A JW Visit

The Jehovah's Witnesses showed up at our door one Saturday. I think they like that day. Not sure why. They don't like talking to me, that's for sure. Usually it's preemptive. "Look, you and I have different Bibles, a different Jesus, and, in the end, a different God. In another time, the Church would have banished you or burned you for the heresy you teach and your people would have done the same to me. Perhaps you shouldn't expect a pleasant conversation from someone like me." On rare occasion it's "So, do you really want to talk? Because I can get my Bible out and we can have a discussion." Funny thing. They never really want to talk.

The primary difference between Christianity and Jehovah's Witnesses (because these two things are not the same) is Jesus. To Christianity Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. Without this fact, Christianity becomes impossible. The Bible is wrong. Atonement is not possible. It all ends. We are of all people most to be pitied. So we do this little dance.

"Jesus is God."

"No, he's not."

"But it says, 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God'" (John 1:1).

"Oh, see? You got the translation wrong. That should be "the Word was a god."

QED. Problem solved. We trot out big-named Greek scholars who all assure us that our translation of verse 1 is correct and they wheel in their translators of the New World Bible that assure us that our translation is a lie. So we go back and forth on John 1:1 and get nowhere.

I've never quite figured out why. Sure, it's clear to any genuine translator. Fine. But why go there? Why not go where there is no question? Here's John 1:3 in a few different translations:

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (NASB)

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (ESV)

All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence. (NWT)

Pretty clear. Not much variation. None at all to speak of. They all refer to "all things". They refer to "being" or "made" or "existence", but all agree that everything that came into being, was made, or that came into existence was made "through him". And note that the verse in all three translations doubles down on the statement. That is, it first states the positive -- all things were made through Him -- followed by the negative -- nothing that was made came into being without Him. Good! We're in perfect agreement here.

So, the Jehovah's Witnesses hold that Jesus is a created being. He falls in the category of those things that "came into being" or "were made" or "came into existence". (They use this claim to prove that He is not God.) Thus, the requirement of the JW Bible (the NWT) as well as any other translation you wish to use is that Jesus as a created being made Himself or the text is not accurate when it uses the two complementary and explicit terms "all things" and "nothing". The the contention of the Jehovah's Witnesses is that Jesus "is the only one directly created by God." You cannot align "only one" and "not even one" and make sense of it.

Now, there is no shortage of Scriptures that demonstrate exactly that Jesus was the second person of the Godhead, and I can point you to them or you can find them yourself. It was not my aim here to prove that He is indeed God. I just wanted to point out that a consistent, logical perspective on the topic cannot be held by holding the Jehovah's Witness Bible in one hand and the Jehovah's Witness doctrine in the other. And no amount of disagreement on John 1:1 solves that problem.