Divine Rulership​—Over Mankind at the Start

“Jehovah himself has firmly established his throne in the very heavens; and over everything his own kingship has held domination.”​—Ps. 103:19.

1. What, according to our meaning, is the “establishment” into which we were all born, and what estimate must we make of it?

WE WERE all born into an “establishment.” By that word do we mean the system of things that exists here on our earthly globe? No! We mean an establishment of which our earth is just a very tiny part. We mean an establishment that extends away out into outer space. It takes in more than the Milky Way galaxy of which our sun is merely one of many like suns. It takes in all the galaxies of stars that the greatest man-made telescopes have been able to bring to human view. So tremendously big is this establishment that it needs to be measured in units of distance called “light-years.” Regardless of its hugeness, everybody has to admit that it is a marvelous establishment. It was already here before ever protesting youth of today got here, or before ever mankind got started here. All of us were brought into this establishment, not by our own will or choice. So, is this establishment something to protest about?

2. Why could it not be that man is responsible for running this “establishment,” and what does our reason dictate as to the runner of it?

² Who runs this staggeringly large establishment? It was already operating orderly before we humans came into existence. It does not need us to keep it running forever, hanging out there in space and working so harmoniously. Needless to say, it is too big for us, too far beyond our power of influence to reach. We cannot control it from here on earth with missiles, spaceships or radar systems. This is no chance establishment. If we were to calculate scientifically, it would be a case of trillions upon trillions of reasons against one bare possibility that such a harmonious, highly organized, perfectly operating “establishment” came about by accident, by chance. It could not come from nothing, for something never comes from nothing. Such a mighty concentration of dynamic energy as this establishment has in itself could never come from a hollow vacuum, from emptiness. According to our reasoning powers with which we have been gifted, it had to come from a central, inexhaustible source of power and energy. And that “source” would have to be intelligent, having know-how besides almighty ability. It must run the establishment.

3. (a) What must we conclude as to the runner of this visible “establishment,” and what is a suitable name for such? (b) What is the title as given in the Holy Bible?

³ We do not want to act “dumb,” do we? That is to say, stupid, senseless, unreasonable, which also means, unscientific? There is nothing else for reasoning, intelligent humans to accept but that the great Runner of this amazing “establishment” of beauty, design and power is an intelligent Person, even though invisible to our frail natural eyes. Does any of us have a better title by which to call that Person than “God”? That is what the Greatest Book on earth calls that Person. And this it does in its very opening sentence, saying: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the original language in which this part of the Book was written the word for our English word “God” is Elohimʹ. As The Holy Name Bible, which utterly rejects the title “God,” puts the sentence in English: “In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) This same Creator of the heavens and the earth takes the responsibility for that Book of all books, the Holy Bible, and from the first to the last this Book of more than a thousand pages reveals this intelligent Creator to be a God of perfect activity, of perfect wisdom, justice, love and power. He is perfectly able to run this visible “establishment.”

4, 5. (a) According to the Bible, on what is this earth suspended, and how does our earth compare with the whole establishment in size? (b) What questions as put to Job deserve to be asked of scientists?

⁴ Our earth is suspended in space upon nothing of a material kind. As that Book of books said in its account of the patriarch Job not quite three thousand five hundred years ago, in Job chapter twenty-six, verse seven: “He is stretching out the north over the empty place, hanging the earth upon nothing.” In comparison with the countless bodies in the heavens, our earth is like a mere speck of dust in the midst of a tremendous dust cloud. Since the God of creation runs or rules the great establishment as a whole, he must also be the ruler of the earth. His rulership, not that of human creatures on the earth, is the true, original, rightful rulership for the earth. A Creator should run his own creation. Man had nothing to do with creating this earth as his everlasting home. On this vital point the same questions deserve to be put to modern-day scientists and evolutionists that were put to the patriarch Job by God respecting the creation of the earth. To Job he said:

⁵ “Gird up your loins, please, like an able-bodied man, and let me question you, and you inform me. Where did you happen to be when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you do know understanding. Who set its measurements, in case you know, or who stretched out upon it the measuring line? Into what have its socket pedestals been sunk down, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars joyfully cried out together, and all the sons of God began shouting in applause? . . . Was it from your days onward that you commanded the morning? Did you cause the dawn to know its place, to take hold on the extremities of the earth, that the wicked ones might be shaken out from it?”​—Job 38:3-13.

6. (a) Whom did God say witnessed the creating of the earth? (b) Why are we in no position to pass judgment upon God’s pronouncement of six thousand years ago on his creative work?

⁶ In answer to those questions, all of us today would have to say humbly that we were not on the scene. Those whom God here calls “the morning stars” and “all the sons of God” witnessed the creating of the earth and they were all delighted with this tiny part of the visible “establishment.” Well, then, do we inferior human creatures have any reason to criticize God for the way that he created our earthly home? When God finished the preparing of it for man’s dwelling place and put man upon it, then, as the last verse of the first chapter of the Holy Bible says, “God saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31) Since the Creator himself looked at his earthly creation and considered it to be “very good,” who are we who have come on the scene six thousand years later to say that it was not “very good” from our human viewpoint? Who are we today to judge what the state of the earth was six thousand years ago when God created the first man and woman in human perfection and put them in a Paradise of Pleasure? The polluted condition of the earth today is no basis for true judgment.

7. (a) What kind of rulership did man have at his beginning, but with what attitude have men been ruling the earth for now thousands of years? (b) Upon what question as to rulership do we now need to decide?

⁷ We are here by grant of the Creator’s favor. Who, then, are we to think that we humans have the right to run this earth as we please regardless of the Creator, God? And yet that is the way that human history shows that men have been running the earth for thousands of years. Originally, at man’s creation, man enjoyed divine rulership. Today man is suffering under human rulership that ignores God and defies divine rulership. The imperfect human rulers desire all peoples to look only to human rulership and defy divine rulership as they, the human rulers, do. As never before, the question upon which we are obliged to make a decision is, Divine rulership​—Are we for it or against it? If we are for it, what does it mean for us? If we are against it, what does it mean for us and those who are dependent upon us? Let us see, for we desire to choose what will mean happiness for us and ours.

THE COURSE OF THOSE WHO ARE AGAINST IT

8. (a) Whom might those on earth who are against divine rulership have in their company? (b) What are they obliged to admit as to whether hostility to divine rulership always existed?

⁸ Those today who are against divine rulership, that is to say, God’s rulership of the earth, have a lot of company. Likely they have a lot more company than they know of or realize. Likely they have in their company those whom they do not like to admit as being on their side and associated with them. What do we mean? Because they are materialistic in their philosophy, they refuse to agree that there is anything spiritual, even to the point of denying that there is a God, who is a Spirit. At least they do not take the thought of God seriously, nor the existence of any other spirit person of intelligence. They really have no reasonable basis for taking this mental opinion and attitude; yet they hold to it by blinding themselves to apparent facts. However, they will have to admit that this hostility to divine rulership had a start. There is history to prove that it had its start six thousand years ago. It did not start with man, but man got involved.

9. (a) With whom did resistance to divine rulership start, and whose painful experience with him proved the reality of that one? (b) For whose rulership was Job, and so what did Satan desire to test about Job?

⁹ With whom, then, did hostility to divine rulership have a beginning? It was not with a subhuman creature, like a snake, but with a superhuman creature, one of those of whom God spoke to the patriarch Job as being “sons of God.” (Job 38:7) Job had a painful experience with this beginner of hostility to divine rulership. Job was informed that the name of this one was Satan. In Job’s language the name Satan was the same as saying “Resister.” But “Resister” of whom? Of God, to be sure! Job was in favor of divine rulership. Satan proved that his resistance was against God by trying to destroy Job for his advocating God’s rulership. Satan was no imaginary person to Job any more than he was an imaginary person to God himself. After Job’s hard experience was over, God revealed to Job who was responsible for his sufferings and trials. It was this Satan. At a meeting of the “sons of God” in heaven Satan had put in appearance. There he asked God to lift his protection of Job and let him put Job to the test regarding his loyalty to divine rulership.

10. What did Satan claim that, given free course, he could make Job do, and what does James 5:11 indicate as to whether Job yielded?

¹⁰ Satan claimed that, given free course, he could make Job curse God to his very face. This was as long ago as the seventeenth century before our Common Era. The test of Job’s patience and faithfulness was recorded in the Bible book of Job for us to read. Did Satan succeed in forcing Job into the camp of resisters of God and of opposition to divine rulership? More than sixteen centuries later the Christian disciple James the half brother of Jesus Christ writes regarding this and says: “Look! We pronounce happy those who have endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome Jehovah gave, that Jehovah is very tender in affection and merciful.”​—Jas. 5:11.

11. How does the record show that God won out over Satan through Job’s not cursing God to his face?

¹¹ In the case of Job, Jehovah God won out over Satan, for Satan proved to be a liar. How so? As Satan brought trials upon Job, we read, “in all this Job did not sin or ascribe anything improper to God.” When the state of Job seemed desperate and his wife gave up hope concerning him, she said to him: “Are you yet holding fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” But Job said to her: “As one of the senseless women speaks, you speak also. Shall we accept merely what is good from the true God and not accept also what is bad?” Hence the record says: “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” Finally, before Jehovah reversed the situation for Job, he said to three hypocritical critics of Job: “My anger has grown hot against you and your two companions, for you men have not spoken concerning me what is truthful as has my servant Job.” (Job 1:1-22; 2:9, 10; 42:7, 8) This, in effect, proved to be a rebuke to Satan, and he was exposed as a slanderer or Devil.

12. How long before Job’s time and at what place was the issue over divine rulership raised, and with what result to God’s seventh creative day or Sabbath?

¹² Thus this historical person, Job of the land of Uz, remained faithful to Jehovah as God Almighty. Job was in favor of divine rulership. However, it was more than two thousand four hundred years before Job’s trial that Satan the Devil raised the issue over divine rulership. This was shortly after the Creator, Jehovah God, had planted the Garden of Eden some hundreds of miles to the northeast of the location of the land of Uz. Into that Paradise of Pleasure Jehovah had put the first man and woman to live and serve in subjection to the divine rulership. It was then about the beginning of Jehovah’s seventh creative day, about 4026 B.C.E., or almost six thousand years ago. (Gen. 1:28 to 2:3) Did this seventh creative day, this great Sabbath Day for Jehovah as respects earthly creation, continue peaceful, with all creation in heaven and on earth in loyal submission to divine rulership? Our own human experience today as well as earthly history for the past six thousand years answers No. The calm of this great Sabbatic Day of Jehovah began to be disturbed from almost its very beginning.

13. How did a heavenly “son of God” cause temptation to form for him, and into what course did it draw him?

¹³ At that critical time one of those “sons of God” in heaven who had witnessed Jehovah’s creation of man and woman in the Garden of Eden let selfish desire enter into his heart and let it draw him and entice him away from divine rulership. He began to envy God’s rightful rulership over this human pair whom God commanded to raise a big happy family and fill all the earth, at the same time extending the Paradise in Eden to the very ends of the earth. (Gen. 1:26-28) This heavenly “son of God” now came under temptation of his own forming and desired to have that rulership over that first human couple and their family with which they would fill the earth. He cultivated this selfish desire until it became fertile and gave birth to sin. That sin was his launching off into resistance to the Divine Ruler over all, the Most High and Almighty God Jehovah. In this way this heavenly “son of God” converted himself into Satan or the Resister. God was in no way to be blamed for this as if tempting anybody in heaven or on earth to badness, to wickedness.​—Jas. 1:13-15.

14. How was it that Satan at Eden proceeded differently from what he did at the meeting of the “sons of God” before Jehovah, and how did he get Eve to listen to him?

¹⁴ At the Garden of Eden no coming together of the heavenly sons of God before Jehovah God is reported as having taken place at that time. Nor did Satan disclose what was in his heart and, as in the case of Job, ask the Supreme Ruler Jehovah to remove his protection from around Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. There then being no wickedness in all the realm of existence, there was nothing from which this first human couple needed to be protected. So Satan did not need to ask Jehovah to open up the way for him to get at Adam and Eve and put them to the test and make these earthly human subjects of divine rulership sin against God. Having yielded to his own temptation, he proceeded to make himself the Great Tempter by putting temptation in the way of Adam and Eve. Without disclosing his selfish purpose to other heavenly sons of God, he sneakily put on a disguise and deceitfully used a serpent in the Garden of Eden as his harmless-looking agent to set the trap. The woman Eve, despite her human perfection, was not aware that the unseen spirit creature, Satan, was using ventriloquism through the serpent to tempt her. So, instead of refusing to listen, she listened.

15. How did Satan turn himself into the Devil, and into what course did he influence Eve to go?

¹⁵ By the serpent, the traitorous son of God, Satan, struck at the law of God concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, as if God were misusing his divine rulership. Satan now transformed himself into the Devil, which means Slanderer, by calling God a liar who was unable to enforce the penalty for violating his law against eating the forbidden fruit. Would Eve die for defying divine rulership and exercising human self-rule? No! said Satan the Devil through the serpent. “You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.” Eve could not see Satan the Devil any more than we today can see him with our natural eyes. Letting now the newly formed selfish desire for a forbidden thing draw her and entice her, she mothered human sin by calling into question divine rulership and breaking the divine law. Satan the Devil knew that the transgressor Eve would next try to persuade her husbandly head, Adam, to eat the forbidden fruit with her.​—Gen. 3:1-6.

16. How did Adam come into possession of the forbidden fruit, and on what fundamental issue did he make a decision, with effect upon whom?

¹⁶ Eve wanted company in her transgression. She desired her husband to join her. He did not pick any fruit off the forbidden tree at her suggestion, but his wife offered the fruit to him. Her voice became very pleading, tempting him to share with her in the forbidden fruit. Under the deception, she did not think that it would kill him to do so. A decision affecting the whole human family was now Adam’s to make. He had to make a decision, not only for himself, but for his unborn offspring that was in his loins. He faced the great issue, Divine rulership​—Am I for it or against it? Instead of listening to his heavenly Father’s voice of warning about the deadly consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, Adam listened to his wife’s persuasive voice. He did not choose to prove that “serpent” a liar and God true. Contrariwise, he chose to please his wife. He accepted the forbidden fruit at her hand.​—Gen. 3:6, 12, 17.

MANKIND BROUGHT UNDER DEMON RULERSHIP

17, 18. (a) For whose rulership did Adam decide, and on whose side did he put himself? (b) How does the apostle John analyze under whose rulership Adam’s firstborn son was?

¹⁷ Here resistance on earth to divine rulership started. Adam, the earthly head of the human family, decided for human self-rule. He was also deciding in favor of something else, although he may not then have realized it. Like his wife Eve, he did not with his natural eye see Satan the Devil as the moving power behind that talking “serpent,” but, just the same, Adam was deciding in favor of Satan’s rulership as against divine rulership. Adam and Eve were now on the side of Satan the Devil​—against divine rulership, against theocratic rule. That is why Adam and Eve were driven out of the Paradise of Pleasure, to bring forth their family outside on ground upon which God’s curse rested. Their firstborn son, Cain, showed under whose rulership he was when he murdered his God-fearing brother Abel. (Gen. 3:17 to 4:16) In pointing this out the apostle John writes:

¹⁸ “This is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should have love for one another; not like Cain, who originated with the wicked one and slaughtered his brother. And for the sake of what did he slaughter him? Because his own works were wicked, but those of his brother were righteous.”​—1 John 3:11, 12.

19. As in Cain’s case, how does mankind today prove that it is not submitting itself to divine rulership?

¹⁹ All this illustrates the serious consequences that follow from going against divine rulership. Do we have fratricide, the killing of brother by brother, today? No one can deny that we have it on a colossal scale, especially when world wars come along. Men wise in the wisdom of this modern world may say that Satan the Devil has nothing to do with this. But we have better information from authoritative sources rather than from these self-opinionated persons. Brother haters and brother murderers today originate from the same wicked one now as they did in the days of Cain and Abel, only there are more of them now than there were on earth in the first century of the human family on earth. Yes, and more than in the first century of Christianity, when the apostle John wrote the foregoing words about brother love and brother hate. The evidence is overwhelming, therefore, that mankind today is not just under human rulership but, unknown to itself, also under Satanic rulership. The increasing lack of brotherly love proves that mankind is not submitting itself to divine rulership. “God is love,” we read in 1 John 4:8, 16.

20. In whose days did there come a break in Satan’s rulership over mankind, and what men down to him were in favor of divine rulership?

²⁰ From the day when Adam and Eve took their stand against divine rulership until now, there has been only one temporary break in Satanic rulership over mankind. This was in the days of the patriarch Noah, the tenth man in line of descent from Adam. Before Noah, the faithful martyr Abel had been in favor of rulership by the Divine Being whom he worshiped. Also, the prophet Enoch, the seventh man in line of descent from Adam, was for divine rulership. Evidently so that Enoch might not be murdered by ungodly opposers, Jehovah God miraculously took him from the earthly scene when he was just 365 years old. (Gen. 5:18-24; Heb. 11:4, 5; Jude 14, 15) In favor of whose rulership Noah was is evident from the record in Genesis 6:9, which reads: “This is the history of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. He proved himself faultless among his contemporaries. Noah walked with the true God.”

21. (a) In the light of what prophecy of Jesus do we do well to note the situation existing in Noah’s day? (b) How does the account in Genesis show that divine rulership was not recognized in Noah’s preflood days?

²¹ We today do well to take note of the world situation in Noah’s day down to his six hundredth year of age. Why? Because Jesus Christ said in his prophecy regarding world conditions at the “conclusion of the system of things” this significant statement: “Just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, . . . they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” (Matt. 24:3, 37-39) Besides the eating, drinking and marrying that was then going on in those pre-Flood days, there was a situation that called for the Creator to bring that globe-sweeping Flood. It was what was described in Genesis 6:11, 13, where we read: “The earth came to be ruined in the sight of the true God and the earth became filled with violence. After that God said to Noah: ‘The end of all flesh has come before me, because the earth is full of violence as a result of them; and here I am bringing them to ruin together with the earth.”’ Certainly, then, divine rulership was not recognized.

22, 23. (a) In the pre-Flood days, how did Satan’s rulership take on added force in connection with “women being given in marriage”? (b) How was it evident that the Nephilim offspring of the angelic-human marriages were of no moral help to mankind?

²² In those pre-Flood days, Satanic rulership over the human family took on added force. How so? Well, in Jesus’ reference to the days of Noah he spoke of “women being given in marriage.” (Matt. 24:38) Among those women being then married off were many women who were taken by persons whom Genesis 6:4 calls “the sons of the true God.” They were heavenly “sons of God,” just as Satan the Devil had once been, but they were tempted to come down and take up living on earth because of the “good-looking” daughters of men, who were available for marriage.

²³ So these heavenly “sons of the true God” materialized as men and “went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose.” Possibly, more than one wife each. Among the offspring of such angelic-human marriages were what the Bible calls Nephilim, which means “Fellers,” that is, those who cause someone or something to fall forcibly. “They were the mighty ones who were of old, the men of fame.” (Gen. 6:1-4) Those hybrid Nephilim or Fellers were manifestly not of any moral help to the pure human stock of mankind, for after that the Bible reports that the earth was being ruined and was filled with violence. This definitely proves that those angelic “sons of the true God” had acted sinfully in marrying the “daughters of men” for sexual satisfaction.

24. (a) Did those marrying “sons of God” sin, and on whose side did they put themselves? (b) At the Flood, what happened to the Nephilim, and what were the married “sons of God” obliged to do?

²⁴ That those heavenly sons of God did sin by leaving their invisible spiritual estate and their own proper habitation in God’s celestial service is positively stated in the Bible. (1 Pet. 3:19, 20; 2 Pet. 2:4, 5; Jude 6) This decidedly put them in opposition to divine rulership both in heaven and on earth. That put them on the side of Satanic rulership and under it. Their hybrid offspring, the Nephilim, were not preserved through the global flood; none of them were taken into the great ark that Noah and his three sons built. Being human because of their human mothers, they were drowned in the Flood, along with their earthly relatives. Their angelic fathers dematerialized and unwillingly, under compulsion, disappeared into the spirit realm. There they were obliged to join Satan the Devil as their ruler.

25. How was there thus an interruption of Satan’s rulership brought about, and under what did mankind get a new start?

²⁵ The global flood interrupted the Satanic rulership over the human family. Noah and his wife and their three sons and three daughters-in-law, inside the ark during the deluge, were all for divine rulership. They survived that global cataclysm, but all those who were against divine rulership were drowned in the floodwaters. Consequently, when Noah and his fellow survivors stepped out of the ark onto the cleansed earth, the human family was once again under divine rulership. In evidence of that fact Jehovah God as the Divine Ruler told Noah and his family to do what he had told Adam and Eve in Eden to do, to fill the earth with their offspring, subject to certain stated divine laws. (Gen. 6:13 to 9:7) Mankind thus got a second start under divine rulership.

26. Consistently, why should God not be less concerning about earthly conditions today, and how do we know whether he will do something about this as in Noah’s day?

²⁶ If the ruination of the earth and the filling of it with violence in the preflood days of Noah were deserving of mention in the Holy Bible, certainly the greater ruination of the earth and the filling of it with more widespread violence in this twentieth century are due for mention. Is God the Creator less concerned about this present-day far-worse world condition than he was with that of Noah’s day? By every rule of consistency he should be far more concerned about it and hence obliged to do something about it as Creator of heaven and earth. Jesus Christ the faithful Son of God prophesied that God would do so.

Divine Rulership​—Are We for It or Against It?

1. (a) After the Flood, how did human rulership begin to be organized? (b) How had Satan’s power for rulership over mankind been reinforced, and what evidence do we have for the existence of demons in history since then?

ALL THE facts today go to prove that mankind does not favor divine rulership. This is because within less than two centuries after the Flood human rulership began to be organized by human leaders in opposition to Jehovah God. Notoriously prominent in this was Nimrod, the builder of Babylon and the Tower of Babel. (Gen. 10:8-12; 11:1-9) By doing this, they were bringing the majority of mankind, not merely under oppressive, imperfect rulership, but also under Satanic rulership. The power of Satan the Devil was now reinforced by those other “sons of God” who had turned against God’s sovereignty and had intermarried with the daughters of men. These, like Satan the Devil, had made demons of themselves. The materialistically minded people of today who smile at Satan the Devil and his demons as being mythical figures and figments of the imagination cannot rub out the record of all ancient history. The ancient records, in writing and in temples and other religious ruins, all testify that the ancient nations worshiped demons and were influenced by them. Demons are! They do exist!

2, 3. (a) Information from which authoritative source is more important than such historical evidence, and how does it speak of the demons? (b) What advice did Paul write to the Ephesians against the demons?

² More importantly than that, the Book of sacred truth, the inspired Bible, gives us definite information regarding these demons and their leader, Satan the Devil. That Book warns us against the machinations, the crafty schemes and sly designs, of those malicious, invisible spirit persons, who are not of blood and flesh. The people today, even those in Christendom, do not take seriously the advice that the Christian apostle Paul wrote for all Christians in his letter to the congregation of Ephesus, saying:

³ “Put on the complete suit of armor from God that you may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil; because we have a wrestling, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.”​—Eph. 6:11, 12.

4. (a) What do those words mean as to Satan’s organizing activity, and so what do Jesus and Paul call Satan? (b) How do human rulers react on being classed with such company, and yet who put them there?

⁴ Do we get the sense of this? This means that Satan the Devil has an invisible, superhuman organization. It means that he has organized the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places into “governments,” into “authorities,” into “world rulers of this darkness.” This unseen organized power is mightier than the communist bloc of nations with its vast military strength; it is mightier than the rich democratic bloc of nations with all their military might. Jesus Christ, who ought to know, called the Devil, Satan, “the ruler of this world.” The Christian apostle Paul called Satan “the god of this system of things.” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4) The earthly governments might want to muzzle us for saying this as downgrading to them, but we are merely quoting what Jesus Christ and his apostle Paul say on the pages of the Holy Bible. They do not like to have it pointed out from God’s Word that they are in such company, but we did not put them there. But, if they are not in favor of divine rulership by Jehovah God, where else can they find themselves?

HOW DIVINE RULERSHIP IS NOW REPRESENTED

5. (a) Through whom is divine rulership expressed today? (b) In Jesus’ days on earth, what was the issue that faced the people, and what problem did they have to solve?

⁵ How is divine rulership expressed today, that we may know whether we are for it or against it? Divine rulership is now exercised through the kingdom of his faithful heavenly Son, Jesus Christ. Like ancient Job of the land of Uz, Jesus Christ as a perfect man of blood and flesh on earth endured the greatest of tests at the hands of Satan the Devil and his human agencies on earth. He thereby proved his absolutely unbreakable integrity to Jehovah God as the Divine Ruler. Job did not die at the hands of Satan the Devil. But Jesus Christ died a cruel death at the hands of Satan’s crowd on earth. This took place outside the walls of Jerusalem. The inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the Roman provinces of Judea and Galilee were involved. For these religiously devout people the issue that then faced them was, Divine rulership through the Messiah of Jehovah God. The big problem that those people who were looking for Jehovah’s Messiah had to solve was this: Is Jesus the descendant of King David the long-promised Messiah or not?

6. (a) How did what Jesus said and did compare with what the people expected the true Messiah to do? (b) To whom did the people look for solving their Messianic problem, and on what charge did they turn Jesus over to a pagan governor?

⁶ From the time of his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist until his death three and a half years later, the things that Jesus said and the miracles that he did, the people who entertained the Messianic hope never expected the Messiah or Christ to say and do. They expected merely that the Messiah would liberate them from Gentile or non-Jewish rule and make their land a prosperous country and their nation the leading nation on earth to which the Gentile nations would flock. The problem was not merely a governmental one but also largely a religious one. The people looked to their religious leaders to direct them in solving the problem. These leaders made the decision for the vast majority of the people. They considered Jesus a blasphemer against God, a false Christ. Yet, not to be blocked in having him killed, they turned Jesus over to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. On what charge? On the charge of being a seditionist, claiming to be a king, not the king of the Roman Empire, but their king, the King of the Jewish nation. So they pretended to be befriending the Roman Empire, to be protecting its interests, even though pagan.

7. (a) Whom did the people before Pontius Pilate pretend to be befriending, to the discredit of Pilate? (b) By thus doing, the people were taking what stand as regards divine rulership, according to James 4:4?

⁷ When Governor Pilate expressed himself in favor of letting Jesus go free as not deserving of death, the people led by their chief priests pictured themselves as being friends of Tiberius Caesar whereas Governor Pilate was not his friend. The Bible record tells us: “Pilate kept on seeking how to release him. But the Jews shouted, saying: ‘If you release this man, you are not a friend of Caesar. Every man making himself a king speaks against Caesar.”’ Thus the issue was being made a political one, and those people were speaking and acting in favor of being friends​—of God or of pagan Caesar? Of a divine Ruler or of a human ruler? They could not be friends of God and of Caesar at the same time, even if they claimed that Jesus was a false Messiah or Christ. We have to abide by the inspired rule, as written at Jerusalem some years later: “Are you not aware that the world’s intimacy means God’s hostility? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.” (Jas. 4:4, H. J. Schonfield, 1955) So, in trying to befriend pagan Caesar on this issue of the Messiah or Christ, were those religious people showing themselves friends of divine rulership?

8. How did the people then show themselves to be in favor of pagan human rule as against divine rulership?

⁸ Finally the people brought the issue to a settlement, when they cried out for Jesus to be impaled, and Pilate objected, saying: “Shall I impale your king?” Here they positively rejected Jesus as the Messianic king, for, according to the record, “the chief priests answered: ‘We have no king but Caesar.”’ (John 19:12-15) Nobody can deny that here they made a choice of pagan human rulership. Unavoidably this put them against divine rulership.

9. (a) In proof that Jesus was the Messiah, what did God do on the third day? (b) Now, at the right time, who is being presented to all the world as the Messianic King, and what kind of rulership is his?

⁹ All the recorded facts show that Jesus fulfilled the Bible prophecies concerning the promised Messiah or Christ. That is why Almighty God resurrected him from the dead on the third day and exalted him to His own right hand in heaven. He is now the heavenly Messiah or Christ. (Acts 1:1 to 2:36; 13:26-39; 1 Pet. 3:18-22) And now, nineteen centuries later, just as Governor Pilate presented the Messiah to the Passover celebrators in Jerusalem in the year 33 C.E., so today the Most High God Jehovah is presenting his Messiah or Christ to the whole world of mankind. It is the time for this. The long time period mentioned as “the times of the Gentiles” or “the appointed times of the nations” ended in the fourteenth year of our twentieth century, the year that was marked by the outbreak of World War I. (Luke 21:24; Dan. 4:16, 23, 25) The kingdom of the royal house of King David that was overturned by the pagan armies of Babylon in 607 B.C.E. has now been reestablished, not on earth as a human rulership, but in the heavens in the hands of the true Messiah, the Christ of the Lord God Almighty Jehovah.

10. (a) Since 1914 C.E., what words do we hear by faith sounding from heaven about the kingdom of the world? (b) How has Christendom by world wars and by membership in the United Nations shown herself to be in favor of human rulership?

¹⁰ By faith our ears can hear, since 1914 C.E., the voices in heaven loudly saying the words recorded in the last book of the Bible: “The kingdom of the world did become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will rule as king forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15) That “kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” does not mean Christendom​—absolutely not! It means the heavenly royal government of the Messiah or Christ who has been anointed by the Lord God Jehovah to act for Him in ruling all peoples of the earth. According to her religious name, Christendom should be for that Messianic kingdom of God, but is she? After the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, did Christendom fight for that Messianic kingdom of the heavens, or was it for world domination by human rulership? Look at the League of Nations and the present-day United Nations, both of which Christendom introduced and promoted and keeps going today. Do those organizations stand for divine rulership by means of the Messianic kingdom of the heavens or stand for human rulership? What do the more than half of the members of the United Nations that do not profess to be Christian nations say in answer? They say: ‘No! The United Nations organization does not stand for divine rulership by means of a heavenly Messianic kingdom! It stands for human rulership of all the earth. We humans are going to rule it by our self-chosen forms of government.’ Logically, then, Christendom, by belonging to the United Nations, is for human (not divine) rulership.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FOR DIVINE RULERSHIP

11. As regards her course since the end of World War I in 1918, why is Christendom not excusable on the grounds of ignorance, and so may people look to her for right guidance as to choice of rulership?

¹¹ Christendom has belied her name, and there is no excuse for it. Ever since that critical year 1914, and particularly since the end of World War I in 1918, God’s Messianic kingdom as a government established in the heavens has been proclaimed. This has come as a fulfillment of the words of Jesus Christ about the sign by which the “conclusion of the system of things” would be recognized, namely: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” (Matt. 24:14) Christendom’s awareness of this preaching of such “good news” is proved by the fact that she has objected to it, even to the point of persecuting and proscribing the preachers of such “good news.” Consequently, Christendom’s choice of human rulership along with the non-Christian governments of the earth was not made in ignorance and without the possession of the Holy Bible. In view of this, mankind cannot safely look to Christendom to guide them in making the right choice, any more than Jews could look to their priests and rabbis nineteen centuries ago.

12. What is the all-important issue today, and why is the choice so urgent today for us to make?

¹² The all-important issue today is, not Communism or capitalistic democracy​—which shall rule? for these are both merely forms of human rulership. Rather, it is: Human rulership by men who are imperfect, sinful, dying and out of harmony with Jehovah God, or divine rulership by the Messianic kingdom of the resurrected Jesus, the Lamb of God who died sacrificially for all mankind? Today the choice is more urgent to make than it was nineteen hundred years ago when Jesus Christ was presented by Governor Pilate to the crowd of Passover celebrators in Jerusalem. We today stand very near the end of the “conclusion of the system of things.” Human rulership by imperfect, sinful, dying humans is about to be removed from the face of the earth in mankind’s greatest “tribulation” foretold in the prophetic Bible.

13. Why does it do one no good to further oppose divine rulership, and what now makes the matter all the more serious for opposers?

¹³ It does us no good, and it will result in no success, for us to oppose and be against divine rulership. The rulership by the Almighty Controller of the tremendous “establishment” of which our earth is a tiny particle will come in anyhow and take over the entire earth. What makes the matter so serious is that those today who continue to be, not for, but against divine rulership, will be destroyed as enemies in the tribulation with which this system of things ends.​—Matt. 24:21, 22; Dan. 2:44.

14. (a) Choice of human rulership means choice of what other rulership also, and what will happen to this latter rulership? (b) Choice of eternal divine rulership does not mean what as to our attitude toward present human governments and institutions?

¹⁴ Let us not overlook this distasteful fact: The choice for human rulership means at one and the same time a choice for Satanic rulership, the continued rule of mankind by the “god of this system of things.” After the destruction of this human system of things, Jehovah God by his Messiah will put Satan the Devil and his legions of demons out of their invisible domination of mankind on earth. (Rev. 20:1-3) So, are we going to choose what is to be destroyed after just a little while longer? How much wiser it is in this crucial hour to choose that which will be eternal​—divine rulership! Being for divine rulership now before the coming “great tribulation” does not mean that we are going to be violent revolutionists and try to overturn present political governments and other human institutions forcibly. No, for Jehovah God strictly forbids his Christian witnesses on earth to do so. (Rom. 12:17 to 13:7) Rather than choose to lift a violent hand against the human governments that God has permitted to exist till now, they will meekly continue to suffer vicious persecution at the hands of human political rulers.

15. (a) By enduring such unjust suffering without resentment, what will they maintain, just as Job and Jesus did? (b) What do they seek first, and what do they have to preach, for how long?

¹⁵ By enduring such unjust suffering without feeling resentment against Almighty God who permits it, they keep their integrity toward Him, just as patient Job and the Lord Jesus Christ did, always enjoying a clean conscience toward God and toward man. (Acts 23:1; 1 Pet. 2:19, 20) To show where they stand and the choice that they have made, they seek first the kingdom of their heavenly Father and His righteousness rather than meddling in human politics and taking sides therein. The Divine Ruler has given them the “good news of the kingdom” to preach everywhere. This is what they obediently do until God himself by Jesus the Messiah puts that divine government in full, undisputed power and control over all the earth.​—Matt. 6:33; 24:14.

16, 17. (a) What will Jehovah God do for those who take that loyal course? (b) What is Jehovah examining all human hearts now to determine, and to what words of David will those respond who choose life in His Messianic order?

¹⁶ Those who take this course are the ones whom the Universal Sovereign Lord Jehovah will preserve through the approaching “great tribulation” and into His righteous new order with its Paradise earth. As he now examines human hearts, he looks to us to show by word of mouth and unhypocritical action what choice we have made as to rulership. Are we for divine rulership over all the earth as well as in heaven, or are we against it? The Divine Ruler chooses for life in his Messianic new order those who respond to the inspired words of King David, who sat on “Jehovah’s throne” in Jerusalem:

¹⁷ “Jehovah himself has firmly established his throne in the very heavens; and over everything his own kingship has held domination. Bless Jehovah, O you angels of his, mighty in power, carrying out his word, by listening to the voice of his word. Bless Jehovah, all you armies of his, you ministers of his, doing his will. Bless Jehovah, all you his works, in all places of his domination. Bless Jehovah, O my soul.”​—Ps. 103:19-22.

18. In the light of those words of the psalmist, how do we answer the question on the issue of rulership?

¹⁸ Divine rulership by Jehovah God through Jesus Christ​—Are we for it or against it? With all of Jehovah’s angels, mighty in power, with all his heavenly armies, with all his ministers, doing his will, we firmly answer, We are for Divine Rulership both now and forevermore!