JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST
By maintaining that our Lord was the “first and direct creation of
Jehovah God,” and that prior to His earthly life He was Michael the Archangel,[iii]
the Witnesses deny the very foundation of the historic Christian faith.
In contrast to this teaching, the Bible and Christian Church declare the
full Deity of Jesus Christ and His equality with God the Father.
In the first verse of John’s Gospel, Christ is revealed as the eternal
Word of God who became flesh (verse 14) - the “image
of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Consider
the emphasis. “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”
(John 1:1).
Note that John 1:1 states that the Word was
in the beginning - it does not say the Word “became” or “was created” by
God as Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. The
Witnesses also mistranslate this text to read “the Word was a
god”[iv]
but their translation is by both context and grammar an impossibility according
to all recognized authorities on Greek grammar.
Moreover, the Scriptures proclaim that Christ made “himself
equal with God” (John 5:18) and that “in
him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). The Bible further states that Christ claimed to be the great I AM
(Jehovah) of the Old Testament (see Exodus 3:13-16 with John 8:58), and the Jews
during His ministry understood Him so clearly that they sought to stone Him to
death for blasphemy (John 8:59; cf. 10:28, 33).
Jehovah’s Witnesses pervert these texts and many others in their
determined attempt to demote our Lord from His position of God and Creator
(Colossians 1; Hebrews 1), and they compound their error by translating the
Greek of the New Testament in many places contrary to all known grammatical
authorities.[v]
It is certainly true that during His earthly life our Lord voluntarily
limited Himself as a man (Philippians 2:6-8), and thus He never strove to usurp
the prerogatives of Deity. But one
does not have to “rob” what is His by inheritance (Hebrews 1). As we have already shown, He was true Deity -
“the
great God” (Titus 2:13).
We must not forget that Christ humbled Himself even to the death of the
cross and therefore as a man could
say, “my Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). However, let us not forget that Christ never said, “My Father is
better
than I”; “better” is a term of comparison between natures (Hebrews 1:4)
while “greater,” as in the context of John 14, is a term of comparison
relative to positions.
Our President, for instance, is greater in position than any of his
fellow Americans by virtue of his office as President of the United States; but
he would be the first to insist that as a human being he is not necessarily better.
So Christ was admittedly inferior to His Father positionally
while on earth as a man but the Scriptures indicate He was His Father’s equal
on the spiritual plane at all times (Hebrews 1:3; John 5:18).
Jehovah’s Witnesses always point to Christ’s humanity in the
Scriptures; they carefully omit mention of His claim to full Deity and they thus
“wrest . . . the . . . scriptures, unto
their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16).
Our Lord taught His Full Deity (John 8:58, John 8:24) and the Bible calls
Him the “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last” (Revelation 1:17, 18).
Yet it is Jehovah alone who declares that He is “the
first, and . . . the last” (Isaiah 44:6). Since there can be only one first and last, God fully manifested Himself
in Jesus Christ, “the first and the
last” (Revelation 1:17, 18) as the Scriptures and the Christian Church
maintain.
Jehovah’s Witnesses deny these and many other great doctrines of the
Bible. They are therefore misguided
followers of a fallible, human organization. Consequently, they too, desperately need the salvation that the God-man,
Jesus Christ, alone offers to all men who will come to Him and accept Him as
their Saviour and Lord (John 3:16, 5:24).
[i].Let God be True,
Edition 1946, The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. p. 87.
[ii].The Harp of God,
J.F. Rutherford, pp. 101 and 128.
[iii].The Truth Shall Make You Free, The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, p. 49; also
The
Kingdom is At Hand, pp. 46, 47, 49.
[iv].New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures - John 1:1, The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
[v].See
Jehovah of the Watchtower, Moody
Press, Chicago, Revised Edition, 1974 for a full-length study of Jehovah’s
Witnesses with full documentation on their errors.
For more information on the writings of Dr. Walter R. Martin, contact
www.waltermartin.org.
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