Jehovah’s Witnesses - Part III

This article begins an examination of Watchtower Society doctrines. Keep in mind that not everything taught by them is false. For example they often emphasize the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Their works contain numerous admonitions to study God’s word. Take the following example: "To let God be true means to let God have the say as to what is the truth that makes men free. It means to accept his Word, the Bible, as the truth."1  In this they are right, but unfortunately, they believe the only way to rightly divide the Scriptures is to use their study materials as shown in a previous article. These doctrines taught in their numerous publications will be examined in this and future articles.

The first doctrine under review concerns the nature of God. One’s concept of God lays the foundation on which all religious belief and practice rests. If the concept of God is flawed, it affects all else one believes and practices. The Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the Bible’s teaching on the Godhead, or as some refer to it, the Trinity. The Bible clearly teachers there is one God. Deuteronomy 6: 4 reads "Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah" (ASV). In I Timothy 2:5 Paul wrote "there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (KJV). The Jehovah's Witnesses take these and other passages to mean that Jesus and the Holy Spirit cannot be God. One thing done to support their doctrine of one God is to quote those who believe in the Trinity but refer to it as a mystery. To this idea of mystery they state:

We agree it would be a mystery if the "trinity" doctrine were true. One of the most mysterious things is the question of who ran the universe during the three days that Jesus was dead and in the grave; or, for that matter, during his thirty-three and one-half years on earth while made "a little lower than the angels." If Jesus was God, then during Jesus’ death God was dead and in the grave.2

The problem here concerns the definition of God. The Greek word for God is theos from which the word theology comes. What does this word mean? The late Guy N. Woods offers the following:

"God," (Greek theos), denotes deity. (Thayer). It is the Greek name of the divine nature. There is but one divine nature. Hence there is but one God There are, however, three Persons who possess this divine nature --the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit--the Godhead. Hence all are God. Since there is but one divine nature, and this nature is named God, there is but one God. Thus, the three persons of the Godhead constitute the One God.3

Because the word theos refers to nature not person, there can be and are three personalities in the one God. All three possess the same nature, God, and thus all are God. The Bible affirms this. The apostle Paul wrote of "God the Father" in Galatians 1:1. Concerning the resurrected Jesus, Thomas stated "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). Peter confronted Ananias with these words,

But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God (Acts 5:3,4).

Because the Jehovah's Witnesses misunderstand this fundamental point of doctrine, they make many more fundamental errors in doctrine. Next week Lord willing we will examine the nature of Jesus.

(1) Let God Be True, 1946, p 9,10.

(2) Let God Be True, p 91.

(3) A Commentary on the Epistle of James, Guy N. Woods, p 139.