More Numerous or Less?

More Numerous or Less?

Witnesses say that there are only 144,000 persons who are born-again, spirit-anointed children of God (i.e., “the Anointed”). They alone are part of the New Covenant. They are the only ones who are co-heirs with Christ and who will go on to reign with him in heaven. Witnesses claim that along with Christ they comprise one of the two groups Paul speaks about in the following passage. In making this last claim, however, they unwittingly undermine their claim that only 144,000 believers are born again. This will be explained below.

Galatians 4:27: ”For it is written: “Be glad, you barren woman who does not give birth; break into joyful shouting, you woman who does not have birth pains; for the children [Jesus and the Anointed] of the desolate woman [the heavenly part of God’s organization] are more numerous than those [ethnic Jews] of her who has the husband [the nation of Israel].” (NWT)

The Barren / Desolate Woman = The Heavenly Part of God’s Organization (w06 3/15 p. 11)

The Children of the Barren / Desolate Woman  = Jesus and the Anointed (w85 3/15 p. 13; w95 8/1 p. 11; w06 3/15 p. 11)

Her Who Has the Husband = the Nation of Israel (w95 8/1 p. 11)

The Children of Her Who has the Husband  = ethnic Jews (at least those born under the Law) (w55 4/1 p. 223; w85 3/15 p. 12)

Witnesses cannot maintain that there have only been 144,001 spirit-begotten children of God and that there have been more than 144,001 ethnic Jews. The latter fact, however, is impossible to deny. In the first century there were already many hundreds of thousands of Jews. Only by abandoning their claim that only 144,000 humans will be born-again can they preserve their interpretation of which groups Paul is describing. Doing so, however, will undermine a great deal of their theological system and raise the question as to why their “faithful and discreet slave” has been so wrong on this issue for as long as they have.

Witnesses never directly comment on this difficulty. Nor do they offer an explicit explanation as to how 144,001 persons can be more numerous than the ethnic Jews are. However, something of a response to this objection can be constructed from what they do write. Consider the following quotations from Witness literature.

(1) “Nevertheless, the offspring of the Jerusalem above multiplied while those of the natural, earthly Jerusalem that proved unfaithful were cast off as children of the great Father and Husband, Jehovah. Sarah was a woman living in a tent, and a family increase would have meant enlarging the tent; so the woman organization corresponding to Sarah was told that the time would come when she would have to enlarge her tent. In time she would have more offspring than the Hagarlike law arrangement that produced the nation of Israel, but all of whom, except a small remnant, were unfaithful and remained in bondage to sin and death.”  (April 1, 1955 Watchtower p. 223)

(2) “She [the Jerusalem today / her who has the husband] perished at Roman hands in 70 C.E., with disaster for her “children.” (March 15, 1985 Watchtower, p. 130)

(3) “When Israel rejected and killed His Son, Jesus Christ, God finally rejected her. So no longer was that Jewish nation a figurative wife to him, nor was he the Father and Teacher of her wayward sons.” (August 1, 1995 Watchtower, p. 11)

(4) “The inspired record of first-century events shows that the fleshly nation represented by Hagar did not of itself produce sons who would be joint heirs with Jesus. Jews who proudly believed that they had a right to such an inheritance by virtue of their birth were driven out, rejected by Jehovah. Of course, some individual natural Israelites did become joint heirs with Christ. However, that privilege was granted on the basis of their faith in Jesus rather than because of their fleshly descent.” (March 15, 2006 Watchtower, p. 12)

To the extent that there is a Witness response to this objection it seems to be as follows. The spirit-anointed children of “the desolate women” outnumber the children of “her who has the husband” because the latter were disowned by God. Their mother, the nation as a whole, of which they were parts, was destroyed by God. Therefore, any number of spirit-begotten children of God will exceed the number of children of the nation of Israel, which is zero.

This response will not do, however. Being unfit to be co-heirs with Christ and consequently being disowned by God does not change the fact that these ethnic Jews were still children of “her who has the husband”. And even if the nation as a whole was brought to an end – which would be hard to square with Paul’s claims in Romans that they remain beloved on account of the patriarchs and that all Israel (the very same Israel upon whom a temporary partial hardening has presently fallen) will be saved – Witness literature acknowledges that she had many children prior to this time.

They claim that all ethnic Jews born under the Law (“the Hagarlike law arrangement”) are children of “her who has the husband”. Many millions of such persons have existed over the many centuries between the establishment of the Law at Mount Sinai and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. So, even if this woman now no longer exists and so, properly speaking, no longer produces children, this does not alter the fact that this woman has had many millions of children. Even if the woman is no more, they still have to be reckoned to be her children. Therefore, since 144,001 is fewer than many millions, Witnesses still have a serious objection to their theological system.