Jehovah's Witnesses: Watchtower Society Official Web Site (www.watchtower.org/e/lmn/article_09.htm)
"Look! I Am Making All Things New!"
Restoration to Life
Even though his enemies killed him, the Son of God never lost his right to perfect human life, for he had kept integrity to God. But, being dead in the grave, how could Jesus use this valuable thing, the right to human life, on behalf of humankind? It was here that Jehovah performed another miracle, the first of its kind. On the third day of Jesus' being in the grave, Jehovah raised him up out of death as a spirit creature, immortal. (Romans 6:9; 1 Peter 3:18) To establish belief in the resurrection, on different occasions Jesus materialized human bodies and appeared to his disciples, at one time to 500 and more of them. None of these, nor the apostle Paul who was later blinded by an appearance of the glorified Jesus, had any reason to doubt the miracle of his resurrection. - 1 Corinthians 15:3-8; Acts 9:1-9.
After 40 days the resurrected Jesus ascended into God's own presence in the heavens, there to present the value of his perfect human sacrifice as a release for mankind. "But this man offered one sacrifice for sins perpetually and sat down at the right hand of God, from then on awaiting until his enemies should be placed as a stool for his feet." (Hebrews 10:12, 13) The first ones to be released through this ransom are a "little flock" of faithful Christians "who belong to the Christ." (Luke 12:32; 1 Corinthians 15:22, 23) These are "bought from among mankind," and hence in the resurrection they become spirit associates of Christ in the heavens. (Revelation 14:1-5) However, what of the great masses of mankind who now lie dead in their graves? When he was on this earth, Jesus said that his Father had granted him authority to judge and impart life. He added: "Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, ... to a resurrection." (John 5:26-29) He will restore these to life in the Paradise earth.
Note Jesus' words, "Do not marvel at this." Even so, how can one long dead be released from death and be brought back to life? Has not his body returned to the dust? Some of the particles that made up that body may even have been assimilated into other living things, such as plants and animals. However, resurrection does not mean bringing the same chemical elements together again. It means that God re-creates the same person, with the same personality. He brings a new body forth from the earthly elements, and in that body he places the same characteristics, the same distinctive qualities, the same memory, the same life pattern that the person had built up by the time of his death.
It may have been your experience that your house that you loved very much was burned down. However, you could easily have the same house rebuilt, for the pattern of all its beloved details is very clear in your memory. Surely, then, God who is the Originator of memory can re-create men whom he has kept in his memory because he loved them. (Isaiah 64:8) This is why the Bible uses the expression "memorial tombs." When it is God's due time to bring the dead to life again, he will perform that miracle, just as he performed a miracle in creating the first man, only this time he will perform it many times over. - Genesis 2:7; Acts 24:15.
God will bring mankind back to life, with the prospect of never again dying off the earth. But how is everlasting life on earth possible? It is possible and certain because it is the divine will and purpose. (John 6:37-40; Matthew 6:10) The only reason that man dies off the earth today is that he inherited death from Adam. However, when we consider the infinite variety of wonderful things on earth that man was intended to enjoy, a brief life span of less than a hundred years is far too short! In giving this earth to the children of men, God purposed that man should keep on living to enjoy the splendors of His creation, not just for a hundred years, or even a thousand years, but forever! - Psalm 115:16; 133:3.
Published 1989
Source: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved.Kritik:
"But, being dead in the grave, how could Jesus use this valuable thing, the right to human life, on behalf of humankind?"As for the Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus merely represents a kind of instrument for performance of the will of God, but not God himself, his sacrifice is for them a shade less! His work is not so fulfilled, that he saves those who believe in him, because this he is not able to do according to the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses. But he can only save those who meet an additional list of requirements. This list is the list of the law, whose performance demonstratedly can not be done by people. For there is none without sin. In the case of Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus is consistently degraded. His existence is with them only a method that God opted for in order to establish an additional hurdle for the people next to the law. Jesus is for the Jehovah's Witnesses, therefore no savior, but only a small part of the whole obstacle course, which the people have to manage to share the Kingdom. The function of Jesus is in the Jehovah's Witnesses only a sovereign function. Jesus is virtually the delegate, the official, the staff member. He is a negotiator with a right to human life. Not anymore. That here the focus is placed on the right to human life and not on the right of communion with God, is for the teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses symptomatic. In the case of Jehovah's Witnesses does not exist, the hope of communion with God, but only the hope of an undisturbed happiness in a paradise earth under the royal rule of an for this allocated to Jesus. Here again, the earthly sense of the Jehovah's Witnesses does appear. Do not allow the fact that could happen more between God and man. They proceed from the familiar structure of domination. They want to be ruled by a remote being, which exerts influence on them only by a delegate. Main thing is to be beneath himself and beneath his peers and enjoy the wonderful (well-known) nature. At this human view the Jehovah's Witnesses lose any reference to what may extend beyond the human. They do not want to see that a new earth is possible even in a completely different form and that it is solely in God's hands, the new earth could look like. To set a second time to an earthly vision of paradise, they claim that Jesus had - dead, lying in the grave - just about a right to human life. Thus, a signal is set, which degrades the person of Jesus a second time. Jesus can throw just the right to human life into the scale for obtaining for the people a life in a world that corresponds to the ideas of the people. The tradition, the conventionality, which is being done so to Jesus, fully discharges him of his status, which is in the eyes of a believing Christian nothing other than the perfect unconditional salvation in faith. The unconditional salvation by faith is so devastated by the Jehovah's Witnesses not only with the amalgamation of performance of law, but also by the thrust of an eternity that can take place only in human imagination worlds. The phrase "right to human life" is at the Jehovah's Witnesses part of the program, which is only to spurn down consistently in the overall view Jesus himself, Jesus under a rescue strategy that respects the "goodness" of man. Apart from the grace in the hearts of the Jehovah's Witnesses is existing the greed for statutorily performance and tighter discipline. Apart from the grace at the Jehovah's Witnesses stands the value of a human. That God could fix in Jesus perfectly unearthly and superhuman standards, is an abomination to the Jehovah's Witnesses. They tie rather down on what they know. They can not bear to be addressed by grace. - They can not bear the real Jesus. They yearn for the strict rule, which may be sufficient only in constantly assiduous development. They can not allow the miscreant is saved by faith alone. They can not allow the rescue of pure faith. And so they have to lower the grace obtaining Jesus to a dead salesman who carries just a "right to human life" in the luggage. Sometimes the ingenious tricks of the Jehovah's Witnesses, reducing the full deliverance of Jesus on a purely functional lawfully managing, appear as the ingenious trick of Satan, whose interest it is to baffle salvation through faith in Jesus. Incredible speculations of the Watchtower Society are opening up here. People who predict the disappearance of people, claim they are the Jehovah's channel and would be guided by the Holy Spirit. They go to run with their carnal spirit to discover and to label their own thinking which is reclined at fantasy as let by the Holy Spirit. The great desire of the Watchtower Society is here for every recognizable. It wants to build by manipulation of people here on earth, something new, which is found under its control. For this, they commit every conceivable kind of brazen lie. - 1924 were covered in these freehandly contrived stories words like "perhaps". Today - 2007 - they have given themselves a coat, in which is frowned upon any kind of insecurity. The Watchtower Society is increasingly less about faith. It wants to make available the divine by human power. In order to spurn down Jesus under their human feet. - This process of the Watchtower Society, however, will be eliminated entirely when the court is held. But solitary the satanic arrogance that has sworn to persuade God of the eternal seductiveness of people, can manage still today to hold the 6 million people in the grip of the Watchtower Society. And that under the influence of self imagined infallibility as the channel of the Holy Spirit. Man's attempt to use God's power, without relying entirely on him, is satanic. The only way to God is Jesus Christ and the inner faith-relationship with him, which recognizes him for what he is. (John 20, 28 and 29) CommentsIf you want to help to create a better translation, use the form below: Old text: ... New text: ... - Thank you very much! The german version you find here.
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