Refine Search

Clergyman Says Serpent Told Eve the Truth

Time and location: Sunday evening December 11, 1955, at the home of a family of three former Methodists in Cortland, New York.

Occasion: A prearranged Biblical discussion of the subject “trinity.”

Participants: The senior pastor of the Methodist Church of Cortland at one end of the dining-room table and at the other end one of the instructors of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead.

Onlookers: The family of three lovers of Bible truth and four of the local witnesses of Jehovah.

Proceedings: A spiritual duel lasting an hour and a half. Having been cornered several times, many of his arguments reduced to absurdities and consequences forced against him time and again by the Gilead instructor, the clergyman gave abundant evidence of his gross apostasy. For example, he said that the law of Moses was imperfect, which is counter to Romans 7:7, 14; that Jesus, at Luke 24:44, made an error by implying that Moses was the writer of the first five books of the Bible, and that the Bible contradicts itself at several points. He admitted that the teaching of “human immortality” was of pagan Greek origin rather than from the Bible. Without shame he also admitted that the gaudy Christmas farce was purely pagan but justified it on the grounds of its “spirit of giving.” But to climax his self-exposé as a ‘son of his actual father’ (John 8:44) the clergyman openly confessed that Satan told Eve the truth when he said she would not die after eating of the fruit of the tree. (Gen. 3:1-5) In other words, Jehovah God was a liar and Satan should be accepted as an “angel of light.”—2 Cor. 11:14.

Result: Finally the clergyman took flight in continued confusion. The family of former Methodists were convinced that Jehovah’s witnesses are in the light and have the true religion of the Bible. Methodism was demonstrated to be false.

Clergy bedfellows: Note the following higher-critic, clergy “exposition” offered on Genesis the third chapter, which is in support of this clergyman’s diabolical pattern of thinking. “But the serpent, a demon hostile to God, told man the truth. He was thus no subtle tempter but, in intention at least, a benefactor of the human race. Man, thus enlightened, ate of the tree and became like God, knowing good and evil. The potential threat to God’s supremacy had thus become actual, so God, acting decisively and at once, drove him from the garden lest he should put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and so make the threat permanent.”—Vol. I, The Interpreter’s Bible, 1952, page 501.

Biblical advice: “So these also go on resisting the truth, men completely corrupted in mind, disapproved as regards the faith. . . . from these turn away.”—2 Tim. 3:8, 5, NW.