313
Judgment Day is near, according to
Jehovah’s Witnesses, who believe that
those not of their faith can soon expect
a reckoning, as depicted here in John
Martin’s The Great Day of His Wrath.
See also: The battle between good and evil 60–65 ■ The end of the world as we know it 86–87 ■ Jesus’s message to the
world 204–207 ■ A divine trinity 212–19 ■ Entering into the faith 224–27 ■ The ultimate reward for the righteous 279
MODERN RELIGIONS
rule of the Kingdom of Heaven to
Jesus Christ, who then expelled
Satan to earth. During this final
phase, Jesus, aided by a “faithful
and discreet slave” in the Governing
Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, will
maintain his invisible rule over
earth. For Jehovah’s Witnesses there
is no literal second coming; rather,
Jesus will at some unknown point
begin the battle against Satan, after
which God will extend the Kingdom
of Heaven, creating an earthly
paradise under Christ’s Millennial
Reign. They believe Christ to be
God’s representative ruler and not
part of a Trinity. Similarly, the Holy
Spirit is not part of the deity, but
manifests in forces such as gravity.
During the thousand-year reign
of Christ on earth—a prolonged
judgment day—the dead will be
resurrected and judged by Jesus,
facing a final test when Satan is
released into the world. Only
true believers, a select 144,000
Jehovah’s Witnesses, will remain
when Jesus passes the rule of the
Kingdom back to God.
Because of their dismissal of
other faiths (even other Christian
denominations) as corrupted by
Satan, Jehovah’s Witnesses have
been rejected by most other
religions. Public opinion has been
adversely affected by their insistent
door-to-door evangelizing and the
selling of their publications The
Watchtower and Awake!—which
nevertheless command high
circulation figures worldwide.
But their rejection of “corrupt”
government has had surprising
results. Many Jehovah’s Witnesses
who would not fight for the Nazis
ended up in concentration camps.
Elsewhere, their refusal to engage
in the wars of secular governments
helped to bring about changes to
the laws of conscientious objection,
and their refusal to compromise
their beliefs has led to many court
cases and influenced civil rights
legislation in several countries. ■Joseph Franklin
RutherfordBorn in rural Missouri in
1869, Joseph Rutherford
came from a poor farming
family and was raised as
a Baptist, but became
disillusioned with religion
after he left home. He studied
law and had a successful legal
career in Missouri and New
York. His interest in religion
was renewed in the 1890s
by the work of Charles Taze
Russell, founder of the Bible
Student movement, and he
became actively involved
with the Watch Tower Society,
becoming its second president
in 1917, after Russell’s death.
Dramatic changes were made
to the organization under his
leadership, and the doctrines
of present-day Jehovah’s
Witnesses were established.
He remained president of
the Society, increasing its
membership by introducing
door-to-door evangelizing,
among other things, until his
death from cancer in 1942.The Lord declares he has
entrusted his people with
the privilege and obligation
of telling his message.
The Watchtower