For
the Attention of Don Adams
Fax:
001 718 560 xxxx
April
6th 2006.
Greetings
my brother in faith and love,
Re: The Memorial Celebration
Firstly
please accept my apologies for sending this information so near to the date.
Although actually I suppose it is rather appropriate that you will not have time
properly to bake these ideas, this being a feature of the festival of
unfermented cakes!
As
you know millions of brothers and sisters will put on their best clothes and
turn up at the memorial in faith and out of gratitude to Jesus. It therefore is
the duty of the slave to make every possible endeavour to ensure that the
celebration is carried out with a doctrinal competence that matches the faith
and the attire of those who turn up. Further it would be a good idea to
celebrate it in the precise way that the scriptures dictate, in order that our
sacrifices are accepted. For Abel’s sacrifice was accepted not because he had
great faith but because he brought along the correct sacrifice. Whereas Cain’s
sacrifice was rejected not because he had no faith but because he brought along
the incorrect sacrifice.
Sacrifices
are very simple. You bring what God asks you to bring. You bring it on the day
he chooses. You bring it to the place that he stipulates. Now Abel bought two
sacrifices, two firstlings, which represent the sacrificial validations of 2
covenants. He got it right, so his sacrifice was accepted. And that is one of
the things I want to get across herein. I want you to get it right too.
Here
are the 4 texts we must consider…
[1AC]
is the First Abrahamic Covenant of Genesis 12
[1NC] is the First New Covenant mediated by Jesus at the last
supper
[PARC] and [ARC] are two other covenants which are beyond the scope of
this fax.
26
As they continued eating, Jesus took a loaf [1AC]
and, after saying a blessing, he broke it and, giving it to the disciples, he
said: Take, eat. This is my body.
27
Also, he took a cup [1AC] and, having given thanks, he gave it to them, saying:
Drink out of it, all of you;
28
for this is my 'blood of the covenant,' which is to be poured out in behalf of
many for forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26).
22
And as they continued eating, he took a loaf [1AC],
said a blessing, broke it and gave it to them, and said: Take it, this is my
body.
23
And taking a cup [1AC], he offered thanks and gave it to them, and they all
drank out of it.
24
And he said to them: This is my 'blood of the covenant,' which is to be poured
out in behalf of many (Mark 14).
17
And, accepting a cup [PARC], he gave thanks and said: Take
this and pass it from one to the other among yourselves;
18
for I tell you, From now on I will not drink again from the product of the vine
until the kingdom of God arrives.
19
Also, he took a loaf [ARC], gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying:
This is my body, which is to be given in your behalf. Keep doing this in
remembrance of me.
20
Also, the cup [1NC] in the same way after they had the evening meal, he
saying: This cup is the new covenant by virtue of my blood, which is to be
poured out in your behalf (Luke 22).
23
For I received from the Lord that which I also handed on to you, that the Lord
Jesus in the night in which he was going to be handed over took a loaf [ARC],
24
and, after giving thanks, he broke it and said: This is my body which is in your
behalf. Keep doing this in remembrance of me.
25
He did likewise respecting the cup [1NC] also, after he had the evening
meal, saying: This cup is the new covenant by virtue of my blood. Keep doing
this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me (1.Corinthians 11).
I am going to keep this simple and restrict the explanations
to things that can be fixed before Wednesday. We are going to play spot the
difference on the 4 descriptions of the last supper above. For we know that God
wastes not a drop of bio matter in nature, and not a particle of a letter in the
holy book. Each account by its slight difference from the next, tells us more
information about the Passover and how Jesus celebrated it and how we should
celebrated it today.
The hard part of this and the Big Picture is that the Jews
back then and even today drink 4 cups at the Passover. So Jesus and the
disciples being Jews under law would have drunk 4 cups on the night of
33Nisan14. And the New Covenant was the last of these 4 cups, the one drunk
after the meal, and the 3 other cups also stand for covenants. But the
Watchtower presently only understands 2 of these covenants. So let us address
these 2 cups.
The loaf and cup of Matthew and the loaf and cup of Mark were
eaten and drunk during the meal. They were taken: As they continued eating.
Whereas the cup of Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25 was taken after the meal.
The cup of Matthew and Mark was said to be: My blood of the covenant, which is
to be poured out in behalf of many for forgiveness of sins. Whereas the cup of
Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25 was said to be: The New Covenant by virtue of
my blood, which is poured out in your behalf. Putting this in tabular form we
have:
Drunk during the meal
Drunk after the meal
My blood of the covenant
The New covenant by virtue of my blood
Poured on in behalf of the many
Poured out in your behalf
The good thing is that the Watchtower know that Jesus was the
Angel Michael. So when Jesus died, a human died and an angel died. So God had
two souls at his disposal to act as ransoms, a human soul and an angelic soul.
The Angel Michael ransomed Adam angelically and so the new covenant is not
actually the blood of Michael but exists by virtue of his blood (since his blood
ransomed Adam for everyone, not just for the 1NC saints). The human body of
Jesus ransomed Abraham actually as the validation sacrifice for the 1AC, this
being the lamb provided by Jehovah – Jehovah Jireh.
So the blood poured out for the many is the blood of the 1AC,
the blood of Jesus the human. And the blood poured out for the apostles is the
blood of Michael, the blood of Jesus the angel. The 1NC exists by virtue of this
blood.
What does this all mean in practice? It means that the
regular JWs should drink the cup of the 1AC and eat the loaf of the 1AC during
the meal. And the remnant should drink the cup of the 1NC and eat the loaf of
the 1NC after the meal. The remnant would also drink the cup and eat the loaf of
the 1AC since they have faith too. In truth sons of Abraham, i.e. sons of faith,
take the first cup, and sons of Jesus, the sons of the 1NC take the last cup.
That was the most difficult thing for me to get across to you
and it is not the whole story but it is doable with present JW understanding,
since the ‘great crowd’ know that they are saved by the 1AC. They should
therefore drink it!!!!
Now we come to the easy part…
[1] The blood
flows round the body, the body does not flow round the blood. So the cup should
be passed from one to another but not the loaf. The loaf should be given to each
partaker by the priest directly, not passed around the room. The body does not
move, the blood moves. Please get
this right or you miss the symbolism of the festival.
[2] The cup was
passed from one to another ‘among themselves’. It was not passed via anyone
else. Only the sons of the 1NC, the remnant, can touch the cup of the 1NC. If a
member of the great crowd touches that cup he or she defiles it. Please do not
permit this. The remnant should congregate in an inner circle and each of them
should be given personally their loaf and then the cup of their blood should
flow around them, as they define Jesus’ body having eaten the loaf. It should
flow around them alone.
This is what happened in the old days in the Watchtower
before the great crowd came along. Rutherford correctly identified the great
crowd but failed to make the appropriate allowance for their participation in
the memorial. Please do not have Jesus’ blood flowing all over the great crowd
in the memorial celebration. It flows around his body, not around anywhere else.
His body is the remnant, his fiancé, the first new covenant saints. Please
observe this correctly.
That is enough for this fax. The bottom line is this. If you
love God you will make the effort and not care how embarrassing such an effort
might be or how difficult it might be to implement. In fact you should rejoice
in any embarrassment and in any difficulties it should cause you and leap for
joy. Abraham went to a country he knew nothing about because God asked it of
him. He made the effort to venture into the unknown because he trusted God. This
again is unknown territory for the JWs, but what matters is that if you see it
you try and implement it. For then you are a true son of Abraham, a son of the
1AC, a son of his faith. It matters less if you screw up having at least tried.
So this would be the new celebration…
[1] Every JW who attends and in fact anyone else who attends
with faith eats the loaf of the 1AC. This loaf is given to everyone by the
priest, it is not passed around
[2] Once the loaves have been eaten and the body of Abraham
has been defined, then the cup of the 1AC is passed around the whole JW
congregation together with all other who attend who have faith. They all drink
from this cup and the priest tops it up as necessary from the several bottles of
wine that he blessed to be or to symbolise or to represent the blood of the 1AC,
poured of for the many. This priest does not have to be a 1NC saint. He merely
needs to be a JW.
[3] After this the 1NC saints, the remnant, form an inner
circle and the priest who must himself be a 1NC saint, a remnant brother,
blesses the bread of the 1NC and breaks it himself and hands it to the 1NC
saints individually (notice that Jesus broke the bread himself in every
account), he offered himself up. We cannot have other people breaking the bread.
They did not offer Jesus up. So all the remnant and only the remnant eat this
bread, one piece each, given to them by the priest. That now defines the body of
the Christ.
[4] Then the
priest blesses the cup and passes it to the first remnant brother and the blood
flows round the body. And they all drink. In fact the cup can flow round the
body as many times as it likes as our blood does every day. They carry on until
all the wine is drunk. This is supposed to be a celebration, not a funeral
service.
There is more to consider, but if you attempt to implement
this you will be blessed. I do not speak here from emotion, I speak from hard
scriptural knowledge, although I could just as well speak from emotion since we
both know the love of God.
May God Bless his children
Agape
Gordon Ritchie
P.S. We feel that this is so important that it should be discussed face to face.
We stand ready to send a representative from the LWs to do this with you ASAP.
My fax number is (44) 207 288 7473
My direct line is (44) 207 424 5398
Our Switchboard is (44) 800 027 2002 (This is a commercial company – HyperOs
Systems)
Email: helpdesk@lordswitnesses.net
P.P.S Have a look at 2 Chronicles 30.
Between April 11th and April 16th I,
and most of the LWs, will be in the Holliday Inn Countryside Lagrange in
Chicago, Front Desk: 1 708 354 4200.
Gordon Ritchie
The Lords’ Witnesses
First Floor
93 Shepperton Road
Islington
London N1 3DF
England