The Resurrection — Who Gets One?
Few teachings sit closer to the emotional core of the Jehovah's Witness faith than the resurrection. The promise that a dead child, parent, or spouse will walk the earth again in Paradise is the hope held out at every funeral and every Memorial. Yet behind that comfort lies a darker corollary: the Watchtower has long taught that certain categories of the dead—the people destroyed in Noah's Flood, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the "wicked" who die at Armageddon—will never return, having suffered the "second death" of permanent annihilation with no second chance. In 2023–2024, after decades of teaching this with confidence, the Governing Body quietly reversed itself, admitting on camera that it does not actually know who is beyond resurrection. This article traces the doctrine, the annihilation teaching that defines its boundary, and the most recent flip-flop in a long line of contradictions.
Overview: Two Resurrections and a Dead End
The Watchtower teaches that the human soul is not immortal; the dead are simply unconscious, "conscious of nothing at all," awaiting a future bodily resurrection.[1] Salvation is then split into two destinies. A literal 144,000 "anointed" Christians are resurrected to immortal spirit life in heaven to rule with Christ. The "great crowd" and the vast majority of humanity who have ever died receive an earthly resurrection—returned to physical life on a paradise earth during Christ's thousand-year reign, where they are taught Jehovah's ways and judged by their conduct after being raised.[2]
This earthly hope is grounded in Acts 24:15, which the New World Translation renders as a resurrection "of both the righteous and the unrighteous." For Witnesses, even many wicked people of the past fall into the "unrighteous" who will be raised and given an opportunity to learn the truth.[2]
But the doctrine has always had a boundary—a category of the dead deemed so judged by God that they will never be raised. Defining exactly who falls on the wrong side of that line is where the Watchtower has reversed itself repeatedly for more than a century.
The "Second Death": Annihilation as the Ultimate Penalty
Witnesses reject the mainstream Christian doctrine of hellfire. They teach that the Bible's "hell" (Hebrew Sheol, Greek Hades) is merely the common grave of mankind, from which resurrection is possible.[3] The truly irreversible penalty is Gehenna, which the Watchtower equates with the "second death" of Revelation 20:14.
According to the Witnesses' own reference work Insight on the Scriptures, Gehenna—a literal valley outside Jerusalem where refuse was burned and unburied criminals were thrown—became a symbol of total destruction:
"Jesus and his disciples used Gehenna to symbolize eternal punishment... everlasting destruction, annihilation from God's universe, or 'second death,' an eternal punishment from which there is no resurrection."[3]This is the theological hard stop. Those consigned to Gehenna / the second death are not tortured—they simply cease to exist forever, with no memorial in God's memory and no possibility of return.[4] For an exiting Witness, the doctrine's emotional weight is enormous: it means the organization has, for generations, told grieving families that specific named groups of dead people were gone forever—a claim it has now conceded it cannot actually support.
Coping with toxic family dynamics, estrangement, and rebuilding your life. For anyone dealing with the fallout of leaving a high-control group.
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For most of the modern Watchtower era, three groups were singled out as having suffered this "everlasting destruction" with no resurrection:
- The people destroyed in the Flood of Noah's day
- The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah
- Those killed by God's judgment at Armageddon (the still-future "great tribulation")
The Armageddon dead remain officially in the "no resurrection" category. But the status of the Flood and Sodom victims has whipsawed back and forth for over 140 years.
Timeline: A Century of Reversals on Sodom
The history of this single question—will the people of Sodom be resurrected?—is one of the most documented flip-flops in the Watchtower's record, and an exemplary case for the doctrinal flip-flops registry.
- 1879–1880s — YES. Watch Tower founder Charles Taze Russell taught the Sodomites would be raised: "Thus our Lord teaches that the Sodomites did not have a full opportunity; and he guarantees them such opportunity."[6]
- 1940s–1950s — NO. Under Nathan Knorr the position hardened to permanent destruction: "Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to complete desolation, from which there is no possibility of recovery."[7] A 1952 Watchtower insisted the destructions of "Noah's contemporaries and Sodom and Gomorrah must be just as final."[8]
- 1965 — YES (again). The pendulum swung back: "the spiritual recovery of the dead people of Sodom is not hopeless," reasoning that for it to be "more endurable" for Sodom on Judgment Day (Matthew 10:15), former inhabitants would have to be present.[9]
- 1988 — NO (again). A Questions From Readers explicitly reversed the 1965 view, arguing that Jesus' "more endurable on Judgment Day" statement did "not necessarily mean that those people will be present on Judgment Day," and concluding that "those whom God executed in those past judgments experienced irreversible destruction."[10]
- 1988 — but also "SOME YES." In an extraordinary self-contradiction within the same year, the newly released Insight on the Scriptures stated the opposite, allowing that "at least some of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah will receive a resurrection."[11]
- 1990s–2000s — NO. The harder line prevailed again. A 1990 Watchtower affirmed "the destruction of the gross sinners in those cities was eternal,"[12] and the 2005 Watchtower listed Sodom and the Flood victims among those denied resurrection.[5]
The 2023 Annual Meeting: Walking It Back on Camera
The reversal was first delivered to the worldwide audience by Governing Body member David Splane at the Annual Meeting on October 7, 2023, in a talk titled "Trust in the Merciful 'Judge of All the Earth.'"[13]
In a striking moment, Splane raised the very questions the organization had spent decades answering with confidence—whether any of the Flood victims or the women, children, and infants of Sodom might be redeemable—and then concluded that the honest answer was that Witnesses do not know. Observers transcribed his self-aware aside as essentially: "Did I hear that right? We don't have the answer to those questions? I thought we did."[13]
For an audience trained to regard Governing Body teaching as "the truth" dispensed by "the faithful and discreet slave," watching a Governing Body member openly retract a long-held position—while framing the prior certainty as something they merely thought they had—was jarring. The talk's thrust was that judgment belongs to Jehovah, "the Judge of all the earth," and that the organization should not have spoken with certainty where Scripture is silent.[13]
The May 2024 Watchtower: The Reversal in Print
The new position was formalized in the study article "Trust in the Merciful 'Judge of All the Earth'!" in The Watchtower, May 2024 (study edition).[14] Its key admissions, quoted verbatim, dismantle the prior teaching:
On the central question of certainty, paragraph 5 asks: "Can we really say that with certainty?" Paragraph 8 then delivers the reversal in the organization's own words:
"Can we say for certain, then, that none of them will rise in the 'resurrection of . . . the unrighteous'? No, we cannot say for sure!"[14]Regarding the Flood victims, paragraph 7 concedes ignorance the organization had not previously admitted: "We do not know... whether those who were killed had an opportunity to learn about Jehovah and to repent."[14]
The article leans heavily on Jesus' statement that Sodom would "fare better 'on Judgment Day'" than the cities that rejected him (paragraph 15)[14]—the exact argument the 1965 article had used to say Sodom would be raised, and the exact argument the 1988 article had dismissed. The 2024 article simply revives the 1965 logic.
To reconcile this with Jude 7, which speaks of Sodom undergoing "the judicial punishment of everlasting fire," an accompanying box, "What Did Jude Mean?", redraws the line between the cities and the people:
"It seems that the cities themselves, rather than all their inhabitants, were everlastingly destroyed as a dramatic warning."[14]In other words, the real estate was annihilated forever, but the residents may yet be resurrected—a fine distinction never emphasized when the prior teaching was being defended.
The "Two Resurrections" Reframe and the NWT Footnote
The 2024 article ties the change to a "clarified understanding of the 'resurrection of life' and the 'resurrection of judgment'" (John 5:28-29).[14] Paragraph 14 explains the "resurrection of judgment" to mean that "Jehovah and Jesus will observe and evaluate their behavior" after they are raised—shifting judgment to the post-resurrection period rather than treating ancient destruction as a final verdict.[14]
Consistent with the shift, critics documented that a footnote in the New World Translation (study edition) touching Luke 10:12 was softened—moving from language implying Sodom's residents would not be present at judgment toward language allowing that they "may be resurrected in that day."[15]
Why This Matters
The substance of the 2024 change is, on its face, more merciful—extending resurrection hope to groups previously written off. But for many exiting Witnesses, the manner of the change is more significant than the content:
- It exposes the "settled truth" claim as hollow. The organization had taught the no-resurrection position with certainty for decades, including a 1952 article insisting the destructions were "just as final," only to now declare "we cannot say for sure!" If a teaching held this confidently could be wrong, the same logic applies to every "current understanding."
- It reverses to a position the Watchtower had already held and rejected—twice. The 2024 reasoning is functionally identical to the 1879 and 1965 positions. This is not progressive "new light" so much as a pendulum, undercutting the organization's framing of doctrinal change as a steady increase in understanding (Proverbs 4:18, the favored "light gets brighter" proof text).
- It carries a pastoral cost no one is accountable for. For generations, Witnesses told families that the dead of the Flood and Sodom were annihilated forever. The reversal arrives with no apology to those who were given false certainty about the eternal fate of others.
See Also
- Death, the Soul & Hellfire — The state of the dead awaiting resurrection
- Armageddon & the Paradise Earth — The earth the resurrected are said to inherit
- The 144,000 & the Great Crowd — Two-Class Salvation — The two classes and their two hopes
- Major Doctrinal Reversals — Complete Registry — Where the 2024 Sodom reversal sits in the registry
References
1. ↩ The Watchtower and Insight on the Scriptures on the condition of the dead (Ecclesiastes 9:5, "the dead know nothing at all"); see jw.org teaching, "What Is the Condition of the Dead?" [jw.org]
2. ↩ Watchtower teaching on the earthly and heavenly resurrections, based on Acts 24:15 and John 5:28-29; "Who Will Be Resurrected from the Dead?", The Watchtower. [wol.jw.org]
3. ↩ Insight on the Scriptures, "Gehenna": Gehenna symbolizes "everlasting destruction, annihilation... or 'second death,' an eternal punishment from which there is no resurrection." [wol.jw.org]
4. ↩ "Hell—Eternal Torture or Common Grave?", Awake!, July 8, 1993, distinguishing Hades/Sheol (the grave, with resurrection) from Gehenna (the second death, no resurrection). [wol.jw.org]
5. ↩ The Watchtower, July 15, 2005, p. 31, listing among those not to be resurrected "the people of Noah's day and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah."
6. ↩ C. T. Russell, Studies in the Scriptures, Series I (The Divine Plan of the Ages), p. 110: "the Sodomites did not have a full opportunity; and he guarantees them such opportunity."
7. ↩ The Watchtower, 1941, p. 367: "Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to complete desolation, from which there is no possibility of recovery." (Cited in Paul Grundy, JWfacts.com, "Resurrection.") [jwfacts.com]
8. ↩ The Watchtower, June 1, 1952, p. 338: the destructions of "Noah's contemporaries and Sodom and Gomorrah must be just as final."
9. ↩ The Watchtower, March 1, 1965, p. 139 (cf. August 1, 1965): "the spiritual recovery of the dead people of Sodom is not hopeless," reasoning from Matthew 10:15 that "individuals who used to live in that land will be resurrected."
10. ↩ "Questions From Readers," The Watchtower, June 1, 1988, pp. 30-31: Jesus' words "did not necessarily mean that those people will be present on Judgment Day," and "those whom God executed in those past judgments experienced irreversible destruction." [wol.jw.org]
11. ↩ Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1 (released June 17, 1988), p. 616: "at least some of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah will receive a resurrection" — directly contradicting the June 1, 1988 Watchtower.
12. ↩ The Watchtower, April 15, 1990, p. 20: "the destruction of the gross sinners in those cities was eternal."
13. ↩ David Splane, "Trust in the Merciful 'Judge of All the Earth,'" Annual Meeting of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, October 7, 2023; analysis and transcription in "The 2024 Annual Meeting" and "Sodom & Gomorrah: Illuminating the Governing Body's 'new light,'" AvoidJW.org. [avoidjw.org]
14. ↩ "Trust in the Merciful 'Judge of All the Earth'!", The Watchtower (Study Edition), May 2024, pars. 4, 5, 7, 8, 14, 15, and the box "What Did Jude Mean?": "No, we cannot say for sure!"; "the cities themselves, rather than all their inhabitants, were everlastingly destroyed." [wol.jw.org] [jw.org]
15. ↩ Paul Grundy, "Who does the Watchtower say will be Resurrected?", JWfacts.com, documenting the 2024 revisions including the softened New World Translation footnote relating to Luke 10:12. [jwfacts.com]
