Presenting the Deity of Christ to Jehovah's Witnesses, part 1 of 2

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us. Yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

The Dividing Line is brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries, Calvary Press Publishers, the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and Bethany House Publishers. Your host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now by dialing 1 -888-TALK -960. That's 1 -888-TALK -960. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

The Deity of Christ and Jehovah’s Witnesses

And a good Saturday afternoon to you. My name is James White and today I hope you will take the opportunity of grabbing your Bible and a pad of paper and a pencil and following along as I hope we provide to you some very important information, some edifying information concerning the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Possibly this very morning you had someone knock upon your door and talk to you about Armageddon or families being forever and things like that. And eventually the conversation in those situations will almost always turn to the deity of Christ because those folks are normally from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, better known as Jehovah's Witnesses.

And those folks are really prepared to try to explain to you the Bible does not teach that Jesus Christ is truly God, that he is truly divine. They believe that he is Michael the Archangel, a creature of God, the first thing the Jehovah God ever created, but still a creature.

A highly exalted creature, yes, but a creature nonetheless, not eternally deity. And if you've ever attempted to engage them in a discussion on this topic, you may have discovered rather quickly that they've spent a lot of time preparing to talk to you and very few of us spend a lot of time preparing to talk to them.

But they're not the only ones. In reality, almost all liberal groups, whether they be Protestant or Catholic today, do not really believe in the deity of Christ. They undercut the deity of Christ by their various beliefs.

And so what really does the Bible teach? Why is it that there are issues that we must address in regards to the translation of various passages that are relevant to the deity of Christ? Well, for the next two weeks, we're going to do the best we can to work through most of the information in regards to the subject of the deity of Christ, taking your calls at 1 -888-TALK -960.

And then on beginning, I believe it is March 6th, I don't have a calendar in front of me, but I believe it is March 6th, we are going to have a two-week debate with Dr. Thomas Holland. Dr. Holland advocates that the King James Version of the Bible is God's preserved word in the English language.

And he believes the King James Version presents a stronger testimony to the deity of Christ than does the New American Standard Bible or the NIV. And we're going to have a two-week debate on that particular subject.

But before then, it would obviously make some sense to spend some time talking about the deity of Christ in general, and helping you to prepare to share this vital truth with those who are around you.

John 1 as the Interpretive Lens for the Gospel

When we talk about the deity of Christ, when we talk about this important issue, one of the first passages that comes up in anyone's mind is John 1. Now, I'd just like to say right off the bat, I would not suggest that unless you are very well prepared in your understanding of the Trinity and the deity of Christ, that John 1 would be the first place you'd want to go to in talking to Jehovah's Witnesses.

In fact, in case I forget it later on, I'd suggest passages like Colossians 2, verse 9, or the demonstration that Jesus is identified as Jehovah, as we will look at that over the next couple of weeks, long before I would ever get to the prologue of John.

But for Christians, and for teaching in the Church, I would suggest that the prologue of John, the first 18 verses of the Gospel of John, is probably one of the clearest, most compelling presentations of who Christ is in all the New Testament.

The great Christological passages are John 1, Colossians 1, Philippians 2, and Hebrews 1. That is not to say that there are not other vitally important passages as well, but certainly those are the great Christological passages, and we will truly attempt to find some time to look at them as we deal with this subject over the next couple of weeks.

Specifically, however, the prologue of the Gospel of John, John 1, verses 1 -18, presents to us what is meant to be, on the part of the Apostle John, an interpretive window. It is to be the lens through which we look at the rest of the Gospel of John.

And if we understand what he says, at the very beginning of his Gospel presentation, then all sorts of other statements that are made by the Lord Jesus concerning himself, by others concerning the Lord Jesus, by the Apostle John in passing, so many more of these statements become relevant to us.

They take on new meaning as long as we follow John's lead and look at the rest of the Gospel of John in the light that he has provided in this prologue. Far too often, those who deny the deity of Christ start with preconceived ideas, provided to them frequently by some authoritarian group, Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, by the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses.

And so they'll come up with an understanding of the prologue, and once they twist the prologue out of shape and no longer see what it testifies to in regard to the person of Jesus Christ, they then will move to those other passages in the Gospel of John that are so relevant to the deity of Christ.

John 5, verse 18, where you have the assertion that the Jews picked up stones to stone Jesus because he was making himself equal with God. John 8, 24 and 58, where Jesus uses that important phrase, I am, before Abraham was, I am, the Jews pick up stones to stone him.

And John 18, 5 through 6, where he says, I am, and the soldiers fall back when he utters these words. All of those passages end up taking on much more meaning to us when we hear them in the context that John placed them.

And that context is provided first and foremost by the very introduction that he provides to his own book. When any of us write something, when I write a book, the introduction that I provide, the first chapter that I write, sets the context and the theme for the entire book.

It is in that introduction that I say, now here's the direction I'm going, here's the context in which you should listen to my words. Well, we recognize that in what we do when we write a letter to someone and when the letter starts off, it sets the context.

Well, we need to see the same thing in John's writing of his gospel as well, or in anyone else's for that matter. And so we need to look very closely at the prologue of John and once we understand it, once we grasp what is being communicated there, then we will get so much more out of the rest of the gospel because we're allowing the apostle himself to define the parameters of our discussion.

So primarily, here in the next couple of moments, we'll be looking at verses 1 through 3 and then verses 14 through 18. That doesn't mean that the rest of the prologue isn't important because obviously it is.

But especially in regards to the issue of the deity of Christ, the majority of the conversation focuses upon the very first few verses and then verses 14 through 18. John 1 .1, as most of you are well aware, says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

This one, that is, the Word, was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made which has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend or overcome that light. Now, the very first verse has three clauses in it. And each one of those clauses communicates a tremendous truth to us.

Each one of these clauses communicates a balanced view of the Godhead. And so many errors, whether it be Oneness Pentecostalism, whether it be Mormonism, whether it be Arianism, as represented by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, whatever error it might be, is normally because one clause is taken over all the others, instead of the three clauses of John 1 .1 being taken in balance.

If we take only two of the three, we will end up with a heresy, with a false teaching concerning the nature of God. The second thing to notice is that the focus throughout the prologue remains upon who the Logos is.

The Logos is the Greek word for the very simple word Word, W-O-R-D. And it's translated as Word in most English translations. The Logos was a term that would have been well known to John's writers.

It was a term used in Greek philosophy. The Logos was an impersonal force. It was the ordering principle of the world. Greek philosophers used it this way. John uses a term they would have been familiar with, but he doesn't allow them, that is, the Greek philosophers, to fill that word Logos with their own meaning.

He instead borrows the word and fills his own meaning into it. The first thing he says was, In the beginning was the Word. Now, when was this beginning? Well, most people would point to the fact that the two Greek words there, N-R-K, are the same two words that are used in the Greek septuagint translation of the Old Testament in Genesis 1 -1.

And so many would say, well, we're talking here about creation. In the beginning when God created, the Word was already in existence. The little word was, in the English language, here is in the imperfect, which would indicate a continuous existence prior to the present point in time, whatever that point in time provided by the context might be.

So the Word pre-exists the beginning. Well, some might say, okay, but that doesn't mean the Word is eternal. In fact, there are Jehovah's Witnesses who want to very strenuously argue that the beginning here is a limited beginning.

In fact, some have even come up with very convoluted, complex ideas of what the beginning was, so that they can say that the Logos is still a creature, someone who is created. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, of course, believes that the Logos is Jesus, and that the Logos is Michael the Archangel, the first and greatest of Jehovah's creations, the only thing that Jehovah himself directly created, and then through him created all other things.

And so they have a vested interest in trying to make sure that we do not believe that the Logos is eternal. Because if the Logos is eternal, then the Logos must be deity, and therefore their belief that he is Michael the Archangel is thereby refuted.

Well, aside from pointing out that John does not expand upon the phrase in the beginning, he doesn't present us with some sort of complex, convoluted concept of what the beginning is, however far back you wish to push the beginning, whatever beginning you wish to make it, the Logos still pre-exists it.

If we want to talk about the beginning of creation, and make the Logos eternal, this is contradictory to John's assertion. We have to try to say that, well, this is one particular beginning, but it isn't the beginning of all creations, because the Logos himself was created, and that's simply not something that John says.

And in fact, in the third verse, he will specifically refute that concept, because he will say that all things were made through him, and if he himself is a thing, that doesn't work. If all things are made through you, you are the creator.

Even here, the Watchtower Society hasn't been so bold as they have over in Colossians 1, 15 -17, where they've inserted the word other to try to find a way around the creatorship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, and I use the term translation loosely there, does not try to insert the word other at this point. Why? Well, because you just simply can't find any basis for doing so.

All things were made through Christ. Now, if all things are made through you, you are the creator. And so, the point that John first makes, and the point that his original readers would have heard initially, when they heard the phrase, in the beginning was the Word, is that the Word is eternal.

The Word is not a created thing. The Word did not come into existence at a point in time. That's how they would have understood that first phrase, as it rolled off the tongue of the first speaker who read the Gospel of John the first time it was read in public.

But he doesn't stop there. He says, and the Word was with God. He uses the same term, was. And since we're talking here, the very context provides us with the context of eternity, the context of the time before the beginning.

This word, was, has far deeper meaning, because of the context provided to it, than it would have in pretty much any other context. For example, the word was is used in John chapter 2, but there it's provided with the context of just simply what happened in time, around the time of the wedding in Cana of Galilee.

But here, it is provided with the context of in the beginning. And before this beginning even takes place, the Logos has a relationship with God. The Word was with God. Now, don't make a common mistake.

Many people start trying to figure out all the relationships here before John even finishes a single sentence. We can't do that. We need to let each clause speak for itself, and each clause be interpreted in the light of the others.

The Word was with God. Prostanteon, face to face with God. There's a relationship that exists between the Logos, the Word, and God. Now people start saying, well, who's God here and who's the Logos? John will tell us.

But the emphasis of the passage does not shift from the Logos to God. The emphasis remains upon the identity of the Logos, the identity of who the Word is. And the assertion is the Word has a relationship, a face to face relationship with God, and has always had that relationship.

The Logos did not enter into a relationship with God. The Logos has always had a relationship with God. So what do the first two clauses tell us? That the Logos is eternal, the Logos pre-exists the beginning of all things, and the Logos is with God.

That is, has a personal relationship and has always had this personal face to face relationship with God. Well, of course, the third clause is the one where all the controversy exists. Not really a controversy amongst Christian theologians.

There's never really been a controversy there. It's a controversy amongst those who want to avoid what this verse says, who wish to try to play with the grammar of the text and come up with, for example, the translation of the New World Translation, and the word was a god with a small g.

That type of rendering, that type of theology, comes from outside the text of Scripture. It doesn't come from within the text of Scripture. The whole reason, of course, that Jehovah's Witnesses argue that God should be translated as a god here is because the word God does not have an article in front of it and because of the position that it has in the sentence.

It is a predicate nominative, for those of you who actually excelled in English, and remember, you're having excelled in English in junior high or high school. It is a predicate nominative, and it occurs before the verb, and therefore they argue that it should be translated as a god because anarthrous, pre-verbal predicate nominatives, they would argue, tell us something about the subject of the sentence.

They are not identifying the subject of the sentence. They say it should be translated as a god. In reality, I think the strongest translation in bringing that out would be, and the word was deity. Daniel Wallace, a friend of mine, and his grammar of the New Testament Greek language brings this particular issue out and makes the same assertion, though he says in a formal translation it should be the word was God because the word was deity would not quite communicate as well as the word was God.

We need to explain instead what the passage is talking about. Well, what about the argument that this should be translated, the word was a god, because the article is missing and because the position of the predicate nominative.

Well, I don't think there's any reason for any of us to avoid some of the complexities of this issue. There are people who say, well, you're just getting too much complexity here and it's too much for me.

No, I think all of us invest far more effort in making sure we understand what we're doing on our job or making sure we understand what we're doing in school than sometimes we're willing to expand in the study of Scripture.

And I'd like to challenge you to really bend your mind to this and to understand and to do the work that's necessary here. Quite simply, in the Greek language, when you have a predicate nominative and a subject, for example, if you have the phrase that John himself uses, God is love.

When you have that copulative verb, is or was, a connecting verb like that, and then you have two nouns, both in the nominative, God is love. A question might be, could you simply reverse the terms and say love is God?

Well, in the English language, we don't have quite the same strict rules of construction that they did in the Greek language. The Greek language is more specific in most cases than the English language is.

And in the Greek language, you would indicate which is the subject and which is the predicate nominative through the use of the article, the little word the. And what you would do is, you would place the article with the subject and you would leave the article off of the predicate nominative if you were attempting to make sure that your readers understood that you're not trying to make your subject and your predicate nominative equal with each other.

In other words, if you don't want the subject to be exhaustive of the predicate nominative and vice versa, you would place an article with the subject and you would not place the article with the predicate nominative.

That would tell your reader or your listener, this is the subject, over here is the predicate nominative, and I'm not saying that they're identical with one another. So when John writes, God is love, he places the article in such a way that we know that God is the subject, love is the predicate nominative.

We could not translate it properly, love is God. John is not saying that God is all of love and love is all of God, and that's all there is to it. He's not making that mistake. He specifically clarifies that for us so that we do not become confused.

Well, in John 1 .1, the third clause of this particular verse, if John had placed an article in front of the word God, he would have been making theos, God, and logos, the word, interchangeable. He would have been saying, everything that the logos is, God is, and everything that God is, the logos is, these are interchangeable terms, and that's not what John's teaching.

If the Oneness Pentecostals were right, that's what he would have written, but they're not. John maintains his balance, and by not putting an article before the word God, he is helping us to understand that he is describing the nature of the logos, he is not identifying the logos as all of God.

How could he, since the second clause had said the logos has a relationship with God? He's using the one word God in two different ways in these clauses, and he communicates this to us by the way he writes it.

Now, by placing the word God before the verb, he's also communicating something else to us. He is communicating to us something about the nature or the being of the logos. He is telling us that the logos is divine, that the logos is deity, that the logos has the very nature of theos, that's the very nature of God.

But he does so in such a way as to make sure that we do not confuse the logos and the God with whom the logos is.

Why?

Because one of the major emphases of the Gospel of John is going to present to us both the full and absolute deity of Christ, as well as the fact that you have the Father, you have the Son, you have the Spirit, and John never confuses the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Even in John 10, verse 30, when Jesus says, I and the Father are one, even there he uses a verb that can be translated, I and the Father, we are one. Even there the distinction between the Father and the Son is maintained.

And that's why Christians down through the ages have maintained that distinction between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. We are Trinitarians, we are not Unitarians or Modalists. A Modalist is a person who confuses the Father, the Son, the Spirit in one or more different ways.

And a Unitarian is a person who says that God's being is only shared by one person, and therefore they normally deny the deity of Christ and the deity of the Holy Spirit. John does not leave us in confusion.

By placing the word God where he does, by not using the article with it, he communicates to us the fact that the Logos is, as to his nature, essential deity. And of course, that's what the people who heard this first would have understood.

If the Logos is eternal, he was in the beginning, and if the Logos has had an eternal relationship with God, then the Logos must be, as to his nature, deity. He cannot be a creature, he cannot be some lesser creation, or he could not have eternally had this relationship with the Father that he has had.

And you say, well, it doesn't say the Father. That's quite true. But John hasn't finished the prologue yet. We've not even gotten out of the first verse. So what do we understand from John 1 .1? In the beginning was the Word, eternally existent.

The Word was with God, eternal relationship. And the Word is, as to his nature, God. He is deity. This one, that is, the Logos, verse 2, was in the beginning with God. So here he reiterates that entire verse by saying that this is the one, the Logos, was in the beginning with God.

That relationship, again, pre-exists the creation. Therefore the Logos cannot be a created being himself. He is, as to his nature, absolute deity. And then, verse 3, all things were made through him.

And without him, that is separate from him, without him was not anything made which has been made. Now very clearly, if anyone says to you that the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ, is a creation, then they are violating John 1 .3.

They are violating the assertion that without him was not anything made which has been made. Because if he is a creation, then there was something that was made without him. That's him. And amazingly, about the only response I get from anyone who denies the deity of Christ, his point is, well, is the Father a thing?

As if anyone who understands the biblical teaching, the nature of God, would think that a biblical writer would confuse the eternal creator, God, who has eternally been God, who did not enter into existence at any point in time, with a creation.

No, of course God isn't created. The focus, however, is upon the Word. And apart from the Word was not anything made which has been made. He is the creator of all things.

And someone says,.

Well, but it's through him. Yes, so? Creation is through God, by means of God. There's no question about that. But they want to try to focus upon that.

And say,.

Well, he's just the instrument. Well, okay, but are you trying to say then that he is a created instrument? Or that the Son was the one through whom the Father brought these things about? Again, one must assume Unitarianism, one must assume that the Trinity is untrue, and then read that back into these texts to try to change the meanings of the words.

Now, I'm just about out of time, but very quickly, verse 14,. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory is the unique one from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word invaded into time as the Lord Jesus Christ. He became, at that point in time, flesh. And John differentiates his verbs here. This isn't the same verb he used before. It talks about eternal existence.

Here, at a point in time, the Word became flesh.

Why?

Because the Word was not eternally flesh. Jesus hadn't eternally had a fleshly body. He entered into flesh at a point in time in the Incarnation. The eternal God invaded human history in the person of Jesus Christ.

And that is the emphasis that he is making here in John 1. We need to take a break. On the other side of the break, we'll finish off the prologue and look at verse 18, a tremendous passage that cannot be understood outside the doctrines of Trinity.

Stick with us. We'll be right back. The deity of Christ is our subject today, and I hope that you will join with me at 1 -888-TALK -960. I have to believe that there is someone within the sound of my voice today who has some questions about how primarily to present the deity of Christ, how to explain it to others.

Possibly you have family members and others who do not believe in the deity of Christ. They have been misled. You have the opportunity of presenting to them the deity of Christ. How do you do so? And you know, it's interesting.

Most of the calls that we'll get, and we do hope to hear from you at 1 -888-TALK -960. 1 -888-TALK -960. Most of the calls that you get when you discuss this issue on the air are not positive in the sense of looking at passages of the Bible that plainly present the deity of Christ.

They're focused upon the proof texts that various and sundry of these groups use to try to deny the deity of Christ. And that brings me to an important issue, and before I finish with the prologue of John, look at verse 18.

I want to address this. It is very common for Christians to make numerous tactical mistakes in their work as apologists in giving a reason for the hope that's within them. One of the common mistakes that we make is allowing those who deny the truth to define the argument, to define what we're talking about.

And what I mean here is that most of the time when we talk with people, and when we debate with people, and when we have discussions around the water cooler at work, or wherever it might be, we allow them to attack our position to make us answer questions about our belief without holding them to the same standards that they're insisting we need to live by.

In other words, when you're talking with one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and you're talking about passages in the Bible, don't simply hop, skip, and jump from all their favorite anti-Deity of Christ passages, and go from point to point to point.

You're not going to be making any positive headway if you're spending your time always looking at passages that they believe deny the Deity of Christ. And, in the process, you need to make sure that every time they raise a passage of Scripture, that they can look at the same passage of Scripture and fit their belief into it.

That's one of the biggest places people fall down. You need to make sure that they, right up front, just as you do, state their positive belief and make a case for their positive belief. So, every time I examine a passage of Scripture with one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I make sure that they explain how Michael the Archangel could be described in the words of that passage of Scripture.

And it's amazing the difference that makes in a conversation. For example, looking at John 1 .1, are we really being asked to believe that in the beginning was Michael the Archangel, and Michael the Archangel was with God, and Michael the Archangel was a god?

That Michael the Archangel was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through Michael the Archangel, and apart from Michael the Archangel was nothing made which has been made? That Michael the Archangel became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory?

The glory is the unique one from the Father, full of grace and truth? That's the glory we're talking about? Is Michael the Archangel's glory? You see how that changes things? You see why I'm very frequently talking to Jehovah's Witnesses and saying things like, so you believe that we're baptized in the name of Jehovah God, Michael the Archangel, in an impersonal active force?

That's what you're promoting to us? And my, how that changes the situation. And my, how that puts the shoe back on the foot that it needs to be on. Challenging people to say, hey, you need to realize what you're saying is, it's Michael the Archangel who says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Can you imagine Michael saying that? Michael saying, I am the way, the truth, and life, no man comes to the Father but by me? Michael the Archangel saying, I am the light of the world, I am the living bread?

Those words sound right to you in the words of Michael the Archangel? No, obviously they don't. And that is probably one of the most, the easiest things that we can communicate to people, you need to make sure that the person you're talking to applies the same standards to their belief.

To the Jehovah's Witnesses, to the Mormons, when the Mormons come along and say, oh, well we believe in the deity of Christ, well what they mean is that Jesus, who is the spirit brother of Lucifer, who is the first offspring of an exalted man from another planet, he's the one you need to fit into all those passages.

And yes, Mormons do believe in the deity of Christ. The problem is their entire concept of deity is so far removed from the biblical concept of deity that you can't put the two of them together. Saying that Jesus is one God amongst a whole pantheon of gods is not to say that you actually believe in the deity of Christ the way Christians have believed in the deity of Christ down through the centuries.

It's the fact that Mormons are not monotheists like Christians are that makes the difference in the interpretation of those very words. So we need to make sure we don't give away the store, in essence, by not being good debaters.

We need to keep the subject clearly before us. Now, John 1 .18, we didn't get there, and this is a passage where the textual issue comes up. This is a passage where there are individuals out there, for example, someone that many of you may have heard of, Dr. J. Green, who is an excellent scholar in most areas, but I think in this area he's just completely missed the boat, would argue, along with Dr. D .A. Waite and other individuals who are King James-only advocates, or at least a Textus Receptus-only advocates, that in John 1 .18, the reading that you have in the New American Standard Bible, the NIV, any translation other than the King James Version, the New King James Version, as far as that are still being published and are readily available, that there is a difference here, and that the rendering you have in the modern translations somehow denigrates Christ.

And here is how it is rendered. No one has seen God at any time. The unique God, or God the one and only, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. He has exegeted Him. He has revealed Him.

Now, let me deal with this as it's found in the modern Greek texts, in the best Greek text, the most ancient Greek text we have, of the Gospel of John. Let me present to you what this passage is talking about, and then we can talk a little bit about the textual issue.

I do not believe that anyone can make heads or tails out of John 1 .18 without understanding it in a Trinitarian context. I do not believe that anyone can look at this passage and understand what it's saying outside of understanding the doctrine of the Trinity.

What do I mean? Well, no one has seen God at any time.

What does that mean?

When you go to the Old Testament, there are places over and over again where men saw God. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah specifically says, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, lofty and lifted up, sitting upon His throne in His temple.

In Exodus, we have the reference to the elders seeing God. Moses seeing God. Men over and over again saying, I have seen God, I'm going to die because I have seen God. And yet, in the Gospel of John, you have this assertion, no one has seen God at any time.