Click image to access this “Bible Teach” chapter on the Watchtower’s website

Christians are looking forward to Jesus’ return.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are looking forward to Armageddon.

That’s because the Watchtower doesn’t believe that Jesus will ever actually return to the earth.

In fact, Chapter 8 of “Bible Teach”—“What Is God’s Kingdom?”—makes a number of claims which we need to challenge:

1. Jesus will never return.
2. Only 144,000 Christians will ever go to heaven
3. Earthly governments are about to be replaced by a paradise earth
4. The Watchtower correctly foresaw what would happen in 1914
   

We’ll talk about Teaching #1 today.

 Watchtower Teaching #1: Jesus will never return to earth

“Bible Teach”, Chapter 8, paragraphs 4-5 (p. 77) says that God’s Kingdom is in heaven and ruled from heaven by Jesus. One day he will rule over the earth from there.

You can ask the Witnesses to explain Zechariah 14:3-4: “Jehovah will go out and war against those nations as when he fights in the day of a battle. In that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in half, from east to west, forming a very great valley; and half of the mountain will move to the north, and half of it to the south.”

Of course, the Watchtower denies that Jesus is Jehovah, so it interprets this verse symbolically to refer to Jehovah’s sovereignty. Ask the Witnesses to explain that to you because it doesn’t make sense.

What about Acts 1:11, where angels said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus who was taken up from you into the sky will come in the same manner as you have seen him going into the sky.”

That clearly indicates that he will return physically, but the Watchtower says it means the opposite—that he will return invisibly, meaning that he will rule on earth from heaven.

I discuss this passage on pp. 124-125 of The Bodily Resurrection Approach from my book, Getting Through to Jehovah’s Witnesses: Approaching Bible Discussions in Unexpected Ways. I recommend that you ask the Witnesses, “If you see an airplane take off and disappear into a cloud, do you conclude that it has dematerialized? Do you expect that when it returns in the same way in which you saw it go, that it will return invisibly?”

If the Watchtower understanding is correct, why didn’t the angels just tell them, “Jesus won’t be leaving heaven for earth again”?

Remind them of Jesus’ own words in John 14:3: “Also, if I go my way and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you home to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”

 Next week we’ll discuss Watchtower Teachings #2 and #3:

• Only 144,000 Christians will ever go to heaven
• Earthly governments are about to be replaced by a paradise earth