The Background of this teaching in the Watchtower Society:
The Millerite Adventists were teaching that Jesus would come the second time to this earth on October 22, 1844, to cleanse the earth by fire and take the saints to heaven, which event they considered to be the cleansing of the sanctuary depicted in Daniel 8:14. However, not realizing that the term "sanctuary" in Daniel 8:14 meant the "heavenly" sanctuary (Hebrews 8-10) and not the earth itself, the event never happened as predicted, and there resulted a great falling away from the Advent movement. After this event called the 1844 Disappointment, a group of date-setting Adventists (not Seventh-day Adventists who have always opposed date-setting!) set the date of October 22, 1874 for the return of Christ. These people, known as "Second Adventists," reasoned that when He came the first time, it was thirty years before He took up His effective ministry, so similarly His effective coming would take place thirty years after October 22, 1844. It was to one of these meetings that Pastor C.T. Russell went and accepted this teaching. When the time came and went and Christ had not returned visibly as expected, they too were disappointed. Eighteen moonths later in 1876, Russell contacted the leader of the New York date-setting Adventists, a Mr. N.H. Barbour, and he explained to Pastor Russell, that Christ's Coming did take place in 1874, but it was an invisible Coming. He took his cue from the "Emphatic Diaglott" -- a Christadelphian publication, which translated "coming" in Matthew 24:27, 37, 39, etc... as "presence," from the Greek word "parousia."
Pastor Russell then began to teach that Christ had come, and was invisibly present. He soon began to publish a magazine, Zion's Watchtower and Herald of Christ's Presence.
Despite all the Biblical evidence against such a teaching, and even warnings by Christ himself, from that time forward one of the cardinal teachings of the Watchtower Society has been that Christ's return or Second Coming is past and invisible!
1. What is Christ's warning against this teaching?
Matthew 24:23
Answer:
"Then if anyone says to you, 'Look! Here is the Christ,' or, 'There!' _______ ________ _____________________ _________." Matthew 24:23
2. Can we know the exact time of Jesus' Coming?
Matthew 24:36
Answer: "Concerning that day and hour ___________________ knows, neither ________ _______________ of the heavens nor the ____________, but only the __________________." Matthew 24:36. Despite such warnings the Watchtower Society for over a century has been teaching that Christ is here.
3. Does the Bible warn of false prophets in the last days?
Matthew 24:24
Answer: "For false _____________ and false _________________ will arise and will give great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the chosen ones." Matthew 24:24 The people who set these dates, and make these false prophecies, the Bible warns us against. It even says that if it were possible such organizations could deceive the very elect. Of all organizations living in these last days, none possibly have made more false prophecies than the Watchtower Society.
4. Does the Watchtower ever claim that they are Jehovah's prophet?
Answer: One of the most astonishing claims that the Watchtower Society ever made appeared in the April 1, 1972 issue of The Watchtower magazine. At that time the organization was in a state of excitement and expectation that the End was going to occur in 1975. They were very confident of their predictions and frequently referred to the fact that they had taken their calculations from "very reliable Bible chronology." It was in this climate that they made the claim that they were Jehovah's prophet.
5. What exactly has the Watchtower Society taught in the past about the time of Jesus' coming?
Answer: There are two dates that were set for Christ to return, and both of these will be examined:
a. Christ's return was predicted to happen in 1874. For over fifty years the Watchtower Society taught that Christ's Return or Second Coming took place in 1874. Pastor Russell taught no other date for this event. Rutherford, their next president after Russell, was teaching it in the Society's publications as late as 1929:
"The Scriptural proof is that the second presence of the Lord Jesus Christ began in 1874 A.D. This proof is specifically set out in the booklet entitled Our Lord's Return. " -- Prophecy, (1929) pages 65-66.
The fact that the Watchtower Society was teaching this date fifteen years after 1914, is an embarrassment, since they believe they have spiritual eyes of understanding to discern His presence, which they now teach took place in 1914 not 1874, despite all the "Scriptural proof" claimed in such statements as the one above to prove the event took place in 1874. Having taught such errors for such a long time (over fifty years) one wonders how the Society can claim to be that "faithful and discreet slave...to give them their food at the proper time," of Matthew 24:45?
b. Christ's return was predicted to happen in 1914. It was during the 1920's the date 1914 began to be presented as the time of Christ's presence or coming. Publications such as The Finished Mystery (1917), and The Harp of God (1921) only taught the 1874 date for this event. But here are some examples of their teaching now that the event happened in 1914--
Let God Be True (1946), page 188, states "The meaning of 'parousia' is more exact than that commonly contained in the English word 'coming.' It does not mean that he is on the way, or has promised to come, but that he has already arrived and is present."
In 1958, From Paradise Lost to Paradise Restored , page 200, stated: "The King arrived in His glory, A.D. 1914."
Finding this teaching difficult to uphold, the Society found it necessary to alter its emphasis to Christ "turning His attention" towards the earth. Thus having lost many members over this teaching, the interesting interpretation and explanation of Christ's return is given in You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, (1982), page 147:
"Christ's return does not mean that he literally comes back to this earth. Rather it means that he takes Kingdom power towards this earth and turns his attention to it....Bible evidence shows that in the year 1914 C.E. God's time arrived for Christ to return and begin ruling....Since Christ's return is invisible, is there a way to confirm that it has really occurred? Yes, there is. Christ Himself gave a visible 'sign' by which we may know that He is invisibly present and the end of the world is near."
6. Do the signs of Christ's coming show that Christ's return is near or that He is here as the Watchtower teaches?
Matthew 24:23, 32-33, 42-44
Answer:
a. Matthew 24:23, quoted above in question #1, warns of people stating "Christ is here" or present, when the signs are being fulfilled.
b. "Now learn from the fig tree as an illustration this point: Just as soon as its young branch grows tender and it puts forth leaves, you know that summer is ____________. Likewise also you, when you see all these things, know that he is ______________ at the _______________." Matthew 24:32-33. Jesus did not use the signs to show that He is already "here" and "in the door," but that He is "near" and "at the door!"
c. "Keep on the watch, therefore, because you _______ _________ ______________ on what day your Lord is coming. But know one thing, that if the householder had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have kept awake and not allowed his house to be broken into. On this account you too prove yourselves _____________, because at an hour that you _______ _________ ________________ to be it, the Son of man is coming." Matthew 24:42-44. We do need to be ready because we do not know when the Lord will come! If the Lord has already come and is present then there is no need to watch.
7. Do we have any evidence that Christ came in either 1874 or 1914?
Revelation 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17, and others below.
Answer:
a. "Look! He is coming with the clouds, and ___________ ________ will see him, and those who pierced him; and _______ the ______________ of the earth will beat themselves in grief because of him. Yes, Amen." Revelation 1:7
The answer is an emphatic No! This is a teaching unique to the Watchtower Society and is ludicrous the more one studies the teachings of the Bible, which show that Christ's Return as King of kings and Lord of lords in power and great glory will be a visible return. When He came the first time, a multitude of angels in great glory sang to the shepherds who saw them with their own physical eyes while tending sheep at night on the hills of Bethlehem. At His second return all the angels of heaven will accompany Him and He will be seen by "every eye," as it says in Revelation 1:7. This cannot be "spiritual eyesight" because Matthew 24:30 shows that "all the tribes of the earth" also see Him and they have no such spiritual understanding or no spiritual eyesight.
b. "....because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a _________________ _________, with an archangel's ___________ and with God's __________________, and those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first. Afterward we the living who are surviving will, together with them, be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall always be with [the] Lord." 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17.
These verses say that at Christ's parousia both the "dead in Christ' who are resurrected and the 'living' will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. If the Society's teachings are correct and the "remnant class" were resurrected in 1918, then the living members of the "remnant class" should have been caught up with them to be with the Lord. The Society has never ever claimed this to have happened!
c. The wicked were not destroyed by the brightness of His coming or "parousia," (see: 2 Thessalonians 2:8) and this destruction is to be literal as the destruction of the flood and the "day Lot went out of Sodom." (see: Luke 17:26-30, Matthew 24:37-40.)
d. The Memorial Service is only to be celebrated "until He comes," (see: 1 Corinthians 11:26). However, it is still celebrated.
e. If Christ has come, then we no longer have an Advocate or Mediator, and no one could be saved, (see: 1 John 2:1, 2 and 2 Corinthians 6:2).
The next study will discuss "Parousia and Christ's Bodily Resurrection and Return."