Watch Tower Society Founding Doctrines
From the first issue of Zion's Watch Tower in July 1879, Russell began publicising a number of doctrines, many of them drawn from Adventist teachings, including the atonement, resurrection, the soul, the invisible parousia (or return) of Christ and God's "plan of the ages". Russell taught that mankind was to be redeemed not from torment but from the death penalty that had been imposed on Adam and subsequently passed on to all his descendants. He wrote that Christ's "ransom for all" mentioned in 1 Timothy 2:5 would be applied to all humankind rather than just the righteously inclined. Christ's death provided the ransom payment to free humans from death. He believed an elect few would be resurrected to serve as a heavenly priesthood and all humans who had died would be resurrected to earth, which would be restored to Edenic perfection.
Read more about this topic: Development Of Jehovah's Witnesses Doctrine
Famous quotes containing the words watch, tower, society, founding and/or doctrines:
“Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us—they watch from their graves!”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“The tower nearest the water gets the moonlight first.”
—Chinese proverb.
“In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The responsible business men of this country put their shoulders to the wheel. It is in response to this universal demand that we are founding today, All-American Airways.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)