The Watchtower — February 1, 1959

Cheapest and Yet Costliest

HE WAS an Italian immigrant who had settled in the New York metropolitan area. One Saturday afternoon while browsing in a secondhand bookstore he noticed a pile of books on a table being offered for only one cent each. Looking them over he noticed one with a religious title, “The Harp of God,” bought it, took it home and read it. The result? He became so interested in its message that in just a matter of months he took his stand for God, whose name is Jehovah, he was baptized and now for more than twenty years he has been an active and happy Christian witness. All for one cent?

Yes—and no; and here is where it might be said that the truth of God’s Word is, paradoxically, both the cheapest and the most costly commodity on the face of the earth. On the one hand the truth is so cheap that literally no one, child, pauper or invalid, is too poor to procure it. Thus at the Divine Will International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses, held July 27 through August 3, 1958, anyone could freely attend either Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds from morning to night, partaking of the spiritual feast without paying or even being asked to contribute one cent. The same is true of the many thousands of Kingdom Halls throughout the world, at which each week a public Bible lecture and four other religious meetings are held. This very magazine, The Watchtower, has ever been offered freely to all sincere students of the Bible unable to pay the subscription rate. More than that, hundreds of thousands of sincere seekers of Bible truth have weekly studies right in their own homes with no cost to them whatever. Truly the truth is so cheap no one is too poor to obtain it.

At the same time the truth is the costliest article on the face of all the earth; so costly that, by far, most persons are not at all interested in it. How so? To acquire an understanding and appreciation of the truth of the Bible costs, first of all, our time, and time is more valuable than money. It most likely will also cost us certain selfish indulgences, because the effect of the truth is to transform our personality by making our minds over. It obligates us to “strip off the old personality with its practices” and to clothe ourselves “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.

More than that, the truth will also cost us popularity. This old world does not like anyone who takes Bible truth seriously. By our very course as well as by our ministerial activity we imply, if not also expressly state, criticism of all who ignore that truth and who live out of harmony with its righteous principles. What was true nineteen centuries ago is true today: “For the time that has passed by is sufficient for you to have worked out the will of the nations . . . Because you do not continue running with them in this course . . ., they are puzzled and go on speaking abusively of you.”—1 Pet. 4:3, 4.

Have we materialistic ambitions in the way of wanting to get rich, own the best of everything in the way of home, automobile, clothes, or achieve fame by excelling in an artistic career? The truth will also cost us these ambitions. It will cause us to appreciate the wisdom of what Paul wrote Timothy: “To be sure, it is a means of great gain, this godly devotion along with self-sufficiency. For we have brought nothing into the world, and neither can we carry anything out. So, having sustenance and covering, we shall be content with these things.”—1 Tim. 6:6-8, 11.

The truth may cost us our freedom, as it did certain Christian witnesses of Jehovah in Shanghai in October, 1958, and as it has cost thousands theirs who reside behind the Iron Curtain. It may even cost us our lives literally, as it has the long line of faithful martyrs from Abel on to Jesus Christ and down to our day. That price may be exacted of us at the hands of a Khrushchev or a Trujillo, or because of our refusal to violate God’s law regarding the sacredness of blood.

Truly the truth is so cheap that no one in all the world is too poor to afford it. At the same time it is the costliest, the most precious thing in all the world, demanding our all to obtain it; thereby making everything else, including life itself, seem cheap by comparison. Why is this so? Because it is God’s truth and he requires of us exclusive devotion: “I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion.” Fittingly therefore the wise inspired writer counsels us: “Buy truth itself and do not sell it.” Be wise by being willing to pay whatever it may cost you to obtain the truth, and once having obtained it and made it your own, do not selfishly and foolishly let it go for anything else in this world.—Ex. 20:5; Prov. 23:23; Heb. 12:16.

But whatever we may have to keep paying for the truth—and it is a continuing matter—it is more than worth it. Why? Because thereby we, first of all, acknowledge our debt of gratitude to our Maker, giving us a clear conscience. Moreover, God’s truth gives us a sure hope of the ultimate triumph of righteousness and of everlasting life in God’s paradisaic new world. It warms and enriches our lives by filling our hearts with love for our heavenly Father and for our fellow man. This, in turn, gives us the impetus, incentive, strength and will to live, work, fight and, if need be, die for that which is most worth while, the cause of Jehovah God. The facts show that those who prize the truth so highly are the happiest people on the face of the earth.

And in addition to all the foregoing, today the hope is set before men of good will who “buy truth itself and do not sell it” that they may never experience death. How so? Because Bible prophecy being fulfilled shows that very near is the time when the following words of Jesus apply in a peculiarly literal manner: “Everyone that is living and exercises faith in me will never die at all.”—John 11:26

Paradise

“He was caught away into paradise and heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak.”—2 Cor. 12:4.

1, 2. (a) When something comparable to a Persian garden has been called to our attention, when can it lawfully be spoken about? (b) How did the apostle Paul call attention to such a paradise?

WHEN something as grand and lovely as an Oriental Persian garden has been revealed by the fulfillment of divine prophecy, then it becomes lawful and timely for us to speak about it. Man can then speak about it with certainty, upon the solid ground of plain facts. Today, after nineteen centuries from when the apostle Paul mentioned it to the Christian congregation in Corinth, Greece, we can speak understandingly about the wonderful thing revealed to him. When submitting proof to the Corinthian Christians that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul said:

² “I have to boast. It is not beneficial, but I shall pass on to supernatural visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in union with Christ who, fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows—was caught away as such to the third heaven. Yes, I know such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, God knows—that he was caught away into paradise and heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. Over such a man I will boast, . . . I shall not be unreasonable, for I shall say the truth . . . just because of the excess of the revelations.”—2 Cor. 12:1-7.

3, 4. When was it that Paul had this paradisaic vision, and how did he describe his conversion to Christianity before King Agrippa?

³ Fourteen years before Paul wrote those words would fall about the year 41 (A.D.), or at least five years after he was converted from Judaism to Christianity by means of a miraculous vision in which he saw some of the blinding glory of the resurrected Jesus Christ in heaven. Telling about it before the Roman governor Festus and King Agrippa II and others in the stately group of people in the official audience chamber in Caesarea, Paul solemnly said:

⁴ “Amid these efforts as I was traveling to Damascus with authority and a commission from the chief priests, I saw at midday on the road, O king, a light beyond the brilliance of the sun flash from heaven about me and about those traveling with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground I heard a voice say to me in the Hebrew language: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? To keep kicking against the goads makes it hard for you.’ But I said: ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said: ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Nevertheless, rise and stand on your feet. For to this end I have made myself visible to you, in order to choose you as an attendant and a witness both of things you have seen and things I shall make you see respecting me’ . . . Wherefore, King Agrippa, I did not become disobedient to the heavenly sight, but both to those in Damascus first and to those in Jerusalem, and over all the country of Judea, and to the nations I went bringing the message that they should repent and turn to God by doing works that befit repentance.”—Acts 26:12-20.

5. With what mental attitude did Paul write about his visions and revelations, and so how are we using our time in considering his paradise vision?

⁵ That vision was no daydream, no mere imagination or hallucination. It was so true that Paul took it most seriously and did not disobey its message to him. For proving obedient to the vision to the end of his life he died a martyr’s death. Equally so, Paul wrote in all seriousness about the supernatural visions and revelations that the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven gave to him. We may be sure, then, of one thing: We are not wasting time with a mere hallucination when we consider the supernatural vision to which the man personally known to Paul was caught away, to see paradise and hear unutterable words, which it was not then lawful for a man to speak. Rather we are using time to come to an understanding.

6, 7. Who was this caught-away man about whom Paul writes, but how did another man also receive a disclosure from Jesus about paradise?

⁶ The man favored with such a supernatural vision was doubtless the apostle Paul himself, for no one else has told us about this experience that happened about A.D. 41. Paul, however, was not the only man to whom Jesus Christ made a disclosure about a paradise. Well before Paul became a Christian there was a man to whom Jesus spoke about paradise. This occurred in the year 33 (A.D.), on the Jews’ Passover day, at Calvary, outside the walls of Jerusalem.

⁷ Jesus was then hanging on a torture stake, nailed to it hand and foot. Above his head the Roman governor Pontius Pilate had posted the legal charge because of which Jesus was being executed. Jewish people “stood looking on. But the rulers were sneering, saying: ‘Others he saved, let him save himself, if this man is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’ Even the soldiers made fun of him, coming close and offering him sour wine and saying: ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’” One man there, however, had the courage to raise his voice in defense of Jesus. He came to realize that if this man Jesus was willing to die this horrible, shameful, painful death without murmuring and complaint, there must be truth in his convictions and claims. He, too, was hanging on a torture stake, although likely not nailed to it like Jesus, who was suffering worse whereas he “did nothing out of the way.” After closing his defense of Jesus and in order to express faith in Jesus even on the day of his public execution, this evildoer “went on to say: ‘Jesus, remember me when you get into your kingdom.’” What did Jesus say in answer? “He said to him: ‘Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.’”—Luke 23:35-43.

8. What happened to Jesus’ body after his death, but what happened to the body of the sympathetic evildoer?

⁸ Jesus said that to the evildoer about twelve o’clock noon. For three hours more they hung on their torture stakes. Then the evildoer heard Jesus call out to God in heaven: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” It was now all over with Jesus. “It has been accomplished!” he said and, bowing his head, he stopped breathing. (Luke 23:44-46; John 19:28-30) Jesus’ defender, the suffering evildoer alongside, lingered on. But as the Jewish sabbath day was to begin at sundown, the soldiers hastened his death by breaking his legs and those of another impaled evildoer. So he died the same day as Jesus, his chosen King. What happened to the evildoer’s dead body is not told us; but Jesus’ body was taken down and buried in a new tomb belonging to a rich Jew of Arimathea, named Joseph, who had become a disciple of Jesus.—John 19:31-42; Matt. 27:57-61.

A THIEF IN PARADISE?

9. What question now faces us regarding the identity of paradise, and what is the answer?

⁹ The question now faces us, Did Jesus refer to the same Paradise as the one to which the apostle Paul referred much later on? Did Jesus speak to the evildoer on the stake about the same Paradise as he mentioned when he gave The Revelation to the apostle John, about 96 (A.D.)? In Revelation 2:7, Jesus said: “Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: To him that conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Scripturally, the answer must be no.

10. Why was Jesus not talking to the evildoer on the stake about a heavenly paradise?

¹⁰ To the evildoer on the stake Jesus was not talking about a heavenly Paradise. The evildoer could not grasp spiritual things any more than the Jewish Pharisee Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, to whom Jesus said: “Unless anyone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. . . . Unless anyone is born from water and spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What has been born from the flesh is flesh, and what has been born from the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel because I told you, You people must be born again. . . . What we know we speak and what we have seen we bear witness of, but you people do not receive the witness we give. If I have told you earthly things and yet you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:3-12) To the evildoer Jesus spoke of a Paradise within his understanding. So the evildoer did not understand that by being in Paradise with Jesus as King he would go to heaven at death, or that at his resurrection from the dead he would be ushered into heaven.

11. How, too, does the case of Jesus’ own apostles show that the evildoer on the stake would not think of a heavenly kingdom or paradise?

¹¹ Even after years of preaching the kingdom of the heavens and up to the moment of Jesus’ ascending to heaven before their eyes, his own apostles had no idea of a heavenly kingdom. Otherwise they would not have asked him this farewell question: “Master, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” (Acts 1:6-11) How, then, could that sympathetic man on the stake, an evildoer, not an intimate apostle of Jesus, think of Jesus as coming into a heavenly kingdom or think of Paradise as being in heaven?

12. Why do some religious leaders of Christendom today accept the paradise that rabbinical schools of Jesus’ day taught?

¹² The Paradise of which Jesus spoke to the evildoer was not the paradise that rabbinical schools of that day taught. According to such schools Paradise still existed, namely, the garden of Eden. According to their teaching, where did it exist? To quote one authority: Paradise “was a region of the world of the dead, of Sheol, in the heart of the earth. Gehenna was on one side, with its flames and torments. Paradise on the other, the intermediate home of the blessed. . . . The patriarchs were there, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, ready to receive their faithful descendants into their bosoms . . . The highest place of honor at the feast of the blessed souls was Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:23), on which the new heir of immortality reclined as the favored and honored guest.”a Today a number of religious leaders of Christendom accept that rabbinical teaching.b They know that Jesus did not go to heaven on the day on which he spoke to the evildoer hanging on the stake. They know that on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead he said to Mary Magdalene: “I have not yet ascended to the Father. But be on your way to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17, 18) So Jesus had not gone to any heavenly Paradise.

13. Why, as proved by Peter on the day of Pentecost, had Jesus not gone to any heavenly paradise?

¹³ Why not? Because since his death and burial Jesus had been in Sheol, for parts of three days. His soul had been in Sheol, in fulfillment of Psalm 16:10: “You will not leave my soul in Sheol. You will not allow your man of loving-kindness to see the pit.” That is the interpretation that God’s holy spirit gave through the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost. Peter, under the operation of the spirit just poured out, said: “David says respecting [Jesus], ‘I had Jehovah continually before my eyes; . . . you will not forsake my soul in Hades, neither will you grant your man of loving-kindness to see corruption. . . .’ Therefore, because [David] was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath that he would seat one of his offspring upon his throne, he saw beforehand and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Hades nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God resurrected.”—Acts 2:25-32.

14. Why were Jesus and the evildoer not in Paradise down in Sheol, and why did the evildoer not share with Jesus in the “first resurrection”?

¹⁴ On the day of death the evildoer was with Jesus in Sheol or Hades. He had not gone to heaven, any more than Jesus had gone to heaven. Nor were Jesus and the evildoer in a Paradise down in Sheol or Hades. Paradise is not down there, nor did God afterward transfer Paradise from Sheol to heaven, to His immediate presence, for Sheol or Hades is not what the ancient rabbis mistaught it to be. According to the Holy Bible, Sheol or Hades is the common grave of mankind. When Jesus was raised from the dead in order that his soul might not be left in Sheol or Hades, he experienced the “first resurrection.” So we read: “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he might become the one who is first in all things.” (Col. 1:18) The thief did not participate in the “first resurrection” with Jesus, for that is a spiritual resurrection, a resurrection to life as a spirit person in the invisible heavens. Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be “born again,” “born from water and spirit,” to enjoy that spiritual resurrection. In the case of Jesus’ faithful disciples, there was no begetting of them by God’s spirit until first on the day of Pentecost, fifty-one days after Jesus died.

15. Why did not what Paul says in Romans 6:3-5 apply to the evildoer, and hence, when Jesus rose from the dead, what happened to the evildoer?

¹⁵ Although the evildoer died alongside Jesus, there was no application to him of what Paul says, in Romans 6:3-5: “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through our baptism into his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, we also should likewise walk in a newness of life. For if we have become united with [Christ] in the likeness of his death, we shall certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.” Instead of dying a Christlike death, the evildoer died a criminal’s death. He said to the other dying evildoer: “We are receiving in full what we deserve for things we did; but this man did nothing out of the way.” (Luke 23:40, 41) Consequently, when Jesus rose from the dead, he left the evildoer in Sheol, not in Paradise.

16. Did the evildoer ask Jesus for the privilege of being in the kingdom, and did the apostle Peter use one of the “keys of the kingdom of the heavens” in the evildoer’s behalf? How do we know?

¹⁶ Analyze, now, what the evildoer said to Jesus: “Jesus, remember me when you get into your kingdom.” Was he thus asking to be in the kingdom of Jesus? In no way! Even from an earthly, human standpoint, how could he ask to be in the kingdom, when he was not in the royal family line of David as Jesus was? Moreover, the evildoer could not bypass the apostle Peter into the Kingdom. Surely this evildoer did not know that Jesus had privately said to Peter: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatever you may bind on earth will have been bound in the heavens.” (Matt. 16:19) It was first on the day of Pentecost that the apostle Peter, having received the outpoured spirit, began to use either of these “keys of the kingdom of the heavens.” On that day of Pentecost the evildoer was not there to hear Peter preach. He could not take advantage of Peter’s use of the first key in order to get into the heavenly kingdom to be with the glorified Jesus Christ.

17. With whom did Jesus make a covenant for the kingdom, and why did this not include the evildoer?

¹⁷ On the night before Jesus was impaled on the torture stake with the evildoer alongside, Jesus set up the Lord’s evening meal as a yearly celebration. He then said to his eleven faithful apostles: “You are the ones that have stuck with me in my trials; and I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.” In addition to that covenant for the kingdom there was the new covenant. Jesus mentioned this covenant to these apostles when he served them with the cup of wine, saying: “This cup means the new covenant by virtue of my blood, which is to be poured out in your behalf.” (Luke 22:19-30) Unlike the eleven faithful apostles, the evildoer had not stuck with Jesus in his trials. So Jesus did not tell the evildoer that He was taking the evildoer into the covenant for the kingdom just because the evildoer came to Jesus’ defense and asked to be remembered by Jesus after becoming king.

18. When the resurrected Jesus entered as a forerunner into God’s heavenly sanctuary, why did the evildoer not enter with Jesus as a fellow forerunner?

¹⁸ Hebrews 6:19, 20 tells us that Jesus, as God’s High Priest, entered as a forerunner into God’s heavenly sanctuary, “within the curtain,” after he had sacrificed his flesh and been resurrected as a spirit person. The evildoer could not be a fellow forerunner with Jesus, because, as in ancient Israel, the high priest entered into God’s Most Holy alone. (Heb. 9:6-8) On Jesus’ resurrection day the evildoer did not receive a resurrection body, but he has had to wait until the time comes for the resurrection of those in the memorial tombs, at which time he will be given a body. After Jesus was resurrected, the apostle wrote to his Christian brothers: “We have boldness for the way of entry into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, which he inaugurated for us as a new and living way through the curtain, that is, his flesh, and . . . we have a great priest over the house of God.”—Heb. 10:19-21.

19. Why was the evildoer not a foundation for the Christian congregation, and why did he not become greater than John the Baptist?

¹⁹ The evildoer was no foundation for the Christian congregation; he was not even a member of it. The “twelve apostles of the Lamb” were made secondary foundations of the Christian congregation, which was built upon the main foundation, the Rock-mass Jesus Christ. (Rev. 21:14) On the day of Pentecost the evildoer did not receive the outpoured holy spirit any more than John the Baptist did. He did not become greater than John, for Jesus said concerning those who get into the heavenly kingdom: “Among those born of women there has not been raised up a greater than John the Baptist; but a person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is. 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.” (Matt. 11:11, 12) The evildoer was not made an exception to all the requirements and all the provisions that were made for the Christian congregation of 144,000 overcomers of this world.—Rev. 7:4-8; 14:1-5.

20. Why when on the torture stake was the evildoer not begotten with God’s spirit or anointed with it?

²⁰ On the stake the evildoer was not begotten with God’s spirit and anointed with it. It was not on Passover day nor when on the torture stake that Jesus poured out God’s holy spirit upon his faithful disciples. It was on the festival day of Pentecost and when he was at God’s right hand in heaven, as God’s High Priest, that Jesus poured out the holy spirit. (John 7:39) Then first the living disciples were made spiritual sons of God and were taken into the new covenant and were also anointed with the spirit and taken into the Kingdom covenant as joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

21. So why was the paradise that was mentioned to the evildoer not the same as the kingdom of the heavens, and why did he not sit down with Jesus in his heavenly throne?

²¹ So Paradise that Jesus mentioned to the evildoer is not the same as the kingdom of the heavens. Jesus did not promise the evildoer that he would be with Jesus in the Kingdom. The evildoer did not ask to be with Jesus in the Kingdom or to be a part of it. Not being a member of David’s royal family line, the evildoer asked merely to be under the Kingdom and to have the King recognize him or remember him and see that he had a resurrection from the dead into the realm of the Kingdom. Paradise is under the Kingdom. Since that is so, Paradise can first be established after the Kingdom has been established. Jesus’ kingdom was not established back there on earth on the Passover day of his death. All the Scripture prophecies and related facts prove that the Kingdom was set up in the heavens in the year 1914 (A.D.). When Jesus ascended to heaven on the fortieth day after his resurrection, he sat down at God’s right hand, to wait till 1914 and the inauguration of the Kingdom then. The friendly evildoer did not sit down with Jesus in His throne, a thing that Jesus said would be granted to those of his congregation who conquer this world spiritually.—Rev. 3:21; Heb. 10:12-14.

22. Why was it not from Paradise that Jesus was resurrected, and into what will the evildoer and mankind in the memorial tombs be resurrected?

²² All this makes it impossible that the evildoer was with Jesus in Paradise on the day of their death on torture stakes. On the third day of his death, Jesus was not resurrected from Paradise, leaving the evildoer down there with the dead. That would have meant that Jesus had been with him in Paradise for just parts of three days and had then left him there. Jesus did not descend back to Paradise to be with the evildoer. He ascended to heaven to be with his heavenly Father. On the third day the evildoer had no resurrection with Jesus from a paradise. For no dead person will there be a resurrection out of the true Paradise. For the evildoer and mankind in the memorial tombs there will be a resurrection into Paradise, here on earth. The evildoer was not the first to gain Paradise, nor were there any of the dead in Paradise before the evildoer. Paradise is a place, not of the dead, but of the living!

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

23, 24. (a) Who was the first man in Paradise, and why? (b) Why is the name Paradise appropriately applied to the garden of Eden?

²³ The first man in Paradise was Adam the son of God. Adam was then alive. There was no Sheol or any Hades then, for no human had then died and been buried in an earthly grave. In an article on Paradise The Encyclopedia Americana (Volume 21) opens with the words: “the garden of Eden. The word is originally Persian and signifies a park. It has been introduced into modern languages as a name for the garden of Eden . . . and hence of any abode of happiness.”

²⁴ The name is appropriately applied to the garden of Eden in which Adam was created and put. The Bible’s Hebrew word for “garden” means an enclosed or fenced-in place; what was enclosed was something delightful and beautiful. This agrees with the Persian thought of a pardes or paradise: “a wide, open park, enclosed against injury, yet with its natural beauty unspoiled, with stately forest-trees, many of them bearing fruit, watered by clear streams, on whose banks roved large herds of antelopes or sheep—this was the scenery which connected itself in the mind of the Greek traveller with the word parádeisos, and for which his own language supplied no precise equivalent . . .” By certain Greek authors the word was used to mean an “extensive plot of ground, enclosed with a strong fence or wall, abounding in trees, shrubs, plants, and garden culture, and in which choice animals were kept in different ways of restraint or freedom, according as they were ferocious or peaceable; thus answering very closely to the English word park, with the addition of gardens, a menagerie, and an aviary.”c

25, 26. (a) How did the word Paradise come to be applied to the garden of Eden? (b) Why does not the Roman Catholic Douay Version of the Bible use the expression “the garden of Eden”?

²⁵ Thus it was that, in the third century before the Christian era, the Hebrews who began translating their inspired sacred Hebrew Scriptures into Greek used the Greek word parádeisos or paradise in translating the Hebrew word gan. Men translating the Bible into Latin used the Latin word paradísus. Hence, in the Roman Catholic Douay Version of the Holy Bible, we read (Genesis 2:7-15):

²⁶ “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads. . . . And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it.”

27. How many times does the Hebrew Bible use the corresponding word pardēsʹ, and how does the shepherd lover of The Song of Solomon illustrate the meaning of this word?

²⁷ Three times in its later scriptures the Hebrew Bible itself uses the word pardēsʹ. (Neh. 2:8; Eccl. 2:5; Cant. 4:13) The beautiful loveliness of a pardēsʹ or paradise is expressed, in The Song of Solomon 4:13, in the words of the shepherd lover to his beloved girl friend: “A garden barred in is my sister, my bride, a garden barred in, a spring sealed up. Your skin is a paradise of pomegranates, with the choicest fruits, henna plants along with spikenard plants; spikenard and saffron, cane and cinnamon, along with all sorts of trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest perfumes; and a spring of gardens, a well of fresh water, and trickling streams from Lebanon.”—Cant. 4:12-15, NW; Dy; Yg; Ro; Da.

28. What was it that added most highly to the pleasures of the garden of Eden, and how was the garden’s being enclosed shown by what took place after sin entered?

²⁸ However, there was something that beautified the Paradise of Eden still more for the first man Adam and his perfect wife Eve and that added most highly to its delights and pleasures. This was the presence of Jehovah God, their Creator and loving heavenly Father. In his marvelous way he walked in that garden and gave to the man His law and guidance. His presence sanctified that paradise, that garden of Eden, and made it a place for holy living. (Gen. 2:19-25; 3:8, 9) In the right order of things, when Adam and Eve broke off holiness by sinning against their Creator, Father and God, they were driven out of the earthly Paradise, to die as sinners outside on cursed ground. The fact that the garden or Paradise of Eden was a place enclosed or fenced in, at least by invisible angel guards, is shown in the words of Genesis 3:23, 24 (Dy): “And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken. And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

29. What can be said about Adam’s getting back to Paradise at his death, or Abel’s getting there when murdered?

²⁹ Outside of Eden Adam lived to the age of 930 years. Adam did not get back to Paradise when he died, even though it was still in existence, not in the center of our planet earth as the religious clergy teach, but on top of the earth. Adam got back to the ground, out of which he had been taken. Psalm 16:10 did not foretell of him, the first Adam, that his soul would not be left in Sheol or Hades, but it foretold this concerning the “last Adam,” Jesus Christ. The living soul Adam had sinned and had died as the penalty for rebelling against the Creator and God of Paradise. (Ezek. 18:4, 20; Gen. 2:7) When Adam’s godly son Abel was murdered by his jealous brother Cain, Abel did not get into Paradise; but his blood cried out to God from the ground outside the Paradise of Eden.—Gen. 4:1-11.

30. What can be said about Paradise and Enoch, who was transferred in order not to see death?

³⁰ Adam saw the birth of Enoch, the seventh in line from Adam. By a holy way of life Enoch “kept walking with the God.” In due time God transferred Enoch. But when he was transferred that he should not see death, Enoch did not get into Paradise, which still existed. Hebrews 11:5 tells us that “he was nowhere to be found.” He was peacefully taken into death by God’s miracle that spared Enoch of any rigors of dying. Because he had pleased God well, he was treasured up in God’s memory. In God’s time Enoch will have a part in the resurrection of the righteous ones. (Acts 24:15; John 5:28, 29) The original garden of Eden is now no more, for it was destroyed in the flood of Noah’s day. When raised from the dead, Enoch will be resurrected into Paradise restored here on earth.

[Footnotes]

Maintaining Our Spiritual Paradise

1. When will paradise be restored to the earth, and who will be with Jesus in it?

AFTER the battle of Armageddon the victorious kingdom of God will restore paradise to the earth. That was why, on the day that Jesus was dying as a faithful witness to God’s kingdom and the sympathetic evildoer asked Jesus to remember him when he got into his kingdom, Jesus spoke in harmony with the divine arrangement, saying: “You will be with me in Paradise.” By means of his heavenly power Jesus Christ the King will be invisibly present in the restored paradise. Abel, Enoch, and other faithful men of times prior to Pentecost of 33 (A.D.) will be raised from the dead to a “resurrection of life” in that earthly paradise. They will thus be with Jesus in Paradise. Later, when the evildoer, as one who did vile things, answers the King’s call to a “resurrection of judgment,” he will enter into the earthly paradise and will learn that Jesus, with whom he was impaled, is reigning as King over the “new earth.” The evildoer will then remember Jesus’ hope-giving words: “You will be with me in Paradise.” Forever he may stay there with Jesus by being always obedient.—John 5:28, 29.

2, 3. (a) When Jesus spoke to the evildoer, did a paradise exist? (b) Why did not even the spiritual paradise to which Paul was caught away then exist?

² Nineteen hundred years ago, when Jesus spoke those words, no earthly paradise existed. Neither did there then exist the spiritual paradise to which Paul was later caught away to hear unutterable words which it was not lawful for a man to speak then.—2 Cor. 12:4.

³ When Jesus died like a criminal slave on a torture stake and his apostles and other disciples were scattered, nothing earthly or spiritual seemed to have a paradisaic beauty. The world organization of the “great dragon,” “the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan,” seemed to be flourishing in triumph over the Seed of God’s woman, who was to be bruised in the heel. (Rev. 12:9; Gen. 3:15) It was just as Jesus said to the enemies who arrested him in the garden of Gethsemane: “This is your hour and the authority of darkness.” (Luke 22:53) At that dark time Jehovah’s prophetic words were fulfilled: “‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones.’” (Zech. 13:7, RS; Matt. 26:31) At that time Jesus’ disciples did as he said they would do: “You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice; you will be grieved, . . . you will be scattered each one to his own house and you will leave me alone.” (John 16:20, 32) Hopes of God’s kingdom seemed to have been blasted even to the day of Jesus’ resurrection, for on that day two of his disciples dejectedly said: “We were hoping that this man was the one destined to deliver Israel; yes, and besides all these things, this makes the third day since these things occurred.” (Luke 24:21) With no kingdom there could be no paradise!

4. How did Zion rejoice at Jesus’ resurrection, and yet when, first, did Jesus’ apostles understand about the Kingdom?

⁴ Oh, how their grief was turned into joy and their hearts rejoiced when he saw them again, appearing to them in their secret meeting place and elsewhere! Even God’s symbolic wife in heaven, Zion, whose promised Seed the resurrected Jesus Christ was, exulted, like a child-bearing mother that, when she brought forth the young child, “remembers the tribulation no more because of the joy that a man has been born into the world.” (John 16:21, 22) Despite the apostles’ rejoicing, they did not rightly understand the grand purpose of God. So, forty days later, they were somewhat perplexed when Jesus ascended to heaven without having set up the Kingdom. As commanded, they waited in Jerusalem for ten days, till the festival of Pentecost. Then Jesus Christ, at the right hand of God, poured out the holy spirit upon them, in fulfillment of Joel 2:28, 29. With the spirit came revelation and enlightenment. Then came also their begetting and anointing with holy spirit. They became a “new creation,” spiritual sons of God, spiritual Israelites. They became members of God’s new “holy nation,” the nation to whom the Kingdom was given in order that they might produce its royal fruit.—Acts 2:1-36; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Pet. 2:9; Matt. 21:43.

5, 6. What was then established for those disciples, and in fulfillment of what prophecy of Joel?

⁵ A spiritual paradise had then been established. They had entered it. The spiritual estate of theirs was not like the locust-plagued land described by the prophet Joel: “The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.” To the contrary, through the glorified Jesus Christ, Jehovah God had fulfilled his further words through the same prophet Joel:

⁶ “Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice; for Jehovah hath done great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth its fruit, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in Jehovah your God; . . . I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and shall praise the name of Jehovah your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you; and my people shall never be put to shame. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel.”—Joel 2:3, 21-27, AS.

7. (a) Into what paradise was Saul of Tarsus brought on his conversion? (b) To what paradise was he caught away to hear unspeakable words?

⁷ In course of time, when Saul of Tarsus was converted from Judaism to Christianity to become the apostle Paul, he was brought out of barren Judaism, which was like a God-forsaken land that had been overrun and stripped of all its vegetation, into the Christian spiritual paradise, in the radiant beauty of the apostolic times. Evidently he proved to be the man, who, whether in the human body or out of the human body, was miraculously enabled to see more than the then blooming spiritual paradise of the Christian congregation on earth. By supernatural vision and revelation Paul was made to see with prophetic forevision the paradise condition of God’s woman, Zion, at the future time when God’s kingdom would actually be installed in the heavens. That time would be after 1914.

8. How did the Paradise of true Christianity abound in its first century?

⁸ The spiritual paradise of true Christianity in its first century continued during the days of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The holy spirit’s fruitage abounded among the Christian spiritual children of God. The first-century congregation was, symbolically speaking, “God’s field under cultivation.” It responded to the loving attention of the great Cultivator, Jehovah God. The symbolic vine, of which Jesus was the central stock and all his spirit-begotten disciples were the branches, was glorifying the heavenly Father by its bearing much fruitage, to prove that these “branches” were really Jesus’ disciples. The only true Christian nation was abundantly producing the fruitage of God’s kingdom. Spiritual prosperity reigned.—1 Cor. 3:9; John 15:1-8; Matt. 21:43.

9, 10. (a) Why did that spiritual paradise of God not continue on earth? (b) Drawing on the Paradise of Eden for an illustration, what warning did Paul give the Christians?

⁹ This spiritual paradise of God on earth did not continue. The majority of those claiming to be Christians did not “put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones.” They did not “call to mind the sayings that have been previously spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they used to say to you: ‘In the last time there will be ridiculers, proceeding according to their own desires for ungodly things.’ These are the ones that make separations, animalistic men, not having spirituality. But you, beloved ones, by building up yourselves on your most holy faith, and praying with holy spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love, while you are waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ with everlasting life in view.” (Jude 3, 17-21) Gradually there came the great religious “falling away” that the apostle Paul had foretold. Then the “man of lawlessness,” “the son of destruction,” got to be revealed.—2 Thess. 2:3, 6-12.

¹⁰ This brought about the loss of the spiritual paradise to those who claimed to be Christians with their mouths but not in their lives. With good reason, then, the apostle Paul, when warning Christians against the false apostles who would deceitfully cause this falling away, drew on the Paradise of Eden for an illustration. He said: “I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent seduced Eve by its craftiness, your minds might be corrupted away from the sincerity and the chastity that are due the Christ.”—2 Cor. 11:3, 13-15.

11. (a) By whom was the loss of the original earthly paradise and the Christians’ spiritual paradise brought about? (b) Where must Christendom of today die, and why?

¹¹ Six thousand years ago through the use of the serpent in Eden the Devil caused the loss of the original earthly paradise to Adam and Eve and to all of us their offspring. Likewise, after the “twelve apostles of the Lamb” who were acting as a restraint got to be out of the way through death, Satan the Devil, that “original serpent,” brought about the loss of the Christians’ spiritual paradise. Today Christendom, which teems with more than 820 million members in more than a thousand religious sects, shows the effects of its two world wars and is no paradise. Though it was preceded by the spiritual paradise condition of the apostolic times, it is today a religious “desolate wilderness” ravaged by symbolic locusts, Jehovah’s “great army.” There is no fruitage of God’s kingdom, only an overload of the fruitage of the materialistic nations of this world. Christendom is spiritually starving because of a God-sent “famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah,” exactly as foretold. (Amos 8:11-13, AS) Like Adam and Eve and Cain outside the garden of Eden, Christendom must die outside a spiritual Paradise.

RESTORING THE SPIRITUAL PARADISE

12. How was Jehovah to restore the spiritual paradise on earth of Zion’s spiritual sons, and what restoration did this have to precede?

¹² Jehovah’s Word foretold that he would restore on earth the spiritual paradise among his spiritual sons of Zion, his wifelike organization. He would do so by means of his kingdom, when it would be established at his unchangeably marked time, A.D. 1914. About forty years before the year 1914 Jehovah began to prepare a remnant of the spiritual children of Zion for the renewal of this spiritual paradise. As early as in its issue of July, 1883, page 4, the magazine Zion’s Watch Tower said, under the title heading “The Thief”: “When the Lord has established his kingdom, the thief will be remembered and be in Paradise. . . . in Christ or on his account shall all be made alive and be privileged to come back to that Edenic condition forfeited by the first man’s sin, redeemed for men by Christ’s righteous sacrifice.” However, the spiritual paradise had to be restored for the remnant of Zion’s spiritual children before the earthly paradise could be restored for mankind.

13. Down till what year was a measure of spiritual prosperity enjoyed, and how did Jehovah’s witnesses become like the disciples when Jesus lay dead in the tomb?

¹³ Down till the year 1914 this remnant of the spiritual seed of God’s woman Zion enjoyed an increasing measure of spiritual prosperity. But then came World War I. Along with it the religious and political and military powers of Christendom almost ruined this spiritual prosperity of Jehovah’s witnesses. They became like the “two witnesses” whom Revelation 11:3 described as prophesying in sackcloth, finally meeting a public death in this old world, particularly so in Christendom where they had been most active. It became with them as with the apostles and other disciples during the days that the Lord Jesus Christ lay dead in the tomb.

14, 15. (a) Like what desolate situation of old did their earthly condition become? (b) In that ancient time what words of Ezekiel held great importance for those concerned?

¹⁴ Their earthly condition, religiously speaking, became like the land of Judah when it lay desolate with Jerusalem and its temple in ruins and with thousands of survivors exiled mostly in the idolatrous land of Babylon. Under those ancient conditions Jehovah’s Word held great importance as it came through the prophet Ezekiel, who was already an exile in Babylon before the destruction of Jerusalem and her temple and the desolating of all the land of Judah:

¹⁵ “I will sanctify my great name, which hath been profaned among the nations, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am Jehovah, saith the Lord Jehovah, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances, and do them. Not for your sake do I this, saith the Lord Jehovah, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: In the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be builded. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, whereas it was a desolation in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited. Then the nations that are left round about you shall know that I, Jehovah, have builded the ruined places, and planted that which was desolate: I, Jehovah, have spoken it, and I will do it.”—Ezek. 36:23, 24, 27, 32-36, AS.

16. How was that prophecy actually fulfilled upon ancient Israel, and the certainty of what was thereby strengthened?

¹⁶ That prophecy was actually fulfilled upon ancient natural Israel. This strengthened the certainty that it would be fulfilled in a final complete way upon spiritual Israel in our day. Back there Jehovah empowered the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, to overthrow mighty Babylon. He guided Cyrus to issue a decree freeing the Jews to return to their desolate homeland and to rebuild the temple to Jehovah. Exactly at the end of seventy years of desolation the land of Judah was reoccupied by Jehovah’s people; Israel was reborn as a nation, and the temple altar was rebuilt and Jehovah’s worship was renewed at it. The next year the foundation of the temple was laid. After years of opposition by Jehovah’s enemies this temple was completed in the sixth year of the reign of the Persian king, Darius I. Because enemies were still in neighboring lands and kept threatening, there was need of fortifying Jerusalem; and King Artaxerxes sent his Jewish cupbearer Nehemiah to Judah as its governor to rewall the city of Jerusalem. This was done. A remarkable transformation swept over the face of the land of Judah. Whereas it had been a frightful desolation for seventy years, it became like the garden of Eden, like the “garden of Jehovah.”

17. In heaven, what announcement rang out in 1914, but what happened to the earthly estate of Jehovah’s spiritual remnant?

¹⁷ Correspondingly in our times, Jehovah brought forth the Seed of his woman, Jesus Christ, making him King of the heavenly government born in 1914. In heaven the announcement rang out: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord [Jehovah] and of his Christ, and he will rule as king for ever and ever.” On earth, however, the nations of Christendom raged. They reduced the earthly estate of the spiritual remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses to a desolation like that of ancient Judah and Jerusalem. The revival of Jehovah’s worship in the earth was halted and was in danger of being crushed.—Rev. 11:15-18, 3-10.

18, 19. (a) With God’s kingdom established in heaven, what was now necessary on earth? (b) How did the King Jesus Christ act like a modern Cyrus, and what then proceeded on the earth for a reorganization?

¹⁸ Jehovah could not permit it to be crushed out and also fulfill his own prophetic Word. His kingdom of One greater than Cyrus the Great was in power and action. The reigning of his kingdom and the desolating of the spiritual estate of his people on earth at the same time were not harmonious with each other. The established kingdom had to be advertised to all the nations that were blaspheming his name. There had to be a spiritual paradise on earth for his remnant, that these might have a proper basis and a worthy background for advertising the King and the Kingdom.

¹⁹ In 1919 the war in heaven was over. It had ousted Satan and his demons and had hurled them down to the earth. So Jehovah’s victorious King, Jesus Christ, performed the part of a modern Cyrus the Great. He freed the remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses from their Babylonish captivity, restored them to their acceptable relationship with God, and set them to courageous work at a constructive temple service. In that same year the Watch Tower Society’s president and its secretary-treasurer and six other consecrated fellow Christians were freed from an unjust imprisonment imposed by a war-crazed world. Within six months after that, or on September 1-8, 1919, the spiritual remnant were holding their first international assembly at Cedar Point, Ohio, U.S.A. The work was reorganized, and Jehovah’s witnesses were proclaiming the “golden age,” the age of Paradise, the earth’s future paradise.

20. Into what did the remnant then enter, and with what did they begin to fill the face of the earth, and how?

²⁰ Little did the spiritual remnant then realize that they were entering into a spiritual paradise in fulfillment of Jehovah’s unbreakable promises. He poured out his spirit in greater measure upon them. By his spirit he not only empowered them for a bold work but also revealed to them their commission. What? “In all the nations the good news has to be preached first.” (Mark 13:10) Bubbling over with the enthusiasm of a liberated, restored spiritual nation, the remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses zealously undertook the final work that was to precede the universal war of Armageddon. They became luxuriant with the fruitage of the holy spirit. They produced the fruitage of the Kingdom, namely, the activities and works of preaching the good news of God’s kingdom of the new world. They began to fill the face of the whole earth with this fruitage. In more and more places congregations were established and were fortified like strong cities, fortifications that will not be needed in the earthly paradise after Armageddon. Their spiritual recovery and prosperity excited the wonder of the nations of Christendom.

21. How were the spiritual remnant affected emotionally by this, and the fulfillment of what prophecy of Isaiah did they thus experience?

²¹ At this visible proof of Jehovah’s renewed favor the spiritual remnant of Zion’s children on earth were unspeakably comforted. For them it was oh so wonderful to experience the fulfillment of the divine promise: “Jehovah will certainly comfort Zion. He will for certain comfort all her devastated places, and he will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert plain like the garden of Jehovah. Exultation and rejoicing themselves will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. Then the redeemed ones of Jehovah themselves will return and must come to Zion with a joyful outcry, and rejoicing to time indefinite will be upon their head. To exultation and rejoicing they will attain. Grief and sighing will certainly flee away. I—I myself am the One that is comforting you people.”—Isa. 51:3, 11, 12.

22, 23. What, therefore, explains the overflowing happiness of Jehovah’s witnesses now, and how did Isaiah paint the situation prophetically in Isaiah, chapter 35?

²² It is the flourishing of the spiritual paradise that explains the overflowing happiness of Jehovah’s witnesses of his New World society. The grandeur of this spiritual garden of Jehovah is painted in prophetic language that draws upon the restored land of Judah for its figures of speech: “The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron. Without fail it will blossom, and it will really be joyful with joyousness and with glad crying out. The glory of Lebanon itself will actually be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and of Sharon. There will be those who will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendor of our God. At that time the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness. For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain. And the heat-parched ground will have become as a reedy pool, and the arid land as springs of water. In the abiding place of jackals, a resting place for them, there will be green grass with reeds and papyrus plants.

²³ And there will certainly come to be a highway there, even a way; and the Way of Holiness it will be called. The unclean one will not pass over it. And it will be for the one walking on the way, and the foolish themselves will not wander about in it. No lion will prove to be there, and the rapacious sort of wild beasts will not come up on it. None will be found there; and the repurchased ones must walk there. And these very ones redeemed by Jehovah will return and certainly come to Zion with a joyful cry; and rejoicing to time indefinite will be upon their head. To exultation and rejoicing they will attain, and grief and sighing must flee away.”—Isa. 35:1, 2, 5-10.

24, 25. (a) Who have trooped after the returned remnant, and what features of the organization have attracted these? (b) What transformation did Isaiah foretell concerning its earthly estate?

²⁴ The ransomed spiritual remnant have returned to Zion, Jehovah’s theocratic organization. Behind them there have trooped hundreds of thousands who want to worship this God of the remnant, this Creator of an organization that is filled with such paradisaic admirableness. It is an organization that resounds with joyfulness and with praises to the adorable God. It is an organization of spiritual health and strength and activity. It is an organization that is free from what is foolish in God’s sight, free from God-denying fools, and free from fear of any fierce beastliness in its membership. It is walking on the Way of Holiness, keeping itself free from partnership with this unholy world and unsoiled by any spots from it. Spiritual barrenness is not found there, neither the spiny, injurious growths of cursed ground. Jehovah said:

²⁵ “With rejoicing you people will go forth, and with peace you will be brought in. The mountains and the hills themselves will become cheerful before you with a joyful outcry, and the very trees of the field will all clap their hands. Instead of the thicket of thorns the juniper tree will come up. Instead of the stinging nettle the myrtle tree will come up. And it must become for Jehovah something famous, a sign to time indefinite that will not be cut off.”—Isa. 55:12, 13.

26. Of what does this growth of trees in the spiritual paradise serve as a sign, and how about cutting it off?

²⁶ This growth of true Christians like “trees of righteousness” is in our earthly estate that was once desolated by Babylonish enemies. It has become something famous for Jehovah, whose name has been called upon these spiritual trees. This growth of such strong, fruitful, beautiful trees in the spiritual paradise must serve as an unfailing sign. It is a sign of the Kingdom, that God’s kingdom is reigning and is pouring down its blessings upon those who submit to it even now before the battle of Armageddon. Yes, this restored spiritual paradise that is flourishing before Armageddon is a sign in the midst of all the enemy nations that Jehovah God has taken his great power and has begun ruling as king by his enthroned, anointed Son Jesus Christ. This sign, Jehovah declares, “will not be cut off.” How strengthening this assurance is!

27. What, then, is it the responsibility of the remnant to do, and, by doing so, of what paradise privilege will they prove worthy?

²⁷ God has confidence in us. It is our responsibility to do what we can by the help of his spirit to see that this sign is not cut off, that his will may come to pass on earth. This we must do by maintaining our spiritual paradise according to the divine will. Only by doing so will those of the remnant prove worthy to “eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”—Rev. 2:7.

28. How were the spirit-begotten Christians who died prior to 1918 granted to eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God, and what does eating of it really mean to the eaters?

²⁸ Since the setting up of the heavenly kingdom in 1914 and since the coming of Jehovah and his Messenger of the covenant, Jesus Christ, to the spiritual temple in 1918, the dead apostles and other spirit-begotten Christians who died faithful prior to those events have been resurrected. Jesus was used to resurrect these world conquerors from the dead. (John 6:54-57) Thus Jesus granted to these victorious Christians to “eat of the tree of life” in the heavenly paradise of God. In their resurrection they were clothed with immortality and incorruption. The great Source of such immortality and incorruption is Jehovah God; and thus, by Jesus Christ who is “the way,” they have come to the great figurative “Tree of Life,” Jehovah, and from him they have received the reward of heavenly immortality and incorruption. In the garden of Eden, if Adam had stayed faithful and been permitted to eat of the earthly tree of life in the middle of the garden, it would have meant his receiving from God the grant of the right to eternal human life, along with the guarantee that such right would be protected and preserved. So too with regard to eating of the heavenly Tree of Life in the paradise of God. It means partaking of the reward of heavenly, spiritual immortality and incorruption from the only source of “life and incorruption,” Jehovah, the “King of eternity, incorruptible, invisible, the only God.”—1 Cor. 15:50-54; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2 Tim. 1:10.

29. After the resurrection of those into the heavenly paradise of God, how was Isaiah 66:8 fulfilled in the remnant on earth?

²⁹ Shortly after those faithful dead Christians were resurrected into the heavenly “paradise of God,” the faithful remnant of spiritual Israelites were liberated from symbolic Babylon and brought into a spiritual paradise. In them the foundation of the “new earth” was laid; a theocratic “land” was brought forth and it was built up into a spiritual paradise. (Isa. 66:8, AS) Into it a “great crowd” of sheeplike adherents of spiritual Israel has already been brought.

HOW MAINTAINED

30. What do we want to do regarding this spiritual paradise, and, as in Adam’s case in Eden, what does this call for?

³⁰ This spiritual paradise reflects the glory of God and testifies to the establishment of his kingdom. In loving appreciation toward God and with real enjoyment of this spiritual paradise we sincerely want to maintain it. How? We remember that Adam was put into the original garden of Eden, or Paradise of pleasure, “to cultivate it and to take care of it.” (Gen. 2:15) As he had to maintain that paradise in obedience to God’s will, so we have to do toward the spiritual “garden of Jehovah” today. This means work, with an aim at spiritual beauty and orderliness. We must remember that this spiritual paradise is a holy place, for it is the place of Jehovah’s sanctuary class, a building “for God to inhabit by spirit.” (Eph. 2:19-22) It must be kept holy and clean by our living in holiness and purity, because its Creator and Owner is holy.

31. What did Israel’s remnant and their companions of ancient time illustrate must be put first, and so what must we put away from us that all nations may continue streaming to God’s mountain?

³¹ We must also put temple interests first, that is to say, the interests of Jehovah’s worship. Without that, no blessing of spiritual prosperity can continue. This fact was illustrated in the case of Israel’s remnant and their companions of long ago. In 537 B.C. they were released from Babylon specifically to return to Jerusalem and rebuild Jehovah’s temple. When they yielded to enemy interference and neglected the building of the temple, the God of the temple quit blessing them, just as his prophet Haggai pointed out to them. (Hag. 1:1-11; 2:15-19, AS) So out with all fear of worldly opposers! Out with selfish, animalistic materialism! Let the fear of the God of the temple prevail in this place of his sanctuary. Then all nations from all quarters of the earth will continue to stream to the “mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob [Israel].” (Isa. 2:2, 3) Then he will keep on blessing us.

32. How must the trees in the spiritual paradise be like those in the garden of Eden, and what must the great crowd of other inhabitants of the paradise also do?

³² Paradise in Eden was planted not only with trees beautiful to human sight but also with trees bearing fruit as food for human bodies. The great forest of spiritual trees in the paradise of the New World society must be not only beautiful in spirituality but also productive of life-sustaining fruit. The remnant, who are branches in the Christ vine, must remain in union with him and keep bearing much fruit, that our heavenly Father may be glorified. (John 15:1-8) As a “faithful and discreet slave” class they must serve spiritual food at the proper time. (Matt. 24:45-47) The “great crowd” of other inhabitants of the spiritual paradise must grow up into mature plantings of Jehovah God and bear fruit to God’s praise, passing on the spiritual food to others. It is in the strength of the spiritual food that we do the will of God on earth. The all-embracing work that He has willed for us to do is the preaching of the good news of his kingdom, always, everywhere.—Matt. 24:14.

33. Like Adam and Eve, what must we do as to the extent of the spiritual paradise, and, like them, what must we do as to the occupying of it?

³³ Adam and Eve were instructed to make Paradise earth-wide, by subduing all the rest of the earth. Similarly, today, the inhabitants of the spiritual paradise are under orders to extend it earth-wide for a witness, serving as bringers of good news and as cultivators of paradisaic spirituality where the need is great. Adam and Eve were also instructed to fill the earthwide paradise, to people it with holy creatures like themselves. Likewise, we today must not only extend the spiritual paradise earth-wide but also populate it with Jehovah’s witnesses. We must work for God to raise up more of his preaching witnesses!

34, 35. (a) As to the population of the spiritual paradise, what did the attendance figures show in 1919? (b) Since then, what happened to the population till 1932, the year of a cleansing?

³⁴ How marvelous the increase of the population of the spiritual paradise till now! Back in 1919, on March 26, the Watch Tower Society’s officers were released from literal imprisonment, to begin working toward a spiritual paradise for Jehovah’s witnesses. On Sunday, April 13, or just eighteen days later, there were only upward of 17,961 throughout the earth that gathered to celebrate the annual Lord’s evening meal. Less than five months later, on September 1-7, the first Cedar Point convention was held, at which nearly 300 were baptized. About 7,000 attended the public lecture by the Society’s then president. On September 5 at this convention he announced the coming publication of the magazine The Golden Age. “Like a voice in the wilderness of confusion, its mission is to announce the incoming of the Golden Age,” said its opening article in its first issue, that of October 1, 1919.

³⁵ From then onward the population of the spiritual paradise increased year after year, first of all by the gathering in of the rest of the members of the spiritual remnant from many lands. (Matt. 24:31) The Society’s Yearbooks from 1927 forward showed the increases of the population, all of these being set to work at cultivating and taking care of the spiritual paradise. Particularly from 1932 onward, the leading obstructors of our work of ingathering were put out by doing away with the system of “elders” democratically elected. There was a cleansing of Jehovah’s sanctuary class for the sake of a theocratic paradise.

36, 37. (a) Since that year, how has the populating work gone forward, and in that behalf what command of the Right Shepherd is still in effect? (b) How does Revelation, chapter 22, describe this spiritual paradise, and what gracious invitation keeps going forth through it?

³⁶ Since then the work of populating the spiritual paradise with the great crowd of the Right Shepherd’s “other sheep” has gone ahead grandly with notable increases, until in April of 1958 there was a rise in the population to 798,326, diligently at work in the “garden of Jehovah.” The desirable ones of all nations are being helped to come to Jehovah’s house to fill it with added glory. (John 10:16; Hag. 2:7, AS) The Right Shepherd’s command is still in effect: “Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them.” (Matt. 28:19, 20) In obedience, we must work toward increasing Paradise’s international population earth-wide.

³⁷ With beautiful symbols Revelation 22:1-3 describes the spiritual paradise that now exists, on which there rests no curse. Out through it the gracious invitation of the “spirit and the bride” keeps on going forth, saying, “Come!” Yes, “let anyone hearing say, ‘Come!’ And let anyone thirsting come; let anyone that wishes take life’s water free.” (Rev. 22:17) Let them come to the spiritual paradise, drink of the “river of water of life, clear as crystal,” eat of the leafy fruit-bearing trees, and become part of the happy, godly, hard-working population. Let them be today with our King Jesus Christ in this spiritual paradise under his kingdom.

38. What will be the experience of this spiritual paradise at Armageddon, and after Armageddon what will it become the right time for building up?

³⁸ By our thus carrying out the divine will until the universal war of Armageddon, our spiritual paradise will continue flourishing right on to the vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty. The battle of Armageddon will not wipe out this spiritual “garden of Jehovah” as the flood of Noah’s day wiped out the garden of Eden. According to the divine will and under the divine protection our spiritual paradise will pass through Armageddon and move into the righteous new world of new heavens and a new earth, there to glorify this earth forever. After Armageddon it will become the right time to build up the earthly paradise for redeemed mankind’s everlasting home.

39. (a) With whom will the survivors of Armageddon come to be, and where? (b) Whom will they be on hand to welcome?

³⁹ In this miraculous way all you survivors of Armageddon will be with the King Jesus Christ in the earthly Paradise, yes, ahead of the evildoer who will be resurrected from the memorial tomb in which he awaits the fulfillment of Jesus’ dying promise. By walking in your integrity and worshiping and serving God within the spiritual paradise of his witnesses you will enter into the New World paradise without going down into Sheol or Hades. You will be on hand to welcome all those whom the King calls forth from the memorial tombs into this everlasting earthly paradise of human life in perfection.

Carrying Out Our Resolve to Be at Peace and Unity

THE 1958 Divine Will International Assembly will never be forgotten by those who attended it. And, without doubt, for all a most exciting moment came Friday afternoon, August 1, with the reading of the Resolution and its adoption by the 194,418 witnesses of Jehovah present. In it they went on record as to where they stood in regard to Jehovah’s Word, his supremacy and kingdom. They indicated how they felt about Satan’s schemes and Christendom’s faithless clergy and also voiced their resolve ever to continue at peace and unity.a

Having made such a resolve and having distributed 70,000,000 copies of it in tract form in December, 1958, let us not hesitate to carry it out. How can we do so? First of all by daily praying for our brothers, and especially for those in positions of responsibility, for those suffering persecution or undergoing other peculiar trials and for those personally close to us. And then by making balanced use of the four godlike attributes with which our heavenly Father endowed us: power, wisdom, justice and love.

It takes mental and physical power to come together and participate in congregational meetings and all the various activities that advance the interests of the Kingdom. Wisdom will help us to be at peace and unity, for it will help us to be both skillful and tactful. If we would be at peace and unity we must also act justly, doing to others all the things we want them to do to us. Justice will also cause us to recognize theocratic rule. And, above all, love will help us to be at peace and unity. Love for Jehovah will make us integrity keepers, never compromising with Satan’s organization. And love for our brothers will safeguard us against the divisive forces of Satan’s world and keep us loyal and faithful.

Yes, good and balanced use of power, wisdom, justice and love will enable us to carry out our convention resolve to be at peace and unity with our brothers in the New World society.

[Footnotes]

Part 7—“Your Will Be Done on Earth”

It is the will of Jehovah God the Creator that must be done on earth. The proof of that fact is what we learned in Chapter 2 of the book “Your Will Be Done on Earth.” Chapter 3, in which we now find ourselves, dwells on “The Need of a Sanctuary.” For thousands of years past men have built sanctuaries for the worship of their gods, but these have all been either desecrated or destroyed. Even the temple of Jehovah God in Jerusalem was destroyed long ago. Is there no real sanctuary with a permanent holiness or sanctity? Whereas the heavens are as a throne to God the Creator, the earth is his footstool and should be kept holy. The garden of Eden in which God put the first man and woman was in reality a sanctuary, a sacred, holy place, especially so because God visited it and conversed with man. However, one of God’s heavenly spirit sons rebelled against Him and proceeded to introduce sin into the garden of Eden and thus to desecrate the holy place. He made himself Satan the Devil.

7. By keeping Paradise a sanctuary, what would it be possible for Adam and Eve to do, and what special command was it possible for them to break, and with what penalty?

⁷ By keeping the Paradise of Eden a holy place or sanctuary it would be possible for Adam and Eve to live in it with their children forever. In this garden spot God had planted a special tree, which he called the “tree of the knowledge of good and bad.” As long as God did not want man to eat of it, man’s eating of it would be wrong, disobedient to his heavenly Parent, sinful against his God. “And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (Gen. 2:9, 16, 17) There the Lawgiver Jehovah God declared the penalty for sin to be, not everlasting living torment of the human soul, but a positive death, a ceasing to live and exist. Adam, in God’s image and likeness, understood both his heavenly Father’s command and also the punishment that would be given him for breaking that command. After his heavenly Father gave him the perfect woman Eve as his wife, Adam told her about their Father’s command, because, as Adam said, “this is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one will be called Woman, because from man this one was taken.”—Gen. 2:23.

8. Why, when and how did Satan the Devil attack the rightness of God’s law to them?

⁸ From this commandment Satan the Devil knew the point upon which he could test the obedience of Adam and Eve to their heavenly Father and their exclusive devotion to their God. He was, of course, invisible to Eve, he being a spirit creature. But he made his presence manifest and presented his suggestions to wrongdoing and sin by means of a beast of the field, a serpent. Adam was not just then there to ask. So by the serpent, Satan the Devil asked Eve, not for gossip, but seemingly for information: “Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?” Eve correctly answered: “Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But as for eating of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it for fear you may die.’” Eve had not been left ignorant of the law of the Paradise sanctuary. By the serpent, Satan the Devil now attacked the rightness of that law. “At this the serpent said to the woman: ‘You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.’”—Gen. 3:1-5.

9. (a) What was the serpent’s statement to Eve? (b) In not appreciating this, how could she reason herself into lawbreaking, and how could she argue for the serpent’s rightness?

⁹ That statement was slander; and it is slander that makes a devil. But Eve did not realize that this was a slander against God, her heavenly Father. She was “thoroughly deceived.” What was she to do now? If God’s command was unjust, based upon false propositions, was it wrong for her to rebel against injustice and take the law into her own hand? Besides, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad was harmless, really a food. How good-looking it was! And what a wonderful thing it would be to have one’s eyes opened to see into things as never before and to be like God himself in knowing good and bad for oneself! Why, then, be theocratic by obeying any further this unrighteous, foundationless law of her God and Father? So, in a democratic way and spirit, Eve began taking of the fruit of the forbidden tree and eating it. Ah, she did not drop dead at the first bite! So the serpent must have been right about that, Eve could argue, deceived.

10. What did Eve thus start off on earth, and how would she have her husband die with her if the penalty of the lawbreaking was really that?

¹⁰ Eve had let her confidence in her heavenly Father be ruined. In her the start was made of something that is so widespread today, disobedience to parents. After eating her first piece of forbidden fruit Eve may have felt democratic through this sort of “people’s action.” But she did not feel like God, as the serpent had promised. Neither did she then have her eyes morally opened to see the badness of her disobedience. Besides, if there was anything to it about dying for going against God’s law, then she would have her husband Adam die with her, by persuading him to eat with her. Hence afterward she offered the fruit to Adam, the head of our family.

11. Between what kinds of action did Adam now have to choose, and why was he willful in sinning?

¹¹ What was Adam now to do? Be theocratic by bowing to God’s rulership and sovereignty, or be democratic and let the people on earth rule? Would he keep God’s Edenic sanctuary holy and free from the sin of disobedience, a place where Jehovah is worshiped as God? Or would he let Eve’s desire to be like God influence him? So would he deny his God and Creator and show pride and set himself up as God, in place of Jehovah? Adam decided to please Eve by eating with her in a condoning of her sin and also to please himself by keeping alongside her and sharing with her the consequences of her sin, the announced punishment of death. He knew what he was doing: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. Also Adam was not deceived, but the woman was thoroughly deceived and came to be in transgression.” (1 Tim. 2:13, 14) Contrary to God-given knowledge, Adam acted against his headship over the human family. He sinned willfully.—Gen. 3:6, 7.

12, 13. What worship did Adam thus set up in Eden, and how was he making himself to God, according to the principle of God’s law to Israel?

¹² Adam, as the responsible decider, had set up false worship in the Edenic sanctuary. It was the worship of self, the worship of the created person instead of the Creator. By breaking God’s law he had in himself lifted himself up above theocratic law. He had made himself lofty, making a god of himself to decide what was good and what was bad from his own viewpoint. He made himself detestable, abominable or disgusting. Long afterward the wise man said: “Everyone that is proud in heart is something detestable to Jehovah.” And Jesus Christ said: “God knows your hearts; because what is lofty among men is a disgusting thing in God’s sight.” (Prov. 16:5; Luke 16:15) In King Solomon’s day and in Jesus’ day there were many animals, birds and insects that God’s law pronounced unclean for the Israelites to eat. Eating such creatures made the Israelites unclean, abominable, loathsome or disgusting to God the Giver of the Ten Commandments and the law concerning clean foods. In the law of his covenant with Israel he commanded:

¹³ “Do not make your souls loathsome with any swarming creature that swarms, and you must not defile yourselves with them so that you actually get defiled by them. For I am Jehovah your God, and you must sanctify yourselves and you must prove yourselves holy, because I am holy.” Also: “You must not make your souls loathsome with the beast and the fowl and anything that goes creeping on the ground that I have divided off for you in declaring them unclean.”—Lev. 11:43, 44; 20:25.

14. By eating forbidden food, how did Eve and Adam make their souls to God, did such souls deserve to live in Eden, and how did they now feel in Eden?

¹⁴ Many of such beasts, fowls and insects were in the Edenic sanctuary. The tree of the knowledge of good and bad was also in the same garden sanctuary. That special tree was forbidden as food to Adam and Eve, just as those many animals were later declared unclean to the Israelites for food. As in the case of the Israelites under God’s law to them, Adam and Eve committed an abominable, disgusting thing by eating of the forbidden fruit. By eating it they made their souls loathsome, abominable, disgusting to Jehovah God, who is holy and who desires his intelligent creatures to be holy. Did such now loathsome souls as Adam and Eve deserve to live forever? No! Could such abominable disgusting things be allowed to remain in such a holy place as that Edenic Paradise sanctuary? No! Immediately after Adam gave his approval to sin against God by eating forbidden fruit, he and his wife felt out of place in that sanctuary which God sanctified by having fellowship with them there. They felt nakedly unpresentable to him and tried to hide from him.

15. As what had they now set themselves up, and through what form of selfishness, and why was there no room for them as such in Eden?

¹⁵ In this way Adam and Eve lost their holiness. By taking the law into their own hand and acting against God’s righteous law, they had in effect set themselves up as gods, idolizing themselves by a form of greediness. Christians are warned that no “greedy person—which means being an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and of God.” They are warned against “covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5) In God’s Edenic sanctuary there was no room for idolaters, for false gods, for self-made gods; because idols and false gods are an abomination or disgusting thing to the one living and true God, Jehovah.

16. Against doing what to his sanctuary does Jehovah protest, and what did Jehovah have to do to his Edenic sanctuary?

¹⁶ Jehovah protests against putting idols in the sanctuary. Concerning the ancient Jews he said: “‘The sons of Judah have done what is bad in my eyes,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. ‘They have set their disgusting things in the house upon which my name has been called, in order to defile it.’” (Jer. 7:30; 32:34) The continued presence of Adam and Eve was defiling to the Edenic Paradise sanctuary. They had not earned any right to eat from the “tree of life in the middle of the garden” and be thereby licensed to live forever on earth. So God took action to cleanse his sanctuary.

17. In pronouncing sentence upon the serpent, the Devil’s tool, whom did God mean by the serpent’s seed and by the woman?

¹⁷ On the false god Satan the Devil he pronounced the sentence of destruction. This he did with these words to the serpent that the Devil had used in deceiving Eve: “Because you have done this thing, you are the cursed one out of all the domestic animals and out of all the wild beasts of the field. Upon your belly you will go and dust is what you will eat all the days of your life. And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He [the woman’s seed] will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.” (Gen. 3:14, 15) By such words God did not mean the seed of the literal serpent. He meant the seed of the false god who was like the serpent, Satan the Devil. In the same way, God did not mean the earthly children of the literal woman, the sinner Eve. He meant the seed or offspring of his holy universal organization, which he now, for the first time, compared with a woman, a wife married to him in heaven.—Isa. 54:5.

18. Whom did God mean by the woman’s seed?

¹⁸ The seed of God’s universal organization must be his first created and chief Son, who became the man Christ Jesus that he might be made the “one mediator between God and men.” (1 Tim. 2:5) With him is associated his faithful congregation of 144,000 footstep followers, who are pictured in the Revelation to John as the twenty-four “elders” seated on thrones around God’s heavenly throne. To these Christians who gain the victory over Satan the Devil as that old Serpent these words are written: “For his part, the God who gives peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” (Rom. 16:20) This links them with the fulfillment of God’s promise, at Genesis 3:15, that the woman’s seed must bruise the Serpent.

19. What did God directly tell Eve, and how did he then disabuse her mind of Satan’s lie?

¹⁹ God told the sinner Eve that she would not be put to death at once. She would be permitted to bring forth many children, but this with labor pains. Her husband would dominate her till death. Then God disabused Eve’s mind of the lie that Satan the Serpent had told when Satan said that she and Adam would not positively die for eating the forbidden fruit. In Eve’s hearing God said to Adam: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command: ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”—Gen. 3:16-19.

20. What food was Adam now to eat, what ground was cursed for him, where was he to return to the dust, and why did he not go to heaven at death?

²⁰ Adam was no longer to cultivate and take care of the Edenic sanctuary. He was unclean, unholy. He was no longer to eat Paradise food, but the “vegetation of the field,” getting it with the sweat of his face. It was not the Paradise sanctuary that was cursed on Adam’s account, but it was the ground outside; and this, and not the Paradise sanctuary, was the part of the earth that was to grow thorns and thistles for him. The Edenic Paradise sanctuary was not to be marred by graves of sinners, but it was to the dust of the ground outside the Paradise sanctuary to which Adam was to return. “The first man is out of the earth and made of dust; the second man [Jesus Christ] is out of heaven.” (1 Cor. 15:47) So Adam was not to go to heaven at death. Being of the earth, he went back to where he had come from, the dust. The life force that animated him then returned to God who had given it.—Eccl. 12:7.

21. To what other fruit was Adam now not entitled, and what did God do to prevent his trying to eat it?

²¹ To prevent Adam from taking hold of another fruit to which he was not entitled, the fruit of the tree of life along with which the grant of eternal life went, what was done? “Jehovah God put him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.”—Gen. 3:22-24.

22. What would trying to get back into the Paradise sanctuary have meant, and what shows whether there was anything that happened to remove the sentence from Adam and Eve?

²² In any attempt to get back into the Paradise sanctuary Adam would have been blocked by those cherubs. Since he could not make his way back into the earthly Paradise because of those cherubs, much less could he make his way into the greater sanctuary of heaven, where many more cherubs would be ready to block him. Any trying to make his way to the tree of life in the middle of the garden to gain life on earth forever would have meant walking into destruction by the flaming blade of that revolving sword. Yet even outside the sanctuary Adam lived for hundreds of years. During all those centuries was there anything that happened that removed the death sentence from Adam and Eve? No; there was no change in the estrangement from God. “So all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died.” (Gen. 5:5) Adam earned the wages that sin pays—death.—Rom. 6:23.

(To be continued)

Pursuing My Purpose in Life

As told by James O. Webster

JUNE 12, 1934, still looms up as the first Big Day in life for me, because that is the day when I (along with my parents and two brothers) symbolized my dedication to serve Jehovah. My father had been a “Bible Student” since 1918, the year of my birth. At the age of seven I was taken by him to hear a “pilgrim” who talked about the “prophet Jonas.” That started me off, and never again did I return to the Baptist Sunday school. I preferred to stay at home and listen to my father read the Bible and answer my questions.

But my progress was slow, due to our living on a farm thirty-five miles from town. In those days of northern Montana’s bad roads Jehovah’s witnesses visited us only once or twice a year and it was not until after finishing grade school that I finally had enough knowledge and courage to make a public declaration of my faith and preach from door to door. Dedication was to me a serious step, and I knew what it meant. From then on, pursuing my purpose in life, service for God was on my mind.

In late 1933 we left Montana for southern Missouri and there we passed two happy years. My father took up the “sharpshooter” work (equivalent of today’s part-time field ministry) and we boys became very active in the service. On foot or hitchhiking to towns and farms for miles around, we kept on witnessing. Though a serious young fellow, I wasn’t sad; I was getting something out of life and it moved me when I saw now and then some fruits for my labor.

At the age of seventeen, upon returning to “old Montana,” I worked nights at a flour mill for three years. I still preached the Word on the job, but most of the workers scoffed. Of course, I took advantage of weekends and free time for regular preaching, and I was blessed with the privilege of becoming a “sound servant” of the Great Falls (Montana) congregation and that meant, among other things, taking the sound car and a group of publishers to work the many small towns in our vast range territory. Averaging about twenty-five hours a month in the service then, somehow I was not entirely satisfied. Being single and free, it seemed I should be doing more. But what or how? I did not know.

Early in 1938, at Seattle, Washington, I attended my first large assembly. Jos. F. Rutherford’s serious talks on service got me to thinking hard. There I also met many pioneers and mixed much with them. They woke me up, convinced me that I too could make the grade. Returning from Seattle to the flour mill, I informed my atheist boss that I was quitting the mill after the fall rush to go preaching the good news of God’s kingdom as my full-time job. He said I was crazy and tried his best to change my mind; but “nothing doing.” I had decided to pursue my purpose in life and, with Jehovah’s help, I was confident that I could stay with it till Armageddon. Today, after twenty years of unbroken pioneer service, I can say truthfully that never once have I regretted my entering pioneer work. Today, more than ever before, I am convinced that pioneering is the only real life for a true servant of Jehovah who wants to be happy. When a person makes up his mind that he is going to be satisfied and is determined to stay with it, why, Jehovah pours out such rich blessings that those not pioneers never can comprehend. Ask a genuine full-time pioneer; he will tell you it’s true!

Pioneering is great, but it is not always easy, especially not at first. For example, I, as a rather timid farm boy, left home for the first time when I took up pioneering at the age of twenty. It was my big move. For that winter my territory took me some 1,800 miles away from home to southern Missouri. It was a hard moment for me when the train pulled out at midnight December 1, 1938, and I waved good-by to family and friends. Again I thought of Jesus’ words at Matthew 10:37-42. That first month I had trials, plenty of them. I felt a bit fearful, nervous; but I went ahead, preaching and praying. Suddenly it came to me that I should trust more in Jehovah, not in my own strength. Zechariah 4:6 set me straight; it made me confide in Jehovah’s spirit. From then on all became easier for me.

After a few months I finished my original assignment and returned to Montana. There I attended a “zone assembly” and became associated with a new pioneer for a partner. (In the beginning I had no partner.) Our assignment was isolated territory along the Montana-Canadian border. There we were on the wide-open prairie, visiting wheat farmers, cattle and sheep ranches, oil workers and Indian reservations. To me it was all very interesting and joyful. Cartons of literature we placed, and we gradually saw results when we followed through with back-calls and studies. Now and then we got a new publisher out with us. During the second summer we established a new congregation and left there to go on.

Occasionally I had a change of partners or worked without a partner, as some thought the going was too tough. But with my old “Chevy” I plunged along, trading for gas or “eats” and sleeping on the prairie if not close to a good-will home. When frost came I would head for the city.

Then came Pearl Harbor, war, draft. Now in Helena (Montana), again I saw the hand of Jehovah over his active servants. While many of my witness friends associated with congregations spent those years in jail, my name was on the list of full-time ministers whom the United States government exempted; so I was outside and free and privileged on several occasions to accompany the Society’s special representative, A. H. Macmillan, on his visits to a prison camp in Washington State.

Incidentally, meantime my two brothers became pioneers and we three worked together in Montana and Washington from 1940 to 1944. We never had much money but never worried. We co-operated on keeping house, so that did not bother us. In winter now and then we would shovel snow; in summer and fall for a few weeks or days we would pick fruit. For us service was the big thing and opportunities were great. We rejoiced in building up small, isolated groups into firm, established congregations with their own Kingdom Halls. Late in 1944 I felt rewarded on receiving a special pioneer assignment from the Society.

About that time, in the Yearbook, I read about the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, and soon a circuit servant, fresh from Gilead, visited us. He was the first Gilead graduate I had met, and I was curious to find out all about the school. It sounded very interesting, but somehow it did not seem as if that was for me. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1945 I attended a special lecture that President Knorr gave in Seattle, Washington. There he announced that he would like to interview pioneers that were interested in Gilead School, and I went forward. Shortly afterward I received a Gilead application form and that put me “on the spot.” My brothers were content with pioneering in the States, and I was bothered some with sinus trouble. For three days and nights I fought pro and con with the idea, but it was Jehovah and my love for Him that made me decide for Gilead. Soon thereafter I was in the sixth class.

Gilead was really wonderful. It made the truth seem new all over again for me. Jehovah’s works, his Word, his purposes, his organization, his people and his work for his people now on earth—these were the things I began to appreciate fully as the days and months went swiftly by in Gilead’s five-month Bible course. It made me feel like a new man, “raring” to go places and do things. Graduation day came in January of 1946 and with that another surprise for me. I was one of nine of that class selected to be “servants to the brethren.” It was a shock, honestly, for I had not even dreamed of such a thing.

A week after graduation I was on my way with my first service talks in my grip, bound for Pennsylvania to receive a week’s training “on the road.” The following Sunday I was on the train again. This time I was heading for Dayton, Ohio, and my first assignment alone as a servant to the brethren. The months in that branch of the service proved to be filled with pleasure and profit for me. As I was serving the brothers along the way, I felt at the same time that they were serving me and helping me to prepare myself for greater service in the years ahead.

Then came the next Big Day in pursuing my purpose in life, November 28, 1946, and the plane flight to my new assignment as missionary and home servant in the Barranquilla (Colombia, South America) home. A small group of five missionaries, established in a fairly comfortable home, gave me a sincere welcome. I would now be one of them, a new member in the home to share in marketing, cooking, preaching.

What a sudden change! From north to south, English to Spanish, to heat, to mosquitoes, warm water to drink, new customs to master, new people to know! In a word, a brand-new assignment with a new territory to conquer. Well, after the first month with my placing 119 books in 119 hours, I decided I could stay with it as long as anyone else.

It was not so bad after all. People were friendly. Foreigners were generally better treated than their own native neighbors. I was gradually overcoming the fear of trying to talk Spanish, beginning to understand the people a little more every day. At the same time I found myself striving harder to converse with them and to put across the good news I had for them, of hope for a new world.

In 1947 by Memorial time I was able to give a fifteen-minute service talk, and that made me feel good. Then on April 27 we had our first baptism for six new dedicated publishers, which enabled us to start the congregation. Growth was slow. Eventually the original five missionaries that I met upon arrival had all left the home. Then Brother Olson from Bogotá was transferred to Barranquilla to be my partner, and later another couple was sent in by the Society. Later those two left but Brother Olson remained and the two of us carried on.

As the years went by we had an occasional visit by other missionaries and the Society’s traveling brothers. These visits have always been a stimulus to us and all our local brothers. In 1949 we obtained another home with Kingdom Hall in a central location and since then the expansion has been on here. Publishers and persons of good will then began to give steady support to the meetings and gradually, too, more became service-minded. Then we had our first visit by Brother Knorr and the then acting Branch servant. By September, 1951, all was ripe to open congregation number two in Barranquilla. Two years later, interest and expansion gave way to number three. By September, 1955, Barranquilla had four congregations and a total of nearly 400 publishers, including some twenty local pioneers. Now there are 1,142 publishers in Colombia. Blessings like these are not everyday happenings. They do not come around without time, effort, endurance and hard work in the field. But when they do come, then they are appreciated. One knows Jehovah is with him then.

This past summer it was a real thrill to be able to attend the Divine Will International Assembly in New York and enjoy the rich spiritual feast that Jehovah provided for his people. Along with that, another source of happiness was added to my life when I married Phyllis Lowe, who has been in full-time service since 1941, graduated from Gilead in 1948 and has since then served as a missionary in Puerto Rico. Together we are continuing to pursue our purpose in life in full-time service here at the Branch in Colombia.

Along with my privilege of serving now as Branch servant here in Colombia, I greatly enjoy getting out to work with the brothers in the field as circuit servant and with the local congregation. Often it means long walks from one place to another when serving the scattered congregations, as well as hours trudging from one little home to another. But great satisfaction and happiness come from seeing the tremendous response of the people of good will to the message of truth in Colombia.

Now as I finish this for you to enjoy and consider, and as I reflect on my boyhood days on the farm, and now find my wife and myself in our assignment in Colombia, I invite you to meditate with me on Jehovah’s advice not to accept the undeserved kindness of God and miss its purpose. Serve Jehovah with joy!—2 Cor. 6:1, 2.

Questions From Readers

● Does Stephen’s prayer to Jesus, as found in Acts 7:59, show that he understood Jesus to be Jehovah?—W. R., U.S.A.

The prayer offered by Stephen when he was being martyred is recorded at Acts 7:59, 60, which says: “And they went on casting stones at Stephen as he made appeal and said: ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then, bending his knees, he cried out with a strong voice: ‘Jehovah, do not charge this sin against them.’ And after saying this he fell asleep in death.” Rather than indicating that Stephen understood both Jesus and Jehovah to be the same person, his prayer shows that he knew they were not, because he differentiates between the two. His request to Jesus he does not address merely to the Lord, but to the Lord Jesus, thus doing away with any ambiguity. Further, his statement shortly prior to this, as recorded in Ac 7 verse 56, indicates two persons: “And he said: ‘Look! I behold the heavens opened up and the Son of man standing at God’s right hand.’” He does not say the Son of man, Christ Jesus, is Jehovah God, but that he was standing at God’s right hand.

Not only does Stephen’s request, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” not prove the trinity, but Jesus’ similar fervent prayer, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit,” conclusively shows that Jesus is not the same as his Father Jehovah.—Luke 23:46.

In the wording of his prayer Stephen showed that he understood the difference between Jehovah and the Lord Jesus as set out in Psalm 110:1 and applied by Jesus at Matthew 22:42-46. He was not perplexed by Jesus’ application of it, as were the Pharisees to whom Jesus spoke and who were silenced by his answer.

Jesus had taught his followers that the Father authorized him to raise others to life. (John 5:26; 6:40; 11:25, 26) So it was proper for Stephen to petition Jesus over this matter, and his prayer indicates proper understanding on his part. It does not support the trinity.

Announcements

FIELD MINISTRY

During February Jehovah’s witnesses will call on persons in all parts of the world, many of whom want to know the divine will concerning world happenings. To aid these persons of good will, they will offer them The Watchtower on a subscription basis, together with three Bible booklets, for $1. If you are not now associated with a congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses but would like to have a share in this activity, write to this office for further information.

WHEN YOUTH WILL FADE NO MORE

“Utopia” and the “fountain of youth” are two dreams of unending happiness sought by men throughout the world. Such false hopes and disappointment have they brought that most men now believe them nonexistent. But are they? Yes, in the form that men have sought them. But the fondest dreams of men cannot compare with the paradise Almighty God has promised to restore to earth. This hope is real and certain for our generation! Would you like the proof? Then send 75c at once for the beautifully illustrated hard-bound book From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained. It is based on God’s unfailing Word, the Holy Bible.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

March 1: Paradise, ¶11-22. Page 69.

March 8: Paradise, ¶23-30, and Maintaining Our Spiritual Paradise, ¶1-15. Page 75.

March 15: Maintaining Our Spiritual Paradise, ¶16-39. Page 81.