Monday, March 21

This cup means the new covenant by virtue of my blood.1 Cor. 11:25.

Those who rightly partake of the Memorial emblems are absolutely sure that they are parties to the new covenant. God has made the new covenant with the spiritual Israelites.  This covenant has been validated by Christ’s sacrifice and has been made operative by his shed blood. Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant, and loyal anointed ones taken into it receive a heavenly inheritance.Individuals entitled to partake of the Memorial emblems know that they have also been taken into the Kingdom covenant. Because they are in the Kingdom covenant, faithful anointed ones will reign with Christ as heavenly kings forever.

COMMENTARY

Satan has always sought to diminish the wondrous generosity of Jehovah’s adopting many sons and ultimately endowing them with the gift of immortality. According to the nearly all-pervasive teachings of Christendom, going to heaven is commonplace —it is more or less everyone’s birthright. And supposedly everyone has an immortal soul anyway. No big deal.

But even among Jehovah’s Witnesses there is a submerged sect who promote the idea that the Watchtower is practicing a dark satanic ritual by passing the cup and bread among persons who have been told they are not entitled to partake of the blood of Jesus. It is their erroneous contention that the new covenant is between God and all Christians.

But such is not the case. Those persons are mere pretenders who are acting under the influence of the phony angel of light. Obviously, Satan’s intention is to induce persons to partake who may not be entitled. Paul specifically warned that anyone doing so will be guilty of violating what is sacred.

Those who may be swayed by the deceivers should consider this: Christ’s ransom sacrifice has the purchasing power to buy all of Adam’s offspring —including the dead. That means billions of persons will be redeemed from death to live again on this earth. And the vast majority who have lived and died were unrighteous in God’s eyes. Some even outright enemies and haters of God. They do not have to acknowledge God in anyway in order to receive the resurrection of judgment, much less drink from the cup of holy union. 

The point is, if the billions who will be resurrected as humans were not parties of the new covenant, why would it be necessary for those who will survive the coming great tribulation in the flesh to be part of the new covenant? It is not. Their symbolically washing their robes in the blood of the Lamb does not mean they are part of the Kingdom. It merely represents that they have put faith in the Son of God and acted accordingly.

In further proof that the millions of Christians who will survive the end of this world are not in the new covenant, in the context of Paul’s comment that is the day’s theme scripture, the anointed apostle went on to write: “For whenever you eat this loaf and drink this cup, you keep proclaiming the death of the Lord, until he comes.”

Jesus’ coming concludes the new covenant. However, it does not immediately result in salvation for the great crowd. First, upon arriving Christ will initiate the judgment of the house of God. The house of God is the spiritual temple of persons who have been called. Christ will accomplish the expulsion of a wicked and sluggish slave faction and reward the faithful remaining ones with entry into the Kingdom.

The coming of Christ will bring an end to the drinking of the cup of the covenant because all of the sons of the Kingdom will ultimately be approved then; some, like the original apostles, by virtue of their experiencing the first resurrection and the remaining ones on earth by their being sealed —after which they will shine as brightly as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father, which will be a reflection of the glorious light Christ will shine upon them during his manifestation.

The great crowd will experience the revealing of the sons of God as a token of their being accepted into the Kingdom as faithful, earthly subjects and immediate beneficiaries of the new covenant’s accomplishment.

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