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Salvation by Works
As we will emphasize throughout this
article, Jehovah’s Witnesses stress works salvation,
something the Bible condemns in the clearest terms (Gal.
chs. 2-3; Eph. 2:8-9). This emphasis on salvation by
works/character is frankly admitted in Watchtower
publications. Below, we provide sufficient examples in
documentation.
In Man’s Salvation Out of World
Distress at Hand! a chapter is titled "Requirements
for Entering Spiritual Paradise." Here, it is asserted:
Ways and
thoughts approved by the God of righteousness are a
requirement for gaining entrance to the spiritual
paradise of His worshipers and servants.1
For persons
who listen to and obey God’s commandments it can mean
an eternal future.2
The "doctrinal" text Make Sure of All
Things contains the following subheadings quoted
verbatim:
For one to
be declared righteous, he must exercise faith in the
shed blood of Christ and conduct himself in harmony
with that faith.3
Following
the Test at the End of Christ’s Thousand-Year Reign,
Obedient Ones Will Have Their Names Written in the
Book of Life as Justified.4
Knowledge
of God’s Word Necessary to Gain Salvation.5
Not "Once
Saved, Always Saved"; Endurance Required.6
(Earlier editions of the last quote (1953) stated,
"Salvation a goal to be attained—Not ‘Once Saved
Always Saved’.")
In Aid to Bible
Understanding7 (The Watchtower’s biblical
and theological dictionary) we find the following:
"There is no substitute for obedience, no gaining of
God’s favor without it."8
The Watchtower
magazine also contains numerous examples indicating
faith alone is insufficient for salvation:
It is
evident from this that besides faith and baptism,
"public declaration" to the effect that Jesus Christ
is Lord and that God raised him up from the dead is a
requirement for salvation…. Clearly, for all who wish
to gain an approved standing with God, Christian
baptism is a requirement.9
So taking a
comprehensive view of our sacrifices, we must admit
that at meetings, when sharing the "good news" with
others, and in attitude, word and action, yes, in all
areas of life, we should be prepared to give our very
best. We should not be halfhearted about such vital
matters. What is at stake is Jehovah’s approval and
our being granted life.10
Persons
desiring divine approval and eternal life must
understand God’s Word, declare it to others and live
according to the Bible.11
After following through on what Jehovah
God requires, the baptized disciple comes into
possession of a good conscience. As long as he maintains
that good conscience he is in a saved condition. Divine
condemnatory judgment will not be expressed against him.12
As noted, the emphasis on works salvation
is true even for the 144,000 who are said to be elected
by Jehovah and saved by grace. Dr. Anthony Hoekema,
author of The Four Major Cults, points out that
even after their faith, repentance, baptism, and
willingness to sacrifice all their rights on earth for
the hope of heavenly life, even though they are
allegedly "justified" (that is, have the hope of
final justification after death), they are still not
immortal, and must yet earn their immortality. Only if
they maintain their integrity until death will they have
the opportunity for immortality. Thus, their election by
God is on the basis of personal merit:
Jehovah’s
Witnesses teach that the selection of the 144,000 is a
sovereign act on God’s part. This selection, however,
is made on the basis of their having met the
requirements for membership in this class. One is
chosen to belong to this group, therefore, on the
basis of his worthiness. We must remember, too, that
the first steps in the process that leads to salvation
for this class are faith, repentance and dedication to
Christ—steps that these individuals themselves must
take. It is only after they have taken these steps
that God justifies, regenerates, and sanctifies them.
It should further be noted that much emphasis is laid
on continued faithfulness to God.13
Hoekema proceeds to refute the Witnesses’
claim that they believe in salvation by grace:
Hence,
though Jehovah’s Witnesses’ claim that salvation is of
grace, and that all credit for salvation belongs to
Jehovah, we conclude that in Watchtower theology it is
not really God’s sovereign grace that saves even the
144,000, but rather man who saves himself by grasping
the ransom, by showing himself worthy of being
selected as a member of the anointed class, and by
carrying out his dedication to Jehovah faithfully
until death.14
And yet, as Hoekema also observes, the
remaining vast majority of Witnesses are expected to
believe that they can also earn their own salvation
without any of the declared advantages of the 144,000.
According
to Watchtower teaching, most of those who are to be
saved will attain this salvation without being
regenerated, justified (in the Christian sense),
anointed to office, and sanctified (in the Christian
sense). This means that, without having their sinful
natures renewed, this "great crowd" will be able to
have faith in Christ, to dedicate their lives wholly
to him, and to remain faithful to the end!15
Biblically speaking then, we are asked to
accept that Jehovah’s Witnesses and the rest of humanity
will be able to save themselves apart from God’s
mercy, grace and power! If anything in this life is to
be considered impossible, it must be this. The very
reason Christ died for us was because we were
helpless to save ourselves by personal effort and good
works: "You see, at just the right time, when we were
still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom.
5:6). Indeed, to argue we can save ourselves is to
repudiate the atonement: "for if righteousness could be
gained through the law, Christ died for nothing" (Gal.
3:21)! The Bible is clear on this. No person can be
saved apart from, first of all, the divine miracle of
regeneration that enlivens the spirit and changes ones
disposition toward the things of God (Jn. 3:3-5; 1 Cor.
2:14-15; 2 Cor. 5:17). This is something the Jehovah’s
Witnesses forbid to everyone but the144,000 who are
believed to receive spiritual rebirth only after
death.
Second, no one can be saved apart from
final justification in this life, which legally declares
one eternally righteous before God (Rom. 3:21-31; Phil.
3:3-9). This is also prohibited for the "other sheep"
and the rest of mankind and again only occurs to the
144,000 after death on the basis of works, not
faith!
Third, no one can find acceptance with
God apart from having their sins forgiven—fully and
totally—something the Witnesses claim the "ransom" of
Christ, by itself, did not effect (cf. Rev.
21:27).
Fourth, no person can live for God and
please Him apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit
whom Witnesses believe does not exist.
Clearly, the Watchtower doctrine of
salvation is not biblical. To the contrary, the Bible
denies Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrines when it teaches
(emphasis added):
1) That salvation is by grace through
faith, not through works—"For it is by grace you
have been saved through faith—and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works,
so that no one can boast" (Eph. 2:8-9).
2) That complete forgiveness of
all sins occurred at Calvary—"In him [Jesus] we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins…" and, "He forgave us all our sins…"
(Eph. 1:7; Col. 2:13).
3) That full and entire justification
occurs in this life at the moment of
faith— "Therefore, since we have been justified
through faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ…. Since we have now been justified
by his blood, how much more shall we be saved
from God’s wrath through him!" (Rom. 5:1, 9).
4) That eternal life is a present
possession of all true believers— "I tell you the truth,
he who believes has everlasting life" (Jn. 6:47).
The truth is that Christ atoned for
all our sins on the cross, not just the sins of Adam
or potentially the sins of most. This is why salvation
is entirely by grace, and why God does not expect us to
earn our salvation by good works, or to achieve the
potential forgiveness of our sins by obedience. Christ
earned full salvation for us so that we only need
receive it as a gift. The Bible clearly teaches that
salvation is a free gift. By definition, a free gift
cannot be paid for. The Oxford American Dictionary
defines gift as "a thing given or received without
payment." No man takes a gift of flowers home to his
wife and says, "Hi, honey, these are yours after you
wash the car." In the same way, no one pays for
salvation with his or her works when it has been freely
given as a gift. Biblically, "the gift of God is
eternal life" (Rom. 6:23); and we are "justified
freely by his grace" (Rom. 3:17) because we have
"the gift of righteousness." (Rom. 5:17) The
Witness concept of salvation then, obviously disavows
the biblical teaching on salvation by grace through
faith alone (Romans 3:28):
This means,
too, that the vast majority of believers are not
justified by faith but must earn their justification
by their "unbreakable steadfastness" during the
millennium—thus the Witnesses repudiate the so-called
material principle of the Reformation: justification
by faith. Looking at all this, one is forced to the
conclusion that, in this theological system, man is
saved not primarily by the grace of God shown to
unworthy sinners, but rather by his own demonstration
of his worthiness to be saved.
William J.
Schnell points out that during his years with the
movement the other sheep were told that if they stayed
close to the Watchtower organization, listened
attentively to its indoctrination, went out regularly
to distribute literature, and rigidly reported the
time spent in doing so, they might be saved at
Armageddon! All the emphasis, he insists, was on
works, particularly on witnessing, as the way to
arrive at a reasonable certainty of future salvation,
rather than on faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour.16
This is the crux of the problem.
Witnesses do not teach that salvation comes by faith in
Jesus, but, in essence, by faith in what the Watchtower
Society tells them. William Schnell also points out
another major consequence of the Witness view of
salvation. That is to nullify the relevance of most
New Testament texts related to salvation for the vast
majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why? Because only
the 144,000 are declared to be regenerated, chosen,
justified, saints, part of the body of Christ,
sanctified, heaven-bound, etc. Therefore, all the
Scriptures that speak of these and related things do
not apply to the average Jehovah’s Witness. It’s not
just that they cannot be born-again, it’s that most
of the doctrines related to regeneration are denied
them as well.
In effect, most of what the Bible
teaches on salvation is irrelevant for the vast majority
of Witnesses, not to mention the entirety of
mankind, and useful only for a minuscule number of
persons—the 144,000, almost all of whom are now dead.
Thus, since almost all the 144,000 are believed to be
selected from past generations, what the Bible teaches
about salvation is really applicable to only a handful
of people. In effect, as far as salvation is concerned,
the Bible is simply irrelevant for 99.999999999% of
humanity.
By their
sharp division of believers into two classes, the
Watchtower Society actually makes a large part of the
Bible, particularly of the New Testament, meaningless
for the majority of its adherents. For all Scriptural
passages dealing with regeneration, sanctification,
anointing, and consecration; all passages which speak
of being sealed by the Spirit, filled with the Spirit,
or testified to by the Spirit; all passages which
describe the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the
new creation, the holy nation, and the elect (the list
is far from exhaustive) are intended, so the Witnesses
say, only for the anointed class and mean nothing for
the other sheep.17
Schnell correctly points out that the end
result, practically, is a teaching as fully destructive
to the Bible as the biases of the higher critics of
Scripture such as the form and redaction criticism of
the so-called "Jesus Seminar" (which we critiqued in
The Facts on False Views of Jesus).
Surely this
is a kind of divisive criticism of the Bible that is
just as damaging to its authority and comfort as are
the irreverent scissors of the higher critic!18
In 1980 it was reported that a number of
high-ranking Jehovah’s Witnesses at Bethel headquarters
were disfellowshipped or voluntarily left the Watchtower
Society. It seems that their personal Bible studies had
caused them to believe—quite correctly—that everyone,
not just the 144,000, needed to be born-again. Among
this new crop of outcasts were Raymond Franz, nephew of
former president F.W. Franz, and Edward Dunlap, former
12-year head of the Watchtower Society Gilead School of
the Bible, its missionary training arm.19
But, as is so often the case with authoritarian
religions, the Watchtower Society would not tolerate
dissent, and appropriate action was taken to silence the
"heresy." In response, Raymond Franz wrote Crisis of
Conscience and a sequel, detailed and scathing
exposés of Witness life and policies that should be
considered must reading for all Jehovah’s Witnesses or
those interested in the Watchtower Society.
It would seem that despite its claim to
love biblical truth, the Watchtower Society is so
opposed to basic biblical truth (e.g., that
everyone needs spiritual rebirth), that even when its
own members start to believe in a biblical doctrine,
decisive action must be taken to prevent "contamination"
to others.
Notes
1 Man’s
Salvation Out of World Distress at Hand! (1975),
p. 112. [Note: All Jehovah’s Witnesses texts are
published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WBTS,
25 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY 11021).]
2 Making
Your Family Life Happy (1978), pp. 182-183.
3 Make
Sure of All Things, Hold Fast to What Is Fine
(1965), p. 296.
4 Ibid., p.
297.
5 Ibid., p.
439.
6 Ibid.
7 The
discussion under "Righteousness" may seem to imply a
more biblical view but these statements must be
interpreted in light of the overall Watchtower
theology and worldview.
8 Aid to
Bible Understanding (1971), p. 1240.
9 The
Watchtower, May 1, 1979, p. 15.
10 The
Watchtower, May 1, 1979, p. 20.
11 The
Watchtower, June 15, 1977, p. 373.
12 The
Watchtower, May 1, 1980, p. 13.
13 Anthony
A. Hoekema, The Four Major Cults (Grand Rapids,
MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1963), pp.
282-283.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.,
pp. 284-285.
16 Ibid.,
p. 285.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19
Christianity Today, December 12, 1980, pp. 68-71.
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