The Watchtower — November 1, 1950

Doing the Work Assigned

A POPULAR song declares that the ‘lucky old sun has nothing to do but roll around heaven all day’. The sun has much more to do than lazily roll around heaven. The sun was made to work. It was created as a “light to rule the day”. (Gen. 1:16) It is earth’s furnace, supplying heat and making life possible. If the sun did no work, Ecclesiastes 1:7 would not be true: “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” Why not? Well, every second the sun lifts 16,000,000 tons of water vapor from the seas, which vapor becomes clouds that float inland and precipitate rain. Without the laboring sun the sea waters would not return to the rivers whence they came, and rainfall would cease. It is good for us that the sun does more than just roll around heaven all day.

The moon also works, being created as a “light to rule the night”. (Gen. 1:16) It is the power behind the tides. Sun and moon and stars perform a work of praise, as is indicated when we take a literal view of Psalm 19:1-4, AT: “The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the sky shows forth the work of his hands. Day unto day pours forth speech, and night unto night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes forth through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

The earth was made to work, to nourish and sustain life. It is not an idle body, but spins so rapidly that at the equator its surface travels over a thousand miles per hour. Thus we have night and day. Additionally, the earth whizzes in its orbit around the sun at a speed of 66,600 miles per hour, so tirelessly that year after year it completes this nearly 584,000,000-mile journey without varying its schedule 1/1000 of a second. If it failed to make this trip we would have no changing seasons. Fortunate for us that the earth does not hang idle and motionless in space.

And when man was put upon the earth, he was not assigned to a dreamy and indolent existence, as though idleness were the ideal state. When God made man He “put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it”. Additionally, with Eve he was to rear children, subdue the earth, extend Edenic conditions earth-wide, and rule over the other forms of earthly life. (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15) Happily, God did not create man for a career of loafing. Idleness is a snare that leads to death.—Ezek. 16:49; 1 Tim. 5:13.

Even the lower animals perform useful service. To single out but one of these many services, what about the insects that pollinate plants and enable such green things to reproduce and bear fruit? Why, Jehovah God even uses one of these tiny lower creatures as an example in industriousness, saying: “Go to the ant, you sluggard, look at her ways, learn sense; for she has no leader, no foreman or chief, yet in the summer she provides her food, and gathers during harvest-days.” (Prov. 6:6-8, Mo) Have you ever seen an ant lying at ease basking in the sun? Rather, are they not always hustling energetically about their business?

Jehovah God the Creator works, and his work is perfect. (Deut. 32:4) He may have entered upon a sabbath after his work of creation relative to earth, but that this did not mean he became an idler in the universe is thereafter shown by Jesus’ words: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” When on earth Jesus said: “I must work the works of him that sent me.” When twelve years old Jesus was at work in his Father’s service, and years later he died a faithful worker bearing witness to Jehovah’s truth. (John 5:17; 9:4; 18:37; Luke 2:42-49) So zealous was Jesus in enduring in godly work that he became a model for Christians: “To this course you were called, because even Christ suffered for you, leaving you a model for you to follow his steps closely.”—1 Pet. 2:21, NW.

Christ Jesus gave the work assignment to his followers when he commanded them to be his witnesses and make disciples, and declared: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, and then the accomplished end will come.” (Matt. 24:14; 28:19; Acts 1:8, NW) And as Christians work together as an organization, each one should stick to his individual assignment, realizing that Jehovah places each one as it pleases Him, and that all assigned services are essential. (1 Cor. 12:18-25) Recall that Satan coveted a loftier place than that assigned to him, to his downfall. Did not Miriam seek to exalt herself to a higher position of service, and suffer divine rebuke therefor? And when Korah rebelliously aspired to more prominence in Israel, did not the earth open up and swallow him? How much better was the attitude of his descendants centuries later, as expressed in the psalm for them: “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (Num. 12:1-15; 16:1-3, 31-33; Ps. 84:10; Isa. 14:12-15) When one seeks to change his service assignment he forgets the theocratic principle expressed at Psalm 75:6, 7: “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” Hence you should not covet and go after the work assignments of others. You should “stick to your work”.—1 Tim. 4:16, Mo.

Then we will be blessed. Then we will have success. The work God assigns us is the work we can do, by his grace and spirit. We cannot do the sun’s work, and lift 16,000,000 tons of water every second. We cannot move the tides, like the moon. We cannot light up the night sky as the stars do. Why, we cannot even do the work of little insects in pollinating plant blossoms! Nor for that matter can we do the theocratic work assigned to our Christian brethren. But we can by God’s grace do the work assigned to us in or under God’s organization; that is the work his spirit will help us to do. In that theocratic way we can ‘work out our own salvation’.—Phil. 2:12.

And when such salvation sees us delivered into Jehovah’s new world, we can enter upon blessed work assignments then. Anointed ones will reign with Christ in heavenly glory, while earthly servants will take up the work Adam and Eve abandoned in disobedience, namely, filling the earth, subduing it, beautifying it, and exercising loving dominion over the animals. Then men will “long enjoy the work of their hands”.—Isa. 65:22.

New Systems of Things

“God, who long ago spoke on many occasions and in many ways to our forefathers by means of the prophets, has at the end of these days spoken to us by means of a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the systems of things.”—Heb. 1:1, 2, NW.

1. By whom and to what end has Jehovah made systems of things?

JEHOVAH God is the Maker of righteous systems of things. They are all under his supreme control. He has arranged them in an order that leads from one set of good things to better or grander things, at last reaching a height of goodness that leaves us with nothing further to be desired. He is a God of order and knows whither he is proceeding with his arrangements. His goal is to rid the entire universe of all forces of wickedness and disturbance. He will do this by means of his promised government in the hands of his glorified Son, Jesus Christ, thus bringing all living creation, seen and unseen, into peaceful, obedient relationship with their Creator and God. By attaining this goal he will vindicate himself as Rightful Sovereign over all the universe. To this end he has made a series of systems of things to follow one another. His Son has a most important part in the vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty, and he has used him in the making of the systems of things.

2. Of whom has this old world not proved worthy? How so?

² This present worldly system of things under Satan its god is permitted only for a time. It does not have the divine approval. It has had the witnesses of Jehovah God among it since its beginning after the Flood, but it has never been able to amalgamate them with itself. They have been left in this world by God in order to deliver a witness concerning his purpose to establish a new world government. But the world has acted unworthily of their presence by disregarding their message and viciously persecuting them for it. By this we mean not just the pre-Christian prophets from Noah down to John the Baptist, whose exploits and sufferings are described in chapter eleven of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. We mean also the little flock of true Christians of whom only a remnant is on earth today; yes, and the “great crowd” of “other sheep” who have flocked to their side in order to serve as Jehovah’s witnesses with them. The persecution of all these modern witnesses of the Most High God since World War I was foretold by Jesus, who said it would be a clear sign of the consummation of this wicked system of Satan. Its persecution of them has become notorious, thus proving the world is not worthy of them. For this reason it will be destroyed.—Heb. 11:38; Matt. 24:9; Rev. 7:9, 10, NW; John 10:16.

3. What work was to evidence we had reached its consummation?

³ One of the evidences that we had reached its consummation and that its end was near was to be a separating work between its peoples, particularly those within Christendom, which claims to be the realm of Christianity. Jesus pictorially described the climax of the separating work and the fiery destruction of the fake Christians, and said: “The harvest is a consummation of a system of things, and the reapers are angels. Therefore, just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be in the consummation of the system of things. The Son of man will send forth his angels, and they will collect out from his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and persons who are doing lawlessness, and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be.” Likening the separation work to a separating of good and bad fish scooped up in a dragnet, Jesus further said: “That is how it will be in the consummation of the system of things: the angels will go out and separate the wicked from among the righteous and will cast them into the fiery furnace.” This separating work has been going on since A.D. 1919 as a result of the Kingdom testimony delivered by Jehovah’s witnesses in all nations of the earth. The fact now that the weeping and gnashing of the teeth of the rejected unworthy ones has begun proves we are near the climax of the dividing work and that the accomplished end is near upon this world.—Matt. 13:39-42, 47-50; 24:14, NW.

A CONSUMMATION OF CERTAIN ONES NINETEEN CENTURIES AGO

4. How do we know from Hebrews 9:26 that we Christians have long been living under a new system of things?

⁴ Some who are to inherit the kingdom of the coming new world are still living amid this old world and its setup of things. But, remember, they are no part of it and they do not fashion themselves after it. Not being of the old, they are of the new. And do you know that for nineteen centuries now they have been living under a new system of things which Jehovah God created by his Son Jesus Christ? Yes. You can know and understand this from the apostle Paul’s words at Hebrews 9:26. He there refers to Jesus’ sacrifice of his perfect human life nineteen centuries ago. After reminding us that Jesus was not a Levite priest who served at the temple in Jerusalem, he adds: “Otherwise, he would have to suffer often from the world’s foundation. But now he has manifested himself once for all time at the consummation of the systems of things to put sin away through the sacrifice of himself.” (NW) That consummation reached its end A.D. 70 with the destruction of old Jerusalem and its temple and the scattering of the Jewish nation for almost nineteen centuries. Although the old world has kept standing, there can be no question that certain systems there ended, to make way for new ones. Again the apostle speaks to prove this. He tells of the faithless acts of the Jews and the punishments that befell them for it in the wilderness after they were saved from Egypt. Then he remarks: “Now these things went on befalling them as examples and they were written for a warning to us upon whom the accomplished ends of the systems of things have arrived.” (1 Cor. 10:11, NW) So we ask, What ends arrived on Christians back there?

5, 6. What was one of those ends that arrived on Jewish Christians?

⁵ They were the ends of the systems of things which God had set up among his chosen people for their benefit until Jesus Christ should come and be sacrificed, be raised from the dead and be glorified at God’s right hand in heaven. The angel Gabriel foretold to Daniel the exact year when Messiah the Prince should appear. He showed that three and a half years after Jesus was anointed with the spirit of God, or at the middle of a week of years, the Messiah would be cut off in sacrifice. This would make all the animal sacrifices and other oblations of the Jews at the temple out of date and of no further force and value. Gabriel said concerning Jesus the Messiah: “And he will make a strong covenant with the many for one week [of years]; and in the half of the week will he cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” (Dan. 9:27, Le; AT, Mo) That this meant the end of the Jewish system of sacrifices and oblations as set down in the law of Moses is certain. Testifying to such end the apostle says: “Christ is the accomplished end of the Law, so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness.”

⁶ Again for the comfort of both Gentile people and Jewish people he says: “By means of his flesh he abolished the hatred, the Law of commandments consisting in decrees, that he might create the two peoples in union with himself into one new man and make peace, and that he might fully reconcile both peoples in one body to God through the torture stake.” Again: “God . . . kindly forgave us all our trespasses and blotted out the handwritten document against us which consisted of decrees and which was in opposition to us, and He has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the torture stake.”—Rom. 10:4 and Eph. 2:15, 16 and Col. 2:13, 14, NW.

7, 8. What other systems of things ended there, as Paul stated?

⁷ So nineteen centuries ago the end arrived upon that system of Mosaic law and its animal sacrifices and oblations offered by priests of the tribe of Levi. How? By Jesus’ death on the torture stake, then his resurrection and his ascending to heaven to offer the value of his human sacrifice to God. More proof that such system had ended was given thirty-seven years later when the Jewish priests were forcibly deprived of their sacrificial work by the destruction of their typical temple, which has continued unrestored till this very day. Not only that, but the national system whereby the Jews had a human king reigning on the “throne of Jehovah” at Jerusalem came to a decisive end. Why so? Because the Jewish nation rejected Jesus the Son of David as their King and after he rose from the dead Jesus refused to restore the earthly kingdom to the nation of natural Israel. Instead, he sat down at God’s right hand in heaven, there to await the year 1914 for God to enthrone him to be the heavenly King of the righteous new world.—Heb. 10:12, 13.

⁸ Besides that, there had been a system of prophetic types and shadows dramatizing wonderful realities which were to come, and, after Jesus ascended to heaven, this system ended. Now the time had come for fulfillments in order to prove God’s Word true. (Col. 2:16, 17; Heb. 10:1; 11:17-19) Also the system by which God spoke and delivered his message by means of Hebrew prophets from Abraham down to John the Baptist ended. At the end of those days God spoke to men by means of his heavenly Son Jesus Christ and by his Son’s followers whom God adopted as his spiritual sons. (Heb. 1:1, 2) In view of the fact that all such arrangements ceased then, the apostle Paul could rightly say nineteen hundred years ago that the accomplished ends of the systems of things had arrived upon him and his brethren.

9. How was the present dividing work foreshadowed and also typically mentioned by John the Baptist and Jesus?

⁹ A dividing work is today taking place world-wide at this consummation of Satan’s wicked system. To foreshadow this, there was a separating work carried on among the Jewish nation in Palestine until fiery destruction came upon their capital and its temple in the year 70. John the Baptist foretold it when he spoke of the coming of the Messiah and said: “That one will baptize you people with holy spirit and with fire. His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will completely clean up his threshing-floor, and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.” (Matt. 3:11, 12, NW) The wheat gathered into the storehouse was the Jewish remnant that sided with Jesus as Messiah the Prince. They were baptized with the holy spirit from the day of Pentecost forward. The chaff that was burned up was the Jewish nation in general, which sided with Caesar against Jesus. They were baptized with the fire of God’s wrath particularly from 70 (A.D.) onward. Jesus himself referred to the dividing work among the Jews with which those old systems of things ended. He referred to the believing Jews that were to be harvested out from among the faithless nation, with himself as the Chief Reaper, and said: “Lift up your eyes and view the fields, that they are white for harvesting. Already the reaper is receiving a reward and gathering fruit for everlasting life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. In this respect, indeed, the saying is true, One is the sower and another the reaper. I dispatched you to reap what you have spent no labor on. Others have labored, and you have entered into the benefit of their labor.”—John 4:35-38, NW.

10. How will such work end? Why not catastrophically for us?

¹⁰ After that harvest, but particularly after the good news was turned to the uncircumcised Gentiles and they were given the opportunity to enter the heavenly kingdom, the Jewish nation withered away from being God’s favored people, like the fig tree which Jesus cursed. (Matt. 21:18, 19, 43; Luke 13:6-9; Acts 10:1-48) Today, after more than thirty years of similar harvest work, how well we see prefigured in that Jewish harvesting and threshing what is in progress in Christendom today! When we call to mind the horrible end that came upon the Jewish capital and its besieged inhabitants back there, we shudder at the more terrible end that is shortly to come upon hypocritical Christendom and its confusion of religions. However, this catastrophe spells no disaster to God’s true people, the genuine Christians. It will wipe out a great blot on God’s holy name and it will cleanse the earth for the pure worship of Jehovah God everywhere, resulting in peace and prosperity to mankind.

11. Why do we not call such period “the Jewish age”?

¹¹ The period of time in which those old systems of things flourished we could not designate by any such name as “the Jewish age”. Why not? Because they began before there were any natural Jews. Also God is now dealing with those who are Jews inwardly, having their hearts circumcised. These are spiritual Israelites, who make up “the Israel of God”. (Rom. 2:28, 29) So we merely take note of such a period of time since the Flood during which those systems of things obtained, but do not name it. The time for such old things ended nineteen centuries ago. They are among the past systems of things and past generations from which the sacred secret of God was concealed concerning Christ and his followers, but which secret has now been made known to His holy ones.—Col. 1:26, 27, NW.

THE NEW SYSTEM IN OPERATION ALREADY

12, 13. How did the uncovering of God’s secret improve things for us?

¹² What a grand experience it is to live under God’s new system of things and to know it is only the forerunner of finer things to come! It transforms all our existence that we are obliged to live now in this fading old world. Now that Jehovah God has revealed his sacred secret, it has made things new for us. His secret was wrapped up in his Anointed One or Christ, whom he had foretold and foreshadowed during previous millenniums. In due time his beloved Son left the heavenly courts and was born as a man and the prophecies began fulfilling concerning him. Then the long-hidden sacred secret was uncovered to those who believed and received the spirit of God. By means of his Son Jehovah God did away with what was old that he might introduce what was new.

¹³ The apostle is plain on this improvement of matters for us, saying: “Hence when [Jesus] comes into the world he says: ‘“You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. You did not approve of whole burnt-offerings and sin offering.” Then I said, “Look! I am come (in the roll of the book it is written about me) to do your will, O God.’” After first saying, ‘You did not desire nor did you approve of sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt-offerings and sin offering’—sacrifices which are offered according to the Law—then he actually says, ‘Look! I am come to do your will.’ He does away with what is first that he may establish what is second. By the said ‘will’ we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.” (Heb. 10:5-10, NW) Now, does that sound like making things new for us who seek life and happiness? For one thing, that replacement of the first set of sacrifices with the second kind of sacrifice which really sanctifies means a new high priest of God. It means a new relationship of worshipers with God.

14, 15. Why was a new covenant necessary? How did God’s promise of it affect the Law covenant?

¹⁴ How much more satisfying this is than the old! The Levite priesthood, who offered mere animal sacrifices and vegetable offerings, were put in office under the old Law covenant which God made with the natural Israelites through Moses. So those priests were part of the ancient system of things that existed under the Law covenant. The sacrifices they offered could never take away human sins and make men perfect, and so they were merely pictorial of the coming real sacrifice. If men were to get lasting good, a new and better system of things was certainly necessary, and God made it by his Son Jesus Christ. (Heb. 1:1, 2, NW) The old Law covenant prevented Jesus the Messiah from becoming a priest on earth and it only condemned men for sins instead of relieving them of such. So if there was to be a new high priest of God with a sacrifice removing sins, and if Messiah of the tribe of Judah was to be this High Priest, then there must be a new covenant. Christ Jesus was made High Priest by the sworn oath of Jehovah God, and then he was given to be the High Priest of the new covenant. What this means we read:

¹⁵ “For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second; for he does find fault with the people when he says: ‘“Look! the days are coming,” says Jehovah, “when I shall consummate a new covenant toward the house of Israel and toward the house of Judah; . . . For this is the covenant which I shall covenant with the house of Israel after those days,” says Jehovah: “I shall put my laws in their mind, and upon their hearts I shall write them, and I shall be a God to them and they will be a people to me. And they will by no means teach every man his fellow citizen and every man his brother, saying: ‘Know Jehovah,’ because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I shall be merciful to their unrighteous deeds and I will by no means call their sins to mind any more.”’ In his saying ‘a new covenant’ he has made the former one obsolete. Now that which is made obsolete and growing old is near to vanishing away.”—Heb. 8:7-13, NW.

16, 17. By Christ’s services what did God end and what inaugurate? So what did this mean as to systems of things?

¹⁶ By means of Christ’s service as a mediator greater than the prophet Moses and by his service as a self-sacrificing High Priest Jehovah God replaced the old Law covenant with the new covenant. When God nailed the old covenant to the torture stake upon which Jesus Christ was sacrificed, a system of things 1,545 years old passed away which once had to do with the natural Jews or Israelites. On the day of Pentecost A.D. 33 the resurrected and glorified Jesus in heaven inaugurated the new covenant toward his faithful followers on earth. There the Christian disciples were begotten by God’s outpoured spirit and became spiritual Israelites, or Jews inwardly.

¹⁷ Would not this mean, then, the introduction of new systems of things? This must be included in the meaning of the apostle’s words when he says: “If anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away, look! new things have come into existence. But all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of the reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:17, 18, NW) Such a thing as this “new creation” in union with Christ the Head had never existed before, no, not in all God’s universe. So it could not be otherwise than that new systems of things should be introduced, and these in connection with the Christian “new creation”. Such new systems were introduced. Jehovah God so indicated when he described the benefits of the new covenant, saying that he would really remove sins by means of it from those spiritual Israelites taken into the covenant and that they would all be taught by Jehovah and all would know him, from the least of them to the greatest of them.—Jer. 31:31-34, AS.

18. So what do we see now by faith? How do we appreciate Revelation 13:8 more concerning the Lamb?

¹⁸ It was, indeed, the opening of a wonderful epoch, an epoch of new things about which inspired men of God had prophesied and of which the sacrifices, feasts and laws of the old covenant had cast shadows before them. The realities now brought in surpassed in wondrousness what ancient men of faith had envisaged; and now by faith and under the illumination of God’s spirit we behold them. Hence the apostle writes: “By faith we understand that the systems of things were put in order [prepared, adjusted] by God’s word, so that what is beheld came to be out of things that do not appear.” (Heb. 11:3, NW, margin) Now we can see that there is more meant than we formerly appreciated when Revelation 13:8 speaks of Jesus Christ as “the Lamb who was slaughtered from the world’s foundation”. (NW) The foundation of a new world was truly laid in the sacrifice he offered nineteen centuries ago. This fact is emphasized by the apostle Paul in showing that the sacrifice of the High Priest Jesus Christ needs no repeating, in these words: “Neither is it in order that he should offer himself often, . . . Otherwise, he would have to suffer often from the world’s foundation.” (Heb. 9:25, 26, NW) What world? we ask. Why, the new world of new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness is to dwell. In his sacrifice Jesus laid the foundation for creatures on earth to be rescued from sin and death in order to live in the new heavens and new earth of the righteous new world. It is from the laying of that world’s foundation onward that he does not have to keep on suffering often in order to make the new world sure and permanent, for his sacrifice was perfect and up to every requirement of justice.

19. In his sacrifice what other requirements did Jesus meet?

¹⁹ More than that! Jesus’ sacrifice met the crucial requirements for flatly answering the pre-eminent issue before all the universe, namely, Can Jehovah God maintain his sovereignty over all creation, and will God’s highest Son hold true to his Father’s universal sovereignty? Satan the slanderer said No, and by applying the full pressure of his entire world he tried to make Jesus say No! But the willing, loyal sacrifice of Jesus the Son of God answered Yes! By his obedience to a sacrificial death on a torture stake Jesus held true to Jehovah’s universal sovereignty and he held fast his integrity toward his God. After his baptism in the Jordan river he was anointed with God’s spirit to be the King of the new world, and by his integrity to God, who gave him the royal anointing, Jesus Christ proved his right to the Kingdom. He thus made sure that there would be a Kingdom to govern the new world righteously. By his sacrifice he ransomed men, not only those who would be given the high calling to rule with him in the kingdom of heaven but also those of mankind who would become his earthly subjects in the new world.

20. Why has the new world’s foundation stood solid all this time?

²⁰ Thus in a twofold sense the foundation of the new world was laid in Jesus’ perfect sacrifice. That he might one day be King enthroned in the government and that he might act as High Priest in applying the benefits of his human sacrifice, Almighty God raised Jesus Christ from the dead as an immortal spirit Son and ushered him into his heavenly presence. As a result, the foundation of the new world has stood solid and immovable through all the storms and assaults of the past nineteen hundred years, and today we jubilantly hail the early incoming of the new world with Jesus Christ as Jehovah’s anointed King.

PRESENT ENJOYMENT OF THE NEW

21. For new systems have we had to wait till the new world? How so?

²¹ The coming new world is one of the new systems of things God makes by his Son. But after its foundation was laid, we did not have to wait until the actual establishment of the new world in order to enjoy new systems of things. Christians who have been brought into the new covenant from Pentecost of the year 33 forward have been enjoying the new arrangements and provisions. No literal temple at Jerusalem, no Levite priesthood, no animal sacrifices which need to be offered repeatedly year in and year out, no consciences burdened with guilt of sin for which the Law of Moses condemns men, no, none of all those things for us! We have come to the New Jerusalem, God’s capital of the universe. We have a new temple, of which Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone and all his spiritual followers are living stones, built upon him as the foundation. We have a new high priest, a new sacrifice of a superior kind which actually cleanses away sins by its blood, a new law inscribed not on stone tablets but on our hearts, a new mediator between God and men, a new covenant. Anything more? Yes, new knowledge, new works of God in fulfillment of his past prophecies, shadows and types, a new ministry, and a new relationship with God as his new nation of spiritual Israel and as his sons whose spirit cries out to him, “Abba, Father!” True Christians, living up to their privileges, have long enjoyed these things over the centuries. Today a faithful remnant of Christ’s joint heirs are enjoying them. All these new things operating together as new systems of things since Pentecost are preliminary and preparatory to God’s own new world. They are an absolute guarantee of the full coming of the new world.

22. Why do those under the new covenant not have this world’s spirit? Who is their mother, and by means of what?

²² Since Christ’s death, resurrection and ascent to heaven all these things have been true even in the midst of this old world. The new covenant is no part of the old world arrangements but it takes out of this world a people for Jehovah’s name. (Acts 15:14) These are no longer a part of the old world, no more than Jesus their Mediator was ever a part of it. And God has chosen for his people those whom this world does not prize. Figuratively speaking, they are impaled toward this world and, in turn, it is impaled toward them as a thing condemned to destruction. And so they do not have its spirit, nor do they follow its wisdom. (John 8:23; 15:19; 17:6, 14, 16; 1 Cor. 1:27, 28; Gal. 6:14; 1 Cor. 2:12; 3:19) They have “tasted the right word of God and powers of the coming system of things”, the apostle tells us. He tells those who are God’s children in the new covenant that their mother is not the organization under the Mosaic law covenant which was pictured by the servant girl Hagar. Their mother is like the free woman to whom Hagar belonged, Sarah the true wife of Abraham. Abraham, who sacrificed his beloved son at the divine command, pictured Jehovah God, and his wife Sarah pictured the holy organization which is the mother or producer of God’s children. She is not a part of this old world, but is clean from it and high above it. She is heavenly, like God, and completely subject to him and devoted to his purposes. Jerusalem on earth is not her symbol. “But,” says the apostle Paul to Christians in the new covenant, “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” (Heb. 6:5 and Gal. 4:24-31, NW) By means of the new covenant she produces God’s spiritual children who are to be joint heirs with Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom.

23. Why cannot we designate the time of the new covenant “the Gospel age”?

²³ This period of time in which the new covenant is in force and in which the good news of the Kingdom is preached by those in the covenant we must not designate by any such name as “the Gospel age”. Let us remember that the gospel or good news did not begin to be preached first when the new covenant was made. No; for at Galatians 3:8 (NW) we read: “Now the Scripture, seeing in advance that God would declare people of the nations righteous due to faith, declared the good news beforehand to Abraham, namely: ‘By means of you all the nations will be blessed.’” Neither can we say that the new covenant system of things ends with the coming battle of Armageddon in which this world will be destroyed. Since God’s spiritual children in the new covenant will have a remnant that will overlive Armageddon into the new world, then this new covenant system must last till after Armageddon. It must, together with its provisions, last until God’s power removes his faithful remnant from the earth and glorifies them with Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom. Hence the end of the new covenant arrangement does not come at the end of this old world of Satan’s rule. We must yet wait to see when Jehovah God brings the new covenant to its successful end. At that time he will bring all his spiritual sons into the “coming systems of things” in which will be “demonstrated the surpassing riches of his undeserved kindness in his graciousness toward us in union with Christ Jesus”.—Eph. 2:7, NW.

24. Does the new covenant’s close end the Abrahamic covenant? Why?

²⁴ One thing is certain: The end of the new covenant does not bring the end of God’s covenant with Abraham, to whom he declared the good news, “By means of you all the nations will be blessed.” That Abrahamic covenant is an “everlasting covenant”. (Ps. 105:8-10) It will extend on through the thousand years of Christ’s royal rule for the blessing of all his earthly subjects, no matter of what nationality they may have been in this old world.

Beginning the New World Society

1. How will the new world have its society? How has the Kingdom’s establishment already affected us?

THE old world has its society or its people living according to a certain social arrangement. The new world, too, will have its society, all the members of which will live in harmony with a righteous arrangement. Satan the Devil, the god of this present wicked system of things, is the invisible ruler of the old-world society, but he will not be the god of the new world. His wicked system will be obliterated by the coming “war of the great day of God the Almighty”, Armageddon. (Rev. 16:14-16, NW) Jehovah, whose universal sovereignty Satan has challenged, will be the one, true living God of the new world. He will rule through the theocratic government of his faithful Son, Jesus Christ the King. That kingdom will institute new systems of things, the ones the Bible speaks of as yet coming. Come to think of it, the very establishment of God’s kingdom in the heavens by enthroning his Son in 1914 resulted in a radical change in the activities of God’s spiritual children who were under the new covenant. It has marvelously altered the message they preach in all the earth for a witness to all nations. Aye, it has put a “new song” in their mouths, the song of God’s kingdom at last brought to birth after millenniums of waiting. (Rev. 14:3; 12:1-10) The systems of things under which we have lived according to the new covenant have been grand, we must admit; but those which will obtain in the new world will be oh so much grander for all its society.

2. Why will it be different there? What is the proof?

² Why should it not be different, yes, better? For it will have new heavens and a new earth. The destruction of this old world with its Devil-controlled heavens and earth will therefore be no calamity. We eagerly look for it, doing as the apostle Peter says: “Awaiting and keeping close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah, through which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved and the elements being intensely hot will melt. But there are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.” (2 Pet. 3:12, 13, NW) The kingdom of Jesus Christ, together with his 144,000 faithful victorious followers, will spread out its power over all this globe and will form the “new heavens”. To these spiritual followers Jesus has said: “There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God that is not certain to get many times more in this period of time and in the coming system of things everlasting life.” (Luke 18:29, 30, NW; Mark 10:30) The gospel account of Matthew speaks of the coming system and calls it the “re-creation” or the “new world”, saying: “In the re-creation [new world], when the Son of man sits down upon his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also yourselves sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone that has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive many times more and will inherit everlasting life.”—Matt. 19:28, 29, NW, margin.

3. What will the “new earth” be?

³ But what of the “new earth”? Well, it will be human society, on our same planet, of course, but organized according to a new and righteous system of things under the Kingdom. Doubtless the most of those who enter the “new earth” will have to be raised from the dead to do so. As Jesus said, when discussing the general resurrection of mankind: “The children of this system of things marry and are given in marriage, but those who have been counted worthy of gaining that system of things and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. In fact, neither can they die any more, for they are like the angels, and they are God’s children by being children of the resurrection.”—Luke 20:34-36, NW.

4. With whom will the new earth be begun? How are they strangers?

⁴ However, that coming system of things is one which God uses his glorified Son Jesus to make. (Heb. 1:1, 2, NW) The “new earth” which the Kingdom will bring into existence will be begun with the survivors of Armageddon who have an earthly hope and destiny. They are the Right Shepherd’s “other sheep”. A “great crowd” of them which keeps increasing in number is now living with the remnant of Kingdom joint heirs who are under the new covenant. These “other sheep” are enjoying many of the benefits of the new covenant arrangement along with the spiritual remnant. Really, these present-day “other sheep” correspond with the “strangers” of good will who lived peaceably and harmoniously within the city gates of the ancient Israelites under the Law covenant. The Sabbath law of the Ten Commandments speaks of them prophetically as “thy stranger that is within thy gates”. That old covenant made many provisions for such God-fearing strangers. In many things it had the same ordinances for them as for the natural Israelites. (Ex. 20:8-10; 12:48, 49) The modern-day flock of “strangers” sojourning within the gates of the new covenant arrangement have been greatly blessed with the spiritual remnant by obeying the same divine ordinances.

“PRINCES IN ALL THE EARTH”

5. For years for whose appearance have we been looking? Why?

⁵ For some years now both the remnant and the great crowd of strangers or “other sheep” have been looking for the promised “princes” of the new earth to appear. Their expectation has been based upon the statement of Psalm 45:16, which is addressed to the new world’s King: “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.” In the past we have understood this to apply exclusively to the witnesses of Jehovah of ancient times before Christ, men who were either the natural forefathers of Jesus Christ, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, or who were faithful prophets and fellow witnesses of these. Their line runs from Abel to John the Baptist, and the names and exploits of a number of them are reported in Hebrews, chapter 11. Basing it upon Hebrews 11:2, 38, the WATCH TOWER publications used to refer to them as the “ancient worthies”.

6. What children will the King have? How? So what question arises?

⁶ When on earth Jesus Christ died unmarried and childless, but Psalm 45:16 assures us that in his heavenly glory as King he is to have earthly children, and Isaiah 9:6 tells of his birth and says his name will be called “everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”. By bestowing everlasting life upon obedient men for whose life in the new world he died he will have many sons, sons of the Prince of Peace. He will be their Everlasting Father. Those whom we used to call “ancient worthies” will also become his sons by his raising them from the dead and conferring life upon them for their unfaltering loyalty. So the question is, Will those sons whom he makes “princes in all the earth” be limited to those faithful pre-Christian witnesses of Jehovah God? What is our answer now?

7. How and why are any favored with the high calling at this time? But what others have now appeared, and in what numbers?

⁷ The people for Jehovah’s name whom he has called with the high calling to the heavenly kingdom and whom he has taken out from all nations by the agency of the new covenant are now about complete. Only a small remnant of them are yet on earth. Also nowadays of the many who devote themselves completely to God through Christ there are few who give evidence of receiving the high calling. Evidently those few who now receive the high calling are favored that way in order to replace any among the spiritual remnant who may lose their Kingdom opportunity through unfaithfulness in the midst of this world. So the high calling or heavenly calling is soon to cease, the full membership of the Kingdom class being finally purchased from among mankind and proved to be faithful conquerors over Satan’s world. But now already in this year 1950 there are hundreds of thousands of others who have made a full dedication of themselves to Jehovah by Christ and who have undertaken the serious service of Jehovah’s witnesses. Before the year 1935 we never envisaged this “great crowd” of consecrated “other sheep”. What of them? we now ask.—Rev. 7:9-17.

8. What did The New Creation, chapter 3, have to say about such?

⁸ Back in 1904 the first president of the Watch Tower Society wrote the sixth volume of Scripture Studies, entitled “The New Creation”. In chapter 3, entitled “The Call of the New Creation”, he had this to say, at the top of page 157: “And we may be sure that any consecrating and performing a full sacrifice of themselves in the interest of the Lord’s cause after the heavenly class is complete, will find that the Lord has plenty of blessings of some other kind still to give; and that all of his blessings are for such consecrators, self-sacrificers. Possibly they may be counted in with the ancient worthies who had the sacrificing disposition that is pleasing to God, prior to the beginning of the ‘high calling’.”

9. What did The Watchtower, September 1, 1915, have to say of such?

⁹ Years after that publication The Watchtower had this to say in its issue of September 1, 1915, in paragraphs 5, 6 of an article on the “harvest work” (pages 268, 269): “It is our thought that with the closing of the ‘door’ of this Gospel age there will be no more begetting of the holy Spirit to the spirit nature. Any afterward coming to God through consecration, before the inauguration of the restitution work, will be accepted by him, not to the spirit plane of being, but to the earthly plane. Such would come in under the same conditions as the ancient worthies who were accepted of God. The ancient worthies came in, no call being opened to them—the high calling not being yet open, . . . Our thought is that whoever under such conditions as these will make a full consecration to the Lord, to leave all to follow in his ways, and will live up faithfully, loyally, to that consecration, may be privileged to be counted as a similar class to those who preceded this Gospel age. We know of no reason why the Lord would refuse to receive those who make a consecration after the close of the Gospel age high calling and before the full opening of the Millennium.”

10. Since 1920 what facts have become clear about such class?

¹⁰ In its issue of January 15, 1920, (pages 21-28) in an article entitled “Worthies—Ancient and Modern”, The Watchtower discussed the question of “modern worthies” according to the information and facts then available and said No! to such a class. But that was fifteen years before the revealing of the identity of the “great crowd” symbolized at Revelation 7:9-17. That was years before members of this great crowd of “other sheep” began to flock to the side of the spiritual remnant. That was years before it was appreciated that it was fitting for this great crowd to make a full dedication of themselves to God through Christ. But those already of this increasing great crowd have, as we now know, devoted themselves to God through Christ as fully as the spiritual remnant have. Like the remnant, they have symbolized that self-dedication by water baptism. And they have since endeavored to prove their self-dedication genuine by doing God’s will and subjecting themselves to the responsibilities of Jehovah’s witnesses.

11. As to faith how do these compare with the faithful ones of old?

¹¹ Are they men and women of faith like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah? Yes, and they have gone farther in belief than those of old. Those ancient people merely looked forward by faith to Christ the Seed of Abraham. But these “other sheep” of today have actually accepted Jesus as the Messiah their Savior and King. Many righteous men and kings of old desired to see the things these “other sheep” now see and hear. Today, instead of pointing into the indefinite future toward the Kingdom, these sheep declare the Kingdom actually established and now about to usher in the new world.—Matt. 13:17.

12. Have they suffered for their faith like those of old? Is it yet all over with?

¹² But have these other sheep suffered for their faith as Jehovah’s witnesses like those approved men and women of old? Have they had a “trial by mockings and scourgings, indeed, more than that, by bonds and prisons”? Have they been stoned, died by slaughter with the sword, gone about in animal skins, been in want, tribulation and ill-treatment, and wandered in deserts, mountains, dens and underground shelters of the earth? (Heb. 11:36-38, NW) Has this same old world acted not worthily of these modern witnesses of Jehovah? THERE is the record of recent years. Consult it. The evidence is overwhelming already! But there is yet much demonstrating of faith and integrity, yet much witnessing, yet much intense suffering, before we step out victorious into the new world. So these “other sheep” of today are indeed proving themselves sterling witnesses of the Most High God, like their faithful predecessors of pre-Christian times; but they have yet to prove their full devotion to the finish during the time that yet remains till Armageddon and the glorious birth of the new world.

13. Does Psalm 45:16 say only “fathers” will be made “princes”? What is the sense of the passage?

¹³ Those who do manifest their faith and integrity to the full will become children of the King Jesus Christ, the Everlasting Father, just as much so as the faithful ancients who preceded Christ. Since they manifest a similarity of faith, there is nothing that Scripturally argues against his taking as many of these “other sheep” as he requires and making them “princes in all the earth”. When we examine Psalm 45:16 we see it does not say that only those who were the earthly “fathers” of Jehovah’s anointed King will be the children whom he will make visible earthly princes to represent the heavenly Kingdom. To give the sense, Moffatt’s Bible translation renders Psalm 45:16: “Your sons shall step into your fathers’ place, and rise to be princes over all the land.” The Roman Catholic French translation by Crampon renders it: “Your children shall take the place of your fathers; you will constitute them princes over all the earth.” The Roman Catholic Spanish translation by Nácar-Colunga renders it similarly.a

14. How is the Hebrew term Săr applied, and so what does it indicate for the faithful ones as to future opportunities?

¹⁴ And when we consider this term prince, translated from the Hebrew word Săr (feminine, Sarah), we see that it is not always nor necessarily applied to the son of a king, to a prince of royal birth who is made a state official or governmental officer. It means the first, foremost or chief in any class, the head of any company or group. So in the Bible this Hebrew term Săr, sometimes translated prince, is even applied to Jesus himself, to the archangel Michael, to princes of the tribes of Israel, to princes of the provinces, to governors of cities, and to chiefs or captains of the guard, to captains over thousands, over hundreds, over fifties, over tens. Hence, to be made princes, in the Hebrew sense of the word Săr, in the new world society, in the “new earth”, offers a variety of opportunities of service with responsibilities of varying degrees; and there will be many such privileges. In the new earth they will not be addressed with the title before their name, like “Prince Charles”, “Prince Abraham,” “Prince Albert,” etc. No; we will be living then under a CHRISTIAN government. We are living now under that divine government, and we do not have anything like such titles now in the theocratic organization. So it would be inconsistent to think we will have any titled forms of address then. But just as now we may refer to officers as servants or directors of the Society, we may then refer to them as sarím (princes) in the Hebrew sense of the word. All we have to say now is that those “other sheep” who have been given positions of responsibility in the visible theocratic organization of today, even if it be over a group of ten who meet for Bible study and united service in the neighborhood, should look well to how they discharge their responsibilities now. Remember the rule stated by Jesus: “The person faithful in what is least is faithful also in much.” (Luke 16:10, NW) Only if you prove yourself faithful in what is committed to you now in this passing old world will you have any likelihood of being made a prince in the new earth along with the resurrected faithful witnesses of ancient times before Christ.

FOR AN ORGANIZED EMERGENCE

15. Why are we now living differently from the society of this world?

¹⁵ Glorious, then, are the prospects for us all who continue faithful. By virtue of God’s new covenant through Christ we are already amid new systems of things. But we are moving on to newer systems of things by the re-creation of an entire world of righteousness, with new heavens and a new earth. We are no part of this old world and we are not meddling in its affairs. That fact testifies that we are under the new covenant system and are for the new world. That Jehovah God is dealing with us in this manner adds to the proof that the new world is on the way. God is not now preparing us for nothing. No; but he has a new world in store for us. Knowing what is right at hand, God is now getting ready a new world society. That is why we are living differently, as people who are not of the society of this old world. He is not only preparing his remnant of spiritual Israelites for membership in the heavenly kingdom of the new heavens. He is also preparing our good-will companions, the great crowd of “other sheep”, for the visible society of the new earth. Proverbs 14:28 declares: “In the multitude of people is the king’s honour: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.” According to that principle the King Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, is now gathering a great, numberless flock of his earthly “other sheep” to his one fold.

16. Why are remnant and “other sheep” certain to survive Armageddon?

¹⁶ Remnant and “other sheep” will together make it safely to the new world, no matter how desperately Satan’s old world tries to destroy us. It can no more prevent us from surviving the battle of Armageddon into the new world than it can block or destroy the new heavens and earth. “For,” to quote Isaiah 66:22, “as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain.” (AS) His now preparing of a nucleus of the new world society will never be in vain. Hid by Jehovah’s powerful hand in the days of his anger against the doomed old world, this nucleus will go through Armageddon, just as Noah and his household went though the Flood, hid in the ark. You survivors of Armageddon will be the first on the field of action in the “new earth”.

17. How do we want to emerge? What will follow?

¹⁷ But what we want is that when, after Armageddon, we do emerge from the ark of hiding we will emerge organized. The enemy may yet take us into his power and scatter us physically or drive us underground. But when he is destroyed at Armageddon and we come forth from his smashed places of detaining us, we shall march forth organized theocratically, knowing organization procedures. And we shall all get together again and work as a free society of the theocratic new world, all over the globe. In due time the faithful remnant will have their change by death and resurrection and be gathered into the invisible new heavens, but the “other sheep” will carry on as the new earth with visible “princes”. That righteous “new earth” will grow from this small nucleus until it includes all the dead resurrected from the graves and who obey the Kingdom. When the Kingdom will have accomplished God’s purpose toward mankind by the close of the thousand years, then that arrangement will end. Then new systems of things will follow for the delight and blessing of faithful mankind of the new earth for all eternity.—1 Cor. 15:24-28.

18. What, then, is our determination henceforth?

¹⁸ With these transporting prospects so close before us, let us keep theocratic organization and let God continue improving it as a new world society. Never may we look back to this modern Sodom which is reserved for destruction; but we will keep faces forward in full faith. Onward, then, steadily, all of us together, as a new world society!

[Footnotes]

Use the Remaining Time Wisely

MAKE no mistake about it, “the appointed time has grown very short.” “Look carefully then [keep strict watch, NW] how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” (1 Cor. 7:29; Eph. 5:15, 16, RS) How much shorter nowadays the remaining time, and how much greater the need to make the most of it!a

Whereas Paul saw things with the eye of faith, today the reality stares us in the face. The consummation of the present system of things has been reached. Bible chronology and fulfilled prophecy—total world wars, famines, pestilent diseases, earthquakes, heart-stopping sorrows and fears—are signs of the times or milestones, notifying men and nations where they are on the stream of time. The thirty-six intervening years since 1914, instead of postponing Armageddon, have only made it nearer than most people think. Do not forget: “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” (Matt. 24:34) Consequently, the important question is: What is the most profitable way in which to use the remaining time? If you are wise you will not dodge or side-step the answer.—Eccl. 8:5.

We are living at the climax of the ages, when the old world is in the throes of death and a bright new world is poised on the horizon about to replace the old. It is therefore vain and foolish to dash after wealth and power and position or spend time and energy storing up earthly possessions that cannot endure. (1 Tim. 6:9, 10; Matt. 6:19) “Behave wisely in relation to the outside world, seizing your opportunities.”

Noah laid hold of his opportunities when the world of that generation stood on the brink of destruction. Wisely he used the remaining time to preach the message of warning and build a boat of safety. “Just as it was in the time of Noah,” so it is now.—Matt. 24:37, AT.

Christ also laid hold of his opportunities. He too used his time in a most profitable way. Instead of climbing the short, unprofitable, worldly “ladder of success” to become a commercial magnate, or an imperial potentate, or a religious pontiff, he entered the full-time service of his God Jehovah, even if it brought upon him great persecution and suffering and in the end cost him his human life. He went after the most profitable thing and obtained it.

The way we use our time is largely determined by habits. It is therefore profitable to cultivate good habits. Guard against loving pleasure more than God. Do not gamble that you will be here tomorrow to do what should be done today. (Matt. 6:27, NW) Time is precious. Do not waste it on unessential, trivial things. Avoid association with the wicked of this world.

It is written: “Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life.” (Prov. 4:13) This requires that one diligently study God’s Word, and attend all theocratic meetings. Forsake not the opportunity to assemble with Jehovah’s witnesses at the Watchtower studies and service meetings and to participate in the ministry school.—Heb. 10:25.

Your life and the lives of others depend upon how well you use the knowledge and theocratic instructions gained in study. You must preach what you learn to others, for it is through “the foolishness of preaching” that people will escape destruction. (1 Cor. 1:21) Preaching is therefore the wise and profitable thing to do. When this world-wide witness work is completed and Armageddon has struck, God’s faithful preaching witnesses will gain endless life.

[Footnotes]

Evolution Contrary to Scientific Fact

THEY say it is a woman’s right to change her mind, but we say it is the scientist that makes the most use of this feminine privilege. Is it not true that the theories of scientists change like women’s fashions? that what is in high esteem today may be derided in contempt tomorrow? that it is seldom safe to be dogmatic on any of the changing theories of scientists?

Why, look how they have changed their minds on this matter of evolution.a They used to vow that life started spontaneously in some mud puddle millions of years ago, but now science textbooks admit that this is not so, that no one knows how life started.

These scientists used to teach that environment caused changes in animals, which changes were passed on to offspring, which developed them further, till after thousands of years completely different animals evolved. But you know that is not true. You know Chinese women used to bind their feet, but it did not cause their babies to be born with deformed feet. Some tribes stretch their lips or bind their heads into queer shapes, but their babies do not inherit these deformed lips or heads. You can lie on the beach for years and become heavily sun-tanned, but your offspring will not be born sun-tanned. Now even the scientists realize such changes acquired in later life because of environment are not passed on to offspring. So the evolutionists have discarded this theory they once fanatically swore by.

Then came Charles Darwin, who said small variations occurred in the forms of animals, and that through natural selection and survival of the fittest the good variations were preserved and over the centuries accumulated till new families were formed. But today the up-to-date evolutionists indulgently smile at Darwin as a well-meaning chap, but do not take him seriously. As one of them said: “Darwin has been shorn of his theory as completely as Samson was shorn of his locks.”

And who was the modern Delilah that clipped Darwin’s hair? One he considered his supporter, geology. Geology is the study of the earth’s rocks and layers, and in these layers are found fossil forms of life that existed in the dim past. The evolutionist would have us believe that in this fossil record of the rocks we can see the story of life slowly evolving from small beginnings up to man. But honest investigation does not show us any fossils that connect two different animal families. Rather, it shows new families appearing suddenly, and that once in existence they did not change greatly. Geology testified against Darwin’s theory.

Moreover, geology dealt another devastating blow to evolution. First appearance of fossils is in earth layers evolutionists say are 500 million years old. But these first fossils are of life in such advanced forms that the evolutionists say life must have been in existence for 1000 million years before, because it would take evolution that long to get little one-celled animals evolved up to these advanced forms that are found in the first fossils. What does this mean? Why, it means that though they say life has been in existence for 1500 million years, they have fossil record of life back only 500 million years, and that therefore they have no record at all of the first 1000 million years of evolution! Two-thirds of the fossil record they need is a blank! May we suggest that the scientists not fret themselves too much looking for the missing link? What they need to find is the missing chain!

SHIFT TO SUDDEN CHANGES

At any rate, after geology so riddled the idea of slow evolving of life to bridge family after family, after it showed that the various families of life appeared suddenly and remained constant, the evolutionists changed their minds again, buried Darwin’s theory with mourning, and revised their teachings once more. As evidence of this revision, Doctor Clark, a Smithsonian Institution biologist and evolutionist, said no links connected major groups of animals, that the gaps were natural and not due to a deficiency in the fossil record, and he further said: “So far as concerns the major groups of animals the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other.”

Doctor Clark’s confession is confirmed by a French scientist, an evolutionist, who wrote in his book Human Destiny: “Each group, order, or family seems to be born suddenly and we hardly ever find the forms which connect a new group with an ancient one.” He goes on to admit that reptiles appear suddenly, that they cannot be linked with any earthly ancestors, and makes the same admission about mammals. About birds he says they have “all the unsatisfactory characteristics of absolute creation”. Now, why should he call the “characteristics of absolute creation” “unsatisfactory”? Because to the evolution-religion creation is heresy!

Nevertheless, scientists have been forced to face the fact that new families appeared suddenly, with all the unsatisfactory characteristics of creation. So what do they do? Acknowledge creation? They would never dream of doing that! So they trot out a new theory that will let them face the fact of families appearing suddenly, without having to face creation. They now preach mutations. A mutation is a sudden change between parent and offspring, such as happens in the case of freaks.

Would it not be possible for a flood of mutations to quickly form a new family? Evolutionists would like to show this, but mutations are very rare in nature. However, scientists have learned that by subjecting the parents to atomic radiation they can cause a heavy run of mutations. So they have taken animals that reproduce quickly, subjected them to radiation, and thus noted changes that would ordinarily have taken many thousands of generations to get. They did this with a little fruit fly, and followed it through enough generations to turn an ape into a man, according to their theory. What, then, was the amazing change effected in the little fruit fly? Did it turn into a bumble bee? or a June bug? No; it was still the same little fruit fly they started with, still undergoing mutations that changed its eyes from red to white, and back again, that changed its wings from long to short, and back again.

And here is an odd thing. If mutations cause evolution, and if evolution made a man of us from nothing, why are the scientists so afraid of mutations? They are, for that is why they dread the aftereffects of atomic bombing. The radiation from such explosions causes mutations, and Life magazine recently reported scientists as saying: “The mutations among the Japanese exposed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki may plague the human race for thousands of years.” The fact is, small mutations weaken the species, big mutations produce freaks that soon die or cannot reproduce. Instead of evolving life upward to higher forms, mutations are harmful. Life magazine recently said: “Five years of tests have shown that radiation produces no abnormalities that do not occasionally show up in nature. No useful mutations have appeared, and none is anticipated.”

Well, there are the hard, cheerless facts facing the evolutionists who had hoped their failing theory could gain salvation by mutations. They grabbed at mutations as the straw to keep afloat their sinking theory, but that straw has become about as useful to them as a millstone around the neck of a drowning man, and once again the evolutionists are thrown face to face with creation. From the fog of wishful thinking the firm fact emerges that they do not have a shred of scientific evidence on which to base their fantastic, unscientific, senseless, silly theory of evolution!

EVOLUTION’S FOUNDATION

But their theory does have a foundation, and about the same adjectives can be used to describe it. This theory was taught in ancient Babylon. Traces of it are found in the religions of the Hindus and Mayans. Greek philosophers taught it in the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ. To this day savage tribes in many parts of the earth believe it. You have all heard of totem poles. Well, many tribes have their totem, which is usually an animal or plant, and they believe they descended from the animal that is their totem. On this the Encyclopædia Britannica says:

“The turtle clan of the Iroquois are descended from a fat turtle, which, burdened by the weight of its shell in walking, contrived by great exertions to throw it off, and thereafter gradually developed into a man. The cray-fish clan of the Choctaws were originally cray-fish and lived underground, coming up occasionally through the mud to the surface. Once a party of Choctaws smoked them out, and, treating them kindly, taught them the Choctaw language, taught them to walk on two legs, made them cut off their toenails and pluck the hair from their bodies, after which they adopted them into the tribe.”

Christendom’s clergy are quick to swallow this fairy tale of evolution. The Catholic Encyclopedia says under “Evolution”: “It is in perfect agreement with the Christian conception of the universe. That God should have made use of natural, evolutionary, original causes in the production of man’s body is per se not improbable, and was propounded by St. Augustine.” During August, 1950, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical on Catholic doctrine, and the official English translation showed that therein the pope did not forbid the study of evolution, but that such study should be limited to “inquiries into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—for Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God”. (New York Times, August 22) He opens the door to evolution of man’s body, while unscripturally separating the soul therefrom. Space forbids quoting Protestant and Jewish authorities, but many of them have similar views.

From all this we see that when evolutionists charge Bible believers with being old-fashioned, ignorant, gullible, believers in myths and legends and superstitions, they are only hurling a charge that boomerangs to crash back on their own heads! On the other hand, the Bible is the most up-to-date book, telling us of things to come in the next thousand years, of a blessed new world that will never end. Let us consider some of the Bible testimony concerning God’s creation, and see whether it fits the known scientific facts better than evolution. As Jehovah invites, “Come now, and let us reason together.”

REASONING TOGETHER

First reason about the earth. God says he made the earth, created it not in vain, formed it to be inhabited. The facts show he made it just right for us. If it rotated much faster or slower, if it were much closer or farther from the sun, or if the sun were much hotter or cooler than it is, we would roast or freeze. If the moon were much nearer to earth tides would cover lowlands, erode mountains, level continents, till water covered the entire earth. If the mixture of gases in earth’s atmosphere were much different, we would die. If the earth were not tilted on its axis we would have no seasons, water vapor from oceans would move north and south, fall as snow and ice at the poles, never melt, leave desert in between, and soon oceans would disappear and rainfall cease.

Consider man. The Bible says he was created in God’s image, with wisdom, justice, love and power. This explains the big gulf between man and any other animal. Man alone has ability to reason, determine right and wrong, manifest conscience, and has the urge to worship a higher power. Science says man uses but a small percentage of his marvelous brain. Evolution would not evolve something that was never used, but perfect man was created with his wonderful brain and used it in the beginning, though degenerate man does not now use it fully. Man was created far above all other animals, that he might be fitted to exercise intelligent dominion over them.

The Bible shows that man was created with the power of speech, and was able from the beginning to coin new words, giving names to the animals. Evolution says as man evolved from ape he also evolved his present speech from animal grunts and growls. The facts say No. A science magazine states: “Older forms of the languages known today were far more difficult than their modern descendants. Man appears not to have begun with a simple speech, and gradually made it more complex, but rather to have gotten hold of a tremendously knotty speech somewhere in the unrecorded past, and gradually simplified it to the modern form.” The Bible account fits these facts. Man started out with a highly developed language, but man’s speech has degenerated with him.

The Bible states that one human pair was created, and this pair was commanded to multiply and fill the earth. Now evolutionists admit all men descended from one original pair, that there is no real difference in races. A scientific magazine recently said: “The story of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis has been vindicated, in part at least, by science. Its main point is now generally accepted as true: namely, that there is only one human family . . . with a common origin.” The Genesis record of creation tells that God made each family group to reproduce after its kind, yet each family has power to vary widely within its family boundaries. That is why there is such variety in the cat family, dog family, or human family with its many races. That is why men can develop a variety of domestic horses or cows or chickens. But despite this ability to vary widely, each family reproduces after its family kind: cats have cats, dogs dogs, horses horses, monkeys monkeys, and men men. Cats do not have pups, or dogs colts, or monkeys human babies, no more than women have kittens. This Scriptural unchangeableness of family kind is proved by the fossil record.

Another point to reason on. Evolution means to develop upward, to improve. But facts say man is degenerating, morally and physically, the victim of increasing mental and physical ailments. Despite increase of hospitals, clinics, trained doctors, improved medicines and greater knowledge of the human body, the degeneration that set in with Adam’s disobedience continues. It has drastically cut down on man’s life span. Before the Flood men lived several centuries, a fact now confirmed by archeological discoveries. Those men were near to humanity’s perfect start in Eden; degeneration had not had time to cut into their life span so heavily.

TESTIMONY OF VISIBLE CREATION

All along the line, in every respect we see that the Bible account fits the facts of true science, while evolution is a misfit in every way. But obstinately ignoring the facts and shunning reason, men of science prattle their empty theory. Were they not so wise in their own conceit, so puffed up in their own knowledge, they could not fail to see the evidence of God’s creative power and wisdom all around them. They could see it when they peer through their telescopes at the star-studded heavens, or when they squint into their microscopes, even noting the tiny solar systems of the atoms. Without their telescopes and microscopes, they can still see God’s wisdom all around.

Man uses electricity? So does the electric eel. Man has artificial lighting? So does the firefly. He is a good engineer? So is the spider that spins a web, the bird that weaves a nest, the beaver that builds a dam, the wasp that manufactures paper, the bee that air-conditions its hive, the ant that builds bridges. Man can navigate the pathless seas of water and trackless oceans of air? So can the eels and birds that migrate for thousands of miles. And what about the moth that uses radio? the octopus that uses jet propulsion? and the bat that uses radar? Yes, what about all this? Should it not deflate the wiseacres of this world, to see that these little creatures of no intelligence have instinctively used man’s modern inventions for thousands and thousands of years? Men should see reflected in these things the wisdom and power of the Creator that made them. But do they? God’s Word answers: “Ever since the creation of the universe God’s invisible attributes—his everlasting power and divinity—are to be seen and studied in his works, so that men have no excuse . . . Their speculations about him proved futile, and their undiscerning minds were darkened. Professing to be wise, they showed themselves fools.”—Rom. 1:20-22, Twen. Cen. N.T.

Men of good will do not want to be found fools. They will reason on these matters, see how God’s Word fits the facts. They will not be stumbled by evolution while en route to Jehovah’s promised new world, but will discern that it is just an old-fashioned, unprovable pagan myth. They appreciate that Satan has revived it in these last days to blind men to the good news of the new world, that with this evolution bait he has hooked the wise and haughty, the puffed up and proud. It has become the chief stone of stumbling to trip up this wise, modern, brilliant generation of science worshipers. To such moderns science is a sacred cow—but their cow has gone dry so far as its being able to nurse evolution is concerned!

Armed with both scientific truth and Bible truth, Christians can prove God true, though it make all evolutionists liars.—Rom. 3:4.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 421]

Spontaneous Generation

Acquired Characteristics

Natural Selection

Scientific Facts

Mutations

Was Christ Hung on a Cross?

TO MANY millions of people the answer to this question seems as simple as the three-letter word “Yes”. To serious students of both ancient history and the Bible the answer is even simpler, as simple as the two-letter word “No!” But two answers as far apart as these open up between them a great gulf that all truth seekers must be able to bridge in order to stand on the solid ground of truth.

It is common knowledge in this enlightened age that the Bible was not first set down in English. Consequently, to settle the question as to whether Christ was hung on a cross or not it is necessary to consult the original Hebrew and Greek languages in which the Bible was written. By God’s grace manuscript copies of the original accounts, some of which copies date back to within fifty years of the originals, are available to scholars. Besides these, the original words are defined and explained in dictionaries or lexicons written in modern English, if that is the only language you read. And, in addition, there are dependable encyclopedias, histories, etc., to which reference can be made.

The Catholic Digest magazine, May, 1948, page 108, had the following to say on the subject of the cross: “Long before the birth of Christ the cross was a religious symbol. On the site of ancient Troy discs of baked clay stamped with a cross, were recently discovered. Two similar objects were found at Herculaneum. The Aztecs of ancient Mexico carved the cross on amulets, pottery, and temple walls. Many traces of use of the cross by North American Indians have been discovered. Buddhists of Tibet see in the cross a mark of the footprint of Buddha. The Mongolians draw a cross on paper and place it on the breasts of their dead. Egyptian inscriptions often have the Tau (T) cross. They considered the scarab (beetle) sacred because markings down the back and across the thorax form a T. A cross of this form was used as a support for the arms of Hindu ascetics in India who were wont to sit for days and nights in a Buddhalike attitude. The crux ansata (handled cross) has a loop serving as a handle. For the Egyptians this cross was a symbol of life and in their sign language meant ‘to live.’” See also The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, page 517; the footnote on pages 312, 313, of Gibbon’s History of Christianity, Eckler’s edition, 1891.

But how was the cross a “symbol of life” to the pagans? Well, a father, the male, is life-giver to his children by and through the mother. Hence, those sex-worshiping pagans, under the inspiration of the Devil and his demons, constructed a phallic image of the erected male genitive organ, with a crossbar toward one end to represent the testes. Carrying the symbolism a step further in the crux ansata, the loop on the top, which pious religionists choose to describe as a “handle”, represented the female genitive organ joined to the masculine symbol. That these diabolical facts are true, see the following references: Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen, by Villiers Stuart; Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship, by Sha Rocco; Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop; Essays on the Worship of Priapus, by Richard Payne Knight.

Reference to the original languages in which the Bible was written will show beyond a question of doubt that Christ was never hung on any pagan cross. Hence, the use of the word “cross” in the English-language Bibles is a mistranslation. On this, the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures,a in its appendix, on pages 768-771, in commenting on Matthew 10:38, where the Greek word σταυρός (stau·rosʹ) first appears and which is translated “cross” in most Bibles, states:

“This is the expression used in connection with the execution of Jesus at Calvary. There is no evidence that the Greek word stau·rosʹ meant here a ‘cross’ such as the pagans used as a religious symbol for many centuries before Christ to denote the sun-god. On the ancient sculptures of Egypt may be seen representations of their gods bearing the so-called crux an·saʹta, a T-cross with a loop at the top, it being a phallic symbol of life. In Babylonian inscriptions Tammuz was signified by a heart from which sprang a single or a double cross.

“India, Syria, Persia, as well as Babylon and ancient Egypt, have all yielded objects marked with crosses of various designs, including the swastika among the early Aryans. This betrays the worshiping of the cross to be pagan.

“In the classical Greek the word stau·rosʹ meant merely an upright stake or pale, or a pile such as is used for a foundation. The verb stau·roʹo meant to fence with pales, to form a stockade or palisade, and this is the verb used when the mob called for Jesus to be impaled. To such a stake or pale the person to be punished was fastened, just as when the popular Greek hero Pro·meʹthe·us was represented as tied to a stake or stau·rosʹ. The Greek word which the dramatist Aesʹchy·lus used to describe this means to fasten or fix on a pole or stake, to impale, and the Greek author Lucian used a·na·stau·roʹo as a synonym for that word. In the Christian Greek Scriptures a·na·stau·roʹo occurs but once, at Hebrews 6:6. The root verb stau·roʹo occurs more than 40 times, and we have rendered it ‘impale’, with the footnote: ‘Or, “fasten on a stake or pole.’”

“The inspired writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures wrote in the common (koi·neʹ) Greek and used the word stau·rosʹ to mean the same thing as in the classical Greek, namely, a stake or pale, a simple one without a crossbeam of any kind or at any angle. There is no proof to the contrary. The apostles Peter and Paul also use the word xyʹlon to refer to the torture instrument upon which Jesus was nailed, and this argues that is was an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what xyʹlon in this special sense means. (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24) At Ezra 6:11 we find xyʹlon in the Greek Septuagint (1 Esdras 6:31), and there it is spoken of as a beam on which the violator of law was to be hanged, the same as at Luke 23:39; Acts 5:30; 10:39.

“The fact that stau·rosʹ is translated crux in the Latin versions furnishes no argument against this. Any authoritative Latin dictionary will inform the examiner that the basic meaning of crux is a ‘tree, frame, or other wooden instrument of execution’ on which criminals were impaled or hanged. (Lewis-Short) A cross is only a later meaning of crux. Even in the writings of Livy, a Roman historian of the first century B.C., crux means a mere stake. Such a single stake for impalement of a criminal was called crux simplex, and the method of nailing him to such an instrument of torture is illustrated by the Roman Catholic scholar, Justus Lipsius, of the 16th century. We present herewith a photographic copy of his illustration on page 647, column 2, of his book De Cruce Liber Primus. This is the manner in which Jesus was impaled.

“Religious tradition from the days of Emperor Constantine proves nothing. Says that monthly publication for the Roman Catholic clergy, The Ecclesiastical Review, of September, 1920, No. 3, of Baltimore, Maryland, page 275: ‘It may be safely asserted that only after the edict of Milan, A.D. 312, was the cross used as the permanent sign of our Redemption. De Rossi positively states that no monogram of Christ, discovered in the catacombs or other places, can be traced to a period anterior to the year 312. Even after that epoch-making year, the church, then free and triumphant, contented herself with having a simple monogram of Christ: the Greek letter chi vertically crossed by a rho, and horizontally sometimes, by an iota. [Artwork—Greek characters] The oldest crucifix mentioned as an object of public worship is the one venerated in the Church of Narbonne in southern France, as early as the 6th century.’

“After showing the pagan origin of the cross, The Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 7, of edition 11, page 506, says: ‘It was not till the time of Constantine that the cross was publicly used as the symbol of the Christian religion.’ That was but logical, for Emperor Constantine was a worshiper of the pagan sun-god, whose symbol was a cross. Other experts have pointed out that ‘before the fourth century the cross was not used as a Christian emblem in the East any more than in the West’.

“Rather than consider the torture stake upon which Jesus was impaled a relic to be worshiped, the Jewish Christians like Simon Peter would consider it to be an abominable thing. At Galatians 3:13 the apostle Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21:23 and says: ‘It is written: “Accursed is every man hanged upon a stake.’” Hence the Jewish Christians would hold as accursed and hateful the stake upon which Jesus had been executed. Says the celebrated Jewish authority, Moses Mai·monʹi·des, of the 12th century: ‘They never hang upon a tree which clings to the soil by roots; but upon a timber uprooted, that it might not be an annoying plague: for a timber upon which anyone has been hanged is buried; that the evil name may not remain with it and people should say, “This is the timber on which so-and-so was hanged.” So the stone with which anyone has been stoned; and the sword, with which the one killed has been killed; and the cloth or mantle with which anyone has been strangled; all these things are buried along with those who perished.’ (Apud Casaub. in Baron. Exercitat. 16, An. 34, Num. 134) Says Kalinski in Vaticinia Observationibus Illustrata, page 342: ‘Consequently since a man hanged was considered the greatest abomination—the Jews also hated more than other things the timber on which he had been hanged, so that they covered it also with earth, as being equally an abominable thing.’

“The evidence is, therefore, completely lacking that Jesus Christ was crucified on two pieces of timber placed at a right angle. We refuse to add anything to God’s written Word by inserting the pagan cross into the inspired Scriptures, but render stau·rosʹ and xyʹlon according to the simplest meanings. Since Jesus used stau·rosʹ to represent the suffering and shame or torture of his followers (Matthew 16:24), we have translated stau·rosʹ as ‘torture stake’, to distinguish it from xyʹlon, which we have translated ‘stake’, or, in the footnote, ‘tree,’ as at Acts 5:30.”

The gulf of speculation having thus been bridged, Christians today stand on the solid ground of provable facts when they emphatically declare that Christ was never hung on a pagan cross of phallic origin.

[Footnotes]

Dominican Republic Persecutes Christians

THE Dominican Republic claims to be a Christian nation. She claims to be a freedom-loving republic. She is a member of the United Nations. Notwithstanding, she has distinguished herself as the first so-called Christian nation in peacetime to officially outlaw her devout Christian citizens and deny them the right to worship God as commanded in his Word, the Bible.

This republic lies between Cuba and Puerto Rico and occupies the eastern two-thirds of the second-largest island in the Caribbean. It was established in 1844, and in 1929 a new constitution was proclaimed, with certain modifications added in 1934 and 1942. This constitution has provisions similar to those contained in the American Bill of Rights for the protection of the individual’s freedom against oppression by the state.

Title II, Section 1, of the constitution deals with Individual Rights, and says, in paragraphs 3 and 5, that people may enjoy “freedom of conscience and of worship, without other limitation than the respect due to public order and good customs”. Also, that the people have “the right to express thought without subjection to previous censorship”, the only limitation in this regard being: “The law shall establish sanctions applicable to those who attack the honor of individuals, the social order, or the public peace.”

It was into such a republic that the Watch Tower Society sent its first missionaries in April of 1945. Early in June of that year two additional missionaries were sent, and on the 26th of that month the Dominican Republic signed the Charter of the United Nations. At that time not one person aside from these graduates of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead was active in preaching the gospel of God’s kingdom as commanded by Christ. (Matt. 24:14; 28:19, 20) By the end of 1946 there were 18 missionaries in the country in addition to 5 local publishers, and as they continued to preach many more people heard. And not only did they hear, they attended the free Bible meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses; they believed; they were baptized; and they themselves began preaching the good news to others, until this year, in the month of May, there were 238 active ministers of the gospel in the Dominican Republic, in addition to the American missionaries, and 21 of these Dominicans are full-time pioneer workers.

This progress in pure worship, however, was not made without interference and persecution. In the city of San Francisco de Macorís Catholic opposition showed itself against the good work done by four female missionaries. Teen-agers pestered the girls with a song, the theme of which was, ‘Get out, you Protestants, we are Catholics.’ The sign on the Kingdom Hall was torn down. The Bible educational work became more difficult in certain parts of the town as the girls carried on under showers of sticks and stones.

In the city of Santiago the downtown streets were littered with thousands of handbills, 10 by 12 inches in size, downing the Watchtower and Awake! magazines, and warning Catholics to have nothing to do with Jehovah’s witnesses. A few weeks later a similar handbill was circulated falsely linking Jehovah’s witnesses with communism.

Official civil pressure is brought on the people who study the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses, and some are called down to the army fort and warned to discontinue their Christian study. In San Cristobal one of the witnesses is a pharmacist. One night someone tore down the Kingdom Hall sign from the front of his house. Police came the next day and warned him to quit his preaching or suffer the consequence of mob action, but the pharmacist continued his God-commanded preaching. Next, his gasoline ration tickets were taken away. Still he faithfully served Jehovah God. Finally, he was called for military service, in spite of the fact that he is 40 years of age and the law says that those between 35 and 55 are to be called only in time of war. Other persons in this city who study the Bible with the witnesses have lost their jobs.

In the capital city, Ciudad Trujillo, more than 25 of Jehovah’s witnesses are in prison and many more have lost secular employment. Anyone who studies the Bible with one of Jehovah’s witnesses is shortly thereafter visited by a police officer with the familiar warning. The witnesses are followed wherever they go.

U. N. VOWS BROKEN

Through it all Jehovah’s witnesses have continued their peaceful work of visiting the people with the comforting message of hope from the Bible. After all, the Dominican Republic is a charter member of the United Nations and hence these distressing conditions should be corrected. Under its “Purposes and Principles”, set forth in Chapter I, Article 1, this Charter declares that its signatory powers, and the Dominican Republic is one of them, are determined to achieve international co-operation “in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion”.

Consequently, the Dominican Republic has made a most solemn and forthright pledge guaranteeing that man’s fundamental and basic freedom to worship the Almighty God, whose name alone is Jehovah, will be upheld, respected and protected in that land. It was, therefore, shocking news to hear that on June 21, 1950, the government issued a decree dissolving the Christian organization of Jehovah’s witnesses, placing their preaching work under ban, and forbidding them to assemble together for Bible study as the Scriptures command. (Heb. 10:25) This arbitrary action was not taken because these innocent Christians upset “public order and good customs”, or because they attacked the honor of individuals, the social order, or the public peace.

Oh, yes, the charge of “public disorder” is laid against the witnesses, but you judge for yourself how false it is. A recent report in this regard tells how seven of Jehovah’s witnesses were thrown into prison. Then four other persons, as Jesus’ parable says, went to visit the Lord’s witnesses that were in prison. (Matt. 25:31-46) The four in turn were locked up, held incommunicado, and three of them were severely beaten. One was clubbed with a pistol, his lip cut and a gash inflicted behind his ear. Now, to add insult to injury, these innocent people were charged with “public disorder”.

This brutal and wicked persecution of innocent Christians by public officials in the capital city of Ciudad Trujillo was particularly manifest in the case of Lucia Pozo. Lucia had arranged to bathe at a friend’s home on Mella Avenue the day before she expected to leave for New York and the international convention of Jehovah’s witnesses at Yankee Stadium. She took a towel and soap and her most prized possession, her Bible, but on the way was stopped by the police, who commanded: ‘Come with us.’

To the police station, to the jail, to the army fort, and finally to the Prison for Women she was taken. All manner of threats, ridicule and false accusations were hurled at her. In one office she was left alone with a policeman, who attempted to seduce her. In the prison she was thrown in among degenerate prostitutes, who also tried to seduce her. One of her tormentors was none other than the prosecuting attorney, one named Rijos.

All of this happened on Friday night. Sunday, the customary visiting day, her friends were turned back at the gate. Strict orders had been given by the chief of police, Abreu, that no one, absolutely no one, was to see Lucia. Until given a “trial”, ten days after her arrest, she was held incommunicado.

The “trial” was a kangaroo affair, a ridiculous farce from start to finish. The charge was read; no witnesses were produced, not even the arresting officer; Lucia was asked if she had anything to say; she was denied the opportunity to produce witnesses to prove she was guiltless; the accusation was reread; the prosecuting attorney urged that the full penalty of the law be inflicted; and the judge affirmed the recommendation and sentenced the poor innocent girl to three months in prison and $100 fine—all for being caught on the street with a towel, soap and a Bible!

THEY SHALL FIGHT BUT NOT PREVAIL

Are the honored documents of the United Nations and the Constitution of the Dominican Republic no more than scraps of paper? Evidently these responsible officials consider them just that. But why? Whose interests are they trying to serve? Certainly not the interests of their loyal, God-fearing, freedom-loving citizens. The truth of the matter, and the answer to the question, lies in the fact that the Dominican Republic is a priest-ridden, church-and-state dictatorship, as intolerant toward all who refuse to bow the knee to Rome as is Franco’s regime in Spain. Before the ban the Roman Catholic Hierarchy preached against God’s witnesses, stirred up Catholic action, and circulated false charges against them. With little difficulty this clerical wrath was translated into civil action and the cruel boots of the state police were used to trample underfoot the basic freedom of worship of God as taught and commanded by Christ, and as presumably guaranteed by the Dominican constitution and the Charter of the United Nations.

Official Dominicans should take notice what history teaches. Christ was nailed to the torture stake and his disciples after him were martyred. Said Jesus: “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” (John 15:20) But such persecution did not stop the preaching of the gospel. As then, so now, those who fight against God’s witnesses are actually fighting against God and can expect only defeat in the end. (Acts 5:39) Jehovah’s witnesses know that it is better to obey Jehovah even if persecuted and killed by men than to disobey God and become slaves of men doomed to eternal death.—Matt. 10:24-28.

So Jehovah’s faithful Christian witnesses in the Dominican Republic, knowing that, in obedience to God rather than men, they cannot but speak the things they have learned in the Bible, will continue to preach, either inside or outside of prison, either underground or publicly. (Acts 4:19, 20; 5:29) Their implicit trust is in the great Jehovah God, who declares: “They shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith Jehovah, to deliver thee.”—Jer. 1:19, AS.

Questions From Readers

● Does the Bible support the idea that what a mother sees or experiences during pregnancy may mark her offspring in some way? Some argue that it does, citing as proof Genesis 30:37-43.—T. C., Pennsylvania.

When Jacob wanted to leave his father-in-law Laban’s service, Laban wanted him to stay and accept wages, asking, “What am I to give you?” “Nothing at all,” said Jacob; “let me go on feeding and tending your stock, if you will simply do this for me: to-day, as I go over all your stock, I will set apart all the speckled and spotted animals, and my pay shall consist of any black sheep or any speckled and spotted goat hereafter born.” Laban agreed, and the record continues: “Then Laban that very day set apart the striped and spotted he-goats and all the speckled and spotted she-goats—every animal that had a white tinge, and all the black sheep; he put them in charge of his sons, at a distance of three days’ march from Jacob. The rest of Laban’s stock was fed by Jacob. But Jacob took fresh boughs of poplar, almond, and plane, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the boughs. These peeled sticks he laid in front of the flocks, in the runnels of the watering-troughs at which the flocks drank; they bred when they came to drink, and as they bred in front of the sticks they brought forth young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. These lambs Jacob kept separate [turning the faces of the flocks to the striped and black animals in Laban’s flock], he kept his own droves apart, instead of adding them to Laban’s stock. Jacob also used to lay the sticks in the runnels only when the stronger animals came to breed, that they might breed in sight of the sticks; when the weaker animals came, he did not put in the sticks. In this way, the weaker lambs fell to Laban, the stronger to Jacob.”—Gen. 30:25-42, Mo.

This would seem to support the theory of prenatal influence or maternal impressions, but scientific experiment has been unable to duplicate or confirm Jacob’s experience. The fact that there is no nerve connection between the mother and unborn young makes it difficult to believe that maternal impressions could mark or physically alter the offspring to come. Of course, during pregnancy the mother’s health is “the most important factor determining whether the fetus will be carried to term and delivered in a viable and healthy condition”, but “the myth of marking a fetus by accident or by emotional upset should be dispelled”, according to the Textbook of Pediatrics, 1950 edition, by Nina A. Anderson.

Dr. Palmer Findley, in his book The Story of Childbirth, agrees, and in a section on maternal impressions shows that the idea of prenatal influence was anciently believed. “In the law of Lycurgus it was decreed that Spartan women should look upon the statues of Castor and Pollux in order that strength and beauty might be imparted to their offspring.” “Hippocrates taught that strong emotions experienced by the pregnant woman could give rise to deformities in the child.” Aristotle believed this ancient idea, said many women brought forth children with harelip after seeing a hare, and ascribed other deformities in children to “the imagination of the mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some ill-shaped creature”. Egypt’s sacred bull of Memphis, with one or two eagle-shaped figures on its back and a crescent on its forehead, had to be killed when it was twenty-five years old; but before doing so the priests had to supply a similarly marked successor. In an effort to obtain a young bull properly marked, during conception Egyptian cows were surrounded by appropriately shaped and colored objects.

Hence it is clear that belief in prenatal influence is ancient, and we can understand how Jacob also would accept that general belief of his time. But did it work for Jacob? It is true that Jacob prospered when he employed his scheme based on prenatal influence, but the Bible does not specifically say that that was the cause for his success. In fact, the Bible ascribes a different reason for the uniformly colored goats bringing forth spotted and speckled and ring-streaked offspring. In the next chapter Jacob tells his wives, Laban’s daughters Leah and Rachel, why he prospered. Please note that he does not give the credit to his scheme based upon the theory of prenatal influence: “In this way God has taken the stock from your father and given it to me. When the stock was breeding, I raised my eyes in a dream and saw that the he-goats that leaped on the she-goats were striped, speckled, and mottled. The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob!’ ‘Yes,’ said I. And he said, ‘Raise your eyes, look! all the he-goats that leap on the she-goats are striped, speckled, and mottled.’”—Gen. 31:9-12, Mo.

Jehovah God here gave Jacob instruction in the modern science of genetics. There were no spotted goats in the flock Jacob tended, yet the vision disclosed spotted goats. How could this be? It is apparent that the spots were not visible, yet their presence in these solid-colored animals was supernaturally revealed to Jacob and doubly impressed upon him by what he saw in the dream and by the angel’s specifically calling his attention to them. Apparently these plain-colored goats were hybrids, that is, they were the result of a cross between the spotted goats and plain goats that ran together in Laban’s flocks. Though these hybrids were uniformly colored themselves, they carried in their germ cells the hereditary factors for spotting and speckling, and, in accord with the laws of heredity discovered by Gregor Mendel in the nineteenth century and clarified and enlarged in this twentieth century, many of the offspring of these solid-colored hybrid goats were spotted and speckled. By the vision God opened Jacob’s eyes to the naturally invisible presence of the hereditary factors for spotting and speckling that were in the plain-colored hybrid goats, and Jehovah could well cause the proportion of spotted offspring to run heavy. Both Laban and Jacob acknowledged Jehovah’s interest in this matter. (Gen. 30:27-30; 31:5, 7, 9, 16) As for the point raised by Genesis 30:41, 42 that the stronger offspring were Jacob’s, it should be remembered that all the speckled and spotted would come from the hybrids, and it is a modern biological truth that hybrids are stronger than uncrossed breeds. Not all the goats in the flock Jacob tended were hybrids, and these feebler ones, without the hybrid vigor, would breed true and produce only solid-colored offspring, and which feebler kids would be Laban’s.

Hence it appears that the Bible does not support the idea that what a mother sees or experiences during pregnancy may mark her offspring. Jacob thought so at the outset of his experiment, but he changed his mind when later instructed otherwise by God. Jacob had God’s approval, and may be commended for acting according to the knowledge he possessed and doing all in his power to effect a good result, and God blessed Jacob. But the manner in which the good result was brought about was revealed by the inspired dream, and not by Jacob’s breeding methods.

Announcements

“PREACH THE WORD” TESTIMONY PERIOD

December, the final month of 1950, has been designated as “Preach the Word” Testimony Period. How could this eventful year be more effectively concluded than by taking the word of God upon your lips and heralding it forth to all who will hear? That is what Jehovah’s witnesses will be doing, in harmony, with Paul’s counsel to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:2, Moffatt), and you are cordially invited to join in with them in this God-approved work. The 320-page book “This Means Everlasting Life” will be offered to those displaying interest in God’s Word, the contribution being 35c. It points out from the Word of God what is required of those who seek life everlasting. That your activity may be included along with that of thousands of others who will be preaching the Word in December, we suggest that you report to us the results of your preaching. We shall be happy to supply you with report cards and any instruction you may require. If there is a company of Jehovah’s witnesses in your community, feel free to call upon them for help.

EVOLUTION VERSUS THE NEW WORLD

Arrogantly the proponents of the theory of evolution have foisted their ideas upon the public. Through the press, schools, clergy and other means their belief has been spread like a blight upon the human race; a blight because it belittles and disputes the Biblical account of creation by an intelligent Creator. Is their case so strong that it defies refutation? Most certainly not! The contradictions of men do not bring to nought the Word of God. Moreover, scientific facts bear out the Bible account of creation, leaving the evolutionists without any tangible support for their mythical theories. A wealth of incontrovertible proof in favor of the Bible record of creation and against the theory of evolution is now collected within the covers of one booklet, Evolution versus The New World. This 64-page, colored-cover brochure will be sent to you, postpaid, for 5c.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of December 10: New Systems of Things, ¶1-20

Week of December 17: New Systems of Things, ¶21-24; and Beginning the New World Society, ¶1-18.