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“And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14. The LORD revealing his personal name YHWH, sometimes pronounced as Yahweh)

“Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.’ Then they took up stones to throw at him...” (John 8:58,59. Jesus revealing his identity to the religious people who thought they knew God, but were in fact in denial of him, while staring him in the face.)

“And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’” (Genesis 1:26. The LORD speaking during Creation)

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25. Spoken by Abraham to his three visitors, the LORD, after he has already bowed down to them in worship. See also Psalm 82:8 - the Judge of all the earth is God)

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6. The prophet listing some of the names held by the singular Christ to come, including God, Father, Son and Counselor Spirit.)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1,14. The apostle revealing the deity of the eternal Son who entered his own creation.)

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)

“‘I and My Father are one.’ Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.” (John 10:30,31. Jesus, declaring his absolute oneness with the Father)

“Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not recognized Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, Show us the Father?’” (John 14:9)

“Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:28,29. Thomas’s final recognition of Jesus Christ as both Lord and God, which Christ did not deny, but accepted and reinforced.)

Jehovah's Witnesses?

Over the years I have received an abundance of visits, sometimes as often as twice weekly, to my house by Jehovah’s Witnesses. As a result I decided to issue this topic on destiner.com and make it available to readers to print out for their own use.

First point. Jehovah is not the name of the Living God. This is not a question of pronunciation. We are not sure how YHWH or even the name of Jesus was pronounced. But we know it was not Jehovah, because Jehovah is a mix of the name of the LORD with the pagan god Jove, the English form of the ancient name for the king of the Roman gods, Jupiter, and the Greek god, Zeus. For this reason many Bible translators have correctly obliterated the name of Jehovah. The name Jesus is at least close to the root Yeshu or Joshua, but Jehovah is an “artificial name,” (Encyclopedia Britannica, Dictionary) “of late medieval origin…Jehovah does not represent any form of the name used in Hebrew.” (Preface, Revised Standard Bible, explaining the purging of this “entirely inappropriate” name from its translation)

Jehovah’s Witnesses have told me, in the weary stock phrases that they are taught by rote to answer questions, that the pronunciation does not matter, because even Satan is called a god (of this world) or lord (of the air). But that is the word Baal (Canaanite) which comes from Bel (Babylonian). No one should ever use that term of the Living LORD, nor blend his name with any pagan title such as Jove.

I have often offered Witnesses my writings or the publications of others, and they have usually refused, although I have always accepted theirs and read them carefully. They explained that they would rather discuss the Scriptures than read another’s opinion of the Scriptures. That is very devious reasoning, reader. Why? Because they themselves are not handing out Bibles but Watchtower tracts, which is not the Scriptures but their own sect’s interpretation of the Scriptures.

I have always been prepared to examine someone else’s understanding of the Scriptures, but most often the Witnesses are not. Perhaps this is out of fear that they might come across something uncomfortable. Having known several people who have escaped the snare of this sect and its powerful indoctrination, I suspect it is because they are discouraged from reading other material by those above them who wish to retain control. Indeed, this sect is very nervous of their adherents being snatched away. That is herd faith, goat faith, not the faith from above that can stand alone like Daniel in the lion’s den, and withstand the wiles of the devil.

Reader, the true wisdom from above is open to reason, (James 3:17) so if someone expects you to read his or her material, but refuses to read yours, then you already know something is very wrong.

Consider this. If the Witnesses had been handing out the apostle John’s account of Christ instead of their Watchtower tracts, then the recipients in my neighborhood would have been able to read for themselves about the deity of Christ, the Word who is with God and also is God, and Who became flesh (John 1), entering his own creation to save his elect, and about the Person of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus revealed to his disciples in great detail. (John, Chapters 14-16)

Instead, they distribute tracts that deny the deity of Christ and person of the Holy Spirit. That is deadly ground, reader, to deny the true identity of the Son or to refer to the Spirit as a mere emanation, a force, an "it" or thing. Such a sin against the Holy Spirit carries terrible consequences. You cannot sin or blaspheme against a "thing," reader, but you can sin against a person, or blaspheme the Holy Spirit, because He is a Person. (Mark 3:29) Jesus told his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit. (Matthew 28:19) What an insult to suggest that they were taught to baptize in the name of a mere man or thing! They baptized in the name of the Person of the LORD, Father, Son and Spirit.

I have even had Witnesses laugh at my inability to adequately explain the plurality and oneness of God. They say, “Well is he one, two or three? Make up your mind.” It is no joking matter, reader, because they are in fact also scoffing at the very God Who has revealed himself in both plural and singular form throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. To explain the physics of this truth in full is as impossible as it is to explain a Creation that came out of nothing, but it can be grasped by faith from above, if God so permits.

Look at the astounding language in Scripture, where the LORD says, “Let us make man in our (plural) image (singular).”(Genesis 1) Look at the plurality of Abraham’s three (and later Lot’s two) messengers, identified as the Judge (singular) of all the earth. (Genesis 18 and 19) Look at the Christ child (singular) named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace! (Isaiah 9)

And consider Jesus' claims concerning his oneness with the Father to the extraordinary degree that to look at Jesus is to see the Father. Through marriage, reader, I am Biblically considered to be one with my wife, but I cannot possibly say to you, "he who has seen me has seen my wife." Neither two nor three mortals can possess anything close to the oneness of the LORD, the oneness that is absolute, eternal, beyond our present full comprehension or current vocabulary to explain, that God the Son not only stands at the right hand of the throne of God the Father (Acts 2:32; Hebrews 12:2) but is also found right in the midst of that throne. (Revelation 7:17) Thus Jesus says, “I and my Father are one.”

“For to what angel did God say, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten You’? Or again, ‘I will be a Father to Him and he shall be to me a Son’? And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship Him’... But of the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever... You founded the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands.” (Hebrews 1:5-11) Christ’s deity could hardly be stated more plainly than that!

If Jesus had not been God, he would certainly have rebuked Thomas for calling him God. He would have said, “You must not do that!” just as every true messenger in Scripture corrects mistaken identity or veneration. (e.g. Revelation19:10) No creature (except those on the dark side until their time runs out) can claim or accept such worship, because it is reserved for the Creator alone.

The Son of God is eternal, immortal, possessing an indestructible life (Acts 2:24,27,31; Hebrews 7:16) and as Hebrews Chapter 1 declares very clearly, He is Creator. Not only was the creation performed through him and for him but also by him, in complete oneness with God the Father and God the Spirit who moved upon the waters (Genesis 1:2) to bring all things into existence.

Witnesses are correct to quote the verses where Jesus deferred to the Father, saying that he was a servant or that the Father was greater than him. While on this earth, Jesus pointed to his Father, just as the work of the Spirit is to point people toward Jesus Christ. But then Witnesses make the lethal mistake of assuming that this makes Jesus second-rate, even a creature.

Jesus was only inferior in that for a short period he entered into time from eternity, into his own creation to redeem his elect. The Son stepped down, and “though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God (the Father) a thing to be clutched, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men… humbled himself and became obedient to death, even crucifixion.” (Philippians 2:6-8) Get this straight, reader, the Master lowered himself from being the eternal I AM and took on the constrictions of finite flesh to seal the deal of rescuing those whose names are in the Book of Life from before the foundation of the world. He “endured crucifixion, despising the shame,” but then he returned to his former glory, taking a glorified body from his own creation back into eternity with him, and sat back down “ at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) He returned to his former status, and said so himself. “Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory which I had with you before the world was made.” (John 17:5)

Thus the man Christ is described as “the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation... all things being created through him and for him...” but that in no way negates his deity, “for in him the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell.” (Colossians 1:15-19) The apostles of Christ certainly understood this truth, that the Son had made the “Godness” of God known, as much as our feeble minds are able to grasp it, by His appearing in the flesh. “No one has seen God (the Father, or for that matter the Spirit) at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known.” (John 1:18) The Son is begotten, reader, not created and Jesus did everything that the Father likewise has the power and authority to do. He said, I will raise the dead and my Father will raise the dead, my Father will raise me and I will raise myself, my Father has power to forgive sin and so do I, I am working and my Father is working. (John 2:19, 5:17, 21, 6:40,44; Matthew 9:1-8) That is the oneness of God, even if the Son temporarily puts himself in a constricted and subservient position of flesh to fulfill his particular mission.

Make no mistake, reader, no one is fit to receive worship except God alone, and Jesus receives such worship from the whole host of heaven. (Revelation 5:6-14) Indeed, whether they like it or not, every person will bow down to Christ when the Day comes. “As I live, says the LORD, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God,” and again “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is LORD, to the glory of the Father.” (Romans 14:10-12; Philippians 2:10) The Son is glorified and worshipped in exactly the same manner as the Father Who sent Him.

Jesus’ claims of absolute oneness with God were in fact the main reason that the religious people of his day plotted to get rid of him. “But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working and I am working.” This is why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God.” (John 5:17,18) “Jesus answered… ‘believe in my works, that you may know that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.’ Again they tried to arrest him, but he slipped from their hands.” (John 10:39,39) They thought they knew God, but they were in fact ready and willing to kill the incarnation of the eternal Son, as they were predestined to do. (Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23, 4:27,28)

Thus the apostle John writes, “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” (1 John 2:23) It should be crystal clear by now that no one who denies the deity of Christ or the Person of the Holy Spirit shall survive His coming wrath against such unbelief when He returns. Yet denial of the deity of Christ and the Person of the Holy Spirit are foundation stones of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are working as hard as the priests of old to stamp out the recognition and acknowledgment of God the Son and God the Spirit. Show them this fatal error, and if they are permitted to believe, they cannot possibly remain in that sect. They will be set free.

This is a sect of bondage, reader, as they all are, proselytizers who will cross over land and sea to gain converts, and all bound for the wrong place. (Matthew 23:15) They make converts to their sect, not to Christ. They conform to their sect, not to Christ. They claim to be the true carriers of God’s word. So? Practically every sect claims to be the true one, with the right interpretation of Scripture, and that it is necessary to belong within their circle to be saved. That reveals a gigantic fraud right off the bat.

The true carriers of God’s word are those who are set free from all these religious sects and denominations by the LORD himself and granted “the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:21) This can only be accomplished by the LORD. As Jesus put it, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (see Matthew 11:25-28) “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.” (John 5:21) “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day... No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:38-44) “I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.” (John 17:9,10)

If you wish to read more about this critical topic of predestination and election, which is also denied by Jehovah’s Witnesses, you can find the appropriate Scriptures in full at destiner.com in the online booklet, Amazing Grace, and the short topic King’s Ransom. The Scriptures concerning the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit can be found in full in the online booklet, Spirit Of The Living God. The Scriptures exposing the mistake of having to belong to a particular group or church, an error of great magnitude that has been foisted on millions of people by almost every Christian denomination for the past two thousand years, are dealt with in The Truth Which Sets Free.

To their credit, Jehovah's Witnesses do rightly hold that man, being a creature, does not possess an immortal soul. (Hebrews 7:8) That is correct; only God the Creator (be that Father, Son or Spirit) possesses immortality. (I Timothy 6:16; 1:17) But Witnesses use man’s mortal nature to deny that those sentenced to the wrong place for eternity are conscious of it, teaching that their “death” is destruction into oblivion. Not so. The LORD wills that they exist, just as He wills and maintains everything that exists right now.

The lost ones who reject Christ and die in that state are dead to this world, but not to the next one; they are most certainly aware of their fate. The Word of God declares that those whom the LORD has barred from entering His rest will bend their backs forever. The apostle John says that the smoke of their torment shall rise up forever. Jesus says they shall weep and gnash their teeth and that even their consuming worms will not die. (Revelation 14:11; 20:15; Mark 9:48) Christ also said it would be better not to have been born in the first place than end up in the wrong place, so it cannot possibly be a return to the oblivion of nothingness from which we once came. If you wish to read more about this critical topic, reader, you will find the appropriate Scriptures dealt with in full in the online essay, God and Evil.

So then, and finally, reader, are the members of this sect really Jehovah's Witnesses? The answer is yes! Ironically, Jehovah’s Witnesses are in fact correctly named, because they bear witness to a god called Jehovah, and Jehovah is not the name of the Living God. What they teach about God is little better than the man-made religion of a pagan god such as Jove. They do not recognize or accept the true LORD.

Give glory to the Father, Son and Spirit, reader, and worthy is the Lamb to be worshipped as LORD.

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ADDENDUM

Jehovah’s Witnesses will tell you that Proverbs 8 refers to Christ, describing him as a worker created for God: “The LORD created me at the beginning of his work” (verse 22) and “when he marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside him like a workman.” (verse 30) But this Proverb, from start to finish, is entirely about the subject of wisdom, a major topic of Solomon’s proverbs, especially in Proverbs 8 and 9. Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is referred to entirely in the feminine form, not masculine, and therefore cannot refer to the Son. Not only that, the Hebrew word in verse 22 is not “created” but “brought forth” and the meaning of the extremely rare Hebrew word in verse 30 is not “worker” but “binding force.” Wisdom is the pre-existing living bond that ties the uncreated Lord to His Creation, the spiritual world to the physical one, and holds them in place.

Nevertheless, this is the extent to which Witnesses will use the Scriptures to lower Christ in status to suit their sect’s teaching. In the same way, they teach that the apostle John wrote “and the word was a god,” instead of the correct and literal translation (there is no article in the Greek, either “a” or “the”) which reads, “and God was Word.” (John 1:1) The apostle here uses the word “Theos”, and he would certainly have used a lesser word if he had wanted to describe Christ as a creation inferior to the Father. And if Jesus had been such a creature, as the Witnesses teach, he would have said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father’s worker.” That is nothing like what he said. (John 14:9: 10:30)

Jehovah’s Witnesses are not even an old sect, being formed from the Watch Tower Society of Charles Taze Russell in the 1870’s, with significant doctrinal changes being made by Joseph Rutherford after 1917 that caused more than half the initial adherents to defect. Like most Christian sects, they hold that those who do not belong to their particular organization will not be saved, and those who do escape it are disassociated (shunned). Since then, the requirement of absolute conformity to their doctrines, and insistence that fellowship with non-sectarians be limited, ensures a powerful grip on its members. This has led many sociologists to consider it a cult involved in disciplined brainwashing. And this does seem to be so, since members are capable of holding beliefs in complete contradiction to the plain texts of Scripture.

For instance, Russell claimed that Christ had returned secretly to the earth in 1874 in an invisible form and then later in 1914 began a reign from a throne in heaven. He utterly rejected the deity of Christ and even his physical return and the destruction of the earth by fire, claiming that Jehovah’s Witnesses would inherit this present earth, albeit with some kind of makeover or facelift. This is absurd if one considers the Scriptures. There is nothing secret, quiet or invisible about the Second Coming, although it will certainly be unexpected. The apostle Paul writes that Christ will “descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the archangel’s cry, and with the sound of the trumpet of God,” the elect either dead or alive being “caught up in the clouds” to meet with him as he comes. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17) Luke’s record of the risen Christ’s physical ascension says, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11) “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.” (2 Peter 3:10) “The heavens and the earth that now exist are to perish by fire” says Peter, and be replaced with a new heaven and earth. (2 Peter 3:7; Hebrews 1:10-12; Revelation 21:1-4)

For a more comprehensive discourse on this earth-destroying event, when all things shall be wrapped up:

http://www.destiner.com/destiner_titles_free_chpt17.html

For a thorough encyclopedia article on the strange and very recently formed sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah’s_Witnesses

For reviews by expert translators on the Bible version used by the Witnesses, especially regarding the insertion of the unbiblical name Jehovah (7,210 times!) and the alteration of John 1:1, see this encyclopedia article:

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