Last time, I gave you brief descriptions of what’s in each of the four chapters of Section 1 of my book, Getting Through to Jehovah’s Witnesses: Approaching Bible Discussions in Unexpected Ways.
Now I’d like to give you a preview of Section 2. This section focus on how to get across to Jehovah’s Witnesses the Bible’s real plan of salvation.
Here are short summaries of what each of those chapters includes: Continue reading
The Watchtower says that the new birth is a designation by Jehovah’s spirit of a person to the heavenly class. Using this definition, it claims that Jesus was born again as are each of the 144,000 who will one day go to heaven. In contrast, those in the great crowd do not need to be born again since they do not have a heavenly calling.
The best way I know to show Jehovah’s Witnesses what the new birth really is about is to focus on John 3 and ask them what Jesus expected Nicodemus to understand when he told him that he needed to be born again. Continue reading
As we saw earlier in this series, the Watchtower teaches that in order to obtain God’s approval, Jehovah’s Witnesses need to maintain righteous behavior in this life and eventually progress to moral perfection by the end of Christ’s millennial kingdom.
What they fail to realize is that there is no way human beings can ever by self-effort become righteous enough to meet God’s standards. If we try to establish our own righteousness—that is, if we try to generate sufficient righteousness by self-effort and dedication—we are thwarted at every turn by the dead spirits we inherited from Adam. Continue reading
The Watchtower claims that in order to be saved, members of the earthly class must prove worthy by their works many times. First, they must prove worthy to be resurrected or to survive Armageddon in order to enter Christ’s coming millennial kingdom on earth. If they make it that far, they will have to overcome their sinful nature during those 1000 years, attain perfection, and then prove worthy again by passing a final test by Satan. If they pass that final test, they will obtain everlasting life and be back to where Adam was before he sinned. They will still be capable of sinning, though, just as Adam was, so in order to escape annihilation they must continue to prove worthy throughout all of eternity.
Not all Witnesses are aware of these requirements. If they are aware of them, they may not have put them all together and seen that they are impossible to attain. In previous articles, I have cited Watchtower literature you can show them in order to establish all this. However, that method is pretty confrontational.
If you prefer a less confrontational approach that doesn’t require a lot of documentation, you might begin simply by asking this question: “Exactly what do I need to do to become acceptable to God?” Continue reading
How are the Great Crowd supposed to achieve moral perfection?As we saw last time, the Watchtower teaches that in order to obtain everlasting life, members of the great crowd must achieve moral perfection by the end of the millennial kingdom.
How are they supposed to accomplish this?
How will these imperfect, sinful humans ever manage to progress to and attain perfection? The Watchtower claims, “Throughout this time, as the result of the dripping and trickling down of righteousness from the ‘new heavens,’ the human soil of the ‘new earth’ will respond and become fruitful in a corresponding way.”[1]
What does that mean? I don’t know, and I’m sure if you ask them, Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t be able to explain it. Continue reading
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