Appointed for the Defense of the Gospel (Part 3)
Answering the Jehovah’s Witnesses: Jesus “a god”, or “God”?
Point: Jehovah’s Witnesses will always say I do believe in the Jesus we read about in our Bibles. Yet truth is they don’t. With all kinds of flimflam, they’ll say over and over, we believe in Jesus, just like the rest of the denominational world, yet the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Truth is revealed in the testing. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). “Test all things; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess. 5:21-22). Thus, “…you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). So, we must test whether these teachers are from God by the word of God that will “judge us in the last day” (John 12:48).
Jehovah’s Witnesses say: “Jesus was the first and only direct creation of God in heaven countless ages ago, before the angels and the physical universe. This is why he is called God’s ‘only-begotten Son.’ All other creations were made through this Son, God’s ‘master worker,’ in his pre-human existence” (8) [Awake!, Dec. 8, 1998, 8-11].
Let’s remember the severity of Paul’s words concerning only one gospel, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert[a] the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be [b]accursed.” Gal. 1:6-8. Accursed, [ἀνάθεμα] means “without hope of being redeemed, a man accursed, devoted to the direst woes, Thayer’s” Let us also never forget that changing just one word caused the curse of death on the whole world. Eve repeated God, and the devil added just one word. Eve said, “God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:3-4). Jehovah’s Witnesses are guilty of the exact same sin by changing one word. God said Jesus, “was” God, they say Jesus was “a” god (John 1:1). With this in mind, what does our Bible have to say concerning who Jesus is?
Clearly the answer is that Jesus is the eternal God—not a created being. Using their own Bibles teach these inconsistencies. He is, “Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:23). Jesus is one with the Father (Matt. 1:23; John 8:58; 10:30-33). “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14). On this text, the Jehovah’s Witness’s Watchtower Society rewrote John 1:1-3 to fit their perverted view. In the “New World Translation” of “their” Bible, to mask truth they have Jesus was “a god.” I would point out that they are the only ones out of hundreds of scholars to translate this way. But Jesus described himself as “the first and the last” in Revelation 1:17. Isaiah 44:6 gives the very same designation to Jehovah: “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the First and I am the Last; Besides me there is no God.” Now, either Jesus is the God who was Israel’s Redeemer in Isaiah 44:6, or he is a blasphemer in Revelation 1:17! The Jesus of the Bible is wholly, eternally God. The Jesus of the Watchtower was created in their false interpretations and twisting of the Scriptures.
Jesus is the True and Living God: Be forewarned—the next text you may hear may well be from John 17. Reading from the NWT, “This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ,” (John 17:3). New argument: Jesus cannot be God in John 1 because John 17 says the Father is the “only true God.” A serious contentious problem exists in that their translation of John 1:1 concedes that Jesus is a god while their translation of John 17:3 states there is only one “true God.” Logic demands if there is only one true God then all other gods must be false gods. So, which is Jesus? He is either the one true God or He is a false god. John 1:1 clearly never called Jesus a false god. Therefore, John 17:3, in context with the whole gospel, is actually supportive of the “Godhead” or the existence of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”. God the Father and God the Son are both the one true God, Jehovah! Jeremiah says: “But Jehovah is truly God. He is the living God and the eternal King. Because of his indignation the earth will quake, and no nations will endure his denunciation. This is what you should say to them: ‘The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth Will perish from the earth and from under these heavens,’” (Jeremiah 10:10-11, NWT)
Two important things to note here. Jehovah alone is the “living God.” Jehovah is not merely one of the living gods. So, is Jesus a powerless, lifeless god? Is He like a dead idol (Psa. 135:15-18)? Not according to NWT of John’s gospel, “by means of him was life, and the life was the light of men,” (John 1:4, NWT). Not according to the NWT of Jesus’s own words, “Jesus said to her: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who exercises faith in me, even though he dies, will come to life,” (John 11:25, NWT). Jesus has power, is life and the giver of life, not a dead god; He is the living God!
Trying to prove Jesus isn’t God the Jehovah’s Witnesses will say, “About 2,000 years ago, God transferred the life of Jesus to the womb of a Jewish virgin, to be born as a human. Even now, by the process of artificial insemination, humans can do something that is in some ways comparable”. Incredible! Jehovah’s Witnesses say the virgin birth of Jesus is comparable to artificial insemination!
What does the Bible Answer: Luke records this concerning the Lord’s conception and birth. The angel Gabriel was sent by God to the virgin Mary, “28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; [e]blessed are you among women!”…30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus…34 Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I [g]do not know a man?” 35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:28, 30, 31, 34, Emphasis mine). Also, in Matthew chapter 1 we see Joseph is told, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is [g]conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20 Emphasis mine). To be “conceived of the Holy Spirit” is a miracle—artificial insemination is not.
The Lord Jesus’ birth was a miracle of God—not artificial insemination. Colossians 2:9 says that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Who is the “Him”, none other than Jesus whose divinity was not lessened by His humanity. Clearly the power of God is demonstrated in His ability to miraculously inhabit flesh (John 1:14) and still be fully God. Jesus is called the “Son of God” and not because His existence was due to a creative act of God. People of Jesus’ day full well understood, that to call God your Father was to “make yourself God”. “30 I and My Father are one.” 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?” 33 The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.” (John 10:30-33). Jesus concurred with their assessment saying, “35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (John 10:35-36).
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6)
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe Jesus is fully God. The Jesus of the Watchtower is not the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus of the Watchtower is not the God of our salvation, and know assuredly that there is only one way to a home in heaven in the after-while, and that way is the Jesus of the Bible, the way the truth and the life (John 14:6)!
In Love
Dave Scarpino