I believe this has always been the teaching, but the following quote is one where the Society felt the need to make it quite clear:
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w7911/15pp.26-27pars.20-26Benefitingfrom“OneMediatorBetweenGodandMen”***
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What, then, is Christ’s role in this program of salvation? Paul proceeds to say: “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men [not,
all men], a man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a corresponding ransom for all.”—1 Tim. 2:5, 6.
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Paul was writing according to the facts of the first century of Christianity, during which the new covenant had been put into operation. Into it “men” of all nationalities, Jews, Samaritans, uncircumcised Gentiles, had already been brought after being made a part of spiritual Israel. Christ Jesus was the mediator of that new covenant. Paul’s letter to Timothy regarding this was a case of one ‘minister of the new covenant’ writing to another ‘minister of the new covenant.’ That new covenant between “our Savior, God,” and spiritual Israel continues as long as there are spiritual Israelites still in the flesh as “men” here on earth. So the covenant is in force today. Jesus’ “corresponding ransom for all” lays the basis for men and women of all sorts to become spiritual Israelites and be brought into the new covenant of which Christ Jesus is the “one mediator.”
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There are still more than 9,000 who profess to be spiritual Israelites in the new covenant. Like Paul and Timothy, these are “ministers of a new covenant.” (2 Cor. 3:6; 1:1) Evidently the new covenant is nearing the end of its operation for the purpose of producing 144,000 spiritual Israelites who meet God’s approval for being associated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom, the ideal government for mankind. When the last of these approved spiritual Israelites cease to be “men” because of earthly death and a resurrection to a share in the heavenly kingdom, then the mediatorship of Jesus Christ will cease also. Their inherited sinful condition in the flesh, which called for a mediator to act between them and the God of holiness, will be left behind. Like the holy angels of heaven, these glorified spiritual Israelites will need no mediator between them and Jehovah God. (Rev. 22:3, 4) Under Jesus Christ they will serve as kings, priests and associated judges over all the world of mankind.—Rev. 7:4-8; 14:1-3; 20:4, 6; Luke 22:28-30.
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“GREATCROWD”OFEARTHLYBENEFICIARIES
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Today, according to authentic records, there is a “great crowd” of dedicated, baptized Christians who actively collaborate with the small remnant of spiritual Israelites. Ever since the spring of 1938 they have been invited to attend the annual memorial celebration of Christ’s death, not to partake of the memorial emblems, the unleavened bread and the red wine, but as respectful observers. They recognize Jesus Christ as their heavenly King since the Gentile Times ended in 1914. They zealously join the remnant of spiritual Israelites in preaching “this good news of the kingdom” in all the inhabited earth for a “witness to all the nations” before this system of things ends in the coming “great tribulation.” (Matt. 24:14, 21) They recognize that they are not spiritual Israelites in the new covenant mediated by Jesus Christ, nor part of the “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”—1 Pet. 2:9. 24
Yet they do benefit from the operation of the new covenant. They benefit from this just as, in ancient Israel, the “alien resident” benefited from residing in among the Israelites who were in the Law covenant.—Ex. 20:10; Lev. 19:10, 33, 34; Rev. 7:9-15. 25
To keep in relationship with “our Savior, God,” the “great crowd” needs to remain united with the remnant of spiritual Israelites. Why? Because these spiritual Israelites are the “holy nation” of which we read in Jeremiah 31:35, 36, right after God’s promise of the new covenant: “This is what Jehovah, the Giver of the sun for light by day, the statutes of the moon and the stars for light by night, the One stirring up the sea that its waves may become boisterous [against the Egyptians pursuing the Israelites], the One whose name is Jehovah of armies, has said: ‘“If these regulations could be removed from before me,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “those who are the seed of Israel could likewise cease from proving to be a nation before me always.”’” 26
Jehovah could no more let spiritual Israel pass out of existence from within his universal organization than he could let the heavenly luminaries that regulate light for our earth cease to be. In the heavens spiritual Israel will be the New Jerusalem in which Jesus Christ will reign as King over the surviving “great crowd” and all the human dead resurrected to life in a paradise earth.—Rev. 21:2-24.
