THE TWO WITNESSES ARE KILLED

Below is an excerpt from the Revelation chapter in the book Jehovah Himself Has Become King:

Concerning the great earthquake that kills “seven thousand persons,” the Grand Climax commentary claims that the revival of the Bible Students resulted in “great convulsions in the realm of religion,” and that “the ground seemed to move under the leaders of the established churches as this body of revivified Christians got to work.” Oddly, again, Christendom seemingly has no recollection of that cataclysmic earth-moving experience of nearly a century ago. Even more absurd, the Society claims that the seven thousand killed by the quake were individuals who were formerly churchgoers before 1918, but who merely requested to have their names removed from their respective church membership rosters; and were thus only symbolically killed from Christendom’s standpoint. Specifically, the Grand Climax book states:

“The “seven thousand” and the “tenth of the city” in Revelation 11:13 are those who respond to the restored two witnesses and abandon the sinful great city. They die, as it were, to Christendom. Their names are taken off her membership roles. They no longer exist as far as she is concerned.”

As for the significance of how “the rest became frightened and gave glory to God” the Grand Climax offers the following highly inventive explanation:

“But how did ‘the rest [of Christendom] give glory to the God of heaven’? Certainly not by abandoning their apostate religion and becoming servants of God…To her chagrin, Christendom had to acknowledge that the God of the Bible Students had performed a great act in restoring them to Christian activity. It may be that the clergy gave this acknowledgment only mentally, or to themselves. Certainly, none of them went on record as publicly acknowledging the God of the two witnesses. But Jehovah’s prophecy through John helps us to discern what was in their hearts and realize the humiliating shock that they experienced in 1919.”

It should be evident to thinking persons that the Watchtower’s 1914 teaching is entirely artificial and contrived and does not pass the test of being an authentic and reliable interpretation of the grand apocalyptic vision. In view of the Watchtower’ unsatisfactory teachings, how might the second woe actually unfold in the future? What is the meaning of the seven thousand who are killed in a great earthquake that causes a tenth of the city to fall?