by Pallbearer 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Question: Does the Watchtower Society teach that people who die at Armageddon will not be resurrected?
Please give a "yes" or "no" answer to start with. Then, if your answer is "yes" please document that it is taught with references or quotes from the WTS's publications or public talks that have been given.
Thank you for any assistance that you can provide.
Yes, they teach this. (Hence, the many JWs that want to die, BEFORE Armageddon happens.)
According to JW dogma, ANYONE killed by JEHOVAH is in GEHENNA.
When Jehovah kills somebody they STAY DEAD.
re chap. 41 p. 297 par. 8 God’s Day of Judgment—Its Joyful Outcome! *** (Revelation Book)
8 "There are, of course, an unknown number who will not be resurrected. Among these would be the unrepentant scribes and Pharisees who rejected Jesus and the apostles, the religious “man of lawlessness,” and anointed Christians “who have fallen away.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3; Hebrews 6:4-6; Matthew 23:29-33) Jesus also spoke of goatlike people at the world’s end who go into “the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels,” namely, “everlasting cutting-off.” (Matthew 25:41, 46) No resurrection for these!"
WT 88 6/1 p31
"When asked about “the conclusion of the system of things,” Jesus foretold the coming “end” and a “great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning.” (Matthew 24:3, 14, 21) He went on to speak of “the days of Noah” and what “occurred in the days of Lot” as being examples of people who took no note of warning about coming destruction. Jesus added: “The same way it will be on that day when the Son of man is to be revealed.” (Luke 17:26-30; compare Matthew 24:36-39.) Was Jesus illustrating just an attitude, or does the context in which he used these examples suggest that eternal judgments were involved?
Later, Peter wrote about God’s judgments and His punishing those deserving it. Then Peter used three examples: The angels that sinned, the ancient world of Noah’s time, and those destroyed in Sodom/Gomorrah. The latter, Peter said, ‘set a pattern for ungodly persons of things to come.’ (2 Peter 2:4-9) Thereafter, he compared the destruction that people suffered in the Deluge with the coming “day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men.” That precedes the promised new heavens and new earth.—2 Peter 3:5-13.
Likewise, at the end of the present wicked system, will those whom God executes have had a final judgment? That is the indication of 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9: “It is righteous on God’s part to repay tribulation to those who make tribulation for you, but, to you who suffer tribulation, relief along with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings vengeance upon those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus. These very ones will undergo the judicial punishment of everlasting destruction from before the Lord and from the glory of his strength.”
I know they teach if you leave the organization, and Armageddon comes, you will not be ressurected. But it doesn't really matter what they teach because God would never use a religion that has lied and been wrong so many times.
I know they teach if you leave the organization, and Armageddon comes, you will not be resurrected. But it doesn't really matter what they teach because God would never use a religion that has lied and been wrong so many times.
I heard the idea that the big A was a "judgement". If you died in a "judgement" you had been flushed down the toilet completely by plunging the lever twice.
I do not recall them making much statement on such things as the Egyptian army, the flood, Jericho, or such.
Adam (and Eve) were such a contraversy back in the early 1960s.
If you died in a "judgement" you had been flushed down the toilet completely by plunging the lever twice.
Judgement = Jehovah Killed You (He doesn't make mistakes. If he goes to the trouble of killing you, then you stay dead.)
Right, leavingWT. This was REALLY what they said.
So, does that include Adam & Eve, the flood bobbers, Pharoah's army, Jericho, etc.?
One other possible flaw was the idea that possibly millions of red chinese would never hear the message - what happens to them at Armaggedon?
Someplace, the WT presented the idea that they would be given a chance to respond to the WT in the 1000 years - so they must live through Armaggedon, right?
Supremely logical - they get to see the big A, probably thinking the U.S. launched a nuclear war, and then get overrun by the JWs telling them what to do. Lovely.
The WTS compares the flood, sodom and gomorrah, and those who die in judgment at Armageddon as being based on the same premise, JWoods, it being a judgment period.
While the WTS dances around this issue, this quote from 1989 (no new light since) is quite clear.
***
w89 9/1 p. 19 par. 7 Remaining Organized for Survival Into the Millennium***
Only Jehovah’s Witnesses, those of the anointed remnant and the "great crowd," as a united organization under the protection of the Supreme Organizer, have any Scriptural hope of surviving the impending end of this doomed system dominated by Satan the Devil. (Revelation 7:9-17; 2 Corinthians 4:4) They will make up the "flesh" that Jesus Christ said would be saved through the worst tribulation of all human history. As it was in the days of Noah, said Jesus, so it would be in the day when He would be revealed. Inside the ark that took many years of organized effort to complete, only eight human souls survived the global Deluge. They survived as a united family group. (Matthew 24:22, 37-39; Luke 17:26-30) Noah’s wife corresponds to the bride of Christ, and his sons and daughters-in-law to Jesus’ present-day "other sheep," who have grown into an increasing great crowd, the final proportions of which we do not now know. (John 10:16) For survival into the Millennium under the Greater Noah, Jesus Christ, they have to remain organized with the anointed remnant, "the chosen ones" on account of whom the days of the "great tribulation" will be cut short.—Matthew 24:21, 22
JUDGMENT PERIODS
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*** w60 1/15 pp. 52-54 This Is a Time of Judgment ***
JUDGMENT PERIODS
There have been certain periods in human history when Jehovah God has turned his attention toward the earth for judgment. The people he put under surveillance were judged by their course of action toward his righteous principles and purposes. The first human pair, for example, were under divine judgment, but their bad conduct brought them a sentence of death.
The people who lived immediately before the flood of Noah’s day passed through a judgment period that ended when the Flood swept most of them out of existence. Because of their wicked disregard for God and his purposes he judged them adversely. "He did not hold back from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a deluge upon a world of ungodly people."—2 Pet. 2:5.
There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that these people were or shall be punished in a fiery hell. From the time of Adam to this very day the punishment for wickedness has not been conscious torment in a fiery hell but rather death—a cutting off from life. "For the wages sin pays is death." "Jehovah is guarding all those loving him, but all the wicked ones he will annihilate."—Rom. 6:23; Ps. 145:20.
After mentioning the world destroyed by the Flood and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that were destroyed by fire, Peter states: "Jehovah knows how to deliver people of godly devotion out of trial, but to reserve unrighteous people for the day of judgment to be cut off." (2 Pet. 2:9) These two outstanding judgment periods were proofs of this. The wicked people in each period were reserved, or allowed to remain, throughout their judgment periods until the day of their execution. But persons of godly devotion who had received a favorable judgment were preserved.
These judgment periods are examples for us. They are prophetic pictures of the great judgment period in which we now live. Jesus himself pointed this out when he said: "Just as it occurred in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of man . . . Likewise, just as it occurred in the days of Lot."—Luke 17:26, 28.
Throughout the centuries Jehovah God has permitted the wicked to remain and to dominate the earth, and they continue to do so in the present period of judgment. Those who are judged unrighteous will not survive the end of this period, whereas persons of godly devotion shall. "For those being blessed by him will themselves possess the earth, but those upon whom evil is called by him will be cut off." (Ps. 37:22) They will be cut off from existence.
DIVINE JUDGMENTS ARE FINAL
Since the supreme Judge never makes a mistake, there is no need for him to take under review any judgment that he has passed. His judgments are final. That means the people who perished in the flood of Noah’s day will never be resurrected to stand trial again. The same is true with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as Adam and Eve. All had their judgment day before the great Judge of the universe and all were sentenced to destruction. They will never have a conscious existence again. The same will be true of those in the present judgment period whom God will destroy at its conclusion.
Jehovah God’s infallible judgment of the unrighteous in the present judgment period will be just as final as it was for the people he sentenced to death in past judgment periods. They will not stand before him after death for another judgment. The promise at Hebrews 9:27 does not apply to them. It says: "It is reserved for men to die once for all time, but after this a judgment." The persons referred to here are those who die because of Adam’s sin, not because they have been judged adversely by God after death and then executed by him. Such persons can die only once because of Adam’s sin, but during the 1,000-year reign of Christ they will be resurrected and judged as to their worthiness for continued life on the basis of the course of action they take toward God’s principles and purposes then.—See TheWatchtower as of June 15, 1947, pages 180-182.
What you are faced with today is a judgment for survival through the coming war of the great day of God the Almighty when he will carry out his long-standing promise to destroy this wicked world or system of things. You are in a position similar to that of the people who lived in the judgment period before the Flood. Like them you are under divine surveillance, with your conduct toward God’s purposes and his kingdom ministers determining your judgment. Jesus pointed this out in a long-range prophecy recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. He there likened the present judging of mankind to a shepherd’s separating sheep from goats.
FYI:
One other possible flaw was the idea that possibly millions of red chinese would never hear the message - what happens to them at Armaggedon?
That issue is off-topic, but here goes. (The topic is about those who DIED at Armageddon.)
Yes, you will find statements, here and there, that would seem to indicate that Jehovah "might" read some hearts at Armageddon. This, however, is NEVER an option for a person exposed to The Truth.
You can even find the politically correct bull$hit about non-JWs surviving on their public relations website. As you can see, they sidestep the question, providing an answer that is totally unrelated to the spirit of the question. Any JW worth his salt can tell you that only JWs will survive Armageddon.
http://jw-media.org/beliefs/beliefsfaq.htm
No. Many millions who have lived in centuries past and who were not Jehovah's Witnesses will come back in a resurrection and have an opportunity for life. Many now living may yet take a stand for truth and righteousness before God's time of judgment, and they will gain salvation. Moreover, Jesus said that we should not be judging one another. Humans look at the outward appearance; God looks at the heart. He sees accurately and judges mercifully. God has committed judgment into Jesus' hands, not ours.—Matthew 7:1-5; John 5:22, 27.
