by leavingwt 61 Replies latest jw friends
Do Some JW's Go to Heaven?
I read both of Ray Franz's books, and I was left with the impression that in his opinion, being a Christian and being a JW were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some of my Christian coworkers have also expressed similar thoughts, when they say that there are "Christ's brothers" within many different denominations.
I would really be interested in reading what you have to say on this topic. Please be as brief or as detailed as you'd like.
The whole 'accepting Christ', getting dunked and yadda-yadda-yadda stuff to gain eternal life in the Bible always bothered me because it basically says if you aren't Christian, you're screwed. Knowing that most of the world isn't Christian made me doubt the honesty in the Bible about this.
Do you think THESE people will be granted eternal life? They sure don't look 'Christian' to me:
Heaven -- Thank you. Those guys in the photo look happy enough. My question is directed (mostly) to believing Christians.
This is my view "leavingwt",
Yes, there will be JWs going to Heaven. If they have confessed that they are sinners and believe that Jesus died to save them from their sins. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. There is no other name given under Heaven whereby we are saved. Many JWs truly love Jesus and whether they ever leave the organization or not they will still go to Heaven.
Salvation accomplishes a restored relationship with our creator.
Blessings - Pat
Pat:
Many JWs truly love Jesus and whether they ever leave the organization or not they will still go to Heaven.
Salvation accomplishes a restored relationship with our creator.
Thank you for your response, Pat. I'm also imagining some restored relationships between JW and ex-JW family members in Heaven, a No Shunning Zone.
I believe it is a relationship with Christ that matters (one that manifests itself in love)... not religion or lack of religion, jw or ex/non jw.
Tammy
Tammy:
I believe it is a relationship with Christ that matters (one that manifests itself in love)... not religion or lack of religion, jw or ex/non jw.
Thank you. Would you also agree that being a JW can often make this very difficult, with so much attention focused on 'Jehovah' and works?
Yes, there will be JWs going to Heaven. If they have confessed that they are sinners and believe that Jesus died to save them from their sins. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. There is no other name given under Heaven whereby we are saved. Many JWs truly love Jesus and whether they ever leave the organization or not they will still go to Heaven.
Salvation accomplishes a restored relationship with our creator.
This is almost exactly what Ed & Marion Dunlap came to believe, and told me so, some years after leaving the witnesses at the time of the Ray Franz blowup.
It is my suspicion (my unsubstantiated opinion only, note) that Ed was very close to accepting the full divinity of Christ (if not fully the trinity) by the time he died. One of his favorite statements at the time is that we have absolutely no way to know anything about Jehovah except what we might know by knowing Christ. In other words - that Jesus was the revealed Jehovah, and totally supercedes anything in the old testament, which he suspected may have been influenced by later Jewish ideas.
I never told Ed that I was actually an agnostic up to the time he passed away out of respect for his feelings. Marion suspected it, but we also remained friends and discussed all these religious ideas up until he died years later.
JWoods -- Very interesting, thank you. It's this idea of a 'Big' God, who is not playing a game of Gotcha!, narrowly defining his children, that is most appealing to me.
Thank you. Would you also agree that being a JW can often make this very difficult, with so much attention focused on 'Jehovah' and works?
Absolutely. In fact, I would say that any JW who finds Christ, does so in spite of being a JW and certainly not because of it.
Tammy
