An apostate to us is one who defects from their spiritual family after learning the truth from God's word...like Peter describes....
2 Peter 2:20-22 ESV
"20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
This is how God views it.
That is how God
stated it, Deeje, not how God
views it. The “statement” we get from reading scripture. The “view” is through your Watchtower prism. In other words, God’s
word and the Watchtower’s
view are not by necessity the same.
Let’s focus on the Watchtower view and examine it critically by looking at God’s word in verse 20:
“For if, they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…”
This verse describes an individual who has rebuked or turned away from the world. Do you agree?
Now let’s continue with the verse:
“...they are AGAIN entangled in them and overcome, the LAST STATE has become worse for them than the FIRST”.
So this verse describes
TWO states of apostasy, not one. The
first is when they turned away from the world, the
second when they turned away from God.
Quite simply, you can’t have one without the other, and I don’t understand how you can label one group “apostate” without labeling the other group (yourselves) the same.
I like the part where you stated:
“An apostate is one who defects from his spiritual family...” The important thing to remember here is that there are
two “spiritual families”, not one, and you are either an
apostate of one or the other. You cannot belong to Christ and be a spiritual member of the world, and you cannot be a spiritual member of the world and belong to Christ. Do you agree with this?
When I look at your entire sentence, I see you agreeing with me:
“An apostate to us is one who defects from their spiritual family after learning the truth from God's word...like Peter describes...”
At this point, the person has defected (apostatized) from the religious/worldly spiritual darkness after learning God’s truth. He is a member of God's family. Am I correct?
You then provided scripture to support your position, which was excellent.
But then you provide a “view” which appears at odds with what you stated before, the scripture provided, and to which I take issue. The verses simply tell us the story of a person who left the darkness, entered the light, but then decided to re-enter the dark again. He first becomes an apostate when he rebukes the darkness, but continues to be an apostate when he rebukes the light. The verse is not telling us it's bad to be an apostate (How could he have ever become a Christian otherwise?) the verse is telling us it's even worse for those who rebuke God after coming to know Him than those who never knew Him before. BTW, this verse states
nothing about joining and leaving religions, but of coming to know and leave Christ.
As such I see nothing in the verses quoted that gives Witnesses justification or license to label “Apostate!” on the backs of those leaving the organization unless they slap it with equal gusto on the foreheads of those entering, and while I appreciate the fact you took time to describe
what you believe, I was simply trying to find out
why.