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Letter on Witnessing to University Students and ProfessorsThe Watchtower—1951 | November 15
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friendly in greeting and took many notes of the talk.
So, by the Lord’s undeserved kindness, we will continue to avail ourselves of every opportunity in expanding our witness to the new world in our territory of “intellectual ones” by offering priceless education for life to those who claim to be educated in the ways of this old world.
Your fellow proclaimer of Jehovah’s supremacy,
A. D. SCHROEDER [signed] Registrar at Watchtower Bible School of Gilead
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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1951 | November 15
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Questions From Readers
● The new book What Has Religion Done for Mankind? shows there is only one class of disobedient angels, not two classes. Did they first rebel in Eden or in Noah’s day? Also, who were the spirits in prison to whom the resurrected Jesus preached, can they repent and be saved, and if not why preach to them?—G. G., New York.
There is no scripture to prove that any angels rebelled with the covering cherub in Eden. One that was once so used is Ezekiel 28:18, where it speaks of Satan as defiling his sanctuaries by the multitude of his iniquities. At most, this might be taken to mean that he had a spiritual force under him and defiled it, but does not indicate such defilement took place in Eden. It could have been in Noah’s day, by which time Satan would have built up a ‘multitude of iniquities’ to use as arguments, whereas in Eden he hardly would have had time to pile up such a multitude of iniquities. However, the text could mean much less than this, according to some modern Bible translations. The American Translation does not use “sanctuaries” as though it referred to habitations for associates, but says, “You profaned your sacredness.” Moffatt says, “You have profaned your sacred position.” Fenton says he ‘deeply wounded his virtues’.
The first Bible evidence we have of angelic rebellion, aside from the covering cherub, is the record at Genesis 6:1-4 concerning Noah’s day. In the common version verse 4 reads as though the Nephilim giants were in the earth before the sons of God cohabited with women, and hence some might argue that these were materialized demons that had previously rebelled with Satan. However, more accurate translations in modern speech show that these giants were the offspring of the materialized sons of God and women: “In those days, as well as afterward, there were giants on the earth, who were born to the sons of [God] whenever they had intercourse with the daughters of men; these were the heroes who were men of note in days of old.” (AT; Mo) So the sons of God were the first angelic rebels on the scene.
This is borne out by 1 Peter 3:19, 20, NW: “In this state also he went his way and preached to the spirits in prison, which had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days.” This seems to indicate the first act of disobedience on the part of angels was in Noah’s day. If they had rebelled before that time, that earlier occurrence of rebellion would have been the turning point worthy of mention. Jude 6, NW, states: “The angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling-place he has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.” The original position of the angels was their place in Jehovah’s organization, in which position they had been placed by him and doubtless had assigned duties, since God did not create them to loaf. By rebellion they would forsake their original position. By materializing to permanently live with women they would abandon their proper dwelling place in heaven as spirit creatures. By Jude 6 linking these two wrongs so closely, it seems both were committed at the same time, which would be in Noah’s day when the “sons of God” materialized. When the Flood forced them to dematerialize, they returned to heavenly places as spirit creatures, but not to their original position in Jehovah’s organization. They became Satan’s demons.
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