Is the New Testament only for the 144,000 then?

by TimothyT 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Fernando

  ONE body

  ONE hope (which is both heaven AND earth, since we will be LIKE Jesus having access also to higher dimensions)

  ONE faith

  ONE flock

  ONE baptism (including being baptised by Holy Spirit)

  Priesthood and sainthood of ALL believers. A right (righteous) and clean (holy) standing is IMPUTED as a free gift by grace and faith (in Christ) and not by any merit or membership (of a particular sectarian or denominational group or organisation).

  Every member organically (naturally) and authentically functioning BODY. No clergy (FDS/GB/hierarchy) versus laity (other sheep, great crowd). "Unity in Christ" instead of contrived "unity in doctrine". No pretentious and supremacist legalism, moralism and so on.

  Eph 2:6; 4:4,5; John 10:16.
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  TimothyT

  Ooooh thanks Fernando... I have looked at that scripture so much lately, and i didnt even realise that it smashes the whole 144000 / Great Crowd thingy to bits! :)
• 

  jonathan dough

  The first thing that you must understand is that the JWs are wrong about everything, and I'm not kidding.

  If you are serious about the dirty nitty-gritties of these issues take a look at the information here which goes into detail about the so-called 144,000 and their twist on their New Covenant, the earthly paradise, the 144,000 and lots more. They profess a bizarre salvation theory which is completey at odds with mainstream Chrtistian theology.

  Introduction: Prying open the trap door; is disseminating some of the Society's literature an unforgivable sin?; critical flaws in the Jehovah's Witnesses' methods of analysis; and, who really authors the Society's literature?

  I. Summary of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings as they relate to the contents of this paper.

  A) The revolving door of ever-changing doctrine
  
  B) The New Testament was written primarily for the 144,000 who alone go to heaven to ultimately rule over all remaining Jehovah's Witnesses and the resurrected on earth
  
  C) The Great Crowd on earth will engage in perfecting resurrected flesh-and-blood humans to a sinless condition
  
  D) The Great Crowd must pass a final test to gain eternal life
  
  E) The New Covenant applies only to God, Christ and the 144,000; it shall expire shortly. Only the 144,000 have their sins forgiven from Calvary to the 1,000 year reign
  
  F) Pre-incarnate Christ was just a created angel, not eternal, and while on earth nothing more than a man, a human. Jesus returned to earth in 1914 (the parousia)
  
  G) The Jehovah's Witnesses were taught they're separating the sheep from the goats in their door-to-door ministry
  
  H) Only the Great Crowd survives Armageddon. The Great Crowd will restore the earth to a paradise and educate resurrected sinners to a state of perfection subject to even more laws and regulations; those to be re-educated include the patriarchs, Moses, etc.
  I) The Great Crowd and resurrected humans are not judged for any sins committed in this life, but only for sins committed during the 1,000 year reign, and after
  
  J) Salvation can be gained only by passing a final test

  II. Assuming that the 144,000 are in heaven, the number 144,000 representing the sealed servants of God mentioned in chapters 7 and 14 in the book of Revelation cannot be taken literally. Like many other signs in Revelation it is merely symbolic.

  A) Because the earth shall be destroyed, the resurrected, and the Great Crowd, cannot be ruled over by the 144,000 from heaven

  III. The Great Crowd of Revelation 7:9 standing before God’s throne in heaven and before the Lamb is not standing on earth in an ‘approved condition,’ but in heaven.

  IV. The return of Jesus Christ to earth, his Second Coming, did not occur in 1914, nor did Jesus begin to rule God’s kingdom in 1914; he began his rule in the first century A.D. and received more than a subsidiary share of the kingdom of God. Furthermore, the first judgment day did not begin in 1914 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have never separated the sheep (the Great Crowd) from the goats on behalf of God Almighty.

  A) The Jehovah's Witnesses limit the "eternal New Covenant" of Jeremiah 31:31-34 to Christ and the 144,000; this New Covenant kingdom lasts approximately 2,000 years. This is not a Bible teaching.
  
  B) The Jehovah's Witnesses teach, incorrectly, that the real kingdom of God, the 1914 kingdom, began in 1914, but Jesus received only a "subsidiary share" of this kingdom. However, these two kingdoms are not separate kingdoms, and such distinctions are mere fabrications

  1) The 1914 kingdom is premised on a faulty date because Jerusalem was not destroyed in 607 B.C.
  
  2) The Jehovah's Witnesses' 1914 date is biblically unsupportable
  
  3) The Second Coming of Christ is a future event
  
  4) Christ had all authority when he ascended; he did not receive a subsidiary share 1,900 years later
  
  5) Christ began to rule God's kingdom in the first century, not 1914
  
  6) The book of Revelation does not only "deal with events then future" which is a mere ploy to shift the Lord's Day to 1914
  
  7) Christ's parousia, or Second Coming, occurs after the Great Tribulation has begun, not before, not in 1914. Neither was the New Covenant priesthood established in 1918, but during the first century

  A) The Covenants:The Jehovah's Witnesses' other Achilles’ Heel and the key to bringing God's alleged 1914 kingdom, and the 20th century New Covenant arrangement back to the first century where they belong.B) The Davidic Covenanta) The invention of new covenants and abrogation of existing covenants: In order to place the inception of God's kingdom in 1914, the Jehovah's Witnesses have wrongfully stripped the Davidic covenant of a priesthood, severed the Davidic covenant from the New Covenant, and limit the New Covenant to a temporary 2,000-year periodi) A first century priesthood undermines the JWs' "1914 kingdom" theory and the "first resurrection of the 144,000" theory
  
  ii) An everlasting New Covenant would destroy the Jehovah's Witnesses' salvation plan during the millennial reign.
  
  iii) An everlasting New Covenant would prevent the JWs from education man to a state of perfection and repeatedly judging him
  
  iv) The Jehovah's Witnesses are unable to eliminate Jesus after the 1,000 year reign if the New Covenant, for which he is the mediator forever, is everlasting
  
  b) The Jehovah's Witnesses' approach deprives the high priest Jesus of his priesthood, a problem they attempt to solve by inventing a separate "Melchizedek covenant." However, the so-called Melchizedek covenant is the New Covenant and therefore must last forever and include a priesthood of all Christian believers
  
  c) All of the Jehovah's Witnesses' benefits under their temporary new covenant terminate when their new Covenant expires, shortly
  
  d) The Jehovah's Witnesses' "covenant with Christ's followers" is a fabrication; it is not a valid separate covenant for yet another kingdom, but an administrative appointment with respect to the kingdom
  
  C) Summary of Covenants

  V. It is impossible for the Great Crowd and resurrected humans on earth to be “perfected” or justified by an educational program, strict adherence to external laws or decrees, and the passing of tests. Such works-based salvation can never reconcile man to God and renders the blood sacrifice of Jesus worthless. All saved people must be parties to the New Covenant. Without Christ’s blood sacrifice under the New Covenant there can be no redemption and forgiveness of sin, or benefit of the gift of life everlasting by grace for anyone in the Christian era.

  A) The Jehovah's Witnesses' education-based salvation plan recapped
  
  B) No man can be justified or perfected by an educational progam
  
  C) Only the sins of the 144,000 are forgiven under the The Jehovah's Witnesses' New Covenant, which is clearly not a Bible teaching
  
  D) Only true believers who are parties to the New Covenant can receive forgiveness of sins and other attendant benefits
  
  E) The Jehovah's Witnesses' teaching that resurrected man, including billions of non-believers, will not be judged for sins committed in this life is not biblical
  
  F) All men are judged for their conduct in this life; true believers are passed over in the condemnation
  
  G) The Jehovah's Witnesses' millennial scrolls are actually recordings of man's deeds in this life, not aditional rules and regulations

  VI. The first resurrection did not begin in 1918 with the commencement of the resurrection of the 144,000 to heaven.

  VII. The patriarchs and prophets of old and the Great Crowd go to heaven because a) their names are written in the Lamb’s scroll, b) resurrected flesh-and-blood humans cannot be immortal, and because death will be vanquished forever they must experience immortality in heaven as spirit humans with their glorified flesh-and-blood bodies transformed, not as earthly flesh, and c) physiologically and morally corrupt mortals who enter into the kingdom are not raised corrupt, but rather incorrupt, incorruptible and immortal, the only condition which allows them to inherit the kingdom of heaven, which is in heaven.

  VIII. Jesus Christ, as helper with respect to propitiation and as legal intermediary, is not discarded at the end of the thousand year reign; as the propitiation, the sacrificed Lamb and mediator of the New Covenant he is present forever, to intercede on man’s behalf, without which man cannot have access to God, be reconciled to the Almighty or have his name written permanently in the Book of Life.

  IX. Conclusion: All Christian believers must be parties to the New Covenant which is everlasting, not temporary; otherwise, there is no hope for salvation.