Scholar,
Just provide the 1984 quote that concerns you as you have not given
specific information and then the said scholar will help you for scholar
likes to help the little people.
I did provide it. Scholar seems to have missed it somehow.
I will provide it again in response to your second question:
Let us cut to the chase and you provide your understanding of the 'great crowd'
My understanding is of no consequence here. We’re talking about a teaching peculiar to JW’s and they are free to believe and teach it in any fashion they please. And I’m willing to accept whatever explanation(s) offered in official JW publications as what they believe.
Fair enough?
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This particular teaching has been taught officially since 1935. There was a convention in Washington DC and those known at the time as “Jonadabs” were invited to attend. On Sunday, during the discourse, The Great Multitude, J.F. Rutherford explained that the “great multitude” of Revelation 7 was actually an earthly class. He subsequently invited the Jonadabs to stand up and identified them as that group. "Behold, the great multitude" were his exact words.
This new teaching was summarized thus:
"The great multitude or Jonadab company manifestly are those whom Jesus called his “other sheep”. To the faithful disciples, the remnant, Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine [the remnant]; . . . and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold [members of the royal house] : them also [the earthly sheep class] I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be [and they shall become, RV.] one fold [one flock], and one shepherd.“-John 10: 14-16"
(The Watchtower August 15, 1935 p. 250)
At the time, it was thought that the “great tribulation” had already started and those people had "come out of it" by joining the “remnant” of “Christ’s brothers” just as Jonadab had joined Jehu.
Here are early and late examples of that teaching:
“To “come out of the great tribulation” (R.V.) not alone means to survive that trouble as ‘flesh that shall be saved’ (Matt. 24: 22) but primarily means that the great multitude come out from Satan’s organization and take their stand on the side of Jehovah during the period of time that elapses from stopping the World War until the day of Armageddon, that is to say, during the time that the “days should be shortened”, and during which time period this gospel of the kingdom is preached” (The Watchtower August 15, 1935 p. 246)
"They have come out since the “beginning of pangs of distress,” seeking salvation from the enthroned God of heaven and earth and through the once-sacrificed “Lamb,” Jesus Christ. They acknowledge Jehovah God as the rightful Ruler of heavenly angels and earthly men. They do not accept any longer the moral and religious standards of this worldly system of things. Instead, as pictured in Revelation 7:9-15, they confess that they are sinners, and they seek to get rid of their dirty appearance. So they wash their robes in the shed blood of the “Lamb,” to take away the unsightly stain of sin." (The Watchtower December 15 1965 p. 754)
As Rutherford understood them, the terms “other sheep” and “great crowd” were virtually synonymous:
“The great multitude is that same class which Jesus describes as his "other sheep". “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." (John 10: 16)”
(Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses for 1936 p. 17)
"These honest and sincere ones who thus flee to the Lord the Scriptures designate as the "other sheep" of Jesus Christ, and they are otherwise called Jonadabs and the great multitude."
(1937 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses p. 360)
“Those who will compose the Lord’s “other sheep” are not limited as to the number, but are called the “great multitude” without number, and they come “of all nations and kindreds, and people and tongues”, and they rejoice and joyfully acknowledge that salvation belongeth to Jehovah God and is ministered through Christ Jesus, the King. (Revelation 7: 9, 10)
(Salvation (1939) p. 61)
This terminology continued into the Knorr era and beyond:
“The members of this "great multitude" are the present-day companions of the remnant….Jesus Christ spoke of them as his "other sheep" who are not of the same fold as the remnant of the church or "body of Christ" because the remnant have a heavenly eternity ahead of them whereas the "other sheep" of the "great multitude" have an earthly eternity in human perfection ahead of them”
(The Watchtower November 1, 1947 p. 325)
"Incidentally, this Washington convention proved to be outstanding for the new flash of truth as to the “great multitude” of Revelation 7:9, proving that its members are not a secondary spiritual class destined to go to heaven but that they are an earthly group identical with the “sheep” of Matthew 25:31-46, made known in 1923, and the “Jonadab” class revealed in 1932 with the release of Vindication, Volume 3."
(The Watchtower July 1 1955 p. 394)
“It is further true that in the following year at the spring convention held in Washington, D.C., capital of America, the prophecy in Revelation 7:9-17 was explained and the “great multitude” (AV) therein described was declared to be made up of present-day “other sheep” with earthly hopes, this startling explanation being later published in The Watch Tower as of August 1 and 15, 1935.
(The Watchtower December 15, 1969 p. 755)
In 1970, the JW’s decided that the “great tribulation” was not in progress after all, and the “great crowd” had therefore not actually “come out” of it yet. JW’s with the earthly hope were now viewed as “prospective” members of the great crowd inasmuch as they had the prospect of surviving it.
The adjusted understanding was summarized thus:
“Since the “great crowd” is to survive the “great tribulation,” it is obvious that they would be gathered from among people living in the time just prior to the end of this present system of things….This selection and gathering are taking place now, and will evidently be completed during the lifetime of one generation. Some of that generation will survive into the period of Christ’s thousand-year reign.—Luke 21:32.”
(Life Does Have A Purpose (1977) p.146)
“Especially beginning in 1935, when the identity of the “great multitude,” or “great crowd,” was clearly understood, large numbers of these began to manifest themselves. At first there were hundreds, then thousands, later hundreds of thousands, and now there are millions spread around the globe. God’s infallible Word depicts this group as ‘coming out of the great tribulation,’ being survivors of it, living right on into God’s New Order without ever having to die. (Revelation 7:9, 10, 14; John 11:26) The early members of this group are now in their 60’s or 70’s or older. Jehovah did not allow the ingathering of this group to begin too soon. The “great crowd,” including many of the earliest members thereof, will survive into the “new earth.
Survival Into a New Earth (1984) p. 185 (This is the quote I provided for you earlier)
“Hence, though Revelation 7:9 is describing this crowd after the tribulation, we may apply the term “great crowd” to all with earthly hopes who are rendering Jehovah sacred service now, just before the great tribulation breaks out with the nations’ attack on false religion.”
(The Watchtower April 15, 1995 p. 31)
More time has passed. Simone Liebster, whose name might be familiar to you, turned 90 in 2020, which means she was only 5-years-old in 1935. --Much too young to know whether she was of the anointed or earthly class.
Given the fact that a 15-year-old in 1935 would be 103 today, It is clear that the post 1970 explanation with its dependence upon a chronological understanding of a generation is no longer viable from a mathematical standpoint and is in need of an update.
This brings me to the point I entered this thread. An adjustment to the great crowd teaching is not going to be easy to make, else it would have been made already. (So don't shoot from the hip here)
