What Jehovah’s Witnesses Teach
Jehovah’s Witnesses consider baptized Jehovah’s Witnesses to be righteous and therefore entitled to everlasting life. However, they believe that Acts 24:15 opens the way for some unbaptized ones to be resurrected. It says that Paul hopes that “both the righteous and the unrighteous will be resurrected.”
They define the unrighteous as sinners who did not have sufficient opportunity to learn about Jehovah before they died. They teach that death cancels out sins (Rom. 6:7), yet they learn that the wicked or those who oppose Jehovah’s Witnesses will not be resurrected.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the unrighteous rise to life during the 1000-year kingdom. Those who are unrighteous after they are resurrected die during the 1000-year kingdom (Isaiah 65:20), and they believe that some will be judged unrighteous only after Satan’s test after the 1000-year kingdom (Daniel 12:2).
The Bible says
The Bible does not define in one sentence what an unrighteous person is. Nor do we need a detailed list of specific sins that make a person unrighteous, since the “righteous and unrighteous” mentioned in Acts 24:15 includes absolutely all people. No human being is just righteous or just unrighteous. When Paul categorizes these two groups, it is to emphasize that all people will be resurrected.
When do the humans resurrect from death to life? Revelation 20:4-6 mentions only two resurrections. The first resurrection occurs after Armageddon and includes those who were “given authority to judge” as “kings with Christ for 1,000 years.” According to verse 5, all other dead are resurrected after the 1000-year kingdom.
Those who will rule as kings with Jesus during the 1000-year kingdom are referred to as “holy” (Revelation 20:6). Although the Bible does not use the term righteous to refer to those who will rule with Jesus during the 1000-year kingdom, it is reasonable that Jesus would not choose unrighteous people as kings and judges in the Messianic Kingdom. Especially since Psalm 9:8 says that “He will judge the inhabited earth in righteousness; He will render righteous legal decisions for the nations.” This conclusion is supported by the fact that those who take part in the first resurrection cannot die (Revelation 20:6), which may indicate a favorable judgment. Even if we assume that the righteous are those who are resurrected in the first resurrection, we cannot rule out that some of those who are resurrected after the 1000-year kingdom may also be counted as righteous. The most likely scenario seems to be that the unrighteous ones who are resurrected are those who are resurrected in the second resurrection after the 1000-year kingdom.
When the righteous and the unrighteous are resurrected, this means that “all” dead people are resurrected (John 5:28,29). However, 1 Corinthians 6:9 says that those who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God. Whether people are allowed to enter Paradise depends on their way of life after they have been resurrected and after new books are opened (Revelation 20:12). If they continue to behave un righteously after the resurrection and do not pass Satan’s test, then their resurrection in their case will amount to a resurrection of judgment (John 5:29 and Revelation 20:7-9).
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