The Watchtower, December 1, 1967
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WATCHTOWER
DECEMBER 1, 1967 Semimonthly
SAVING THE WORLD OF MANKIND BY BLOOD
Announcing JEHOVAH'S KINGDOM
BY MAN'S WAY OR BY GOD'S WAY
—WHICH?
WHAT IS NEEDED FOR SALVATION?
AN INVITATION IS EXTENDED TO YOU
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"YOU ARE MY WITNESSES," SAYS JEHOVAH.—Isa. 43:12
THE PURPOSE OF "THE WATCHTOWER"
Every watchtower has its purpose. It serves as an elevated place for a wide-awake person with sharp vision. It enables him to see far ahead into the distance and tell those below for whom he is a watchman what is drawing near, whether it is a danger against which to prepare or it is something good over which to be glad with strong faith and hope.
Because of having the name "The Watchtower" this magazine justly has to render a similar useful service to the people of all nations. This is an international magazine and makes no racial distinctions, for we are all facing a common world danger; we are all hoping for a common good.
Ever since "The Watchtower" began to be published in July of 1879 it has looked ahead into the future, always striving to aid its readers to advance in knowledge and to gain a clearer picture of the glorious new order of things that is in store for righteous mankind. No, "The Watchtower" is no inspired prophet, but it follows and explains a Book of prophecy the predictions in which have proved to be unerring and unfailing till now. "The Watchtower" is therefore under safe guidance. It may be read with confidence, for its statements may be checked against that prophetic Book.
Among the many nations of today there are hundreds of differing religions. Which one does this magazine present? Not the confused religions of Christendom, but the religion of the oldest sacred Book on earth. Which Book? The Sacred Bible of the Holy Scriptures, written by inspiration in the name of the Creator of heaven and earth, the only living and true God.
The sacred, nonpolitical purpose of "The Watchtower" is accordingly to encourage and promote study of the Holy Bible and to give our many readers the needed unsectarian help to understand that Book of true religion and infallible prophecy. Thus this magazine will be helping them to prove worthy of perfect life and happiness in God's promised new order under His everlasting kingdom of righteousness.
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PUBLISHED BY THE
WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF PENNYSVILLANY
117 Adams Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201, U.S.A.
N. H. KNORE, President
GRANT SUITER, Secretary
"They will ntl be taught by Jehovah."—John 6:45; Isaiah 54:13
CONTENTS
What Is Needed for Salvation?
Effects of Rebellion
Saving the World of Mankind by Blood
By Man's Way or by God's Way—Which?
An Invitation Is Extended to You
Jealously Guard Liberty-giving Worship
Papyrus In the First Century
Questions from Readers
The Bible translation used in "The Watchdoger" is the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1911 edition. When other translations are used, the same appalachian variant will appear.
AI—American Standard Version L—Imae Learer's version
AI—An American Translation M—James McKenzie's version
DI—Catholic Bunyay Publication R—Rereded Standard Version
DI—Catholic Bunyay Publication Yg—Ygbert Young's version
JP—Jesuit Publication Soc.
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What Is Needed for SALVATION?
SO YOU want life! You can sense that this whole system of things is headed for its Armageddon end, and you do not want to die. You want to survive and gain everlasting life under a new and righteous system of things. You want to know what you must do. In effect, you are posing the same question put to the apostle Paul and his companion nineteen hundred years ago: "What must I do to get saved?"—Acts 16:30.
That question needs a clear and positive answer, and that is just what the Bible furnishes. Indeed, God's Word plainly sets forth the steps that must be taken by each one who desires salvation. There is need first to cast aside any attitude of complacency or idea that, if you sit tight, all will be well. There is no easy road to salvation. It is gained only by strenuous endeavor, for the Bible's exhortation is: "Keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil. 2:12) And Jesus Christ
counseled those who would be saved: "Exert yourselves vigorously."—Luke 13:23, 24.
Such vigorous endeavor is altogether in contrast with the easy view many persons take of Christianity. They feel that what they learned in their younger days in Sunday school is all they need to know about the will of God. They reason that if they lead a blameless life from the human viewpoint, that is all that is required of them. They have not even taken the first step essential to salvation.
BIBLE STUDY VITAL
Taking in knowledge is the first essential, and on this point Jesus Christ declared: "This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ." (John 17:3) So the first step on the way to salvation is study of the Bible, because it is God's book and in it he tells us what he, the Provider of salvation, requires of us if we are to benefit from his provision.
There is need for intensive reading of the Bible, along with the giving of serious consideration to it, before you can fully grasp the fact that it is truly of divine authorship, an authoritative guide for you in all the affairs of life. The apostle Paul refers to the Bible as "the holy writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through the faith in connection with Christ Jesus," and adds: "All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness." —2 Tim. 3:15, 16.
To make time for personal study of the Bible will take determination and genuine desire to know God and Christ. Perhaps nonessential activities such as some relaxation time, time spent watching TV programs or going to movies will have to be redeemed in order to carry out a well-scheduled program of personal Bible reading and study. Time, too, should be found to discuss the Bible with other mature and knowledgeable Christians, preferably having someone come and conduct a Bible study with you in your home for an hour each week.
The objective of such Bible study is not merely knowledge, but faith. Multitudes today are aware of much that appears in the Bible, can even quote it fluently, but few have faith that the Bible is the Word of the Sovereign God who has it in his power to grant or deny salvation. If people truly believed this they would be anxious to bring their lives into harmony with God's requirements.
EXERCISE OF FAITH
A mental acknowledgment of the truths learned from the Bible, therefore, is not enough to bring one's salvation. A man
may be reported as having good judgment, but unless he exercises it, how can we know? Likewise, faith based on Bible knowledge cannot be distinguished unless it produces results. "As the body without breath is dead," said Bible writer James, "so also faith without works is dead." (Jas. 2:26) So, whatever knowledge we gain from Bible study should be applied in a practical manner to our lives.
The effect of Bible study should be to convince one that he has been a selfish sinner, wandering far from the requirements of the righteous God. (Rom. 3:23) It should impress one with the need to be genuinely sorry about his past course of heedlessness, his indifference to the will of God. It should bring home to the reverent student that forgiveness and restoration to divine favor are possible only through the ransom sacrifice made in behalf of sinful mankind, the sacrifice of Jesus' perfect human life.—Rom. 5:8; Heb. 2:9; 1 John 4:10.
Faith in Jesus Christ as the ransom for our release from sin means that the Christian must recognize he has been "bought with a price" and now belongs to Christ as his slave. (1 Cor. 7:23) He is therefore duty bound to please his Master in everything and seek to imitate Jesus' example of complete submission to the Father in heaven.—Heb. 12:1-3.
There are other works of faith to be considered and acted upon. For instance, some of the practical questions that should come to the mind of the seeker after salvation are: What kind of companionship shall I seek? Upon self-examination, what habits, customs, practices and attitudes must I change? Apart from my living a life of godliness, does God have some particular service for me to perform at this time? The sincere life seeker will be anxious to have the Scriptural answers to these questions.
RIGHT ASSOCIATION
Certainly one would not want to keep company with wicked persons, ridiculers of God and his Word. (Ps. 1:1) It may be that till now you have associated with "passive Christians," those who take the name "Christian" but who are not willing to undertake the responsibilities of the Christian. Their attitude could rub off on you. Truly, as the apostle Paul warned: "Bad associations spoil useful habits."—1 Cor. 15:33.
Association with the congregation of Christians who recognize that God is pleased, not with rites and meaningless ceremonies, but with worship that is offered "with spirit and truth," is vital to your salvation. (John 4:23; 1 Sam. 15:22) If at all possible you should gather with, train with and serve with those who put God's kingdom first in their lives. (Matt. 6:25-34) Even if you are a shut-in, confined to your home by reason of age or infirmity, you should seek to be in regular communication with God's congregation, for through it he is instructing and directing his worshipers on earth.
Companionship of the right kind is all the more urgent now since we are living in the "critical times hard to deal with" foretold by the apostle Paul. (2 Tim. 3: 1-5) The same apostle was also inspired to write these words of timely advice to fellow Christians: "Let us consider one another to incite to love and fine works, not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together, as some have the custom, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as you behold the day drawing near." (Heb. 10:24, 25) This kind of healthful, spiritual association you can find at the Kingdom Halls of Jehovah's witnesses. As one seeking salvation, you will be welcome there and aided in your quest.
A NEW PERSONALITY
Another indispensable requirement for salvation is pointed out by the apostle Paul in these words: "You should put away the old personality which conforms to your former course of conduct and which is being corrupted according to his deceptive desires; . . . you should be made new in the force actuating your mind, and should put on the new personality which was created according to God's will." (Eph. 4: 22-24) So the fleshly, materialistic aims so common to worldly people need to be put away, and the Christian's mind filled with thoughts that are in harmony with Jehovah's will.
This great changeover will not come easily. It will take time. It will be a gradual process. It will also take much effort and unremitting vigilance so as not to slip back into the old way of thinking and acting. The Bible is explicit about the practices of the "old personality" that must be put away by those who would gain salvation: "The works of the flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, hatreds, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these. . . those who practice such things will not inherit God's kingdom."—Gal. 5:19-21.
Only with the help and encouragement of good Christian associates will you be able to adopt the Bible's counsel on how to go about 'putting on the new personality': "Whatever things are true, whatever things are of serious concern, whatever things are righteous, whatever things are chaste, whatever things are lovable, whatever things are well spoken of, whatever virtue there is and whatever praiseworthy thing there is, continue considering these things." (Phil. 4:8) Gradually this kind of thinking will crowd out wrong thoughts and desires and replace them with thoughts producing fine fruitage, namely, "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control."
—Gal. 5:22, 23.
How vital, then, for each one who wants eternal life to clean up his life and "quit being fashioned after this system of things [controlled by Satan, its god], but be transformed, by making [one's] mind
could truthfully exclaim: "I am not ashamed of the good news; it is, in fact, God's power for salvation to everyone having faith." (Rom. 1:16) However, to gain that same boldness and fearlessness you need to undergo training in the Christian congregation. (Eph. 4:11, 12) Is it not most loving and considerate of Jehovah that he has made such provision so that
transformed by making [one] over"!" (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 4:4) The "new personality" is a must for salvation.
THE PREACHING REQUIREMENT
Having begun to make his mind over through study and application of God's Word to his life and by means of godly companionship, the seeker after salvation
next needs to turn his attention to the service commanded by Christ Jesus: "Go therefore and make
that he has made sure you do not have to step out on your own to make public declaration of his message? He has organized his congregation of witnesses for this very purpose.
THE STEP OF DEDICATION
After you have studied the Bible diligently and applied its principles toward
COMING IN THE NEXT ISSUE
"In All the Nations the Good News Has to Be Preached First."
What Now Distinguishes the Good News to Be Preached.
making a great change in your life, and after you have been meeting and studying regularly
disciples of people of
all the nations . . .
teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you."—Matt. 28:19, 20.
What Do Children Owe Their Parents?
Searching for the Bible Principles.
Participation in preaching and teaching God's Word is vitally related to your salvation. This is why the apostle Paul could declare: "With the heart one exercises faith for righteousness, but with the mouth one makes public declaration for salvation." (Rom. 10:10) True, the weakness of the flesh may incline you to shrink back from making such "public declara-
appreciated the privileges of the preaching and teaching work, your faith should lead you to take another important step necessary to your salvation. Yes, it is the step of dedication. What does it mean? It means that gratitude to Jehovah for all his loving provisions for your salvation moves you to offer yourself to him, without any restrictions, to do his will.
In taking this course you follow the per-
tion" of your faith. But call to mind the justice of Jesus' words at Mark 8:38: "Whoever becomes ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man will also be ashamed of him when he arrives in the glory of his Father."
To help you combat that tendency to shrink back, call to mind the strengthening example of the apostle Paul, for he
fect example of God's beloved Son, Christ Jesus, who also offered himself to the heavenly Father, ready to carry out the special will of God for him. (Matt. 3:13-17; Heb. 10:5-10) And as he did, so you also mark this offering of yourself to God for his service by an outward ceremony, giving testimony to others of your decision. You offer yourself for baptism. That symbolic act speaks eloquently of your becoming dead to your own selfish former course of action (when dipped below the water), and henceforth to live in harmony with God's will (coming up out of the water).
Many others before you have taken this step of dedication and baptism.—Acts 2:41; 8:12; 18:8.
Of course, for the dedicated one there is now no turning back. "Whenever you vow a vow to God, do not hesitate to pay it," is the inspired counsel, "for there is no delight in the stupid ones. What you vow, pay." (Eccl. 5:4) Jehovah takes no pleasure in those who go back on their word. That dedicated relationship to God must always be kept in mind. What worldlings do or fail to do is no longer the Christian's guide. He must seek to be guided by God's written Word in everything.
ENDURE FOR THE REWARD
The reward of salvation in all its fullness surpasses our fondest imagination. It means more than survival through the fast-approaching end of this wicked system of things. It embraces the marvelous joys of living in a New Order here on earth under the beneficent rule of the heavenly Kingdom. Imagine a thousand years during which the King, Christ Jesus, will be wiping out all the dreadful effects of sin and selfishness! (Rev. 20:4; 1 Cor. 15:25, 26) Yes, you will be privileged to behold even the dead arising from the tombs at his command! (John 5:28) And finally, there will be the opportunity to withstand the final test of integrity after the close of the thousand-year reign and, if faithful, you will receive salvation, yes, everlasting life as God's gift through Christ!—Rev. 20:5, 7, 8.
With such a glorious reward ahead, there is reason to suffer, if need be, and to endure patiently. This wicked system of things under Satan is arrayed against God's true worshipers. It will seek to have you break integrity with God, to treat your dedication vow lightly. Persons near and dear to you may even be used as its instruments to pressure or persuade you to turn aside from the narrow way of true worship. (Matt. 10:35-37; 7:13, 14) But hearken to this divinely inspired word of counsel: "You have need of endurance, in order that, after you have done the will of God [taken all these vital steps], you may receive the fulfillment of the promise."—Heb. 10:36.
Keep in direct communication with your Refuge and your Shield, Jehovah. (2 Sam. 22:2, 3) Pray that God may support you by his spirit, for he is able to make you stand. (Rom. 14:4) And Christ Jesus, the faithful Leader and Commander of his followers, encourages you: "He that has endured to the end is the one that will be saved."—Matt. 10:22.
Effects of Rebellion
It is often claimed that through the efforts of science the life-span of humans will be lengthened greatly. But the Bible states that because of Adam's rebellion, mankind has been degenerating and actually has a shorter life-span today than he did several thousand years ago. Will science eliminate the effects of Adam's rebellion? The New York Times of October 30, 1966, in the article "Medicine: The Mystery of Why We Grow Old," stated: "At the moment, efforts to lengthen the life span seem to have broken down. . . . it is now generally agreed that no single factor is involved in aging. . . . the conquest of cancer, heart disease and the like will not lead to a dramatic increase in the life span. Too many weaknesses are built into the human frame to be overcome." Only in God's new order will this be reversed so that man can grow back to the perfection of mind and body that Adam enjoyed before his rebellion.
THE life of the flesh is in the blood." Who first said those words? It was not Hippocrates, the Greek philosopher and physician of the fifth century before our Common Era, whom The Encyclopaedia Britannica calls "Father of Medicine." Neither was it Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, of the seventh century of our Common Era, who had something to say about eating.* Nor was it Moses, the Hebrew prophet of the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries before our Common Era. It was no one else but the Giver of life himself, the Creator of mankind's blood and the One who put the life in that blood. He himself is the One that said it, more than a thousand years before Hippocrates was born on the Island of Cos.
2 How appropriate it was that the Creator of this red stream of life of mankind should make such a scientifically correct statement! The prophet Moses merely wrote down this statement as God dictated it to him in the wilderness of Sinai in Arabia in the year 1512 B.C.E.
In the Third Book of Moses, or Leviticus, as it is also called, the record (American Standard Version) says:
"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak . . . For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life."—Lev. 17:1, 2, 11.
4 Who will dispute the divine statement that there is life in this vital fluid of our human bodies? No one successfully will. This is why, as the medical profession has established, this precious stream courses through our bodies normally once every twenty-three seconds to bring life-sustaining elements to the various tissues of the body. The life-giving qualities of this fluid in our arteries, veins and capillaries were early recognized, for we are informed that "transfusion of blood dates as far back as the time of the ancient Egyptians." If such a practice was going on there in Egypt at the time that the prophet Moses led his people out of the land of Egypt in 1513 B.C.E., it did not escape the notice of the God of Moses. Not inconsistently, God would have this Egyptian practice in mind when he gave his law to the people of Moses concerning blood and the correct disposing of it.—The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 4, page 113, edition of 1929.
The life-giving, life-sustaining property that plays its part in this matter was well recognized by the writers of the Bible, from the first one (Moses) to the last one
(the apostle John). That was why the lawless taking of another person's life was spoken of as a shedding of one's blood, since this is where the life resides. Take, for example, the murder of the God-fearing Abel by his jealous brother Cain. When identifying Cain as being the murderer, God said to Cain, who was trying to cover up his crime: "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground." (Gen. 4:10) That crime, which was committed over the matter of religion or of the right form of worship to God, has been imitated millions of times over by the world empire of false religion that the apostle John calls Babylon the Great. Showing the responsibility of this long-lived world empire of false religion for the worldwide taking of human life in the name of religion, the last book of the Bible pictures that religious empire as an immoral woman and says:
"Upon her forehead was written a name, a mystery: 'Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.' And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus." "Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth."—Rev. 17:1-6; 18:24.
This prophetic picture presents this symbolic woman Babylon the Great as being cannibalistic inasmuch as she is said to be "drunk" with human blood. And yet the Babylonish religion of the world claims to have as its purpose the saving of human life for all eternity. But has God's Word overdrawn the picture of cannibalistic Babylon the Great? Not at all, when a person honestly considers the sacrificing of human life that has been carried out in the name of religion, even God's name being presumptuously attached to such death-dealing conduct.
So we ask, Will God never call religion to account for all this bloodshed?
Both inside the Bible and outside in the world, blood is associated with life and is used to represent life. Because of its having this quality and value, even in God's sight, human blood could reasonably be used to impart life to others, yes, even to the whole world. But how is this to be done? Who will do it by this means? In the opinion of many people today, the followers of Hippocrates, who take what is called "the Hippocratic Oath,"* are the ones to do this, using all kinds of modern professional techniques, even squirting the "liquid of life" directly into a patient's body. This confidence in the modernly trained professional medics ignores the Bible's word of caution. This is set out in a case of nineteen centuries ago that is cited by a physician, a Bible writer named Luke, whom the Christian apostle Paul calls "Luke the beloved physician." (Col. 4:14) Luke writes of this as the case of a "woman, subject to a flow of blood for twelve years, who had not been able to get a cure from anyone."—Luke 8:43-48.
9 A fuller description of this same case is given by Luke's friend named Mark, who writes: 'Now there was a woman subject to a flow of blood twelve years, and she had been put to many pains by many physicians and had spent all her resources and had not been benefited but, rather,
had got worse." But Mark and the physician Luke report how this desperate woman was cured miraculously by merely touching from behind the outer garment of the great Healer, Jesus Christ. Says Mark: "Immediately her fountain of blood dried up, and she sensed in her body that she had been healed."—Mark 5:25-34.
"SAVE-LIFE DOCTORS"
19 Today, however, the public press gives out the idea that God's law on blood is death-dealing and speaks of modern professional physicians as "save-life doctors." The London (England) Daily Herald, under date of February 26, 1965, says regarding the British Medical Association: "The society said a doctor has the 'supreme duty' of saving a patient's life. Any doctor, faced with legal proceedings for trying to save a life by operating against parents' wishes could count on the societies' support."
11 Hailed as lifesavers, and impressed with their professionally assumed role of saving the present life of other humans, these men, for the most part, think that the advance of modern medical science has made God's law in the Holy Bible out-of-date, unscientific, and having no force today because of its great age. "Look!" say they, "the Bible was written and finished nineteen hundred years ago. So what did those Bible writers know about medical science, to compare with our know-how today, our combining of technology with medicine to save human lives?" If they are evolutionists, who reject the Bible teaching of creation and willfully grab at the evolution theory, they have no respect for God's law but establish their own medical ethics. In their view, blood evolved; it was not created by the Creator of man.
it was not created by the Creator of man. 12 However, free persons are entitled to hold opinions and to express them. There are those who hold the opinion that blood is not the product of impersonal, blind, brainless, accidental evolution, but is the matchless work of an Almighty God. Their opinion is really a fine logical conclusion, based upon irrefutable facts. We are reminded of an article, written before gory World War I, by William Hanna Thomson, M.D., who was outstandingly connected with New York City hospitals for years. As published in the New York Times, Doctor Thomson's article said:
18 "But for any animal on this earth with red blood it must, in order to live, have in its blood cells that definite substance called hemoglobin. Now a molecule of hemoglobin must contain the following number of different atoms in their due proportions, namely, of hydrogen atoms, 1,130; of carbon atoms, 712; of nitrogen, 214; of oxygen, 245; of sulphur, 2, and of iron, 1, or 2,304 atoms in all. Moreover, if that one atom of iron, in its peculiar relation to the rest ('masked' as some physiologists say) were left out, the animal could neither absorb oxygen nor give off carbonic acid; in other words, it could not breathe. I once asked a well-known physiological chemist, himself of German extraction and educated in Germany, how could those atoms in a molecule of hemoglobin thus come together by chance. His brief reply was, 'No chance.'
14 "But the complexity of hemoglobin is thrown into the shade by those chemical substances which chemical research has discovered in the investigation of the mechanism of immunity against infectious diseases. . . . Modern science now finds
that the problem of the origin of life becomes more and more inscrutable in proportion to the progress of investigations of the subject."—The Watch Tower, as of July 1, 1911, pages 198, 199.
15 The very nature and makeup of the blood and the marvelous fact that it bears life rule out its being the product of lifeless, mindless, purposeless evolution. Overwhelmingly these features of the blood call for the creative activity of a living, intelligent, constructive, purposeful God, the Maker of man.
Just take into account the shape and the functional performance of the red blood corpuscles. Only a highly mathematical mind could design and arrange them. Hence every one of the thirty trillion red blood corpuscles in the vessels of the average man is an unbeatable argument and proof that there is a Creator, who is also man's Maker. He knows better than the most advanced medical practitioner the vital need, the properties and the purpose of this red fluid of life. Why, more than five thousand eight hundred years before the first use of stored blood in making transfusions, by the professor of medicine of the University of Chicago, in the year 1918, God was talking about blood to the first man born, Cain, after he secretly slaughtered his younger brother Abel. (Gen. 4:10, 11) Ever since then God has had much to say about blood. In fact, in his written Word of sixty-six books, 1,189 chapters, blood is mentioned 447 times, from Genesis to Revelation (AV).*
17 Since God empowered his Son, Jesus Christ, to perform miracles of healing, not with drugs, medicine, or surgical operations, but instantaneously, stopping chronic blood flows, giving sight to the blind, making the deaf and dumb hear and talk, restoring the crippled, healing the lepers, even raising the dead, repairing the brain, God the Creator is the greatest Physician of them all.
He knows more about the human body and its makeup and how to repair it and restore it and revitalize it than the most highly educated medic of today. He is the infallible, absolute Authority on the subject. Let Him speak! Let Him be heard! We all stand to learn and to benefit when He speaks. He now speaks to us through his inspired, unchanged written Word. What does it say?
18 Mankind eats to live. For how long, then, has mankind been authorized by God the Creator to eat the flesh of animals? Not from the creation of the first man, but for the last 4,335 years of mankind's existence. In the paradise Garden of Eden the perfect man and woman were authorized to eat and live on fruits, nuts and vegetable products of the ground. (Gen. 1:29, 30) There was thus no need for a law against living off the blood of animals.
19 Even when God drove man out of the Garden of Eden because of rebelliously sinning against Him by eating the forbidden fruit, God did not say that from then on man should eat animal flesh. God said to man: "You must eat the vegetation of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it [not out of some lower animal by evolutionary process] you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return." (Gen. 3:18, 19) Years later, when Adam's second son Abel offered the sacrifice of sheep to Jehovah God, there was
the shedding of blood of such sacrificial victims, but Abel did not drink the blood. So God accepted his sacrifice.—Gen. 4: 3-11.
DIVINE LAW AGAINST EATING IT
20 More than fifteen hundred years later, in the days of the God-fearing Noah and his three married sons, came the great deluge. For at least one hundred and eighty days the earth and its mountains were completely covered with the floodwaters. (Gen. 7:11 to 8:5) Months later, when the eight human survivors of the deluge came out of the flood-proof ark, Noah at once offered a sacrifice from among all the clean animals and birds to Jehovah God. But Noah and his family drank none of the blood of the sacrificial victims, nor even ate any of the flesh of them.
21 God was pleased at this. He blessed them and told them to fill the whole earth with their offspring. Then, as with Adam and Eve in Eden, God established a law regarding the food of the whole future human family, including us today. He said: "Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you. Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat. And, besides that, your blood of your souls shall I ask back. From the hand of every living creature shall I ask it back." (Gen. 8:18 to 9:5) After that the first rainbow appeared, and God made an everlasting covenant never again to bring a global flood upon mankind.—Gen. 9:8-17.
22 There were then no Hebrews, no Israelites, no Jews and no circumcision. There were just the forefathers of the Semitic, Japhetic and Hamitic branches of the human family present.
That was in the year 2369 B.C.E., or eight hundred and fifty-six years before Jehovah God gave the law to the prophet Moses, including the Ten Commandments, to deliver to the nation of Israel. Consequently God's law forbidding the taking of animal blood into our human bodies did not come into existence through the divine law delivered through Moses in 1513 B.C.E. This makes it certain that God's law on this vital matter was not and is not restricted to the Hebrews, Israelites or Jews. This particular law did not pass out of existence or out of force in the year 33 of our Common Era, when God nailed the Law of Moses to the death stake of Jesus Christ and abolished it. (Col. 2:13, 14; Eph. 2:13-15) That law of Noah's day still applies to all mankind just as surely as mankind still continues to eat the flesh of beasts and birds and as surely as mankind has failed to return to the Garden of Eden and to an exclusively vegetarian diet.—Gen. 1:29, 30; 2:15-17.
23 Yes, Christian as well as Jew, non-Christian as well as non-Jew, are under that law about eating as given to our common forefather Noah after the flood. Apostolic Christians of the first century of our Common Era recognized that fact and insisted on it. Sixteen years after the Law of Moses was, figuratively speaking, nailed to Christ's death stake as fulfilled and abolished, the Christian disciple James recommended to the Jerusalem Council of the apostles and other older brothers to write to the non-Jewish Christians, namely, "to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood." That recommendation to abstain from "the meat of strangled animals, and the tasting of
blood" (AT) was not just the idea of the disciple James but was also dictated by God's holy spirit. This serious fact is emphasized in the way that the official decree to the non-Jewish Christians was worded. It read as follows:
24 "The apostles and the older brothers to those brothers . . . who are from the nations: Greetings! . . . For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep yourselves free from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!"—Acts 15:19-29.
25 Years later, after the third missionary trip of the apostle Paul, the disciple James spoke to him about that same decree of the Jerusalem Council as still being enforced toward non-Jewish Christians. (Acts 21:18-26) According to early religious writers of the first three centuries this inspired decree against taking blood into a person's body was held to by Christians for centuries after it was published. Especially from the days of the Roman Catholic saint named Augustine, Christendom has ceased to observe that inspired decree, and the medical profession of Christendom has ignored it as not binding upon Christians. But who abolished that decree? Not God, forasmuch as he himself inspired it and published it through his faithful organization in Jerusalem. It certainly was not abolished with the abolition of the Law of Moses. For that Scriptural reason Jehovah's Christian witnesses of today continue to keep that decree, abstaining not only from fornication and idolatry but also from blood.
A TYPICAL PICTURE OF SAVING BY BLOOD
26 That Jerusalem Councill's decree came many years after Jesus Christ shed his blood on the death stake at Calvary. But by the decree God made it plain that he was still holding to what he had stated in his law given through Moses, namely, that the blood of man and animals belongs to God the Creator. This is right, inasmuch as he is the Fountain of life and he has put the life of man and of animals in the blood and made it the chief conveyor of life. That is why, if a man in Israel slaughtered an animal for sacrifice and did not present it to Jehovah, it was as if he had committed murder: "Bloodguilt will be counted to that man. He has shed blood, and that man must be cut off from among his people." He was to be killed. (Lev. 17:3, 4) That is why, too, Jehovah commanded that the priest should pour the blood of sacrificial victims at the base of the altar of sacrifice. (Lev. 4:7, 18, 25, 34; 8:15; 9:9) The blood was a sacred thing, like life, and must be treated as such.
27 In God's law to ancient Israel, as well as in the case of his law to faithful Noah, this sacred quality of the life stream was accounted not only to animals that were offered in sacrifice but even to the clean animals that men hunted for food. In any case, lifeblood that is sacred was involved, and hence it could be used for a sacred purpose. Since the penalty for sin is death and since the soul or life is in the blood, it can be used for the cancellation of sin and the turning aside of sin's penalty, death. We do not need to argue about what this law means; it plainly reads:
28 "The soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul [or, life] in it. That is why I have said to the sons of Israel: 'No soul of you should eat blood and no alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst should eat blood.' As for any man of the sons of Israel or some alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust. For the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by the soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: 'You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it will be cut off.'"—Lev. 17:11-14; compare Deuteronomy 12:16, 23-27.
29 Because of the life value that is contained in the red stream that the heart pumps through the body, Jehovah God can use the blood in a marvelous way in saving the world of mankind for eternal life. So this is a matter that has to do with the eternal life of all mankind. It has such a serious meaning that in the typical nation of Israel the person who partook of blood as food was to be killed or had to fulfill a special program of cleansing. (Lev. 17: 15, 16; 7:26, 27) The use of this precious life stream in any way other than God's way is a misuse of it, a perversion of its use. This principle applies to the medical use of blood from the days of ancient Egypt down to our day. Why so? Because the medical practitioners are not God's ordained priests serving at his holy altar and offering to him blood of mankind according to God's directions.
Long ago God took care of saving the world of mankind
by blood, and he does not need their so-called scientific use of blood. Their use of it in the name of medicine is not God's will.
NO ONE may be excused or justified for breaking God's sacred law on the plea that he is saving human life or prolonging it. With the exception of some conscientious individual members the medical associations treat God's law as a myth of the Bible or as no longer having force. They put the life of imperfect, condemned, dying men above the law of God and break it on the claim of trying to save a human life, not for eternity, but for the short uncertain period of the present lifetime. This has resulted in an epidemic of blood transfusions that they claim are lifesaving. 2 Convinced in their own minds of their
obligation to save human lives in this manner, they will go even so far as to force transfusions on dedicated Christians who conscientiously object to breaking God's law in order to try to preserve their lives. They try to procure a show of legality for doing this, although it denies the patient not only his God-given right but also his national constitutional rights according to an established Bill of Rights in certain countries. To protect themselves because of this the medics appeal to judges and lawmaking bodies of the land to authorize them to override the freedom of religion with its right to worship the living and true God Jehovah according to the dictates of conscience. In this case, according to such medical views, religion is a menace to life and must be brushed aside to enact an atheistic violation of God's law on the sanctity of blood.
a Save life in a manner contrary to the religious wishes of the patient and keep him from choosing to die! is the medical idea. But even the Supreme Court of the United States of America has handed down the decision that a person with free moral agency has the right to choose to die rather than take advantage of certain legal provisions for sparing or preserving his life, on what basis? If the person cannot accept the terms or conditions upon which his life will be spared or preserved. * So, then, if the highest court of the land has no right to force life upon a person on terms unacceptable to him, the medical profession has no right, legal or ethical, to force its unscriptural methods of saving life upon a patient who would rather die than violate his conscience by breaking God's holy law.
4 However, as a further justification for their course, what do medics claim? This, that transfusion is not a feeding of blood to a patient and hence is not a violation of God's law. But really this is unscientific reasoning. For the very reason that the transfused material is not taken directly into the mouth to go through the regular digestive processes of the body, the transfusion method becomes the quickest and most direct way of feeding the body on what is forbidden by God's law stated to Noah and reaffirmed by the Christian Council of Jerusalem.
In a further argument for transfusion, it is claimed that what is transfused is merely a vehicle to convey food directly to the human body, and that the body does not feed on the vehicle itself. We therefore ask the question: After the transfused vehicular blood has released its oxygen and food elements to the body tissues of the patient, is this vehicular blood extracted from the patient's body and transfused back into the body of the blood donor? This would be quite embarrassing and impossible, especially where the blood donor or donors are not known or if the blood has been taken from a newly dead cadaver. So the transfused vehicular material is left in the patient's body. What then? Well, in the course of the years during which the human body renews itself into a new body, this vehicular blood is used or consumed by the patient's body, the same as any other transplant of an organ. In what way, then, does this outworking of things differ essentially from feeding on the transfused blood? The results are the same: the patient's body does sustain itself by transfused stuff.
*If the Christian disciple Luke were back here on earth by a resurrection of the dead, what would he do? Luke accompanied Paul, who called him "Luke the beloved physician." Would he join medics today in giving transfusions? The Bible answer must be No! This very Luke was the Bible writer who reported for us the decree of the Christian Council of Jerusalem, quoting from it three times.
'This decree, as reported by Luke, said to non-Jewish Christians "to keep yourselves free . . . from blood." It made no exception for Physician Luke or medical doctors. It did not say, Keep yourselves free from blood except in the case of a transfusion administered by a competent medical doctor; or except on orders from a lawmaking body or from a legal judge who shoves aside the required "due process of law" and becomes a law to himself and arbitrarily declares a state of emergency and orders the appealing doctor to give a transfusion over the religious objections of the patient. The Apostolic Christian Council forbade "blood," without differentiating human blood from animal blood, unqualified!
Doctor Luke, who traveled with the apostle Paul through ancient Greece, doubtless knew that the Greeks drank blood in order to have a blood relationship with the demons for the sake of learning what the future held for them. Doctor Luke must have observed that drinking animal blood served to infuse into the drinker beastly qualities like those of the animal donors. But better than Doctor Luke, Jehovah God knew the effect of taking another creature's blood into one's body, whether by eating or drinking it
or by transfusing it. He doubtless forbade it for more reasons than that the life is in the blood and that taking blood means taking life to at least some degree. This was suggested by the Watch Tower magazine long ago. Its article "Settling Doctrinal Differences," under date of April 15, 1909, on page 117, said regarding the decree of the Jerusalem Council on blood: "To the Jew it was forbidden, and under his covenant it was made a symbol of life—to partake of it would imply responsibility for the life taken. Moreover, in the typical ceremonies of the Law the prohibited blood was used as a symbol representing the sin-offering; for by the blood atonement for sins was effected. To emphasize these typical lessons the Jews had been forbidden to use blood. And there may be other, sanitary, reasons connected with the matter, which are not yet known to us."*
10 Today, fifty-eight years since then, those reasons are becoming more and more known because of medical experiences with the widespread use of transfusions. Now, what would you think of a modern medical practice that, in one year, directly kills 16,000 in a land, and leaves still more thousands infected with deadly diseases, while at the same time other thousands survive the process? That is the case with the practice of blood transfusion. But does the national government pronounce it poisonous, dangerous, and forbid it? Does the government treat it as it does a drug or pill or medicine that results in a high number of fatalities and remove it from the market as too risky?
No, but, to the contrary, men suggest and attempt to take steps to make it compulsory by law for a person, under force, to submit to transfusion despite his conscientious Christian objection to it. Why does this inconsistency on the part of the government occur?
11 Why is it that, when Nazi war criminals pleaded that they were not responsible for the mass killings that they carried out, because they were merely obeying the orders of superiors, the trial court reminded them that they should have obeyed the dictates of conscience against killing innocent persons?* And yet today, when intelligent, dedicated, baptized Christians exercise their conscience in harmony with the Bible, their conscience is overridden by lawmakers, judges and medical men and they are forcibly compelled to take transfusions of blood that represents the life of one or more persons.
RIVERS OF IT SQUANDERED
12 Blood should be treated as sacred, for it stands for life. It is precious to God, that of a human creature being more so than that of an animal. By the "epidemic of transfusions" during and since World War II, what a wastage of this precious human life stream there has been! The New York Times Magazine of March 29, 1964, page 38, under the title "6,000,000 Pints of Blood Is Not Enough" said the following: "Each year a small river of blood—five or six million pints—is run into the veins of the sick in the United States; in New York City alone 1,000 pints a day are consumed. Because of blood transfusions tens of thousands of lives are saved." But the article does not mention how many thousands of human lives are killed. Why such silence, such one-sided reporting?
13 As measured in life value, what does a "small river" of six million pints represent? Well, calculate it on the basis that the average adult has twelve to thirteen pints of blood coursing through some 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and capillaries to serve his body tissues. At thirteen pints to a body, this "small river" of six million pints would represent 461,538 adult human lives. But not that many lives are "saved" or, more correctly said, survive the blood transfusion with fairly normal bodies.
14 Think of what a wastage of the precious life stream goes along with the use of those millions of pints of it, in the United States alone. A mere one pint of it is unnecessary to a person. There must be at least three or four pints of it, and in some cases as much as from twenty to thirty pints, or even forty pints of it. And yet after receiving so many pints of it the patient will die, as in the case of the wounded American soldier in a portable hospital in South Vietnam, whose life the doctors fought to "save." The New York Times of February 25, 1967, reports: "The pile of empty blood bags grew higher. By the time the operation was over, the soldier had received 28 pints." And yet he died! What a waste of precious liquid! True, a transfusion with good intentions, but wasting the equivalent of more than two adult human lives. It did not work!
15 Think, also, of the wastage of hundreds of thousands of pints of the vital life stream in the cases of where the blood transfusions directly kill.
A horrible waste, in that the very reverse was produced from what was intended by the transfusions! Think of the wastage of other hundreds of thousands of pints in the cases in which the transfusions produced fatal aftereffects that sooner or later brought on death! And if the transfusion leaves a person with a crippling or disabling infirmity of the body, has the quantity of liquid transfused been wasted or not?
18 Finally, think of the waste that occurs in banks that traffick in blood, buying it at a low rate or getting it free and then selling it at the rate of from ten dollars to sixty dollars a unit. In these banks blood does not keep indefinitely. It tends to spoil. It gets out-of-date. In some banks the spoilage by outdating has amounted to 10 percent of the whole quantity in bank. All this was not used for its intended purpose! What a wastage of precious life fluid this means.*
17 Is this terrible wastage of precious human fluid pleasing to the Great Creator, who put it in the human body to sustain life? Does the medical motive for transfusing it justify such wastage before God? Positively not, according to his Word, the Bible. Will God hold men responsible for spilling blood in this way in peacetime or in wartime, spilling it, not at the base of God's altar like the blood of sacrificial victims, but in a medical experiment contrary to God's supreme law? Evidently yes, especially if we take as a pattern the fact that in ancient Israel the person willfully
violating the divine prohibition concerning blood was to be cut off from God's people in death. There is really no valid excuse for such gross modern violations in view of the fact that there are a number of efficient blood substitutes today. Why, even delicate operations, such as open-heart surgery, can be successfully performed if the doctors will only make the effort and take the time and use their skill, without blood transfusion.
18 God's law to Noah after the flood, forbidding the using of blood as food, was accompanied by God's law against murder: "Anyone shedding man's blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God's image he made man." (Gen. 9:4-6) Just as certainly as God's law against murder is still in force today, so too his prohibition against taking the blood of other creatures into one's body is still in force in this twentieth century and should be respected for one's own good. Noah's family was obligated to teach that prohibition law to their descendants.
19 In God's law to the nation of Israel through Moses God gave instructions about the animal sacrifices and said: "All the fat belongs to Jehovah. It is a statute to time indefinite for your generations, in all your dwelling places: You must not eat any fat or any blood at all." (Lev. 3:16, 17) This obligated one generation of Israelites to teach the next generation not to eat blood. The father was obliged to teach his children that it was against God's law to eat blood, and, consistently with this, he would see to it that his minor children did not eat it and that there was no eating of it within his household, or inside his home, of which he was the master, overseer and guardian.—Deut. 6:6, 7; Ps. 78: 5, 6.
20 Today Jehovah God has a spiritual Israel, a Christian Israel. (Gal. 6:16) Just as the natural, fleshly Israelites were Jehovah's witnesses, so these Christian spiritual Israelites are His witnesses. Whereas the Mosaic law with its provisions about fat was abolished when Christ died as a sacrifice, the Apostolic Christian Council of Jerusalem reaffirmed God's law to Noah and applied it to the true Christian congregation. Christian fathers are obliged to teach this law and enforce it with regard to their minor children, for by God's law the fathers are the spiritual, religious guardians as well as the domestic parental caretakers of their underage children. The Christian witnesses of Jehovah today recognize that fact and follow the divine rule of conduct. They endeavor to keep their children from violating God's law to Noah and also the Jerusalem Council's decree. (Eph. 6:4) Rightly they try to protect their children from taking foreign blood into them.
21 Do parents who are Jehovah's witnesses really have the right to do this? Certain doctors, judges and lawmakers blind themselves to God's law and to religious liberty and to Christian conscience and say No! These flouters of God's law that applies to Christians claim that, when Jehovah's witnesses refuse to let their children have a blood transfusion when a mere human doctor orders them to have it, Jehovah's witnesses are dangerous parents to have over children and they lose their right to the guardianship of their own flesh-and-blood children. Such children must therefore become the wards of the political State, even in States where there is a separation of Church and State.
22 Thus it comes about that judges have had children taken from their own Christian parents and placed in the hands of appointed guardians that believe in transfusions. These have had the bodies of these seized children assaulted with a transfusion in shameful disregard of God's law and conscientious objections of the Christian parents. If a child survives such a forced transfusion, such violators salve their consciences for having "saved a life."
DO YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO YOUR OWN BODY?
22 In this very connection a serious question has been raised: "To whom does the body belong?" That question headed an article by a columnist writer who was irked at the transfusion forced upon a pregnant woman, one of Jehovah's witnesses, under Court order. The article concludes, saying: "Some day . . . maybe . . . we will conclude, like Dickens' Beadle, that very often the law is 'a idiot, a ass,'—and do something about it."*
24 To whom does the body belong? That same question was raised in a somewhat related case by natural circumcised Israelites because of the vast increase in the number of autopsies of dead bodies of Jews in Israel, in spite of repeated protests. In the land of Israel "the doctors have been interpreting the law in a manner not intended by the legislators" of Israel. \dagger Finally, on April 7, 1967, the American Committee for Safeguarding Human Dignity in Israel published "An Appeal to the Government of Israel: Do Not Desecreate the Dead!"
In discussing "Human Dignity and Jewish Tradition" the appeal said (in part): "In deference to these hallowed, universally accepted attitudes and in consideration of the sacred rights of man to determine the fate of his own body, governments throughout the world (including the United States) legally require the written consent of the deceased and/or his next of kin before an autopsy may be performed. In Israel, unfortunately, the situation is drastically different."
25 Commenting on the tragic situation, the appeal went on to say: "As a consequence, many Jews in the Holy Land, should have to refuse to enter hospitals for necessary treatment because they fear that if they do their bodies will be mutilated. . . . These are matters of strong religious conviction to the Jews—and they are accustomed to giving their lives for their faith. But must this be? Must a man be refused hospital treatment because he is asked to pay a price greater than his conscience can allow? Israel's existing autopsy law is a threat not only to the dead but to the living as well. . . . It would seem that certain elements in Israel are so obsessed with their antipathy to anything that smacks of religion, that they do not hesitate to even go to the extreme of trampling upon the rights of the dead. . . . At stake is not only a religious issue but what all civilized countries recognize as a basic human right: that the wishes of the deceased and/or his next of kin—and not the State—determine the disposition of his body."*
26 In this protest against arrogant practices by members of the medical profession, fear is expressed that, not only dead bodies, but also living human bodies will be mutilated presumptuously in behalf of the progress of medical science. God's law is against the mutilating of the God-given human body unnecessarily. (Lev. 19:28; 21:5; Deut. 14:1; 1 Sam. 31:4) Since our bodies are God-given, that principle should be respected, and much more so if we have dedicated our lives to God through Jesus Christ and have symbolized this dedication by water baptism. So do our bodies belong to ourselves, or to God, or to modern science?—Rom. 12:1.
27 Outraged Jews are appealing in behalf especially of dead bodies, but, in the case of blood transfusions, it is the living body that is concerned. And when the body of a minor child is violated by a forced transfusion with the aid of a Court-appointed guardian against the religious and Constitutional protests of the natural parents, the question becomes very serious, To whom does the child's body belong—to the political State or to the flesh-and-blood parents? God's law places the responsibility for the care of minor children and their religious upbringing upon the Christian parents. These are charged with bringing up their children in the same faith and religious practices as the parents follow, to obey God as ruler rather than man or State in this regard.—Eph. 6:4; Titus 1:5, 6; contrast Matthew 2:13-21.
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