July 23, 2020 Show with Dr. Tony Costa on “The False God & the False Christ of the Jehovah’s Witnesses”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 23rd day of July 2020 and I'm always thrilled to have back on the program a dear friend of mine who has become a favorite guest on this program and also has become a favorite speaker at conferences and speaking engagements that I personally arrange in addition to debates alongside of his colleague and friend

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. Just to give you an idea of the caliber of man that Dr.

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Tony Costa is, if you know anything about James White and know how high a caliber of an apologist he is, he has had

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Dr. Costa on standby to fill in for him when he was fearing he would be too ill to participate in a debate so that gives you an idea of the type of person and the training and wisdom and knowledge and abilities that our guest

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Tony Costa has. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to discuss with you for the first time the false

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God and the false Christ of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Welcome back Dr. Tony Costa. Thank you

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Chris, it's always, always a pleasure to be with you. And folks, if you know Jehovah's Witnesses, I know that they are typically forbidden to listen to Christian radio and watch

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Christian television and read Christian books, but you never know when someone might be curious enough to hear what an opponent of their false religion has to say, so if you know any

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Jehovah's Witnesses, have them tune in at ironsharpensiradio .com and that is where they can hear it live streamed anywhere in the world.

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Before we go into the theme, the false God and the false Christ of the

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Jehovah's Witnesses, Dr. Tony Costa is Professor of Apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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Why don't you give a brief word about this wonderful seminary. Sure, Toronto Baptist Seminary was founded in the 1930s by the late

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Dr. T .T. Shields, who was the pastor of Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto.

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It is a Reformed Baptist seminary, and we train both men and women in ministry for the mission field, and we also train men to the pastorate.

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We also have a number of our students that we have trained and they've moved on into doctoral studies in some leading universities in North America, and we are basically a seminary that stands for the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our model is kata Christon, which in Greek means according to Christ, and so we are a very proud, concerted seminary that does not compromise the authority of the

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Word of God, and we also believe in the importance of being a good witness in the world, being salt and light in the world, and training our students as good academic scholars as well as ministerial servants of the local church.

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Great, well if anybody wants to find out more about this wonderful seminary, go to tbs .edu.

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That's easy enough. Toronto Baptist Seminary, obviously, is what that acronym stands for, tbs .edu.

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Well, Dr. Costa, the Jehovah's Witnesses, at least in the

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Northeast United States, but it is having, sadly, and has had, sadly, an impact globally, but the

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Jehovah's Witnesses are a fairly well -known cult, as I said, probably especially in the

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Northeast. I know that they used to be headquartered in Brooklyn. I believe that their headquarters may have, for the first time, changed, if I'm not mistaken, or at least this exact address in Brooklyn has changed, but if you could tell us something of the history of this cult.

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Yes, the Jehovah's Witness, the official legal name, of course, is the Watchtower Bible in the

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Tract Society. They began in your home state of Pennsylvania with Charles K.

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Russell, who was raised in a traditional Congregationalist church.

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He was raised in a Bible -believing church that taught the basic core doctrines of the

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Christian faith, and at some point in his life, he became very enamored with Bible prophecy, particularly with the second coming of Christ, and he was also involved with the

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Christadelphians. And, of course, the Christadelphians are another non -Christian cult. They are not as well -known as Jehovah's Witnesses, but they are really the little sister of Jehovah's Witnesses, and that's because Charles Russell began to study with them, and it was from them that he obtained his anti -Trinitarian position, the view that Christ was not truly the

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God -man. He also adopted from them the rejection of the brutality of the soul and eternal conscious punishment, and adopted annihilationism.

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And Russell began a small group of what was called the

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International Bible Students, and they basically chose him as their pastor, even though he was not formally trained in any seminary or Bible college, he simply was self -taught, and they chose him as their pastor.

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And so he started the International Bible Students, and began to teach these very strong anti -Trinitarian sermons, and he also began to predict the end of the world.

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And so, through his influence by an Adventist at the time by the name of Nelson Barber, Charles Russell came to the belief that Jesus Christ had actually returned invisibly in October of 1874, and that Armageddon would occur 40 years later in 1914.

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We can talk, I guess, more about that later in the program, but just to fast -forward a bit,

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Charles Russell, his prophecy about Armageddon in 1914 failed to come to pass, and then they moved it to 1916, then 1918.

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He ended up dying in 1916, and he was succeeded by Joseph Franklin Rutherford, who was also a small claims court judge, and sometimes he's dubbed as Judge Rutherford.

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And it was really with Joseph Franklin Rutherford that you really begin to see the Jehovah's Witness group forming in the form that we see it today.

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It was Rutherford who gave them the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931 at a conference in Columbus, Ohio, and he is the one who basically moved the movement away from Charles Russell, and he also had his share of end -of -the -world predictions, predicted the end of the world in 1925.

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Of course, that did not take place, and then they moved it to 1941, and then of course to 1975, all of which failed to come to pass.

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They moved their headquarters from Pennsylvania over to the into Brooklyn, and you are correct,

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Chris, the headquarters was in Brooklyn, New York, for many, many, many years. They sold that property, and they have moved into upstate

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New York. I believe the reason for that is because the Watchtower has received a number of lawsuits, particularly on child abuse and pedophilia among members of the various kingdom halls around the world.

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And so due to this litigation, the Watchtower has had to pay out a lot of money.

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And so I think part of, to defray those costs, they had to sell their huge printing press and complex there by the

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Brooklyn Bridge, and moving up from upstate New York into more of a, let's just say, more of a secluded area.

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I think the Watchtower has been trying to get away from the public eye for a long time.

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So that's where they are today. They publish their

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Watchtower and Awake magazine, which is their major literary organ, organ to communicate with the world.

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They publish it in over, I believe, about over 300 languages right now. And they are found in every mission field in the world.

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So wherever you go on God's green earth, Jehovah's Witnesses have been and continue to be a thorn in the side of many pastors and missionaries around the world.

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So that's basically a brief history, I suppose, in a nutshell. Well, it's certainly a very helpful summary.

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And I want to make sure that our listeners have our email address in the event that they have questions of their own.

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Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Perhaps if you're a

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Jehovah's Witness, especially, and you don't want your fellow Jehovah's Witnesses to know that you're listening to this, we would certainly welcome an anonymous question from you, even if you disagree with our guest.

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And we hope that you do join us with a question. But anyone is welcome to write in anonymously if it's a personal and private matter.

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If it's just a general question on theology, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Well, before we go into the main theme of the false

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God and false Christ of the Jehovah's Witnesses, why don't you give us also a summary of the principal differences that Jehovah's Witnesses have with true

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Biblical, Orthodox, Evangelical Christianity. Sure. Well, the most fundamental difference, of course, is

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Jehovah's Witnesses vehemently reject the doctrine of the Trinity. They believe that it is a doctrine that was originated by Satan himself.

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They deny the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't believe that He was the

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Incarnate Son of God, the Eternal Son of God who became flesh. They deny the

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Holy Spirit is a person, that He is God of God. They believe the Holy Spirit is an act of force.

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And so their theology, of course, is heretical, their Christology is heretical, their pneumatology, the doctrine of the

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Holy Spirit is heretical. Jehovah's Witnesses also deny the bodily resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. They deny that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in a glorified immortal body,

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His physical body, that was transformed in the resurrection into a glorious immortal body. They believe that He was raised as an invisible spirit creature, and that the man

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Jesus is forever dead. They do not believe the man Jesus exists today, but that He was raised as a spirit creature.

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That He's the Archangel Michael, the first and greatest creation of Jehovah God, the first thing God created was

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Jesus Christ, the Archangel Michael, and through Him He made all other things. And they also deny salvation by grace alone.

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So every Jehovah's Witness believes that he or she must earn their salvation by attending the local

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Kingdom Hall, by standing on street corners with Watchtower, and handing out, and go door -to -door, and share the good news of Jehovah's Kingdom with people.

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They also believe that only 144 ,000 of their membership will go to heaven and rule with Christ as spirit beings, and they believe that the remainder of those who are faithful to Jehovah will dwell on a paradise earth forever, and so they hold to what's a heavenly, they believe in the anointed class, the heavenly class, which is only comprised of 144 ,000, and then the earthly class are those who will live on the earth forever.

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And so these are some of the basic distinctives between historical

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Orthodox, evangelical Christianity, and Jehovah's Witnesses. And the key areas where they teach a false

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God and a false Christ, some will readily understand, if they are

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Christians, that their Christ is false, but unfortunately you have in a day and age of illiterate, biblically illiterate

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Christians, or those that profess to be, you have professing

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Bible -believing evangelicals giving somewhat of a pass to monotheists who reject

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Christ. They give a pass to the Jews probably more than anyone because of the sensitivity involved in the fact that Jews globally have been the recipients of horrific, nightmarish, satanic persecution for centuries, and the most memorable of all, since we see it daily on the

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TV listings for documentaries on the Nazis and the Holocaust, was in fact the genocide of Jews during the

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Third Reich in the earlier part of the 20th century. So you have folks who are very timid to dare question whether or not our

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Jewish friends and neighbors will be in heaven without Christ. And of course,

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Muslims, you even have some professing evangelicals making the claim that Muslims can be in heaven.

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You have the Roman Catholic Church and the Catechism of the Catholic Church claiming that Muslims and others are going to be in heaven or that they adore the same true

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God as Christians do, even though they reject Christ. So you may have some, including the

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Jehovah's Witnesses in that, because Jehovah's Witnesses on many counts share a biblical morality with evangelicals.

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I'm not right now aware of anything that they would disagree upon, other than things that they have added.

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Of course, they would think it is immoral to receive a blood transfusion because they equate that with the eating of blood, which is forbidden by Paul.

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But in fact, why don't you just briefly start on that, because that is a very serious issue. There have been children and adults who have died because of themselves or family members forbidding blood transfusions.

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Why don't you talk a bit about that? Yes, and I've personally met people who lost their children as Jehovah's Witnesses because of the blood transfusion issue.

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We had a gentleman here in Canada who took his case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, because his daughter, a beautiful daughter, her name was

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Bethany, his daughter was refused a life -saving blood transfusion, or at least something that would have extended her life.

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I think she had a rare form of cancer. And of course, her mother opposed it and ended up divorcing her husband over this whole issue.

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And so many, many children have died due to this negligence. And many, many court cases, both in Canada and the

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United States and abroad in the UK, many court cases dealing with this whole issue of saving a child's life and the whole religious rights or religious conviction that people claim to have by not receiving a blood transfusion.

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But you make a good point, Chris, because the view that many people today have is that, well, as long as you're a nice person, you know,

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Jehovah's Witnesses try to live an extremely moral life, and so forth, but so do Mormons, and so do

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Roman Catholics and many others. But the only problem here is that living a good life is not going to save any of us, because, once again, by the works of the law or by any works of our righteousness, none of us can be saved, because we've all broken

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God's law and we're all guilty before God. And so, at the end of the day, we need to understand that the heart of the

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Gospel is the grace of God, and that's why Paul says that if you agree on everything else and you deny the

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Gospel, you are anathema. And we need to understand this, that when Paul wrote to the Galatians, he never disputed that the

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Judaizers, he never fought with them over Christology, because they shared the same view that Paul shared in terms of who the

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Lord Jesus was. But that issue here was the Gospel. They were saying, you know, just like a

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Roman Catholic friend would say, yeah, we believe in the Trinity, we affirm the belief in Christ, the virgin birth, you know, bodily resurrection, and so forth, but the issue here is the

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Gospel. And if you bring another Gospel other than the Gospel that the apostles preached, which was the

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Gospel of grace outside of works, then you come under the anathema of God. And the same thing goes with the

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Jehovah's Witness view of God and even the modern day, and I emphasize modern rabbinic

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Jewish view of God, is that of Unitarianism, that God is only one person. To the

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Jehovah's Witnesses, that is the Father, who is Jehovah. Only He is the true God. And then to Muslims, that would be

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Allah. Allah is the one true God. He's only one. There's no three in one, and so forth.

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And our Jewish friends today, following the Articles of Faith by Moses Maimonides, one of the

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Articles of Faith is that I believe that the Creator, blessed be He, is one, and that He is in absolute unity.

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And what Maimonides did is he used another Hebrew word there for the unity of God.

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It's a Hebrew word, Yahid, Y -A -H -I -D, which means a solitary unity.

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That word is not used of God's oneness in the Hebrew Bible. In the Hebrew Bible, when it speaks of God as one, it uses the

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Hebrew word Yahad, E -C -H -A -D, and Yahad denotes a composite unity, not an absolute solitary unity, but a composite unity.

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For example, the Adam and Eve, the two shall be one flesh, it was evening and morning one day, so that you have this plurality within unity.

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So up to the year 200 A .D., the Jews had no problem with the idea of plurality within God.

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This is something that Larry Hurtado demonstrated, it's something that Alan Segal demonstrated,

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I know that Michael Heisser has touched on that a bit as well. But until the year 200

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A .D., the Jews had no issue with this idea of this plurality within God until the rabbis codified

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Judaism with the Talmud and Mishnah and so forth, and it was with the advent of the rabbis that we have this move away from the plurality within the unity of God into this very strict

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Unitarianism. And I have no doubt, Chris, that the reason why they did that was as a reaction to Jewish Christians or Jewish believers in Jesus who were using text in the

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Old Testament, like we do today, to show that there was plurality within God. And so the whole issue about, well, does that mean

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Jews aren't saved? Well, there is no salvation in no one else. There's only one way, it's only through the

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Messiah, Jesus Christ. And no one can make it unless we come through Him.

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So that's the Gospel. It is an offensive declaration of God's Word against man's pride, and so we need to be aware of the fact that we cannot compromise based on our feelings.

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We need to be clear of the whole counsel of God without compromise, because that's what the

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Lord Jesus Christ would have us to do. Now, in this day and age, you have some of the major cults adopting a totally different model of public relations where they are trying to appeal to the sensitivities of evangelicals by not, as they once did, claiming to be the one true church, the one true spokespersons for God.

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You have the Mormons today conducting themselves in a very different manner, those that are their missionaries going door to door and evangelizing in public at one time, and making it fairly clear at some point during the conversation that they were a part of the one true church.

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Now, I have personally experienced Mormons, basically these young men, specifically who are in their early 20s and so on, approaching me with a whole different rhetoric, even starting off by saying, you know, you probably heard that Mormons believe that they're the only true church, and every other

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Christian is false, every other church is false. Well, that's not true. We just believe that we're another denomination just like you.

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Well, that was unheard of in Mormonism for nearly the entirety of its existence until very recently.

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Are the Jehovah's Witnesses at least logically and consistently remaining steadfast with their views that we who are

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Bible -believing evangelicals are not going to inherit the new earth with them, and in fact they don't even know for certain if they are, but are they holding fast to the view that they are the only true spokespersons for God, and that they alone, if they are faithful enough, they alone will inherit the new earth?

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Yes, very much so. They remain very exclusive in that manner.

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The thing with the Mormons is the Mormons have a living prophet, the president of the

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Mormon church, who they look to, and so it's not unusual to see the modern -day prophet of the church moving the goalposts, and we've seen this before with the blacks being admitted into the priesthood, which was forbidden until 1978, and then, of course, the changes, as you just mentioned now,

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Chris, where they're trying to simply pass themselves off as just another denomination within Christianity, and also the

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Mormon view of God is that of a Heavenly Father, and we all preexisted in the preexistence as spiritual children, so we're all related to one another, we all come from the same

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Heavenly Father, and so Mormonism tends to be more embracive, inclusive, and so forth.

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Jehovah's Witnesses are more black and white. They believe that they are Jehovah's organization, they are

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Jehovah's means of communication with the world, and they believe that everything outside of the

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Watchtower is part of Babylon. They use the term Babylon to refer to everything outside of Jehovah's Kingdom.

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And so this would include, of course, all secular governments, the United Nations, this would include all churches, both within Roman Catholicism, the

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Orthodox Church, and Protestantism, this would include Hindus, Buddhists, and even

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Jews, and everyone else who's outside of them. So they have a very apocalyptic we -versus -they mentality.

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You will notice Kingdom Halls. If you've noticed in your area, Chris, like I've noticed here in Toronto, Kingdom Halls are not these types of buildings where you have stained -glass windows or windows that open up the building.

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They're very closed and insular, and that's deliberate. Jehovah's Witnesses tend to have a very paranoid view of the world because it's satanically controlled, and so they see themselves as prime targets all the time.

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So Jehovah's Witnesses have dug in their heels. They're not playing the politically correct card where we're all in this together, and we're all going to be chummy, and so forth.

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They remain very, very insular and very exclusive in that respect.

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Okay, we have a listener in Bangor, Maine, John, who asks,

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I know that the Mormons, fairly close to the beginning of the cult in the 19th century, was plagued with splits and further mutated splinter groups, and I don't even know if we can number the actual number of splinter groups under the heading of Mormonism or followers of Joseph Smith and the

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Book of Mormon that exist today. Has there been such splintering in the Jehovah's Witnesses?

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Well, no, there wasn't a big split when Charles Russell died and Joseph Franklin Rutherford took the reins.

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There was a split between the International Bible Students who remained faithful to Charles Russell and his teachings, and then a new group within the group that believed that the movement had to move forward and follow

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Joseph Franklin Rutherford's direction, and Rutherford really was trying to take over the reins in such a way that he wanted to punk

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Charles Russell kind of on the back burner, so to speak. So, the

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International Bible Students actually still exist today. They're sometimes called Russellites.

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They do exist today. They're a small group. They're still very loyal to Charles Russell and his writings, particularly his seven -volume set called

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Studying from the Scriptures, and so that was the major split that occurred in 1916, where the movement that followed

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Rutherford became known as the Jehovah's Witnesses, while the other ones remained as the International Bible Students.

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Now, there are some little splinter groups that have come since then. There are some today who have been removed from the

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Watchtower, but cannot give up their theology. That is, they still hold to Watchtower theology, but they think that the

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Watchtower is kind of going off the rails, and so they feel that they've been called by Jehovah to kind of bring the organization back to its historic roots.

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Something like the City Vacanists that we find today in Roman Catholicism, where they claim that the chair of Peter is empty today and that the modern pope is an apostate, and so they await the day when the true pope will be installed.

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Something like that. Now, in the case of the Mormons, yes, there were many, many fissures, fractures, fissures rather, and after Joseph Smith died, there was a division between those who followed

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Joseph Smith's son, Joseph Smith, Jr., and those who followed Brigham Young. Those who followed

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Joseph Smith, Jr., became known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints, or the RLDS. They don't go by that name anymore. They are now called the Community of Christ, and so they reject all the doctrines that the

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Utah Church teaches. They're headquartered in Independence, Missouri. And from there, there were more breaks.

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There were more splinter groups. You have the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints, the SLDS. These guys continue to practice polygamy, and even though their leader was arrested and charged, there are still groups today under their radar who identify as Mormons who practice polygamy.

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We have some here in Canada, out west in bountiful British Columbia, our far southern western province there, just above Washington State.

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There's a whole group of them there, and they are practicing polygamy. So there are some oddballs out there, to be sure.

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There's some smaller groups out there. But we see this in all the cults, do we not?

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When Herbert W. Armstrong of the Worldwide Church of God died, of course his son Conrad Ted started his own

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Church of God International, but out of the death of Armstrong, you had the Philadelphia Church of God, the

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United Church of God, the Restored Church of God. And so this is a common occurrence.

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When the cult leader dies, the cult usually breaks up into little splinter groups.

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So a long answer to a question, yes, there have been some breaks within the

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Watchtower, but not as much as we see in Mormonism. Now for 15 years, I worked as an account executive for WMCA Christian Radio, which is an affiliate of the largest

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Christian network in the world, Salem Media. And the former location, before they moved to New York City, their current location, and even before their most recent location before that,

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Hasbro Heights, for I think most of my time working for WMCA, when

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I had to commute there at least once a week, they were located in Rutherford, New Jersey.

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And I remember frequently, in fact every time I was there in Rutherford, I would pass the headquarters for Dawn Bible Students Association in East Rutherford.

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Yes. And I understand that they are a breakaway group that broke away quite some time ago.

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Correct, correct. They are another splinter group, and they're small, they're not massive by any means, but the

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Dawn Bible Students are also a breakup from the Jehovah's Witnesses, or from the

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Russellites, those who follow Russell. So yes, very much so, the Dawn Bible Students are also a breakoff, correct.

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Let's see, we have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says, are not a lot of the heresies taught by the

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Jehovah's Witnesses stemming from the fact that they have a false version of the scriptures that have been rewritten in certain areas to fit their works righteousness in Aryan theology, where the actual wording has been changed from the original

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Greek, although they adamantly claim otherwise. Yes, the Jehovah's Witnesses of course have their own

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Bible translation, it's called the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. It was first published in 1950, first the

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New Testament, and then in 1961 they also translated the Old Testament, and the

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New World Translation is a unique translation only to the Watchtower Bible Track Society. It is not regarded as a bona fide translation of the

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Bible, it is not accepted by any serious Hebrew or Greek scholar of the

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Bible. In fact, it has been roundly condemned by a number of notable scholars, like the late

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Bruce Metzger and Julius Armanti, and many others, including

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Daniel Wallace, William Barclay, the great Bible teacher who did the daily devotional

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Bible studies, he also condemned the New World Translation. And that's because the committee that gave us the

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New World Translation, none of them were credentialed scholars in the languages of the

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Bible. In fact, back in the 1980s I wrote to the Watchtower in Brooklyn, New York, asking them for a list of the names of the translators of the

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New World Translation, and the response they gave me was basically, we do not divulge the name of our translators because we want all the glory to go to Jehovah God.

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The New World Translation, we don't have any scholars. And so the

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NIV and ASB, of course, and ESV and many other fine translations today, if you write in and request a list of their translators, they will send it to you free of charge.

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In fact, I think it's on their website. So what they've done, Chris, is they have taken the major areas in the

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New Testament that address the deity of Christ have been corrupted and butchered. And so John 1, for example, in their translation they'll have the word originally was, and the word was with God, and the word was a god, with a lowercase g, and of course the word a, a god.

36:36

And then in passages like Colossians 2, 9, a beautiful passage that speaks about in him dwelt the fullness of the deity in bodily form.

36:46

The Greek is so emphatic. It says, In him dwelt the fullness of the being of God, the very nature of God, embellished in Jesus Christ bodily.

37:01

And there you have this great declaration of the hypostatic union that Jesus Christ is the

37:06

God -man. What the Watchtower did was they took that passage and they mistranslated it as, in him dwelt the fullness of the divine quality, which is basically a butchering of the

37:17

Greek word there. And so Colossians 1, 16, where it says, the

37:23

Jehovah's Witnesses inserted the word other, so that it says,

37:33

So what they have basically done is they've butchered and massacred these beautiful texts that declare the full deity of Christ.

37:45

John 8, 58, where Jesus says, The Jehovah's Witnesses have, which is, it is just totally unacceptable.

38:00

The Greek word there is, which means literally, it's the present indicative tense. means

38:06

I am. It does not mean I have been. And so the Watchtower, to cover and justify their translation, they actually came up with a grammatical term that has never been heard of by any

38:19

Greek scholar. They said it was in the perfect indefinite tense. The problem is there is no perfect indefinite tense in the

38:26

Greek language. And so if this is how deceptive the leadership is, they will actually make things up on the fly.

38:35

And the reason why Jehovah's Witnesses read from the New World Translation is because the leadership is deliberately seeking to hide from them the true identity of the

38:50

Lord Jesus Christ. And so it is an atrocious translation. And again, only used by the

38:57

Watchtower, because any Jehovah's Witness that reads any other translation, even the old

39:02

King James Version, would never come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was the Archangel Michael, that he was a

39:08

God. Okay, we have a listener in Queens, New York, Johnny.

39:14

Great to hear Dr. Costa back on the air. Looking forward to his future discussion on social Marxism.

39:21

In accordance with Jehovah's Witness theology, the 144 ,000 that may enter

39:26

Heaven from Revelation is now fulfilled and closed. Does door -to -door Witness...

39:33

I think he meant to say, Do door -to -door Witnesses still proclaim Heaven in their proclamation, or are their hope, or he probably should have said, is their hope, in their message based solely on the promise of Paradise Earth?

39:50

Are any of the Jehovah's Witness elders alive today still qualified to make prophetic claims?

39:56

Who are the ones now writing awake in other Jehovah's Witness literature? You have several questions there.

40:04

I think you already addressed the issue of the 144 ,000. You may expand upon what you said before if you'd like.

40:11

But also, are there any, according to this cult, elders alive today still qualified to make prophetic claims?

40:21

And I'll ask you the last question after you get through the 144 ,000 and that question.

40:28

Yeah, well, the issue here, of course, is some Jehovah's Witnesses have said that the door to the anointed class, those who can become part of the anointed class, the 144 ,000, those

40:42

Witnesses have been saying for a while that that door has closed, so that there is no more Heavenly promise for any

40:47

Jehovah's Witnesses. And this is so concretely seen. Every year when they celebrate the

40:53

Lord's Supper, they call it the Lord's Memorial, and they only celebrate it once a year, and it's on the night of the

41:00

Passover, when Jews celebrate the Passover, on the 14th of Nisan. And what they do is

41:05

Jehovah's Witnesses will gather in these huge areas, they'll pass bread and wine, and about 99 % of them, or at least 99 .5

41:14

% of them, will not partake of the bread and the cup, because that is only for the members of the

41:19

Heavenly Class, the 144 ,000. So they just let it pass them by. And so there's a bit of a problem here, because if the 144 ,000 has been completely filled, that is, there's no longer anyone who can enter that Heavenly Class, then

41:37

Tony does ask a great question, and that is, well then, how can they have the direction of the

41:45

Holy Spirit, which they believe only the Heavenly Class has? Who then is leading the

41:51

Watchtower? Well, the short answer is the Governing Body of the Jehovah's Witnesses are considered to be members of the

42:00

Anointed Class, that's why they're very elderly. And they're the ones who are leading Jehovah's organization on the earth.

42:07

And so the closest thing you get to someone being a prophet would be this Governing Council at the headquarters in upstate

42:14

New York. But in the past, Jehovah's Witnesses have said, Watchtower has said, that the whole movement is really a modern -day prophet.

42:23

So there's a bit of a contradiction there, because the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe they have the

42:29

Holy Spirit, because they don't believe that they're part of the Heavenly Class. And therefore, if they don't have the

42:35

Holy Spirit, then according to Romans 8 and 9, they don't belong to Christ. If you don't have the Spirit of Christ, you're not

42:40

His. And so they are totally dependent on the direction of the

42:46

Watchtower organization to lead them and guide them. That is why the average Jehovah's Witness cannot understand the

42:52

Bible by themselves. In fact, Tony, we're going to have to let you pick up where I left off, because I went way beyond.

43:00

This time has been flowing by, or flying by so quickly, I should have taken a break 13 minutes ago.

43:09

So, folks, I'm just going to take a briefer -than -normal break here, and then we'll have to extend a break somewhere else in the show.

43:18

But we hope that you join us on the air with your own question at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

43:24

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Call 1 -800 -669 -4870. Welcome back.

48:01

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Tony Costa. We're speaking about the false god and false

48:08

Christ of the Jehovah's Witnesses. And I had to interrupt you when you were in the middle of talking about you were answering

48:18

Johnny from Queens, New York. One of his questions that involved, do any Jehovah's Witness elders today have a prophetic gift?

48:27

Yes, and I was just mentioning that in the Watchtower, the only ones who have the Holy Spirit are the anointed class.

48:34

And to be a member of the Governing Council, they presumably are members of this class.

48:41

They're believed to be anointed by God. They have the Holy Spirit. They're part of this 144 ,000. And because they have the

48:48

Holy Spirit, only they can direct the organization. So the average Jehovah's Witness does not believe that they can understand the

48:55

Bible by themselves. In fact, the Watchtower literature makes it very clear that without Jehovah's Organization, you cannot understand the

49:03

Bible. It's similar to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about that only

49:08

Mother Church has the right to interpret the scriptures. The laity don't have that right. And so that is the position of the

49:15

Jehovah's Witnesses. And this is why there's a bit of an anxiety with the

49:20

Watchtower, because for one thing, they were teaching for many, many, many years until a number of years ago they had to change their position.

49:29

But one of their views was that the generation that saw the event of 1914, that is the

49:34

First World War, the generation that saw the event of 1914 would not disappear or die out until Jehovah's Kingdom would be realized.

49:46

That is to say, Armageddon would take place and the Paradise Search would be established and so forth.

49:52

Well, the generation of 1914, they're gone. They're dead. All the veterans who were alive to see the event of the

50:00

First World War, even as children or teenagers, they're gone. So now they've had to change that.

50:05

They had to remove that reference to the year 1914. And so as this number of the anointed cross is beginning to dwindle, there's a bit of an angst there, because who's going to lead the organization?

50:20

So what I think is going to happen, Chris, is they're going to claim that they have new light, the light's getting brighter, and that is usually used as a justification for changing or reforming some of their past doctrines.

50:36

And I'm trying to remember if you answered all of Johnny's questions. Let's see here,

50:43

Johnny. Oh, he says, Who are the ones now writing Awake and other

50:48

JW literature? Yeah, these would be editors at the

50:55

Watchtower in upstate New York. They're the ones who are responsible. We don't know who the writers are, because if you pick up a

51:03

Watchtower magazine or an Awake magazine, you'll notice there is no authors. They don't type out the names, the identities of the authors who've written the various articles.

51:15

These are writers who work under the auspices of the Governing Body. Everything is cleared with the

51:21

Governing Body, and it's from there that it goes out into the

51:28

Kingdom Halls throughout the world. So the writers of the modern -day Watchtower Awake magazines, this is basically an editorial team that works under the direction and the auspices of the

51:39

Governing Council. Well, thank you, Johnny, and you are to be depended upon for excellent questions.

51:47

So keep sending those questions in, and keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Queens, New York.

51:54

We have a mutual friend who has written in,

52:00

Brother Gary Judge, who is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Chapel in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

52:10

And I usually don't give the full identity of listeners, unless they are pastors that I can, in good conscience, very hardly recommend.

52:19

And by the way, for those of you wondering how to find out more about Sovereign Grace Chapel, in Southbridge, Massachusetts, go to SovereignGraceMA, which is the abbreviation for Massachusetts, SovereignGraceMA .org.

52:33

But Pastor Gary says, In seminary I heard esteemed professor Dr. Meredith Klein, and of course,

52:40

Dr. Meredith Klein being one of the finest women scholars, finest female scholars who ever lived, and I am kidding, folks,

52:48

I know that Meredith Klein is a man. He ranks up there with Lorraine Bettner and Kim Riddlebarger.

52:58

Lorraine sounds like a woman's name too, Lorraine. Yes, and Kim Riddlebarger. But anyway, he says,

53:08

Dr. Meredith Klein said that Michael the Archangel was Jesus Christ. Other respected commentators concur.

53:15

How does the JW view on Michael the Archangel differ from these

53:22

Orthodox evangelicals? And that is a very excellent question, and we're going to have you answer that question when we return from the midway break, which we have to go to right now.

53:33

And that is a longer than normal break, folks. Please be patient with us as we go to this longer break, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

53:41

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us the longer break in the middle, because they air this show twice daily in a pre -recorded format, and the

53:48

FCC requires of them to air local public service announcements and other things to localize this show to Lake City, Florida.

53:56

So while they air those local announcements, we air our globally heard commercials. Please use this time wisely by writing down as many, or as much,

54:04

I should say, of the information provided by as many of our advertisers as you can, so that you can more successfully and more frequently patronize them, which will result,

54:14

God willing, in us remaining on the air longer, because our financial supporters continue to advertise with us, and we rely upon their advertising dollars to exist.

54:26

So please try to write down that information and patronize them as often as you can.

54:33

And also send in questions to Tony Costa about the Jehovah's Witnesses at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

54:39

chrisarnson at gmail .com. So don't go away, folks. We are going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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When Iron Trump and Zion Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine Christian organizations to remain on the air, like the

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Historical Bible Society. The Historical Bible Society maintains a collection of Christian books, manuscripts, and Bibles of historical significance spanning nearly a thousand years.

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The mission of HBS is the preservation and public display of ancient scripture, dissemination of scripture, to provide tools equipping believers and Christian apologetics with evidence for the

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Since 2004, HBS has toured schools and churches throughout the

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today. Thank you, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, for your faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

01:00:04

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous Bible Church. It strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And, of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

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Here's what Gary DeMar, President of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

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Good to be back, Chris. I always enjoy our time. I have to tell you, you're one of the better interviewers out there, and I've been doing this for more than 30 years.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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We're in good shape. I'm glad you said it on the air, so I don't have to brag about myself.

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This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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The Pandemic Exclusion? Since 2006, most insurance companies added this clause to enable them to deny your income loss claims in the event of a worldwide pandemic.

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Do not give up. No matter what state you live in, call Buttafuoco & Associates now at 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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01:14:36

Before we return to Dr. Tony Costa's discussion on the Jehovah's Witnesses, we have some important announcements to make.

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Scriptures. That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Dr. Tony Costa about the false

01:18:56

God and false Christ of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:19:02

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And as you may recall, Tony, our brotherness

01:19:09

Gary Judge in Southbridge, Massachusetts, was stating that Meredith Klein taught that Michael the

01:19:20

Archangel was Jesus Christ. In fact, I have heard a handful of other very highly respected evangelicals and even

01:19:31

Reformed evangelicals make that claim. So how does their claim, and specifically

01:19:36

Meredith Klein's claim, differ from the Jehovah's Witness view on that? Yeah, well, first of all,

01:19:43

I'm glad to hear that brotherness was able to get on that grade, and I miss Pastor George as well, and so a big hello to Pastor George in Massachusetts.

01:19:53

So yes, Dr. Meredith Klein was of the conviction as well that Michael was

01:19:58

Christ, and of course, we could also throw into the mix classical commentators like Matthew Henry.

01:20:05

If you read Matthew Henry's commentaries on Daniel and the book Revelation, they're available online, you'll notice that he also, he interprets

01:20:13

Michael to be Jesus Christ. The difference between Matthew Henry and Meredith Klein and others, of course, is that they believe that Michael was a title or a name for the pre -incarnate

01:20:28

Son, and that Michael being the Lord Jesus Christ was still the eternal

01:20:34

Son of God. Now, L. N. G. White, incidentally, the Sunday Adventists also hold to this view that Michael is simply another name for Christ, but the

01:20:46

Sunday Adventists, at least according to their statement of faith, they espouse the full deity of Christ as well.

01:20:54

The Jehovah's Witnesses do not. The Jehovah's Witnesses will say that Michael, the archangel, was the first and greatest creation of Jehovah God, and so they take an

01:21:04

Arian view of Christ, that Christ was the first creature that God created, and therefore the difference, of course, is that Klein and Henry and others believe that Michael was another title, but that it was another title for the eternal

01:21:21

Son of God. Now, part of the problem, I think, with this view, and I don't think there's really,

01:21:27

I don't believe there's biblical support for this, I think that the flip -up is the name

01:21:33

Michael itself, because in Hebrew, the name Michael, of course, in Hebrew, traditionally commentators thought it meant something like one who is like God, but Michael actually does not, it doesn't really mean one who is like God.

01:21:52

It is actually a name that has an interrogative, an interrogative is basically a question, and what

01:22:00

Michael literally means is, who is like God? In other words, who is like God?

01:22:05

Question mark. And the answer, of course, is no one. No one is like God. No one is like the Lord.

01:22:11

You see this in the name Micah, the prophet Micah. Micah means who is like Yahweh. Of course, that doesn't mean the prophet

01:22:17

Michael is Yahweh, but his name means who is like Yahweh, and the answer, of course, is no one. And therefore, the name

01:22:24

Michael is applied to this archangel in the Bible, because this archangel is the warrior angel, he is also the guardian angel of Israel, according to Daniel 12, verse 1, and we know he's not the

01:22:38

Lord Jesus Christ, simply because in Daniel chapter 10, verse 13, Michael is referred to as one of the chief princes, one of the chief princes.

01:22:47

Therefore, he is not unique, he is one among others. There's other chief princes, and Jewish literature refers to these others as Gabriel and Raphael and Uriel.

01:23:01

They believe in these seven archangels, and so Michael is not unique. He's only one in a class of others.

01:23:07

That cannot be said of the Lord Jesus, who is unique as God, and we know from Hebrews 1 that God never said to any of the angels, sit at my right hand, and to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, sit at my right hand, and so forth.

01:23:22

And also, I think, Chris, in Jude 9, Jude tells us that the archangel

01:23:28

Michael, when he was disputing with the devil over the body of Moses, it says that Michael did not dare bring a railing accusation against the devil, but he said, the

01:23:39

Lord rebukes you. This is something that can never be said about the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ openly rebuked

01:23:45

Satan directly. Michael does not do so, and if you understand the

01:23:53

Greek text behind Jude 9, it tells us that that Michael did not dare. The word dare to mean, dare is a word that means not doing something out of fear of retaliation, and so Michael was under authority.

01:24:06

He did not have the right to directly rebuke the devil, and of course that's because he is not in that position to do so.

01:24:15

This cannot be said of the Lord Jesus Christ, who rebuked Satan throughout his ministry, and he is unique, whereas Michael is simply one of the chief princes.

01:24:26

So, notwithstanding Dr. Klein and Matthew Henry and others, they still remain

01:24:33

Trinitarian. They did not take Michael to mean anything but Christ being one who is like God, but still, they affirmed his full deity.

01:24:42

Jehovah's Witnesses, on the other hand, will say that Christ the archangel Michael is a creature, the first and greatest creation of Jehovah God.

01:24:52

And that would be pretty much similar to the circumstance that you have with, sometimes you have noted evangelicals that surprise their fellow evangelical

01:25:07

Protestants when they adhere to a teaching that is not common amongst evangelicals, like even

01:25:13

D .A. Carson believes that that Peter was the rock of which

01:25:21

Jesus Christ spoke of when he said that thou art

01:25:26

Peter and this is the rock upon which I build my church. Most evangelicals teach that that is the profession that Jesus is

01:25:38

Lord, that is the rock upon which the church is built. But D .A. Carson and some others believe that that he was talking about Peter, just like the

01:25:48

Roman Catholics believe. The huge difference is that D .A.

01:25:53

Carson and no evangelical worth his salt would claim that there were successors that follow the line of the

01:26:00

Roman Catholic bishops and so on. Right, right, right, and yeah, and also

01:26:06

D .A. Carson mispronounces Isaiah as Isaiah. And in every Scotsman.

01:26:12

And also the same could be said,

01:26:23

Chris, the same could be said about, of course, we were on last year with our brother

01:26:28

Chris Gate, and the same can be said about a majority of evangelicals hold to eternal conscious torment, but there are some who, within the evangelical fold, and even reformed, like Chris Gate, who would hold to a view of something like annihilationism, but we can will be annihilated at the end.

01:26:47

And so, yes, we have this gray area where we can agree to disagree on some of these disputable matters.

01:26:58

But one thing that must be stressed is that when Klein and Henry and others argued that Jesus was

01:27:03

Michael, they certainly did not mean by that that Jesus was a creature, but that he was very

01:27:09

God of very God. So there was still that affirmation of his full deity. And, of course, far less

01:27:16

Orthodox, infinitely less less Orthodox than Meredith Klein and Matthew Henry had the late

01:27:25

Harold Camping, who was really the head of his own cult eventually.

01:27:31

He believed that Jesus was Michael the Archangel as well. But our second question from Pastor Gary George is, was

01:27:43

Michael Jackson a Jehovah's Witness at one time? And do you know of any other celebrities who are

01:27:49

Jehovah's Witnesses? Yes, I happen to know that the whole family was at one time. I don't know if Michael continued to profess to be a

01:27:58

Jehovah's Witness right up until the time of his death. Maybe you know something I don't know. Yeah, well, he was definitely raised a

01:28:07

Jehovah's Witness, but I think he started to drift away from that. Obviously, Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the good life that many celebrities live, because there's always alcohol and drugs involved, and of course, sexual prosecuting.

01:28:23

All these things would be condemned by the Watchtower. So I think at heart, he was still a Jehovah's Witness near the end, but he definitely was not living up to the standards that Jehovah's Witnesses would be expected to live.

01:28:37

The Prince, apparently, the singer Prince, did move into the

01:28:44

Jehovah's Witnesses later in his life before he died, so there's another celebrity there.

01:28:50

Apparently he vacillated back and forth on his stance for or against homosexuality and same -sex marriage, so he wasn't like a thoroughly committed

01:29:03

Jehovah's Witness, but he basically, in a waffling sort of way, from what I understand, maintained some kind of affiliation, at least in his profession, even up until the time of his death.

01:29:18

That was the answer to the other question, Prince, but do you know of any other celebrities? Not that I know of, no.

01:29:27

Okay, well thank you, Brother Gary George, pastor of Sovereign Grace Chapel in Southbridge, Massachusetts, and remember

01:29:37

SovereignGraceMA .org is the website for his church.

01:29:45

We have Cynthia in Findlay, Ohio.

01:29:53

Hello Chris and Dr. Costa, thank you for taking the time to read my question. I have an assortment of Jehovah's Witness literature and I recall a particular statement made by the

01:30:03

Watchtower Society which I am unable to locate in my documents. I'm wondering if you recall a statement similar to the following, if a man reads the

01:30:11

Bible without the assistance of the Watchtower literature, he will come to the conclusion that God is a trinity.

01:30:18

This is not the exact wording, but is representative of the idea.

01:30:24

Thank you Chris and Dr. Costa for today's show. Well, have you ever heard anything like that? Yes, yes, and as a matter of fact,

01:30:32

I don't know if I, I thought I saw a copy of that very quote here on my desk. That's an amazing admission, because most cults say the opposite, that you would never come to that conclusion from the

01:30:45

Bible alone, that God is a trinity. Well, it's amazing that Cynthia asked that question, because I was putting away some of my files, and lo and behold, here on my desk

01:30:57

I have the Watchtower, December 1st, 1990, and this is page 19, and here's the quote.

01:31:04

I guess this is even providential that we have this question, and it says this, quote, this is from the

01:31:10

Watchtower, we have the opportunity to show love for our brothers who take the lead in the congregation or in connection with Jehovah's Visible Organization worldwide, and then it says, let us face the fact that no matter how much

01:31:21

Bible reading we have done, we would never have learned the truth on our own. We would not have discovered the truth regarding Jehovah, his purposes and attributes, the meaning and importance of his name, the kingdom,

01:31:34

Jesus' ransom, the difference between God's organization and Satan's, nor why

01:31:39

God has permitted wickedness. So this is just one among many. There are other quotes in Watchtower material that does say that if you read the

01:31:51

Bible by yourself and don't read it alongside of the Watchtower material, it does say that people have been known to apostatize from the

01:32:00

Watchtower and adopted the doctrine of the Trinity, coming to believe in Jesus Christ as fully

01:32:05

God and fully man and so forth, and believing that the Bible alone is sufficient. So yes,

01:32:11

Cynthia is correct. I don't have the immediate reference here, but I have read it before, and it is definitely in the record.

01:32:21

So you're absolutely right. The Watchtower openly admits that if you abandon their literature and just read the

01:32:27

Bible alone, this will lead you out of the Watchtower and into a professing

01:32:33

Christian. We have, let's see,

01:32:41

RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, although most

01:32:46

Jehovah's Witnesses claim that there is only one true God and he is Jehovah, are they really not monotheists but actually henotheists who believe in one supreme

01:33:00

God amongst lesser gods or at least one other lesser

01:33:06

God being Jesus Christ in their theology? That is an interesting observation because I have heard the same thing, especially when a

01:33:20

Jehovah's Witness might be cornered in a discussion or debate when they are claiming that the

01:33:28

Greek of the New Testament is teaching that in the beginning was the

01:33:34

Word and the Word was a God rather than the Word was God. If you're saying that the

01:33:40

Word Jesus Christ was a God, then you are saying he was a God, and you're making the claim he was not, however, equal to Jehovah.

01:33:50

So do you agree with that assessment, that they are, even if they wouldn't call themselves henotheists?

01:33:57

Yes, this is one issue I agree with the questioner, and that is,

01:34:04

Jehovah's Witnesses are not true monotheists. They don't believe in only one true God, because they do believe

01:34:09

Jesus Christ is a God, and they also will say that Satan, 2 Corinthians 4, 4, the God of the Sages, blinds the minds of those who do not believe.

01:34:17

They will say even Satan is a God. And so Jehovah's Witnesses try to get around that by saying, we believe there's only one true

01:34:24

God who's Almighty, and that is Jehovah the Father, but Jesus Christ is a Mighty God.

01:34:30

And so they'll say, Isaiah 9, 6, the child to be born will be the Mighty God. And so they will tell you the

01:34:37

Almighty is Jehovah the Father, and the Mighty God is Jesus Christ. Well, that's two gods, that's not one.

01:34:42

And so in John 17, verse 3, it's a favorite Jehovah's Witness pet text,

01:34:48

Jesus texted the Father and said, eternal life is this, that they may believe in you, the only true

01:34:54

God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So Jesus refers to the Father as the only true

01:35:00

God. And so Jehovah's Witnesses will say, but Jesus is also a God. Okay, well...

01:35:05

And don't they believe that they are gods, as, you know, when they're quoting the

01:35:14

Old Testament, ye are gods? Well, Jehovah's Witnesses, in their earlier writings by Charles Russell, they said the 144 ,000 are gods who rule with Jesus Christ, and that's because they believe that the 144 ,000 are

01:35:31

Christ's spirit brothers, and therefore they are seen as god -like because they rule with Jesus Christ.

01:35:39

But what they would do is they would take Psalm 82, verse 6 as well, to try to say, well yeah, there's other gods.

01:35:45

The only problem though, Chris, is that there's a difference between someone being god by nature and something called a god, because it may be, for example, an idol, or in the case of judges, because they represent

01:35:58

God, and therefore they can execute criminals to death, and that type of stuff. But the whole point is this.

01:36:04

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ is a true God, but he is not the true, eternal

01:36:10

God. So, pantheism is probably the best way to describe this. They believe in one supreme, almighty

01:36:17

God, but they don't deny the existence of lesser gods. What is the appropriate...

01:36:23

Go ahead, I'm sorry. I'm sorry? Go ahead, I interrupted you mid -sentence there. Go ahead. No, no,

01:36:29

I was just saying that whichever way you slice it, Jehovah's Witnesses are not strict monotheists.

01:36:34

They believe that Jesus Christ and Satan are gods as well. Now, how would you properly exegete

01:36:42

Psalm 82, verse 6? I said, you are gods, and all of you are sons of the

01:36:49

Most High. Well, I mean, the two main interpretations, the predominant interpretation has been that the judges there are human judges that are representing

01:37:02

God. And so the word Elohim in Hebrew can refer, in some cases, it can refer to angels, heavenly messengers, and in that particular case, it's referring to, in Psalm 82, verse 6, it seems to be referring, in the immediate context, it seems to be referring to the heavenly beings there.

01:37:23

That is the view that is held by, I would say, a minority group in scholarship, like people like Michael Heiser, for example, and others.

01:37:33

I personally, Chris, I used to hold to the view that these were judges, human judges.

01:37:39

But by looking at Psalm 82 and looking at what the Dead Sea Scroll community thought about that Psalm as well,

01:37:46

I think the reference there is referring to the heavenly beings. And the reason why they are called

01:37:53

Elohim, or gods, is because they belong to the class of these heavenly creatures.

01:38:02

In other words, the name Elohim can refer to the one true God, but it can also refer to the heavenly court as well.

01:38:12

And so, my opinion of Psalm 82, in its immediate context,

01:38:19

I believe refers to these heavenly beings. Now, again, there are others. I know

01:38:24

Dr. James White takes the position that these are human judges, but they are called gods.

01:38:31

Even Jesus says that they were called gods to whom the word of God came, and that is based on the idea that these judges represent

01:38:41

God in the judgment seat, and that they can execute the death penalty on those who break the law.

01:38:51

So, we need to differentiate what we mean by the word God. We have, let's see, we have

01:39:03

Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who said you were listing splinter groups earlier from the

01:39:11

Jehovah's Witness, and you failed to mention the Christian Witnesses of JAH, a group formed by former

01:39:21

Jehovah's Witness Greg Stafford, who was one of their only apologists at one time debating

01:39:28

Christians in public, including Dr. James R. White. That's interesting. Yes, I had heard that Greg Stafford was forced out.

01:39:38

I can't remember exactly if he was forced out or voluntarily left when he knew that the writing was on the wall. But Greg Stafford, who was a force to be reckoned with, according to Dr.

01:39:47

White himself, he knew that he was acting as a maverick when he was debating people like James without the express permission of the

01:40:02

Watchtower and Track Society, because they don't even believe in that kind of interaction with evangelicals. So, I know that he did form the

01:40:10

Christian Witnesses of JAH, but I don't know if that's actually a group. I don't know if you know whether or not this is only a group of one person,

01:40:19

Greg Stafford, or if he actually has members who... Yeah, yeah. That's why

01:40:25

I didn't really mention him, because of that. They're very, very small, and I don't even know if they're even a registered group.

01:40:31

I mean, when I first heard the term the Witnesses of JAH, I thought it was something from the Black Hebrew Israelites. It sounds something like their own camp.

01:40:39

But there are people like Greg Stafford, and others like him, who have started these little groups.

01:40:47

They have their own YouTube channels, and so they're very small.

01:40:52

And that is why I really didn't go into that. I do acknowledge, though, there have been a bunch of groups coming out of the Watchtower, but they're not as significant as what we see, for example, in Mormonism, with the

01:41:02

Reorganized Church, or with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.

01:41:09

Well, we have to go to our final break. It's going to be shorter than the last break, so you don't have to worry about that, folks.

01:41:16

But please, if you intend to send in a question, send it in immediately, because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:41:24

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:41:29

And as always, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, if you live outside the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We are going to be right back with more of Dr. Tony Costa and Jehovah's Witnesses right after these messages from our sponsors.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. This is

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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01:51:41

Thank you. Welcome back. And Dr. Tony Costa, we have a question for you from Mary in Cork, Ireland.

01:51:50

Mary in Cork, Ireland wants to know, what are the best verses to use when confronting a

01:51:57

Jehovah's Witness in defense of the deity of Jesus Christ? Yes, the method that I use actually pertains to the bodily resurrection of the

01:52:09

Lord Jesus. If Christ is not raised, Paul says, your faith is vain, and we are yet in our sins.

01:52:15

And so the resurrection of Jesus was the declaration that demonstrated that He was indeed the

01:52:22

Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. So what I do is

01:52:28

I deal with this question of the bodily resurrection of Christ, and it ends up, of course, vindicating the deity.

01:52:34

So just to give you an idea of how I treat Jehovah's Witnesses when they do come to my door.

01:52:40

Many of them have actually been told not to come to my door. Apparently they've been blacklisted. I don't even know if I could use that term, blacklisted.

01:52:48

But when they do come to my door,

01:52:54

I ask them the question, do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus? I try not to teach them directly because they're told not to listen to anyone but their own leaders, of course.

01:53:04

So I ask them, what do they believe about the resurrection? And they'll say, yes, we believe that Jesus was raised from the dead.

01:53:09

And then I nudge them a bit, and I ask them, do you believe that Jesus Christ rose bodily from the grave?

01:53:17

And they'll say, well, no, we don't believe that. We believe that Jesus Christ was raised as a spirit creature.

01:53:24

And what then I would do is I would ask them, can you explain a passage of Scripture to me?

01:53:30

I take them to John chapter 2, verses 18 to 22. That's John chapter 2, verses 18 to 22, where Jesus cleanses the temple.

01:53:39

And then the religious leaders ask him, by what authority do you do these things? And then Jesus says, destroy this temple, and in three days

01:53:45

I will raise it up again. And it goes on to say he was speaking about the temple of his body, and then when he was raised as a sacrifice, remember this.

01:53:53

This is crucial. This is very important. Because what that passage shows is that Jesus not only predicted his resurrection, but he said that he would raise himself.

01:54:03

Now this, of course, is not what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. They'll say the Father raised them. But Jesus there says,

01:54:11

I will raise it up. He will raise the temple of his body. And that is a very profound statement.

01:54:17

Now as Trinitarians, we believe the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit raised the body of Christ. But in John 2,

01:54:25

Jesus points out he will do this himself. Now it's important because John goes on to say that the temple

01:54:31

Jesus is speaking about is the temple of his body, verse 21 of chapter 2. That contradicts the

01:54:39

Jehovah's Witness assertion that Jesus Christ was raised as a spirit creature.

01:54:45

Now that's important. What I do then, Chris, is I go to Luke 24, verses 39 -43. That's Luke 24, verses 39 -43, where the risen

01:54:53

Christ meets the disciples, and they are frightened. They think they saw a spirit or a ghost, which is very interesting, because that's what

01:55:02

Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus came back as, as a spirit. He tells them, look at my hands and my feet.

01:55:11

It is I myself. A spirit does not have flesh and bone as I have. And then he asks for bread or a boiled fish, and he eats it in their presence to show, of course, the reality of his resurrected body.

01:55:25

And then after that, I take them to John 20, verses 26 -29, and there we have the encounter of the risen

01:55:33

Jesus with Thomas, a very important passage where Jesus appears and tells

01:55:39

Thomas, put your finger into my side and look at my hands and thrust your finger into the holes in my hand, and so forth, to which

01:55:49

Thomas responds, my Lord and my God. And then Jesus says, blessed are those who have not seen but yet believe.

01:55:57

Now that's an important passage because the risen Christ appears to Thomas and invites

01:56:03

Thomas to tangibly prove and see that it is really him, and Thomas responds with this wonderful confession, which brings us back to John 1.

01:56:15

And it's considered to be the climax of the Gospel of John, where Thomas confesses, finally the doubter,

01:56:22

Thomas the doubter, finally confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord and God.

01:56:28

Now, John's witnesses will say, well, no, Thomas just, you know, Thomas was so shocked, he said, oh, my

01:56:34

Lord, oh, my God. That's not what he said. He wasn't using an expletive there. Thomas was confessing

01:56:40

Jesus to be his Lord and God, and Jesus, of course, says, because you've seen me you believe, blessed are those who have not seen but believe.

01:56:49

So a couple of points we can gather from these three passages. Number one, Jesus said he would raise his own body from the dead.

01:56:56

That refutes the Watchtower's teaching that Jesus was raised as a spirit. And number two, in Luke 24,

01:57:03

Jesus verifies that it is truly him risen from the dead by showing the marks on his hands and feet and eating food.

01:57:09

And number three, the resurrected Christ is vindicated as Lord and God by Thomas himself, the doubter.

01:57:18

So this is a wonderful way to reach Jehovah's Witnesses, and it also ends with, of course, a statement and a declaration of the

01:57:28

Lord Jesus Christ and his whole deity. Dr. James R. White years ago taught a very excellent pairing of Old and New Testament texts that he has used that I still remember to this day as well that I think you should use when speaking to Jehovah's Witnesses.

01:57:49

If you go to Psalm 102, 25 -27, and you ask a

01:57:56

Jehovah's Witness, In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

01:58:06

They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like clothing.

01:58:12

You will change them, and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.

01:58:18

And the question is then asked to the Jehovah's Witness, Who is that? Oh, that's Jehovah, of course. And then, of course, you go to Hebrews 1 -12, and for the sake of time, you scroll down to verse 8.

01:58:36

But about the Son, he says, your throne, O God, will last forever and ever. That's your throne,

01:58:43

O God, will last forever and ever. A scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. And then going down to the last couple of verses,

01:58:51

In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain.

01:58:58

They will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a garment. They will be changed, but you remain the same, and your years will never end.

01:59:07

Obviously, if it's speaking about the Son, that is Jesus Christ. And there is a similar pairing that we don't have time to go into with Isaiah 6, 1 -10, and John 12, 30 -41.

01:59:23

But we are out of time right now. Tony Costa, it's been such a pleasure. Do you have a website that you can recommend our listeners go to to find out more about you and your ministry?

01:59:33

Well, I would just recommend go to my Facebook page, Tony Costa. Most of my material is connected to that Facebook page.

01:59:42

And so, yeah, I'll leave you with my Facebook page. Great, and I want to thank everybody who listened today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater