"JESUS GAVE HIS LIFE FOR MANY - Why did he need to do that? What must you do to benefit from it? - We invite you to find out on Tuesday, March 30, 2010" That was 13 days ago.
The invitation was printed by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. This of course was an invitation by Jehovah's Witnesses for their annual Memorial Celebration wherein they "commemorate Jesus' death on its anniversary."
Jesus is considered the great peacemaker, yet Christianity, millions of people that claim to be Christians in the name of Jesus Christ have brought more war, death and destruction to this earth than any other people or religion. When they are not butchering innocent women and children and justifying that debauchery in the name of freedom and democracy, they wage war on one another. Even now, look at the enmity between progressive thinking more liberal Americans than the conservative more old-age believers in America and its God-given right to exist. What attracted me to the “way” of Jehovah's Witnesses all those many years ago was the story I was told by a participant, of how military inductee's both in America, Briton and in Germany and Italy, without any instructions from anyone, refused to take up a weapon against a fellow brother. Back at that time, World War I, inductees were already in the army at their induction. At some point in time after receiving uniforms etc. they were lined up and given a rifle. Jehovah's Witness who were called Bible Students put their hands behind their backs and refused to take the rifle. No one could mistake that statement. Well, you can guess what happened to them. Most of the time that rifle was used to beat them senseless. So the next person in line that was a Bible Student knew exactly what was going to happen to him. Can you imagine being that man? Yet, time after time they took their beatings and remained faithful to their Christianity and their Christ-like stand for peace and brother. You can't have war if no one will fight, specially Christian against Christian. These men were hardly cowards and they served as a profound example to me what real courage and conviction was. So when I went to school and refused to salute the American flag, it was, to say the least, traumatic. It took some time for all my classmates to learn that I was not a pacifist, a gutless coward or someone that wouldn't and couldn't defend himself. I commemorate Jesus death everyday as I enforce his peace.
What about Jehovah's Witnesses? Were they truly the people of peace, willing to make the necessary sacrifices Jesus commanded as demonstrated by those early martyrs? (Matthew 5:43-46) Obviously, those courageous souls were. Many of these same faithful men sacrificed their lives at the hands of Hitler in the second world war for making the same stand. The question I ask is, are there any real Christian men among Jehovah's Witnesses that would make the same unabated stand today? Do so of their own free will without being told first? Considering what's happened to them as a people in the past 100 years, I am doubtful.
Jesus' death, according to the Bible, was significant for the "many" because by and through it he inaugurated the New Covenant. Covenants are legal, binding contracts and in this case in many ways like Constitutions. The fundamental laws enforced here, however, are about "LOVE." Jesus' life and death defined the meaning of that "love." Very few people, not "MANY" as the Witnesses purport, actually meet Jesus' standards. His standards are clearly written in the Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the rest of the New Testament explains them.
“Jesus Christ told his followers that he came to earth, 'not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many.' (Matthew 20:28) He willingly gave up his life for the benefit of others.” [Emphasis mine]
Notice that Jesus, in the above quote, in fact answering a question that was dealing with the Way of the “old self” or personality, the physical or literal thinking demonstrated by the constant contention between his 12 disciples of who would be the greater and get preferential treatment or blessings. It is plain by what he says in Matthew 20 verses 17-28 (part of the verse quoted above) that what Jesus endured, the giving of his “soul (or human life) a ransom in exchange for many” that he also required the same of his spirit-enlivened disciples. To be a Christian requires the same sacrifice. Jesus' ransom sacrifice “in exchange” for others was given willingly because, as he says, he had control over it. (John 10:17, 18) In this regard, Jesus differed from all mankind. Mortal men do not have control over their physical life; all men and women die. Therefore whatever God requires of man that was equal in the eyes of God to what Jesus sacrificed to be accepted so as to enter into His New Covenant must be the one thing equal in value that they do control. It is clear that the New Covenant was inaugurated by the blood and body of Jesus – his human life. Jesus showed us the way – the way to satisfy God's requirement of all men and women that would enter into His New Covenant by blood, or life, the equivalent living soul. – Genesis 2: 7.
Since Jesus controlled his life, his equivalent value to that of Adam was his enlightened “soul” or “life.” This was the gift he received when God literally recognized and accepted him as his “son” and granted him by virtue of God's Holy Spirit to become the “light of the world.” (John 1:4; Matthew 3:16, 17; John 8:12) What man controls that is acceptable to God as an equivalent life is his carnal or fleshly way of thinking; a physical or literal personality. This “old personality” is defined as: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, hatreds, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these.” Also, “...those who practice such things will not inherit God's kingdom.” (Galatians 5:19-21) The Bible writer continues and makes the clear distinction between those outside the New Covenant and those that “belong to Christ Jesus” in a “newness of life” by virtue of God's Spirit. “On the other hand, the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Moreover, those who belong to Christ Jesus impaled the flesh together with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:22-25) And therein contains our equivalent value.
The same Bible writer explains what it means, as a literal act of faith, to “impale the flesh,” enjoin God with an acceptable sacrifice, be resurrected to spiritual life or light by spirit, the absolute confirmation of God's acceptance and personal recognition. Read Romans 6:1-7: “Consequently, what shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, that undeserved kindness may abound? Never may that happen! Seeing that we died with reference to sin, how shall we keep on living any longer in it? Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through our baptism into his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, we also should likewise walk in a newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall certainly also be [united with him in the likeness] of his resurrection; because we know that our old personality was impaled with [him], that our sinful body might be made inactive, that we should no longer go on being slaves to sin. For he who has died has been acquitted from [his] sin.” This is the human reality of God's Sons today.
He further defines the distinction between the two persons or personalities and how the workings of the spirit empower one over the other in 1 Corinthians 2:11-15.
“For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of man that is in him? So, too, no one has come to know the things of God, except the spirit of God. Now we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that have been kindly given us by God. These things we also speak, not with word taught by human wisdom, but with those taught by the spirit, as we combine spiritual [matters] with spiritual [words].
Notice one of the distinguishing characteristic of the “physical” or “natural” man.
“But a physical man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know [them], because they are examined spiritually. However, the spiritual man examines indeed all things, but he himself is not examined by any man.”
As it turns out, by an act of faith, an act that literally put their physical lives in jeopardy, 50 days after Jesus resurrection only 120 people consequently benefited directly from his death. All the rest of mankind benefited from them and today from their fellow spiritually resurrected brothers and sisters that meet the standards and perfectly fulfill God's New Covenant. These are the ones that become the perfect embodiment of Christ's love – they are the only ones whose sacrificed souls God accepts. They don't just talk a good talk, they actually live it and that's where Jehovah's Witnesses come up short. While they sincerely believe everything they preach and teach, they never get around to actually becoming that reality, not as an individual or as a group. Because salvation or personal recognition and acceptance by God comes only through inclusion within their organized Congregation, remaining in good standing as judged by their local elder-body, they are never required to serve and worship Almighty God by acceptable acts of faith. – Romans 5:1-5.
The New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus Christ changed the way man came to “know” and be “known” by God; communicate with God. (Hebrews 8:6-13) The Old Law Covenant did not apply to the individual. What made the individual human legitimate before Almighty God was his inclusion as a citizen of the Jewish nation state of Israel that God blessed through that Old Law Covenant. The visible sign of His presence was contained within the Most Holy Sanctuary in a literal temple within the capitol city of Jerusalem. The individual Israelite was only recognized by God when he or she was a part of the Nation State or collective and only as long as that collective remained faithfully obedient. When the Nation kept or complied faithfully with the Old Law Covenant the collective was blessed or recognized and accepted by God. This, incidentally, is what Jehovah's Witnesses believe and teach, collective salvation. “You will not survive the final battle of Armageddon unless you are safely ensconced within the walls of their (our) organized religion.”
Their presence at my door has the appearance of a kindly gift. On the contrary, it is, in and of itself, their personal and public judgment of me and my family for not conforming to their will – to how they would have us believe. We stand outside the protective walls of their Congregation, consequently rejected by Jehovah God and doomed to destruction by Him. So while they profess their good intentions as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, they in fact, are a living contradiction, repudiating themselves and Jesus' ransom sacrifice. They are incapable, therefore, of acquiring the one quality or state of spiritual being that allows them to become peaceable. It was for the reason of that inherent condition that my wife and I did not accept their invitation to attend their Memorial Celebration for 2010. – Romans 5:1; 14:17; 1 Peter 3:8-12.
That one quality is the “peace” of Jesus. (John 14:27) I am sure there are people on this earth that have experienced that peace as have I. Interestingly, in my 57 years of searching I have found no one!
I realize this breaks from my story about Dad and “hay shocking,” but in many ways it touches the essence of why I am what I am. My father stood before many hundreds of people for many years, with all the authority granted by God to speak of the sanctity of this celebration as he answered the questions offered in the invitation. He presided over that solemn celebration with dignity, honor and as an example of what it meant to be a peacemaker in the true essence of Jesus manifesting the value of his sacrifice in everything that he represented. Regardless of whatever I thought or believed, as his son, I shared in that reality.
Now to the hay-shocking event.
Gary.
