The Modern Fulfillment of the “Penny”
1. Because of what happened on the day of Pentecost in 33 C.E., why must there be a final fulfillment of the parable of the “penny”?
SOMETHING similar to the experience of the workers in the “vineyard” of the ancient nation of Israel nineteen centuries ago has happened in these last days with regard to what is called Christendom. The ancient “vineyard,” the nation of Israel in the Mosaic Law covenant, was typical; many of its experiences were prophetic “shadows” of things to come. (1 Cor. 10:1-6, 11; Col. 2:16, 17; Heb. 10:1) Moreover, the prophecy of Joel 2:28-32, which the apostle Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost, when the symbolic “penny” was paid, was not completely fulfilled back there nineteen hundred years ago. Hence there must be a larger and final fulfillment of Joel 2:28-32. This would mean that there would be a further and final fulfillment of Jesus’ parable of the “penny” in these “last days” of this system of things. (Acts 2:17, 18; 1 Tim. 3:1-5) There are facts to prove this.
2, 3. (a) When did use of the “penny” begin to fall off? (b) What has Christendom claimed to be, and in what service have its clergy considered itself to be, and why so?
2 As foretold in the prophecy of Isaiah 5:1-7, Jehovah God rejected his typical “vineyard” of natural, circumcised Israel nineteen centuries ago. He has since been cultivating a spiritual “vineyard” of which Jesus Christ is the Vine, the central stock, and his true followers are the branches. (John 15:1-8) He now has a spiritual “Israel of God,” not under the old Law covenant that was abolished at the time of Jesus’ death, but under the new covenant of which Jesus Christ is the heavenly Mediator. (Matt. 26:26-28; Luke 22:19, 20; 1 Tim. 2:5, 6) After the death of all the apostles of Christ by the end of the first century C.E., the use of the symbolic “penny” paid out at Pentecost began to disappear. In the first half of the fourth century C.E. the religious organization of Christendom was established. It has since grown to worldwide proportions, with many religious denominations presided over by religious leaders or clergymen, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.
3 This Christendom has a clergy and a laity and is split up into religious sects, just like the religious organization of Israel in the days of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Christendom has claimed to be the spiritual Israel of God and therefore to be in the new covenant with God by the Mediator Jesus Christ. She has likewise claimed to be the spiritual “vineyard” of God, with her many religious sectarian churches serving as “branches” in the Vine Jesus Christ. Thus Christendom’s religious clergy, made up of her ordained priests and preachers, claims to be working in the “vineyard” of the Most High God. By their respective religious denominations they have been ordained formalistically to their clergy posts over the religious flocks of the laity. They have made their positions and responsibilities of clergymen their profession, a full-time job, so that they have considered themselves to be in the full-time service of God. And once ordained, they have considered themselves as remaining clergymen for the rest of their lives, even after being retired from active work.
4. By their claims, where have Christendom’s clergy put themselves in being hired into God’s vineyard, and where have they put dedicated, baptized Christians not of clergy rank?
4 By their religious claims the clergy have been “first” to be hired for work in God’s “vineyard” of spiritual Israel, for a full day. Persons taking up part-time service in religious circles have been considered inferior to them and deserving of less pay. Any dedicated, baptized Christians who have taken up the preaching of God’s kingdom without being schooled in their seminaries and ordained by them with a title and degree and an assignment to their pulpits have been despised by these first-ranking clergymen. Losing sight of the fact that all individual dedicated, baptized Christians are branches in the Vine Jesus Christ and are to bear fruit as spiritual “priests” of God, those ordained clergymen of Christendom have looked down on them. They have considered these to be the “last” ones to have any valid assignment in God’s service, to work in God’s spiritual “vineyard.” The pulpits of Christendom were generally barred to such dedicated ministers of God, who were viewed as being mere untrained, unschooled “laymen.”
5. Among those thus viewed was what Christian group recently organized, and what did the clergy succeed in having done to them during World War I?
5 Among those thus viewed by the ordained clergy of Christendom was a dedicated Christian group that has kept itself separate from Christendom and yet has become very prominent in this twentieth century. In the last half of the nineteenth century they got organized, at first a small group. In 1884 they established what is now the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania as their publishing and administrative agency. They came to be known as International Bible Students. Christendom’s clergymen despised these Bible students as preachers and expounders of God’s Word, and opposed and hindered their zealous preaching of God’s kingdom. This continued on until finally, during the frenzy of World War I, they succeeded in having the president and secretary-treasurer of the Watch Tower Society and a number of their editorial associates imprisoned in a Federal prison of the United States of America. Also, their religious literature was banned, in whole or in part, in various places.
NOT THE “PENNY”
6. Why did these Christians appear to be the “last ones” hired, and what did they themselves think about the “eleventh hour”?
6 Because of their late, unorthodox appearance on the world stage of religious affairs, these dedicated Christian Bible students appeared to be the “last ones” whom the great Householder, Jehovah God, hired for work in his spiritual “vineyard” of the real, true organized Christianity. Especially was this so in view of the fact that the Gentile Times ended in the year 1914, in which year World War I broke out. (Luke 21:24) In harmony with their understanding of prophecy regarding the end of this system of things, and in view of the worsening conditions of mankind during World War I, it seemed to these Christian international Bible students that the last hour, “the eleventh hour,” for work in the spiritual “vineyard” of Jehovah God was ending. They had long been interested in Jesus’ parable of the vineyard and the penny, reference having been made to this parable and the “eleventh hour” away back in the issue of Zion’s Watch Tower as of April of 1881, on page 7, under the heading “Wanted 1,000 Preachers,” which called for workers.
7. What book did the Society publish in July of 1917, and what relationship was it said to bear to the symbolic “penny”?
7 So in July of the midwar year of 1917 the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society published (only in English)a the book entitled “The Finished Mystery,” this book being the seventh and last one of a series of seven volumes of Studies in the Scriptures. Because the heavenly glorification of the faithful remnant of the Christian church was believed near, this Bible-study aid The Finished Mystery along with accompanying service privileges was thought to be the symbolic “penny,” coming as a reward to the faithful “vineyard” laborers before they departed from this earth. In fact, on page 2, the Publishers’ page, of this book there was printed an enlargement of a coin like a penny. The inscription on it read: “To the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords This Work Is Dedicated in the Interest of His Consecrated Saints Waiting for the Adoption and of ‘all that in every place call upon the Lord,’ ‘the household of faith’ and of the groaning creation; travailing and waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Also, in that same year, the October 1, 1917, issue of The Watch Tower, on page 293, carried a heading that said “The Penny” and it spoke of the book The Finished Mystery and the associated “honor” as the symbolic “penny.”b
8. (a) However, when this meaning was given to the “penny,” what did the Publishers not foresee? (b) What events in Canada and the United States followed the publication of The Finished Mystery?
8 However, when that meaning of the “penny” was given to The Finished Mystery, the Seventh Volume, no one expected or foresaw that World War I would end in the following year (1918) and that there would be an extended peace period thereafter with the anointed remnant down here on earth, instead of up in heavenly glory. An organization of 7,000 Bible students was built up for distributing The Finished Mystery from house to house.c But by the spring of 1918 this book was banned both in the United States and in Canada. Yes, this book was used by the United States government, then at war with Germany, to put the leading ones of the International Bible Students in Federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia.
9. After World War I, what occurred in connection with The Finished Mystery, and finally what became apparent about it in connection with the “penny”?
9 Thus the work of these Christian Bible students was badly crippled by government action, clergy opposition, religious persecution and wartime disruptions. In the spring of 1919 the imprisoned representatives of the Watch Tower Society were permanently released from Federal prison, connections with the Watch Tower Society’s branch offices were reestablished, and in 1920 the ban was removed from the Seventh Volume and thus The Finished Mystery was allowed to be circulated again in the United States of America. But in 1927 The Finished Mystery and the other six volumes of the Studies in the Scriptures ceased to be published, and they were replaced by new, postwar Bible-study aids. So in ten years’ time it became manifest that the Seventh Volume and the honorable service that went with it was not really the penny.
10. By 1925, what began to be appreciated about Jehovah’s name, and how did this appreciation reach a climax in 1931?
10 In the meanwhile, in the year 1925 it began to be appreciated by these Christian Bible students that the vindication of God’s name Jehovah by means of his newborn Messianic kingdom was God’s leading purpose. In fact, from 1922 onward reference was repeatedly made to Isaiah 43:10-12 to prove that they must be witnesses of the Lord God during the remainder of their days on earth.d The work of bearing witness to his name became more dominant among them. This reached a grand climax in the year 1931, when, at the international convention in Columbus, Ohio, these much-maligned Bible students adopted a resolution by which they embraced the name suggested by Isaiah 43:10-12 (AS), namely, “Jehovah’s witnesses.”
11. Since matters regarding The Finished Mystery had proved not to be the “penny,” what now began to be thought regarding the conferment of the name “Jehovah’s witnesses,” and why?
11 The work of gathering the anointed remnant of the heirs of God’s heavenly kingdom appeared to be nearing completion. Hence, this bestowal of a Biblically supported name upon them in 1931 seemed to come as a reward for having engaged in twelve years of hard Christian work since 1919. The book The Finished Mystery and the honor of distributing it had proved not to be the “penny.” So now, then, could not the conferment of the new name upon the International Bible Students be the “penny”?
12. Near the close of the year 1933, what did The Watchtower say with regard to the “penny”?
12 In the year 1933, in the November 15 and December 1 issues of The Watchtower and Herald of Christ’s Presence there appeared the leading article (in two parts) entitled “Laborer’s Wages.” This dealt with Jesus’ parable of the vineyard. The second paragraph of Part One of this article said: “The laborers are those at the temple for judgment, and who engage in the service of the kingdom; the hire or penny is the honor of being given the new name which Jehovah gives to his people.” (Page 339) Paragraph 21, on page 344, said: “No greater wage could be paid to creatures on earth than that of receiving a name at the mouth of Jehovah God, and which name shows the close and confidential relationship between Jehovah and his faithful people. Never before has he given such a wage to creatures.”
13. By 1937, what began to be appreciated about the matter of being witnesses of Jehovah, and with whom did The New World of 1942 class the “great crowd” of the “other sheep” of today?
13 However, in the year 1937 it became more fully appreciated that the faithful prophets and men of integrity from John the Baptist back to the first martyr Abel were also witnesses of Jehovah, “so great a cloud of witnesses.” (Heb. 11:1 to 12:1, AV) Later the book entitled “The New World,” published in 1942, indicated that the “great crowd” of the “other sheep” foretold in Revelation 7:9, 10 were also witnesses of Jehovah. (Pages 368, 369, 375) Today the “great crowd” of these “other sheep” that have been gathered into association with the anointed remnant are regularly included among Jehovah’s witnesses. If, since the year 1935, they have not proved themselves to be Jehovah’s witnesses, then by all the facts of history what have they proved themselves to be? Who are they, if not Jehovah’s witnesses of modern times?
14. Thus what came to be seen regarding the title “Jehovah’s witnesses,” and what about such a “new name” on Pentecost of 33 C.E.?
14 Thus the title “Jehovah’s witnesses” is now seen as not applying exclusively to the anointed remnant, and so this new name for Christians could not be the symbolic “penny” of Jesus’ parable. The “new name” was not the “penny” back in the year 33 C.E. on that day of Pentecost, inasmuch as those Jewish disciples of Jesus Christ were already Jehovah’s witnesses by being from birth members of Jehovah’s chosen people of Isaiah 43:1-12.
15. (a) How can our understanding of the “penny” be cleared up today? (b) Modernly, when did the “even” and close of the day’s work in the vineyard come, and how?
15 It is now thirty-four years since 1933 and the beginning of the terrible persecutions of Jehovah’s witnesses under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. Today our understanding of the “penny” can be cleared up by looking back at the first fulfillment of Jesus’ parable of the vineyard in the days of his apostles nineteen centuries ago. In the modern-day fulfillment of the parable, the “evening” and the close of the twelve-hour day’s work came during World War I, which war marked the close of the Gentile Times in the autumn of 1914. The full-time laborers, the ones “first” hired, the clergy of Christendom, turned their efforts to the war activities of the nations at war. The work of the ones hired “last” was crippled and practically stopped in 1918 by the banning of Watch Tower literature and the imprisonment of the official representatives of the International Bible Students. This stoppage corresponded with Jesus’ death and scattering of his disciples.
USE OF THE “PENNY” TILL NOW
16. (a) When, therefore, was pay time to be expected? (b) How was the spring of 1919 like a day of Pentecost for the “hired” ones?
16 World War I stopped on November 11, 1918, and now world attention turned to peace and reorganization in the postwar period. The League of Nations was proposed as an instrument for preserving world peace and security. As regards religious affairs, evidently pay time had come for those who had either professedly or actually labored in Jehovah’s spiritual vineyard! What would be the “penny” given to them in the postwar epoch? The spring of 1919 was like a day of Pentecost for those hired “last” to work in the “vineyard.” For the Christian international Bible students it was like a resurrection of the dead. On March 26, 1919, their official and editorial representatives were released from prison, the postwar work was at once planned, the “vineyard” laborers were reorganized world wide, the first convention at Cedar Point, Ohio, was held September 1-8, 1919, and was attended by 7,000 at the public meeting, and, besides The Watch Tower, a new magazine The Golden Age (today known as Awake!) began to be published October 1, 1919. Such a reactivation of the International Bible Students in the religious field caused amazement and dismay in Christendom.
17. What, then, did the “penny” prove to be for the laborers hired “last”?
17 Here, then, as on the day of Pentecost nineteen centuries ago, was the payment of the “penny” to those last hired in Jehovah’s spiritual “vineyard.” God’s Messianic kingdom had been born in the heavens at the close of the Gentile Times in 1914, and the “penny” paid to the vineyard laborers was the privilege and honor of serving as anointed ambassadors of God’s newborn Messianic kingdom from that time on till the coming “battle of the great day of God the Almighty” at Armageddon. This ambassadorial service was carried out with the help of God’s holy spirit. In harmony with this, they were ushered into the privilege of fulfilling Matthew 24:14, preaching this good news of God’s newborn Messianic kingdom in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations before the end of this system of things comes. (Rev. 16:14-16; Mark 13:10) What a wonderful value such a “penny” has meant to them!
18. At that development, who murmured, and finally to what extent?
18 The clergy of Christendom, which claims to be God’s vineyard, murmured at this way of paying spiritual wages, and their murmuring took on the form of persecuting these Kingdom preachers. The clergy could have joined in this Kingdom witness, but they rejected God’s newborn kingdom by preaching in favor of the League of Nations as “the political expression of the kingdom of God on earth.” They kept up friendly relations with worldly politicians.
19. Who are proving to be the “last ones” to accept the “penny”?
19 The anointed remnant of Kingdom heirs, including those whom Jehovah God has added since 1919, are grateful for the “penny” paid to them. Since the payment of it in the year 1919 they have used it with growing appreciation of its value. The clergy of Christendom are proving to be the “last” ones to accept the precious “penny,” if they accept it at all before Babylon the Great (including Christendom) is destroyed at that great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah now near.—Joel 2:31, 32; Acts 2:20, 21.
20. How have these paid laborers already been rewarded for their grateful use of the “penny” down till now?
20 Particularly since the year 1935 the “penny” has been used in gathering the “great crowd” of sheeplike persons foretold in Revelation 7:9-17. These have accepted the Kingdom message as preached by the anointed Kingdom ambassadors, and to date around a million of them all around the earth have separated themselves from Babylon the Great and are joining the anointed remnant in praising Jehovah God and his Messianic King, Jesus Christ. What a reward this has already been to the Kingdom ambassadors for their grateful acceptance and use of the “penny” at Jehovah’s hands!
[Footnotes]
a In its issue of December 15, 1917, page 373, The Watch Tower said: “We are pleased to announce that the translation of the Seventh Volume into Swedish and French has already been accomplished, and both are to be off the press this month, in Europe. As soon as we can fill orders in these or other languages, announcement will be made in these columns. It is being translated and published by installments in the German, Polish and Greek Watch Towers. It is being translated into four other foreign languages, and doubtless will be translated into many more soon.” Then The Watch Tower, in the following paragraph, goes on to comment on the “Penny” of Matthew 20:2-17. By the year 1924 The Finished Mystery was advertised as being published in English, Dano-Norwegian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Polish, Swedish.
b The two paragraphs under the heading “The Penny” read: “Explaining the parable of the Penny (Matthew 20:1-16), Brother Russell set forth in Scripture Studies, Vol. III, page 223, that the Penny is ‘Kingdom honors.’ In Psalm 149:5-9 we read, ‘Let the saints be joyful in glory; let them sing aloud upon their beds; let the high praises of God be in their mouths and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishment upon the people; to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written; this honor have all the saints.’ Commenting upon this Psalm, Brother Russell stated that the ‘honor’ here referred to would be conferred upon the saints on this side of the veil; that the sword, likewise, would be used by the saints on this side the veil. It is a great and wonderful honor to have part in wielding the sword now (the message of truth) that is binding the kings, rulers, nobles and systems of this world. Everyone who joyfully receives and uses the ‘point’ of the sword, to wit, the Seventh Volume (Ezek. 21:14, 15), thus receives ‘Kingdom Honors’—The Penny.
“For many years we have been promised the Seventh Volume. All have looked for it, expecting the last coming into the truth would be classed equally with the first in receiving it. The parable shows that some would murmur and complain. In harmony with this parable we see some murmuring and rejecting Volume Seven. Hence they are not satisfied with the penny—the honor that the Lord has offered them of having part in this wonderful closing work of the harvest. Such are not engaged now in the harvest, but are more particularly engaged in murmuring, in finding fault and in trying to hinder the work.”
c On page 281 The Watch Tower, under date of September 15, 1919, referred to the work with the Seventh Volume that had been carried on to a limited extent on account of world war conditions and, in paragraphs two and three, said, in part: “Every reader of The Watch Tower has wanted to pass on the message of glad tidings. Now will you avail yourself of this opportunity?
“How to Proceed
“The organization that handled the Seventh Volume work proved a wonderful success. Seven thousand of the friends were engaged in that special work. We are asking the classes everywhere to revive that organization and put it in proper form.”
d On Friday, September 8, 1922, which was designated “The Day” of the second international convention of the International Bible Students at Cedar Point, Ohio, the president of the Watch Tower Society gave an unforgettable speech based on the Bible text of Matthew 4:17, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” In the fifth and sixth paragraphs from the end of his speech President J. F. Rutherford said:
“Why, then, deliver the message to those who do not understand? Will any one hear? The Prophet of the Lord answers: ‘Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified; or let them hear, and say, It is truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen; . . . therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.’—Isaiah 43:8-12.
“Thus we see that those of the temple class are clearly designated as the Lord’s witnesses at this time, to bring a message of consolation to the people that the kingdom of heaven is here, and that millions now living will never die. Thus it is seen that God purposes that his name shall be magnified, that the people shall know that he is Lord. Thus we see that God purposes to have a people in the earth in this time of stress, clearly marked as separate and distinct from all others, standing as his witnesses, fearlessly crying out the message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand!’”
[Picture on page 53]
From “The Finished Mystery”
[Picture on page 56]
Making Use of the Privilege of Being Ambassadors of the Kingdom of God