Is there a JW 'heaven' or NOT?

by Double Edge 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Double Edge

  As a lot of you know, I'm one of the 'never been a dub' on this board, but I have a friend who's one. In fact we had a long discussion last night, but I'll save that for another topic. I was just reading a post about JWs formerly celebrating Christmas. In the post it was mentioned that Russell and Rutherford, of the anointed class, are now in heaven. This was new to me. I thought JWs believed that you 'sleep', 'know nothing' during death, that there is no heaven. My JW friend and I have had several discussions about this. I thought JW's don't believe that one has a spirit. Well, do the anointed have spirits and go to heaven? If so, does that mean God made two different 'creations", spirit vs. non-spirit? Just curious, because it would help in my conversations. Thanks.

  Edited by - Double Edge on 18 December 2002 22:27:53

  Edited by - Double Edge on 18 December 2002 22:56:3
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  heathen

  The WT believe that only 144K actually go to heaven to rule with jesus and the 12 apostles. The rest of faithful mankind will inherit a paradise earth.Not real sure what the current "light" is on the spirit situation but think that is about what they believe .
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  Smiles

  Double Edge,

  Hi. Do you have a copy of the Watchtower Publications Library on CD ROM? It contains decades of their literature. Easy to use. Search by word or subject. A-Z.

  That would really help you to personally research the beliefs of the JW's, without having to ask people who may be ignorant or have it all confused anyway.

  If you do not have the CD ROM, I am sure someone here can get one to you somehow. Or at least retrieve the information you request.

  If you do have the CD ROM, use it.
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  artful

  A very good point Double Edge!

  This is on one of the great paradoxes in the JW theology. They will spend countless amounts of time trying to dispel Christendom's "false doctrine" of the immortality of the soul (something that survives the body when it dies), while at the same time their teaching of the "heavenly class" amounts to exactly the same thing!

  The JW Reasoning (page 382) book answers the question "Is there a spirit part of a man that survives the death of the body?" with quotes from the following scriptures:
  Ezek 18:4 "the soul that is sinning - it itself will die."
  Ps. 146:4 "spirit goes out, he goes back to the ground..."
  etc.

  Basically their claim is that when the body or person (soul - by their definition) dies, the spirit also ceases to exist. Therefore, we do have a spirit but it does not exist outside of the body.

  The problem with this theory is that no matter what you want to call it (spirit, soul, essence of being, etc.) if you have a "spirit class" of people who are taken to heaven when they die, there must be something that survives outside of the body and is transferred to heaven! If that is so, the claim that the spirit does not survive the body seems ludicrous.

  cheers
  Artful
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  NeonMadman

  Here's the basic outline under JW theology:

  When a person dies, he ceases to exist, his "thoughts perish". In the future, the vast majority of mankind will be resurrected bodily into a paradise earth during the 1000 year reign of Christ, where they will have the opportunity to progress to human perfection and thus gain eternal life. They could, at least in theory, still rebel at any time throughout eternity, but that would simply result in their immediate, eternal destruction.

  Faithful JW's and faithful pre-Christian servants of God will be resurrected bodily during the thousand year reign as well, and they will be used in instructing the masses of mankind in God's will.

  144,000 faithful "anointed" Christians (read=JW's) will have been selected by God to reign with Christ from heaven during the 1000 years. These will not be resurrected bodily, but as spirit beings, and they will live in heaven forever with Jesus. This resurrection began in the spring of the year 1918. At that time, all members of that class who had already died were resurrected invisibly to heavenly life, and commenced reigning with Christ. Members of that class (which would include Russell, Rutherford, et al) who have died subsequent to that time have been resurrected invisibly as spirit beings immediately after their death, and join their fellow members at Christ's side. This process will continue until all 144,000 members are in heaven, which may occur either before or after Armageddon, nobody is quite sure.

  So a JW would not accept the concept that we "have" a soul, spirit, or whatever, that consciously survives the body. Rather, it is a case of Jehovah "re-creating" the person in a new body, in this case a spirit body.

  Now, I'm sure you're wondering, why 1918? Because it took 3 1/2 years for Solomon to build the temple, and the spring of 1918 is 3 1/2 years after the fall of 1914, when the "Gentile Times" ended. If you understand why those two time periods should be of the same length, you're one up on me.

  Edited by - NeonMadman on 19 December 2002 10:33:13
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  artful

  Very well summed up NeonMadman.

  The point that I missed and you covered is that basically the "being" in heaven is re-created by God outside of their bodily shell. Or, their essence of being, soul, spirit, or whatever it is that makes them unique (the information in their brain perhaps) is transferred from a physical vessel to a spirit vessel. This still means that we have something (call it what you want) that exists apart from our bodies, and the JW theology seems to want to ignore this altogether.

  Maybe this concept is just too metaphysical for such "spiritual materialists" to come to terms with!

  Cheers
  Artful
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  NeonMadman

  The point that I missed and you covered is that basically the "being" in heaven is re-created by God outside of their bodily shell.

  The reasoning is the same with the physical resurrection of the earthly class. They say that the body that died is not the same one that will be raised from the dead. It has long decomposed, and some of the molecules that make up that body might have even become part of other human bodies over the centuries. Rather, Jehovah "re-creates" the person from his perfect memory, giving him a new physical body, similar to the old one, but without defects. In this case, he creates a physical body, in the case of the anointed ones, he creates a spiritual body. In neither case is it the body in which the person originally lived on earth.

  Of course, critics (like me) would object that it is not truly a resurrection of the same person that is being described, merely the creation of a perfect duplicate (like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The original person stays dead forever.
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  OUTLAW

  Yes the dubs do have a heaven,but only 144,000 get to go..Friday thinks he has a diagram of it(No,I`m not kidding.),maybe you can get him to show you,LOL!...OUTLAW
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  Smiles

  Double Edge,

  You may want to research "new creation" in the JW literature.

  It relates to the "re-created" that the other posters talked about.
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  artful

  NeonMadman: I have a problem with the "clone" body thing for the same reasons as you (see below). I also think that there are really two different things that need to be addressed:

  1. When we talk about the "person" being re-created, what we have been talking about is the vessel that houses the "spirit" being re-created or newly created, not the actual spirit (or thing that makes each one of us unique). In a crude way, if our spirit could be likened to the data in a computer and our vessel to the computer box; without the data, the computer is just a dumb box. What the WTS says is recreated is the dumb box AND the data....therefore...

  2. If the new clone body (spiritual or physical) AND spirit is not really the original person but a "new creation" then God might as well just abandon the original altogether and create a bunch of NEW perfect beings!

  I don't believe this to true. Rather, I think that there has to be something that can exist outside of our vessel (physical or spiritual) that God PUTS BACK INTO a vessel at a later time. Whether that "something" is conscious of its existence at all times or not, I'm not sure. Otherwise, with the WTS "new creation" theology...why bother with the original at all!

  I hope I am making sense...this thread is getting very philosophical!!

  Cheers
  Artful