In the previous video, we learned about eisegesis and exegesis, two different ways of studying the Bible. Eisegesis is the method all religious leaders use when they want to deceive us into believing that their interpretation of the Bible is true. It is the method Satan used in his second attempt to deceive Jesus into sinning.
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:6 NIV)
Satan was quoting from the 91st Psalm, verses 11 and 12. But Jesus knew that no Scripture can be taken in isolation. So, he replied to Satan, citing the Law of Moses at Deuteronomy 6:16, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Matthew 4:7 NIV)
The devil tried to use eisegesis to fool Jesus by imposing a meaning and an application to a single passage of Scripture that was out of harmony with the whole of Scripture. In 1934, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, did the same thing. He imposed a meaning and an application to a single verse of Scripture that ended up ‘influencing millions of people with lies so clever that they sound like the truth’. This is just what Paul warned us about at Ephesians 4:14.
The single verse that Rutherford used to craft his convincing lie was John 10:16 which reads:
“And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; those too I must bring in, and they will listen to my voice, and they will become one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:16)
Using this one verse, Rutherford created a false salvation hope for what he called the “other sheep class.” I say, “one verse” because the term “other sheep” is not used anywhere else in Scripture. In contrast to that, the publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses going back to 1950 use the term over 3,000 times!
And what exactly do those publications tell us about this so-called “other sheep class” of Christian? They tell us that the other sheep make up the great crowd of Revelation 7:9 that the Apostle John saw. In fact, the phrase “great crowd of other sheep” appears over 300 times in Watchtower publications. Would it surprise you to learn that the phrase “great crowd of other sheep” is not to be found anywhere in the Bible? In addition to that, there is no association made in Scripture between the other sheep of John 10:16 and the great crowd of Revelation 7:9.
According to the publications produced by the Governing Body, the other sheep are believed to be Jehovah’s Witnesses who are not anointed with holy spirit. They do not have a heavenly hope. They are not in the new covenant. Jesus is not their mediator. In fact, they have no need of a mediator, because they are not in any covenant relationship with God. They are not adopted by God as his children. They are not born again. They are not part of the body of Christ. They are considered only to be God’s friends. For that reason, they are not permitted to partake of the bread and wine at the annual memorial that Witnesses commemorate in their Kingdom halls.
And what is the salvation hope of these “other sheep”? Are they at least resurrected to earth free of sin, and granted everlasting life as perfect human beings? No, they are not. Their earthly resurrection is only to a chance at life. They are resurrected as imperfect humans on earth who are still subject to sin. As sinners, these newly resurrected ones must now work toward perfection though the course of a thousand years under the reign of Christ. Only then do they get everlasting lift bestowed upon them. Only at the end of the millennial reign of Jesus can the other sheep become children of God. Until then they are only God’s friends.
Now, that’s a lot to take in, but if you’ve studied with Jehovah’s Witnesses you will assume that all those teachings are backed up by Scripture. Such is the power of eisegesis. It gives the illusion of scriptural support. But the fact is that not one of the facets of this doctrine that I’ve just stated can be supported in Scripture. Oh, I can give you dozens of references to Watch Tower publications to support these points, and they’ll be riddled with Scriptural references, but the fact is that none of those references will actually back up what is being stated in the publication. Here, let me give you one example from an issue of the Watchtower magazine.
“Although Jehovah has declared his anointed ones righteous as sons and the other sheep righteous as friends on the basis of Christ’s ransom sacrifice, personal differences will arise as long as any of us are alive on earth in this system of things. (Rom. 5:9; Jas. 2:23)” (w12 7/15 p. 28 par. 7)
According to this, the other sheep are declared righteous as God’s friends. Two verses are provided as support for this teaching. I’m sure the writers are counting on the trust and laziness of their readers not to look up and reflect on the relevance of those verses. Let’s not do that ourselves, okay? Here are the two verses they cite for you to read, taken from the New World Translation. I’ll start with the first:
“Much more, then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.” (Romans 5:9)
The Apostle Paul is speaking about spirit-anointed Christians who are declared righteous by Christ’s blood which is why they partake of his blood each time they drink the wine at the Lord’s supper. In fact, Jesus tells us that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. He that feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and I shall resurrect him at the last day; for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:53-55)
Since the other sheep are prohibited from drinking of Christ’s blood by partaking of the wine, they have no life in themselves, and so there is no basis for God to declare them righteous as friends or anything else for that matter.
Now to the second so-called support text:
“…and the scripture was fulfilled that says: “Abraham put faith in Jehovah, and it was counted to him as righteousness,” and he came to be called Jehovah’s friend.” (James 2:23)
This is the only place in the Bible where a faithful servant of God is called God’s friend. But consider, Abraham was not a Christian. In fact, he wasn’t even an Israelite. Abraham lived 2,000 years before the way to become a child of God was opened. John 1:12, 13 tells us that it was Jesus who made the adoption as children of God possible.
“However, to all who did receive him, he gave authority to become God’s children, because they were exercising faith in his name. And they were born, not from blood or from a fleshly will or from man’s will, but from God.” (John 1:12, 13)
Nowhere in Scripture are Christians called God’s friends. Nowhere in Scripture are Christians encouraged to reach out for friendship with God instead of the promised adoption as God’s children.
To state, as this Watchtower does, that the other sheep are declared righteous by God while at the same time teaching that the other sheep are resurrected as imperfect sinners is to teach a Scriptural contradiction. The anointed are declared righteous, correct? Yes. And according to JW theology, the other sheep are also declared righteous. So why the difference in their hope? The anointed get life upon their resurrection, because God declares them righteous. Not kind of righteous, not semi-righteous, but righteous. Period. So, since the other sheep are also declared righteous by God, why don’t they also get life upon their resurrection? Why are they resurrected as sinners? Why do they still have to prove themselves over the course of a thousand years? And more important, where in all the Bible do we find this statement that the other sheep are declared righteous as God’s Friends? It’s a complete fabrication.
How many resurrections does Jesus speak of? How many do you count in this scripture?
“Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, and those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:28, 29)
There are only two resurrections, one of the righteous and a second of the unrighteous. Which one do you want to be in? I should hope the first, because that is to life. The second is to judgment, and that is for the unrighteous. What constitutes being righteous or unrighteous? With exegesis we look at the context before going elsewhere in Scripture.
Just a little before uttering these words, Jesus tells us:
“Most truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes the One who sent me has everlasting life, and he does not come into judgment but has passed over from death to life. “Most truly I say to you, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have paid attention will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted also to the Son to have life in himself.” (John 5:24-26)
So, if you hear what Jesus is telling you and believe in God the Father who sent him, you will not come into judgment, but you will get everlasting life. If you pay attention to what he says, you will live. You will not be in the resurrection of the unrighteous but will be righteous and live. But how can you and I become righteous given that we are sinners? We don’t suddenly stop sinning, do we?
Paul gives us the answer to that question: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and it is as a free gift that they are being declared righteous by his undeserved kindness through the release by the ransom paid by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23, 24)
So, the claim that Jehovah’s Witnesses make that the other sheep are declared righteous while still being resurrected, not to life, but to only a chance of life does not fit. Either you are declared righteous by God and live, or you are not declared righteous and must be judged.
The resurrection that Jesus refers to as the resurrection of the righteous to life is explained by John in Revelation as the first resurrection.
“Next I saw thrones, and those who sat down on them were the ones who had been executed with axes for testifying about Jesus, for telling about God, and those who hadn’t worshiped the wild animal or its image, nor had they received its branding on their foreheads or on their hands. For they were appointed to be judges. Yes, they came to life and ruled as kings with the Anointed One for 1,000 years. This is the first resurrection. Those who have a part in the first resurrection are blest and holy, because the second death won’t have any power over them... For they’ll be Priests of God and of the Anointed One and they’ll rule for 1,000 years.” (Revelation 20:4-6 2001 Translation)
There are only two resurrections. The first is to life and it is for those who will inherit the kingdom alongside Jesus. They will be judges, but whom will they be judging? Ah, so now we come back to the second resurrection of the unrighteous to judgment.
There are not two resurrections of the righteous, are there? Nowhere does the Bible talk about a secondary resurrection of the righteous to earth, but still as sinners.
So, if you’re not in the first resurrection, you’re part of the second.
The ridiculous nature of the other sheep doctrine is manifest when you learn what Jehovah’s Witnesses teach regarding the resurrection of the unrighteous. The ones they consider to be unrighteous, that is, non-Jehovah’s Witnesses. They teach that if someone dies today who is not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, he or she will return to a paradise earth as a sinner in an imperfect body. This unrighteous person will then have the opportunity to repent and work toward perfection and if they stay the course, they will become perfect, sinless, and receive everlasting life. That’s the exact same hope that the JW other sheep expect to have. I don’t see any difference, do you?
Speaking from the perspective of a Jehovah’s Witness, it used to be that the real advantage of being one of the other sheep was that you got to survive the great tribulation while everyone else in the world died forever. However, even that advantage has disappeared based on recent JW theology. The latest “new light” from the Governing Body is that even after the great tribulation starts, people can still repent and be saved.
Of course, this is all wrong. This is eisegesis on steroids. The question remains, what did Jesus mean when he said that he had other sheep that were not of this fold? And just who are the great crowd of revelation? And is the number of 144,000 in Revelation 7:4 a literal number or a symbolic one? A lot rests on determining which. Oh, and what about faithful men like Abraham who died long before the adoption as God’s children was made possible? What hope do they have? We will find the answer to all those questions and many more as we continue to look at the scriptural evidence exegetically. We’ll continue to do all that in this series of videos. But first, we have to answer the pressing questions, who are the other sheep of John 10:16. We’ll plunge into that in our next video.
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