The Watchtower doesn’t believe that Jesus had a soul which could go to heaven when he died.

That’s because it doesn’t believe that any human being has a soul.

Rather, human beings are souls.

The Watchtower’s teaching

The Watchtower states its position this way:

Bible usage shows the soul to be a person or an animal or the life that a person or an animal enjoys. To many persons, however, “soul” means the immaterial or spirit part of a human being that survives the death of the physical body. Others understand it to be the principle of life. But these latter views are not Bible teachings.” (Reasoning From the Scriptures, p. 375)

The Watchtower cites as proof Genesis 2:7: “’Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.’ (Notice that this does not say that man was given a soul but that he became a soul, a living person.)” (Reasoning From the Scriptures, p. 375)

It also uses Ezekiel 18:4 to prove that a soul doesn’t survive physical death: “Look! All the souls—to me they belong. As the soul of the father so also the soul of the son—to me they belong. The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Watchtower translation)

If the Watchtower’s teaching were correct, what implications would that have regarding Jesus’ resurrection?

It comments: “Is the resurrection a reuniting of an immaterial soul with the physical body? For this to be possible, of course, humans would have to have an immaterial soul that could separate from the physical body. The Bible does not teach such a thing. That notion was borrowed from Greek philosophy.” (Reasoning From the Scriptures, p. 333)

Since the Watchtower doesn’t believe the resurrection is a reuniting of an immaterial soul with a physical body, what is it?

Resurrection involves a reactivating of the life pattern of the individual, which life pattern God has retained in his memory. According to God’s will for the individual, the person is restored in either a human or a spirit body and yet retains his personal identity, having the same personality and memories as when he died. (Reasoning From the Scriptures, p. 333)

A Biblical Refutation

With regard to Ezekiel 18:4, former Jehovah’s Witness elder David Reed notes that the context of the verse is complaints by Israelites “that punishment for what a father did fell on his offspring. Verse 4 is God’s reply: The one who sins is the one who will die… So, the context reveals that the inspired Word was not speaking here about the condition of the dead.”

He comments further:

The word soul is used in many different senses throughout Scripture. It sometimes refers to a person’s life, sometimes to the person himself (as it does here at Ezekiel 18:4 ), and sometimes it refers to the inner part of a man that lives on after death. Jehovah’s Witnesses deny this last use of the word soul. They say that man totally ceases to exist at death, that when the body dies, there is nothing left. But there are many Scripture verses that prove them wrong.” (Jehovah’s Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse, p. 45)

Here are several that you can use.

To make sure they are actually engaging with the Bible text, ask one of the Witnesses to read them out loud.

 Luke 12:4-5

 “Moreover, I say to you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after this are not able to do anything more. But I will show you whom to fear: Fear the One who after killing has authority to throw into Gehenna.” (Watchtower translation)

 Reed states: “… a man’s body can be killed. He is dead. He can then be thrown into Gehenna. Now if, as the Witnesses say, the man ceased to exist when his body was killed, what would be left afterwards to be thrown into Gehenna?”

 Witnesses say that Gehenna was a dump where refuse was burned, so this just means Jehovah would decide never to resurrect the man.

But then what part of this man was “thrown into Gehenna?”

2 Corinthians 5:1, 8-9

In 2 Corinthians 5:1, 8-9, Paul said: “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, should be torn down, we are to have a building from God, a house not made with hands, everlasting in the heavens… But we are of good courage and would prefer to be absent from the body and to make our home with the Lord. So whether at home with him or absent from him, we make it our aim to be acceptable to him.”

So there is a part of a person which can leave a person’s “earthly tent”—his body—and go to be with the Lord.

Ask the Witnesses, “Doesn’t this show that our physical bodies are merely earthly tents in which we live?”

Also ask, “Doesn’t this passage show that Christians exist either at home inside their bodies or with the Lord outside of their bodies and that this part of them survives physical death?”

Philippians 1:21-24

Philippians 1:21-24 says: “For in my case, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Now if I am to live on in the flesh, this is a fruitage of my work; yet what I would choose, I do not make known. I am torn between these two things, for I do desire the releasing and the being with Christ, which is, to be sure, far better. However, it is more necessary for me to remain in the flesh for your sakes.” (Watchtower translation)

Ask, “According to this passage, did Paul expect to go out of existence for thousands of years until the resurrection or did he expect to leave his body and be with Christ immediately as soon as he died?”

 Revelation 6:9-11

 Revelation 6:9-11 states:

 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the witness they had given. They shouted with a loud voice, saying: “Until when, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, are you refraining from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And a white robe was given to each of them, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the number was filled of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed as they had been.” (Watchtower translation)

These souls had been killed but they were pleading with God for justice.

A Jehovah’s Witness might respond by saying that this is symbolic, as in Genesis 4:10, where God says to Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”

Genesis 4:10 is clearly using a metaphor, but Revelation 6 reports specific words addressed to God by the slaughtered souls and gives God’s spoken response in which he tells them to rest a short time more until further martyrs would be killed as they had been.

Ask, “Doesn’t this show that even though their bodies were dead, their souls were alive and in heaven?”