Did Russell Claim to be a Prophet ?

by chrisjoel 0 Replies latest jw friends

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  chrisjoel

  This is a bit long, but I think it spells things out.
  by Jim Penton
  
  
  In a second article in the 25 April 1894 Extra Edition of Zion’s Watch Tower called ‘Harvest Gatherings and Siftings,’ Russell wrote:
  
  Many are the inquiries relative to the truths presented in MILLENNIAL DAWN AND ZION’S WATCH TOWER, as to whence they came and how they developed to their present symmetrical and beautiful proportions—Were they the results of visions? Did God in any supernatural way grant the solution of these hitherto mysteries of his plan? Are the writers more than ordinary beings? Do they claim any supernatural wisdom or power? or how comes the revelation of God’s truth?
  No, dear friends, we claim nothing of superiority, nor supernatural power, dignity or authority; nor do we aspire to exalt ourselves in the estimation of our brethren of the household of faith, except in the sense that the Master urged it, saying “Let him who would be great among you be your servant.” (Matt. 20:27)
  
  
  Then after making this clear assertion, he stated at the bottom of page 93 the following:
  
  No, the truths that we present, as God’s mouthpieces, were not revealed in visions or dreams, nor by God’s audible voice, nor all at once, but gradually, especially since 1870, and particularly since 1880, a period of above twenty years. And this clear present unfolding of truth is not due to any human ingenuity or acuteness of perception, but to the simple fact that God’s due time has come; and if we did not speak, and no other agent could be found, the very stones would cry out.
  
  Of course Russell did not bother to question why he and his associates were ‘the agent’ that God in some way had chosen to reveal such ‘truths.’ But equally importantly, he was again deceiving himself without apparently recognizing the fact. That becomes clear from what he wrote on page 110 of the same article. There he wrote how, after prayer, the Lord had revealed to him the information he was to publish in Tabernacle Teachings and, later, in its revised form as Tabernacle Shadows of the Better Sacrifices.
  
  Believing that the prayer would be answered affirmatively, I went into my study next morning prepared to study and write. The forenoon I spent in scrutinizing the text and every other Scripture likely to shed light upon it, especially the epistle to the Hebrews, and in looking to the Lord for wisdom and guidance; but no solution of the difficult passage came. The afternoon and evening were similarly spent, and all of the next day. Everything else was neglected, and I wondered why the Lord kept me so long; but on the third day near noon the whole matter came to me as clear as the ‘noon-day sun—so clear and convincing and so harmonious with the whole tenor of Scripture, that I could not question its correctness; and no one has ever yet been able to find a flaw in it. (This has been published in several editions in pamphlet form under the title, “THE TABERNACLE SHADOWS OF THE BETTER SACRIFICES,” and can still be had by addressing the Watch Tower office.)
  Then I knew why the Lord had led me to it so slowly and cautiously. I needed special preparation of heart for the full appreciation of all it contained, and I was all the more assured that it was not of my own wisdom; for if of my own why would it not have come at once?
  
  What this indicates, despite his earlier disclaimers, is that in some way Russell felt he was receiving direct divine guidance, and from 1895 on he was to hold a position among Bible Students that was far more than that of just their Pastor. What happened is that Mrs Russell, following the 1894 ‘conspiracy’ vigorously defended her husband against former associates, and came up with a new doctrine respecting Matthew 24:45-7. That text in the King James Version reads: ‘Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.’ And Maria Russell chose to apply the term ‘faithful and wise servant’ from Jesus’s illustration to her husband.
  Earlier, Russell had held that ‘that servant’ was really an illustration of the Church - the little flock of 144,000 mentioned at Revelation 7 and 14. But his wife pointed to the fact that the ‘servant’ was singular while the church, the household’ of faith, was plural. Furthermore, if the church were ‘that servant’ and also the ‘household’ it would end up serving itself. Writing in December 1895, Maria Russell stressed her point forcefully to George Woolsey, a New York Bible Student:
  
  But when we come to Matt. 24:45-51 it appears to me to be a totally different case [from Revelation 16:15]. Here are brought to our attention--that servant,’ ‘his fellow servants’ and the ‘household.’ Now, if the Lord wished to indicate a chief servant of the truth, and fellow servant assisting in serving the meat in due season to the household of faith, he could not have chosen more precise language to convey such a thought. And, on the contrary, to ignore such an order and reasonableness in the account, to my mind throws the entire narrative into confusion, making the ‘servants’ (plural) and ‘that servant’ interchangeable terms.
  
  She then went on to argue that since Christ was present and had assumed his office of king in 1878, the household of faith was being richly supplied with ‘meat in due season’ by one servant. She did not have to say in so many words whom she meant. Russell was somewhat cautious in adopting his wife’s doctrine, probably because he had just been publicly accused of being authoritarian. Nevertheless, he was doubtlessly flattered by the new and enhanced role that she, by her exegesis, had created for him. Thus he accepted the logic of her interpretation, and his own writings began to make only slightly veiled statements to the effect that he was ‘that servant.’ It is true that Russell never called himself the ‘faithful and wise servant’ publicly. Also, he claimed that if ‘that servant’ became unfaithful and indiscreet, God would cast him off. Nevertheless, it is certain that he regarded himself as the ‘faithful and wise servant’ in spite of Watch Tower Society comments during the last several decades which state the contrary. The Memorial Edition of The Watch Tower of 1 December 1916 made this explicit: ‘Thousands of readers of Pastor Russell’s writings believe that he filled the office of that “faithful and wise servant,” and that his great work was giving to the household of faith meat in due season. His modesty and humility precluded him from openly claiming this title, but he admitted as much in private.’
  Another title given him by his followers was the ‘Laodicean Messenger.’ According to Three Worlds, the seven churches of Asia Minor mentioned in the first three chapters of Revelation pictured Christ’s church as a whole during different ages. The Laodicean church was seen as a type of the ‘last phase of the church.’ Consequently, since Bible Students believed that the last phase had begun in 1874, and Russell was being used as Jehovah’s chosen spokesman for the exposition of ‘new truths’ to the church, he was, by definition, the ‘Laodicean Messenger. A third title given Russell was ‘the man with the writer’s inkhorn.’ In Ezekiel 9, the prophet had a vision of six men with slaughter weapons in their hands and a seventh with a writer’s inkhorn at his side. The seventh was to place a mark on the foreheads of the inhabitants of Jerusalem who were sighing and crying over the abominations committed in the city. Others not so marked were to be slain by the six men with weapons. Now the Bible Students believed that this vision would have an antitypical fulfilment during Christ’s second presence, and Russell was therefore seen as the one marking those sighing and crying for the abominations committed in antitypical Jerusalem, or Christendom.
  
  In effect, to the Bible Students, Pastor Charles Taze Russell became God’s spokesman, his channel, dispensing spiritual food in a way that no other could. As noted, Russell always believed that the food had to be biblical, and he claimed to maintain the traditional sola scriptura - the Bible alone - doctrine of Protestantism. Yet, by granting him a special teaching role, the Bible Students (and Russell himself) were beginning to adopt something like the Roman Catholic concept of the magisterium or teaching authority of the papacy.