Hi chrisuk. Sorry this is a bit long but it's a cut-n-paste from an article I wrote years ago on the topic of the ransom.
It deals with the two-teir doctrine from a biblical perspective. Hopefully you can make use of some of it.
You can read the whole essay here...
The Society teach that not everyone who puts faith in Jesus is declared righteous to the same extent. It describes the majority of believers as having only, “a degree of righteousness” credited to them, as having a “relatively righteous standing” before God, and of being counted as righteous “compared to mankind in general.” (See The Watchtower, 1 December 1985, p.17).
Bible writers know of no such half-hearted generosity on God’s part. Either we are forgiven or we are not. Either we are declared righteous in God’s eyes or we are not. Being righteous compared to mankind in general will not reconcile us to God. That would leave us like the man on the roof mentioned earlier, closer to the stars than his neighbours, but still light years removed from his goal. Indeed the very notion of having a “relatively righteous standing” before God is nonsensical. It is comparable to describing a woman as being relatively pregnant. If we have “a degree of righteousness” credited to us then we are still marred by a degree of sin, which God must condemn and punish, and therefore we remain alienated from him.
Jesus did not just bear some of our sins: He bore all of them. The “great crowd” of Revelation 7 are said to have,“washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” not relatively clean compared to mankind in general.The “sheep” of Jesus’ parable at Matt. 25:31-46 are referred to as the “righteous ones” who depart “into everlasting life”, not as the relatively righteous who qualify for a second chance.
The Bible uses the analogy of adoption to illustrate the relationship with God that Jesus’ death makes possible. It is one of the first things that John tells us in his gospel. “As many as did receive him, to them he gave authority to become God’s children, because they were exercising faith (“believing”; Interlinear) in his name, and they were born, not from blood, or from a fleshly will or from man’s will, but from God.” (Jhn.1:12,13)
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There are, by the Bible’s reckoning, only two sorts of people. Everybody begins as the same sort; children of Adam or, “in Adam”. In this state they are, under “condemnation” (Rom.5:18), “alienated” from, and “enemies” of God (Col.1:21), “children of wrath” Eph. 2:3, under the “authority of darkness” (Col.1:13), walking in “accord with the flesh” (Rom.8:4), “slaves of sin” (Rom.6:17), and “dead in their trespasses” (Eph.2:1&5).
This is not the Bible’s description of an especially depraved person but of the normal human condition from God’s perspective. It matters not at all that we may not feel guilty or under condemnation, God’s inspired word says emphatically that we are.
The other sort of person is, “in Christ”. These are, “declared righteous” (Rom.5:1), “reconciled to God” (Rom.5:10), “born of God” (1 Jhn.5:1) or “born again” (Jhn.3:3), “beloved children” of God (Eph.5:1), “transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love” (Col.1:13), indwelled by “God’s Spirit” (Rom.8:9), part of a “new creation” (2 Cor.5:17), and “alive together with the Christ” (Eph.2:5).
The difference between these two groups is not that the latter are more worthy, or that they try harder to be good, nor that they naturally have more interest in spiritual matters or an ability to read and understand the Bible. It is simply that they have put faith in God’s provision for their salvation. They have humbly abandoned their attempts to earn His favour and trusted in Jesus as their Saviour. For someone to feel that these blessings could not apply to them because they are not worthy is for that person to miss the point of the good news. Nobody is good enough, that is exactly the point at which the gospel begins.
We cannot pick and choose which of the above descriptions of those who belong to God apply to us, and which ones do not. We cannot for example be reconciled to God, but not be a “new creation”. (see 2 Cor.5:16-19) We cannot be “beloved children” of God, but not be “born of God”. We cannot draw a line between calling God “Father”, and calling him, “Abba, Father”. If we have not been adopted then we are not His children, He is not our Father, and we have no right to call Him such at all. If we are His children then we are also joint heirs with Christ. If we are “in harmony with the Spirit” then “God’s Spirit truly dwells” in us, but if we do not have the Holy Spirit then we do “not belong to” Christ. (See Rom.8:9-17) Only if we are “led by the Spirit” can we produce the “fruitage of the Spirit”. But again, if we are, then we can cry out “Abba Father” and we are adopted as sons of God and joint heirs with Christ. (See Gal.4:6,7;5:16-24)
The teaching that God’s promise of adoption as sons applies only to a small minority of those who put faith in Jesus is an especially pernicious doctrine. Being “anointed” or “born again”, is not simply a technical label that distinguishes a person as having a heavenly calling as opposed to an earthly one. It is a description of the life that can be enjoyed by all who have been forgiven and reconciled with God. It has to do, not with where God wants us to spend eternity, but whether or not we are reconciled to him now, and therefore have any eternity to look forward to at all.
It is clear from his first letter that John did not view being born again as something that applied only to a few Christians. He says that, “Everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God.” (1 Jhn.5:1) And later in the same letter he wrote, “See what sort of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and such we are.” (1 Jhn.3:1)
It is taught by the Society that those who died prior to Pentecost have a different destiny to believers since then, and that all but a tiny “remnant” of those alive today have the same hope as faithful ones of ancient times. The Scripture that is often used to support this view is Jesus’ words at Matt.11:11. “Truly I say to you people, among those born of women there has not been raised up a greater than John the Baptist; but a person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is.”
These words of Jesus have to be read in the wider context of His teaching about the kingdom. Earlier, while in the city of Capernium, He had been struck by the faith of a gentile army officer. Addressing the crowd that was following him he said, “I tell you that many from eastern parts and western parts will come and recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens; whereas the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the darkness outside.” (Matt.8:11,12) Contrary to the teaching of the Watchtower Society then, these three faithful men who died many centuries before Jesus, will be in the kingdom of the heavens. So belief that John the Baptist and others will not be there simply because they died too soon clearly lacks scriptural foundation. When read in context it can be seen that Jesus had in mind, not John’s future destiny but his present prophetic role. “The law was given through Moses, undeserved kindness and the truth came to be through Jesus Christ.” John 1:17
Going back again to Paul’s letter to Rome, we find that he uses the example of Abraham to illustrate how it is that God declares those who have faith to be righteous. To argue that Abraham was not declared righteous in the same way, or to the same extent as Christians, as the Watchtower attempts to do –Yes, due to his faith, Abraham was declared righteous as a friend of Jehovah, not as a son with the right to perfect human life or to kingship with Christ” – The Watchtower, 1 December 1985 – cannot be sustained in the light of chapters three and four of Romans. Paul explains explicitly and at length that Abraham is the model of the way all are justified by faith. He says, “He is the father of us all.” (v.16)
Of course this raises the question of how God could forgive the sins of those who lived in the past before Jesus provided the means of reconciliation. Paul deals with this specifically in chapter three where he says that, “God set [Jesus] forth as an offering for propitiation through faith in his blood. This was in order to exhibit his own righteousness because he was forgiving the sins that occurred in the past while God was exercising forbearance, so as to exhibit his own righteousness in this present season, that he might be righteous even when declaring righteous the man who has faith in Jesus.” (Rom.3:23-26) Jesus’ death was an event in which God demonstrated or exhibited His righteousness once for all time. It does not matter whether a person lived centuries before Jesus or after Him. Jesus carried the sins of us all and everyone having faith is declared righteous on the same basis.
To divide people into those with a heavenly hope and those with an earthly one is not a Biblical concept. “There are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell” (2 Pet.3:13), but that does not mean that God has selected some for heaven and some for earth. In the sermon on the mount Jesus began by making the nine statements known as the beatitudes, in which he declares certain types of people to be happy or blessed, and in each case he makes a promise concerning their future. (Matt.5:3-12) It is clear that Jesus is painting a composite picture of all those who belong to Him, not a list from which individual statements could be chosen and applied to individuals at random. Among the promises that Jesus makes are, “the kingdom of the heavens belong to them”, “they will inherit the earth”, “they will see God” and “they will be called sons of God.” If we are part of Christ’s body then we all have the same hope as Paul reminded the congregation at Ephesus. “One body there is, and one Spirit, even as you were called in the one hope to which you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph.4:4-6) Seeing God, and inheriting the earth, are not mutually exclusive destinies
