Verses Jehovah’s Witnesses Use to Deny Christ’s Deity



Proverbs 8:22, 23 says, “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach…

The Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus was a created being and the “earliest” of God achievements.

← “Many professed Christian writers of the early centuries of the Common Era understood this section to refer symbolically to God’s Son in his prehuman state…there can be no denying that that Son was ‘produced’ by Jehovah ‘as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago,’ nor that the Son was ‘beside [Jehovah] as a master worker’ during earth’s creation.” (Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, pg. 918)

The Bible teaches…

The Jehovah’s Witnesses interpretation of Proverbs 8 violates the context of Proverbs. The first nine chapters of Proverbs deals with wisdom personified thus the wisdom talked about in Proverbs 8 is NOT referring to Jesus.

For example, if we take Proverbs 8:22-30 to literally mean Christ, than we have to take literally that Jesus is a women who cries in the streets (1:20-21), who lives with someone named ‘Prudence’ (8:12) in a house with seven pillars (9:1).

It’s worth noting that no New Testament writer attributes Proverbs 8 to Jesus and simply put, Proverbs 8 is a personification of wisdom used in a poetic style for the purpose of emphasis and impact.

Matthew 19:16, 17 says, “Now behold, one came and said to Him, ‘Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?’ So He said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.’”

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach…

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that this is a proof text that Jesus was not as good as God and thus He rebuked the rich young ruler for calling Him good.

← “Jesus was saying that no one is as good as God is, not even Jesus himself. God is good in a way that separates him from Jesus” (Should You Believe in the Trinity? 1989, pg. 17)

The Bible teaches…

Jesus did not deny He was God but simply forced the rich young ruler to think through his statement to the logical end.

Was Jesus good? Then He was God or else He was bad and not God. In other words, thinking it through to its logical conclusion, either Jesus was good and thus He was God or He was a bad man but He couldn’t be just a good man. These are the only alternatives the rich young ruler was left with and unfortunately, he didn’t realize who he was speaking with and the implications of what he was saying.

Mark 13:31, 32 says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach…

To the Jehovah’s Witnesses, this verse demonstrates that Jesus was not God Almighty since Jesus didn’t know when His second coming would be. The Jehovah’s Witnesses argue if they were equal, Jesus would have known the time.

← “That would not be the case if Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were coequal, comprising one Godhead” (Reasoning from the Scriptures, 1989, pg. 409)

The Bible teaches…

Jesus was 100% man (limited knowledge) and yet 100% God (all knowing). He had two natures and it was from the perspective of His human nature that Jesus was speaking when He answered His disciples’ question.

Commenting on this verse, Correcting the Cults states, “That Jesus as God knew all things is illustrated in numerous verses of Scripture. For example, Jesus knew precisely where the fish were in the water (Luke 5:4, 6; John 21:6-11), and he knew just which fish contained the coin (Matt. 17:27). He knew that his friend Lazarus had died, even though he was nowhere in the vicinity of Lazarus (John 11:11). He knew beforehand those who would reject him (John 6:64) and those who would follow him (John 10:14). He knows the Father as the Father knows him, something that requires that Jesus have the same omniscience as the Father (Matt. 11:27; John 7:29; 8:55; 10:15; 17:25).”

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach…

To the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Father (Jehovah) begot Jesus the same way that Isaac was Abrahams’ “only-begotten son”. In other words, Jesus was the sole creation or the “only-begotten son” in He was the first one born and then Jesus created everything else.

← “However, by virtue of his being the sole direct creation of his Father, the firstborn Son was unique, different from all others of God’s sons, all of whom were created or begotten by Jehovah through that firstborn Son.” (Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, pg. 918)

The Bible teaches…

Abraham not only had Isaac, but he also had Ishmael but it was through Isaac’s line that the Jewish nation was born and ultimately the Messiah and so Isaac as the “only-begotten son” or in a very sense the special, favored or unique son.

This is the sense in which the word “only-begotten son” [Greek: monogenes] is intended since Scripture demonstrates that Jesus did not have a beginning (John 1:1; Colossians 1:15). Jesus was the unique Son of God. We cannot take the phrase “Son of God” in a literal sense that Jesus was fathered by God and thus had a beginning.

Robert Bowman points out in Why You Should Believe in the Trinity the illogical conclusion to the Jehovah’s Witnesses reasoning, “it would suggest a conclusion rather embarrassing to JW’s. For if God is Jesus’ Father ‘in the same sense that an earthly father…begets a son,’ then it would seem that Jesus must have had a heavenly Mother, as well as a heavenly Father.”

Jesus is the “only-begotten” or unique Son of God, something no one else can claim.

John 14:28 says, “You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for My Father is greater than I.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach…

The Jehovah’s Witnesses will offer as a “proof text” John 14:28 and state that since Jesus says that the Father is “greater than I”, He cannot be God Almighty, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. The Watchtower Society concludes that since the Father is greater than Jesus than Jesus is lesser than and cannot be in the same sense Jehovah God.

← “On numerous occasions Jesus expresses his inferiority and subordination to his Father…Even after Jesus ascension into heaven his apostles continued to present the same picture.” (Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, pg. 919)

The Bible teaches…

In John 10:30, what Jesus is speaking of here is His lower position in the incarnation. The word greater [Greek: meizon] is a quantitative term and not a qualitative term. Quantities speak of levels or positions. In other words, Jesus did not say that the Father was better [Greek: kreitton] than Him.

What Jesus is saying is that the Father’s greater in position, in heaven, not in nature. We can see this in Hebrews 1:4 where Jesus is called better [Greek: kreitton] than the angels which means that Jesus is not just higher than the angels positionally but that in His very nature Jesus is different or better than the angels in His nature.

We can further get clarification on Jesus’ lower position in the incarnation from Philippians 2:6-8 which says, “who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

The key thing to remember here is that the Father is greater positionally and not better in nature and thus Jesus can say just a few verses earlier, Jesus said “I and My Father are one.”

Colossians 1:15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach…

To Jehovah’s Witnesses, this verse obviously “proves” that Jesus had a beginning at a point in time since He is the “firstborn over all creation”. They teach that God created Jesus, known as Michael the archangel before His incarnation, and then Jesus created all [other] things.

← “the Scriptures identify the Word (Jesus in his prehuman existence) as God’s first creation, his firstborn Son.” (Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, pg. 918)

The Bible teaches…

The Jehovah’s Witnesses confuse the word firstborn [Greek: prototokos] with the word first created [Greek: protoktsis]. Protoktsis or first created is never used of Jesus in the New Testament.

Firstborn means “heir, superior and pre-immanent in rank above all.” In other words, Jesus is “heir and superior over all creation.”

In Hebrew culture, the “firstborn” was the son in the family who was in the pre-eminent position and not necessarily the one chronologically born first.

For example, in Genesis 41:50-51, Ephraim was physically born after Manasseh yet Ephraim was the “firstborn” or pre-eminent according to Jeremiah 31:9.

Again, David was the last child born to Jesse (1 Samuel 16:10-11) but God says in Psalm 89:20, 27 that He “will make him My firstborn”, in other words, His pre-eminent.

Revelation 3:14 says, “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, 'These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God:”

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach…

This is a favorite verse of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to “prove” that Jesus had a beginning and was the first “creation of God.” They will say, “See, Jesus is the beginning of the creation.”

← “Jehovah’s first creation was his ‘only-begotten Son’ (John 3:16), ‘the beginning of the creation by God.’ (Rev. 3:14)…After creating his only-begotten Son, Jehovah used him in bringing the heavenly angels into existence.” (Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, pg. 390, 391)

The Bible teaches…

The word beginning [Greek: arche] means “originator, designer, first cause, superior”.

← Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon says arche means “that by which anything begins to be, the origin, active cause”

← Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament says arche means “The beginner, or author”

← The New International Version of the Bible translates arche as “ruler” or “the ruler of God’s creation.”

← Chuck Smith says in his book, What is the World Coming To, “Jesus is the origination of the creation powers or the origin of God’s creation. So He is actually the creative force, and that’s what Revelation is speaking of here – the creative force of the creation of God.”

← Dr. John MacArthur says, “Arche (Beginning) does not mean that Christ was the first person God created, but rather that Christ Himself is the source or origin of creation (cf. Rev. 22:13). Through His power everything was created (John 1:3; Heb. 1:2).”

We get the English words architect and archbishop indicating “someone who builds or who rules over something”.

Arche is also used of God (Revelation 1:8; 21:6: 22:13) in regards to Him being “the beginning [arche] and the end.” We cannot say that God thus had a beginning but instead, these verses mean that God was “the origin and active cause” of all things.

Conclusion

Nearly every theological heresy begins with the misconception of the nature of God and then it quickly goes down hill from there.

The bottom line is that over and over again, The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society misinterprets Scripture, blatantly perverts the Deity of Jesus Christ, goes against all the best Greek manuscripts and rewrites their version of the Bible, i.e. The New World Translation to the determent of its followers.

Jesus Christ is not just “a god”, the first of Jehovah’s created beings but is God Almighty Himself and Scripture bares that out over and over again.

Recommended Resources:

Correcting the Cults by Norman L. Geisler

Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses by Ron Rhodes

Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses Subject by Subject by David A. Reed

Jehovah’s Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse by David A. Reed

Why You Should Believe in the Trinity by Robert M. Bowman, Jr.

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