The Great Crowd Catch 22

by Perry 51 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • blondie
    blondie

    What has the WTS said about being declared righteous, anointed and non-anointed?

    *** it-1 p. 606 Declare Righteous *** The “great crowd,” who survive the “great tribulation,” are not yet declared righteous for life—that is, as worthy of the right to everlasting life on earth. They need to continue partaking of the “fountains of waters of life,” as guided by the Lamb, Christ Jesus. They will need to do this during the Millennial Reign of Christ. (Re 7:17; 22:1, 2) If they prove loyal to Jehovah through a final test at the end of the thousand years, they will have their names permanently retained in God’s book of life, Jehovah thus declaring, or acknowledging, that they finally are righteous in the complete sens e.—Re 20:7, 8; see LIFE (Trees of Life).

    *** w08 1/15 p. 25 par. 3 Counted Worthy to Be Guided to Fountains of Waters of Life ***

    Members of that great crowd are among those referred to by Jesus as his “other sheep.” (John 10:16) Their hope is to live forever on a paradise earth. They are confident that Jesus “will guide them to fountains of waters of life” and that “God will wipe out every tear from their eyes.” With that in mind, they have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:14, 17) They exercise faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, and thus in God’s eyes they have ‘white robes.’ They are declared righteous as friends of God, like Abraham.

    *** w08 6/15 p. 29 Highlights From the Letter to the Romans ***DECLARED RIGHTEOUS—HOW? (Rom. 1:1–11:36)

    “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” writes Paul. “It is as a free gift that they are being declared righteous by [God’s] undeserved kindness through the release by the ransom paid by Christ Jesus.” Paul also says: “A man is declared righteous by faith apart from works of law.” (Rom. 3:23, 24, 28) Through faith in “one act of justification,” both anointed Christians and members of the “great crowd” of “other sheep” can be “declared righteous”—the former for life in heaven as joint heirs with Christ and the latter as God’s friends, with a view to surviving “the great tribulation.”—Rom. 5:18; Rev. 7:9, 14; John 10:16; Jas. 2:21-24; Matt. 25:46.

    *** w02 5/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***

    Members of the great crowd exercise faith in Jesus’ ransom sacrifice. They are spiritually clean, having “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Hence, they are declared righteous with a view to becoming friends of God and of surviving the great tribulation. (James 2:23, 25) In many ways, they are like proselytes in Israel who submitted to the Law covenant and worshiped along with the Israelites

    (didn't the proselytes have the same standing before God? Just like the Christian Gentiles who were not born Jews or Christians?)

    *** w98 2/1 p. 20 par. 7 The Other Sheep and the New Covenant ***

    For the 144,000, being declared righteous opens the way to their having the hope of ruling with Jesus in the heavenly Kingdom. (Romans 8:16, 17; Galatians 2:16) For the other sheep, being declared righteous as God’s friends allows them to embrace the hope of everlasting life in a paradise earth—either by surviving Armageddon as part of the great crowd or through the ‘resurrection of the righteous.’ (Acts 24:15)

    *** w96 7/1 p. 20 par. 5 The Triumph of True Worship Draws Near ***

    The great crowd do not serve God in the condition pictured by the inner priestly courtyard. They are not declared righteous for the purpose of being God’s adopted, spiritual sons. (Romans 8:1, 15) Nevertheless, by exercising faith in Jesus’ ransom, they have a clean standing before Jehovah. They are declared righteous with the purpose of being his friends.

    *** w54 9/1 p. 522 Declared Righteous by Jehovah ***

    Christ Jesus furnished ‘propitiatory sacrifice, not only for the sins of his body, the Christian congregation, but also for others of mankind.’ (1 John 2:2) When will these others, the faithful men of old who died before Christ came, those of mankind in general in their tombs and those of the “great crowd” of other sheep who are now faithfully serving Jehovah, be declared righteous? In view of what we have seen about justification or being declared righteous by faith as being only a means to an end, so that certain ones might be eligible to membership in Christ’s body and share heavenly glory with him, it follows that all whose destiny is the earth, the foregoing ones mentioned, would have no need of having righteousness imputed to them.

  • TD
    TD

    The entire Great Crowd doctrine has crashed and burned and I'm surprised that more JW's can't see this.

    Those that stood up in 1935 and were declared to be the "Great multitude" are pretty much gone, since even a 20 year old at the time would be nearly 100 today.

    JW literature allows that people may lose their status as "Prospective" members of the great crowd through untimely death, but that's not what we're talking about here. In this case we're talking about people who never had that "Prospect" at all, since you have zero prospect of surviving an event that falls outside the boundaries of a human lifespan.

    So this is sort of another "Catch 22" for JW's. It was the proximity of the end that supposedly made the identification of the great crowd possible.

  • designs
    designs

    Christians worrying and fretting over who gets what when and where......

  • Terry
    Terry

    Notice: the word "anointed" has only 1 "n" and the word millennium has two "n's". (Not being a smartass; I had to be corrected about that, too.)

    ___________________________________________________________________

    The idea of being "righteous" is tricky. It is not so surprising God is tricky about it, too.

    Being "declared" righteous is a semantic formality rather than a behavior or psychology.

    The Divine Scorekeeper performs the notation and, magically, it is a matter of record.

    _________________________________________________________________

    The "spiritual" bookkeeping of Jehovah is rather tedious nomenclature to my way of thinking.

    I don't think it matters at all if the 41,000 denominations of Christianity get such details exactly right, do you?

    What seems far more important is the idea of persons who CARE SO MUCH about pleasing God, they devote an

    inordinate amount of their precious time arguing over it.

    Arguing about righteousness is, ironically, not itself righteous. Imho.

  • DATA-DOG
    DATA-DOG

    Well...even IF GOD gave biblical Patriarchs and others of the OT a righteous standing, ( like Lot, even though he was guilty of incest) that was the OT. The Bible is clear that the law would be done away with and a New Covenant would supercede the old. So it doesn't matter what GOD did in the OT. The JWs are alive NOW. They must follow the New Covenant arrangement in the New Testament in order to gain salvation. Provided, of course, that the Bible is GOD's word.

    The WTBTS GB/ Pharisees love the Hebrew Scriptures because of the control they gain over the flock. What is very telling is this; The GB have even went so far as to say that the term "New Testament" is wrong. They say " Hebrew Scriptures " and " Christian Greek Scriptures". If you do some research in their publications you will have a deeper understanding of WHY they hate the correct term "New Testament". Anyone can research this with some decent bible commentaries and a concordance. The WTBTS argument is blown out of the water.

    Good reasoning, ( IF THE BIBLE IS TRUE ) Perry. Your posts were always some of my favorites. You make me wish that I still believed. Unfortunately, I need more tha the never-ending arguments over some ancient scrolls, while people continue to suffer and die. Like a bad relationship, I had to get out. I am happier without the constant stress.

    DD

  • designs
    designs

    DD- That is only a dubious NT idea. Jews could care less what a Christian thinks about such matters (as this new idea of a New Covenant) as long as they don't turn violent about it or try to convert Jews.

    Atheists sit back and smile at the conflagration of debates christians engage in, and also feel a little sad for the believers...

    'God likes me better than you'...

  • Crazyguy
    Crazyguy

    Maybe Perry you can show your dad that all who were considered righteous and followers of god I believe all had a Covenant with God, even Abraham.

  • designs
    designs

    Crying...crying because you think you're going to heaven and your dad is going to hell, and your dad pissed off because he thinks he's living forever on earth and you're manure at Armageddon....

  • Vanderhoven7
    Vanderhoven7

    The distinction between "justified to life" and justified to survive Armageddon" or "justified as friends of God" is artifical, the product of human reasoning to fit an extra-biblical teaching.

  • Viviane
    Viviane

    How do we know Muslims or Jews don't have the right religion?

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