Jehovahs Witnesses' Propaganda and Jesus | Collision w/ Jeff Durbin

What's up everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin. This is yet another episode of Collision. Today we're dealing with the Jehovah's Witnesses and their video, Is Jesus Christ God?

Let's do this.

The Watchtower's Challenge to the Deity of Christ

So we're dealing with the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. This is, in history, a fairly new counterfeit Christian religion, a fairly new non-Christian cult. And they, from the inception, have had the normative issues that you would see in something that is a counterfeit Christian cult.

And that is a denial of the ultimacy of scripture, the authority of scripture. You have the authority spread between an alleged commitment to scripture and the leading authorities, the prophet of that group, that always ultimately ends up subverting the authority of the scriptures and the teachings of biblical truth, historic Christian orthodoxy.

And so what will you always see the counterfeit Christian cults going for? They will be going for the deity of Christ, that is that Jesus Christ is truly God. And of course, truly man. They'll go after the doctrine of the Trinity and they will go after the doctrine of salvation.

How is a person reconciled to God? How does somebody have peace with God? So whoever you're dealing with, whether it is Mormonism, whether it's the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and the Jehovah's Witnesses, whether it's the Rosicrucians, the Christian scientists, the Branch Davidians, what you'll typically see are some common themes in terms of how they started and how they end up operating in terms of as an organization.

And with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, you have a number of issues you can deal with. You can deal with the false prophecies, God in scripture lays down a standard and a task for prophets in Deuteronomy chapter 18.

If you have even a single false prophecy, you are a false prophet. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Association, this organization, the Jehovah's Witnesses have had a history of false prophecies. And so that's one angle, but another angle is Deuteronomy chapter 13.

And in Deuteronomy chapter 13, God warns his people that if they want to know if somebody is truly from God, if they're a prophet of God, they may even be convincing. They may have signs and wonders, God says, but if they lead you after other gods, gods which you have not known, that's how you know they're a false prophet.

And so God, long before Charles Taze Russell appeared, the first prophet of the Watchtower, long before Judge Rutherford or any of the modern leaders in the organization, God had already laid down a test of how you know someone's a prophet.

And in Deuteronomy 13, that test is, what do they say about God? Do they lead you after a different God? In other words, God's revealed himself. And in that revelation, God's told us about himself. He's told us about his character, his nature, his person.

And if somebody comes and it seems convincing, it feels right, it seems right, but they contradict God's previous revelation, that's how you know they're a false prophet. And you'll see the Watchtower do that, specifically taking aim here at the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, the fact that Jesus Christ is truly God, fully God, that he's the mighty God. There is only one God according to scripture. And the question is, is Jesus God? The Watchtower doesn't believe that Jesus Christ is eternal God.

So here's a video.

Is Jesus Almighty God or a Created Being?

Many people regard Jesus as the most influential person in history. But is he almighty God himself? Or was he simply a good man? Many people personally met Jesus and some of their accounts are found in the Bible.

And we'll start there. So the question for them is, is Jesus the almighty God? Because one thing that Jehovah's Witnesses will affirm is that there is only one true mighty God or almighty God. There's only one true eternal God, only one true being of God.

And what they actually believe is something that is really a respun ancient heresy. And that's the heresy of Arianism. And that is that Jesus is the first and greatest creation of Jehovah God, that Jesus was created by the Father, that he's not in fact himself eternally existent alongside the Father or in fellowship with the Father.

And so what the Jehovah's Witnesses will obviously admit to is that Jesus Christ is a powerful being, that he is the son of the eternal God, but they will not admit what scripture admits to, and that's that Jesus Christ is actually by nature God.

He's the God man, and that Jesus Christ is eternal God. So the question here is, does the Bible teach that there is only one God? And does the Bible teach that Jesus Christ actually is eternal God?

That's the question.

And we'll go to the scriptures to answer those questions, but let's get a little bit more here into this video to see what they say.

The Bible's Witness to Jesus' Identity

Revealing who Jesus really is. For instance, an angel spoke to Jesus' mother about her unborn son and said, this one will be great and will be called son of the most high. When Jesus was being baptized, God's own voice confirmed Jesus' identity.

This is my son, the beloved whom I have approved. What did his followers believe? When Jesus asked who they thought he was, Peter responded, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. What did Jesus' enemies say?

Those wanting to kill him explained why. According to the law, he ought to die because he made himself God's son.

And there you go. So it's interesting that they put that specific verse in there because what is being attempted here is to emphasize the person of Christ, the person of Jesus Christ and his identity and his relationship to the father.

So how do we tend to think in human categories? We tend to think of human sons as the offspring of the father. And so, well, that would mean that Jesus is the offspring of the father in the same sense that we are.

So he was created. The attempt is being made here to subvert the total teaching of scripture about the identity of Jesus Christ. So yes, scripture says Jesus is God's son.

Absolutely.

That's his relationship to the father. That is who Jesus is. There's no denying that historic Christian Orthodoxy has never denied that the Bible shouts that truth. But as you work through this, you also see them emphasizing that the father spoke from heaven to Jesus.

This is a son of my love. And what's interesting here is when you talk to the average Jehovah's witness because of the mischaracterizations of the Trinity given by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah's witnesses tend to understand the Trinity as Jesus is God.

So Jesus is the father. So they'll say things like, well, if Jesus is God, how is he talking to himself from heaven? What's this voice coming from heaven? Is Jesus throwing his voice? Is he a ventriloquist?

And so they'll bring up texts like that where the father says from heaven, in the baptism of Jesus, this is my beloved son. They'll say, well, how is that possible? The father's calling Jesus his son.

And the answer from scripture is that's the identity of the Messiah. That's his person. That's his relationship to the father. But the question is, has Jesus eternally existed alongside the father? And is Jesus by very nature God?

Because there's only one true and living God. Christians and Jehovah's witnesses will believe that.

But it is interesting.

In the texts that they're citing here, they're making mention of the fact that the Jews of Jesus' day were offended by what Christ was claiming about himself. He wasn't claiming to just be a prophet. He wasn't claiming as Messiah, just this elevated status of prophet and a good man and a good teacher.

Jesus was identifying himself as having a unique relationship with the father that didn't exist with anybody else. He was identifying himself as actually one with the father. And they said, at times, he's making himself equal with God, so he should die because he's taking the prerogatives of God.

He's making himself equal with God by calling himself God's son. And they were offended by this. And actually, in John 19, that's the same book where in John chapter eight, Jesus says to the Jews, "'Unless you believe, Ego Emi,' and he cites the Old Testament subdugent translation of the scriptures, and he quotes the very name of God, where we get the name Jehovah, Yahweh.

And he applies that to himself and says to the Jews of his day, "'Unless you believe, Ego Emi, you will die in your sins.'". Unless you believe, and he takes a divine name upon himself, I am, you will die in your sins.

And later in that very chapter, Jesus actually says something about Abraham. He says, before Abraham was, I am. What's interesting there is the Jews knew exactly what he was saying when he said that, because they knew the divine name of God.

And in John chapter eight, the last of the chapter, it says they picked up stones to kill Jesus because he wasn't just claiming to be a Messiah, man, prophet, highly exalted prophet. He was actually taking the divine prerogatives, forgiving sin.

He was taking the divine name upon himself and saying that unless they believe that he was, I am, they were gonna die in their sins. So in the same book, John 19 is in, in John 10, next, he says, "'I and the Father are one,' and they pick up stones to kill Jesus.

And he says to them, "'Many good works have I shown you from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?'. And they said, "'For thy good works we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and that you being a man, make yourself God.'".

It's something that Jehovah's Witnesses don't want to admit to. And that is that Jesus Christ did not just simply emphasize his relationship to the Father as son, and his identity as son, but he also emphasized the fact that he is God himself.

Now, the Jews of Jesus' day seem to have understood something that the Jehovah's Witnesses don't understand today. They understood that what Jesus claiming what he did and taking the divine name of God upon himself and exercising divine prerogatives like the forgiveness of sins, they understood that he was claiming to be God in the flesh.

So let's go on and we'll add more to the conversation.

The Incarnation and Christ's Humiliation

What did Jesus himself say about his identity and relationship to God? He told his followers, "'The Father is greater than I am.'". Even after his death and resurrection, Jesus said this about his future.

"'I am ascending to my father and your father, and to my God and your God.'".

This is really important here. What's important that gets missed by Jehovah's Witnesses very often is the glory of the incarnation, the glory of the incarnation. So to demonstrate that, a good text would be Philippians chapter two.

In Philippians chapter two, the apostle Paul has a conversation about Jesus. And he says in two verse four, he says, "'Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.'". So what they miss, and the counterfeit Christian cults all do, and they want to ignore these texts or even pervert these texts, is they miss the glory of the incarnation.

That in the incarnation, Paul is saying here that Jesus was in the very form of God. He was God by nature, but he did not consider equality with God, the father here, a thing to be grasped or held onto, but he emptied himself and he became obedient unto the point of death.

He took on flesh. He became one of us. He submitted himself to the will of the father as a man. There were divine prerogatives of Jesus that were obviously veiled during his earthly ministry. This Jesus, who was in the very form of God, when he comes in his earthly ministry, he comes lowly.

He comes as a baby who has to nurse at his mother's breast. We think about things like Jesus in this fallen world. As a man, Jesus would have scraped his knee. Jesus bled. Jesus had pimples, probably.

Jesus grew hungry. Jesus grew thirsty. As a man, he humbled himself as a man, as a representative of his people, to represent them. And so as a man, this is exactly how you would expect the perfect Adam, the perfect humanity to act and to obey before the face of the father, is that Jesus lives as the perfect law-keeping human.

He lives before the face of the father with perfection. He humbles himself. He's obedient to the father. He exalts the father. He calls the father God, because the father is by very nature God. But Paul is saying here that in the incarnation, you have Jesus, who was in the very form of God, who humbles himself and becomes obedient.

And so Jesus, yes, you see in his earthly ministry, so many glorious indications of the incarnation, of the God-man, but it sometimes is an effective device for Jehovah's Witnesses to have people hearing Jesus calling the father God and like, well, if Jesus is God, how is he calling the father God?

It's not a problem according to scripture, because the Bible says there's only one God. The father is called God. Jesus is called God. The Holy Spirit is called God. But even better, yes, you have Jesus calling the father God.

You also, and this is key, have the father calling Jesus God. And a good text for that, to demonstrate that to the Jehovah's Witnesses and relative to any counterfeit Christian religion that seeks to subvert the deity of Christ, you just go to Hebrews chapter one.

And in Hebrews, the book of Hebrews is glorious. And the writer of Hebrews is showing you that Jesus exceeds all of the Old Testament prophets, priests, and kings, the temple, the sacrifices. He is a better sacrifice, a better priest, a better king, a better prophet.

And in Hebrews chapter one, it opens and it speaks about Jesus. And it says in verse four, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say?

And then he quotes from the Old Testament. You are my son today, I have begotten you. Or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, listen, let all God's angels worship him.

Here is scripture saying that the father is telling the angels to worship Jesus. Now we know in scripture, it's very clear. You should only worship God, period. And as a matter of fact, you guys are familiar with the story.

I'm sure in the book of Revelation, John is so in awe of this moment with this angel that he falls down to worship the angel and the angel forbids him and says, I'm a servant like you, worship God. You can only worship God.

And here you have in the text, he says, let all God's angels worship Jesus. It goes on though. Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the son, he says, now pause.

Again, the cults will often say, look, Jesus is calling the father God. But here in this text, Hebrews 1, verse eight, it says, but of the son, he, the father says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever.

The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. And this is the substance of the issue.

The scriptures teach, from beginning to end, there is only one true and living God. The Shema, Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, says, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. There is only one God.

It says in Deuteronomy chapter four, verses 35 and 39, that he is God alone in the heavens above and on the earth below, there is no other. Isaiah 43, 10, before me, there was no God form, neither shall there be after me.

Isaiah 44, six, I am the first and I'm the last. Besides me, there is no God. There's really no end to this discussion about the strict monotheism of the Bible. There is only one God by nature, but scripture clearly teaches that the father is called God.

Jesus calls the father God. The scriptures clearly teach that Jesus is called God and the father calls Jesus God. Here in Hebrews chapter one, the scriptures clearly teach that the spirit is called God.

We can do that in another video, but here's what's important because we're talking about Jesus here. The scriptures clearly teach, if we just took the book they're quoting from, John 20, verse 17, that Jesus has existed forever with the father as God.

The book they're quoting from opens up in John chapter one with what, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. It says, an archein hal logos in the Greek, in the beginning was the word.

And the way that that's constructed shows that John is writing to tell you that as far back as you wanna go with no reference point to stopping, forever ago, Jesus was already there. He has no beginning because God has no beginning.

Hey, what's up guys?

Closing Appeal and Resource Information

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