"And I have other sheep not of this fold..." PRESENT TENSE!!...i have questions

by oompa 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  oompa

  Did WT really believe that everyone prior to jesus death is resting and awaiting ONLY a earthly hope? And then when Jesus died, everyone following him ONLY had a heavenly hope until 1934-35....and then nearly all ONLY had an earthly hope again? Of course recently they did open up heaven again, so now there are BOTH "callings" taking place, both heaven and earth on sale at the same time......sooooo

  this kinda ties in with all the recent memorial comments....I have been researching something I find odd...that is this "other sheep" earthly class all of a sudden coming to life in 1934-35 nearly 2000 years after jesus death.....especially in light of:

  (John

  see according to this statement....he says is "HAS" other sheep not of the fold of the "little flock" (supposedly a literal 144k for heaven)...he did not say that "sometime in the last days i will have other sheep".....that would mean that in jesus day the earthly hope was there for the Other Sheep, and heaven for the Little Flock AT THE SAME TIME JUST LIKE NOW.......that would ALSO mean that the Christian Greek Scriptures were NOT just for the little flock....he even says they will become one flock (how could they become one shepherd too btw?)

  does it not seem logical that if... since jesus death there would be only a heavenly calling for nearly 2000 years....that there would have been some major prophecy point to a time in the future when an earthly class would begin signing up??

  i think it makes no sense that some people could only have one hope for thousands of years....and other people for thousands of years would have only one hope, and i don't even know why they came up with the 1935 timeline idea of paradise earth life starting up again.......how did they come up with this TIME of 1935??...why not just have said both groups had been called since jesus day...esp with John 10:16 sitting right there so simple..........oompa
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  OnTheWayOut

  And then when Jesus died, everyone following him ONLY had a heavenly hope until 1934-35

  Someone will come along with a quote or seven, but NO. The focus was on gathering the anointed after Jesus' death, but by the second century when the great apostasy came along and removed "YHWH" from the Greek scriptures and twisted Christianity, very few people were anointed. They knew they had to keep the number at a handful for 1900 or so years or people could see that the math doesn't make sense.

  Yes, I know the math doesn't make sense anyway, but it cannot be proven right or wrong.
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  OnTheWayOut

  All you will do is expand their "current" understandings if you follow your logic.

  Let's try some simple playing it out. If you say:
  "There must have been other sheep not of the anointed during the first century for Jesus to say he had other sheep not of this fold."

  They will answer:
  "Okay, that makes sense. The Society understanding is more correct then. If many back then were invited, but not of the anointed caliber, then there is still room left for more anointed today."
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  Awakened at Gilead

  The other sheep are the Gentiles, a few years later (Eph Ch 3)
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  leavingwt

  The secondary (inferior) class of Christians was invented by Rutherford to solidify his power and authority over everyone else.

  He perverted the common understanding of John 10:16, which is that the Other Sheep = The Gentiles.

  Once the secondary (inferior) class of Christians was created, all sorts of lies had to be maintained or invented. 144,000 is not a figurative number. Christ is not the Mediator of the Other Sheep. The list goes on and on.
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  gubberningbody

  Or it could simply have meant that the only ones that were of his fold at that time were his apostles and the small group with him and others would come join them. It didn't even have to mean samaritans or gentiles. It could have just been "Others will join" and nothing more.
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  bob1999

  "The other sheep are the Gentiles, a few years later (Eph Ch 3)"

  It's Eph Ch 2 and I agree. Romans Ch 11 is talking about the Jews that don't accept Christ and how they are broken off and "a wild olive shoot" is grafted on in their place.

  In John 10:16 Christ is talking to unbelieving Jews. The Jews, as a nation, were always God's sheep. His chosen people. But the individual Jews Jesus was talking to were not sheep at all as they were unbelievers.

  Clearly the other sheep Jesus was talking about were the Gentiles. The interesting thing about this verse; He called them sheep. Jesus didn't say I have, or there are other goats that I will make into sheep.

  This had to be years before Paul started his work, years before the Good News was given to the Gentiles. But they were already Christ's sheep.

  Where am I going with this? Romans 8:28 through 9:26 "........And those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified....."

  One really needs to read and study the whole section. The point is, of course Jesus knew those of the Gentiles that were His sheep. He knows all His sheep.

  Ephesians 1:4-6

  "just as he chose us in the Messiah before the creation of the universe to be holy and blameless in his presence. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself through Jesus the Messiah, according to the pleasure of his will, so that we would praise his glorious grace that he gave us in the Beloved One."

  BTW the "remnant" that will be saved are the scant few Jews that will be saved in spite of the fact that Israel, as a nation, rejected Christ.

  Paul quotes Isaiah in the next verse (Romans 9:27) "THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED; "

  Peace
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  Narkissos

  Excellent observation.

  One particularly interesting feature of the Fourth Gospel (and evidence for its early Gnostic tendencies) is that in many passages conversion (or being born from above, etc.) doesn't create but reveal a (existing though hidden and latent) relationship with the Father or Jesus.

  Take the best parallel to the "other sheep" = Gentiles passage in 11:51f: "He (Caiaphas) did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God."

  The children, although scattered, already areGod's children just as the sheep are the good shepherd's sheep (he knows them by name, they know his voice, before he calls them -- and for this reason they follow him).

  Take also the so-called priestly prayer of chapter 17: "I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me..." For this reason although they were picked from the world they were never from the world.

  This theme actually runs throughout the Fourth Gospel in a discrete but consistent way. Cf. already 6:37ff with the more enigmatic use of the neuter instead of the masculine (= personal) "what the Father gave me".
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  slimboyfat

  1. Non-Jews were not evangelised until years after this utterance. So whichever interpretation is promoted, the gathering of the other sheep was still future.

  2. There were of course members of the "other sheep", as conceived by JWs, alive at that time: John the Baptist and other followers who died before Jesus.

  3. Plus since the WT abandoned the 1935 date it is not at all clear that it is flatly denied that there could have been "other sheep" gathered in the first century after Jesus' death, maybe many thousands of them.
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  wobble

  But do you agree Slimboy,that they are gathered into the one fold with ONE hope?

  love

  Wobble