Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christians

What is a Christian?

To be a Christian is not to only believe on Jesus, but to be adopted into His family through putting your trust and faith in Him and repenting of your sin and the way you used to live before you accepted Christ. 

The Bible often uses metaphors that we are able to understand to describe our salvation. In Romans 11:17 Paul describes Christians as branches, grafted into the olive tree: "And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,"

To be a Christian is much more than to hold a high moral fibre and believe in the things of the Bible. It is to become one with God through Christ and become distinct from the world.

John 15:19 states, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

To be a Christian is to recognise the hopelessness of our situation, in that we are sinners and one day must face a holy God to be held accountable for what we have done. To be a Christian is to recognise that we fall short of the glory of God and are guilty before Him for breaking His laws. To be a Christian is to recognise that God loves us so much that He became man Himself, as His son Jesus Christ, to die for us and take the punishment for the things we have done wrong. To be a Christian is to recognise that the only way to salvation is through putting our trust in Jesus Christ, the man who sacrificed Himself for us. To be a Christian is to repent of our sin and trust in Jesus. 

Jesus says in John 14:6 "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

The Lord Jesus Christ is central to Christianity.

John 1:12 states "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."

We must believe in His name and trust in Him as our saviour.

Why Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christians:

*any statement as to what JW believe has been taken from www.jw.org 

Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Jesus Christ is equal to God. 

www.jw.org states:12. How do we know that the firstborn Son is not equal to God?

Is the firstborn Son equal to God, as some believe? That is not what the Bible teaches. As we noted in the preceding paragraph, the Son was created. Obviously, then, he had a beginning, whereas Jehovah God has no beginning or end. (Psalm 90:2) The only-begotten Son never even considered trying to be equal to his Father. The Bible clearly teaches that the Father is greater than the Son. (John 14:28;1 Corinthians 11:13) Jehovah alone is “God Almighty.” (Genesis 17:1) Therefore, he has no equal.

Why this is untrue:

This is untrue and an unbiblical view. There is  a previous post on this blog regarding the Trinity, which shows how God is one God made up of three separate entities, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - each equal to each other. However, to rebut this statement by the JW, lets go down another route:

First, JW's claim regarding Jesus being created is untrue. In fact, the Lord Jesus was there in Genesis 1. 1 John 5:7 "For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." Jesus Christ is also "the light of the world". 

In Genesis 1 we see God the Father (1:1"God created the heavens and the earth"); God the Spirit (1:2 "and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters"); and God the Son. The Son is there as both the Word and the Light. (1:3 "God said let there be light and there was light."). Note that the light is first mentioned in verse 3, however our only source of light, the sun was not created until verse 16. This light mentioned in verse 3 is a different light to the one that is given from the sun. 

Furthermore, throughout the old testament, we see God the Son incarnated in human form. The angel of the Lord is called 'yahweh' in Hebrew. In Genesis 18 we are told that the 'angel of the Lord' appeared to Abraham amongst the terebinth trees. In Genesis 38 we are told how Jacob wrestles with the angel of the Lord.

Exodus 6:3 states, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name ‘the LORD’ (Yahweh) I was not known to them.”

There was a definite time when Jesus was incarnated as man on the earth (0 B.C.). However to say that this is when He was created is wrong. He always existed. That is why in Revelation 22:13 Jesus states "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Jehovah's Witnesses state that Jesus did not even consider to be equal to God. Again this is untrue. Time and time again Jesus admitted and claimed to be God Almighty. 

Lets look briefly at the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3. 

Exodus 3:13-14 "Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

¹⁴ 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.’”"

Now let us look to the famous passage in John 8:58, "Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”"

Jesus here is claiming to be God Himself. The religious leaders at the time knew this too, because they knew their Scripture (unlike the Jehovahs Witnesses), which is why we are told in 8:59, "Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by."

The Pharisees knew the seriousness of the claim Jesus had made in John 8:58 and they considered it blasphemy, which is why they took up stones to kill Jesus.

Without a doubt, Jesus certainly did claim that He was God Almighty.

Philippians 2:5-7 "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men." 

Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus is Michael the archangel:

www.jw.org states:

Archangel. God’s Word refers to Michael “the archangel.” (Jude 9) This term means “chief angel.” Notice that Michael is called thearchangel. This suggests that there is only one such angel. In fact, the term “archangel” occurs in the Bible only in the singular, never in the plural. Moreover, Jesus is linked with the office of archangel. Regarding the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thessalonians 4:16states: “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel’s voice.” Thus the voice of Jesus is described as

 being that of an archangel. This scripture therefore suggests that Jesus himself is the archangel Michael.

Why this is untrue:

This claim is completely unbiblical yet again. To rebut this claim indefinitely, lets look at the passage that the JW website uses itself. The JW website refers to Jude 9 to show that Jesus is Michael the archangel. In fact, this verse shows the complete opposite.

Jude 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

Here, it says that Michael the Archangel "dared not bring against him [satan] a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!". 

Satan is a powerful being. There is no doubt about it. The earth currently belongs to him and he has great power. A third of the angels sided with him when he was cast out of heaven. He is to blame for everything wrong with this world (that's a lot of wrong!...) and Michael, God's most powerful angel knew this. Michael knew that satan (Lucifer) was too powerful even for him! That is why we are told that he dared not bring an accusation against him, but instead said the Lord rebuke you. Michael knew that he was not powerful enough to rebuke the devil in his own strength, therefore He had to rely on the power of the Lord and use His name, which is powerful enough to rebuke satan. 

If you read the book of Acts, you will see countless stories were followers of Jesus have failed to cast out demons because they have been too strong for them. The only time they are successfully able to cast out the demons is when they rely upon the authority of God and come in Jesus' name. 

Michael here is showing us his limitations. This is in comparison to Jesus, who had no problem in casting out demons and rebuking the devil himself (in Matthew 4) in his own strength. Jesus did not have to rebuke in the name of the Lord, because He is the Lord.

Further evidence that Jesus is not Michael the archangel can be seen in Revelation. When the angel reveals to John in Patmos the vision of the end days, John falls on his feet and begins to worship the angel. The angel is quick to rebuke John and tell him that only God is to be worshipped. 

Again going back to the gospels, we see countless times when the disciples fall at Jesus' feet and worship Him. Not once does Jesus rebuke or stop the people who worship Him. On the contrary, He accepts their worship and compliments them on their faith. 

Matthew 28:9 "And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him."

In conclusion:

In conclusion we have looked at the Bible and at verses which show that clearly Jesus has claimed to be God Almighty and has differentiated Himself from the angels. There is much theology that we could look into to determine why Jehovah's Witnesses are incorrect in what they believe, but it is not necessary. It is only necessary to look to the claims of Jesus himself, because it is Jesus that is central to being a Christian.

By looking at the claims of Jesus, which we have done above, we must come to one of two answers:

Either: 

1. Jesus is who He claims to be and JW are wrong in what they believe; or
2. Jesus is a liar. 

There cannot be any other answers than that. For if Jesus' claims are true, then He is God Almighty and Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong.

But if what Jehovah's Witnesses say is true, then this not only makes Jesus a liar, but also it makes the Bible, which is the source of our faith, to be untrue also. 

Now if Jesus is a liar, then that makes Him in contravention of the ninth commandment, which therefore means that He is not perfect, which therefore means that He was unable to take the punishment for our sins, because He too was a sinner, which therefore means that His death on the cross was of no effect, and there is no such thing as the Christian faith.

If Jesus is a liar, then that also means the Bible is incorrect. We are able to put our wholehearted trust and faith into the Bible because it adds up completely and is the source of our faith. If this part of the Bible is incorrect then it all becomes untrustworthy, meaning we have no basis for our faith, again meaning that there is no such thing as Christianity. 

Jesus Christ Himself claims to be God Almighty. 

A Jehovahs Witness does not believe this. Therefore there are two conclusions:

A) Jehovahs Witnesses are wrong in what they beleive

or

B) Jesus is a liar and therefore the whole Bible is brought into disrepute.

I know what I believe.

Collosians 2:9 "For in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, bodily"

-BACChristian