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.