with respect to the Watchtower Society President Joseph Franklin Rutherford's failed prophecy that in 1925 the dead would be resurrected, the Watch Tower stated, “this chronology is not of man, but of God … the addition of more proofs removes it entirely from the realm of chance into proven certainty …. the chronology of present truth [is] not of human origin.” (Watch Tower July 1, 1922, 217)
However, because the Jehovah's Witnesses can't make up their minds or determine with much certainty what is true and what is false, their claims to be God's exclusive prophets is dubious.
False Watchtower teachings aside - and there are many – it becomes apparent on examining Scripture that pervasive and profound changes to Watchtower theology is an unmistakeable mark of the false prophet and erroneous teachers who cannot, under any circumstances – biblical or logical – be guided by God’s Holy Spirit. Watchtower alterations to doctrine and their egregious errors cannot be swept under the rug of acceptable ignorance or a harmless lack of understanding because it is Jehovah God, through the Holy Spirit – not man – who provides the requisite understanding enabling His servants and teachers and those being taught to grasp and comprehend the essential truth of the dispensed word in Scripture. Nehemiah 9:20 makes this clear: “Your good Spirit you bestowed on them to give them understanding.”
To blame such errors and continuously shifting and self-contradicting doctrine on the Watchtower Society's failure to “understand” is tantamount to blaming God and His Holy Spirit for so many countless mistakes and befuddling changes of mind. To the contrary, constantly changing doctrine proves that YHWH and His Holy Spirit do not guide the Society because “the Lord's word is true forever” (Psalm 33:4; 119:142; His every word is enduring (Psalm 119:160), and reliable (Psalm 119:151). “The Lord's word in the prophet's mouth is truth” (1 Kings 17:24). As Jesus said, “The Holy Spirit will teach you all things,” and his disciples “will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31). “The truth that dwells in us will be with us forever” (2 John 2).
At its core, the issue centers on the nature of truth and its accurate dispensation. God's spokesmen for God are to speak nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord (1 Kings 22:16; 2 Chronicles 18:15). It is the spirit of truth that will guide true believers into all truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13). What the Jehovah's Witnesses fail to recognize is that changes to Watchtower doctrine – quite often fundamental changes to the very foundation of their religion – mean that they are frequently wrong and their teachings have been, and continue to be, false. Even if they would stumble on sound doctrine, it doesn't erase the false doctrine – it can't be true and false. Reversing course means that what once was ostensibly true is now false, and false is possibly true.
To illustrate, the Society's founder Charles Taze Russell initially taught that Jesus Christ was to be worshiped, a central belief that survived well into the 20th century but was subsequently discarded. As such, for many decades one of these beliefs was false. Little can be more important to the Christian than understanding to whom proper worship should be directed. This was no harmless mistake, and it is highly improbable that God, through the Holy Spirit, imparted this vital piece of information to his chosen teachers, for God is a God of truth (Psalms 119:160; John 17:17). The decrees, precepts and commands of the Lord are “perfect,” “trustworthy,” “right” and “clear (Psalm 19:8-10). Truth is fixed. The Lord's word “stands forever, it is firm as the heavens.” Through all generations [God's] truth endures; fixed to stand firm like the earth” (Psalm 119:89, 90 NAB).
Similarly, the Society's founder taught that the so-called Great Crowd were bound for heaven, but today Watchtower doctrine teaches that only 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses go to heaven to rule over the Great Crowd which remains on earth. This reflects a radical shift in teaching, one of which must be false, and for a very long time.
One of the most stunning reversals and flip-flops involve the many failed prophecies over the years, endless documented examples of changing from false, to false, to false, ad infinitum. The second coming of Christ was predicted to occur in 1874, and later 1914. And Armageddon was prophesied to begin in 1874, and end in 1914, and later it was changed to begin in 1914.
The point is, Watchtower doctrine has been awash in falsehood by virtue of the simple fact that two diametrically opposed teachings cannot both be the “truth,” and accordingly, one of them must be false. The same can be said for their repeated changes to the “this generation” doctrine which has undergone no less than six retractions and revisions since its inception. In referring to indications of the End Times and the second coming of the Son of Man, Jesus said, “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (Matthew 24:34).
The Watchtower Society initially interpreted this verse to mean that those of a certain age who were alive to see the events of 1914 would never die and would live to witness Armageddon. As time went on and that generation died off, and it became painfully obvious that their prophecy was false, elaborate changes to this attractive doctrine were routinely made in order to leverage the urgency of the message. By 2010, the single generation Jesus referred to at Matthew 24:34 became two distinct overlapping generations. They changed a “1” into a “2” in order to gain much needed chronological breathing space and pushed Armageddon off into the future.
On an existential level, with life and death at stake, were earlier bans on vaccinations and organ transplants which resulted in unnecessary death and sadness, but which are now allowed. And the long-standing ban on whole-blood transfusions (originally permitted) have been relaxed to allow the transfusion today of all the fractional components that make up blood. Stated another way, you can't bite down on a cheeseburger, but you can have your fill of the lettuce, cheese, tomato, onion, pickle, beef and the bun – if you eat them separately. The above are mere samples of numerous perplexing changes to Watchtower doctrine over the years. Many others are discussed in print publications and web sites like jwfacts.com (highly recommended).
It is precisely these kinds of teachers who not only teach falsehood, but continuously vacillate between unsound doctrine which Paul warned true believers about, referring to their teachings as waves blowing back and forth by every wind of doctrine, condemning false teachers who mislead by “every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming (Ephesians 4:14). Paul was emphasizing the requirement of constancy in sound teaching, that shifting back and forth is a red flag warning to believers of the presence of false teachers who claim to speak in the name of God but who change their minds at whim, even though God does not change his mind (repent) like a man (1 Samuel 15:29).
Such constancy was also evident in the nature of Christ who did not teach that truth was both true and false. “As God is faithful, our word to you is not 'yes' and 'no.' For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was not 'yes' and 'no,' but 'yes' has been in him'” (2 Corinthians 1:18, 19). “Paul … proclaims a profound constancy in his life and work. He grounds his defense in God himself, who is firm and reliable. Christ, Paul and the Corinthians all participate in analogous ways in the constancy of God,” (notes 2 Corinthians 1:18, 19 NAB). True Christians have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2;16) which is not “yes” and “no.”
The Watchtower's New Light doctrine is premised on Proverbs 4:18 which provides, “But the path of the just is like shining light, that grows in brilliance till perfect day (NAB; “which shines brighter and brighter until full day” RSV). But on closer inspection it is evident that the increasing light is not referring to religious doctrine, but conduct and behavior in life, the moral and ethical path of the righteous during the course of a lifetime. “Singleness of purpose and right conduct proceed from the heart of a wise man as from the source of life; they save from destruction on evil paths” (notes 4,10-27, NAB). The NAB caption for verses 10-27 is “The Good and the Evil Way,” and warns alternatingly of avoiding wicked conduct and embracing good conduct; the way or path of the just thereby becomes brighter, more clear, level and smooth (Isaiah 26:7); but the “way of the wicked is like darkness; they know not on what they stumble” (Proverbs 4:19). Read logically and in proper context the increasingly brighter light of verse 18 cannot excuse doctrinal Watchtower error; it cannot allow for such numerous and profound changes to the Holy Spirit's words and the gift of God's understanding.
Neither does 1 Corinthians 13:9, 12, advance the Watchtower argument: “For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away. At present we see indistinctly as in a mirror.” The topic under discussion according to the surrounding verses is the nature and enduring quality of love, and while prophesying and understanding within the human context as we know it will someday cease, love will forever remain; it shall never fail. Any knowledge that is partial or incomplete is true, not false as the Society would have you believe. Assuming progressive clarity, for the true believer this imparted knowledge is founded upon a foundation of truth (1 Timothy 3:13).
It is part of the truth, but not necessarily all of it. But no one can lay a foundation, other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:10, 11). Accordingly, any partial understanding can proceed in only one direction, and that direction is always true. It cannot reverse itself, change its mind again and again, be true and then false, and then a different false and a murky questionable truth. One direction only; no reversals,no backsliding or negation of prior so-called truth. Paul instructed Titus that he “must say what is consistent with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). Not only is Watchtower doctrine unsound, it is far from consistent.
Another kind of argument espoused by the Society attempts to justify their many changes because Bible writers themselves made mistakes. First, the Society with this argument is candidly admitting that their theology has been (and continues to be) riddled with error. Secondly, they are unable to point to any mistakes made by God's biblical prophets with respect to essential doctrine and God's teachings. Did the prophets such as Daniel understand all of the information God was conveying through them? Of course not, but that is not the same as conveying God's (alleged) doctrine which later turns out to be incorrect, often by a large margin as the Society so often does. Old Testament prophets like Daniel might not have understood completely their writings, particularly future predictions, but they did not, as the Society so often does, teach that God's alleged doctrine was true, when in fact it was false at some point in time.
Third, assuming for the sake of argument that doctrinal mistakes are acceptable, the imbalance between the mountain of mistakes the Society makes and the faulty opinions of Bible writers is far out of proportion. And while Paul might have mistakenly believed the end was nearer than it actually was – a problematic interpretation of those verses at best – it was never taught as doctrine, but mere opinion. Failure to believe Paul's opinion was not a disfellowshipping offense; it did not cost anyone their lives in this life or the next.
The Jehovah's Witnesses need to invoke common sense. Is it reasonable to conclude that God revealed essential truths necessary for salvation the day before Armageddon and the Great Tribulation,two-thousand years after he instructed his disciples to begin the harvest of believers for the kingdom? Of course not.
Without realizing it, the Watchtower Society is admitting that it is preaching the word of man (Mathew 15:9) instead of the word of God despite Peter's admonishment at 1 Peter 4:11 that “whoever preaches let it be with the word of God.” All too often the Society dismisses their errors as attributable to “their” lack of understanding. But if it is their understanding, then “their” understanding which they teach is the understanding and teachings of men, not God.
As explained earlier, correct and proper understanding of truth is imparted to his servants, particularly those who teach, by God. “It is a spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding” (Job32:8). To the preacher, Timothy, Paul wrote, “the Lord will grant you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7). Jesus opened his disciples' minds to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45), and the Spirit of the truth will guide his disciples to all truth (John 16:13). Any claims by the Society that they exclusively have the truth, or that their teachings are the product of the Holy Spirit, is uttered in complete disregard of logic and the clear, unmistakable language of the Bible, because their errors are the product of flawed human understanding, not the Holy Spirit. The Bible does not refer to the Watchtower Society when it says, “The mouths of the just utter wisdom, their tongues speak what is right. God's teaching is in their hearts” (Psalm 37:30, 31). “The truth dwells in us, and will be with us forever” (2 John 2).
Jesus is Lord!
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Thinking of becoming a JW.
by Kate82 inhi,.
i am new to here so please be bear with me.. i have always believed in god, but was never baptised, my parents wanted me to make up my own mind religon wise.. i am thinking of becoming a jw and am just needing some advice on how to do this, bible study and jw beliefs.
also do jw say grace and how.. i am greatful of any help.. thanks.
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jonathan dough
Think again, and read some of the material here. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones.
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Jehovah's Witnesses Are----(fill in the blank)
by minimus injehovah's witnesses are what???
this should be fun!.
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jonathan dough
Wrong about everything, especially the blood ban.
http://bloodban.byethost17.com/i-blood-transfusions-2.html
The Acts 15 Decree
The Watchtower's argument in support of its ban on blood transfusion is simple. All men, particularly Christians, are to abstain from all blood due to four specific prohibitions found at Acts 15:29. Christians are to abstain from 1) meat sacrificed to idols, 2) from blood, 3) from meats of strangled animals, and 4) from fornication. They argue that these four rules based on the Mosaic law continued forward and survived, yet they concede that the Law with its legalistic decrees was nailed to the cross and done away with upon the death of Christ. The Acts 15 decree, they believe, is an exception.
The four commands in the Acts 15 decree are equal, they say; equated simply because they are listed together. And because fornication is prohibited and violates God's law, the consumption of blood must also automatically be prohibited as well, in addition to consumption of meats sacrificed to idols and things strangled (animals which die on their own and are not slaughtered and bled) (Reasoning at 71). A blood transfusion is the same as eating blood, which they contend is absolutely forbidden. All blood must be poured out onto the ground or disposed of because that is the only use of blood recognized by God. Consequently, they preach, blood cannot be stored, including the blood of a person who would otherwise transfuse their own blood back into themselves in the course of a medical procedure.
But the Watchtower Society’s position is indefensible, logically and scripturally flawed in the extreme on every level. With respect to the four “prohibitions” being equal, they are not, and in the New Testament were treated as independent of each other with respect to the severity of the infraction and punishment. Regarding Acts 15:28, 29, the Society writes: “There the eating of blood is equated with idolatry and fornication, things that we should not want to engage in” (Reasoning at 71).
While fornication violates God's law, eating meat sacrificed to idols did not, and was not prohibited in the New Testament. Paul made this abundantly clear in numerous verses. “Eat anything sold in the market,” he wrote at 1 Corinthians 10:25. Regarding what one eats, “nothing is unclean in itself” (Romans 14:15). “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). Speaking of meat sacrificed to idols he wrote that “everything is indeed clean (verse 20). Food will not bring us closer to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, nor are we better if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:8).
It wasn't the eating of meat sacrificed to idols per se that was dissuaded, but the damaging effect it had on a brother who was offended by it. “If food (sacrificed to idols) causes my brother to sin,” wrote Paul, “I will never eat meat again” (1 Corinthians 8:13). The concern was not idolatry as the Watchtower erroneously claims, but it addressed mixed communities where Gentile Christians might offend their Jewish Christian brothers by eating such meats thereby creating a stumbling block.
Eating such meats was not forbidden, did not violate God's law, and was not punished; rather, it was a suggestion, a request. Like then, today Christians are permitted to consume meat for sale in a market without losing the prospect of eternal salvation, and without regard to whether someone else might have dedicated it to an idol. Fornication, on the other hand, violates God's law and may be punished. Fornication and eating meats sacrificed to idols are not equal and are rightly severable; they are not treated the same. Just because fornication is forbidden doesn't mean that eating meat sacrificed to idols is, according to Paul.
The Watchtower's statement that “eating of blood is equated with idolatry and fornication” left out the fourth prong of the Acts 15 decree, the abstention from “things strangled” (Reasoning at 71). They failed to mention it for good reason because they do not want to draw attention to this prohibition specifically addressed in the Mosaic law at Leviticus 17:15 and 11:39,40 which completely and unequivocally proves wrong their ban on blood transfusions. Leviticus 17:15 provides, “Everyone, whether a native or an alien, who eats of an animal that died of itself or was killed by a wild beast shall wash his garments, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening, and then he will be clean. If he does not wash or does not bathe his body, he shall have the guilt to bear.”
According to this section of the Mosaic law, eating blood was clearly permissible; a person was not cut off, not disfellowshipped, and most certainly did not lose the prospect of eternal salvation. As such, blood could be eaten, and the consequence was limited to being declared unclean, and then only if he failed to wash his garments and bathe in water. Therefore, the Watchtower Society's statement that “only sacrificial use of blood has ever been approved by God” (Reasoning at 71) is false. Their claim that the only allowed use for blood is that it be poured out and never transfused or stored, is likewise an unbiblical false statement. The Society's draconian punishment for transfusing, or eating, blood (disfellowshipping and loss of eternal life) and the so-called reward for refusing a necessary transfusion (death by suicide) are completely out of line with established Bible principles.
Avoiding “all things strangled” is therefore a suggestion, not an absolute prohibition, the violation of which does not merit punishment like that associated with fornication. Blood can be consumed without suffering the penalties and consequences established by the Watchtower Society.
The Society attempts to shore up their doctrine with Noahide law, commands given to Noah and his family after the flood which the Jehovah's Witnesses preach are laws binding on all humans, not merely the Jews. But was Genesis 9:3,4 intended to prohibit all men from eating (transfusing) blood under any circumstance? Not according to Deuteronomy 14:21. The Noahide law at Genesis 9:3,4 provides: “Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants. Only flesh with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat” (NAB).
The Watchtower Society incorrectly interprets this verse to mandate that “[a]ny animal used for food should be properly bled. One that is strangled or that dies in a trap or that is found after it has died is not suitable for food” (Ibid at 71). But this claim is also a baseless false statement aimed at justifying the ban on transfusions because Deuteronomy 14:21 specifically allowed men, non-Israeites, to eat such meat and the undrained blood: “You must not eat any animal that has died of itself, for you are a people sacred to the Lord, your God. But you may give it to an alien who belongs to your community, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner.” Verse 21, like Leviticus 17:15, completely unravels and proves wrong the Society's scriptural basis for banning the consumption, through transfusion or eating, of blood. Pouring out blood as a symbolic gesture of respect for the sanctity of life was not the only permitted use of blood. Eating blood by Gentiles (aliens and foreigners) did not, and does not, violate God's law, particularly Noahide law; and it most certainly was not punished by death, excommunication or disfellowshipping, or the loss of the prospect of eternal salvation.
Furthermore, the law given to Noah at Genesis 9:3,4 pertained only to the eating of animal flesh with blood; it did not address the intravenous transfusion of human blood, let alone the oral consumption of human blood along with the eating of human flesh. Genesis 9:3,4 is inapplicable; it has no bearing on modern-day blood transfusions necessary to save a human life.
Given the above, what does “abstain from blood” in the Acts 15 decree refer to? It refers to the blood of animals that are slaughtered and eaten, or sacrificed as atonement on the altar, as explained in numerous passages of the Mosaic law, particularly those contained in the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Illustrative is Leviticus 17:8-14 and Deuteronomy 12:15-17, 20-25.
8 “Also you shall say to them: ‘Whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, 9 and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to offer it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from among his people.
10 ‘And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ 12 Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘No one among you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger who dwells among you eat blood.’ (Leviticus 17:8-14)
15 “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike. 16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water. 17 You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or your new wine or your oil, of the firstborn of your herd or your flock, of any of your offerings which you vow, of your freewill offerings, or of the heave offering of your hand. ( Deuteronomy 12:15-17)
20 “When the Lord your God enlarges your border as He has promised you, and you say, ‘Let me eat meat,’ because you long to eat meat, you may eat as much meat as your heart desires. 21 If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, then you may slaughter from your herd and from your flock which the Lord has given you, just as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your gates as much as your heart desires. 22 Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat them; the unclean and the clean alike may eat them. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the meat. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it on the earth like water. 25 You shall not eat it, that it may go well with you and your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 12:20-25)Through a simple process of logical deduction it becomes obvious to a reasonable person of average intelligence – or less than average, for that matter – that the Acts 15 decree does not prohibit blood transfusions because the prohibition pertained to the respect for sanctity of the life of slaughtered animals. It was not about the consumption of blood per se because, as shown above, it was permitted under Leviticus 17:15 and Deuteronomy 14:21. Blood was eaten by Israelites and non-Israelites without punishment or retribution. And since blood could be eaten, it wasn't the ingestion of that liquid organ that violated God's law in and of itself, but the eating of it in conjunction with the killing of an animal; the crime in that context was therefore symbolic. If man did not slaughter the animal for food, or as a holocaust or sacrifice, that meat, whether it died on its own or was “strangled” could, and was, eaten “with the blood.”
As such, the blood laws at Leviticus and Deuteronomy have absolutely no bearing with respect to modern-day transfusions because no animal is killed in order to acquire the blood. Blood donors are not killed, and they are not animals to be eaten. Therefore no such respect for the life of a dead animal need be shown; there is no blood from a slaughtered animal that must be poured onto the ground and covered up. Accordingly, there is no such surviving “principle” in Mosaic law that leads to the prohibition of blood transfusions that continued into the Christian era as the Watchtower mistakenly teaches. Their “principle” which mandates self-murder, or suicide, and the murder of innocent third parties, is a complete fabrication; man-made laws that go far beyond the written word found in the Bible and God's immutable laws commanding the respect for human life. But even if, for the sake of argument, the Acts 15 decree regarding the consumption of meat and blood based on the Mosaic law actually prohibited blood transfusions, those laws were nailed to the cross and done away with at Christ's death (Luke 16:16; Galatians 5:4-5).
The Jehovah's Witnesses' attempt to equate blood transfusions with eating blood is likewise doomed to failure. As chronicled in medical documents worldwide, blood is not a nutrient like food. No qualified physician prescribes blood to cure a patient's hunger. Comparing blood to alcohol doesn't help the Watchtower's case either. They reason: “[C]onsider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?” (Reasoning at 73). This argument, however, is weak at best because God does not prohibit blood transfusions, whether necessary or not, and blood is not transfused in order to get drunk and have a good time, but to save life. Furthermore, as Paul Grundy at jwfacts.com writes, “Blood is not a nutrient. Blood transfusions do not nourish the body and this is not the reason a patient is given a transfusion. Blood is used as a volume expander and to carry oxygen …. A blood transfusion is actually a cellular organ transplant, and organ transplants are permitted by the Watchtower Society.”
With respect to alcohol not being the same as blood, he continues, “[W]hen blood is introduced directly into the veins as a transfusion it circulates and functions as blood. Similarly, when a person orally ingests alcohol it is absorbed as alcohol into the blood stream. Alcohol is not broken down by the stomach and for this reason it is the same as injecting it directly. On the other hand, orally eaten blood when digested does not enter the circulation as blood, but is broken down into simple components” (jwfacts.com/watchtower/blood-transfusion.php).
To reiterate what was said earlier with respect to fornication being equated with things strangled, meats sacrificed to idols and the consumption of blood, it is apparent that the four items of the Acts 15 decree are therefore not equal in terms of their importance and punishment. They are not joined together and do not survive into the twenty-first century simply because the prohibition against fornication is valid today. And they most certainly aren't equal because they are listed in the same sentence, which is one of the weakest arguments the Watchtower Society has ever made.
If that were the case, gossips will suffer the same penalties as murderers simply because Paul included both in the same verse at Romans 1:29. But YHWH, Almighty God, is a “God of justice” (Isaiah 30:18). And a just God will reward and punish according to one's deeds. It is a sliding-scale of justice; the gossip is not to be punished to the same degree as Adolf Hitler. Some will receive a prophet's reward, some a righteous man's reward, and others a reward for giving a cup of water to a disciple because he is a disciple (Matthew 10:40-42). Some will be beaten with fewer strokes than others (Luke 12:47, 48) and teachers are to be held to a higher standard (James 3:1). And, the sin of fornication is not equal to accepting or permitting life-saving transfusions – which do not violate God's law.
The Watchtower Society is fully aware of the critical flaws in their doctrine and is currently in the process of overturning it as it did with their illogical and unscriptural earlier ban on vaccines and organ transplants. Allowing the transfusion of one-hundred percent of blood fractions brings them within two steps of abiding by God's law, though any reasonable, objective person recognizes the hypocrisy and farce which is being foisted on its members. The trend toward allowing whole-blood transfusions without threat of recrimination is motivated in large part by the looming specter of legal liability premised on theories such as the tort of misrepresentation. That is why one sees a shift; the Society's unequivocal ban is being replaced by shifting the burden to its members, allowing its people to accept blood fractions based on their conscience, even if it still might violate God's law.
But that is not good enough because some will still refrain from transfusions believing it continues to violate the laws of God, which it does not. It is time for the Watchtower Society to cease and desist from its appalling charade banning blood transfusions and declare emphatically that whether necessary or not, blood transfusions do not violate God's law of love which demands respect for the sanctity and preservation of life. It is time for the Jehovah's Witnesses to stop murdering themselves and their innocent children based on an unsubstantiated and hypocritical doctrine; hypocritical because the Jehovah's Witnesses do not go to war out of the command to love one's enemies, but they readily sacrifice their own brothers and sisters, who are to be loved fiercely, on the bloodless altar of Molech.
“Too costly in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful” (Psalm 116:15). “[T]he meaning is that the death of God's faithful is grievous to God” (NAB notes, 116, 15). Denying oneself a necessary transfusion is the sin of self-murder, suicide. Denying your child who requires a necessary transfusion and which results in the child's death is the sin of murder; and all who participate to any degree in this deviant act are culpable. As for the Governing Body, and those who write these horrible laws, Jesus warned: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 10:42).
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Blood transfusion DF/DA
by allyouneedislove ini was reading the following page:.
http://ajwrb.org/currentwtpolicy/callingsociety.htm.
can a jw still be df or da for taking a blood transfusion, if they are not "repentant"?.
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jonathan dough
Blood Ban continued:
The Acts 15 Decree
The Watchtower's argument in support of its ban on blood transfusion is simple. All men, particularly Christians, are to abstain from all blood due to four specific prohibitions found at Acts 15:29. Christians are to abstain from 1) meat sacrificed to idols, 2) from blood, 3) from meats of strangled animals, and 4) from fornication. They argue that these four rules based on the Mosaic law continued forward and survived, yet they concede that the Law with its legalistic decrees was nailed to the cross and done away with upon the death of Christ. The Acts 15 decree, they believe, is an exception.
The four commands in the Acts 15 decree are equal, they say; equated simply because they are listed together. And because fornication is prohibited and violates God's law, the consumption of blood must also automatically be prohibited as well, in addition to consumption of meats sacrificed to idols and things strangled (animals which die on their own and are not slaughtered and bled) (Reasoning at 71). A blood transfusion is the same as eating blood, which they contend is absolutely forbidden. All blood must be poured out onto the ground or disposed of because that is the only use of blood recognized by God. Consequently, they preach, blood cannot be stored, including the blood of a person who would otherwise transfuse their own blood back into themselves in the course of a medical procedure.
But the Watchtower Society’s position is indefensible, logically and scripturally flawed in the extreme on every level. With respect to the four “prohibitions” being equal, they are not, and in the New Testament were treated as independent of each other with respect to the severity of the infraction and punishment. Regarding Acts 15:28, 29, the Society writes: “There the eating of blood is equated with idolatry and fornication, things that we should not want to engage in” (Reasoning at 71).
While fornication violates God's law, eating meat sacrificed to idols did not, and was not prohibited in the New Testament. Paul made this abundantly clear in numerous verses. “Eat anything sold in the market,” he wrote at 1 Corinthians 10:25. Regarding what one eats, “nothing is unclean in itself” (Romans 14:15). “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). Speaking of meat sacrificed to idols he wrote that “everything is indeed clean (verse 20). Food will not bring us closer to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, nor are we better if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:8).
It wasn't the eating of meat sacrificed to idols per se that was dissuaded, but the damaging effect it had on a brother who was offended by it. “If food (sacrificed to idols) causes my brother to sin,” wrote Paul, “I will never eat meat again” (1 Corinthians 8:13). The concern was not idolatry as the Watchtower erroneously claims, but it addressed mixed communities where Gentile Christians might offend their Jewish Christian brothers by eating such meats thereby creating a stumbling block.
Eating such meats was not forbidden, did not violate God's law, and was not punished; rather, it was a suggestion, a request. Like then, today Christians are permitted to consume meat for sale in a market without losing the prospect of eternal salvation, and without regard to whether someone else might have dedicated it to an idol. Fornication, on the other hand, violates God's law and may be punished. Fornication and eating meats sacrificed to idols are not equal and are rightly severable; they are not treated the same. Just because fornication is forbidden doesn't mean that eating meat sacrificed to idols is, according to Paul.
The Watchtower's statement that “eating of blood is equated with idolatry and fornication” left out the fourth prong of the Acts 15 decree, the abstention from “things strangled” (Reasoning at 71). They failed to mention it for good reason because they do not want to draw attention to this prohibition specifically addressed in the Mosaic law at Leviticus 17:15 and 11:39,40 which completely and unequivocally proves wrong their ban on blood transfusions. Leviticus 17:15 provides, “Everyone, whether a native or an alien, who eats of an animal that died of itself or was killed by a wild beast shall wash his garments, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening, and then he will be clean. If he does not wash or does not bathe his body, he shall have the guilt to bear.”
According to this section of the Mosaic law, eating blood was clearly permissible; a person was not cut off, not disfellowshipped, and most certainly did not lose the prospect of eternal salvation. As such, blood could be eaten, and the consequence was limited to being declared unclean, and then only if he failed to wash his garments and bathe in water. Therefore, the Watchtower Society's statement that “only sacrificial use of blood has ever been approved by God” (Reasoning at 71) is false. Their claim that the only allowed use for blood is that it be poured out and never transfused or stored, is likewise an unbiblical false statement. The Society's draconian punishment for transfusing, or eating, blood (disfellowshipping and loss of eternal life) and the so-called reward for refusing a necessary transfusion (death by suicide) are completely out of line with established Bible principles.
Avoiding “all things strangled” is therefore a suggestion, not an absolute prohibition, the violation of which does not merit punishment like that associated with fornication. Blood can be consumed without suffering the penalties and consequences established by the Watchtower Society.
The Society attempts to shore up their doctrine with Noahide law, commands given to Noah and his family after the flood which the Jehovah's Witnesses preach are laws binding on all humans, not merely the Jews. But was Genesis 9:3,4 intended to prohibit all men from eating (transfusing) blood under any circumstance? Not according to Deuteronomy 14:21. The Noahide law at Genesis 9:3,4 provides: “Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants. Only flesh with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat” (NAB).
The Watchtower Society incorrectly interprets this verse to mandate that “[a]ny animal used for food should be properly bled. One that is strangled or that dies in a trap or that is found after it has died is not suitable for food” (Ibid at 71). But this claim is also a baseless false statement aimed at justifying the ban on transfusions because Deuteronomy 14:21 specifically allowed men, non-Israeites, to eat such meat and the undrained blood: “You must not eat any animal that has died of itself, for you are a people sacred to the Lord, your God. But you may give it to an alien who belongs to your community, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner.” Verse 21, like Leviticus 17:15, completely unravels and proves wrong the Society's scriptural basis for banning the consumption, through transfusion or eating, of blood. Pouring out blood as a symbolic gesture of respect for the sanctity of life was not the only permitted use of blood. Eating blood by Gentiles (aliens and foreigners) did not, and does not, violate God's law, particularly Noahide law; and it most certainly was not punished by death, excommunication or disfellowshipping, or the loss of the prospect of eternal salvation.
Furthermore, the law given to Noah at Genesis 9:3,4 pertained only to the eating of animal flesh with blood; it did not address the intravenous transfusion of human blood, let alone the oral consumption of human blood along with the eating of human flesh. Genesis 9:3,4 is inapplicable; it has no bearing on modern-day blood transfusions necessary to save a human life.
Given the above, what does “abstain from blood” in the Acts 15 decree refer to? It refers to the blood of animals that are slaughtered and eaten, or sacrificed as atonement on the altar, as explained in numerous passages of the Mosaic law, particularly those contained in the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Illustrative is Leviticus 17:8-14 and Deuteronomy 12:15-17, 20-25.
8 “Also you shall say to them: ‘Whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, 9 and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to offer it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from among his people.
10 ‘And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ 12 Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘No one among you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger who dwells among you eat blood.’ (Leviticus 17:8-14)
15 “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike. 16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water. 17 You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or your new wine or your oil, of the firstborn of your herd or your flock, of any of your offerings which you vow, of your freewill offerings, or of the heave offering of your hand. ( Deuteronomy 12:15-17)
20 “When the Lord your God enlarges your border as He has promised you, and you say, ‘Let me eat meat,’ because you long to eat meat, you may eat as much meat as your heart desires. 21 If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, then you may slaughter from your herd and from your flock which the Lord has given you, just as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your gates as much as your heart desires. 22 Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat them; the unclean and the clean alike may eat them. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the meat. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it on the earth like water. 25 You shall not eat it, that it may go well with you and your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 12:20-25)Through a simple process of logical deduction it becomes obvious to a reasonable person of average intelligence – or less than average, for that matter – that the Acts 15 decree does not prohibit blood transfusions because the prohibition pertained to the respect for sanctity of the life of slaughtered animals. It was not about the consumption of blood per se because, as shown above, it was permitted under Leviticus 17:15 and Deuteronomy 14:21. Blood was eaten by Israelites and non-Israelites without punishment or retribution. And since blood could be eaten, it wasn't the ingestion of that liquid organ that violated God's law in and of itself, but the eating of it in conjunction with the killing of an animal; the crime in that context was therefore symbolic. If man did not slaughter the animal for food, or as a holocaust or sacrifice, that meat, whether it died on its own or was “strangled” could, and was, eaten “with the blood.”
As such, the blood laws at Leviticus and Deuteronomy have absolutely no bearing with respect to modern-day transfusions because no animal is killed in order to acquire the blood. Blood donors are not killed, and they are not animals to be eaten. Therefore no such respect for the life of a dead animal need be shown; there is no blood from a slaughtered animal that must be poured onto the ground and covered up. Accordingly, there is no such surviving “principle” in Mosaic law that leads to the prohibition of blood transfusions that continued into the Christian era as the Watchtower mistakenly teaches. Their “principle” which mandates self-murder, or suicide, and the murder of innocent third parties, is a complete fabrication; man-made laws that go far beyond the written word found in the Bible and God's immutable laws commanding the respect for human life. But even if, for the sake of argument, the Acts 15 decree regarding the consumption of meat and blood based on the Mosaic law actually prohibited blood transfusions, those laws were nailed to the cross and done away with at Christ's death (Luke 16:16; Galatians 5:4-5).
The Jehovah's Witnesses' attempt to equate blood transfusions with eating blood is likewise doomed to failure. As chronicled in medical documents worldwide, blood is not a nutrient like food. No qualified physician prescribes blood to cure a patient's hunger. Comparing blood to alcohol doesn't help the Watchtower's case either. They reason: “[C]onsider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?” (Reasoning at 73). This argument, however, is weak at best because God does not prohibit blood transfusions, whether necessary or not, and blood is not transfused in order to get drunk and have a good time, but to save life. Furthermore, as Paul Grundy at jwfacts.com writes, “Blood is not a nutrient. Blood transfusions do not nourish the body and this is not the reason a patient is given a transfusion. Blood is used as a volume expander and to carry oxygen …. A blood transfusion is actually a cellular organ transplant, and organ transplants are permitted by the Watchtower Society.”
With respect to alcohol not being the same as blood, he continues, “[W]hen blood is introduced directly into the veins as a transfusion it circulates and functions as blood. Similarly, when a person orally ingests alcohol it is absorbed as alcohol into the blood stream. Alcohol is not broken down by the stomach and for this reason it is the same as injecting it directly. On the other hand, orally eaten blood when digested does not enter the circulation as blood, but is broken down into simple components” (jwfacts.com/watchtower/blood-transfusion.php).
To reiterate what was said earlier with respect to fornication being equated with things strangled, meats sacrificed to idols and the consumption of blood, it is apparent that the four items of the Acts 15 decree are therefore not equal in terms of their importance and punishment. They are not joined together and do not survive into the twenty-first century simply because the prohibition against fornication is valid today. And they most certainly aren't equal because they are listed in the same sentence, which is one of the weakest arguments the Watchtower Society has ever made.
If that were the case, gossips will suffer the same penalties as murderers simply because Paul included both in the same verse at Romans 1:29. But YHWH, Almighty God, is a “God of justice” (Isaiah 30:18). And a just God will reward and punish according to one's deeds. It is a sliding-scale of justice; the gossip is not to be punished to the same degree as Adolf Hitler. Some will receive a prophet's reward, some a righteous man's reward, and others a reward for giving a cup of water to a disciple because he is a disciple (Matthew 10:40-42). Some will be beaten with fewer strokes than others (Luke 12:47, 48) and teachers are to be held to a higher standard (James 3:1). And, the sin of fornication is not equal to accepting or permitting life-saving transfusions – which do not violate God's law.
The Watchtower Society is fully aware of the critical flaws in their doctrine and is currently in the process of overturning it as it did with their illogical and unscriptural earlier ban on vaccines and organ transplants. Allowing the transfusion of one-hundred percent of blood fractions brings them within two steps of abiding by God's law, though any reasonable, objective person recognizes the hypocrisy and farce which is being foisted on its members. The trend toward allowing whole-blood transfusions without threat of recrimination is motivated in large part by the looming specter of legal liability premised on theories such as the tort of misrepresentation. That is why one sees a shift; the Society's unequivocal ban is being replaced by shifting the burden to its members, allowing its people to accept blood fractions based on their conscience, even if it still might violate God's law.
But that is not good enough because some will still refrain from transfusions believing it continues to violate the laws of God, which it does not. It is time for the Watchtower Society to cease and desist from its appalling charade banning blood transfusions and declare emphatically that whether necessary or not, blood transfusions do not violate God's law of love which demands respect for the sanctity and preservation of life. It is time for the Jehovah's Witnesses to stop murdering themselves and their innocent children based on an unsubstantiated and hypocritical doctrine; hypocritical because the Jehovah's Witnesses do not go to war out of the command to love one's enemies, but they readily sacrifice their own brothers and sisters, who are to be loved fiercely, on the bloodless altar of Molech.
“Too costly in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful” (Psalm 116:15). “[T]he meaning is that the death of God's faithful is grievous to God” (NAB notes, 116, 15). Denying oneself a necessary transfusion is the sin of self-murder, suicide. Denying your child who requires a necessary transfusion and which results in the child's death is the sin of murder; and all who participate to any degree in this deviant act are culpable. As for the Governing Body, and those who write these horrible laws, Jesus warned: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 10:42).
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Blood transfusion DF/DA
by allyouneedislove ini was reading the following page:.
http://ajwrb.org/currentwtpolicy/callingsociety.htm.
can a jw still be df or da for taking a blood transfusion, if they are not "repentant"?.
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jonathan dough
New article written on the blood ban. Any feedback is welcome. I know it's long, and will break into two parts.
Thanks.
Blood Transfusions do not Violate God's Law
Prior to July, 1945, the Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses taught that blood transfusions by its members was not prohibited. After 1945 blood transfusions were banned, and by 1961, any Jehovah's Witness who “accepted blood transfusion[s], and manifested an unrepentant attitude [was] disfellowshipped (excommunicated) ….” Jehovah's Witnesses – Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, [____], 183-184. This prohibition, and severe punishment which ensued, also applied to a parent who prohibited their child's blood transfusion even if necessary to save his or her life (jwfacts.com/watchtower/blood-transfusion.php).
This policy is still in effect although it has undergone radical transformation in scope. While “whole blood” transfusions are disallowed, today a Jehovah's Witness may transfuse,within certain prescribed guidelines, fractions, or components, of blood such as immune globulins, hemophiliac preparations and albumin. Typical of constantly changing Watchtower doctrine (in this case in the proper direction), one-hundred percent of blood fractions, or components, can be transfused by its members, but not all at once, not as “whole blood,” but in an extremely illogical piecemeal fashion - which violates the spirit of their own unscriptural precepts. The decision to accept a necessary transfusion of blood fractions (or permit a life-saving transfusion of fractions in the case of a child) is a matter for each individual's conscience.
The primary biblical verse used to defend the Watchtower Society's ban on intravenous blood transfusions is found at Acts 15:29 where the Council of Jerusalem decided that Gentile Christians (people of the nations) were to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage (fornication, Greek pornea) (New American Bible, NAB). Many, if not most, mainstream Christians view this “no-blood” and “no-meat” decree as a suggestion regarding dietary restrictions, not absolute law; it does not prohibit blood transfusions, and dealt with a limited, specific controversy that arose among mixed Jewish-Gentile Christian communities during the first century.
In time, the Acts 15 “Jewish” decree became a non-issue once the Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem was scattered and/or destroyed by the Roman army in 70 A.D. Traditional mainstream Christians understand that the Acts 15 decree was derived from Mosaic law, and all such laws, not some of them but all of them, were nailed to the cross and done away with by virtue of Jesus Christ's atoning death. The Law “with its commandments and legal claims” was abolished (Ephesians 2:15). No man can redeem himself and attain eternal salvation by strict adherence to the Mosaic law. Accordingly, the blood decree was non-binding, the violation of which today does not prevent entrance into God's kingdom.
The central issue is whether the phrase “abstain from blood” prohibits blood transfusions, whether absolutely necessary to sustain life or not, particularly with respect to innocent children. This central issue, however, begs many questions; sub-issues which any first-year college student would be expected to raise. Does the Acts 15 decree unequivocally prohibit eating meat with blood under any circumstances? Was the ban on blood only applicable in situations where the life of an animal was taken? Must one abstain from all blood, including animal blood found in a rare T-bone steak? Does it prohibit sucking one's own cut finger? Must one abstain from human and animal blood? Is one permitted to remove and store one's own blood for future transfusion back into one's own body? Does it prohibit the introduction into your body coincidental blood associated with organ transplants? Does abstention refer to “eating” blood only? Is transfusing blood the same as eating blood? Is the Mosaic prohibition limited to only eating flesh with blood?
Was the prohibition under the Mosaic law merely symbolic out of reverence for the sanctity of a sacrificed animal's life? Was the pouring out of blood a symbolic ritual, or was it to be taken literally in every circumstance? If transfusions are prohibited, what is the proper punishment for breach of this rule? If the transfusion of whole blood violates God's law, which it does not, how can transfusion of select portions, or fractions, of that blood not violate God's alleged law prohibiting transfusions? What is the Watchtower Society's rationale for permitting transfusion of blood fractions? Which specific Bible verses does the Society rely on to justify its highly questionable stance on the aforementioned issues, or are these restrictive rules arbitrary and capricious self-contradicting man-made rules that defy logic and Scripture? Will a blood transfusion cost a Christian the prospect of eternal life?
These questions can be answered only by examining the scriptural and historical context of the blood-abstention doctrine, the advances made in modern medicine, and the capricious inconsistencies in Watchtower blood prohibitions. Upon examining the evidence, a reasonable person of average intelligence must conclude that the Society's prohibition on blood transfusions violates Jehovah God's law which demands respect for the sanctity of human life. Denying blood transfusions violates the Almighty's commandment at Exodus 20:13, “Thou shall not kill.”
When these sub-issues are identified and analyzed it becomes apparent that the Society's reasoning is arbitrary, unscriptural, and superficial at best. Their false teachings, that abstaining from blood includes abstention from non-vital and vital blood transfusions which might save a life, is not taught in the Bible. It bears repeating; blood transfusions, while they may pose certain health risks like countless other medical procedures, do not violate God's law.
The Watchtower Society acknowledges that Mosaic law became non-binding and ineffectual as it pertains to Christians upon Christ's sacrificial death (Luke 16:16). Nevertheless, they teach that the prohibited conduct listed at Acts 15:29 carried forward the Mosaic law in principle with respect to abstaining from “meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from eats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage,” or as others define such sexual prohibitions, fornication in its broader application. They have retained select portions of the Mosaic law and believe that an unrepentant Jehovah's Witness who receives, or permits others to receive, a transfusion of blood, [may] be subject to “eternal damnation.” How Blood Can Save Your Life, p. 31. They write that “[i]t may result in the immediate and very temporary prolongation of life, but at the cost of eternal life for a dedicated Christian,” (n. 77, p. 16, Blood, Medicine, and the Law of God, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1961, p. 54).
Respect for the Sanctity of Life
The Watchtower Society's ban on blood transfusions necessary to save a life is a direct violation of God's laws evident in the Old and New Testament. Preeminent is Yahweh’s command “Thou shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13), reiterated in the New Testament at Romans 13:9. God's view of the sanctity of human life, that it must be nourished, protected and cherished, is unmistakable. Under the Old Covenant, one who takes a life must forfeit his own (Genesis 9:6; Numbers 35:31, 33). The salvation of human life, in the present and the afterlife, is a fundamental theme that runs throughout Scripture (Psalm 34:7, 17, 10). Men beg for life (Psalm 119:25), and God preserves it (Psalm 36:6; 66:9; Jonah 2:6). God's concern for life, particularly that of human beings, is exemplified in the account of the great flood and the salvation of Noah and his family, and a great many animal species (Genesis 7:1-3).
The importance of the sanctity of human life was continually emphasized in the New Testament, even more so than in the Old Testament. Jesus taught that saving human life was paramount even if it violated Mosaic law; even if life was saved on the sabbath. Jesus asked those who condemned him, “Is it lawful on the sabbath to do a good deed or to do a bad deed, to save or to kill a soul?” (Mark 3:4-5; see also Luke 6:7-10). Saving a life was more important than obeying the letter of the Law. Refusing a blood transfusion when it might have saved a life, even if it violated a principle of Mosaic law, would have been specifically condemned by Christ, whom believers are commanded to obey at the risk of losing eternal life, for as it says at John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Jesus repeatedly drove this point home, that he wants “mercy, not sacrifice,” even if it violates Mosaic law (Matthew 12:7). God's high regard for the value and sanctity of actual human life, not merely symbolic life, is illustrated at Matthew 12:11: “Who will be the man among you that has one sheep and, if this falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not get a hold of it and lift it out? All considered, how much more worth is a man than a sheep?” Christ also illustrated the importance of saving life in King David's time, even if it violated the Law, when David and his hungry men “entered the house of God and … ate the loaves of presentation, food it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests only” (Matthew 12:1-4). The Mosaic law could, and should, be broken in order to save lives.
Of great significance is the Jewish interpretation of these same Mosaic blood restrictions which the Watchtower Society base their transfusion prohibition on – Jews allow blood transfusions regardless of these specific verses, most of which are compiled at Leviticus 17 and Deuteronomy 12:15-28. Furthermore, providing necessary life-sustaining medical treatment, like blood transfusions, even on the sabbath, is perfectly acceptable and humane under the Jewish principle “pikuach nefesh,” (jwfacts.com). Since the Watchtower Society bases its transfusion prohibition directly on Mosaic law, it is perplexing, and illogical, that they reject the Jewish interpretation and application of the Jews' own laws.
Denying oneself a blood transfusion which results in death is murder in God's eyes, plain and simple. Exerting pressure on someone to deny a third party (a child) a life-saving transfusion that results in death is likewise a culpable act. Denying yourself a necessary blood transfusion based on the Society's erroneous interpretation of Acts 15:29, and other Scripture, amounts to suicide, or self-murder. Why is it wrong and abhorrent to Almighty God? Because the Christian body is sacred, as the Apostle Paul wrote at 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.” Psalm 63:4 elevates God's love over life, “for your love is better than life.” But only “here in the Old Testament is anything prized above life – in this case God's love,” (NAB, notes, 63,4).
Without qualification, Jesus made clear, it is not what enters a person's body that defiles a man, but what proceeds from him that defiles, and that includes the eating of blood (Matthew 15:11; see also Mark 7:15). Life is sacred. Christ highly valued the life of his disciples: “When you see the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15,16). “Give me life in accord with your word” (Psalm 119:25); “... in your justice give me life” (Psalm 119:40). God clearly believes the life of the true Christian to be precious, and the Acts 15 decree to “abstain from blood” must be interpreted in light of those verses which recognize the sanctity of life and the command to protect human life, not destroy it.
Murderers, on the other hand, including those who commit self-murder, and those who participate or encourage this deviant act (Proverbs 1:11; Romans 1:29-32) “shall not inherit God's kingdom” (Revelation 22;15; 1 Timothy 1:9; Galatians 5:21), but are likened to dogs, sorcerers, the unchaste, idol worshipers and “those who practice deceit.” The Watchtower Society has inverted God's law, turned it upside down. Murder, and self-murder, resulting from the Society's prohibition of blood transfusions, is a characteristic of the devil who “was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). Wicked humans are filled with murder (Romans 1:29).
The simple fact is that the Jehovah's Witnesses of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society are attempting to be justified, declared righteous and redeemed, thereby gaining entrance into the kingdom, by strict adherence to legalistic principles of the Mosaic law. Any serious student of that religion knows that their doctrines are to a great extent Old Testament-centric and based on works of many kind, regardless of the Society's denial. This includes denying oneself or others essential, and non-essential, blood transfusions which they mistakenly teach can prevent one's attaining eternal salvation.
But Paul taught the opposite at Galatians 5:4-5: “You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For through the Spirit by faith, we await the hope of righteousness.” Because the Watchtower Society and their Jehovah's Witnesses teach falsely that obtaining or allowing blood transfusions – a form of works that specifically violates God's law respecting the sanctity of life – they have fallen from grace and made Christ's sacrifice meaningless because they attempt to gain entrance to the kingdom by adhering to Mosaic law, which does not prohibit blood transfusions in the first place.
The Watchtower Society's heartless, sadistic and hypocritical practice of prohibiting blood transfusions for innocent children which results in their untimely and unnecessary deaths is a practice which can be attributed to Satan. Parallels can be drawn between Jehovah's Witness parents who sacrifice their children to their version of “Jehovah,” and Israelites of old who sacrificed their children to the pagan false god Molech in direct violation of God's warning not to at Leviticus 18:21: “You shall not offer any of your offspring to be immolated to Molech, thus profaning the name of your God.” But despite this warning they did. “They built high places to Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, and immolated their sons and daughters to Molech, bringing sin upon Judah; this I never commanded them, nor did it even enter my mind that they should practice such abomination” (Jeremiah 32:35).
Parents who believe that denying their child a vital blood transfusion pleases the Watchtower's “Jehovah” are deluded, much as ancient Israelites who pleased Molech by throwing their children into the fire. It is an abhorrent, perverted thought that never entered the Almighty's mind. But it is not only the parents whose hands are stained with their children's innocent deaths, but every individual who adheres to, promotes, enforces or encourages the ban, including members of a hospital liaison committee, the Governing Body, all who draft prohibition literature, every member of the governing hierarchical order from the “slave” down to the elder and ministerial servant, and every single member of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion who preach, whether door-to-door or otherwise, that God's law prohibits blood transfusions, are guilty of this unbiblical, heinous act. One who incites, or assists, another to commit murder, is as guilty as the one who commits the crime of murder and shall be punished as Jehovah sees fit.
The Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses relies to its pending detriment on one particular verse of Scripture which they believe permits them to escape their blood-sins unscathed. As they so often do, they pluck verse out of context. Romans 6:7 provides that “a dead person has been absolved (acquitted) from sin.” As such, the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that they have nothing to fear once they die, that they won't be punished for this. They write:
Both those who formerly did good things and those who formerly practiced bad things will be “judged individually according to their deeds.“ What deeds? If we were to take the view that people were going to be condemned on the basis of deeds in their past life, that would be inconsistent with Romans 6:7: “He who has died has been acquitted from his sin.” It would also be unreasonable to resurrect people simply for them to be destroyed. So, at John 5:28, 29a, Jesus was pointing ahead to the resurrection; then, in the remainder of verse 29, he was expressing the outcome after they had been uplifted to human perfection and been put on judgment. (Reasoning, 337)
But surrounding verses 1-11 make it perfectly clear that Paul was referring to those who died with Christ to baptism, and are raised in spirit to live for God. True believers are passed over in the condemnation, while all others are judged for deeds committed “in this body,” in this life (2 Corinthians 5:6-10 ). This is verified at Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Man's physical death does not acquit man of sins, including sins associated with the unlawful denial of blood transfusions; only the atoning death of Jesus Christ acquits men of their sins (Romans 5:16).
The practical consequence of the Watchtower's false teaching is that the Jehovah's Witnesses are under the mistaken belief that they will not have to stand before the judgment seat and be judged for their sins committed in this life. But nothing could be further from the truth. False Christians will suffer the penalty for their egregious transgressions, such as those related to the Watchtower's unbiblical and unjustifiable ban on blood transfusions using contorted Jonestown logic that has slaughtered so many needlessly. Whether premised on Noahide law, Mosaic law, or the Acts 15 decree, it was not the use of blood per se that was prohibited, but the misuse of blood. And today with advances in modern medicine, it is the failure to use blood where necessary to uphold God's law respecting the sanctity of life that is condemned in the Bible.
The Watchtower Society invokes Jesus' words at Matthew 16:25 in defense of their promotion of self-murder: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” But preceding verse 24 places Christ's words in proper context. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” One must be alive to follow Christ. Jesus is not speaking of suicide, that one must kill oneself to please him, and the Watchtower's Jonestown reasoning, which is laying the foundation for mass suicide, has no place within the true Christian community of God's people. Interpreting 16:25 as a suicide pact contradicts the entire Bible which recognizes the sanctity of human life, and the command to preserve it when appropriate. Christ was referring to courage under persecution and self-denial, while alive, in this life. “[T]o deny someone is to disown him (see 10, 33; 26,34-35) and to deny oneself is to disown oneself as the center of one's existence” (NAB notes 16, 24). It is obvious that Jesus was not advocating self-murder because verse 24 refers to his potential disciples coming after Jesus and following him, in the present, which a disciple cannot do if dead as a result of self-murder through the refusal of a necessary blood transfusion.
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New Light on Blood Fractions
by The Searcher infrom the hlc - not a letter from hq - why not?it is felt that because people don't know what to accept and what to say 'no' to, brothers and sisters are saying 'no' to everythying, and this is just wrong!they want brothers to know that not only is blood sacred, but also life is sacred.
the implication is, that if you say no to fractions, you could be viewing life as not sacred, and that if you do not have a good reason that you can explain, you should not say 'no' to things.
and they are no longer using the term "blood fractions" - they are to be called "blood derivatives", because the substance is so small.whatever happened to leviticus 17:13?
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jonathan dough
I answered it on the other old blood thread you pulled up.
Thank you, though one would think it is their official policy to hold the parents accountable in print.
Here is another one. When the WTS says that accepting blood fractions is a matter of conscience, are they still continuing to teach that it violates God's law nonetheless, but that's just between you and God?
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13
Blood Transfusion Revisited Like Never Before (with a gift to readers)
by arko_n9ne inblood, blood, blood.
blah, blah, blah.
we'll see.. the resource material is from january 2000's awake!
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jonathan dough
Okay, that seems strange. Here is another question. Where does it say that 100 percent of fractions can now be transfused? How is that calculated or put in their literature, and where?
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30
New Light on Blood Fractions
by The Searcher infrom the hlc - not a letter from hq - why not?it is felt that because people don't know what to accept and what to say 'no' to, brothers and sisters are saying 'no' to everythying, and this is just wrong!they want brothers to know that not only is blood sacred, but also life is sacred.
the implication is, that if you say no to fractions, you could be viewing life as not sacred, and that if you do not have a good reason that you can explain, you should not say 'no' to things.
and they are no longer using the term "blood fractions" - they are to be called "blood derivatives", because the substance is so small.whatever happened to leviticus 17:13?
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jonathan dough
I'm looking for the Watchtower quote whereby parents who allow their children to be transfused are disfellowshipped and lose the prospect of eternal life. Anybody?
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13
Blood Transfusion Revisited Like Never Before (with a gift to readers)
by arko_n9ne inblood, blood, blood.
blah, blah, blah.
we'll see.. the resource material is from january 2000's awake!
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jonathan dough
I'm looking for the Watchtower quote whereby parents who allow their children to be transfused are disfellowshipped and lose the prospect of eternal life. Anybody?