13 - Jehovah Witnesses, Part 3

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of World Religions. We're glad to have you with us.

We are in our class on an introduction to the major Western religions, specifically this lesson will be lesson number three.

We will discuss Jehovah Witnesses. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity.

This is, you can go to the website, strivingforeternity .org, get lots of information.

One of the things you could get there is the syllabus. We have a syllabus that goes along with these classes.

That's one of the things you can pick up there. That is available for $25.

Another thing that would help you with this lesson is, well, my book. Pick up a copy of my book,

What Do They Believe?, which is a systematic theology of the major Western religions.

You could grab that and read much more than you'll get in the syllabus and maybe even some more than you're going to get in class.

I'm not going to give you everything that's in the book because otherwise who would buy the book?

Put you to sleep anyway. But anyway, we've been going through the major Western religions.

We're looking at Jehovah Witnesses this week and this will be the last before we start looking at what

Christianity says and then we're going to give a Christian defense. We're going to answer each of these six theological doctrines that we've been looking at with each of these religions and we're going to look at them in more detail.

That's what we have to look to go. We've looked at the Jehovah Witnesses, what's their authority.

We mentioned that they use the New World Translation and that their authority is going to be in the Watchtower in Brooklyn and their magazines and things like that.

We talked about their view of God, specifically the Trinity and that they do not believe in the Trinity. They have a wrong definition of the

Trinity. They believe that it's three gods in one God. Problem. And we also looked at their view of Jesus Christ.

We mentioned how they believe that Jesus is not God. In fact, they believe that Jesus was

Michael the Archangel. That Michael the Archangel was created. That in that creation is basically that he was the first creation and through him

God created all things and then he became a man and when he died he returned to being an angel.

We then looked, and I want to pick up again if we could, on sin. Sin. Why do

I want to pick up on this? Because when we look into the view of salvation that we're going to look at in a moment, it becomes essential to understand their view of sin.

So let's recap a little bit, if we could. And that is that the Jehovah Witnesses, and I may say

JW's by the way as a short note for this, but the Jehovah Witnesses believe that Adam's sin in the garden caused death and condemnation to pass to his offspring.

They would hold to a view of original sin that is imputed to all people, but the

Jehovah Witnesses teach that all people have a sin nature.

So that's different than we looked at with the Mormons who didn't believe in this.

But it's important to note that their view ends up having an issue that would be different when it comes to an everlasting soul, an immortal soul.

They don't believe in that. Now the reason this becomes important is because as we look at the doctrine of salvation, if you're looking in your syllabus, this is number five under Jehovah Witnesses for salvation.

Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ's death on the cross was to pay the penalty of Adam's sin, that's your blank there,

Adam's sin, not for all people. So again, the

Jehovah Witnesses believe that Christ's death when he was on that cross. Now I know some people argue over the issue of when

Christ was on the cross, did he die just for the elect? Did he die for all people? Well, in Jehovah Witness land, they believe that Christ on the cross died only for Adam's sin and not for all people.

Once Adam's original sin was taken care of, it makes the opportunity for all people to be rewarded with eternal life for their faith in good works.

Now I know that to the Christian sounds a little bit off. You're getting used to this by now,

I think. By this many classes, we're what, in lesson number 13 already? You've heard many different religions and you're hearing they're a little bit off from what the

Bible teaches. We're going to get into that. Faith is necessary in the sense that a person cannot or will not change their lives to obey

God's God without faith. The basis on which

God grants salvation is not simply believing or trusting in God, but exercising faith.

That's how they would argue that. We need to exercise faith. That is doing good works motivated by faith.

Let's look at a couple verses that we can examine this. This is the life 1929.

Now I can quote from 1929 because remember, they believe that when the watchtower says something, it's authoritative.

So the year doesn't matter. It came from the watchtower. It came from their organization that cannot be wrong.

Right? So that becomes the problem. But it says here, life 1929, to redeem or ransom man from the grave means that God will provide a means of satisfaction of the judgment against, who's that?

Adam. That's right. To redeem or ransom man from the grave means that God will provide a means of satisfaction of the judgment against Adam.

Now if we could look at Let God Be True in 1946, page 74, it says,

Immortality is a reward for faithfulness. It does not come automatically to a human at birth.

So what you see there is that they believe that we have to exercise faith. Now this again, when we talk to someone, we have to be aware of terminology.

Okay? The reason is that if you have, just like remember when we talked to Roman Catholicism where they said that they believe in works, in salvation by faith, but just not faith alone.

It's faith plus works. Same thing here. It's faith plus works, but as we're going to see, it's kind of reversed.

See, good works, if you look in your syllabus, good works do not earn salvation, but they are the prerequisite for it.

That's your blank there. Good works do not earn salvation. They are the prerequisite for it.

They're required works. Okay? And this is where it's kind of the reverse of Roman Catholicism.

Roman Catholicism says you have faith. That comes first, and that's the prerequisite for the works that will actually save you.

Here, they would argue, no, you have works, and those good works are what brings about faith.

They have it reversed of Roman Catholicism. But note that both have an element of faith plus works or works plus faith.

Either way, both are tied to salvation. Okay, now they're saying that we first have to do the good works before we can get that faith.

The required works fall into four categories. According to Watchtower, February 15, 1983, pages 12 and 13, here are the four categories.

Ready? Number one, they say taking knowledge of God and Christ by studying the

Bible. Of course, through the guidance of the Watchtower, because remember, they would argue that we can't interpret

Scripture on our own. So when it's taking knowledge of God and Christ by studying the

Bible, we still need the Watchtower to tell us how to think and what to think and what the

Bible actually says. Number two, second category, obeying God's law.

Meaning all the rules laid out by the Watchtower. Yeah, not the

Bible, the Watchtower. But again, do you notice it's God's law? It's obedience.

Anytime you see obedience is necessary for salvation, it's a works -based system.

Why? Because if works are needed, then works are required.

If works are required, it's a works -based system. Because works, by definition, are required, making it that.

Number three, associating with God's channel. What's God's channel on earth?

Of course, the Watchtower organization. So you see how everything's focused around so far?

Everything's focused around the Watchtower. Not Christ, not God. And when they reference

Christ or God, it's only in relation to the Watchtower. That's the real thing that they're worshiping, just saying.

Number four, participating in the Jehovah Witnesses' preaching work.

What's their preaching work? Going door -to -door. That's why they go door -to -door. You say, why do they spend so much of their time going door -to -door?

Earning salvation. That's why. Now, the Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ making a payment for Adam's sin is good works that count toward the reward.

However, as we end up looking, if you are not saved, you will not know.

You won't know it because of the death of man in nonexistence.

We're going to look at that in a little bit when we look at the end times, but you just go nonexistent. How would you know?

But let's look at some of the references. I don't have slides on this, so I'm just going to give some quotes from my book.

They say in Watchtower, August 15, 1972, page 492.

And I give you the references so you can look it up. I do have all these quotes in my book, so you can just grab it from there.

It is for the reward of eternal life that every last person on earth should be working.

Are you? Watchtower, July 1, 1947, page 204.

To get one man's name written in the book of life will depend upon one's works, whether they are fulfilled by God's will and approved by His judge and king.

So, what you see there is that works are an essential part when it comes to salvation.

Why do I bring that up? Well, for a very simple reason. If works are necessary, as we're saying, works are necessary for salvation, again, if it's necessary, necessary means it's a works -based system.

And so we always have to keep that in mind. A works -based system is always going to require works.

Now, I say this because this is one of the things that I found interesting as I studied all the different world religions, was that every single world religion except for Christianity is based in one way or another on human effort.

And that's why I say there's only two religions in the world. A religion of divine effort, Christianity.

A religion of human effort, all others. When you look at it, that's simply every religion.

And you've seen this now. We saw it with Judaism. We saw it with Catholicism. We saw it with Islam. We saw it with Mormonism.

We see it with Jehovah Witnesses. You could see it in Hinduism and Buddhism as well because how do they get to a better state when they're reincarnated?

From works. If they do good works, they're rewarded in a better life in reincarnation.

So, with that said, let us look at the last one. The Eternal State.

The Eternal State. With this, we want to realize, and this is where many people end up going when they discuss with a

Jehovah Witness the differences. The two areas most people, when a Jehovah Witness comes to their door, most

Christians at least, are going to argue, is either going to be in the Eternal State or in the deity of Christ.

The deity of Christ is very important because if you have the wrong Jesus, you don't have salvation.

If you don't believe Jesus is God, I would argue you can't be saved. So, that would be the thing.

Now, when it comes to salvation, that's the important thing that we express to them, that they're not saved by their works, but by grace through faith alone.

Now, why is a study of the End Times important? Well, because in a study of the End Times, we need to help to enforce upon them the seriousness of this, that the eternal death is actually eternal.

It lasts forever. So, let's look at this a little bit. Jehovah Witnesses believe that there are three classes of people.

The, quote, little flock, unquote, which after death will reside in Heaven.

That's your first blank. So, the little flock is going to be residing in Heaven. I'm going to explain why it's a little flock as compared to the great crowd.

They're going to reside on Earth. That's your next blank, Earth. And the rest will be non -existent.

That's your third one. So, Heaven, Earth, and non -existence. Little crowd,

Heaven. The great crowd, Earth. Everyone else, poof, non -existence.

And this is the thing. If they don't believe that Hell gets cast into an eternal lake of fire, then they're not understanding why

Jesus had to be God. Because if our sin is so serious, it takes an eternal consequence.

Not because our sin is so bad, but because we've sinned against an infinitely holy, just God.

And because of who God is, that is why the consequence is eternal.

Because of God's nature, not ours. This is the problem. Most people focus on man and then build a theology with man as the center.

We want to focus on God because theology is the study of God. Theo, God.

Ology, study of. Study of God. And therefore, what we're looking to do is study about God.

And so God is the necessary starting place of our theology.

But most people end up starting with man. And so I think that this is what happened with Russell when he started this organization.

He did not like the idea of Hell. And so he just didn't...

Now, are there people who use this idea of Hell or eternal lake of fire to scare people into obedience or maybe even scare people into making a profession of faith?

Yes. Does it mean that there isn't an eternal Hell? Or eternal lake of fire,

I should say. And I'm being specific. There is a difference between Hell and the eternal lake of fire. We'll get to that as we get into the

Christian defense. But the point being is, yes, there is an issue there that has to be recognized.

Okay? And just because we don't like the idea of Hell doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Okay? So let's start with the view of Heaven. What is the Jehovah Witnesses' view of Heaven?

Jehovah Witnesses believe that only 144 ,000, which are called the little flock, will populate

Heaven. And many believe that that 144 ,000 are already filled. In other words, nobody that's alive today has a hope of seeing

Heaven. They can only hope to see, well, the next stage being the great crowd on Earth.

But let's take a look at this. I have here, these 144 ,000 are what the

Jehovah Witnesses say are the truly born -again children of God.

They will be God's spiritual sons. I don't think they mean it though the way that Mormons do.

So let's not be guilty of, just because Mormons have a view of what God's Son of God means, we attribute it here.

They will be God like Jesus is God. Now, I say that because, remember, they don't think of Jesus as being

God in the same way that Christians would refer to it. They think of Jesus being God, lowercase g, mighty

God, but not almighty God. Remember, we discussed that in the lesson on God, their view of God.

So there's this distinction. So we're going to be like Jesus. So when we're, He's the firstborn, that's what it means, that we would be like Him, that He's the first fruits of what we would become like.

All right? So don't get into thinking that because they say we'd be sons of God's that they mean that we would be deity, that we would be like the almighty

God. It's this idea of a lesser God. All right? Let's put up some verses if we could.

This is from Watchtower, February 15th, 1984, page 9.

The Bible shows that only a limited number of persons, a, quote, little flock, unquote, will go to heaven.

We have another. This is from Watchtower, March 15th, 1983, page 9, quote, at the celebration of the memorial of Christ's death, only those that make up, quote, the

Israel of God, unquote, should partake of the emblems of bread and wine, unquote.

So do we think we have one more? There we go, yeah. This is from the

Watchtower. Now this one's from Watchtower, a reprint. This is from the 1881, page 3,

Watchtower that was reprinted in 1919, and this is page 301.

It says, quote, We are begotten of the divine nature Jehovah is our true

Father. We are divine beings, hence all such are gods.

Now we appear like men, and we all die naturally as men, but in the resurrection we will rise in our true characters as gods, unquote.

By the way, before we take that off, note, gods is capitalized in the

Watchtower, yeah. Just saying. That becomes an issue, I think, because they've capitalized gods there.

In other words, that one's where you could start to think they're getting confused and almost teaching

Mormonism, maybe. But notice that the reward is really for the few, the 144.

Where do we see the 144 ,000? That's in Revelation, and by the way, that's 144 ,000

Jews, 12 ,000 from the 12 tribes of Israel.

So that gets into thinking, are they saying that Jehovah Witnesses are really from the tribes of Israel, or are they arguing for a spiritual argument that the 144 ,000 or the 12 tribes is really spiritual in its interpretation?

That I'm not really sure. It's not, I don't think they have the view that the

Mormons would have where it's really that they've become the new Israel in that sense.

I don't think that's what they're arguing. But they think that the 144 ,000, they will be like gods, like Jesus Christ in their definition of how

Jesus Christ is God. But the great crowd will serve them. So we end up seeing that this is almost a return to Genesis 3 .5,

isn't it? Remember Genesis 3 .5, when Satan said, For God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.

I mean, this is what we saw in Mormonism, that Mormonism teaches you could be like God. What's the hope?

So we could be like God. The Jehovah Witnesses' hope to be part of the little flock that will be gods sounds very similar to what

Satan promised Eve in the garden. Just because there's a note that it's little g -gods,

I pointed out that they kind of capitalized it in the watchtower there that we saw. Also in that same watchtower that I just referenced on page 297 -298, it says,

Now, we would think that's blasphemous. But again, they have a different view when they say it's like Jesus.

They don't think of Jesus as being equal with the Father. Yes, yes, I know.

John 10 says that Jesus is equal with the Father. But that doesn't mean that Jesus isn't equal with the Father. That's not what they think.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. Philippians 2 says Jesus is equal with God.

I know, but that's not what they think. You see, remember, it's the watchtower that tells them the only right way to interpret

Scripture. So when you read those in a plain understanding and you say, Well, this clearly says Jesus is equal to God the

Father. They say, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not right. The watchtower says different.

And that's where the problem is. Anytime you have an organization that does the interpreting for you, that organization is never going to interpret opposite to what they are trying to teach.

So, who gets to go on earth? I mean, most people want to go to heaven. Who wants to stay on earth?

Well, that's the great crowd. Those that make up the, quote, great crowd, unquote, will live in the paradise earth.

So it's not the earth that we see today. It's a paradise earth. And they will serve the 144 ,000 in heaven that make up the little flock.

So it's like, yay, we get to be servants. That's what we get to look forward to. So let's put up the couple verses that we have here.

So we see here, this is from their book, The Holy Spirit, 1976, page 157.

Those dedicated, baptized, other sheep of the great crowd, have not been begotten to be

God's spiritual sons with a heavenly inheritance. Next verse, or next passage,

I should say, is from The Watchtower, February 15th, 1984, page 9.

The rest of the faithful humankind will live on earth as subjects of these rulers, unquote.

And the last one that we have from here is from Watchtower, March 15th, 1983, page 9.

The vast international company of other sheep, who do not partake, will enjoy everlasting life on the paradise earth.

So you get the idea, those 144 ,000 that have already lived and died, those are some of the first or more spiritual

Jehovah's Witnesses, they get to go to heaven. The rest of those who don't perish get to serve them.

That's your reward. Your reward now, if you become a Jehovah's Witnesses, is that you get to live on a paradise earth serving these little

G -gods. Wow, really?

So you see right off the bat, this is not equality. You do not see that there being equality within mankind.

Certain people, there becomes a status level. That's going to be a little different than what we see in the

Bible, where there's rewards but everyone's saved the same way, as Galatians said, whether male, female, slave, free, we all come to Christ the same way.

So what about the most sticky issue that we have with the Jehovah's Witnesses? This last stage, nonexistence, or what is called theologically annihilationism.

You're annihilated. You just kind of poof off into nonexistence. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that when a person dies, they completely cease to exist.

This is speaking of those who aren't in those first two categories, by the way. So you have those that are in the little flock, the great crowd, and then you have those who die and they go into nonexistence.

There is no consciousness at all after death.

That's your blank there, consciousness. So they would argue that for the person who's not a

Jehovah's Witness, the non -believer, there is no consciousness at all after death. Therefore, there cannot be a conscious eternal punishment for the unbelievers.

Why? Because they can't know. If there's no consciousness, there can't be a conscious eternal punishment.

They believe that the wicked will be consumed in a judgment and annihilationism.

They teach that hell is something that Satan made up. Let's look at this. This is from Reasoning from the

Scriptures, 1985, page 175.

Remember, this little book, Reasoning from the Scriptures, is that book that responds to how to answer

Christians. It says, So what you end up seeing here is that they believe that there is no eternal punishment.

Daniel 12 .2 would tend to differ. Why do I bring up Daniel 12 .2? Because in that passage, you have both the reference to eternal life in direct relation to the eternal contempt.

That becomes the thing. You have them both side by side. If eternal life is going to be forever, then so is this eternal contempt.

They would say, Oh, but the contempt is that you burn out. This is one of the arguments they'll make logically. They'll say,

Can you name a fire that doesn't consume and burn out? Well, I'm going to give you the response that I got from my three -year -old, well, when he was three -year -old.

When I had Jehovah's Witnesses that were meeting in my home regularly, we were meeting for several months, and I was meeting with them to try to, well, get them to come to the truth.

Basically, we were talking about this idea that they have that hell can't exist forever or a lake of fire can't exist forever because it's a fire, and fires consume and therefore it would burn out.

And my son said, Dad, what about the sun? That's a fire that doesn't burn out.

And I understand many argue that, Yeah, but it will one day. How do we know? Could God create a fire that doesn't burn out?

Yes, He can. He can do that. Is it a literal fire? I don't know.

It's descriptive of a fire, but the idea of that is being in torment. That's the idea.

To what purpose would Satan gain by creating a doctrine of hell?

I mean, if you think about that. That would do nothing but scare people into looking for salvation, wouldn't it?

I mean, what benefit does Satan get by creating this doctrine that would scare people to run to God?

You know, Satan would not create a doctrine of hell if a place of torment did not exist.

Hell is the most popular reason people have for seeking salvation, and I understand that.

It's not a good one. The right reason to seek salvation is to be right with God. Many people are false converts because they came to Christ to avoid hell and not because they want to be reconciled with Christ.

There are many false converts, many people that will find themselves in that very hell they wanted to avoid because they tried to come to Christ on their terms and not

His. But, I mean, think about this. Why would Satan do that?

Satan would be more likely to deny such a place exists, kind of like the

Jehovah Witnesses do, than to create one. Note that the Jehovah Witnesses do not provide much incentive to becoming a

Jehovah Witness. If they are right and we don't believe them, we go into non -consciousness.

We don't lose anything at all. However, the best they can offer us is to live on earth as servants of those in heaven since, like I said, the 144 ,000 are all filled up.

And that's not sounding like something that I'm really looking forward to. And this becomes the thing that we have to take into account.

Now, when we talk to Jehovah Witnesses and we have them come to our door, this is going to be the thing that we have to keep in mind.

The idea that they have when it comes to eternal life, why is this such an important thing?

Because, again, as I mentioned, if we do not have an eternal consequence, then

Christ didn't need to be God. Now, you'd say, well, see, they avoid the eternal consequence, therefore

Christ is not God and they don't have a problem in their system. Yes, I know in their system they don't have a problem, but it's only a problem when you compare it to the

Bible. And that's what we're going to look at in the next several classes is we're going to examine what the

Bible says. Now, first we're going to start off with what does Christianity believe? That's going to be the next class.

And after that, we're going to look at basically what each of these doctrines...

We're going to look at what the Bible says about the authority. We're going to look at what the Bible says about God, specifically the

Trinity. We're going to look at what the Bible says about Jesus Christ and His deity. We're going to look at what the

Bible says about sin and man's nature, his sinful nature. We're going to look at what the

Bible says about salvation. And we're going to look at what the Bible says about the eternal state.

So those six doctrines, we're now going to give what does the Bible say on these. I've kind of been filtering throughout.

And as we do that, we're going to look at how that's different again than some of these different beliefs. So we're kind of going to go into a mini systematic theology in the next several classes.

So if you have questions about this or any of the other things we've taught, you can feel free to email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org,

academyatstrivingforeternity .org again. You can pick up the syllabus at our store, store .strivingforeternity

.org, and you can pick up the syllabus. Another thing you can pick up at the store is my book that these classes are based on,

What Do They Believe?, which is a systematic theology of the major western religions. Also want to encourage you, if you would like to have us come and teach your people how to interpret the

Bible, we have a Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar. The advantage of having a seminar like this is it will help teach people in your church how to interpret the

Bible. This becomes important so that people realize to avoid the traps that these

Jehovah's Witnesses and others have that entrap people into believing what they teach.

We want to try to avoid that. We want to avoid the things that they're teaching.

Best way to help to avoid that is by teaching people how to rightly divide

God's Word. This lesson, we're a little bit short. I debated on whether we wanted to start the lesson on Christianity.

I chose not to. Going to give you guys a little bit of a break maybe and do one short class, or shorter class

I should say. We'll put this out there as well.

We don't have any list of people to encourage right now. If you have someone you think needs some encouragement, you can contact us.

Also a way you can follow us is on our Facebook page.

We have two actually. We have the Striving for Eternity Ministries. You can join there.

That is more of a one -way conversation. It's us talking to you. We post there and we put information out there about the ministry and things for you.

That's a page I encourage you to go and like and maybe you can rate us there. The other is the

Striving for Eternity Group. That's more of an interaction. That is for you guys to bring up questions, discussion and we go back and forth and discuss it.

So that is what we have for this week. Until next class, just remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.