The Watchtower, October 15, 1950
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WATCHTOWER Announcing
OCTOBER 15,1950
Semimonthly
RICHES OF THE FULL ASSURANCE
OF OUR UNDERSTANDING
FURTHER ENRICHMENT OF
UNDERSTANDING
CLERGY VOICE CRITICISM
HEAVENS DECLARE GOD'S GLORY
JESUS, FAITHFUL SON OF GOD
"BE FRUITFUL, MULTIPLY,
FILL THE EARTH"
Announcing JEHOVAH'S KINGDOM
"YOU ARE MY WITNESSES," SAYS JEHOVAH.—Isa. 43:12 THE PURPOSE OF "THE WATCHTOWER"
Literal towers in Bible times were elevated vantage points from which watchmen could observe happenings, warn of danger, or announce good news. Our magazine figuratively occupies such a vantage point, for it is founded on the very pinnacle of wisdom, God's Word. That elevates it above racial, national and political propagandas and prejudices, frees it from selfish bias. It is not bound by any traditional creed, but its message advances as the light on God's purposes and works increases.—Habakkuk 2:1-3.
It sees things Scripturally. When it observes this generation afflicted with greed, delinquency, hypocrisy, atheism, war, famine, pestilence, perplexity and fear, and persecution of unpopular minorities, it does not parrot the old fable about history repeating itself. Informed by Bible prophecy, it sees in these things the sign of the world's time of the end. But with bright hope it also sees opening up for us just beyond these woes the portals of a new world.
Thus viewed, "The Watchtower" stands as a watchman atop a tower, alert to what is going on, awake to note signs of danger, faithful to point out the way of escape. It announces Jehovah's kingdom established by Christ's enthronement in heaven, feeds his kingdom joint-heirs with spiritual food, cheers men of good will with glorious prospects of eternal life in a paradise earth, comforts us with the resurrection promise for the dead.
It is not dogmatic, but has a confident ring in its voice, because it is based on God's Word. It does not privately interpret prophecy, but calls attention to physical facts, sets them alongside prophecy, and you see for yourself how well the two match, how accurately Jehovah interprets his own prophecy. In the interests of our salvation, it keeps sharp and faithful focus on Bible truth, and views religious news generally.
'Be watchful in these perilous times,' God admonishes. So keep on the watch by regularly reading "The Watchtower".
PUBLISHED BY THE WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY
117 Adams Street
Brooklyn 1, N. Y., U. S. A.
N. H. KNORR, President
GRANT SUITER, Secretary
"They will all be taught by Jehovah."—John 6:45, NW; Isaiah 54:13
CONTENTS
Clergy Voice Unwarranted Criticism 371
Physical Heavens Declare God's Glory 373
Jesus, the Faithful Son of God 377
"Miserable Comforters" 380
"Be Fruitful, Multiply, Fill the Earth" 381
Riches of the Full Assurance
of Our Understanding 384
Further Enrichment of Understanding 389
"Blood Puddings" 397
Visiting Jehovah's Witnesses in China 398
Questions from Readers 399
East Germany Bans Jehovah's Witnesses 399
Announcements 400
Abbreviations used in "The Watchtower" for the following Bible versions
AS - American Standard Version LXX- The Septuagint Version
AT - An American Translation Mo - James Moffatt's version
Da - J. N. Darby's version NW - New World Translation
Dy - Catholic Douay version Ro - J. B. Rotherham's version
ED - The Emphatic Diaglott RS - Revised Standard Version
Le - Isaac Leeser's version Yg - Robert Young's version
Unless otherwise indicated, the Bible used is the King James Version
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CLERGY VOICE UNWARRANTED CRITICISM
ON August 2 the Watchtower Society released the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. The very next day the Toronto Daily Star published on page one the following:
"UNWARRANTED LIBERTY, SAY CLERGY OF WITNESS BIBLE
"Several clergymen and students of the Bible said today Jehovah's witnesses have taken unwarranted liberties in rejecting the idea of the Holy Trinity in a new translation of the Greek scriptures comprising the New Testament. Revealed yesterday, the version substitutes the words 'the spirit and the water and the blood' for the phrase 'Father, Son and Holy Ghost'. The latter translation is found frequently throughout the King James version of the New Testament, used by orthodox churches."
These critical clergymen are poorly informed, and in their haste to strive they open themselves to shame. They should have heeded the proverb: "Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame." (Prov.25:8) Informed Bible students know that the phrase "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" is not found once in the King James Version. Found once is the phrase "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost", at 1 John 5:7. And what about the phrase "the spirit and the water and the blood"? Is it a substitution for the other phrase? No; those identical words appear in both the King James Version and the New World Translation, at 1 John 5:8. What the New World Translation did was merely drop the King James Version phrase at 1 John 5:7: "The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
Well, was that an "unwarranted liberty"? The critical clergymen thought so, for the press report continued: "Prof. B. W. Horan, Wycliffe College Bible authority, said the translation approved by the Watch Tower and Bible Society-official name of the Witnesses—can have no factual basis. He added: "The words "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" are clear in the original Greek, our only authority, and are thus translated in all English versions. They are taking an unwarranted liberty, and once you do that sort of thing you can get almost anything out of the scriptures. They have no warrant at all for their interpretation.' Officials of the Anglican, United, Baptist, Presbyterian and Christian Science Churches agreed with Prof. Horan."
How can Horan be a "Bible authority" for Wycliffe College, and yet say this phrase is in the original Greek and is translated "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" in "all English versions"? The Greek originals were written in the first century of our common era, but it was not until the sixteenth century that these spurious words crept into a Greek manuscript.
In 1516 Erasmus produced a Greek "New Testament" text. He brought out several editions, and the first two did not contain the spurious words at 1 John 5:7. However, the omission of this forged text was noted by Catholic authorities, particularly by Stunica, and through subsequent contriving Stunica prevailed upon Erasmus to insert it in a later edition, against the better judgment of Erasmus. William Tyndale used this Erasmus later edition to revise his English translation, and it is this Tyndale version that is the basis of the popular King James Version of 1611. Thus we see how 1 John 5:7, never in the original Greek Scriptures, wormed its way into the King James Version.
And what about Horan's claim that this spurious trinitarian text is in "all English versions"? It is extremely difficult to believe he is so ignorant of the facts, yet that belief is perhaps more charitable than to think he deliberately falsifies. In 1881 there was published a revision of the "New Testament" of the King James Version, called the "English Revised Version". It omitted the spurious text 1 John 5:7, as had Benjamin Wilson's Emphatic Diaglott version a few years earlier. Almost invariably modern versions in English omit it.
The American Standard Version of 1901 did. When the Greek Scriptures of this version were revised and published in 1946, the spurious text was still missing. It is likewise omitted in Moffatt's modern translation (1922), in An American Translation by Goodspeed (1935), in The New Testament in Basic English (1941), in Darby's version (1949), in Weymouth's version (fifth edition, 1929), in the Twentieth Century New Testament (1901), in Rotherham's Emphasised Bible (1897), and so on through practically all modern English versions. The Baptist cleric, J.B.McLaurin, that protested against the New World Translation should have known that the American Baptist Publication Society copyrighted and published in 1924 a modern version of the Greek Scriptures, in which they omitted the spurious verse. (The other hasty critics of the New World Translation were D.B.Rogers, Church of England, F.W. Boorer, Christian Scientist, V.T. Mooney, United Church, and J.A.Munro, Presbyterian church.)
Catholic Monsignor Knox completed a translation in 1943, and while including the spurious text admitted in a footnote: "This verse does not occur in any good Greek manuscript." The Catholic Confraternity translation explained that it retained the text because the Holy See reserved to itself the right to pass on the text, but did admit that according to the evidence of many manuscripts the verse was spurious. The fact is that every informed clergyman knows that the words of 1 John 5:7, as in the King James Version, are not found in the most reliable Greek Scripture manuscripts, namely, the Vatican 1209, the Sinaitic, and the Alexandrine. The Greek text used as the basis of the New World Translation is the widely accepted Westcott and Hort text (1881), by reason of its admitted excellence. It does not contain the spurious words at 1 John 5:7.
In view of all this, what do we conclude? That the New World Translation did not take any unwarranted liberties, but that these clergymen voiced unwarranted criticism, and in their haste to do so have demonstrated ignorance or prejudice, or both, to their shame.
Physical Heavens Declare God's Glory
FILLED with profound reverence after viewing the vastness and celestial majesty of the starry expanse, King David of old was moved to exclaim: "O Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent is thy name . . . ! When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him?" (Ps. 8:1,3,4,AS) David was deeply impressed with the Creator's infinite greatness and his own smallness.
Today's astronomers are well-equipped with mammoth telescopes capable of penetrating stellar space to a great depth. So if astronomer David could come to his wise conclusions more than 3,000 years ago without even a pair of opera glasses, how reprehensible this well-informed modern age is for its impudent refusal to recognize Jehovah God as the all-wise Creator of the physical heavens! Surely they are without excuse, for Jehovah's "invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world's creation onward, because they are understood by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they [of this "brainy" world] are inexcusable".—Rom.1:20,NW.
But just because today's so-called scientists and "wise men" are so nearsighted and self-centered that they fail to appreciate that Jehovah God is the great First Cause and Creator of the universe, this is no reason why the rest of mankind need follow their blind course and stupidly stumble into the same pitfall of willful ignorance. Let the well-known scientific facts and figures speak for themselves, and as they show forth and
tell of God's omnipotence, let us consider their testimony with an open, reasoning and logical mind. Consider this earth and our solar system, and, beyond this, the wonders of the universe, its glory, beauty, unity and unlimited expanse. Consider all of this, and a person with a reasonable mind must admit that there is a Creator, and that His wisdom, knowledge, power and eternity are far superior to anyone and anything else in cosmic space.
First consider this globe upon which we live, man's home among the stars and planets. To enumerate all the marvelous conditions that make life possible here would take many volumes. Hence, an epitome of some of these wonderful things must suffice. To quote a recent Watchtower publication, Evolution versus The New World, pages 35, 36:
"The earth is the only planet on which life as we know it could exist. If the earth rotated on its axis much faster or much slower, making days and nights much shorter or longer, all life would die either by freezing at night or by burning during the day. The sun is the earth's furnace, and our globe is just far enough away to be properly warmed for life to exist. But if the earth traveled much faster or much slower in its orbit around the sun it would be too far from or too close to the sun for life. The sun's surface temperature of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit is just right for heating the earth. If the yearly average of temperature on earth rose or fell fifty degrees, life would roast or freeze.
Of all the stars and suns in the universe with their wide variations in size and radiation, it is our sun that is right for earth's inhabitants. If our moon were much nearer, the tides it causes would overflow the lowlands, erode the mountains, and with continents leveled water would cover the entire earth to a depth of a mile and a half. If the earth were not tilted twenty-three degrees on its axis we would have no seasons, the poles would lie in eternal twilight, water vapor from oceans would move north and south and pile up huge continents of snow and ice in the polar regions, leaving desert in between, and eventually the oceans would disappear and rainfall cease, and the accumulated weight of ice at the poles would cause the equator to bulge, with fearful results. The mixture of gases in the atmosphere is right, and if much different, if much lighter or heavier, life would cease. The mathematical odds that all of these and other essential conditions happened by chance are astronomical, are one in billions."
Manifestly, this wonderful globe, with such varied conditions in perfect balance, did not come about by mere chance or through the operation of blind force or spontaneous evolution. Rather, it was designed and prepared by a Creator of infinite intelligence for the express purpose of supporting human creatures. "For thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens, 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." (Isa. 45:18, AS; 42:5; Ps. 115:16) He also made it to endure throughout eternity.—Eccl. 1:4.
"Jehovah by wisdom founded the earth" for man's habitation, for had He chosen
any other of the nine planets in our solar system, human life would have been impossible. (Prov. 3:19, AS) On Mercury, the planet nearest to the sun, the temperature is hundreds of degrees above zero on one side and at the same time hundreds of degrees below zero on the opposite side. Venus, the second-nearest to the sun, is enveloped in perpetual clouds so dense that sunlight never reaches it. Next comes the earth, just right in location. On Mars, the fourth planet from the sun, the average temperature is about zero, and beyond Mars, on the other planets, life is impossible. What about our moon? Without an atmosphere and with a temperature change from daytime to nighttime of more than 400 degrees, there is not the slightest possibility that man could live on the moon. So let us all give thanks and praise to Jehovah, who, for our life and comfort and by his infinite wisdom, "hangeth the earth upon nothing" at exactly the right distance from the sun.-Job 26:7.
Soldier boys that travel halfway around the world from home are impressed with the great size of the earth-25,000 miles around the equator. To little man the earth does seem very large, but compared with the sun and other heavenly bodies this globe is a mere grain of sand. If the sun were hollowed out and the earth placed in the center, our moon, which is 238,000 miles away from us, could continue in its orbit with 190,000 miles to spare. Little earth is less than 8,000 miles in diameter; majestic sun is 864,000 miles!
God "saw that it was good" to have the sun as a center hub about which our earth revolves, for it is earth's powerhouse and the source of its light, heat and energy. (Gen. 1:14-19) And what a terrific ball of fire it is! Of the sun's total radiated heat, only one part in 1,000 million parts ever reaches this globe, and yet this wee amount is so great that it taxes our comprehension.
Estimates say that it would be necessary to burn 1,000 million tons of coal each and every second to generate the amount of heat received.
Men of science and invention boast of the supersonic speeds to which they have attained, and the distances they hope some day to travel in rocket "space ships"; but, considering cosmic distances and planetary speeds, the greatest accomplishments of science are extremely small. The sun, for example, is 93,000,000 miles away on the average. But how far is that, little man? Well, if you were to ride a nonstop streamline train traveling 93 miles an hour, day and night, it would take you over 114 years to make the one-way trip to the sun! To reach the same destination from Pluto, outermost planet in our solar system, it would take more than 4,200 years.
At the same time our globe daily rotates on its axis with a surface speed at the equator of more than 1,000 miles an hour, it hurls itself around the sun at a speed of 62,000 miles per hour, without varying so much as 1/1000 of a second in this yearly trip of 558,000,000 miles. But this is not all. The whole solar system—our sun, moon, earth and the other planets—while maintaining this perfect timing among themselves, are all together speeding through space in the general direction of the star Vega at 43,000 miles per hour, a speed 21 times the velocity of a cannon ball. No man-made electronic timing device could regulate these motions with such accuracy or precision.
OUT AND BEYOND OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
When the God-fearing man David beheld the beauty and grandeur of the night sky he was looking far beyond this little solar system in which we spin. To him it was as if he were on the inside of a tent beholding a huge enclosing curtain interwoven with glistening jewels, diamonds and precious
stones. David knew that the same Jehovah God who made the earth had also fashioned the stars. All was His matchless handiwork. Isaiah the prophet, after looking into the same stellar vault of heaven, appreciated why Jehovah likened this mundane sphere to a lowly footstool.-Gen. 1:16;2 Ki. 19:15; Ps. 102:25; 104:1,2; Isa. 42:5; 44:24; 66:1,2; Acts 7:48-50.
But what those men of old saw at one time was at the most only about 2,000 stars, a very small fraction of the celestial glory that makes up our galaxy, commonly called the Milky Way. The telescope has brought into view so many stars that man cannot even count them. In an area of the sky no larger than the Big Dipper's bowl, there are 50,000,000 stars, and estimates based on actual photographs say there are at least 50,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way. Proved then that God's Word is true: man can no more count the stars than he can count the grains of seashore sands. Jer. 33:22, Mo.
Then how big is the Milky Way in which so many billions of stars are "crammed"? Man can measure it fairly accurately, but after doing so his brain is too small to comprehend really how great a space it occupies. You doubt this? Do you want to try, where all others fail, to imagine how big our galaxy is? Then here are the figures.
Recall how far it is from here to the sun and how long it would take you to get there on a high-speed train-114 years. Well, the next-nearest star is 300,000 times farther away than the sun. If, after reaching it, you returned to earth your round-trip excursion would have consumed 69,000,000 years. No human can imagine how long a time that is, so how can one comprehend how far it is across the equatorial diameter of the Milky Way when it equals 4,000 of such round trips? Why, for a beam of light, streaking along at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, it would take it 33,000 years to cross from one side of the Milky Way to the other!
Man's imagination staggers to think that the sun is more than 108 times as great in diameter as the earth, and yet there is a countless host of other stars many times as large as the sun. Aldebaran is 40 times as large as the sun and 90 times as bright. But this is nothing. The largest star known to man, Antares, is 14,000 times as big as our sun. Think of that, a molten ball of fire 360,000,000 miles in diameter, and 90,000,000 times as bright as our sun! Only its great distance away makes it appear small.
YET GREATER THAN ALL THIS IS JEHOVAH
Like all of God's creation, there is endless variety among the stars. Each has its own astral beauty. "One star differeth from another star in glory." (1 Cor. 15:41) Some are white, some yellow, some blue, and others are red. Each travels at its own particular speed. The fastest-moving bright star is Arcturus, with a speed of 75 miles a second (about 270,000 miles per hour). Reason enough why God might use it to illustrate how small and powerless man is. "Canst thou guide Arcturus?" the Almighty asked Job. (Job 38:32) Some stars are cooler than our sun, others are twice, three times and even five times as hot. Some are brighter; others are extremely faint. A comet's tail is practically a vacuum, weighing only one four-sextillionth (1/4000000000000000000) as much as a similar volume of air, whereas a dwarf star is so unbelievably heavy that a cubic inch of it weighs as much as 1,000 tons! Wonders indeed! showing forth the glory and majesty of their Creator.
Dwarfing man and exalting Jehovah even more, the giant telescopes disclose that this galaxy to which our earth belongs is only an island universe in the sea
of space. Out and beyond our Milky Way there are more than 100,000,000,000 other Milky Ways called nebulae, each containing billions of suns, stars and planets. The 200-inch Palomar telescope is able to reach out 1,100,000,000 light-years (one lightyear equals six trillion miles), and still no end to the stars. This means that these stars are so far away that the light that left them 1,100,000,000 years ago is just now reaching our globe. So in view of such astronomical facts, such distances, how much greater than time and space and all that fill them must Jehovah God be! What powers of communication he must possess! For moment by moment he knows what is going on in the most distant corner of infinity. No, not even "the heaven and heaven of heavens" are able to contain Jehovah.—1 Ki. 8:27; 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:18.
Again the question: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" Again the only truthful answer: compared with God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, man is oh so very, very small! "Why, the nations are a mere drop in the bucket, no more to him than dust upon a balance! Before him all the nations are as nothing; to him they are but empty and inane. Then whom can you compare with God?" Jehovah God is he who "sits over the round earth, so high that its inhabitants look like grass-hoppers; he spreads the skies out like a curtain, and stretches them like a tent. Lift high your eyes, look up; who made these stars? he who marshals them in order, summoning each one by name". Puny man cannot even number the stars, much less summon or call them by name.—Isa. 40:15, 17, 18, 22, 26, Mo.
If all this inanimate creation praises Jehovah because of who and what he is, then "let all the earth fear Jehovah: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him"!—Ps. 33:8, AS; 148:1-6.
NO OTHER birth in all human history has equaled in importance the birth of Jesus. He who was God's spokesman or Logos, he who was God's first and only direct creation, he through whom all other things were made, this one laid aside his lofty invisible existence as a spirit creature and was born of human flesh in the lowly form of a man. Little wonder that at his birth angelic creatures jubilantly sang, "Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will."—John 1:1-14, ED; Rev. 3:14; Luke 2:13, 14, Dy.
And why did this "only begotten Son" of God lay aside his heavenly glory and become a man? (1 John 4:9) There are several very important reasons. Born of Mary, the daughter of Heli, Jesus became a natural descendant of King David, hence "the son of David". His foster father, Joseph, also a natural descendant of David, was able to hand Jesus the legal right to David's throne. (Matt. 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38) Born perfect under the law covenant, Jesus was able to fulfill that law and put it to an end. (Gal. 4:4; Matt. 5:17) Being humbled in a bondman's form, even in the likeness of sinful man, he withstood Satan, maintained integrity, and proved qualified to be the vindicator of Jehovah God.—Phil. 2:5-8.
Furthermore, Jesus was a perfect human, no more, no less, the exact equal to the perfect man Adam. He was therefore able to lay down a perfect human life as the purchase price for all that Adam lost, namely, the right to perfect human life and to give life to posterity.—1 Cor. 15:21, 22.
It was the fall of the year 2 B.C., about October 1. The shepherds were still in the open fields watching their flocks, when an angel informed them of Jesus' miraculous birth. (Luke 2:8-20) The birth of this promised "seed", the one who was in due time to crush the head of the serpent, made that serpent, Satan, the Devil, exceedingly wroth. (Gen. 3:15) So the Devil tried to kill the infant Jesus. Warned by the Lord, the parents fled to Egypt. After Herod's death they returned and settled down in Nazareth. (Matt. 2:1-23) "And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him." Luke 2:40, RS.
At a Passover feast in Jerusalem, when but twelve years of age he amazed the learned doctors and wise men of the day by his questions and answers. When reproved by his mother for having failed to return home with them Jesus discreetly replied, "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:41-49, RS) As he grew up he learned the carpenter's trade from his foster father and "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man".—Luke 2:52.
ENTERED PUBLIC MINISTRY AT 30
Reaching his full age of maturity according to the Jewish law, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river. People are not baptized in the Jordan in cold December.
It was the fall of the year A.D. 29; proof that Jesus was not born December 25. (Luke 3:21-23) But why was the sinless Jesus baptized? Because he had made a consecration or contract to henceforth do his Father Jehovah's will and not his own. (Ps. 40:7,8; John 4:34) His baptism symbolized that he had made such an agreement.
Immediately after his baptism Jesus went into the wilderness and there spent 40 days preparing himself for his public ministry. At the end of that period the Devil came to him with very subtle temptations, which Jesus thwarted with the "sword of the spirit", God's Word. (Matt. 4:1-11) Thereafter, Jesus came in contact with some of the disciples of John, who became his companions as he traveled northward into Galilee. It was there in Cana, at the marriage feast, that Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine.—John 1:29-51; 2:1-11.
Springtime, A.D. 30, with six months of gospel-preaching behind, with the whole country awakening to the Messiah's presence, it was time for Jesus to go up to Jerusalem for the annual Passover. There he found the money-changers and those that sold oxen, sheep and pigeons right in the temple. Fired with the zeal of Jehovah, Jesus made a whip of cords and, turning over the money tables and driving out dealers, cattle and all, said: "Away with these! My Father's house is not to be turned into a shop!"—John 2:13-17, Mo.
ALL GALILEE HEARS KINGDOM MESSAGE
Truly a man of action! Up and down the length and breadth of the land Jesus went, and on foot too, preaching and witnessing to the people: in their homes, in the market places, along the highways, in openair gatherings on the mountainsides, anywhere and everywhere that the people would listen. Remember how he took time
to talk to that Samaritan woman at Jacob's well? (John 4:4-26) He also spent many hours on return visits, instructing the householders further in the Scriptures. And for all of this he never took up a collection.
The next two years following the Passover A.D. 30 Jesus concentrated his activity in the district of Galilee, broadcasting the thrilling message: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matt. 4:17) Indeed so, for the King himself was present. But not everyone would accept this proclaimer of glad tidings. For example, when he entered the synagogue in his own home town of Nazareth and read from the book of Isaiah, chapter 61, and applied to himself the prophecy there recorded, the people scoffed at him as only a carpenter's son, and even tried to kill him. In striking contrast to his own townsmen were those of Capernaum, who listened attentively, "astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power."—Luke 4:16-32.
"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." (Matt. 4:23) This first organized tour in Galilee was interrupted by the Passover feast at Jerusalem A.D. 31. There Christ cured a cripple on the sabbath, and as a result he clashed with the tradition-keeping Pharisees who sought to kill him. Jesus, however, gave all credit to Jehovah God: "The Son can do nothing of himself." (John 5:1-47) Back again in his Galilee territory, this plain-spoken preacher delivered that wonderful talk known as the "sermon on the mount". Matthew, chapters 5,6,7.
HASTE REQUIRED TO FINISH GREAT WORK
The last half of Jesus' ministry was packed full of work and excitement. Not once, but three times he must go over the Galilee territory. He must bear witness to Perea, on the other side of Jordan.
His fame brought great crowds to hear the important Kingdom message, yet at the same time the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" contained in the parables were meant only for the disciples. (Matt. 13: 1-53) Continually performing many miracles—healing the diseased, crippled, sick, and reviving the dead—Jesus also fed one multitude of 5,000 men and another of 4,000, "beside women and children." (Matt. 14:13-21; 15:32-38) Along with these public demonstrations and talks he also managed to give exhortations on humility, meekness, love toward one another, forgiveness and mercy.—Matt. 18:1-35.
Passover came while Christ was on his third tour of Galilee, but this feast he did not celebrate in a public way. He was again at Jerusalem for the feast of tabernacles in the fall of the year. By then the time was running out. The harvest was great; the laborers few; scarcely six months left to finish the work. Jesus therefore sent out seventy more disciples to prepare the field for his ministry, and then speedily he swung up through Samaria, crossed the Jordan, went into Perea, crossed Jordan again in order to raise Lazarus from the dead, went back through Samaria for another visit over Perea, and then returned to Bethany only a few days before the great and final Passover.
That was a lot of traveling and preaching to pack into six months, a fitting build-up for what he would accomplish in the last six days of his sojourn here on earth. (Luke 10:1 to 11:28) But, even at that, he took time along the way to show kindness and tender compassion toward all, including little children.—Mark 10:13-16.
That final and great week, the last act, so to speak, of a stupendous drama and one which climaxed Jesus' public ministry, was staged in and around Jerusalem. Riding into Jerusalem in triumphal procession,
Christ offered himself as King amid joyful acclaim. Then he cleansed the temple the second time by driving out the religious racketeers who had made his Father's house a den of thieves. (Matt. 21:1-16) The next day, in his parables Jesus exposed the clergy as the ones that would be guilty of rejecting and killing the Messiah, the heir of the Kingdom, and further denounced them, saying: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" And to the nation as a whole he said: "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." —Matt. 21:17 to 23:39.
In an upper room in Jerusalem, Nisan 14, A.D. 33, Jesus celebrated the last Passover with his apostles, washed their feet for an example in mutual love and service, instituted the Memorial with the eleven faithful ones, and then gave them much valuable instruction. (John 13:2 to 17:26) Momentous events followed in quick succession. The agonizing scene in the garden of Gethsemane was followed by the betrayal of Jesus and his arrest and trial before the Jewish high court, the Sanhedrin. Turned over to Pilate the politician, he was sent on to Herod, who mockingly returned him to Pilate the governor, who, though he knew Jesus was innocent, delivered him over to be killed in order to satisfy the lust of the bloodthirsty clergy! (Matt. 26:36 to 27:31) Nailed to an accursed torture stake between thieves, this beloved Son of God, after suffering hours of mockery and torture, cried out, "It is finished!"
Jesus had fought a good fight, he had completed his testimony as God's "faithful and true witness", he had proved the Devil a liar, he had purchased the right to life lost to Adam's offspring, he was indeed worthy to be the great vindicator of Jehovah God. For such obedience, Jehovah resurrected his faithful Son with a spiritual body and exalted him to a position in the universe far above all other creatures, "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow .
. . and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."—Phil. 2:10, 11.
--ment, said that the year before that heavenly event was the last normal year in history, as follows: "Today's world is in a chaotic fix, what with old empires rocking crazily from the effects of the latest great war, and with U.S. Democracy, British Socialism and Russian Communism battling for the minds of mankind. Further, the world has been in more or less chaos for quite a while now. The last completely 'normal' year in history was 1913, the year before World War I began. . . Where it all comes out, we haven't a guess. Maybe the end, as some gloom merchants predict, will be an atomic suicide by the whole human race."
"Miserable Comforters"
CHRISTIANS are commissioned to "comfort all that mourn". (Isa. 61:2) But the clergy of Christendom's orthodox religions do not bear the fruits that identify them as Christian comforters. For example, where is any solid comfort in the following statement that Catholic Jesuit Robert I. Gannon, expresident of Fordham University, made to an audience of high school youths?—"Your generation has a different point of view. You were born into chaos. It is part of the providence of God that you, our sons and daughters who have to pick up the pieces of the modern age, should look on disorder and uncertainty as a normal condition to be faced without surprise or fear."
Why should a Catholic priest say that it is God's providence that we should view chaos and disorder as normal? Such hardly matches the scripture at 1 Corinthians 14:33, as translated by Monsignor Knox: "God is the author of peace, not of disorder." After adults make a mess of things, of what comfort is it to tell youth "to pick up the pieces"? And if in the providence of God the messy disorder is normal, why tell youth to make it abnormal by picking up the pieces?
Gannon's empty words will not forestall the fear Jesus said would come in these days, due to the chaos and disorder of our times: "Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world." (Luke 21:26, Dy) Jesus did not brush off this fear as normal and as "part of the providence of God", but offered real comfort concerning it, showing that it and other abnormal conditions of the last days were due to Satan, and were forerunners to the final end of this old world and the beginning of Jehovah's righteous new world.—Luke 21:28; Rev. 12:12; 21:1-5.
This abnormal dose of woes from Satan began when he was ousted from heaven in 1914 by the newly enthroned King, Christ Jesus, and it is noteworthy that the New York Sunday News, in reporting Gannon's statement, said that the year before that heavenly event was the last normal year in history, as follows: "Today's world is in a chaotic fix, what with old empires rocking crazily from the effects of the latest great war, and with U.S. Democracy, British Socialism and Russian Communism battling for the minds of mankind. Further, the world has been in more or less chaos for quite a while now. The last completely 'normal' year in history was 1913, the year before World War I began. . . Where it all comes out, we haven't a guess. Maybe the end, as some gloom merchants predict, will be an atomic suicide by the whole human race."
When the faithful man Job was under assault by Satan because of integrity toward Jehovah God, he was visited by "three friends" who came "to comfort him". (Job 2:11) But after listening to their supposed wisdom on the distressing circumstances in which he found himself, Job cried out: "Miserable comforters are ye all. Shall vain words have an end?" Or, to give his words as rendered by the Catholic Douay translation of the Bible, "You are all troublesome comforters. Shall windy words have no end?" (Job 16:2,3) Those who babble about these times as being normal and "part of the providence of God" are certainly "miserable comforters" and rate no higher value than that Job placed on his "three friends".
True Christians can and do give real comfort to those that mourn, and who are meek enough to listen to God's Word on the present perilous times in which we find ourselves. It is wrathful Satan that is authoring the chaotic and disordered conditions now, but the signs of the times indicate that soon he and his wicked world will meet their destruction, and in their stead will be Christ's kingdom ruling over a cleansed earth of joyful men of good will. Then the providence of God will see to it that peace reigns. All may now take comfort in the fact that then, in both heaven and earth, God will be an "author of peace, not of disorder".
TO THE first human pair, Adam and Eve, God stated, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the domestic animals, and all the living things that crawl on the earth!" (Gen. 1:28, AT) That this is God's purpose regarding the earth is also made clear at Isaiah 45:18, where we are told that God formed the earth to be inhabited.
Since that is God's purpose regarding the earth, it will be accomplished, for he further states: "I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."—Isa. 46:11.
The command, "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth," coming from Jehovah God himself, would therefore be an authoritative command, or a mandate; and he being the Divine One, it would be a divine mandate. When this divine mandate was given to our first parents they were perfect and righteous, for all God's work is perfect. (Deut. 32:4) To assist them to continue in the way of righteousness and obedience and to protect them from evil, God provided them with a guardian angel. (Ezek. 28:13, 14) However, this guardian angel became filled with pride and selfishly ambitious. To further his ambitious scheme he lured our first parents into a course of disobedience resulting in their death. That cherub has since been known by the names Dragon, Serpent, Devil and Satan. (Rev. 20:2) Although at the time of his rebellion God decreed his destruction, he has been permitted to continue his nefarious activity up to the present time as "god of this world". (Gen. 3:15; 2 Cor. 4:4) The purpose of that divine mandate being to have children brought forth in righteousness and unto life, it follows that under such unrighteous conditions and with Adam and Eve under the sentence of death the mandate could not be carried out as originally purposed by Jehovah God. Since God's purposes do not change, we may confidently expect that divine mandate yet to be fulfilled.
Who will fulfill that divine mandate? Not Christians who hope to share heavenly glory with Christ Jesus, for the divine mandate is to be carried out on earth by human creatures. (See John 14:2,3; 1 John 3:2; Rev. 20:5,6.) Glorious spirit creatures in heaven could not carry out such a command.—1 Cor. 15:43, 44.
Neither will the resurrection of the dead be the fulfilling of that divine mandate. (John 5:28,29) True, it will contribute to the filling of the earth, yet such would be done by the power of God and not by creatures in obedience to his mandate. Nor will the resurrected multitudes be privileged to do so, for Jesus plainly stated that such will not marry nor be given in marriage.—Matt. 22:30.
Who then will fulfill that divine mandate? The facts show that today God has bestowed his spirit upon many without awakening in them the hope of heavenly glory.
These are described as a "great multitude" coming from all nations and are shown as standing before the throne of God ascribing salvation to him and to the Lamb. (Rev. 7:9-17) Seeking righteousness and meekness, they have the promise of being hidden in the day of God's anger. (Zeph. 2:1-3) After that expression of wrath they will share in a fulfillment of that divine mandate.
THE FLOOD PROPHETIC
The events leading up to the flood of Noah's day and those immediately following serve as a key to unlock these truths to us, picturing with remarkable accuracy what is now taking place and will shortly follow. That the time of Noah had prophetic significance Christ Jesus himself made clear, saying: "And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the presence of the Son of man."—Matt. 24:37, AS, margin.
Regarding Noah's day we read: "And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Jehovah said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the ground; both man, and beast . . . But Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah." Why? Because "Noah was a righteous man".—Gen. 6:5, 7-9, AS.
Jehovah God therefore commanded Noah to build an ark or huge boat, into which he was to take his family and certain animals. Noah obeyed, thereby proving his faith by his works. And he further bore testimony to his faith by preaching, warning the wicked of the flood.—Heb. 11:7; 2 Pet. 2:5.
The ark served as a place of protection for Noah, his family and the animals he took therein. What did it picture? God's provision for protecting his people at the
present time from the catastrophe, the battle of Armageddon. (Rev. 16:16) And what is that provision? It is God's organization, and it will serve as the place of protection from the expression of God's wrath against his enemies, even as did the ark for Noah and his family.
After the ark had served God's purpose in keeping alive the righteous ones and the flood waters had fully subsided and the earth was dried, God commanded Noah to come out of the ark, together with his family and all the animals. (Gen. 6:18; 7:2-11; 8:14-16) Noah and his family were the only human creatures alive at that time and all of them were considered righteous by God. To these he restated the divine mandate: "Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth." (Gen. 9:2, AT) However, not being actually righteous and perfect but merely accounted so because of faith and obedience, they could fulfill that command in only a pictorial way.
In contrast to the sons of Noah, the great multitude who survive Armageddon will be able to carry out that divine mandate in actuality because they will receive the benefits of the ransom sacrifice of Christ Jesus. (Matt. 20:28; Rom. 5:18,19) Having been accounted worthy of being preserved through the destruction of this evil system of things because of their faith and obedience, continuing in such way they will gradually be lifted to perfection and actual and complete righteousness. (Isa. 26:9) Satan and his demon horde will no longer exert any evil influence over mankind, but will be abyssed for a thousand years. (Rev. 20:1-3) In their stead Christ Jesus and his bride will shower blessings upon obedient mankind.—Rev. 21:4,5.
The question then arises: Since those who will comprise the great multitude are now being gathered, is the marriage of any of them now and their bringing forth children now the beginning of fulfilling the divine mandate?
The fact that none of Noah's sons had any children born to them before or during the flood would indicate that the answer to that question should be No. Only eight humans entered the ark and only eight came forth. (Gen. 7:13; 8:16; 1 Pet. 3:20) In harmony with the fact that the divine mandate was first restated after the flood, the first child mentioned was born two years after the flood. (Gen. 11:10) The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the time for the fulfillment of the divine mandate is after Armageddon.
Since the carrying out of the command to "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth" waits until after Armageddon, does that mean that those who now marry and rear children are violating God's laws? No, for the Scriptures show that "marriage is honourable in all".—Heb. 13:4.
The question then presents itself: What about those who now marry or who were married at the time they heeded the call of warning to flee into the antitypical ark by associating themselves with God's organization? Will they have the same mates after Armageddon? If both mates are preserved through that catastrophe they will continue as man and wife. The end of the old world will not dissolve such marriage ties. The Scriptures show that only the death or the unfaithfulness of one's mate frees one from the covenant entered into at the time of marriage. This latter fact should have a sobering effect upon all those contemplating marriage now.
everything on his ability to thwart that purpose to fill the earth with God-fearing people and thus demonstrate that God was not supreme. Having turned aside Adam and Eve, he boasted that he could do the same with all of their offspring. (Job 1 and 2) It was for the purpose of giving him time to prove that boast that God permitted him to remain.—Ex. 9:16, AT.
The fulfilling of the command "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth" by the great multitude surviving Armageddon and the complete filling of the earth by the resurrected millions will be in vindication of Jehovah's supremacy. How so? Because this was the original purpose of Jehovah God as announced to the first human pair in the garden of Eden, and the rebellious cherub who became Satan the Devil staked
To maintain his supremacy Jehovah God must exercise his justice and power in the destruction of the wicked. Could he do so and still realize his purpose regarding the earth? That was the issue. The facts show that he has been and is able to do so, for, even as he had faithful men and women on the earth before the flood whom he preserved during that catastrophe, so he has men and women on the earth now whom he is justified in preserving through the expression of his wrath against all unrighteousness at Armageddon, because of their faith and obedience. These who thus prove Satan's boast that he can turn all men away from Jehovah God to be a lie will be rewarded with the blessings of the new world, including the fulfillment of the command "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth". Also, thereby they will have a still greater share in vindicating Jehovah's supremacy by making his purpose regarding the earth come true; namely, the earth filled with a righteous race of human creatures living in an earth-wide Paradise, who will have dominion over the lower animals and who will serve God in spirit and in truth.
"And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth children for destruction; for they are a race of the LORD's blessed ones, and their offspring shall remain with them. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox."—Isa. 65:21, 23, 25, AT.
Riches
of the Full Assurance of Our
"Their hearts may be comforted, that they may be harmoniously joined together in love and with a view to all the riches of the full assurance of their understanding, with a view to an accurate knowledge of the sacred secret of God, namely, Christ."—Col. 2:2, NW.
EHOVAH God wants his people to understand his written Word, the Bible. By understanding we gain the full assurance concerning what we believe. It is only when we understand that we can declare our beliefs to other people and can do so with strong conviction that we have the truth, which is worthy of acceptance by all. There is not much good in hearing something and yet not understanding it, for then it does not mean anything to us. We can never do right without understanding what the will of God is. Rather, we are sure to act foolish in his sight, and this would not win his approval. But when we understand his will as contained in his written instructions, we can do it. And as we do so it builds up a full assurance of hope in us, and we can firmly hold on to that hope to the end, till we inherit what God has promised and we reap his good reward for our service. We want to understand how to approach him properly in prayer and what to pray for, that we may gain an answer. Then we can draw near to him in full assurance. We want to understand definitely what the hope is which he has set before us, that we may never suffer the disappointment of false hopes, having wasted all our efforts in aiming wrong. (Heb. 6:11, 12 and 10:22, 23, NW) Hence we cannot afford to underrate the riches of the full assurance of understanding.
2 As far as the vast majority of mankind is concerned, the Bible, in which God's will and purpose are expressed, is written in dead languages, Hebrew and ancient common (koi.ne') Greek. For that reason the original Bible has needed to be translated for us to know what it says. Even then it has to be translated or explained in such a way as to give us an understanding of what it says. Already five centuries before Christ the Hebrews or Israelites themselves had to have their own Hebrew Scriptures translated to them in order to grasp their contents. Jerusalem had been destroyed and the survivors had been carried captive to Babylon. During their seventy years of exile there a new generation had grown up. Because of the close association of the rising generation with the Babylonians they had lost their mother tongue and had come to speak Ar.a.ma'ic, a language similar to Hebrew and related to it. This is what they spoke when they were restored to their homeland. Eighty-two years after they were restored Governor Nehemiah succeeded in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. They had a celebration over it, at which Ezra the priest and other Levites read the Bible to the assembled people. But for the audience in general to understand it these readers had to interpret it to them. On this we read, at Nehemiah 8:7, 8: They "explained the meaning
How do we gain the full assurance of understanding? For what purpose?
Why did Hebrews in Nehemlah's day need to have the Bible translated to them?
of the law to the people as they stood; they read from the book, from the law of God, translating as they went and explaining the meaning, so that the people understood what was read". (Mo) By having the Bible text translated from Hebrew to the Aramaic which they spoke, the people came to understand what God's law was.
Today in many countries many of our Bible translations are in out-of-date language and so are not fully understandable but need explanation in modern terms. For example, the Roman Catholic Douay Version of the Bible was completed in 1610. The popular German translation by Martin Luther was completed in 1534, but later revised by him. The most popular Bible edition, the King James or Authorized Version, was published in 1611. Thus these Bible versions are hundreds of years old, and by now languages have undergone great changes in meanings of words and in forms of expression. Also our understanding on the meaning of the original Hebrew, Ar.a-ma'ic and Greek of the Bible has improved, to make possible a more accurate translation. Quite properly many translations that make use of the present-day advantages have appeared in modern speech, and all these cast a brighter light upon the pages of the Holy Scriptures. At the time of publishing this, the latest and doubtless most unique version to appear is that entitled "New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures", first released on Wednesday afternoon, August 2, 1950, at the 8-day international Theocracy's Increase Assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses, Yankee Stadium, New York city. A reading of this version, produced by the New World Bible Translation Committee, adds tremendously to our riches of the full assurance of our understanding of God's Word. Its striking features are many.
As we here take note of some of them, it would be well for any readers having a copy of this new version to have it at hand for consultation.
DISTINGUISHING OF WORD MEANINGS
4 In the King James Version as well as in other old versions great misunderstanding has been caused by rendering two or more different words in the original Greek by one English word. The New World Translation, however, maintains the fine distinctions between the original words, and thereby aids toward the right interpretation of the Scriptures. Take, for instance, the word "world". In the King James Version it is used to translate four different Greek words: ai.on', gē, kos'mos and oikou.me'nē. In Jesus' prophecy on the end of this world organization all four words occur. The King James Version does not differentiate between three of them; it renders all three "world". But note the new version's readings where the three words are found at Matthew 24:3,14,21; 25:34, NW: "While he was sitting upon the mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately, saying: 'Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your presence and of the consummation of the [ai.on'] system of things?'" Jesus replied: "This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the [oi.kou.me'nē] inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, and then the accomplished end will come." "For then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the [kos'mos] world's beginning until now, no, nor will occur again." "Come, you who have my Father's blessing, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the [kos'mos] world's foundation." Such translation can in no way lead readers to deduce that it is our literal earth that is to come to an end, but it is the system of things.
That the term "earth", which the King James renders "world" at Revelation 13:3, can be used in a symbolic way is shown by the new rendering: "And all the earth [gē] followed the wild beast with admiration." (NW) Here, of course, earth means the people dwelling on the earth. Thus we see that only the one word [kos'mos] is translated world throughout the new version. The one exception to translating it world is where 1 Peter 3:3 applies kos'mos to women's adornment.
5 The name Gentile(s) is dropped and the force of the original word is brought out by rendering it "nations", or "man of the nations", or "people of the nations". (Matt. 24:14; 18:17; 6:7, NW) Note this one instance, Jesus' final command to his disciples: "Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them [the people, and not the nations] in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit."—Matt. 28:19, NW.
The word pneu'ma has the basic meaning of invisible, active force, and the new translation brings it out in five ways. First, as an unseen force in action, whether the wind or an impersonal spirit: We read: "The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone that has been born from the spirit." (John 3:8, NW) Second, as an unseen, heavenly person: "God is a Spirit:" (John 4:24, NW) Third, as a mental attitude or inclination: Whereas the King James says, "The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit," the new version says: "The Lord be with the spirit you show." (2 Tim. 4:22, NW; also Phil. 4:23, NW) Fourth, as a moving or inspiring force: Instead of using the uncertain expression
"in the spirit", John is made to say: "By inspiration I came to be in the Lord's day." (Rev. 1:10, NW) This shows John came under the spirit's power. Fifth, as an utterance inspired by an unseen source: "Beloved ones, do not believe every inspired expression, but test the inspired expressions to see whether they originate with God, because many false prophets have gone forth into the world. . . this is the antichrist's inspired expression which you have heard was coming." (1 John 4:1-3, NW) "And I saw three unclean inspired expressions that looked like frogs come out of the mouth. . . They are, in fact, expressions inspired by demons and perform signs, and they go forth to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty."—Rev. 16:13, 14, NW.
The King James renders two different Greek words as "blessed". The new version always distinguishes between them and renders the one (ma.ka'ri.os) as "happy". For instance, in the sermon on the mount we read: "Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them. Happy are those who mourn, since they will be comforted." And so on; so that we cannot any longer call them "beatitudes" in accord with the Latin Vulgate. We must call them states of happiness or felicities. (Matt. 5:3-12, NW) Consistent with this, Jesus' human mother Mary is heard to say: "My soul magnifies Jehovah, . . . For, look! from now on all generations will pronounce me happy." (Luke 1:46-48, NW) We likewise read of the "happy God" and of the "happy and only Potentate". (1 Tim. 1:11; 6:15, NW) God and his Son are happy!
8 In the King James at Hebrews 12:1,
What improvement does it make over the former translation Gentiles?
How does it distinguish between happiness and blessedness?
How does it bring out the sense of "pneuma" in five ways?
How does it show the length of existence of Jehovah's witnesses?
why the writer should suddenly introduce the word "witnesses" has led to a variety of interpreting, many thinking he means spectators witnessing an athletic race. But the new version shows that the related verb meaning "to bear witness" is used four times in the preceding chapter where he discusses faith and where he says: "By means of this the men of old times had witness borne to them." He specifically names Abel and Enoch as having had this witness, and ends the chapter, saying: "And yet all these, although they had witness borne to them through their faith, did not get the fulfillment of the promise, as God foresaw something better for us." He then opens the next chapter, saying: "So, then, because we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also put off every weight and the sin that easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race." (Heb. 11:2,4,5,39,40; 12:1, NW) So we awake to the fact that the writer means the witnesses of Jehovah from Abel on to John the Baptist. By this we know that Jehovah's witnesses did not have their beginning first in 1931, when that Scriptural name was publicly confessed at our international convention in Columbus, Ohio, to distinguish us from the hundreds of sects professing to be Christian.
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