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Chapter 6: Where Are The Dead

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Remember the gentleman that said “there’s no way that Jesus can be God and got upset about it?”  Well, to my surprise, he was back as the local elder wasn’t here.  He had a wedding last week so for whatever reason, this week he was unable to attend this week.

As a side note prior to a recap of this week, I’ve notice that the custodian’s husband, whenever he is there with someone different, he is basically “forced” to be the one to take the lead.  Why?  I don’t know.  So there wasn’t much in terms of chit chat but we will jump in.  Prior to doing so, here is a common point about not just Jehovah’s Witnesses but those who have some doctrinal overlap like the Seventh Day Adventists.  The notion of soul sleep.  Here’s the official Seventh Day Adventist page that contains the following quote, “The Bible tells us that "the dead know nothing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5) and that the very day that they die, their "thoughts perish" (Psalm 146:4, KJV).”

This is based upon their belief that the body is made up solely of what is contained within the body.  I was able to get a solid confirmation from them about this as well.  Without delving too much into this, here’s a verse that shows the body is three parts: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.  And may the spirit and soul and body of you brothers, sound in every respect, be preserved blameless at the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ,” I Thessalonians 5:23 (New World Translation).  Here’s where there is a difference between the Jehovah’s Witnesses and mainstream Christianity.  With that in mind, let’s get started.

The opening paragraphs of this chapter of “What Does The Bible Really Teach” as always try to lay the foundation for what will happen throughout the chapter.  Paragraph three is where the organization tries to reinforce the “us verses them” mentality.  It sums up everything by “world’s religions” on pages 57 and 58. 

The first major heading “What Really Happens At Death” is summed up (according to what the organization believes) in Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10.  However, what these folks are not encouraged to do is look at this verse (or many others) in the context that was originally intended.  They don’t seem to realize that Ecclesiastes is a book that deals with contrast.  Things got interesting starting on page 59, “What Jesus Said About Death.” 

The subject addressed is Lazarus and the cited scripture is John 11:11-14.  Lazarus is seen as sleeping.  This long paragraph has a number of contradictions to the New World Translation.  So I couldn’t really wait any longer and said (innocently enough) “I believe there’s another set of verses that deal with him.”  We turned to Luke 16:19-31.  I’d encourage you to read through this passage since Jesus spoke both times and He obviously wouldn’t contradict himself.  Here’s some of the key verses (all verses are from the New World Translation). 

16:22-Now in the course of time, the beggar died and was carried off by the angels to Abraham’s side.  “Also, the rich man died and was buried.

16:23-And in the Grave he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and he saw Abraham from afar and Lazʹa·rus by his side.

16:25-But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you had your fill of good things in your lifetime, but Lazʹa·rus for his part received bad things. Now, however, he is being comforted here, but you are in anguish.

So the first response I got from the custodian’s husband was, “A guy I work with bought this up just this week.” (Interesting how the Holy Spirit works, one passage, twice in one week).  He continued by saying, “I talked to a sister in the hall and she pointed me to this scripture-Matthew 13:34.  We turned there and it says, “All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds by illustrations. Indeed, without an illustration he would not speak to them,” and that’s how he said the story of Lazarus and the rich man is to be understood, as a parable.  When people die, he said they don’t all get to go to heaven either.   

I pushed back some at this point by starting at verse 33 which says it’s about the “kingdom of heaven.”  I continued further by asking them to imagine themselves present with Jesus.  Lazarus was a real person and for whatever reason, the rich man who remained nameless existed as well.  Given that in that day, people who are rich wouldn’t be hard to figure out, they would have certainly known who he actually was.  I further carried this by asking them to make the puzzle pieces fit.  The paragraph says, “notice that Jesus compared death to sleep.  Lazarus was neither in heaven nor in a burning hell.  He was not meeting angels or ancestors, What Does the Bible Really Teach? p. 59.  Here’s the points I was able to bring up based upon the key verses I listed earlier:

  1. Lazarus and the Rich man were wide awake. 
  2. One was being tormented, the other being comforted.
  3. They were talking which shows that they weren’t sleeping. 
  4. Lazarus is with Abraham.  Abraham was an ancestor. 

To answer directly regarding the “all people go to heaven” I have a publisher’s note at the bottom of the page that summarized says, “Hades was the place for disembodied spirits at death prior to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” 

I was able to go on and say, “not to be speaking for your coworker but I believe he has the following verses in mind”:

II Corinthians 5:8-But we are of good courage and would prefer to be absent from the body and to make our home with the Lord.

Philippians 1:21-24-For in my case, to live is Christ+ and to die is gain.  Now if I am to live on in the flesh, this is a fruitage of my work; yet what I would choose, I do not make known.  I am torn between these two things, for I do desire the releasing and the being with Christ, which is, to be sure, far better.  However, it is more necessary for me to remain in the flesh for your sakes.

I was able to link everything due to the Holy Spirit working.  The response that I got, “we have to do more research on this one.”  Another thing said was, “to be honest, I don’t know how to answer this one.”  He said this in part as he admitted he doesn’t know everything.  I chimed in, if any of us did, we’d be God.  To this we all started chuckling some.  However, I let this go as when something like that is said, it means one thing, they cannot rectify the Watchtower and the Bible.   This is fine as a seed has now been planted for them. 

At this point though, they talked kind of to themselves saying there’s a Watchtower article that tells them more about Lazarus and the Rich Man.  We hopped onto the organizations official website.  We navigated to this passage in Luke 16. 

The “plus signs” are for references.  The “asterisks” are for the literal rendering.  Verses 22 and 23 both have this contained within the asterisks, “Lit., ‘to the bosom of Abraham.’” You can view this in the JW Library app or the online New World Translation.  The other guy said at this point, there are Watchtower resources that should be available to read that give further insight.  This bought up yet another sidebar regarding that.  One thing was the change in smoking.  It was permissible until 1973.  Also in the 1970s, they went from having one elder per congregation to multiple ones.  The rationale, “the organization wanted to do things in line with the bible.”  I didn’t respond openly but why would it take nearly 100 years (first Watchtower was printed in 1879) for the organization to reach this conclusion? 

I asked why is selected material available only from 2000 to present day.  I was told that in short, “the light gets brighter.  As we learn new truth, we have to adjust.”  They had said that the WT Library CD-ROM goes back much further. 

What came to mind is an article that talks about how the organization is cutting back EVERYWHERE.  Here’s the article for your reading leisure that lists all of the newly discontinued reading publications.   I asked why is that available to just you and not everyone.  Response, “we don’t want people to get confused.”  It’s primarily a tool for us to use in research.  I didn’t give much by way of response but what they don’t realize is that a simple Google search will bring it up.  He also said there’s material available from the 1930s on it.  This is a falsehood as I’ve seen the contents of this CD and it doesn’t completely goes back to the 1950s.  There are publications such as Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God, released in 1966 that started the fervor for what was supposed to happen in 1975 that are not included.    

So as we progressed through the chapter, they talked about the resurrection based on page 63 paragraph 13.  They said that there will be a resurrection of the “righteous and “unrighteous.”  This will allow those who are unrighteous to have another chance.  They will have a chance due to not being told about Jehovah or if they were influenced into a bad life from the time of their youth.  I let them run with this a bit but I was reminded of Romans 1:20 when he said this.  It says (New World Translation), “For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.” 


That verse says an awful lot.  Every sunrise, sunset, animal, waterfall, picture of space speaks to what has been created.  Again I let it go as the other guy was on good terms and I wanted to keep it that way. 

With that, we worked at finishing up the rest of the chapter.  Again, full of errors and contradictory statements but I didn’t feel compelled to press them.  Please pray as I said I’d text the custodian’s husband the verses that deal with life after death and that he would take it to heart.  Also, if you’d pray that the passage dealing with Lazarus would be studied upon in contrast with what the organization has said.

Who Is Jesus Part II

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Today was a very interesting one and we got to one of the core Watchtower doctrines.  I open the door and the main conductor (who is one of the local hall elders) says, “you look like you’ve been losing weight.”  I’m like, “I don’t think I am but it’s possible.”  Before we got to that, the main conductor was back and we caught up.  They wanted to know how my week went at work.  So I filled them in.  In short, I’m doing work and someone else is taking the credit for it.  Hence he doesn’t have to do anything.  It happens but whatever.  We chatted about situations like that in the workplace.  The main conductor is having an inspection at work.  He said “I’ve been quite busy and I know what it’s like.”

So we start digging in with a slight recap from last week.  The other Witness (the janitor’s husband) says, “I was looking for that verse that has the word “other” inserted.  I showed him where it was (Colossians 1:16, 17) and we had a bit of a conversation with this.  He said there was a verse that we talked about where it was Jehovah who worked as creator (Isaiah 44:24 where Jehovah acts alone).  The main conductor wasn’t very pleased and we talked about the term “firstborn.”  I read the definition from the “Annotated Strong’s Dictionary” in the back of my New American Standard.  The conductor immediately rejected the notion regarding Jesus being anything but first created.  I re-explained everything such as the children of Israel naming order from the Old Testament/Greek Scriptures to where they are listed in Revelation.  We ended up in the Revelation 7 which is where Judah is listed as the first tribe.  This led into a brief discussion of the 144,000.  I flat out asked after they explained, “so half of the verse is figurative (the tribal names) and the other half is literal (the 12,000 per tribe).  The response I received was along the lines of, “since Jehovah is done with Israel, it is a spiritual group.”  In my mind, I was thinking, “if God is truly done, why has Israel come back together as a state in 1948?  I spoke to the 144,000 as best I could and bought in the term “other sheep” which they are part of.  I spoke how the Mormons consider the “other sheep” to be the Native Americans.  They started laughing at that notion.  We were actually able to bring in Nelson Barbour into the conversation a little as well since he and Charles Take Russell associated with one another. 

So we stated at this point digging into the text.  We picked up on page 42, paragraph 15.  Nothing super notable happened as we went through.  However, on page 46, the verse referenced at the top of the page is I Peter 2:21-23 (New World Translation), In fact, to this course you were called, because even Christ suffered for you,+ leaving a model for you to follow his steps closely. 22  He committed no sin, nor was deception found in his mouth. 23  When he was being insulted, he did not insult in return. When he was suffering, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the One who judges righteously. 

As an elder, he is well aware that he has access to the “secretive” elder’s manual titled, Shepherd the Flock of God.  There are the monthly Body of Elder’s Manuals and Letters.  There’s the child abuse database that the Watchtower will not acknowledge.  Here’s one story regarding it here at PBS.

The one website that deals with this issues is Silent Lambs. 

Here’s another resource that you may find handy for insight.

Back to our subject matter.  The last two paragraphs were where we spend 45 minutes in deep discussion.

I asked the question, “What does the organization believe about the resurrection of Jesus?”  The elder said, “We believe what the bible teaches.”  So I ask, “what happened to Jesus’ body?”  The answer I got was, “Jehovah dissolved it into nothing.”  That was my time to capitalize on this.  So I said, let’s read I Peter 3:18.  It’s rendered in the New World Translation this way, For Christ died once for all time for sins, a righteous person for unrighteous ones, in order to lead you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. 

Notice the words, “made alive in the spirit.”  The Jehovah’s Witness essentially sees, “Jesus was made into a spirit.”  This is where things got interesting.  The main conductor had to use the bathroom so I waited for him to get back and I said, “this isn’t completely fitting with what I see in the bible, do you mind taking a look at some verses?”  “Of course not” is the response I get.  So here we go, I read the following verses :

Matthew 27:60-66

John 2:18-21

Luke 24:37-43

From there, I explained things.  Let’s address each one:

I Peter 3:18-I explained that being made alive in the spirit is completely different from being made into a spirit. 

Matthew 27:60-66-The question I asked is this, “if Jesus was to be raised as a spirit, what really was the point of the rock in front of the tomb since Jehovah was ‘going to dissolve the body (the guards would have prevented the body from being taken)?’” 

John 2:18-21-The simple question is this, “How could Jesus raise up a physical body if it was going to be dissolved and he be raised as a spirit?”  This is the set of verses that became a HUGE sticking point.

Luke 24:37-43-“Why is Jesus openly declaring that he is NOT a spirit and demonstrates this by being handled and eating food?”

I posed all of this as an “individual who’s on the outside looking in.”  I wanted a good explanation. 

This is where the battle began.  On one hand, as I’m asking these questions, the other JW admitted, “I see why you’re saying there’s a physical body for Jesus at the resurrection (that was a big open admission but the elder quickly tried to take control).

The notion of “believing what the bible teaches” was paid lip service.  The verses above are not only what the organization refuses to believe but it’s in stark contrast with organizational teaching.  That’s the battle-is the bible correct which contradicts the organization or the organization correct which contradicts the bible?

So the elder “strikes back.”  The most devastating set of verses was Luke to him where Jesus is declaring, “I’m not a spirit.”  He says, well you know, the bible says, “flesh and blood CANNOT inherit the kingdom of heaven.”  I wholeheartedly agreed with him (I Corinthians 15:50).  He bought in Hebrews 9:12, 13 as well.  I said was able to directly address using I Peter 3:18 (made alive in the spirit) and Luke 24:37-43.  I responded that Jesus prior to his death had a body just like ours where blood is “what made it go.”  However, his resurrection body was one that wasn’t made alive by blood, but it was “made alive by the spirit.”  I again agreed with the verse in Hebrews.  However, in the Watchtower mindset, one becomes a “spirit creature” when resurrected. 

He stated that angels can materialize and take different forms.  This again I agreed with.  However, if Jesus would have done that he’d have violated I Peter since it would be considered “deceit” in the aspect that he would have “manufactured" the wounds in his body.  The janitor’s husband bought up the “sons of God and daughters of men” from Genesis.  I agreed that could have been the case.  The conductor further tried to bring in another set of scriptures.  He brought up the account on the Road to Emmaus covered in Luke 24:13-22.  He asked me for a quick synopsis of this passage.  So I gave it and knowing the little bit about Watchtower theology, I knew where he was going to go.  He focused on verse 16 which says (NWT), but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 

So I used a simple word picture as an illustration.  I said, (pointing to the elder) you are Jesus in this instance.  John (not the janitor’s husband’s real name) and myself are on the road to Emmaus.  Jesus (elder) didn’t change his form.  The eyes of myself and John were prevented. We were personally prevented, you (Jesus) didn’t change at all nor does the scriptures say so.  This didn’t go over well since the organization teaches Jesus materialized in different forms.  So he goes for soul sleep….

I’m asked to look at Ecclesiastes 9:5.  I’m like isn’t this about soul sleep?  They said, yes it is.  Hence Jesus could not have raised himself from the grave.  I thought about connecting this to Romans 10:9 and I Peter 1:21 where “God raised Jesus” from the dead and connecting this back to John 2:18-21.  However, I didn’t.  The seed was already planted and I was allowing them to do damage control at this point.  I briefly bought in Revelation 6:9-11 where individuals who were slain are “crying out and speaking”  This means one is conscious after death.  However, I allowed them to give an explanation and again asked, “what’s symbolic and what’s literal?  So I said, we can address soul sleep another day.  Both sides agreed to finish for the day. 

Normally they want to chit chat but today was not the day.  Please pray for these fellas as in the case of one (janitor’s husband) he is receptive in some ways to what I say and he’s making the attempt to “be a Barean” and search the scriptures with what I’m saying.  The elder is a bit of a different matter.  He listens to what I have to say yet I get the Watchtower “scripted answer.”  Also, I was requested to find information on what the Jews thought in relation to the afterlife, is it a conscious existence or an unconscious one?  Please remember to pray for these folks.  

Who Is Jesus Part I

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The preface to the entire conversation was this by the custodian’s husband, “this is not an easy chapter.”  I’m like, “I know, but we will get through it without any arguing, yelling, hurt feelings.”  We laughed and got started.

The regular conductor wasn’t present.  He had a replacement who’s been here in the past.  The custodian’s husband though was here. 

The second paragraph is one that has a good statement.  “Yet, many are confused about who Jesus really was.”  The first passage to bring out (with Google’s help) was Matthew 16:13-16. Further on it says, “Jesus is God.” I believe I was trying to get baited into a discussion if Jesus is God.  I wasn’t biting and elected to move on.  Page 38 there is a caption that says the following, “at his baptism, Jesus the Messiah or Christ.”  I asked about this in relation to Luke 2:11.  The question was this Luke correct in saying Jesus was Christ or the publication where he had to wait until he was baptized?  So he asked me, “what is the purpose of baptism?”  Me, “it’s a public declaration.”  Him, “So he had to be approved publicly.”  Me, “if that’s what you think yes I can concur with you slightly.  However, when we look at the prophetic verses that foretold his arrival (Isaiah 9:6), prophecy was fulfilled, so yes he was the Christ at birth.” He concurred a little bit and I said let’s move on. 

The next major point that we dwelled upon was Colossians 1:15. 

They believe “firstborn” is to be taken literally.  So I wanted them to look at verse 18 as well since it’s the exact some word in English.  I asked (custodian’s husband saw where I was going), don’t we have a contradiction since there were people raised prior to Jesus in the Bible?  Naming off examples such as, Lazarus, Jarius’ daughter, Elisha and others helped to illuminate this.  Their response, “well they died, Jesus didn’t.”  So I went into talking about how firstborn can be a position of prominence.  Esau was the firstborn, yet he “sold” it to Jacob.  When we look at the tribes of Israel, compare Revelation 7:5-8 against what’s listed in Numbers 1 starting at verse five.  You will see names are out of order. 

My bible has a Hebrew and Greek dictionary present.  I went over in between them and read it out for them word for word (small print it has).  I got agreement (surface not sure if it was meant) from the custodian’s husband that he can see how it would be considered preeminence. 

From there, we looked at the inclusion of the word “other” in the New World Translation.  I wanted to look at it via the JW Library App.  That word is not included in the Greek.  I have a copy of the 1969 Kingdom Interlinear Translation (affectionally called the Purple Eater) and showed them from there as well.  I highlighted the newest New World Translation doesn’t even bracket the word.  This will lead the reader to believe that this was included in the original Greek.  I was able to have them think hypothetically without that word.  That would then mean that Jesus wasn’t created.  The custodian’s husband could see how that conclusion was drawn.  The other guy-not so much.  So then they said, that Jehovah created everything.  I had a verse in mind.  Isaiah 44:24 says “Jehovah acted alone.”  They tried to rationalize by saying Jehovah acted alone through Jesus to create all other things.  I said, let’s just look at the scripture and take it at face value.  We don’t have agreement.  Isaiah is saying it was Jehovah, Colossians is saying it’s Jesus.  I was now accused of semantics and told that I’m the one cherrypicking the Scriptures.  So he said, we’d have to look at all verses that deal with creation (I’m not sure that’s going to happen but I’m more than willing to do so). 

This lead to the next major point.  The organization from the days of Russell has relied upon John 14:28 as a bedrock principal for Jesus to not be considered God.  This is an example of “reading something that isn’t there” and focusing in on one specific time.  I asked in reference to cross references if they use them. New guy, “Yes” all the time.  So I said, “let’s take a look at where it crosses to.”  So we go off to Philippians 2:5-11.  So here’s some of the things I was able to emphasize.

Verse six-did not have to regard being legal with father has a problem because he already was equal. This is interesting considering Jesus in the mind of somebody who belongs to the watchtower, is a mere angel. This is also stark contrast to Isaiah chapter 14 where a created being had a quality in the heart and he was cast down.

Verse seven says he emptied himself.  Short he lord himself down to the level of humanity. Verse eight obviously he was obedient and I said death on a cross.  However airport and Jesus died

Verse nine-as a result of his obedience he had a name given above every name.  Similar to Colossians 1:15,  the New World Translation injects the word “other” when has no actual basis to be there. 

Verse 10 has every me bowing to a creative being short in heaven which is where the Father resides.

I'm explaining all this the new guy in short is sitting there with a very contemplative look on his face. He says, “it doesn’t make sense to me at all.” I believe he was never exposed to this information before. The custodian’s husband willingly listened and when I bring up examples, he actually explains it back to me so that's an awesome small victory).  The new guy after a few moments carwash out. He said there is no way Jesus is Almighty. There is no way it is impossible Jesus is God. That is an impossibility that the Bible does not even teach.  Given his reaction that there is some sort of an internal struggle going on at that time. What he didn't have come to mine is Hebrews 1:3. That says Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power if one uphold all things does it then mean he could be even considered as being almighty? 

With that we were pretty much done for the session.  I asked some questions about the “life force” as it’s a term I’ve not been exposed to outside of the Watchtower.  I tired to get them to explain this.  In essence, Michael became Jesus, became Michael.  I asked for an explanation as to how and they said, “it was a miracle.”  Interestingly, creative works were done with mere words.  However, they didn’t want to really explain and started asking questions.  I said it honestly doesn’t make sense.  From here, we talked a few minutes about just how the organization is set up.  Direct quote, “primary religious instruction comes from the Watchtower magazine.”  So we ended the session there.  Please pray that something would prick their hearts.