Jehovah’s Witnesses: A Biblical Examination
When a Jehovah’s Witness opens a Bible and speaks about Jesus, I need to listen carefully to what he means. We may use the same words while disagreeing about who Jesus is, what He accomplished, and what it means to receive salvation. Those disagreements deserve a clear answer from Scripture, and the person in front of me deserves to be treated with patience and respect.
The Real Test Is the Christ Being Preached
Many Witnesses take their beliefs seriously and devote considerable time to sharing them. I should acknowledge that commitment without treating it as proof that the teaching is true. A sincere person can be mistaken, just as someone who knows the right doctrine can behave badly. We need to examine what is being taught rather than substitute either admiration or contempt for an answer.
The modern movement developed from the Bible Students associated with Charles Taze Russell in the late nineteenth century. Russell edited the publication that became The Watchtower, and his work became associated with the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. After Russell’s death, Joseph Rutherford succeeded him as the Society’s president. Under Rutherford, the movement adopted the name Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931.
That background identifies the organization we are discussing, but its age cannot settle whether its doctrine is true. Nor can a claim to have restored the original Christian faith. We have to compare the teaching itself with the Scriptures the apostles gave us.
The central question is whether the Jesus being proclaimed is the Son revealed in Scripture. John does not permit us to dismiss that question as an unimportant disagreement among religious people:
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
Official Witness teaching identifies Jesus with Michael the archangel and denies that He is the eternal God. It rejects the Trinity and describes the Holy Spirit as God’s active force. It also distinguishes between a limited group called to heavenly life and a larger group hoping for life on earth. I cannot receive this system as biblical Christianity, because these teachings change the identity of the Savior and restrict promises the New Testament gives to everyone who belongs to Him. We need to examine the reasons for that conclusion without misrepresenting what Witnesses actually believe.
Jesus Is the Eternal Creator, Not Michael
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not teach that Jesus began to exist at His birth in Bethlehem. They believe He existed before becoming human, but identify Him as a created spirit being. Their publication “Is Jesus the Archangel Michael?” explicitly identifies Him with Michael before His human life and after His return to heaven. John begins his Gospel with a different description:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Word already existed in the beginning. He was with God, which distinguishes Him personally from the Father, and He was God. John then explains that everything made came into existence through Him, and that nothing made came into existence without Him (John 1:3). If the Word were a creature, He would belong to the very category of things John says came into existence through Him. John’s explanation places Him on the Creator’s side of that distinction.
The New World Translation renders the end of John 1:1 “the Word was a god.” That wording presents the Word as a lesser divine being. John’s opening, however, identifies Him as eternal and as the Creator through whom every created thing came into existence.
The Greek clause is kai theos en ho logos. The absence of the article before theos, God, does not automatically require the English wording “a god.” As the NET translation notes explain, the clause describes the Word’s divine nature while distinguishing Him from the Father. John wrote as a Jewish monotheist, someone who believed in one God. He was not introducing a second, lesser god. His opening proceeds from the Word’s existence in the beginning to His becoming flesh, without describing the creation of an angel.
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.
The Word became flesh; He did not begin to be the Word when He became man. Jesus is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man. His real humanity does not reduce His deity, and His deity does not make His human life an appearance or a disguise.
Witnesses appeal to the title “firstborn over all creation” in Colossians 1:15 as evidence that Christ was created. But a firstborn son’s position involves rank and inheritance, and we must read Paul’s explanation of the title in the next verse:
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
Paul includes the invisible powers as well as the visible world among the things created through Christ and for Him. Angels therefore belong to His creation. The following verse places Him before all things and says that all things hold together in Him. In that setting, firstborn describes His supremacy over creation, rather than making Him its earliest member.
Colossians 2:9 states, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Paul also distinguishes the Son from the angels throughout Hebrews 1. The angels are called to worship Him, and the Father addresses the Son as God. Michael is an archangel, a chief angel; he belongs to the order that worships the Son. The study on the deity of Jesus examines that testimony in more detail.
Witnesses connect Michael with Jesus partly because 1 Thessalonians 4:16 describes the Lord’s descent with an archangel’s voice. The verse describes what accompanies the Lord’s coming, but it does not name Michael or call Jesus an angel. We should let the clear description of the Son in John, Colossians, and Hebrews govern how we understand the accompanying announcement of His return.
One God Revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
The Trinity means that the one God eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are distinct Persons, not three gods or one Person appearing under three different names. The Son’s distinction from the Father does not make Him a lesser deity. Jesus names the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together when He commands baptism:
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
He says “the name,” bringing Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together in the one baptism He commands. Likewise, 2 Corinthians 13:14 joins the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Spirit in the apostolic blessing. These passages belong alongside the direct statements of the Son’s deity and the Spirit’s deity; the doctrine accounts for their combined testimony.
In their explanation of the Holy Spirit, Jehovah’s Witnesses describe Him as God’s power in action rather than a Person. They recognize the passages in which He speaks and teaches, but interpret those descriptions as personification, language that gives personal qualities to something impersonal. I do not think that explanation adequately accounts for the way Scripture presents Him.
The Spirit teaches and testifies concerning Christ (John 14:26; 15:26). He distributes gifts as He wills (1 Corinthians 12:11), intercedes for believers (Romans 8:26–27), and can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). Acts records Peter speaking of a lie told to Him:
But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit… You have not lied to men but to God.”
Peter identifies the lie to the Holy Spirit as a lie to God. Read alongside the Spirit’s will, teaching, and intercession, his words describe more than an impersonal power. We are dealing with someone who knows, acts, and can be sinned against. The wider study on the Holy Spirit follows those passages and His work in believers.
I am not adding three divine Persons together to produce three gods. Scripture teaches that God is one, while revealing the Father, Son, and Spirit as personally distinct and truly divine. The doctrine of the Trinity expresses those truths together. Rejecting the Son’s deity or the Spirit’s Person changes the God being described, even when familiar biblical names remain.
The NKJV also includes the heavenly witnesses in 1 John 5:7: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. We should acknowledge that this longer reading has a disputed manuscript history and is absent from the early Greek manuscript evidence. The biblical case for the Trinity does not depend on settling that textual question. The passages considered above establish the deity of the Son and Spirit without relying on that longer reading.
The Gospel Is Grace Received Through Faith
We must be equally careful when discussing salvation. Jehovah’s Witnesses explicitly deny that their door-to-door ministry earns salvation. Their publications appeal to God’s generosity and to Christ’s ransom sacrifice. I should not tell a visitor that he believes forgiveness can be purchased by counting hours when his own teaching denies that claim.
The disagreement concerns the identity of the Savior and the relationship between His saving work, faith, obedience, and assurance. Witness teaching makes baptism and continued obedience necessary to obtaining everlasting life, and its explanation of salvation says that someone who has been saved can lose that salvation. Calling salvation a gift does not by itself resolve those questions. Paul explains how a sinner receives it:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
The person who trusts Christ receives salvation as God’s gift. His baptism, religious membership, and service cannot supply a payment that Christ left outstanding. In Ephesians 2:10, Paul then describes believers as created in Christ Jesus for good works. Their obedience follows from the new life God gives them. It does not cause that life or maintain a claim to forgiveness by accumulating enough service.
When I speak of new birth, I mean someone genuinely made alive in Christ, not someone who merely adopts a Christian label. A believer should repent of sin, be baptized, serve others, and share the gospel. Conduct supplies evidence of new life, without making good conduct the price of salvation. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals the believer (Ephesians 1:13–14), and Jesus keeps those who belong to Him (John 10:27–29). That security gives us no permission to persist in lawlessness.
The gospel announces what the eternal Son accomplished for sinners. He became fully man without ceasing to be fully God and lived without sin. Wicked people inflicted real bodily suffering and death upon Him, but He gave Himself willingly. On the cross, He bore the punishment for our sins in His innocent body, shed His blood, and died. His saving work through that blood and death was complete before He rose bodily from the grave. The Father did not punish Jesus.
Christ died for the sins of the whole world. God’s offer of salvation is genuine for every person, though a person can resist His grace and refuse Him. Everyone who turns to Christ in repentance and faith is forgiven and born again. Neither an organization nor its requirements can replace the Savior or improve on His completed work.
Paul warned the Galatians against accepting a changed gospel, even from someone who appeared to possess extraordinary authority:
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
I cannot accept a created substitute for the eternal Son simply because the message also contains familiar statements about faith and obedience. The apostles proclaimed the Son who truly became man and rose bodily. Witness teaching denies that Jesus was raised with His human body, explaining His appearances as involving bodies He took on. In Luke 24:39, however, the risen Jesus identifies Himself and invites His disciples to examine His hands and feet. His resurrection is bodily, not the replacement of His humanity by an angelic existence.
Death Leads to Resurrection and Judgment
Jehovah’s Witnesses also teach that the dead are unconscious until resurrection. They do believe in resurrection and final destruction, so it would be inaccurate to say they simply deny any future judgment. My disagreement concerns the person’s condition after death and the way the resurrection and judgment are explained.
I do not believe Scripture teaches endless conscious torment for human beings. I understand the final punishment of the lost as irreversible destruction of body and soul, following bodily resurrection and judgment. That does not require unconsciousness between death and resurrection. Jesus describes conscious existence after death in Luke 16:19–31, and Paul speaks of departing to be with Christ in Philippians 1:23. Those passages must be considered along with Revelation’s description of the final judgment:
And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened… And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.
The dead stand before God and are judged according to their works. John then says that anyone whose name is not found in the Book of Life is cast into the Lake of Fire, which he identifies as the second death. I understand that punishment as final destruction, not a temporary correction followed by another opportunity to repent. Jesus also says that all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, some to life and others to condemnation (John 5:28–29). Resurrection and judgment cannot be omitted from the explanation of what finally happens to the lost.
The hope offered to believers raises a further disagreement. Witnesses teach that 144,000 anointed Christians will live in heaven and rule with Christ, while most faithful people will live in an earthly paradise. Their teaching associates the new birth and membership in the new covenant with that limited group. They do not claim that only 144,000 can be saved. The question is whether Scripture confines these promises to a small class of Christians.
And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed.
Revelation 7 identifies the sealed servants by the tribes of Israel. I understand this as a particular group from Israel, rather than a fixed ceiling on how many Christians can receive new birth or belong to the new covenant. John next describes a multitude from the nations:
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.
The multitude stands before God and the Lamb. Revelation 14 describes the 144,000 as redeemed from the earth and following the Lamb, but neither chapter says that all remaining believers are excluded from new birth. Jesus makes new birth necessary for entering God’s kingdom in John 3, and John 1:12–13 describes those who receive Him and believe in His name as born of God.
The New Testament does not tell most believers to remain outside the new covenant while receiving benefits through a smaller group. Every believer comes to the Father through Christ and shares the hope of resurrection. God can assign different rewards and responsibilities without creating one class that is born again and another that belongs to Christ without being born again. My objection is to that division, not to the biblical promise that God’s people will enjoy His restored creation.
Read the Whole Witness and Keep Returning to Christ
In John 20:28, Thomas addressed the risen Jesus with the words “My Lord and my God.” Colossians places the fullness of deity bodily in Christ, Hebrews distinguishes Him from the angels, and Revelation presents worship given to the One on the throne and to the Lamb. We should read those passages together, including the passages in which the incarnate Son submits willingly to the Father. His submission does not erase everything else Scripture says about Him.
In conversation, I would ask the person to read John 1, Colossians 1–2, or Hebrews 1 with me and explain the surrounding argument. If he quotes a verse about Jesus’ humanity, I should acknowledge it rather than act as though it contradicts my faith. Jesus truly became man. Then we can ask how the same passage or book also describes His divine identity. Reading patiently gives both people an opportunity to address what the text actually says.
I would also ask how a sinner receives forgiveness and what Christ’s blood accomplished. A discussion can drift into holidays, terminology, or the organization’s reputation until neither person is considering the Savior anymore. We need to distinguish obedience that grows out of salvation from religious requirements treated as conditions for securing it. Ephesians 2:8–10 provides a clear place to examine that difference.
Speaking firmly does not require speaking cruelly. A person may have trusted these teachings for years and may be hearing a serious challenge to them for the first time. Interrupting, ridiculing, or trying to embarrass him will not make my explanation more faithful to Scripture. Paul describes how the Lord’s servant should teach:
And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient.
I do not need to memorize every Watchtower publication, but I do need to understand the passages I use and represent the other person’s beliefs honestly. If I am unsure what he means, I should ask. The aim is to help him recognize the Son Scripture reveals and receive the salvation He provides.
My Final Thoughts
I cannot receive official Jehovah’s Witness doctrine as biblical Christianity because it denies the eternal deity of the Son and alters the apostolic gospel. I also cannot excuse careless accusations or contempt toward the people who believe it. Every Witness needs the same Savior I need: Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, who willingly shed His blood and died for our sins before rising bodily. We should know His Word, explain it plainly, and speak with the patience we would want someone to show us.