Isaiah: True Witness of True God

I've been continuing to engage in regular dialogue with a Jehovah's Witness, and now more recently his wife as well. They come visit my house at 10am on various Saturdays, sometimes by appointment, other times just to see if I'm home. The focus of our conversation is generally focused on the Trinity, as I am more concerned about their view of Christ than of anything else. The gospel, after all, centers around Him, and without the true Christ, there is no true God, true salvation, or true life. I find it interesting that even my pagan professor of last year realized John intention in collecting all the "I am" statements of Christ and compiling them, while skirting most parables, etc. This is a reference to the I AM self-identification of God in the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the New World Translation (JW version of the Bible) has so mangled the translation of the tense that no Jehovah's Witness can see the obvious connection.

I just thought I'd share a few verses that glorify our Lord Jesus Christ as Yahweh incarnate. The incarnation is quite probably the most glorious miracle ever performed by God, greater even than converting sinners (which, if you know anything about your own sinfulness, is saying something).

I was reading through the daily reading bookmarks that we just handed out in High Point, and came across this verse in John 12: "Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him" (v. 41). The context makes it clear that the pronoun "him" is referring to Jesus Christ. "These things" refers to two quotations from the book of Isaiah that John quotes in the verses immediately preceding verse 41. The first quotation is from Isaiah 53:1. We know that Isaiah 53 is a prophecy of Jesus Christ, but it is the second quotation that I really want to focus on. The verse in John 12 tells us that Isaiah speaks Isaiah 6:10 because he "saw [Jesus'] glory." If we go to the context of Isaiah 6, the vision Isaiah has just seen is a vision of "the King, the LORD of hosts" (v. 5):

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

"Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!"

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Do we realize what's going on here? Jesus the Christ does indeed make appearances in the Old Testament, and this is one right here! This is the glory of Jesus, not of an angel, but of Yahweh! How much more glorious does this make the incarnation, not to mention sacrifice, of Christ? He had been on His throne in His temple, and stepped down, becoming a... pooping baby?! Stand in awe of your God this Christmas (and always!); He loves you with a love we will never grasp.

California Christian Apologetics Conference (IV)

For my first elective session I had the privilege of hearing from Pastor Harold C Felder. There were five different options to choose from at each session, but I opted for the Jehovah’s Witness (JW) seminar because I’d been meeting with one Witness in particular rather regularly. Harold is co-pastor of the Journey Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not a very famous guy (at least I’ve never heard of him before!), but certainly passionate about the Lord. His energy and enthusiasm were exhilarating, and he even “caught himself preaching” a couple times. His session was on a subject I’ve written about before here and here, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Origins, Beliefs, and Dangers. The full PowerPoint presentation can be found online here at his website. I especially appreciated this session for the documentation it provided of Jehovah’s Witness beliefs.

Quite a bit of hearsay was brought up throughout the 1 hour seminar, and I thought Harold dealt with it well: he didn’t comment on something he was not familiar with, as far as I remember. He did not pretend that every charge brought against the Watchtower was legitimate just because a Christian said it or just because the Watchtower obviously teaches false doctrines. Just because they lead a false religion does not mean that everything they teach is false; let me just get that on the table!

That said, he spared no expense in making abundantly clear that the Watchtower organization is not one in which any “seeker” will find the light of the Gospel or the gracious forgiveness of God. And for this reason he added a disclaimer to the beginning of his talk, to biblically justify the stance and the method he was approaching the subject with. Lest some might object to his “pickin’ on folk,” he quoted three verses from Titus and Timothy exhorting their respective recipients to pay close attention to doctrine and refute false teaching (Titus 1:9,2:1; 1 Tim 4:16). These are great verses that we should all have memorized. Why not do it this week?

He then moved on to make his point that the Watchtower is indeed a force to be reckoned with. He quoted some statistics concerning their membership. As of last year the Watchtower’s official membership is at 6,741,444 in 236 countries; they have a total of 99,770 kingdom halls; they conducted an average of 6,286,618 Bible studies last year (averaging to over 17000 bible studies per day); and they baptized 248,327 new members! This is not an insubstantial number of people! Clearly the Watchtower has significant influence on people’s minds. By comparison, the Southern Baptist denomination (the largest protestant denomination in this country) only baptized approximately 100,000 more people than the JW’s did last year, and even that number has been decreasing slowly over the last few years.

Then, before getting into any actual refutation, Harold spent time going over some of the particularly identifying marks of Jehovah’s Witnesses, practices and beliefs. Harold disappointed me with respect to his documentation in this section, unfortunately, but there is grace for him. I understand as one who writes (and makes bold claims!) myself that documentation can be possibly the most boring part of preparing some sort of refutation, but it is so comforting and refreshing the those reading that the stuff you’re feeding them is not just hearsay, but accurately represents the views of the ones being refuted. Anyways, without further ado.

The practices that set JW’s apart from the rest of Christianity are as follows (there may be more, but these are the most common, well known ones):

- door to door witnessing is necessary for salvation;

- they are governed by the “governing body” in Brooklyn, New York;

- members meet in Kingdom Halls (church) five times per week;

- they reject the celebration of cultural, national, and religious holidays as pagan and idolatrous;

o they also reject the celebration of birthdays along the same logic;

- members who disobey these rules can be disfellowshiped;

- they are not allowed to read any material other than the Watchtower’s;

- reading the Bible without the aid of Watchtower literature is forbidden.

I had known most of these before I came to this meeting, but the first one struck me as being incredibly works-righteous. Also, a lot of people think they are rather stupid (to put it bluntly) for rejecting holidays, but to think so is a bit hasty. The Watchtower mandates it because (they claim) they want to exalt only God and not share his glory with another. This is commendable and I even know about some Christians who have decided not to celebrate Christmas (not the gifts part anyways) so that they would train themselves to not be so focused on earthly treasure and such. This is commendable for those whose consciences are pricked in that area of their lives. However, in my chat with Jim and his wife (the JW’s that had been visiting me), I confronted them with the fact that the Bible says “freedom” while the Watchtower says “forbidden.” I pray this made them consider the Watchtower’s stance on other things as well. Perhaps it could simply be the pebble in their shoe, as Greg Koukl likes to say, that gets them running from the Watchtower. Please pray for them.

Harold then moved on from practices to beliefs. The sections we got through were God, the Holy Spirit, Christ, Salvation, and the Afterlife. Of course, they believe that Jehovah is the name of God and seem a bit overzealous about pronounced that name in order to be saved. After all, their translation of Romans 10:13 says that “all who call on the name of Jehovah will be saved.” Unfortunately, the word “Jehovah” is neither in there nor anywhere in any New Testament manuscript. In fact, no one even knows exactly how to pronounce the tetra gram YHWH. Jehovah is simply gotten by adding the vowels from Adonai in between the consonants. He reviewed this along with the standard refutation of the claims against the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity, and then moved on to the section that I personally found most helpful and extremely encouraging in my personal walk with God: the Holy Spirit.

Not much attention is paid to the Holy Spirit in Bible teaching these days, and unfortunately so, since he shares in the same glory as the Father and the Son. However, I learned and was reinforced as to the personality of the Holy Spirit as Harold gave his defense. Harold showed that the Holy Spirit has all the attributes of personhood: a mind (Rom 8:27), emotions (Eph 4:20), and a will (1 Cor 12:11), but the most striking to me was the verse brought up wherein the Holy Spirit talks about himself. This, I perceive to be glorious beyond comprehension. In Acts 13, “while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” This absolutely blew my mind. Here is the Holy Spirit speaking and commanding on his own authority, his own divine authority. You don’t see it very often because the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son; but here He is, gloriously sanctifying Saul and Barnabas for the work He has called them to. Praise the Holy Spirit (don’t hear that every day, do you?).

After demonstrating the personhood and divinity of the Holy Spirit, Harold went after the person of Jesus, clarifying that He is not in fact, Michael the archangel, as the JW’s believe. He also persuasively demonstrated Jesus is Divine, God in flesh, 100% man 100% God, and was raised physically, even by simply using in a consistent manner several verses that JW’s use inconsistently. For example, in Colossians 1, the word “other” is added four times total in verses 16 and 17. But actually, the word “other” is not there and since it totally distorts the meaning, it certainly is not warranted to ‘clear up’ confusion in the verse. It makes perfect sense all by itself – unless you are a Jehovah’s Witness. Also, four aspects of Jesus resurrection prove that it was indeed physical and not spiritual (i.e. he wasn’t raised as a spirit or phantom or ghost of some sort): 1) The tomb was empty, so the body was definitely gone (Matt 28); 2) Jesus bore crucifixion scars (John 20:27); 3) He predicted He would raise HIS body in 3 days (John 2:19); 4) 1 Cor 15:44 was referring to a Spirit-controlled body, not a phantom. For added support of his interpretation of 1 Cor 15:44, he quoted Galatians 6:1 – “if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” This is not talking about those who are ghost-like in appearance!

The last aspect of Jehovah’s Witness doctrine that we really dug into was their doctrine of Salvation. This is so key, because after the Watchtower is done with the doctrine of justification, grace is no more grace (Rom 11:6). Salvation in the Witness religion is based on works, pure and simple. Now, they’ll say it’s by grace, but their grace is God graciously giving humans the ability to earn their way to heaven! “To get one's name written in the book of life will depend on one's works” (Watchtower, Mar 15, 1962). Furthermore, one must acknowledge the Watchtower as from God in order to receive eternal life (Watchtower, Feb 15, 1983). Of course we know, and Pastor Harold proved to us, that salvation is solely by the grace of God and not by works (Eph 2:8-9), and that salvation comes by faith in Christ, not an earthly organization, or even in His church (Jn 5:24).

And at this point I am going to cut! We went over the afterlife for a bit, but you’ll have to check out the website for yourself if you want to read about it!

On a personal note, I was extremely convicted during this session of my intense arrogance. At one point when we were going over the admittedly strange doctrines of the Watchtower organization, one of the attendees gagged “This is so stupid…” in quite a haughty manner. After noticing how repulsive this sort of response was, realizing that it drips with pride and is dry of compassion, I remembered all the times my mother confronted me ever so graciously on my own attitude in this area. Praise God for opening my eyes to this sinful attitude, for “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). That was a stinger, but I am confident that realizing this face will benefit anyone’s evangelism efforts greatly.

JW 4: Practical Tips

Here is a link to a great article I found with a very humble, gentle, and practical way to witness to a Jehovah's Witness. I remember stressing this idea at the beginning of my JW series: They are not nuisances, they are chances for you to evangelize that God has placed quite literally at your doorstep.

Happy fishing.

JW 3: Discerning Truth from Error

Time flies way too fast! If you people actually want information from me on a more regular basis, someone will have to jump on my back about it. …Ok well let’s not resort to physical violence, but I think you get my meaning. I figure I might as well address a few more issues I have with the Watchtower organization, so that we can be done with that segment of my blog. Bear in mind, however, that these issues are not the fault solely of JW’s. Some “mainline Christians” may be guilty of the same things. Do let me know if I am guilty of these things. First off I’d like to mention a couple things I’m happy about in JW theology.

They said some hard things

"God is not obligated to show favor or mercy to anyone" (30).

Some people think that God owes them happiness, or a good life, or a ticket to heaven. Otherwise they claim He’s unloving or unforgiving. The definition of grace implies that He is not obligated to give it. Yet He still chose to give it! That is so mind boggling to me. Anyways, on this point the JW’s are solid.

"The Bible condemns premarital intercourse and homosexuality" (122).

I think that’s pretty clear! Refreshing to know how clear the Bible is on the topic especially in this day an age when it seems like everyone and their brother is jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon and sex is treated like an everyday biological function – no more than scratching an itch or feeding a hungry stomach. They even used the word condemn. Those judgmental JW’s… someone needs to sue them for hate crime… (/sarcasm).

Now, on to the many things to be wary of.

Happiness as a reason to accept the(ir) gospel

1. "Calling on Jehovah...can lead you to endless happiness" (27).

This stuff really gets under my skin. Let me make clear that I do not think God is a cosmic kill joy. In fact, He is the only true source of joy (Gal 5:22; Ps 16:11)! I just never see anyone in scripture giving that as a reason to call on Him and be saved. If you do, let me know. Indeed, God did make things for us to enjoy (1 Tim 6:17). However, that is not why we submit to His Lordship and turn from our sin. Not only does an unregenerate person not have a desire for the things of God (Rom 3:11; so they are guaranteed not to be made happy with the “eternal pleasures at [His] right hand” - Ps 16:11), but this simply centers the gospel on man and thereby minimizes the gospel. I’ll say it loud and clear: Jesus did not die on the cross to make you happy! He died to satisfy the wrath of God. Go to the cross because you’re so thankful that He would do such a thing for you. Repent of your sin and trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to pay the due penalty for your active rebellion against God.

The appeal to the reader in order to determine spiritual truths

"Is this not the kind of God that you want to worship?" (15).

Rom 3:11 – “There is none who seeks after God.” Also see 1 Cor 2:14. But they will seek after they’re own gods. This is a huge red flag, tipping you off to the fact that the JW god is not the God of the Bible, but a God of man’s own making. Watch out for people everywhere with this mindset. Mankind has not gotten tired of making a god to suit himself. If I have done this, let me know. Now… the following section contains some frankly odd phrases that I found in the book. You just need to take a look at them for yourself. Perhaps you can help me out with them.

Weird Stuff

"The work of witnessing to Jesus" (49).

Witnessing to Jesus? I checked the context. I have no idea what this means. Ideas?

"...sin was deeply engraved into the genes of our first parents" (58).

Sin is a physical problem?

"...only 144,000...will God take to heaven...(Rev 7:4; 14:1)" (88).

The funniest thing about this is that in verse 9 of chapter 7 there is a numberless quantity of saints standing before the throne of God in heaven… Why they interpreted the 144,000 sealed of Israel to be the only ones who go to heaven, I have no idea.

Legalism

"We must make sure that we avoid religious holidays and other customs that violate God's principles (1 Thess 5:21)" (49).

Since they’re quoting the “test all things” verse (I don’t know how it supports their position), I’ll be doing just that… oh look. Here’s an interesting verse… "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath." – Col 2:16

Maybe they just missed it…but I doubt it. Also check out Rom 14.

Annihilationism

"Martha expressed no thought about an immortal soul living on elsewhere after death"

"...the Bible never uses the expression 'immortal soul'" (84).

A lesson in logic: this is what we like to call the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. Not having a record of Martha expressing belief in immortal souls is quite a weak reason to make a blanket statement that they definitely don’t exist. First of all, Martha could simply be ignorant. There’s no reason to believe that she had all her theology right. Second of all, the objection that the Bible never says “immortal soul” is like objecting that the Bible never uses the term “monotheistic” to describe “Fundamental Evangelical Christianity” (another term that isn’t used in the Bible). We use words to embody concepts that we deduce the people of scripture believe after taking in the whole of scripture.

"Nobody would need to be resurrected, or brought back to life, if an immortal soul survived death" (84).

This is an excellent example of “human reasoning.” Whether or not they understand the purpose of resurrecting a body and rejoining the soul with it, the Bible says we have souls, and that they can be separated from the physical body (by death) , and that they can be rejoined with the body (by resurrection). (Phil 1:23-24; 2 Cor 5:8; Rev 6:9).

Misused Scripture

"You will be with me in Paradise."-Luke 23:42,43

They subtly leave out “today,” a word that absolutely destroys annihilationism. They take from the word of God where it suits them so that they can hold on to their theology. Rest assured, believer. When you die, you will be with the Lord immediately.

Misunderstanding of Jesus' Mission on Earth

"A stable world government...was the theme of Jesus' preaching. He called it 'the kingdom of God'" (90).

A stable world government? The kingdom of God is “a stable world government?” I wonder why I never interpreted it that way. Oh yea, it’s because Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Jesus did not come to set up a world government! Nor did He come so that we would strive to set up a world government! Anyways… I’m done with my rant.

Perhaps you can sense a little anger in my tone. It’s there. It’s because these people have distorted the truth of God’s word to suit themselves (2 Pet 3:16). They do this to their own destruction, and to the destruction of those who follow them. This simultaneously breaks my heart and provokes it. I hope it is with a righteous anger. As I have said before, if it is not, let me know.

JW 2: Discerning Truth from Error

This is my rebuttal of Jehovah's Witnesses' most troubling false doctrines, found in the booklet/tract Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life. The numbers in parentheses are page numbers.

Knocking on the door of works-salvation
-"God accepts as his worshipers people from all nations, but only those who conform to his righteous ways - Acts 10:34,35" (30)
-"if we do God's will and avoid activities that reflect this world's spirit, we can have the hope of everlasting life!" (50).

One commonality in every false religion I know of is that you are always trying to earn your way to heaven or a right relationship with God if you are a part of them. Rule #1 of Christian theology: You are not good enough! God has provided His salvation apart from any merit that you can contribute to the equation (Eph 2:8-9). If you are saved, you will do good works (Eph 2:10), but that is not the same as earning God's favor, which is utterly impossible (Is 64:6). Always clear up this discrepancy in pseudo-Christian theology as of first importance. You need to both understand that people cannot earn their way into heaven. If they try to contribute anything at all they are damned (Rom 11:6; Gal 5:4)! This is therefore a very important issue! Make that clear gently.

Denial of the Trinity
-"Therefore, those who accept the Bible as God's Word do not worship a Trinity consisting of three persons or gods in one" (31).
-"In fact, the word Trinity does not even appear in the Bible (John 14:28; 1 Cor. 15:28)" (31).
-"The true God is one Person, separate from Jesus Christ" (31).

I don't know that I've met any person who denies the Trinity with a full and complete understanding of what the doctrine is. I will tell you: It is the teaching that God is three distinct persons, of which the Father is first, the Son is second, and the Holy Spirit is third. This numbering of personages is meant to reflect the apparent authoritative hierarchy contained within the Trinity. Each person is fully God, fully Divine. This is extremely confused for most people because we don't generally think of one being have the property of existing as three distinct persons "at the same time." To help, I will define what it means to be a person.

Personhood in the Trinity means: self-awareness, choice, can reason, love, possessing a will and consciousness, can speak, be lied to, etc.

As we look at the Bible, we clearly see that there are three entities with these characteristics in the Godhead. All one needs to do to find the Trinity in the Bible is to prove that only one God exists (Is. 43:10-11), that Jesus is God (John 1:1; Heb 1:8), that the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:4 cf v.9), and that each one is not the other (Matt 3:15-17).

There are many many other verses compounding and solidifying the case for the Trinity, and I invite you to find those on your own.

The most common objection I hear to the Trinity (and one which the JW's love), which is that "it doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible" is simply man's foolishness. The word "monotheism" does not appear in the Bible, yet I'm sure we all can agree that the Bible teaches monotheism.

Denial of Jesus' Divinity
-"The true God is one Person, separate from Jesus Christ" (31).
-"[Some] have distorted Jesus' role, worshiping him as Almighty God" (32).
-"Jehovah created [Jesus] directly" (39, 62).

This is the most common objection to the Trinity that I know of. Many people are not willing to admit that Jesus is God. However, He is. John 1 and Hebrews 1 are great passages to go to, but the JW will undoubtedly have some Greek original language stuffed up their sleeve which the average Joe will not and should not be required to know about. So I've found it's best to go about it like this: Point to Isaiah 44:24 and prove that God didn't get any help making the universe. Then point to John 1 and Colossians 1:16 and prove that Jesus created all things. God created everything by Himself. Jesus created everything. I guess Jesus is God!

The reason this point is so crucial is because Jesus said that anyone who does not believe that Jesus is God is not saved (John 8:24), and also because a Jesus who is not God has no efficacy on the cross! Also, God said that He Himself would be the Messiah in Zech 12:10 - "they will look upon Me, whom they have pierced."

Denial of the Personhood of the Holy Spirit
-"God's holy spirit is not a person. It is Jehovah's active force, used by the Almighty to accomplish his purposes. - Gen 1:2" (31).
-"holy spirit, or active force" (40).

This is the most baffling of all the heresies, but I suppose it goes hand in hand with denying the Trinity. You can't have another person in the Godhead without some sort of unity in plurality. I have several very practical problems with this doctrine.

Impersonal forces...
1) Cannot be grieved, yet the Holy Spirit can be grieved (Is 63:10).
2) Do not have gender, yet the Holy Spirit has gender (John 14:26).
3) Do not speak, yet the Holy Spirit speaks (Mark 13:11; Acts 13:2).
4) Do not teach things, yet the Holy Spirit teaches (John 14:26).
5) Cannot be lied to, yet the Holy Spirit can be lied to (Acts 5:3).

I think it's pretty obvious that the Holy Spirit has all the attributes that indicate personhood, and the only reason JW's reject this teaching is because they don't like the Trinity.

I hope this helps you bolster your faith in the orthodox and historical doctrine of the Trinity. We serve an amazing and mysterious God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him,
and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:1-3

Jehovah's Witnesses

Why You Should Never Tell a JW, "No thanks!"

That might seem like a strange intro for a post, but I really do have a reason for wording it that way. You see, I've realized that when we get people like Jehovah's Witnesses coming to our door to spread their false doctrine, telling them to go away is like saying, "No thanks, I don't have the time or concern to deal with your soul right now, please go infect someone else with your damnable lies." How many of us want to say that? I certainly didn't when one came to my door this Christmas break!

This time I talked to him and asked him lots of questions. If you do not know much about a certain cult (There will invariably be lots of people who belongs to a certain group that you are not familiar with. This is OK! Just ask questions. It is the best way to get information and the best way to find out if they are teaching sound doctrine). Apparently these are really common questions, because he kept saying that all my questions were answered in this little book that he had. He offered it to me, so I took it, wanting to have an authoritative reference book from which to learn JW docrine. It's really small, so I was able to actually read through the whole thing in a relatively short amount of time. What I did was scour through it with an orange highlighter, and marked it up, noticing all the "interesting" things that were said in there.

There were several heresies littered through this book, but I suspect that many Christians would not be able to defend themselves against the lies if a JW should 'witness' to them! It was obvious to me, hearing this man's testimony, that this is what happened with him as he was first approached by JWs. He said that he started seeing things in orthodox Christianity that didn't line up with the Bible. The example he gave was the Trinity! I wonder how many people could defend the deity of Christ and the Trinity from the Bible should someone object (1 Pet 3:15)?

Now, for anyone who might think I'm just being nit picky or overly critical, let me say that this is an absolute essential of the Christian faith, therefore you need to be able to defend it! If you do not believe that Jesus is Divine, you are on a very direct path to hell (John 8:24). You are on the wide road of destruction, and the end does not look good for you. Your Jesus cannot save you. You need to repent and put your trust in the true savior right now. This is not a debatable issue! Yet it is one that JWs deny. They're Christ is not Divine and is a created being; therefore, he cannot save!

It is important to remember to keep things in the proper perspective when dealing with issues such as cult-members coming to your door. They don't have the true gospel; the Christian does. That is a very big deal (Gal 1:8-9)!They need to be evangelized, rather than looked down upon for trying to evangelize others. They're fervor should put anyone to shame who does not pursue the souls of others with the same intensity. Let me encourage you to learn how to defend your faith against the cults, and, furthermore, how to share your faith with cult members so that they realize they are not in the truth and need to be regenerated!

I will do my best to help you to do this is my follow up blog on this topic. Stay strong in the faith. Do not judge in the non-essentials (Rom 14). Do not budge in the essentials. Let's serve the King with our whole hearts.