New heavens and a new earth (1953)
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"New Heavens and A New Earth"
"New Heavens and A New Earth"
"The new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith Jehovah."
—Isoiah 66:22, American Standard Version.
PUBLISHERS
WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.
INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
3,600,000 Edition
COPYRIGHT, 1953
by
WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY
Made in the United States of America
DEDICATED
to the honor and praise of the divine Creator of the new heavens and the new earth for the blessing of mankind of all nations, tribes, peoples and languages.
Abbreviations of Bible versions quoted or cited in this book
AS - American Standard Version, by the American Committee of Revision
AT - An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed
CB - The Holy Bible, translated by the Catholic Biblical Association of America
Da - The 'Holy Scriptures', a New Translation, by J. N. Darby
Dy - Translation of the Latin Vulgate made at Douay and Rheims
ED - The Emphatic Diaglott, a translation of 'what is commonly styled the New Testament', by Benjamin Wilson
Fn - The Holy Bible in Modern English, by Ferrar Fenton
Mo - A New Translation of The Bible, by James Moffatt
NW - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Ro - The Emphasised Bible, a New Translation, by J. B. Rotherham
RS - Revised Standard Version, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America
So - Books of the Hebrew Bible, by the Soncino Press, London and Bournemouth, England
Wr - The Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures (Roman Catholic)
Ws - The New Testament, a Translation in the Language of the People, by Chas. B. Williams
Yg - The Holy Bible, translated by Robert Young
Any quotation not followed by any specific abbreviation is from the Authorized or King James Version. The names of the books of the Bible are abbreviated when indicated after a quotation.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1 Their Creator . . . . .
"New Heavens and A New Earth"
CHAPTER I
Their Creator
THE creating of new heavens and a new earth is now under way. This is an all-powerful reason for lovers of truth, righteousness, liberty and life in peace and happiness to overflow with irrepressible joy. After almost six thousand years of human sorrow, suffering and death, at last permanent relief is near at hand and will be realized within this generation. A clean, just and healthful new world is immediately before them and they may enter into it. Now, when the outlook for this old world is utterly hopeless, it is high time for persons who long for life under perfect conditions to inform themselves and prove whether this startling good news is true. If it is true—and it can be proved true upon the highest authority—then it is only reasonable that they prepare for it, letting it be a guide to their present course of action. In view of the shortness of the time, it is most urgent that they do so. This will save them from sharing the certain destruction of a doomed old world and guarantee them a joyful entrance into the new world that will endure forever with blessings for its inhabitants.
2 The creation of new heavens and a new earth comes about in a manner far different from what high-minded men presume. The failure of their ideas about it argues that they do not understand it and that they take too much to themselves and improperly rely upon what mere men of this old world do. In January, 1918, months before the close of World War I, the president of the United States proposed a League of Nations for the postwar world. The Protestant religious organization, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (replaced in 1951 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America), came out in favor of the proposal. Disclosing how it viewed matters of universal importance, the religious Council published this statement in January of 1919:
3 "The time has come to organize the world for truth, right, justice and humanity. To this end as Christians we urge the establishment of a League of Free Nations at the coming Peace Conference. Such a league is not merely a peace expedient, it is rather the political expression of the kingdom of God on earth. The League of Nations is rooted in the gospel. Like the gospel, its objective is 'Peace on earth, good will toward men'. Like the gospel, its appeal is universal.
"The hericiod死 will have died in vain unless out of victory shall come a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.—2 Peter 3:13.
5 "The church can give a spirit of good will, without which no League of Nations can endure."
By this statement the Council of Churches predicted that the League of Nations would prove to be the political expression of God's kingdom on earth and that it would fulfill the prophecy of 2 Peter 3:13 and introduce a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness would dwell. Shortly the League became a reality, with Christendom's backing. But did it fulfill the Council of Churches' prediction? The kingdom of God is prophesied to last forever; but the League of Nations, its claimed "political expression", failed and went into the abyss of helplessness at the outbreak of World War II in 1939. It had not produced a "new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness", even among its member nations. The "heroic dead" of the nations victorious in World War I had evidently died in vain. In 1945, over the blood and agony of millions more dead heroes, the United Nations succeeded to the League of Nations. After years of operation it offers no more promise than the defunct League of Nations did of establishing a new heavens and a new earth out of victory in World War II. Never did less righteousness dwell in this earth, never was there more moral corruption and human degradation. The entrance of the postwar world into the atomic era, and later into the era of the hydrogen bomb, has not elevated its spirit or transformed this earth into a place of beauty and bright hope for mankind.
7 As if men of this old world, by combinations of nations and with the backing of the religious systems of Christendom, could create new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness controlled! It is beyond the power of feeble, imperfect, selfish man to do.
This has been admitted even by the American president who ordered the atomic bomb to be dropped upon Hiroshima, Japan, and who, in 1950, in an international armaments race, ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to produce the hydrogen bomb and asked the American Congress to furnish the vast sum of money for this. The following year this statement came from him, as reported in the New York Times of October 8, 1951: "CINCINNATI, Oct. 7—President Truman called on Protestant churchmen representing more than a score of major denominations today to 'turn the hearts and souls of men from rancor and hatred to love and the spirit of true brotherhood.' In a message read before the inaugurating session of United Church Men, the President told the assembled laymen that while they 'may not hope to create a new heaven and a new earth' at the present time, they could through prayer and labor 'strive to leave this world a little better' than they had found it." The explosion of the first hydrogen bomb the very next year boomed out a disconcerting emphasis to the president's words.
8 No men were ever authorized to create new heavens and a new earth. It is presumptuous for them to hope to do so themselves at any time, present or future. Their use of the expression "new heavens and a new earth" is in fact a borrowed one and they have misappropriated it and misapplied it. They have thus subjected trusting people to great disappointment and have turned the attention of mankind away from the true and only creator of the righteous new world. Although the hopes of men who look to men crash around them in bitter failure, the creating of the new heavens and new earth moves on to full accomplishment.
Men of faith and of enlightened vision who look to the right source of these long-awaited things see the grand work in process and rejoice. They behold the millenniums-old promise of these good things coming true. They trust in the same promise that the inspired writer did, who nineteen centuries ago wrote: "There are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell." The writer of that was Simon Peter, of the city of Bethsaida. He was a loyal follower and faithful apostle of Jesus Christ, and he penned these sublime words in his second letter to his fellow Christians, chapter three, verse thirteen.* The time of awaiting these things in full is now about over.
To whose promise was the apostle Peter referring with such confidence that the promise would not fail but was worth waiting for? Not a mere man's promise. True, the prophet Isaiah uttered and wrote down the promise over seven centuries before the apostle Peter's letter, but he was merely quoting by inspiration the great Promiser, who himself said: "Lo, I am creating new heavens, and a new earth, and the former things are not remembered, nor do they ascend on the heart." (Isa. 65:17, Yg†) The Promiser of these new things is also their Creator. That is why he speaks the promise as if he were already carrying it out, although it was over twenty-six centuries in advance.
10 And who is this confident Promiser and Creator?
Not some nameless "lord", whose identity would be lost among the many personages in heaven and in earth who are called "lord". No, but he discloses his name, that we may not look to the wrong source or channel for the fulfillment of the promise; and he puts his own chosen name before the statement of his promise, declaring: "Therefore, thus said the Lord Jehovah." (Isa. 65:13, Yg) He is the great Creator of all things, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. For the first two thousand years from man's creation he was known to men of faith by that name "Jehovah"; but for over nineteen hundred years after that, beginning with faithful Abraham the Hebrew, he was almost exclusively associated with the Hebrews and Israelites and Jews. He is the living and true God.
11 The Hebrews, Israelites and Jews are not responsible for God's unusual name. No creature in heaven or on earth gave it to him. He chose it for himself. He gave it to himself. He announced it as his own, saying: "I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images." (Isa. 42:8, AS; Yg) Men who claim to know and represent and worship God have become ashamed of that name; but the exclusive Owner of it is not ashamed of it. He is not afraid of having his name known because of his deeds and associations that are reported in the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, like a hunted criminal afraid of being identified because of his dark deeds and incriminating associates. He does not fear that harm will come to anyone if his name is made known in connection with his works, his promises and his people. He has chosen no poor name, but has already covered it with matchless glory and will glorify it still more in the future.
12 If he had no personal name by which we could speak of him and address him, there would be no sense in the third of his Ten Commandments given to the nation of Israel through the prophet Moses; which commands: "You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way, for Jehovah will not leave the one unpunished who takes up his name in a worthless way." Likewise, there would be no sense in the prayer that Jesus Christ taught his followers to address to God, saying: "Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified." (Ex. 20:7 and Matt. 6:9, NW) The divine command not to take up God's name in a worthless way, was not a command never to pronounce it, nor a command always to use some unauthorized, inferior substitute for it, but a command never to misuse it. That the true Creator of the new heavens and earth may be honorably identified we are obliged to mention his unique name "Jehovah" in all its connections.
RELIABILITY OF HIS PROMISE
18 The promise of new heavens and a new earth is backed by a living Personage, with ample power to fulfill it regardless of how marvelous these new things will be. It is foolish for puny man, whose 200-inch telescope, according to the latest estimate, pierces the depths of the universe to a distance of about two billion light-years, to say, "How do we know there is a God? None of us here on earth have ever seen him!" It is good that mankind, from the first man on, has never seen him.
Man is not so constructed as to be able to see his Creator and remain alive. When the prophet Moses on top of Mount Sinai in Arabia asked to see his face, Jehovah by his invisible representative there answered: "You are not able to see my face, because no man may see me and yet live." (Ex. 33:20, NW) The nation of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai were so terrified at the outward manifestation of Jehovah's unseen presence on the mountain and his voice out of the invisible that they said to Moses, the mediator between them and God: "You speak with us and let us listen, but let not God speak with us for fear we may die." "Do not let me hear again the voice of Jehovah my God and this great fire do not let me see any more, that I may not die." God said that they spoke sensibly in so speaking. (Ex. 20:18, 19 and Deut. 18:16, 17, NW) Only the fool asks to see God personally in order to be convinced of his existence. All the creation with which man is in touch by means of his sense of sight, hearing, taste, feeling and smell testifies that God the Creator of all exists, so that such a request to see before believing is without excuse.—Rom. 1:19, 20, NW.
14 The great truth stated in his written Word, that God always was and had no beginning, may stun us. Our minds can hardly take it in, but it is not too much for reasonable faith. We must not liken God to ourselves and put our limitations upon him. Because he is the great First Cause of all creation he must always have been, during the endless past, so that what seems to be a long stretch of time to us mortals is but a short space of time to him. In prayer Moses said to him: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." (Ps. 90:2, 4) Emphasizing His timelessness, the apostle Paul prayed: "Now to the King of eternity, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Tim. 1:17, NW) Angels have been reported as swearing "by him who lives forever", yes, "by the One who lives for ever and ever, who created the heaven and the things in it and the sea and the things in it." (Dan. 12:7, AT; Rev. 10:6, NW) He it is "who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy". (Isa. 57:15, RS) Because of his eternal existence and his incorruptibility he will always remain the God supreme and true, and all the false gods of this present short time will perish and prove to be no gods. It is as the prophet Jeremiah wrote: "Jehovah is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting King: at his wrath the earth tremble, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens." (Jer. 10:10-12, AS) Only due to the fact that this true God is without beginning and without end mankind will be sustained in endless life in the new earth that he creates along with new heavens.
15 Even his enemies and those on earth who doubt his existence will shortly be forced to know that he is supreme and all creatures are his inferiors.
The fervent prayer was not uttered to him nor recorded in his Holy Bible all for nothing: "Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: that men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth." (Ps. 83:17, 18) To vindicate himself as the Supreme Sovereign he will answer this prayer of his faithful servant. To fit his unequaled position, his throne is in the heavens and our earthly globe is beneath his feet. "Thus said Jehovah: The heavens are My throne, and the earth My footstool." (Isa. 66:1, Yg; Da; AS) The center of the boundless universe is therefore at God's throne; it is not at the astral center of the great galaxy of numberless galaxies or island universes that now exist within or beyond the range of man's visual powers. As the creative center, God is the necessary foundation of all creation. All the creation revolves around him as its source. The centripetal force of this vast system of animate and inanimate things is inward toward him. All is inseparably united to him.
18 Since God is and is supreme, there must be theocracy throughout all parts of creation, high and low. Simply explained, theocracy means "God-rule", that is, the absolute rulership by God. This means that his creation is operated and controlled by divine law. That is the one scientific formula that applies all the way from the great island universes or galaxies down to the inside of a mere atom of matter. Natural law, which our scientists are at great pains to investigate and understand, is merely a part of theocratic law. There are no areas in all heaven and earth that lie apart from theocratic rule, God's rightful sovereignty.
There are no islands isolated from the mainland of his creation. There is no part of creation so distant as to be beyond the reach of his power. There would be no means to live or exist in places of isolation.
17 All is dependent upon the Sovereign Creator. His universal theocratic laws are bigger and stronger than we human mortals are. We cannot halt or alter the operation of his laws, nor can man now equipped with the atomic bomb and its sister, the hydrogen bomb, wreck the Creator's universe. To try to go contrary to the fixed outworking of his laws always works to our unhappiness, harm and destruction. To bring ourselves into harmony with his theocratic law and order means wisdom and understanding on our part. It makes our eternal life in the Creator's righteous new world certain.
18 It would be impossible for us to know the full truth about this Creator God by merely trying to read the visible universe like a book, including the so-called "book of nature", that has to be decoded or deciphered. Well knowing this, the Creator has been delighted to reveal himself to inquiring men who have faith. For the good of the generations to come he has turned Author and has caused this revelation to be written under inspiration in the Holy Scriptures. The sacred Bible is his creation. Without it, how would we know God's name, his miraculous deeds and his purpose now to create new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness is to dwell? Worldly scientists try to understand how and by what physical laws created things operate, but they never learn how the Creator of such things works.
They neglect the Creator's written Word, his Law Book. Viewing it from the standpoint of religious creeds and tradition, they criticize the Bible, call it unscientific and put physical law and matter above the Bible. That is why they continue in destructive darkness. We will not follow them. We will accept God as our Creator and take his Word.
19 God does not believe in keeping us in ignorance and dependent upon worldly scientists. He invites us to come and ask him questions concerning his purposes and operations, and to request an answer: "Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me of the things to come; concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me. It is I that have made the earth, and created man upon it; it is I, my hands, that have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded." (Isa. 45:11, 12, Da; AS; Yg; So) To respond to this invitation to inquire of Jehovah the Creator, we must go to his written revelation, the Holy Bible, and study it with the help of his theocratic organization. We must come, not defiantly challenging his right and ability to make things occur his way nor commanding him to do things for us or dictating the work of his hands, but humbly and sincerely asking for information and guidance and requesting an answer in faith. (Jas. 1:5) This we shall now do, that we may learn how he creates the righteous new heavens and earth and how we may gain life everlasting in that glorious new world.
For information what does God invite us to do, and how and with what attitude must we do so?
CHAPTER II
The Invisible Heavens
"HEAVEN," in its simplest sense, means that which is heaved or lifted up, higher than the earth. "The heavens are higher than the earth," is the way the Creator himself states the matter. (Isa. 55:9) In defining the Greek word for it (ou-ra-nos') the famous Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C., Aristotle, said: "According to its true sense we call it heaven [ou-ra-nos'] from being the boundary of the things above." (Peri' Kos'mon, or, "On the Universe") No proper understanding of the creation of the righteous new heavens and new earth can be reached without our first examining and understanding the invisible heavens. Because "science" cannot demonstrate such a thing in its laboratories it refuses to believe in immaterial, invisible heavens that the most powerful telescopes and microscopes cannot penetrate. It even denies the existence of a Creator God and prefers to speak of a "creative génie"* using a word of Arabian mythology. The Holy Bible is infinitely above the materialistic science of this world, because it discloses and proves the fact of an invisible, supreme, intelligent, eternal God and the fact of an invisible realm of life in which countless spirit creatures of God live and carry on their activities.
These facts throw materialistic science off its base in its most fundamental theories, so that it cannot reason straight. "God is a Spirit." (John 4:24, AS; NW) "God is a spiritual Being." (Ws) So said Jesus Christ, who himself descended from the invisible heavens. This fact accounts for it that materialistic science cannot see God or peer into the realm of invisible heavenly life.
2 The creating of the spirit realm was long before the creating of the material universe with its billions of independent galaxies like our own Milky Way. Proving this fact and in order to humble man who is a latecomer or recent arrival in creation, Jehovah put this question to the sorely tried but patient Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Another translation, rendering this last question quite freely, says: "Who laid the corner-stone, when the morning-stars were singing, and all the angels chanted in their joy?" Another free translation says: "And all the heavenly beings shouted for joy."—Job 38:4:7, RS; Mo; AT.
3 The Creator thus points out that there were "sons of God" before the creation of earth and man's appearance upon it. The "morning stars" mentioned in connection with these heavenly sons of God were not literal, inanimate, material stars.
As the morning stars are mentioned in a parallel way with the sons of God, this may be just a symbolical way of describing these sons of God. As the morning star in our planetary system shines brightly in our heavens before the rising of the sun, so these heavenly sons of God are brightly shining creatures, like a blinding lightning flash.
4 There was a time when God had no sons. He had not yet begun creating the invisible heavens. He was then all alone in eternal space. But he was not lonesome. To be lonesome would have meant something was lacking for him. But he is completely self-sufficient and is absolutely not dependent on anyone else. Single life was not monotonous for him. His unsearchable qualities are perfectly balanced, and his thinking processes brought him satisfying delight. But he is not a mere thinker. He is an active God and he has pleasure too in work. What his movements were during the past eternity of his single being we do not know, but the "glory of the incorruptible God" always attended him. (Rom. 1:23, NW) Carried away with the thought of this the psalmist sings out: "Bless Jehovah, O my soul! Jehovah my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with majesty and splendour; covering thyself with light as with a garment;" (Ps. 104:1, 2, Da; AS) But there was no one to enjoy God for what he is. In the course of time he was pleased to begin to let others enjoy his goodness and companionship. It was then he purposed to create living creatures. This would mean undertaking responsibility for those who would become dependent upon him, but he was glad to take on this responsibility.
The creatures that he would make his sons would find unspeakable pleasure in him. In turn, he would find pleasure in them. He would be worthy of all they would render to him of appreciation, praise and service: "You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created."—Rev. 4:11, NW.
"THE BEGINNING OF THE CREATION BY GOD"
5 What, now, was the first creation by God? Of God it is written: "He that sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord makes sport of them." Also: "It is he who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth." "Jehovah, his throne is in heaven." (Ps. 2:4 and Isa. 40:22, AT; Ps. 11:4, A8) But these scriptures apply since God's creation of the earth and the rising of human kings upon it; they do not mean that God needed to sit down and that first he created a chair or throne for himself. What need does he have of such a thing, when, as it is written at Job 26:7 (AT), "he hangs the earth upon nothing"? No, God's first creation was something alive and intelligent. Out of what did God produce this first creation? It is hard for some to see how God could create something out of nothing. Hence they invent or believe in dualism, the theory that matter always was, the same as God always was, eternal, necessary and independent of God; and that God was merely the organizer and shaper of matter into different forms, and imparted life to it. But in trying to do away with the miracle of God's creating things out of nothing, these dualists create a miracle of their own and always leave unanswered the question: From where did this inanimate, unintelligent matter come?
If God is not the first and only Great Cause of all matter, then who else or what else is? Nihil ex nihilo, meaning "nothing (comes) out of nothing", may be true, but that is true only without God's presence, for nothing cannot of itself produce something. Today, matter is understood to be concentrated energy, and God is the source of all energy. The dualist theory is not necessary, it does not give the satisfactory explanation, it does not hold true, it is not Scriptural. God remains the First Cause of all else.
6 Jehovah's first creation answers our question for us, at Revelation 3:14, 21, in these words: "These are the things the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God: '...I conquered and sat down with my Father in his throne,'" (NW) Jesus Christ, now glorified in heaven since his return nineteen centuries ago, is the one who thus identifies himself as God's first creation. But, besides him, two or three other witnesses point to the same fact.
7 The apostle Paul testifies of him: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him. Also he is before all other things and by means of him all other things were made to exist, and he is the head of the body, the congregation. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he might become the one who is first in all things, because God saw good for all fullness to dwell in him."
(Col. 1:15-19, NW) It is useless for believers in a trinity to argue that the expression "the firstborn of all creation" does not mean that Jesus Christ was a creation by God but means that he is God's Chief or Principal One with first privileges; for then, to follow the same line of reasoning, the expression in verse 18, "the firstborn from the dead," would mean that Jesus Christ never died, was never one of the dead. But since all the scriptures testify that Jesus Christ was dead parts of three days and was resurrected, the expression "the firstborn from the dead" means he was the first one to be raised from death to complete, endless life. Likewise the corresponding expression "the firstborn of all creation" means he was the first one to be created. He is a creature; he was not coeternal with God. Being heavenly, he was spirit like God.
8 Until his first creation Jehovah God was sonless; by it he became a father. We have seen that the theory of dualism is without foundation and that there was no coexistent matter present when God made himself a father. So there was no female principle then in existence, the way certain Jesuit priests argue in order to glorify motherhood to an equality with God or even to a superiority over God. So Jehovah God used nothing female, no mother, by which to produce his first son. For this reason he is rightly called "the only-begotten Son of God", and he was given a "glory such as belongs to an only-begotten son from a father". (John 3:18; 1:14, NW) In what way, then, do all the other "sons of God" not disprove that this first-born Son is God's "only-begotten Son"?
It is because he is the only direct Son of Jehovah God and by the co-operation of this Son he afterward brought forth all his other sons. The testimony of the apostle Paul quoted above bears out this truth. So does the testimony of the apostle John. At John 1:1-4 he speaks of God's only-begotten Son as "The Word" and he starts at the beginning of the history of creation, saying: "Originally the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god [the Word was divine, AT] . . . . All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence. What has come into existence by means of him was life, and the life was the light of men."—NW; see also Moffatt, Stage, Boehmer, Pfaefflin, Menge, Newcome (Revised) translations.
9 As a word is the product of a speaker or writer, so the Word was the first creation of God, and by means of his only-begotten Son, the Word, God gave life to all other creatures. By means of him he also now makes it possible for fallen, dying mankind to gain everlasting life in the righteous world of the "new heavens and a new earth." Thus he is the "word of life", just as the same apostle John writes: "That which was from when a beginning was made, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have viewed attentively and our hands felt, concerning the word of life, (yes, the life was made manifest, and we have seen and are bearing witness and reporting to you the everlasting life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us)."—1 John 1:1, 2, NW. 10 Admitting that his life was from his heavenly Father, Jesus Christ said: "Just as the living Father sent me forth and I live because of the Father, he also that feeds on me, even that one will live because of me."
(John 6:57, NW) Because the other intelligent creatures of heaven received their life from God, the Scriptures speak of them as "the sons of God". It is reported that at times they assembled together before God, even down to the time when Satan the Devil came into existence: "Now it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, that Satan also came among them." (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7, AS) These heavenly sons of God are generally spoken of as angels. As angels means "messengers", this term describes the general service that they render for God. Does that mean that God's only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, is an angel? When Jesus came to earth he repeatedly said that God his Father had sent him: "I seek not my own will but the will of him that sent me. Also the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me." (John 5:23, 24, 30, 37, NW)* And we read a prophecy of his coming to the temple of God, at Malachias 3:1 (Dy), in these words: "Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord whom you seek, and the angel of the testament whom you desire shall come to his temple. Behold he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts." It is generally agreed and it is Scripturally supported that there Jesus Christ is foretold as the "angel of the testament", or, the "messenger of the covenant" (Wr).
11 The "angel of the testament" is understood to be the same as the angel whom Jehovah God promised to send before Moses and the nation of Israel on their journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land: "Here I am sending an angel ahead of you to keep you on the road and to bring you into the place that I have prepared. Watch yourself because of him and obey his voice. Do not behave rebelliously against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, because my name is within him." (Ex. 23:20, 21, 23; 32:34; 33:2, NW) Because Jehovah's name was within this angel, it strongly indicates that the angel was Jesus Christ in his prehuman spirit form. (1 Cor. 10:1-4) He is the chief one to declare, uphold and vindicate his Father's name Jehovah. On earth he said: "I have come in the name of my Father." He prayed to God: "Father, glorify your name." And when he made his kinglike ride into Jerusalem, the multitudes hailed him with the cry foretold at Psalm 118:26: "Blessed is he that comes in Jehovah's name, even the king of Israel!" (John 5:43; 12:12, 13, 28, NW) His name Jesus means "Jehovah is salvation".
12 Because Jesus Christ is the First-born and the only-begotten Son of God, he is generally distinguished from the rest of the heavenly angels and is spoken of outstandingly as the Son. The apostle Paul says: 'So he has become better than the angels to the extent that he has inherited a name more excellent than theirs. For example, to which one of the angels did he ever say: 'You are my Son; today I have become your Father?' And again: 'I shall be a Father to him, and he will be a Son to me'?
But when he again brings his Firstborn into the inhabited earth, he says: 'And let all God's angels worship him.' . . . But with reference to which one of the angels has he ever said: 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a stool for your feet'?" (Heb. 1:4-13, NW) But the fact that Jesus Christ is here distinguished from the other angels does not mean that he is not also an angel of God; otherwise, the fact that Jesus Christ is here distinguished as the Son of God would mean that the other angels are not sons of God. Jesus Christ is designated as God's Son, not in contrast with the angels, but in contrast with the previous prophets, by means of whom God used to speak to men.-Heb. 1:1-3.
13 From his superiority over the other angels the prehuman first-born Son of God could be called an "archangel". Before his coming down to earth as a man he was not known in heaven as Jesus Christ. He served as God's Word or representative Spokesman to all other creatures: "The name he is called is The Word of God." (Rev. 19:13, NW) Besides this official name or title he must have had a personal name. The Scriptures give the names of only two heavenly angels before God's only-begotten Son became a man on earth, namely, Michael and Gabriel; but this is sufficient to show that God has given all the angels personal names. Psalm 147:4 tells us God even calls all the stars by their names. (Dan. 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26) Only one of the two angels named is called an archangel, namely, Michael. Of him we read: "When Michael the archangel had a difference with the Devil and was disputing about Moses' body, he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms, but said: 'May Jehovah rebuke you.'" (Jude 9, NW) The fact that Michael disputed there about Moses' body on the top of Mount Nebo, where he died, argues strongly that this archangel was the angel whom Jehovah promised to send before Moses and the nation of Israel and within whom Jehovah's name was.
This point is further argued when an angel said to the prophet Daniel: "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people."—Dan. 12:1, AS; see also AT; Mo.
14 Are there other archangels besides Michael? Does Daniel's prophecy indicate this when it speaks of him as "one of the chief princes"? We read the angel's words to Daniel: "The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, so I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia . . . But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I am through with him, lo, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince." (Dan. 10:13, 20, 21, R8) Since the Scriptures mention or name no other archangels than Michael, the expression "one of the chief princes" distinguishes him from the "prince of the kingdom of Persia" and the "prince of Greece". These latter two princes stood like guardian spirits for Persia and Greece just as Michael stood for the children of Daniel's people, the Israelites. But those princes of Persia and of Greece were not "princes" within Jehovah's theocratic organization, for they withstood and fought against Jehovah's angel with Michael at his side.
Hence they were not archangels within Jehovah's organization like Michael, but were part of the rebel organization of which Persia and Greece under their princely charge were a part. This would leave Michael as the ranking archangel in Jehovah's theocratic organization.
15 Time came when the archangel Michael fought against those spirit princes of Persia and Greece and the other spirit princes over other world powers of the enemy organization. According to the Bible time schedule this fight was of recent date, and Revelation 12:7-10 describes the fight: "And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels [including the princes of Persia and Greece] battled but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven say: 'Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our God!'" (NW) What does Michael's action here for the kingdom of God and for the authority of his Christ prove in the light of the other evidence presented above? It proves that Michael the archangel is no other than the only-begotten Son of God, now Jesus Christ. The very name Michael means "Who is like God?"
and indicates that Jehovah God is without like or equal and that Michael his archangel is his great Champion and Vindicator.
16 The angels obedient to God their Father are glorious creatures. There is no reason to doubt their existence, for many eyewitnesses on earth have seen them materialized in flesh and then disappearing. At times they have appeared in a glory that has struck terror to the beholders. Dan. 10:4-11; Matt. 28:1-4; Luke 2:8-15) "Also with reference to the angels he says: 'And he makes his angels spirits, and his public servants a flame of fire.'" (Heb. 1:7, NW; Ps. 104:4) Man is lower than the angels, so that in making man God's work of creation moved from a higher to a lower order of creation. So when the only-begotten Son of God became a man, prophetic Psalm 8 began going into fulfillment, just as the apostle Paul comments: "A certain witness has given proof somewhere, saying: 'What is man so that you are mindful of him, or the son of man so that you look after him? You made him a little lower than angels.' ...we behold Jesus, who has been made a little lower than angels." (Heb. 2:6-9, NW; Ps. 8:4-8) Accordingly angels have powers superior to those of man. They are able to "fly swiftly" through interstellar space. Considering the distances they have to cover and in the amount of time, their speed of flight must be terrific. (Dan. 9:21) God can use angels for the destruction of mankind, as when his passover angel sped throughout Egypt in the middle of the night and killed Egypt's first-born among man and beast, doubtless millions of lives. In one night, too, his angel destroyed 185,000 Assyrian warriors under Sennacherib, who were threatening Jerusalem.
(Ex. 3:2; 12:29, 30; 14:19, 20; 2 Ki. 19:35, 36) God also uses angels for helpful service to his faithful people on earth: "Are they not all spirits for public service, sent forth to minister for those who are going to inherit salvation?"—Heb. 1:14, NW.
17 The prophet Daniel was given a vision of hundreds of millions of angels before God's throne. (Dan. 7:9, 10) They are all organized and placed in the positions of service, just as the Supreme Sovereign of heaven pleases. Some serve in the capacity of seraphs and others in the capacity of cherubs. (Gen. 3:24; Isa. 6:1-6; Ezek. 10:1-20) All together, they form the invisible heavenly organization of Jehovah God, in complete subjection to him and lovingly obedient to him as their theocratic Head and Life-giver. From the time of Jehovah's prophetic utterance at Genesis 3:15 concerning the seed of the woman, this heavenly universal organization has been compared to a faithful wife of a husband and has been spoken of as Jehovah's woman or wife. He, the Creator of this heavenly organization, is its husband, who fathers the seed or offspring it brings forth. This heavenly universal organization is the one that is addressed, at Isaiah 54:5, 6 (AS): "Thy Maker is thy husband; Jehovah of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is thy Redeemer; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For Jehovah hath called thee as a wife." (Gal. 4:26, 27) This angelic organization, therefore, plays a vital role in God's creation of the righteous new heavens and earth, and we must always take it into consideration the way the sacred Scriptures do.
This will help us to determine whether "new heavens" means the destruction of the stars and planets now visible to man in the sky and the creation of new ones, or means something more reasonable.
CHAPTER III
Creation of the Planet Earth
DESCRIBING it as one great divine act of creation that provided all the tremendous masses of matter that were involved, Genesis 1:1 opens up the Holy Bible with the words: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." —NW.
2 The beginning here mentioned does not refer to the creation of the invisible heavenly spirit realm and its creatures. It refers to the beginning of the history of the planets, stars and island universes or galaxies within the range of man's sight, and the planet earth beneath his feet. The concluding statement of this first general account of creation says: "This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their being created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven." (Gen. 2:4, NW) How long ago was that beginning of the universe's history? The Bible does not state. Modern science estimates the average age of the stars in the island universe or Milky Way, of which our solar system is a part, to be three to four billion years. Genesis 1:1 by its silence on a date allows for that estimate of time or any future correction of it. By time-measuring devices called "radioactive clocks" the scientists estimate the age of earth's rock to be around three and one-half billion years.
However, there are a number of factors entering into the measurement of earth's age by this means that we cannot be sure about. Hence the estimate of earth's age by this means is not wholly reliable. The biggest factor that modern science disregards in its measurements and investigations is God, the Creator himself. This cannot but throw all their calculations off. "By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth."—Ps. 33:6, AS.
3 "God created." (Gen. 1:1) The Hebrew word translated "God" is El.o.him'. This is the plural number of the word El.o'ah, meaning "God". Although the word El.o.him' is in the plural number, the verb "created" (Hebrew, baRa') is in the singular number, so that we cannot translate it "Gods created", as atheists want to do. Some would translate Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning he created gods with the heavens and the earth." They would make it agree with the Babylonian epic of Creation, which says: "When on high heaven had not been called by name, the earth below a name had not received—... when no gods at all had come into existence, not [yet] called by name, not [yet] with their destinies fixed—then it was that the gods were created within them." But their attempted translation betrays gross ignorance of the Hebrew, for in the entire creation account from Genesis 1:1 to 2:4 El.o.him' occurs thirty-five times in connection with what God did and said, and every time the verb is in the singular number, showing that El.o.him' is the subject of the verb and means one Person.
Many clergymen follow the pagans in believing in a trinity. They try to see in the plural title El.o.him' a support for their teaching that there are "three persons in one God", namely, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. However, el.o.him' means "gods" only when the Scriptures apply this plural word to the false pagan deities. The pagan Philistines applied the title el.o.him' to their fish-god Dagon. (Judg. 16:23; 24; 1 Sam. 5:7) If, then, the trinitarians argue that the use of El.o.him' with a singular verb means there are three coeternal, coequal Persons in one God, then the same thing must hold true for the fish-god Dagon: he must be three persons in one God. Further, there is the Hebrew word (a.dón') meaning "master" or "lord". In the Scriptures this is often applied in its plural form (a.do.nim') to one man or person, as at Genesis 24:9, 10, 51; 39:2-20, 40:1; 42:30, 33; Exodus 21:4, 6, 8; Judges 19:11, 12; Isaiah 19:4; Malachi 1:6. The plural number of a title is thus used to apply to just one individual or person, to denote his excellence, majesty or superiority in this capacity. In the same way, El.o.him', as applied to the Creator, is the plural of majesty, excellence and supremacy; it does not mean he is mysteriously a trinity. In harmony with this fact the Greek Septuagint Version of the Scriptures translates El.o.him' with the singular title ho The.os', and the Latin Vulgate with the singular De.us'. Thus El.o.him'* is first of all connected with creation. He is the Creator.
5 His inspired account of creation continues: "Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of the surging waters, and God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters."
Gen. 1:2, NW.
The once popular theory that the earthly globe was of secondary origin, that is, that its mass was pulled out from the mass of the sun by the attractive power of some still larger sun that was passing by, has now been abandoned by almost all scientists. The Bible does not call for such a tidal theory of earth's creation. Scientific theory is, however, that at a certain stage of development the protoearth was a brilliantly hot ball of gas that finally liquefied and then hardened. So time was when the infant earth was a glowing globe of melted rock and no solid crust existed. As a result of internal processes this molten spheroid became surrounded with a thick atmosphere of air, water vapors and, likely, some other extremely vaporizable substances. Science reasons that earth became surrounded with a "liquid envelope". This would all be prior to the six days of creation during which God prepared the earth for human creatures to occupy. Without describing how it came about, his record says surging waters covered the globe. Underneath that great watery abyss lay the hard crust of the earth. Evidently the internal heat of the earth still warmed those waters, but no form of life, no one-celled organisms nor any subsea vegetable life existed in them. As the Creator gazed at earth at this stage the surface of its waters was formless, that is, featureless, being empty and waste. Nothing poked itself up above their surface.
7 Darkness was upon the surface of the surging waters.
How so? By God's will. "I am Jehovah, and there is none else; forming the light and creating darkness." (Isa. 45:6, 7, Da) In a lesson on creation Jehovah asked the patient Job: "Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb; when I made clouds the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it?" (Job 38:8, 9, AS) It is known that in our own Milky Way or Galaxy there are critical regions for observation that are hidden from human eyes by layers of cosmic dust, which even the 200-inch telescope on Mount Palomar, California, cannot penetrate, although the "blind" radio telescope is able to do so. It is possible that by such means Almighty God clothed the earth covered with water and vapor in a dense darkness, until the critical moment. Despite the darkness "God's active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters". Ferrar Fenton's translation reads: "But the breath of God vibrated over its fluid face." (Gen. 1:2) The expression "active force" here translates the Hebrew word ru'ahh. An American Translation renders it "a tempestuous wind", which would have dispelled the thick vapory cloud that encased the earth. "Tempestuous wind" does not convey the thought of more than the force of a stormy wind operating upon the waters. True, ru'ahh is elsewhere rendered by translators as "blast, breath, tempest, wind, spirit"; but by the movement of this ru'ahh there was more than the mere agitation of the water's surface as by a raging wind. There was the operation, not necessarily violent or noisy, of the invisible "active force" of the Creator to accomplish his will. It was not the supposed third person of an imaginary, unscriptural "trinity".
DAY ONE
"And God proceeded to say: 'Let light come to be.' Then there came to be light." (Gen. 1:3, NW) This divine command toward our earth marked the beginning of a new epoch known as the "creative week". In response, the obstruction causing the darkness moved away or dissolved and light beams struck the vapory canopy about the earth. It was evidently light from the sun, of which the earth is a satellite. It did not yet reach the surging waters that enveloped the earth. "After that God saw that the light was good, and God brought about a division between the light and the darkness." (Gen. 1:4, NW) This separation of light from darkness suggests that the earth rotated as it revolved around the sun. In this creation account or in the rest of the Bible there is nothing that teaches the geocentric view of the earth, namely, that the earth is the center of the universe and that the heavenly bodies, sun, moon and stars, revolve about it, and that the earth is flat. Three thousand years before Copernicus and Galileo Galilei the words of Job were recorded in God's Word: "He stretcheth out the north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." (Job 26:7, AS) Or, "He spread out the Northern expanse, and suspended the earth upon space!" (Fn) This fact allows for its motion round the sun. In harmony with this is the later inspired statement at Isaiah 40:18, 22: "To whom then will ye liken God? . . . It is he that sitteth above the circle of the earth." (AS) Or, "That He sits over the round earth." (Mo) By earth's receiving daylight only from the sun the light on earth was separated from the darkness; and by earth's rotating on its axis both hemispheres, Eastern and Western, enjoyed alternating periods of light and darkness.
*Modern science still does not know what light is. It does not know its Creator, of whom it is written: "God is light and there is no darkness at all in union with him." (1 John 1:5, NW) But the Creator knows and he saw that the light was good for the earthly creations that would need the light to live here. "And God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a first day." (Gen. 1:5, NW) God thus ended his first creative day.
10 It is stoutly contended that because the creative days of which this was the first are numbered, this limits the length of each such day to twenty-four hours' length. This raises the question: If evening and morning made up the first literal day, then was the moon, which appears at evening, created before the sun of morning? Also, darkness was upon the surface of the surging waters before the first day; and since the evening grows darker before the morning or daybreak, how did the darkness on the surface of the surging waters get darker than before, and when did that primordial darkness change to the darkness of the evening of the first creative day? Since the account of the fourth creative day mentions the sun of morning ahead of the moon and stars of the evening, why did it not, on the first creative day, become morning and then evening? Morning would break off the primordial darkness and show a termination of it more so than evening would. It is therefore evident that in the creative days evening and morning are figurative rather than literal, and are to be understood differently from mere darkness and light, called Night and Day.
11 Because of the inclination of the earth's axis the length of Day and Night differs at different latitudes on the earth's surface and at different seasons. But the evening and morning of each creative day are equal in length of time. That is to say, each creative day is of the same length. But if not 24 hours long, then how long? How are we to know? By measurement of the seventh day, which is now possible. That a creative day is not to be understood as a literal 24-hour day is shown by Genesis 2:4, which speaks, not of six days, but of the "day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven". (AS) As we examine Genesis 2:1-3 regarding the seventh day we note that it does not say as with the preceding days, 'And God saw that it was good; and the evening and the morning were the seventh day.' No, it leaves the day unfinished. According to the New World Translation it says: "Thus the heavens and the earth and all their army came to their completion. And by the seventh day God came to the completion of his work that he had made, and he proceeded to rest on the seventh day from all his work that he had made. And God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred, because on it he has been resting from all his work that God has created for the purpose of making." This agrees with the argument of the apostle Paul at Hebrews 4:3-11 that God was continuing to rest in the day of King David the psalmist and was still resting in Paul's day in the Christian era.
12 The Christian era is now nearing its close and we are almost six thousand years from man's creation, after which God's resting began, or his desisting from earthly creation; and now the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ is before mankind, after which he will hand over all things to God his Father.
So, not by human interpretation, but by God's own interpretation, the seventh day of rest adds up to seven thousand years.*
13 Just as the Hebrew prophets did not know the full meaning of what they prophesied, so the Bible writers needed not necessarily to know the length of the creative day. The apostle Peter showed the expression "day" could mean more than 24 hours, saying: "One day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day." (2 Pet. 3:8, NW) Now we are living in the day of fulfillment of Bible prophecy and it is possible to understand the length of God's seventh day of deistance from earthly creation. This in itself helps us to understand the figurative meaning of an evening and a morning as making up a creative day. In the evening period things would be indistinct, but in the morning they would become clearly discernible. How God's seventh creative day would turn out was in evening darkness at its beginning, for it was conditional upon man's course of free-will action. It turned out dark as to how it would be a day of blessing. But when God's only-begotten Son came to earth to bring life and incorruptibility to light through the good news, the morning began. Not long before his coming, Bible prophecy began fulfilling on a large scale by the deliverance of the faithful Jewish remnant from Babylon and by their return to the Holy City, Jerusalem, 537 B.C.
This was near the middle of the seventh creative day, or about 3,500 years from man's creation. Thus it has been with this day as described at Proverbs 4:18: "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day."—RS.
14 Similarly, with the six preceding creative days. They started out indistinctly but ended up with full light as to what had been purposed and accomplished each day. Since the Fourth Commandment about the weekly sabbath day is based upon the creative week as a pattern, and since the days of the week marked out by the Fourth Commandment are all equal, it argues that each of the days of the creative week were likewise equal in length, 7,000 years. Since the period described in Genesis 1:1, 2 preceded the creative week, this, according to God's will, allows that period of original creation to be indefinite in length, much longer than the entire 49,000 years (7 \times 7,000) of the creative week. The creative week itself began about 46,025 B.C., according to the Bible's timetable.
DAY TWO
18 The morning of the first creative day has now passed, and it is time for the evening of the second day to begin. "And God went on to say: 'Let an expanse come to be in between the waters and let a dividing occur between the waters and the waters.'" (Gen. 1:6, NW) Science today reasons that, before the formation of large bodies of water on the earth's surface, all of its water had existed in the form of atmospheric vapor, because then the earth's surface must have been extremely hot.
Eventually the temperature dropped below the boiling point of water, and then there was a condensation of much of the vapor and it was deposited upon the earth as a great body of water, whether by heavy rainfalls or by other processes. But not all the atmospheric vapor was deposited upon the earth. A thick blanket of it swathed the earthly globe, and there was no open space with an atmosphere. God saw the need of this for earth's future inhabitants. At the right time he called for an expanse to be formed. His power was equal to his expressed will: "Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse. And it came to be so."—Gen. 1:7, NW.
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