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CUL:Jehovah's Witnesses and the Deity of Christ by Walter Martin
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Jehovah's Witnesses, has
always taught from its inception in 1896 that Jesus Christ was no more
than a perfect man, "certainly not the supreme God Almighty in the
flesh."1 Amplifying this, they state categorically that He was in no
sense both God and man. "Some insist that Jesus while on earth was both
God and man. This theory is wrong..."2
By maintaining that our Lord was the "first and direct creation of
Jehovah God, " and that prior to His earthly life He was Michael the
Archangel, 3 the Witnesses deny the very foundation of the historic
Christian faith.
In contrast to this teaching, the Bible and Christian Church declare
the full deity of Jesus Christ and His equality with God the Father.
In the first verse of John's Gospel, Christ is revealed as the
eternal Word of God who became flesh (verse 14) - the "image of God" (2
Corinthians 4:4). Consider the emphasis. "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).
Note that John 1:1 states that the Word was in the beginning - it
does not say the Word "became" or "was created" by God as Jehovah's
Witnesses teach. The Witnesses also mistranslate this text to read "the
Word was a god"4 but their translation is by both context and grammar
an impossibility according to all recognized authorities on Greek
grammar.
Moreover, the Scriptures proclaim that Christ made "himself equal
with God" (John 5:18) and that "in him dwelleth all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). The Bible further states that Christ
claimed to be the great I AM (Jehovah) of the Old Testament (see Exodus
3:13-16 with John 8:58), and the Jews during His ministry understood
Him so clearly that they sought to stone Him to death for blasphemy
(John 8:59; cf. 10:28.33).
Jehovah's Witnesses pervert these texts and many others in their
determined attempt to demote our Lord from His position of God and
Creator (Colossians 1; Hebrews 1;), and they compound their error by
translating the Greek of the New Testament in many places contrary to
all known grammatical authorities.5 It is certainly true that during
His earthly life our Lord voluntarily limited Himself as a man
(Philippians 2:6-8), and thus He never strove to usurp the prerogatives
of Deity. But one does not have to "rob" what is His by inheritance
(Hebrews 1). As we have already shown, He was true Deity - "the great
God" (Titus 2:13).
We must not forget that Christ humbled Himself even to the death of
the cross and therefore as a man could say, "My Father is greater than
I" (John 14:28). However, let us not forget that Christ never said, "My
Father is better than I"; "better" is a term of comparison between
natures (Hebrews 1:4) while "greater, " as in the context of John 14,
is a term of comparison relative to positions.
Our President, for instance, is greater in position than any of his
fellow Americans by virtue of his office as President of the United
States; but he would be the first to insist that as a human being he is
not necessarily better. So Christ was admittedly inferior to His Father
positionally while on earth as a man, but the Scriptures indicate He
was His Father's equal on the spiritual plane at all times (Hebrews
1:3; John 5:18).
Jehovah's Witnesses always point to Christ's humanity in the
Scriptures; they carefully omit mention of His claim to full Deity and
the thus "wrest...the...scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2
Peter 3:16).
Our Lord taught His Full Deity (John 8:58, John 8:24) and the Bible
calls Him the "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last" (Revelation
1:17, 18). Yet it is Jehovah alone who declares that He is "the first,
and...the last" (Isaiah 44:6). Since there can be only one first and
last, God fully manifested Himself in Jesus Christ, "the first and the
last" (Revelation 1:17,18) as the Scriptures and the Christian Church
maintain.
Jehovah's Witnesses deny these and many other great doctrines of the
Bible. They are therefore misguided followers of a fallible, human
organization. Consequently, they too, desperately need the salvation
that the God-man, Jesus Christ, alone offers to all men who will come
to Him and accept Him as their Saviour and Lord (John 3:16, 5:24).
1. Let God be True, Edition 1946, The Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society, p. 87.
2. The Harp of God, J.F. Rutherford, pp. 101 and 128
3. The Truth Shall Make You Free, The Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society, p. 49; also The Kingdom is At Hand, pp. 46, 47, 49.
4. New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures - John
1:1, The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
5. See Jehovah of the Watchtower, Moody Press, Chicago, Revised
Edition, 1974 for a full-length study of Jehovah's Witnesses with full
documentation on their errors.