Romans 8:12-17 and your thoughts....

R.F.

(Romans 8:12-17) NWT

12 So, then, brothers, we are under obligation, not to the flesh to live in accord with the flesh; 13 for if YOU live in accord with the flesh YOU are sure to die; but if YOU put the practices of the body to death by the spirit, YOU will live. 14 For all who are led by God’s spirit, these are God’s sons.15 For YOU did not receive a spirit of slavery causing fear again, but YOU received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which spirit we cry out: "Abba, Father!" 16 The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 If, then, we are children, we are also heirs: heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ, provided we suffer together that we may also be glorified together.

We all know that the WTS uses verse 16 to prove as to how one can determine of their are of the anointed or not and can be one of God's spirit sons. The question I ask is: If we follow WT belief and say that there are a limited number of spirit sons, doesn't that scripture show that the "great crowd of other sheep" can't receive the spirit since by WT belief they aren't considered spirit sons?

UnConfused

Hmmmmm......"led" by God's spirit......I wonder if that would be different than receiving God's spirit? I don't have the answer

bob1999

What Spirit?

According to the teaching of J.F.Rutherford the Holy Spirit was no longer needed once Jesus Christ 'came to the temple of Jehovah God' in 1918.

By his spirit, the holy spirit, Jehovah God guides or leads his people up to a certain time, and thus he did until the time when "the comforter" was taken away ... in 1918.
Preservation, 1932, pp. 193, 194.

...1918... in that year the Lord Jesus came to the temple of Jehovah God. The holy spirit that had been the guide of God's people, having performed its functions, was taken away... J.F. Rutherford, Salvation, 1939, pp. 216, 217.

In times past the holy spirit was the comforter and helper of God's people, and those brethren supposed to have the spirit of the Lord acted as teachers of the consecrated; but now, since the coming of Christ Jesus to the temple, Jehovah God and his great prophet, Christ Jesus, are the teachers... the faithful ones receive knowledge and understanding from the Word of God revealed to them through the Head of the temple organization.
J.F. Rutherford, Jehovah, 1934, p. 311. See further, The Watchtower, March 15, 1938, p. 89, 37: 1939 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Daily Texts and Comments, October 6.

In 1935 Rutherford made up this bit about there being two classes. There is no Biblical
basis for this belief. There is very little Biblical basis for many of the WTS beliefs.

Romans is written to all of us. Rom.5:1 "...since we are justified by faith...." That would be all who have faith. Not just one small group.

Rom 8:1 "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." For us, any of us, to be "in Christ" we need to have faith. If you have faith you are "in Christ".

The Bible was written to all of us. Don't let some man made organization, with their twisted, ever changing doctrine rob you of the gift that God has given to all of us. All who believe.

Vernon Williams

RF,

Back up to the first few verses of Chapter 8: there are ONLY two roads: spirit or flesh. Just two. Two.

Always there are two roads: At Siani: "I lay before you life and death, the blessing and the malidiction...."

Jesus: Serman on the Mount: Broad and Narrow

John on loving the bothers: Son of God because we love, Son of Satan if we do not.

There always, always is just two paths.

Same in Romans 8.

Spirit or Flesh.

We are one or the other.

If we are NOT of the Flesh: everything else applies to all who hear, accept, and respond to the Good News Jesus was talking about in Math. 24:14 and Paul was talking about, here.

Yours in this Journey,

V

JosephMalik

R.F.

To understand these verses in Chapter 8 we have to go back to Chapter 7 and see what Paul is talking about. And what was that? Keeping the Law's and customs of the Jewish Faith. This was summed up like this: 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. And Paul goes on like this for some time even including small details because it was such Jewish Christians still keeping the Law and forcing others to do the same that caused most of Paul's trouble in his territories. The same would also apply to anyone else keeping pagan religious Law's or rituals. We are now freed from such rules and regulations that Paul now identifies as works of the flesh. No longer do we seek salvation by following such rules and regulations. Our salvation now comes from our faith in Christ and our conduct should reflect this as we continue to conduct our lives for Him. The word Spirit is not a magic word that only a few have access to in these verses. It simply sums up the new found consciousness we now have in Christ and the responsibilities that go along with serving His interests from this time onward as best we can.

Joseph

Narkissos

I think the odd WT doctrine has unwittingly given a sort of "surrealistic power" to this passage. By applying it to the "experience" (being led by God's Spirit) and "status" (sons of God) of a chosen few, it made it like a "forbidden fruit" to the others. As a result, when a JW comes (or, is "led") to understand it as applying to him/herself for the first time, s/he gets an emotional and cognitive shock which is quite unlikely to happen to a non-JW reader.

Mutatis mutandis, a bit like what the experience of contemporary Catholicism did to Luther's reading of "justification by faith" in Romans -- probably a lot more than Paul had actually put into it.

Texts are seeds (or time bombs sometimes) waiting for a new reader in a new situation to unfold (or explode) in the most unexpected ways.

Interestingly, "being led (agô) by the Spirit," besides Romans 8:14 and Galatians 5:18, is found in Luke 4:1: He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness...

Sasha

Paul talking or writing to his Christian group of leaders. Keeping up the troups spirits, so to speak.

Forscher

Rutherford's "Jehonadab" teachings leads to a disconnect from all kinds of scriptures.

I've often wondered if he realized just how much it would. more than likely he didn't really care. Now, with a whole theology built around that disconnect, the folks at the top of the Watchtower pyramid have one big problem on their hands. We recently saw one attempt to deal with that when they backed-off on a strict standing that the door to heaven was closed to everybody after 1935.,/p> Forscher

Romans 8:12-17 and your thoughts....

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