G'day jwfacts!
Ah yes, the "Jehovah has always had an organisation" card! We had that played to Mrs Ozzie and I all those years ago too. So this thread will clarify a bit more for others who've yet to see it played. Good stuff!
A misconception that dubs believe (because the WT says so!) is that because the Israelites were a "chosen nation", they were somehow a 'cut above the rest'. True they were wayward at times but still they would "come back to Jehovah" and everything would be all right. Then God blessed them by keeping his promise about the promised Messiah. And so it goes (according to the WT).
The truth is that the Israelites were a pretty ratbag lot. A read of the OT doesn't reveal a nation with great ideals (save the Mosaic Law) as individuals and the history of their kings is appalling. Yes, there were individuals who had right values and trusted God but they were very much a minority. In truth, Israel was never 100% acting like a chosen nation. Exodus perhaps? But then, not everyone left. Even those who followed Moses preferred doing what they had been accustomed to do and that was to worship Baal.
Incidentally all this flies in the face of those who mistakenly champion the cause of the return of Israel in these modern times.
So being an israelite in Bible times should not be viewed through WT lenses as if it were somehow better than living in modern secular states.
So what was it all about? Grace. God's dealings with them demonstrated his grace toward the whole of humankind and this was revealed finally in the giving of His Son, the Messiah.
If the Israelites had been deserving, what would have been the point? It was because they were undeserving! This lesson of grace helps us understand our own position as individuals. We do nothing to deserve it. We cannot earn it by what we do. Yet God gives it.
Now this is foreign to WT thinking because in it (the WT) they teach that you must be deserving of salvation, you must earn it, you mustn't "sin", you must "get your hours in". For a Witness, you're only as good as your last (Field Service) Report!
How different from what we understand from our reading of the Bible record of the Israelites!
