Letters
“LIKE LIGHTNING”
September 16, 1949
Dear Brother:
Answering yours of September 6 concerning the article “Like Lightning and Noah’s Days” appearing in the July 15 issue of The Watchtower:
The book “The Time Is at Hand”, published in 1889, explained the Greek word “astrapé” in Matthew 24:27 to mean the sun as the ‘bright shiner’, because there Jesus mentioned the “astrapé” as coming out of the east and shining even to the west. (See said book at pages 155-157.) However, never in sacred Scripture nor in classical Greek literature is “astrapé” used to refer to the sun of our solar system. At Luke 17:24 Jesus makes a parallel statement, but does not designate any particular direction from which the lightning flashes, saying: “As the lightning [astrapé], that lighteneth [verb astrápto] out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.” Notice that expression “under heaven”, which befits lightning which occurs under the sun in the heavens obscured by the clouds. In this verse Jesus uses the verb-form from which “astrapé” is drawn. In classical Greek this verb is used to mean “lighten, hurl lightnings, flash or glance like lightning, consume with lightning”. Hence at Luke 24:4 this verb is used in describing the flashing garments of the two angels that appeared at Jesus’ tomb after his resurrection. Matthew 28:3 says the countenance of the angel that descended and rolled the stone away was “like lightning”, and not shining like the sun as is said of another angel at Revelation 10:1. Luke 11:36 speaks of the flashing light of a lamp of those days as “astrapé”; in other literature it is used of the flashing of the human eyes, and is also combined with a verb to mean “hurl lightnings” or “carry lightnings”.
Jesus said he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. (Luke 10:18) And at Revelation 4:5; 8:5; 11:19, and Re 16:18 “astrapé” is always spoken of in the plural number and is associated with thunders: For example, Revelation 4:5 says: “Out of the throne proceeded lightnings [astrapé] and thunderings and voices.”
It would therefore be wresting the sense and associations of the word “astrapé” to interpret it to mean the sun at Matthew 24:27. The mere mention of the east in this verse does not determine matters.
Yours in the light of his lightnings,
WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY
“ATTAINING TO THAT WORLD”
February 3, 1950
Dear Brother:
Answering yours of December 18 [re letter “Neither Can They Die Any More”, page 320 of The Watchtower October 15, 1949]:
(1) Yes, “that world” and the “world without end” are identical.
(2) No; “that world” or “world without end” does not begin after the 1000-year restoration of Paradise and uplifting of humankind to perfection, but begins after Armageddon is over.
(3) Hence “that world” or “world without end” does include the 1000-year reign of Christ for mankind’s perfecting. However, for a person to survive Armageddon into that world or for a person to come up in the resurrection to life on the earth during the 1000 years does not mean he has “attained” to that world. If he does not take a course of action that God rewards with the right to everlasting life at the end of the thousand years and the test by the loosing of Satan for a little season, he does not “attain” to that world, because that world is a “world without end” and for him to attain it he would have to live on without end himself. If he does “attain” it by God’s justifying of him for his faithfulness and integrity after the test by Satan’s loosing, then by virtue of God’s justification of him to endless life he ‘cannot die anymore’.—Luke 20:34-36.
Yours in devoted service of the Kingdom,
WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY