,«4‘

mcHTOvgig

W >$. / /S’ FTfci^rl

'i

ft >v3

3 M

"They shall know that I am Jehovah!'

-Ezekiel 35:15.

MAY 15, 1948

“Neighbor Love” Testimony Period .... 146

“Watchtower” Studies ... District Assemblies

in the United States

THE WATCHTOWER

Published Semimonthly By

WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY 117 Adams Street •   • Brooklyn 1, N.Y., U.S A.

OrnoEBa

N. H. Knobb, President              Grant Suiter, Secretary

“And all thy children shall be taught of Jehovah; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” - Isaiah 54:13.

THE BIBLE CLEARLY TEACHES

THAT JEHOVAH is the only true God, from everlasting to everlasting, and is the Maker of heaven and earth and Giver of life to his creatures; that the Word or Logos was the beginning of his creation and his active agent In creating all other things; and that the creature Lucifer rebelled against Jehovah and raised the Issue of His universal sovereignty;

THAT GOD created the earth for mau, made perfect man for the earth and placed him upon it; that man yielded to unfaithful Lucifer, or Satan, and willfully disobeyed God’s law and was sentenced to death; that by reason of Adam's wrong act all men are born sinners and without the right to life;

THAT THE LOGOS was made human as the man Jesus and suffered death In order to produce the ransom or redemptive price for obedient men; that God raised up Christ Jesus divine and exalted him to heaven above every other creature and clothed him with all power and authority as head of God's new capital organization;

THAT GOD’S CAPITAL ORGANIZATION is a Theocracy called Zion, and that Christ Jesus is the Chief Officer thereof and is the rightful King of the new world; that the faithful anointed followers of Christ Jesus are Zion's children, members of Jehovah’s organization, and are His witnesses whose duty and privilege it Is to testify to Jehovah’s supremacy and declare his purposes toward mankind as expressed In the Bible;

THAT THE OLD WORLD, or Satan’s uninterrupted rule, ended A.D. 1914, and Christ Jesus has been placed by Jehovah upon the throne, has ousted Satan from heaven, and now proceeds to vindicate His name and establish the “new earth”;

THAT THE RELIEF and blessings of the peoples can come only by Jehovah’s kingdom under Christ, which has begun; that His next great act is to destroy Satan's organization and establish righteousness completely in the earth; and that under the Kingdom the people of good-will surviving Armageddon will carry out the divine mandate to “fill the earth” with righteous offspring, and that the human dead In the graves will be raised to opportunities of life on earth.

ITS MISSION

THIS journal is published for the purpose of enabling the people to know Jehovah God and his purposes as expressed in the Bible. It publishes Bible Instruction specifically designed to aid Jehovah’s witnesses and all people of good-will. It arranges systematic Bible study for its readers and the Society supplies other Hterature to aid in such studies. It publishes suitable material for radio broadcasting and for other means of public Instruction in the Scriptures.

It adheres strictly to the Bible as authority for its utterances. It is entirely free and separate from all religion, parties, sects or other worldly organizations. It is wholly and without reservation for the kingdom of Jehovah God under Christ his beloved King. It is not dogmatic, but invites careful and critical examination of its contents in the light of the Scriptures. It does not indulge in controversy, and its columns are not open to personalities.

Notice to subscriber*.- . Remittances should be sent to office in your country In compliance with regulations to guarantee safe delivery of money. Remittances are accepted at Brooklyn from countries where no office is located, by international money order only. Subscription rates in different countries are stated below in local currency. Notice of expiration (with renewal blank) la sent at least two Issues before subscription expires. Change of address when sent to our office may be expected effective within one month. Send your old as weU as new address.

Please address the Watch Tower Society in every case.

Offices                                         yearly Subscription Rate

America (U.S.), lit Adams St, Brooklyn I, N.Y.

Australia, 7 Beresford Rd, Strathfield, N. S. W.

British West Indies, 21 Taylor St, Port of Spain, Trinidad fl.25

Canada, 40 Irwin Ave;, Toronto 5, Ontario

England, 34 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2

India, 167 Love Lane. Bombay 27                           B«. 3/8

Jamaica, 1S1 King St., Kingston

New Zealand, G. P. O. Box 30, Wellington, Cl

Philippine Islands, 2621 Int 2 Berran, Santa Ana, Manila 2 pesos South Africa, 623 Boston House, Cape Town

Translations of this journal appear In many languages.

ALL SINCERE STUDENTS OF THE BIBLE who by reason of Infirmity, poverty or adversity are unable to pay the subscription price may have The Watchtower free upon written application to the publishers, made once each year, stating the reason for so requesting It. We are glad to thus aid the needy, but the written application once each year is required by the postal regulations.

Printed In the United States of America

Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Brooklyn, E. Y., under the Act of March S, 1819.

“NEIGHBOR LOVE” TESTIMONY PERIOD

The June testimony period under the above title touches each professed worshiper of God on the question of whether he loves his neighbor as himself in respect to eternal life. During June, therefore, each one who possibly can will, like the Good Samaritan, get out into the field to bring his neighbors God’s provided means for them to gain eternal life. The special offer to aid them in studying the Bible will be two Watch Tower products, namely, the book “Let God Be True” and the booklet The Joy of All the People, on a contribution of 35c for the combination. Neighborloving Christians throughout the earth will all unite during June in special efforts to help others to eternal life. Will you be one! You can be, you who read this magazine. If necessary, write us to put you in touch with your neighbors who will be glad to have you lovingly work with them in the field. Arrange, also, to make a report at the end of June on what you accomplish.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of June 20: “Removal of the ‘Sin of the World’,” V 1-21 inclusive, The Watchtower May 15, 1948.

Week of June 27: “Removal of the ‘Sin of the World’,” K 22-40 inclusive, The Watchtower May 15, 1948.

DISTRICT ASSEMBLIES IN THE UNITED STATES

In addition to the assemblies previously announced in The Watchtower, there will be district assemblies at the following cities:

Des Moines, Iowa: September 3-5 Des Moines Coliseum

Chicago, Illinois: September 10-12 International Amphitheatre Exchange Ave. & S. Halsted St.

Providence, Rhode Island: September 17-19 Rhode Island Auditorium

These will conclude the series of district assemblies held in North America. Announcement is made early for the benefit of those who must make vacation arrangements well in advance. Addresses of rooming committees will be announced later.

All Watchtower readers are invited to attend these assemblies.

WEST COAST ASSEMBLY CHANGES

The district assembly will not be held in Oakland, but at The Cow Palace, Geneva Ave. at Rio Verde St., San Francisco. The Rooming Committee address is 11 Pearl St., San Francisco 3, California; however, if you have sent mail to the former Rooming Committee address that is all right. It will be received and answered.

ANNOUNCING JEHOVAH’S KINGDOM

Vol. LXIX                              May 15, 1948                                  No. 10

IGNORANCE OF SIN

“He is himself an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world." —1 John 2:2, An Amer. Trans.

JEHOVAH God sees this world as it does not see itself. He knows what is wrong with it, and what is at the bottom of its trouble. It is a difficulty shared by all mankind and common to all nations, and hence all today are in the throes of a world-wide distress. For many centuries He let the nations go on in their ignorance of the root of the trouble, following their own chosen forms of religious worship. But in His due time he began sending all the nations the truth not only about their common condition of sickness, misery, old age and death but also about the way of relief that he has lovingly provided. His truth is simple and plain-spoken, because simplicity and straight talk is for the earliest benefit of those needing help. His truth absolutely agrees with the facts, which facts he knows best of all, and it shows no partiality to any nation, tribe, family, or color. His truth has been written down for consultation by all, and it straightforwardly tells us that the common affliction upon us all is sin. It shows that all humankind are under sin, in order to show how God provides a remedy for all at one and the same time, by one all-sufficient means. As the Creator of mankind, he is also the Great Physician and can accurately probe the cause of mankind’s trouble and also prescribe the only cure-all for them. This he has done, and countless numbers of people till now have benefited by following his prescription.

• ² No sick patient nigh to death should rebel against the remedy the physician prescribes who knows his case, pronounces what the real trouble is, and understands the way to cure it. Not if the patient wants to get cured and live in health and happiness. To persons in many nations it may sound distasteful for God’s Word, the Bible, to pronounce the common malady of mankind to be sin. To many persons of various- kinds of religious belief the word sin may come as a strange, new word, a word that has not appeared in their religion. Take, for instance, the Buddhists, who today number about six percent of the world’s population. Their religion, Buddhism, was formulated in the sixth century before our common era. It arose as somewhat of a protest against the Hinduism then prevailing in eastern India, and it spread beyond India into many lands of Asia and of the Pacific, but undergoing some changes by the local native religions it met up with. In India itself it has blended with Hinduism, so that now there are few Buddhists in that great land and the Buddhist pope is located at Lhasa, Tibet.

’ Trying to explain why no man is free from suffering and distress, Buddhism teaches that our existence as humans came about through a natural law and that for us to have a personal intelligent existence means just misery, and that the natural man of earth is wretched as well as evil because he is material. Buddhism also has its “Five Commandments”: not to kill any living creature, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, slander or swear, and to avoid drunkenness. There are five other commandments for those who devote themselves to a religious life to gain the highest attainment of their religion, nirvana, a ceasing to exist.

• ⁴ For Buddhists there is, despite these commandments, no supreme lawgiver with authority. Hence, transgressing these commandments does not mean iniquity and so does not bring any guilt. No repentance is therefore required. If we injure ourselves, but injure no one else by our acts, then we have done no wrong; and if it is ourselves only we are inconveniencing, then nobody else has a right to consider us transgressors. In the Buddhist religious system no act is sin; the idea of sin is unknown. It is simply the case of a bad act’s producing a bad result, and, for that reason, and not because bad acts are sin, they are to be avoided, just as we would avoid a rotten substance that creates a stench. Such acts are bad only if they work injury to another person. But if they produce injury to simply oneself, it does not matter, because each person is lord of himself and responsible to no supreme lawgiver. Thus it would be no crime for a wife to commit adultery, if her Buddhist husband consented, because, it is reasoned, no wrong has been done to the husband. There is no sin, but there is unkindness to others, and such unkindness produces fruit just as a plant or tree does.

• ⁵ Certain Buddhists worship devils in hope of getting supernatural help, because they suppose that

devils may exist as well as anything else, and, if devils are treated kindly, they may be as useful to Buddhists as any other friendly allies could be. In much the same manner as pope Pius XI declared he would do business with Satan the Devil himself if it benefited his Catholic religious system. For the Buddhist such devil-worship is not sin, just as for the pope it appears to be no sin to bargain with Satan the Devil. Tradition says the apostle Thomas penetrated into India in the first century of the Christian era. If so, he must have had to contend with Buddhist beliefs.

• ⁶ In that first century the apostle Paul stood upon Mars Hill in Athens, Greece, and addressed judges, some of whom were so-called “Epicureans” and others “Stoics”. For these men sin meant nothing more than for the Buddists. The Epicureans believed the world was not made by a Supreme Person, God, but resulted from the chance coming-together of atoms, the only eternal and changeless substances; and that there are no rewards or punishments for human acts after death; and that pleasure now is the supreme good, in fact, the only good, because death ends all. On the other hand, the Stoics acknowledged there was an imperial head over all the universe, and they held that the world was governed by laws. But there were no inducements to obey such laws nor any punishments to keep us from breaking such laws, except the results that would flow from our conduct respecting those laws. Though Stoics believed in a soul separate from the human body, they did not believe in its long survival after death of the body nor in its immortality.

^T So, when the apostle Paul spoke to those Epicureans and Stoics and advised repentance for their past ignorant course of life, he was bringing them a new idea. He said: “While God overlooked those times of ignorance, he now calls upon all men everywhere to repent, since he has fixed a day on which he will justly judge the world through a man whom he has appointed, and whom he has guaranteed to all men by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17: 30, 31, An Amer. Trans.) No wonder some laughed at the idea of repenting from sin, just as nowadays some sneer at the thought of sin. For thousands of years the most part of the world has not known what sin is. Do you know what it is? At any rate, the next article is enlightening.

REMOVAL OF THE “SIN OF THE WORLD”

WHAT is “sin”? In the Bible we read two brief answers: “Whoever commits sin disobeys law; sin is disobedience to law.” And: “Any wrongdoing is sin.”—1 John 3:4; 5:17, An Amer. Trans.

• ² The law here meant is the law of the Creator, Jehovah God the Supreme Lawgiver. For all creation he fixed laws of operation or laws of conduct. His way is the right way; and if hurtful results come from pursuing a different way it is because that is the wrong way. It is a violation of His will and law, and hence is a wrong, an offense against the Supreme Lawgiver. It is not just a mere hurt to the person breaking the law. It is a failure to do the will of the righteous Lawgiver; it is disobedience to his law, and he pronounces it sin¹ In the Greek language, in which the apostle Paul spoke to the Epicureans and Stoics at Athens, the word for sin originally meant to miss, as, for instance, to miss one’s road. Then it came to mean to fail of doing something, to fail of one’s purpose, to miss one’s point, to go wrong. Now Paul was a Hebrew, and in the Hebrew part of the Bible that he read the word for sin likewise meant originally to miss, hence to fail. For instance, Judges 20:16 reads: “There were seven hundred chosen men left-handed; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss." Also Proverbs 19:2: “It is no use to act before you think: to be hasty is to miss the mark." {Moffatt) Also Proverbs 8:36: “But he who misses me [wisdom] wrongs himself, all who hate me love death.” (An Amer. Trans.) Sin is therefore a missing or failing to do the will and law of God. Because his will and law are right and perfect, sin is displeasing to him and must bring punishment.

• ³ At Romans 8: 3 we read that “God ... condemned sin in the flesh”. That being so, when Jehovah God created the first man from whom we all have sprung, he created him perfect and not missing in any one of his proper human parts and qualities. But to show how different Jehovah God is from mankind today it is written: “His work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.” (Deut. 32:4,5) That makes it a lie for God’s great adversary, Satan the Devil, to say that all visible, tangible matter is evil in itself and that all existence in material, human bodies is wretched and evil in itself. To say that is merely to judge mankind’s beginning by our present, fallen condition. But God did not give mankind such a start. When he had finished preparing this earth for man’s dwelling place he did not pronounce this material earth evil. Contrariwise, the record of crea-

1, 2. What is sin? and what does the word in itself mean?

3. Because condemning sin, what kind of start did God give man''

tion says: "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31) Instead of giving man a wretched start in human misery and in a dying condition and with a soul that had transmigrated from some dead beast, fish, bird or insect, the record of creation tells us this: “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.”—Gen. 2:7, 8, Am. Stan. Ver.

* Notice that Jehovah God did not give the first man a transmigrated soul, but that by God’s creative power man “became a living soul”. The first man Adam was himself the soul. Moreover, instead of appointing man from the start to an existence of unavoidable wretchedness and misery God put Adam in the garden of Eden; and this name “Eden” means “delight” or “pleasantness”. God afterward gave the man a wife, whom God made from a part of man’s own body. She was a perfect human soul, the same as her husband Adam, privileged to share with him the delights and pleasantness of the garden of Eden. In this garden they could live forever in ideal happiness with all their children, whom they could bring into this earth as perfect human souls. In that direction God gave them his blessing, not his condemnation. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Gen. 1: 28) All this disproves the religious lie that God could not produce anything on this earth but wretched, miserable, imperfect creatures, and that all this world of matter is just an evil development, and the best thing for us to do is to try to make our escape from it forever. God condemns the sin that has come to exist in the flesh, and for this reason in the world to come he will people this earth with innocent, sinless, perfect men and women. He will not approve of any other kind of population to inhabit this earth forever. He will therefore remove the “sin of the world”.

HOW IT ENTERED

⁵ As Creator, Jehovah God was rightfully the Lawgiver to man, and he explained the operation of his law to man in Eden. In the very words of his law to man God showed that man had not yet known or experienced evil; for it is written: “And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:16,17, Am.Stan.Ver.) If the day never came where man ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in disobedience to his divine Lawgiver, then man would surely never die. He would live forever and be always able to dress and keep the garden of Eden, this earthly paradise of delight. This earth was no evil place for man to escape from; and hence God made no promise to man that if he was faithful and obedient for a certain period of time, then God would deliver him from this earth and take him to heaven for an immaterial, spiritual, angelic existence. What God set before man was either everlasting life on earth or else death, sure death in the day in which he disobeyed his Lawgiver and thus sinned, failed of doing the divine will, and missed the mark of perfect obedience to Jehovah God. Since the perfect human souls Adam and Eve owed their very existence to God, he had the right to demand perfect obedience from them and to punish them, if they acted lawlessly or sinned, by taking away their happy existence.

’ Today we do not see one part of the human race perfect and sinless and another part imperfect and sinful, but all members of our race are far short of perfection, and deep down in sin, and under a reign or rule of death. All this argues that our first parents sinned, and that they did so before ever any children of theirs were born, so that all their descendants down to today have inherited the evil consequences of their wrongdoing, disobedience to law, sin. That is exactly what the Bible says took place. It says: “By one man sin entered into the -world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”—Rom. 5:12.

⁷ Adam and Eve could not say they were hurting only themselves by lawlessly eating the forbidden fruit, and so they were doing no wrong and nobody could say they were wrongdoers. First of all, they were unlovingly breaking God’s law and bringing reproach upon His name) whereas they owed perfect love to God to whom everything they had was due. Secondly, they were hurting all their children who were to be born, bringing upon them a condemnation to an imperfect, dying existence. Hence it is truthfully written: “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) Fallen man today is no perfect glory to God, as Adam was in Eden at the beginning. At that time, indeed, it was perfectly true: “A man ... is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.” (1 Cor. 11:7) The man was of God. The woman was of man; and as the perfect woman Eve stood beside her perfect husband Adam, she was a glory to him, an adornment that befitted him, a lovely creature that was of his flesh and bone and was one with him, and adding

6, 7. Who has all mankind sinned and come short of God's glory? to his completeness. But today, how different! It is because all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God the Creator.

’Who was chiefly blamable for such start of human sin! God’s Word answers, Satan the Devil, "the prince of the demons.” This creature, who was once a heavenly son of God, began wanting to have something selfish, contrary to God’s will. Therefore he rebelled against God his Father and was first in all the universe to start sin. We read: “He that com-mitteth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. . . . Cain . . . was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him! Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” (1 John 3:8,12) Adam and Eve, when breaking God’s law in Eden, were of the Devil, to whose lie and selfish inducements they yielded. Cain, their first son to be born outside of Eden, was also of the Devil when he murdered his first brother, Abel, because Abel had faith in God and righteously tried to please God. Before Cain devilishly murdered Abel, God mentioned the sin of Adam and Eve to Cain. We read: “And Jehovah saith unto Cain: ‘Why hast thou displeasure ? and why hath thy countenance fallen? Is there not, if thou dost well, acceptance? and if thou dost not well, at the opening [door] a sin-offering is crouching.” (Gen. 4:6,7, Young’s translation; also Rotherham’s) Cain did not recognize that the sin of his parents Adam and Eve required a proper offering for its evil effects to be removed from him. Abel slew an animal of his flock and shed its blood and found acceptance with God. So Cain should have gotten a like animal for a typical sin-offering and done as Abel. Such slain animal would prefigure God’s means for removing the world’s sin.

NOT IMPUTED WHERE NO LAW IS

⁸ The law given to Adam in Eden did not apply to any of his children, for after his iniquity in Eden he and his wife were driven outside and prevented from touching any of the trees of the garden. There is no record that God gave any statement to mankind of what sin was all the way down to the global flood of Noah’s day, 1,656 years from man’s creation. Though there was no stated law to show what man’s sins outside of Eden were, yet Adam’s offspring were all sinners, from birth on. They had all come into this earth imperfect and had fallen short of God’s glory and missed the mark of perfect obedience to him. That they were sinners Enoch showed by prophesying against them and warning men of the coming judgment day, when mankind must give account to God. (Gen. 5:18-24; Jude 14,15) Because there was no precisely stated law commanding what God wanted mankind to do and pronouncing punishments for dis-8 Who promoted the sin? and what prefigured the sin-offering?

9. Outside of Eden, why was sin not imputed until Moses' time? obedience thereto, God did not execute Cain for murdering Abel. God let Cain live on, but under a curse and with destruction facing him. However, 857 years after the flood broke forth, God did give a written code or systematized collection of laws, giving it to the Israelites, his chosen people, through his prophet Moses. Of course, before this there were man-made codes of law, such as the Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon 1792 to 1750 B.C. But there was no God-given code of laws according to which to impute or count certain sins to those doing wrong. Just the same, all men were sinners from God’s standpoint, all being born of the sinners Adam and Eve.

• ¹⁰ In support of that we read: “For until the law [by Moses] sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come.” (Rom. 5:13,14, Am. Stan. Ver.) Thus mankind in general, outside of the Israelites, was left in ignorance of what sin is, and this makes it understandable why various worldly religions rose up which take no account of sin and which cannot explain how it began and what its penalty is and how God has made provision to remove it from the universe.

• ¹¹ There was, to begin with, a sinless world; and God’s purpose is to have a sinless new world in which mankind will live forever in blessedness. That such is his purpose, he disclosed in a particular way 427 years after the great flood of Noah’s day. It was in the days of Abraham, who died about fifty years before the reign of King Hammurabi of Babylon. Because of Abraham’s unshakable faith in God he became called “the friend of God”. Consequently God chose him to be the channel of an everlasting blessing to mankind. We read that while Abraham was still in the city of Ur, in southern Babylonia, “Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee: . . . and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3, Am. Stan. Ver.) That divine promise to Abraham is commonly called the covenant with Abraham or the Abrahamic covenant. Years afterward, when Abraham showed he was willing to sacrifice his dear son Isaac in obedience to God, Jehovah enlarged upon that Abrahamic covenant and said: “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 22:18) Among other things, that blessing meant that God would justify or would declare free from their sins persons of all nations that would show faith in him like Abraham’s.

• ¹² Commenting upon that scripture the apostle Paul says: “And the scripture foreseeing that by faith God would declare the nations righteous foreannounced the good news unto Abraham, saying— All the nations shall be blessed in thee. So then they who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”—Gal. 3:8, 9, Rotherham.

• ¹⁸ But before this blessing of righteousness through faith in God could come to any of the nations, mankind had to see they were all sinners in God’s sight, unable to purify themselves from sin and unable to escape by themselves the effects of sin which they had inherited from Adam. To reveal this fact to men in a very forceful way Jehovah brought Abraham’s descendants, the nation of Israel, to the mountain of Sinai in Arabia. There he gave them his law by his prophet Moses. The fundamental part of this law was “the Ten Commandments”, which Jehovah’s angel pronounced from Mount Sinai in the hearing of all the people gathered there. (Exodus, chapter 20) With terrifying sights and sounds Jehovah, while giving them the law, displayed his Godship and therefore his right to say what sin is. The first four of the Ten Commandments call notice to his Godship and call for the Israelites to worship him, and not to worship any false gods which did not create the heavens and the earth.

• ¹⁶ The very fact that God gave the Israelites this law was notice to them that they were sinners. Speaking of this law, the apostle Paul says: “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons.”—1 Tim. 1: 8-10.

• ¹⁵ The Israelites became flattered over having such a God-given law, and they got to thinking they could make themselves righteous by keeping that law. They paid no attention to the punishments God dealt out to their nation for repeatedly breaking that law. However, the humble and honest-hearted saw that their fallen condition did not permit them to keep that law, but that they were born in sin like all mankind and that they needed to repent for their sins and to look to God for deliverance from their sinfulness and its bad effects. Such deliverance must come by the promised Seed of Abraham in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. To produce this realization of sin and their need to repent of it and their need of a Savior was really God’s purpose in giving the Israelites his law through Moses. It was to show up their transgressions and to point them to the coming Seed of Abraham, which Seed is Jesus Christ. After they had this law given which declared what sin is, then sin could be imputed to them.

• ¹⁶ In proof of this the apostle Paul explains to us why the law of Moses was added to Jehovah’s promise to Abraham concerning the Seed in whom all the nations are to be blessed. Paul writes: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many [seeds]; but as of one [seed], And to thy seed, which is Christ. Wherefore then serveth the law! It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” (Gal. 3:16,19) Or, to quote a more modern translation: “Then what about the Law! It was a later addition, designed to produce transgressions, until the descendant to which the promise was made should come, and it was enacted by means of angels, through an intermediary.” (Gal. 3:19, An Amer. Trans.; Moffatt) This law produced transgressions by showing what these were and who the transgressors were and by making them realize they were transgressors. “The law entered, that the offence might abound.”—Rom. 5: 20.

• ¹⁷ The psalmist, King David of Jerusalem, was born under Moses’ law, and it is no wonder that he wrote, even of his own people: “There is none that doeth good, no, not one. ... Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!” (Ps. 14:3,7) Centuries later Paul was born under that law, and it excites no wonder that he wrote: “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: Now^t we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world [Jew as well as Gentile] may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” “Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law.” (Rom. 3:10,19, 20; 7: 7) Sin was not known by the Code of Hammurabi, nor by the law or commandments of Buddha, nor by any of the codes of law of any Gentile nations to this day. By none of these law codes is man taught his fallen condition in God’s sight and his need of turning to God in repentance for salvation by his Seed of promise. But by the law of Moses the Israelites or Jews themselves as well as the Gentile nations were shown to be transgressors against Jehovah God. “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; . . . the Gentiles . . . have not the law.” —Rom. 2:12,14.

• ¹⁸ God’s Word says all the world, Jews and Gen-

  12, 13. Why and how did God show the Israelites they were sinners’ 16, 17. How did the Mosaic law show all the world guilty before God’ 14, 15. Why did God add the Mosaic law to the Abrahamic covenant? 13, 16. How was Jesus born a perfect man, though under Moses law’

  
  

All men, are guilty before Him. None is righteous of himself or able to make himself righteous before God. That does not even exclude the Jewish virgin who became the human mother of Jesus. There is no inspired scripture to show that this Mary was “immaculately conceived” in order to give birth to Jesus. She was born under Moses’ law. She had to be baptized with John’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins just as the apostle Peter and other Israelites did. Not leaving out Mary, Romans 3: 23 says: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” —Mark 1:4; John 3: 22, 23.

THE INNOCENT ONE REMOVES IT

• ¹⁹ Only one man was ever born sinless of a woman. He is the promised Seed of Abraham, namely, Jesus Christ. He was born holy and immaculate, not because his mother was immaculate, for she was not so. It was because he was conceived by a sinless, perfect Father, Jehovah God. Where there is reproduction by two parents, the life sperm comes from the father and this fertilizes the egg in the mother who thereafter produces the body of her offspring. The man Jesus Christ did not receive human life from the sinner Adam, but received only a human body through Adam’s descendant, Mary. Jesus’ life came from Jehovah God, the Holy One. Prior to his human birth to become Jesus on earth, this Son of God was the firstborn and only begotten Son of God and was therefore with his Father from the beginning of all creation. By use of this beloved Son, Jehovah God created all other things that have been created. (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-18; Rev. 3:14) At God’s due time for the Seed of Abraham to be born, his perfect life was transferred from heaven to the egg cell in the womb of the virgin Jewess, Mary. To become born of her he had to lay aside all his heavenly glory and position. (Phil. 2:5-8) His human mother was under Moses’ law, which pronounced her and all other Jews sinners; and so it is written: “But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” (Gal. 4: 4, 5, Am. Stan. Ver.) Although born under Moses’ law, Jesus was not condemned by that law, for he was the only man that kept it perfectly.

• ²⁰ Jesus’ perfection was absolutely necessary if he was to act for the removal of the sin of the world. At the ripe age of thirty he came to John the Bap-tizer who was immersing repentant Jews in the Jordan river. Not that the Jordan was a so-called “holy river” the waters of which had purifying powers; but that it provided depth of water for persons to be dipped under to picture how they died 20, 21. How did Jesus fulfill Psalm 40:6-8 when coming to baptism?

Brooklyn, N.Y. to their past sins and how they determined thereafter to follow a life in obedience to God’s will. Their sins were not actually removed by such water baptism. Something far more potent was necessary, and this was provided by the perfect man Jesus. When he came to John it was not as a repentant sinner. It was as one now consecrating to enter upon a course of sacrifice that would result in his death as a man. Animal sacrifices, such as bulls and goats, had till then been offered at Jerusalem’s temple altar, but these had not really met justice nor been powerful enough to take transgressions from mankind, who are superior to bulls and goats. Therefore when Jesus came to John to symbolize his baptism into death, he fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 40:6-8. ²¹ The apostle Paul calls attention to this fulfillment, saying of Jesus: “For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering [of bulls and goats] thou wouldest not, but a body didst thou prepare for me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: then said I, Lo, I am come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, 0 God.”—Heb. 10: 4-7, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ²² That Jesus was acceptable to God as a sin-removing sacrifice was proved, because, right after he came up out of the baptismal waters, God’s voice was heard saying from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And the fact that God’s spirit or invisible active force came upon Jesus at that time accompanied by an outward visible sign proved that God had now begotten him again, not again in the womb of Mary to become a man, but by His spirit to become a spirit Son of God, and that hence Jesus must in due time return to heaven to his Father’s side. (Matt. 3:13-17) Some forty days after Jesus was baptized he returned to John. John, who had seen and heard these things, pointed to him and called out to the people: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29-36) It was because the man Jesus Christ was innocent and without blemish that he was spoken of as a sacrificial Lamb, the Lamb that God provided from heaven to remove the world’s sin. As such Lamb for sacrifice, Jesus was prefigured thousands of years previously by that lamb that Abel had offered on the altar just outside of the garden of Eden.

• ²³ Jesus saw the religious hypocrisy of the many unrepentant Jews, and he exposed their hypocrisy to the rest of the people. He showed they had the murderous spirit of Cain and, like Cain, were children of the wicked one, Satan the Devil. Out of spite they accused Jesus of being born in sin, of being a 22. How did God and John testify to Jesus’ fitness for sacrifice? 23. How did Jesus and Peter testify to His sinlessness?

mongrel-blooded Samaritan, and of having a demon in him. But knowing his own origin and his own perfect righteousness, Jesus said to them: “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” (John 8: 41-49, Am. Stan. Ver.) His disciples, instead of convicting him of sin in the least thing, testify to his unblemished perfection and innocence. Writing to those who had their sins removed through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, the disciple Peter wrote: “Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness.” —1 Pet. 1:18,19 and 2: 22-24, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ²⁴ By reason of offering to God an acceptable sacrifice, his own perfect human life, Jesus Christ became God’s High Priest for the fallen human race estranged from God by sin. By virtue of his perfection he was a suitable High Priest for us, and so the disciple Paul testifies to us, saying: “Such a high priest we needed—godly, blameless, unstained, removed from sinful men and raised above the very heavens; who does not need, as the old high priests did, to offer sacrifices every day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people—for this last he has done once for all, in offering up himself.” (Heb. 7:26,27, An Amer. Trans.) The same writer testifies further to the innocence and perfection of Jesus as a sin-offering, saying: “Be you reconciled to God! For him who knew no sin, he made a sin-offering on our behalf, that we might become God’s righteousness in him.”—2 Cor. 5: 20, 21, The Emphatic Diaglott.

• ²⁵ Many other scriptures could be quoted to strengthen the proof that Jesus Christ was perfect and without blemish in the flesh. Be this noted, that Jesus, in his own human body, disproved the Buddhist claim that all earthly matter is evil and misery of itself, and that the ideal state is to be separate from that which is material. Jesus as a perfect man was under no condemnation of death from transgressions by himself or by Adam, and he could have lived in the perfect flesh as a man on earth forever. And whereas all other men would have died off, he would have survived alone as a sinless, uncondemned human creature. But Jesus did not come to earth for such a purpose. He came to prove his worthiness to be the Seed of Abraham for vindicating Jehovah God and for blessing all the nations of the earth. He

24 Why is Jesus Christ suitable for us as a High Priest to God? 25. Tor what main reasons did Jesus come to earth as a man? came to give himself as a human sacrifice. He said: “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20: 28) “I came that they may have life: and may have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep." (John 10:10,11, Am. Stan. Ver.) Jesus did this.

• ²⁶ When on earth Jesus did not shun sinners, as if they were of an outcast, untouchable class whose very shadow falling upon him would defile him and spoil his sacrifice. No, but he companied with them so as to do them good. Had he wanted to avoid association with sinners, he would not have come to the earth in the first place to be made in the likeness of men who were then of sinful flesh. He would have remained in heaven with God his holy Father. How, then, would God’s purpose respecting the Seed of Abraham have been fulfilled! So, like a great physician, he came and visited the human family in their sick condition in order to provide the remedy and heal them. As it is written: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1 Tim. 1:15) Being touched by fallen men did not soil him, as religious Pharisees thought it would do in their own cases. (Luke 7:37-39) In just the opposite way, when the diseased and afflicted touched him with faith in his power, virtue went out from him and healed them. We read: “And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.” (Luke 6:19) Therefore, with confident faith, men of all nations today may approach him for relief from sin.

POWER TO FORGIVE

• ²⁷ Because he was God’s accepted High Priest who had entered into a contract with God to offer himself to sacrifice for the sin of the world, Jesus on earth could forgive sins. In one instance, a paralyzed man in his bed was deposited before him. When Jesus saw the faith of those who carried him he said to the paralytic: “My son, your sins are forgiven.” Certain religious scribes objected to this utterance and said: “Why does this man talk so! This is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Not understanding Jesus’ powers as God’s High Priest, religious teachers even of today ask the same question, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Drawing wrong conclusions they teach a “trinity” and say that Jesus was God himself. Merely telling the paralyzed man his sins were forgiven could leave those religious scribes doubting whether Jesus’ power to forgive sins was real; and so Jesus gave them the proof of his authority from God to forgive. He said to them: ‘Which is easier, to say to this paralytic, ‘Your sins

• 26. Why did Jesus not avoid, or need to avoid, touch with sinners?

• 27. Why could Jesus forgive sins, and bow did he prove it? are forgiven,’ or to say to him, ‘Get up and pick up your mat and walk⁵ ? But to let you know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth,” then he turned to the sick man and said, "I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home!” Thereupon the man did so. (Mark 2:3-12, An Amer. Trans.) In another ease, Jesus pronounced the sins of a notorious woman forgiven.—Luke 7 : 47-49.

²⁸ Today certain religious priests of Christendom claim the power to forgive sins. They base their claim upon Jesus’ words to Peter: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Also on the day that he was raised by God’s power out of a martyr’s death, Jesus said to his faithful apostles: "Receive ye the holy spirit: whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” (John 20: 22, 23, Am. Stan. Ver.; Matt. 16:19) The Roman Catholic clergy say they have come by the power to forgive sins because they are, as they claim, successors to the apostles and to all their powers.

²⁸ But aside from their say so, they never produce proof that the sins pronounced forgiven are really forgiven. Jesus said it is just as easy to heal sickness as to say, "Your sins are forgiven.” When he forgave sins, he healed. Likewise, his apostles to whom he committed authority to forgive sins performed instantaneous cures by God’s power. Now let all these Roman Catholic priests with all their boasted, self-claimed powers prove they can forgive sins by immediately healing those forgiven of the sickness afflicting them. Jesus said it is just as easy to do the one as the other for one who is really authorized to forgive sins. If these religious priests of Christendom cannot just as easily do the healing (and they can not do so), then their awe-inspiring claim is proved to be a misleading, God-dishonoring fraud. It is as much a fraud as is their claim to be able to release human souls after death from purgatorial sufferings, for "purgatory” finds no place in the Holy Bible. God’s Word says: "The wages of sin is death,” and, "there is a sin unto death,” not to purgatory torment or to eternal torment in literal hell-fire. (Rom. 6:23; 1 John 5:16) “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”—Ezek. 18: 4, 20.

³⁰ Jesus on earth had authority to forgive sins. He has such authority in a fuller measure now since he has sacrificed his human fife and has been resurrected from the dead and has ascended back to heaven and has appeared in the presence of God there to present the redemptive value or merit of his human sacrifice. "For Christ is not entered into the

28. 29. Why do Catholic priests claim such power, but falsely so?

• 30. Why does Jesus not make perfect in body those now forgiven? holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:.. • now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Heb. 9:24-26) When on earth Jesus made people well whose sins he forgave. Just so now when forgiving the believers their sins from heaven, he could make them perfect in flesh instantaneously according to their forgiven condition and their sincere desire for righteousness. But he does not do so, because those whom God accepts at his High Priest’s hands for membership in the true Christian congregation are given an imputation of righteousness through Christ’s righteousness. Righteousness is counted to them because of their faith; they are “justified by faith” through the blood of the High Priest’s sacrifice and by the grace of God. (Rom. 5:1,9,15-21) On such grounds as these his faithful body of followers can be acceptable with the God of holiness and can lay down their life in God’s service in imitation of Jesus Christ, that they may live and reign with him in his heavenly kingdom. —2 Tim. 2:11,12.

OF THIS PRESENT EVIL WORLD OR OF THE NEW WORLD?

• ⁸¹ Jesus Christ came into the active Kingdom power A.D. 1914. He is the Seed of Abraham in whom all families and nations of this earth are due to be blessed. The apostle John says to the body of Christ’s followers: “He is himself an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world.” (1 John 2:2, An Amer. Trans.) Well, then, since he now reigns in power, and since he is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”, does this mean that the King Jesus Christ will spare this old world which has gone on in sin and wickedness for thousands of years ? Will he thus spare it because he has removed its sin by his sacrifice ! And if he removes its sin, will he cure it of its evils and reform and purify it to continue on forever! Certainly not! The above scriptures could not mean this, because Jesus Christ as well as other inspired prophets of God foretold the end of this world in a time of destruction such as it has never before known. Jesus himself will fulfill the scripture that says, when he becomes the acting King, he will dash all the nations to pieces like a potter’s vessel; and he promised to his body of followers, when in heaven with him, a share in that dashing of evil systems of this wicked world to pieces. (Ps. 2:8, 9; Rev. 2:26,27) Despite all the preaching by Jehovah’s witnesses concerning this established kingdom since A.D. 1914, this world of politics, commerce and organized religion continues to reject his kingdom in favor of self-rule or world domination by itself.

• 31. Will he forgive this wicked world since A.D. 1914? and why? Such sin His sacrifice does not remove. He is no sin-offering for such willful sin of opposition to God’s purpose, and he does not forgive such sin of this evil world.

• ⁴² This evil world is dominated by the Devil’s organized system of power which the Holy Bible calls “Babylon”. For Babylon and the nations in league with it there is no forgiveness nor sin-offering. Jesus, in his Revelation to the apostle John, says of this Babylon: “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. . . . Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. . . . Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.” (Rev. 18: 3-8) How vain, then, at the close of his “Easter address” to the Romans on Sunday, March 28, 1948, was the blessing of pope Pius XII “to the city of Rome and to the world” (urbi et orbi)! Such “blessing” will not shield Rome and the rest of this evil world from the catastrophic end that the Bible predicts for it.

• ⁸³ The popes, who claim to be the vicar or vicegerent of the Lamb of God, beat Jesus to rulership in this earth by beginning their “reign” at Rome about A.D. 800 in the days of Emperor Charlemagne, or 1,114 years before A.D. 1914. The present pope at Vatican City adds a new one to his list of sins. Fearing the national elections that were due to be held in Italy in April, 1948, the pope addressed Rome’s parish priests and Lenten priests on March 10, 1948, and said: “It is your right and duty to draw the attention of the faithful to the extraordinary importance of the forth-coming elections and to the moral responsibility of all those who have the right to vote.” He said it was “the strict duty of all, both men and women, who are entitled to vote to take part in the elections. Anybody who abstains, especially because of laziness or cowardice, commits a grave sin—a mortal transgression. Everybody must vote according to the dictates of his conscience. Now it is evident that the voice of one’s conscience urges every sincere Catholic to give his vote to those candidates or electoral lists . . . ” (New York Times, March 11, 1948) In such terms the pope who claims to speak for Jesus Christ declares it a most serious sin, “a grave sin—a mortal transgression,” for a Christian not to take part in political elections and not to vote, that is, not to vote for Catholic politi-

• 32. What does Revelation 18:3-8 say as to modern Babylon's sins? 33. Why and how did the pope recently brand not voting a sin? cians or the politicians whom the Vatican approves. And yet this vicar who claims to speak for Christ gives no Scripture quotation from Christ’s words to prove such is a mortal sin. He does not do so, because he cannot do so.

⁸⁴ Rather than for it to be a sin not to vote, it is contrary to true Christian principles as set down in the inspired Holy Bible to meddle in the political affairs of this world to any extent. Therefore those whose Christian conscience has been guided by the Bible, and not by Christendom’s clergy, have refrained from voting for politicians in any of the contending parties in elections. The apostle Paul, when last writing to his fellow worker Timothy, said: "Conduct thyself in work as a go’od soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as God’s soldier entangles himself in worldly affairs, that he may please him whose approval he has secured.” (2 Tim. 2: 3,4, Catholic Conf rat. Trans.) When telling Christians to forsake this worldly Babylon the same apostle wrote: ‘Wherefore, ‘Come out from among them, be separated, says the Lord, and touch not an unclean thing; and I will welcome you in, and will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty.’ Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Cor. 6:17 to 7:1, ibidem) Showing further the separateness of true Christians from the systems of this world the same apostle writes: “Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from the wickedness of this present world according to the will of our God and Father.” (Gal. 1:3,4, ibidem) Paul’s words agree with those of Jesus himself to his followers: “You are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.”—John 15:19, ibidem.

“When a true conscientious Christian does not vote for men for whom Christendom’s clergy say he should vote, it does not mean he is indirectly voting for the political parties opposed to such clergy. It is a religious lie to say that a Christian is under the necessity to chose or vote for the lesser of two evils and to work to improve it. The Christian chooses neither of the two evils, for both evils are of this world and he does not choose to share in the responsibility for prolonging either of the two. The apostle Paul, who realized what sin was by the Ten Commandments, said further to Timothy: “Do not lay hands hastily upon anyone, and do not be a partner in other men’s sins. Keep thyself chaste.” (1 Tim. 5: 22, ibidem) According to this rule Bible Christians have refused to lay hands of approval upon any politician of this world. They have thereby refused to

34. Why have Christians not obeyed clergy voting inatructlona?’ 35. How do they thus keep themselves pure from worldly sin? take part in the responsibility for sins such politician, as for instance, Hitler or Mussolini, has later committed in office. Those who faithfully follow Christ’s instructions keep themselves chaste or pure from this world, because he has chosen them out of it and they are no longer a part of it. They are for the new world, God’s world of righteousness.

• ³⁶ These Christians are under no necessity to choose or elect between two evils and thus share responsibility for other men’s sins against God’s kingdom and against his people. By their repentance from sin and their consecration of themselves to God through Christ, they have submitted to God’s appointment of his Kingdom, thenceforth praying: “Thy kingdom come!” In place of voting for a political party of sinful men and women of this world which fights against God’s kingdom, they have made their choice once and for all time for a heavenly King, Jesus Christ. In his case, indeed, it is true, “the King can do no wrong.” We have given our unchangeable allegiance to this sinless Ruler and Governor, whose government will be without a single sin or oppression, but which will destroy all the evils of this world and bless the people with deliverance from their sins and from the penalty death and from sin’s originator the Devil. Our King’s name is Jesus, because all who become his people or subjects he will save from their sins.

• ³⁷ The “sin of the world” for which this King was once sacrificed to remove it is not the sin of this world of which Satan the Devil is the god and invisible ruler. His world will shortly be destroyed for its unforgivable sins against Jehovah’s universal sovereignty and against his kingdom by Jesus Christ. The sin of the world that is removable and that will be all removed by God’s Lamb is the sin of all those who will gain life in the new world of righteousness.

• ³⁸ The faithful Christians who now find acceptance with God for a place with Christ Jesus in his heaven-

• 36. What kind of government and ruler have they chosen?

• 37. What is the “sin of the world” that is taken away or removed? 38. How Is the sinfulness of the Christian congregation removed? ly kingdom receive now the removal of their sins through faith in his sacrifice. At death they cease from this sinful body of flesh. In the resurrection from the dead they are clothed upon with spirit bodies of perfection in order that they may sit down with Jesus Christ in his throne. With him they will reign in the heavens while he blesses all the families of the earth during his grand reign of a thousand years.

• ³⁹ In the new world that his thousand-year reign opens up, all those on earth rendering themselves to him as subjects will have their sins removed. Tens of thousands of persons of good-will are now learning what sin is and are repenting and turning to God’s Lamb for its removal. Billions of those who are in the graves will hear the royal Lamb’s voice and will come forth from their graves and share in the opportunity of the removal of their sins through his sacrifice. Those refusing it will die in their sins and be destroyed forever.—John 5: 28, 29; 8: 23, 24.

• ⁴⁰ All persons who will be granted the gift of eternal life on earth in that new world must repent, turn from the course of this present world and attain to a sinless state in the flesh. All sins committed because of their condition inherited from Adam will be forgiven as they ask forgiveness through the Lamb’s sacrifice. The Lamb will express God’s forgiveness toward them by gradually healing them during the thousand-year reign and lifting them finally to an absolutely perfect human state, complete righteousness in the flesh. In this condition their choosing and standing true to God’s will for all time will gain for them justification to everlasting life in paradise restored to earth. Since “the wages of sin is death”, we know that then the sin of the world will be entirely removed, for God’s Word says of that blessed new world: “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”—Rev. 21:4,5.

• 39, 40. How will mankind in the new world have their sins removed?⁴

TO WHOSE BENEFIT DOES THE RANSOM RESULT?

THE Savior of all men is declared to be Jehovah God. “We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.” (1 Tim.

4:10) He has provided and revealed to man the sure foundation for the hope of salvation. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 3:11) “This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”—Acts 4:11, 12.

Why did God lay the foundation for the salvation of sinful men? The answer is, For the vindication of his holy name. Satan’s challenge put God’s name at issue. Imperfect men, when they are relieved of disability inherited from Adam, and who then prove their integrity toward God, are a vindication of the sovereignty and name of Jehovah and are a complete refutation and disproof of Satan’s challenge. God’s judgment against the sinner Adam was just. It must stand forever. Adam’s offspring are sinners by reason of inherited sin. God could therefore consistently permit another person to purchase the offspring of Adam; and those men who would “believe” by exercising faith in God and in the purchaser and who would then render themselves in obedience and maintain their belief and integrity toward God down to the end would be a vindication of God’s name. God exercised mercy toward sinful man by laying the foundation for man’s salvation. How is the foundation for man’s salvation laid? By permitting the man Jesus to bring the required price for the purchase of mankind, that is, for purchasing the descendants of Adam, and paying over that purchase price for the relief or release of such offspring of Adam from bondage.

What price was required for the purchase of mankind? The life of a perfect human creature. God’s law requires a life for a life, as stated at Deuteronomy 19: 21. Adam was a perfect man when he willfully and deliberately sinned in violation of God’s law, and the law of God required the forfeiture in death of that perfect human life of his. (Gen. 2:17) Nothing less and nothing more could be required to purchase the offspring of Adam, but only a perfect human life. The life of an angel could not furnish the perfect price, because an angel is greater than man. Because all of Adam’s offspring are by inheritance imperfect, no one of them could bring the required purchase price, and Psalm 49:7 so states. All men, being imperfect, could live only a short space of time on earth and then die, and they would remain dead forever, unless God made provision for such to have life.

What has been done for man’s relief from death and for his salvation to life? The answer to the question is found at Hebrews 2:9, namely: “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” Since Jesus always does God’s will, it must have been understood between God and his beloved Son that he should become the man Jesus, “lower than the angels,” and should then suffer death, thereby proving his faithfulness to God even to an ignominious death, and also by his death providing the required purchase price for man’s salvation from death. In heaven the Son was known as “The Word”, that is, “The Word of God,” and from the beginning this Word was with Jehovah God and, by God’s direction, carried into operation God’s purpose. He was the spokesman of Jehovah God. He was a spirit. By the miraculous power of Almighty God a virgin was made to conceive and to give birth to the man-child Jesus.—Matt. 1:18-23.

At John 1:1-3 we read, in Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation (improved in 1808) : “The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the word was a god. This Word was in the beginning with God. All things were done by him; and without him was not any thing done that hath been done.” Nineteen hundred years ago the time came to begin laying the foundation for man’s salvation, and God caused the Word to become a man. “And the Word was flesh, and full of kindness and truth he dwelt among us: and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only son who came from the Father.” (John 1:14, Newcome) The apostle Paul puts it this way: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” (Gal. 4:4) Luke tells us further: “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” —Luke 2: 40.

When the man Jesus was thirty years of age he presented himself to God in full and complete consecration by an agreement to do God’s will. This he symbolized by his immersion in the Jordan river. (Luke 3:21-23; Ps. 40:7, 8; Matt. 3:16,17) Jesus was then a perfect man possessing all the qualifications requisite to the furnishing of the purchase price of sinful man. Was there an agreement between Jesus and his Father, Jehovah God, that he as a man should die? The answer is written, at John 10:15, 17, 18: “As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.” “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”

From the beginning, it appears, it was agreed between the Father and the Son that Jesus should become a man, suffer contradiction and indignities and reproach upon his name, but, through it all, prove his integrity toward God, die as a sinner and, proving his faithfulness, then be resurrected out of death and take life once more. This would mean that Jesus by his death did not forfeit his life or the right to it, as Adam had forfeited life. Jesus laid down his life and received life again in full accord with the commandment that he had received from Jehovah God; and this commandment Jesus fully agreed to obey. Carrying out that agreement, God raised Jesus out of death and gave him life as a spirit. In proof of this read 1 Peter 3:18; Acts 3:26; 1 Corinthians 15: 3, 4, 20.

Jesus, not having forfeited his right to human life, still possessed that right to human life when he was raised from the dead. That right to human life constitutes the purchase price for sinful man. When God raised Jesus from the dead he clothed Jesus with all power in heaven and in earth; that is to say, God made Jesus Christ his Executive Officer, fully equipped with all necessary power and authority to carry into operation the purpose of Jehovah, both in heaven and in earth. (Matt. 28:18; Phil. 2: 9-11) When Jesus was exalted to heaven he presented to God in heaven the value of his human life; and that asset, which was exactly equal to what Adam had forfeited, was received by Jehovah God as the offering of Jesus for sin, that is to say, as the purchase price offered and presented by Jesus in behalf of sinful men. This God caused to be shown in type, by the sacrifice performed at the sacred tabernacle built by Moses in the wilderness. According to Leviticus, chapter sixteen, the typical picture was made in this manner:

On the annual atonement day a bullock without spot or blemish (which represented the man Jesus) was brought into the court of the tabernacle and slain there. The court of the tabernacle pictured the earth. The blood of this bullock, representing the lifeblood of Jesus poured out as an offering for sin, was then carried by the typical priest into the Most Holy of the tabernacle and then it was sprinkled before the mercy seat. (Isa. 53:10; Lev. 16:14) The Most Holy of the tabernacle pictured heaven itself, where Jesus Christ appeared and presented and offered the asset or valuable thing, his right to human life, as the purchase price for the offspring of Adam. (Heb. 9: 3-25) The sacrifice offered at the tabernacle in the wilderness once each year on the typical atonement day foreshadowed or pictured the work of Jesus in offering himself, that is, his human life, as the purchase price for man. Hence we read:

“Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second [the Most Holy] went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people.” “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” —Heb. 9: 6, 7, 23-26.

Thus it is seen that Christ Jesus, God’s great High Priest, resurrected as a spirit creature, when he appeared in heaven, presented and offered to Jehovah the asset he possessed, to wit, his right to human life, as the purchase price for man. This offering was accepted by Jehovah, and Christ Jesus became the owner of all of Adam’s offspring that willingly comply with the, rules of Jehovah governing salvation. Thus God laid the foundation in Christ Jesus for the salvation of man, and there is no other possible means of salvation.

THE MEANING OF THE TRANSACTION

The lifeblood of the man Jesus is the ransom price for man. As God declares in his law: “The life of the flesh is in the blood: . . . the blood of it is for the life thereof.” (Lev. 17:11, 14) So the lifeblood of the man Jesus is the asset, the valuable thing, by which he ransomed sinful humankind. The English words ransom, redeem, redeemed and redemption are often used in the Bible, but do not always mean the same thing exactly. It will here be profitable to call attention to the different Greek words from which our English word ransom is translated. As we know, that part of the Bible written by the inspired followers of Christ Jesus and which has commonly been called “The New Testament” is translated from the Greek into our modern language; and in our King James Version of the Bible there are different Greek words translated ransom. A brief treatment of these words will enable all Watchtower readers to get an understanding.

John Parkhurst, M.A., is a well-known Greek authority. His Greek and English Lexicon (1769) says concerning “ransom” the following: "Antilytron is from anti [meaning] in return, or correspondency; and lytron, a ransom.— A ransom, price of redemption, or rather a correspondent ransom. ‘It properly signifies a price by which captives are redeemed from the enemy; and that kind of exchange in which the life of one is redeemed by the life of another.’ [Hyperius] So Aristotle uses the verb antilytroo for redeeming life by life.”

The word combination lytron anti occurs at Matthew 20: 28 and Mark 10: 45. But the word antilytron appears only once in the Greek Scriptures, and that in the following verse, to wit: “Who gave himself a ransom [antilytron] in behalf of all, the testimony in its own seasons; for which I was appointed a herald and an apostle.” So 1 Timothy 2:6,7 reads according to The Emphatic Diaglott; but Parkhurst translates it to read: “Who gave himself a correspondent ransom.” That verse does not say or mean that Adam was or is ransomed, but does mean that the human perfection once possessed by him is purchased or bought back or ransomed for Adam’s offspring, who were prevented from receiving that life and the right to it by reason of Adam’s sin before their birth. (Human perfection carried with it the right to life, which life, together with the right to it, was forfeited by the willful disobedience of Adam before he begot children.) Those of Adam’s offspring who accept God’s provision for their purchase and who comply with God’s fixed rules concerning the same, are privileged to receive the benefit of the ransom price. By his own lifeblood Jesus ransomed or purchased life and the right to human life for those of Adam’s offspring that are saved.

This, then, is the evident meaning of 1 Timothy 2:3-6: That God desires all men to be saved and to come to an accurate knowledge of the truth who comply with his fixed and unchangeable provisions. The verses read: “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved [by availing themselves of the ransom price, because God is impartial], and [then] to come unto the [accurate] knowledge of the truth [in order that they may continue to walk in the right way]. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all [all that will be saved], to be testified in due time.” Having mentioned this gracious provision that God has made for the salvation of men, the apostle then adds: “Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle.”—Verse 7.

By the will of God his Father, the man Jesus turned his human perfection and right to life as a human into a thing of value with sufficient purchasing power to purchase or buy back all the rights that Adam forfeited for himself and which Adam’s offspring lost by reason of Adam’s sin. That does not mean that Adam was purchased, but means that every right that Adam once possessed was purchased.

It was not God’s will to send Jesus to the earth to give his life a ransom price and that, when so doing, Jesus should forever go out of existence in the place or stead of Adam, in order that Adam and his offspring might exist forever; but God’s will was that the man Jesus should lay down his life as a man and should thereafter receive life again; in proof of which Jesus said: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again . . . This commandment have I received of my Father.” (John 10:17, 18) Life or existence is what Jesus did take or receive, not as a man, but as a spirit. At the same time, when resurrected as a spirit, he still held the right to life as a perfect man, because he had not forfeited that right. God raised Jesus out of death a spirit; and, since Jesus still possessed that right to life as a perfect man, that asset or thing of value he paid over to Jehovah God as the price required. He thereby became the owner of Adam’s offspring who had not willfully sinned as Adam did, and who should in due time avail themselves of the value of that ransom price. Jesus could then release or deliver Adam’s offspring from the bondage of sin and death which had come upon them by reason of Adam’s sin. The right to life had been denied to Adam’s offspring on that account. That means that the ransom sacrifice would inure to the benefit of the worthy ones of Adam’s offspring; and by “worthy ones” we mean those who would follow God’s rules.

Who is to determine what ones of Adam’s offspring are worthy? Christ Jesus will determine that, for he acts with full authority from Jehovah God. Christ Jesus is “the Everlasting Father”, which means he is a life-giver. (Isa. 9:6) As a father he has power and authority to bring creatures into life who have died and he can give life to as many as he will according to the pleasure of Jehovah God. Such life he could rightfully bestow on those only, and on no others than the ones for whom Adam had lost the right to life. Since Adam lost the right to life for all humankind, Christ Jesus can bestow life on members thereof, namely, those, and only those, of Adam’s race as meet the required rules made by Jehovah God. Because he loves righteousness, he would not be willing to become the Everlasting Father to the willfully wicked and unrepentant rebellious ones. He will become Father of Eternity to all humans exercising faith and wanting to become his children, forever bound to him by the ransom sacrifice that he gave lovingly for their sakes.

MAKING THE EARTH GLORIOUS

THOUSANDS of years before the Creator made man he created man’s habitat, the earth. When he started making it he had perfect man in view. “For thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens [in advance of our earth], the God that formed the earth and made it, that established it and created it not a waste, that formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah; and there is none else.” So the Creator speaks in his prophecy to man, at Isaiah 45:18, Am. Stan. Ver.

Upon earth God made only the garden of Eden fully developed and put the perfect man Adam in it. In proof that the part of the earth outside of the garden was not fully developed, God gave the man a commission to bring all the earth under control. When he drove man out of the garden because of sin, he said to man respecting the undeveloped part: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” (Gen. 3:17,18, Am. Stan. Ver.) Since then, imperfect man outside of Eden has found employment and work for his own good in his attempt to cultivate and beautify the earth. Some parts of it have been beautified, but most of it is yet barren and unfruitful and many parts devastated by wars. Originally man was meant to develop the earth gradually.

Since Jesus Christ was raised from death and ascended into heaven, the great event to which true students of the Bible have looked forward has been his second coming and his kingdom of a thousand years. Now the facts show that he reigns at the right hand of Jehovah God, who says: “The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” (Isa. 66:1) By the kingdom God’s will is to be enforced in the earth as well as in the heavens. It is written, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and this earth too should declare his glory, because it is his footstool. Plainly suggesting that, Jehovah God says, at Isaiah 60:13: “I will make the place of my feet glorious.” The original garden of Eden was perfect and glorious, and the Creation record is that in this garden there grew everything that was pleasant to the sight and good for food. Had the first man proved his complete loyalty and obedience to Jehovah, doubtlessly God would have shown him how to make the earth beautiful, because it is written, at Genesis 1:28, that God said to the man and his wife: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.” This commission implies that God would have supplied man with a proper knowledge and the means to accomplish that very thing. Had man followed that course and had his offspring remained in perfect harmony with God, then in the course of time the earth would have been fully developed and robed in glory as God’s worthy footstool, and perfect man would have had something to do with it. Just now God’s prophecy speaks of men “which destroy the earth”, and tells of His purpose to destroy them very shortly, at the battle of Armageddon. —Rev. 11:18.

Man lost all the above privileges and blessings by reason of his own wrongdoing. All his children have been born in sin and formed in iniquity, and all are by inheritance from Adam imperfect. They have failed of the commission given to perfect man in Eden. Jehovah God, having expressed his purpose to make his earthly footstool a place of glory, will do it, and this he will accomplish by his chosen instrument, Jesus Christ, during the thousand-year kingdom. At 1 Corinthians 15:45, 47 it is indicated that the second Adam, Jesus Christ, is the One Jehovah has vested with all power and authority, both in heaven and in earth, to carry out his purposes. Jehovah God has made his beloved Son “heir of all things”, which includes the earth. He has made him the Executive Officer to carry into operation the divine will, and that includes making our earth a glorious place.

More than nineteen centuries ago Jesus Christ by his own shed blood provided redemption for believing humankind. Now he comes the second time, with glory and power, however, to deliver men of good-will and to make man a glorious home on earth. It is a rule without exception that, when it is desired to build a new and beautiful edifice, the lot of ground is first cleared of the old and unsuitable buildings. Before Jehovah God by Jesus Christ his King will clothe the earth with beauty and glory, he will first destroy and entirely remove the wicked structure that Satan and his servants have built up and which grows more hideous and unsightly to all persons loving righteousness. The great battle of Armageddon just ahead of us will clear the ground to make way for the erection of the beautiful and glorious new arrangement on earth for the eternal good of man and to the imperishable honor of God.

World War II and the troubles following it have increased the number of sorrow-breeding tombs of the billions of dead. Man has made special efforts to cause these places to look pleasant; but the memories of death which these monuments arouse make the cemetery a place of sadness. For the comfort of men of good-will the hope-inspiring words of Jesus now sound forth: 'Marvel not: the hour is coming in which all dead in the graves will hear my voice and awaken and come forth? (John 5: 28, 29) His words of promise are certain to be fulfilled, for Jesus bulwarked that promise by saying, after his own resurrection from the tomb: “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore; Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” —Rev. 1:18.

Clothed with power and authority to open the graves and lift those in them out of death, Jesus now comes to resurrect and to lift up all obedient ones out of sin and death and to make them joyful of heart. In connection with the new heavens in which he will rule, we read: ‘God will wipe all tears away from their eyes, and there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain; for the former things will be done away with, and God on his throne will make all things new?—Rev. 21:4, 5.

How about the wild beasts upon earth? They have long been man’s deadly enemies and have preyed upon man, because Satan the Devil made them to act so. All the beasts of the field and the birds of the air were originally under the supervision of perfect man; and when man obeyed Satan and rebelled against Jehovah God, the wicked one turned them against man in order to mock God. Under the reign of Jesus Christ, Jehovah will make an arrangement with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and will establish peace between them and man. That he can and will do this is shown by his promise written at Hosea 2:18: “In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely."

The condition will then exist as described by the prophet Isaiah (11:6-9), namely: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. . . . And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Furthermore, thorns and thistles now encumber the earth, and Satan the Devil sends an army of creeping and winged pests to ruin the crops for man; but such conditions will not exist during the reign of Christ, and this the divine promise at Isaiah 55:13 indicates, saying: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord [Jehovah] for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” The earth will then be free from the pests and plagues and will yield its increase. The people will rejoice.

What Jehovah God once accomplished in Palestine, in fulfillment of Ezekiel 36:34, 35, he will accomplish earth-wide under the Kingdom, namely: “And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate 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 become fenced, and are inhabited.” The people of good-will are due to rejoice when they see God’s handiwork in this regard, and they will not seek to desecrate his earthly footstool. The faithful and appreciative ones will strive to adorn his footstool forever by loving obedience.

“LET GOD

BY MEANS of the Watchtower books and patient oral explanation Jehovah’s witnesses lead people of goodwill to God’s Word the Bible and aid them to understand it. For example: One of Jehovah’s witnesses, a minister of God in Biloxi, Mississippi, in calling on the people at their homes with the message of God’s kingdom in printed form, came to a Catholic woman who said that she was a Catholic and was not allowed to read the Bible or any Bible literature except that which was Catholic. Even after being assured that the literature being presented to her quoted from the Catholic Douay Bible as well as from other translations of the Bible, she still declined to accept any literature other than a copy of Kingdom News. Upon reading it she found what it said to be very different from what she had been taught. When the same minister of God called on her again and offered her the Bible help, "Let God Be True”, she took it. The minister showed her that she could read further Bible proof for the statements made in the book by looking up in her Bible the scriptures that were referred to but not quoted. The Catholic woman answered that neither she nor her family had ever owned a Bible. She told Jehovah’s witness that in the “old country” the priest would walk miles to take a Bible away from any member of his flock. Such conduct had made her wonder. Jehovah’s witness

BE TRUE”

offered to bring her a Bible. Weeks later she asked for two copies of the Bible, one for herself and one for her mother.

Another minister of God, at Modesto, California, called on a young housewife at her home ten miles from town and left her a copy of the book "Let God Be True”. A week later Jehovah’s witness called on her again. This time the husband was at home and the couple agreed to have the minister come back that same week, on Saturday, to help them study their Bible. That Saturday, when the minister called, the couple had a list of questions that kept the minister explaining the Bible for one and a half hours. They were so well pleased with the Scriptural answers they received that then and there they decided to meet with Jehovah’s witnesses at their Kingdom Hall the next day, though they had a dairy and three small children to look after. They continued to meet with Jehovah’s witnesses at their Kingdom Hall and the minister who first called on them continued to conduct a weekly Bible study in their home. Three months after they first obtained "Let God Be True” they began to take the gospel of God’s kingdom to others, both on the street corners and from house to house.—Acts 20: 20.

These experiences show that the Tireless ministering of Jehovah’s witnesses enables others to experience the joy of understanding their Bible and serving God acceptably.

¹

4. Why were man's start and destiny not wretched and condemned? 5. How did God’s law show Adam was perfect and meant for earth?

10. 11. How did God show Abraham his purpose to have a clean world?