Facts On ---- Jehovah's Witnesses -- Chapter Six

#6 The Facts on Jehovah's Witnesses
 

The Worldview of the Jehovah's Witnesses: Practices and Teachings
 

6. Does the Watchtower Society really claim to be the only organization on earth through which God works?
 

    The Watchtower Society does claim that of all religious organization, God works only through it. It alone has authority to speak for God. For example, the Watchtower states:
 

We belong to NO earthly organization . . . We adhere only to the heavenly organization . . . All the saints now living or that ever lived during this age, belong to OUR CHURCH ORGANIZATION: such are all ONE CHURCH, and there is NO OTHER recognized by the Lord.
 

    Thus, Jehovah's Witnesses believed that no one on earth can discover the complete will of God apart from the Watchtower Society. Only the Watchtower Society and its publication can reveal the true meaning of the Bible. The Society is seen as "God's sole collective channel for the flow of biblical truth to men on earth."
    One Jehovah's Witness said to a Christian, "Your Bible was finished 2000 years ago, but our Bible has 32 pages added to it every week." He was referring to the Watchtower, a magazine that Witnesses are taught is for all practical purposes the Word of God.
    A former member wrote,
 

We were taught that we must adhere absolutely to the decisions and scriptural understandings of the Society, because God had given it this authority over His people (the Watchtower, May 10, 1972, P. 272) . . . To gain . . . eternal life, I was told certain things were necessary: (1) I should study the Bible diligently, and only through Watchtower publications . . .
 

    The Watchtower of February 15, 1983, p. 12, stated as a requirement of salvation "that we be associated with God's channel, His organization . . . To receive everlasting life in the earthly paradise we must identify that organization and serve God as part of it."
    Thus, from the above statements, it is clear that the Watchtower Society claims to be the only organization on earth through which God works.
 

John Ankerberg & John Weldon