would be closed in the face of people once religiously privileged and said: “He will speak and say to you: ‘I do not know where you are from. Get away from me, all you workers of unrighteousness!’ There is where your weeping and the gnashing of your teeth will be, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves thrown outside. Furthermore, people will come from eastern parts and western, and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. And, look! there are those last who will be first, and there are those first who will be last.” (NW) After Jerusalem was destroyed by Rome’s imperial armies A.D. 70, the coming of those from east, west, north and south was mostly of the non-Jews or Gentiles from all nations reached with the good news.

17. What does seeing Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets in God’s kingdom mean?

¹⁷ In our previous Watchtower issue we saw how Abraham, whose name means “Father of a multitude”, pictured Jehovah God, the Father of the promised Seed of Abraham. Abraham’s son Isaac, who was offered in sacrifice, pictured the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who chiefly fulfills the role of the Seed of Abraham for blessing all mankind. Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, pictured the congregation of Christ’s followers, for God adopts them as his spiritual sons and makes them part of the promised seed of Abraham. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel; and they are spiritual Israelites, “the Israel of God.” (Gal. 4:28; 3:26-29; 6:16, NW) The expression “all the prophets” also represents the congregation of spiritual Israel, the members of the “body of Christ”. In the prophecies such ancient prophets were used to foreshadow these spirit-begotten Christians and to forecast their role or course of action. So together, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets picture the Theocratic Government. Our seeing them “in the kingdom of God” means seeing with the eye of understanding that Jehovah, Jesus Christ and his congregation of spirit-begotten followers form the kingdom of God and are the ones in that heavenly kingdom.

18. Hence what does coming and reclining with them in the Kingdom mean?

¹⁸ Hence when people from all directions come and recline at the table in that kingdom, it means that these believers are taken into the class of Kingdom joint heirs and feast on Kingdom truths and privileges at the “table of Jehovah”. So there is no need to wait till Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets are resurrected from the dead in order for us to see this prophecy fulfilled.

Canada’s Supreme Court Sides with Jehovah’s Witnesses

● On December 18, 1950, Canada’s Supreme Court reversed itself to rule Jehovah’s witnesses not guilty of sedition by distributing the leaflet Quebec’s Burning Hate for God and Christ and Freedom Is the Shame of All Canada. The case involved Aime Boucher as defendant. Arrested in 1946, his case finally got to the Supreme Court in 1949. The court split, three to two, against the witnesses. Upon application for reargument by the witnesses, the issue came before the full court of nine justices in 1950, and in December a five-to-four decision legally vindicated Jehovah’s witnesses. The case was momentous for Canada, not just because the court reversed itself, but because the historical decision in effect rewrote the concept of sedition previously held in Canadian courts. It brought matters up to date by viewing democratic peoples as the rulers and the officials as servants of the people. The intensely interesting details of this historic case appear in the March 8, 1951, Awake!