*Knock, knock*
It’s a slow Saturday and you’re expecting a parcel. You rush to open your front door to find two smartly dressed people who offer you a magazine titled ‘Watchtower’ (with a front cover illustration of Jesus teaching the masses).
You find out they’re ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ from the nearby ‘Kingdom Hall’.
They seem harmless, being a witness of ‘Jehovah’ (Psalm 83:18, KJV). God sounds great, especially as they go around inviting people to follow Jesus from the Bible. They’re friendly people. You take an extra magazine of theirs, titled ‘Awake’ which contains helpful advice for Christians living today.
So far, so good, right? Everything seems good and true, but under further examination, they are a cult.
A quote from C.H Spurgeon comes to mind – ‘Discernment is not simply telling the difference between true and false, rather it is the difference between true and almost true’.
Who are the Jehovah’s Witnesses?
The sad reality is that JWs (for this blog I’ll refer to Jehovah’s Witnesses as JWs, but I recommend against calling them “JWs” in person) aren’t true Christians as they diverge from clear Biblical, apostolic teaching and the early ecumenical councils which all Christians hold to (such as Nicaea 325AD).
JWs also claim to be the remnant who alone offer salvation from judgment day/’Armageddon’ (Watchtower magazine, Nov. 1981).
Furthermore, JWs created their own corrupted version of the Bible, known as the ‘New World Translation’ (NWT). This version seeks to hide the many texts which evidence that the one God exists eternally as the 3 distinct ‘persons’ of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. JWs deny the Trinity.
Why? Because their founder, Charles Taze Russel (b. 1852) resurrected an old heresy known as ‘Arianism’, named after a 4th Century priest – Arius – who denied the Trinity, and insisted ‘there was a time when the Son was not’, meaning, God has only ever existed as ‘Father’. The Council of Nicaea strongly rebuked Arianism, using scripture and early Christian beliefs as its source.
It’s not surprising then that In the NWT there are changes in places like John 1:1, where it claims that the Word was merely ‘a god’, in one of many attempts to cover scripture’s divine view of Jesus. Likewise with the Holy Spirit, in an attempt to make Him an impersonal mechanism, they tweak texts like Genesis 1:2, which the NWT translates ‘God’s active force moved about the surface of the waters’. On top of this, nearly every use of ‘He’ in regards to the Holy Spirit is falsely translated ‘it’.
How do we engage with Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Before saying anything to them, speak to God. Pray He would open their blind eyes. Pray you’d go in love for them – it can be very frustrating trying to reason with someone who is trapped in a cult, when they are often unable to think rationally.
Be intentional and make time to stop and talk to them on your commute if you see them standing there with their ‘Watchtower’ carts, and engage with them if they knock at your door.
Ask good questions, be lovingly inquisitive. I often start with asking their testimony, which then allows me to share how I became a Christian. I emphasize how Jesus saved me (sometimes referencing Isaiah 44:11, evidencing again that Jesus is truly God).
It’s tempting to dig up the dodgy history of the JWs, with their various leaders over the years making several failed end times prophecies. When it was prophesied the end times would come in 1975, two thirds of JWs left the group when that prophecy failed. This again identifies this group as false prophets (Deuteronomy 18:20-22).
We could also spend time exploring the personhood (ability to reason, will, speak, have pronouns etc.) of the Holy Spirit, distinct from the Father, in places like Acts 13:2, Ephesians 4:30, 1 Corinthians 12:11, John 16:13 etc.
But normally I go to John 17:3, where eternal life depends on truly knowing who God the Father and Jesus is.
There are countless passages that evidence that God is truly triune, which have somehow remained in their NWT, places like Matthew 28:18-20 where Jesus commands an act of worship (baptism) done in the single NAME of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Other texts like Isaiah 48:16, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Matthew 3:16-17 can help too. Maybe you could spend a few minutes looking at these?
As for Christ, John 5:17-23 is a favorite of mine; Jesus has just healed on a sabbath and claims He is just continuing His Father’s divine work. In verse 18, the apostle John explains that for Jesus to stand in a public place and refer to God as ‘My Father’ makes Jesus truly God. Bear in mind no one else in scripture ever refers to God publicly as ‘my father’, it’s always ‘our father’. In verse 19, Jesus reassures that he’s not a separate God from the Father, but that he does ‘whatever the Father does’ – meaning, Jesus is claiming to do ALL that Jehovah God can do; no mere creature can claim such a thing, and yet Jesus is not the Father. It’s right that Jesus in verse 23 commands that all should honour the Son just as the Father. Jesus has no right to say this, unless He is truly God, which Thomas confirms in John 20:28, where he refers to Jesus as ‘my Lord and my God’, whereafter Jesus blesses him for this statement.
Some JWs may run to other verses to try disprove Jesus deity, but encourage them stay on topic if you can, and expose that if their understanding of other verses like John 14:28, or Colossians 1:15 show that Jesus isn’t truly God, then the Bible has contradictions. The clear teaching is that Jesus is truly God.
The question we should leave with our JW friends is this:
‘Do you honour the Son in the same way you honour Jehovah? If not, why disobey Jesus? Can you echo Thomas statement that Jesus is your God? If not, you don’t have Jesus’ blessing on your belief.’
Over the years I’ve known several people who have left JWs and come to a faith in the true, historic Christ. Simply through being gently challenged with questions from the Bible, like the ones we’ve gone through in this blog.
Why not pray, make time and speak of Jesus to the next JWs you come across? And let’s do it all in the strength of the Holy Spirit, as we see in Acts 1:8, where Jesus tells you to be HIS witnesses.
If you have questions about sharing your faith and how to grow in that, email James on james.tredgett@globe.church.