1 Does the Bible Support the Separation of Christians Into Two Classes?

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. …Father, I desire that they also, whom you have giv­en me, may be with me where I am, to see my glo­ry that you have giv­en me because you loved me before the foun­da­tion of the world. (John 17:20–21 & 24)

The main signs spo­ken of by Jesus, through which the world can rec­og­nize his fol­low­ers, are love and uni­ty. The per­fect uni­ty, for which He also prayed, is real­ized both in this life and after.

God, who want­ed so much for his chil­dren to be in uni­ty, promised the same hope for all who believe in Him: eter­nal life in deep com­mu­ni­ty with Him in heav­en.¹

The aim of Jesus’ com­ing was “…to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Because of our sins we were far from and alien to God,² our Cre­ator: we were as his ene­mies³. Jesus over­came sin,⁴ brought us for­give­ness, rec­on­ciled us to God,⁵ renewed our lives⁶ and so brought us back into son­ship. In this way we can again call God our Father,⁷ be in eter­nal fel­low­ship with Him and with Jesus and with ALL those who love Him.

All those who serve Jesus will be there, where Jesus is.

Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Who­ev­er loves his life los­es it, and who­ev­er hates his life in this world will keep it for eter­nal life. If any­one serves me, he must fol­low me; and where I am, there will my ser­vant be also. If any­one serves me, the Father will hon­our him. (John 12:24–26)

In the con­text of the pas­sage above, Jesus speaks about the suf­fer­ing that will come upon Him, and the fruit of His suf­fer­ing and obe­di­ence. He will bring much fruit through this and will bring sal­va­tion to all those who obey Him. He also draws a par­al­lel: those who fol­low Him, should also be ready to give up their lives (not nec­es­sar­i­ly phys­i­cal­ly but first of all spir­i­tu­al­ly, not to live for them­selves), and so He gives them the promise that they will be with Him for ever; as they par­tic­i­pat­ed in His suf­fer­ing so they will par­tic­i­pate in his glo­ry as well. Sim­i­lar­ly in 2 Tim­o­thy and John it is writ­ten:

The say­ing is trust­wor­thy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him.… (2 Tim­o­thy 2:11–12)

Let not your hearts be trou­bled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to pre­pare a place for you? And if I go and pre­pare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:1–6)

Jesus encour­ages the dis­ci­ples to have trust in Him, because this is why he came: to show the way to the Father, to pre­pare a place for us, and to take us with Him into heav­en­ly glory—into eter­nal fel­low­ship with Him and the Father. His state­ment about the way shows that this is the goal and the way for all those who want to fol­low Jesus.

In spite of these clear words from Jesus, the Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es teach that there are two class­es of Chris­tians who have dif­fer­ent hopes:⁸ one class (con­sist­ing of 144,000 cho­sen ones) have heav­en­ly hope; the oth­er class (a great mul­ti­tude) have an earth­ly hope. They can inter­pret it so only by ignor­ing the very clear words of Jesus and the apos­tles.

Besides the words of Jesus men­tioned above (where Jesus clear­ly says that all those who serve Him and all those who will believe the words of the apos­tles will be togeth­er with Him, will see His glo­ry in its full­ness and will share in the same joy⁹ as Him), there are a lot of pas­sages in the New Tes­ta­ment which speak about the heav­en­ly hope that Chris­tians have.¹⁰ Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es inter­pret these pas­sages as refer­ring to the 144,000 cho­sen ones, or some­times they sim­ply say, “it refers to the first Chris­tians”.¹¹

But let’s exam­ine first one of their most impor­tant pas­sages, a pil­lar of their teach­ing:

Fear not, lit­tle flock, for it is your Father’s good plea­sure to give you the king­dom.… And the Lord said, “Who then is the faith­ful and wise man­ag­er, whom his mas­ter will set over his house­hold, to give them their por­tion of food at the prop­er time? Blessed is that ser­vant whom his mas­ter will find so doing when he comes. Tru­ly, I say to you, he will set him over all his pos­ses­sions. But if that ser­vant says to him­self, ‘My mas­ter is delayed in com­ing’, and begins to beat the male and female ser­vants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the mas­ter of that ser­vant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaith­ful.” (Luke 12:32,42–46)

This passage—according to them¹²—speaks about the 144,000 cho­sen ones who form “the lit­tle flock”. Addi­tion­al­ly, this pas­sage “gives them” the basis upon which they demand that their mem­bers obey the Watch­tow­er Soci­ety with­out ques­tion, because it is the “faith­ful ser­vant” “who gives food at the prop­er time” to the oth­er ser­vants.

Actu­al­ly, it is not pos­si­ble to find a base for such an inter­pre­ta­tion from Jesus’ words—rather the con­trary.

If we look at v. 32 in its con­text, it is obvi­ous that Jesus did­n’t address these words to a spe­cial group of his fol­low­ers, but they are a part of an encour­age­ment, which is valid for all time for any­one who wants to fol­low him. The flock is lit­tle, not because it con­sists of only 144,000, but because it con­sists of those who walk on the nar­row way.¹³

Fur­ther­more, a cen­tral top­ic in Jesus’ teach­ing is that no one should be small­er or greater; that we should all be broth­ers, chil­dren of the same Father.¹⁴

In the para­bles we should not try to attribute a mean­ing to each detail, as they are a pic­to­r­i­al way of express­ing cer­tain ideas. This para­ble has a sim­i­lar con­tent to the pre­vi­ous one (vers­es 36–40). Jesus told many para­bles which focus on the aspect of watch­ful­ness, since he want­ed to make us con­scious, that only by per­se­ver­ing in good and by remain­ing stead­fast in obey­ing Him can we reach the goal.

An addi­tion­al aspect expressed in this para­ble is sum­ma­rized in vers­es 47–48. Every­one is account­able accord­ing to the respon­si­bil­i­ty they received: those who know the will of God—the Chris­tians, as well as those who do not know—the oth­ers.

For fur­ther exam­i­na­tion we shall take a close look at two ques­tions:

2 Do the Promises of the New Testament Refer Only to the First Christians or to All Christians?

Jesus came to save mankind, to call all those who long for God’s glo­ry. That’s why we can state clear­ly, that the New Tes­ta­ment was not only writ­ten for the first Chris­tians, or for 144,000 cho­sen Chris­tians.¹⁵ The promis­es it con­tains refer to all Chris­tians of every time. This fact is plain­ly vis­i­ble from some pas­sages:

John, the apos­tle, writes about Jesus’ com­ing into the world:

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own peo­ple did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become chil­dren of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:10–13)

Jesus did not come only for His gen­er­a­tion, but for every­body (which even the Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es accept as fact). So, John’s state­ment that those who receive Him receive the right to become chil­dren of God, is valid for every­body who believes in Him.

How­ev­er, accord­ing to Romans 8:12–17, the chil­dren of God are led by the Spir­it of God and are heirs of God and fel­low heirs with Christ. Would­n’t the fel­low heirs of Christ be togeth­er with him in heav­en?

So then, broth­ers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live accord­ing to the flesh. For if you live accord­ing to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spir­it you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spir­it of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spir­it of slav­ery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spir­it of adop­tion as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spir­it him­self bears wit­ness with our spir­it that we are chil­dren of God, and if chil­dren, then heirs—heirs of God and fel­low heirs with Christ, pro­vid­ed we suf­fer with him in order that we may also be glo­ri­fied with him. (Romans 8:12–17)

Sim­i­lar­ly, Chris­tians are called the “seed of Abra­ham”, “heirs of the promis­es”, “chil­dren of God”, “the tem­ple of God” and the “new Israel” (Gala­tians 3:6–7,16 & 29; Eph­esians 2:11–22, 3:6–7; Romans 8:17; 1 Corinthi­ans 3,16–17, etc.). Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es claim that all these expres­sions are used only for the first Chris­tians, for the 144,000 cho­sen.¹⁶

In the case of Romans 8:17 we can see that this inter­pre­ta­tion is com­plete­ly with­out base. We can still exam­ine some fur­ther cas­es.

Paul explains in Gala­tians 3 about the iden­ti­ty of the sons (or seed) of Abra­ham.

…just as Abra­ham “believed God, and it was count­ed to him as right­eous­ness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abra­ham. And the Scrip­ture, fore­see­ing that God would jus­ti­fy the Gen­tiles by faith, preached the gospel before­hand to Abra­ham, say­ing, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abra­ham, the man of faith. (Gala­tians 3:6–9)

He says, that the sons of Abra­ham are all those who believe (vs. 6–7), because they fol­low the faith of Abra­ham. Accord­ing to v. 9 they are blessed togeth­er with Abra­ham. They are sons of God through their faith in Jesus Christ (v. 26) and heirs accord­ing to the promise (v. 29). Their faith is the assur­ance of their inher­i­tance (vs. 26–29).

…for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were bap­tized into Christ have put on Christ. There is nei­ther Jew nor Greek, there is nei­ther slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abra­ham’s off­spring, heirs accord­ing to promise. (Gala­tians 3:26–29)

So Abra­ham (an heir of the earth­ly hope accord­ing to the teach­ing of the Jeho­vah’s wit­ness­es) inher­its the same bless­ing as all those who believe in Jesus, who are chil­dren of God and heirs of the heav­en­ly hope.¹⁷

In this con­text we arrive at the point at which we shall exam­ine the sec­ond pro­posed ques­tion:

3 Are There Believers Who Do Not Go to Heaven? Did the Believers from the Old Testament Go to Heaven?

3.1 The Unity of All Believers

In order to treat this ques­tion cor­rect­ly, we should clear up that the New Tes­ta­ment speaks about the uni­ty of all believ­ers, as we can see in the pas­sage above (that all the believ­ers are blessed togeth­er with Abra­ham), or also in oth­er pas­sages:

Luke 13:25–29 shows clear­ly that Abra­ham, Isaac and Jacob, togeth­er with all the prophets and all the saved ones will be togeth­er in the king­dom of God.

He went on his way through towns and vil­lages, teach­ing and jour­ney­ing towards Jerusalem. And some­one said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the nar­row door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the mas­ter of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand out­side and to knock at the door, say­ing, ‘Lord, open to us’, then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your pres­ence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you work­ers of evil!’ In that place there will be weep­ing and gnash­ing of teeth, when you see Abra­ham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the king­dom of God but you your­selves cast out. And peo­ple will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the king­dom of God.” (Luke 13:22–29)

Jesus answers the ques­tion about the num­ber of those who are being saved. He shows how seri­ous­ly we should take the fight, not only to hear His words, but also to ful­fil them. He speaks of only two cat­e­gories of peo­ple: those who are not saved, and those who are saved—who will sit togeth­er in the king­dom of God. Those who “come from the east and west and from north and south” are men­tioned in con­trast to those in that time who reject­ed Jesus. It includes all those who will accept Jesus.

The New Tes­ta­ment believers—even in the view of Jeho­vah’s Witnesses—have heav­en­ly hope.¹⁸ Hence, accord­ing to this pas­sage, they will enjoy the same fel­low­ship with God as Abra­ham and the prophets.¹⁹

It is also expressed in the let­ter to the Hebrews, that God pre­pared the same gift, the same full­ness for those believ­ers who lived in the Old Tes­ta­ment as for those of the time of the New Tes­ta­ment (Hebrews 11:8–10,16,39–40).²⁰

The only way to con­clude that peo­ple in the Old Tes­ta­ment are deprived of their heav­en­ly hope is to inter­pret the above-men­tioned pas­sages out­side of their con­text.

If Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es state, that con­trary to these clear state­ments, the Old Tes­ta­ment believ­ers and many from among the New Tes­ta­ment believ­ers have anoth­er kind of hope—an earth­ly one—they should pro­vide clear pas­sages for this. Let’s exam­ine some of the mis­in­ter­pret­ed pas­sages used by them for this pur­pose.²¹

3.2 Are There Believers Who Do Not Go to Heaven?

The first proof in their train of thought is to show that there are believ­ers who don’t go to heav­en. They base this idea main­ly on John 3:13, by tak­ing it to mean that up until the time when Jesus spoke, no-one had gone into heav­en. Hence, the peo­ple in the Old Tes­ta­ment did not go to heav­en, but just have an earth­ly hope.

To find the right expla­na­tion of this verse it is help­ful to look at the con­text of the pas­sage.

Tru­ly, tru­ly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear wit­ness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our tes­ti­mo­ny. If I have told you earth­ly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heav­en­ly things? No one has ascend­ed into heav­en except he who descend­ed from heav­en, the Son of Man. (John 3:11–13)

It is empha­sized that nobody from among those who live on Earth has gone into heav­en (in the way only Jesus did), so no one can reveal what Jesus has revealed.²² He is the only one who has a heav­en­ly ori­gin, who came from the pres­ence of the Father from above and has the knowl­edge and author­i­ty to speak about heav­en­ly things and to invite us there. Jesus did not intend to say any­thing about the fate of the dead.

The same idea is also expressed lat­er on in chap­ter 3:

He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earth­ly way. He who comes from heav­en is above all. He bears wit­ness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his tes­ti­mo­ny. Who­ev­er receives his tes­ti­mo­ny sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spir­it with­out mea­sure. (John 3:31–34)

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es take some spe­cif­ic exam­ples of impor­tant per­sons from the Old Tes­ta­ment, claim­ing that these peo­ple are not and will not be in heav­en:²³

a) David (Acts 2:34 “For David did not ascend to heav­en.…”)

Again it is help in find­ing the right expla­na­tion of these pas­sages to exam­ine the con­text in which they were writ­ten.

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attest­ed to you by God with mighty works and won­ders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you your­selves know—this Jesus, deliv­ered up accord­ing to the def­i­nite plan and fore­knowl­edge of God, you cru­ci­fied and killed by the hands of law­less men. God raised him up, loos­ing the pangs of death, because it was not pos­si­ble for him to be held by it. For David says con­cern­ing him, “I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shak­en; there­fore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not aban­don my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see cor­rup­tion. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of glad­ness with your pres­ence.” Broth­ers, I may say to you with con­fi­dence about the patri­arch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being there­fore a prophet, and know­ing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descen­dants on his throne, he fore­saw and spoke about the res­ur­rec­tion of the Christ, that he was not aban­doned to Hades, nor did his flesh see cor­rup­tion. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are wit­ness­es. Being there­fore exalt­ed at the right hand of God, and hav­ing received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spir­it, he has poured out this that you your­selves are see­ing and hear­ing. For David did not ascend into the heav­ens, but he him­self says, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your ene­mies your foot­stool.”

Let all the house of Israel there­fore know for cer­tain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you cru­ci­fied. (Acts 2:22–36)

Peter wants to prove that Jesus’ res­ur­rec­tion was proph­e­sied and that the Old Tes­ta­ment prophe­cy can­not be ful­filled in David, since he did not rise in the same way as Jesus did. Only Jesus’ body did­n’t remain in the grave. This con­trast is aimed at high­light­ing Jesus’ res­ur­rec­tion, but it does not say any­thing about the state of David in eter­ni­ty.

b) Job (Job 14:7–15)

For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. Though its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the dry soil, at the scent of water it will flour­ish and put forth sprigs like a plant. But man dies and lies pros­trate Man expires, and where is he? As water evap­o­rates from the sea, and a riv­er becomes parched and dried up, So man lies down and does not rise. Until the heav­ens are no longer, he will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep. Oh that You would hide me in She­ol, That You would con­ceal me until Your wrath returns to You, that You would set a lim­it for me and remem­ber me! If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my strug­gle I will wait until my change comes. You will call, and I will answer You; You will long for the work of Your hands.(Job 14:7–15)

Job 14:7–15 express­es the hope­less words of a man in suf­fer­ing; words, which are lat­er dis­proved of by Job him­self (See Job 19:25–27).²⁴ He does not express any­thing about what is after death, nor does he deal with the ques­tion of Earth­ly or heav­en­ly hope at all.

c) John the Bap­tist (Matthew 11:11–12)

Tru­ly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen any­one greater than John the Bap­tist! Yet the one who is least in the king­dom of heav­en is greater than he. From the days of John the Bap­tist until now the king­dom of heav­en suf­fers vio­lence, and vio­lent men take it by force. (Matthew 11:11–12)

Jesus want­ed to show the peo­ple that the Good News he preach­es has a high­er spir­i­tu­al val­ue than all else found in the Old Tes­ta­ment. So He express­es in a pic­to­r­i­al way that although John the Bap­tist is the great­est prophet, he nev­er­the­less belongs to the Old Tes­ta­ment (being the last prophet of the Old Tes­ta­ment), there­fore any­body in the King­dom of God (those who live in the time of the preach­ing of the kingdom—the good news of Jesus—in the New Tes­ta­ment) is greater than him, since they already know the sal­va­tion of Jesus.²⁵

In a sim­i­lar way—by look­ing at the context—it is pos­si­ble to uncov­er the mis­use of the oth­er pas­sages as well.²⁶

4 Is the Promise of “Inheriting the Earth” Given to Another Category of Believers?

An often-heard argu­ment of Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es is that the Bible also speaks about the promise of “inher­it­ing the Earth”, and that this must there­fore refer to anoth­er cat­e­go­ry of believ­ers. Is this real­ly the case? Jesus spoke about this promise in the ser­mon on the Mount:

And see­ing the mul­ti­tudes, he went up into a moun­tain: and when he was set, his dis­ci­ples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, say­ing, Blessed are the poor in spir­it: for theirs is the king­dom of heav­en. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be com­fort­ed. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inher­it the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after right­eous­ness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the mer­ci­ful: for they shall obtain mer­cy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peace­mak­ers: for they shall be called the chil­dren of God. Blessed are they which are per­se­cut­ed for right­eous­ness’ sake: for theirs the king­dom of heav­en. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and per­se­cute you, and shall say all man­ner of evil against you false­ly, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceed­ing glad: for great is your reward in heav­en: for so per­se­cut­ed they the prophets which were before you. (Matthew 5:1–12)

All the bless­ings: “to inher­it the Earth”, “to receive the king­dom of heav­en”, “to be filled”, “to obtain mer­cy”, “to see God” and “to become chil­dren of God” express the deep joy and ful­fil­ment which God promis­es to those who seek Him with a pure heart. All the “con­di­tions” described for inher­it­ing these bless­ings: “to be poor in spir­it”, “to be mer­ci­ful”, “to be meek” and “to hunger and thirst after right­eous­ness” express this hon­est and deep long­ing for God. It is impos­si­ble to divide these into two cat­e­gories of peo­ple and two cat­e­gories of bless­ings.

5 Do Revelation 7 and 14 Support the Two-Class Theory?

Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es say that Rev­e­la­tion 7:1–8 and 14:1–5 speak about those who inher­it a heav­en­ly hope, and 7:9–17 about those who will live in par­adise on earth.

The pic­to­r­i­al expres­sions used in the Book of Rev­e­la­tion are often not easy to under­stand, which is why this Book is often mis­used to defend dif­fer­ent the­o­ries.

In this case there are sev­er­al con­tra­dic­tions and log­i­cal mis­takes in the argu­men­ta­tion of the Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es:

If they under­stand the tribes from Israel in a sym­bol­ic sense (i.e. that they do not rep­re­sent Jew­ish Chris­tians, but cer­tain Chris­tians cho­sen from all nations), then what is the basis for under­stand­ing the num­ber 144,000 lit­er­al­ly? 12x12=144 is a sym­bol­i­cal num­ber. Like­wise a “thou­sand” is also sym­bol­ic, pos­si­bly rep­re­sent­ing full­ness.

Both the 144,000 (in Rev­e­la­tion 14:3) and the great mul­ti­tude (in Chap­ters 7, 9 and 15—where they serve in His tem­ple!) stand in front of the throne of God (so it is arbi­trary to say that 144,000 are in heav­en and the great mul­ti­tude on the Earth!).

Those who belong to the great mul­ti­tude are dressed in white clothes, which is the promised reward of those “who will over­come” (Rev­e­la­tion 3:5) togeth­er with the cer­tain­ty of being writ­ten in the Book of Life (and so the right to enter the heav­en­ly Jerusalem!). Sim­i­lar­ly, those who over­come will be in the Tem­ple of God (Rev­e­la­tion 3:12) and will sit on Jesus’ throne (Rev­e­la­tion 3:21).

There is no hint to show that there were 2 groups of peo­ple who over­come, and that some would just be dressed in white clothes but would not receive the oth­er promis­es.

6 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

As a last pas­sage, we can exam­ine John 10:14–16 where Jesus declared:

I am the good shep­herd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have oth­er sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shep­herd.

Accord­ing to the Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es’ inter­pre­ta­tion, the “oth­er sheep” are not accept­ed in the new covenant between God and the spir­i­tu­al Israel, but they are those who inher­it an Earth­ly promise.²⁷ This inter­pre­ta­tion is in clear con­tra­dic­tion to the last state­ment in the pas­sage.

That “there will be one flock and one shep­herd” is fun­da­men­tal to the New Tes­ta­ment. In the time of the Old Tes­ta­ment and also in the time of Jesus, there was enmi­ty between the Jews and gen­tiles. Jesus came to destroy this enmi­ty, and to unite in one body all those who believe in God.²⁸ This is the mys­tery of God: that He brings all his chil­dren togeth­er, giv­ing them the same gift and unit­ing them deeply.

The Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es want to destroy this mys­tery by say­ing that “the one will be two” when the Bible says “the two will be one”.

1. Heav­en is the final ful­fil­ment of our faith. It does not belong to the mate­r­i­al, vis­i­ble world (1 Corinthi­ans 15:50, 53; 2 Corinthi­ans 4:17–18). “For now we see in a mir­ror dim­ly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know ful­ly just as I also have been ful­ly known.” (1 Corinthi­ans 13:12). It was God’s orig­i­nal plan that man lives in eter­ni­ty in per­fect rela­tion­ship with Him. There we will have the full­ness of this rela­tion­ship with Him, our Father, and with all our fel­low-believ­ers. ↩
2. Eph­esians 2:1–3. ↩
3. Colos­sians 1:21. ↩
4. Romans 8:3–4. ↩
5. Colos­sians 1:21–23; 2 Corinthi­ans 5:18–21. ↩
6. Eph­esians 4:20–24; 2 Corinthi­ans 5:17; Gala­tians 6:15. ↩
7. Romans 8:15; John 1:12–13. ↩
8. “The Gov­ern­ment That Will Bring Par­adise”, 1985, ed. By the Watch­tow­er Bible and Tract Soci­ety of New York, pp. 14–15. ↩
9. See also Rev­e­la­tion 3:12–21. ↩
10. Hebrews 3:1; 10,34; Philip­pi­ans 3:20; Colos­sians 1:5; 1 Peter 1:4; 2 Corinthi­ans 5:1–10; Eph­esians 2:6. ↩
11. “Unit­ed in Wor­ship of the Only True God”, 1983, ed. By the Watch­tow­er Bible and Tract Soci­ety of New York, pp. 111–114. ↩
12. “The Gov­ern­ment That Will Bring Par­adise”, 1985, ed. By the Watch­tow­er Bible and Tract Soci­ety of New York, pp. 14, 25. ↩
13. Luke 13:23–24; Matthew 7:13–14. ↩
14. Even if there are dif­fer­ences in respon­si­bil­i­ty among Chris­tians. There are old­er Chris­tians, who can take care and help younger Chris­tians more, but their rela­tion­ships should be as old­er and younger broth­ers and sis­ters in a fam­i­ly. Every Chris­t­ian is respon­si­ble for edi­fy­ing his fel­low Chris­tians. 1 Peter 4:5, Eph­esians 5:18–21. ↩
15. As Jehovah’s Wit­ness­es assert: “Unit­ed in Wor­ship of the Only True God”, 1983, ed. By the Watch­tow­er Bible and Tract Soci­ety of New York, p. 111, para­graph 4. ↩
16. “You can live for­ev­er in Par­adise on Earth”, ed. 1981, Watch­tow­er Soci­ety, chap­ter 14, para­graph 18, p. 126. ↩
17. See the expla­na­tion for Romans 8:17 above. ↩
18. “You can live for­ev­er in Par­adise on Earth”, ed. 1981, Watch­tow­er Soci­ety, chap­ter 14, para­graph 3, p. 120. ↩
19. “To recline at the table” means, in the Jew­ish under­stand­ing, to be togeth­er, to have fel­low­ship. See Luke 14:15–24 and Matthew 8:11–12, where the same idea is empha­sized: the Jews, who regard­ed them­selves to be “the sons of the king­dom” because they were the cho­sen nation, will be cast out into the dark­ness, and oth­ers will be cho­sen (Chris­tians) who will sit togeth­er in the King­dom of God with those from the Old Tes­ta­ment who were obe­di­ent. ↩
20. As we also saw pre­vi­ous­ly in Gala­tians 3 con­cern­ing Abra­ham: he has the same inher­i­tance and is blessed togeth­er with all those who believe. ↩
21. We should men­tion that they them­selves did not always have this teach­ing. The idea of the sep­a­ra­tion of believ­ers into two class­es was cleared up only in 1935, when they “real­ized”, that Ezekiel 9:1–11, John 10:16, Matthew 25:31–46, Rev­e­la­tion 7:9–17, Acts 2:29 & 34, Job 14:13–15, Matthew 11:11 and John 3:13 speak about the earth­ly hope, and that the num­ber of the 144,000 cho­sen ones was com­plet­ed (“Unit­ed in Wor­ship of the Only True God”, 1983, ed. By the Watch­tow­er Bible and Tract Soci­ety of New York, chap­ter 13, para­graph 2; pp. 103–104). ↩
22. See also John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begot­ten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” No man has seen the Father; no man has real­ly known Him: only Jesus was able to reveal Him. There­fore His words must have author­i­ty in front of those who wish to get to know God. ↩
23. “You can live for­ev­er in Par­adise on Earth”, ed. 1981, Watch­tow­er Soci­ety, chap­ter 14, para­graph 4, p. 120. ↩
24. In Job 14:7–15 Job speaks in such a way, as though there were no res­ur­rec­tion at all, no hope at all (not even an earth­ly hope); but lat­er it is vis­i­ble that he had the recog­ni­tion that the per­ish­ing of his earth­ly body is not the end of his exis­tence. ↩
25. We can­not always equal­ize the expres­sion “king­dom of God” or “king­dom of heav­en” with heav­en, or with the church, since Jesus told many para­bles using these expres­sions in order to show just some aspects of God’s work, To enter the king­dom of heav­en often meant to accept the words of Jesus, to turn to God, or gen­er­al­ly to live with God, not only after death but start­ing now. ↩
26. Ezekiel 9:1–11 speaks about the pun­ish­ment of the Jews in the time of the Baby­lon­ian exile. Because of their idol­a­try and sin­ful life they were defeat­ed by the Baby­lo­ni­ans, their tem­ple was destroyed, many of them were killed and those that remained were brought into exile. Nev­er­the­less, God promised that not all will be destroyed, but there will remain a rem­nant that are obe­di­ent and will escape. This pas­sage has noth­ing to do with the ques­tion of earth­ly or heav­en­ly hope of dif­fer­ent peo­ple. John 10:16 and Rev­e­la­tion 7 are explained else­where in this trea­tise. ↩
27. “Unit­ed in Wor­ship of the Only True God”, 1983, ed. By the Watch­tow­er Bible and Tract Soci­ety of New York, p. 116, para­graph 14. ↩
28. Eph­esians 2:15 (11–22); 3:4–7; Hebrews 11; John 10:16; Gala­tians 3:9; Romans 4:16. ↩