Jehovah’s Witnesses and False Testimony of Christ’s Divinity

“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that he has borne witness concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the son has the life; he who does not have the son of God does not have the life.” –1 John 5: 9-12 (NASB)

The clarity with which John makes known the foundational truth of Christ’s supremacy –his complete divinity and humanity is far from ambiguous. Jesus is God. He’s not a lesser god, he’s not a mode of God, he’s not a representation of God. The inspiration of the Holy Scriptures is evidenced in John’s letter addressing the divinity of Christ –a stumbling block to belief by countless millions through the centuries. The word stands in stark opposition to nearly every belief system on the globe from Islam to Atheism. The denial of Christ’s being co-equal with God the father is a dangerous and deceptive doctrine of one of the most prominent contemporary cults: Jehovah’s Witnesses.

You’ve probably seen them walking in your neighborhood, leather brief case in hand and nicely dressed. If you’ve spent time in discussion, you can quickly see they share many beliefs with Christianity and seem to be genuine, sincere, moral people. Their fundamental difference with orthodox Christianity is typically addressed promptly. The Watchtower, official publication of Jehovah’s witnesses will often pose questions such as, “Is Jesus really God?” or “What does scripture say about the name of God?” When addressing the divinity of Christ, it’s important to keep in mind the New World Translation, the Bible of the Jehovah’s Witnesses was called by Bruce Metzger, “a frightful mistranslation…erroneous, pernicious, reprehensible.” The NWT purposefully distorts the truth of scripture to fit a doctrinal bias.

John 1:1 for instance: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (NASB) The New World Translation renders this passage, “In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” The Watchtower society argues that in the Greek text, a noun (such as “God”) joined to a definite article (“the”) points to an identity or a personality. Is this sound support for translating Theos “a god”? The Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by William F. Arndt and Wilbur Gingrich says that the word Theos is used “quite predominantly of the true God, sometimes with, sometimes without the article. An example of this is Luke 20:38, where read of Jehovah, “he is a God, not of the dead, but of the living”. (NWT, emphasis added)

When discussing Christ’s lesser-divinity with Jehovah’s witnesses emphasize the Old Testament passages referring to one existent God. Ask, “How do you reconcile Jehovah God’s statement in Deuteronomy 32:39 that “there is no God beside me” –as well as His statement in Isaiah 45:5 that “besides me there is no God” –with the Watchtower teaching that there is both a “God Almighty” and a “mighty god” If there is no God besides Jehovah, then all “gods” are false. It logically follows then, that Jesus is himself is a false god. Jehovah’s Witnesses are quick to point to passages such as John 14:28 “If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” They will assert that this scripture teaches that Christ is a god –a lesser god, not Yahweh. It is critical to recognize that in John 14:28, Jesus is not speaking about His nature or His essential being (Christ had earlier said, “I and the Father are one” in this regard [John 10:30], but rather about his lowly position in the incarnation. Jesus humbled himself in coming to Earth and while being fully God, voluntarily submitted to the Father’s will by coming to earth as a man. He was however, and never has been inferior.

Colossians 1:15-19: “And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born over all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities –all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He himself might come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.”

When talking with JW’s, it’s important that you as a Christian know the scriptures. Cashiers are taught to distinguish between true and counterfeit money by knowing the real thing –not the false one. The Bible is in unambiguous about the deity of Jesus. With striking clarity it warns us never to compromise this truth. Jehovah’s Witnesses are without a doubt, false witnesses to the true nature of Christ.