Why are Jehovah’s Witnesses Not Christians?

This is one topic many of my first readers will not have a problem agreeing with. This article is more for the newer Christian and is not likely to become a widespread article, it may still strengthen the mature Christian though. I’m not normally in the business of telling you that certain sectors of the Christian faith are not actually Christians. In this case, I have to make an exception, for one thing because this is of unanimous agreement for every major sector of the Church in the world, but also because learning to recognize what is not Christianity, helps us to see what IS Christianity.

Learning how not to do something is progress, in this case, it is progress towards the right foundation from which this blog will branch out into other subjects eventually. In this blog we have been going through versions of false Christianity, most notably, those ones that hide in plain sight. Though this one is an outlier of its own nature. They all hide in plain sight to those of us on the outside looking in. If you were on the inside, they would insist that they are legitimate, and are not hiding legitimate faith in any sense that can be imagined.

An unsuspecting new Christian could easily enter a conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness as the witnesses persist in their door-to-door evangelism. I have found myself easily drawn into these conversations, and at the outset of discussion, there’s no real alarm bells to it. They likely will pull out their Bible and take you through points as long as you will put up with them. You can talk about Jesus and God in general manners without immediately noticing anything is wrong either. The small talk and conversation doesn’t normally get to the reason why Christian’s and Jehovah’s Witnesses disagree, unless the Christian knows doctrinally where the disagreement is ahead of time. Here I intentionally keep Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian’s separate- they are not the same thing.

In this case, it’s actually very easy to demonstrate although I’m not supposed to share many direct quotations with you. Forgive me, JW.org is a little vague about citation permissions, and they want people to direct others to their site. Doesn’t help for brevity, but it does make it very simple for you, the reader, to read the source I’m referring to, as it is available for download without cost. I will summarize and show you what page number it comes from.

In this case, the only point that I care about is the one that makes Jehovah’s witnesses not Christians. What I’m about to summarize comes from a book a Jehovah’s witness gave me years ago. I don’t remember how long I talked to them, just that I talked to them. The title is called “What Does the Bible Really Teach?”- full link to the source below. Chapter 4 is called “Who is Jesus Christ?”

The chapter starts by talking about Jesus as the awaited Messiah that the Old Testament Prophets foretold would come. Ok, great, no issues there. Then on pg. 41 it asks “Where did Jesus Come from”- here we have language of Jesus pre-existing from ancient times, and Jesus referring to himself as living in heaven before being born as a human. It goes into a special relationship that Jesus had with Jehovah- (key word) as a spirit creature. Precious son of Jehovah, firstborn of all creation, the “only begotten son” (apparently means- Jesus is Gods only direct creation) and then Jesus is the only one God created all things through, and that Jesus spoke for God.

Sounds sort of right… sort of not right to those of us who know our Bible’s.

The Alarm bells

Col. 1:15 “Firstborn over all creation” to a Jehovah’s Witness means – First Creation.

JN 3:16 “only-begotten son” to Jehovah’s Witness means- only one directly created by God.

Jn 1:14 “The Word” to a Jehovah’s Witness means -he spoke for God.

Therefore, the Bible does not teach that the Son is equal to God. Since Jesus is God’s son, to a Jehovah’s Witness, he cannot also be God himself.

The father and son had a billions of years existence before the earth was created. This son was like his father, which is why the Bible refers to the Son as the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15).

Yet, the status granted to Christ here is merely “Spirit Creature” and “Teacher”.

The book refers us to the appendix at the end for further “proof” that the firstborn son is not equal to God. The appendix at the back points out for the reader that the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. Then it goes into John 1 arguing that the New World Translation is a superior translation, and that because of Jesus’ position among God’s creatures, the Word is referred to as ”a god” (vs 1). Apparently meaning “mighty one”, but not “The God”. It tries to go in the direction of the Greek and tries to go into more bad theology about the differences between the Father and the Son.

I won’t continue the examples; it is not necessary. A Jehovah’s witness will accuse me of dishonesty and trampling on the pearls of the Kingdom. All I share is that which every major Church tradition has agreed on since the Church Father Athanasius, and the Heresy (False teaching) that has been agreed upon since his work that influenced the Athanasian Creed.

From a historical perspective, The Athanasian Creed has been affirmed by every major Church tradition since around 400 A.D.

Joseph Rutherford on the other hand, and Charles Taze Russel, without whom the Watchtower organization might not exist, are what you might call the “Fathers” of this sect. This places the Jehovah’s witnesses’ latest roots at 1942, when Rutherford died.

Compared to the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian creed, all of which come from the first 400 years of Church history.

That old old story, that we have loved so long, is not actually very old at all in historical terms, if the Jehovah’s Witnesses are right.

Thankfully, they are not right, and they are not Christian’s.

We don’t know who wrote the Athanasian Creed, we do know it was the Church father Athanasius who was its biggest influence. The 4th century A.D. controversy in the Church was over Heresy that we call Arianism, after its chief proponent Arius. Arianism denies the Divinity of Christ- maintaining that he is created, not eternal, and not Divine. This is an old heresy that has existed for a long time now

The Belgic Confession on this- article 9 “This doctrine of the Holy Trinity has always been maintained in the true church, from the time of the apostles until the present, against Jews, Muslims, and certain false Christians and heretics, such as Marcion, Mani, Praxeas, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, Arius, and others like them, who were rightly condemned by the holy fathers.”

The opening line of the Athanasian Creed

“Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic (universal) faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally”

Summarizing what it says about Christ for the sake of being brief. The whole thing would make this post twice as large as it is.

“That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.”

Summary- The Son is uncreated, immeasurable, eternal, almighty, and is God.

“Anyone then who desires to be saved should think thus about the trinity. But it is necessary for eternal salvation that one also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.”

Jumping to the end, “This is the catholic (universal) faith: one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.”

There is more to the creed than what I’m citing, and it would be hard to be more specific about the nature of the Trinity, but there you have it in Creed- and public access.

In the Bible- most of my initial readers should already know. I will not spend a lot of time on how the Bible proves Jesus to be divine, unless people tell me they need it. It’s very difficult to read through your New Testament without running into the many implications that Jesus is Divine.

Why is it so important that Jesus is Divine?

Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 17- “Why must he also be true God?”

“So that, by the power of his divinity, he might bear the weight of God’s anger in his humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.”

No divine Jesus, he could not have born the weight of Divine wrath on the cross- no gospel.

I feel for those lost in the tradition that the Watchtower oversees. The New World Translation of the Bible works awfully hard to hide the numerous implications in the New Testament, it is still there, and you can still show them in their Bible. It’s not so obvious to them as it would be to us.

No one can claim to be a Christ follower denying the divinity of Christ, the Creed said it more than Millenia before I did.

Works cited

https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/athanasian-creed

https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism

https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/belgic-confession

https://www.jw.org/en/library/books/bible-teach/ – Chapter 4 and appendix cited