17. By whom has the symbolic “dragnet” been handled, and, in 1891 and 1912, what was this “dragnet” said to picture?

¹⁷ Further illustrating Jesus’ tie-in with Christendom is the parable of the dragnet. (Matt. 13:47-50) The fishermen who handle the dragnet picture the heavenly angels under the direction of the glorified Jesus Christ. But what does the dragnet itself picture? Because the parable says that “the kingdom of the heavens is like a dragnet,” does the dragnet picture the 144,001 members of the “kingdom of the heavens” class? No, it could not do so, when we take all the features of the parable together. The book “Thy Kingdom Come,” published in 1891, said, on page 214, that the dragnet pictured “the nominal Christian Church.” The Watch Tower under date of June 15, 1912, on its page 201 and under the heading “The Parable of a Fish Net,” spoke of it as “the Gospel net, with its full assortment of churchianity of every style.”

18. What did The Watchtower under date of November 15, 1967, say that the dragnet pictured?

¹⁸ More recently, in the Watchtower issue of November 15, 1967, appeared the study article entitled “Let Down Your Nets for a Catch.” On page 686, paragraph six says that “the dragnet symbolizes the earthly organization that professes to be God’s congregation that is in the new covenant with God through the Mediator Jesus Christ. So it claims to be the spiritual Israel, the holy nation that is anointed with God’s spirit to reign with Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom. It includes the true professors and the false or unfaithful professors. Logically it includes Christendom, with its hundreds of thousands of professed Christians, belonging to hundreds of sects called Christian.”

The same thing may be said with regard to the dragnet: Jesus’ parable does not show that the dragnet would pass out of existence. But neither does the parable show that the dragnet was ever used again. Were it to be used again, it would bring out again from the “sea” the very same mixture of sea life as was depicted in the parable. So, because the parable does not go so far as to illustrate it, this does not signify that what is pictured by the dragnet will not be done away with in God’s due time. Operations under the guidance of the angels have been carried on with that symbolic dragnet for the past nineteen centuries. But, when once the work of separating the forms of sea life that have been hauled in by that symbolic dragnet is completed, that fishing operation will not be repeated.

24. Despite its not being shown in the parable, why will the symbolic dragnet be done away with in God’s due time?

²⁴ Since the dragnet pictured “the nominal Christian Church” or ‘the organization of professed Christians, including the true and the false,’ the symbolic dragnet will actually be done away with. Such a religious device that includes Christendom will be cast away and never be used again. By the end of the “conclusion of the system of things” Jehovah God will have gotten all his good “fish” for the true “kingdom of the heavens.” (Matt. 4:17; 13:47-50) So the failure of the parable to illustrate it does not prove that the figurative dragnet will not accomplish its purpose and be done away with, be laid away, never to be used again. And yet Jesus said that “the kingdom of the heavens” was like that dragnet. Certainly, then, the dragnet did not itself picture the Kingdom class of 144,001 members.