Is there a Bible verse or a set of Scriptures you can use when meeting a Jehovah’s Witness at your door?
Jehovah’s Witnesses
The cultic group called the Jehovah’s Witnesses is a group claiming upwards to 15 million worldwide with over half of that group being involved in evangelizing. Unfortunately, their own translation, The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, is full of doctrinal and translation errors and has been changed to fit their beliefs. For example, they don’t believe in an eternal hell, there is no Trinity, there is no immortality to the soul, the Holy Spirit is not a person but a force or power, there is no belief in predestination, the bodily return of Jesus, and they even refuse to salute the American flag because of their conscientious objections to military service and patriotism. One of the greatest of their errors is that they believe that the Holy Spirit is a force of God and not God Himself, even though the Bible clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person (Matt 28:19-20). Each time the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Bible, it is always capitalized, meaning that it’s a personal pronoun, designating personhood, but not so with their own translation. Jesus spoke about the Advocate or Helper (again, these are capitalized) as a distinct Person from Himself and from the Father and never as a force or power.
They believe that only God the Father is God and that Jesus was formerly Michael the Archangel, but if Jesus was created, is His sacrifice enough?
The Holy Spirit
Sadly, Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as being a person and since they’ve got their own Bible translation, they can take out the Holy Spirit’s name and just render it as a force or power instead of a Person, but how does the original Greek indicate the Spirit’s name? It is always as a “He” or “Him.” Before Jesus was to go to the cross to die for sinners and then return to the Father, He told the disciples that He would send them a Helper (capitalized) and said “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13). Notice Jesus called the Spirit “he” several times and not an “it” as do the Jehovah’s Witnesses who render it in their miss-translation (NWT) as an impersonal “it.” Their own Bible (New World Translation) is so full of translation errors that it’s hard to know where to begin, but one of their main errors is contrary to Jesus’ teaching where He said that “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). Again we see several “He’s,” clearly indicating that the Spirit is a Person and is called (by a proper noun) the Helper, Advocate, and the Spirit. This is obviously not a force but a Person.
The Right Savior
Unfortunately, Jehovah’s Witnesses are growing rapidly and some say that’s evidence that their religion is true but so is the Muslim faith and we know that this is from the devil and not from God. They believe that only God the Father is God and that Jesus was formerly Michael the Archangel, but if Jesus was created, is His sacrifice enough? No, it takes a God-sized sacrifice of Himself to settle our infinite penalty for our sins. If you don’t have the right Jesus, you don’t have the right Savior. Jesus ties in our ability to receive eternal life with knowing Who Jesus and the Father are as He said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3), so our eternal life depends on knowing Who the One, True God is and knowing Who Jesus is, Whom He sent. One of my best friends is our church deacon. I know a lot about him. We had very similar backgrounds. I know many details about him that others don’t know, so I can really say “I know Tom,” so can Jehovah’s Witnesses claim to know God the Father and Jesus, Whom He sent? Obviously, not.
Knowing God
Do Jehovah’s Witnesses really know Jesus as they claim to know Him? No; they’ve got a different Jesus because they believe He was created, therefore they believe He became God, which is heresy, so the fact is, they really don’t know Jesus because they don’t know Him as being God; the very God as Jesus Who came in the flesh (John 1:14). The Apostle John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3). Since Jesus is the Word and the Word was with God (the Father) and the Word was God, He could not have become God nor could He have been created because by definition, a “god” is an eternal being that has always existed. Can a god even be created? Even so, they think that of Jesus. They believe He was created but how do they explain that Jesus, as the Word, created “all things” and that all things were “made through Him” and “without Him,” there wasn’t anything that was made that was not made by Him (Jesus). Since this is true and all things were created by Him, how could He have been created since He was the Creator? He couldn’t have created Himself, because He would have had to exist prior to this, so that idea that Jesus was created is not only illogical, it is truly unbiblical, so Jehovah’s Witnesses certainly don’t know God since they don’t really know Jesus. They might know about Jesus but they don’t actually know the true Jesus and that’s critical because He said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), so the opposite is naturally true; if you’ve not seen the Father for Who He is, then you’ve not truly seen the right Savior, Jesus Christ, and without knowing and having the right Savior, you cannot possibly be saved because Jesus said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:11).
The New World Translation
Let me warn you that if you accept Jehovah’s Witnesses literature, it’s almost like you’re saying you see it as acceptable, so just don’t accept it in the first place, especially the Watchtower or Awake literature. By all means, never read the false translation of theirs, which is the New World Translation because there are hundreds of errors in it. For one thing, John 1:1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” which is accurate in the way the Greek is written, but Jehovah’s Witnesses have it, “In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” In mistranslating this (and many other verses,) they have reduced Jesus to simply being “a god” or becoming a god and apparently He is only one of many “gods” yet to come. This is so offensive to most Christians to say that Jesus is just another “god” but not God Himself because it flies in the face of dozens of Scriptures that clearly indicate Jesus is God and has always been God (Isaiah 9:6, 43:10, 44:6; Gal 4:8-9). Jehovah’s Witnesses are actually breaking the very first commandment to have no other gods before them. They are worshiping a false god by proclaiming Jesus as a created being Who became God. They have created a god in their own minds and imaginations to fit their own image, not the other way around (Gen 1:27). That is pure idolatry.
Conclusion
I hope you will be gentle and kind to any Jehovah’s Witnesses that come to your door. Remember that they are blinded by the god of this world and can’t see the true Jesus (Eph 2:1-3). Pray for them, ask them about Jesus’ divinity, show them what John 1:1-3 really says in the most accurate translations, and then leave it alone. That’s because only the Holy Spirit illuminates for us Who Jesus is and since Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe the Holy Spirit is God, they don’t even know the Spirit, but they also don’t truly know the Father and unless you have the Father and know Him, you really don’t know Jesus and that’s tragic because to know Jesus is to know how to receive eternal life. Make sure you tell them that “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3)
Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This article was first published at WhatChristiansWantToKnow.com
