by Ding 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
In view of their teaching that there is no separate soul apart from the body, how does the WT interpret Matthew 10:28: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
I'm not asking about the hell issue here.
I'm wondering in WT doctrine how it's possible someone to kill the body but not the soul.
Ding, were you a Witness, check out the Reasoning Book.
Indeed.
Along similar lines
10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.
25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Blessings,
Stephen
From what it seemed like to me, JW's still believe in the soul... they just called it spirit instead of soul. They just don't believe in the immortality of the soul/spirit. Always seemed like a semantics point to me.
Tammy
I've been wondering about that one recently myself.
They ignore the grammar, superimpose their doctrine, and hope nobody notices.
Insight, Vol 1, page 616
Everlasting Destruction. The Bible does not indicate that all the dead will be resurrected. Jesus implied this when he spoke of “those who have been counted worthy of gaining that system of things and the resurrection from the dead.” (Lu 20:35) The possibility of eternal destruction for some is also indicated by Jesus’ words at Matthew 10:28: “Do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” Regarding this text, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (edited by C. Brown, 1978, Vol. 3, p. 304) states: “Matt. 10:28 teaches not the potential immortality of the soul but the irreversibility of divine judgment on the unrepentant.” Also, Bauer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (revised by F. W. Gingrich and F. Danker, 1979, p. 95) gives the meaning “eternal death” with reference to the Greek phrase in Matthew 10:28 translated “destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” Thus, being consigned to Gehenna refers to utter destruction from which no resurrection is possible.—See GEHENNA.
If i remember right (and it's been a while), they believe that means they can destroy the present life now, but not the future possibilities for life. In other words, man can destroy a life now, but can't take away the prospect of everlasting life in the future.
I know that is not what it actually says in that verse, but that's the best they could come up with when the Bible so blatantly disagrees with their teachings.
Designs,
Yes, I have the Reasoning book.
Looking at that book, the WT's position on "soul" seems contradictory and confusing.
On page 375 it says that "soul" means "a person or an animal or the life that a person or an animal enjoys."
On that page, they equate "soul" with "a living person."
On page 382, it says that the soul is the person.
The soul (person) that sins will die.
By those definitions, it's not possible to kill a human being (person) without killing his soul because the soul is the person himself.
But on pages 173-174 it says that in Matthew 10:28 when Jesus says "soul" he is referring not to the person's life, but to his life's prospects in the resurrection.
But the WT teaches that animals as well as people are souls (page 376), and animals have no life prospects in a resurrection.
This definition of "soul" doesn't make sense at all in Genesis 2:7: "... and the man became a living soul."
And, of course, they teach that the soul isn't the same as the spirit because they believe the spirit is the person's impersonal life force.
Although no one really ever challenged me on all this, it just doesn't make sense to me now.
It seems totally inconsistent.
IMHO, man is tripartite being made in the image of God as we are :)
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How can the soul be the same as the spirit when they can be divided?
12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Anyhow, back to debunking the WT tripe.
Blessings,
Stephen
Ding,
What the Society did was use 'soul' as a literary device in Matthew, agree or disagree, people have been taking bits of the Bible literally, allegorically and any other whichway they can splice it for their own purposes for a long long time.
Stephen, your calling the Watchtower ideas tripe is like a sow calling a pig a swine.
