P. M. WILLIAMS BIBLE PROPHECY AND THE LAST DAYS [23/08/13] THE RISE OF THE CULTS – PART 2
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES – PART 1
HEADLINES
Introduction
When one hears the name Jehovah’s Witness, what immediately springs to mind? Firmly implanted in everyone’s mind is surely the picture of groups of two’s knocking doors in a neighbourhood to tell them about Jehovah’s Kingdom to come on earth. They are smartly dressed and often found reaching into a satchel to leave their prospective clients with a copy of their monthly publications. Secondly, what may spring to mind is their rejection of blood transfusions or their abstinence from participation in the military or involvement in governmental affairs including voting. Jehovah’s Witnesses are also known for their stance in not celebrating any traditional holidays or Birthdays, including Christmas. Finally, they reject all religious symbols of any kind, labelling them as pagan and also refuse to salute the flag.
As of 2012, there are approximately 7.5 million members of Jehovah’s visible organization – aka Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, spanning over 235 countries which were more than was represented at the London Olympic Games in which 205 countries were represented by their respective athletes. In the UK, there is a reported 130,000 practising members. Their infamous Watchtower magazine is the most widely circulated magazine in the world, with an average monthly print run of nearly 45,000,000 copies each month. It is made available in 209 different languages including sign and brail. The company magazine to the Watchtower, Awake is the second most circulated magazine in the world after the Watchtower! Last year Jehovah’s Witnesses conducted a staggering 8.5 million Bible studies worldwide resulting in a quarter of a million new members being baptized worldwide.
The Watch Tower
Jehovah’s Witnesses meet in a building called A Kingdom Hall with modest congregation sizes not usually exceeding 200 in number. Each of the 93,000 congregations worldwide is overseen by a plurality of Elders. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is a top down hierarchical system of governance that has its headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. At the top of the organization is the President who at present is Don Adams and the ruling “elite” are the infamous Governing Body, a body of all male members (currently at 8) who are the ruling council for Jehovah’s Witnesses and the self-professed mouth-piece of God. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society believes that it alone is God’s visible organization on earth operating under the direct control of Jesus Christ and is therefore qualified to teach with inspired authority in all matters relating to doctrine.
“When giving the prophecy about the sign of his presence, Jesus said: “Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time? Happy is that slave if his master on arriving finds him doing so. Truly I say to you, He will appoint him over all his belongings.” (Matthew 24:45-47) The “master” is our Leader, Jesus Christ, and he has appointed “the faithful and discreet slave”—the body of anointed Christians on earth—over all his earthly interests.” - The Watchtower, March 15, 2002, p13-14 paragraph 4 – cited from Wikipedia "A mature Christian ... does not advocate or insist on personal opinions or harbor private ideas when it comes to Bible understanding. Rather, he has complete confidence in the truth as it is revealed by Jehovah God through his Son, Jesus Christ, and 'the faithful and discreet slave.'" - Watchtower August 1, 2001, p14, paragraph 8 – cited from Wikipedia
"The abundance of spiritual food and the amazing details of Jehovah's purposes that have been revealed to Jehovah's anointed witnesses are clear evidence that they are the ones mentioned by Jesus when he foretold a 'faithful and discreet slave' class that would be used to dispense God's progressive revelations in these last days ... How thankful we should be for the provision God has made of this slave class, the modern spiritual remnant, as they faithfully dispense the revealed truths of Jehovah! ... Jehovah's faithful witnesses have been progressively brought to an understanding of Jehovah's purposes, which are clearer now than ever before in history." - Watchtower, June 15, 1964, p 365 – cited from Wikipedia
Jehovah’s Witnesses
There is no doubt about it, Jehovah’s Witnesses are most widely known for their witnessing fervour!! One cannot call it evangelism in the proper sense because evangelism means ‘the preaching of good news’ which the Watchtower message is most certainly not!! Door-to-door witnessing, announcing the coming of Jehovah’s Kingdom is central to the life of a Jehovah’s Witness and lies at the heart of an intricate system of salvation by works. Each baptized member is classed an ordained minister and it is a compulsory requirement that every member commits a proportion of their monthly time, approximately 10 hours to the practise of witnessing; they are known as ‘Publishers’. Some Publishers known as ‘Pioneer Publishers’, will devote as much as 100 hours a month to witnessing and will secure part-time jobs to support their families!!
New World Translation
Up until 1961, before the publishing of the complete New World Translation, Jehovah’s Witnesses utilized and mutilated the King James Version in English-speaking countries to formulate and support their peculiar doctrines. However, in 1961 the Watch Tower published its own ‘version’ of the Bible which as of 2013 has published 181 million copies in 117 languages. The Watch Tower claims that the NWT is:
“A translation of the Holy Scriptures made directly from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into modern-day English by a committee of anointed witnesses of Jehovah.” - New World Translation Definition, Watchtower Online Library
The translating committee for the NWL conveniently decided that they did not want their names publishing and wanted to remain anonymous as they did not want to:
“advertise themselves but let all the glory go to the Author of the Scriptures, God” - The Watchtower, November 15, 1950, p454 – cited from Wikipedia
It has well been documented that the upon the translation committee of the NWT, there was not even a single member with a recognized degree in Greek or Hebrew. Fredrick Franz when representing the translation committee under oath in a trial in Scotland admitted that he could not translate Genesis 2:4 from the Hebrew when asked to do so. Many have pointed out that the task at hand was an elementary task, something that a first-year or second-year Hebrew seminary student could undertake. Walter Martin says the following: “…the Watchtower translation speaks for itself and shows more clearly than pen can, the scholastic dishonesty and lack of scholarship so rampant within its covers.” - Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, p73
Just a few of its perversions are stated in the following quote taken from an article on the website GotQuestions.org:
“The New World Translation renders the Greek term word staurós ("cross") as "torture stake" because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus was crucified on a cross. The New World Translation does not translate the Greek words sheol, hades, gehenna, and tartarus as "hell” because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in hell. The NWT gives the translation "presence" instead of “coming” for the Greek word parousia because Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ has already returned in the early 1900s. In Colossians 1:16, the NWT inserts the word “other” despite its being completely absent from the original Greek text. It does this to give the view that “all other things” were created by Christ, instead of what the text says, “all things were created by Christ.” This is to go along with their belief that Christ is a created being, which they believe because they deny the Trinity.
The most well-known of all the New World Translation perversions is John 1:1. The original Greek text reads, “the Word was God.” The NWT renders it as “the word was a god.” This is not a matter of correct translation, but of reading one's preconceived theology into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself.” - S. Michael Houdmann, Is the New World Translation a valid version of the Bible?, GotQuestions. org
Brief Synopsis of Jehovah’s Witnesses Beliefs
Again I ask the question, who are the Jehovah’s Witnesses? To answer that question it is imperative that we touch on some of its beliefs and teachings, something that we will only do in brief in his section. In their own words they say of themselves:
We come from hundreds of ethnic and language backgrounds, yet we are united by common goals. Above all, we want to honor Jehovah, the God of the Bible and the Creator of all things. We do our best to imitate Jesus Christ and are proud to be called Christians. Each of us regularly spends time helping people learn about the Bible and God’s Kingdom. Because we witness, or talk, about Jehovah God and his Kingdom, we are known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. - Jehovah’s Witnesses-Who Are We?, http://www.jw.org/en/
Last week, we defined a cult as a group or an organisation that on the surface claims to be Christian; but underneath it deviates from the orthodox and defining doctrines central to Christianity. By their own admission Jehovah’s Witnesses put forth the claim that they are Christians, “We…are proud to be called Christians”. If then after claiming to be Christians, they differ from the standard orthodoxy that has been held and taught historically by all professing Christians down through the centuries; then this claim is a deceptive one. Indeed as we shall see, when one pulls back the veneer of Watch Tower teaching, one will quickly see that what we are dealing with here is a not a Christian denomination but an heretical cult which sadly is responsible for damning millions of souls whom it claims to be leading in the way of salvation!!
I will now briefly define the teachings and doctrines of the Watch Tower as they differ from mainstream orthodoxy:
1. There is only one eternal being from all eternity – Jehovah God, who is singular in person; hence Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the Trinity. 2. Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the sense that he is the firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:19). He is a created being who before his incarnation was a mighty angel – Michael the Archangel. 3. Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead bodily but rather was raised a glorified spirit being. 4. Jesus will not return again visibly but has indeed already returned spiritually in 1914 (current teaching). 5. The Holy Spirit is the invisible active force of Jehovah and is not a person. 6. The soul of man is not eternal but mortal. Upon death man simply ceases to exist. 7. Hell is not a literal place of fiery eternal torment but is merely the grave. 8. Faithful Jehovah’s Witnesses will be ‘resurrected’ after Armageddon and will be given a soul that exactly duplicates their former personality in a new body and will live on the earth forever. 9. Only a select faithful remnant of 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses chosen by God will actually go to heaven. These are the ones who on earth are ‘born-again’ becoming the children of God. 10. Salvation is not by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone, but a works based system contained within Jehovah’s visible organisation, the Watch Tower.
We shall further dig into and explore and refute these false doctrines in a future teaching when we deal specifically with the ‘Heresies’ of the Watch Tower.
HISTORY
As one traces the history of the beginnings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, there are two foundational names that are imbedded in the fabric of that organization: Charles Taze Russell and Joseph Franklin Rutherford. Although, Jehovah’s Witnesses have sought to distance themselves from their founder, Charles T. Russell, the fact of the matter is that he is responsible for founding the organisation in 1879.
Charles Taze Russell
Charles Taze Russell was born in 1852 to Scottish-Irish parents in Pennsylvania, USA. He was raised in a Presbyterian Church and in his teens, he along with his parents became members of the Congregational Church. As Charles Russell closed out his teenage years, he began to question the doctrine of eternal punishment. In 1870 at the age of 18, Russell and his father began a Bible study group in which under the influences of the early Millerite Adventists, they came to reject many of the established Christian doctrines, including the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of hellfire.
In 1876, Russell was elected as the pastor of the group. It was at this time that Russell came under the influence of the Adventist Nelson H. Barbour and Russell began to be heavily interested in mapping out the date for which Jesus Christ would make his invisible return to earth. Nelson H. Barbour had previously predicted that Jesus would return to earth in 1874 and when that did not happen, Barbour said that he had indeed returned, but that his return was an invisible one. Russell became a co-editor of Barbour’s magazine entitled ‘Herald of the Morning’ in which it was now stated in 1876 that the Lord had made an invisible return to earth in 1874 but would not actually rapture the saints until the spring of 1878. Charles T Russell was a well-financed business man and sold many of his businesses to put his all into what he believed were the last few remaining years on earth. When 1878 came and went, C. T. Russell split from Nelson H. Barbour and in 1879 at the age of 27, he established his own monthly magazine entitled ‘Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence’, now known as the Watchtower. Russell continued to believe and teach that Jesus Christ made an invisible return to earth in 1874 and today, it is a corner stone doctrine of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In 1881, Charles Taze Russell founded the Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society for the express purpose of spreading and propagating his many publications containing his heretical beliefs including the rejection of the Trinity, the deity of Christ and His bodily resurrection. One of Russell’s most important works was his volume of books ‘Studies in the Scriptures’. It was this work that Russell said:
"Furthermore, not only do we find that people cannot see the divine plan in studying the Bible by itself, but we see, also, that if anyone lays the Scripture Studies aside, even after he has used them, after he has become familiar with them, after he has read them for ten years if he then lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has understood his Bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness. On the other hand, if he had merely read the Scripture Studies with their references, and not read a page of the Bible, as such, he would be in the light at the end of the two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures." - Charles T. Russell, The Watchtower 09/15/1910, p298
In 1886 the name of the organization was changed to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and in 1908 its headquarters were moved to Brooklyn, New York where they have been since. Central to his tireless work and effort was his message that Jesus had been reigning from the heavens since 1874 and that 1914 would be the year to witness Armageddon and the dawn of the Millennium reign of Jesus Christ. He arrived at this date from a study of the Great Pyramid of Giza which he believed was put there by God. On October 31, 1916 at the age of 64, Russell died of a heart attack; the Saints were not raptured as he predicted!! He died leaving behind a vast printing empire and more than 1200 congregations. Russell had become known by his followers as God’s mouthpiece.
By the time of his death , Charles Taze Russell had traveled more than a million miles and preached more than 30,000 sermons. He had authored works totaling some 50,000 printed pages, and nearly 20,000,000 copies of his books and booklets had been sold. - A Short History of the Watch Tower Movement, The Interactive Bible – www.bible.ca
Joseph Franklin Rutherford.
Following Russell’s death, he was succeeded by his attorney (lawyer), Joseph Franklin Rutherford who was now to be the organization mouthpiece for God. In 1917 at the age of 47, Rutherford was elected president of Watch Tower Society. It was under the iron rule of ‘Judge’ Rutherford that the Watch Tower Society grew and expanded from just under 50, 000 in 1928 to about 115 000 at the end of his death in 1942. Rutherford railed passionately in sermons radio broadcasts and published works against organized religion and government. Following in the steps of his predecessor, Rutherford made numerous failed predictions concerning the end of the world; the first of which was 1918 and then again in 1925. Rutherford in his book, ‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die’ stated that in 1925 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were to be resurrected to rule as princes on the new paradise earth. In 1931 Rutherford changed the name of the members of the Watch Tower from the ‘International Bible Students Association’ to ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’.
From 1942 - Present
Following the death of Joseph F. Rutherford, Nathan Knorr became the society’s new president in 1942. During his 35 year presidency, he transferred the leadership of the Watch Tower from being individual to corporate; he termed this new corporate body, the ‘Governing Body’. The Governing Body was now to be the means by which the word of God would be channeled to Jehovah’s people and would be the final authority and settlement for all matters pertaining to life and doctrine. Nathan Knorr was responsible for bringing an intense educational focus to the Watch Tower building many ministry training and missionary training schools. Under his leadership the movement grew massively to over 2 million. Fresh predictions were made that would now see 1975 to be the year that would witness Armageddon. Once again this prophecy failed to materialize and as a result of its failure, over 1 million Witnesses left the organization disillusioned and devastated. Incidentally, since the 1975 date no further dates have been set for Armageddon and ironically, all past predictions have been covered up. Many Jehovah’s Witnesses today are not even aware of these failed predictions which would settle and prove that those claiming to speak on behalf of God in fact have not!!!!! Nathan Knorr died in 1977 and was succeeded by the ‘theologian’ of the movement Frederick W. Franz who from 1945 had been the Vice President of the Watch Tower and served as the society’s chief theologian for nearly 50 years until his death in 1992. It was Franz, during Knorr’s presidency that was instrumental in producing the New World Translation. Following the death of Frederick Franz, Milton Henschel took the presidency from 1992 – 2000 and the current sixth president of the Watch Tower is Don A. Adams.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to grow from strength to strength and today number over 7.5 million! Over the last 120 years the watch Tower has been forced to change its doctrinal stance as it continues to be given greater light by Jehovah! Over the Next week we will look at the heresies of the Watch Tower in much greater depth and seek to refute many of their false and damnable doctrines.