According to Jehovah's Witnesses teachings, who will be saved?
Helge Kåre Fauskanger writes:
Well, it’s a bit … complicated.
Ultimately, just who will be “saved” and gain eternal life supposedly normally won’t be decided before some point more than 1,000 years into the future! Yes, CE 3020 at the very earliest. Probably even later.
In Watchtower teachings, the current world order is about to be wiped out in Armageddon, God’s great war, and replaced by an earthly paradise where people will be frolicking with pandas and pet lions/tigers for a full millennium. Like this:
But — simply getting to live in the earthly paradise isn’t enough to secure permanent “salvation”, just a sort of necessary Step One. In Paradise, people will apparently finally learn the 100 % correct interpretation of the Bible (currently the Witnesses are still refining their doctrine after 140 years, so this is clearly a complicated matter), and the Paradisians will be raised to human perfection, physically and mentally.
But just reaching perfection isn’t the ultimate salvation, either. You must also make it through Step Two at the end of the 1,000-year program. Satan, who has been bound in the meantime, will be released by God and allowed to tempt the entire human race as it then exists to rebel against God. But this is really God’s way of weeding out the unworthy ones, who will then be eradicated forever, along with Satan himself. (Apparently Satan should stall his own execution by refusing to tempt anyone when he is released, thus derailing God’s plan, but the infinitely cunning Prince of Evil will somehow be too dumb to realize this. Doesn’t he read Watchtower literature, where everything is predicted in plain words, more than 1K years in advance?)
If you got through this Step Two alive, you are as “saved” as you will ever be in this religion, and you can potentially live on forever. (But of course, God will still eradicate you from the universe at once if you ever misbehave according to his standards, so don’t get any clever ideas.)
However, to even get to Step One you must first make it into the coming earthly paradise itself. Here there are essentially two options.
- Be dead (in time). This is by far the easiest option. Watchtower teaches that once someone dies, their death pays for their sins and they are normally in line for resurrection on the paradise earth. There are some exceptions who just stay dead forever, such as those who have “sinned against the holy spirit”, but nobody seems quite certain what that even means, so don’t worry about it. Witnesses typically assure people that they can meet their loved dead ones again in Paradise, the doorknockers never inquring about the moral status of these dead individuals, much less about their interest (or likely lack of such) in the Watchtower message. If you are simply dead before God brings Armageddon to wipe out this world order and make room for the ensuing paradise, you can pretty much count on a resurrection into said paradise (with no conscious existence in the meantime). Deliberate suicide may be a risky strategy, since Jehovah doesn’t like that, but unhealthy living typically shouldn’t be a problem. Smoke, drink, do hard drugs, enjoy your colesterol, don’t let the red light bother you — you’ll wake up in paradise before you know it! .
- Be a Jehovah’s Witness (in good standing and with no serious hidden sins). This is the second, and far more demanding option if you want to make it through Armageddon into paradise alive. You must obey an elaborate set of rules that would make the Pharisees proud, hawk Watchtower literature, live by Puritan morals and promptly revise your religious views whenever the Watchtower Governing Body think it will be fun to tinker with the doctrines again. Salvationwise, this strategy has the perk that you may attain eternal life without ever dying at all, but since in this religion death is just unconsciousness, skipping Armageddon in favor of a dirt nap may arguably be the better scenario. If you are alive and a Jehovah’s Witness when Armageddon strikes, you are supposed to stand there cheering and happy as the world burns around you, God wiping out some seven billion people for … not being Jehovah’s Witnesses, essentially. And they won’t ever get a resurrection, either! Too bad they didn’t step in front of a bus in time.
The world is burning and billions are dying. YAY! The happiest day of our lives!
This, more or less, is how you get saved, Watchtower fashion.
