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Jehovah's Witnesses - part 4

This is probably my favorite proof of the deity of Jesus Christ. This is worth memorizing. Let a Jehovah's Witness read the texts, and then they can decide if they want to go with what the Bible actually says or with what the Watchtower claims the Bible says. You can even use their New World Translation for this one (although I don't recommend it).

We'll start in Isaiah.

Isaiah 44:6  Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

First of all, notice that there seems to be two people involved here: "the LORD the King of Israel" and "his redeemer the LORD of hosts."¹ However this gets confused in the JW's New World Translation. So instead of trying to go down that path (which will probably lead to an endless and unprofitable argument), lets focus on the next phrase: "I am the first, and I am the last..." Students of the New Testament should recognize that phrase from the book of Revelation. We'll start in the last chapter of that book first.

Revelation 22:12-13  And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. (13) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Verse 13 uses three phrases. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last. So this establishes that these three phrases are synonymous and can be used interchangeably. The JW should have no problem with that, and they will contend that the one who is speaking, both in Isaiah and here in Revelation is Jehovah God. We can agree that God (the one true God) is indeed the speaker. Next we go to the previous chapter.

Revelation 21:5-7  And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. (6) And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. (7) He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

Here the speaker uses 2 of the phrases, "Alpha and Omega" and "the beginning and the end," which we have already established is the same as "the first and the last." Just to make sure, ask the JW who is speaking here, and they should quickly tell you that the one who is sitting upon the throne is Jehovah. Now take them to the first chapter. This is the chapter that defines everything for the rest of the book. Start in verse 8.

Revelation 1:8  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Their version will say "Jehovah God" instead of "Lord." Either way, it is clear that "Alpha and Omega" refers to God. Now skip down to verse 10.

Revelation 1:10-13  I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, (11) Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. (12) And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; (13) And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

First notice that after John heard the voice identify itself as "Alpha and Omega," he turned around and saw "one like unto the Son of man." This seems pretty clear to me that Jesus Christ, the Son of man, was the one who was speaking, but the JW's will sidestep this. So instead of getting bogged down here, keep going through chapter 1. The next few verses give a description of the "one like unto the Son of man." Now take careful notice of what verse 17 and 18 say.

Revelation 1:17-18  And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: (18) I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

The next question you should ask is, "when did Jehovah God die?" There can be no other answer except that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, and He "was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death" (Heb. 2:9). 

Be careful not to present this in way that says, "ha, I'm right, and you're wrong." Just let the Bible speak for itself, and let the Holy Spirit do the work of convincing them of the truth. The objective is not to prove they are wrong but to provide them with an opportunity to accept the truth and be saved. And don't be disappointed if they don't immediately admit that what they were believing was wrong. When the truth of the Word of God is presented to any of us and it conflicts with what we thought to be true, we come into a crisis. It's a terrifying but necessary experience.

In the next post, we'll look at some evidence that shows that God the Father and Jesus Christ must be one and the same.

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1. "LORD" in all capital letters represents the Tetragrammaton, i.e. the Hebrew word comprised of four letters which are the equivalent of YHWH. This is where "Jehovah" comes from, although most modern scholars would say that "Yahweh" is probably a better rendering.

Jehovah's Witnesses - part 3

Galatians 1:6-8 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: (7) Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. (8) But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

We saw in the last post that Jesus said, "if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins." We don't even have to get into the whole doctrine of the Trinity yet. For now let's just deal with whether or not Jesus is God. I think many Christians believe that Jesus is God without really understanding why. So let's look at some biblical evidence for this fact.

Isaiah 43:10-11 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. (11) I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.

This tells us several things. First notice that verse 10 says "before me there was no God formed." The Hebrew word for 'formed' is yatsar. It is the same word used in Gen. 2:7.

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jehovah God created Jesus, and Jesus created every other thing. John 1:1 in the Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation says, "In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." They try to say Jesus is not God; he is just "a god." But notice that the last phrase in Isaiah 43:10 says, "neither shall there be after me." This means that God did not create another god (i.e. Jesus) after Him. This contradicts the Watchtower teaching on John 1:1.

But I think verse 11 is much more interesting. The New World Translation puts it like this: "I—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior." This very clearly establishes the fact that Jehovah is the only savior. Here is another similar passage from Hosea:

Hosea 13:4 Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.

From there we can go into many New Testament passages that deal with Jesus as savior but there are a couple in Titus that are my favorite.

Titus 1:3-4 [God] hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour; (4) To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.

We have already established from Isaiah 43:11 and Hosea 13:4 that Jehovah God is the only savior. This is reiterated in Titus 1:3: "God our Saviour." But look at the very next verse. It says "the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour." It seems logical to me that if God is the only savior, and Jesus Christ is also called savior, then Jesus Christ must be God. Now one time should be enough, but the epistle to Titus gives us two more examples:

Titus 2:11-13 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, (12) Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; (13) Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

Titus 3:4-7 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, (5) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (6) Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; (7) That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Seems pretty clear to me. If A = C, and B = C, then A = B. God = (only) Savior; Jesus = Savior; therefor Jesus = God. But that's not all. More in the next post.

Jehovah's Witnesses - part 2

2 Corinthians 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

This verse tells us that it is possible to believe in a Jesus who cannot save us. To believe in a Jesus who is different from what the Bible describes is to believe in a different gospel that cannot save. It also causes one to receive a different spirit which can be nothing but deceptive and dangerous.

So it is imperative that we believe in the true Jesus Christ. After all, we are not just talking about a system of morals and good character. We are talking about the eternal destiny of the souls of men. We all have a problem. We are born as sinners. We are under the wrath of God. There is a penalty that must be paid for our sin debt. This is what Jesus Christ did on the cross. His soul was made an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10). He bore our iniquities (Isaiah 53:11). He blotted out the "handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross" (Col. 2:14). And we are saved by the grace of God through our faith in the Jesus Christ who did these things for us (Eph. 2:8). But if we do not believe in the true Jesus, we are condemned.

John 3:17-18 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

When it comes to the Jehovah's Witnesses, many people want to single out their views on blood transfusions or conscientious objection or the fact that they do not celebrate birthdays. But what we should do is get right down to their view of who Jesus is and what He did. I asked a JW not long ago who they thought Jesus was. She said, "Jesus is the son of God." This is where we need to be careful. It is true that He is the Son of God, but I pressed further by asking what she meant by that. This is because I knew that the Watchtower teaches them that Jesus is not God in the flesh. In fact they believe he is Michael the archangel. I'll try to come back to that at another time. Right now I want to emphasize the fact that we must believe that Jesus is not only the Son of God but that He is God. But why is this so important? In John 8:24, Jesus said, "if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." If you have a translation of the Bible that uses italics to show English words that were added for clarity, you will notice that the word 'he' is in italics. (Interestingly enough, the JW's New World Translation puts the word 'he' in brackets which is essentially the same thing.) This means that it is not in the original Greek. What Jesus said was, "if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins." Later in the chapter (vs 58), He repeated this very phrase when He said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad...Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM." In the very next verse, the Jews took up stones to kill Him which tells us that they believed He was blaspheming, calling Himself I AM. The name, I AM, refers to Exodus 3:14 where God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and told Moses to say that I AM has sent him to the Hebrews. So Jesus was identifying Himself as the one who called Moses from the burning bush. But John had already told us that in chapter 5:

John 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

So we can see from these verses that we must believe in the deity of Jesus Christ or we cannot be saved. Later I hope to explore more scriptural evidence that Jesus is God.

Jehovah's Witnesses - part 1

Just about everyone has had at least one experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on their door. Think about your own experiences with them. Did you dismiss them? Did you ignore them? Or did you point them to the light of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible? Too often I think Christians treat the Jehovah's Witnesses spitefully, perceiving them as enemies they should have nothing to do with. But Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, and what better way to love someone than to give them the truth of the gospel? We must not forget that the Witnesses are lost without a true knowledge and saving faith in the true Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we have a duty to give them a true witness just as we do for any other lost soul.

I have had the privilege of being able to witness to some JW's over the last few months. I'm amazed that they keep returning, but I thank God for every opportunity He gives me to share with them, and I pray that His Holy Spirit will convict them and bring them out of darkness and into the light. I'd like to share a little of what I've learned in this experience.

For now I just want to point out that the JW's (at least the new converts) do view the Bible as the inspired word of God (although they use a corrupt version - the New World Translation). However their false theology is given to them through the Watchtower organization. It's up to us to show them that what the Watchtower is teaching them is contrary to what the Bible actually says.

But as I said before, there are numerous doctrines that they are taught that are unbiblical. So where do we start? Well, as the late Dr. Walter Martin said, you can be right on every other doctrine in the Bible, but if you are wrong about your view of God, you will be lost for all eternity.

So in my opinion, it is best to start with the person and work of Jesus Christ. All cults and false religions have incorrect views about who Jesus Christ is or what He did for us -- usually both. We need to have a firm grasp on the fact that Jesus Christ is God incarnate and that He became an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10) on the cross so that whosoever believes on His name will be born again and redeemed from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13).

Later I hope to give some examples of scriptures we can use as a testimony of these facts. Below are some links to some helpful resources.

Dr. Walter Martin audio

More Dr. Walter Martin audio

Ex-Jehovah's Witness Lori MacGregor audio