• Answering Watchtower Misconceptions About Jesus - Some time ago, a subscriber to my blog wrote and asked me to do some posts about the differences between the Jesus of the Watchtower and the Jesus of the Bible. I thought that was a great idea, so today we begin a new blog series entitled “Answering Watchtower Misconceptions About Jesus.”
  • Is Salvation Really a Gift? - Do we have to earn our salvation by our works? Given that the Watchtower teaches that works are a prerequisite to salvation, I would expect its answer to that question to be “Yes.” Quite surprisingly, though, it says just the opposite!
  • Are Works a Prerequisite for Salvation? - Because James 2:26 says, “Faith without works is dead,” the Watchtower teaches that works are a prerequisite to salvation. In contrast, the Bible teaches that good works are an important part of genuine Christianity but that they are the products of salvation, not the prerequisites to salvation.
  • Does Jesus Save Us or Just Give Us a Chance for Salvation? - In your discussions with Jehovah’s Witnesses on these topics, make sure they understand that the Watchtower teaches that they will have to attain to perfection by the end of the millennial reign of Christ, and even then their salvation will never be totally secure. Your goal should be to help them see that the Watchtower’s salvation system requires them to achieve the impossible.
  • Is Salvation a Reward for Faithfulness?` - If faithfulness is a prerequisite to salvation, we are all in serious trouble because our faithfulness to God is spotty at best.
  • A New Creation or Just a New Personality? - 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.
  • Can We Be Christians Without Being Born Again? - 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?”
  • Did Jesus Die for ADAM’S Sin Or Ours Also? - We move in our series from Watchtower misconceptions regarding Jesus’ earthly ministry to its misconceptions about Jesus and salvation. If you ask Jehovah’s Witnesses to explain their understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice, most of them will focus on Adam’s sin rather than on their own sins.
  • Did Jesus Focus on End Times Prophecy? - The Watchtower constantly stresses the importance of spreading “the Kingdom message.” There is no doubt that Jesus spoke a great deal of the Kingdom of God. But was his message the same “Kingdom message” as that of the Watchtower?
  • Does Jesus Require Door to Door Preaching? - If there is one thing people know about Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s that nearly all of them witness door-to-door on a regular basis. A number of former Jehovah’s Witness elders who left the Watchtower have stated publicly that the number of hours a Witness reported was the primary measure of spirituality and the deciding factor in whether they would be offered a position of responsibility in the congregation. I will vigorously defend the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to proselytize from house to house (so long as they respectfully take no for an answer and leave), but why does the Watchtower insist that all of them do so and, in practice, make it a test of spirituality?
  • Is Jesus’ Name Secondary to Jehovah’s? - The Watchtower places Jesus in second place: “The name of Jesus Christ ranks second to that of the Most High God, Jehovah.” (The Watchtower, “Like Dew from God and like a Lion Among Nations”, 1/15/62, p. 49) You can address this issue by building a positive case for the fact that the name the New Testament exalts most highly is “Jesus.”
  • Refuting Modalism - The usual formulation of modalism is the idea that in the Old Testament, God revealed himself as the Father; in the gospels, he revealed himself as the Son; and after his ascension back to heaven, he reveals himself as the Holy Spirit. That’s not what Christians believe, but because the Watchtower lumps the definitions together, if you tell Jehovah’s Witnesses you believe in the Trinity, they may think you are a modalist. You will want to watch for this possibility so as to be able correct their misunderstanding.
  • Is Jehovah the Father Only? - This post isn’t about how to prove the doctrine of the Trinity (or the deity of Christ) to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Rather, it’s about overcoming the language barrier so that at least Jehovah’s Witnesses understand what you are and aren’t saying.
  • Was Jesus Created? - The Watchtower does not believe that Jesus is God, so it concludes that he must be a created being. Here are the two primary Bible passages they use in support of this claim, along with my suggestions as to how to answer them.
  • Is Jesus God or “a god”? - Having asserted that Jesus is a created being , the Watchtower had to figure out how to deal with John 1:1, which plainly states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So they came out with their own version of the Bible (the “New World Translation”), in which they rendered that verse as follows: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.”
  • Does Jesus’ Subordination Disprove His Deity? - It will surprise Jehovah's Witnesses greatly to learn that acknowledging the human limitations of Jesus and his positional subordination to the Father is not a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is an integral part of that doctrine.
  • Is Jesus the I AM? - Jesus’ calling himself “I am” in John 8:58 was a claim to be God. That’s why the Watchtower changed the wording.
  • Who Was Pierced? - In Zechariah 12:10, Jehovah gives the following prophecy: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” So Jehovah is the one who will be pierced. Yet in the New Testament, it is Jesus who was pierced at the time of his execution.
  • Who Is the Alpha and the Omega? - When you are talking with Jehovah’s Witnesses about the identity of Jesus, ask one of them to read aloud Revelation 22:12-13. We’ll let them use their Watchtower translation.
  • Is It Wrong to Worship Jesus? - Because the Watchtower believes only the Father is Jehovah and that Jesus is a lesser, created being, it is adamant that we must not worship Jesus.
  • Is It Wrong to Pray to Jesus? - Because the Watchtower teaches that Jesus isn’t God, it also teaches that we must not pray to him, but only to the Father through Jesus.
  • Can Someone Besides God Forgive Sins? - In Matthew 9:2, Jesus told a man, “Your sins are forgiven.” Here’s a great question to ask Jehovah’s Witnesses: If—as the Watchtower teaches—Jesus isn’t God—what right did he have to do that?
  • Is Jesus the Archangel Michael? - The Bible only mentions one archangel, and Jude 9 gives his name as Michael. The Watchtower asserts that Michael is also Jesus Christ.
  • Was Jesus Just a Man? - What about the Watchtower’s teaching we discussed last week—their teaching that Jesus is Michael the archangel? How do they square that with their claim that he was “a perfect man, nothing more, nothing less”?
  • Was There an Incarnation? - The Watchtower does not believe in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. That’s not surprising, given that it doesn’t believe in the deity of Christ.
  • Could God Have Sent a Different Savior? - If the Watchtower is right, then Jehovah sat safely in heaven and selected someone else to become a man and die a horrendous death to atone for our sins. But if we are right, then God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, personally came and bore the consequences of his own righteous wrath against sin in order to save us. The Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 himself came to earth and gave his life for the sheep. That’s a big difference!
  • Could God Have Sent Successors if Jesus Failed? - Adam was created perfect and sinless and placed in a garden paradise, yet in a short time he failed miserably. Jesus was born into a sin-infested world. If, as the Watchtower claims, Jesus wasn’t God in human flesh, there would be constant risks that he might fail as well.
  • Why Not Create a Second Adam Out of the Dust? - If—as is implied by Watchtower Christology—Jehovah had a large number of options, why would he have to choose an archangel or angel for his redemptive purpose? If the key qualification was the Savior’s exact correspondence to Adam, why couldn’t Jehovah simply create a perfect second Adam out of the dust of the earth and ask him to make the ransom sacrifice?
  • Did Jesus Need to be Born Again? - The Watchtower teaches, “Jesus was the first one to be 'born again,' This was in harmony with God's rule concerning his Son: 'that he might become the one who is first in all things.' When was Jesus 'born again'? At the time of his human birth? No, but rather thirty years later, at the time of his baptism A.D. 29.” (The Watchtower, “Who Are Born Again?”, 11/15/54, p. 682) I discuss the new birth extensively in Chapter 10 of my book, Getting Through to Jehovah’s Witnesses . There, I offer recommendations as to how to engage Jehovah’s Witnesses on this crucial topic. In this post, I want to give you a brief overview of the Watchtower’s misconception about Jesus being born again, and to explain what I believe is at stake.
  • Was Saving the Lost a Secondary Mission? - My own opinion is that Jesus' mission to save us from our sins was the most important to God. Without that motivation, would the Father have sent Jesus at all?
  • Did Jesus Come to Vindicate Jehovah’s Sovereignty? - The Watchtower makes the following claim: “The most important reason why God’s Son came to earth was not to save mankind. Rather, it was to settle the slanderous issues raised by Satan with regard to Jehovah’s sovereignty.” Let’s discuss what the Watchtower means by that second sentence. What “slanderous issues” did Satan raise “with regard to Jehovah’s sovereignty”?
  • Vindication or Reconciliation and Transformation? - The Watchtower announces triumphantly: “In the thousands of years of human history, mankind has been able to try every form of self-rule, or human government. Mankind has made some advances in science and other fields, but injustice, poverty, crime, and war have grown ever worse. Human rule has now been shown to be a failure. (What Does the Bible Really Teach?, p. 112) That’s certainly true. But wait. That means the rebels’ failure would have been evident even if Jesus had never come or done anything, right? So by the Watchtower’s own illustration, Jehovah’s sovereignty would have been vindicated without him.
  • Did Jesus Suffer Agony to Prove a Point? - If the Watchtower's view is correct, Jehovah required Jesus to prove his loyalty and integrity as a further answer to Satan’s accusations against Job. In order to pass this test, Jesus had to endure terrible suffering and death in order to prove worthy to be our Savior. But if my understanding is correct, then Jesus always was worthy and he came, not to answer Satan’s questioning of man’s motives from the days of Job, but to save us from our sins because of his great love for us.
  • Did Jesus Teach People to Call God Jehovah? - The Watchtower claims that Jesus himself called God “Jehovah” on a regular basis and taught his followers to do so as well. One of its chief proof texts is John 17:25-26 in which Jesus prays these words: “ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
  • Did Jesus Address His Prayers to Jehovah? - When Jehovah's Witnesses tell you that Jesus “mentioned it [Jehovah’s name] repeatedly in his own prayers,” ask them to show you one scripture passage where Jesus begins one of his prayers by addressing God as “Jehovah.”
  • Is Jesus’ Name Secondary to Jehovah’s? - The Watchtower places Jesus in second place: “The name of Jesus Christ ranks second to that of the Most High God, Jehovah.” (The Watchtower, “Like Dew from God and like a Lion Among Nations”, 1/15/62, p. 49) You can address this issue by building a positive case for the fact that the name the New Testament exalts most highly is “Jesus.”
  • Does Jesus Require Door to Door Preaching? - If there is one thing people know about Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s that nearly all of them witness door-to-door on a regular basis. A number of former Jehovah’s Witness elders who left the Watchtower have stated publicly that the number of hours a Witness reported was the primary measure of spirituality and the deciding factor in whether they would be offered a position of responsibility in the congregation. I will vigorously defend the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to proselytize from house to house (so long as they respectfully take no for an answer and leave), but why does the Watchtower insist that all of them do so and, in practice, make it a test of spirituality?
  • Did Jesus Focus on End Times Prophecy? - The Watchtower constantly stresses the importance of spreading “the Kingdom message.” There is no doubt that Jesus spoke a great deal of the Kingdom of God. But was his message the same “Kingdom message” as that of the Watchtower?
  • Did Jesus Die for ADAM’S Sin Or Ours Also? - We move in our series from Watchtower misconceptions regarding Jesus’ earthly ministry to its misconceptions about Jesus and salvation. If you ask Jehovah’s Witnesses to explain their understanding of Jesus’ sacrifice, most of them will focus on Adam’s sin rather than on their own sins.
  • Can We Be Christians Without Being Born Again? - 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?”
  • A New Creation or Just a New Personality? - 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.
  • Does Jesus Save Us or Just Give Us a Chance for Salvation? - In your discussions with Jehovah’s Witnesses on these topics, make sure they understand that the Watchtower teaches that they will have to attain to perfection by the end of the millennial reign of Christ, and even then their salvation will never be totally secure. Your goal should be to help them see that the Watchtower’s salvation system requires them to achieve the impossible.
  • Are Works a Prerequisite for Salvation? - Because James 2:26 says, “Faith without works is dead,” the Watchtower teaches that works are a prerequisite to salvation. In contrast, the Bible teaches that good works are an important part of genuine Christianity but that they are the products of salvation, not the prerequisites to salvation.
  • Is Salvation Really a Gift? - Do we have to earn our salvation by our works? Given that the Watchtower teaches that works are a prerequisite to salvation, I would expect its answer to that question to be “Yes.” Quite surprisingly, though, it says just the opposite!