The Watchtower — February 15, 1951

World Hypocrisy, Christian Zeal

DEEP in the hearts of most men lies the disconcerting knowledge that religious Christendom is saturated with hypocrisy. But too seldom does frank analysis penetrate to bring this truth to the surface, too seldom does searching examination bring this fact into such sharp relief as to pierce a calloused conscience.

Have you read enough of the Bible to know about Christ’s sermon on the mount? his other teachings? his course of action toward the worldly religious and political leaders? and the simple lives of faith and the courageous deaths of integrity of the apostles and disciples that endeavored to copy Christ as their model? Then you must know that Christ was no militarist, no politician, no orthodox religionist, no financier, nor any red revolutionary seeking to overthrow Caesar’s rule. He honored God’s Word, championed it, taught it, and died faithful to it. Both he and his followers were in the world, but declared themselves no part of it. They were not hypocrites.

It is the same today. And occasionally religious leaders and others see these facts, and with commendable honesty declare them. Such was the case with Bishop Austin Pardue of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, when he spoke as follows on August 7, 1950:

“We Christians of today are tragically unworthy. But just a word to the self-righteous outsiders who point to our hypocrisy; we can always make room for more hypocrites and we cordially invite them to come over and join us. Our hypocrisy is not deliberate, but convenient. The vicious malady of our orthodox American denominations comes from the corroding acids of disbelief which have watered down our convictions to the point where much of our religion has become a matter of mere custom and tradition.

“On the one hand, destructive higher criticism of the Bible has become so universal that many of us modern ministers hardly know what we believe. On the other hand, we have become such worshipers of intellectual cults and clichés that we dare not believe any longer in the supernatural powers of prayer and sacrament. Orthodox denominationalism frequently looks with superior scorn upon many of the recent developments of Bible fundamentalist groups which on the whole are growing faster than any other religious organizations in America. The masses of these people are probably like the simple type of people who first followed Jesus, and today are finding hope and terrific conviction among these new offshoots of the Christian faith.

“Only last week Jehovah’s witnesses packed the Yankee Stadium with 70,000 people for an all-day revival in the broiling July sun. Too often we look at these evangelistic gatherings and dismiss them with the despised term, ‘emotionalism.’ We scorn them as though we nice, would-be intellectual middle-class people have grown too sophisticated to express our feelings. It is impossible to have vital Christianity without some emotional fervor. The day of Pentecost was not a coldly intellectual gathering, but was charged with the fire of the Holy Ghost. It was filled with action, conviction and natural emotional honesty.”—New York Times, August 7, 1950.

One of the identifying evidences of true Christians is the persecution they undergo because of their zeal in preaching. This fact was noted by the Alabama Baptist, September 14, 1950, when it said editorially:

“All over the world we hear of this sect being persecuted. In our own country, in Wyanet, Ill., they recently had one of their meetings broken up by a group who set automobile tires on fire and rolled them through their open air congregation. Jehovah’s witnesses sought damage in the courts but the jury failed to render them a favorable verdict. In Kennett, Mo., an attempt to break up one of the Jehovah’s witnesses meetings was thwarted by the presence of police and state troopers and national guardsmen. About 150 people were in that crowd. In the Soviet zone of Germany 1,000 Witnesses have been put in jail.

“Though we do not endorse all that these believe, we certainly condemn those who are seeking to interfere with the right of public assembly and free speech. These elements against Jehovah’s witnesses will strike just as quickly at Baptists. We look on the actions of people of this kind as being thoroughly un-American and contrary to our belief in freedom of worship. Certainly the only cause for their attack is because these have a zealous belief in their doctrines of the Bible. At least we could say this much for them, that they are the only group in our country who are so zealous in their beliefs and practices that they are resisting unto persecution. We cry shame upon those who are persecuting any Christian group as long as they are staying within the laws of our land and within their rights under the Constitution.”

This editorial accurately stated that the cause of the persecution against Jehovah’s witnesses was their preaching of the Bible doctrines, but few persecutors will honestly admit that, but rather clothe their mob action in patriotic garb, saying the Witnesses are seditionists or communists. But on this point note the following from the Nassau Herald, October 7, 1950, entitled “Jehovah’s Witnesses Seen in New Light”:

“Jehovah’s witnesses have been getting into the cream of national publicity in the United States of late, particularly during the current week when the CBC, the World Round-up of News and Lowell Thomas have been telling of the activities of the Witnesses in East Germany where the communists have been jailing them and charging them with American espionage, helter-skelter. There is something in this kind of news that does not jibe well with accusations previously hurled at the Witnesses to the effect that they are communists. For if they belong to the communist stripe, then they must be very poor communists—just poor enough to be persecuted and sent to jail by those whom they are said to serve. We would naturally suppose that if Jehovah’s witnesses are communists, they would fare better at the hands of the communists, for it is well bandied around the world that even the Devil is willing to reward his faithful followers. It therefore seems that we are now morally obliged to revamp some of our too hastily conceived notions concerning Jehovah’s witnesses and communism.”

The false charges of sedition and revolutionary teaching were hurled recklessly at Jesus and his early disciples, so it should come as no surprise that the same false charges are aimed at His footstep followers today.—Luke 23:2; Acts 17:5-8; 24:5.

Progress Toward Taming the Tongue

THE disciple James took to task the human tongue. By striking illustrations he showed how tremendous the job of controlling this little body member. If a man could control the tongue he would be able to bridle the whole body. Bits in the mouths of horses can turn their entire bodies. Small rudders on great ships driven by fierce winds can swing whole ships around. So the tongue is a little member of the body, but it makes great brags. As a mere spark can set a forest aflame, so the little tongue can be a fire to inflame the whole body and defile it. Beasts, birds, serpents, creatures of the sea, all can be tamed by man. “But the tongue, not one of mankind can get it tamed.” Why, “if anyone does not stumble in word, this one is a perfect man.”

A fountain does not bubble out both the sweet and the bitter. A fig tree does not produce olives. Nor a vine figs. Neither does salt water produce sweet water. And yet the human tongue sends out of the same mouth both blessing and cursing. This should not be. Granted that as long as Christians are in the imperfect flesh the tongue will remain beyond taming to perfection, and admitted that this should stir us to mercy toward repentant offenders, yet it does not argue that wrong speech is to be lightly excused and indulged in loosely. We should be on guard to keep to a minimum the damage done by the unruly injurious tongue that is full of deadly poison. We should be able to show progress in our endeavors to tame the tongue, to curb its inflaming outbursts. As James declared, “It is not proper, my brothers, for these things to go on occurring this way.”—Jas. 3:2-12, NW.

TONGUES WILD FOR GOSSIP

“Whoever observes all the Law but makes a false step in one point, he has become an offender against them all. For he who said, ‘You must not commit adultery,’ said also, ‘You must not murder.’ If, now, you do not commit adultery but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of law.” (Jas. 2:10, 11, NW) With this rule in mind, now note another point of the Law: “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people.” (Lev. 19:16) For the wise this points up the seriousness of gossip, and forestalls the folly of excusing it as harmless conversation. The Mosaic Law prohibition of talebearing is carried over to Christians not under that law.

“They also learn to be unoccupied, gadding about to the houses, yes, not only unoccupied, but also gossipers and meddlers in other people’s affairs, talking of things they ought not.” (1 Tim. 5:13, NW) The chief concern of Christians should be working their tongues in gospel-preaching, but some gadabouts prefer meddling: “Certain ones are walking disorderly among you, not working at all but meddling with what does not concern them.” (2 Thess. 3:11, NW) The end of such course is shameful suffering as a busybody: “Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a busybody in other people’s matters. But if he suffers as a Christian, let him not feel shame.”—1 Pet. 4:15, 16, NW; Prov. 20:3.

A talebearer is not a faithful friend. “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Prov. 17:17) But when a brother needs a friend most, when he is perhaps undergoing adversity due to inborn weaknesses and shortcomings, the faithless talebearer that poses as a friend and brother chooses this trialsome time to bruit abroad the faults and failures of the one being sorely tried. “He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets; but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth a matter.”—Prov. 11:13, AS.

A person may foolishly and thoughtlessly act as a talebearer, but his being thoughtless does not lessen the damage done. Though not deliberately malicious, the gossiper may deeply wound with his words, words that are to him as dainty morsels that he cannot resist sharing: “The words of a talebearer are as wounds [dainty morsels, Da], and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.” (Prov. 18:8) Not only will the whisperer strain his own relationship with the brother, but he may make it hard for the wronged one to hold his other friends. “A whisperer alienateth his friend.” “He that harpeth on a matter separateth chief friends.”—Prov. 16:28, m., Pr 17:9, AS.

Added to all this, the talebearer is wasting time that should be used for profitable work. If he does not rein in his runaway tongue and curb its wagging it will hasten him on to spiritual poverty: “In all labour there is profit; but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.”—Prov. 14:23.

Those who revel in rumors that impugn another’s conduct or integrity should restrain their excited tongues. Rumors frequently turn out to be lies. According to the slander and libel laws of the land, one who repeats an untrue derogatory statement is as liable for lawsuit as the originator of it. The rumor-spreader may be quoting from the public press, or from a letter, or what he heard firsthand, and he may give his source; but if it is a lie he can be sued and he cannot shift responsibility to his original source. After all, if only the starter of a rumor uttered it, it would die at its birth. It is the widespread publicity given by untheocratic grapevines that does the damage.

The tongue that gossips is often a tongue that lies. As it repeats its tales it exaggerates and twists to make the dainty morsels it peddles more spicy and sensational. The more breath-taking the news can be dished up, the greater its market value in the circle of gossipmongers. It sets to itching other feet that are eager to bear tales that may make mischief. Almost invariably discord is sown, and Jehovah’s hatred earned. Seven things listed as hateful to Jehovah are: “Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a mind with crafty plans, feet eager to go mischief-making, a false witness who tells lies, and him who sows discord within his group.”—Prov. 6:16-19, Mo.

“A mind with crafty plans.” Such a mind is frequently behind the tongue that flatters. “A man who flatters his fellow is spreading a net to trip him up.” Such double-minded men feel free to flatter with their tongues while working out their hidden purposes: “They talk with flattering lips and double minds. The Eternal [Jehovah] cut off every flattering lip, and tongues that talk so loftily—men who declare, ‘We give rein to our tongues; our lips are our own: who calls us to account?’” (Ps. 12:2-4; Prov. 29:5, Mo) To throw the unwary off guard, “their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.” (Jude 16) Like Paul, true Christians will not stoop to false fronts to gain greedy ends: “At no time have we turned up either with flattering speech, (just as you know) or with a false front for covetousness, God is witness!” They know “flattering lips are fatal”.—Prov. 26:28, Mo; 1 Thess. 2:5, NW.

HYPOCRITICAL AND OBSCENE TONGUES

Hypocrisy is a close relative of flattery, and both are fatal to those who persistently practice them. “An hypocrite shall not come before him,” meaning Jehovah God. Through hypocrisy he may now enrich himself, but “what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul”? (Job 13:16; 27:8) Christ Jesus condemned hypocritical tongues that spoke for effect, when he said to the scribes and Pharisees: “You hypocrites, Isaiah aptly prophesied about you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, yet their hearts are far removed from me. It is in vain that they keep paying respect to me, because they teach commands of men as doctrines.’” Taking God’s name on the lips is not the requirement, but the doing of his will. Routine Bible reading is not the goal, but observing its precepts in one’s conduct. The Pharisees were hypocritical even in their praying, more anxious to be seen of men for effect than they were concerned about being heard by God. (Matt. 6:5; 7:21; 15:7-9; 23:2, 3, NW) Such a one could never measure up to loving his neighbor as himself, for “an hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour”.—Lev. 19:18; Prov. 11:9.

An obscene tongue is akin to a hypocritical tongue, if it claims to be Christian. Is it not inconsistent to use the tongue to preach the clean and pure gospel of the Kingdom, and then when “off duty” to employ it in cursing and swearing and obscene jokes? The same Bible that commends preaching condemns obscenity: “Let fornication and uncleanness of every kind or greediness not even be mentioned among you, just as it befits holy people, neither shameful conduct nor foolish talking nor obscene jesting, things which are not becoming, . . . for because of the aforesaid things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; and quit sharing with them in the unfruitful works which belong to the darkness, but, rather, even be reproving them, for the things that take place in secret by them it is shameful even to relate.”—Eph. 5:3-7, 11, 12, NW.

This deluded old world may think it necessary to swear and curse to prove manliness, may think filthy stories are required to prove one is no sissy. Actually, worldlings are afraid not to laugh in the wake of dirty jokes whether funny or not; they must guffaw lest they be considered innocent babes that missed the dirty point. But will Christians be pressured into cowardice and stoop to obscene jests for fear they will not be considered “regular fellows” by this wicked world? They are not so silly. They abandoned such things once—why return to the mire and vomit? Paul said: “In those very things you, too, once walked when you used to live in them. But now really put them all away from you, wrath, anger, injuriousness, abusive speech, and obscene talk out of your mouth.” There must be some bridling of the tongue, lest one’s worship become futile.—Col. 3:5-8; Jas. 1:26; 2 Pet. 2:20-22, NW.

The tongue is but a tool of the mind and heart. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” So we must go to the root of the trouble when seeking to tame an unruly tongue. We must work to erase from mind and heart the urges that drive the tongue to make foolish talk. If the mind and heart are filled with what is good, they will not empower the tongue to gossip, lie, flatter, play the hypocrite, and mouth obscenities. The properly filled mind and heart will have no room for such follies.—Matt. 12:34; 15:18, 19, NW.

Not only will the Christian mind shut the mouth against sending out meddling talk, but it will close the ears to incoming gossip, and discourage backbiters by meeting them with a displeased countenance. “The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue.” Or, “The north wind bringeth forth rain; so doth a backbiting tongue an angry countenance.” (Prov. 25:23, m.; AS) The discerning mind knows that criticizing and gossiping about others is an indirect way of exalting and bragging on self. To run down others brings a false and deceptive sense of superiority. Hence the Christian aids both himself and the talebearer by refusing to listen. Without refueling the fire dies out.—Ps. 141:5; Prov. 14:7; 17:4, 20; 20:19; 26:20, 21; 28:23.

Recall Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats. (Matt. 25:31-46) What the goats did to Christ’s brothers was counted as done to him. What we do to those brothers is counted as done to Christ. Would you gossip about your Lord? find fault with him? carry tales against him? Would you try to lie about him or to him? flatter him? play the hypocrite toward him? Or would you feel free to approach him with obscene jests? If you would not do these things with him, do not do them with your brothers. Do not commit the goats’ error!

So seek to progress toward taming the tongue by crowding out the evil with the good. “Brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are of serious concern, whatever things are righteous, whatever things are chaste, whatever things are lovable, whatever things are well spoken of, whatever virtue there is and whatever praiseworthy thing there is, continue considering these things.” (Phil. 4:8, NW) By studying God’s Word make your mind over, that it may make your unruly tongue over: “Quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and complete will of God.” (Rom. 12:2, NW) By continual study gain more of such knowledge that will clothe you with a personality imaged after Christ: “Strip off the old personality with its practices, and clothe yourselves with the new personality which through accurate knowledge is being renewed according to the image of the one who created it.”—Col. 3:9, 10, NW.

Until such changes occur fully through study and the aid of God’s spirit and allow for complete taming of the tongue, all of us will have to keep close watch over that little member, each looking to his own, keeping its fires banked and controlled. Keep words few and cool when circumstances are unsettling, as counseled: “Where words abound, sin is not wanting: he who controls his tongue is a wise man. He guards his life who guards his lips: he who talks freely—it is ruin to him! A man of sense is sparing of his words; the prudent will keep cool. He who is careful of his lips and tongue will manage to keep clear of trouble.” (Prov. 10:19; 13:3; 17:27; 21:23, Mo) Keep the tongue tamed down and bridled when tempers rise, clamping your hand over your mouth if necessary. (Job 40:4; Ps. 39:1; Prov. 30:32) If too weak in yourself to succeed in yourself, take up the psalmist’s prayer: “Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”—Ps. 141:3.

Taming the tongue is so vital because “death and life are in the power of the tongue”. Misused in inflammatory outbursts and it is full of deadly poison, but “a soothing tongue is a tree of life”. (Ps. 34:12-14; Prov. 15:4; 18:21, AT) With it one acknowledges God and confesses Christ and “makes public declaration for salvation”. So with such glorious service and life prospects in view, let us progress toward taming the tongue as we press on to maturity.—Rom. 10:10; 14:11; Phil. 2:11; Heb. 6:1, NW.

An Open Answer to “The Vindicator”

Dec. 26, 1950

The Vindicator,

3111 Grover St.,

Fort Worth 6, Tex.

Attention of E. C. Fuqua, Publisher.

Gentlemen:

Someone was alert enough to send us a copy of the November, 1950, issue of your paper, calling our attention to your editorial on page 8 with the heading “ANOTHER ‘NEW BIBLE’ COMING UP”. As we are the publishers for Jehovah’s witnesses against which your editorial has considerable to say we feel called upon to answer and set some things straight in your mind. Not expecting you to publish our answer in your columns, we are turning over a copy for publication in the official magazine of Jehovah’s witnesses, The Watchtower.

That we may confront you as well as Watchtower readers with what you published in derogation of these devoted Christians, we first copy here your initial paragraph:

“Jehovah’s Witnesses,” 70,000 strong, have just had a convention in New York, making a great noise. Their leader, Nathan H. Knorr, has promised them extremely interesting things for “the near future,” among which is the abolition of Hell as set forth in the Scriptures. This will ease many minds—those who had read enough of the New Testament to understand that there is such a place in store for the wicked. Now they may rest in complacence, seeing (?) that such a place, if it ever existed, is to be finally removed.

It was three months from the holding of the international convention of Jehovah’s witnesses in Yankee Stadium, New York, July 30 to August 6, to your November issue, and yet with all the time and opportunity you had to inform yourselves from all the publicity and convention releases setting forth the facts, you have the rashness to publish such a paragraph under such a heading. Certainly you destroy all confidence of informed people in the soundness of anything you publish by your statement, “Their leader, Nathan H. Knorr, has promised them extremely interesting things for ‘the near future,’ among which is the abolition of Hell as set forth in the Scriptures.”

First of all, Mr. Knorr is merely president of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society. He disclaims being the “leader” of Jehovah’s witnesses and points to Jesus Christ as our God-given Leader; and Jehovah’s witnesses acknowledge and follow, not Mr. Knorr, but Jesus Christ as Leader. That is why during the Nazi regime in Germany from 1933 to 1945 Jehovah’s witnesses in that land refused to heil Hitler! as their Fuehrer or Leader, and went to concentration camps and prisons, where 2,000 died cruel deaths, and of the 8,000 that came out alive, 2,000 were invalided for the rest of their lives. Concerning the “abolition of hell as set forth in the Scriptures”, Mr. Knorr never promised such a thing. He adheres strictly to what Revelation 20:14 says in the King James Version Bible (which we print and publish): “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” It is God by Jesus Christ who long ago promised to cast hell into the lake of fire or “second death” and thereby abolish it.

Consider with us now your 2d paragraph, which reads:

But most significant of the things attempted by the “Witnesses” is their undertaking to make a new Bible. They have announced through Nathan H. Knorr that they are getting out a “new translation” of the Scriptures, seeing the present translations do not suit them. One of the especial things to be set forth in this “new translation,” is the “interpretation” of “Hell” from the Greek “Hades.” That alone announces the heterodoxy of their coming “translation.” Hades never did mean “Hell,” but always the place of disembodied human spirits, which for short we call the grave. “Hell” is from “Gehenna,” and means the place of eternal punishment after death. To apply that to the grave is to defy inspiration. And no 70,000 fanatics can abolish that place of eternal punishment by the mere desire of their leaders.

This paragraph betrays you to be at least three months behind the times in news, for the “new translation” is not something yet to be gotten out but Mr. Knorr released the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures on Wednesday afternoon, August 2, and described a number of its features. And before the assembly closed on the following Sunday 85,850 copies of this New World Translation had been placed with the conventioners, and now our factory has passed printing 250,000 copies of it.

This translation does not give (to quote you) an “interpretation of ‘Hell’ from the Greek ‘Hades”’. Get yourselves a copy and see that it does not translate the Greek word “Hades” at all, but transliterates it bodily into the English text. This is also what the American Standard Version Bible, which we also print and publish, does. You say, “That alone announces the heterodoxy of their coming ‘translation’.” If so, then you must admit that the American Standard Version is also heterodox in its translation. That being the case, why is it that you follow heterodoxy? For your editorial page-heading announces: “All quotations in this paper are from the American Standard Revised Version, unless otherwise indicated.” Heterodoxically, the Revised Standard Version of 1946 reads like the New World Translation at Revelation 20:14, where it says: “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” Note Hades there!

You say “Hades never did mean ‘hell’”. Well, we have always taught that Hades never did mean the kind of “hell” that the religious clergy of Christendom teach. But next you say, “‘Hell’ is from ‘Gehenna,’ and means the place of eternal punishment after death.”

Evidently you do not know what this old English word “Hell” means. The Encyclopedia Americana says under “Hell”: “Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell.”

The Encyclopædia Britannica gives us the derivation of the word “Hell”, saying: “Old English hel, a Teutonic word from a root meaning ‘to cover,’ compare German Hoelle, Dutch hel.”

Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2d edition, unabridged, corroborates the above derivation, saying: “Hell [AS.; akin . . . to Anglo-Saxon helan to conceal, Latin celare, Greek kalyptein, Old Irish celim I conceal, Sanskrit śarman protection. See HALL; compare CELLAR, CLANDESTINE, COLOR, CONCEAL, HEL, HELE, HELMET, HULL, OCCULT, SUPERCILIOUS.]”

Now every honest person must admit, in the face of this evidence, that the basic meaning of “hell” is to cover or conceal. That is why this same Webster’s dictionary shows that “hell” is used as a verb meaning, oh no, not to torment in fire, but to “cover”; as when the Old English dialect spoke of “helling potatoes”, not meaning to roast them in fire, but meaning to put them in the ground as a cellar. Hence “Hell” corresponds with “Hades”, for “Hades” means “invisible, obscure, dark”.

For this reason it is wrong for men to translate the Greek word Gehenna as “Hell” and you are wrong in saying that Hell is from Gehenna. All authorities agree that Hell represents a covered or concealed place and hence Hell corresponds with the grave, which is the place where we cover or conceal our dead. On the other hand, Gehenna means “valley of Hinnom”. And if you know anything about the Gehenna which lay outside the western and southern walls of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day, you know it was not a concealed or covered place but was a very open, uncovered place, a chasm which Jerusalem used as an open dump. There they cast sometimes the corpses (not living bodies) of criminals to be cremated in the fires mixed with sulphur or to be consumed by the maggots; all this picturing that such criminals were unworthy of a resurrection from the dead.

Hence the New World Translation could not render Gehenna by the word Hell, a covered place, but transferred Gehenna bodily into its English text. The Appendix explains what Gehenna was in Jesus’ day and shows it Scripturally symbolizes the “second death”. This is an eternal punishment, because it is the death from which there is no resurrection. Surely Gehenna cannot be a place for the fiery torment of living human souls eternally, for Jesus said: “If ever your hand makes you stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go off into Gehenna, into the fire that cannot be put out. And if your foot makes you stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be pitched into Gehenna.” (Mark 9:43-46, NW) Being pitched into the fiery Gehenna is the opposite of ‘entering into life’. Now what is the opposite of life? Absence of life, death, is it not? Gehenna is not the same as the grave (Hades) from which there is a resurrection. So you are absolutely in error in inferring that the New World Translation applies Gehenna to the grave, “to defy inspiration.”

Here is what you said in your 3d paragraph:

When a teaching becomes so outlandishly anti-God, it needs a “new translation” of the Bible. That is, it needs another “Bible.” The one God gave us is not adequate to set forth the new religion.

Which Bible do you mean by your expression “the one God gave us”? Certainly when your paper quotes from the American Standard Revised Version, you are not using “the one God gave us”. Or are you naive enough to imagine that God really gave us that Version? The Bible God gave us is the one he inspired and which was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and common Greek, which are today practically dead languages. If to produce a “new translation” in modern speech and according to the latest findings on the Bible means to “make a new Bible”, “another ‘Bible’,” then tell us this: Why is it that the American Committee of Revision, which produced the American Standard Version from which your paper mainly quotes, brought forth in 1946 the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament and will shortly bring forth also a revised Old Testament? Will you level against their Committee the charge of ‘making a new Bible’? Have they ‘become so outlandishly anti-God’ as to need a new translation that they might set forth a new religion?

For you to charge modern Bible translation in such a manner means for you to indict also all the English translators from the fourteenth-century translator John Wycliffe down till those today. Yes, you indict all Bible translation from the very beginning, and you set yourself in opposition to Jesus’ prophetic command: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations” (Matthew 24:14); for this could be accomplished only by translating the Bible which God originally gave us.

After five more paragraphs in which you decry the making of “another Bible” or a “new Bible” you conclude with this paragraph:

The “Jehovah’s Witnesses” are a flesh-loving people. The doctrine offers them immunity from suffering in Hell, and that is precious in their eyes. But they do not discern that the offer is made them in terms the exact opposite to the language God employs. God tells them that there is such a place as Hell, and it is not Hades or the grave. Their leaders tell them that such a place does not exist. This is plainly anti-God and brands the “Witnesses” as having “the mark of the beast”. God says the wicked “shall go away into eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46); but the “Witnesses” say there is no such place. But in so saying, they are preparing themselves to go there! What, therefore, do they gain by their opposition to God?

Out of your own mouth you condemn yourself. You say, “the offer is made them in terms the exact opposite to the language God employs.” How can this be? The New World Translation does not use the Old English word “hell”, but uses the very words God gave us in his original Bible, namely, Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4, NW). Certainly this is not making another Bible, a Bible different from the one God gave us, but is using the exact language God employs. You are far-fetched, therefore, in branding this as “plainly anti-God” and as having “the mark of the beast”. Jehovah’s witnesses are not abolishing Gehenna, but are putting it back into the Scriptures where it belongs. Publicly and privately the witnesses teach that there are such places as Hades, Gehenna and Tartarus, and they show the Scriptural distinction between these three places. The Appendix of the New World Translation against which you declaim sets forth that Hades means the common grave of mankind whereas Gehenna is the place of “eternal punishment”. For Gehenna symbolizes the destruction with which God Almighty will utterly destroy the wicked and which destruction will last forever, for they will never have a resurrection.

This harmonizes with Jesus’ own words: “Rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” (Matthew 10:28, NW) Our fear of Him moves us to turn from the course of living that leads to Gehenna and it prevents us from fearing men, be they worldly leaders, dictators or mobs who set themselves in opposition to God. Our guiding text from the Scriptures is, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”—Acts 5:29.

Jesus warned his opposers with the admonition: “By your words you will be vindicated, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:37, NW) By your words against Jehovah’s witnesses your paper The Vindicator stands, not vindicated, but condemned before God and all men of good will.

Sincerely in the vindication of the truth,

WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY

God’s Servants Are Different

IT IS no secret. From the dawn of man’s history, from the time of Adam’s son Abel on down through the ages, those who have worshiped and served the true and living God, whose name alone is Jehovah, have been a separate, unusual and distinctive people, different from all others on the face of the earth. Recorded history proves it. Well-known facts today vouch for it. All informed persons admit it.

The man Abel stands at the head of the long list of God’s faithful servants. “By faith Abel offered God a sacrifice of greater worth than Cain, through which faith he had witness borne to him that he was righteous.” (Heb. 11:4, NW) Because he was righteous and pure in his worship Abel was martyred. Martyr means “witness”, hence Abel was the first of Jehovah’s witnesses. Enoch, the father of Methuselah, was unlike others of his generation and he was not afraid to speak out and bear witness concerning Jehovah’s judgments against the ungodly sinners that made up the popular crowd of his day.—Gen. 5:22-24; Heb. 11:5, 6; Jude 14, 15.

Noah was another individual in that pre-flood world who was conspicuously different from others in that he “walked with God”. He not only had outstanding faith in Jehovah; he also backed up his faith with works. Obediently he worked as commanded on what seemed to the scoffers of his day to be nothing more than a fantastic and freakish undertaking by a crazy man. There he was, up on high ground, miles from the sea, building a colossal boat in which to take refuge from something no one until then had ever seen—rain! As Noah built he also preached repentance, urging his fellow creatures to seek God’s favor while there was yet opportunity. Strange thing, only seven others of that entire multitude believed him! But all the laughter and scorn, reproach and ridicule, and no doubt violent persecution from the tyrants and bullies (Nephilim and mighty men, Gen. 6:4, AS) failed to turn Noah aside from the divinely assigned work. We are very grateful, too, that Noah was different from the foolish, simple-minded and ignorant ones of his time, for had he been like them we would not be here today.—Gen. 6:5-22; Matt. 24:37-39; Heb. 11:7; 2 Pet. 2:5.

Like Abel of old, Jehovah’s modern-day witnesses, having similar faith, offer God an acceptable sacrifice, ‘the fruit of the lips,’ even though they are martyred by those pretending to be their brothers. (Heb. 13:15) Like Enoch, these modern witnesses fearlessly warn this impudent generation of Jehovah’s fierce anger against it. Jesus said that conditions today would be exactly as they were in Noah’s time, but before the accomplished end of this present evil world a similar message of warning would first be proclaimed in all the inhabited earth as a testimony and witness. It is therefore not surprising to find that Jehovah’s witnesses, like Noah, are hard at work preaching and building even though they are laughed at, ridiculed and viciously persecuted by the high and mighty bully rulers of the earth.—Matt. 24:3, 4, 14, 37-39; 2 Pet. 3:3-13.

DIFFERENT TOO FROM PRESENT WORLD

Like the servants of the Most High God before the flood so also were those thereafter—men and women altogether different from others in faith and integrity and devotion to righteousness. It must have seemed strange to the community-building Chaldeans that men like Abraham and Lot would abandon the security and prosperity afforded by their city Ur, and would go out into a wild and unknown country in obedience to God’s command. (Gen. 12:1-5) But they were “awaiting the city [the theocratic government] having real foundations and the builder and creator of which is God”. They saw these precious promises “afar off and hailed them and publicly declared that they were strangers and temporary residents in the land”. (Heb. 11:8-14, NW) How different was Lot from the sex-maddened, pleasure-crazed Sodomites! That righteous man “was greatly distressed by the indulgence of the law-defying people in loose conduct”.—2 Pet. 2:6-8, NW.

In parallel, Jehovah’s servants today always strive to be clean, upright and decent people, and are disgusted with the abominable things they see about them in Christendom. They place their confidence and hope in Jehovah’s promised kingdom, for they see that the time when its rule will be extended to the earth is much nearer than it was in Abraham’s day. So, instead of going along with this pleasure-mad, sexy old world, supporting its schemes and ideas, and working for and building up its tower of Babel, the confusing United Nations structure, these people of God keep themselves separate from the world as “strangers and pilgrims” living on a temporary basis like the Rechabites. Jonadab was one of such. (Heb. 11:13; Jer. 35:5-19) They therefore give this world’s politics, commerce and organized religion no support.—Isa. 52:11; 2 Cor. 6:14-18; Jas. 4:4; Rev. 18:2-5.

SERVANTS OPPOSED BY STATE

Jeremiah was ordained as Jehovah’s prophet and was sent to deliver an unpopular message to a rebellious people. What was he to do? Refuse to speak because some took offense? Go slow, compromise, or quit and join the rest as a “regular fellow”? To do so would have meant his own destruction together with all the others. Jeremiah was God’s faithful servant. He had a vital message of warning from God and whosoever heeded it would escape destruction. It was for the people’s own good, and it had to be declared even though kings, princes, priests and people in general objected, and that Jeremiah did.—Jer. 1:4-19, AS.

As a consequence, Jeremiah ran into the worst sort of religious intolerance and bigotry and persecution. The clergy and politicians were stung by God’s fiery denunciations and so they roused the rabble into mobs that sought to kill God’s prophet. He was arrested and haled into court, falsely accused of being a morale-weakener, against the war effort, a seditionist, and hence worthy of death. However, this prophet of the Lord was no seditionist or anarchist, and so even though cast into prison and thrown into the muck of a dungeon, yet he continued to sound the warning. (Jer. 23:1-40; 25:34-36; 26:1-24; 32:2-6, 26-44; 38:1-6) Again and again, in reading this account one is forcibly impressed with the great similarity between the work done by Jeremiah and the treatment he received and work accomplished by Jehovah’s witnesses today under similar conditions.

Further reasons why Jehovah’s witnesses keep on warning Christendom, though she refuses to heed, are found in the Lord’s commandments to Ezekiel, Jeremiah’s contemporary, who witnessed to the captives in Babylon. Ezekiel was up against a hardheaded, stiff-necked, stonyhearted bunch of rebels, but the Lord told him if he did not continue to warn them their blood would be upon him. Ezekiel obeyed. So do Jehovah’s witnesses.—Ezek. 2:3-7; 3:4-11, 16-21; 33:1-20.

Then there was the case of Daniel. Because he was honest and loyal to his position of trust as prime minister over the vast Medo-Persian empire, Daniel’s enemies sought to do away with him through framing mischief by law. When Daniel continued to worship Jehovah in violation of the wicked law, he was seized and falsely charged with sedition, and was tossed in a den as food for the lions. Happily for him, however, that he did worship the only true and living God, for He only is able to deliver His servants out of a lions’ den. (Dan. 6:1-28) On another occasion, when Jehovah’s faithful servants Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow down in salute to Nebuchadnezzar’s gilded image in violation of Jehovah’s supreme law, they were pitched into a roaring furnace, only to be delivered alive and unharmed by the Lord’s angel. Incidentally, those who tossed God’s servants into the fire were themselves consumed. (Dan. 3:1-30) Let the superpatriots today who click their heels together and goose-step around, and who try to force God’s faithful servants to participate in their banner-waving idolatry, take warning from this!

This same issue again came up during the reign of Ahasuerus when a wicked man by the name of Haman tried to destroy all those that served and worshiped Jehovah. However, God turned the tables, and Haman’s lifeless body dangled from the 75-foot gallows he had built for God’s servant Mordecai.—See the book of Esther.

THE MOST NOBLE EXAMPLE

Christ Jesus, the greatest Teacher and Preacher ever to walk this earth, tossed aside the orthodox methods of the scribes and Pharisees and tramped from house to house, village to village, over and over the territory, proclaiming that Jehovah’s kingdom is the world’s only hope. He cut across conventional lines and traditional customs, practices, theories and taboos of the times. “Never has another man spoken like this.” (John 7:46, NW) An open market place, a mountain side or a seashore was just as suitable for him as the temple, provided there were people there to listen. Sometimes he gave instruction in the Scriptures at mealtime in a private home.

Telling the truth was Jesus’ business even though it exposed the lies of tradition. He had no part in politics, for his kingdom is not of this world, yet he paid his taxes and urged others to likewise pay back to Caesar what belonged to the state, not forgetting, of course, to give Jehovah God what rightfully is due Him. And for following such a righteous course Jesus was hounded and persecuted and finally killed on a torture stake to satisfy the lustful passions of the clergy whom he denounced as a pack of hypocrites.—John 18:37; Matt. 17:24-27; 22:15-21; 15:1-9; 23:1-39; John 19:6, 15.

In all of this Christ left a brilliant example for Jehovah’s Christian witnesses since then to follow, and praise be to God they have done so! And although persecuted for righteousness’ sake they endure all things out of love of God and fellow men.

Federal Court of Appeals Rebukes Unfair Board

On October 18, 1950, the United States Court of Appeals at Cincinnati again reversed the convictions of two ministers of Jehovah’s witnesses. Twice convicted, Peter Niznik and Raymond Comodor, part-time missionary evangelists (company publishers) in Pennsylvania, were discharged with the judgments against them reversed. Basis of the reversal was the refusal of their Selective Service board to classify them as ministers of religion. The court held that the action of the board was invalid and void, contrary to the regulations, arbitrary and discriminatory.

Upon the second trial the board members had attempted to justify their refusal to grant exemption from training and service. They testified that they had looked through the files and, after having done so, ruled that these registrants should not be given a minister’s classification. They did not dispute or question the overwhelming evidence submitted by the registrants as to their background, training and activity in the ministry. The truthfulness of the statements submitted by them orally and in writing was not questioned. But solely upon the grounds that they were Jehovah’s witnesses, had not attended an orthodox religious seminary and had not been “regularly” ordained according to orthodox ceremony and ritual, the board ignored the regulations pertaining to ministerial classification in such cases and denied exemption. In setting aside the convictions the court said:

“Although the members of the draft board performed long, laborious, and patriotic duties, nevertheless, their ruling in this regard, that appellants were not entitled to classification as ministers of religion, was based not upon the evidence or information in appellants’ files, or upon a belief in the truthfulness of the statements made by appellants, but upon the fact that they were members of Jehovah’s witnesses. The regulation pertaining to ministerial classification in this case was plain.

“‘(a) In Class IV-D shall be placed any registrant who is a regular or duly ordained minister of religion . . . (b) A regular minister of religion is a man who customarily preaches and teaches the principles of religion of a recognized church, religious sect, or religious organization of which he is a member, without having been formally ordained as a minister of religion; and who is recognized by such church, sect, or organization as a minister.’ Section 622.44 of the Selective Service Regulations.

“Disregard of this provision, and refusal to classify as a minister of religion solely on the ground that appellants were members of a religious sect and that they had not attended a religious seminary and had not been regularly ordained, was arbitrary and contrary to the law and regulations. ‘In classifying a registrant there shall be no discrimination for or against him because of his race, creed, or color, or because of his membership or activity in any labor, political, religious, or other organization. Each registrant shall receive equal and fair justice.’ Section 623.1(c) of the Selective Service Regulations.

“The classification of the local board, accordingly, was invalid, and its action void. The judgments are, therefore, reversed, the convictions are set aside, and appellants are discharged.”

The religious magazine The Christian Century recalled the thousands of other cases involving Jehovah’s witnesses, which resulted in their being denied classification as ministers and sentenced to long terms in prison. Commending the court for stopping such arbitrary and capricious determinations in these cases, the editors wrote: “This paper has contended since the first of these Witness cases came up, that the designation of ministers is a church and not a state function. We trust Selective Service will accept this ruling by the federal court. The government agency should never have allowed itself to become entangled in an ecclesiastical issue of this sort, and now that the court has opened a way out . . . should hasten to take advantage of the opportunity.”

Court and publication agree that whether a person should be recognized as a minister must not be determined according to orthodox standards of the popular religious organizations or prejudice. Both call upon boards to administer fairly the act and regulations.

The Poor Lifted Up and Comforted

“Praise ye Jehovah. . . . He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the needy from the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.”—Ps 113:1, 7, 8. AS.

1. To whom must earth’s poor now look, and why to him?

JEHOVAH God is the One to whom all the poor of the earth should look in this day of world distress. He does not despise their abject condition. His ears are not closed to their sighs and groans, but he takes note of their need and holds forth the true relief to them right now. Abraham Lincoln, a man who rose from poverty to the presidency of the United States of America, once said: “God must love the poor, because he made so many of them.” But God is not the one who made man poor and who made the few rich and the many poor. It is not he who has created class distinctions between rich and poor. He has not willed for the many to be poverty-stricken so long that now, finally, the poor in their masses are rising up under communistic leaders to overthrow the rich capitalists and to equalize all people socially and economically under communist dictators. God’s adversary, Satan the Devil, is the one who has done this. It is this wicked one who now proposes false political and economic systems of relief for the oppressed masses so as to turn them away from the only effective means of relief, that provided by Jehovah God. The applying of these human emergency measures to improve the conditions of the poor and to help the backward areas of the world will result only in increasing the burdens of the people, impoverishing them and oppressing them more. But God Almighty has always come to the rescue of the poor of his people. Now he will completely vindicate their cause and usher them into riches surpassing even those which the first man and woman had at mankind’s start in Eden. The means God uses is his kingdom in the hands of his Son Jesus Christ.

2. In what principally have the people been kept poor, and how?

² The people’s poverty is not only with regard to material riches. It is principally with regard to the spiritual riches. The clergy of the orthodox Christian and Jewish religious systems are now obliged to admit they have left the people in spiritual poverty. They have been partial to the worldly rich and winked at and kept silent at their oppression of the poor, and all the while they have put on an appearance of great righteousness. Spiritual riches, however, would have lightened the lot of the people amid the injustice and hardships of this world. Such riches would have prevented their violent, radical uprising against the constituted world arrangement today. A person does not need selfish material riches in order to be really wealthy, happy and contented.

3. Who was poorest, yet happiest on earth, and why?

³ Jesus Christ on earth as a man was among the poorest of the poor measured by earthly goods. He was laid in no fine cradle at birth, but in an animal’s manger, because there was no room for visitors at the village inn. As a preacher of God’s kingdom he had no home of his own. “Foxes have dens and birds of heaven have roosts, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay down his head.” (Matt. 8:20, NW) But because of his spiritual riches he had real and loyal friends, particularly his Father in heaven and the people of good will on earth. He had a joy no creature could remove. He was the happiest person on earth, so that he could well describe true states of happiness in his sermon on the mount, beginning with “Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them”. (Matt. 5:3, NW) By getting acquainted with him all poor people can now be made spiritually rich and can enjoy hope of early being made possessors of all other riches in the equitable new world under his kingdom.

4. What reversal of matters did he show it was time for, and how did he illustrate it?

⁴ Back there Jesus knew that Satan’s world was to last without God’s interference till the “appointed times of the nations” ended in 1914. So he endeavored to make those people who were conscious of their spiritual need rich spiritually with the message of God’s kingdom and with the increasing understanding of His recorded Word. He showed that the time had come for God to turn the tables on those who were rich in worldly goods, political power and religious control and influence, and to lift up those who felt their spiritual need. He illustrated this in a parable which he gave, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. “Parable,” we say, because if we interpreted this description of the affairs of the rich man and Lazarus literally, it would reduce Jesus’ interesting word picture to an absurdity. Because of its clear meaning to us now we shall take up a consideration of this comforting parable. As we go along we shall note the points which show it could not be a literalism such as the religious clergy say it is, to terrify people into their power for fear of being tormented in literal fire and brimstone forever after death.

THE RICH MAN

5, 6. (a) For a warning to whom did Jesus give the parable, and why? (b) Whom does the rich man picture in general?

⁵ When Jesus gave this parable, members of the strict religious sect of the Pharisees were listening, and it was doubtless for a warning to them. “Now the Pharisees, who were money-lovers, were listening to all these things, and they began to sneer at him.” So after some fitting remarks Jesus said: “To continue: A certain man was rich, and he used to clothe himself with purple and linen, enjoying himself from day to day with magnificence.” (Luke 16:14, 19, NW) “Diʹves” was not his name, but the Latin Vulgate Version of the Bible uses that word respecting him because it is the Latin word meaning “rich man”. So the rich man they generally call “Diʹves”, and we may do so. But now the question is, Who is this rich man?

⁶ Jesus did not dignify the rich man with a given name, but merely described him in order to describe the class of persons he represents. In keeping with his riches he clothed himself with purple and linen, and daily enjoyed himself with magnificence, including a bountifully spread table. Since Jesus uttered his words directly to the Jews, the rich man pictures first a class among them with privileges and advantages like those described. In the final application of the parable in our own day, he pictures a similar class now, the counterpart of that in Jesus’ day. Jesus was talking partly for the benefit of the Pharisees, who were listening in, and they were money-lovers. So the facts and the Scriptures bear out that the rich man stands for a class of religious leaders who are rich in spiritual privileges and opportunities and who conduct themselves as the rich man did.

7. What did the rich man’s clothing himself with purple represent?

⁷ Clothing is a symbol of position, rank, material means, and identity. Purple was a color of royalty. When the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus’ royal claims and lineage, they “arrayed him with a purple outer garment” and said to him: “Good day, you king of the Jews!” (John 19:2-5, NW; Mark 15:16-20) The leaders claimed to be in line for God’s kingdom, remembering God’s words to them through Moses at Mount Sinai: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” (Ex. 19:5, 6) Jesus even referred to them as the “children of the kingdom” and disclosed to us who they were, saying: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut up the kingdom of the heavens before mankind; for you yourselves do not go in, neither do you permit those on their way in to go in.” Because of this course of action Jesus said: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits”; and the chief priests and the Pharisees took note that he was speaking about them. (Matt. 8:12; 23:13; 21:43, 45, NW) So here already we have the rich man identified as representing the hypocritical Pharisees, scribes, and chief priests, which included the Sadducees; and these constituted the Jewish clergy or religious leaders.

8. What did clothing himself with linen represent?

⁸ The rich man clothed himself not alone with purple, but also with linen. This is significant, for in Scripture linen pictures righteousness: “the fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the holy ones.” (Rev. 19:8, NW) If there was one class on earth that laid claim to righteousness, self-made righteousness, it was these Jewish religionists. Why, when the Pharisees were sneering at Jesus, he said to them just before he told about the rich man and Lazarus: “You are those who declare yourselves righteous before men, but God knows your hearts; because what is lofty among men is a disgusting thing in God’s sight.” (Luke 16:15, NW) Thus he told them they figuratively clothed their exterior with linen. But it was to cover over a disgusting interior. He later pointed this out in these words: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every kind of uncleanness. In that way you also, outwardly indeed, appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matt. 23:27, 28, NW) For this reason he gave the parable of the Pharisee and the despised tax collector, because the Pharisaical crowd “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and . . . considered the rest as nothing”. (Luke 18:9-14, NW) But the tax collector went home really more righteous than the Pharisee.

9. Why did their righteousness not have a proper basis?

⁹ Showing off in their fine linen, they paraded their righteousness publicly in order to be visible to men, sounding a trumpet before them when they made their distribution of charity so as to call attention to themselves and win applause. (Matt. 6:1, 2) The apostle Paul was once a zealous member of that strict sect of the Pharisees and considered himself blameless as far as righteousness by means of the Mosaic law is concerned. But he abandoned that false course of self-righteousness, that he might gain real righteousness: “not my own righteousness which results from law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which issues from God on the basis of faith.” (Phil. 3:4-6, 9, NW) As a Christian he deplored the course of the Israelites under the leadership of their clergy and said: “Israel, although pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain to the law. For what reason? Because he pursued it, not by faith, but as by works. . . . For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God; but not according to accurate knowledge; for, because of not knowing the righteousness of God but seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the accomplished end of the Law, so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness.” (Rom. 9:31, 32; 10:2-4, NW) So the linen with which the “rich man” class clothed themselves was not the kind that God gives through Christ. It was self-righteousness, and Jesus courageously exposed it as such.

PERSONS WITH A PEDIGREE

10, 11. (a) What descent strengthened their self-assurance? (b) But what did they not appreciate about the uncertainty of their position?

¹⁰ One thing that strengthened the “rich man” class in their self-assurance and haughtiness was something the parable later shows, namely, that they were the natural descendants of Abraham. To Abraham Jehovah God upon his own oath had given the promise: “By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, . . . I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 22:16-18, AS) Hence they said to Jesus: “We are Abraham’s offspring and never have we been slaves to anybody.”

¹¹ Jesus replied: “I know you are Abraham’s offspring; but you are seeking to kill me, because my word makes no progress among you.” He said that, if they were Abraham’s children, then they ought to do the works of Abraham. But even before Jesus, John the Baptist warned them against depending too much upon natural descent from the faithful friend of God. When he caught sight of many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to the baptism he said to them: “You offspring of vipers, . . . do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘As a father we have Abraham.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” (John 8:33, 37, 39 and Matt. 3:7-9, NW) They were of the stock of Abraham naturally, like the natural branches in a cultivated olive tree. But they did not appreciate that they could be broken off from that stock because of not believing in the Son of God, the principal Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. Besides that, branches from a wild olive tree could be miraculously grafted into the places vacated by them. Another thing: Abraham had two natural sons, Ishmael and Isaac; and they could be cast away as Ishmael was, leaving Isaac the full heir, because he was miraculously born in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.—Rom. 11:1, 17-24; Gal. 4:29, 30.

12. Because of what possession could they feast sumptuously?

¹² Being so highly favored naturally because of their descent from the faithful forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they enjoyed themselves from day to day amid magnificence. The “rich man” class could feast at a sumptuous table, because, Jesus’ parable notifies us, they had rich spiritual provisions, “Moses and the Prophets.” Moses represented the Law and the first five books of the Bible which he wrote, whereas the Prophets included the writings of the early and later prophets; and linked with these were the Psalms or collection of Bible books headed by the Psalms. All together, these comprised the Hebrew Scriptures, and it was from these that Jesus continually quoted to prove he was the Messiah or Christ, the promised Seed of Abraham. “And commencing at Moses and all the Prophets he interpreted to them things pertaining to himself in all the Scriptures.” He said: “All the things written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms about me must be fulfilled.”—Luke 24:27, 44, NW.

13. Over whom, then, did they have the advantage? How was this testified to?

¹³ Consequently, with this God-given treasure the circumcised Israelites had an advantage over all the Gentile nations. Paul asks: “What, then, is the superiority of the Jew, or what is the benefit of the circumcision? A great deal in every way. First of all, because they were entrusted with the sacred pronouncements of God.” (Rom. 3:1, 2, NW) Standing before the Jewish Sanʹhe·drin presided over by the high priest, the Christian martyr Stephen said to them: “This is the Moses that . . . came to be among the congregation in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our forefathers, and he received living sacred pronouncements to give you.” (Acts 7:37, 38, NW) The apostle Paul spoke of them as “my brothers, my relatives according to the flesh, who, as such, are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the sacred service and the promises; to whom the forefathers belong and from whom Christ sprang according to the flesh”. (Rom. 9:3-5, NW) Jehovah God indeed set an exclusive feast before his chosen people, and hence the psalmist said: “He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his ordinances, they have not known them. Praise ye Jehovah.”—Ps. 147:19, 20, AS.

14. Who especially in Israel feasted? Were they in Abraham’s bosom?

¹⁴ This privilege of feasting was specially true of the religious leaders in Israel, the “rich man” class back there. They had the “key of knowledge” therefore, and it was their privilege to teach the common people. But though they feasted at the rich man’s table, reclining in magnificence and assuming to be Abraham’s promised seed, yet they did not recline in the “bosom of Abraham” and obtain his chief favor. Jesus disclosed the reason when he said to his religious opposers: “Woe to you who are versed in the Law, because you took away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not go in, and those going in you hindered!” (Luke 11:52, NW) Certainly the “rich man” represents a selfish lot of religionists both back there and today. Though furnished with such a sumptuous table of spiritual food, they let very little drop from it or be thrown away from it for the poor people to enjoy.

THE POOR BEGGAR LAZARUS

15. Who was laid at the rich man’s gate, and why?

¹⁵ Jesus now shifts our view from inside the rich man’s palace to outside his gate, with the words: “But a certain beggar named Lazarus used to be put at his gate, full of ulcers and desiring to be filled with the things dropping from the table of the rich man. Yes, too, the dogs would come and lick his ulcers.” (Luke 16:20, 21, NW) The beggar Lazarus had a right to be at the rich man’s gate, for God’s law specifically taught the well-to-do to be openhanded toward the poor. If the “rich man” class had conducted themselves unselfishly according to God’s law, with love for their neighbor as for themselves, there would have been no poor in the land. But now that there actually were poor in the land because of the self-seeking world organization, the rich man was under orders by the Law and also under warning by the Prophets to consider the poor and to give some relief to them.—Deut. 15:4, 7, 9, 11; Ps. 41:1, 2.

16. Does Lazarus name a literal person? What does the name indicate?

¹⁶ Just as the selfish rich man represented a class of persons, so the beggar or poor man represented a class back in Jesus’ day as well as now. By discerning the class in Jesus’ day we can identify the class that is the modern counterpart now. From 1881 till the end of 1939 it was taught that the rich man represented the Jewish nation as a whole and that the beggar pictured the Gentiles or all the nations aside from Israel.a But Jesus gives the beggar the name Lazarus, which was a Jewish name indicating him to be a Jew, not a Gentile. It is a Greek form of the name “Eleazar”, which means “God is helper”. The facts show that this “beggar” class began with Jews, but it was enlarged to include Gentiles, so that today it is mostly Gentile. Lazarus was of the same Jewish community with the rich man. There was no wall of partition between them because of race or natural extraction. The difference between them was because of the superiority and privileges which the religious clergy had selfishly assumed to themselves.

17. Whom does Lazarus picture, and why as a beggar?

¹⁷ The beggar Lazarus therefore pictures the poor people, of the Jews then and of Christendom now. The religious clergy and leaders deny them proper spiritual nourishment and privileges and attention, to which they have a right according to God’s will and commands. In Jesus’ day the “rich man” class included the Pharisees, and these treated the common people with supreme contempt. History tells us they called them ‵am ha-arets or people of the earth as being beneath their feet and notice. Worthy of a resurrection to eternal life? Not such people! Men who became disciples of the Jewish rabbis or teachers were thought to be in a much better position for this. When they paid the rabbis well, they bought the favorable opinion of such teachers. How fittingly Luke’s account says that the Pharisees were listening in on Jesus’ parable and that they were money-lovers and sneered at Jesus of Nazareth, from which obscure town it was thought no good thing could come! They “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and . . . considered the rest as nothing”.—John 1:46; Luke 18:9-11, NW.

18, 19. Why was he pictured as full of ulcers, a companion of dogs?

¹⁸ By such religious leaders, clothed in their linen of self-righteousness, the poor unlearned people were looked down on as spiritually diseased, just like Lazarus covered with ulcers. They viewed the poor just as Job’s three self-righteous friends viewed him when the Devil, Satan, had stricken him with boils from head to foot in order to make it appear that God’s hand was against Job. Contemptuously the chief priests and Pharisees said concerning the people who believed in Jesus: “This crowd that does not know the law are accursed people.”—Job 2:1-13; John 7:49, NW.

¹⁹ So they classed such people as under God’s curse and fit to associate intimately only with dogs, which could eat the flesh of animals torn by beasts in the field and to which no holy things were to be cast. Let them prowl around the city like hungry scavenger dogs at nightfall, howling if they find nothing to eat. The uncircumcised Gentiles were classed as dogs, and let these lick the ulcers of the poor and give them some soothing relief. (Ex. 22:31; Matt. 7:6; 15:26, 27; Ps. 59:6, 14, 15; Mark 7:27, 28) Being spiritually neglected by the lofty leaders who held them in disdain, they would naturally become ulcerous and sick spiritually. It was to such neglected and diseased ones that Jesus came to minister God’s healing Word. When the Pharisees complained to his disciples, “Why is it that your teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus said: “Persons in health do not need a physician, but the ailing do. Go, then, and learn what this means, ‘I want mercy, and not sacrifice.’ Accordingly, I came to call, not righteous people, but sinners.”—Matt. 9:11-13, NW; Mark 2:16, 17.

20. Who put the beggar at the rich man’s gate, and why there?

²⁰ The beggar Lazarus was put at the rich man’s gate, for he wanted to be filled with the things that dropped from the rich man’s table. Whatever was thrown away from that sumptuous table would never be missed by the rich man. It could be turned over to the beggar without a fanfare of trumpets to call public notice to his charitableness to the poor. Some of the community put Lazarus at his gate. Like Lazarus, they thought the religious clergy to be the ones from whom alone spiritual nourishment could come from God, and so they directed the Lazarus class of poor unlearned people to look to the religious leaders and teachers for all spiritual supplies.

21. With what did the Lazarus class want to be fed, but what did they get?

²¹ The Lazarus class hunger and thirst for righteousness, conscious of their spiritual need and desiring spiritual food to put them in a healthy state of heart and mind and to strengthen them to serve God aright. They want more than the empty, futile philosophies of men; but this is what the “rich man” class gives them. It gives them the precepts of men and the traditions of religious elders which overstep God’s commands and make his Word of no force. Seeking ease for themselves, they bind and put heavy burdens upon the shoulders of mankind. Not wanting themselves to go into the kingdom of heaven through Jesus Christ, they try to prevent the Lazarus class from going in. Consequently only morsels of real spiritual food have they let drop for the health and strength of the Lazarus class. Only a little comfort have these received from God’s Word and arrangements, while the self-righteous “rich man” class apply all the main blessings to themselves. (Col. 2:8; Matt. 15:1-9; 23:4, 13, NW) Small wonder that Jesus publicly castigated the religious “rich man” class and called them “hypocrites, fools, blind guides, serpents, offspring of vipers”! How noble that he took up the cause of the poor and uplifted and comforted them!

Those who are determined to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many senseless and hurtful desires which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things, and by reaching out for this love some have been led astray from the faith and have stabbed themselves all over with many pains.—1 Tim. 6:9, 10, NW.

[Footnotes]

Beggar and Rich Man Experience a Change

1. In his sermon what changes did Jesus indicate for poor and rich?

IN HIS sermon on the mount Jesus said: “Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them. Happy are those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, since they will be filled.” In contrast with these words pronouncing such kind of persons happy he said: “But woe to you rich persons, because you are having your consolation in full. Woe to you who are filled up now, because you will go hungry. Woe, you who are laughing now, because you will mourn and weep.” (Matt. 5:3, 6 and Luke 6:24, 25, NW) Jesus illustrated these changes for poor and rich in his parable of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man. He pictured the changes as coming by death.

2. At death what happened to Lazarus and the rich man? What did Lazarus’ new position indicate?

² Jesus said: “Now in course of time the beggar died and he was carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham. Also the rich man died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, he existing in torments, and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in the bosom position with him.” (Luke 16:22, 23, NW) The New World Translation, in its footnote, says of this “bosom position” that one occupying this position is “as when reclining in front of another on the same couch at a meal”. It denotes a position of favor with Abraham. Death ended the beggar condition for Lazarus and put him in a favored place. The question now is, When did he die, and in what sense? There are facts to give answer.

3, 4. When and as a result of what did the Lazarus class die?

³ The Lazarus class died when the Kingdom news began to be told to the poor ones whom the religious clergy despised and neglected. They were sinners needing repentance, the harlots, the publicans, the circumcised Samaritans, and finally the uncircumcised Gentiles; and these accepted the news and became followers of the Messiah, Christ the King. This began in the days of John the Baptist, for he came preaching in the wilderness: “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near. I, on the one hand, baptize you with water because of your repentance; but the one coming after me is stronger than I am, whose sandals I am not fit to take off. That one will baptize you people with holy spirit and with fire.” (Matt. 3:1, 2, 11, NW) About six months after John began Jesus was baptized by him and was anointed with God’s spirit to be the Christ. After forty days of temptation in the wilderness he came back to John and began gathering his disciples. Particularly after John’s arrest in the following year Jesus retired to Galilee and began preaching like him: “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” En route to Galilee he even preached to the despised Samaritans.—Matt. 4:17, NW; John 4:1-42.

⁴ While in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth he read to the congregation his preaching commission from the prophet Isaiah: “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.” With that he added: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.” (Luke 4:16-21, NW) Some time later John the Baptist in prison sent to him for some verification that he was really the One that was to come. Jesus told John’s messengers: “Go your way and report to John what you are hearing and seeing: The blind are seeing again, and the lame are walking about, the lepers are being cleansed and the deaf are hearing, and the dead are being raised up, and the poor are having the good news declared to them.” (Matt. 11:2-5, NW) Ah, yes, the Lazarus class were having the good news preached to them, and that led to their death as a beggar class, spiritually diseased and hungry. No longer were they going to the “rich man’s” gate for food, but were flocking to Jesus the Messiah. Those conscious of their spiritual need and hungering and thirsting for what was right were being filled and comforted.

5. So to what were the Lazarus class now pressing forward? And ahead of whom were they entering in, and why?

⁵ After John’s messengers left Jesus said: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of the heavens is the goal toward which men press, and those pressing forward are seizing it. For all, the Prophets and the Law, prophesied until John.” (Matt. 11:12, 13, NW) Jesus said something very similar just before he gave his parable of Lazarus and the rich man. After exposing the self-righteousness of the money-loving Pharisees who were listening in, Jesus said: “The Law and the Prophets were until John. From then on the kingdom of God is being declared as good news, and every kind of person is pressing forward toward it.” (Luke 16:16, NW) Or, to quote Moffatt’s translation: “And anyone presses in.” Every kind of person, or, anyone? Yes; the lowly Lazarus class, which once begged from the “rich man”, was pressing forward toward the kingdom and seizing it. In view of this fact Jesus finally told the chief priests and the religious elders: “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the harlots are going ahead of you into the kingdom of God. For John came to you in the path of righteousness, but you did not believe him. However, the tax collectors and the harlots believed him, and you, although you saw this, did not feel regret afterwards so as to believe him.” (Matt. 21:23, 31, 32, NW) So the Lazarus class died to those religious leaders and were conducted to the right source for food, comfort and relief.

DEAD TOWARD THE LAW, BUT NOT BURIED

6, 7. So what divine provision was now due to be minutely fulfilled? By whom and how?

⁶ Now God’s kingdom was being preached and anyone or every kind of person was pressing toward it to enter it, especially after the apostle Peter was authorized to use the “keys of the kingdom”. Even the Lazarus class was pressing toward it. So it was time for the law of Moses to be fulfilled down to the last particle of a letter. Hence Jesus went on to say: “Indeed, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one particle of a letter of the Law to go unfulfilled. Everyone [Anyone, Mo] that divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he that marries a woman divorced from a husband commits adultery.” (Luke 16:17, 18, NW) As a son of a Jewess, Jesus came to be under the law of Moses. But he as a perfect Jew did not come to destroy that Law from God; he came to fulfill it. He had to prove himself to be the Seed of Abraham which was first foretold in Moses’ writings. As such Seed he must be sacrificed on God’s altar, in the same way that Abraham’s beloved son Isaac was offered on the altar at God’s command, this resulting in God’s oath-bound promise, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”—Gen. 22:1-18.

⁷ As prescribed in Moses’ law, Jesus must fulfill it by being offered up as the real passover lamb, “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” Yes, he must be offered in sacrifice like those animals slain at Mount Sinai, whose blood Moses as mediator sprinkled on the book of the Law and the people in order to validate the Law covenant between God and Israel. But Jesus’ blood validates a new covenant between God and spiritual Israel, by which God really forgives sins beyond remembrance. To fulfill the many prophetic pictures in the Law, Jesus also had to be offered like the bullock and Jehovah’s goat on the day of atonement, the blood of which sacrifices was taken by the high priest into the Most Holy and sprinkled before the divine mercy seat. Only Jesus had to rise from the dead and ascend as High Priest into heaven itself and appear in God’s most holy presence to offer there the blood or value of his sacrificed human life for believers on earth. By these means his followers on earth could gain true righteousness from God. In fulfilling these and other features of the Mosaic law Jesus fulfilled the purpose of it. So it was taken out of the way and was nailed to the torture stake on which he died.—Ex. 12:1-13; John 1:29; Ex. 24:3-8; Lev. 16:1-19; Heb. 9:11-28; 13:10-13; Rom. 10:4; Col. 2:14.

8. What did Jesus there say regarding divorce, and why so?

⁸ Because the Law of Moses was then being fulfilled and removed from his believers, Jesus declared that the divorce provision in the Law whereby a man could have more than one living wife did not apply after this to his followers. (Deut. 24:1-4) The Law covenant through Moses was passing out and the new covenant through the Greater Mediator, Jesus Christ, was superseding it. Under it if a Christian got a divorce from a marriage mate on any grounds other than sexual unfaithfulness, then if either of these remarried that one would be guilty of adultery. The Christian standard of marriage under the new covenant would be that established by God in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The man had but one living wife given him for the purpose of raising children to fill the earth and subdue it to a paradise state. (Matt. 19:3-9; Gen. 1:28; 2:21-24) God provided no divorce for the perfect pair. Likewise a married Christian must be the mate of only one living partner and should be faithful to that one. This statement of Jesus on the marriage situation must have irritated the Pharisees who followed Talmudic teachings on marriage and who were listening in.

9. How did Paul say the Lazarus class were discharged from the Mosaic law, and for what purpose?

⁹ Showing how the Jewish members of the Lazarus class had died to their former beggarly condition under the Law covenant, the apostle Paul addresses some of them: “Can it be that you do not know, brothers, (for I am speaking to those who know law,) that the Law is master over a man as long as he lives? For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law of her husband. So, then, while her husband is living, she would be styled an adulteress if she became another man’s. But if her husband dies, she is free from his law, so that she is not an adulteress if she becomes another man’s. So, my brothers, you also were made dead to the Law through the body of the Christ, that you might become another’s, the one’s who was raised up from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in accord with the flesh, the sinful passions that were excited by the Law were at work in our members that we should bring forth fruit to death. But now we have been discharged from the Law, because we have died to that by which we were being held fast, that we might be slaves in a new sense by the spirit, and not in the old sense by the written code.”—Rom. 7:1-6, NW.

10. So upon whom were the Lazarus class no longer dependent for food? Why?

¹⁰ Thus the Lazarus class had died to the Mosaic law and was no longer subject to the “rich man” class or dependent upon that Jewish clergy class for anything. They had “died together with Christ toward the elementary things of the world” which the “rich man” class taught. Their life was now “hidden with the Christ in union with God”. They no longer begged from the “rich man”. No, they followed Jesus’ command, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” and avoided them.—Col. 2:20; 3:3 and Luke 12:1, NW.

11. Where does Jesus’ story locate Lazarus after death? Why does this prove it a parable?

¹¹ But did you notice one interesting point? What? That, though Lazarus died, the parable does not say the beggar was buried and put in Hades, as was the case with the rich man. In place of being buried and going to Hades, the beggar was “carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham”. Thus the Lazarus class is not pictured as a dead class, “dead in your trespasses and sins,” but as very much alive, “alive toward God.” (Eph. 2:1; Gal. 2:19, NW) All these features about Jesus’ story here prove that it does not tell of a literal Jewish “rich man” and of a literal beggar in Israel named Lazarus. Why should a literal Jew named Lazarus be carried at his death to Abraham’s bosom just because he was a beggar covered with ulcers and licked by dogs? Furthermore, the literal Abraham had been buried eighteen centuries before this and his bosom had moldered in the grave, in the cave of Machpelah, near Hebron. He was not reclining at a feast and able to entertain Lazarus. (Gen. 25:8-10) Abraham’s son Isaac was buried with him at his death. (Gen. 35:27-29) Abraham’s grandson, surnamed Israel, was also buried with him at death. (Gen. 49:29 to 50:13) When speaking of his death, Jacob said: “I will go down to Sheol [into hell, Dy] to my son mourning.” (Gen. 37:35; 42:38, AS) Since Jacob was gathered to his people at death and was buried with his fathers, and thus went to Sheol or hell, Abraham must also be in Sheol or hell, that is, in the common grave of mankind, or Hades.

12. Where do religionists say Abraham then was? What questions does this raise about transportation to hell?

¹² The religious clergy of Christendom teach that Abraham is in the hell taught in their creeds. That hell is in two parts, in the center of the earth: one part is called paradise or limbo, where the souls of those faithful ones went who died before Christ’s sacrifice; the other part is called Gehenna, with literal flames of torment, where the rich man is. Hence to be in Abraham’s bosom means to be in an underground paradise. If that is true and if that is where a literal beggar named Lazarus went at death, how is it that angels carried him there? Do angels carry dead beggars to the center of the earth to Abraham’s bosom? Who, then, carried the rich man to the flames of torment—demons? The Scriptures say Jesus went to hell, but got out again by God’s resurrection power. (Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27, 31, 32) The Revelation or Apocalypse tells us: “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” (Rev. 20:14) So Jesus got out of hell in time, so as not to land with it into the lake of fire. If, now, hell is at the center of the earth, as religionists claim, then what becomes of the earth when hell is cast into the lake of fire?

13. Why does it not do to say Abraham’s bosom was transferred from hell to heaven?

¹³ Now look here, says someone, paradise or Abraham’s bosom has been transferred from hell to heaven since Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension to heaven! But how can that be? On the day of Pentecost, ten days AFTER Jesus’ ascension, the inspired apostle Peter said: “David did not ascend to the heavens.” So neither did Abraham nor anybody in his bosom. (Acts 2:1, 29, 34, NW) Moreover, Jesus told his parable of the rich man and Lazarus some weeks at least before dying on the torture stake at Calvary. So Jesus had not yet ascended to heaven and paradise could not yet have been transferred from hell to heaven at the time he spoke. And yet Jesus said angels carried the dead Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom.

14. Why, then, is the Abraham of the parable not in any hell?

¹⁴ So from all the absurdities into which the religionist falls by arguing that Jesus’ story is literal, it is apparent that he spoke a parable. And this will show up more and more as we look at further absurdities and contradictions in a literal interpretation. It follows, therefore, that the Abraham to whose bosom angels carried Lazarus is symbolic, just as Lazarus and the rich man are. This symbolic Abraham is not in hell. Why not? Because Abraham in the parable represents Jehovah God himself. When faithful Abraham, “the friend of God,” offered up his only son Isaac on Mount Moriah, he was a prophetic picture of Jehovah God offering up his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote his fellow Christians to say: “Those who adhere to faith are the ones who are sons of Abraham. . . . You are all, in fact, sons of God through your faith in Christ Jesus. Moreover, if you belong to Christ, you are really Abraham’s seed, heirs with reference to a promise.” This proves that Abraham pictured Jehovah God, who is the real One in whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. In further proof, the apostle tells the Lazarus class: “Now we, brothers, are children belonging to the promise the same as Isaac was”; and Isaac was the son of Abraham.—Gal. 3:7, 8, 26, 29; 4:28, NW.

IN THE FAVOR OF THE THEOCRACY

15. What, then, does being carried to Abraham’s bosom mean? Why was the beggar’s name appropriate?

¹⁵ To lie in the bosom of someone at a banquet meant to occupy a place of loving favor with that one. For example, concerning Jesus we read: “No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the bosom position with the Father is the one that has explained him.” (John 1:18, NW) The apostle John occupied such a favored place at the last passover, for we read: “There was reclining in front of Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, and Jesus loved him. So the latter leaned back upon the breast of Jesus and said to him: ‘Master, who is it?’” (John 13:23, 25, NW) To be carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom means, therefore, to be transferred from the despised beggarly condition of Lazarus at the rich man’s gate into the loving favor of the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God. It means to be adopted by him as a son of God to be associated with the promised Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. It means to have close fellowship with Jehovah and his Son and to feast with them at the “table of Jehovah”. As it is written: “This partnership of ours is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. . . . if we are walking in the light as he himself is in the light, we do have partnership with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 Cor. 10:21 and 1 John 1:3, 7, NW) How fitting, then, the beggar’s name Lazarus! It means “God is helper”.

16. Whom did the angels that carried him there picture? Why?

¹⁶ We see, then, that, to begin with, the beggar Lazarus pictured the remnant of natural Jews who exercised faith in God, accepting the message of his servant John the Baptist and of his Son Jesus Christ. Remember how Jesus said of the despised chief tax collector Zacchaeus after his conversion: “This day salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:9, 10, NW) John and Jesus were as angels, or messengers, to conduct the Jewish remnant into this position of Abrahamic favor. Mark 1:2 says respecting John: “Here I am, sending forth my messenger [or, angel] before you, to prepare your way.” (NW; margin) Jesus confirmed the application of that prophecy to John, at Matthew 11:10, 11. And referring to Jesus Christ himself, the prophecy at Malachi 3:1 said: “And the Lord whom ye seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the Angel of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts.”—Da; Dy.

17. Whom did the Lazarus class come to include? How?

¹⁷ But Jesus started off the preaching to the Samaritans, too, and he foretold the extension of the Kingdom gospel to the Samaritans and finally to the Gentiles. (Acts 1:8) So the Lazarus class came to include the believing Samaritans and the believing Gentiles, beginning with the Italian centurion Cornelius. Thus these also were transferred from a poor beggarly state in this world into the bosom of divine favor. So 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.’ Consequently, those who adhere to faith are being blessed together with faithful Abraham.”—Gal. 3:8, 9, NW.

18. What did Jesus say after the expression of a centurion’s faith?

¹⁸ In the second year of Jesus’ public ministry a Gentile centurion or army officer, whether Cornelius or not, we do not know, manifested unusual faith in Jesus’ healing power. This was a sample of what faith was to be found among the despised Gentile “dogs”, as the self-righteous Jews called them; and so Jesus predicted a conducting of these poor, sin-diseased, hungry people of the Gentile nations into the “bosom position of Abraham”. In his amazement Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, With no one in Israel have I found so great a faith. But I tell you that many from eastern parts and western will come and recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens; whereas the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the darkness outside.”—Matt. 8:5-12, NW.

19-21. (a) Here, whom does Abraham picture, whom Isaac, and whom Jacob, and why? (b) So whom do the three together picture?

¹⁹ This was not saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of old were then reclining at a table in the kingdom of the heavens; for these three men were not prophets greater than John the Baptist, and Jesus said, “A person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than him.” (Matt. 11:11, NW) In Jesus’ words Abraham represents the Greater One in whom all families of the earth will be blessed, Jehovah God the Great Father. Therefore Isaac, Abraham’s only son by his wife Sarah, represents God’s only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, whom God anointed to be King of kings.

²⁰ Jacob received life from Abraham through Isaac and so was Abraham’s grandson. Likewise, the Christian congregation receives life from God through Jesus Christ. “The Christ also loved the congregation and delivered up himself for it.” “The Christ also is head of the congregation, he being a savior of this body.” (Eph. 5:23, 25, NW) “That one surrendered his soul for us.” (1 John 3:16, NW) At the time when God declares the members of the congregation righteous the perfect human life that Jesus surrendered is counted to them. To that extent Jesus becomes father to them, just as Isaac was father to Jacob, and just as much as Jesus will become the “Everlasting Father” to believing obedient mankind in the new world. (Isa. 9:6) But that human life imputed to his congregation is sacrificed in imitation of Jesus Christ and for the vindication of God’s supremacy and name. So Jehovah God the Greater Abraham begets them by his life-giving spirit. They become his spiritual sons, adopted members of the Seed of Abraham, members of Christ’s body. Hence in this trio of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom the Christian congregation is well pictured by the last one, Jacob, and it is made up of joint heirs with Jesus Christ in the Kingdom. It has a Jewish remnant or nucleus to begin with and the Gentile believers are added later.

²¹ In that way Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stand for God’s kingdom arrangement, The Theocracy.

22. Hence what did Jesus mean by saying many would come from east and west and recline with those three in the Kingdom?

²² Hence when Jesus marveled at the Gentile centurion’s faith and predicted that many people of the non-Jewish nations would come from east and west and recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the heavenly kingdom, he meant that many Gentiles would exercise faith when the Kingdom gospel was preached to all the nations. By reason of their faith in God’s message about his Christ they would be transferred from a pauper condition of alienation from God and spiritual starvation, and would be brought like Lazarus into Abraham’s bosom. That is, they would be received into Jehovah God’s favor and taken to his heart and adopted as his sons and heirs of the Kingdom with Jesus Christ, the Seed of Abraham. They would come into the favor of The Theocracy where the Jewish remnant was, and would feast at the “table of Jehovah” on spiritual riches of Scriptural truth and sacred service as his witnesses. This has been going on during the past nineteen centuries, and has reached a climax in our day.

23. What must we leave to our next magazine issue to discuss?

²³ But other interesting and important parts of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus remain yet to be discussed to complete our understanding of the matter, especially as it pertains to our own day. For lack of space in this issue, we must leave it for articles in the next succeeding issue of The Watchtower to explain to our mutual pleasure and profit.

The spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.—Isa. 61:1, 2, AS.

Questions From Readers

● What do the words at 1 Timothy 2:15 mean?—“She shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”—A. B., Washington.

This text is made more clear by quoting it, along with its setting, from the New World Translation: “I desire the women to adorn themselves in well-arranged dress, with modesty and soundness of mind, not with styles of hair braiding and gold or pearls or very expensive garb, but in the way which befits women professing to reverence God, namely, through good works. Let a woman learn in silence with full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach, or to exercise authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. Also Adam was not deceived, but the woman was thoroughly deceived and came to be in transgression. However, she will be kept safe through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and sanctification along with soundness of mind.”—1 Tim. 2:9-15.

Paul is here speaking of literal women in the Christian congregation. He recommends that they dress with modesty and good sense, that they depend on good works for adornment rather than showy and expensive garb. He counsels them to learn in silence, keeping their assigned place in the congregation and not trying to replace the men in positions of authority. Then he cites, as an example to show the wisdom of this arrangement, the case of Adam and Eve. The man came first then, not the woman. Also, the man was not deceived, but the woman was. Back there in Eden she ran ahead of her husband. The results were disastrous to them both. Neither of them will have a resurrection in the new world. Eve’s bearing of children will not save her; no more than will childbearing save the wicked women that perished in the Flood or those who will die at Armageddon. After using Adam and Eve as examples to show the wisdom of God’s arrangement for man to exercise the authority in the congregation, the apostle continues his discussion concerning the conduct of Christian women in the congregation: “She will be kept safe through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and sanctification along with soundness of mind.”

Certainly no reasonable person will argue that women are saved merely because they bear children. Her being “saved” by this could not mean saved to life eternal. Recall the woman who had a flow of blood, and who was healed when she touched Jesus. He said to her, “Your faith has saved you.” (Matt. 9:22, NW, margin) He did not mean she was saved to life eternal, but that she had been healed and made safe from further plague by this affliction of hers. So in the case of the women in the Christian congregation, they “will be kept safe through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and sanctification along with soundness of mind”. The woman’s place in the marriage arrangement is to bear the children and instruct them in the ways of Jehovah. That, along with her Kingdom service, will keep her busy, without her having to try to help run the theocratic organization. Playing this role of hers, she will be kept safe from idleness or misconduct.

In the fifth chapter of this letter to Timothy Paul discusses some of the pitfalls into which some women fall, and after speaking of some of the younger widows running around unoccupied and gossiping and meddling in other people’s affairs, he advises: “I desire the younger widows to marry, to bear children, to manage a household, to give no inducement to the opposer to revile.” (1Ti 5 Vss. 11-15, NW) That will hold them down, give them something to do. That will be a profitable occupation for them, will keep them safe. If they do their duty as wives and mothers managing a household, and continue their service as Kingdom publishers, they will be safe from the snares that catch idle and untheocratic women.

● What is the understanding today of the command to women not to cut their hair?—F. A., Tennessee.

Respecting the cutting of women’s hair, referred to in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, this does not refer to cutting it to shorten it for convenience’ sake but still leaving a feminine touch to it, but cutting it short like a man’s so as to resemble a man and thereby remove this natural God-given sign of woman’s subjection to man and of the church’s subjection to Christ her head.

Announcements

“BE RICH IN RIGHT WORKS”

That is the theme for the month of March, taken from 1 Timothy 6:18, New World Translation. It is sound advice, for it means life to those who hear and heed it. The Creator, who furnishes the things needful for our existence and the enjoyment of it, requires us to work to gain life. What work then is “right” work? A good example is the work done by Christ Jesus. Also, recall his words to the rich young man who wanted life? No, his answer did not advise one to try to become rich in this old world. Rather it was to use what things one has now and the knowledge of God’s Word, and spread this to others. During the month of March, Jehovah’s witnesses will offer a year’s subscription for The Watchtower, for $1. Each new subscriber will receive three booklets free, Can You Live Forever in Happiness on Earth?, Evolution versus The New World, and one other. Make a sound investment of your life, time and possessions by following the example set forth in the Scriptures; join in with Jehovah’s witnesses and be “rich in right works”. Our life, security and happy living depend on right works. Send in your report of the time you devote to this work, or, if a company of Jehovah’s witnesses is nearby, attend the meetings there and work with them and report through the local company.

MEMORIAL FOR 1951

One of the most important days in the calendar year for the people upon whom Jehovah’s great name is called is the day when they observe the memorial of the Lord’s evening meal. (1 Cor. 11:20-26, NW) And why not? It is a time of joy and rejoicing for this favored and happy people. Nisan 14 is the proper time to observe the Lord’s evening meal, and in this year, 1951, it is after sunset (or after 6 p.m.) of Friday, March 23. All companies, units and other groups of consecrated persons and those of good will should assemble. After having a Kingdom song and the opening prayer, some consecrated person, preferably one of Jehovah’s anointed ones, should deliver a talk on the Lord’s evening meal. The emblems should be unleavened bread and red wine, to copy our Lord’s example. The cordial welcome is here extended to all persons of good will, whether consecrated or not, to attend this significant and blessed event. What are the privileges to be gained by attending? Who participate? Must I? The answers to these questions and others will be satisfactorily answered at these gatherings. All in attendance will gain peace of mind and the unity of Jehovah’s people will increase world-wide as they acquire a full understanding and appreciation of this occasion. Last year over a half million persons attended. Why not be one of these this year and accept the invitation that is being extended to many more in The Watchtower through the medium of 35 languages? After the Memorial appropriate service announcements for those assembled may be made, a closing song sung, and the meeting dismissed with prayer. A report should be made to the Society of the entire number attending each gathering, and the number of those partaking of the emblems.

AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION

Ranking with the best of the modern Bible translations is the American Standard Version. Produced in this 20th century, it has the advantage of many recent discoveries of archaeology and the benefit of the progress of modern-day study of ancient languages. The Watchtower edition presents it without any alterations and with all its valuable footnotes and with an especially useful 95-page cyclopedic concordance of more than 3,000 entries. Some of these are as follows: Index of proper names, expressions and their meanings; concordance of principal Bible words and their context; and a final feature of the appendix, a series of four maps that are worthy of frequent consultation in associating Bible places and locations. The Bible is bound in light-brown leatherette, gold stamped, and the text is in an easy-to-read boldface type. Available on a contribution of $1.50 (thumb-indexed, $2.15). You will find this Watchtower edition of the American Standard Version an aid to understanding the Bible. Send for a copy.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of March 25: The Poor Lifted Up and Comforted.

Week of April 1: Beggar and Rich Man Experience a Change.