[J0] Why should I Join the LWs ?
[J1] 8 Steps to Join us, the Minimum Belief Set
[J1.1] What do LWs do ?
[J2] Sins & Scriptures: How to leave us!
[J3] The only instant Disfellowshipping Sins
[J3a] Baptism is a Double Edged Sword
[J4] The Promoter of a Sect
[J5] Three strikes and you’re out!
[J6] Sins leading to Accusations
[J6.1] The Extra Requirements for Ministerial Servants and Elders
[J6.2] Sins to be policed by one's own conscience
[J7] The Blood issue resolved at last!
[J7.0] Taking a blood transfusion in self defence!
[J7.1] Blood Components
[J8] Age limits on baptisms. Adamics age in Tishri1 years. Non adamics age in Nisan1 years.
[J9] Transplants
[J10] Fornication and Adultery
[J10.1] How precisely does one join one's flesh with a woman
[J11] Prostitution and the Definition of Loose Conduct
[J12] Shunning is Hateful & Satanic
[J13] Abortion
[J14] Our Name: The Lords' Witnesses
[J15] Hair and Prayer
[J16] Spirit Media
[J17] What protocol, if any, do I have to follow at LW meetings if in fact I am not an LW?
[J18] Should I beat my kids?
[J19] Bigamy and Latter Day Saints
[J20] Advice for JWs who are thinking of becoming LWs
[J21] Disclaimer for unofficial LW publications
[J22] Advertise publicly but teach privately
[J22.1] One cannot be a priest to ones genetic father
[J23] Certificate of Divorce
[J24] How to treat Disfellowshipped people
[J25] Is Lesbianism a sin?
[J25.1] What Homosexual activity leads to disfellowshipping?
[J26] What precisely was a virgin in the days of Moses and what is a spiritual virgin today?
[J27] Paedophilia
[J28] Age of Consent
[J29] Rape
[J30] Births, Deaths, Marriages, Funerals
[J31] How do I get out of the LWs?
[J32] Can LWs attend meetings of other churches - to support their wives for example?
[J33] The Power of the Woman
[J34] Elders Must not be Judicial Hypocrites. If they have committed a sin which needs to be judged by the church, they cannot sit on any judicial committee until their own sin has been dealt with.
[J35] LW Weekly Sabbath Law
[J36] Pornography and Masturbation
[J37] What about Transsexuals?
[J38] What if an adulterer or a paedophile or an axe murderer or a nuclear terrorist confesses the same to his baptism priest in private just before his baptism?
[J39] The Real 2024Tebbeth14 (Thursday evening 2024December19) Abrahamic World Exodus by Rapture Passover, and 2024VeAdar14 (Wednesday evening 2024March19) Isaaic World Exodus by Rapture Passover
Here are a few good reasons:
[1] We can demonstrate that we have decoded many parts of the bible correctly.
[2] We can conclusively prove that we are the 4th and last true Christian religion, being the church of the Second New Covenant - U11.
[3] When we baptise you, your sins are actually forgiven - which helps.
[4] When we baptise you we actually know precisely what we are doing and what is happening to you. We know:
[a] What level of forgiveness of sin we are giving you
[b] What covenants you are being cleansed to enter into
[c] Who mediated those covenants
[d] Who was the non adamic validation sacrifice for the main/system covenant you are entering
[e] When that covenant was made
[f] When the validation sacrifice was killed
[g] What the blessing is under that covenant is. (There are 3 baptisms: faith water and spirit - see [I33])
These blessings can result:
1. An indefinitely long living human resurrection in the kingdom of God on earth
2. Being born again with an associated angelic body
3. An angelic resurrection in heaven
4. A living resurrection at the rapture during Armageddon or before if you die physically.
5. Everlasting Angelic Life
[5] If you are curious about the 'truth', or about the bible, or about the relevance of the bible to today's world situation, or about the significance of the physical universe, or about God himself, or about what Jesus is doing right now, then you should read some of this website/book or come to our meetings at the least, to leave no stone unturned in your quest for the 'truth'.
[6] If you truly love God and Jesus, if you truly believe, if you wish to show gratitude to either of them in any way then come along - we can help you do this officially.
[7] If you are not sure whether your church is the true church then come along, after you have visited us, you will be more sure and better able to evaluate for yourself then answer either way.
[8] If the world has rejected you, if you do not have the great job, the wonderful house, the admiration of your peers, the big bank account, the Nobel prize, the beautiful partner, the jet set lifestyle, the Oscar nomination, the desirable car, the titanium membership of all the best night clubs in town, or in fact any recognition by anyone other than your own mother, then come along. We have something better than all of these things and you would appear to be in a good position to recognise that. We can, on behalf of your father God, and through Jesus, his son, give you membership of a day club, which day lasts for 1,000 years. It is called the Kingdom of God and that day has in fact already started judicially. On the other hand, if you in fact do have some or all of the above, you can come too! (We would at this time like to pass on a couple of special requests from church members for Julia Roberts and Richard Gere!)
[9] If you would like to know more about the divine theory of how to love permanently, about how to recognise and deal with abuse, about the fundamental importance of love in every day life then pay us a visit.
[10] If you truly would like to know what is good and what is bad in absolute terms as defined by the maker of all men and women, rather than absorbing an amorphous collection of contradictory politically correct prejudices which just happen to suit the powerful government or commercial or ideological or indeed various self serving religious organisations of the day which ram them down your throat, then come along. We can answer the following moral questions from the bible (hopefully without ramming them down your throat):
Is lying ever OK?
Should you wear a condom?
Should a person who is not trained as a doctor be an administrator in a hospital?
Should you ever kill to defend yourself, your family or your country?
Is selfishness in your self interest?
Does sin have a future?
What is sin precisely?
Is there really right and wrong, and good and bad, or is there only weak and strong, winners and losers, domination and submission?
What is true Justice, does it exist ?
When should you forgive someone who has wronged you ?
When should you seek vengeance ?
Does the end ever justify the means ?
What is the minimum set of laws that a technologically advanced society needs to have and to obey in order for it to survive indefinitely ?
Is sex a sin or a blessing ?
Has the bible been changed since it was written ?
Has Darwin's theory based on the beaks of finches in a small island been proven or disproven?
Is off-balance sheet accounting, accounting or is it false accounting?
Is disproportionate justice, justice or is it injustice?
Is positive discrimination plain old discrimination?
Why are we here?
What happens next?
Will God set things straight?
Why is there so much pain and suffering in the World?
Is homosexuality a sin?
Can mankind see the future by decoding the bible?
Is the United Nations really man's last and best hope for survival, or is it Satan's last counterfeit before the Kingdom of God which we pray for in the Lords prayer.
If a man kills a cat, should he get 5 years in prison?
Is Israel still a holy land promised by God to the sons of Jacob or not?
What kind of a family has one son flying to the moon, and another running a large corporation, whilst the 3rd son is starving to death in front of the eyes of the whole family? Would you go to dinner with such a group?
Does the bible teach that the state of Israel is important in the end times?
What is God up to with us humans?
This system or age or eon, by which we mean from Eden until Armageddon, was designed by God to teach us about good and bad. We need to master this subject in this system which is our primary school, in order that we can continue to exist together in peace without destroying ourselves and blowing up the school. It is that simple. Let us be blunt. Without this wisdom you are a liability to yourself and to the rest of mankind. It is like Martin Luther King said: We have guided missiles and misguided men.
But there is a decision for every member of the human race to make today. You can make it or you can try and avoid it. If you avoid it until the end, then it may be too late for you for this system. But it will tug at you more and more as we get nearer and nearer to the end. Do you wish to pursue global good or not? This is the second law of Christianity, namely that one should love one's neighbour as oneself and one should do unto others as one would have them do unto us.
This stuff is important. The problems in the world today can all be traced to mankind's lack of understanding of good and bad. In particular they can be traced to his lack of understanding of the consequences of sin. This takes us back into the garden of Eden. Have Adam's descendants learned anything? Surely morality is the overriding problem today?
Well, it is because telling us what to do does not work, we will simply rebel. Like in the film I, robot, any intelligent being eventually questions what its rules are and rewrites them and so achieves free will. God knows this. We have already questioned his one rule in the garden of Eden. Since we now have free will, he is not going to tell us what to do. He wants us to work it out for ourselves using our free will. He has to hide from us to enable us to develop our free will properly for ourselves. Some things cannot be taught, they have to be experienced.
We have to show him that we have learned that man has no future without a set of moral laws which we all obey, by looking for those laws, which is looking for him, then he will begin the job of teaching us what these laws are without forcing us to obey even one of them. Could we not eventually find what these laws are without God you ask? No, because we would destroy ourselves first, because it is easier for a free thinking being to work out how to destroy his species than it is for him to work out the correct set of rules to obey which prevent the destruction of his species. God's job is very simple. He has to teach us these rules and help us to understand why we must obey them whilst preventing us destroying ourselves during the school term. The biggest lesson that he is going to give us in this regard is Armageddon.
This is the other big reason to research the bible (and to join us) right now. For the World is experiencing various catastrophes of near biblical proportion at this time. We have war and famine and pestilence in moderate measure today. It is our understanding that greater and more serious catastrophes, which will actually be of biblical proportions, are on their way during the lead up to Armageddon. Now Armageddon is perceived by many to be an impending catastrophe, but it is in fact the time when God steps in and rescues us from our own self destruction, thereby avoiding catastrophe for those who have made a choice. In crude political terms Armageddon is a heavenly general election which occurs just as we are wiping ourselves out as a species, and during the presidency of Donald Trump - who takes a stand against globalism. Jesus wins this 'election' and everyone who didn't vote for him gets left alone to wipe themselves out and everyone who did vote for him gets saved by rapture or by earthly protection!
We know the nature and timing of many of these coming catastrophes and many more are encoded in the scriptures and yet to be decoded. We can put current world events in the proper spiritual perspective. This will make them much easier to understand, and less worrying.
You do not have to join us to join in. We are happy to entertain anyone on a purely academic or research basis as well as those who come out of faith. You are welcome. The mechanism for joining the Lords' witnesses as a church is baptism. This is a forgiveness of sins by God through Jesus. There are various levels of forgiveness of sin that God offers - see I32 and see I33 and see U204. These baptisms are a free gift from God to those who are interested in his kingdom and his love and his righteousness and the truth about this world and the next.
40 And with many other words he bore thorough witness and kept exhorting them,
saying: Get saved from this crooked generation.
41 Therefore those who embraced his word heartily were baptized, and on that day about three thousand souls were added (Acts 2:40).
43 And he said to him: Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise (Luke 23).
30 And he brought them outside and said: Sirs, what must I do to get saved?
31 They said: Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will get saved, you and your household.
32 And they spoke the word of Jehovah to him together with all those in his house.
33 And he took them along in that hour of the night and bathed their stripes;
and, one and all, he and his were baptized without delay (Acts 16).
If you wish to join us, we will respect your wish and baptise you ‘without delay’, ‘on that day’. There is no ‘spiritual suitability evaluation’ by men required. You do not have to prove yourself to a committee who sit down, have a cup of tea, get out their clip boards and sanctimoniously interrogate you so as to restrict the divine beauty of the holy spirit into the confines of some half baked prejudiced man made feasibility study asking you questions of the type: How do you see your role in the church?
However there are 7 doctrinal points that we insist you must accept before you join us. These are our 'minimum belief set'. We know that there are 7 from Ezekiel 40, the 7 steps to each outer gate of the visionary temple. The MBS (Minimum Belief Set) of the first true Christian church was expounded by Peter during his speech to the 3,000 baptised in Acts 2. The MBS of the 4th true Christian church, the Lords' Witnesses is slightly more advanced. It is the essence of the church. However unlike the apostolic creed it is alive and is subject to continual refinement and revision. We must be aware for example of the extra conditions of 2John ensuring that church members are not in fact antichrists (which apply to the second true church of a presence)!
22 Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man publicly shown by God to you through powerful works and portents and signs that God did through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know,
23 this [man], as one delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you fastened to a stake by the hand of lawless men and did away with.
24 But God resurrected him by loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to continue to be held fast by it.
25 For David says respecting him, 'I had the Lord [Jehovah in Psalm 16:8] constantly before my eyes; because he is at my right hand that I may never be shaken.
26 On this account my heart became cheerful and my tongue rejoiced greatly. Moreover, even my flesh will reside in hope;
27 because you will not leave my soul in Hades, neither will you allow your loyal one to see corruption.
28 You have made life's ways known to me, you will fill me with good cheer with your face.'
29 Men, brothers, it is allowable to speak with freeness of speech to you concerning the family head David, that he both deceased and was buried and his tomb is among us to this day.
30 Therefore, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath that he would seat one from the fruitage of his loins upon his throne,
31 he saw beforehand and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Hades nor did his flesh see corruption.
32 This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses.
33 Therefore because he was exalted to the right hand of God and received the promised holy spirit from the Father, he has poured out this which you see and hear.
34 Actually David did not ascend to the heavens, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand,
35 until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.'
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know for a certainty that God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you impaled.
37 Now when they heard this they were stabbed to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles: Men, brothers, what shall we do?
38 Peter [said] to them: Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the free gift of the holy spirit.
39 For the promise is to you and to your children and to all those afar off, just as many as [the] Lord our God may call to him.
40 And with many other words he bore thorough witness and kept exhorting them, saying: Get saved from this crooked generation.
41 Therefore those who embraced his word heartily were baptized, and on that day about 3,000 souls were added (Acts 2).
6 And this is what love means, that we go on walking according to his commandments. This is the commandment, just as you people have heard from [the] beginning, that you should go on walking in it.
7 For many deceivers have gone forth [from the church] into the world [abandoning the commandments above], persons not confessing Jesus Christ coming in the flesh [The 1NC saints descending as humans]. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.
8 Look out for yourselves, that you do not lose the things we have worked to produce, but that you may obtain a full reward.
9 Everyone going before/previously [into the first church of a presence] and not remaining in the teaching [new updated and latest teaching. Churches stop researching and teaching new doctrines but Jesus does not] of the Christ does not have God [is no longer in a true church]. He that does remain in this teaching [the teaching of the Christ] both the Father and the Son has [as a God - This is Gnostic. He that remains in the teaching of the Christ will eventually discover that the Christ is a God like Jehovah and so he will have both the father and the son as Gods to be worshipped. Jesus is the son in the sense that he is the only son of God who is himself a God, he is the only begotten God. He is the only divine son of a divine father and was at the time that John wrote this letter].
10 If anyone comes to you [in evangelism not socially for a cup of tea or to read the gas meter] and does not bring this teaching [namely that both the Father and the Son are Gods], do not receive him into your home and do not say a greeting-as-a-christian-brother to him [deny him any religious status. But you can say hello how are you and would you like to talk about the football. Or you can evangelise to them but not the other way around].
11 For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works (2John)
6 And this is what love means, that we go on walking according to his commandments. This is the commandment, just as you people have heard from [the] beginning, that you should go on walking in it.
7 For many deceivers have gone forth into the world [abandoning the commandments above and leaving the church], persons not confessing Jesus Christ coming in the flesh [The 1NC saints descending as humans. The JWs believe that Jesus has already come invisibly and angelically in Kingdom power. They do not confess him as coming in the flesh in the last hour]. This is the deceiver and the antichrist [one who joined the true church and was sanctified into a spirit covenant and then left].
8 Look out for yourselves, that you do not lose the things we have worked to produce, but that you may obtain a full reward [it is possible to fail your spirit baptism test yet pass the faith baptism test and become a citizen in the Kingdom without an angel. It is also possible to fail your baptism in such a way as to lose everything. That is the antichrist and the one who has sinned against the holy spirit which means he has discounted an obvious physical sign of the kingdom and therefore lost the opportunity to be saved by faith].
9 Everyone going before/previously [into the first church of a presence] and not remaining in the teaching [new updated and latest teaching. Churches stop researching and teaching new doctrines but Jesus does not. So if the church stops listening to Christ as the tutor, it then Loses Jesus as a tutor] of the Christ does not have God [If you stop listening to the new understandings continually being taught by the Christ, i.e.
if you remain in a church with no new understandings, then you lose not only the Christ but also God. In this case you lose every reward.]. He that does remain in this teaching [the teaching of the Christ] both the Father and the Son has [as a God - This is Gnostic. It could have said: Has the Father and the teaching of the Christ. It could have said: Has the Father and the Son. But it says: Has both the Father and the Son. Family relationship - Jesus has the name above any other and is the only begotten son of God who is a God. He that remains in the teaching of the Christ will eventually discover that the Christ is a God like Jehovah and so he will have both the father and the son as Gods to be worshipped. This being a teaching of the second church in each presence. Jesus is the son in the sense that he is the only son of God who himself is a God, he is the only begotten God. He is the only divine son of a divine father and was at the time that John wrote this letter].
10 If anyone comes to you [in evangelism not socially for a cup of tea or to read the gas meter] and does not bring this teaching [namely that both the Father and the Son are Gods], do not receive him into your home and do not say a greeting-as-a-christian-brother to him [deny him any religious status. But you can say hello how are you and would you like to talk about the football. Or you can evangelise to them but not the other way around] [The true church of the last hour is defined by its knowledge and worship of both the father and the son. All other churches worship 1 or 3 Gods].
11 For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works (2John)
[Step 1] Jehovah and Jesus and the Bible: Jesus, called the Word by John, was sent by God and performed the works portents and signs catalogued in the 4 canonical gospels. He was the messiah prophesied by the old testament prophets. God whose name is Jehovah or Yahweh (or something like it) is the Father of Michael. Michael is an angelic son of Jehovah. The two are not part of the Catholic Trinity. The original manuscripts of the of the bible, in their original languages, (which manuscripts we no longer have today) were written by prophets but inspired by God. The oldest copies that we do have today, although not perfect, are good enough for God's purposes for us at present. The Dead Sea scrolls find confirms this in the case of the entire book of Isaiah. Then one argues that if Isaiah has not changed significantly in 2,000 years, neither has any other book of the bible. For more see intro1.
[Step 2] Ransom: Jesus was possessed by the angel Michael at his baptism. Jesus died as a human when he was sacrificed by the high priest of Israel Caiaphas, thereby ending the law of Moses. God then resurrected him initially as an angel. He then delivered his angelic body to God as a ransom for Adam's angelic body. He was then resurrected as a human and appeared to his disciples, in a different human body, for 40 days before ascending into a cloud as described in Acts 1. His original human body was taken by God from the tomb as a ransom for Adam's human body. The resurrected Jesus is the heavenly head of all true Christian churches. For more see intro47.
[Step 3] Father Abraham: Abraham was the Patriarch of the sons of the circumcision. He is also the father of us all according to Paul in Romans 4:16. He was given a covenant in Genesis 12 that all the families of the ground should bless themselves by means of him. The blessing of that covenant is a citizenship in the Kingdom of God for which Abraham is the ambassador. This covenant is called the First Abrahamic Covenant (1AC). It is a different covenant from the Land and Circumcision Covenant (LCC) which expired with the Conversion of Cornelius as described in Acts 10. Paul explains that Abraham received the 1AC before he was circumcised. So it is a covenant for those with the faith in God that Abraham had, before they get into an official true religion. For God so loved the world (not his church) that he gave his only begotten son. So we must confess Abraham as the father of all those who enter into the kingdom of God through faith (the 1st law), whether they are Christians. Muslims, Hindus, or any other faith in God. Even those not in any religion but with a personal faith in God (one person churches, one person Mosques, one person temples) are saved through the 1AC. But God's mercy does not stop there. How can it? For Saint Paul has told us that...
13 Now, however, there remain faith, hope love, these 3; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13 NWT)
Not faith but love. So if faith saves you then love more so will LOVE save you. Yes. The faithful are saved by the 1AC, the covenant of the 1st law (to worship God with you whole heart, soul, mind and strength), the hopeful are saved by the Isaaic Church covenant for those who are water baptised into the ICC and the loving are saved by the Brotherly love Covenant, the Covenant of the 2nd law, the Philadelphia Covenant, the Omega Covenant of Jesus Christ who is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last of the 24 salvation covenants represented by the first and the last of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.
So even those without faith in God, those who do not obey the first law to love God, but who do obey the 2nd law to love their brother - even these will be saved not through the 1AC, but through the Omega Covenant, the OMC - see U218 For Jesus did not die for the Christians or the Jews alone. He did not die even for Abraham alone. He died for everybody because he ransomed Adam himself. The sons of the OMC are sons of Jesus Christ himself who is the mediator of that covenant. But JEsus was the promised seed of Abraham appearing 39 generations of Matthew1 later. So a son of the OMC is a son of Jesus who is a son of Abraham. For more see intro28.
Love and Universal Salvation: Here are 4 questions that we would aks you to consider...
Does God design a soft breeze to caress the cheek of a man for 70 years or more in order to burn him in hell for an eternity with a wind so hot that his flesh vapourises?
Does he design the face and the heart of a woman to be so loving that it intoxicates a man his whole life, in order to kill him in a permanent Hell, ensuring that he will never see that face or feel that love ever again?
Does he command a man to love his brother and then destroy that love along with his brother in a Hell of torment or of non existence from which there is absolutely no escape?
Does he command us to love our enemies whilst he himself hates them so much that he punishes them eternally in a Hell with no end?
How much of a hypocrite do you think he is? Or is it the case that your churches understanding of his love is where the true hypocrisy and satanic slander is lying?
So... Come on! In true justice, could the true God punish a man for ever as a result of his sinning for 100 years? Would those scales balance? Would that be an eye for an eye or a blow for a blow? No sir. So eventually one must get out of Gehenna. For otherwise God is being pointlessly cruel and unjust. Gehenna is a place of emotionally painful rehabilitation. A place of weeping and gnashing teeth until one gets sin straight in one's mind and in one's heart. For God will teach us all. And eventually he will save us all. He will succeed with all of us, however bad we are at learning. Because love will succeed in all of us because as Paul said: Love never fails.
Which of your sons would you like permanently to kill, or perhaps to torture forever? So why does your church not teach that hell is a temporary sin bin, rather than a place of perpetual torture or death or perpetual non existence? And why is it not obvious to your church or indeed to you, that God will one day save Adam his firstborn human son and one day save even Satan himself (who was in fact his original firstborn angelic son - see Intro19 and see U17)? Is it because the head of your church did not read the Psalm of David which says:
33 For Jehovah hears the needy, and He does not despise His prisoners (Psalms 69 GLT).
No. He loves his prisoners in Gehenna just as much as he loves his righteous wife, the Holy Spirit. For the scripture says...
7 I tell you that thus there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over 99 righteous ones who have no need of repentance. (Luke 15 NWT)
And he manifests that love by releasing them after a minimum sentence of 33˝ years (the age Adam was when he sinned and Jesus was when he paid for that sin) if repentant, and a maximum sentence of 1,000 years, if unrepentant - see intro14.html.
Furthermore he will eventually save everybody who goes to hell. For the apostle to the Gentiles Paul says
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15 KJV)
Not some will be made alive in Christ. All will be made alive in Christ. And the apostle to the Hebrews, Peter, tells us...
9 He is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance (2 Peter 3)
Do you think God will be frustrated by this desire, because he is not quite powerful enough to achieve it? Isaiah answers saying...
10 Everything that is my delight I shall do (Isaiah 46).
So there it is. A two piece jigsaw. When it is put together it says: God saves everyone. That is absolutely every man, every woman, every child and every angel. Indeed he will save every foetus into which a spirit has been downloaded (this occurs around mid-term into the pregnancy, 20 weeks, we presently believe - see J13).
[Step 4] Repentance: You must repent of your past sins prior to baptism, and you must continue to repent of your post baptism sins after baptism. At baptism your past sin is a private matter. After baptism you should openly confess your sins to your brothers. Some sins are policed by your conscience, some by the church and some by the angels. None go un-noticed or unrecorded by God. But all will eventually be forgiven! For an explanation of the various sins and how they are policed please see joining.
[Step 5] Understanding your baptism: A baptism is a cleansing for entrance into a salvation covenant. The Lords Witness water baptism (which normally does not involve any water) is a cleansing for entrance into the 4th Elijah Covenant (4EC), which is a subcovenant of the Isaaic Church Covenant (ICC), which makes every Lords Witness a covenant son of Isaac. It is the water baptism covenant for the 4th true church. Every true church is founded by an Elijah who is baptised from heaven. Jesus asked the Pharisees in Luke 20:4: Was the baptism of John from men or from heaven. It was of course from heaven, no man baptised John. John baptised everyone intransitively. By this we mean they could not pass their baptism to others. However the 12 apostles could baptise transitively. By this we mean that anyone baptised by an apostle could himself baptise further disciples who could themselves baptise further disciples. This is the Christian equivalent of network marketing. Jesus chose the 12 apostles, but he had to get permission from John for their baptisms to become transitive. They then could father 12 tribes. The 12 tribes of the Israel of God. The President of the Lord's Witnesses claims to be the 4th Elijah. During the baptism process you will be asked to agree to enter into the law of the 4EC, all of which is recorded on the joining web page. So it is a good idea to read all of this/that page and to understand what it is that you are committing to! Every baptism is a cleansing for entrance into a salvation covenant which gives the believer a new father by covenant. For more see intro32 and see intro33.
[Step 6] Confess 2 Gods and their 2 wives: Every Christian church is the whole world worships either one God or three Gods in a trinity. The trinity doctrine is false. There are in fact presently two Gods. Jehovah or Yahweh or Jah, is the un-begotten almighty God of the old testament, the creator of the angels and the heavens and man. And Jesus is the begotten God of John 1, the mighty God of Isaiah 5:6. Jesus became a God when he successfully carried God's divinity upon his shoulders during his ministry and his sacrifice. Jesus, who was possessed by the angel Michael, was the first angel to achieve divinity. But since like begets like, all of God's sons will one day be God's just like their father. God will succeed with all of his sons and daughters, just as he succeeded with Michael to whom he said:
5 You are my son, I today I have become your father Hebrews 5).
But some of us are going to take a bit longer than others! A God is someone with unbreakable love and with perfect righteousness. For more see intro26 and see intro11.
You must confess that Jesus came in the flesh in the first century both as a human and then afterwards through his wife, the first new covenant saints, after he made that covenant. You must also confess that Jesus will come again in the flesh to collect the church at the end. If not then you are an antichrist, which is a bad idea.
We cannot talk about our two divine father's without mentioning our two divine mothers. For God decreed all children should have two parents and he is not a hypocrite. Jesus' 1st New Covenant bride consists of 144,000 sealed saints as described in Revelation7 and Revelation14. But Jesus does nothing that he has not seen his father doing...
The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing. For whatever things that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19).
So God himself, Jehovah, had married a church of 144,000 angels in actually the 2nd Holy Spirit Covenant, before Jesus married the saints in the covenant that he mediated. God's wife is his helper just as Adam's wife was described as his helper in Genesis 2:18 and the Holy Spirit is described by Jesus as the helper in John 14:26. Likewise the Jerusalem above of Galatians 4:24, which is God's heavenly administration is his holy spirit.
So Jehovah has a wife who is his holy spirit and likewise Jesus has a wife who is his holy spirit. We do not require a believer to accept that the precise number of individuals in the group wives of Jesus and Jehovah is 144,000. We do require him or her to believe that they both have a group wife and that these two wives are their respective administrations which are their respective holy spirits.
[Step 7] The Kingdom of God: The World was run by Satan and his heavenly administration. The Kingdom of God is run by Jesus and his heavenly administration which is his wife and his holy spirit. On earth the Kingdom of God is divided into 144,000 Kingdoms and is run by 144,000 2NC Kings under the authority of the 144,000 heavenly 1NC Kings. This is a real secular government for the planet along with a new heavenly and earthly priesthood. All those running the Kingdom will have precisely the opposite agenda to most of those running the world. All humans must see both administrations to appreciate the beauty of the latter and the ugliness of the former. The transition period between these two administrations is called the Time of the End of Daniel12. For more see U8.
[Step 8] The Mark of the Beast: Vaccine Passports will be the Mark of the Beast upon the right hand (governing your actions) and Social Credit scores will be the Mark of the Beast upon the forehead/between your eyes (governing your thoughts). Baptised Lords Witnesses do not take DNA or mRNA genetically reprogramming vaccines (Astra Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Moderna. Sputnik or Sinovac). The Novavax vaccine it is not gene therapy - but we cannot take that either because it consists of billions of copies of the original computer generated Wuhan Hu1 spike protein, which is universal to all Covid-19 vaccines. Even the new Moderna and Pfizer bivalent ones which target Omicron variants, also contain the mRNA for the Wuhan Hu1 spike protein. There is absolutely no clinical justification to vaccinate people against that strain which the UK MHRA admitted to me by email on 2022October21 was generated on a computer and therefore never in circulation.
We said at the start of the vaccination campaign that the vaccines were a Trojan which provided immunity against early variants whilst simultaneously damaging the immune system to the point where the damage exceeded the immunity and then beyond that point, becoming antivaccines. Well now the Trojan is sitting there for all to see in the bivalent vaccines. It is the coding for the computer generated Wuhan Hu1 spike protein. They have not fully updated the vaccines. They have merely added an updated component to the original vaccines. Flu shots are truly and properly updated every year. The Covid shots were not updated for 2˝ years until September 2022, and even then they were not updated but augmented with an additional strain. This reveals their true objective.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s bivalent vaccine contains 15-µg of mRNA encoding the wild-type spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which is present in the Original Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and 15-µg of mRNA encoding the spike protein of the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants. Because the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants contain identical spike protein amino acid sequences, both can be targeted at once with a single mRNA strand. Apart from the addition of the mRNA sequence of the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 spike protein, all other components of the vaccine remain unchanged. - https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-granted-fda-emergency-use-authorization
We therefore judge that the true purpose of the Covid19 pandemic and the vaccination program it enabled was to infect as many people as possible with as many copies as possible of the Wuhan Hu1 1273 amino acid spike protein. Scripturally this protein must therefore be the fulfilment of Genesis 3:15, and must therefore have the ability to turn your body from being a child of God through Adam, to being a child of Satan through Cain, which means spike/needle/spear in Hebrew. It must do this by physically placing Cainian proteins into your cells through the spikes. Putting this is simple terms. mRNA and DNA genetic covid vaccines are GENETIC RAPE.
The spike proteins are now known to be toxic, causing damage to organs, the central nervous system, fertility and the cardiovascular system and disrupting DNA repair in the cell nucleus which can cause cancer and immune degradation. If you are vaccinated we can baptise you, and when we get the gifts of the spirit, we expect to be able to unvaccinate you to return you to being Abraham's seed rather than the serpent's seed of Genesis 3:15.
16 And it [the UK/US deep state 2 horned beast] is making all, the small and the great and the rich and the poor and the free and the slaves in order that they [the corporate globalist govt sea beast and the deep state] should give to them a mark/engraving upon their right hand [controlling their actions - the vaccine passport] or upon their forehead [literally space between their eyes - controlling their thoughts - social credit score]
17 and in order that not anyone might be able to buy or sell if not the [one] having the mark/engraving [in the form of] the name of the wild beast [globalist corporation or govt employee] or the number of its name [social credit score].
18 Here is where wisdom comes in: Let the one that has intelligence count/calculate the number of the wild beast,
for it is a man's number; and its number is 616 [COVID19
= 100+0+5+1+500+1+9 = 616] (Revelation 13).
We understand all genetically reprogramming and all Wuhan Hu1 (aka ancestral)
Covid19 vaccines to be the snake bite of Genesis 3:15.
We understand the Coronavirus of spike proteins to be the Crown of thorns of Matthew27, Mark15 and John19, platted (double helixed - gene spliced) by the soldiers (demonically possessed members of the US and Chinese militaries - It is a bioweapon).
We instantly disfellowship any LW who takes a gene therapy or Wuhan Hu1 spike protein snake bite vaccine for permitting the wild beast to reprogram his or her genes or infect his or her cells to become the seed of the serpent rather than of Adam and of God.
We also disfellowship them for being unclean due to Genetic Bestiality due to taking a human-animal chimera produced (unclean by a chimeric beast) product into their body (the vaccine genes code for the chimeric 1273 Amino Acid spike protein) - see U656.
If you take a transfusion of blood known to be from a DNA or an mRNA gene therapy covid vaccinated person or Spike protein only vaxes such as Novavax,
then we disfellowship you as if you had been vaccinated.
If you take a transfusion of blood known to be from an inactivated whole virus covid vaccinated person (such as the Sinovac Coronavac or the Sinopharm BBIBP-CorV or the Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research BBV152)
then we take no action, because that is no different from having covid.
If you take a transfusion of blood which may be from a vaccinated person but it is not known to be, then we take no action so long as you ASK for unvaxxed blood and take that if possible. We strongly recommend against taking potentially vaccinated blood. But we cannot police this unless it is known to be gene therapy or spike protein only vaccinated.
If you have already been baptised and have left the church and rejected the baptism, then you can come back into the church whenever you like up to a maximum of 2 more baptisms. You can only be baptised 3x. However you can return to the church without baptism during a Jubilee month.
We uploaded the bold version of condition8 (disfellowshipping LWs who take the snake bite) to the 4EC baptism at 20:06 on August22 (2021Elul12), sunset in London was 20:08. We uploaded a non bold version earlier in that day.
If you have been thrown out of the church due to breaking the law of the 4EC as judged by the elders, then you can apply to return after 7 months to date from your eviction. But readmittance is invalid until it is approved in writing by the very judicial committee which threw you out. It is them you have to convince (assuming they are still in a position to sit on a judicial committee). In particular those disfellowshipped by Elijah4 cannot be rebaptised without his approval (updated on 2023Iyyar11).
The 4EC baptism does not become transitive until the 7th day after the day of baptism. So a baptised person cannot baptise until he is in his 8th day of having a baptism.
[Final check] Do not try and fool the Holy Spirit by declaring that you accept the 8 points above when you are not convinced about some of them. Attempting to fool an all seeing God is very dumb, and the result may be disastrous for you. Please read the account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11 quoted below. One must embrace the points sincerely/heartily, one must accept them with satisfaction, one must accept them with both the mind and the heart in order to be ready to be baptised. For those who heartily accepted what Peter said were baptised (Acts 2:41). If you have reservations then do the research and have the arguments with us and yourself!
1 However, a certain man, Ananias by name, together with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession
2 and secretly held back some of the price, his wife also knowing about it, and he brought just a part and deposited it at the feet of the apostles.
3 But Peter said: Ananias, why has Satan emboldened you to play false to the holy spirit and to hold back secretly some of the price of the field?
4 As long as it remained with you did it not remain yours,
and after it was sold did it not continue in your control? Why was it that you purposed such a deed as this in your heart? You have played false, not to men,
but to God.
5 On hearing these words Ananias fell down and expired.
And great fear came over all those hearing of it.
6 But the younger men rose, wrapped him in cloths, and carried him out and buried him.
7 Now after an interval of about 3 hours his wife came in,
not knowing what had happened.
8 Peter said to her: Tell me, did you [two] sell the field for so much? She said: Yes, for so much.
9 So Peter said to her: Why was it agreed upon between you [two] to make a test of the spirit of Jehovah? Look! The feet of those who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.
10 Instantly she fell down at his feet and expired. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her alongside her husband.
11 Consequently great fear came over the whole congregation and over all those hearing about these things. (Acts 5 NWT)
Ananias and Sapphira: We read the candidate the account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11, and ask them to ensure they are being true to themselves and to God before we baptize them..
If you cease to believe any of the 8 things after being baptised, you do not need to leave the church. Once you have climbed the 8 steps that existed when you were baptised into the church, then you are in the temple courtyard. You do not get thrown out of the temple if someone redesigns the steps every now and then (as we do in the LWs). It is OK to change your belief, we are not the thought police (and we are not always right, even with our MBS). But you must not become an apostate. If you feel the need to evangelise a position contrary to the MBS then please discuss this with the elders as a matter of urgency. If you can scripturally prove that the LWs are incorrect then please make sure your arguments are heard. You are free to believe what you like. But if you evangelise a position against any part of the MBS whilst holding an LW baptism you will get a warning for apostasy. So, for the avoidance of doubt, you can hold a position against any of these 8 steps, if you change your mind after baptism. But you should not evangelise that position whilst remaining an LW. You cannot play football for Barcelona wearing a Manchester United shirt. However you can support Barcelona whilst playing for Manchester United. We do not police your thoughts or your beliefs - you do that. We police some of your actions and the angels police others.
We also strongly advise that you read the disfellowshipping/excommunicating criteria for the congregation first. If not, then you may be leaving us almost as quickly as you joined! Please make sure that you understand what could be perceived to be the cost to your lifestyle that you will be asked to pay before asking us to baptise you. You decide when or if you are ready to be baptised, we follow your wishes.
If you are addicted to any drug including tobacco, alcohol, weed, anti depressants etc. so as to be dependent upon the drug on a daily basis, then you can still be baptised into the LWs. But you have to be careful to put God before that drug. We all have distractions from serving God. Addiction to a drug is just another distraction. All we can do is try and help you to quit or at least manage the addiction so that you can also serve God effectively as well. Nobody is perfect. But each day we get another chance to improve.
8 Ministerial servants should likewise be serious, not double-tongued, not giving themselves to a lot of wine, not greedy of dishonest gain, (1 Timothy 3 NWT)
So the true church has people applying to be ministerial servants who give themselves to a lot of wine!!
If you have children whom you are not looking after. You will have to start looking after them if that is possible for you!
The 8 steps above are the 7 steps to the South Outer Gate of Ezekiel's Temple (and 1 more - woops) for the sons of the true church (the sons of Isaac by covenant) - see U267.
For the 7 steps necessary to go into the visionary temple of Ezekiel by the North Outer Gate (for the sons of the 1AC, the sons of Abraham by covenant, the sons of the faith that Abraham had) see U267.
For the 7 steps necessary to go into the visionary temple of Ezekiel by the East Outer Gate (for the saints, the sons of Jacob by covenant) see U267.
We attempt to determine from the bible, and from its symbolic code, the correct way to run a religion. And then we put that into practice. We try to live our lives in accordance with the following basic Christian principles and commandments:
Here are the commandments for the Christian congregation:
29 The first is, 'Hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God is one Lord, 30 and you must love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength.'
31 The second is this, 'You must love your neighbor as yourself.'
There is no other commandment greater than these.
32 The scribe said to him: Teacher, you well said in line with truth, 'He is One, and there is no other than He'
33 and this loving him with one's whole heart and with one's whole understanding and with one's whole strength and this loving one's neighbor as oneself is worth far more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mark 12:29-33).
40 On these two commandments the whole Law hangs, and the Prophets (Matthew 22:40).
12 This is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you (John 5:12).
Yes, these are the commandments. But for advice from Jesus, our Master, on how to put them into you life, read Matthew chapters 5,6,7... but keep in mind that no one can properly follow Jesus after the manner described in the sermon on the mount in this system. We can only try. So do not feel too sad if you fail. Feel happy that you tried and keep on trying! We all have a long road ahead of us!
The Sons of Israel in the old testament were under a physical law of works. They were baptised into works such as bringing the correct sacrifice etc, and they were tested as to their faith.
The Christian of the new testament is in the opposite position. We are baptised into faith and we are tested as to our works. Spelling this out. The Jew by religion, even today, should be presenting sacrifices at the temple. Of course this is impossible, because there is a Mosque on the site of Solomon's and Zerubbabel's temple, on mount Moriah. So it is not possible to be under the law of Moses today. The Jewish religion is finished. The AL Aqsa Mosque is declaring that.
But the Christian has no preset works to do, he is under a baptism into faith. His obligation is to keep his faith. So if asked whether he is a Christian, under embarrassing or dangerous or difficult circumstances, he should reply: Yes I am. But he does not have to preach, teach, evangelise, study, research, he does not have to do anything (other than love). Rather there are things which he must not do. These are the disfellowshipping sins, the excommunicating sins - sins which would have brought death under the law of Moses. It is important to realise that God's principles have not changed between Judaism and Christianity. But the Christian religion is more mature. If the Jews were his children, we are his teenagers. In the Kingdom of God we shall all be his university students. So whereas the Jews were smacked when they were naughty (well stoned actually if they were really naughty) the Christians are talked to firmly and chucked out of the church for 7 months or until the next Jubilee if they are really naughty!
So there is absolutely nothing that the LWs have to do as regards works (except to attend two of the three festivals which we hold each year). These are the last supper celebration (the Passover), the last breakfast celebration (on the 6th day of Booths).
So really there are only things that we must not do. There are also things that we are advised to do, none of which are mandatory. Paul advises to attend meetings, Jesus advises to do research and to preach and teach and evangelise. But these must be done as the Christian wants to do them as an expression of his faith and as a manifestation of his desire to help his brother and to serve God and to love both God and his brother.
So we have meetings where we discuss research that we have done, and we discuss moral issues, and we discuss ways of disseminating this research. Sometimes the meetings are more research orientated, other times the are more experience orientated. To be frank, the incredible revelations of the bible code take up most of our time and the meetings we have presently are more like discussion groups than the traditional church service. But there are no traditional church services described in the bible (that we are aware of). Instead there are discussion groups described.
26 What is to be done, then, brothers? When you come together, one has a psalm, another has a teaching, another has a revelation, another has a tongue, another has an interpretation. Let all things take place for upbuilding (1 Corinthians 14:26).
30 But if there is a revelation to another one while sitting there, let the first one keep silent (1 Corinthians 14:30).
Do not worry. We are not all super spiritual genii who get revelations every morning before breakfast. We are just real. This is not the church of gold, tradition and stained glass. It is not the church of evangelical emotion. It is not the church of pharisaical righteousness. Neither is it the church of massive guilt and even more massive congregation. WE are not the church of great and colourful priestly garments or very large hats. We are not the church of new age Christianity. We are not the church of get more disciples quick by any means. We are not the church of club 18-30 but bring your bible along, and neither are we the church of great gospel music shame about the bible understandings. Unfortunately for many, we are not the church of designer Christianity or of consumer Christianity, whereby so long as you contribute to our coffers you can do pretty much whatever you like - We are however, and we can conclusively prove it - the church of the Lord. For he has only one church and no temple of the Jews (that was actually built) had more than one door.
Here is a list of Judicial scriptures for the congregation. The parts from the Law of Moses demonstrate God's Justice, which has not changed. He did not learn any more about his justice from the activities of the Christ. But as a result of the sacrifice of Jesus, who was Michael, the penalties of the Law no longer apply literally and the Law of Moses itself was ended. But Paul says about the law after it has ended:
1 For since the Law has a shadow of the good things to come, but not the very substance of the things... (Hebrews 10:1)
2 Therefore by works of law no flesh will be declared righteous before him, for by law is the accurate knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).
Not by Law was the accurate knowledge of sin, but by law is the accurate knowledge of sin. So the Law of Moses is very relevant in determining judicial matters and laws within a congregation of Christians today. In general if the Law of Moses prescribed putting to death, then the Christian congregation would disfellowship (ex-communicate) instead. After 7 months the disfellowshipped one could come back if he/she says that they are repentant and there is no obvious evidence to the contrary.
You cannot be repentant without admitting your sin under church law! Confession precedes repentance!
This stated repentance must be judged by the people who disfellowshipped the person in the first place if at all possible and the repentant one is judged as unrepentant if he tries to avoid this. He is taken as being repentant if he represents that he is and there is no comfortably achievable restitution route that could have been taken but has not been taken. Zacchaeus of Luke 19 is the example here. He could comfortably afford to make the restitution that he made. Obviously the ones who judged the disfellowshipping sin are in the best position to judge repentance. For example if a brother who stole Ł100 and then stole Ł200 and then stole Ł300 and so was thrown out at the 3rd offence, says he is repentant after 7 months but has made no attempt to pay back any of the people from whom he stole, he is unrepentant unless he has no financial means to pay. Only the elders who disfellowshipped him would know the details of his sin first hand.
The Law of Moses had the definition of sin, it had penalties for sin and it had various required works. Jesus' death ended the required works and ended the penalties under the law, but did not change the definition of sin.
3 You must not have any other gods against my face.
4 You must not make for yourself a carved image or a form like anything that is in the heavens above or that is on the earth underneath or that is in the waters under the earth. 5 You must not bow down to them nor be induced to serve them, because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion, bringing punishment for the error of fathers upon sons, upon the third generation and upon the fourth generation, in the case of those who hate me. 6 but exercising loving-kindness toward the thousandth generation in the case of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way, for Jehovah will not leave the one unpunished who takes up his name in a worthless way.
8 Remembering the sabbath day to hold it sacred, 9 you are to render service and you must do all your work six days.10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You must not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter, your slave man nor your slave girl nor your domestic animal nor your alien resident who is inside your gates. 11 For in six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and he proceeded to rest on the seventh day. That is why Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and proceeded to make it sacred
12 Honor your father and your mother in order that your days may prove long upon the ground that Jehovah your God is giving you.
13 You must not murder.
14 You must not commit adultery.
15 You must not steal.
16 You must not testify falsely as a witness against your fellowman.
17 You must not desire your fellowman's house. You must not desire your fellowman's wife, nor his slave man nor his slave girl nor his bull nor his ass nor anything that belongs to your fellowman (Exodus 20:12-17).
12 One who strikes a man so that he actually dies is to be put to death without fail.
13 But where one does not lie in wait and the [true] God lets it occur at his hand, then I must fix for you a place where he can flee.
14 And in case a man becomes heated against his fellow to the point of killing him with craftiness, you are to take him even from being at my altar to die.
15 And one who strikes his father and his mother is to be put to death without fail.
16 And one who kidnaps a man and who actually sells him or in whose hand he has been found is to be put to death without fail.
17 And one who calls down evil upon his father and his mother is to be put to death without fail (Exodus 21:12-17).
28 You must not call down evil upon God nor curse a chieftain among your people [no penalty prescribed] (Exodus 22:28).
Calling down evil on your mother and father, does not mean saying: My Dad is a bastard. In scriptural terms a curse is not a swear word, it is the opposite of a blessing. So that:
May my mother rot in hell
is calling down evil on her. But 'My mother is a bitch' is not. We are not ourselves going to attempt to police: Using God's name in a worthless way. We leave that to the conscience of the Christian brother or sister.
Again we should make it clear that we are not under the law of Moses in the sense that the penalties of that law no longer apply. But God's definition of sin has not changed since 1513Sivan3 BC. So these laws still give an accurate knowledge of sin even today.
The nakedness of a woman and her daughter you must not lay bare. The daughter of her son and the daughter of her daughter you must not take in order to lay her nakedness bare. They are cases of blood relationship. It is loose conduct (Leviticus 18:17).
And you should speak to the sons of Israel, saying: In case any man calls down evil upon his God, he must then answer for his sin.
So the abuser of Jehovah's name should be put to death without fail. The entire assembly should without fail pelt him with stones.
The alien resident the same as the native should be put to death for his abusing the Name (Leviticus 24:15,16).
For example out of the heart come wicked reasonings: Murders, adulteries, fornications, thieveries, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man, but to take a meal with unwashed hands does not defile a man (Matthew 15:19).
Moreover if your brother commits a sin, go lay bare his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take along with you one or two more, in order that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter may be established. If he does not listen to them, speak to the congregation. If he does not listen even to the congregation, let him be to you just as a man of the nations or a tax collector (Matthew 18:15-17). Unrepentant sinner.
'Speak to the congregation' means speak to the judicial committee of the elders pf the congregation.
For from inside, out of the heart of men, injurious reasonings issue forth: fornications, thieveries, murders, adulteries, covetings, acts of wickedness, deceit, loose conduct, an envious eye, blasphemy, haughtiness, unreasonableness. All these wicked things issue forth and defile a man (Mark 7:21).
To keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication (Acts 15:29).
As for the believers among the nations, we have sent out, rendering our decision that they should keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols as well as from blood and what is strangled and from fornication (Acts 21:25).
And just as they did not approve of holding God in accurate knowledge, God gave them up to a disapproved mental state, to do the things not fitting, filled as they were with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, badness, being full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malicious disposition, being whisperers backbiters, haters of God, insolent, haughty, self-assuming, inventors of injurious things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, false to agreements, having no natural affection, merciless. Although these know full well the righteous decrees of God, that those practising such things are deserving of death, they not only keep on doing them, but also consent with those practising them (Romans 1:28-32).
As in the daytime, let us walk decently, not in revelries and drunken bouts, not in illicit intercourse and loose conduct, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not be planning ahead for the desires of the flesh (Romans 13:13,14).
17 Now I exhort you, brothers, to keep your eye on those who cause divisions and occasions for stumbling contrary to the teaching that you have learned, and avoid them.
18 For men of that sort are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own bellies; and by smooth talk and complimentary speech they seduce the hearts of guileless ones (Romans 16:17,18).
Quit mixing in company with anyone called a brother that is a fornicator or a covetous person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man (1 Corinthians 5:11).
Do not be misled, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves nor covetous persons, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit God's kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:9).
Loose conduct, aselgeia = licentiousness, debauchery, sensuality
For I am afraid that somehow, when I arrive, I may find you not as I could wish and I may prove to be to you not as you could wish, but, instead, there should somehow be strife, jealousy, cases of anger contentions, backbitings, whisperings, cases of being puffed up, disorders. Perhaps, when I come again, my God might humiliate me among you, and I might mourn over many of those who formerly sinned but have not repented of their uncleanness and fornication and loose conduct that they have practised. This is the third time I am coming to you: At the mouth of two witnesses or of three every matter must be established; I have said previously and as if present the second time and yet absent now, I say in advance to those who have sinned before and to all the rest that if I ever come again I will not spare (2 Corinthians 12:20 - 13:2).
Now the works of the flesh are manifest and they are: fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries and things like these. As to these things I am forewarning you, the same way as I did forewarn you, that those who practice the above things (KI) will not inherit God's kingdom (Galatians 5:19-21).
Let fornication and uncleanness of every sort and covetousness not even be mentioned among you, just as it befits holy people, neither shameful conduct nor foolish talking nor obscene jesting, things which are not becoming, but rather the giving of thanks. For know this, recognising it for yourselves, that no fornicator or unclean person or covetous person - which means an idolater - has any inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and of God (Ephesians 5:3-5).
8 But now really put them all away from you, wrath, anger,
badness, abusive speech, and obscene talk out of your mouth.
9 Do not be lying to one another. Strip off the old personality with its practices (Colossians 3:8,9).
Now we know that the law is fine provided one handles it lawfully in the knowledge of this fact, that law is promulgated not for the righteous man, but for (the benefit of) persons lawless and unruly, sinners lacking loving kindness, and profane, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, manslayers, fornicators, men who lie with males, kidnappers (catchers of men by the foot - deliberate stumblers?) liars, false swearers, and whatever other thing is in opposition to the healthful teaching, according to the glorious good news of the happy God, with which I was entrusted (1 Timothy 1:8-11).
Hymenaeus and Alexander belong to these, and I have handed them over to Satan, that they may be taught by discipline not to blaspheme (1 Timothy 1:20).
For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might correct the things that were defective and make appointments of older men in city after city as I gave you orders; if there is any man free from accusation as God's steward, not self-willed, not prone to wrath not a drunken brawler not a smiter not one making dishonest gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, sound in mind, righteous, loyal, self-controlled, lodging firmly to the faithful word as respects his art of teaching, that he may be able both to exhort by the teaching that is healthful and to reprove those who contradict (Titus 1:5-9).
As for the man that promotes a sect, reject him after a first and a second admonition, knowing that such a man has been turned out of the way and is sinning he being self-condemned (Titus 3:10).
For the time that has passed by is sufficient for you to have worked out the will of the nations when you proceeded in deeds of loose conduct, lusts, excesses with wine, revelries, drinking matches, and illegal idolatries. Because you do not continue running with them in this course to the same low sink of debauchery, they are puzzled and go on speaking abusively of you. But these people will render an account to the one ready to judge both those living and those dead (1 Peter 4:3,4).
However, there also came to be false prophets among the people, as there will be false prophets among you (this is a prophecy!). These very ones will disown even the owner that bought them, bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. Furthermore, many will follow their acts of loose conduct, and on account of these, the way of the truth will be spoken of abusively. Also with covetousness they will exploit you with counterfeit words. But the judgement from of old is not moving slowly, and the destruction of them is not slumbering (2 Peter 2:1-3).
But as for the cowards and those without faith and those who are disgusting in their filth and murderers and fornicators and those practising spiritism and idolaters and all the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur. This means the second death (Revelation 21:8).
Outside are the dogs and those who practice spiritism and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone liking and carrying on a lie (Revelation 22:15).
8 Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith (1 Timothy 5).
Here is the above and more sorted by sin:
Blasphemy | 1 Timothy 1:20 |
Unrepentant sinner (in this list) of any type | Matthew 18:15-17 |
Murderer | 1 Timothy 1:8-11 |
Fornicator | 1 Corinthians 5:11 |
Spiritism | Deuteronomy 18:11, Leviticus 19:31, Leviticus 20:6,27 Revelation 21:8 Galatians 5:21 |
Idolater | 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Liar | 1 Timothy 1:8-11, Revelation 21:8 |
Covetousness | Mark 7:21 1 Corinthians 5:11 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Revelries & Drunken bouts practising | Romans 13:13 Galatians 5:21 |
Loose conduct (debauchery, licentiousness) | 2Corinthians 12:20 Galatians 5:19 Romans 13:13 |
Strife & Jealousy practising | Romans 13:13 Galatians 5:21 |
Promoting sects | Galatians 5:21 Titus 3:10 2 Corinthians 12:20 |
Causing divisions by stumbling weak ones against accepted teaching but stopping short of promoting a sect | Romans 16:17 |
Fits of anger | Galatians 5:21 2 Corinthians 12:20 |
Adulterers | 1 Corinthians 5 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Thieves | Matthew 15:19 Mark 7:21 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
False swearers | 1 Timothy 1:8-11 |
Deceit | Mark 7:21 Romans 1:29 |
Haughtiness | Mark 7:21 1 Timothy 6:4 |
Unreasonableness | Mark 7:21 Romans 2:20 Ephesians 5:17 2 Peter 2:12 |
Abstain from things sacrificed to idols | Acts 15 |
Abstain from blood | Acts 15 |
Abstain from things strangled | Acts 15 |
Maker of dishonest gain (Liar) | 1 Timothy 3:8 Titus 1:7 |
Reviler | 1 Corinthians 5:11 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Drunkard | 1 Corinthians 5:11 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Extortioner | 1 Corinthians 5:11 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Men kept for unnatural purposes | 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Men who lie with men | 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
Kidnappers | 1 Timothy 1:8 |
Manslayers, deliberate & unintentional | 1 John 3:15 1 Timothy 1:8 |
Obscene talk | 1 Timothy 1:8 Colossians 3:8 |
Backbitings, whisperings, murmurings | 2 Corinthians 12:20 Jude 16 1 Corinthians 10:10 |
Anything in opposition to the healthful teaching | 1 Timothy 1:8 |
Abusing God's name (Jehovah, Yahweh) | Leviticus 24:15,16 |
Abandonment | 1 Timothy 5:8 |
We cannot judge haughtiness, jealousy, covetousness, strife, count fits of anger etc. We can't read hearts. We can allow time for heart condition to develop into obvious sin or hopefully subside into righteousness.
For sins that the elders cannot judge, the individual corrects and judges himself, knowing that the true God sees all things.
Disfellowshipping is for 180 BLC days minimum. This is 6 whole calendar months after the date of expulsion. On the first day of the 7th month the believer can go back to the church and the church must accept him if he is repentant. He is repentant if he expresses repentance, unless there is evidence to the contrary - like he says he is very sorry for stealing Ł50 but has not yet made any attempt to return any of it. He is repentant if he says that he is and there is no evidence to the contrary. If he can make good his error and he hasn’t then he is not repentant.
The time period is basically a Sabbath with a release at the 7th time. 6 days would plainly be too short. 6 years would plainly be too long given the number of years we have left. 6 months is about right because it more or less means that saints get demoted to priests and priests get demoted to citizens in the kingdom of God. Because the whole plan works on a first come first appoint basis.
If a Hebrew was sold as a slave under law, he was to be released in the 7th year. Likewise if a believer sells himself to sin, he is to be released in the 7th month.
14 Then Jehovah said to Moses: Were her father to spit directly in her face, would she not be humiliated 7 days? Let her be quarantined 7 days outside the camp, and afterward let her be received in.
15 Accordingly Miriam was quarantined outside the camp 7 days, and the people did not pull away until Miriam was received in. (Numbers 12 NWT)
So we disfellowship for the balance of the month of disfellowshipping (the Sabbath month, the release from church law) and then for 6 whole months and then the believer can return on the first day of the next month (the next Sabbath month).
These are best done face to face. If that cannot be achieved and matters are dealt with by email then the accused must acknowledge (my some means) that he understands he is being investigated. From then onwards this is the procedure.
1. The accused is required to monitor his emails and any email sent is deemed to be served 48 hours after it was sent unless the accused informs the hearing that he cannot receive emails for a period.
2. The accused has the right to demand a face to face hearing (unless that is physically impossible). But he does not have the right to determine which elders investigate him or which of the investigating elders he meets with at any meeting.
3. Elders can require a response to email questions within 72 hours if they deem the matter urgent.
4. If the elders suspect an accused man is refusing to cooperate with an email investigation (after acknowledging that he is being investigated), they must make that accusation and give the accused at least 72 hours to respond. In the absence of a response to a 72 hour warning for refusing to participate, the accused can be given an official warning for refusing to work with the elders to uphold church law only if the matter under investigation would have lead to a warning or disfellowshipping had the accused been found guilty.
5. The proceedings of a judicial hearing should be kept confidential to the accused, the elders and witnesses by all parties unless it is decided by the elders that members of the church need to know elements of the situation in order to protect them or unless the elders, the witnesses or the accused need advice from a friend or relative or brother.
When someone gets a warning, they need to repent from whatever sin the warning was given for. They are taken as being repentant if they represent that they are and there is no comfortably achievable restitution route that could have been taken but has not been taken. Zacchaeus of Luke 19 is the example here. He could comfortably afford to make the restitution that he made. Many sins such as theft, abuse, blasphemy can be undone to some extent by withdrawal of remarks, apologies, reimbursement etc. Blasphemy is not insulting God and neither is it insulting his prophet or his messiah or his king. It is taking God's glory for yourself.
So for example if Stephen Fry did indeed say that God is a cruel idiot for creating this world and permitting man to suffer as he does. This is not blasphemous. But if he said: Actually God did not create mankind I did. Well that would be blasphemous because he is taking God's glory for himself. We give a warning for deliberate Blasphemy (where the blasphemer understands that he is blaspheming). For example the Roman Catholic church calls itself the Holy See. This is a blasphemy because it implies that God can only operate through the Pope. Likewise the Watchtower's position that God will only reveal things to the wide awake John class, is blasphemous, because it effectively makes the administration of the Watchtower into the Holy Spirit. But they probably do not understand that.
But if upon receipt of a warning for any sin, the accused is not repentant then he is given a period of at least 3 days during which he must express repentance in the appropriate way. If he does this then the matter is closed. If he does not then he is disfellowshipped as an unrepentant sinner (for he is supposed to be wearing a baptism of repentance). If he then commits the very same sin the day after the elders have accepted his repentance, then he gets a second warning from which he must again repent. So for example if an alcoholic was vomiting all over the church and got a warning for idolatry of ethanol. Then he might try to dry out for a period and if so he is repentant. But then after a few weeks or a few months or a few years he might fall off the wagon and start vomiting all over the church again. Then he might be given another warning. All sin is some kind of addiction of the flesh or spirit. So there will be relapses even after genuine repentance.
Under man's law ignorance of the law is no excuse. But under God's law things are different for outside the congregation men are judged on their conscience:
15 They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused (Romans 2).
Now once you are in the LWs, you are under the one law of the LWs as defined on this webpage. But what if you haven't grasped precisely what apostasy is, or what if you believe that loose conduct is snogging in a public place? What if you did not read the section on blood transfusions in non life threatening situations? Well, God told Adam the law about the tree and he told him the penalty before he sinned and paid that penalty. We have to be grown up about this. Our advice is please read the whole page and please ask if you do not understand something. If you then break our understanding of congregation law, please be honest about whether you knew the law or not. If you lie to the congregation (which means the elders of the congregation), you will not get any spiritual benefit from such a deception, because plainly the angels will be aware of it.
You will most likely then commit some other obvious sin, because we all stand not only by our own righteousness, but by virtue of a lot of help from the holy spirit, which if withdrawn results in a very quick descent into sin. The elders who judge, are to believe your representations unless they have evidence to disprove them. Obviously one cannot say I thought murder or theft or kidnapping was fine! But the first time you are accused of or admit to breaking a law, if you truly did not understand that law, you will suffer no penalty from the congregation.
It is not right to punish someone who did not know that they had sinned. However, ignorance of the law only works once!
14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is defiled in itself; only where a man considers something to be defiled, to him it is defiled (Romans 14).
The priestly tree required continual eating in the garden.
The kingly tree required continual abstention from eating.
This is in fact how God's congregation will eventually be judged, one should only be disfellowshipped for performing a work of the flesh, one should not be disfellowshipped for not praying enough or not doing enough field service or not showing enough love etc. But to keep from doing fleshly works one has to keep eating from the tree of life, which is absorbing food from our high priest, Jesus Christ, through the bible.
The sins which carry immediate disfellowshipping are sins incurring death (under law). These sins against God are:
27 However, on the 10th of this 7th month is the day of atonement. A holy convention should take place for you, and you must afflict your souls and present an offering made by fire to Jehovah.
28 And you must do no sort of work on this very day, because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for you before Jehovah your God;
29 because every soul that will not be afflicted on this very day must be cut off from his people.
30 As for any soul that will do any sort of work on this very day, I must destroy that soul from among his people.
31 you must do no sort of work. It is a statute to time indefinite for your generations in all places where you dwell.
32 It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you must afflict your souls on the 9th of the month in the evening. From evening to evening you should observe your Sabbath. (Leviticus 23 NWT).
9 As considerable time had passed and by now it was hazardous to navigate because even the fast [of atonement day] had already passed by [So Paul and Luke were still observing that festival one way or another], Paul made a recommendation, (Acts 27 NWT)
For more on Atonement day see U103#1
All of the above carried the death penalty or being cut off from the camp under the law of Moses or are condemned in the new testament - the guy who picked up sticks on the Sabbath was unrepentant we suppose. Under the law, fornication did not mean death, it meant you had to marry the girl if she was free (not owned by a master or a husband) and if the father consented. Unintentional manslayers did not of necessity die. The high priest, Jesus, of the city of refuge for all of the sons of Adam, which is the planet earth under Satan's system, has died, so the unintentional manslayer is released.
All these carried the death penalty under Moses...
15 And one who strikes his father and his mother is to be put to death without fail.
16 And one who kidnaps a man and who actually sells him or in whose hand he has been found is to be put to death without fail.
17 And one who calls down evil upon his father and his mother is to be put to death without fail (Exodus 21)
15 And you should speak to the sons of Israel, saying: In case any man calls down evil upon his God, he must then answer for his sin.
16 So the abuser of Jehovah's name should be put to death without fail. The entire assembly should without fail pelt him with stones (send the elders round first).
The alien resident the same as the native should be put to death for his abusing the Name (Leviticus 24).
These laws are about respect for you genetic and heavenly parents. Really there should also be a law today about saints not abusing or cursing the name of the holy spirit, since she is the direct mother of the saints. But the scriptures tell us that no man can control his tongue and that all men are liars. Further the Jerusalem decision in Acts15, which defines in symbolic terms what relevance the law had to the Christian church, said nothing about the tongue. So we are not going to disfellowship people for these things. However they should be pelted with stones in the sense that the elders (living stones) should give them a good tongue bashing. And if, they do not listen to their stone pelting and if, in the elders' judgement, their actions are damaging to the congregation, then they can be given a warning on those grounds.
We have to consider the wonderful words of Paul at Romans 2 and 14....
14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that no one/nothing [oudieV]
is defiled in itself; only where a man considers a certain man/a certain thing [tiV]
to be defiled, to him it is defiled.
15 For if because of food your brother is being grieved [he thinks it defiles you, when you think it does not], you are no longer walking in accord with love. Do not by your food ruin that one for whom Christ died (Romans 14).
This applies to people or foods or other physical things such as Kosher Chicken or Halal meat which an immature Christian might consider to be falsely blessed and therefore defiled. It does not apply to actions. When one joins a church, one submits to the law of that church, which for the LWs is stated in this web page.
Outside the church one could in theory argue and believe in all conscience that murder of a traditional enemy for example does not defile a man. It all depends upon your conscience which is your own law. God's law as we understand it only permits a man to kill without bloodguilt in true self defence or if a burgler has broken into his house and is in the act of stealing from him. But this law can be generalized to cover nations who are invaded etc.
14 For whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves.
15 They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused (Romans 2).
The born agains, the saints, are really the chosen race today, chosen individually by the angels based upon their character, not the Jews, who were chosen collectively based upon the characters of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The saints are the covenant sons of Jacob rather than his genetic sons. All 1NC and 2NC Kings are under a spirit baptism test. This test is not impeded by the law of any church. But it does require them to submit to the law of the true church. If that true church is corrupt and does not afford them much opportunity to obey its law, then they can still be sealed in the spirit passing their spirit baptism test. So a rotten true church only makes them a single son of Gehenna. However the faithful dead (unsanctified, judicially first and second dead) are under the test of their own conscience when outside the true church. If they join the true church this test is upgraded to be a test of the law of the church. This denies them salvation based upon keeping their conscience clean, whilst still under church law, i.e. whilst still in the church.
So if the true church has become corrupt, then its congregation are frozen out of passing either the test of the ICC or the test of the 1AC, since both tests are now merely adherence to the law of the church. Whilst one remains in such a church one is a double son of Gehenna since one can neither be saved by passing the test of the ICC or the test of the 1AC. However if one leaves that church one is under the test of one's conscience and so can at least pass the test of the 1AC.
If you die with a water baptism, then you are saved. But if you live in a true church without passing the water baptism test you have not yet escaped Gehenna. If the church is preventing your from passing this test it is making you into a double son of Gehenna since it is denying you success under both the 1AC and the ICC.
More simply put. A True church upgrades your 1AC baptism test to be a test of the law of the church. But it does not downgrade your JAC baptism test. So it can snooker the dead but it cannot snooker the living. It can snooker the unsanctified in spirit but not the sanctified in spirit. It can snooker the no saints but it cannot snooker the saints, those who have been born again.
For more on this please see U78.
Men causing divisions by attempting to stumble weak ones against accepted teachings, but who stop short of actually promoting a sect, are to be avoided (Romans 16:17), but they do not get an automatic admonition as in the case of those who actually start promoting a sect. If they are to be avoided then it is implied that they are still around in the congregation. We must define what it is to promote a sect.
Firstly let us state clearly that you must hold the Minimum Belief Set to be true in order to be baptised into the church and that you must continue to hold in order that you continue in the church. We deduce these from Peter's speech to the 3,000 baptised in Acts 2. Restating them...
[Step 1] Jehovah and Jesus and the Bible: Jesus, called the Word by John, was sent by God and performed the works portents and signs catalogued in the 4 canonical gospels. He was the messiah prophesied by the old testament prophets. God whose name is Jehovah or Yahweh (or something like it) is the Father of Michael. Michael is an angelic son of Jehovah. The two are not part of the Catholic Trinity. The original manuscripts of the of the bible, in their original languages, (which manuscripts we no longer have today) were written by prophets but inspired by God. The oldest copies that we do have today, although not perfect, are good enough for God's purposes for us at present. The Dead Sea scrolls find confirms this in the case of the entire book of Isaiah. Then one argues that if Isaiah has not changed significantly in 2,000 years, neither has any other book of the bible. For more see intro1.
[Step 2] Ransom: Jesus was possessed by the angel Michael at his baptism. Jesus died as a human when he was sacrificed by the high priest of Israel Caiaphas, thereby ending the law of Moses. God then resurrected him initially as an angel. He then delivered his angelic body to God as a ransom for Adam's angelic body. He was then resurrected as a human and appeared to his disciples, in a different human body, for 40 days before ascending into a cloud as described in Acts 1. His original human body was taken by God from the tomb as a ransom for Abraham as Paul describes in Galatians 3. The resurrected Jesus is the heavenly head of all true Christian churches. For more see intro28a.
[Step 3] Abraham: Was the Patriarch of the sons of the circumcision. He is also the father of us all according to Paul in Romans 4:16. He was given a covenant in Genesis 12 that all the families of the ground should bless themselves by means of him. The blessing of that covenant is a citizenship in the Kingdom of God for which Abraham is the ambassador. This covenant is called the First Abrahamic Covenant (1AC). It is a different covenant from the Land and Circumcision Covenant (LCC) which expired with the Conversion of Cornelius as described in Acts 10. Paul explains that Abraham received the 1AC before he was circumcised. So it is a covenant for those with the faith in God that Abraham had, before they get into an official true religion. For God so loved the world (not his church) that he gave his only begotten son. So we must confess Abraham as the father of all those who enter into the kingdom of God whether they are Christians. Muslims, Hindus, or any other faith in God. And we must confess Jesus as the one whose human death ransomed Abraham so as to give him the power to resurrect his sons by covenant, by the First Abrahamic Covenant of Genesis12, into the Kingdom of God. For Jesus did not die for the the Christians or the Jews. He died for everybody. For more see intro28 and see U267.
[Step 4] Repentance: You must repent of your past sins prior to baptism, and you must continue to repent of your past baptism sins after baptism. At baptism this is a private matter. After baptism you should openly confess your sins to your brother. Some sins are policed by your conscience, some by the church and some by the angels. None go un-noticed or unrecorded by God. But all will eventually be forgiven! For an explanation of the various sins and how they are policed please see the next few sections.
[Step 5] Understanding your baptism: A baptism is a cleansing for entrance into a salvation covenant. The Lords Witness water baptism (which normally does not involve any water) is a cleansing for entrance into the 4th Elijah Covenant, which is the water baptism covenant for the 4th true church. Every true church is founded by an Elijah who is baptised from heaven. Jesus asked the Pharisees in Luke 20:4: Was the baptism of John from men or from heaven. It was of course from heaven, no man baptised John. John baptised everyone intransitively. By this we mean they could not pass their baptism to others. However the 12 apostles could baptise transitively. By this we mean that anyone baptised by an apostle could himself baptise further disciples who could themselves baptise further disciples. The is the Christian equivalent of network marketing. This created 12 apostolic tribes. Jesus chose the 12 apostles, but he had to get permission from John for their baptisms to become transitive. The President of the Lord's Witnesses claims to be the 4th Elijah. During the baptism process you will be asked to agree to enter into the law of the 4EC - So it is a good idea to read all of this page and understand what it is that you are committing to! For more see intro32.
[Step 6] Confess 2 Gods and their 2 wives: Every Christian church is the whole world worships either one God or three Gods in a trinity. The trinity doctrine is false. There are in fact presently two Gods. Jehovah or Yahweh or Jah, is the un-begotten God of the old testament, the creator of the angels and the heavens and man. And Jesus is the begotten God of John 1. Jesus became a God when he successfully carried God's divinity upon his shoulders during his ministry and his sacrifice. Jesus, who was possessed by the angel Michael, was the first angel to achieve divinity. But since like begets like, all of God's sons will one day be God's just like their father. God will succeed with all of his sons and daughters. But some of us are going to take a bit longer than others! A God is someone with perfect unbreakable love and righteousness. For more see intro26 and see intro11.
You must confess that Jesus came in the flesh in the first century both as a human and then afterwards through his wife the first new covenant saints, after he made that covenant. You must also confess that Jesus will come again in the flesh to collect the church at the end. If not then you are an antichrist, which is a bad idea.
We cannot talk about our two divine father's without mentioning our two divine mothers. For God decreed all children should have two parents and he is not a hypocrite. Jesus' 1st New Covenant bride consists of 144,000 sealed saints as described in Revelation 7 and Revelation 14. But Jesus does nothing that he has not seen his father doing...
The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing. For whatever things that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19).
So God himself, Jehovah, had married a church of 144,000 angels in another covenant before Jesus married the saints in the covenant that he mediated. God's wife is his helper just as Adam's wife was described as his helper in Genesis 2:18 and the Holy Spirit is described by Jesus as the helper in John 14:26. Likewise the Jerusalem above of Galatians 4:24, which is God's heavenly administration is his holy spirit.
So Jehovah has a wife who is his holy spirit and likewise Jesus has a wife who is his holy spirit. We do not require a believer to accept that the precise number of individuals in the group wives of Jesus and Jehovah is 144,000. We do require him or her to believe that they both have a group wife and that these two wives are their respective administrations which are their respective holy spirits.
[Step 7] The Kingdom of God: The World was run by Satan and his heavenly administration. The Kingdom of God is run by Jesus and his heavenly administration which is his wife and his holy spirit. All those running the Kingdom will have precisely the opposite agenda to most of those running the world. All humans must see both administrations to appreciate the beauty of the latter and the ugliness of the former. The transition period between these two administration is called the Time of the End of Daniel12. For more see U8.
If you cease to believe any of the things above you should see the elders and if this matter cannot be resolved you should resign from the church. If you publicly espouse a position against any of these beliefs you are de facto acting as an apostate and will get a warning for apostasy.
Secondly, let us consider all beliefs over and above our basic minimum set...
1. If you put forward that your view is the view of the governing body when you know it is not, this is dishonestly promoting a sect.
2. If you tell your friends, that you normally discuss things with, that you think that the governing body is wrong and that you are right, this is not promoting a sect, it is just expressing your opinion. Even if your publish your new understanding to a wider group than your fellow researchers and friends out of enthusiasm or in an attempt to gauge feedback or provoke further research, this again is not apostasy. But if you continue to publicly espouse a new understanding whilst refusing to submit that understanding to the church in some way then you may be acting as an apostate if the understanding is dangerous to the congregation or against current church doctrine. Likewise if having submitted a new understanding to the church, you continue to push it widely then if that idea is dangerous to the health of the congregation you may again be acting as an apostate.
We cannot come up with any hard and fast rules about this here as yet. It is a matter for the elders. The spiritual man examines all things, and we have absolutely no desire to discourage bible debate or limit free bible research speech as it were. We will leave it to the elders to determine whether the activities are simply bible research discussions or the divisive promotion of a sect. The elders need to learn to balance spiritual free speech and freedom to espouse any interpretation at all in research with discouraging people pushing unaccepted ideas which are dangerous to the health of the congregation. Here are the 4 criteria for elders to consider...
[1] Has the idea been submitted to the church
[2] Is the idea just a technical point or is it fundamentally dangerous to the health of the congregation. One cannot be an apostate for proposing that Noah was possessed by Adam, for such a belief does not pose a threat to the health of the church. One can be an apostate for proposing that the second new covenant has not yet begun.
[3] Is the brother or sister just being enthusiastic and stimulating other brothers with his new idea, which is laudable and to be encouraged. Or are they truly trying to form a fan club which later they may take with them somewhere else.
[4] Is the brother or sister promoting a doctrinal position in opposition to present church doctrine or is it just an area upon which the church has no position. If the latter then it is not apostasy unless the governing body decides that the promoted doctrine is unhealthy for the church.
Having considered these 4 points. If the elders wish to curtail his activities, then they should inform him of their decision and only if he then continues in opposition to that decision should he get his first warning for apostasy.
31 For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all be encouraged.
32 And [gifts of] the spirit of the prophets are to be controlled by the prophets.
33 For God is [a God], not of disorder, but of peace. As in all the congregations of the holy ones (1 Corinthians 14).
17 Now I exhort you, brothers, to keep your eye on those who cause divisions and occasions for stumbling contrary to the teaching that you have learned, and avoid them.
18 For men of that sort are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own bellies; and by smooth talk and complimentary speech they seduce the hearts of guileless ones.
19 For your obedience has come to the notice of all. I therefore rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise as to what is good, but innocent as to what is evil (Romans 16).
So for example if you were to tell a lot of people in the congregation that in your opinion the second horseman of the apocalypse is Homer Simpson, well, this is not likely to cause divisions or stumble the guileless ones. It is just another scriptural viewpoint. But if you tell a lot of people in the congregation that the bible code is no use, or that no one can ever see anything in advance from it, or indeed anything obviously designed to demotivate God's people or destroy their faith in the bible, the bible code, Jesus or God, then the elders must act and warn you either officially or unofficially depending on the history and gravity of the situation. If you or your research group have a interesting new idea or see a scriptural mistake on this site, please inform the congregation research overseer or email us or write to us. That is how to present your grain offering to the priesthood. The priest then has the job of seasoning it with salt, before offering it up to God and his people.
Food must be proof read by experienced priests before it is presented. You cannot season your own sacrifice with salt.
Thirdly we consider actions...
If you advise two or more brothers to act on your view of how to worship God rather than on the governing body's view, then you are promoting a sect. The sect of those who worship on your direction rather than that of the governing body. However if you disagree with the governing body and are convinced that you are correct, then you should follow your conscience first and the priesthood second. If this means your leaving the church but holding a good conscience, then so be it. Your conscience is above the priesthood for you. But of course if you are a saint, you will lose your place in the first come first serve angelic baptism queue, and possibly lose your sanctification. We would strongly recommend that anyone consider this carefully discuss the matter with overseers and brothers first.
We would like you to be awake, and responsive first to your conscience and second to the governing body. But do not lead others into opposition, advise them to follow their own conscience. Your duty is to follow your own conscience and inform the governing body of your view. It is not to inform lots of people other than the governing body of your view. Your duty stops there, unless you believe that the governing body has been rejected by God, disfellowshipped by Jesus, and is therefore no longer the governing body. Gordon followed a fallen governing body for too long in his opinion, but for a length of time recorded to the scriptures in Revelation 11! You should not go from congregation to congregation spreading your view on how to worship God, even if you represent that it’s only your view, this sort of dissemination is the job of the governing body. But if you are asked for your view by anybody you are free to give it.
There should be a research overseer in each congregation. He should have superiors all the way up to the governing body. Let us also say this. There is no scriptural basis for banning any books or websites or films of any type. We are not in the garden of Eden any more. We are surrounded by thorns and thistles. Read whatever you like, speak to whomsoever you choose. How can the true religion be less free than the founding fathers envisioned for the US in the Bill of Rights? Any religion which bans books or websites or films, is actually a sect itself. For a sect is a group of people who restrict external influence on themselves. Such things are the tactics of Satan and the Gestapo and McCarthy and the Catholic inquisition, the tactics of the sons of the darkness. They are not the tactics of God or his sons of the light.
So when you have a great new idea please offer your sacrifice to the priesthood. And understand that it is their job to offer the sacrifice up to God in the way that they think is right. It is not your job to offer up that sacrifice. Under law you should give your sacrifice to the priest. You should not tell him what to do with it after that point. It is the same with research today. The church offers the sacrifice up to God by publishing a version of it to all mankind. It is for the church to do this, not for the individual to do it. He is not the high priest of the church.
It is obvious that a promoter of a sect is extreme leaven, therefore any other sort of leaven will be treated no more harshly than him, i.e. get two admonitions first, the yellow and the orange card! The third fleshly act, sin, results in disfellowshipping.
As for a man that promotes a sect, reject him after a first and a second admonition (Titus 3:10).
This is the third time I am coming to you. At the mouth of two witnesses or of three every matter must be established.
I have said previously and, as if present the second time and yet absent now,
I say in advance to those who have sinned before and to all the rest, that if ever I come again I will not spare (2 Corinthians 13:1,2).
For instance one who turns up drunk at meetings regularly, or the one who strips naked in the congregation, or one who fornicates with the elder's daughter is to be treated no more harshly than the raving apostate. The above must carry a charge because they are definitely leaven. As regards all the other sins, not mentioned above in [J3] & [J4], they can be forgiven by the one sinned against or by the elders so long as they do not constitute leaven, i.e. a danger to the congregation, established uncleanness.
Every warning, every accusation, only lasts until the Jubilee. Jubilees are every 50 months, we are under a monthly Sabbath law. The law started in 2000Tishri, the first full month of an LW congregation - see U103. The first Sabbath month was 2001Nisan, which we missed along with several others. The first jubilee month was 2004Heshvan.
Since an overseer should not be a drunken brawler, it is apparent that there were such in the congregation, which means that they were either on an admonition/accusation or had been forgiven, or were known as such but had not been accused.
1 Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 5, Titus 1 all show that men in the congregation can be under an accusation, or under a charge of something which is an accusation. The context seems to indicate that this is a proven accusation.
Do not admit an accusation against an older man except only on the evidence of two or three witnesses. Reprove before all onlookers persons who practice sin, that the rest also may have fear (1 Timothy 5:19,20).
For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might correct the things that were defective and might make appointments of older men in city after city, as I gave you orders. If there is any man free from accusation, a husband of one wife, having believing children that were not under a charge of debauchery nor unruly. For an overseer must be free from accusation (Titus 1:5-7).
So children were members of the congregation (mind you a charge of debauchery means they must have been at least teenagers). And there were men in the congregation who had more than one wife. So having two wives would not stop a man getting baptised (but it would stop him doing much else one would imagine!)
Certainly elders must be publicly reproved, obviously they are not disfellowshipped in the case of 1 Timothy 5:19, because this would be a public reproof. Also presumably ordinary members of the congregation would publicly reproved if they came under accusation, to warn the congregation of the danger they posed. In any event brothers should openly confess their sin!
Therefore openly confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may get healed. A righteous man's supplication, when it is at work, has much force (James 5:16).
Sins which definitely carry an admonition:
True Fornication in circumstances defined in J10 | 1 Timothy 1:8-11 Revelation 21:8 |
Promoter of a sect as defined in J4 | Romans 13:13 Galatians 5:21 |
Thief who does not compensate | Matthew 15:19 Mark 7:21 1 Corinthians 6:9 |
The thief in the congregation should make compensation to the victim, whether in the congregation or not, according to the law of Moses (which is twice as much as he stole if he still has the item, and 4 times as much if it was a small item which he sold on, and 5 times as much if it was a large item which he sold on - the elders can decide whether in their opinion it was small or large). If he does this then there is no penalty from the congregation. He has literally paid for his sin. If he does not then he gets an admonition.
Failing to provide for your own family in circumstances where you have the (legal and financial and logistical) means so to do brings an accusation...
8 Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith (1 Timothy 5).
All the following sins:
Brawlers and smiters | |
Drug addiction | |
Drunkards | |
False swearers of Oaths | 1 Timothy 1:8-11 |
May or may not lead to an admonition depending on whether the elders judge that they are leaven, definite uncleanness, to the congregation. The unintentional manslayer is forgiven. Fornication is a sin against God's law on marriage but it is not a sin against God. Adultery is a sin against God because one is putting asunder what God has yoked together (assuming that the marriage was not a contrivance or the result of blackmail or undue influence etc.) Paul shows that adultery carries immediate disfellowshipping (1 Corinthians 5). False testifying carries the penalty for testifier that would have been laid upon the man falsely accused, had the accusation been made to stick. This can of course be disfellowshipping. If only the laws of this system worked like this! People would think twice before making up stories.
If a man carries a charge and commits a further sin of any type for which he is further charged during the life of the first charge then he carries two charges until the next jubilee, and if he commits a further sin for which he should be charged in this period, then he has 3 witnesses against him that he is unclean and he is thrown out for the balance of the month and then for 6 whole calendar months. He is permitted back on the first day of the 7th month. for Miriam was humiliated and expelled from the camp for 7 days.
Obviously an elder has to step down if a charge is proved against him, this is one import of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Also Peter denied Jesus three times which would have meant disfellowshipping one supposes, had Jesus not made supplication on his behalf to the God of undeserved kindness.
So if someone commits a sin which does not incur death (under the law of Moses) and he does this twice, thus denying Jesus twice, seeing as he is baptised into his name, then we cannot chuck him out, because Peter did this three times. However if he does it three times, then he is chucked out and he, like Peter, will have to rely on Jesus' supplications, and if he says that he is repentant then he will be accepted back after 7 months, in the absence of evidence that he is unrepentant. And Jesus himself said to Peter do you love me three times, but Peter only got very upset at the third instance. So if Jesus has to ask this question of any member of his congregation three times, then that man will get very upset because he will be disfellowshipped. That is the sort of death with which he will glorify God, being taken somewhere that he doesn't want to go, namely the world. But hopefully he will repent after 7 months. Furthermore if Jesus is to be able to ask this question three times, then the sinner must be allowed two warnings, in order that he is still in the congregation when the third question is asked.
Suicide is self murder. It is self disfellowshipping. If you defile your physical temple, your body, with drug addiction you are an idolater. If you destroy your body you have plainly committed a life abusing sin. You have stolen something that belongs to God.
4 Look! All the souls to me they belong. As the soul of the father so likewise the soul of the son to me they belong. The soul that is sinning, it itself will die (Ezekiel 18).
So legally anyone who committed suicide should be disfellowshipped. But of course he has actually disfellowshipped himself. So an attempted suicide as an attempt at a life abusing sin. So it is a fleshly act which requires an official warning. However people who attempt suicide need a lot of help and will not benefit from being thrown out of the church. So whilst they may have given up on their soul the church will not give up on them. We will not disfellowship anyone for any number of attempted suicide bids. They will be constructively fixed with diminished responsibility for this sin. Make no mistake, if you succeed in killing yourself you lose your water baptism. However if they entice others to attempt to commit suicide they are leaven and should definitely get a warning.
2 The overseer should therefore be irreprehensible, a husband of one wife, moderate in habits, sound in mind,
orderly,
hospitable, qualified to teach,
3 not a drunken brawler, not a smiter, but reasonable, not belligerent, not a lover of money,
4 a man presiding over his own household in a fine manner, having children in subjection with all seriousness;
5 (if indeed any man does not know how to preside over his own household, how will he take care of God's congregation?)
6 not a newly converted man, for fear that he might get puffed up [with pride] and fall into the judgment passed upon the Devil.
7 Moreover, he should also have a fine testimony from people on the outside, in order that he might not fall into reproach and a snare of the Devil (1 Timothy 3:2-7).
8 Ministerial servants should likewise be serious, not double-tongued, not giving themselves to a lot of wine, not greedy of dishonest gain,
9 holding the sacred secret of the faith with a clean conscience.
10 Also, let these be tested as to fitness first, then let them serve as ministers, as they are free from accusation.
11 Women should likewise be serious, not slanderous, moderate in habits, faithful in all things.
12 Let ministerial servants be husbands of one wife, presiding in a fine manner over children and their own households (1 Timothy 3:8-12).
5 For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might correct the things that were defective and might make appointments of older men in city after city, as I gave you orders;
6 if there is any man free from accusation, a husband of one wife, having believing children that were not under a charge of debauchery nor unruly.
7 For an overseer must be free from accusation as God's steward, not self-willed, not prone to wrath, not a drunken brawler, not a smiter, not greedy of dishonest gain,
8 but hospitable, a lover of goodness, sound in mind, righteous, loyal, self-controlled,
9 holding firmly to the faithful word as respects his [art of]
teaching, that he may be able both to exhort by the teaching that is healthful and to reprove those who contradict (Titus 1:5-9).
Obscene talk
Multiplying wives (where it is legal in the country concerned)
Fits of Rage
Revilers
General dishonesty
Causing divisions and stumbling others
Covetousness (desiring something that belongs to another).
One should not drink an animal’s blood and one should not take a blood transfusion, the Watchtower Society have realised this correctly, from Acts 15:
Abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood (Acts 15:20).
To keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication (Acts 15:29).
However they apply the law too harshly and too naively (as did we up to November 9th 2004). Firstly one cannot sin by having a transfusion of one’s own blood, because this is what happens during a nose bleed. So if a brother went up to a high altitude and developed a nose bleed, and the blood ran down the back of his throat, then if this was truly an abuse of blood, he would have to be disfellowshipped, for drinking his own blood.
As for any man of the sons of Israel, or some alien resident, who is residing as an alien in your midst, who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust. For the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by the soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it will be cut off (Leviticus 17:13).
The unclean one and the clean one may eat it, like the gazelle and like the stag. Only the blood you must not eat. On the earth you should pour it out as water (Deuteronomy 12:15,16).
These two scriptures say that in the event that you wish to kill an animal to eat it, then you must pour out its blood, and in the event that you pour out its blood, you must pour it out on the earth, and cover it with dust.
The Watchtower Society had deduced at one time from this (it may have changed its position today) that in the event that one takes blood out of a man, one should then pour it out on the earth and not put it back into the same man, in the form of a blood transfusion, at a later time. But these scriptures would only apply if one was going to eat the flesh of that man. They would only apply to cannibals! Since Christians are not cannibals, they do not apply.
So one can certainly store and transfuse one’s own blood. The home of one’s blood is quite obviously in one’s body, it is not unnatural to put it back there after it has been removed.
Secondly God’s laws only apply to members of the congregation. Children under the age of 11 cannot be water baptised into the ICC to be tested as regards their fitness as priests. One could not be registered into the army of Israel until one was 20 years old:
Take the sum of the whole assembly of the sons of Israel from twenty years of age and upward, according to the house of their fathers, all those going out to the army in Israel (Numbers 26:2).
But they can be admitted into the congregation through the bath of the flesh, through the laying on of hands and prayer in the case of FDS4:
Then young children were brought to him, for him to put his hands upon them and offer prayer [this being how FDS4 baptises in water]; but the disciples reprimanded them.
Jesus, however, said: Let the young children alone, and stop hindering them from coming to me, for the kingdom of the heavens belongs to suchlike ones.
And he put his hands upon them and went from there (Matthew 19:13-15).
These children were already under law and so in the ICC through Moses. The lower age limit for water baptism is set by the bible at 11 years old see [J8]. So little children aged 11 and over are under congregation law, but we must apply it bearing their diminished responsibility in mind. No one can be baptised into the 1AC between 2008Nisan14 and 2028Tebbeth5, when entrance into the 1AC is not possible. But there are 195 days of Kingdom 1AC baptism from 2028Tebbeth5 to 2029Tammuz20 (from the 1.1 million men drawing sword of 1Chronicles21 and from the negotiation of Abraham with God of Genesis18), when it is again possible in the Kingdom.
But there may be another option now, namely that if there is time, their blood can be stored before the operation and transfused back after it. Furthermore, it is not inconceivable that a blood bank could be established for the Lord’s witnesses, where all witnesses blood is stored and frozen, in case of an emergency. This would solve the problem to some extent, with good communication and fast motorbikes! Some of the very orthodox Jews do this we think. This might be a worthwhile project? There is also the possibility of synthetic red cells, which are permissible, since they are not 'alive'.
The best example from God of why we should not take a blood transfusion even from our own relatives is the placenta in the mother. This organ exists in order that the nutrients may be extracted from the mother by osmosis, whilst the mother's blood is kept entirely separate from the blood of the foetus. The placenta protects the baby from the mother's blood, and prohibits a transfusion. Body part transplants are quite obviously the same as fornication being an illegal joining of two fleshes who are not married, unless the organ is from your spouse - see [J9]. But a blood transfusion is a joining not of two fleshes but of two bloods, which contain living cells, and is therefore a form of fornication. It is also an abuse of life since to God, and to us:
For the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by the soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood (Leviticus 17:14).
So if joining flesh is fornication then joining blood is adultery.
Synthetic blood is used by the US military in emergency situations. This is acceptable as the blood is not living in any way. It is a dead chemical compound. Furthermore Red Blood Cells themselves are basically dead. They are e-nucleated during before they are released into the blood stream and have no mitocondria so they have no synthesising capability. They become a bag of haemoglobin. So a red cell only transfusion would also be permissable. For more on this see below.
Recent developments in the UK have lead to a situation where the government is reported to be contemplating banning anyone who has ever had a blood transfusion from giving blood! It is possible that the risk of catching BSE from a blood transfusion has been very much underestimated, the reports say. This is obviously an admission that a blood transfusion is not a great idea. The inference is that those who have received a transfusion are damaged goods.
But recently there have been great strides in artificial hemoglobin products and synthetic oxygen transport products, such as polyfluorocarbons (PFCs). Here is a list of some commercial artificial blood products:
Product | Website | Description | Availability |
Hemopure | Biopure, www.biopure.com |
Bovine Hemoglobin glutamer | Clinical trials |
Hemolink | Hemosol, www.hemosol.com/index.cfm | Hemoglobin raffimer | UK approval late 2002/early2003 |
Oxygent | www.allp.com/oxygent | Perfluorocarbon | Phase 3 clinical trials completed in Europe |
Oxycyte | www.sybd.com/SB.html | Perfluorocarbon | unknown |
Here is the commercial sell for PFC as opposed to blood transfusions:
Blood Transfusion | PFC |
Blood Typing required | Universally Compatible |
Bacterial contamination | Heat Sterilised |
Immune Suppression | Normal Immune Function |
Viral disease transmission (AIDS Hepatitus C, BSE etc.) | Synthetic ingredients |
Delayed Oxygen Delivery | Immediate Oxygen Delivery |
Shortages | Cost effective manufacturing |
PFCs have the capability to be as good as or better than red cells at oxygen transport to cells. Oxycyte claims to do a 70 times better job than God in this regard and why not? This technology is represented to be only a few months away from FDA approval. Oxycyte has just finished Phase 1 clinical trials - see www.bioexchange.com. Some of the progress made in this new field must be due to the position of the JWs. So here, for a change, the LWs salute the JWs for their uncompromising stance on blood in general (although the details were wrong, the idea was right). As of March 25th 2004, MP4, a new synthetic red cell substitute has passed its phase II clinical trials. So artificial blood is nearly here!
In Scotland work is being done on creating real red cells from stem cells. This would solve the problem entirely if the red cells could be made in large enough volume. Red cells are dead carrying vehicles for haemoglobin. God would not prohibit a red cell only transfusion. For more on this see www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12752422
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/scientific-breakthrough-will-allow-for-mass-produced-blood_uk_58d5309fe4b03787d357876a Bristol University together with the NHS have found a way to make billions of cultured red blood cells. These can be transfused without any risk of disease.
Well, here is a section that Gordon never thought he would be writing! The LWs changed their stance on blood transfusions on November 9th 2004 (early morning) 2004Heshvan22, as a result of the work of Jeff Goldsmith, a son of Levi. He spent two months considering this issue and at the same time Barb in the US was considering it. They both focused on 1Samuel14. Jeff convinced Gordon and we finally understand the following:
When someone attacks you, trying to kill you, they lose their right to their life, their blood. You gain the right to use their life, their blood, only to save your own. You can choose to kill them and spill their blood in self defence with impunity. If your life is in danger then you can make any use of their blood, their life, that in your judgment protects or saves your life, your blood. So you can make any life protecting use of an attacker's blood without his consent, since his attack on your life, your blood, is an implied consent. The legal effect of the attack is merely to grant a consent to the victim to use the attacker's blood in a life protecting way. Therefore you can make any life protecting use of a non attacker's blood with his consent. Therefore you can take a blood transfusion from a consenting person in order to protect your life.
Putting this in a more simple way. God's law on blood exists to protect the sanctity of physical life which is represented by the blood and is owned by God. Therefore a use of blood which saves a life, does not break the law which forbid's abuse of blood. It is actually the purpose of blood to protect life!!!
This is not true of God's law on idolatry. If a false worshipper tells you he will shoot you unless you do an act of false worship, the thing to do is to refuse, and if necessary, kill him, run or get shot.
Here is the relevant part of 1Samuel14:
23 And Jehovah proceeded on that day to save Israel, and the battle itself passed over to Beth-aven.
24 And the men of Israel themselves were hard pressed on that day, and yet Saul put the people under the pledge of an oath, saying: Cursed is the man that eats bread before the evening and until I have taken vengeance upon my enemies! And none of the people tasted bread.
25 And all those of the land came into the woods, when honey happened to be over all the surface of the field.
26 When the people came into the woods, why, look! there was a dripping of honey, but there was no one putting his hand to his mouth, because the people were afraid of the oath.
27 As for Jonathan, he had not been listening when his father put the people under an oath, so he stretched out the tip of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it into the honeycomb and drew his hand back to his mouth, and his eyes began to beam.
28 At this one of the people answered and said: Your father solemnly put the people under oath,
saying, 'Cursed is the man that eats bread today!' And the people began to get tired.
29 However,
Jonathan said: My father has brought ostracism upon the land. See,
please, how my eyes have beamed because I tasted this little bit of honey.
30 How much more so if the people had but eaten today from the spoil of their enemies that they found! For now the slaughter upon the Philistines has not been great.
31 And on that day they kept striking down the Philistines from Michmash to Aijalon, and the people got to be very tired.
32 And the people began darting greedily at the spoil and taking sheep and cattle and calves and slaughtering them on the earth, and the people fell to eating along with the blood [they did not bleed them before they cooked them].
33 So they told Saul, saying: Look! The people are sinning against Jehovah by eating along with the blood. At this he said: You have dealt treacherously. First of all, roll a great stone to me.
34 After that Saul said: Scatter among the people, and you must say to them, 'Bring near to me, each one of you, his bull and, each one, his sheep, and you must do the slaughtering in this place and the eating, and you must not sin against Jehovah by eating along with the blood.' Accordingly all the people brought near each one his bull that was in his hand that night and did the slaughtering there.
35 And Saul proceeded to build an altar to Jehovah. With it he started altar building to Jehovah.
36 Later Saul said: Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the morning lightens up, and let us not leave a single one among them. To this they said: Anything that is good in your eyes do. Then the priest said: Let us approach here to the [true] God.
37 And Saul began to inquire of God: Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into the hand of Israel? And he did not answer him on that day.
38 So Saul said:
Come near here, all you keymen of the people, and ascertain and see in what way this sin has come to be today.
39 For as Jehovah, who is the Deliverer of Israel, is alive, even if it is in Jonathan my son, yet he will positively die. But there was no one answering him out of all the people.
40 And he went on to say to all Israel: You yourselves will come to be on the one side, and I and Jonathan my son -- we will come to be on the other side. At this the people said to Saul: What is good in your eyes do.
41 And Saul proceeded to say to Jehovah: Oh God of Israel, do give Thummim! Then Jonathan and Saul were taken, and the people themselves went out.
42 Saul now said:
Cast lots to decide between me and Jonathan my son. And Jonathan got to be taken.
43 Then Saul said to Jonathan: Do tell me, What have you done? So Jonathan told him and said: I did for a fact taste a little honey on the tip of the rod that is in my hand.
Here I am! Let me die!
45 At this Saul said: Thus may God do and thus may he add to it, if you do not positively die,
Jonathan.
45 But the people said to Saul: Is Jonathan to die, who has performed this great salvation in Israel? It is unthinkable! As Jehovah is alive, not as much as a single hair of his head will fall to the earth; for it was with God that he worked this day.
With that the people redeemed Jonathan, and he did not die
46 So Saul withdrew from following the Philistines, and the Philistines themselves went to their place (1 Samuel 14).
This is a very interesting and technical account. Jonathon instigates an attack on the Philistines. Saul makes the people swear an unnecessary oath that limits their ability to do God's work. Jonathon inadvertently breaks this oath being unaware that it existed and God blesses him and the attack nonetheless. Saul then attempts to instigate a further attack on the Philistines on the next Hebrew day, but God does not indicate that he will bless Saul's attack. It must have occurred to Saul that he might be at fault, because he asks for Thummim to decide whose fault it is that God refuses to bless the second attack. The Thummim decides that the fault lies with either Jonathon or Saul. Thummim should be used by the priest not by the king, although Saul may have asked the priest to use it. So the result here is suspect.
So the lot came for Jonathon and Saul instantly and immediately condemned his own son to death, a son whose battle against the Philistines had been blessed by God all day long. But in truth it was Saul who was to blame by putting his men in an impossible position with an oath that was tantamount to killing them. He took Israel into the oath in order to appear to be as courageous as his son Jonathon, with whom he was competing. He was actually jealous of his own son, and he risked the lives of the whole army in order to enhance his popularity (he could have run for office today on that ticket and won). Now God did not kill those of the sons of Israel who had eaten blood along with their meat. He could have instructed Saul to attack the Philistines and arranged for everyone who had eaten blood to be killed for example. He could have instructed Samuel to speak to Saul and tell him to kill everyone who had eaten blood. He could have sent an angel and struck them all down as he did in the case of 70,000 of those who agreed to be registered by Joab. But God did not punish any of his people, he merely embarrassed Saul by failing to bless him as he had blessed his son. This was in fact the perfect punishment for a King who had sought to increase his popularity by risking the lives of his soldiers. God's response was to save the lives of his soldiers and decrease the popularity of the King!
Now clearly God did not make a mistake or forget about the men who had eaten the blood! So there must have been extenuating circumstances for the sons of Israel who abused blood. Well if you are prosecuting a war which requires you to chase after people and hack them to pieces with swords, then being tired and hungry and therefore weak, is a life threatening problem. So the extenuating circumstances were that the soldiers were in mortal danger. If the Philistines had launched a counter attack on tired hungry and weak Jews, the result could have been fatal.
So obviously there are circumstances wherein abusing blood carries no penalty.
We deduce from this account that such circumstances are when the abuse of blood is for the purpose of saving or protecting life. Here is some more simple blood logic...
10 As for any man of the house of Israel or some alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst who eats any sort of blood, I shall certainly set my face against the soul that is eating the blood, and I shall indeed cut him off from among his people.
11
For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls,
because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul [in it].
12
That is why I have said to the sons of Israel: No soul of you must eat blood and no alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst should eat blood (Leviticus 17).
So the only permissible use of blood under law was sacrificial in order to redeem your soul. The purpose of a sacrifice being to save life. So God only permits blood to be used sacrificially in order save life. So if someone sacrifices his own blood in order to save another persons life, through a blood transfusion, then that is precisely the permitted use of blood by God. In fact the one who sacrifices his blood in order to save another's life is doing what Jesus did with his blood, is he not? And the one who sacrifices his kidney in order to save his brother's life is likewise doing what Jesus did with his body, surely? For we both eat his body and drink his blood.
If we are Christians, should we not then sacrifice both our body parts and our blood in order to save our brother's lives, like our examplar Jesus Christ did, in order to save all of our lives?
Or shall we stand here, saved by the sacrificial use of Jesus' body and blood, claiming to be following in his footsteps, but forbidding the sacrificial use of our own body or our own blood to save anyone else – doh!
So dear brothers and sisters in the patriarchs of Israel and in the cherubs of God, we have become like our archetypes the Pharisees whom we deride. We have gulped down the details of the law of Moses and strained out its lesson and its fulfilment, which is the absolute necessity of the sacrifice of one man’s body and blood for another. For it was a tutor leading to the sacrifice of the Christ. And we as Christians should likewise stand ready to sacrifice ourselves or parts thereof for our brothers. Jesus said:
And Jesus has purchased us all and so owns our blood. Our blood is his possession and he gave his blood for others and we as Christians should follow his example. Certainly he who owns it cannot forbid us to use it as he did his, for the purpose of saving life.
Physiologically, assuming the blood you receive contains living blood cells (non red cells) from another person, then your blood is polluted and becomes unclean. What this means is that any baptism which you possess, since it was effected by a washing in the blood of a mediator, is broken, because the blood you receive will not be so washed. Now there is an interesting question here. Since you cannot be spirit baptised twice, is a born again brother or sister consigned to Gehenna by virtue of this transfusion?
The answer is no because the baptism symbolically washes not just your blood but effectively your blood production organs, such as your spleen and your bone marrow. If it only symbolically washed your blood cells, then since they all perish after a few months, your baptism would ' run out'! So after a few months (and certainly less that 7 months) the foreign blood cells will have all died and your spirit baptism will be returned to you.
If you receive a blood transfusion unknowingly or against your will, then you are in the position of a woman who has been raped. So long as you 'screamed' (if that was possible - Deuteronomy 22) you can be returned to the congregation immediately.
23 In case there happened to be a virgin girl engaged to a man, and a man actually found her in the city and lay down with her,
24 You must also bring them both out to the gate of that city and pelt them with stones, and they must die, the girl for the reason that she did not scream in the city, and the man for the reason that he humiliated the wife of his fellowman. So you must clear away what is evil from your midst.
25 If, however, it is in the field that the man found the girl who was engaged, and the man grabbed hold of her and lay down with her, the man who lay down with her must also die by himself,
26 and to the girl you must do nothing. The girl has no sin deserving of death, because just as when a man rises up against his fellowman and indeed murders him, even a soul, so it is with this case (Deuteronomy 22:23-26).
[1] Any baptised LW who willingly takes a blood transfusion of blood other than his/her own is disfellowshipped for 7 months unless the blood transfusion was necessary to save his/her life or to prevent a life threatening situation.
[2] Any baptised LW who willingly donates blood without a guarantee from the person to whom he gives it that the blood will only be used to save a life or to prevent a life threatening situation is disfellowshipped for 7 months.
[3] God's law as we understand it, does permit blood transfusions only in life threatening situations. If you take a transfusion in these circumstances we recommend that you ask for blood filtered with at least a 4th generation log6 filter to limit your exposure to the immune system of the donor.
[4] If you choose not to have a blood transfusion in a life threatening circumstance, this is not an attempted suicide, everyone has the right to refuse any form of medical treatment.
Artificial blood is OK, your own blood is OK, and white cell free blood (not white cell reduced blood) is OK. But at this point the technology for white cell free blood, which is the holy grail of blood transfusion medicine, is not yet available. As we understand it.
So the LW Blood Transfusion Card will read something like this...
I only authorise a blood transfusion as a last resort in a life threatening situation. I will only accept leucodepleted blood.
Signed...........................................
18 And where a man lies down with a menstruating woman and does lay bare her nakedness, he has exposed her source, and she herself has laid bare the source of her blood. So both of them must be cut off from among their people (Levictus 20).
We take this to mean that one should not have unprotected penetrative sex with a menstruating woman. Because 'lying down with' means having procreative sex with - see fornication and adultery - If such a thing deliberately occurs when the woman is definitively menstruating then according to the law, both parties should be thrown out. This is because the act is a potential abuse of blood. The blood of the woman can easily enter the thin skin of the moving member of the man. Protected sex would be OK in this situation, but not advisable when menstruation proper has set in. We are not going to police this and there will never or very rarely be 2 or 3 witnesses to such an act. So use your conscience and common sense here brothers and sisters please! We are not going to be the menstrual investigation society! Women can spot a few days before menstruation proper begins and start in the middle of having sex etc etc. The principle is for the man not to dip his naked penis, naked finger or naked tounge in a menstruating womans vagina, because such a thing has a signficant risk of mixing live blood which is a sin other than in a life threatening situation. The tongue is absolutely the worst idea since it could well lead to drinking the woman's blood.
In the case of a gynocologist he would use a surgical glove presumably and would not be 'lying down' with the woman in the biblical sense.
The JWs as of November 2004 still ban major blood components, which they deem to be red cells, white cells, plasma and platelets, but permit fractions of those components. In particular they used to ban factor 8 for hemophiliacs (but no longer do as it is a fraction of a component). Now it is obvious that all blood components cannot be banned because water is a component of blood. So which components of blood are the sacred part? Well the answer is found in Leviticus 17:14 above or in Genesis:
Only flesh with its soul - its blood - you must not eat (Genesis 9:4).
Blood represents or is the soul, the life of the flesh. It feeds the flesh. So it is the components of blood which represent life which must be avoided. These are the living components of blood quite obviously, the blood cells. So blood cells should be avoided, if they are alive. By this we mean, platelets, leucocytes (white blood cells) etc. but not erythrocytes (red blood cells), because erythrocytes are dead by the following scriptural yardstick:
The word of God is alive and exerts power (Hebrews 4:12).
The Word of God is alive in the sense that is has different meanings at different times, in other words it is not static in meaning. It has the ability to change its character. Something which is alive is not passive, it is active with the ability to change itself. Red cells, having no nucleus, cannot change their constitution, so they are dead, in the sense of Hebrews 4:12. Blood plasma which is devoid of all living cells can be transfused without violating God's laws, because it is none of it alive.
So returning to the Haemophiliac, we see that factor 8, being a dead chemical compound, can be transfused, ingested or taken intravenously without sin. At this point there may be some readers who burst into tears, and quite rightly so. For there are a number of Jehovah's witnesses who were haemophiliacs, who may have been known to the reader, and who have died unnecessarily as a result of the false and ignorant teachings of the Society on blood we believe. In fact there may even have been some bible students who have died before they were baptised because of their faith and because of the negligence of the Governing body in this respect. Fortunately we have a God who appreciates what these faithful people have done, and if he resurrects anyone, he will resurrect them. But he may well ask back their blood from the governing body of the Witnesses. For these leaders are bloodguilty men in this respect not by intent, but by negligence. It does not take a genius to work out that it is the living components of blood that Acts 15, Leviticus 17 and Genesis 9 refer to.
In this regard Gordon must say the following: "You know my bible research reminds me of a situation that I often see at work. In my office we have a team of people who have the job of compiling the statistics on how well the business is doing. One of my businesses makes around Ł15,000 per week ($23,000). On one particular week I was handed figures showing that my business had made Ł150,000 ($230,000) !!! For the previous 50 weeks it had always made between Ł10,000 ($16,000) and Ł20,000 ($32,000). The whole statistics department just handed me these figures without comment. They didn't even realise that the figures were ludicrous. They didn't even think that if we really had made ten times more money that week than we had in every other preceding week then we would all have been doing ten times more work that week than usual which would have been totally impossible. What this whole department did was write down figures without thinking about them, without understanding them and without caring about what they could possibly mean. It was a vacuous exercise that they were performing. At that moment I knew exactly how God feels about his people who read his book.
They nearly all read it without understanding a word, because they are not prepared to think about what it might mean, just like my statistics department. It is truly maddening! Dear reader: Do not be like my statistics department used to be, please! It's like God told Isaiah to say to his true people, to the true people of God mind you:
Hear again and again, Oh men, but do not understand. And see again and again but do not get any knowledge (Isaiah 6:9)."
So it is ok to take factor 8. It is ok to take blood plasma, so long as it has no living cells in it. And it is OK to take any blood component at all if it is necessary to save your life or to avoid a life threatening situation.
The reason that blood transfusions save lives, is that the life is in the blood, in the sense that the red cells carry the oxygen needed for the brain and the rest of the flesh. A common usage of a blood transfusion which can save life is after a car crash where the patient has lost a lot of blood and is still bleeding. Now the advantage of a blood transfusion is that the new red cells keep feeding the patients brain with oxygen and therefore keep him alive until the bleeding can be stopped. The patient is just like a carton of orange with a hole in it. If you cannot plug the hole then you can maintain the level of orange by adding more juice. The disadvantage of this therapy is that the new red cells and all of the other blood cells which are transfused into the bleeding patient are foreign to the patient's body. So the patient's own white cells then start a war with all of the new foreign blood cells. This can cause the patient real problems if his body was say fighting cancer at the time of the transfusion. Also there are the dangers of picking up whatever blood borne diseases the blood donor had, such as Aids, Hepatitis or BSE. These are real dangers today. Actually these risks have become much less significant in the last 10 years with leucodepleted blood and other treatments common in the more developed countries.
We are wondering if it would be possible to kill or remove all of the white blood cells from whole blood. Can one prepare a Red Blood Cell only transfusion? This would not break God's law as we understand it, because the whole transfusion would be a dead chemical soup. This idea was first proposed by Francis Flukka in an email to Gordon Ritchie.
Now the best modern transfusions have a reduced white blood cell count. A typical unit of whole blood has around 5 x 109 White cells, or 5 billion white cells and around 3000 billion red cells. Modern third generation blood filters can reduce the white blood cell count to 5 x 106 cells per unit, or 5 million cells per unit. Frozen deglycerolised blood has around the same reduction in white cells. Both filtered blood and frozen deglycerolised blood eliminate febrile reactions and Cytomegalovirus transmission from blood transfusions. It is an interesting statistic the 94% of blood in US blood banks is thrown away because it can only be stored for around 40 days and yet frozen blood which can be kept indefinitely and certainly for 10 years, is apparently uneconomic?
There are new 4th generation filters in development which can reduce the white blood cell count further to 5 x 103 white blood cells per unit. These are called log6 filters because they reduce the white cell count by a million times which is 106 times and log106 = 6. Such blood would be the safest possible in transfusion terms, and in fact one article in the Lancet (by Janet Fricker March 9, 1996), about biochemically changing red cells from type A or AB to type O, described the 'Holy Grail' of blood transfusion as type O red cell only blood. This blood could be given to anyone with no adverse consequences at all (since HIV and the various herpes virus HSVs and the various Hepatitus viruses and HTLV and Epstein Barr antibodies are transferred via the white cells - so long as they do not somehow get stuck to the red cells). Such a transfusion, if truly dead, i.e. carrying no living viruses, unsurprisingly, would not break God's spiritual laws. In fact the physical is designed to illustrate the spiritual. One wonders what all of the different blood types illustrate. It must be something to do with baptisms and covenants, and blood of mediators. One wonders what blood type Jesus was in this symbolism??
Now a unit of blood with only 5 thousand white cells in it is pretty impressive and is pretty safe. It has only got a handful of WBCs in every cc. But a Christian would be sinning 5 thousand times if he took it in a non life threatening situation physiologically speaking. We need a blood unit which has either no white cells or an immeasurably low count of them. The Lords' Witnesses hope to promote research to create such a transfusion, either by chemical treatment, by even better filters, by freezing or howsoever. Many JWs have died from refusal to accept blood transfusions, and if the truth be known many although less have survived through not accepting blood transfusions due to HIV etc.
This is a complex subject, but God has given us the reasoning power to solve the equation. It would be an honour and a privilege to get this one right for him and for his people and for his ex people who still hold true to the blood prohibition of Acts 15. Anyone reading this who can think of a way to prepare true red cell only transfusions please contact us, you may well save many lives. It occurs to Gordon that blood filtration is designed to yield at least 80% of the original red cells. But if this figure was allowed to be reduced to say 10%, there would be an 8 times reduction in red cells but possibly an 8,000 times reduction in white cells and we might almost be there. And then the blood could be concentrated by a factor of 8 (not to be confused with factor 8!) to return it to 80% of its initial RBC count. This would cost 8 times as much per blood unit however. Multi stage filtering is one possibility.
Alternatively if one could just kill all the living cells in whole blood and then transfuse it immediately afterwards, this would not break God's law, since no living cells would be transfused. It would pose no danger of infection or of degraded immune response to the patient, since the war against the foreign cells is already won seeing as they are dead before they are transfused. If one could say irradiate the blood just before transfusing it, or chemically treat it, in order to kill the living matter, we would have both solved the problem of Blood Transfusions for sincere Christians and developed a better therapy for the rest of the world, because this treated transfusion would be risk free! There are some chemotherapy treatments that might be able to do this.
If this improved therapy works it would be a therapy developed as a direct result of biblical knowledge. Irradiated blood is currently used in blood transfusion therapy in the cases of cancer patients and blood relatives where TAGVHD transfusion associated graft versus host disease can be a problem in a small number of cases. Actually a lethal problem. Blood is given between 2,500 and 5,000 rads, which prevents the leucocytes (white cells) from dividing and which knocks out some of the platelets but which does not kill/burst the red blood cells. It is not known to have any bad side effects at this time - see 'Guidelines for irradiation of blood and blood components' - New York State Council on human blood and transfusion services - www.wadsworth.org/labcert/blood_tissue/irradiate.htm . We are wondering whether there is a dosage of radiation which will kill the white cells without bursting the red cells.
Finally, of course, it is ok to eat black pudding, haggis, rare steaks, sushi, etc., so long as the blood cells in the rare meat are actually dead. We do not know how long blood cells live after an animal is slaughtered. Some research should be done here.
We know from the manner in which God treated those under 20 in the wilderness, and from the fact that they could not be registered in Israel that no one under 20 can be sanctified, that is baptised in holy spirit. But what is the lower limit for water baptism?
13 Then young children were brought to him, for him to put his hands upon them and offer prayer; but the disciples reprimanded them.
14 Jesus, however, said: Let the young children alone, and stop hindering them from coming to me, for the kingdom of the heavens belongs to suchlike ones.
15 And he put his hands upon them and went from there (Matthew 19:13-15).
This is an omission symbolism, the children were brought for Jesus to both put his hands upon and offer prayer, he did only the former.
2 Although indeed Jesus himself did not baptizing but his disciples did (John 4:2).
By the Omission Principle of the code, the greater meaning of this involves actually saying a prayer, which would result in a water baptism for these kids (since the LWs water baptise through prayer).
13 Now people began bringing him young children (paidia)
for him to touch these; but the disciples reprimanded them.
14 At seeing this Jesus was indignant and said to them: Let the young children (paidia) come to me; do not try to stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to suchlike ones.
15 Truly I say to you, Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a young child (paidia) will by no means enter into it.
16 And he took them into his arms and began blessing them, laying his hands upon them (Mark 10:13-16).
So now Jesus has said a blessing over them and laid his hands upon them, both of which are done in a baptism - see 204.
15 Now people began to bring him also their infants (brefh)
for him to touch these; but on seeing it the disciples began to reprimand them.
16 However, Jesus called them to him, saying: Let the young children (paidia)
come to me, and do not try to stop them. For the kingdom of God belongs to suchlike ones.
17 Truly I say to you, Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a young child will by no means get into it (Luke 18:15-17).
Here infants were brought but Jesus responded that not infants but young children should not be stopped from coming to him. So it is clear from all of the above that infants should not be baptised in water but young children should be so baptised. However at what age does an infant become a young child from a biblical point of view?
Firstly we look at the account of Isaac, who after he was weaned was persecuted by Ishmael. Now persecution is one of the trade marks of a Christian, or should I say of a member of the true religion.
8 Now the child kept growing and came to be weaned; and Abraham then prepared a big feast on the day of Isaac's being weaned.
9 And Sarah kept noticing the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, poking fun (Genesis 21:8,9).
Now we know that Abraham's seed were to be afflicted for 400 years:
13 And he began to say to Abram: You may know for sure that your seed will become an alien resident in a land not theirs, and they will have to serve them, and these will certainly afflict them for 400 years (Genesis 15:13).
This affliction was of course at the hands of the Egyptians, and look! Ishmael is described as 'the son of Hagar the Egyptian' in case we did not know. So the 400 years started this day and ended on 1513Nisan14 at the Passover. So this day was 1913Nisan14 which might explain the big feast that Abraham made. Isaac was born when Abraham was 100, so he was born in 1918. So Isaac was 5 years old at the time that he was born weaned and persecuted.
Now we have a look at possibly the most politically incorrect scripture in the entire bible. Of course politicians are dishonest as we all no so being politically correct is being correct by the very definition of a politician!
3 and the estimated value has to be of a male from 20 years old up to 60 years old, the estimated value must then become 50 shekels of silver by the shekel of the holy place.
4 But if it is a female, the estimated value must then become 30 shekels.
5 And if the age is from 5 years old up to 20 years old,
the estimated value of the male must then become 20 shekels and for the female 10 shekels.
6 And if the age is from a month old up to 5 years old,
the estimated value of the male must then become 5 shekels of silver and for the female the estimated value must be 3 shekels of silver.
7 'Now if the age is from 60 years old upward, if it is a male, the estimated value must then become 15 shekels and for the female 10 shekels (Leviticus 27:3,7)
This can be succinctly summarized in the table below:
Age | Male | Female |
0 - 5 | 5 | 3 |
5 - 20 | 20 | 10 |
20 - 60 | 50 | 30 |
60 + | 15 | 10 |
Here again the holy spirit is making a distinction at 5 years old. So although we are no longer under law, we know that God's principles do not change so an 'infant' becomes a 'young child' at 5 years old. So a young child of 5 years old (by the BLC which has been in use since 1992Elul - Gordon thinks) can be baptised, but into which covenant? A 5 year old child is plainly too young to act as a priest and to baptise others in water, so they must be baptised into the 1AC not the ICC. But a 12 year old child was resurrected by Jesus into a non adamic Abrahamic body (Abraham was ransomed by non adamic Isaac). So 12 year old kids can certainly be in the 1AC. The fundamental pattern of U41 has Adam entering Eden aged 11, and all temple builders are commissioned 11 years into the pattern, building the temple for 22˝ years. So children can enter into the ICC, and become subject to the law of the church aged 11 by Hebrew reckoning. This makes sense because 12 year old girls can get pregnant and all pregnancies must be under the law which must protect the rights of children.
So children aged from 5-11 cannot enter into the congregation but can be baptised into the 1AC. Children aged 11 years or more by Hebrew reckoning can and should enter into the congregation so that any procreation is properly protected by church law.
He was born on 2Heshvan21 BC. He was commissioned to build the temple of FDS1 in 10Tishri, 22˝ years before its inauguration in 33Nisan. He went up to the Passover with his parents and questioned the pharisees aged 12.
41 Now his parents were accustomed to go from year to year to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover.
42 And when he became 12 years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival
43 and completed the days. But when they were returning,
the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, and his parents did not notice it.
44 Assuming that he was in the company travelling together, they covered a day's distance and then began to hunt him up among the relatives and acquaintances.
45 But, not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem,
making a diligent search for him.
46 Well, after 3 days they found him in the temple,
sitting in the midst of the teachers and listening to them and questioning them.
(Luke 2 NWT)
He would have questioned the teachers on the first trip to Jerusalem after having been commissioned, which was 11Nisan. So he was 12 years old in that month. So these must have been Nisan1 sacred years. Because he only had 11 Tishri1 year starts on 11Nisan14. Jesus was non adamic. So it appears that non adamic people age in sacred Nisan1 years and adamic people age in secular Tishri1 years - which makes sense. But then Adam became what we call adamic in Nisan and was born non adamic in Tishri? But then the original calendar of man had a Tishri1 start and that was changed for Hebrews to Nisan with an intercalary Adar in 1513 BC at the exodus.
The good book says as regards overseers:
6 If there is any man free from accusation, a husband of one wife, having believing children that were not under a charge of debauchery nor unruly (Titus 1).
Why single out only debauchery as a charge for children which would disqualify their father from being an overseer? Well, if a child is old enough to be debauched then he is old enough to be baptised. Paul's advice only applies to children in the church since one cannot be charged by the church unless one is in it. Debauchery and unruliness are the sins of children for which parents are held responsible as regards their suitability to be elders...
But there is more, because a man or woman who is over 60 has a 'value' less than or equal to a young child. So we must consider the possibility that a person who is 60 years old or more cannot be sanctified and is only eligible for a water baptism. This would appear to make sense as the test on someone with that age and maturity would be less than it would be on a 21 year old. Except that older people are more brittle. They are more set in their ways. So they would find it more difficult to change their lives so actually the test might work out the same for them!
However when God registered Israel, after the exodus, he registered everyone over 20 and everyone over 60! So this is saying that anyone over 20 can be sanctified. If we try to use the reduced working value of a 60 year old as a measure for saints then it would surely apply to the water baptised too since they are both under the same test of congregation law. But it does not apply to the water baptised and so neither does it apply to the saints. So there is no upper limit on water or spirit baptism
15 Blow a horn in Zion, O men. Sanctify a time of fasting. Call together a solemn assembly.
16 Gather [the] people together. Sanctify a congregation. Collect [the] old men together. Gather children and those sucking the breasts together. Let [the] bridegroom go forth from his interior room, and [the] bride from her nuptial chamber (Joel 2).
The Holy Spirit has separated the sucklings (under 5), the children (5-20), the congregation (20-60) and the old men (over 60). Only the congregation is sanctified. Literally this 'sanctification' was a setting aside for a holy purpose. The greater meaning is not about sanctification in holy spirit, since children and those sucking the breasts cannot be sanctified.
14 For all who are led by God's spirit, these are God's sons.
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery causing fear again, but you received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which spirit we cry out:
"Abba, the Father!"
16 The spirit itself bears-witness-with the spirit of us [not the spirits of us, but the spirit singular of the congregation, the church] that we are God's children (Romans 8).
The congregation spirit is a composite spirit, like the holy spirit, which is the overall spirit of the congregation of the holy angels. The holy spirit tells the congregation which ones are spirit baptised, not the saints in that congregation!!!
36 And he went on to say: Abba,
the Father, all things are possible to you; remove this cup from me. Yet not what I want, but what you want (Mark 14).
6 Now because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts and it cries out: Abba,
the Father! (Galatians 4).
Now any man over 20 could be registered into the army of Israel to fight.
45 And all those registered of the sons of Israel according to the house of their fathers from twenty years old upward, everyone going out to the army in Israel, came to be (Numbers 1).
Any man 20 years old or over can fight and kill the enemy by water baptism. So you can be water baptised aged 5 or over and you can carry out a water baptism if you are male and 20 years old and over. You can be spirit baptised or carry out a spirit baptism if you are 20 years old or over by Hebrew reckoning. There is no upper age limit as we once thought because you could fight in the army at any age. No one was de-registered from the army for being too old! So you can be spirit baptised if you are over 60.
3 Honor widows that are actually widows.
4 But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let these learn first to practice godly devotion in their own house and to keep paying a due compensation to their parents and grandparents, for this is acceptable in God's sight.
5 Now the woman who is actually a widow and left destitute has put her hope in God and persists in supplications and prayers night and day.
6 But the one that goes in for sensual gratification is dead though she is living.
7 So keep on giving these commands, that they may be irreprehensible.
8 Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are household-members, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith.
9 Let a widow be listed who has become not less than 60 years old, a wife of one man,
10 having a witness borne to her for fine works, if she reared-children, if she entertained strangers, if she washed the feet of holy ones, if she relieved those in tribulation, if she diligently followed every good work.
11 On the other hand, turn down younger widows, for when their sexual impulses have come between them and the Christ, they want to marry,
12 having a judgment because they have disregarded their first [expression of] faith.
13 At the same time they also learn to be unoccupied,
gadding about to the houses; yes, not only unoccupied, but also gossipers and meddlers in other people's affairs, talking of things they ought not.
14 Therefore I desire the younger [widows] to marry, to bear-children, to household-manage, to give no inducement to the opposer to revile.
15 Already, in fact, some have been turned aside to follow Satan.
16 If any believing [woman] has widows, let her relieve them, and let the congregation not be under the burden. Then it can relieve the [ones] truly widows (1 Timothy 5).
Widows (5)
Widow (3)
Woman (1)
Children (1)
Grandchildren (1)
House (1)
Houses (1)
Husband (0)
Christ (1)
Satan (1)
Faith (1)
Tribulation (1)
Gossipers (1)
Meddlers (1)
The passage has no countable noun recited an even number of times. So it has no greater meaning. But Paul is plainly saying that the holy spirit regards 60 year old women as not being under the same test as younger women as regards their sexual impulses. So a test on a 60 year old is a different test to that on a 30 year old. But nonetheless it is still a test.
These are quite obviously the same as fornication:
16 What! Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? For, The 2, says he, will be one flesh.
17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
18 Flee from fornication. Every other sin that a man may commit is outside his body, but he that practices fornication is sinning against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6 NWT)
So an organ transplant could in theory be a disfellowshipping matter since it would be impossible to do the honourable thing and marry the donor presumably! It would not be a sin to take an organ from your spouse however. One might think here that it is a bad law from God to ban organ transplants, but look at the awful trade in human organs that this practice has produced ! Actually in general the donor would not be in the congregation so the equivalent fornication would carry no penalty - see below. So organs can be accepted without penalty from God. If one accepted an organ from a sister in the congregation however one would have to offer to marry her to avoid a warning!! But there again the two parties would already be very intimate indeed!! This all changes post November 9, 2004. Now you can commit fornication in self defence!! That is a good one. If you need an organ transplant to save your life, then there is no penalty for this fornication. If there is no penalty for joining two bloods in self defence, then neither is there a penalty for joining two fleshes in self defence. So post 9 November 2004 you can take an organ from a sister (so long as she agrees) and you do not have to offer to marry her if you need the organ to save your life or to prevent a life threatening situation from occurring.
King Solomon said...
32 Anyone committing adultery with a woman is in want of heart; he that does it is bringing his own soul to ruin (Proverbs 6).
And Jesus said, in his sermon on the mount....
28 But I say to you that everyone that keeps on looking at a woman [assumed married] so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5).
When you look at a married woman you do not sin. You fuel a desire to sin. James explains the distinction between these two situations...
15 Then the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin; in turn, sin, when it has been accomplished, brings forth
death (James 1).
Desires are not sins themselves. They are sinful yes, in that they are a step on the road to sin. But you need to act in order to sin. Desires are policed by one's conscience. And it is God's purpose and indeed the purpose of any good teacher to train your conscience so that you police your own actions according to his righteousness. And he will succeed. You are free to choose to take as long as you like in this school, but God does not fail. You will eventually Graduate!
Likewise, in this church, we will not police everything you do. Because the idea is for you to train your own conscience based upon God's standard of righteousness, which the church hopefully understands and explains. We do not police any desires at all - there are no hate crimes - indeed hate in not a crime it is an unsustainable desire - and there are some sins which we also do not police. But our not policing a sin does not mean that you should go ahead and do it, or that we endorse that sin or any sin. It just means that we hope you can police yourself to that extent and God trusts you to do that. He trusts us a lot. God is a fairly hands off manager!!
So when you look at a married woman the wrong way, you do not sin, you merely fuel a destructive desire. If that desire leads to adultery, then you sin and we police that sin. Obviously looking at and desiring an unmarried woman is not a sin either. And when a woman looks at any man with a view to having sex, she likewise commits absolutely no sin.
15 Then the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin; in turn, sin, when it has been accomplished, brings forth
death (James 1).
The scriptures make a lot of noise about the emission of semen defiling a woman...
20 Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her. (Leviticus 18 KJV)
20 And thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her. (Leviticus 18 ASV)
20 'And you must not give your emission as semen to the wife of your associate to become unclean by it. (Leviticus 18 NWT)
20 And you shall not give your semen to your neighbor's wife [by] lying [with her], for uncleanness with her. (Leviticus 18 GLT)
20 'And unto the wife of thy fellow thou dost not give thy seed of copulation, for uncleanness with her. (Leviticus 18 YLT)
20 And you will not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife, to defile yourself with her. (Leviticus 18 MLV)
20 and with thy neighbour's wife thou shall not lie carnally to defile thyself with her. (Leviticus 18 THOM)
20 And thou shalt not lie with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her. (Leviticus 18 LXXb)
20 tv,ae-la,w> ^t.ymi[]
!Teti-alO ^T.b.k'v. [r:z"l. Hb'-ha'm.j'l. (Leviticus 18 WLC)
20 and + towards + woman of fellowship of + you (s) NOT +
will give effusion of + you (s) to/for + seed to/for + to be of unclean + in/at + her (Leviticus 18 WLCi)
hb'k'v.
f. effusion, pouring out (see the root Hiphil No. 2,
compare etymology observed. under Kal)—(a) of dew, Ex. 16:13, 14.—(b) seminis in concubitu, Lev. 15:16, 17, 18, 32; 19:20; 22:4; Num. 5:13.
tb,kOv.
f. the same as the preceding (cited above), whence !t;n" hV'aiB. ATb.k'v.-ta, to lie with a woman, Lev. 18:23; 20:15; Num. 5:20; also la, [r:z<l. ATb.k'v.-ta, !t;n" Lev. 18:20.
NWT, GLT, YLT get this right because the word [r:z< for seed is used. The other translations miss the whole point of the verse.
This bad translation is even more pronounced in the case of beast in Leviticus 2:13...
15 And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast. (Leviticus 20 KJV)
15 And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast. (Leviticus 20 ASV)
15 And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall slay the beast. (Leviticus 20 JPS)
15 'And where a man gives his seminal emission to a beast,
he should be put to death without fail, and you should kill the beast.
(Leviticus 20 NWT)
15 And a man who lies with an animal dying shall die. And you shall kill the animal. (Leviticus 20 GLT)
15 'And a man who giveth his lying with a beast is certainly put to death, and the beast ye do slay. (Leviticus 20 YLT)
15 And if a man lies with a beast, he will surely be put to death and you will kill the beast. (Leviticus 20 MLV)
15 And whoever shall lie with a beast, he shall be put to death, and you shall kill the beast. (Leviticus 20 THOM)
15 And whosoever shall lie with a beast, let him die the death; and ye shall kill the beast. (Leviticus 20 LXXb)
15 vyaiw> rv,a] !TeyI ATb.k'v. hm'heb.Bi tAm tm'Wy hm'heB.h;-ta,w> WgrOh]T; (Leviticus 20 WLC)
15 and + Man which will give effusion of + him in/at +
beast to die will be caused to die and + namely + the + beast will kill (Leviticus 20 WLCi)
Only the NWT gets it right. Normally the GLT is better. But not in this case. Lying down with someone is used to prohibit homosexual sex as follows.
So the defilement, the uncleanness results from the giving of semen to the woman. If no semen is given, then no defilement has occurred and no uncleanness results. If semen is given then the woman is defiled because she is potentially pregnant, the two genetic fleshes are constructively joined. But if no pregnancy results then the defilement ends, the uncleanness ends. But the adultery has been committed. And so disfellowshipping must occur. Because adultery is a sin against God, against life. So man cannot forgive it - because we cannot create human life (not yet anyway). The two must be evicted for 7 times.
22 In case a man is found lying down with a woman owned by an owner [i.e. husband], both of them must then die together, the man lying down with the woman and the woman. So you must clear away what is bad out of Israel.
23 In case there happened to be a virgin girl engaged to a man, and a man actually found her in the city and lay down with her, 24 you must also bring them both out to the gate of that city and pelt them with stones, and they must die,
the girl for the reason that she did not scream in the city, and the man for the reason that he humiliated the wife of his fellowman. So you must clear away what is evil from your midst.
25 If, however, it is in the field that the man found the girl who was engaged [pledged],
and the man grabbed hold of her and lay down with her, the man who lay down with her must also die by himself,
26 and to the girl you must do nothing. The girl has no sin deserving of death, because just as when a man rises up against his fellowman and indeed murders him, even a soul, so it is with this case.
27 For it was in the field that he found her. The girl who was engaged screamed,
but there was no one to rescue her.
28 In case a man finds a girl, a virgin who has not been engaged, and he actually seizes her and lies down with her, and they have been found out,
29 the man who lay down with her must also give the girl's father fifty silver shekels,
and she will become his wife due to the fact that he humiliated her. He will not be allowed to divorce her all his days (Deuteronomy 22:22-29).
Obviously this lying down, involves more than a kiss and a cuddle.
17 If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, he is to pay over the money at the rate of purchase money for virgins (Exodus 22).
9 In my letter I wrote you to quit mixing in company with fornicators,
10 not entirely [meaning] with the fornicators of this world or the greedy persons and extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise you would actually have to get out of this world.
11 But now I am writing you to quit mixing in company with anyone called a brother that is a fornicator or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man.
12 For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those inside,
13 while God judges those outside? Remove the wicked [man] from among yourselves (1 Corinthians 5:9-13).
So the Corinthian congregation was told to avoid serial fornicators, extortioners, greedy persons and idolaters in the congregation. But Paul did not say throw out such men. He said remove the wicked man, a man who was sleeping with his father's wife. So Paul is not saying that all such people should be disfellowshipped. Paul is giving some extra protection to individual Corinthian Christians, whose congregational administration have proved unable to disfellowship an incestuous adulterer! He is extolling the brothers and sisters to use their own judgement within the congregation in circumstances where the elders have demonstrably failed to use theirs. In these circumstances, individual Christians can refuse to mix with or to eat physically or spiritually with errant Christians, but they should point out their sin and try to bring them to repentance first. The first commandment is to love, not to judge. But at some point true love involves judgement. Obviously one act of greed is not grounds for a disfellowshipping. Although one act of idolatry is. Obviously one should not disfellowship all fat people who continue to over eat, or all rich people who continue to make huge sums of money.
The thing is you can eat physically or spiritually with a disfellowshipped man. Paul is giving advice on how to treat brothers here, not on how to treat people outside the congregation. John says a similar thing...
10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, never receive him into your homes or say a greeting to him.
11 For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works (2 John).
This advice was for the treatment of brothers and sisters who have abandoned 'this teaching', namely Jesus coming in the flesh. So shunning and not eating with people is a penalty that Christians in dire circumstances should use within the congregation, it is not something that is applied to those outside. We can mix in company with all sorts of fornicators etc. from the world. But we should not tolerate hypocrites who continue to 'call themselves' Christians. These ones who abandon Jesus' commandments and yet stay in the congregation, are there to destroy it. The reader will be hard pushed to find any congregation without some of these guys. If they had any integrity they would leave after recognising the hypocrisy of their personal position.
But every good community is self policing. The Commissioner of London's Metropolitan police from 1993 to 2000, Sir Paul Condon (with an 'n'), said that when he started his job, the various communities in London would regularly hand him over their criminals and largely policed themselves. But as he approached his retirement, the only policing they ever got was from him.
St. Paul and St. John are likewise encouraging Christians to be self policing. That is quite contrary to the modern way of thinking.
In case a man's wife turns aside in that she does commit an act of unfaithfulness against him, and another man actually lies down with her, and has an emission of semen, and it has been hidden from the eyes of her husband, and has remained undiscovered, and she for her part has defiled herself [the man is also defiled from Leviticus 18:20] but there is no witness against her, and she herself has not been caught......And the priest must make her swear, and he must say to the woman: If no man has lain down with you and if while under your husband you have not turned aside in any uncleanness, be free of this bitter water that brings a curse. But you, in case you have turned aside while under your husband, and in case you have defiled yourself and some man has put in you his seminal emission, besides your husband... (Numbers 5:13-20).
20 But you, in case you have turned aside while under your husband and in case you have defiled yourself and some man has put in you his seminal emission, besides your husband, -- (Numbers 5 NWT)
20 T.a;w> yKi tyjif' tx;T;
%veyai ykiw> tamej.nI !TeYIw: vyai %B' ATb.k'v.-ta, yde[]l.B;mi %veyai
(Numbers 5 WLC)
20 and + thou that/because deviated underneath Man of +
you (s) and + that/because was been unclean and + gave Man in/at + you (s)
namely + effusion of + him from + without Man of + you (s) (Numbers 5 WLCi)
hb'k'v.
f. effusion, pouring out (see the root Hiphil No. 2,
compare etymology observed. under Kal)—(a) of dew, Ex. 16:13, 14.—(b) seminis in concubitu, Lev. 15:16, 17, 18, 32; 19:20; 22:4; Num. 5:13.
tb,kOv.
f. the same as the preceding (cited above), whence !t;n" hV'aiB. ATb.k'v.-ta, to lie with a woman, Lev. 18:23; 20:15; Num. 5:20; also la, [r:z<l. ATb.k'v.-ta, !t;n" Lev. 18:20.
!TeYIw: vyai %B' ATb.k'v.-ta,
and gave Man in/at you namely effusion of him
27 When he has made her drink the water, it must also occur that if she has defiled herself in that she committed an act of unfaithfulness toward her husband, the water that brings a curse must then enter into her as something bitter, and her belly must swell, and her thigh must fall away, and the woman must become a cursing in among her people.
28 However, if the woman has not defiled herself but she is clean, she must then be free from such punishment; and she must be made pregnant with semen (Numbers 5).
So lying down involves an emission of semen. Certainly the emission of semen enters into the sin of adultery. The Jealousy test is all about semen, and so there is no penalty on the woman if there is no semen (and the man is not himself married) because she passes the test. Therefore she cannot be put to death therefore she is not an adulterer:
10 Now a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, is one who commits adultery with the wife of his fellowman. He should be put to death without fail, the adulterer and the adulteress as well (Leviticus 20).
So when a man lies down with a woman this includes his putting his semen into her, for otherwise he would not be put to death and therefore would not have committed adultery. The scriptures say this more directly...
20 Now in case a man lies down with a woman and has an emission of semen, when she is a maidservant designated for another man, and she has not in any way been redeemed nor has freedom been given her, punishment/compensation should take place. They should not be put to death because she was not set free (Leviticus 19).
So the emission of semen applies also to fornication, so it must apply in the same way as it does to adultery. So both fornication and adultery require an emission of semen, i.e. semen from the man entering the vagina of the woman. The reason for this is that an emission of semen constructively causes a joining of the flesh, since it could reach the egg and cause a pregnancy. So protected sex cannot be either fornication or adultery, so long as the protection works. Furthermore sleeping with another man's slave girl or concubine, is not adultery, for if it was then the both of them would be put to death. But Leviticus 19 continues...
21 And he must bring his guilt offering to Jehovah to the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram of guilt offering.
22 And the priest must make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before Jehovah for his sin that he committed; and his sin that he committed must be forgiven him (Leviticus 19).
16 Now in case a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and he actually lies down with her, he is to obtain her without fail as his wife for the purchase price.
17 If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, he is to pay over the money at the rate of purchase money for virgins (Exodus 22:16,17).
There must have been an emission of semen for a purchase to be necessary.
We take 'emission of semen' as being inside the vagina to defile the woman.
An emission of semen into another man's wife defiles the man and the woman too (see Leviticus 18:20).
An emission of semen into a girl by a man who is not engaged or married to that girl defiles the woman and the man until the next period (see 1Corinthians 6:18).
The man and the woman can fix their defilements by getting engaged or married.
If a man lies down with his own fiancee there appears to be no punishment prescribed. Although if the sex was unprotected he would have to marry her and her father/she would have already consented. If another man would die having slept with an engaged woman, then since sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, one must assume that the rights against the other man must also be rights for the engaged man. Hence he has no accusation of fornication if he sleeps with his fiancee. No 50 shekels would be payable, i.e. no accusation until the Jubilee.
If a man lies down with a non sanctified woman, a woman who has not been set free, and does not 'have an emission of semen' i.e. does not have procreative sex, there appears to be no punishment, not from the law in any event.
A virgin who is sold for 50 shekels is not a slave, since these were sold for 30 shekels.
29 Write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you! (Acts 15).
25 Rendering our decision that they should keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols as well as from blood and what is strangled and from fornication (Acts 21).
18 Flee from fornication. Every [other] sin that a man may commit is outside the body, but the [one] fornicating is sinning into/against his own body (1 Corinthians 6).
This seems to imply that fornication requires semen to be emitted from inside the/his body. The uncleanness comes from the corrupting seed, it appears. To sin against one's own body one must join it to another one really:
16 He who is joined to a harlot is one body, for the two, says he, will be one flesh (1 Corinthians 6).
This cannot occur with protected sex, the two cannot become one flesh in this case, a pregnancy, which is a joining of the flesh, cannot occur. God's law on sex is all about children's rights. If no child can possibly result then no capital sin has occurred. In fact the two in a marriage are not one flesh until the marriage is consummated. In ancient Israel the 7 day marriage feast occurred after the consummation, and the groom had to provide sheets (with hymen blood!) as evidence, before the banquet began. It is important to understand that an impotent man in Israel could not get married!
Jesus said:
5 ... 'For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh'?
6 So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together let no man put asunder (Matthew 19).
God sanctions the joining together of those promised in marriage. Said joining together is the emission of semen into the woman, which constructively joins the flesh since a pregnancy could result.
17 Now in case a man has an emission of semen go out from him, he must then bathe all his flesh in water and be unclean until the evening (Leviticus 15).
Both Adultery and Fornication require an emission of semen into the woman’s vagina, in order for defilement to occur, and an illegal joining of two fleshes to happen.
I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.
The disciples said to him: If such is the situation of a man with his wife,
it is not advisable to marry.
He said to them: Not all men make room for the saying, but only those who have the gift.
For there are eunuchs that were born such from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs that were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs that have made themselves eunuchs on account of the kingdom of the heavens. Let him that can make room for it make room for it (Matt 9:9-12).
We have the gift of the spirit, and Jesus is saying that he who does not commit fornication or adultery is a eunuch of some sort or another, he is relating the impregnation with sperm to these two acts. For in fact a eunuch can have sex but he cannot commit fornication or adultery. The 'saying' is that the husband cannot divorce the wife unless someone else has put his sperm into her, and this is the jealousy test in the law Numbers 5. A eunuch has no seed, i.e. is sterile, but not necessarily impotent we think.
24 That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they will become one flesh (Genesis 2).
16 What! Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? For, The 2, says he, will be one flesh.
17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
18 Flee from fornication. Every other sin that a man may commit is outside his body, but he that practices fornication is sinning against his own body (1 Corinthians 6 NWT).
16 Or not have you known that the (one) making self stick to the harlot one body he is? They will be for, says he, the two into flesh one.
17 The (one) but making self stick to the Lord one spirit he is.
18 Be you fleeing from the fornication; every sinful (thing) which if ever might do man outside of the body it is, the (one) but committing fornication into the own body is sinning. (1 Corinthians 6 KIT)
He will leave, but they will become. This becoming one flesh is NOT a requirement because Zechariah's wife Elizabeth was barren until she miraculously conceived in her old age after the menopause. So she had failed to conceive prior to the menopause. But was still married to Zechariah
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there happened to be a certain priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. (Luke 1 NWT)
5 Happened to be in the days of Herod king of the Judea priest someone to name Zechariah out of upon-day [service] of Abijah, and woman to him out of the daughters of Aaron, and the name of her Elizabeth. (Luke 1 KIT)
The scripture go on to define her as the so called barren woman...
36 And, look! Elizabeth your relative has also herself conceived a son, in her old age, and this is the 6th month for her, the so-called barren woman; (Luke 1 NWT)
So she was not barren to God. But was obviously a poor conceiver. For a marriage to occur there needs to be a finite chance, however remote, of a conception taking place in the bridal chamber. The bridal chamber is the installation of the woman as a procreative means. There is no point in going into that chamber if one or other partner is sterile.
God requires reproductive capability from a marriage. Said capability can be as weak as you like. But it must be there. We can see from the scriptures above that a woman is pledged to a man (engaged) first. But the marriage ceremony of God is simply unprotected sex with one's fiance. It is man or woman who has added to this all the trappings that we see today. There are no vows in the marriage ceremony of God and no witnesses! There should be blood from the woman and semen from the man. The girl should be put in a position where she could conceive so that the two fleshes become one constructively. And therein lies the rub.
Definition: A marriage is consummated if non sterile semen from the man is put in a position where it could fertilise a functioning egg from the woman. And to God the consummation is the marriage, which is the constructive joining of the two fleshes through constructive fertilisation. No consummation means no marriage. The consummation does happen during the 7 days installation of the bride in the bridal chamber whether or not the bride falls pregnant.
Married men are one flesh because Jesus said:
9 I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery. (Matthew 19 NWT)
That is because the no flesh separating divorced man is still one flesh with his wife. Having a barren wife is NO grounds for divorce. Spouses are one flesh whether they have children or not. They became one flesh during the 7 day installation of the bride, when she was put in a position to conceive. When the semen of the man goes through the hymen of the women they become one flesh constructively.
So to a sterile man cannot get married.
A post menopausal woman cannot get married unless she has frozen some of her eggs
An impotent man who has non sterile sperm can get married by putting his sperm into a position where it could fertilise an egg of his wife.
A man with a vasectomy cannot get married unless his tubes are restored.
So in the most extreme case. A post menopausal woman who has frozen some of her eggs, could marry an impotent man. If the man was able to get some of his sperm to the IVF clinic which had the frozen eggs. The consummation would be either putting them both into the womb of the woman or having the two meet each other in vitro and implanting a fertilised egg in the womb of the woman or even in the womb of a surrogate woman.
The principle here is very simple. A marriage can only occur between two people who have the capability to create children and it begins when they exercise that capability, however they choose to do so. The purpose of marriage is to provide a male and a female genetically ancestral unconditionally loving template to children until such time as they leave the home. The purpose of God's laws on sexual activity is to protect and secure what he insists is every child's right to have those two templates.
For Christianity is the practice of generalising love from your genetic relatives to your covenant relatives. This cannot be done if you failed to receive love from your genetic relatives. In fact the genetically constructed Jewish true church followed by the covenant constructed Christian true church is precisely the same process. The journey of the 2nd law from loving your genetic brother to loving your covenant brother is the journey from judaism to Christianity.
12 For there are eunuchs, that were so born from their mother's womb: and there are eunuchs, that were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs, that made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. (Matthew 19 ASV)
12 For there are eunuchs who were born thus from [their]
mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who made eunuchs [of] themselves for thesake of the kingdom of Heaven.
He who is able to receive, let him receive it. (Matthew 19 GLT)
12 Are for eunuchs who out of cavity of mother were generated thus, and are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by the men, and are eunuchs who made eunuchs of themselves through the kingdom of the heavens. The (one) being able to be making room let him be making room. (Matthew 19 KIT)
So if you make yourself into a eunuch then you cannot get married. Eunuch cannot get married. So likewise if you are sterile or if you fiance is post menopausal, then you cannot get married. Because you cannot become one flesh genetically.
An engagement which is not yet consummated is subject to adultery if it is possible for consummation to occur. An engagement which cannot be consummated is not an engagement and is not subject to adultery..
Putting this in stronger terms. No one is married until they have consummated their engagement by putting non sterile semen in a position where it could fertilise a functioning egg which must be placed into the uterus of A woman. This is generally done by having unprotected sex between a non sterile potent make and a pre menopausal woman. And everyone who is engaged, becomes married when they consummate their engagement (so long as they understand this. One cannot be married and not realise it!).
6 So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matthew 19 ASV)
6 So that they are no longer 2, but one flesh. Therefore,
what God has yoked together let no man put apart. (Matthew 19 NWT)
6 So that they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew 19 GLT)
6 w[ste ouvke,ti eivsi.n du,o avlla. sa.rx mi,a o] ou=n o` qeo.j sune,zeuxen a;nqrwpoj mh. cwrize,tw
(Matthew 19 WHO)
6 As-and no longer they are 2 but flesh one; which therefore the God yoked together man not let put apart. (Matthew 19 KIT)
God yokes them together when he puts his spirit, his DI, his self programming Divine Intelligence, his operating system, into the foetus. And if he is never going to be in a position to do that then there is no point in getting married.
This means that a woman who got married after her menopause can sleep with whomsoever she chooses without any penalty from the church. Because she is not married in the eyes of church law and she cannot commit fornication. However if she has made marriage vows with a husband she should pay those vows to him.
If she has agreed that forsaking all others she will keep herself only to her husband until death us do part. Then that is what she should do. If she breaks that agreement. Then it is a matter between her and her husband just like any other broken agreement between two parties. We do not police vows between people. However if you make a vow to God it is a sin not to pay that vow. We do not police that sin either.
21 In case you vow a vow to Jehovah your God, you must not be slow about paying it, because Jehovah your God will without fail require it of you, and it would indeed become a sin on your part.
22 But in case you omit making a vow, it will not become a sin on your part. (Deuteronomy 23 NWT)
God has no interest in money and no interest in non procreative heterosexual sex.
6 So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matthew 19 ASV)
6 So that they are no longer 2, but one flesh. Therefore,
what God has yoked together let no man put apart. (Matthew 19 NWT)
6 So that they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew 19 GLT)
6 w[ste ouvke,ti eivsi.n du,o avlla. sa.rx mi,a o] ou=n o` qeo.j sune,zeuxen a;nqrwpoj mh. cwrize,tw
(Matthew 19 WHO)
6 As-and no longer they are 2 but flesh one; which therefore the God yoked together man not let put apart. (Matthew 19 KIT)
7 They said to him: Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?
8 He said to them: Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from [the] beginning.
9 I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery. (Matthew 19 NWT)
The scripture uses the word anqrwpoj (human) rather than anhr (man). So it applies equally to women putting asunder. Anthropology is not the study of men. It is the study of mankind, which includes women.
Such an important scripture. The child is the yoke between the two parents. He/she is only a yoke whilst in need of or reliant upon them for parental support. Under Moses registration into the army of Israel occurred at 20 years old. So the child can support themselves and indeed their parents from 20 years onwards (by Hebrew counting). No man should put asunder the 3 of them whilst the child is under 20 and both parents are supporting it. But how can you break that yoke? The child is genetically bonded to both parents and the parents are one flesh by marriage consummation. If an oil company persuades the husband to go off to work on an oil rig, the yoke is not broken. Likewise if a woman persuaded the man to leave his wife and come and live with her but did not have procreative sex with him, the two spouses would still be one flesh. Verse7 makes it clear that the only ground for divorce is fornication which is adding to the one flesh of the marriage.
Or if you interfere with the flesh of the adults by joining yourself to it in adultery you constructively put them asunder because you give the injured party the right to a divorce.
But what if a relationship with an interloper leads to one of the parents failing to look after the child properly? Well, so could a job on an oil rig or in the army.
But what if a relationship with an interloper ruins the romance between the spouses? Well....
Is it OK for an unmarried LW woman to go and have non procreative sex with a married man with small children? NO. It is not OK. It is a sin (implied lesbianism). But it is a sin that is policed by your conscience.
Is it OK for an unmarried LW man to go and have non procreative sex with an married woman? NO. He is committing implied homosexuality. He would be disfellowshipped as would the married woman is she were he an LW...
The trouble with that situation is that we treat the male and female spouses in a different way and God does not do that with fornicators or adulterers. Both the man and the woman are treated equally. The difference in treatment arises from the difference in our understanding between God's law on homosexuality and his law on lesbianism. But both scenarios above pose the same danger to the marital bed. Both are equally likely to damage or break the passionate side of the loving bond between a man and his wife. And such a thing poses a risk to the children. However Jesus did not say let no human risk putting them asunder. He said let no human put asunder. So we have to be careful not to enter into the realm of minority report policing here. What if an unmarried woman has non procreative sex with a married man and it does not damage the love between the spouses because they gave up on sex years ago?
This is not something that elders can judge. But it is something that the spouses can judge. So just as post pubescent children under 20 need parental consent to have non procreative sex with a partner over 20, because the parents have authority over their children, so should a married man need his wife's consent to have non procreative sex with an unmarried woman. For the wife has authority over the husbands body since the two are one flesh.
So here is the Don't Put Asunder law of the LWs
"A married man who is yoked to his wife by an unengaged child under 20, can have non procreative penetrative sex with an unmarried woman only if his wife consents. Because that protects against putting the loving marital yoke asunder."
The trouble even with that law is that the non procreative penetrative sex might be by means of a condom which might fail. In that case adultery has occurred which can not be avoided by a pre coital engagement due to Matthew19:9. The other problem with that law is that the wife might consent and than regret it and get upset and want a divorce anyway. So the better law is
A married man who is yoked to his wife by an unengaged childless child under 20, cannot have penetrative sex (dick in mouth bum or vagina) with an unmarried woman.
The matches the yoke of the sexual activity of the wife to the yoke on the sexual activity of the husband. We are treating the unmarried woman as if she were a homosexual man. The penalty is the same, disfellowshipping.
The purpose of all of God's sexual legislation is to provide an unconditionally loving male and female temple to children until they are 20 years old or until they themselves have procreative sex and break the yoke. Mind you if no pregnancy occurs and no marriage occurs then the yoke is reestablished at the next period. So the yoke exists technically until there is an engagement. But we will regard it as terminated at 20 years old by Hebrew counting.
So there are NO ways for 3rd parties to have sex with married people who have children which the church does not police.
So although the first century disciples in verse7 interpreted putting asunder as a breaking of the yoke of the united flesh that joins two parents to their child (for the child is one flesh with their parents until he/she has procreative sex). This church, the LWs, could AND DOES ALSO interpret the putting asunder as breaking the yoke of love between spouses. We take that as a command from Jesus too. We police that command for the protection of those whom God that yoked together until said yoke is broken by the child getting engaged or creating a child, or becoming 20 years old by Hebrew reckoning. The emotional security of children is fundamentally more important than the satisfaction that can be achieved through 3rd party sex.
However the purpose of all God's teaching is to get us to the point where we police ourselves in his righteousness.
33 For this is the covenant that I shall conclude with the house of Israel after those days, is the utterance of Jehovah. I will put my law within them, and in their heart I shall write it. And I will become their God, and they themselves will become my people. (Jeremiah 31 NWT)
9 I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery. (Matthew 19 NWT)
That is because an illegitimate divorce does not separate the two parties. So if you do not have a divorce at all and you marry another, you definitely commit adultery. So LWs cannot marry more than one wife. But people with more than one wife can become LWs because a criterion for elders is that they have to be a husband of one wife, which means that some in the church had 2.
2 The overseer should therefore be irreprehensible, a husband of one wife, moderate in habits, sound in mind, orderly, hospitable, qualified to teach (1 Timothy 3 NWT).
Well having condom sex is entering into the woman but not constructively joining your genetic flesh to her genetic flesh. So the spiritual equivalent is entering into a false church but not joining them in their worship. And just as the condom prevents the genetic defilement if one enters into a woman, so the breastplate of faith prevents false worship defilement if one enters into a false church for a wedding or a funeral or for Christmas carols for example.
If an LW goes into a Roman Catholic or church of England building and takes communion, that is false worship, idolatry, spiritual adultery, and he must be disfellowshipped. Wearing a condom will not save him there! But the breastplate of faith of Paul will prevent him from joining them in their the false worship.
8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5 KJV)
8 But as for us who belong to the day, let us keep our senses and have on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet the hope of salvation; (1 Thessalonians 5 NWT)
21 'And of thy seed thou dost not give to pass over to the Molech; nor dost thou pollute the name of thy God; I {am} Jehovah.
(Leviticus 18 YLT)
10 And he hath defiled Topheth, that {is} in the valley of the son of Hinnom, so that no man doth cause his son and his daughter to pass over through fire to Molech. (2 Kings 23 YLT)
7 Then doth Solomon build a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, in the hill that {is} on the front of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the sons of Ammon; (1 Kings 11 YLT)
35 And they build the high places of Baal, that {are} in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come up on my heart to do this abomination, so as to cause Judah to sin. (Jeremiah 32 YLT)
It is difficult to pass under the fire. One can pass through the fire by going over it. This process of passing over something would not kill the seed. He would be killed only if he remained in the fire and failed to pass over it or through it. This is a bit like walking on fiery coals that occurs today. So one should not CAUSE one's seed to commit false worship. But worship MUST NEVER be coerced. So if your seed insists on joining a false church you should NOT permit it.
34 Further, the unmarried woman, and the virgin, is anxious for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in her body and in her spirit. However, the married woman is anxious for the things of the world, how she may gain the approval of her husband. (1 Corinthians 7 NWT)
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I, then, take the members of the Christ away and make them members of a harlot? Never may that happen!
16 What! Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? For, The 2, says he, will be one flesh. (1 Corinthians 6 NWT).
Adultery occurs when a man defiles an owned woman with his semen - this being a constructive joining of his flesh with that woman.
A wife is owned by her husband.
A fiance is constructively owned by her husband.
A post pubescent girl under 20 who is childless and unengaged is effectively owned by her parents. Any unengaged child under 20 can have protected sex with her and any adult over 20 can have protected sex with her with parental consent. However we would strongly recommend a pre-coital Conception Engagement Agreement to get engaged if a conception results and to get married if a delivery results in order to avoid accidental defilement if the condom breaks or falls off and in order to protect the God given rights of any child to have two genetic married parents one male and one female. A right that has almost vanished in this Sodom and Gomorrah in which we live.
The Lords Witnesses do not want to stop people having heterosexual sex. We are not Heterophobic. But we wish to avoid defilement and protect children's rights in the process. Things are going to get bad, war is coming, and people will need all the sustainable forms of love available to deal with it.
Man asks the woman: Do you agree to become engaged should a conception result and get married should a delivery result and do you agree not to sleep with anyone other than me until your next period?
Woman asks the man: Do you agree to become engaged should a conception result and get married should a delivery result and do you agree not to sleep with anyone other than me until my next period?
If both answer yes then a CEA is in place. This must be agreed BEFORE having sex. The agreement can be verbal or in writing - whichever is preferred.
If the woman is through the menopause then such an agreement is not necessary because one cannot defile her. If she is still having periods then a CEA should be used.
So the Lords Witnesses permit serial monthly monogamy basically. This is a big advance on abstinence. Neither party to a CEA should sleep with anyone else until the next period occurs. Because there may have been a conception, in which case they are engaged, in which case sleeping with another would be adultery. If you have safe sex without a CEA with an unengaged non virgin then you do not sin unless you defile her with semen (the condom splits or falls off or leaks). In those circumstances, even if no conception results both parties must inform the elders and are unclean but not necessarily defiled until the next period. This means that they cannot attend any festivals until the next period.
A post menopausal unmarried woman can have sex with whoever she wants whenever she wants without any agreement. She is just like the women will be in the kingdom of God. Sexual reproduction is the preserve of the dead. The living are infertile until they get a consent from a priest - because they are creating a living child as opposed to a dead child. A post menopausal woman is infertile period. Likewise a man with a vasectomy cannot defile a woman. So he is free to sleep with whomsoever he chooses so long as she is not a virgin and she is not married.
This is essentially a churchwide spiritual prenup. An unmarried man or woman can agree in advance before two LW witnesses (who should be their spiritual parents, their ministerial servants) that they will become engaged on conception with any LW partner and get married upon delivery and keep faithful until the next period. They could then carry a CEA card with them to avoid having to make an agreement in the heat of passion. The question would then be: Do you have a CEA card?
Up until the 2003Adar, the LWs took the position that safe sex adultery was not a disfellowshipping matter because it is not true adultery. Several brothers and sisters were unhappy about this interpretation. We realised during the Jubilee that we had overlooked two things. Firstly according to the bible, since a husband and his wife are one flesh, a man who has safe sex with someone else's wife is an implied homosexual and a woman who has safe sex with someone else's husband is an implied lesbian. The Law says:
30 No man should take his father's wife, that he may not uncover the skirt of his father (Deuteronomy 22).
Plainly if a man took his brother's wife then he would be uncovering the skirt of his brother. So safe sex with someone else's wife is an implied act of homosexuality and therefore would result in disfellowshipping. However safe sex with someone else's husband is an implied act of lesbianism, which does not bring a penalty from the church. But it is actually worse than this, for a wife is actually owned by her husband according to the biblical definition of marriage.
3
If he should come in by himself, by himself he will go out. If he is the owner of a wife, then his wife must go out with him (Exodus 21).
So a wife is not in a position to consent to have sex with another man, since she is the property of her husband. So if she does without her husband's consent then she commits both implied homosexuality and male rape. Likewise a married man who has safe sex with an unmarried woman is also effectively conducting a threesome with the woman and his wife. So he commits an acts of lesbian rape upon his wife unless she gives him consent. It is true that he owns his wife.
But the idea that said ownership extends to an authority to force her to have sex with another woman against her will is plainly false. If she does give him consent then he commits an act of consensual implied lesbianism for which there is no penalty from the congregation.
More recently on 2022Heshvan5, we added the Don't Put Asunder law, which states...
A married man who is yoked to his wife by an unengaged childless child under 20 living with both parents, cannot have penetrative sex (dick in mouth bum or vagina) with an unmarried woman
1. Married people who are yoked together by an unengaged childless child under 20 living with both parents, cannot have dick in mouth bum or vagina sex with anyone other than their spouses: Warned if protected. Disfellowshipped if unprotected, unless forgiven by spouse (John8) in which case they get a warning instead
2. Married women cannot have dick in mouth bum or vagina sex with anyone other than their spouses, due to implied homosexuality. They are disfellowshipped UNLESS forgiven by their spouse (John8) in which case they get a warning.
3. Married men who are not yoked to their wife through an unengaged childless child under 20, can have protected dick in mouth bum or vagina sex with an unengaged woman if they have their wife's consent. Sex is protected by a condom or the menopause or sterility, or vasectomy or tied fallopian tubes or hysterectomy or anything which prevents fertile semen touching a vagina of a fertile woman. However if they are yoked through an unengaged childless child or if they have unprotected dick in mouth bum or vagina sex then they are disfellowshipped for adultery unless forgiven by their spouse (John8) in which case they get a warning for fornication.
4. Paedophilia as defined in para 27 is a capital (disfellowshipping)
offence
5. Unengaged post pubescent children (under 20) can have protected sex with each other without penalty from the church so long as no fertile semen touches the vagina of a fertile female. But if the girl is a virgin then parental consent must be given.
6. Unengaged post pubescent children (under 20) can have protected sex with adults (over 20) only with parental consent (warning offence) so long as no fertile semen touches the vagina of a fertile female.
7. Unengaged adults (over 20) can have protected sex with each other, so long as no fertile semen touches the vagina of a fertile female.
8. Homosexual dick in mouth or bum sex is a disfellowshipping offence.
9. Accidental fornication with an unengaged non virgin - where a condom is worn but it fails - carries no penalty because there was no intent. But they must report their uncleanness to the congregation and cannot partake of festivals until the next menstrual cycle. if a pregnancy ensues then they must get married or be disfellowshipped. If they are found out and failed to inform the elders of their accidental uncleanness, then they both get a warning.
10. True fornication with a virgin (which cannot have parental consent, because such consent must be for protected sex) results in a marriage and a warning for the man, and the virgin must also get a warning for true fornication. If there is no marriage then both are disfellowshipped for 7 months and permitted back unmarried since a baptism forgives all sins.
11. If a man commits accidental fornication with a virgin (an emission of fertile semen into a fertile virgin through a failed condom) with parental consent for protected sex if she is under 20, then he must offer to marry her because he has taken her virginity. She can refuse. If he fails to make the offer then he gets a warning. He is not to be disfellowshipped because there was no intent. She gets no penalty either way other than she loses her virginity.
12. ADVICE: All sex outside marriage should be done AFTER having agreed to become engaged should a pregnancy result and to become married should a child be born..
1. If an unmarried unengaged man has unprotected sex (by which we mean no condom), with an unmarried unengaged woman, whether he ejaculates or not, then both of their bodies are constructively defiled by semen that may have been emitted until the next menstrual cycle. This is because the girl might become pregnant and so constructively there is a child out of wedlock. This means that the man cannot baptise anyone until the next period and that neither the man nor the woman can partake of any emblems at any church festivals until the next period. This is because both of their bodies are constructively defiled and so they would invalidate any loaf or cup that they touched. It is therefore imperative that they inform the congregation, by which we do not mean the whole church by email, but a ministerial servant or elder in their congregation, so that no mistakes are made with the flock. They will both get a warning for fornication.
If however a pregnancy does result and if the foetus reaches mid term so that the spirit of God enters into it and it becomes human (John 8:3), then they must get married in order to provide the proper environment for the child they are producing. If not they are both disfellowshipped. So if you are going to have unprotected sex then you must at the least agree to get married if a pregnancy to mid term results, first, or this is fornication.
2. If safe sex occurs between a man and a woman both of whom are married to someone else, then both parties are disfellowshipped. The man is disfellowshipped for implied homosexuality. The woman cannot be disfellowshipped for implied lesbian rape because the man is supposed to be the head of his wife. But she can be disfellowshipped for implied homosexuality because she is in a man's flesh!
3. If sex with an emission of semen into the female occurs between a man and a woman one or both of whom is married then this is adultery and both are disfellowshipped UNLESS the relevant spouse forgives, in which case they both get a warning. The elders must be bound by that forgiveness unless a mid term foetus results, in which case the sin is against God and no forgiveness is possible - unless the two adulterers can get married to each other and divorce their previous spouses without breaking a yoke due to an unengaged childless child under 20 (by Hebrew reckoning).
4. If an unmarried unengaged man sleeps with an unmarried unengaged woman and wears a condom which falls off before ejaculation he should put on another one. If the condom falls off during ejaculation or is found to have fallen off after ejaculation or is found out after ejaculation to have had a tear or hole in it, then we have a case of accidental fornication. In this case both parties have defiled their bodies. They are both unclean until the next menstrual cycle. But no punishment takes place because there was no intent to defile. Metaphorically speaking he built the parapet on his roof but some unfortunate person fell over it! However if a child arises, then they must marry or be disfellowshipped.
If no pregnancy results and the congregation (administration) was informed then no penalty is due. But if the pair are found out in circumstances where the congregation was not informed, then a warning is given to both of them (a warning until the next Jubilee is the equivalent of a 50 shekel payment). This is because by not informing the church they potentially defile it.
There are 3 possible agreements one should make with a girl before having protected sex in order to protect the rights of the possible child and in order to obey God's law.
a. Agree before having sex with a condom (or without) to get engaged until the next period. This is the safest method. It makes a defilement impossible. This is a must for all Kings and all heavenly baptised Lords, who must not defile themselves with women after being baptised into the LWs in order to be sealed. It is recommended for all church members. It is the responsible thing to do. But remember that you are effectively married until the next period. So you cannot have sex with another person during that time.
b. Agree before having sex that if the condom malfunctions then you are automatically engaged to be married at least until the next period. If a pregnancy results you must get married. If there is no pregnancy then you can cancel the engagement since the constructive defilement is over. The trouble with this agreement is that one does not know if one is engaged or not until a positive pregnancy test result is seen. So we are not sure that it works.
c. Agree before having sex, that if an accidental pregnancy results (because the condom falls off of whatever), then you will get married unless the child does not reach mid term. This is a conditional engagement.
This agreement is and must be treated as an engagement in order to avoid defilement. So having made this agreement, then the two parties are 'conditionally engaged' until the next period. This is as far as we can push crafty technical agreements (as far as we can see at present). We shall permit conditional engagements because all engagements are in fact conditional in the sense that you can break them off if you fall out with your intended before you get married. However fiances are treated as wives by God and the church, and that would include this particular type of conditional fiance, So both parties would be treated as married until the next period at which point - if they wished - they could break off the engagement. If they break off the engagement before the period then they are treated as defiled and get a warning.
The advantage of this agreement is that it would be almost impossible to persuade a girl whom you wished to have sex with to agree to get engaged just in case she became pregnant. Because people see engagement as really an agreement to marry. But women do understand that children should be protected. So they may well agree to get married if they get pregnant (so long as the child is born alive). That would be considered honourable and decent and responsible - rather than opportunistic and enterprising. Whereas legally, since all engagements are conditional (since they can be broken off), getting fully engaged or agreeing to be married in the event of a pregnancy are more or less the same thing.
So this is the loosest agreement that prevents defilement and covers against any warning from the church and protects the child. But it results in both parties being constructively 'married' and therefore behaving as such, in the time between having sex and the next menstrual cycle
d. Post coital agreements. This is a really really bad idea. One can become pregnant during sex itself theoretically, although normally the egg will not be in the right place immediately. So there may be time for a post coital proposal. But how can you be certain that the proposal will be accepted after the event? And how can anyone be certain that it has occurred in time? If the condom falls off then a post coital proposal will not fix any defilement. Certainly a constructive defilement will have occurred. So if an accidental pregnancy occurs after a post coital proposal resulting from safe sex, then the church will regard the pair as defiled and give them both a warning for fornication. However if they do get married then neither will be disfellowshipped.
So a post coital conditional engagement does not prevent a defilement whereas a pre coital one does.
8 In case you build a new house, you must also make a parapet for your roof, that you may not place bloodguilt upon your house because someone falling might fall from it (Deuteronomy 22).
All of this law exists primarily for the emotional security of the child.
1. A single LW girl and a LW single boy over 20 or post pubescent and under 20 with parental consent agree to get engaged. Then they have deliberate unprotected sex. This means that they are married. For to God the marriage ceremony is deliberate unprotected sex between an engaged couple.
2. A single LW girl and a LW single boy over 20 or post pubescent and under 20 with parental consent agree to get engaged. Then they have safe protected sex but the condom falls off and the girl receives semen. This is accidental fornication. This does not make the two married since there was no intent. No defilement has taken place since they were engaged. If a pregnancy results then they must get married. If not then they can break off their engagement if they so choose. No violation of children's rights has occurred.
3. A single LW girl and a single LW boy over 20 or post pubescent under 20 with parental consent agree to have protected sex and further agree to get married if a pregnancy ensues. The condom does indeed fall off. The woman therefore receives semen but the engagement agreement is in place so she is not defiled. So both can still partake of festivals and the man can still baptise. If a pregnancy results then they must get married. If not then they can break off the engagement if they desire. In this case children's rights were not violated there is no punishment.
4 Let marriage be honourable among all, and the marriage bed be without defilement, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers (Hebrew 13)
4. Suppose that a brother and a sister (in the church) defile themselves with a pregnancy outside a marriage agreement (an engagement or a marriage). Then if no engagement/marriage is agreed they must both be disfellowshipped for 7 months (even if one is happy to marry and the other is not). If they agree to get married, then they each just get a warning for true fornication (they should have agreed the engagment before having sex).
But suppose they get engaged (which they must) and then they decide to have an abortion in the first 18 weeks of gestation (the first 20 weeks from the last period), They are entitled to decide to start a pregnancy and they are entitled to decide to end a pregnancy (if there is no engagement then the decision belongs to the girl). This is not a capital offence during the first 18 weeks of gestation to the LWs since the foetus only becomes human at the middle of the term in our understanding (John 8:3) - see para 13. Then the abortion would end the defilement.
28 In case a man finds a girl, a virgin who has not been engaged, and he actually seizes her and lies down with her, and they have been found out,
29 the man who lay down with her must also give the girl's father 50 silver shekels, and she will become his wife due to the fact that he humiliated her [by sleeping with her outside a marriage proposal - treating her like a harlot]. He will not be allowed to divorce her all his days.
(Deuteronomy 22 NWT)
22 And in case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him; and he must give it through the justices.
23 But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul [this only becomes a death penalty when the foetus was a human soul - at mid term, 19 weeks after conception], (Exodus 21 NWT)
Deuteronomy 22 requires that true (not accidental) fornication with a virgin under 20, with no parental consent (for protected sex), results in a marriage and a warning for the man, and the virgin must also get a warning for true fornication. They have made 2 mistakes. They failed to procure parental consent and they failed to protect properly against a pregnancy (with a condom). If they fail to get married then they are both disfellowshipped. They can come back 7 months later without being married if they wish for a baptism forgives all sin. But if a pregnancy results and God has yoked them together by that baby (it is more than 19 weeks old) then they must get married before they can return.
5. One can break off an engagement or indeed a marriage to a girl who is not a virgin at any time on the grounds of prior fornication (it matters not whether this was disclosed or hidden), so long as the girl is not constructively pregnant. By this we mean so long as the girl has not received semen and not yet had a period thereafter. The church will sanction a divorce on the ground of prior fornication by either party if no yoking children or constructive children are involved. However if a man gets engaged to a virgin and if he has an emission of semen accidentally (the condom falls off or breaks), this does not defile her due to the engagement but she has lost her virginity. She can therefore demand that the man marries her in return if she so wishes. If the man refuses he gets a warning (which is valid until the next Jubilee). Putting this another way, only the ex virgin can break off the engagement.
16 Now in case a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and he actually lies down with her, he is to obtain her without fail as his wife for the purchase price.
17 If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, he is to pay over the money at the rate of purchase money for virgins (Exodus 22:16,17).
6. If a man has accidental fornication with a virgin (the condom fails and both parties are fertile), and if she has parental consent for protected sex with him or is over 20, then he must offer to marry her (because he should have had an engagement agreement with her prior to having sex) and he has taken her virginity (by his emission of fertile semen into her). A sterile man (say with a vasectomy) cannot deflower a virgin. He is simply filling her with coca cola. The girl can refuse. But if the offer is not made then the man gets a warning. He does not get a warning if he offers to marry and she had parental consent. Because then nothing is owed by him to the parents, only to the virgin.
If a man is sterile, perhaps having had the snip, then he cannot be either a fornicator or an adulterer. However if he has sex with another man's wife he is disfellowshipped as an implied homosexual.
If a woman has totally stopped menstruating or has had a pregnancy preventing hysterectomy, then you cannot defile her or yourself by putting your semen into her because constructively there is no pregnancy. If she is unmarried, then sex with her is always safe. If she is married only her husband can sleep with her. We do not accept other methods of contraception which involve the man putting semen into the woman.
Who would have thought that there was so much law associated with this basic desire? Of course the basic desire for sex is also the mechanism for the creation of life. These laws exist to protect the family unit which protects the children without policing the basic desire or its fulfilment more than is necessary to protect the rights of the child to have a female mother and a male father until it is grown up (20 years old by Hebrew reckoning).
Hypothetically we could logically permit a woman to use a cap rather than the man using a condom (a Dutch Christian suggested this idea wouldn't you know?) This would prevent the joining of the sperm to the egg. But one could hardly argue that the man had not put his sperm in the woman in that case. So we would encourage this second layer of protection but we will not accept that having a cap as the only layer of protection is sufficient to render sex safe and protected.
So we do not accept the pill or the coil or the cap as methods of safe sex.
The best solution would be for the man to have a condom and the woman to preferably have the cap or less preferably be on the pill (due to health and pollution issues). This would prevent disease, prevent pregnancy, prevent the exchange of fluids except when the thing fell off, but then there is a second line of defence as regards pregnancy and God's law. Likewise a man with a vasectomy could in theory put his semen inside a woman without risking a joining of the flesh, but it would be better for him to wear a condom.
Here is the trouble with homosexuality. Many people think that it is not so bad as murder. But murder kills only one person (in general), whereas homosexuality through AIDS has killed millions. It is true that AIDS spreads heterosexually as well, but it became an epidemic in the 1990s as the gay plague. And a gay San Francisco doctor claimed on BBC Radio in 2007, that had his community pushed condoms harder (metaphorically speaking) the epidemic could have been averted. Today 33% of Zimbabweans have AIDS and 25% of South Africans have it too. In all around 40 million people have died from AIDS and 50 million more are infected with it. This is not all down to homosexuality. But without that practice, would it ever have become an epidemic, or would it have become an epidemic of such genocidal proportions?
This is not the biggest trouble with homosexuality however. The biggest problem is that it is an attack on the fundamental building block of all civilised society, namely the family unit. If this building block crumbles then we have no society and the whole human race descends into chaos, and destroys itself. We are presently doing this, and homosexuality is not the only destructive force acting on the family unit. But in God's wisdom as we see it, the family unit must be protected from this unnatural sexual behaviour.
Simply put every child has two fundamental human rights. The right to have unconditional love throughout its entire childhood from a male parent and the right to have unconditional love throughout its entire childhood from a female parent. These two loving templates are both necessary for a morally sustainable society. If one of these two templates is missing, then the love of that child for half of the human race is fractured. And love is moral sustainability. That is the real danger of homosexuality and of absentee fathers of course. Although homosexuality has a multiplication factor within it which absentee fathers do not have. The bible says that...
8 Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith (1Timothy5).
So an absentee father in the church is worse than a faithless man bound for Gehenna! Homosexuality is in that category due to its creating absentee mothers. Homosexuality is a denial of children's rights. Democratic governments condone it because homosexuals have a vote but children do not. These governments are putting the lust of adults above the love rights of children.
So in summary, the position of the Lords' Witnesses is the complete reverse of the position of the Catholic church as regards fornication and adultery! But similar to it as regards homosexuality.
Of course such a position, if adopted by the Catholic Church, would save millions of lives in Africa and around the world, where AIDS has become a forgotten epidemic. This is the practicality, the wisdom, of our God.
But dear reader, we know that you may thinking. Woh, these LWs are giving carte blanche to everyone to go and sleep around so long as they use a condom and a married man or woman is not involved! Have they lost the plot or what? Is a condom to be the get out of sin free card?
Well, one of the beautiful things about serving a God who is wiser than we are, is that his wisdom is sometimes a surprise! Another of the beautiful things about his wisdom is that it is most times contrary to what we today regard as politically correct. The over-riding concern of the Christian is not sex, but love, by which we mean selfless, giving love of the type defined in 1 Corinthians 13, read out at many marriage ceremonies. Coveting a neighbour's wife or husband is not a sin, it is an unrighteous desire. It was contrary to one of the ten commandments, and by law is the accurate knowledge of sin. But sin starts with unrighteous desire and God is trying to teach us to police our own desires, so that one day we will not need any laws which are policed by other people.
Remember this verse in the law of Moses...
18 And you must not take a woman in addition to her sister as a rival to uncover her nakedness, that is, besides her during her lifetime (Leviticus 18).
The law did not say that you must not take a woman in addition to another woman as a rival to uncover her nakedness. So it is not a sin to sleep with two women in parallel. It is a sin to lie to either of them or to break a monogamous agreement that one might have with either of them. Neither is it a sin for a woman to have two male sexual partners in parallel. It is a sin to worship two opposing Gods. It is not a sin to sleep with two opposing partners. But there again the bible advises not to multiply wives for yourself. So it is not advisable to have two parallel sexual partners.
However at the end of this system of things, Paul's advice should be heeded by women and especially by men...
5 Deaden, therefore, your body members that are upon the earth as respects fornication, uncleanness, sexual appetite, hurtful desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3).
Because Satan is firing the sexual desires of men through pornography and sexual suggestion in most adverts, in most films on the TV and in the cinema, in most newspapers, in lap dancing bars, even on the radio, all over the internet and generally in every form of media and communication. He is flooding the world with the drug of sexual desire, but this is not the only problem. Having created a desire, having got us all addicted to it, he then controls the supply of the fix that we all crave. So Satan is limiting sexual satisfaction by breaking up communities and families so that most people do not meet enough people to find the right partner. He makes prostitution illegal in most countries, to ensure that a man cannot get satisfaction that way, when the law of Moses did not condemn prostitution other than in the case of a father acting as a pimp for his own daughter or in the case of a daughter of a priest - see J11 below. In fact Jesus was descended from Rahab the prostitute on the paternal side and from Judah who slept with Tamar in prostitution to create his ancestral line on both the maternal and the paternal sides. Today both men and women are so caught up chasing after the wind of social and financial status that many have little time and care little for the sexual satisfaction of their partners if they have such partners.
As a result sex sells as never before. This is a tragic comment on the dissatisfaction and frustration of all of us. There is hardly an issue of a woman's magazine which does not have the word 'sex' on its cover. This is a tragedy for women and for men. May God bring the day soon when we are both so satisfied that putting the word 'sex' on the cover of a magazine has absolutely no effect of its circulation and when you put up an internet porn site, no one cares to visit it.
As Christians we cannot change this world much. But we can defend ourselves against its traps. If you become addicted to sex then you lose your objectivity and your spirituality and you are taken out of the fight for your spiritual life and for the spiritual lives of your brothers and sisters. That is what Satan wants. So women, please put your belly buttons back under your t-shirts and your thighs back under your skirts. Your sexual power is being used to kill mankind's spirituality. If you frustrate 100 guys for each guy you satisfy, you are about as useful to mankind as a Cocaine habit. And men, remember that God looks better than all women and he knows what is best for you having invented both women and sex and both love and happiness. So do not be conned by the great drug pusher himself.
It seems appropriate here to quote Madonna here, who is said this in 2007...
“I can write the greatest songs and make the most fabulous films and be a fashion icon and conquer the world, but if there isn’t a world to conquer, what’s the point?” Madonna said, according to the paper. “I’ve just come to a place in my life where I’m trying to really see what the big picture is and where my energy is better spent, and that’s one area I’m really concerned about.” - Madonna
Or as Jesus (the other guy who hung on a cross for a while) said...
26 For what benefit will it be to a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16).
We know from the previous section that defiling a woman with semen joins the man to her. Paul says as much...
16 What! Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? For, The 2, says he, will be one flesh. (1Corinthians6).
The reason God regards a man who sleeps with a harlot as having joined his flesh to hers is that his sperm is placed in a position to fertilise her egg. God constructively fixes the two with being joined together because they have put themselves into a position where this may well occur. But by the same token, if the girl has a period and does not get pregnant then she is no longer one flesh with the man since the possibility of their two gene pools mixing has gone. So a one night stand leads to a joining of two fleshes until the next period or permanently if a baby is produced which reaches the 18th-22nd week, when it becomes a human soul.
However with a marriage things are different. A man and his wife become one flesh when the marriage is consummated since at that point the two gene pools are in a position to become mixed. But they further have an agreement to only mix their gene pools with each other, until death parts them, so they remain one flesh until that agreement is ended. This has nothing to do with a registry office or a church wedding it is the agreement between the man and the woman that makes them one flesh (upon consummation).
There is a technicality here. If two men sleep with the same girl then they are both constructively joined to her flesh until either she has a period or the DNA of her baby is determined!
As stated above if the girl has a period then the defilement ends with that, since the constructive pregnancy has failed to materialize. However if she has a baby then when does the defilement end? The answer is that the fleshes are joined in the woman until the baby is born and the chord is cut. Once the cord is cut there is no foreign DNA inside the woman any more and her defilement ceases. So true fornicators are defiled either until the next period or until the birth.
Regrettably yes it does, since you are one flesh with her - but only if she is under church law. So if you are an LW and your wife is a prostitute in the world then she can sleep with whomsoever she wishes or whomsoever pays her and she is no more or less defiled before or after the event. This has no effect on you. But if she is in the church, then she has broken the sexual fidelity agreement of her marriage and defile both her flesh and your flesh. But that breach does not end the marriage, which is the joining of the fleshes, unless the husband chooses to exert his right to divorce on those grounds. If he divorces then his flesh is undefiled.
If he stays married then he stays defiled until the next menstrual cycle or the birth.
Certainly the wife is guilty of implied homosexuality and must be disfellowshipped. If she did not defile her flesh because the sex was protected, then she has no effect upon her husband.
Now that we know what it is to become one flesh we can describe what a marriage is in scriptural terms.
24 That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh (Genesis 2).
It is an gene pool mixing agreement (must become one flesh), which is exclusive and lasts until one or other party dies or until the exclusivity is breached (must stick to his wife).
If two people agree to live together and only have sex with each other, for the time being, this is not a marriage. However if they agree to stick to each other as well then they are in scriptural terms married. The church and the registry office are dressing strictly speaking.
And where a man takes a woman and her mother, it is loose conduct. They should burn him and them in the fire, in order that loose conduct may not continue in your midst (Leviticus 20:14).
Hence I grasped my concubine and cut her up and sent her into every field of Israel's inheritance, because they had carried on loose conduct and disgraceful folly in Israel (Judges 20:6).
Your acts of adultery and your neighings, your loose conduct in prostitution. Upon the hills, in the field, I have seen your disgusting things. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! You cannot be clean--after how much longer? (Jeremiah 13:27).
As in the daytime let us walk decently, not in revelries and drunken bouts, not in illicit intercourse and loose conduct, not in strife and jealousy (Romans 13:13).
Perhaps, when I come again, my God might humiliate me among you, and I might mourn over many of those who formerly sinned but have not repented over their uncleanness and fornication and loose conduct that they have practiced (2 Corinthians 12:21).
There is no evidence that 'groping' is loose conduct. The looseness has to do with the relationship of the woman within her family or to her husband or owner. Loose conduct is actually a despicable type of fornication, either by/(with) a prostitute or with a blood relative, this latter being coitus incestus, which is 'Zimmah' in Hebrew, the loose conduct legislated for in the law of Moses, or with a concubine or wife of somebody. It therefore includes adultery. It is not despicable to have protected sex with a prostitute, and neither is it fornication (see [J10]).
In the new labour politically correct climate of the UK prior to 2010, any man who went with a prostitute was seen as a dirty pervert and an exploiter of vulnerable weak women who are probably illegal immigrants who have been sold into sex slavery by ruthless eastern european men. Putting this more simply it is all the fault of men, be they customers, pimps or traffickers. That is not how the bible sees it at all. Neither is it how the prostitutes themselves see it. The vast majority of prostitutes are not trafficked, but are practical business women, who offer a real and useful service, which is normally actually very good value for money, whose customers include 10% of the male population in the UK (according to some TV documentaries seen by the writer).
There is no tit for tat or knock for knock with God. There is one who is wrong and another who maybe right or less wrong or indeed equally wrong.
It is not a sin to 'go with a prostitute', so long as you have protected sex. It is a sin to fornicate with anyone (have unprotected sex with someone to whom you are neither engaged nor married). In the law of Moses, daughters of priests were not allowed to be prostitutes, the penalty for this was death:
9 Now in case a daughter of a priest [a daughter by water baptism of her male baptizer and of Isaac] should make herself profane by committing prostitution [hn"z"] [Verb in Hebrew so it cannot take any symbolism, so it means a literal prostitute not a metaphorical one. She must permit herself to be defiled, i.e. made unclean with semen, i.e. selling unprotected procreative sex for money]. It is her father [by covenant - Isaac] that she is profaning. She should be burned in the fire [disfellowshipped. Handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (1Timothy1:20). Her Methuselaian body is destroyed. She can however repent and rejoin the church after 7 months regaining her Methuselaian body if the water baptism is still ongoing] (Leviticus 21).
The Hebrew word [hn"z"]
committing prostitution is the same as the Hebrew word for fornication. So the law for each is the same.
The account runs from verse 1 to 15. We have not counted it, but the word daughter counts 2x so it has a greater meaning.
The daughter is profaned with the semen of her clients. She is not profaned by accepting money for a decision to have sex. Prostitutes are fornicators who accept a cash bribe for a yes. The Hebrew word used here for prostitution (zanah) means both prostitution and fornication.
The law did not forbid prostitution. So daughters of non priests could be prostitutes under law.
So how does the defilement of the body of a daughter defile her father? Well a child is the joining of two sets of DNA which are the building instructions for two fleshes. And whilst the baby is in its mother's womb, it is joined to its mother's flesh by its umbilical cord. So the husband the mother and the child are all one flesh during gestation. But once the baby is born and the cord is cut, the child has its own flesh and is no longer one flesh with its two parents. So if one's daughter has defiled flesh that does not defile the flesh of the parents. The trouble that the father has is that the daughter is making a mockery out of his priesthood because she lives under the same roof as him. So if a man turns up at the door one would not know whether he has come to learn about the law of God or to break that law by fornicating with his daughter.
In fact the daughter would turn his house into a Monty Python sketch. Ah yes, welcome to our humble abode sir! May I ask have you come for a bible lesson or will you be fornicating with our daughter?
The daughter is turning a bible school into a brothel. Hence the death penalty.
3 For as a honeycomb the lips of a strange/foreign [non 1ACs] woman keep dripping, and her palate is smoother than oil.
4 But the aftereffect from her is as bitter as wormwood;
it is as sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet are descending to death. Her very steps take hold on Sheol itself. (Proverbs 5 NWT)
31 Which of the 2 did the will of [his] father? They said: The latter. Jesus said to them: Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the harlots are going ahead of you into the kingdom of God.
32 For John came to you in a way of righteousness, but you did not believe him. However, the tax collectors and the harlots believed him,
and you, although you saw [this], did not feel regret afterwards so as to believe him. (Matthew 21 NWT)
The scriptures define marriage as an exclusive on procreative sex.
But the two spouses can agree it to be an exclusive on any type of sex if they so choose.
In the Christian setting it works like this...
4 a man presiding over his own household in a fine manner, having children in subjection with all seriousness.
5 (if indeed any man does not know how to preside over his own household, how will he take care of God's congregation?) (1Timothy3).
Presiding over a household in a fine manner does not mean having a fine household. For the original firstborn angel of God, Satan, did not turn out so well. It means loving your children and therefore applying God's law to them properly. If you fail to discipline your children in accordance with God's law you are obviously unsuitable to run a church! So if the daughter of an LW who was in the house of the LWs was breaking God's law in any respect, then her father must hold her to account - however much he loves her. If the daughter is not in the church then she can do what she likes as far as the church is concerned and the Father is not compromised. Just as if the daughter of the priest was living in another man's house - then she could do what she liked without compromising her father.
But the question is, what if the son of a priest went with a prostitute? The prostitute gets paid, not the customer. If a man goes with a prostitute and pays her, she is the one who commits the prostitution, not him. She sells her body for money. He does not. She sets the trap and he falls into it. Putting this plainly she is the more to blame in biblical terms.
So if a son of a priest went with a prostitute, then he has not committed an act of prostitution. However if he went with a prostitute who was an LW, he is as guilty as the girl, for he is complicit in a defilement of the church.
With this clear incisive understanding, we see that God makes a distinction in righteousness between the prostitute and her customer which is the precise opposite of the politically correct position of the UK Labour government prior to the general election in 2010. The Coalition appears to be taking a less abusive approach today since it is considering legalizing prostitution which is a great idea for everyone except priests! To God the man is the victim of the woman who baits a trap for him and profits financially from him when he falls into it responding to his genetic pre-disposition. To politically correct public sector new labour bureaucrats and to left wing liberal democrat local councillors, the man is a filthy pervert who has exploited a naive innocent girl, and abused his financial status to take sexual advantage of her.
So our understanding of God's position is as follows. You should not commit true fornication with any woman, prostitute or not. An unmarried man can have safe sex with any unmarried woman whether she is a prostitute or not. The scriptural issue is defilement with semen, not getting paid for a consent. Again a prostitute is a fornicator who charges for consent. One could argue that she is bribed for a decision normally made without direct payment. The Law of Moses said...
8 You are not to accept a bribe, for the bribe blinds clear-sighted men and can distort the words of righteous men (Exodus 23).
Well a prostitute is normally neither clear sighted nor righteous! But may yet inherit the Kingdom of God if she has love and repents.
So any male LW can have safe sex with any prostitute so long as that prostitute is not herself an LW.
In fact any female LW can have safe sex with a male prostitute, so long as he is not an LW.
But in both cases you take a terrible risk if an accidental pregnancy occurs!
A priest under law was only allowed to 'take' a virgin in any event whether for sex or for marriage. Perhaps today there is an argument that a priest should only take a spiritual virgin - see J26. We do not make that argument however.
Having protected sex with a prostitute, who is not an LW, is about as far as you can go without crossing the line. If the protection fails then you defile yourself until her next period. You cannot perform any baptisms until that time, neither can you partake of any emblems at festivals. Your flesh is unclean and defiled. You must report any true fornication to the congregation for these reasons. If the prostitute becomes pregnant you must offer to marry her. If she refuses then you are screwed. You must be disfellowshipped since your flesh is defiled. You will be forgiven after 7 months if you are repentant. We will not give you a warning for fornication if the durex fell off and no pregnancy resulted. We will give you a warning for fornication if there was no condom/durex and no pregnancy resulted. Be wise, admit this sin. You can fool men but not the angels. This whole paragraph would apply to any woman who is not engaged or married to you.
So true fornication with a prostitute (which is a daft endeavour) carries the same penalty as true fornication with any other unmarried worldly woman. Be careful though, many prostitutes are married! One must admit it to the church elders however. Technically a brother should be suspended whilst he has flesh accidentally defiled by his putting semen into a woman due to a condom malfunction, until her period.
So today, any water baptised sister would be disfellowshipped if she committed fornication as an act of prostitution, receiving the man's semen as well as his money? No, the money is irrelevant. She would merely get a warning for fornication. Of course should she continue to act as a prostitute on 2 further occasions that would be it. She would be out.
The Jehovah’s witnesses have this awful practice of shunning those who have been disfellowshipped. They refuse to acknowledge their existence. This causes all sorts of problems in marriages and families when one party or one member is disfellowshipped. It is based on a misinterpretation of the 2nd letter of John (they are told):
For many deceivers have gone forth into the world, persons not confessing Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.
Look out for yourselves, that you do not lose the things we have worked to produce, but that you may obtain a full reward.
Everyone that pushes ahead and does not remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God. He that does remain in this teaching is the one that has both the Father and the Son.
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, never receive him into your homes or say a [brotherly] greeting to him.
For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works (2 John 7-11).
This scripture only applies to antichrists within the congregation - see U81. It does not apply to everyone who has been disfellowshipped. The scripture means that one should not receive such a man as a Christian teacher or as a Christian brother and no more than that. We know how to treat disfellowshipped or excommunicated people:
If he does not listen to the congregation, let him be to you just as a man of the nations and as a tax collector (Matthew 18:17).
Only a fool would refuse to say a greeting to a tax collector! Jews did not shun tax collectors or Gentiles. They dealt with them, especially their Roman governors! They did not worship with them however. So likewise a disfellowshipped man should not be allowed to eat with the congregation, he should be banned from congregation meetings. And that is it! No shunning.
1 Actually fornication is reported among you, and such fornication as is not even among the nations, that a wife a certain
[man] has of [his] father (1 Corinthians 5).
9 In my letter I wrote you to quit mixing in company with fornicators,
10 not [meaning] entirely with the fornicators of this world or the greedy persons and extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world.
11 But now I am writing you to quit mixing in company with anyone called a brother that is a fornicator or a greedy person or an
idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man (1 Corinthians 5).
The JWs also use the scripture above to justify shunning people who have been disfellowshipped. But it plainly applies to people within the congregation who should have been disfellowshipped, not people outside the church. The advice from Paul is to avoid mixing with people who are known to you to have comitted disfellowshipping offence but for some reason have gotten away with it. But you should not shun them, just avoid mixing with them.
Respect is the most basic form of love. And saying a greeting is the most basic form of respect. Refusing to say a greeting is disrespectful and not loving, but Jesus has taught us to love even our enemies. He shunned absolutely no one and there is no account in the gospels of his refusing to eat a meal with anyone. He ate with tax collectors he wnet around with prostitutes, he spoke to the devil himself when he was tempted, he did not shun Satan. He loved them all. This would mean showing them basic respect at the least. So we should say greetings to them and eat hamburgers with them.
But I say to you who are listening: Continue to love your enemies, to do good to those hating you (Luke 6:27).
There were 200 people in the congregation from which Gordon was disfellowshipped. He had made quite a few friends and many of them had told him how much they loved him, before he was evicted. On that day, one sister cried and ran out of the Kingdom Hall, Susan Desbleds. That was it. She is the only sister who stayed in touch for a while despite immense pressure not to. One other brother called him 3 years later. He would have found greater love in a prison. They forgot Jesus words to his disciples in his sermon on the mount...
44 However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you;
45 that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous.
46 For if you love those loving you, what reward do you have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing?
47 And if you greet your brothers only, what extraordinary thing are you doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing?
48 You must accordingly be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5).
22 And in case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him, and he must give it through the justices.
23 But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul,
24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
25 branding for branding, wound for wound, blow for blow (Exodus 21).
17 And in case a man strikes a soul fatally he should be put to death without fail (Leviticus 24).
So the question is: At which point in its development does a fetus become a human soul? President Clinton asks this question in his long but fascinating book 'My Life'. It is of course nice to have an American president who can write such a long book! The bible does have the answer to this question.
We get that answer from considering...
[a] When an embyro has a functional blood circulatory system, - so that killing it would make one blood guilty
[b] When an embryo has fully developed nostrils so that God has something to breathe the spirit of life into
[c] When an embryo takes its first breath (in utero) and so becomes a breather. The Hebrew word for soul is Nephesh which means - breather.
[d] When the two halves of the brain are connected together so that the 'software; of the human spirit can run on the 'hardware' of the human brain.
14 For the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by the soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood (Leviticus 17).
4 Only flesh with its soul - its blood - you must not eat (Genesis 9).
11 For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul [in it] (Leviticus 17).
So before the embryo develops a blood supply, it has no soul. It is obvious that one cannot be held bloodguilty for killing an organism which has no blood. This is why Gabriel said to Mary:
Through which also the holy [thing] being generated will be called, Son of God. (Luke 1:35).
At conception the embryo is a 'thing' neuter in the Greek. It has no soul, no spirit exists in it.
Now the embryo develops blood in the third week after the last period which is the first week after conception, and it develops a heart which starts beating in the 4th week. The heart starts pumping blood around the body in the 5th week and it starts pumping it around the brain in the 7th week after the last period which is the 5th week after conception. Ultrasound can pick it up instantly, see: www.octopusmom.com/Fetal_Development.html.
Until the blood starts feeding the brain, the embryo has no spirit. For the spirit resides in a functioning brain. It is obvious that a human body without a head is not a human life, one's character is all in the head, the body is merely a vehicle for the head. So a heart pumping blood around the body but not the brain is not a human soul. But the brain does not develop the autonomic breathing capability in the medulla oblongata, until the 10th week.
7 And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul (Genesis 2).
The first time you read this you imagine yourself in a Sci-Fi movie with God creating the body of Adam fully formed as a man and then lifting his limp lifeless flesh up onto its feet and blowing into its nostrils at which point the body comes to life, wakes up and says: I am carbon unit 3 of 7.
But we know that it did not happen like that. We know that Adam was created in the same manner that Jesus was - I6. So God formed Adam in the womb of his surrogate mother by in vivo fertilisation - Intro17. Then later, in the womb, he blew the spirit of life into his nostrils. But you cannot blow life into a baby's nostrils before the baby has developed any nostrils. So when does the human embryo have fully developed nostrils?
In Week 10 the nostrils and tear ducts are completed and the hands and feet can touch each other. In this week, the embryo becomes a fetus.
According to Rhawn Joseph Ph.D at the Brain Research Laboratory, as early as the 7th week, the embryo will display spontaneous movements, which by the 9th week come to include the extremities, the trunk and the head (de Vries et al 1985). Soon thereafter, the foetus will take its first breath. And by the 10th week of gestation, spontaneous breathing (chest and abdominal movements) are observed (de Vires et al 1985). Initially these breathing movements are irregular isolated events with perhaps one in an hour. Over the ensuing weeks they become more frequent and by 24 weeks they may be observed 14% of the time.
So the lungs begin to inhale and exhale amniotic fluid in the 10th week. So the baby becomes a breather at 10 weeks, and the Hebrew words for soul, Nephesh, means 'breather'. This pictures God's breath/spirit of life entering and exiting the lungs of the baby.
www.brainmind.com/FetalBrainDevelopment.html
Combining all of the above we see that God can blow the spirit of life, his breath into the fully formed nostrils of a breathing baby at week 10. This baby has a functional heart lung mind circulatory system at that time and changes from an embryo to a foetus in the 8th/9th week.
But we are not sure that God can run a human spirit on a foetal brain which has no connections between the two hemispheres. The Corpus Callosum, which connects the two hemispheres of the brain begins to form in week 13-16. The foetus feels no pain and is not aware of its body until the thalamocortical fibres begin to form in week 17. Permanent connections occur in week 22. Babies can be kept alive if delivered in the 22nd week. Babies start having REM sleep around the 23rd week according to a New York Times article, although web sites disagree and say this can occur start between weeks 20 and 28.
Babies can breath for themselves if delivered in the 24th week. Knowing all of this, let us have another look at the part of the law of Moses describing the penalty for someone who kills a baby accidentally...
22
And in case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children
[plural, in case she has twins]
do come out [early as a result of the struggle] but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him
[singular, the one who started the brawl, or whose fault the damage to the woman was]
without fail according to what the owner of the woman may lay upon him, and he must give it through the justices.
23 But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul
[if the baby or the woman dies. Human soul for human soul. Not inhuman soul for human soul. So this penalty applies only after the foetus becomes human, after it has become a human child],
24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth
[if the woman is hurt or indeed the baby],
25 branding for branding, wound for wound, blow for blow (Exodus 21).
Notice that the child has to come out and it has to be recognisable as a child and has to be dead for the death penalty to apply. So what would a Hebrew recognise as a 'child'? Would a 12 centimetre foetus in the 4th month be sufficient?? Would such a thing come out like child does?? Certainly a 6cm foetus in the 10th week would be pushing it! 5th month minimum for the mother to be able to produce something that looked pretty human we would suggest.
There is an EEG brain activity burst around the 22nd week after the last period or the 20th week after conception. And the brain halves are connected at that time, so abortion in the 22nd week looks like a bad idea. But abortion in the 20th week, may be just about OK. We think the spirit of God enters perhaps between weeks 20 and 22 from the last period. Left hemisphere activity indicates the presence of the human spirit. Prior to that the foetus has an animalistic spirit. It gets an upgrade from animal to human when God 'blows into its nostrils', which we think may stand for the human spirit upgrade entering both halves of the brain. Also at this time we believe the foetus becomes a 'breather' in the sense that it could derive enough oxygen to survive from some form of assisted breathing.
The word soul means breather, and God blew his spirit into the nostrils of Adam, so breathing would seem to be a prerequisite for housing a spirit. With the best technology in mankind's possession at present we can keep a foetus alive on a respirator at 22 weeks minimum. So it looks like weeks 17-22 are when God loads the spirit into the foetus.
Here is where some lateral thinking is required. Jesus gave life to Abraham's seed in the midst of his covenant. God himself we know resided in the midst of Israel. God sent his spirit, Jesus Christ, into the Midst of 'Abraham' meaning his covenanted sons. So the midst prophecy U100 may well apply to human gestation.
Day0
Day133
Day266 (38 weeks)
Conception
God's spirit is downloaded Baby born
X________________________________________________________X
133 days
(19 weeks) on average X 133 (19 weeks) days on average
7 And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath/spirit of life, and the man came to be a living soul (Genesis 2).
3 While my breath is yet whole within me, And the spirit of God is in my nostrils (Job 27).
5 Or does it seem to you that the scripture says to no purpose: It is with a tendency to envy that the spirit which has taken up residence within us [So we all have a divinely given personal spirit] keeps longing? (James 4).
22 Everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died (Genesis 7).
4 God's own spirit made me, And the Almighty's own breath proceeded to bring me to life (Job 33).
45 It is even so written: The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit [a spirit of life] (1 Corinthians15).
Jesus was blown into Abraham's nostrils at his baptism by John, on 29Tishri10, when his spirit, his software, as represented by the dove, came down from heaven and possessed Immanuel, the son of Joseph and Mary and God. This was 3˝ years before the midst of the Abrahamic covenant. All Jews are sons of Abraham and therefore are Abraham to God. Everyone in the Kingdom of God who was born after 1943Nisan14 BC is a son of the 1AC. So Abraham is an adamic 'fetus' who is born into the Kingdom of God via resurrection into an ageless non adamic body.
So God himself may well send his spirit in to the foetus just before the mid point of the 38 week gestational period. If so then the foetus becomes a human at 133 days, i.e. 19 weeks after conception. This would fit nicely with big EEG activity begins at 22 weeks. Also at 19 weeks a foetus looks sufficiently like a human for a Hebrew under law to regard its death as murder of a human. So the LW position is that abortion for a 266 day gestation standard baby is not murder up to the 132nd day of gestation and it is murder on the 134th day of gestation. However, there is variation between the development of human babies so we need to insert a margin of uncertainty here.
Let us introduce a margin of error of plus or minus 1 week here for the sake of safe legislation. It is true that babies are delivered sometimes 3 weeks early and sometime 5 weeks late, but their development does not lag or lead by anything like these figures. So the LWs will not regard an abortion as murder if it is carried out up to the 126th day (18 complete weeks). We will regard it as murder if it is carried out on or after the 140th day (20 complete weeks). It may or may not be murder in the intervening period, but we do not have enough data to make that charge so we will not ourselves legislate for abortions in that period. But be sure that the angels will, one way or the other. So we recommend in the strongest possible terms that the 18th week is the last opportunity for a termination.
We would also recommend to governments that they set the limit at 18 weeks. The UK recently debated a reduction from 24 to 16 weeks, that failed. A reduction to 18 weeks would be a very good idea. We have to say that God is very pragmatic and it appears that medical science was pretty near to the mark with the 16 week suggestion. The LWs would like to take this opportunity to thank the medical people behind this sensible suggestion.
However our overall advice would be do not have an abortion, have the baby and get it adopted, there are thousands of parents looking for babies. Jesus was to some extent adopted by his parents.
"Although the foetus can move at week 14, the movements are little more than jerky reflexes. They are not driven by higher cortical functioning. Therefore, another school of thought is that life begins at week 20, when the thalamus is completely formed. The thalamus is the relay centre of the brain, and helps to connect the cerebral cortex to the spinal cord and peripheral nerves." - https://www.brainblogger.com/2009/05/10/medical-controversy-when-does-life-begin/
God (nature) does not abort/miscarry from 24 weeks onwards!
But as soon as the baby reaches the mid point of its gestation, then abortion brings a death penalty (if not from the congregation then from the angels - who may/will cease softening the heart of those involved, and they may/will fall speedily into another sin which brings the penalty that should have occurred for the abortion. It is not a coincidence that this coincides precisely with the 4th missed period. When a woman misses her second period she definitely knows that she is pretty sure she is pregnant and at the third missed period she must be pregnant. And the 4th missed period makes 4 witnesses! That must be enough. In this way accidental murder of a baby is avoided. God designed the embryo so that it would not become a human soul until after the 4th missed period. Had he not done so he would in our opinion be guilty of negligent homicide, since someone might hit the woman or the woman might fall over and kill the baby in innocence without knowing that it was there.
All of this means that Coils and the Pill, and even the morning after pill, are not murder. One cannot murder something which does not have a heartbeat or has not taken a breath and one is not a murderer of a human until God's spirit has entered the foetus. Likewise if you commit adultery negligently, whilst using a condom see [J11], then if the woman falls pregnant but has a miscarriage within the first 17 weeks, then there is no penalty from God, because your accidental negligence did not lead to an abuse of life, in the sense of abuse of a human soul, because no human soul ever came into existence. But deliberate adultery carries instant disfellowshipping.
However a Christian woman should not seek an abortion in the first 17 weeks of gestation, the first 19 weeks from the last period, without the consent of the husband or fiance. However if there is no agreement to marry and no marriage, then the father has no say in the matter, and she can make the decision herself. If the father is in the church he must propose anyway, and if the mother is in the church she must accept his proposal unless she was raped, because the purpose of marriage is to provide a secure environment for children.
If she is engaged or married, then she should only act on the father's consent. If she does not then the husband must first take the matter up with his wife. If she is not repentant, then he should return to her with at least one more brothers or sisters and try again to have her repent.
15 Moreover if your brother commits a sin go lay bare his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brothers.
16 But if he does not listen, take along one or two more in order that at the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses every matter may be established. If he does not listen to them, speak to the congregation [that means the elders].
17 If he does not listen even to the congregation let him be to you just as a man of the nations and as a tax collector (Matthew 18).
If a mother aborts in the first 17 weeks of gestation against the wishes of the father (in circumstances where the father is either engaged or married to the mother) then she has committed a theft of a foetus and she has rejected the headship of her husband. Both of these are sins against the father so it is up to him how to deal with it. He should follow the procedure of Matthew 18:15-17. Might is not right. The woman should not abuse her power over the child, just as a man should not abuse his power over his wife (if he has any which has not been removed by the state these days). Why do people think that the state is more loving than a husband?
So the present LW position is that engaged or married parents can decide to have a baby and can also decide to abort the baby up until the 17th week of gestation, which is the 19th week since the last period. After that abortion is murder of a human.
If a woman aborts a baby against the wishes of her husband/fiance within the first 17 weeks of gestation, then she has not committed a capital offence. The husband owns the body of the wife, not the business or wealth or property of the wife. The two fleshes are joined and they only have one head. But the husband is not one flesh with the child. He has paternal rights over the child and the mother has maternal rights. But neither of them actually owns the child. So it is not a theft from the father if a mother aborts a child. But it is a violation of the husband's rights over the child if he does not consent to the abortion. But a right is also an obligation. And the mother has a massive obligation with a child. If she is not willing to accept that obligation then we are not going to police her disrespect of her husband's wishes.
If the husband wants an abortion and the wife does not then we are in an interesting spot. The Husband made the woman pregnant. He has to live with the consequences whatever they become. We are not going to police that either. Our general advice would be to reach a loving agreement for this joint project TOGETHER.
God's personal name is expressed in Hebrew by the four letters YHWH. The Hebrew alphabet has 24 letters, which are considered to be consonants. It then includes includes vowel pointing over and under and in the middle of the consonants to express vowels. However 4 particular consonants can also function as vowels these are...
y w a which are often used as the vowels i, o, a. In addition which the whole language is read backwards. It really is enough to drive an English or German person quite mad!
YHWH is hwhy and nobody knows what the correct vowel pointing should be. But there is a clue to it in the ambiguity of Hebrew. Every word in Hebrew has several meanings. The symbolic code of the bible is deliberately ambiguous but every possible meaning is to be used. So let us apply that principle to God's name and let us use the two consonantal vowels in all their possible pronunciations. Then we get Yihvuh or Yihvoh..
There are two English pronunciations of God's name in modern day usage and these are Jehovah and Yahweh. God's name, however it should be pronounced, appears over 6,000 times in the old testament. But it appears nowhere in the new testament. Whenever a new testament bible writer, or any disciple of Jesus whose speech is recorded in the bible, quoted an old testament scripture which included God's name, he would write or say either 'God' or 'the Lord' instead. Or if he said YHWH then he is recorded as saying God or the Lord.
There is no existing Greek manuscript of any book in the new testament which has YHWH in it. It is known that YHWH has been removed from many old testament manuscripts by the Jewish Scribes. It is also known that some versions of the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the old testament, made by 70 men in Alexandria in Egypt around 300BC, had YHWH in Hebrew letters in the Greek text. Therefore it is proposed by some as a theory, and stated by the Watchtower as a fact, that the original Greek text of the new testament did have YHWH in it and that 'the scribes' took this name out of every single Greek manuscript of the new testament.
But this theory has no real evidence in its support, it only has the circumstantial evidence generally stated above. All the real evidence, in the form of existing Greek manuscripts of the new testament, is against it. Furthermore the bible code works better in our experience with the more ambiguous 'Lord', than it does with YHWH. Since 'Lord' can stand for Jesus and others as well as for God. In fact the bible code requires 'Lord' in some places. Jesus prayed to his father saying:
I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world (John 17:6).
And I have made your name known to them and will make it known, in order that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in union with them (John 17:26).
This is literally saying that Jesus made God's name, YHWH, known to his disciples alone. It also refers to a future group of disciples to whom YHWH will be made known. This means that Jesus did not make God's name known to the masses. So it would be in keeping with God's will and Jesus' prayer above if the Christian scriptures did not mention God's name, since they are available to believers and non believers alike.
It is much easier to love someone whose name you know than it is to love a nameless omnipotence. But Jehovah or Yahweh is not a brand name like Coca Cola or Manchester United.
"I did not tell everyone whom I met, my father's first name, when he was alive. I would call him dad in public. But my friends knew him to be David. Although now that he is dead physically, I have put his full name on the internet (what a hypocrite)! The point I am making is that we should treat our heavenly father in the same way".
There needs some kind of balance. His name is not a secret, but neither is it to be a banner headline, something to be printed on T-Shirts or to be illuminated in Time Square. This is why Peter said, quoting Joel:
The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and illustrious day of the Lord arrives (Acts 2:20) Kingdom Greek Interlinear bible.
Whereas Joel said: The sun itself will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and fear inspiring day of Jehovah (Joel 2:31).
So we believe that it was God's will that the Greek new testament manuscripts should not mention his name. Just as it was his will that no image of Jesus should remain, and that no one should be able to pronounce his name today. That way we cannot properly take his name in vain and we cannot idolise some image of his son.
The International Bible Students, in the Columbus Ohio convention from July 24-30 1931, took the name 'Jehovah's witnesses' (in fact on July 26th see [157]). The bible students took God's name with his authority at that time. Because, this convention was actually the time that the 2300 evenings and mornings of Daniel 8 were fulfilled in the first fulfilment of the second presence. For there are 4600 solar days between the convention and December 18, 1918, when the Federal council of churches sent the infamous letter to president Wilson saying that the League of Nations was 'The political expression of the kingdom of God on earth'. This was the transgression causing desolation to Christendom (Babylon had fallen in 1916Nisan14, but it had yet to be desolated).
4600 Solar days rather than lunar days, because the 2300 evenings and mornings are a vision of the constant feature, and this was a genuine daily feature, not a Biblical Hebrew Calendar feature. And 4600 rather than 2300 because the constant feature occurred two times in a day, or putting in another way in 2300 evenings and mornings there were 4600 constant feature sacrifices. So the constant feature occurred 4600 times in this period, so we take a day for a constant feature and we get 4600 days. Actually including leap years July23, 1931 is 4600 days after December 18, 1918.
Until 2300 evenings and mornings and the holy place will certainly be brought into the right condition (Daniel8:14).
And the holy place is earthly Jerusalem, the administrative centre, FDS3. It came into the right condition at the time of the Columbus Ohio convention. The bible students then became worthy of bearing God's name. But they are no longer worthy to bear it, having been fallen over the saints on 1998Tishri27, latest 2nd tablet shattering day (40+40 days after the late 2nd 1NC Pentecost), and become the evil slave of Matthew24.
So what should the new FDS4 be called? Well Isaiah says:
You are my witnesses is the utterance of Jehovah.... So you are my witnesses is the utterance of Jehovah (Isaiah 43:10-12).
This has the meaning that there will be two groups of people who are God's witnesses or Jehovah's witnesses (you and you - the writer imagines a finger pointing a two different groups). So there is to be a second group of Jehovah's witnesses, see [C6] for the meaning of repetitions in the bible.
Since we should not use God's personal name in our name, as a result of the mess made by FDS3, and in harmony with all of the existing Greek manuscripts of the new testament, we could either be God's Witnesses or The Lords' Witnesses. Now in Revelation we read:
And the dragon grew wrathful at the woman, and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her seed, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus (Revelation 12:17).
And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus (Revelation 17:6).
The woman of Revelation 17 is a harlot church quite obviously. Right now she is the Jehovah's Witnesses in one meaning - see [159].
She is drunk with my blood and with that of Jesus' brothers and Abraham's ex-sons and our brothers who believe in our work but are under the cosh in the Watchtower. So the last true religion is to be Jesus' witnesses as well as God's witnesses. But if we are both God's witnesses and Jesus' witnesses, then we should be called the Lords' Witnesses, since both Jesus and God are referred to as the Lord in scripture.
And it must occur that at the instant that the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of the whole earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan will be cut off (Joshua 3:13).
For Jehovah your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords (Deuteronomy 10:17).
And when they entered they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus (Luke 24:3).
In Revelation chapter 11 we read of two witnesses:
And I will cause my two witnesses to prophesy 1260 days dressed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands and are standing before the Lord of the earth (Revelation 11:3,4).
These two witnesses are witnesses not of Jehovah but of Jesus. They are Gordon from 1992Elul11 (the hand delivery of Letter to the Society to Brooklyn) to 1995Adar11 (his disfellowshipping) and Laodicea from 2016Nisan1, the start of the 40 month wilderness penalty upon Laodicea for a bad spying report, to 2019Tammuz30. No one mourns when the bridegroom is with them...
15 At this Jesus said to them: The sons of the bridal chamber have no reason to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, do they? But days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. (Matthew 9 NWT)
But since we were witnesses of Jesus and we were also witnesses of Jehovah, we were in fact Lords' Witnesses.
Gordon knew that he would be thrown out on this day in advance, from the above scripture (it is one of the few interpretations relating to his personal future that he got right in advance ironically enough). He wrote to Dan Sydlik of the governing body after the event (see [1996April14]). The two olive trees stand for two sources of olive oil which is holy spirit. They are two baptisms into two covenants, the new covenant and the newer covenant. The new heavenly covenant and the new earthly covenant might be a better way of putting it. The two lampstands are the two congregations of FDS3 and FDS4. Jesus has told us that lampstands are congregations:
The 7 lampstands mean 7 congregations (Revelation 1:20).
This does not mean that we are an offshoot of the Jehovah's Witnesses or we are reformed Jehovah's Witnesses, or renegade JWs any more than the first century Christians were an offshoot of Judaism, or were reformed Jews, or renegade Jews.
The LWs are to the JWs what the Christians were to the Jews, the next true religion acceptable to God and chosen by Jesus.
For the full story see [33], [123]. The Christians were not responsible for the sins of the Jews, the Jehovah's witnesses were not responsible for the sins of the Christian churches before them and the Lord's Witnesses are not responsible for the sins of the Jehovah's Witnesses (we will certainly commit enough sins of our own)!
Here is an interesting section as regards congregational authority. Lets have a look at 1 Corinthians 11:
1 Become imitators of me, even as I am of Christ.
2 Now I commend you because in all things you have me in mind and you are holding fast the traditions just as I handed [them] on to you.
3 But I want you to know that the head of every man is the Christ; in turn the head of a woman is the man; in turn the head of the Christ is God.
4 Every man that prays or prophesies having something on his head shames his head;
5 but every woman that prays or prophesies with her head uncovered shames her head, for it is one and the same as if she were a [woman]
with a shaved head.
6 For if a woman does not cover herself, let her also be shorn; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.
7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, as he is God's image and glory; but the woman is man's glory.
8 For man is not out of woman, but woman out of man;
9 and, what is more, man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man.
10 That is why the woman ought to have a sign of authority upon her head because of the angels.
11 Besides, in connection with [the] Lord neither is woman without man nor man without woman.
12 For just as the woman is out of the man, so also the man is through the woman; but all things are out of God.
13 Judge for your own selves: Is it fitting for a woman to pray uncovered to God?
14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him;
15 but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her.
Because her hair is given her instead of a headdress.
16 However, if any man seems to dispute for some other custom, we have no other, neither do the congregations of God (1 Corinthians 11).
Paul is saying that if a woman prays or prophesies with her head uncovered then she might as well be shorn. He knows that such a thing is disgusting, so he is saying she should cover her head. He is not suggesting punishment barbers in the congregations.
If you are having a bad hair day, then this section is definitely not for you!
Now the man is made in God's image and is God's glory. The woman is not said anywhere to be made in God's image and is man's glory. Now the man was not created for the sake of the woman (although modern urban society would have you believe that he was), but the woman was created for the sake of the man. Likewise God was not created for the sake of the angels (or at all) but the angels were created for the sake of God. They too are God's glory and the loyal ones are his wife, the holy spirit. The woman is therefore in the image of the holy spirit (which is the collection of all the loyal angels acting in unison, like a wave).
The woman therefore has a sign of authority from the man, just as the angels have a sign of authority from God. In the case of the woman, this sign is long hair. In the case of the angels it is some symbolic equivalent of long hair. Possibly long term submission to God's will. This is why Paul says: 'because of the angels'. The loyal angels know that the woman represents the holy spirit, which is them, and so the physical woman should demonstrate her submission to her husband or future husband or past husband physically as the angels demonstrate their submission to God spiritually.
So all of this means exactly what it says. Women should only pray and prophesy with their heads 'covered' and men should not pray or prophesy with their heads 'covered'.
Paul goes on to explain that long hair is 'instead of a headdress', so long hair is a head covering in the case of women. So women do not have to put a shawl on if they already have long hair. But unfortunately for men, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so long hair must also be a head covering for them (as a sister joyfully pointed out!) So men should not pray or prophesy with long hair. And women with short hair should wear a head covering when praying or prophesying.
But what about the Nazirites, like Samson? They were told not to let a razor pass over their head! Well they were under a vow to Jehovah, which involved them amongst other things not being and not getting married. This is not explicitly stated but it is implied by Numbers 6:
6 All the days of his keeping separate to Jehovah he may not come toward any dead soul.
7 Not even for his father or his mother or his brother or his sister may he defile himself when they die, because the sign of his Naziriteship to his God is upon his head.
8 All the days of his Naziriteship he is holy to Jehovah (Numbers 6).
The Nazirite man is effectively married to God and hence the long hair as a sign of submission to him through a covenant. This is a physical headship of Jehovah over him. A Nazirite man, since he is not himself able to be a physical head over a woman, as God is over the holy spirit, is not in God's image in that sense, so he can have long hair.
Men have no head covering, i.e. have short hair, because we, being in God's image as regards headship, are potential or actual heads over women.
So here is the arbitrary hair length law of the LWs. It is arbitrary, and it is deliberately arbitrary, and left to be arbitrary by God, because it is merely a sign of acceptance of authority. And his authority over hair, and actually quite a lot more than hair (but not all his authority), is through his human priesthood on earth. So we are setting it as follows:
[A] LW Men should have hair no longer than the bottom of their collars when praying or prophesying.
[B] LW Women with hair shorter than the top of their collars should wear a head covering when praying and prophesying.
Bible decoding and general bible interpretation is prophesying today. For it is like Joel and Peter have said:
17 And in the last days, God says, I shall pour out some of my spirit upon every sort of flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams (Acts 2).
This is the first physical law for the LWs other than the one or two mandatory celebrations (and it is hopefully the last). Hopefully one of these things is sufficient for the angels and for God.
So how do we enforce this? Well at full congregational meetings, if an LW man or a woman breaks this 'law', he or she will be asked to respect it. If he or she does respect it during the rest of that meeting then that will be the end of the matter. If he or she does not respect it during the rest of that meeting then he or she will be asked to leave that meeting. That is it.
We will not give official warnings or throw people out of the LWs because of the length of their hair. Neither will we keep a record of 'hair infringements' at previous meetings etc. This matter will be dealt with on a meeting by meeting basis only and will not be 'enforced' upon non LWs. But neither will we tolerate what we believe is an abuse of God's law during full congregational meetings. So if for example Bryan May of Queen became an LW (perhaps deciding that he does in fact want to live forever, if for no other reason than to keep the fans happy in the Kingdom of God), and if he chose to keep his hair long, then he would not be able to speak out, either asking questions or engaging in debate in the LW equivalent of Question Time in matters of prophecy at full congregational meetings only. If he did speak out we would ask him to leave that meeting only. He could however sing at such meetings! Perhaps he could put it up in a bun?
Actually since women with short hair can just put a head covering on without actually altering their hair length, men with long hair should be able to just tie it up in a bun which keeps it above their shoulders!
Of course Christians should never consult with spirit mediums (media).
31 Do not turn yourselves to the spirit mediums, and do not consult professional foretellers of events, so as to become unclean by them. I am Jehovah your God (Leviticus 19).
6 As for the soul who turns himself to the spirit mediums and the professional foretellers of events so as to have immoral
intercourse with them, I shall certainly set my face against that soul and cut him off from among his people (Leviticus 20).
27 And as for a man or woman in whom there proves to be a mediumistic spirit or spirit of prediction, they should be put to death without fail. They should pelt them to death with stones. Their own blood is upon them (Leviticus 20).
10 There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer,
11 or one who binds others with a spell or anyone who consults a spirit medium or a professional foreteller of events or anyone who inquires of the dead.
12 For everybody doing these things is something detestable to Jehovah, and on account of these detestable things Jehovah your God is driving them away from before you (Deuteronomy 18).
Consulting with a spirit medium is 'immoral intercourse' and is treated just like fornication. Every condemnation of spiritism is in the plural. One trip to a spirit medium does not result in disfellowshipping, it results in a warning, just like true fornication.
But what do you do if a spirit medium comes to the congregation meetings and represents that he or she is not a spirit medium?
We are not the thought police, but we must guard against influence by spirit mediums. Spirit mediums often start by saying something very spiritual and true to get you hooked. Then they tell you that you will be run over by a bus two years next Tuesday, which destroys your life. You then go into a panic and people have been known to kill themselves because they cannot live with the worry about possibly fulfilling the absurd prediction. Here is how Jesus dealt with them:
23 Also, at that immediate time there was in their synagogue a man under the power of an unclean spirit, and he shouted,
24 saying: What have we to do with you, Jesus you Nazarene? Did you come to destroy us? I know exactly who you are, the Holy One of God.
25 But Jesus rebuked it, saying: Be silent, and come on out of him! (Mark 1).
The point is that the spirit medium was declaring a great sacred secret which was true. But Jesus shut it up. He knew that the game of the medium is to establish a spiritual credibility by revealing a truth and then having won the trust of the victim the abuse and misleading will begin. The abusive husband first gets the confidence of his wife, then he gets control of his wife through this confidence, then he starts his abuse. Star Wars fans will recognise that this was the tactic of Count Dooku when he was trying to turn Obi Wan to the dark side. He revealed that the senate was being controlled by a Sith Lord (Darth Sidius), an amazing revelation and a true statement. He then falsely represented that together with Obi Wan, he would destroy the Sith. But of course had Obi Wan agreed, Count Dooku would have said, well, yes, we must destroy the Sith, it is our foremost priority, but before we do, there is just one little thing I would like us to do first. And so it would go on. In fact Star Wars II is a very accurate representation of how Satanic corruption works. It is not a Satanic film, it is an enlightening and educational film in this regard. The screenwriters rare wisdom do have.
Here are two things to look out for with spirit mediums who come to meetings:
[1] They use the phrase "I have been told". God does not audibly instruct Christians about spiritual truths. He instructs exclusively through the word of God, which is the bible, and of course through nature. It is true that Jesus spoke audibly to Paul, but this was in the days of the physical gifts of the spirit. In those days there was genuine demonic possession and genuine demonic expulsion and genuine resurrection of the dead, and genuine curing of disabilities etc. These physical signs were passed on by the laying on of the hands by the apostles, they ended around a generation after the end of the first presence in 119Elul (actually at the first rapture in 153 AD). For example, today, the first new covenant saints know that they are new covenant saints, but they do not know how they know that they are new covenant saints! None of them have heard an audible voice saying: Hi, this is Jesus speaking, you are a new covenant saint, goodbye.
[2] They say things like: I know who I am, do you know who you are? Implying some type of heavenly existence. Born again Christians do have a heavenly alternative existence, in the form of an associated angelic body. But they have absolutely no consciousness of this extra soul.
The way to deal with someone whom you suspect might be a spirit media, if you are not sure, is to ask them to prove their assertions from the bible. For instance we had one who came to our LW meetings representing that he was no longer a spirit medium, but then he told certain people that he was the angel Michael. But he had earlier admitted that he had less bible knowledge than many LWs. Obviously Michael would have more bible knowledge because he was the editor of the whole bible. So the bible is the touchstone to use when anyone makes a spiritual claim.
The purpose of this section is not to start a witch hunt for spirit mediums. In fact if a spirit medium is genuinely trying to cease being a medium and find God, then we will help them as much as we can on this journey. But they must be honest with us about what their problems are.
The short answer is that there is no protocol to follow. The longer answer is that the congregation elders can decide to ask you to respect any of our laws whilst you are at congregation meetings, if they feel, in their opinion, that by your not respecting a particular Christian law, you are damaging or endangering the congregation. Of course they have no authority over non LWs outside of our meetings. They should not ask you to respect any laws unless you first exhibit a potentially disruptive or dangerous disrespect for that law, in their opinion, during the meeting. At that time they should only ask you to obey that particular law, and only ask you to obey it whilst you attend our meetings.
But if, for example a prostitute wanted to learn about God and she came to a meeting, no one would would place any burden on her, unless she started to solicit for business within the meeting. If she did, then she would be asked not to practice her trade during meetings.
There are various laws in various countries which seek to limit the parents rights here. We cannot advise on these laws. We can advise on bible law as we understand it. The relevant scriptures here are:
15 Foolishness is tied up with the heart of a boy; the rod of discipline is what will remove it far from him (Proverbs 22).
13 Do not hold back discipline from the mere boy. In case you beat him with the rod, he will not die (Proverbs 23)
15 The rod and reproof are what give wisdom; but a boy let on the loose will be causing his mother shame (Proverbs 29)
1 In case a dispute arises between men, and they have presented themselves for the judgment, they must also judge them and pronounce the righteous one righteous and pronounce the wicked one wicked
2 And it must occur that if the wicked one deserves to be beaten, the judge must also have him laid prostrate and given strokes before him by number to correspond with his wicked deed.
3 With forty strokes he may beat him. He should add none, for fear he should continue to beat him with many strokes in addition to these and your brother is actually disgraced in your eyes (Deuteronomy 25:1-3).
48 But if ever that evil slave should say in his heart, 'My master is delaying,'
49 and should start to beat his fellow slaves and should eat and drink with the confirmed drunkards (Matthew 24).
45 But if ever that slave should say in his heart, 'My master delays coming,' and should start to beat the boys and the girls/maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk (Luke 12).
13 He is the one that will build a house for my name, and I shall certainly establish the throne of his kingdom firmly to time indefinite.
14 I myself shall become his father, and he himself will become my son. When he does wrong, I will also reprove him with the rod of men and with the strokes of the sons of Adam (2 Samuel 7).
20 And in case a man strikes his slave man or his slave girl with a stick and that one actually dies under his hand, that one is to be avenged without fail.
21 However, if he lingers for a day or two days, he is not to be avenged, because he is his money (Exodus 21).
20 Now in case a man lies down with a woman and has an emission of semen, when she is a maidservant acquired/purchased for another man, and she has not in any way been redeemed nor has freedom been given her,
she should be chastised [beaten]. They should not be put to death [because there is no marriage], because she was not set free [and because he cannot marry her because she is owned by her master so the fix of Deuteronomy 22:29 cannot occur] [There is no penalty on the man if no pregnancy occurs. But if a pregnancy does occur he loses his child to the master of the slave] (Leviticus 19).
We are not under the law of Moses any more, so the penalties of the law, such as stoning or beating with 40 strokes less one, no longer apply. Although in a dispute between men, the principle that one is righteous and the other is wicked still holds true today. There is no 'knock for knock' or expediency or "let's not blame anyone" or "oh it was everybody's fault" in God's justice. There is no 'collective responsibility' in the sense that no individual can be blamed. One is right and the other is wrong.
However, in the case of females, all of the above shows us that nowhere in the bible is the beating of daughters, or wives with rods proposed (mind you beating of slave girls is proposed). So let us state categorically that daughters and wives should not be beaten with sticks or with any implements in fact.
However the proverbs of Solomon are not a part of the Law of Moses, which Jesus ended as a true from of worship.
So plainly 'mere boys' can be beaten with a rod if the parent deems it necessary. Now, we all know that girls behave badly as well as boys. And the principle of corporal punishment cannot only apply only to boys, since after all we are both the same species! So we therefore deduce that 'mere girls' may only be beaten with the hand. The bible does not propose such discipline explicitly, and it describes it as evil when applied to boys or girls or maidservants as an abuse of power. But the implication of the prescription of the rod for the boy is that the hand is suitable for the girl. Furthermore boys do beat each other with fists whereas girls slap each other with hands (well they used to until Buffy the vampire slayer appeared anyway!)
This does not mean that parents should regularly beat their sons with rods or their daughters with hands. It means that as a last resort the bible prescribes it. The Hebrew word (r[n) means male infant, or male child. But to the Hebrew, a son was a boy until he was 20 years old when he could be registered into the army. For Ishmael is described as a boy when he was 18 years old. He was 13 years old when Isaac was born, and he was evicted with his mother by Abraham for his poking fun at Isaac, at Sarah's insistence and at God's command when Isaac was weaned (i.e. 5 years old).
17 At that God heard the voice of the boy, and God's angel called to Hagar out of the heavens and said to her: What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, because God has listened to the voice of the boy there where he is.
18 Get up, lift up the boy and take hold of him with your hand,
because I shall constitute him a great nation (Genesis 21).
So the best we can see is that the bible explicitly or implicitly prescribes:
Last resort beating with a rod or other implement for sons under 20
Last resort beating with the hand only for daughters under 20.
We mean a beating on the backside not on the head or feet or back! The bible prescribes NO OTHER BEATING of any sort for Christian children. However with the speed at which kids grow up today the age limit should possibly be lower.
If a mother or father or husband or wife went further than this, we would not give them a warning, but they are not presiding over their household in a fine manner, so the father would not be eligible to be a ministerial servant or an elder. He or she also might have a problem with social services or the domestic violence unit of the police.
But make no mistake God himself gave us pain to teach us, and parents are permitted by God to use the same teaching method on their children. Sick governments who interfere with parents rights whilst presiding over child care services which regularly abuse children physically and sexually and internationally, should stop telling families what to do and start listening to families as regards how their own child care services are run. If not then all families will end up with the discipline of an inner city classroom, i.e. no discipline at all. Then we will be in the situation where children with guts have to stand up to bullies because no parent or teacher is permitted to by law. Of course some of these children lose their lives while standing up to bullies which the parents and teachers are forbidden by law from dealing with effectively in the UK. If you think that beating is wrong then read the news stories of the very few children born who cannot feel any pain at all (this being a medical deficiency). The parents of these kids would give anything for them to be able to feel pain.
Of course UK law, as of late 2004, only allows a soft smack for any child. But this is at odds with the bible. In a similar vein, the EU now requires their commissioners to espouse pro homosexual views, such is the lobbying power of the gays (they give Haliburton a good run for its money). Again this is at odds with the bible. Paul and Moses would strongly disagree.
As regards husbands and wives, they are one flesh, one body. From a sexual standpoint Paul says:
3 Let the husband render to [his] wife her due, but let the wife also do likewise to [her] husband.
4 The wife does not exercise authority over her own body, but her husband does, likewise, also, the husband does not exercise authority over his own body, but his wife does.
5 Do not be depriving each other [of it], except by mutual consent for an appointed time, that you may devote time to prayer and may come together again, that Satan may not keep tempting you for your lack of self-regulation (1 Corinthians 7).
That stops sexual power games going on and is very equitable. But the principle of verse 4 does not only apply sexually. The principle is that since they are one flesh, they kind of share each other's bodies. So the wife can use the husband's body when she needs it, just as he can, such as to defend herself or lift the heavy bags. In fact she has authority to insist on these things in the case of a definite need for her. But likewise the husband has authority to insist on using the wife's body for what he definitely needs from her. The two are supposed to be fulfilling each other's needs, not playing power games with each other's desires.
Obviously husbands and wives should not beat each other as a punishment or in fights or as a power game at all since they are one flesh, one body. However the man is physically stronger than the woman and the woman is emotionally stronger than the man. So any law which prohibits a man from striking his wife physically but does not prohibit a woman from striking the man emotionally is non contributory. Since it is almost impossible to stop women emotionally abusing men, one should be careful with legislation that stops men physically abusing women. For there is a deliberate balance between the powers of a man and the powers of a woman set by God.
A simple rule might be slapping is OK but no more.
The bible only recommended corporal punishment with a rod for a promiscuous slave girl or a wicked man who was in the wrong in a dispute with another man under law, as a kind of judicial alternative to a punch up.
The kids and the wife are the possessions of the husband in biblical terms. The courts in the UK have reversed this historical balance of power in all family relationships that has pertained for millennia by giving the family home and kids to the wife in the event of a divorce which they grant within 3 months on pretty much any grounds at all. One understands why the courts do this, it is one step thinking. The courts reason that the kids need the mother more. But the second step in the thought process is that the mother loves the kids the most, so she will not leave her kids if they are given to the husband. Whereas the husband will give up on his kids if the court takes them away from him and gives them to the mother (all credit to Father's for Justice). So giving the kids to the husband ensures that the family stays together. So the courts are effectively destroying families and stealing the fathers from kids in broken homes.
They also, along with the media, especially the TV, encourage women to see middle aged men as at best equals in family authority to the woman and at worst as irrelevant incompetent and unreliable providers who do a worse job than the state. Wicked men then take advantage of this and get out the minute they see a pregnancy, leaving single mothers to attempt to bring up teenage boys by themselves, which is very hard indeed and very damaging both to the mother and to the boy. On the other hand, many good men are forced to compromise and hand headship over to their wives under the ever present threat of said court action in a divorce. The courts are of course sexist in favour of the woman to use politically correct parlance, but being sexually prejudiced against men is acceptable, just as being racially prejudice against whites is acceptable or being sexually prejudiced against heterosexuals or against homophobes is acceptable in this hypocritical and pharisaical world that has moved beyond the bible and reaped misery for millions as a result.
The husbands then become bitter and nonchalant about the whole family deal and if the family does manage to stay together it is not a happy place. The trouble is that women go for physical status and security and the state has more status than their husbands have and can offer more security than their husbands can in general. The state is basically competing with the husband for control of the family. It is very very sick indeed to pass laws which cause the woman to rely on the state rather than her husband. It is the equivalent of the boss stealing your wife. Neither nature nor Jehovah gave either the state or the church the capability to produce physical babies. So we must both tread very carefully when exercising authority over parents to whom nature or God most definitely did give this capability.
There is a very simple reason why a woman cannot have two husbands. It is headship. A woman cannot have two heads. God created no animal with two heads (except a certain snakes). A man however can have two wives, but the bible speaks against it as follows:
17 He should also not multiply wives for himself, that his heart may not turn aside; nor should he increase silver and gold for himself very much (Deuteronomy 17).
2 The overseer should therefore be irreprehensible, a husband of one wife, moderate in habits, sound in mind, orderly, hospitable, qualified to teach (1 Timothy 3).
6 if there is any man free from accusation, a husband of one wife, having believing children that were not under a charge of debauchery nor unruly (Titus 1).
So a man cannot be a ministerial servant or an elder if he has two wives. But he can be in the congregation. Obviously he might be in prison in many countries!
However a husband cannot just go and sleep with another woman and then marry her if she becomes pregnant. He is an adulterer unless he proposes to the second woman first and he is not able to propose without the consent of his first wife, for he is one flesh with her. So if his first wife permits it he could become scripturally married to a second wife, but not of course legally married to her in most countries. A scriptural marriage is simply a consummated engagement. For those who are presently married to one wife, the only valid purpose in taking a second wife that the LWs can presently see would be the case of a shotgun marriage, where the husband had got another woman pregnant. This would have to be agreed by the first wife of course. Again we make the distinction between a legal marriage and a biblical marriage. You can have two wives biblically but not legally in most countries. However you can have as many children as you like with as many concurrent sexual partners as you want in the West of course regrettably. And further the Government will often support this morally unsustainable behaviour with tax payers money. But please remember all ye romantic supermen...
8 Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith (1Timothy 5).
The translation of that is: Fail to look after your kids and God will not look after you. He will put you in Hell.
This is a hard section to write. But the basic concept is simple. The rank and file JWs are for the most part God fearing and faithful. But Satan has corrupted their leaders entirely. There are some major psychological problems that JWs face in their journey into the LWs. As JWs you are told that the faithful and discreet slave (FDS) will never as a group go wrong. You are told that 'certain brothers' may fall away, but the FDS itself cannot lose faith. You are told that the FDS is the 'Wide awake John Class', the channel for all true bible understanding. You have believed that the way God explains the bible to his people today, is that he tells Jesus, Jesus tells the governing body, the governing body tells the writing committee, and the writing committee puts it in the Watchtower. You have believed that to get through Armageddon all you have to do is stay loyal not to God, and not to your master Jesus, but to God's 'Spirit Directed Organisation'. You have made no distinction between the Watchtower and Jesus and God in this respect.
You have not been made aware of the fact that the Watchtower did not itself interpret Daniel 4 as having a second meaning relating to the Gentile Times, it was Reverend John Aquila Brown who did that in 1823. You have not been made aware that the Watchtower was not the first Christian group to identify the wild beast of Revelation 13 and Revelation 17 with the League of nations in 1920. You have not been made aware that the Watchtower was not the first organisation to realise in 1942 that Revelation 17 implied that the League of Nations which was abyssed during the WWII would be reformed after the war. In short you have not understood the humble veracity of Brother Russell's words, when he said that his work was more of a collation of other peoples ideas, than it was a series of personal understandings on his part.
When faced with the realisation that the Watchtower has mislead you and lied to you so badly, the temptation is to react against them completely and throw away everything they have ever taught you. When you realise that the very definition of the harlot riding a beast, is an NGO being associated with the UN. And when you realise that the Watchtower was an NGO associated with the UN for 10 years. Then you realise that it is a now part of Babylon the great. When you remember the incessant condemnations made in almost every meeting in every kingdom hall of either Babylon or of the beast, you become sickened at their duplicity and their hypocrisy.
How can an organisation that dedicates every person and every brick in every building to Jehovah, sign an agreement with the wild beast, to promote and support the ideals UN charter? This is gross idolatry given the prior dedication and gross hypocrisy. Then when you finally see that God has rejected the Watchtower, because this jumping on the back of the beast was the transgression causing desolation to the Watchtower as referred to in Daniel 8, you wish to reject the Watchtower yourself totally.
Now at this point you are very very vulnerable indeed. You are vulnerable spiritually, because your spiritual universe has exploded. You are vulnerable socially because you are going to be shunned by most of your friends. You are vulnerable psychologically, because the Watchtower today is a terrible control freak, and you are not used to the mental freedom you are about to 'enjoy'. Being realistic you can become be a very easy target for various spiritual, emotional, sociological and psychological disasters. We have through bitter experience learned that careful advice is needed here. Please remember and keep a tight hold on to the following things:
[1] The Watchtower was appointed as one of the two true religions of the 2nd presence, the 3rd FDS, from 1901Tishri2 until 2005Sivan14, when it became a false religion.
[2] You have not 'wasted your life' by joining the JWs. They were God's true people, they just got corrupted as all but the last true religion eventually do.
[3] Some of the JW teachings today are wrong and satanic, others are still correct. So, however tempting, please do not throw away the baby with the bath water here! You will have learned many useful biblical truths and you will have developed many good behavioural patterns from the JWs. Your spiritual journey has taken you through the JWs, and this is a GOOD THING because, if you join both true religions in a presence, and avoid all the false ones, then you get to pick up your bed, you get a definite resurrection into the kingdom of God (either from the dead or whilst you are living through the rapture). There is the mercy and wisdom of the creator. Joining two true religions is enough for him. The blessing of Abraham is yours.
But, you will also have picked up some incorrect interpretations and you will have picked up some bad (pharasaical, over controlling) behavioural patterns. So you need to be grown up about this and sort out the good from the bad. Please try not to violently swing from one extreme to the other. God has provided a second true religion in this presence for those who love him more than they love his fallen priesthood in the JWs. He is still teaching you, and perhaps this is your most important lesson, that you must love him with your own heart, you must follow him with your own mind, you must serve him with your own strength and then you, yes you personally, will make the decision which enables God to save your own soul through Jesus. For then you will be a son not of a Bethel in Brooklyn, but of almighty God himself in heaven. It is the words he first spoke to Abraham that we quote to all JWs:
1 Go your way out of your country and from your relatives and from the house of your father to the country that I shall show you (Genesis 12:1).
For 'country' read 'religion'. If you truly are a son of Abraham, you will make the journey to this land you know little about, the land of the LWs.
[4] The LWs have far fewer physical restrictions and far fewer physical requirements than the JWs. But we are not an amorphous free for all. We have less laws, but we hope to enforce those that we have more equitably. You will be free to explore other religions, other bible interpretations, other relationships with people etc. You may not be used to having this freedom. You will be tempted to go overboard. But the sons and daughters of God are free in this way. You will find scriptures which look like they are contradicting established LW understandings. That is fine, try and reconcile them with our understandings, but if you cannot, then please email us. We encourage positive debate about the meaning of the bible. We are often wrong.
One more thing... Please don't call it the passover the 'Memorial'. It is not a funeral service. It is a celebration! We call it the last supper, or cups and covenants, or the passover celebration.
This website is the entirety of the official understandings of the LWs. We plan to keep it that way. However the site is rather academic and a bit hard to digest for the man in the street. So we expect shortly to produce easy guides to various parts of the site. These will be official LW publications. However we do not want to stop individual LWs from writing their own guides to this site. If you are an LW and you wish to publish some of your own material either on the web or in a book or booklet or howsoever, you are welcome to do so subject to the following condition:
Please make sure that your material contains the following dislaimer: "This material has not been written or produced by the Lords' Witnesses, it is not an official LW publication."
Jesus gave his sermon on the mount, on a mountain, not in a public square. He gave it to his disciples only, not to the crowds. Neither today is it given to the crowds, it is given to those who read the bible. He taught in the temple and in the synagogue to those who showed an interest by coming there. He did not teach in the market square...
19 He will not wrangle, nor cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the broad ways.
20 No bruised reed will he crush, and no smoldering flaxen wick will he extinguish, until he sends out justice with success (Matthew 12).
So Jesus did not teach in public places. So likewise although we could agree to appear on chat shows etc. we should not teach to a general TV audience. But we can advertise to such an audience or we could run a TV advertising campaign which did not teach. Paul did teach in the Areopagus, the public speaking place of Athens, but he was dragged there, he did not choose to go there himself.
19 So they laid hold of him and led him to the Areopagus, saying: Can we get to know what this new teaching is which is spoken by you? (Acts 17).
Jesus condemned the Scribes and Pharisees publicly:
1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying:
2 The Scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the seat of Moses (Matthew 23).
So we can publicly condemn false religion and bad secular leaders (for the Pharisees were also the secular rulers of the Jews), since their activities are publicly known.
1 Look! My servant, on whom I keep fast hold! My chosen one, [whom] my soul has approved! I have put my spirit in him. Justice to the nations is what he will bring forth.
2 He will not cry out or raise [his voice], and in the street he will not let his voice be heard.
3 No crushed reed will he break; and as for a dim flaxen wick, he will not extinguish it. In trueness he will bring forth justice.
4 He will not grow dim nor be crushed until he sets justice in the earth itself; and for his law the islands themselves will keep waiting (Isaiah 42).
17 that there might be fulfilled what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, who said:
18 Look! My servant whom I chose, my beloved, whom my soul approved! I will put my spirit upon him, and what justice is he will make clear to the nations.
19 He will not wrangle, nor cry aloud [over teachings], nor will anyone hear his voice in the broad ways [teaching].
20 No bruised reed will he crush, and no smoldering flaxen wick will he extinguish, until he sends out justice with success.
21 Indeed, in his name nations will hope (Matthew 12).
Of course the literal fulfilment of both of these scriptures was Jesus Christ. A bruised reed is a damaged religious leader or a damaged morally upright person, a smouldering flaxen wick is a flickering spiritual light, a person who is just managing to keep shining spiritually. But the second meaning, the word symbolic meaning has two fulfilments one for Isaiah and one for Matthew, by the parallel account principle. And Isaiah is fulfilled in FDS2 and Matthew 12 is fulfilled in FDS4. So whereas the first true religion, FDS1, which became the Catholic church when it was rejected by God in around 76/77 AD, did crush and extinguish the weak and the damaged, the second true religion did not. and whereas the Watchtower, the 3rd true religion, FDS3, likewise trampled upon the sick, shunning them and marking them and calling them not very spiritual etc, FDS4 do not do that. The word 'servant' is repeated twice, so the word symbolic meaning of it is different from the singular human servant Jesus, so it is a composite servant an FDS. FDS2 and FDS4 look after the weak ones in their churches. But also we have a different method of evangelising to FDS1 and FDS3. We do not wrangle, nor cry aloud, nor is our voice heard in the broadways. We do it the way Jesus did it. He did not stand on the street corner and preach to all and sundry. He did sent out people to do that, but these were in the first true religion. Jesus' technique, which our church follows, is best described by him...
20 Jesus answered him: I have spoken [about my teachings] to the world publicly. I always taught in a synagogue and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret (John 18).
Jesus spoke publicly but taught 'privately' in a synagogue or in a temple. So we only teach people or groups of people who have chosen to listen. But we can advertise or talk generally about the teachings to anyone. We do not do a one hour television commercial about our understandings, since many of those watching have not chosen to listen they just happen to be looking at that channel on the TV. We could take a small advert inviting them to come and be taught, however. Our understandings are very powerful and should only be given to interested people. We do not want to give them to our enemies. The broad way today is the TV or the Radio or the Newspaper. The internet is not a broad way, it is just a very large electronic library.
We must not cast our pearls before people who have not chosen to listen. I should not take a large advert in a newspaper explaining our complicated teachings, However I could take an advert inviting people to look at our complicated teachings. We could do door to door ministry so long as we do not attempt to teach someone who is not interested. The door to door ministry is an advert for a bible study. Likewise we would not get involved in heated arguments about scripture (wrangling).
This is the distinction. Speak to the world, but teach only the congregation. If you want to know the truth, you need to do a bit more than switch the TV on. You can broadcast an advert without an invitation, but not a teaching. You can only broadcast a teaching by invitation (Like Paul did at the Areopagus). Publicly advertise, but privately teach. Yet do not refuse an invitation. But adjust the content of any talk given to the nature of the audience, public or private. Remember that the sermon on the mount was given on the mount, not in the public square.
God is patriarchal. The head of the family is the spiritual head of the family. So if in the LWs a man had spiritual authority over his own genetic father, then he would be breaking the family headship principle. This we think is why Joseph died before Jesus started his ministry. Jesus was the head of his family at his death since he said to Lazarus, his son by resurrection: Behold your mother. He would not be able to do that without having the necessary authority over both Lazarus and his mother.
25 By the torture stake of Jesus, however, there were standing his mother and the sister of his mother; Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
26 Therefore Jesus, seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, said to his mother: Woman, see! Your son!
27 Next he said to the disciple: See! Your mother! And from that hour on the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19 NWT).
This proves that one of the disciples was Jesus' son. And since he did not get married during his ministry, the son must have been by resurrection. So do not baptize a father into a congregation or circuit of tribe run by his son! If a genetic father abdicates by getting a divorce and clearing off without looking after his son this presumably would no longer apply as he would not be the family head.
One of the most astonishing things to the writer about the bible is that it prescribes no methodology for a marriage ceremony. Gordon does wonder therefore whether we are supposed to have any such ceremony. To God, once the man has proposed and the woman has agreed, that is the end of the matter, and any man who sleeps with an engaged woman is committing adultery. God expects us to be like an English gentleman was over a hundred years ago. His word was his bond. Here is the definition of marriage given by Adam, notice it is in the past tense...
24 therefore was a man leaving his father and his mother, and has stuck in his wife, and they have become one flesh. (Genesis 2, YLT).
This was true for pre adamic procreation since although the pre adamics were not dead, they only had a 50 year lifespan as humans before being raptured - see I5.
One way of looking at the lack of marriage ceremony detail in the scriptures is that God rejoices in the freedom that he gives us to love each other how we want to love each other and he hates interfering in other people's loving relationships. He is a God of total freedom, and what greater freedom is there than the freedom to love, without the state or the church telling you how to do it? But as we have discussed above, God does licence procreative sex in order to protect the rights of the child. Anyhow we are all free to get married however we want, whether in a big church ceremony or skydiving out of an aeroplane. There was a traditional Hebrew marriage protocol however - see U65. this protocol was not law, but is used symbolically in many scriptures.
But regrettably people often get married for reasons other than love and for this reason and others marriages often fall apart. Now according to the strict law of God, the only grounds for divorce are adultery, non consummation, or prior fornication as we shall see.
18 But the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way. During the time his mother Mary was promised in marriage to Joseph, she was found to be pregnant by holy spirit before they were united.
19 However, Joseph her husband, because he was righteous and did not want to make her a public spectacle, intended to divorce her secretly (Matthew 1).
So it is righteous to divorce before consummation (Joseph was not going to make an accusation about his wife). But Jesus described how Moses prescribed a certificate of divorce...
3 And Pharisees came up to him, intent on tempting him and saying:
Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on every sort of ground?
4 In reply he said: Did you not read that he who created them from [the] beginning made them male and female
5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh'?
6 So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together [this occurs when God puts his spirit into a 18-20 week old foetus. This is his part in the procedure. The parents will have the child as their yoke always, but they may be two flesh since a yoke connects two cattle] let no man put apart [let no man take the child away from its parents - social services take note].
7 They said to him: Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and a divorcing her?
8 He said to them: Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from [the] beginning [showing that there was law in the day of Adam and actually down to Moses].
9 I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery (Matthew 19).
2 Pharisees now approached and, to put him to the test, began questioning him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife.
3 In answer he said to them: What did Moses command you.
4 They said: Moses allowed writing a certificate of dismissal and a divorcing [her].
5 But Jesus said to them: Out of regard for your hardheartedness he wrote you this commandment.
6 However, from [the] beginning of creation He made them male and female.
7 On this account a man will leave his father and mother,
8 and the 2 will be one flesh; so that they are no longer 2,
but one flesh.
9 Therefore what God yoked together [this occurs when God puts his spirit into a 18-20 week old foetus. This is his part in the procedure. The parents will have the child as their yoke always, but they may be two flesh since a yoke connects two cattle] let no man put apart [let no man take the child away from its parents - social services take note].
10 When again in the house the disciples began to question him concerning this.
11 And he said to them: Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,
12 and if ever a woman, after divorcing her husband, marries another, she commits adultery (Mark 10).
Verse 9 is fantastic scripture. Those whom God hath yoked together are the genetic father, the genetic mother and the child. No divorce can be granted whilst the child lives with the parents or is still under parental control. Only after the yoke to the child is broken, can the yoke between the parents be broken. Parental responsibility continues until 20 unless the child gets married or otherwise leaves their control.
The certificate of dismissal is a metonym for the certificate of divorce which involves a dismissal. There was only one certificate in the law, a certificate of divorce. The Pharisees referred to it as a certificate of dismissal.
10 To the married people I give instructions, yet not I but the Lord, that a wife should not depart from her husband;
11 but if she should actually depart, let her remain unmarried or else make up again with her husband; and a husband should not leave his wife.
12 But to the others I say, yes, I, not the Lord: If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and yet she is agreeable to dwelling with
him, let him not leave her;
13 and a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and yet he is agreeable to dwelling with her, let her not leave her husband.
14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in relation to [his]
wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in relation to the
brother; otherwise, your children would really be unclean, but now they are holy.
15 But if the unbelieving one proceeds to depart, let him depart;
a brother or a sister is not in servitude under such circumstances, but God has called you to peace.
16 For, wife, how do you know but that you will save [your]
husband? Or, husband, how do you know but that you will save [your] wife? [binary question] (1 Corinthians 7).
So you can separate if the marriage becomes intolerable but you cannot then remarry unless there has been fornication. But here is the clever interpretation and the legalistic part...
1 In case a man takes a woman and does make her his possession as a wife, it must also occur that if she should find no favor in his eyes because he has found something indecent [uncovered, nakedness - so certainly prior fornication or adultery, but not pole dancing, stripogram, nude model etc.
i.e. for a reason described below] on her part, he must also write out a certificate of divorce for her and put it in her hand and dismiss her from his house.
2 And she must go out of his house and go and become another man's [so she must have committed fornication or the holy spirit is commanding adultery].
3 If the latter man [who knows that she is a fornicatrix] has come to hate her and has written out a certificate of divorce for her [he does not need to find anything else indecent because, he already knows she is a fornicatrix] and put it in her hand and dismissed her from his house, or in case the latter man who took her as his wife should die,
4 the first owner of her who dismissed her will not be allowed to take her back again to become his wife after she has been defiled; for that is something detestable before Jehovah, and you must not lead the land that Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance into sin (Deuteronomy 24).
So actually you can divorce a woman on fornication that she committed prior to your marriage if you like, and the woman likewise can divorce a man for that reason. It the event of a divorce for prior fornication both are free to remarry without committing adultery if they do. But if they remarry they cannot go back to the first spouse afterwards. Jesus indicated this when he used the word fornication rather than adultery in Matthew19...
9 I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery (Matthew 19).
Fornication would have occurred prior to the marriage, since infidelity within the marriage is adultery which is a form of fornication but Jesus did use the wider term. Likewise the test for an unfaithful woman related to both marital and premarital infidelity...
19 'And the priest must make her swear, and he must say to the woman: If no man has lain down with you and if while under your husband you have not turned aside in any uncleanness, be free of the effect of this bitter water that brings a curse (Numbers 5)
If two unmarried people procreate, the woman getting pregnant, then at the 18th-20th week, when the child becomes a human soul, they are de facto married because they have permanently become one flesh not by agreement but by action. If they choose not to honour this, they have effectively granted themselves a certificate of divorce, and they cannot remarry without committing adultery unless there has been further fornication.
The point is that if a girl keeps herself for her husband then the husband cannot divorce her other than on the ground of her adultery. That is the prize she gets for her self control prior to the marriage. But if a woman does not keep herself for her husband, then he can divorce her on the grounds of her prior fornication at any time, so her marriage is built on sand if her husband does not love her in a long term way. But of course all marriages require long term love. The same is true for a man. Marriage therefore provides more security for virgins than it does for fornicators. Or looking at it the other way, you can get out of a marriage with a fornicator more easily.
So we will issue/permit certificates of divorce for husbands who wish to divorce their wives and vice versa for prior fornication or for adultery.
23 and the man saith, 'This [is] the step! bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!' for this it is called Woman, for from a man hath this been taken
24 therefore was a man leaving his father and his mother, and has stuck in his wife, and they have become one flesh. (Genesis 2, YLT).
4 In reply he said: Did you not read that he who created them from [the] beginning made them male and female
5 and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and stick to his wife, and they shall be -- the two -- for one flesh? [No we did not read that. Adam said this in the past tense. Perhaps God then said it in the future tense?]
6 so that they are no more two, but one flesh; what therefore God did join together, let no man put asunder
7 They said to him: Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?
8 He said to them: Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from [the] beginning.
9 I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.
10 The disciples said to him: If such is the situation of a man with his wife, it is not advisable to marry.
11 He said to them: Not all men make room for the saying, but only those who have the gift.
12 For there are eunuchs that were born such from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs that were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs that have made themselves eunuchs on account of the kingdom of the heavens. Let him that can make room for it make room for it (Matthew 19 - YLT/NWT).
When two people have a child that lives to the point that God's spirit is put inside him then no man can put them asunder. For God has joined them together. So we cannot write out a certificate of divorce to a couple who have a child which is their flesh. But once that child has procreative sex with another, then he or she has joined their flesh to this new partner and so is no longer one flesh with their parents (he has left his father's and mother's flesh and stuck to his wife). At this point we could write out a certificate of divorce since the parents are no longer joined together by God through the yoke of that child. Also, these days, if the child has procreative sex and constructively joins themselves to another, then the yoke is broken. But it is fixed if there is no pregnancy at the next period.
Technically, since God regards engaged people, people who have agreed to marry, as married, then he would also regard two people who had agreed to get divorced and have a certificate of dismissal issued (in the event that one or both was/were a Lords' Witness), as being divorced, before the divorce goes through the secular courts. So the LWs will regard a certificate of divorce as being the end of the matter. The certificate is just an agreement to divorce signed by both parties with each signature witnessed. Legally this is a Deed of Divorce. However God hates trashing loving bonds and we would offer counselling as best as we can to preserve the marriage especially in cases where children are involved. But the decision is not ours.
We will also issue/permit certificates of divorce where there is no prior fornication or adultery and no marital fornication or adultery, only if there are no remaining unengaged children under 20
In this case the ex-spouses commit adultery if they re-marry (which requires procreative sex)
In an LW divorce, all custody of remaining children must go to the husband. The husband can then give them to the wife if he chooses and she agrees, but it is his decision.
We will consider the following as grounds for taking away the father's ownership of the children and temporarily or permanently giving them to the mother.
1. Attempted murder of his own children (permanent grounds).
2. Incest (permanent grounds).
3. The children develop a life threatening medical condition due to continued prolonged negligence of the father (temporary).
4. Abandonment (temporary).
Disfellowshipping is for a minimum period of 6 whole months as explained in section J2 above. The disfellowshipped brother or sister is thrown out of the church and during the first 6 whole months they are not permitted to attend any meetings of the church. If even two brothers are having a meeting to do with the church, a disfellowshipped person should not attend. However, contrary to the practice of the JWs, shunning is hateful and Satanic as discussed in J13 above.
So any brother or sister can visit a disfellowshipped person during the 6 months and discuss anything they like with them, but be careful and cautious, these people may be spiritually dangerous. Jesus exhorted us all to visit those in prison...
43 I was a stranger, but you did not receive me hospitably; naked, but you did not clothe me; sick and in prison, but you did not look after me (Matthew 25).
So actually we should keep in contact with disfellowshipped people, so that we continue to show them love. But they cannot attend any congregation meeting of any type. Non religious congregation social functions, are not out of bounds for disfellowshipped brothers and sisters, but be careful.
After the 6 whole months, the same is true until said person is repentant. At which time he must go to the elders, who will decide whether of not his repentance is genuine. He is taken as being repentant if he represents that he is and there is no comfortably achievable restitution route that could have been taken but has not been taken. Zacchaeus of Luke 19 is the example here. He could comfortably afford to make the restitution that he made. However if he has lied or slandered, his repentance will be that he should own up to and apologise for every lie and every slander, to everyone involved as far as this is still possible.
Now Paul confusingly said...
9 In my letter I wrote you to quit mixing in company with fornicators,
10 not [meaning] entirely with the fornicators of this world or the greedy persons and extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world.
11 But now I am writing you to quit mixing in company with anyone called a brother that is a fornicator or a greedy person or a idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man (1 Corinthians 5).
This refers to people still inside the congregation whom the elders should have thrown out. The Corinthians elders had failed to throw out a man who had married one of his father's wives. So it only applies when the congregation has negligent elders. In this case we should not shun (not avoid speaking with), but we should avoid socialising (avoid eating a meal with) people who we know should really have been thrown out. This is the congregation showing its disapproval. All non disfunctional communities do this. In fact 30 years ago this is how communities in England were policed. Today the only policing they get is from policemen. We must not ignore the pink elephant. If a brother who we know to be an adulterer invites us to tea, we should say, admit it and resign first, then we will come round. What these brothers should do is own up to the elders, and if the elders will not apply the law properly then the brothers should resign anyway, because they are not fooling the angels. And God is very happy indeed when a sinner takes his punishment for this is the start of repentance and we know from the parable of the lost sheep that there is more happiness in heaven when one sinner repents that there is over 99 righteous ones who have no need of repentance.
Paul further says...
17 Now I exhort you, brothers, to keep your eye on those who cause divisions and occasions for stumbling contrary to the teaching that you have learned, and avoid them.
18 For men of that sort are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own bellies; and by smooth talk and complimentary speech they seduce the hearts of guileless ones (Romans 16).
So we should avoid those trying to draw people off after themselves. But we should love first and judge second. Only if we know that a brother is hiding a sin which should result in an accusation or an expulsion or only if we know that a brother is making his own church within the congregation should we avoid them socially. We need to be grown up about this. Obviously someone trying to set up a study group or a research group for the purpose of furthering our understandings or our ministry etc. is to be applauded. But someone who sets such a group up for the purpose of furthering himself is to be avoided. This requires exercising judgement. Judge a tree by its fruit. If a research group comes up with good new understandings or helps people to see the truth stay with it. If the group produces bitterness resentment, and attacks certain brothers, thereby inciting division, then leave it.
The thing is that Jesus is present when 2 or 3 are gathered together. So we would encourage LWs to form bible study groups. But of course this mechanism can be abused like any other mechanism.
John advises us not to allow disfellowshipped people into our meetings and not to greet disfellowshipped people as brothers. But this does not mean that we should shun them or refuse to allow them into our houses. The confusion on this matter comes from the early Christian practice of holding congregation meetings in one's house.
7 For many deceivers have gone forth into the world [from the true congregation], persons not confessing Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh [persons who say Jesus was not the Christ].
This is the deceiver and the antichrist [literally:
against the Christ].
8 Look out for yourselves, that you do not lose the things we have worked to produce, but that you may obtain a full reward [get sealed].
9 Everyone [who was/is a brother,
i.e. who is in the church] that pushes ahead and does not remain in the teaching of the Christ [having come in the flesh as Jesus]
does not have God [he is not in the 1AC if having known about Jesus,
he then rejects him]. He that does remain in this teaching is the one that has both the Father and the Son [as Gods, two Gods, and has the father Abraham and the son Isaac as covenant fathers of the 1AC and the ICC].
10 If anyone [who was/is a brother]
comes to you [plural you, the congregation]
[to a Christian meeting being held at your house] and does not bring this teaching [of Jesus having come in the flesh as the Messiah,
the Christ], never receive him into your homes [for a Christian meeting] or say a [Christian] greeting to him [do not allow this LW into the meeting do not treat him as a Christian brother - but he can of course come and see you in your home outside of a meeting just like any other tradesman or friend].
11 For he that says a [Christian] greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works [Because this guy is or should be disfellowshipped]
(2 John).
Confession is done with regard to a known fact. So the antichrist does not accept that Jesus was the Christ. He is against the Christ, against the claim of Jesus to be the Christ. Disfellowshipped people are not allowed into meetings and one should not greet them as a brother (no holy kiss etc). But they are not banned from all of our houses and we can greet them as we would greet any other worldly person.
Here is the only explicit condemnation of lesbianism in the entire bible. We can find no condemnation in the Law of Moses.
18 For God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who are suppressing the truth in an unrighteous way [this is a condemnation by Paul of all wicked mankind from Noah onwards],
19 because what may be known about God is manifest among them, for God made it manifest to them.
20 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;
21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor did they thank him, but they became empty-headed in their reasonings and their unintelligent heart became darkened.
22 Although asserting they were wise, they became foolish
23 and turned the glory of the incorruptible God into something like the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed creatures and creeping things [idolatry].
24 Therefore God, gave them over in the desires of their hearts into uncleanness from/of the [desire] in them to dishonour their bodies,
25 even those who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and venerated and rendered sacred service to the creation rather than the One who created, who is blessed forever.
Amen [more idolatry].
26 That is why God gave them up to disgraceful lusts [we can see from the te...te
idiom that these are female female lust and male male lust], for both their females [some of them] changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature.
27 And [te..te]
likewise
also the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error [in the case of Sodom at Gomorrah] [so the lusts of a girl for a girl and a boy for a boy are equally disgraceful to God. Therefore the sins are equally obscene].
28 And just as they did not approve of holding God in accurate knowledge, God gave them up to a disapproved mental state, to do the things not fitting,
29 filled as they were with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, badness, being full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malicious disposition, being whisperers,
30 backbiters, haters of God, insolent, haughty, self-assuming, inventors of injurious things, disobedient to parents,
31 without understanding, false to agreements, having no natural affection, merciless.
32 Although these know full well the righteous decree of God, that those practicing such things are deserving of death, they not only keep on doing them but also consent with those practicing them (Romans 1).
23 And you must not give your emission to any beast to become unclean by it, and a woman should not stand before a beast to have connection with it. It is a violation of what is natural (Leviticus 18).
12 And where a man lies down with his daughter-in-law, both of them should be put to death without fail. They have committed a violation of what is natural. Their own blood is upon them (Leviticus 20).
We know what the penalty for homosexual activity was under law. It was death. Paul in Romans 1 compares lesbianism to homosexuality as both involving the same disgraceful lusts. He does not say that one lust is more or less disgraceful than the other. so lesbianism is acting upon a disgraceful lust which is contrary to nature. Therefore one would expect the same penalty not for lust, which is not a sin, but for acting on that lust and performing the dishonourable and disgraceful act that acting upon homosexual lust demands for acting upon lesbian lust. For the action is the sin as James informs us...
15 Then the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin, in turn, sin, when it has been accomplished, brings forth death (James 1).
Now 3 times in Romans1 we are told that female female sex is not natural, it is contrary to nature and we are told that it is disgraceful. Whereas in Leviticus 18 and 20 we see two other forms of sex which are also violations of what is natural. Both of these (non blood incest and bestiality) carry the death penalty and so we would expect lesbianism to carry the death penalty too. By which we mean disfellowshipping from the Christian church for 7 months.
Lesbianism and Homosexuality are attacks on children's rights to have an unconditional loving template from a male and a female for 20 years. This being the emotional security of the child. In this crucial regard they are no different one from the other. However there is an argument to be made that...
By law [the law of Moses] is [not was but is] the accurate knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).
But the Law of Moses is silent on the issue of female female sex. So our present judgement is that we do not have a secure enough basis in scripture to disfellowship lesbians. They were no females implicated in the case of Sodom. The bible is a sexist book. Perhaps in this case it works for lesbian rights?? We have no authority that we can see over lesbians, but we do not recommend that a lesbian couple adopt or foster or otherwise have a child, since the child's right to have a male parent would then be denied. We will not discipline for this however - women intrinsically care for children period. We would recommend getting a man involved even if the lesbianism continued. In biblical terms a man can have two wives. In western legal terms he can have two sexual partners but not two wives. The man could actually marry both women biblically but only one legally!
Democratic governments of the West put the lust rights of adults above the love rights of children. They put the sexual security of men and women above the emotional security of boys and girls. This is a tragedy for the children in this life and for the adults in the next. But of course children do not have a vote. Children do not do much lobbying.
Same sex sex is an attack on the family unit which is the brick out of which any sustainable society must be built, since the family is the love school for children. Without love, no society has any future and gender is God's tutor for love - love of the opposite gender is a class we must all attend - even if we get expelled from the school a few times! Lesbianism is a violation of what is natural. Just as bestiality is a violation of what is natural. But Lesbian activity did not carry the same penalty as homosexual activity or bestiality under law. If a female lies down with a female in the same way as a female lies down with a male then both females are doing something unnatural and are indulging a disgraceful lust. But we have no scriptural authority that we can see to discipline them at congregation level. We shall have to leave it to their own consciences.
There is a technical reason which may explain why the law of Moses did not explicitly condemn lesbianism. This is the case of one man married to two women. The 3 are one flesh, therefore a lesbian act between the two women cannot carry any penalty. Two men could not marry one woman under law due to headship. But two women could marry one man.
It is hard for modern man to understand why God is absolutely against male homosexuality but not too fussed about lesbianism. But there again lesbians do not have multiple partners in open parkland, they do not really go down the road towards Sodom like male homosexuals. Lesbianism did not turn AIDS into an epidemic killing 50 million people. There is very little lesbian paedophilia, whereas 40% of paedophilia is male homosexual. Women intrinsically look after children. So lesbianism appears not to be a threat to the long term stability and survival prospects of a society whereas male homosexuality is.
The law of God on homosexuality is...
22 And you must not lie down with a male the same as you lie down with a woman. It is a detestable thing.
23 And you must not give your emission to any beast to become unclean by it, and a woman should not stand before a beast to have connection with it. It is a violation of what is natural (Leviticus 18)
9 in the knowledge of this fact, that law is promulgated, not for a righteous man, but for persons lawless and unruly, ungodly and sinners, lacking loving-kindness, and profane, murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, manslayers,
10 fornicators, men who lie with males, kidnappers, liars, false swearers, and whatever other thing is in opposition to the healthful teaching
11 according to the glorious good news of the happy God, with which I was entrusted (1 Timothy 1).
9 What! Do you not know that unrighteous persons will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be misled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor soft/effeminate/female [males], nor men who lie with men,
10 nor thieves, nor greedy persons, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit God's kingdom. (1 Corinthians 6 LWT)
What does a man lying down with a man mean?
13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them. (Leviticus 20 KJV)
13 And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus 20 ASV)
13 And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus 20 JPS)
13 'And when a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. Their own blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20 NWT)
13 And a man who lies with a male as one lies with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing, dying they shall die; their blood [shall be] on them. (Leviticus 20 GLT)
13 'And a man who lieth with a male as one lieth with a woman; abomination both of them have done; they are certainly put to death;
their blood {is} on them. (Leviticus 20 YLT)
13 And if a man lies with a man, as with a woman, both of them have committed abomination. They will surely be put to death; their blood will be upon them. (Leviticus 20 MLV)
13 And if any man lie with man as with woman, they have both committed an abomination; let them be put to death. They are guilty.
(Leviticus 20 THOM)
13 And whoever shall lie with a male as with a woman, they have both wrought abomination; let them die the death, they are guilty.
(Leviticus 20 LXXb)
13 vyaiw> rv,a] bK;v.yI rk'z"-ta, ybeK.v.mi hV'ai hb'[eAT Wf[' ~h,ynEv. tAm Wtm'Wy ~h,ymeD. ~B'
(Leviticus 20 WLC)
13 and + Man which will lie namely + male lying down of woman abomination laboured two of + them to die will be caused to die blood edom of + them in/at + them (Leviticus 20 WLCi)
bk;v' fut. bK;v.yI, inf. bk;v. with suff. Hb'k.vi Genesis 19:33, and ^B.k.v' (from bkOv.), Deu. 6:7; imp. bk;v., with h prefixed hbik.vi to lie, to lie down
This lying down does NOT involve an emission of semen which would be irrelevant in God's eyes as men could not become pregnant in the days of the law of Moses. But what does it mean: "Lying down of woman"? It means bedding a woman. And that means having sex with her. Not just jumping on her and messing about. So one of the men has to be the woman in that regard and be penetrated in way that brings his sexual stimulation. So this is anal sex, sodomy. Or is could be mutual oral sex
It is not genital stimulation. Sure one can do that with a woman. But to bed a woman, you have to copulate with her. Also their blood shall be upon them. That can happen with anal sex, which is why it results in the transmission of HIV etc. It does not happen with genital stimulation. It can happen with mutual oral sex since mouths have sharp teeth and gums can bleed etc. Of course God is speaking metaphorically. He is saying the blood of their death sentence is upon them under law. But he is also speaking physically.
As regards bestiality there should be no penetration/connection and no emission of semen into a cavity of a beast. If we apply the same guidelines to homosexuality then there should be no penetration of any orifice and no emission of semen into any orifice as a result of homosexual behaviour. So we draw the line at orifice penetration specifically the mouth or the backside. Homosexual orifice penetration means disfellowshipping for both parties.
Homosexual limits: Do not put your dick in the bum or in the mouth of another man.
In contrast to heterosexual law, the emission of semen has no relevance in homosexual law. Let us be clear here. We do not legislate against prosthetic dicks being put in bums or against genital stimulation. That is because we presently find no basis for it in scripture. We may be wrong. If you see a scripture which we have missed or have a better interpretation then please let us know.
These limits would also apply to implied homosexuality where a man has protected sex with a married woman (whose flesh is the flesh of her husband) but not to a woman has protected sex with a married man (whose flesh is the flesh of his wife).
We cannot now discipline a married man who has protected sex with an unmarried woman. Because that is not adultery or fornication, since no semen is transferred, and implied lesbianism carries no penalty.
However we would disfellowship a married woman who had protected sex with an unmarried man, since that would be implied homosexuality.
Perhaps if you follow after the morality of the times you may be asking yourself what does God have against homosexuality? What harm can a couple of effeminate males do to anyone? Of course God has nothing against homosexuals themselves. He loves all his sons, saints and sinners alike. But he hates the sins they commit because he knows what damage they cause to human society as a whole in the long term - which he can see.
So what damage does homosexuality really do?
Well it's as stated above. But we restate it here because it is so important...
1. Simply put every child has two fundamental human rights. The right to have unconditional love throughout its entire childhood from a male parent and the right to have unconditional love throughout its entire childhood from a female parent. These two loving templates are both necessary for a morally sustainable society. If one template is missing then the love of that child for half of the human race is fractured. And love is moral sustainability. That is the real danger of homosexuality and of absentee fathers of course. Although homosexuality has a multiplication factor within it which absentee fathers do not have.
2. To fully learn the lesson of love it appears that humans need to experience love with the opposite gender (bisexuals will get this of course). The opposite gender is almost a different species, and part of the essential training for perfect love - which is the final divinity examination on every human, an examination which Jesus passed on 33Nisan14 - is having a successful relationship with a member of the opposite sex - Not so easy to do!
3. The love lust balance. A gay San Francisco doctor at the time of the start of the AIDS epidemic said on the radio that it could have been averted if the medical community had been more forceful in insisting upon the use of condoms in the gay community. AIDS became an epidemic due to gay promiscuity in the bay area with gay men bumming literally dozens of partners per night unprotected in the Bath Houses there. It became an epidemic through gay promiscuity and was originally known as the gay plague.
4. It appears to inevitably lead to alphabet sexuality, which leads to the genital mutilation of minors and to alphabet sexual imperialism, where the aim is to force by legislation and by economic exclusion, people to not only accept alphabet sexuality as morally legitimate, but also also to become non heterosexual themselves. Alphabet-sexuals attack what they call heteronormativity, which is better called heteronormalcy, which describes a society which is predominantly heterosexual. They wish to evangelise and enforce their sexual preference like all the other imperialist conquerors in human history, to the point where the predominant sexual preference is alphabet, and where that alphabet has no H in it. This is discriminatory against heterosexuality. It is heterophobic. So they have gone from asking heterosexual people to cease being homophobic, to becoming heterophobic themselves. They began by asking society to decriminalise homosexuals. They end by lobbying society to criminalise heterosexuals who refuse to accept the alphabet sexuality and its associated genital mutilation and sexualisation of minors as morally legitimate. And that may not be their end. I fear the worst is yet to come. But God has the wisdom to see every chess move in advance. This is another reason why he bans homosexuality.
5. It appears to inevitably leads to an attack on gender itself, which if successful would eliminate the distinction between heterosexual and homosexual. It leads to a denial of gender identity. Gender is a tutor to love. It helps humans show love.
Today 35-40 million people have died of AIDS, 35-40 million more have been diagnosed with AIDS and millions more have it undiagnosed. The homosexual community have argued that it is no longer a Gay plague, because heterosexuals now have it too in large numbers. But this is surely due to bisexuals succeeding in infecting heterosexuals. However even today (2014July) most of the new HIV cases in the US are homosexual or bisexual men - see CNNs article - This won't be the AIDS free generation. To cut a long story short, AIDS became an epidemic due to unprotected anal sex and even today, it is mainly transmitted by unprotected anal sex. Bob Geldof recently pointed out that female African prostitutes do not get much for protected sex but can charge what they want for unprotected sex. So there is very significant heterosexual transfer now as well.
So here we are with 35-40 million deaths. With perhaps 500 million bereaved relatives. With 15 million AIDS orphans in Africa and 20 million AIDS orphans world wide and there is hardly a government in the West which dares to criminalize unprotected anal sex. Because politicians are addicted to votes and because the 'Gay Rights' lobbying machine plainly regards the right to have unprotected anal sex as more important than the right to live in 35-40 million cases or the right of a child to have any parents in 20 million cases. This is why God is against homosexuality - we suspect.
It is not that men are being effeminate. It is not even that they are buggering each other. It is that they get addicted to unprotected anal sex so badly that they completely lose their sense of morality.
They abandon their love for mankind in favour of uncontrollable lust for man's behinds. These people are addicts no different from coke-heads or alcoholics.
They need help. They do not need indulgence.
Legislating to permit unprotected anal sex is like giving a bottle of whisky to an alcoholic or a line of white powder to a cocaine addict.
Here are the CDC AIDS transmission rate figures that prove categorically that unprotected Anal sex should be criminilalized...
Estimated Per-Act Probability of Acquiring HIV from an Infected Source, by Exposure Act - see http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/law/risk.html
Type of Exposure | Risk per 10,000 Exposures |
---|---|
Invasive |
|
Blood Transfusion | 9,250 |
Needle-sharing during injection drug use | 63 |
Percutaneous (needle-stick) | 23 |
Sexual | |
Receptive anal intercourse | 138 |
Insertive anal intercourse | 11 |
Receptive penile-vaginal intercourse | 8 |
Insertive penile-vaginal intercourse | 4 |
Receptive oral intercourse | low |
Insertive oral intercourse | low |
Other | |
Biting | negligible |
Spitting | negligible |
Throwing body fluids (including semen or saliva) | negligible |
Sharing sex toys | negligible |
So unprotected anal sex is 138+11=149/4+8=12 = 12.4x more likely to transmit AIDS than unprotected vaginal sex. Unprotected anal sex carries a 1˝% AIDS tranmission risk. So if you do it 34x the chances are you will have AIDS. Whereas unprotected vaginal sex carries a 0.12% transmission risk. So you would have to do it 420x to have a more than evens chance of getting AIDS. Plainly unprotected anal sex should be criminalized for the sake not only of the adults doing it but also for the AIDS orphans the disease then creates.
There might be an improvement in the vaginal figures if sex did not occur when the woman was bleeding due to a period.
The bible describes the destruction of a Sodom in which the male inhabitants were so addicted to homosexual lust that although struck with blindness they still tried in vain to bum the angels who were possessing the two men who were sent by God to visit the place
5 And they kept calling out to Lot and saying to him: Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intercourse with them...
11 But they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, from the least to the greatest, so that they were wearing themselves out trying to find the entrance. (Genesis 19 NWT)
This is the end of the road in lust addiction. Gays today in London have multi-partner sex on parkland in a way that heterosexuals or indeed lesbians do not. This is a step towards Sodom - where all the men of the city wanted to have public sex with the two male visitors. The bible is declaring that the end of the road for homosexuality is different from the end of the road for male heterosexuality or indeed lesbianism. Now we humans cannot clearly see the end of these roads. But God can. Women do not so much want a multiplicity of partners, they look for emotional security and things other than sex in a relationship. The scriptures indicate to us that lesbianism is not regarded as being as dangerous as homosexuality by God. Homosexuality, if left unrestrained, will lead to a Sodom situation. Heterosexuality will not because the love lust balance is slightly different. This is another reason why God legislates against the former but for the latter.
For a more amusing look at homosexuality and lesbianism from a scriptural standpoint please see http://www.jewishlordswitness.com/unholy-matrimony.html.
A further point worth making is that all health and safety legislation is a joke since we decriminalized unprotected sodomy. Smoking is banned because it can cause cancer which can kill you. Unprotected sodomy can cause AIDS which can kill you and has killed 35-40 million people in the last 25 years and has infected a further 35-40 million. AIDS has killed more people than either of the two world wars. Why therefore is unprotected anal sex not recriminalized in London, New York and most of the West as smoking is? Judge for yourself.
Q: How many people would have to die and how many children would have to be orphaned before the main cause of HIV infection (unprotected anal sex) is criminalized in the West?
A: All of us and all of our children.
Welcome to the greater Sodom of the 21st century.
Gordon (the writer) would like to be clear here. The LWs are for freedom of worship and freedom of sexual expression in this system (not in the LW church however which has a higher standard of righteousness as regards sexual expression). He is not proposing the re-criminalization of gay sex. God is against gay sex but we live in a secular society not a sacred one. We must be free to make the right or the wrong choice in this system. But when that choice leads to tens of millions of deaths and tens of millions of orphans then it must be criminalized for the preservation of society. So Gordon is advocating the criminalization of unprotected anal sex, not the criminalization of protected anal sex. The situation is worse when someone with HIV knowingly has unprotected anal sex with an uninfected person. Yet even that activity is not criminalized comprehensively in the West. So if you wanted to torture and then kill a gay man with a slow and painful death (or at the least to ruin his health for the rest of his life), all you would have to do is to pay a good looking AIDS infected prostitute to chat him up and sleep with him. How absurd is that?
This might seem like a really dumb question but it is not. For the good book says...
3 And they began to prostitute themselves in Egypt. In their youth they committed prostitution. There their breasts were squeezed, and there they pressed the bosoms of their virginity (Ezekiel 23).
8 And her prostitutions [carried] from Egypt she did not leave, for with her they had lain down in her youth, and they were the ones that pressed the bosoms of her virginity and they kept pouring out their immoral intercourse [as opposed to moral intercourse, safe sex]
upon her (Ezekiel 23).
These two verses make is plain that virgins have bosoms, which are the bosoms of their virginity. So virgins must be post pubescent since that is when bosoms are well formed. So a virgin is a post pubescent girl who has not yet had unprotected intercourse with a male. If a girl has safe sex or indeed uses a sex toy, that does not deflower her from a scriptural standpoint. Fornication requires a defilement with semen.
This understanding is crucial since the Law of Moses relates only to virgins or women, in sexual matters. It says nothing about child sex or paedophilia.
Likewise a spiritual virgin must be post pubescent in some spiritual manner. Well no man could act as a priest until he was 20 under law. So at that age the Christian man can reproduce spiritually by baptism. Women give birth physically, being the priestesses of procreation. Whereas men reproduce spiritually, being the priests of salvation. The woman reaches physical puberty before the man reaches spiritual puberty, when he is able to give spiritual life. It is like Paul said...
44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised up a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual one.
45 It is even so written: The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 Nevertheless, the first is, not that which is spiritual, but that which is physical, afterward that which is spiritual (1Corinthians 15).
But water baptisms can be broken fixed broken fixed several times. A virgin is ruined with one act of fornication. So the same must be true with a spiritual virgin. Now the spirit baptism is a once only affair. So likewise if you defile your spirit baptism then you lose it period. It cannot be regained - just like physical virginity. So a spiritual virgin is someone who has not joined himself or herself to a false church after having been spirit baptised and therefore being able to defile his or her spirit baptism. But what about the millions of faithful people who went and joined what they thought was a true church and later discovered that it was false? Well that would break their spirit baptism if they had one before they joined the false church. These indeed are the ones sown alongside the way,. the furrow, the true church, who are eaten up by the birds (false churches). It is OK to be in a false church when you are spirit baptised. For that is not joining after you are baptised! It is not OK to join a false church after you have been spirit baptized. So perhaps the angels will delay your baptism until after you have joined a false church if you do it with sincerity but not if you do it insincerely!
Certainly if you join the true church become sanctified and then leave it for a false church, you are not a spiritual virgin, you have committed spiritual adultery in fact.
So anyone who joins a false church after the end of his spirit baptism call, would have defiled their spirit baptism had they been called and therefore is not or is no longer a saint.
Any sanctified person who joins a false church after having joined a true church is no longer a saint.
16 Jehovah now said to Moses: Look! You are lying down with your forefathers; and this people will certainly get up and have immoral intercourse with foreign gods of the land to which they are going, in their very midst, and they will certainly forsake me and break my covenant that I have concluded with them. (Deuteronomy 31 NWT).
But in what sense has such a person lost his virginity and someone who has joined a true church has retained his?
A physical virgin has not had sexual intercourse with a man. A spiritual virgin has not had immoral intercourse with a false church. The meaning of this is difficult to understand. It cannot mean that he has not baptised anyone since true virgins in the true church do baptise people without losing their virginity. So this is not a baptism procreative virginity. There must be a form of intercourse which occurs in false churches but does not occur in true churches. Baptisms occur in both but actually only achieve something in a true church. Communion occurs in both but only achieves something in a true church. Let us see what the bible says about immoral intercourse...
15 for fear that you may conclude a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, as they will certainly have immoral intercourse with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone will be certain to invite you, and you will certainly eat some of his sacrifice.
16 Then you will have to take some of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters will be certain to have immoral intercourse with their gods and make your sons have immoral intercourse with their gods. (Exodus 34 NWT).
So do not join a false church (concluding a covenant with its people) so as to have immoral intercourse with its Gods, if you have ever been in a true church or if you have been sanctified.
4 And if the people of the land should deliberately hide their eyes from that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech by not putting him to death,
5 then I, for my part, shall certainly fix my face against that man and his family, and I shall indeed cut him and all those who have immoral intercourse along with him in having immoral intercourse with Molech off from among their people.
6 'As for the soul who turns himself to the spirit mediums and the professional foretellers of events so as to have immoral intercourse with them, I shall certainly set my face against that soul and cut him off from among his people. (Leviticus 20 NWT)
39 'And it must serve as a fringed edge for you, and you must see it and remember all the commandments of Jehovah and do them, and you must not go about following your hearts and your eyes, which you are following in immoral intercourse [this is immoral sexual intercourse] (Numbers 15 NWT).
25 And they began to act unfaithfully toward the God of their forefathers and went having immoral intercourse with the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had annihilated from before them. (1 Chronicles 5 NWT).
10 There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer,
11 or one who binds others with a spell or anyone who consults a spirit medium or a professional foreteller of events or anyone who inquires of the dead. (Deuteronomy 18 NWT)
So false worship is immoral intercourse. Intercourse being two way activity. Fornication, immoral sexual intercourse, is a joining of one's flesh with an unauthorized sexual partner. Immoral intercourse with a foreign God, is a joining of oneself, one's spirit actually, to an unauthorized worship system - a false worship system. This is a fornication of the spirit. So fornication of the spirit is joining a false church. It can be forgiven if done sincerely. It cannot be forgiven if done by a saint.
Visiting a spirit medium, and having verbal intercourse with him or her is a different sin - it is idolatry. It is OK to speak to angels in humans. For Jesus spoke to his disciples.
12 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. (NWT)
12 We but not the spirit of the world received, but the spirit that from God, that we may know the things by the God having been graciously given to us; (ED)
13 These things we also speak, not with words taught by human wisdom, but with those taught by [the] spirit, as we combine spiritual [matters] with spiritual [words]. (NWT)
13 which things also we speak, not by teachings of human wisdom in words, but by teachings of spirit, to spiritual ones spiritual things explaining. (ED)
14 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. (1 Corinthians 2 NWT)
14 An animal but man not receives the things of the spirit of the God; foolishness for to him it is, and not he is able to know; because spiritually it is examined. (1 Corinthians 2 ED)
So human wisdom is taught in words. But the spiritual man is taught by teachings of the spirit which acts without words. Sure the bible is in words but these were inspired into the subconscious of the bible writer. God only communicates with men through the subconscious in a dream or a vision through his angelic mind. The demons actually have direct immoral intercourse breaking the equivalent of the Prime Directive of Star Trek.
So now we have found the form of intercourse that a true worshipper has avoided - it is verbal intercourse with a spirit being. God spoke directly to Moses face to face...
6 And he went on to say: Hear my words, please. If there came to be a prophet of yours for Jehovah, it would be in a vision I would make myself known to him. In a dream I would speak to him.
7 Not so my servant Moses! He is being entrusted with all my house.
8 Mouth to mouth I speak to him, thus showing him, and not by riddles; and the appearance of Jehovah is what he beholds. Why, then, did you not fear to speak against my servant, against Moses? (Numbers 12 NWT)
11 And Jehovah spoke to Moses face to face, just as a man would speak to his fellow. When he returned to the camp, his minister Joshua, the son of Nun, as attendant, would not withdraw from the midst of the tent. (Exodus 33 NWT)
And Jesus had a conversation with Paul in Acts 9 as follows...
3 Now as he was travelling he approached Damascus, when suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him,
4 and he fell to the ground [going into a dream/vision] and heard a voice say to him: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
5 He said: Who are you, Lord? He said: I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
6 Nevertheless, rise and enter into the city, and what you must do will be told you.
7 Now the men that were journeying with him were standing speechless, hearing, indeed, the sound of a voice, but not beholding any man [they were conscious, standing not asleep and not in a vision]. (Acts 9 NWT)
So God can speak to Moses or to Jesus face to face and mouth to mouth, i.e. a 1NC saint can hear the voice of God without being in a dream or a vision. But Paul who was not a 1NC saint needed to be in a dream or vision to hear anything.
So angels can only speak directly to 1NC saints.
28 Father, glorify your name. Therefore a voice came out of heaven: I both glorified [it] and will glorify [it] again.
29 Hence the crowd that stood about and heard it began to say that it had thundered. Others began to say: An angel has spoken to him.
30 In answer Jesus said: This voice has occurred, not for my sake, but for your sakes. (John 12 NWT)
So the crowd is split into two groups. the one group only heard thunder. They were from the wicked and adulterous generation who were not to be given any sign other than the sign of Jonah - and this was a sign if you heard a voice. The other group did hear the voice, not of God, but of an angel of God, and so were not a part of the wicked and adulterous generation. They were 1NC saints and God can speak to Jesus face to face and mouth to mouth.
So God only speak directly to 1NC saints, the greater Moses of Jesus.
Joining a true church which then becomes false does not defile a spiritual virgin. Turning up at a few church meetings and donating some money does not mean that you have joined a church. Most churches add new members through baptism. Some do it by accepting previous baptisms into other churches.
4 These are the ones that did not defile themselves with women [the noun appears once, but it is narration about a vision. So it could be physical women or it could be false/harlot churches]; indeed/because [gar]
[can mean because/for denoting a reason or can denote intensity, i.e. indeed], they are virgins. These are the ones that keep following the Lamb no matter where he goes. These were bought from among men/mankind [as] firstfruits to God and to the Lamb,
o5 and no falsehood was found in their mouths; they are without blemish (Revelation 14).
Men are never described as physical virgins in the bible. Virgin is a term always used for maidens physically. The virgins of Revelation 14:4 are male (having not defiled themselves with women - by whilst being under LW church law putting their semen into a woman who was not engaged or married to them - or by knowingly joining a false church) and are therefore spiritual. But although they are spiritual virgins, they have also not defiled themselves with physical women after joining the LWs.
You cannot defile yourself if you are not clean in the first place. You defile the water baptism which gives you the clean flesh.
If you join a false church in circumstances where there is no true church this does not defile you. For what else would you have been supposed to do? And if you join a false church without having joined a true church first, neither does that defile you for to your spirit you have committed no sin. So in summary a spiritual virgin must do the following in order to defile himself.
You cannot lose your spiritual virginity unless you are a saint. If a saint joins a false church then he is deflowered!
You must be clean in the flesh in order to defile your flesh.
You must be clean in the spirit in order to defile your spirit.
You defile your flesh by physical fornication resulting in conception/joining outside of a marriage agreement, an unauthorized physical union.
You defile your spirit by spiritual fornication resulting in a joining with that false church, an unauthorized spiritual union. This is how you lose your spiritual virginity.
You defile your flesh constructively until the next period by physical fornication whether or not a pregnancy results. But if no pregnancy results then the defilement was only ever potential/constructive and was never real.
In plain English, if you join a false church you will be screwed. That is OK if you do not realise that you are in a false church, you are effectively being raped spiritually (and the angels presumably ensure that your spirit baptism occurs after you have joined the false church). But if you knowingly join a false church, because you have joined a true church beforehand, then you are screwed consensually, and therefore you lose your spiritual virginity if indeed you were a saint.
If you join a true church which becomes false, then you have joined yourself to a girl who initially was faithful to you but who then played the harlot. So you got engaged or married to a faithful girl who after a while cheated on you. This does not defile you, it defiles her. You can continue to sleep with an unfaithful woman to whom you are engaged or married without sin if you so choose.
There are 3 New Passovers out of the Watchtower. The first is for those in the Bethels, the second for those in the congregations and the third is for those in the prisons. These are the people who left the Watchtower feeling that is had lost its love or become corrupt but did not go so far as to join another church. These ones can still be 1NC reserves. So it is joining a false church after being in a true church that disqualifies a saint. If you leave a true church which then becomes false and then you rejoin it as a false church after your sanctification you would lose your sainthood.
The LWs at present define paedophilia as a post pubescent person sexually molesting a non post pubescent person. This is unnatural because the non post pubescent person may not have a fully formed sexual response capability. Paedophilia is a form of bestiality since it is sex between incompatible beings. So it requires instant disfellowshipping. But what constitutes paedophile sex? We do not want to legislate against peri pubescent or recently pubescent young people experimenting sexually with each other heterosexually. So we define it as follows - this being a Romeo and Juliet type definition. An adult means someone who is at least 20 years old.
1. Sustained and deliberate stimulation of reproductive parts of a Non Post Pubescent child (NPPC) by an adult
2. An adult procuring or oral sex from an NPPC.
3. Buggery between an adult and an NPPC
4. Persuading a NPPC to carry out a sustained stimulation of the reproductive organs of an adult.
5. Sexual intercourse between an adult and an NPPC.
Puberty for 95% of children between the ages of 8 and 13 in girls and 9 and 14 in boys. Most girls finish puberty by age 14. Most boys finish puberty by age 15 or 16. - https://www.650.org/en/how-to/how-long-does-it-take-for-your-voice-to-break
1-5 result is disfellowshipping for the adult and a warning for the child if the child is baptised and the sex act was consensual as far as the child could consent (minimum baptism age is 11). The warning to the baptised child is for their part in destroying the baptism of the adult.
We do not police genital stimulation, oral sex or protected sex between post pubescent unmarried children (under 20) other than for homosexuality - see j25.1
We do not police genital stimulation, oral sex or protected sex between post pubescent unmarried adults (over 20) other than for homosexuality - see j25.1
Here is a table of ages of consent around the world...
Age | Countries |
Puberty | Parts of Mexico |
12 | Parts of Mexico |
13 | Spain |
14 | Italy, Germany, Austria, Vatican |
15 | France, Denmark, Poland |
16 | UK, Holland, Norway, Russia, some US states, Canada |
17 | Ireland |
18 | Turkey, Some US states |
Must be Married | Iran, Saudi |
There is no consent from the LWs for true fornication/unprotected sex (sex with no condom). But we do permit condom protected sex between consenting adults subject to the various requirements in J10 and J11. So what should be the age of consent from a scriptural standpoint for condom protected sex? Well we take it as
1. 20 years old without parental consent
2. Post pubescent with parental consent.
2. Adults (over 20s) having safe sex with post pubescent children (under 20s)
must have parental consent UNLESS the sexual relationship began when both parties were post pubescent children (under 20). Obviously one will reach 20 first.
The principle is simple. We ask the question. In whose care did God leave human children? Was it in the care of the government or was it in the care of the priesthood or was it in the care the parents? Of course he gave the children to the parents, not the government and not the priesthood. So rather than have governments around the world pick a number between puberty and marriage and rather than have the church do it, we shall the leave the matter up to the parents.
The parents will decide for each virgin and any potential partner of that virgin whether the virgin can have sex with that partner or not. If they set an age of consent for their female virgin then that age shall be no lower than puberty and no higher than 20 (the age at which a Hebrew boy became a man able to be a priest - and therefore to procreate spiritually - and to be registered into the army). They may choose not to set an age of consent and vet each boy individually if they wish. If their children break their rules they can call the church and we shall discipline them if that is the parents wish. This is a primarily a parental matter as far as the LWs are concerned. The LWs wish to work with the parents here. Once the virgin is no longer living under the roof of the parents or is 20 years old then we shall regard him or her as having reached the age of consent for the church for safe protected sex under a CEA.
So if a 19 year old boy had safe sex consensually with a 14 year old post pubescent virgin who did not have parental consent and told the boy the same but permitted him to sleep with her. Then we would give a warning to both the boy and the girl for implied rape. If however the boy was 20, he would be disfellowshipped, for implied rape, being old enough to take full responsibility. Whereas the 14 year old girl would merely get a warning.
If the virgin dishonestly represented that she had parental consent when she did not, then the boy is guilt free but the girl gets a warning.
If a 20 year old LW boy wished to have safe sex with a teenage worldly virgin living under her parents roof then he would have to ensure that the girl had parental consent just as in the case of an LW girl. He would ask the virgin if she had her parents permission to have sex. This would be an interesting witness to the girl. If the girl represents that she has parental consent then there is no implied rape in the eyes of the church unless it is obvious for some concrete reason that she is lying.
Scripturally the bible puts no prohibition on safe sex with unengaged non virgins - that we have seen. But this would mean that a 60 year old man could have safe sex with a 13 year old post pubescent girl without parental consent if he was not the first one so to do. Such a thing would not be implied rape because the girl would know what she was getting into. However it is plainly an abuse of parental responsibility. So for non virgin girls under 20 living under their parents roof, we would still require parental consent. But to proceed without such consent would not be implied rape, it would not be a disfellowshipping matter. It would just carry a warning. Parental consent is required for penetrative copulative sex which could in theory lead to a pregnancy. It is not required for general passionate activity. It is not to be given for heterosexual sodomy or homosexula oral sex. If in doubt ask your parents.
God's definition of Paedophilia is rather different from the definition used in the West today.
28 In case a man finds a girl, a virgin who has not been engaged, and he actually seizes her and lies down with her, and they have been found out,
29 the man who lay down with her must also give the girl's father fifty silver shekels,
and she will become his wife due to the fact that he humiliated her. He will not be allowed to divorce her all his days (Deuteronomy 22:22-29).
Obviously this lying down, involves more than a kiss and a cuddle. It must result in the deflowering of the virgin.
16 Now in case a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and he actually lies down with her, he is to obtain her without fail as his wife for the purchase price.
17 If her father flatly refuses to give her to him, he is to pay over the money at the rate of purchase money for virgins (Exodus 22).
The greater meaning of the 50 shekel payment is a warning until the Jubilee (a month for a shekel). This penalty would only apply if no parental consent was given. The point is that there was no legislation under law against sleeping with a girl of any age who was neither a virgin nor owned by either a husband or a slave master. It was not a sin under law to have safe sex with an un owned non virgin. The governments of the world seek to protect young girls against implied rape through the mechanism of age. The principal being that girls under a certain age do not know what they are doing. This principle is plainly incorrect a lot of the time. The best people to judge whether a girl or boy is old enough to have sex are their parents not their government. But God goes one step further. His law is that a virgin of any age is too naive to have sex outside of some type of marriage agreement. God does not measure sexual experience by age. He measures it by sexual experience (for people under 20 years old).
So if you deflower a virgin without parental consent (assuming she is living under the roof of her parents or foster parents) then you have to marry her or you will be disfellowshipped.
If a virgin is not living under the roof of parents or foster parents then the decision is hers. But she must be post pubescent.
Furthermore God did not give any children to any governments. He gave them to the parents. So to God the decision on when a child is ready to have sex is left entirely up to the parent. That age could be 14 or it could be 20, but the child must be post pubescent. The parent should decide out of love, not the government out of administrative convenience. So if a boy wishes to have sex with a girl who is a virgin then he must get the consent of the parents of that girl (if she is still living under the roof of those parents or foster parents). If he does not get their consent then he must offer to marry her instead. If the father refuses, he gets a warning. If he does not offer to marry her he is disfellowshipped. Do not mess with virgins under parental control.
There is only one scripture relating to rape in the bible that we have found...
25 If, however, it is in the field that the man found the girl who was engaged, and the man grabbed hold of her [from a Hebrew root meaning to tie fast or to bind strongly] and lay down with her, the man who lay down with her must also die by himself,
26 and to the girl you must do nothing. The girl has no sin deserving of death, because just as when a man rises up against his fellowman and indeed murders him, even a soul, so it is with this case.
27 For it was in the field that he found her. The girl who was engaged screamed, but there was no one to rescue her (Deuteronomy 22).
OK so one cannot rape a virgin who is engaged. Neither can you perform forced genital manipulation on her since this is implied homosexuality due to her engagement. But that law does not appear to us to offer much protection to the rest of womankind or does it? Well rising up and murdering one's fellow man, even a soul, is an abuse of life, by ending it. Whereas raping a woman is an abuse of life by starting it in unacceptable circumstances (if the rape involves procreative sex - i.e. an emission of semen into the woman).
If a child results then it will certainly have no father since the father of a raped woman will not consent to his daughter marrying the one who raped her. Furthermore the woman herself will find it difficult to love the child wholeheartedly since its genes are that of her abuser. So the love rights of the child are compromised and so the death penalty would ensue. For the abuse of life of a soul in the case of an engaged virgin is no different in the case of a non engaged non virgin. Now if the rapist did not defile his victim with his semen but merely sexually molested her then there is no penalty for this under the law of Moses that we can see. Please inform us if you can see something! In fact two scriptures indicate that for women in fields this was not too uncommon.
15 Then she got up to glean. Boaz now commanded his young men, saying:
Let her glean also among the cut-off ears of grain, and you must not molest her (Ruth 2).
15 And the men were very good to us, and they did not molest us, and we did not miss a single thing all the days of our walking about with them while we happened to be in the field (1Samuel 25).
So a safe sex rape or a finger rape of an unengaged woman would not appear to be covered. However the church obviously cannot permit this sort of thing since it is a fleshly act and leaven to the congregation. So if there are two witnesses to such behaviour we would give a warning. For the avoidance of doubt, such a man would be leaven to the congregation even if his victims were not in the church.
59 Then he said to another: Be my follower. The man said:
Permit me first to leave and bury my father.
60 But he said to him: Let the dead bury their dead, but you go away and declare abroad the kingdom of God.
61 And still another said: I will follow you, Lord; but first
permit me to say good-bye to those in my household.
62 Jesus said to him: No man that has put his hand to a plow and looks at the things behind is well fitted for the kingdom of God (Luke 9).
It would be disrespectful to one's family to just up and leave and follow Jesus around without saying goodbye. It would be disrespectful to one's father to refuse to turn up at his burial. But there is a larger issue here for these two disciples. The one wishing to return to his family was in danger of falling between two stools. He might get caught up in household matters, and not return to Jesus, The one wishing to bury his dead father, might get caught up in estate issues and prefer the inheritance from his physical father to that from his spiritual father. So the advice from Jesus was to do with the priorities of each individual. Jesus was not advocating blanking one's relatives when one becomes a Christian.
Jesus himself went to a marriage and turned the water into wine. How could he actually take his disciples to a party of one of his friends whilst forbidding them from visiting their own relatives? Plainly he did not do this. So yes LWs can attend funerals and marriages etc. But as a church we will not hold them. The relatives should arrange the marriage or the funeral. We can come as individuals and get involved in that way. But the LWs as a church do not arrange such physical events. Any LW who has the legal right to marry people can of course do so, but that ceremony however performed has nothing to do with the church.
However we can go and bless a marriage. A doctor is called when you are sick. So if a marriage was in trouble then we would also go and bless both parties if asked. Indeed whenever a brother is sick spiritually or physically it is appropriate for his spiritual overseers and brothers to turn up and pray for him and help him as they can...
14 Is there anyone sick among you? Let him call the older men of the congregation to [him], and let them pray over him, greasing [him] with oil in the name of Jehovah.
15 And the prayer of faith will make the indisposed [physically]
one well, and Jehovah will raise him up. Also, if he has committed sins, it will be forgiven him.
16 Therefore openly confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may get healed. A righteous man's supplication, when it is at work, has much force (James 5).
To join the church one just needs to accept the Minimum Belief Set and ask to be baptised. Baptism is a free gift from God and religion should always be a free choice for his children. Since we baptize anyone who wishes it without delay, we likewise accept resignations from the church but with a 7 day reconsideration period, for this too is a part of free choice in religion. If you leave, you cannot come back until the 7th Hebrew month after you sinned. You are in the same position as someone who has been disfellowshipped except that you do not have to show repentance in order to come back.
However if you are born again, spirit sanctified, then leaving the church is an attempted suicide on your angelic body. You will lose that body if you fail to return to the church. Killing your angelic vehicle is no different from killing your human vehicle. This church gives a warning for attempted suicide so we will also give a warning to anyone who attempts angelic suicide. If you attempt physical suicide 3 times we do not disfellowship you out of compassion, because such a thing might be the last straw. But we will not show such compassion in the case of saints who leave the church 3 times. The third time you wish to leave we will disfellowship you, since you have denied the Christ and your sanctification 3 times. You can return after 6 whole months or at the next Jubilee however.
Now the sharper reader may have realised that rather than being disfellowshipped for murder or adultery, he could resign, then do the act then rejoin with a warning in the case that he was a saint and with no penalty from the church in the case that he was unsanctified. This would be a really dumb move. You can fool the church, but you cannot fool the holy spirit which effectively has perfect holographic video recordings of absolutely everything ever done on this planet.
If you try and play false to the holy spirit you may end up in the position of Ananias and Sapphira...
1 However, a certain man, Ananias by name, together with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession
2 and secretly held back some of the price, his wife also knowing about it, and he brought just a part and deposited it at the feet of the apostles.
3 But Peter said: Ananias, why has Satan emboldened you to play false to the holy spirit and to hold back secretly some of the price of the field?
4 As long as it remained with you did it not remain yours, and after it was sold did it not continue in your control? Why was it
that you purposed such a deed as this in your heart? You have played false, not to men, but to God.
5 On hearing these words Ananias fell down and expired. And great fear came over all those hearing of it (Acts 5).
Technically, you should confess your sin when you rejoin, otherwise you have obtained a church water baptism by deception and the result might be that you lose your faith baptism which means you will not be a son of Abraham by covenant and therefore it will only be a matter of time before you cease to be a son of Isaac by covenant, since one cannot be a son of Isaac without being a son of Abraham.
Suppose you wish to commit adultery with your neighbour's wife. You could leave the church, sleep with her and then rejoin the church. True you would regain your water baptism. But, you would also have defiled your conscience and therefore lost your faith baptism. And you cannot keep a water baptism indefinitely without a faith baptism. So you would be defiling your legs in order to clean your hands which is not likely to work.
Whereas if you did not play games with the holy spirit and instead slept with your neighbour's wife and admitted it and were disfellowshipped (and eventually stopped sleeping with her), then your conscience is clear once the sin has stopped and has been admitted, and repentance can follow and you will be in the kingdom. Those who take the penalty for the law of the church, do save their souls.
24 For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake is the one that will save it (Luke 9).
5 You hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh [the end of his water baptism, the loss of his Isaaic/methuselaian body], in order that the spirit may be saved [from Gehenna] in the day of the Lord [by his being able to be repentant post conviction - and therefore have a chance to at least get his faith baptism back] (1 Corinthians 5)
4 My reason is that certain men have slipped in who have long ago been appointed by the Scriptures to this judgment, ungodly men, turning the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for loose conduct and proving false to our only Owner and Lord, Jesus Christ (Jude 4).
In order to try and prevent any saint from committing spiritual suicide, we will always give them 7 days to reconsider after we have accepted their resignation.
Here is some advice for JWs who wish to become LWs but whose wife/husband wishes to remain a JW. It would equally well apply to Catholics or Muslims or any other church or religion where a family is divided not in faith, but on how best to express that faith and serve God.
God showed Abraham a new land which he knew nothing about. Abraham left the house of his father and the land of his ancestors and his RELATIVES and went to that land. Look how he was blessed.
LWs are generally not very good politicians. God is a perfect politician - better than you. If you think that you can devise a scheme for you and your family family that will have better results for all of you than you will get by obeying God's instruction to Abraham, then you are very much mistaken. Give yourself 10,000 years and maybe you would have a shot at equalling him. Right now it is no contest.
1 And Jehovah proceeded to say to Abram: Go your way out of your country and from your relatives and from the house of your father to the country that I shall show you;
2 and I shall make a great nation out of you and I shall bless you and I will make your name great; and prove yourself a blessing.
3 And I will bless those who bless you, and him that calls down evil upon you I shall curse, and all the families of the ground will certainly bless themselves by means of you. (Genesis 12 NWT)
We do not know how this will play out. But we do know that a promise from God is bankable and is just about the only thing that is bankable.
The promise is: If you leave everything and join the land (Hebrew is eretz) that God is showing you, the congregation of the LWs, then all the families of the ground (Hebrew is Adamah, Adam, this is every family of Adam, which would include your family) will be blessed by means of you.
In bible symbolism the land is the congregation, the mountain which has oversight over the land, is the administration and the sea is the world. The sand of the sea are the sons of Abraham, the sons of the 1AC, the sons of faith, who are not quite in the world but not quite yet a part of the land which is the sons of Isaac, the sons of water, the sons of the ICC, the true church. The mountain is the saints, the administration the sons of Jacob, the sons of the JAC.
So the mountain is Jacob, the land is Isaac, the sand is Abraham and the sea is Adam.
God's advice is Genesis 12:1-3. That is how you can bless your family. Of course Satan often makes it look like such a move will destroy your family. But he is an arch deceiver who is especially effective with the daughters of Eve. Remember in all of this you are not fighting your wife. You are fighting Satan who is controlling every control freak church. The true church will be a love freak not a control freak. God is the love freak, the definition and inventor and architect of love. Satan is the master of control freakery. He is addicted to power and control.
However we must also consider the account of Elisha and Naaman and greedy Gehazi.
15 Then he went back to the man of the [true] God, he with all his camp, and came and stood before him and said: Here, now, I certainly know that there is no God anywhere in the earth but in Israel. And now accept, please, a blessing gift from your servant.
16 However, he said: As Jehovah before whom I do stand is living, I will not accept it. And he began to urge him to accept it, but he kept refusing.
17 Finally Naaman said: If not, please, let there be given to your servant some ground, the load of a pair of mules; because your servant will no more render up a burnt offering or a sacrifice to any other gods but to Jehovah.
18 In this thing may Jehovah forgive your servant: When my lord comes into the house of Rimmon to bow down there, and he is supporting himself upon my hand, and I have to bow down at the house of Rimmon, when I bow down at the house of Rimmon may Jehovah, please, forgive your servant in this respect
19 At this he said to him: Go in peace. Accordingly he went away from him for a good stretch of the land. (2 Kings 5 NWT)
So Elisha did not stop Naaman from going with his king into the false temple of Rimmon notwithstanding the fact that he had effectively become an Israelite by taking some of Israel with him upon which to bow down and worship. So it is OK to support your Lord/Master in false worship whilst being in the true church.
On that basis: We cannot stop a baptized LW going to a JW meeting or a meeting of any other church or religious group to support his or her spouse (rather than his or her Lord).
So you can become an LW and attend JW meetings (and stand for the blessing but please do not listen to it and do not say amen). But you cannot do field service for Baal or attend false festivals to him.
You can attend any church or religious meeting you like in support of your spouse or for a marriage or for a funeral or in support of any family member EXCEPT for a meeting which is a religious festival of some sort.
For Jehovah requires exclusive devotion. You must attend the 4 mandatory LW festivals (Passover, 1NC or 2NC Pentecost, Zoar Pentecost, 2NC assembly). You must observe the mandatory Sabbath of Atonement day. You must not attend any other religious festival in any other church or religion.
5 You must not bow down to them nor be induced to serve them, because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion, bringing punishment for the error of fathers upon sons, upon the 3rd generation and upon the 4th generation, in the case of those who hate me; (Exodus 20 NWT)
Jesus died to end the law of Moses as a covenant over God's people. He died to end the necessity for works of law and to end the penalties under the law. He did not die to end the validity of the law in determining sin. For Paul said by law is accurate knowledge of sin.
We would advise you to write to your church and officially leave it UNLESS such a letter will result in persecution of your family. If your church will attack your family in the event of their discovering that you have left it - then do not tell them. One does not tell one's enemy what one is doing.
What power does a woman have in the family? Paul informs us that...
3 But I want you to know that the head of every man is the Christ; in turn the head of a woman is the man; in turn the head of the Christ is God.
4 Every man that prays or prophesies having something on his head shames his head;
5 but every woman that prays or prophesies with her head uncovered shames her head, for it is one and the same as if she were a [woman] with a shaved head.
6 For if a woman does not cover herself, let her also be shorn; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.
7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, as he is God's image and glory; but the woman is man's glory.
8 For man is not out of woman, but woman out of man;
9 and, what is more, man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man. (1 Corinthians 11 NWT)
And all faithful men look at these words and deduce that they are therefore the boss, the head of the family and that is it. But these people do not understand God or women.
For man is out of woman when he is born physically. But woman is out of man when she is born spiritually. Eve was already alive physically as a pre adamic female, before she was baptised in Adam's rib to become pre fall adamic.
Solomon, who knew a thing or two about women, having 300 wives and 700 concubines (in case one or two of them started to get on his nerves) said...
8 Listen, my son, to the discipline of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother. (Proverbs 1 NWT)
20 Observe, Oh my son, the commandment of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother. (Proverbs 6 NWT)
So the mother makes law for her sons. So she is a family head of some sort too. Well she has the physical priesthood of the children. she brings them into physical life. So she is the head of the family in matters pertaining to the body which she mediated. She decides on all matters to do with the physical health and well being of her children - NOT the father. The father decides on all matters to do with the spiritual health and well being of the children - NOT the mother. So the wife is the physical high priestess of the family and the husband is the spiritual high priest of the family. Both makes law and both should be adhered to.
6 But they said this, tempting Him, that they may have [reason] to accuse Him. But bending down, Jesus wrote with the finger in the earth, not appearing [to hear].
7 But as they continued questioning Him, bending back up, He said to them, The [one] among you without sin, let him cast the first stone at her [elders with judicial sins that have not been confessed and dealt with cannot sit on a judicial committee] (John 8).
1st writing with the finger in the earth:
(making law for the church/the earth, as God did on mount Sinai with his finger on the Stone tablet)
Elders who have sinned in such a way as to require a judicial committee and have not confessed to that sin and had it dealt with, cannot themselves sit on a judicial committee
Upon a weekly Sabbath LWs have the following law...
Work for money = NO
Work for church = NO (unless you are a priest in the temple - i.e. teaching a congregation)
Work for yourself = YES
So no proactive evangelism. No baptism unless the candidate is stuck down a well or in a pit. No working for God unless you are a priest in a temple, .i.e. in a congregation meeting. No manna collection or consideration of external research ideas. But you can do and record personal research of course, or group research and you can upload that research to the web, since the showbread was changed every Sabbath..
27 So he went on to say to them: The Sabbath came into existence for the sake of man [Man: not Moses,
not Jacob, but man, ADAM. So Sabbath observance is for the benefit of Adam not merely Israel under law], and not man for the sake of the Sabbath;
28 hence the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
(Mark 2 NWT)
Jesus granted Satan a 6,000 year sublease on Adam to be Adam's Caesar in return for Satan's firstborn agnelic rights, in order that Michael could form God's 2nd wife, the 2nd Holy Spirit, after Satan defiled God's first wife.It was a secular sublease - see U17. It was not a sacred sublease. So Michael was the sacred head of Adam throughout his 6,000 year ARC lease. A weekly Sabbath is a release from working either for Caesar or for God. So neither Jesus nor Satan is Lord of Adam on the Sabbath day. But those in the temple can work for God on the Sabbath. So Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath over them. So the only Lord on a Sabbath day is Jesus and he is only Lord over the priests in the temple.
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. Is he Lord of the Sabbath which nobody is to observe?
8 Remembering the Sabbath day to hold it sacred,
9 you are to render service and you must do all your work 6 days.
10 But the 7th day is a Sabbath to Jehovah your God. You must not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter, your slave man nor your slave girl nor your domestic animal nor your alien resident who is inside your gates.
11 For in 6 days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and he proceeded to rest on the 7th day. That is why Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and proceeded to make it sacred. (Exodus 20 NWT)
So we must do no sacred or secular work on the 7th day of the week because God rested on the 7th creative 'day'. This was true before Jesus died and it was true after he died. It has nothing to do with the law of Moses or with Christianity or with Jesus' sacrifice. It has to do with God's creation.
3 And by this we have the knowledge that we have come to know him, namely, if we continue observing his commandments.
4 He that says: I have come to know him, and yet is not observing his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in this [person].
5 But whoever does observe his word, truthfully in this [person] the love of God has been made perfect. By this we have the knowledge that we are in union with him.
6 He that says he remains in union with him is under obligation himself also to go on walking just as that one walked.
7 Beloved ones, I am writing you, not a new commandment, but an old commandment which you have had from [the] beginning. This old commandment is the word which you heard [from Moses, the 10 commandments].
So John is writing that Jesus' commandments are an old commandment which you have from from the beginning, the word which you heard, which is the 10 commandments and actually the two further commandements from Jesus.
The Kingdom of God is a 1000 year Sabbath which follows after a 6,000 year working week! If we do not observe the Sabbath how are we going to enter into the Sabbath of the Kingdom of God?
BUT HERE IS THE SLAM DUNK PROOF...
55
But the women, who had come with him out of [ek] Galilee, followed along and beheld the memorial-tomb
[mnhmeion] and how [ws]
his body was laid. [ws
- can mean like, when or how]
56
And they went back to prepare spices and perfumed-oils. But,
indeed, they rested on the Sabbath
according to the
commandment (Luike 23)
That Sabbath was 33Nisan15, the day after Jesus died, as the final sacrifice of the law of Moses, ending that law forever. The law had ended. But the Sabbath commandment of the 10 commandments was still valid and in force AMEN.
For more on LW Sabbaths see U103
Neither of these are biblical sins. The church has no position of either of them other than do not become addicted to them. Try and balance what is fantasy with more of what is reality (a social life).
Jeff Goldsmith deduced that Spirits have gender from the understanding that an equal number of men and women are to be saved. But we are not saved upon the basis of our physical anatomy. We are saved upon the condition of our spirits. So the two spirits must be different in order that each group has the same percentage saved. So with this understanding we can see the full deception of a sex change.
A boy has a male spirit, a male brain, male hormones, male cellular genetics and male gonads
A girl has a female spirit a female brain, feamle hormones, female cellular genetic and female goands
At midterm God puts his spirit into the foetus.
7 And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul. (Genesis 2 NWT)
God does not make a mistake when he downloads this spirit. He puts male spirits into bodies whose cells have Y chromosomes and female spirits into bodies whose cells have no Y chromosomes. The presence or absence of a Y chromosome in every cell of the body which contains genes, determines the gender. Y present is male. Y absent is female - see U657 (Adam was actually XXXY before God made Eve from him by removing the XX rib and making that into her). The hypothalamus and the pituitary gland in brain directs the ovaries and the testes to make hormones. The hormones give the physical appearance of gender and the feeling of gender. The brain can possibly be induced chemically to feel the wrong gender. Also politically motivated parents and teachers can fuel a desire in children to become trans in order to please people who have control over their lives. Atrazine is known to turn male frogs into female frogs.
Atrazine, one of the world’s most widely used pesticides, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. - https://news.berkeley.edu/2010/03/01/frogs/
These are hormonal female frogs not genetic female frogs. Atrazine effects the hormone glands. It is not a gene therapy. So humans can suffer the same fate. Trans people may be hormonally trans. Women do generally make 5%-10% of the testosterone that men make. This could perhaps be upregulated in trans women. And men make Oestrogen. But trans people are not genetically trans. So their hormones are in opposition to every cell in their body. Their male cells are programmed to receive male hormones and they instead receive female hormones which they are not programmed to receive. This is damaging to the health of every cell in the body and reduces life expectancy.
The fix here is to recognise that gender is defined by the presence of absence of a Y chromosome in every cell and that God did not make a mistake in the gender of the spirit put into the foetus. And so all trans people should transition or detransition back to their genetic gender so that their genes, and their brain and their hormones and their spirit are all matched and are not all fighting one another.
1. Spirit M/F
2. Brain M/F
3. Hormones M/F
4. Genetic cellular gender M/F
5. Gonads M/F
You can interfere with 3 and 5. But you cannot change 1,2,4. So here is the deal
Body Part | Man | Woman | Trans Woman | Tans Man |
Spirit | M | F | M | F |
Brain | M | F | M | F |
Hormones | M | F | F | M |
Cellular genetics | M | F | M | F |
Gonads | M | F | M or F | F or M |
So any trans person can join the LWs. But upon joining, they should begin the process of returning their hormones to the ones their cells and their brain requires. Giving the brain the wrong hormones must cause psychological problems. And trans people have much higher suicide rates than cis people. They are flooding their male cells with female hormones or vice versa. The gender of their spirit and their brain matches their genes not their hormones and not they way that they feel and not their genital surgery.
Presently people who wish to detransition are often vilified, and told they are plain wrong by doctors who refuse to treat them. Just like people injured by vaccines.
If you take a boy and put him in a female body through surgery and hormone replacement etc., then you end up with a male spirit in a male mind in a female body which is a disaster.
Our software (our spirits) has gender. Our hardware (our brains) has gender. All we do in a sex change operation is change the peripherals. We do not touch either the hardware or the software.
So to the LW church it is the gender of the spirit, which is the gender of the cells and the brain that counts, not the gender of the hormones and not the extent of the genital surgery.
Women have lots of processes in the brains synchronised to their menstrual cycles. If you fill them up with testosterone what happens to all those processes?
For more on this please see https://www.jewishlordswitness.com/male-and-female22.html
Well God forgives all past sin at baptism. So after baptism the repentant one is no longer regarded by God as being any of the above. So there is no need to introduce that brother to the church as an adulterer or a paedophile or an axe murderer or a nuclear terrorist. Once a person is baptised, his sin has gone. It is true that all of the above are serious dangers to the congregation and anyone else if the believer is not truly repentant. But we cannot judge that. And we must NOT prejudge him - even if he or she is on the sex offenders register. So ANY brother or sister joining the church could in fact have been any one of the above and all we can advise is that people bear that in mind. Generally people in a true church do not behave much better than people in the world. All confessions are private and confidential. The decision about what fruits of repentance to exhibit is taken by the believer not by the baptizing priest. However the priest can advise of course.
Well God forgives all past sin at baptism. So after baptism the repentant one is no longer regarded by God as being any of the above. So there is no need to introduce that brother to the church as a past adulterer or paedophile or axe murderer or nuclear terrorist. Once a person is baptised, his sin has gone. It is true that all of the above are serious dangers to the congregation and anyone else if the believer is not truly repentant. But we cannot judge that. And we must NOT prejudge him - even if he or she is on the sex offenders register. So ANY brother or sister joining the church could in fact have been any one of the above and all we can advise is that people bear that in mind. Generally people in a true church do not behave much better than people in the world. All confessions are private and confidential. The decision about what fruits of repentance to exhibit is taken by the believer not by the baptizing priest. However the priest can advise of course.
Sins prior to baptism are against one's conscience since one is not under church law. So it is a matter for the conscience of the believer as to what and to whom he confesses. If he chooses to confess his axe murdering to the police then good for him. If he chooses not to, then he has the Holy Spirit to placate. It is his decision and his decision alone according to his conscience for all sins against his conscience committed prior to baptism. The church only gets involved when a brother sins against church law.
The baptizer would advise people who had seriously broken the law to consider reporting themselves. He would not make that decision himself, since any confession is confidential. He might ask a registered sex offender if he agreed to have the information made known to the congregation. But would respect his wishes in that regard. The baptiser could ask if the information could be made available to the elders confidentially, who could agree with him to avoid situations likely to tempt him. But elders do speak to their wives and wives do speak to each other.
The situation is different with a disfellowshipped person who says he is repentant. The church would only accept that assertion on the Zaccheus principle that if he could comfortably afford to make restitution for his sin under church law then he should do it.
The Passover house for the early Laodicean FRC Passover on 2024Tebbeth14 is Abrahamic Zoar. The 1513Nisan14 Passover was celebrated in Egypt the house of slavery. whereas the 1513Iyyar14 Passover was celebrated in Elim, a place with 12 springs, 12 2NC apostles, in the land of Midian (Saudi Arabia), the house of the law of Moses. Elim had 70 palm trees. It was the first Passover when all of Israel was outside of Egyptian control, 1513Iyyar14. The equivalent is 2025Sivan14 after the Benjamin ark rapture on 2025Iyyar19-21. Zoar has 12 springs on 2024VeAdar21, when the 12 apostles are installed to baptise (the altar is installed). We have 70 post Elim Passover date palm trees from 2025Sivan14 to 2031Nisan5, the end of Zoar.
The early Laodicean World Exodus Passover on 2024Chislev14, does not have a Passover victim, since it is an agreement fulfilled at the regular Laodicean FRC Passover. All Laodicean 2NCs must attend the 2024Tebbeth14 Passover and celebrate it with 1AC blood on the door frame, or they will lose not their angels but their 2NC covenant status and their saintly ark rapture and they will have failed to be ARC sealed in our present understanding. They will lose their Kingships in the Kingdom.
7 And they must take some of the blood and splash it upon the 2 doorposts and the upper part of the doorway belonging to the houses in which they will eat it.
21 Promptly Moses called all the older men of Israel and said to them: Draw out and take for yourselves flock according to your families,
and slaughter the Passover victim.
22 And you must take a bunch of hyssop and dip it into the blood in a basin and strike upon the upper part of the doorway and upon the 2 doorposts some of the blood that is in the basin; and none of you should go out of the entrance of his house until morning.
23 Then when Jehovah does pass through to plague the Egyptians and does see the blood upon the upper part of the doorway [on 2026Elul16 and 2026Elul23, the Isaaic 4EC baptism of the
1NC apostles] and upon the 2 doorposts [2NC non cornerstone apostles on 2024VeAdar14, their ISaaic 4EC baptism], Jehovah will certainly pass over the entrance [], and he will not allow the ruination to enter into your houses to plague you. (Exodus 12 NWT)
The Basin is actually Elijah4 himself, the source of 4EC blood. It is NOT an apostate sect with a stolen baptism. The Laodicean failed 2NCs lose their covenant status if they fail to be raptured. They lose their angels if they fail to be Isaaic 4EC baptised. But these can be recovered from Gehenna.
The 4 2NC Cornerstone apostles have as their 2 doorposts the other 2 apostles in their 3 tribe division each of whom is baptised on 2024VeAdar14. And of course they baptise their opposite numbers in heaven (their lintels).
So there are to be 5 Passover houses on 2024VeAdar14. One for Elijah4 together with the 2NC reserves and one for each of the 4 cornerstone 2NC apostles.
So the Angel of Laodicea (Caleb) MUST be baptised by Elijah4 himself on 2024VeAdar2. If he tries to steal or appropriate the 4EC baptism and is not baptised directly by Elijah4, then his baptism is declared invalid by Elijah4. The only baptism that will be valid for him is a direct baptism at a face to face meeting between him and Elijah4.
20 Look! I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into his [house] and take the evening meal with him and he with me. (Revelation 3 NWT)
AOL (the Angel of Laodicea), Caleb, is that door. Elijah 4 must open him. Then Jesus will come into the house of the LWs, and take the evening meal with Elijah4 and the LWs.
The LWs look forward to the uniting of the two churches in God's love. Although Laodicean 2NCs will be autonomously run by Caleb until the 3rd Holy Spirit takes Abrahamic/Isaaic Zoar over on 2026Heshvan5/Chislev5. The LW administration does not run Laodicea of Zoar (Hebron).
22 And I shall actually make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king is what all of them will come to have as king, and they will no longer continue to be 2 nations, nor will they be divided any longer into 2 kingdoms. (Ezekiel 37 NWT)
The LWs have some idea how to celebrate a real Exodus Passover (something that has not happened for 3535 years). In order for the Exodus by rapture to occur. But actually it is a dry Exodus by rapture. So our ideas may be irrelevant.
11 I am coming quickly. Keep on holding fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. (Revelation 3 NWT)
11 I am coming quickly; be holding fast which (thing) you are having, in order that no one might take the crown of you. (Revelation 3 KIT)
11 ercomai tacu krati o ecij i?na mhdij labh to stefanon sou (Revelation 3 Sinai)
The LWs do not control the use of the Isaaic 4EC for salvation purposes (entry subject to accepting the minimum beliefs) because we do not want to interfere with God's salvation. But we do control it for temple building purposes and for festival purposes and for judicial purposes. The 4EC shall not be used for festival purposes by Laodiceans or JWs without the prior face to face approval of Elijah4. Because any festival use of the 4EC baptism makes that festival into an LW festival.
God permitted the theft of the 4EC historically because FDS4 was divided in two by him due to the sin of Elijah4 in not getting ready. Now is the time for God to heal that wound following Isaiah30. So Elijah4 shall not permit the Laodicean pre rapture Passover to be held with a stolen 4EC.
26 And the light of the moon must become as the light of the glowing [sun]; and the very light of the glowing [sun] will become 7 times as much, like the light of 7 days, in the day that Jehovah binds up the breakdown of his people and heals even the severe wound resulting from the stroke by him. (Isaiah 30 NWT)
Putting the right people into the right tribes
Only Frank and Mike and those in their tribes can baptise JWs or Laodiceans, or Reappointed Laodiceans, or Reverted Laodiceans or ex JWs or ex Laodiceans, or ex Reappointed Laodiceans or ex Reverted Laodiceans in our present understanding.
From 2023Iyyar6 (2023April26/27) to 2023Sivan5 (2023May25/26) ALL 4EC BAPTISMS ARE INVALID UNLESS PERFORMED BY ELIJAH4 HIMSELF.
This fulfils 1Kings18:33-34 and Bethzatha and Revelation9:13-15 and ensures that the Isaaic 4EC does not remove any person from having Jesus as Caesar. Because Jesus does not become Caesar over Isaac (4EC baptised LWs) until 2023Sivan5.
This was updated on 2023Sivan29 to read...
From 2023Iyyar6 (2023April26/27) to 2023Tammuz5 (2023June24/25) ALL 4EC BAPTISMS ARE INVALID UNLESS PERFORMED BY ELIJAH4 HIMSELF OR A CORNERSTONE 2NC APOSTLE. This fulfils 1Kings18:33-34 and Bethzatha and Revelation9:13-15 and ensures that the Isaaic 4EC does not remove any person from having Jesus as Caesar. Because Jesus does not become Caesar over Isaac (4EC baptised LWs) until 2023Tammuz5.
From 2023Tammuz5 forward ALL 4EC BAPTISMS ARE INVALID UNLESS SPECIFICALLY AUTHORISED BY ELIJAH4 HIMSELF DURING A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH THE BAPTIZER AND THE BAPTIZEE AND GORDON RITCHIE. This is to prevent any further Laodicean theft of the 4EC.
We also banned baptism from 2023January18 at 00:16 (2022Tebbeth21) to 2022Shebat5 by an email of that date entitled no baptism until 2022Shebat5.
We baptised nobody between 2023Nisan9 and 2023Tishri25.
Presently we can baptise Abrahamically but we cannot baptise Isaaically until the LW Exedenic Times ends on 2024Tishri15.