Jesus is God. This is the ages-old teaching of the Church. It shall never change in reality, but in the New World Translation of the Scriptures, it has been changed on paper. This is the most serious discussion we have with the perpetrators of the “witness” movement.
The charge: High Treason, Abominable Heresy!
To Charles Taze Russell, and those who have followed after him, it is not possible that Jesus Christ is the Almighty God. He is “a” god, whatever that means. He is the first direct creation of God. He had a beginning. “A” Son of God, but not God Himself. He was sent, therefore He was less than God. John 1:1, to them, is “unreasonable” as it stands. How can a person be “with” God and be God at the same time? No, He must be a created spirit being. This is the most damning of all “witness” theology and is dealt with here at great length, verse by verse:
What does the Word say? Isaiah 9:6. “Unto us a child is born… and His Name shall be called… Mighty God, the Everlasting Father…” (NWT is similar)
Q. The “child” of Isaiah 9, is this Jesus?
JWA. Yes, later in the text it is established that this one is sitting on the Throne of David. It could only be the Jewish Messiah, whom we know to be Jesus.
Q. On this we are agreed. Now can you see, by the two titles I have pulled out of that text, that this Jesus must be Almighty God?
JWA. Absolutely not! This person is called Mighty God. Jehovah is the Almighty God. There is a huge difference.
Q. Between “Mighty” and “Almighty” there is a huge difference?
JWA. Oh yes! We freely acknowledge Jesus is a Mighty God, but He is subservient to Jehovah, the Almighty!
Q. So Jesus is never called “The Almighty”? What about Revelation 1:8? The context has been talking about Jesus there, then in verse 8 Jesus says He is “the One Who is and Who was, and Who is coming…The Almighty!”
JWA. No, we were able to correct that passage after intense study, and as you see, the reference there is to Jehovah, not Jesus.
Q. Putting aside for the moment that we believe Jesus is Jehovah God, the Son, I must ask you why you have inserted “Jehovah” in that text, when “Kurios” (Lord) is in the Greek. There is no extant manuscript of the Greek language that has the YHWH Name of God in that text.
JWA. Nevertheless, we believe that the originals most probably had YHWH where you now see Kurios or Theos (God). It only stands to reason.
Q. Whose reason? Is it reasonable to have a text to read that Jehovah God is the One Who was, and is, and is coming? How can it be said of the Omnipresent God that He is “coming”? Is it not more probable that it is the Son, Who often promised to return to Earth, who is “coming”?
JWA. Still, we must not violate the consistency of the word usage here. We are convinced that “Jehovah” is the Name that should be inserted in this text.
Q. I firmly disagree with your conviction, which I believe to be based on your bias against the Son of God and nothing else. But we have not spoken of that second term, Eternal Father, as it reads in your very translation. How could the Son be called the Father unless it is true what Jesus said, that He and His Father are One?
JWA. There is a unity between any Father and any Son, but this does not prove that the two identities are merged into one.
Q. Humanly speaking you are right. But in fact the Scripture here calls for the Son to be so identified with the Father, that one of His Names will actually be Eternal Father.
CA: There is no denying that once again we have hit upon the mystery of the Godhead, called by men the Trinity, the Tri-Unity. There is simply no way to explain it, no way to appeal to reason in this matter, as any of the other matters we find in Scripture. Dead men do not rise again. But Jesus did. Worlds do not just come into being. But this one we live in did, by an act of creation. The Red Sea miracle, the healings of Jesus, none of it is “reasonable.” But by faith we say it is true!
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