In last week’s post, I asked the question, “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?”
That’s a rhetorical question—it’s impossible.
But the Watchtower’s answer seems to be that by striving non-stop, you can do it—that is, by striving diligently, you can change your personality to make yourself into the righteous person God wants you to be.
We can see the difference by looking at how Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses deal with two key passages of scripture— Colossians 3:9-10 and Ephesians 2:22-24. 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.
In Romans 10:1-3, Paul reveals something regarding his fellow Israelites which I believe applies equally to Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Brothers,” Paul says, “my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”
