When I first became a Christian, someone joked with me about what it must have been like to be one of the younger children of Mary and Joseph, constantly being asked, “Why can’t you be more like your older brother?”

The Watchtower states, “Today, there are more than six million Witnesses of Jehovah who…make every effort to ‘walk worthy of Jehovah to the end of fully pleasing him,’ applying his standards in every aspect of their lives.” (The Watchtower, “Stirred by ‘the Magnificent Things of God’”, 8/1/2002, p. 17)

My question would be, “How are you coming with that?”

The Watchtower assures Jehovah’s Witnesses, “Whether we are at home, at work, at school, at play, or in the ministry, we make every effort to bring glory to Jehovah through our fine conduct. True, as imperfect humans, we all make mistakes. (Rom 3:23) but by continuing to ‘fight the fine fight of the faith,’ we can successfully win the battle against our imperfect flesh.—1 Tim. 6:12.” (The Watchtower, “Keep Your Minds Fixed on the Things Above,” 10/15/2014, p. 31)

But how exactly can a sinner who has never been indwelt by the Holy Spirit through the new birth possibly live the righteous kind of life modeled by Jesus?

How can a person who is not in God’s new covenant accomplish that?

The Watchtower teaches that only the “anointed” 144,000 are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that only they have been born again.

And in Watchtower teaching, “born again” doesn’t mean “transformed inside by the Holy Spirit.” As we saw in an earlier post, it means receiving from God a birthlike entitling to prospects and hopes for spirit life by resurrection to heaven.” (The Watchtower, “Who Are Born Again?”, 11/15/54, p. 682)

The Watchtower tells the millions of other Jehovah’s Witnesses, who admittedly have never been born again: “Jehovah has made sure that we know enough about Jesus for us to be his footstep followers.—1 Pet. 2:21.” (The Watchtower, “Are You Receiving ‘Food at the Proper Time’?” 8/15/2014, p. 5)

Is it primarily a matter of knowledge, then?

Studying Watchtower literature diligently?

Attending Watchtower meetings more faithfully?

No. Romans 7:18-25 says:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Watchtower translation)

I recommend that you show Jehovah’s Witnesses Romans 8:8-9: “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”

Show them Jeremiah 31:31-34:

“Look! The days are coming,” declares Jehovah, “when I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their forefathers on the day I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, although I was their true master,” declares Jehovah. ^“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Jehovah. “I will put my law within them, and in their heart I will write it. And I will become their God, and they will become my people. And they will no longer teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know Jehovah!’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them,” declares Jehovah. “For I will forgive their error, and I will no longer remember their sin.”

 Ask, “Doesn’t this show that we humans have no way of meeting Jehovah’s righteous demands or proving worthy of everlasting life except by allowing God to put us into this new covenant that will give us an inner righteousness that we couldn’t otherwise attain as sinful descendants of Adam?”

Also, show them Ezekiel 11:19-20: “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ask, “Based on these scriptures, do you see why I believe that the need for inner transformation by God is what Jesus meant by being born again? He expected Nicodemus to understand that sinful descendants of Adam need a new spirit and a new heart in order to make them able to live according to Jehovah’s righteous standards. In other words, being born again isn’t about designating a special group of people to go to heaven in spirit form. It’s an inner transformation we all need in order to experience salvation and eternal life.”