(Originally printed in the Fall 2006 Issue of the MCOI Journal )

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WTBTS)¹The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WTBTS) is the government or clergy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses calls itself a Christian organization, yet they deny almost all of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. They deny the Trin­ity, the Deity of Christ, the existence of Hell, the biblical truth that the soul of man survives death, and so on. They say they believe in the veracity of the Bible, but only truly accept it as “interpreted” and “fixed” by the leadership in Brooklyn, New York. They claim to believe in the God of the Bible, yet the WT­BTS “Jehovah” is a small, limited god who does not even know the fu­ture²The Watchtower Society’s “Jehovah” just makes educated guesses about what will happen in the future. He draws prognostications from the past to determine what might happen in the future. Absurdly, they argue that if God did know everything in advance, he would be responsible for all the sins and crimes of mankind. This limited-god teaching of the Watchtower Society goes way back to its founder. Charles Taze Rus­sell, who wrote back in 1915:

“To assume that God is in every place, in every niche of space throughout the Universe, seems to us an absurdity, not taught in the Bible; and to assume that God knows about every little tadpole, pollywog, microbe, or that He even takes knowledge of every act of each one of the human family, when there are millions of these, is beyond our understanding. If we should limit God’s attention to the Church, still there are thousands of these; and the capacity to understand and deal with ten or twen­ty thousand people in an instant seems to us to be an impossibil­ity.” (The WATCHTOWER, February 15, 1915, p.55).

Rather than being omniscient, all-knowing, their god needs to learn things. The Watchtower of January 15, 1964 states:

“But as soon as the first human pair sinned God knew it or learned it, because now they felt guilty and hid themselves” (emphasis ours)

Jehovah could tell by their guilty actions that Adam and Eve had sinned; otherwise I guess they would have gotten away with it! It is absolutely true that the god of the Watch­tower Society does not know the future, which only proves that the god they promote is not the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, unlimited God of the Bible! For further information of the limited-god view of the JWs, please see Duane Magnani’s book, The Heavenly Weatherman., and only can be in one place at a time. They believe in a Jesus, but their “Jesus” is only a man who somehow used to be Michael the archangel in a former life and who never came out of his tomb, but who supposedly was re-created as a mighty spirit creature-yes, Michael the archangel again! The WTBTS claims Jesus-the one who died for you and me-is forever dead and gone. They deny the Resurrection of the dead; yet, they claim to believe in it. This denial alone places them outside of the realm of true Christianity.

Resurrection a Foundational Truth

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith … And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also that have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” (1 Corin­thians 15:13-14 & 17-19, NIV)

If the physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not true, we might as well hang it up-our faith is in vain! Any religious figure in history could be said to have been “resurrected” in some spiritual sense; only Christianity has the empty tomb! Yet, I would venture to say that many, if not most, Chris­tians cannot properly defend the biblical Doctrine of the Resur­rection, (or, sadly, many other foundational doctrines of our faith), which makes them easy marks for the Jehovah’s Witness (JW)³Members of the WTBTS are called Jehovah’s Witnesses who comes to their door. The JW merely takes him or her on a “guided tour” of the Bible, twisting the Scriptures having to do with the Resurrection, while ridiculing the Christian explana­tion of the doctrine. At base, the WTBTS has trained the JW to see his or her own religion as being rationally sensible and has been taught that Christian doctrine is illogical and based on pagan ideas. “How is it possible,” they will ask, “that the fleshly body of an individual who died cen­turies ago and has largely disintegrated, be raised? There is no body left to raise!”

But, of course, the WTBTS has kept their membership so busy teaching them how illogical and superstitious the WTBTS considers Christian beliefs, and Christians are so busy “playing defense” in any encounter with them, that neither one may have given any thought as to whether the WTBTS’s view of the Resur­rection is logical or reasonable. It is high time for Christians to turn the tables on the WTBTS and “play offense” for a change: Does the WTBTS’s view of the Resurrection make any rational sense? In a word-NO.

What is the true Christian teaching on the Resurrection?

The WTBTS claims to believe in the Christian Doctrine of the Resurrection; but through sleight-of-hand and redefinition, they actually believe in something altogether different as well as patently illogical. Before we get into a discussion of the WTBTS’s teaching on the subject, we need to identify the biblical view of the Resurrection.

Resurrection is the raising of the physical body [Gr. anastasis=a standing up again (Strong’s)]. If the individual’s body does not come out of its grave, he has not been res­urrected; it is as simple as that. We can learn two things from the words of Jesus in John 2:18-22:

Then the Jews demanded of Him, ‘What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all of this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple He had spoken of was His body. After He was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what He had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (NIV emphasis added)

What did Jesus say He was going to raise? His BODY! His fleshly, physical body! Who did Jesus say was going to raise His body? Jesus, Himself! This is important not only from the standpoint of proving Christ’s Deity (only God can raise the dead), but to show that Jesus did not go out of existence at the point of His death! He certainly had to exist in order to raise Himself from the dead. Non-existent beings can’t even tie their shoes, much less raise the dead … last time I checked.

Paul’s Teaching on the Resurrection

The most in-depth teaching on the Resurrection is found in the 15th chapter of 1 Cor­inthians, where Paul was refuting the heretics of his day who were denying the resurrec­tion of the body. The question at issue:

But someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ (1 Corinthians 15:35, NIV)

Ironically, the WTBTS cynically poses the very same skeptical question today:

… what body does he give them? It could not be the same body, of exactly the same atoms. If a man dies and is buried by the process of decay his body is reconverted in to organic chemicals that are absorbed by vegetation. Per­sons may eat that vegetation. The elements, the atoms of that original person, now are in many persons. In the resurrection it is obvious that the same atoms cannot be in the original person and in all the others at the same time.⁴Insight on the Scriptures, Vol 2, p790 WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC, International Bible Students Association, Brooklyn New York, USA, 1988

With this question, the WTBTS reveals their disbelieving skepticism of what the Bible clearly teaches, and employs a straw-man argument, as though orthodox Chris­tian belief demands that every atom of the original body be included in the new resurrec­tion body. The Apostle Paul exclaims that this type of skeptical questioning is foolish and explains:

When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else. But God gives it a body as He has determined, and to each kind of seed He gives its own body. (1 Corinthians 15:37, NIV)

In 1 Corinthians 5:36-38, the Apostle Paul likens the body to a seed, which at death is planted into the ground. Ask yourself: When a peach falls to the ground and is “planted,” what happens to it? It rots and is dissolved and goes its way-perhaps, eaten by animals, worms, or the like. Does that eating or dissolving prevent its “resurrection” as a peach tree? Not at all! One little part of the peach-its seed-is the only necessary bridge to the new life to come. We don’t care what happens to the original peach that was sown, do we? Of course, not! We don’t expect that peach miraculously to be put back together-patched up and reassembled-to jump out of the ground as a peach. Just a fractional speck within is transformed into the/its resurrection “body”-the tree. And God does not re-create the new peach tree out of nothing does He? No, there is physical continuity with the seed that was planted. The new life springs out of it. We would never plant a seed here in Illinois and expect the new plant to come up in China out of nothing!

That is the whole point of planting any seed; it becomes the new plant! And so, it is with the resurrected human body. We don’t expect the entire old human body-every original atom-to be reassembled and pop out of the grave; yet, that body will be raised! Daniel 12:2 says:

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. (NIV)

What “dust” are these people sleeping in? At least in part, the dust of their own mortal bodies! Yet, something of that mortal body-which Paul likens to a “seed”-shall be trans­formed into the glorious resurrection body for the redeemed or a vessel of contempt for the unbeliever. The name of the game is transformation, never re-creation.

Resurrection vs. Re-creation

The WTBTS denies any continuity between the old body and the new and, in fact, teaches re-creation rather than Resurrection.

Hence, according to God’s will for the creature, in a resurrection one is re­stored or re-created in either a human or a spirit body and yet retains his per­sonal identity by the setting in motion again of the distinctive life-pattern of that individual.⁵Make Sure of all Things, 1953, p311; (Underlining added for empha­sis) WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA.

Is there a difference between Resurrection and re-creation? Well, if I copy a painted masterpiece of Picasso-thus re-creating it, will it be the same entity as the original? NO. Even if the copy is very accurate in every detail, the copy will never be the original!

Back to 1 Corinthians 15

Let’s go back to Paul’s words since the Apostle Paul, not the WTBTS, is the certified teacher on the Resurrection.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perish­able, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, NIV, underlining for our emphasis)

Just to make sure we keep our eye on the pea, what is the “it” that Paul refers to? IT is the physical body. Yet, as usual, the WTBTS chooses to fudge the issue by grasping at the term “spiritual body.” They use this phrase to make their related argument that the new body (at least if you are one of the 144,000 elite JWs) is not a physical body, but it is an incorporeal one-a “spirit creature.”⁶The Watchtower Society teaches a unique two-class system of salva­tion. The 144,000 elite, variously referred to as “the faithful and dis­creet slave,” “Christ’s brothers” or the “anointed,” enjoy first class status and will go to heaven at their supposed resurrection as a “spirit creature,” where they will rule over the Earth. The others, known as the “great crowd” or the “other sheep” must fly second class — they are re-created as physical human beings and are confined to Earth, where they shall serve Christ and the 144,000, working and slaving to clean up the earth after Armageddon and preaching to other “resurrected” people who were not JWs in their former life. Their eternal future is not even then secure, as they can be destroyed at any time, should they step out of line and become “unfaithful.” Some salvation!

Incorporeal means there is no material form or substance. While a “spirit” is incorpo­real-non-material, the term “spiritual” in the Bible indicates something that is sustained or controlled by the non-material Spirit of God. The term “spiritual” does not mean that the subject is incorporeal. The same Apostle Paul, who wrote 1 Corinthians 15, also wrote 1 Corinthians 10:3-4:

They [the Israelites] all ate the same spiritual food and drank from the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the same spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:3-4, NIV, emphasis added)

Were the food, drink, and rock of the Israelites incorporeal? No, Moses struck a physi­cal rock which bought forth physical water (Exodus 17:5). The food was physical as well (Exodus 16:4,14), or they would not have been very well nourished.

To take another example: Christians are spiritual people because of our relationship to the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9), but we most certainly are corporeal beings. At least I am. Aren’t you?

The Resurrected Body of Jesus

As already stated, the WTBTS teaches that the elite 144,000 JWs will be “resurrected” (really re-created) as “spirit creatures” and go to Heaven to rule over the earth with Christ. The so-called “great crowd”-the second-class JWs, which comprise the majority of the group-never get to go to Heaven to be with Jesus; but they are given newly created, physical bodies to live in on this earth-forever inferior and subservient to their elite first-class brethren who make up the WTBTS’s so-called “faithful and discreet slave.” But the Bible teaches the bodies of all of the redeemed-with no class distinction-will be like Jesus’ glorified body. So we must take a look at Jesus’ body after His Resurrection: Was He merely an incorporeal spirit? Let’s look at a very eye-opening Scripture in Luke 24, where Jesus appeared to His disciples:

He Himself stood in their midst. But they were star­tled and frightened and thought they were seeing a spirit. And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet, that it is I Myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones and you see that I have.” (Luke 24:36-39, NASB, emphasis added)

When Jesus appeared to His disciples in Luke chapter 24, they misperceived that He was a spirit creature, which is ex­actly the teaching of the Watchtower Society. But rather than compliment them for their great spiritual insight, He rebukes that thought by asking them: “… why do doubts arise in your hearts?” To doubt the physicality of Jesus’ Resurrection body is to doubt the Resurrection itself!

When He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, He asked them, “Do you have any­thing here to eat?” They gave Him a piece of broiled fish and He took it and ate it in their presence. (Luke 24:40-43, NIV)

Why did Jesus eat something? Again, to show His disciples that He was not a spirit! Spirits do not eat! What did “doubting Thom­as” doubt?

We have all heard of “doubting Thomas.” What did doubting Thomas doubt? He doubted that Jesus had, in­deed, risen from the dead since he had not been present when Jesus formerly appeared to the other disciples.

…Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it. A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them … then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.’ Thomas said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ( John 20:25-28, NIV)

The fact of the physical Resurrection is very plainly taught in the New Testament. When Thomas doubted the Resurrection, what proof did he demand before he would believe? He wanted to see the wounds in the physical body of Jesus! Spirits don’t have scars or wounds. Bodies have wounds. He wanted to touch the body which had those wounds to verify that Jesus had been raised. And we can be thankful today that Thomas reacted as he did, because proof of the bodily Resurrection is just exactly what he and we got. Jesus did not rebuke Thomas but offered His body with its wounds as proof so Thomas “would stop doubting and believe.” If He was merely a spirit, would He have done this? Was He trying to deceive Thomas? And us? After this en­counter, Thomas no longer doubted that his Lord was raised; and he knew that Jesus had fulfilled His promise, given back in John 2:19-22, to raise His body up after three days. Thomas also re­alized that this raising identifies Jesus as … no mere man, no angelic being … but the Lord God Almighty! “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed [John 20:28, Gr.= ho kurios mou, kai ho theos mou=the Lord of me and the God of me]. Jesus’ Resur­rection and His Deity are tied together in Scripture. The WTBTS denies both, so how do they explain away these passages?

Jesus the Deceiver?

Incredibly, the WTS admits that Jesus did appear in corpo­real bodies, such as in Luke chapter 24 and John 20, but asserts that He manufactured these bodies for these occasions, at times complete with wounds, but only so His disciples would think He had been bodily resurrected!

However, for 40 days after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples on different occasions in various fleshly bodies, just as angels had appeared to men of ancient times. Like those angels, he had the power to construct and disintegrate those fleshly bod­ies at will, for the purpose of proving visibly that he had been resurrected.⁷Insight on the Scriptures, Vol 2, p786 WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC, International Bible Students Association, Brooklyn New York, USA, 1988

And so with Jesus’ remarks to his disciples as recorded at Luke 24:37-43. He did not endeavor to explain that he had been resurrected a spirit crea­ture and had now materialized for their benefit.⁸The WATCHTOWER, Sept 15, 1960, p576, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC, Brooklyn New York, USA

Hence also he assured them, to allay their fears, that what they saw was not a spirit. He at that time was a spirit, but they did not see him, but merely the body of flesh which veiled yet represented him; and which, as he intended, helped their imperfect faith and knowledge to grasp the important lesson that he was no longer dead but alive for evermore.⁹ZION’S WATCH TOWER, June 15, 1896, p142, Reprints

Okay, so Jesus wanted the disciples to think he possessed a physical body, even though He really did not! Can you perceive the wolf peering out of the sheepskin covering? The above statements are breathtak­ingly devious! Would Jesus have deceived his disciples in this way? Would it have been right if he had? (cf. Proverbs 12:22)

“We Cannot So View The Matter”

Why does the WTBTS go to such lengths to deny the physi­cality of Jesus’ Resurrection body? It really is simple: Every­thing has to be manipulated to fit their preconceived belief sys­tem. The founder of the Watchtower, Charles Taze Russell, said as far back as 1908:

’But he spake of the temple of his body.’ The dis­ciples evidently got the thought that he referred to his fleshly body as the Temple of God, and supposed that our Lord’s prediction was fulfilled three days after his crucifixion. But we cannot so view the matter.¹⁰ZION’S WATCH TOWER, January 15, 1908, p27, Reprints

The WTBTS actually thinks it knows better than the dis­ciples who were there on the scene and were taught by Jesus, Himself! What a telling statement about the counterfeit nature of this organization.

Defining Our Terms

In Christian terms, a person has a body and an inner being-called a soul or spirit. When a Christian’s body dies, his spirit lives on and passes immediately into the presence of Christ. As Paul states:

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord … we are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corin­thians 5:6&8, NIV)

I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. (Philippians 1:23-24, NIV)

Note that Paul is not his body but lives in his body. Some­day “he” will leave his body and go to be with Christ as will all who have been born again through faith in Him, and who die before Christ returns. But this is not the end of the story, nor is it the final state of a Christian to be a disembodied spirit in Heaven. In fact, we will not be completely whole again until the resurrection, where our spirits will be united with our new resurrection body.

The Christian Hope for the Dear Departed

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 NIV)

When Christ returns, He will bring with Him the spirits of those Christians who formerly have died, and at that time, their bodies will rise and unite with their spirits. Then any Christians who are alive on earth will be changed and receive their new bodies as well.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. (1 Thessalonians 4:16, NIV)

When the “dead in Christ” return with Jesus, what will rise to meet them? Their bodies!

Recap of Christian teaching: The dead in Christ do not go out of existence! Their souls exist in Heaven with Christ until they receive back their glorified bodies in the Resurrection.

The Watchtower’s Definition of Soul

The WTBTS denies the Bible teaching that man has an inner soul or spirit that separates from the body and goes to be with Christ when he dies; rather, they teach that man is a soul.

So it is with a human being. There is a body and a life-principle (or life-force), the union of which makes the soul.¹¹The WATCHTOWER, January 15, 1913, p23, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

Remember that the sentient creature or soul was produced by the union of the breath of life (life-force) with the earthly organism.¹²AWAKE!, July 8, 1949, p26 WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC, Brooklyn New York, USA

To recap WTBTS doctrine: A soul is the union or combina­tion of a body and an animating force-the spirit, which they refer to as the “life-force.” According to WTBTS teaching, does the soul survive death? No.

Yet someone may ask: Don’t humans have an immortal soul that survives death? Many have taught this, even saying that death is a doorway to another life. But that idea does not come from the Bible. Rather, God’s Word teaches that you are a soul, that your soul is really you, with all your physical and mental quali­ties.¹³What Hope For Dead Loved Ones? 1987, p2, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

Adam ceased to be “a breather,” or a soul, and went back to the lifeless dust from which he had been taken … No part of him lived on. He went completely into non-existence.¹⁴Good News to Make You Happy, 1976, p89, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

 Again, the WTBTS teaches a man is a soul; so, of course, the soul dies when he does. Even Jesus suffered this same fate:

Jesus was dead, he was unconscious, out of exis­tence. Death did not mean a transition to another life for Jesus; rather non-existence.¹⁵Awake!, July 22, 1979, p27 WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SO­CIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

The fact they teach that there is no soul-no “inner man” that survives death-gives them a major resurrection “problem” as we shall demonstrate. The spirit, which they refer to as the “life force,” is not at all like the Christian view of the spirit of man. It is merely an impersonal force.

The spirit is much like electricity, which activates many things but does not take on their qualities.¹⁶Is This Life All There Is? 1974, p51, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

Thus the spirit could not have personality but must be an impersonal force.¹⁷AWAKE!, August 8, 1972, p27, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

According to the WTBTS, the “life-force” is similar to elec­tricity, which merely animates the body. It takes on none of the characteristics of the person it animates, just as electricity does not take on any characteristics of the appliances it empowers.

The False Hope of the Dead JW: Watchtower “Resurrection”

According to the WTBTS’s apologetics volume, Reasoning From the Scriptures:

Resurrection involves a reactivating of the life pat­tern of the individual, which life pattern God has re­tained in his memory. According to God’s will for the individual, the person is restored in either a human or a spirit body and yet retains his personal identity, having the same personality and memories as when he died.¹⁸Reasoning From the Scriptures; pg. 333

Reactivation? Life pattern? Life-force? Where are these terms or ideas to be found in the Bible?

The “Life Pattern” — What is that?

According to their 1953 apologetics volume Make Sure of All Things:

The life pattern is the personal life-long record of the creature built up by his thoughts and by the experiences in the life he has lived from certain hab­its, leanings, mental abilities, memories and history. It is also the register of the individual’s intellectual growth and his characteristics, all of which make up one’s personality.¹⁹Make Sure of all Things, p. 311 WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

The life pattern is essentially one’s personality in some type of data form. It is not “you;” rather it is information about you; it is a record of your life. This record is stored on your brain, and even in your blood.

Each one of us develops his own personality pat­tern, and this is stored up in each one’s brain, also in the blood to some extent.²⁰The WATCHTOWER, April 15, 1963, p242, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

As an aside, this is also one of the original reasons the WT­BTS gave for rejecting blood transfusions-they asserted that one may receive bad personality traits from a blood donor:

Moreover, recent medical research has indicated in a realistic way how blood transfusions may damage the individual’s personality. According to one authority: “Taking the blood in any person is in reality the person himself. It contains all the peculiarities of the individual from whence it comes. This includes hereditary taints, disease susceptibilities, poisons due to personal living, eating and drinking habits.” Transfusing blood, then, may amount to transfusing personality traits.²¹The WATCHTOWER, May 15, 1962, 302, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA

The Watchtower Resurrection Fantasy

The million-dollar question: If your body is not raised, and you have no soul or spirit which survives death, and if even the so-called “life pattern” ceases to exist when you die, just how are faithful JWs resurrected? Well, lucky for you, God has a sort of “videotape” or data CD of your life pattern, which He dupli­cates and “downloads” into a newly formed body.

God’s ability to resurrect. For the One with the abil­ity and power to create man in His own image, with a perfect body and with the potential for full expression of the marvelous characteristics implanted in the hu­man personality, it would pose no problem to resur­rect an individual. If scientific principles established by God can be used by scientists to preserve and later reconstruct a visible and audible scene by means of videotape, how easy it is for the great Universal Sover­eign and Creator to resurrect a person by repatterning the same personality in a newly formed body.²²Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2, p 784, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC, International Bible Students Association, Brooklyn New York, USA, 1988

In other words, God copies you! In his wisdom, he has cre­ated a copy of your “life pattern,” which is your personality data plus your experiences and memories, and he has kept it stored up in the big hard drive of his brain. God merely has to download a duplicate “life pattern” into the brain of your newly created body and voila: “You” are back!

Here is the really cool part-your copy/clone now even re­members being you, which in WT speak, makes him you!! But is it “you?” No, it is just a copy! In fact, it is a copy of a copy! A copy is never the original! It may all be well and good for the new “you”-who never actually lived or died; but what about the old “you” who actually lived your life? The old “you” who did all the hard work to earn eternal life for your clone? He/she is forever gone!

The Great Xerox Caper

Even according to the WTBTS’s own dogma, the copy can­not be “you” since, if you recall, “you” are your soul-which is a combination of your body and your life-force, neither of which survived your death!

The life pattern, even the original, likewise is not “you”; it is just “one’s personality” or information about you. “Personali­ties” cannot be resurrected; only bodies can be resurrected! And information certainly cannot be resurrected!

Can you imagine the daughter, who wants her real Mommy (the one she loves and lived with, and gave her birth), being satisfied with this new “copy Mommy?” Oh, but of course, the “resurrected” daughter never lived either! She is only a clone who has memories of the real Mommy who once existed but lives no more!

So even putting aside biblical objections, the resurrection scheme of the WTBTS does not work logically. The life pat­tern is only information that never lived or died; it cannot be resurrected. The body is not resurrected. The soul is just a body (which is not resurrected) and a life force (which is not even personal); so the soul is not resurrected either. Sooooo, just what is resurrected according to Watchtower theology? Bupkiss!

Questions to Ask JWs about the WTBTS View of The Resurrection

• Are “you” no more than your personal information?
• Can data be resurrected from the dead?
• Is a copy the same thing as an original?
• If God can copy you after you are dead, he can easily make a copy of you right now. If confronted with that copy/clone right now, would you be willing to go out of existence so that clone can live and supposedly be you? Would you want him or her sleeping with your spouse or cuddling up to your children, while you meekly go “out of existence?”
• Will the Jesus you meet in Heaven (provided you are one of the elite JWs who actually go to Heav­en) be the same Jesus Who died for you on earth? If he is a different Jesus, who never suffered and died for you, why would you even care to meet Him? (2 Corinthians 11:4.)

The Not-so-terrible Fate of the Wicked

What happens to evil people (mostly “unfaithful” ex-JWs or mass murderers) when they die? Are they “re-created,” “re-pat­terned,” “reactivated,” or whatever? No, according to WTBTS doctrine, they are “forgotten” by God. They got erased right off God’s “hard drive” brain, and now they are nowhere. But here is the interesting thing to remember: The wicked dead are essen­tially in the same place -non-existence-as the faithful JW who went door to door slaving for the organization for 65 or more years! It’s just that the evil man has no copy/clone living out his memories for him alongside the copies/clones of his family and friends.

The Million-dollar Question

What happened to the body of Jesus? The WTBTS has taught many different scenarios regarding the fate of the Lord’s physical remains; all of which are wrong.

1. 1888 – “Our Lord’s human body was, how­ever, supernaturally removed from the tomb; because had it remained there it would have been an insurmountable obstacle to the faith of the disciples, who were not yet instructed in spiritual things …”²³The Time is at Hand, 1888, p.129, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA
2. 1923 – “How God preserved it from corruption we may not know; we only know he removed it,”²⁴The WATCHTOWER, March 15, 1923, p.91, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA
3. 1930 – “As concerns the literal body in which the Lord was crucified, this much may be said: that God disposed of it according to his own perfect knowledge, likely dissolving it into dust …”²⁵The WATCHTOWER, August 15, 1930, p250, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn New York, USA
4. 1953 – “It was disposed of by Jehovah God, dissolved into its constituent elements or at­oms.”²⁶The WATCHTOWER, September 1, 1953, p.518, WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Brooklyn, New York, USA
5. 2006 – “It is hidden in a broom closet at Brook­lyn headquarters.”

Okay, so we made up that last one; but who cares! It’s somewhere, and the WTBTS certainly hasn’t any idea of where it went!

What really happened to the body of Jesus, according to the Bible?

Christians do know where Christ’s body is:

… He has risen, just as He said … (Matthew 28:6, NIV)

Mark 16:46 states that Joseph of Arimathea took HIM down, wrapped HIM in the linen sheet, and laid HIM in a tomb. HIM who? If Jesus had ceased to exist, then the body of Jesus was no longer HIM! Picking up in Mark 16:6, the angel said, “HE has risen.” HE who? HE Jesus, the One Who had been laid in the tomb.

Hallelujah!Ω

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