Several in our congregation have recently interacted with Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW). It has been encouraging to hear how these members have lovingly, winsomely contended for the souls of these people by sharing the biblical gospel.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are very persistent and one of their main requirements is that all of their people do door-to-door proselytizing on a regular basis. It is quite likely that others in the congregation will be visited at some point. For that reason, I’d like to give you something of a reference sheet that you could use in conversing with them.
One of the telltale signs of any cult is that they do not exalt Christ as the Scriptures do. This is certainly the case with the JWs. They do not believe that Jesus is God. In their view, it demeans Jehovah to elevate Jesus to the level of deity. Therefore, they reject any idea that Jesus is divine in the same sense that Jehovah is divine. (The same goes for the Holy Spirit. In other words, they reject the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.)
The problem is that the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is God:
In Matthew 1:21, the angel instructs Joseph to name the coming child Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus means, “Yahweh (or Jehovah) saves.”
In Matthew 1:23, Jesus is identified as Immanuel, which means “God with us.”
In Matthew 2:11, the magi worship the young Jesus.
In Matthew 3:3, John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, cries out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” John is quoting Isaiah 40:3, where “LORD” is the translation of Jehovah.
In John 1:1, Jesus is referred to as the Word: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In John 8:57ff, Jesus claimed that Abraham had seen His day, to which the Jews replied, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus answered, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” Jesus was repeating the exact words God used to identify Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14 – I AM. It was so obvious to the listening Jews that Jesus was claiming to be Jehovah that they immediately picked up stones to stone Him.
In John 10:30-33, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” The Pharisees understand Him to be claiming that He is God.
In John 12:39-41, the writer identifies the unbelief of the Jews as being a fulfillment of Isaiah 6:10. He then writes, Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Isaiah 6 is the account of Isaiah seeing the glory of Jehovah in the temple being worshiped by the seraphim. Therefore, John is claiming that when Isaiah saw Jehovah and His glory, he was actually seeing Christ.
In John 20:26-28, Jesus invites Thomas to touch His wounds so that he might believe the Jesus was really resurrected. Thomas does so and exclaims, “My Lord and my God!”
Romans 10:13, 1 Corinthians 1:31, 2:16, 10:26, and 2 Corinthians 10:17 all show Paul quoting Old Testament passages about Jehovah and applying them to Christ.
Colossians 2:9 tells us that in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
Hebrews 1:1-3 identifies Jesus as the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. The following verses quote Old Testament passages, showing that they refer to Christ. For example, Hebrews 1:8, But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”
These references are just a portion of the New Testament witness to the deity of Christ. So how will Jehovah’s Witnesses deal with these clear references to Christ as God? They use their own translation, the New World Translation.
This is one key thing to keep in mind. The bible that the JWs use is not the Bible that you use. In many of the above references, they have changed the wording in order to accommodate their view. For example, John 1:1 in your Bible reads, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Their bible reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god."
In John 8:58, instead of “before Abraham was born, I AM,” their bible reads, “before Abraham came into existence, I have been.” So if you have a conversation with a JW, do not agree to use their bible. Get your own out and use it. Show them what your Bible says compared with theirs. And in each discrepancy, their version will be different than every other English translation, and will therefore favor their heretical doctrine of Christ. I can also tell you that in each case, their version diverges from the original Greek text.
Christ is the key. He must be God because the Scriptures tell us that He is. Speak the truth, speak with kindness, speak from the Word, knowing that the Holy Spirit is the only One who can open their eyes.
The divinity of Christ is only one area in which this cult diverges from sound doctrine. For a much more exhaustive treatment on the JWs beliefs and how to interact with them, check out CARM.org, a great resource for Christian apologetics.
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