Easy Question for Jehovah's Witnesses - Page 3

[KestrelDream]

JWs are Christian. Under their theology their is no salvation without Christ

Wait a minute. I'm not JW. Am I saved?

[Freud]

Originally Posted by jackie75

They don't accept the Bible Alone. They accept their version, the NWT & you have to study their material with the Bible, & LDS think all churches are corrupt, along with the Bible, that's why they have the book of mormon, doctrine & covenants, etc.

No groups of Christians that I *personally* know of uses THE BIBLE, as it was written in mostly Greek and Hebrew and maybe Aramaic. A lot is lost in translation. There are A LOT of different versions of the Bible. Who is to say one version is the correct version?

[KestrelDream]

Originally Posted by Freud

No groups of Christians that I *personally* know of uses THE BIBLE, as it was written in mostly Greek and Hebrew and maybe Aramaic. A lot is lost in translation. There are A LOT of different versions of the Bible. Who is to say one version is the correct version?

Oh man. Not this argument.

That is something you have to search for yourself. We have manuscript evidence that surpasses even Homer's iliad. We can compare what we have now, to what was written after Christ died.

The Bible is reliable. The manuscript evidence is astounding.

Versions of the Bible? (I don't mean the New world transaltion)They all say the same thing, maybe in different wording....but the meaning is the same. NIV? NLT? KJV? NKJV? On & on......

We can have confidence that the word we have now is the same as centuries ago. Just do some digging.

If you were to ask someone to copy an essay, there may be mistakes. If 10 people copied that essay, they would all make mistakes. Not all the same mistakes though. You can look at the original essay & see what mistakes were made.

We have a lot of ancient writings in our hands to compare.

There are no major errors.

Just like the Bible says, His word endureth forever. Also see 1 Peter 1:23-25.

We don't check our brains out the minute we get into the church. Myself, I really needed to know if the Bible was it claimed to be. If it failed scrutiny, & was doubted....I would of chucked Christianity a while ago. I need facts. The fact is, the Bible we have is the same we had centuries ago. Look it up. Digging like this has turned atheists into born-again Christians!

[AlmostAPpropriate]

Originally Posted by jackie75

Wait a minute. I'm not JW. Am I saved?

are you being sarcastic? My point was that if your belief system requires Christs birth, death and resurrection for salvation then you fall under the heading of Christian.

[KestrelDream]

Originally Posted by AlmostAPpropriate

are you being sarcastic? My point was that if your belief system requires Christs birth, death and resurrection for salvation then you fall under the heading of Christian.

No, I'm not being sacarstic at all.

According to the JW's, am I saved? Although I'm not part of their organization....am I saved? That's all I'm asking.

[AlmostAPpropriate]

I think you already covered that. They are an exclusionary religion. you are either in or out.

But we are defining Christian as adjective. who can be called Christian. So, if your religion requires you to believe Christ birth, resurrection, death to be saved (regardless of who they exclude) the adjective applies.

[KestrelDream]

People are saved everyday without knowing all the doctrines of Jesus.

They trust Him, repent, believe in Him, & receive him. The rest of it comes in time. God leads them to His truth.

You don't have to know squat. You come as you are.

You give your life to Christ only....yes, that's Christian.


If you give your life to other people's beliefs in Christ, well.....that's not trusting Christ, is it? That's trusting some other group to save you.

Christ first. Forget the groups, churches, religion, denominations. That's all I'm saying.

[athansor]

Originally Posted by jackie75

Oh man. Not this argument.

That is something you have to search for yourself. We have manuscript evidence that surpasses even Homer's iliad. We can compare what we have now, to what was written after Christ died.

The Bible is reliable. The manuscript evidence is astounding.

Versions of the Bible? (I don't mean the New world transaltion)They all say the same thing, maybe in different wording....but the meaning is the same. NIV? NLT? KJV? NKJV? On & on......

We can have confidence that the word we have now is the same as centuries ago. Just do some digging.

If you were to ask someone to copy an essay, there may be mistakes. If 10 people copied that essay, they would all make mistakes. Not all the same mistakes though. You can look at the original essay & see what mistakes were made.

We have a lot of ancient writings in our hands to compare.

There are no major errors.

Just like the Bible says, His word endureth forever. Also see 1 Peter 1:23-25.

We don't check our brains out the minute we get into the church. Myself, I really needed to know if the Bible was it claimed to be. If it failed scrutiny, & was doubted....I would of chucked Christianity a while ago. I need facts. The fact is, the Bible we have is the same we had centuries ago. Look it up. Digging like this has turned atheists into born-again Christians!

What about the Apocrypha? Was that an error?

[Merilin]

Interesting how Christians think JW are not Christians and Non-Christians do not seem to mind calling JW as Christians...

Originally Posted by athansor

What about the Apocrypha? Was that an error?

That's what I was thinking. There are soo many different versions of the bibel, not only regarding translations, but also, what is included and what not. There is just nothing like "THE bibel".

Originally Posted by jackie75

According to the JW's, am I saved? Although I'm not part of their organization....am I saved? That's all I'm asking.

What do you mean by saved? JW believe that only people with their believe will spent their afterlife close to God, I believe the number was 144000 man. Not sure what they do about the other followers... not sure how other Christians interpret this part of the scripture either. Just something a JW mentioned to me once.

[RomanGoddess]

Originally Posted by Pyrodjm

Yes, we believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the son of God. We believe in his immaculate conception, sacrificial death and resurrection. We do consider ourselves to be Christians, followers of Christ.

er, I think you mean virgin birth. Immaculate conception refers to the idea that MARY had no original sin. I have never heard JWs stating such a belief.

To the OP, JWs consider themselves Christian but protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian would not consider JWs Christian, citing the following differences:

- JWs do not believe in the trinity of father, son and holy spirit as one God. They do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ or of the Holy Spirit.
- JWs do not believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, only that some kind of other new form of Christ appeared - not his physical flesh.
- JWs do not believe that salvation is through faith and grace alone.

Those are the biggies. There are other differences that are not so important. The failure to accept the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit is hugely problematic for Roman Catholics, protestants and Orthodox Christians, as they consider it a fundamental of their own faith.

[Valkyrie9]

Originally Posted by Merilin

What do you mean by saved? JW believe that only people with their believe will spent their afterlife close to God, I believe the number was 144000 man. Not sure what they do about the other followers... not sure how other Christians interpret this part of the scripture either. Just something a JW mentioned to me once.

It's that the 144,000 will rule at the right hand of Christ in heaven after Armageddon. The rest of the true believers (saved, I guess) will live forever on Earth, which will be restored to a paradise after Armageddon. This period will last 1000 years.

At Armageddon, Satan will be captured/bound and thrown into an abyss (was it a great pit? I can't remember), and essentially be in sensory deprivation for those 1000 years. At the end of that period, he will be unbound and will try to wreak havoc and turn away as many as he can. Those who have spent the last thousand years livin' fat and happy but turn away will be destroyed forever, along with Satan.

Wow. I haven't really even thought of all that stuff in a long time. If someone were to try to convince me of that now, I would be deeply skeptical.

[KestrelDream]

What about the Apocrypha? Was that an error?

The Apocrypha (meaning hidden) wasn't canonized by the Catholic Church until the council of Trent (the mid 1500's), after the reformation began.

Not all books of the Apocrypha are included in the Catholic Bible though.

The apocrypha was found to be not consistent with the rest of the old & New testament, so it is not included in non-catholic Bibles. Also worth mentioning is that these books are not mentioned or quoted in the Old testament or New testament.

Catholics believe it is part of the word of God. In general, Christians don't believe it is His word. Interesting reading about the history between the Old & New Testamnet, but not in harmony,theologically speaking, with all of the other books of the Bible.

I could say a lot more about it, but I don't feel like writing an essay right now on the canonization of scripture, lol.

[kapatasana]

Originally Posted by jackie75

Catholics believe it is part of the word of God. In general, Christians don't believe it is His word.

Not to nitpick, or derail the thread, but Catholics are Christians (My husbands family is protestant and my family is Catholic, and in the beginning I had to remind him about this a lot, because it really hurt my parents feelings [though he didn't mean it to imply Catholic aren't Christian, as I'm sure you didn't either, it's just something I'm sensitive too). Though otherwise what you said is true that most non-Catholic Christians to not regard the Apocrypha as Catholics do, that's why it isn't included in most protestant bibles.

[jennica]

Originally Posted by RomanGoddess

er, I think you mean virgin birth. Immaculate conception refers to the idea that MARY had no original sin. I have never heard JWs stating such a belief.

Yeah, I don't think that they believe that. Also, they believe Mary was a virgin when impregnated with Jesus, but not afterward since the bible talks about Jesus having brothers and sisters.

Originally Posted by RomanGoddess

To the OP, JWs consider themselves Christian but protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian would not consider JWs Christian, citing the following differences:

- JWs do not believe in the trinity of father, son and holy spirit as one God. They do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ or of the Holy Spirit.
- JWs do not believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, only that some kind of other new form of Christ appeared - not his physical flesh.
- JWs do not believe that salvation is through faith and grace alone.

Those are the biggies. There are other differences that are not so important. The failure to accept the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit is hugely problematic for Roman Catholics, protestants and Orthodox Christians, as they consider it a fundamental of their own faith.

I see what you are saying, but really, this is only an argument between Christians. Pretty much if you are not a Christian, you think anyone who believes in Jesus and the bible is a Christian.

[Pyrodjm]

Originally Posted by RomanGoddess

er, I think you mean virgin birth. Immaculate conception refers to the idea that MARY had no original sin.

Sorry, I was typing too fast. I meant to say we DO NOT believe in immaculate conception, but that we do believe Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. Mary was not free from sin. She was a human descendant of Adam and Eve and therefore inherited sin. She also bore other children, so did not remain a virgin. Well, this is what we believe anyway...Carry on.

[angelpie545]

This has been a lively discussion. So, I'd like to ask another question, if I could. We've established what Jehovah's Witnesses believe concerning the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. A couple of posts back, however, someone mentioned that Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in salvation by faith/grace alone. So, according to them, how *is* one saved? I know that for Catholics, they believe that salvation occurs through faith and works, and most protestants and evangelicals believe that salvation occurs when on receives Jesus, or calls upon His name (some refer to being "born again"-I share this belief). So for Jehovah's witnesses, is there a prayer you must pray to be "saved"? Or, does simply joining their organization guarantee salvation? Also, what happens once someone is disfellowshipped? Have they lost their salvation? If so, that pretty much answers my question about whether or not Jehovah's Witnesses believe in eternal salvation. No snark involved, I'm honestly curious and would like to learn.

[RomanGoddess]

Originally Posted by angelpie545

I know that for Catholics, they believe that salvation occurs through faith and works

Official Roman Catholic doctrine is that salvation is through grace alone, not works. Protestants tend to say faith rather than purely grace. In 1999, the Roman Catholic church and Lutheran church agreed on the following common declaration:

Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.

[angelpie545]

Originally Posted by RomanGoddess

Official Roman Catholic doctrine is that salvation is through grace alone, not works. Protestants tend to say faith rather than purely grace. In 1999, the Roman Catholic church and Lutheran church agreed on the following common declaration:

Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.

That's good to know that official Catholic doctrine says that. I wasn't aware. There was once a Catholic I talked to who was absolutely convinced that you were not saved by grace alone, but rather grace and works, and even went as far as to quote some verses that she said supported her belief. Hence the my confusion.

[AlmostAPpropriate]

Grace was completely foreign to me when I left the JW org. Yes, we were taught about grace but more like "by grace you have the chance to be saved" not " you are saved ".

Im trying to remember official doctrine and coming up hazy. I do know that when you commit a sin you lose your salvation until you repent in prayer. For infractions that are bigger or that have garnered public attention thus sullying Jehovah's name you have to confess to your elders and they will meet out the appropriate consequence.

So like, if all your friends know you are JW and they see you get drunk at a party you have to fess up. Until then you are toast.

[KestrelDream]

So like, if all your friends know you are JW and they see you get drunk at a party you have to fess up. Until then you are toast.

:

Praise the Lord I only have to fess up with God. He alone does the convicting in my life, & He so reminds me of a totally AP Daddy! I know when I'm messing up, because the Holy Spirit is in me, & convicts me. I keep going in my walk, wanting to do His will because of this fact. If I weren't saved, I would have nothing convicting me...& it scares me to think of such a possibility. I wouldn't have a strong desire to talk to you guys about this whole topic! Yet, God lit a fire in me a while ago when it comes to different Christian "religions", & brought some interesting experiences in my life.

I'm just so glad I don't have to please man....or some church or organization. Pleasing my Jesus is what I want to do!!