Back in 2014 I met regularly with a Jehovah's Witness at his home. Once a week for seven weeks I sought to engage him with Scriptural truth as we discussed a Watchtower Society classic, "What does the Bible Really Teach", a little volume that systematically introduces people to the faith and practice of Jehovah's Witnesses. There came a time though when I realized I was wasting my time. The man had heard the gospel. He knew what I believed about the Bible and its teaching. He had listened to my beliefs as I had listened to his (albeit less patiently - I was on his turf after all!). But he remained entrenched in the errors of his popular nineteenth century cult. I briefly justified continuing my meetings with him on the basis that as long as he was talking with me, he wasn't out on the streets talking to other people. In my mind, I was spiritually "drawing fire", thereby protecting the vulnerable and gullible masses of Wood Green. Then it dawned on me: he might be thinking the same thing about me! By meeting with him, I was not only curtailing him in his efforts, I was likewise limiting the fulfillment of my own ministry. It was time to move on.
I ended our discussions with an email, in which I highlighted seven things that meant I would never be able to accept the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses. I recently had occasion to remember this letter and to look at it again, and thought it might be of interest to a wider audience than its initial intended recipient. I hope you find it useful in some small way...
Dear ___________
I agree completely with a statement
found in a Watchtower Society publication, You
Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth. On page 31 it declares,
“Since many religions today are not
doing God’s will, we cannot simply assume that the teachings of the religious
organisation we are associated with are in agreement with God’s Word. The mere
fact that the Bible is used by a religion does not of itself prove that all the
things it teaches and practices are in the Bible. It is important that we
ourselves examine whether they are or not… The religion that is approved by God
must agree in every way with the Bible; it will not accept certain parts of the
Bible and reject other parts – 2 Timothy 3:16.”
This is what I have sought to do in
relation to my own beliefs and those of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I have listed
to JWs, read their literature, worked through 7 chapters of “What does the
Bible Really Teach”, and have
researched broadly and deeply. In applying the above principle to the Jehovah’s
Witnesses, I have found them wanting and the answers proffered most
unsatisfactory, to be honest.
Here are a list of areas that only
skim the surface of the problems I have found:
1. You do not believe in the biblical doctrine of the
Trinity.
Passages that in the original Greek
testify clearly to the deity of Christ have been shoddily translated to fit in
with JW teaching. This is abuse of the word of God!
Scripture teaches that there is one
true God (cf. Deut. 4:35; 6:4; Isa. 43:10–11; 45:5 ,18, 21–22; 46:9; Joel 2:27;
Zech. 14:9; Mal. 2:10; Mark 12:29; James 2:19; 1 Tim. 2:5)
Scripture also teaches that God has
eternally existed as three distinct Persons, each of whom is equally and fully
God.
A. The Father is God (cf. Matt. 6:9,
14; John 17:1–3; 1 Cor. 8:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; Php. 2:11; Col. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:2)
B. The Son is God (cf. Isaiah 9:6;
Matt. 1:23; John 1:1,14,18; 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 9:5; 1 Cor. 1:24; 2 Cor.
4:4; Php. 2:6, 10–11; Col. 1:15–16; 2:9; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:3, 8; 2 Pet. 1:1; 1
John 5:20
C. The Son is distinct from the
Father (Matt. 11:27; John 1:1–2; 3:35; 4:34; 5:30–32, 37; 6:38; 10:36; 12:49;
14:8–11; 17:20–24; Gal. 4:41; John 2:1; Heb. 7:25)
D. The Holy Spirit is God (Gen.
1:2; 6:3; Job 33:4; Psalm 139:7–8; John 3:3–8; 14:23; Acts 5:3–4; 1 Cor.
2:10–11; 6:16,19; 2 Cor. 3:18; Heb. 9:14;
10:15–16; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:10–11; 2 Pet. 1:21. Moreover, the Holy Spirit
is a person, possessing the attributes of personhood (Mark 3:29; John 14:26;
16:8; Acts 8:29; 13:2; 16:6; Rom. 8:26; 15:30; 1 Cor. 12:11; Eph. 4:30; 1 Tim.
4:1; Heb. 10:29; Rev. 2:7).
E. The Spirit is distinct from the
Father and the Son (Isaiah 48:16; Matt. 28:19; Luke 3:21; John 14:16–17; 26;
16:13–14; Rom. 8:27; Heb. 9:8).
On this basis, the Bible often
refers to God in ways that emphasize all three Members of the Trinity (Matt.
28:19; Rom. 14:17–18; 15:13–17; 15:30; 1 Cor. 6:11, 17–19; 12:4–6; 2 Cor.
1:21–22; 3:4–6; 13:14; Gal. 2:21–3:2; Eph. 2:18; 21–22; 3:11–17; 4:4–6; 5:18–20; Php. 2:1, 6; Col.
1:6–8; 1 Thess. 1:1–5; 4:2, 8; 5:18–19; 2 Thess. 2:13, 14; 3:5; Titus 3:4–6;
Heb. 9:14; 1 John 3:23–24; Jude 20–21).
God has revealed Himself in this
way in His Word. It is not for me to tamper with Scripture and amend things to
where they are more comprehensible to my weak mind and its fallen human tendency
to try and make ‘god’ in my image, which is idolatry.
2. You do not believe in the total sovereignty of God.
Page 10 of “What does the Bible
Really Teach” scoffingly says that “When tragedy strikes, they say that it is
God’s will” as though in fact it is not. For this I give you but a sampling of
what the Bible says on the subject.
Surely the
flood was God’s will? Unless you buy the pagan myth of Kabbalistic Judaism’s Gnostic
deity. “Then the LORD said, "I will wipe off from the face of the earth
mankind, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and
birds of the sky--for I regret that I made them." Genesis 6:7
“I form light
and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I, Yahweh, do all
these things." – Isaiah 45:7
“Do not both
adversity and good come from the mouth of the Most High?” Lamentations 3:38
“When a
trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a
city, has not the LORD caused it?” – Amos 3:6
Any cursory
reading of the prophets reveals that God is the driving force behind the
destruction of many idolatrous lands and the exile of his own people. Tragedy
then is a part of his will! This is not to say that he enjoys it, for he takes
no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that he “works all things
according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).
You object
that Satan is the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air. I respond
that Satan may be prince, but Jesus is king! All authority in heaven and earth
is his, and we know this by his resurrection (physically – he had flesh and
bone, ate and drank, traits that a spirit does not have), not in 1878, or was
it 1914? The dates have been changed a couple of times in JW history…
3. You do not believe that God is all knowing
but rather he has selective knowledge.
This doesn’t
exactly square with Job 42:2; Proverbs 15:3; Jeremiah 16:17; 23:24; Acts 1:24;
1 John 3:20 etc.
4. You do not believe in a literal but rather
a spiritual resurrection of Jesus.
This baffles
me! The testimony of the whole New Testament or whatever you call it is
completely the opposite. Read 1 Corinthians 15 – “In fact Jesus is raised!”
There is no salvation apart from this: “If you confess with your mouth,
"Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from
the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9
5. You deny God’s justice in denying the
existence of eternal punishment
Jesus warns us
of Hell (Matthew 10:28, 23:33; Luke 16:19-31). Peter teaches that angels and
men go there (2 Peter 2:4, 9). John
writes of hell as a place of eternal torment, into which Satan and all
unbelieving, evil men will suffer forever (Revelation 20:10, 15). It is a place
of separation from right relationship with God (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9). God
does not desire that people go there (1 Timothy 2:4) but people rebelliously
reject him and so incur his just and holy wrath.
6. Only the 144,000 will be in heaven.
Really?
The 144,000 is
a symbolic number for the remnant of Israel who will be saved (Paul in Romans:
“Israel will be saved”). The very verse after he writes of them, John says “After
this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could
number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes,
with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
And all the angels were standing round the throne and round the
elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces
before the throne and worshipped God, saying,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and
might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen” (Revelation 7:9-12). Sounds like
more than the 144,000 to me. The JW reading is not even close to defensible
from this passage!
7. 1 Timothy 6:4 warns against people who
like to quibble about words.
In our
meetings, I was told that ‘church’ comes from the pagan goddess of some sort
named Circe, and might also be a reference to pagan stone circles. There is
emphasis in the book on Jesus not being crucified on a cross but a ‘torture
stake.’ The former is demonstrably false – church comes from kuriakon, Greek
for ‘of the Lord’ or ‘Lord’s house(hold)’ – the latter is silly: forget all the
linguistic, historical, and archaeological evidence that contradicts the book,
does it really matter on what Jesus died? Is not the point what he accomplished
in his death? These are but a few examples. You quibble about words.
In Conclusion
The gospel is
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You must repent and
believe in him to be saved. Look to him and you will find forgiveness and he
will open your eyes through the Scriptures to the truth. I have examined the
Scriptures and what I have written above is the truth. I’ve thought about your
beliefs and considered them in light of the Bible and they are not the truth. For this
reason I will not come to meet you any longer – if however you have a change of
mind and heart up searching the Scriptures and praying, you know where to find
me.
This pastoral column was distributed to the congregation of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) in the week following Sunday, 17 January, 2016.
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