Posted by Rational [RW] on April 08, 1999 at 12:44:31 {vxsc0.TBNkYgCUWv3.1cZ7Lyyl6zQk}:
In Reply to: **Watching NICODEMUS Struggle posted by practicus on April 08, 1999 at 10:38:38:
Practicus,
In your wholehearted effort to "be faithful", you have entirely missed the point of faithfulness. You admit:
It may indeed be that at some point future, having examined more thoroughly the role of blood in the body, that the Society may decide that transfusion is not necessarily in violation of the Scriptures. If so, I am willing to wait on Jehovah's organization, for it is either a choice of accepting the guidance of that group of imperfect men, or some other group of imperfect men, or myself as an imperfect man.In essence, you have abdicated your responsibility before God to use your conscience and, relinquishing it to other "imperfect" men, say in effect, 'Whatever they decide, I'll do--either accept blood transfusions or not; it's their call.' This is bad enough, but it would be even worse if, in your trembling before men, you were to sacrifice a child's life or another member of your family. Do you really believe God would accept an argument that even the imperfect human judges at Nuremberg would not: "I was just following orders"?
Next, you say:
What of those who may have lost their lives due to a false hope, if indeed false? One might ask that question of Christianity as a whole. Or what about the faithful men and women of old who lost their lives, sometimes under gruesome circumstances, in faithful service to what Jehovah commanded? ..."Do you really believe that Jehovah and Christ have given laws solely for the sake of 'testing' our willingness to suffer? When Christ spoke of being willing to 'lose one's life to gain it,' he was referring to faithfulness under persecution, not rejecting emergency medical care. Don't put words in His mouth! Those who died faithful in times past did not do so in order to elevate and follow a self-appointed "Governing Body" of an ambiguously transient "faithful and discreet slave class" ... they did so because their persecutors caused their deaths. God's laws are for our benefit, not our 'testing'. Even the sabbath law was "for the sake of man, and not mane for the sake of the sabbath", according to Jesus, who healed on the sabbath. It was not Christ, but the proud and arrogant religionists who put 'laws' above the legitimate needs of humans.
You have taken the expression "live by faith, not by sight" and turned it on its head. Faith is what we have in God and Christ; credulity is what we have in men who claim to speak for God. What you really mean is, you live by credulity, not by faith.
RW