The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

XI. Nonevangelical “Jehovah’s Witnesses” Also Adopt Conditionalism

The Jehovah’s Witnesses, although holding flagrantly unevangelical positions—that is, rejecting the Trinity, the eternal pre-existence, incarnation, and deity of Jesus Christ, His infinite atonement, His literal resurrection, and literal, personal second advent ¹⁸ —nevertheless adopted the essential Conditionalist positions on the nature and destiny of man, which we must therefore note. However, they militantly denounce “organized religion,” and state that they are not a church but a society, meeting largely as “companies” in “Kingdom Halls.” ¹⁹ Their opposition to the laws of the State, and refusal to salute the flag, have resulted in repressive action, especially in Communist countries. It is consequently incumbent upon us to note when, how, and from whom such Conditionalist views were derived, and are still held in such an alien setting. CFF2 663.3

To understand this strange combination we must go back to their founder, or organizer, as they prefer to call him. Then we will find the background and relationship of Russell’s views on the nature and destiny of man, adopted before the development of his system. CFF2 664.1

1. RISE AND ORGANIZED ACTIVITIES OF THE “RUSSELLITES.”

“Pastor” CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL (1852-1916) was brought up a strict Presbyterian, rigidly indoctrinated in the Catechism. Stumbling over the dogma of Eternal Tormentthe “morbid pictures of a sizzling hell,” as one described ithe became a member of the Congregational Church. But soon he lost confidence in all creeds, becoming highly cynical and denouncing the errors of “organized religion.” He became an actual agnostic. CFF2 664.2

Then, through contact with an Advent Christian preacher, ²⁰ Jonas Wendell, as he identifies him, faith was restored in the inspiration of the Bible. ²¹And from Conditionalist George Storrs, already noted, he learned concerning Conditional Immortality ²³ that the saints must come forth from the grave to “gain everlasting life in Christ.” Finally, from N. H. Barbour, likewise an Advent Christian minister, Russell came to believe that Christ would return in 1874. Out of these early contacts he developed his own revolutionary system of time sequences and events, with emphasis upon 1914. But he continued to believe that all through the Gospel Age the death of God’s children “has been followed by unconsciousness “sleep.” This, however, he came to believe, has not been the case since 1878. ²⁵ That was his own distinctive deviation. CFF2 664.3

2. ASTONISHING PUBLISHING AND DISTRIBUTION ACHIEVEMENTS

In 1872 Russell organized an independent “Bible Class” in Pittsburgh, and in 1876 was elected “pastor” of the group-though he had had no ministerial training and was never ordained. His followers were first called Russellites, then Millennial Dawnists, and International Bible Students. In 1879 he founded the Zion’s Watch Tower Society, and launched and edited the Watchtower. The organization was reorganized in Pittsburgh as The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. One major work published was Russell’s Studies in the Scriptures, with a claimed distribution of fifteen million copies. His Watchtower journal zoomed from an initial edition of six thousand they state, to an almost unbelievable circulation of one million monthly by 1950. CFF2 665.1

In 1909 the headquarters were transferred to Brooklyn, New York, where a huge printing establishment has allegedly produced a half-billion pieces of literature. Russell was also an extensive traveler and an incessant lecturer. But the seventh volume of Russell’s Studies in the Scriptures (published posthumously) caused a split, the larger group following judge J. F. Rutherford, with the name changed to Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931. By 1938 it was a world organization. Rutherford was author of more than a hundred pamphlets and books, some translated into eighty languages. ²⁶ They had entered a new phase. Even during World War I many were sent to prison because of their intractable attitude. CFF2 665.2

3. BELIEFS AS TO NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN

Jehovah’s Witnesses maintain that man was a combination of the “dust of the ground” and the “breath of life,” which resulted in a “living soul, or creature called man.” ²⁷ The common claim that man has an “immortal soul” is, they say, not scriptural. ²⁸ On the contrary, the soul is but “mortal.” It is not eternal and indestructible, for “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4)-and a truly immortal soul could not die. ³⁰ It was Satan who originated the doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul. In death man enters into unconsciousness-“utter cessation of intellectual or physical activity.” The natural destiny of the sinner is death, but through turning to Jesus Christ man can gain eternal life. This, of course, is similar to what multiplied thousands of Conditionalists of all faiths have believed. But in the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses it was derived from the Advent Christian group. CFF2 666.1

Jehovah’s Witnesses also teach that the Bible “hell” (that is hades) is the tomb, or grave ³² the “common grave” of mankind (Heb., she’ol), a place of rest, where the departed sleep until the resurrection. This in contrast with the gehenna (also translated “hell”). ³³ Man does not go into “fiery torment” after death. The concept of eternal torment is a “God-dishonoring religious doctrine.” ³⁵ “Eternal punishment” is a punishment of which there is no end, but it is not “eternal torment” of living souls. Annihilation, through the “second death,” is the lot of the wicked. And it is eternal. The doctrine of an eternally burning hell, where the wicked are tortured forever, is rejected, they say, because it is “unscriptural,” “unreasonable,” “contrary to God’s love,” and “repugnant to justice.” In that they agree with all soundly evangelical Conditionalists. CFF2 666.2

It should perhaps be added that the very fact that a religious body holding such un-Christian positions as do the Jehovah’s Witnesses, in likewise contending for the positions of Conditional Immortality, has tended to throw a cloud over the validity of the entire Conditionalist postulate on the nature and destiny of man. It is perhaps sufficient to answer that the Advent Christian Church, from which Russell derived his Conditionalist views, is wholly sound on the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection, and the infinite atonement of the cross. Consequently, the Conditionalist position of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is not, therefore, logically to be discounted on that score, for the overwhelming majority of the multiplied thousands of champions of Conditionalism across the centuries have been singularly sound on the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. There should be no confusion here. CFF2 667.1