Embarassing indecision displayed by
the Watchtower Society with |
Will the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah be resurrected? YES
The Watchtower 1879 7/1 p8 NO
The Watchtower
1952 6/1 p338
"Get Out of
Her, My People" Another judgment period is brought into view when those championing resurrection for exterminated Sodomites quote Jesus' words on a certain occasion. From this some argue that there is a future judgment, in the millennial reign, for both Sodom and these Jewish cities. If we take this expression to mean that, then it would contradict Jude's statement that Sodom had already undergone the "judicial punishment of everlasting fire". Actually, Jesus was using a form of speech construction common in Biblical times.
YES The Watchtower 1965 3/1 p140 "Who Will Be Resurrected from the Dead?" So
the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were made a "warning example," because
they were not allowed to continue existing
till the day of Jesus Christ and of Peter and Jude and fellow disciples. Not that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah
were condemned to Gehenna and were hurled into the "lake that burns with fire and
sulphur"; but that they were made a warning example to unfaithful Christians
("ungodly persons") who will be judicially punished with "everlasting
fire" or everlasting destruction. NO The Watchtower 1988 6/1 p30-1 "Questions From Readers" Do
Jesus' words at Matthew 11:24 mean that those whom Jehovah destroyed by fire in Sodom and
Gomorrah will be resurrected?
A recent review of this suggests that these verses
need not be taken as statements about the future for the people
of Sodom/Gomorrah. Saying that it would be "more endurable" for Tyre/Sidon and
Sodom/Gomorrah "on Judgment Day" was a form of
hyperbole (exaggeration to emphasize a point) that Jesus need not have intended to be taken literally, any more
than other graphic hyperboles that he used. YES
Insight
On The Scriptures, vol 2 1988 p985 "Sodom Jude
mentions that "Sodom and Gomorrah . . . are placed before us as a warning example by
undergoing the judicial
punishment of everlasting
fire." This would not conflict with Jesus' statement about a Jewish city that would
reject the good news: "It will
be more endurable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day than for that
city." Sodom and
Gomorrah were everlastingly destroyed as cities,
but this would not preclude a resurrection for people of those cities.
NO You Can Live Forever in Paradise On Earth 1989 p179 "Judgment Day and Afterward" Will such terribly wicked persons be resurrected during Judgment Day? The Scriptures indicate that apparently they will not. For example, one of Jesus’ inspired disciples, Jude, wrote first about the angels that forsook their place in heaven to have relations with the daughters of men. Then he added: “So too Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them, after they in the same manner as the foregoing ones had committed fornication excessively and gone out after flesh for unnatural use, are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.” And the Governing Body has the nerve to claim that Science
is indecisive and fickle. |