Believing in Jesus and not in a Society
In the Watchtower Society a kind of Bible reading is cultivated that not only obscures the meaning of the word, but also distorts it in such a way that the most abstruse ideas can apparently be read from the Word of God. In order to justify the respective insights biblically, biblical passages are arbitrarily linked crosswise.
As a counter-example, a Bible text based on the English Standard Version Bible will be presented here to show how the meaning of the word opens up in the flippant language of youth:
1 Corinthians 1:17-31
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
This decision of God not to make the salvation of mankind dependent on intelligence and good organization, but exclusively on faith, refutes the basic intention of the Watchtower Society in one fell swoop. While Paul here for all time draws attention to the impossibility of recognizing God with human intelligence, the Jehovah's Witnesses are diligently building a building of thought that, if possible, bypasses the person of Jesus to become the kingdom of Jehovah. When with their human orientation they elevated Bible study to the be-all and end-all of the knowledge of truth, they deliberately ignored this biblical passage in which Paul sketches for all to understand how God himself holds the knowledge of truth ready for us.
As the druid, the sorcerer, the magician brews a potion from all sorts of strange ingredients, from which he expects miraculous powers, so the Jehovah's Witnesses make a thought construction out of fragments of the Bible, which is supposed to be the way past Jesus into the Kingdom of Jehovah. Through this (certainly humanly intelligent) mixture of God's Word with highly human secondary thoughts of old order, a doctrine emerges in the Watchtower Society that must unerringly ignore Jesus as proof of its unfairness. His saving power, which every human can seize in faith according to his words, is reflected in the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses only matt in a pure "holding for truth" of his act of salvation. But the power must be taken from him so that the teaching of the Watchtower Society can be considered real salvation at all.
The Watchtower Society takes Jesus' power by depicting him as an angel. As an angel, Jesus cannot save himself, but only bring into play a kind of achievement that is only one among many. It is not enough for the Jehovah's Witnesses to save, but must be combined with the believers' own efforts in order to actually acquire a saving function in the system of the Watchtower Thought. In this context, the Jehovah's Witnesses actually have only one kind of appreciation left to show to Jesus. And even this appreciation of Jesus is reduced to an appreciation only of his act of "buying free sacrifice".
While according to Paul faith in Jesus himself saves, in the Watchtower Society the pure achievement of this Jesus is only one component in the rescue system. Jesus as a person is not venerated by Jehovah's Witnesses. He must not be worshiped, for he is only an angel.
Not the assumption that he is only an angel is the real mistake, the cunning trap in the teaching of the Watchtower, but the evil trick consists in detachment from the perfect salvation through Jesus himself. By adding further necessities to be fulfilled by Jehovah's Witness in order to enter the kingdom, they disregard God's decision that only faith in Jesus should be sufficient for salvation.
The once serious study of the Bible led Bible scholars to rely entirely on their human understanding and to obscure Bible passages that clearly indicate that human knowledge can never lead to God. So they have no choice but to read the colorful Watchtower booklets, the tightly organized community under the leadership of a human body, and the self-control of businesslike participation in congresses.
Jesus is not at the center of all aspects of the lives of Jehovah's Witnesses. So one does not feel his power in the meetings of the Witnesses. As a substitute, the Witnesses celebrate a strange mixture of discipline and a portion of homemade friendliness and openness. That these "joy" and "goodness of faith" are not worked by God is recognized by every Christian who approaches these assemblies.
The good works of Jehovah's Witnesses move on precisely this self-made level. While in the life of a believer in Jesus Christ the fruits (the good works) come through Jesus Himself (the one who boasts boasts boasts of the Lord), the deeds of Jehovah's Witnesses move on the purely human level. They are like do-it-yourselfers who tinker something to accomplish the impossible. What the Bible says can only come through the use of Jesus' personal power, Jehovah's Witnesses make for themselves.
When Peter refused to get Jesus to wash his feet, Jesus said openly: "If you do not want me to wash your feet, you have no part in me."Jehovah's Witnesses cannot have Jesus wash their feet because they have no fellowship with Jesus. They cannot ask Him, nor can they accept Him into their lives, they cannot let Him guide them, they cannot let Him save them. And their feet cannot be washed either. Because then they would have to come into tangible contact with Jesus. But this touch is taboo with the Watchtower Society. Because Jesus, who is in direct contact with man, has no place in the Watchtower Society.
He can never take this place with the Jehovah's Witnesses either, because at that very moment the absurdity of the Watchtower Society would be clear. If they would take Jesus seriously, as he is proclaimed in the Bible, that would be the immediate end of the Watchtower organization. Then it would suddenly become clear that all self-appropriated mediator functions of the Watchtower Society are nonsensical and only Jesus himself is stolen. For there is only one mediator between God and man.
The true intention of the Watchtower following lies in the rejection of the saving Jesus and the shift of salvation to busy human doing and doing. The daily association and hustle and bustle provides a great deal of comfort and distraction. This is the better solution for the carnal man. The uncomfortable belief in Salvation through Jesus does not have the effect of being able to tinker with the building of faith at any time, but one must rely on Jesus and also walk through faith valleys. One is dependent on him.
Only someone who has experienced the power of Jesus by believing in Jesus can endure this being directed to Jesus. But exactly this power is nothing with Jehovah's Witnesses.
