The Coming Global Salvation - (Not Universalism)

by Sea Breeze 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Sea Breeze

  The overwhelming majority of the early church leaders (fathers) were premillennial and believed in a literal 1000 yr. kingdom. Today, 2/3 of Christians are amillennial. I do not want to imply that amilennialists, are not Christian.

  Nevertheless, that view is one that rejects the notion that Jesus Christ will physically reign on the Earth for exactly one thousand years. Rather, they interpret the "thousand years" mentioned in Revelation 20 as a symbolic number and not a literal duration of time. Amillennialists hold that the millennium has already begun and is simultaneous with the current church age.

  This is what lead to the success at the doors I experienced when I was a regular pioneer for Watchtower. I regularly held 8-10 bible studies per month. Most of us were just ignorant pawns and didn't realize the theological landscape we were in.
  
  The Kingdom message was attractive to many people because they never heard about a literal kingdom at their church. When a lady pointed out to me that hundreds of millions of people already believed in a literal "God's Kingdom", I was shocked and stopped going in field service.

  The Watchtower used this "conversation opener" to spread the false message that there was another salvation method other than Christ as our personal Mediator / Savior - for the "great crowd". The unique WT views on the 1.) tripartite nature of man, 2.) 1914 invisible return of Christ along with 3.) the rejection of the Rapture, further supported their end times deception that Christ as a "personal savior" was not needed and not available.
  
  For those wanting to understand the premillennial view of the end times (which is virtually synonymous with the early congregation leaders in the first 3 centuries after Christ) , the following talk is very helpful. It identifies who the great crowd is according to historical and accurate views handed down from the apostles. It will also walk you through the general framework of literal biblical end-times theology.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw3VLpd9Fm0&ab_channel=GracetoYou
  
  
  
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  Vidiot

  Well, that clinches it.

  Sign me up at your church.
  
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  Sea Breeze

  @Vidiot,

  I can appreciate your perspective. I personally don't mind if anyone wants to pursue a different worldview. I certainly did myself for around 8 years after exiting the JW community. It took me several years to understand what the WT was doing. It was important to me to figure out what the WT was hiding in plain sight.

  The purpose of this post is to present the premillennial view. I believe it could be useful to some. If rejected, at least that person can know that it is not just a recoil reaction from the abuses of the WT.
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  Sea Breeze

  Found this on Quora. It is spot on. Hopefully this topic will open some eyes that the WT org isn't just a "different Christian denomination" like many believe, even after leaving.

  
  
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  Touchofgrey

  Its not just the jw hierarchy that uses physiological manipulation and coercive control over its followers, ALL religion's use there man made doctrines to control and manipulate their followers .

  People just need to take some time to educate themselves about what physiological manipulation and coercive control is and how it is used to gain control over people.
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  Anony Mous

  So I’m assuming the first millennialists were pretty miffed about 1025 years ago. What makes you think that somehow ‘today’ is special enough to begin counting another 1000 years.
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  Sea Breeze

  @AnyMous
  
  There is not any evidence that the early congregation leaders believed, or set a date for God's Kingdom establishing in AD1025. That's ridiculous.
  
  

  The early Church Fathers believed in a literal, earthly millennial reign of Christ, often referred to as chiliasm or premillennialism. Notable figures who held this view include Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Papias, Lactantius, and Commodianus. They interpreted biblical passages, particularly in Revelation, to support the idea of a future, physical kingdom established by Christ on earth.

  Examples of early Church Fathers who held a premillennial view:

  Justin Martyr:

  He explicitly stated that he and other Christians who held correct views believed in a millennial reign of Christ on earth.

  Irenaeus:

  A student of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John the Apostle, Irenaeus also believed in a literal millennial kingdom, emphasizing a future period of earthly blessing and peace, following the Antichrist and the second coming of Christ.

  Tertullian:

  He was a strong proponent of a future, earthly millennial kingdom, seeing it as a time of joy and blessing for the resurrected saints.

  Papias:

  His writings, though mostly lost, are known through the works of others like Irenaeus. He is known to have held a premillennial view, likely influenced by his connection to the Apostle John.

  Lactantius:

  He also believed in a literal, earthly millennial kingdom, emphasizing the restoration of earthly conditions to their original, pre-fall state.

  Commodianus:

  This North African writer around 240 AD also wrote about a literal millennium, describing the overcoming of Antichrist and the blessings received during that time.

  Many early Church Fathers who held to a literal millennial view did so in opposition to Gnostic teachings, which often spiritualized or allegorized biblical texts.

  They emphasized the physicality of the resurrection and the future kingdom, contrasting it with the Gnostic tendency to view the spiritual realm as superior to the physical.

  While premillennialism was a dominant view in the early church, it eventually became less prevalent, particularly after the rise of Augustinian amillennialism.
  
  Watchtower sidesteps the problem with the Millennium following the return of Jesus by making him return invisibly. Then, they claim that he also invisibly appointed the WT corporation as the visible representation of the kingdom of God on earth.
  
  Only cults pull stuff like this.
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  SydBarrett

  
  
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  Anony Mous

  @SB: there are various legends around the year 1000AD of mass conversions and subsequent “great disappointments”. The pope himself performed on New Year’s eve 999AD midnight mass in silence, supposedly several in the crowd died of fright as the bells struck at midnight. Written history in that period of the dark ages however is highly unreliable.

  My personal favorites are 1666AD (Great London Fire and start of the plague), again, many believed in those portents. Or Christopher Columbus who supposedly convinced the Spanish crown to continue financing expeditions of what he thought was the West Indies by playing on their expectations of the supposed end of the millennium and a final crusade to Jerusalem through what we now know as South America.

  Again, history is rife with starts and ends of the supposed millenniums, counting from or to various starts and ends. The question is why your counting is accurate and not the literal thousands of others.
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  Sea Breeze

  there are various legends around the year 1000AD of mass conversions and subsequent “great disappointments”.

  @AnonyMous - But you must admit that has nothing to do with the statements from the early church leaders. Some of them were trained by the apostle John himself, who penned "The Revelation of Jesus".
  

  
  They simply stated that it was a literal kingdom, which is obviously what John thought since he was still alive and was consulted.
  
  The point of this thread is : When we as JW's went to doors and presented a literal kingdom point of view, as twisted as it was with all the heresies about a two-tier salvation, it was an anomaly to at least 2/3 of the Christians and totally new to the unbelievers. It resonated somewhat.
  
  Many scriptures supported this view and it gave a false impression that the JW's were really smart.
  
  Those blind sided by this tactic just lapped up the poison when they were further led to reject the new covenant "for the forgiveness of sins".
  
  The reasoning was: Surely if the JW's were right about the literal kingdom, they couldn't be wrong about the new covenant not being available to everybody, right?

  It was all just another Satanic misdirection, with a little truth mixed in.

  It took me a long time to figure this out. It is so obvious now.