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Is Jesus God?A Defense of the Deity of Jesus in reply to Jehovah WitnessesNoah MyersNew Testament Survey 1 NT501December 1, 2016Introduction“Many are confused about who Jesus really was. Some say that he was merely a good man. Others claim that he was nothing more than a prophet. Still others believe that Jesus is God and should be worshiped. Should he?” This is the opening question posed by Jehovah Witnesses in a chapter on Jesus in “What does the Bible Really Teach?” It is a proper introduction for our own topic in that we wish to examine the Jehovah Witness claim that Jesus is not God. Since there is a tremendous amount of information dealing with the arguments about whether Jesus is God or not, we need to narrow our search quite a bit for this paper. Since the story of Jesus plays out in the Gospels it makes sense that we narrow our topic to the proof within those narratives. Upon researching the claims of Jehovah Witnesses about Jesus I found they are mostly grounded in the Gospels, so also makes sense to focus here, but even with this narrow of a focus we will not cover everything. This essay will focus on the most significant arguments Jehovah Witnesses use to argue against Jesus deity and cover the more significant arguments in reply to them.Interestingly Jehovah Witnesses agree with many of the Orthodox views of who Christ is. Some of these seem to point to the deity of Jesus. For instance, Jehovah Witnesses agree that we should pray in Jesus name, and they believe that Jesus is the Son of God so there is no reason to prove these things when we are all in agreement. These facts seem to imply Jesus is God, why would you pray in the name of someone who is not God? The Son of a God you would assume is God, but Jehovah Witnesses do not see it this way. Since these subjects become discussions in semantics and also rarely get anywhere, we will not focus on this either. What does need to be addressed is the significance of such facts and that is part of what we will discuss here. The significant difference of Jehovah Witnesses Theology and Orthodox Christian Theology is whether Jesus is God or not. To this question Jehovah Witnesses are extremely clear that they ‘do not worship Jesus, as we do not believe that he is God Almighty.’ It is in this disagreement that we will focus our discussion looking at both the Jehovah Witnesses scriptural support and the Orthodox Christian reaction to it. Preliminary Issue: The TrinityThough this paper will stay narrowly focused on the biblical evidence for Jesus being God, it is impossible to talk about the subject without bringing in the subject of the Trinity. Jehovah Witnesses first argument against the Jesus being God, is the doctrine that God is one. Again, this is a subject that both the JW and the Orthodox view of Christianity agree on. The Bible makes it abundantly clear in many passages that God is one and that there are no other Gods. So how can the traditional view uphold the doctrine of the Trinity? For the sake of staying on subject we will examine only a philosophical argument. Our task is not to show that the Trinity is Biblical, but only that one can still embrace the doctrine of Jesus deity, and furthermore the Trinity without denying Monotheism. If it is possible to do this, then the arguments following, demonstrating that Jesus is God, should suffice to embrace Jesus along with God the Father as part of the monotheistic Godhead and further biblical argument would be needed to prove the third part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Also, this explanation of the Trinity does not attempt to prove the trinity is one hundred percent correct philosophically, but only that it is reasonable. One should fully expect that there are things within the truths of religion from an eternal and all powerful God that reach beyond our grasp. The greatest physicists often feel they only grasp the most complex parts of quantum physics for a moment and then are confused by it once again. We should expect the same sort of dissatisfied reaching with knowledge of God. Like the physicist who may not be able to explain everything or even comprehend everything, we are not able to comprehend or explain everything of God. When the physicist cannot explain, or comprehend all of physics we do not reject physics. When the theologian cannot comprehend, or explain all of the Trinity we cannot reject it either. That being said one can look at the Trinity as similar to a family of three. A family of three is in fact three separate beings, but one thing. In the same way God is one, yet three persons. Again, this is a very dumbed down explanation and though it does not prove God is a trinity or even less so that Jesus is a part of that trinity, it helps us understand the possibility. It is from here that we then must establish that Jesus is in fact God based upon scripture. If Jesus is God then we have proven that Jesus as the second part of the trinity is at least true.It is important that we clarify this issue because many of the Jehovah Witnesses arguments against Jesus deity circle back to this belief that Jesus and the Father cannot both be God without denying monotheism. If the Trinity is possible one cannot source passages where Jesus mentions God the Father as God, as passages implying that he himself was not. Doing this would be the same as saying if George W. Bush says Bill Clinton is the former president it rules out the possibility that George W. Bush is the former president. Obviously, both are true and acknowledging the truth of one does not in turn deny the truth of the other. The two things are not mutually exclusive. The whole point in the end of talking of the Trinity is to show that three truths 1) Jesus being God, 2) God the father being God, 3) and God is one, are not mutually exclusive truthsAgain, we have not established at this point scripturally that the Trinity is true, that would be a whole paper itself. We have only shown that Jesus could be God and if this paper accomplishes its goal, it is reasonable then to accept that he is God based upon scripture.Now that we have established that the Trinity is reasonable to uphold under a Christian monotheistic view let us turn to the scriptures that JWs claim go against Jesus being God. For the sake of argument, I am using the JWs New World Translation of the Bible unless otherwise stated. I am doing this so that there may not be any argument that my quotation of the scripture is incorrect. If it can be seen with the JW translation that their interpretation of Jesus is wrong, then it is only natural that the interpretation of Jesus being deity will be accepted with more traditional translations.The OverviewBefore we dive into specific examples of scripture it is important to look at the overall picture of scripture. As we read through the gospels and the epistles of scripture, it becomes continuously labored to uphold a view that Jesus is not God. John’s Gospel for instance ‘is loaded with evidences for the absolute deity of Christ’. From the Gospels to Revelation there appears an echo that Jesus in fact God by the most natural reading. There are 2.2 billion Orthodox Christians who read the Gospels as talking of Jesus as deity, and only nine million Jehovah Witnesses; not to mention fourteen million Mormons who also believe Jesus is God, though not in the same way Orthodox Christians mean. In order to understand whether this was in fact the intention we must search scripture more thoroughly. Perhaps, it is our lack of Biblical understanding that has lead us to interpret the New Testament as such, and that is what we are here to discuss.Even with this being true, Jehovah Witnesses are right in saying that majority does not make fact. Furthermore, it is possible that all these people have had it wrong the whole time, so that is why we must take time to examine it here. Significance of AgreementsAs stated earlier Jehovah Witnesses agree with Orthodox Christianity on a few things, but we must clarify that JWs do not mean the same thing by them.Jehovah Witnesses agree that Jesus is the Son of God. One would think that this should in turn translate to Jesus being God. As C.S. Lewis puts it “to beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. . . What God begets is God.” For the Jehovah Witnesses Jesus being the Son of God does not mean that he is God. As JW’s say “is the firstborn son equal to God, as some believe? That is not what the Bible teaches.”Jehovah Witnesses also agree that we should pray in Jesus name and authority, but why? If Jesus is not God does it not make more sense to pray in Gods name? For Jehovah Witnesses we pray in Jesus name because Jesus ‘opened up a new way of access to Jehovah God’ while Orthodox Christians pray in Jesus name because they believe he is God. So although these agreements are interesting they do nothing for helping us get to the root of who is correct in their grounding in scripture.Specific ScripturesJesus as the Word: John 1:1One of the most contended verses is John 1:1, which in the Jehovah Witnesses’ New World Translation of the Bible reads “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a god”. The Greek word used for God in this verse is ‘theos’. The Jehovah Witnesses claim ‘a god’ is the correct translation for the second part of this verse because there exists no definitive article, aka ‘the’, in front of theos in the second part of the verse. According to Jehovah Witnesses this means Jesus was characteristically like God, literally ‘Godlike’, but he was not God. Is their evaluation of the Greek text correct? Is it true that when a Greek text does not include the definitive article, an ‘a’ should be placed in front of the word? Many biblical scholars echo a resounding ‘no!’. Furthermore, Jehovah Witnesses have notoriously misquoted scholars such as Julius R. Mantey, Phillip B. Harner, and John L. McKenzie, who oppose the JW view, or referencing non-authoritative figures like Johannes Greber as an authority to support their interpretation.There are a few reasons why this interpretation is incorrect. For one if JW’s were to apply this rule in other instances in which it should be applied it would render the scripture considerably confusing. Matthew 5:9 for instance, if sticking this rule, would read ‘blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of a god” rather than “sons of God”, which is even how it is written in the New World Translation. If the rule were applied consistently across other non-god related scripture one would find ‘A’’s appearing rather willy-nilly throughout all scripture. Such an application would render verses like Matthew 5:9 as “blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of a god” or John 1:18 as “no one has ever seen a god”. Even within the New World Translation this rule is not consistently applied. Theos occurs 282 times without the definitive article, but the rule is only applied sixteen times, making only six percent of all the times the rule should be applied. Other verses that do not include the definitive article that are still translated ‘the God’ or ‘God’ by the New World Translation include Matt. 5:9; 6:24; Luke 1:35;78; 2:40; John 1:6,12-13, 13; 3:2, 21; 9:16,33 and some others outside the Gospels . If Jehovah Witnesses wish to use this rule for their justification of John 1:1 they should translate these verses the same way or give justification for why not. In my research, and questioning of Jehovah Witnesses personally, I was unable to find anything to justifying this.One could at this point argue that it needs to be interpreted within the context of the scripture, but this seems to beg the question. If the rule should be applied when context dictates, why mention the rule at all? Why not simply mention that the context indicates ‘a god’ is the correct interpretation? If context is really the determinate of whether it should be translated God or ‘a god’ then do we really even need the rule? In fact is it really a rule at all? More concerning, if verses are now being rendered ‘a god’ or ‘God’ not because of a rule, but because of the context of the passage we will find ourselves interpreting a passage by how it fits our doctrine rather than how it fits the actual scripture. Scripture should help form our doctrine not our doctrine forming scripture. If it is just context, then by what Orthodox Theology believes, the context best fits translating the word as God. In other words we need something more determinate then just context, because the context is exactly what is under contention. Verses like John 1:1 obviously have contention on what the context of the passage is talking about. New World Translation interprets the text ‘a god’ along with the New Testament in an Improved Version translation. While the King James, Jerusalem Bible, Catholic Chaloner, Holy Bible, New American Bible, NIV and others totaling 54 translations read as ‘was God’, or even clearer ‘was God Himself’. If context is what should help us interpret the passage then clearly an overwhelming majority of the translators have been confused by an unclear context. Another problem is that the missing article is in fact a clarification of the subject of the clause. The clause in contention says ‘word was [a] God’. ‘Logos’ the Greek for ‘word’ does have an article in front of it to clarify it as the subject of the clause. Without this clarification we would be unsure whether to translate the phrase as ‘God was word’ or ‘Word was God’. As Robert Bowman writes ‘there is absolutely no dispute among biblical scholars and Greek grammarians that in John 1:1 logos is the subject and theos the predicate, and that this is indicated by the presence of the article with logos and its absence with theos. It must be acknowledged that scholars agree that ‘God’ in the second part of John 1:1 is referring to a qualitative but this does not change the meaning. When scholars say that it is not qualitative they are not saying that Jesus was ‘godlike’ in the way JW’s interpret it. They are implying that ‘the Word was called God with reference to his nature, essence or being and does not identify word as a specific person. This only supports the Trinitarian viewpoint more because the reference is calling Jesus God but not the specific God the father. In summary Harner states “John did not want to say that the word was God the Father, the person whom existed in the beginning; nor did John want to say merely that the Word was “a god” or “divine” — he wanted to say that the Word was just as much God, in terms of essence or nature as “the God,” that is, the Father.”As any good hermeneutic would say ‘scripture should be used to interpret scripture’. As we read further we see that John 1:3 also gives us context to see that John 1:1 must have meant the orthodox interpretation. Jesus as Creator: John 1:3John Piper perhaps gives the most succinct proof that John 1:3 is speaking of Jesus as God. JW’s believe several things in regard to Jesus and creation, 1) that Jesus was a created being, 2) that he is the first or firstborn of all creation, and 3) that he is the one through whom all things are created. They see Jesus as a created being because he is the ‘Firstborn of all creation’ and ‘God’s only begotten Son’. We will discuss if there are passages implying Jesus being created later but for the sake of argument let us assume they were correct here.The New World Translation of John 1:3 reads ‘All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence’. If through Jesus everything that has come into existence has come into existence, how did Jesus come into existence? If Jesus created everything, how did he create himself? Jehovah Witnesses argue that it is everything other than Jesus that came into existence was created by Jesus but John even clarifies himself within the verse, ‘apart from him not even one thing came into existence’. Not even ONE! There is no room for argument here, John is not ambiguous, he is emphatically clear. Again, JWs argue that the ‘apart from him’ designates that everything, other than Jesus, was created by Jesus. If this is really how John meant to express this passage it seems rather confusing. Clearly one could read this passage thinking that John meant the Orthodox interpretation, that Jesus created everything and was not created himself. What makes this passage extremely odd for the Jehovah Witness view is Johns clarification in the second part of the passage. In the second part of the verse John is clearly trying to clarify any misunderstanding that could occur to his previous statement, but if Jehovah Witnesses are correct, then he has failed miserably at clearing anything up. John is trying to make something easy to understand, but if the New World Translation is correct it still feels rather ambiguous. But what the Orthodox interpretation has adopted the passage seems clear throughout and does not appear odd at all. John’s clarification in the second part of this verse does in fact clear things up in the Orthodox view.This being clear that the context lends to the Orthodox interpretation we are forced by what Piper outlines that this verse has indicated Jesus is God. If Jesus created everything that ever existed, then he cannot be talking of himself, which implies he was not created. If Jesus did create everything then this is one of the basic traits that everyone associates with God, i.e. God is equal to the one who created the whole earth. Thomas’ Exclamation: John 20:28 In John 20:28 Thomas makes one of the most naturally deifying statements in scripture. When Jesus tells him to touch and feel his wounds so he may know that Jesus has risen from the dead Thomas exclaims, ‘My Lord and my God!’. Yet Jesus does not go on to correct Thomas in what he said. If Jesus was not God he would have corrected Thomas right then and there but instead exhorts him saying ‘because you have seen me, have you believed? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe’ The natural reading of this passage is clear, Jesus is God. But we must be fair and acknowledge that sometimes things are not as they seem given some research, background and context.In my experience I have seen JW say that Thomas is not deifying Jesus in this passage in two ways. The first can be seen in their own publication “Reasoning in the Scriptures’ in which it says:There is no objection to referring to Jesus as “God,” if this is what Thomas had in mind. Such would be in harmony with Jesus’ own quotation from Psalms in which powerful men, judges, were addressed as “gods.” (John 10:34, 35 RS; Ps. 82:1-6) Of course, Christ occupies a position far higher than such men. Because of the uniqueness of his position in relation to Jehovah, at John 1:18 (NW) Jesus is referred to as “the only-begotten god.” . . . All of this is in harmony with Jesus being described as “a god,” or “divine,” at John 1:1.” The book then goes on to say that the context of surrounding scriptures which show 1) Jesus going to God, 2) addressing God the Father as the only God, and 3) Jesus being Gods son, all imply that Thomas could not have meant to call Jesus God in John 20:28. Explained by Jehovah Witnesses the facts above mean 1) Jesus cannot go to God if he is God, 2) He cannot address God the Father as God if he is God, and 3) He cannot be God if he is Gods’ son. There are several problems with this. Most importantly, the belief that these previously mentioned passages mean Jesus is not God assumes a-priori that the before mentioned doctrine of the Trinity is not possible. If the trinity could exist these surrounding passages do not mean that Jesus is not God. Let us break it down point by point. 1) Jesus can go to God the Father and still be God 2) He can address God the Father as the only God without saying that he is not part of that Godhead. 3) He can be the son of God and also God himself. As mentioned earlier Jesus calling God the Father God does not mean he is not God any more than George Bush calling Bill Clinton a former president means George is not a former president, the two are not mutually exclusive if the trinity is possible. This is an imperfect analogy, but it helps us wrap our minds around the confusing subject of the Trinity. The Greek also lends to the belief that Jesus is God. If we go back to John 1:1 we remember that Jehovah Witnesses insist that it must be translated ‘a god’ because it did not contain a definitive article. The problem here for the Jehovah Witnesses interpretation is that the passage does include the definitive article ‘ho’, so the passage must be inferred to be calling Jesus ‘God’ and not just ‘a god’, even under the rule Jehovah Witnesses rule. Second, these passages are not in the direct context of John 20:28 because they are not at the same place, the same time or even the same person talking. If Jehovah Witnesses are jumping this far around for ‘context’ where do we draw the line? The fact that the verses are not in the immediate context we should be wary of their application to the passage. There is a good hermeneutic here that I believe Jehovah Witnesses are applying in that they are trying to bring in under the guise of ‘context’. When we have some very well established doctrine that is challenged by another passage we should see how that doctrine should apply to the passage in question. The problem here is that Jehovah Witnesses are assuming that the doctrine of the trinity is not Biblical and uses these verses to prove it. Again, this paper is not focused on the Biblical and philosophical proofs of the trinity, so we will not talk about that. The problem is that the argument become circular. They argue that Jesus cannot be God or even claim to be God because the Trinity is not affirmed scripturally, but they also say that the Trinity is not affirmed scripturally because Jesus cannot be God or even claim to be God. The trinity is not real because Jesus is not God and Jesus is not God because the trinity is not real. So while using this circular reasoning they ignore passages like John 20:28 because they have already decided on their doctrine rather than letting the passage speak into the doctrine.A second argument I have heard Jehovah Witnesses produce against Thomas’ exclamation here is that Thomas was not exclaiming ‘My Lord and my God!’ to Jesus, but instead to God the Father. This is clearly grabbing at straws because this is not what even the New World Translation because even that translation which says ‘In answer Thomas said to him: My Lord and my God!’. The ‘him’ in this passage is Jesus, not God the Father. If Thomas were talking to God Jehovah it should read ‘Thomas turned to Jesus and called Jehovah God’, there is nothing within the context to indicate Thomas was speaking to God the Father and everything pointing to him talking to Jesus. There is no room for doubt Thomas was clearly talking to Jesus here. In the end there is no room for doubt that Thomas’ exclamation here is one inferring the deity of Jesus Christ, and Jesus does nothing to negate the statement but only says that those who believe what Thomas has said without seeing will be blessed even greater. Groups of VersesThere are several groups of verses that can be used to prove or disprove the deity of Jesus, and we will try to examine each of them.WorshipSeveral verses in scripture imply that Jesus is worshiped, something that both JW and Orthodox Christians agree should be reserved for God alone. Even Jesus quotes the Old Testament saying, ‘It is Jehovah’ your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacrifice’ Luke 4:8. Since Jesus accepts this doctrine as well as Jehovah Witness’ and Orthodox Christianity, we have a good determinate of Jesus being God. If Jesus accepts worship, as he acknowledges only God should, then this would prove that Jesus is God. In the following eight verses we see actions which by Orthodox translations are actions of worship (The New World Translation translates these actions as ‘obeisance,’ and we will deal with that later): 1) In Matthew 8:2 a healed leper worships Jesus, 2) in Matthew 9:18 a ruler worships Jesus, 3) after Jesus calms the storm his disciples worship him, 4) a Canaanite woman worships him 5) James and Johns mother worships Jesus, 6) Jesus disciples worship him before he gives the great commission, 7) The women at the tomb worship Jesus, and 8) a blind man worships him.Now as stated earlier the New World Translation translates these verses to say obeisance, which in English means giving ‘a gesture expressing differential respect, such as a bow or curtsy’. Though this gesture would be significant we must admit that it would not suffice to mean the worship orthodox Christians believe these gestures mean. So, which translation is translating this word correctly? Three questions should help us determine that: 1) Which fits the original Greek? 2) How is the word translated elsewhere? and 3) Which fits the context of the passages best? The Greek word under contention is the word ‘prosekynēo. The Strong’s dictionary gives the following definitions ‘to fawn or crouch to, i.e. . . . prostrate oneself in honor to: worship.’ So the word itself may or may not indicate worship. Prosekynēo is used sixty times throughout the New Testament, and orthodox translations translate it as worship in nearly every instance. In the New World Translation the word is translated as worship every time except when in context of Jesus. This should make us wonder if the translators are using their doctrine to interpret the Bible rather than their Bible to interpret their doctrine. It seems rather convenient that prosekynēo means worship in nearly every instance of the New World Translation except the instances dealing with Jesus. Orthodox translations are much more consistent in their translation in that every instance is translated as worship. JWs dig their own grave when they say ‘we must understand that it is prosekynēo with a particular attitude of heart and mind that should be directed only toward God.’ If that is so why do we have these eight verses, and many others, listed above which prosekynēo is used of Jesus? Finally, when dealing with the context it also seems that the word best fits worship rather than obeisance. Let us look at a few of the passages and try to imagine ourselves in these situations for a minute, and apply the word obeisance to a more modern context. In that culture, bowing was perhaps the greatest example of respect to someone but it was not worship. So, let us imagine for a minute that we are on a ship in a giant storm so fierce that we, as well seasoned sailor fishermen, we are fearing for our own lives. When we go to our leader for help, he instantly calms the wind and the waves by his mere words, and in our reaction we decide to show him great respect and honor by shaking his hand giving him high fives and ‘mad props’. Does this seem to fit the story? Of course not! But in our American culture this would be our cultural equivalent to how Jehovah Witnesses want to interpret this scripture. According to the NWT the disciples did not worship him but payed him the greatest honor and praise of their culture without elevating him to deity. Similarly, do we picture the blind man giving Jesus a ‘high five’ or the leper simply honoring Jesus with an endorsement speech in reaction to their healing? No. It does not fit the context. Paying Jesus great respect in these situations does not fit the scenarios. It simply would make more sense that these people fell in worship to Jesus in reaction to their situations. All of this being established we see that the Greek supports Jesus being God, the uses of the word in other passages support it, and the context of the stories support it. It is clear then that Jesus is being worshiped in these instances, and in none of them does he deny that he is God or confront his worshipers for their sinful actions of worship. Knowing that Jesus does not believe anyone but God as being worthy of worship, we must conclude that he believed himself to be God. Surely Jesus would have at least said something to push back if he thought these actions could even be perceived as worship even if he knew they were not. At the very least Jesus would have been wise enough to see that these actions and others could be viewed as worship and should be clarified or condemned, but he never does so. I AMWe also see another collection of verses in which Jesus refers to himself as I AM. The significance of this is rooted in the Old Testament and any use of this word is a clear reference to God. But since the proof of that is rooted in the Old Testament we will not argue the significance of the words themselves but within their given context in the Gospels. Furthermore, Jehovah Witness’ agree that Jesus claiming to be I AM would be calling himself God, they just don’t believe he has done so.Jesus plainly refers to himself as I AM in eight instances in the Gospel of John. In most of these instances he goes on to explain in saying I AM the way, I am the life, or I AM the truth etc. The importance of these I AM’s is given context within the Old Testament so we will not deal with them here. John 8:58 does give us a passage where we can see the importance of the I AM in the New Testament alone. The New International Version reads ‘”very truly I say to you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was I am’. The New World Translation renders the I AM as ‘I have been’ but there exists several problems with this interpretation. Most clearly comes from the context of the passage. If Jesus is simply saying that he existed before Abraham, but was not God as the Jehovah Witnesses believe why in the next verse do they seek to kill him? Claiming to exist before Abraham would be rather hard to believe, but would hardly amount to capital punishment. The context here implies that his hearers believed he was committing blasphemy claiming to be God. The passage itself clarifies, John 5:18 reads ‘This is why the Jews began seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God’. The verse outlines exactly why the Jews were seeking to stone him, Jesus was claiming to be equal with God when he used the words I am. Jehovah witnesses claim that in this verse, the Jews believe Jesus is claiming equality with God, but he is not. What is important to note here is that this is not the Jews interpretation of what Jesus was saying, but Jesus himself who was making himself equal with God. Nowhere in this verse does John say the Jews ‘thought’ or ‘believed’ Jesus claimed to be equal with God. Instead the verse, even in the New World Translation, reads because ‘he was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God’. The New World Translation also confirms Jesus as equal with God in three other verses. When this verse says ‘making himself equal with God’, it is the writer of John commentating to make it clear that Jesus was claiming equality with God, it does not say this is what the Jews believed it is clarifying what Jesus was actually saying. If one is equal with God, then one logically has to be God. There is no other way to look at equality.In case the passage still seems unclear, reading on clears it up, further in the chapter we see the qualities in which Jesus is equal with God. He is equal with God in power because he can raise to back to life whoever he wants to. He is equal with God in judgement, since God the father has made him judge of all. He is equal with God in honor, because Jesus should be honored just as the Father is honored, and those who do not honor Jesus in that way, do not honor the father. He is equal with God in being the source of life. Also, earlier in the chapter we see that Jesus is equal with God in glory because God seeks Jesus glory and every man should seek Gods glory. Altogether, he is equal with God in power, judgement, honor, life and glory. These things paint a very clear picture that Jesus is in fact God. One who is not God himself should not get the same honor as God. One who is not God, would not have the power of God. One who is not God would not have the judgement of God. One who is not God would not have the life of God. One who is not God would not have the Glory of God. The only way that Jesus could receive these things is if he was in fact the I am. He must then be God.A Limited JesusIn another collection of verses are verses Jehovah Witnesses claim that Jesus could not be God because he clearly has limited powers and knowledge. Whether it is Jesus expressing that he does not know the hour of his return, or when he becomes tired or hungry, Jesus does not seem to always exemplify the caricaturists of an all-powerful and all-knowing God. How can Orthodox Christianity reconcile this contradiction? Like the Trinity this hits on an issue that is hard for our humans minds to fully comprehend. Orthodox Christianity believes Jesus is one hundred percent man and one hundred percent God. This means that Jesus has two natures in his body, so in the instances when Jesus seems limited he is speaking out of his human nature but his divine acts come from his divine nature. ConclusionIn the end, we see that although the JWs have thought through their reasons for believing Jesus is not God, their viewpoint does hold up to a more thorough scrutiny. The natural reading of the Gospels makes one think that Jesus is God. A thorough investigation of specific passages also renders that these passages are in fact calling Jesus God. Finally, a clear look at groups of gospel passages also promote that Jesus is God, because he accepted worship and makes himself equal with God. The JW view that Jesus is not God when examining the case within the Gospels does not stand up. Jesus is God, that is clearly what scripture is saying.If in this essay I have proven that Jesus is God through scripture as I set out to do the Jehovah Witness must admit that Jesus is God according to scripture. If one would still object saying that Jesus cannot logically be man and God or God cannot logically be a Trinity then it seems he must also admit that their beliefs are based not in the scriptures but in the philosophies of man. We must remember that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, that there are wolves dressed as sheep waiting to destroy us, and that Paul has warned us to “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” Colossians 2:8BibliographyBowman, Robert M. Jr. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jesus Christ & The Gospel of John., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989Christian Apologetics: An Anthropology of Primary Sources, Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister, (Grand Rapid: Zondervan, 2012“English Living Oxford Dictionary” (Oxford University Press, 2016) Accessed November 29. , Norman. Christian Apologetics, Second Edition. Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 1976.John Piper, “In the Beginning was the Word”, Desiring God (September 21, 2008) Accessed November 26 2016, , C. S. Mere Christianity, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (San Francisco: HaperSanFrancisco, 1980), 1-120.Rhodes, Ron. Reasoning From the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2009.Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. All Scripture is Inspired of God and Beneficial, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society New York Inc., 1990Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Jesus The Way, The Truth, The Life, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society New York Inc., 2015Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah’s Witnesses (2016), Accessed November 26, 2016. Tower Bible and Tract Society. Reasoning from the Sciptures, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society New York Inc., 1985Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. What does the Bible Really Teach?, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society New York Inc., 2014 ................
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