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What God’s High Priest Will Do for the PeopleThe Watchtower—1968 | April 15
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the city over which ancient Melchizedek was king in the Middle East. On this the inspired statement in Hebrews 7:1-3 says: “This Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, . . . is first of all, by translation [of his name], ‘King of Righteousness,’ and is then also king of Salem, that is, ‘King of Peace.’ . . . having been made like the Son of God.”
47 Ah, yes, Jesus Christ the Greater Melchizedek will not be King of any Salem over in the Middle East on earth, but will be a heavenly King of Peace, for the name Salem means “Peace.” To this day the United Nations as successor to the League of Nations has not brought and maintained peace and security for the world of mankind; and no human international organization for world peace and security ever will do so. But the Greater King of Salem can and will and is appointed to do so. No small wonder, then, that Psalm 110 foretells that Jehovah God, through him, had to break in pieces all the ruling elements of the earth that disturb the peace and threaten the security of the people.
48. Who are to be with Jesus in his heavenly kingdom, and what will be their position?
48 According to the generosity of Jehovah God, his Son Jesus Christ will not be alone in the heavenly kingdom. He will have a definite, foreordained number of associates in that heavenly government, 144,000 of them according to the last book of the Bible. (Rev. 7:4-8; 14:1-3) Concerning these faithful footstep followers of Jesus Christ, Revelation 20:5, 6 says: “This is the first resurrection. Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.” Thus it is Biblically established that, after the war of Armageddon and the binding of Satan the Devil and his demons, Jesus Christ, the Greater Melchizedek, will rule as heavenly King and serve as God’s High Priest for a thousand years in behalf of the people on earth.—Luke 22:28-30; 2 Tim. 2:11, 12.
49. What is to happen to the priests of the Babylonish world empire of false religion, and who will serve for man’s everlasting blessing?
49 When, by the “first resurrection” of these Christians who have been faithful to death, they are transferred to the heavens to “be priests of God and of the Christ” and to “rule as kings with him for the thousand years,” this will leave no ordained priests of Jehovah God here on earth. The priests of the false Christianity of Christendom, yes, all priests of the Babylonish world empire of false religion, will have been put out of office and executed in the approaching day of Jehovah’s anger, when he executes judgment among the nations. (Ps. 110:4-6) As a result the people on earth will have only God’s High Priest and his true underpriests to serve in their behalf in heavenly power, in direct contact with God. What an everlasting blessing that will be for all the people, for God’s High Priest and his heavenly underpriests are truly that promised “seed” of Abraham, whose number was once unknown just like the number of the stars and in whom all nations of the earth will be eternally blessed! (Gen. 22:17, 18) They will apply the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice to all.
50. How, then, will sins truly be forgiven, and what may then accompany such forgiveness?
50 Then the sins of mankind will be really forgiven, not by their going into some confessional box in a religious building and confessing to some imperfect, sinful priest, but by repenting and going to God privately in prayer through his High Priest Jesus Christ and asking forgiveness. (Matt. 6:9-12; 1 John 1:9; 2:1, 2) Their sins will really be forgiven in heaven. Healing benefits to the human body may even accompany such forgiveness from heaven.
51. (a) What did Jesus do to show one man had his sins forgiven? (b) What were some obligations of the high priest and underpriests in Israel, and so what can we look forward to under the Greater Melchizedek?
51 Remember how once Jesus Christ on earth healed a man of his infirmity in expression of the forgiveness of his sins. (Matt. 9:1-8) Remember, also, that among God’s chosen people under the law of the prophet Moses Jehovah’s high priest and his underpriests watched over the healthful conditions of the people and applied the sanitary provisions of God’s law. (Lev. 13:1-8; 14:1-32; Matt. 8:1-4; Luke 17:11-19) In a more powerful and effective way God’s High Priest like Melchizedek will watch out for the health of the people here on earth under his kingdom. The God-fearing, obedient ones will be blessed with gradual restoration to full perfect human health and bodily completeness as all their sinfulness is taken away through Christ’s blood and righteous discipline.
52. (a) What thoughtful, loving question is now asked? (b) How have the priests of Christendom shown they are of no help to the people?
52 “But is there not something missing?” you may ask, and then add: “All of that is unspeakably grand and beautiful for all men of goodwill who will survive the war of the great day of God the Almighty at Armageddon, but—but what about the thousands on thousands of millions who have died and returned to the dust of the earth ever since sin and its penalty death entered the earth about six thousand years ago?” A very thoughtful, loving question indeed! How helpless the priests and clergymen of Christendom and the priests of the so-called pagan world would be, were they faced with such an earthly situation! Believing in the immortality of the human soul, they have preached the dead ones immediately into a spirit world where angels or demons are, and they have performed religious ceremonies for them or even offered some sort of “sacrifice” for the dead, such as the “sacrifice of the Mass,” not without some costs to the surviving relatives. By this, what have they really done for the people? But what about God’s High Priest?
53, 54. What will Jehovah’s great High Priest do for the dead in the graves?
53 Jesus Christ, the Greater Melchizedek, laid down his perfect human life in sacrifice, not only for the redemption of the survivors of the battle of Armageddon and the binding of Satan and his demons, but also for all who have died before then because of inheriting imperfection and sin from their original earthly parents, who sinned in the garden of Eden. (Rom. 5:12-18) During his serving as King and High Priest for the foretold thousand years he will see to it that all these coming under the benefit of his ransom sacrifice get the full benefit thereof. But how? By resurrecting them from the dead to life on earth under the heavenly kingdom. He himself said so when on earth, and, to illustrate his power to do so, he raised a number of persons from the dead, and so did his faithful apostles. (John 5:28, 29; Acts 24:15) Thus the opportunities for attaining to everlasting perfect life on a cleansed, paradisaic earth will be opened to these resurrected ones. Finally, there will be fully realized God’s promise of Revelation 21:4:
54 “He will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be any more. The former things have passed away.”—Compare Isaiah 25:7-9.
55. What standard, spoken of in Malachi 2:7, did Jesus measure up to, and what, then, are the prospects for the future under God’s High Priest, Jesus Christ?
55 Do the priests inside and outside Christendom teach the people these comforting things today? You can answer for yourself. You know whether such priests measure up to God’s standard for a priest as set out in the last Hebrew prophetic book before the first coming of Christ, in Malachi 2:7, in these words: “The lips of a priest are the ones that should keep knowledge, and the law is what the people should seek from his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of armies.” On earth as a man Jesus Christ measured up to that standard. In heaven as God’s High Priest he will not fail the people in this respect. All shall be taught about the one living and true God and his provision for the people’s deliverance from sin and death. Their taking in this knowledge and obediently living in harmony with it will mean for the people everlasting life in an earthly paradise of peace and happiness under the heavenly kingdom of Jehovah God and his High Priest.—John 17:3; Isa. 11:9.
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Expanded Facilities for Printing the Word of GodThe Watchtower—1968 | April 15
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Expanded Facilities for Printing the Word of God
GOD’S Word the Bible is inseparably linked with the history of printing. For it was apparently the first book to come off Johann Gutenberg’s newly invented printing press, using movable type, in Germany about 515 years ago. Observes The World Book Encyclopedia: “The publication of this Bible in the 1450’s marked the beginning of the history of the modern book.” How significant! For, in all the years since, no other book has come close to matching the number of Bibles printed.
In just the printing plants of Jehovah’s witnesses in Brooklyn, New York, nearly fifteen million copies of the Bible in seven languages have been printed in the last twenty-five years. Over nine million of these have been complete Bibles, including the King James Version, the American Standard Version and the modern-language New World Translation. No other people on earth are more interested in printing and distributing the Word of God than are Jehovah’s witnesses.
For this reason, Wednesday, January 31, 1968, was a very special day in their lives, especially for those who are associated with the headquarters organization in Brooklyn, where most of the printing is done. For on that afternoon a new eleven-story printing factory with 226,000 square feet of floor space was dedicated. How greatly this newly completed structure expands the facilities for printing Bibles and aids to understanding the Bible!
Jehovah’s witnesses were already using to capacity three large factory buildings totaling 436,000 square feet of floor space. So now the total floor space in the four factories equals about 15.2 acres! Perhaps another way to help visualize this 663,000 square feet of area is to compare it to a standard football field, which is
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