Jehovah Witnesses Ask “Is Jesus Christ God?”—What Does the Inspired Word of God Say?

—some thoughts by Pastor Charles P. Schmitt

In a recent edition of Awake!, Jehovah’s Witnesses ask the question, “Is Jesus Christ God?” It is evident they do not believe He is. In the lead article, “Who is Jesus Christ?,” the Watchtower declares Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. This is true. But in their follow-up article, “Who is ‘the Only True God’?” the Watchtower becomes emphatic in attacking the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, declaring Him “lesser than God.” They quote Jesus’ words, “My Father is greater than I,” and this is true, for Jesus is a true man, one hundred percent human and, as a real, bonafide man, God is, therefore, His Father and His God (John 20:17).

The Watchtower, in their article, however fails to bring out the other side of the equation. John comments in John 5:18 that when Jesus was “calling God His own Father,” he was “making himself equal with God.” And this also is true, for Jesus is likewise truly God, fully God! He is God in human flesh. The early believers called Him the God-Man! The Greek word translated in John 5:18 as “equal”— in the phrase “equal with God”— is isos and means “equal to, the same as.” This is the same word used by Paul in the great kenosis passage, Philippians 2:6-7, where the apostle declares of Jesus: “Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped [clutched onto], but made Himself nothing…being made in human likeness….” Thus we see God became man, and Jesus is that God-Man; He is fully God and He is fully man. This may not be easy to understand, but it is not impossible to believe. In the incarnation, our Lord took upon Himself human flesh (1 John 4:2). He humbled Himself and He became man. The invisible God took on a body in which to suffer and bleed and die for us and for our salvation. Consequently, when we look at the Cross, we see more than a man dying on that Cross; we see that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19, KJV). And when we look at Jesus we see more than a man, we see that He is “God with us” (Immanuel, Matthew 1:23).

In the next article in Awake!, the Watchtower becomes extreme, for they are hard pressed to explain the “Jesus is God” passages in John—passages such as: “The Word [Jesus] was God” (John 1:1); “Before Abraham was born, I AM!” (John 8:58)—a clear reference to Jehovah’s words to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.” Jesus is that “I AM!” Also, when Jesus further declared to the Jews in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one,” they had no problem understanding what He was saying—“You, a mere man, claim to be God” (vs. 33). But perhaps the passage that is the most wonderful in John’s Gospel is Thomas’ statement to Jesus: “Thomas said to Him [to Jesus], “My Lord and my God” (John 21:20). The Greek is very clear in this verse—“Thomas said to Him: THE LORD OF ME; THE GOD OF ME.” Jesus was clearly Thomas’ Lord and his God! And the Greek says that Jesus was “the God” of Thomas (not just “a god,” as the Jehovah Witnesses tell us).

In an attempt to explain away these powerful statements, the Watchtower has come up with a polytheism (the belief that there is more than one God)—a polytheism that is clearly unscriptural. They quote Scriptures concerning the pagans having many gods; they quote Paul, in Corinthians 8:4-6, who states that among the pagans there are “so-called gods,”—“many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’”. Awake! Calls our attention to human judges being called “gods” (Psalm 82:6-7), and of Herod Agrippa being called “a god” by the mesmerized crowd in Acts 12:22. Awake! speaks of satan being the “god” of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), and the pagan crowd at Lystra calling Paul and Barnabas “gods” in Acts 14:16. These statements are then used to show how Jesus is “not God, but ‘a god’” along with these others. The great difference is that no true Christian ever worshipped Herod, or human judges, or satan, or Paul, or Barnabas—but Jesus’ followers “worshipped Him” (Matthew 28:17). Angels “worshipped Him” (Hebrews 1:6)! And only God alone is to be so worshipped!

True Christians are not polytheists. We do not have two Gods—“Jehovah the great God and Jesus the lesser god.” That would be polytheism! We have only one God. And we worship only one God. The Lord Jehovah commanded, “You shall have no other gods besides me” (Exodus 20:3). If Jesus were “a god” besides Jehovah (as per the Watchtower translation of John 1:1), this would be a very serious departure from the rest of Holy Scripture! In Isaiah 45:21 Jehovah declares, “There is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me….I am God and there is no other … before me every knee will bow; by me, every tongue will swear. They will say of me, ‘In Jehovah alone are righteousness and strength.’” Therefore, if Jesus is God, in any sense of the word, He must be this God, for there is no other God besides this one! If Jesus, in any sense of the word, is our Savior, He must be this one, for there is no other Savior—none! “I, even I, am Jehovah, and apart from Me there is no Savior” (Isaiah 43:11). If Jesus, in any sense of the word, is our righteousness, He must be Jehovah for apart from Him there is no other righteousness—“in Jehovah alone are righteousness and strength.”

Even Jehovah’s statement, “before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear” is quoted by Paul in Philippians 2:10 and applied directly to Jesus! The “Me” in Isaiah 45:21 is obviously the Jesus of Philippians 2:10! In Philippians 2:9 (NIV, as in the Greek) we are told that God has given to Jesus, “the Name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow….” If Jesus is the name above all names, we may wonder where does the name Jehovah come in—unless we see Jehovah in the very Name of Jesus, (Jesus actually means Jehovah Savior)!

In Isaiah 44:6, Jehovah likewise says, “I am … the first and the last; apart from me there is no God.” So, when Isaiah calls the Messiah the “mighty God,” in Isaiah 9:6, Jesus the Messiah must be that God, for Isaiah 44:6 declares that apart from Him there is none other. And when Jesus says in Revelation 1:17, “I am the First and the Last,” and then repeats Himself again in Revelation 22:13, “I am … the First and the Last,” Jesus, according to Isaiah 44:6, is declaring Himself to be Jehovah, for you cannot have two firsts and you cannot have two lasts. If Jehovah is “the first and the last” and if Jesus is “the first and the last,” the obvious is clear. Jesus, Jehovah Savior, is Jehovah come down in human flesh to be our Savior!

Consequently Jude calls “Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude v.4). If Jesus is our only Sovereign and Lord, where, in this, do we see Jehovah, except it be that we see Him in Christ, for Jesus really is “Jehovah Savior,” for “God was in Christ.”

No, we cannot and we will not worship any god other than Jehovah! So, when the disciples “worshipped” Jesus in Matthews 28:17, they were worshipping the one true God for Jesus was “in the Father and the Father [was] in [Him]” (John 14:8-11). If Jesus Christ is God—in any sense of the word—He must be the one true God, for this is the way John defines Jesus Christ in 1 John 5:20. John had already declared in 1 John 1:2 that Jesus Christ is “the eternal life, which was with the Father and [who] has appeared to us.” Then in 1 John 5:20, John writes of “Jesus Christ [that] He is the true God and eternal life.” No two statements could be clearer. The eternal life of 1 John 1:2 is the true God and the eternal life of 1 John 5:20.

Paul likewise declared of Jesus that “God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him” (Colossians 1:19) and that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9). Jesus is the God-Man, God dwelling in bodily form! When Paul writes to Titus he declares God Himself to be our Savior (Titus 2:10) and then in verse 13 speaks of “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (NIV, as in the Greek); and in Titus 3:4, Paul refers to “God our Savior,” only to turn around in verse 6 to call “Jesus Christ our Savior”! We do not have two gods nor two Saviors. We have only one God and one Savior, revealed in Jesus Christ!

This Jesus is God in human flesh—subject to the Father and different from Him in His humanity, but equal to the Father and one with Him in His Deity! Let us reiterate that again: This Jesus is God in human flesh—subject to the Father and different from Him in His humanity, but equal to the Father and one with Him in His Deity! Passages such as John 17:3 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 and 1 Timothy 2:5 emphasize the difference between the Father and “the man Christ Jesus,” while passages such as John 14:8-11; 17:21 and Romans 9:5, NIV (where Paul speaks of “Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”) emphasize the equality and oneness of the Father with Jesus, who is “God the only Son” (John 1:18, NIV).

In Colossians 1:15 Paul, therefore, calls Jesus “the image [the visible expression] of the invisible God”; and in Hebrews 1:3 we are told that “the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation [literally, the exact impress] of His being….” When you see Jesus, you see the Father! Finally, Peter calls Him “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1, NIV, as in the Greek).

Over the decades, the Watchtower has continuously attacked the doctrine of the Trinity. We admit that no finite human explanation of our infinite God, nor any human creed, could ever flawlessly express our infinite God. Even Tertullian, in the third century, one of the first to describe God as “one God in three persons,” expressed his own personal concerns lest the “three persons” he spoke of would be construed as “three gods” by the simple believer. (See Against Praxeas, Chapter III.) But as inadequate an explanation as these definitions may be, they are infinitely better than the Watchtower’s unbiblical “polytheism”!

True Christians cannot be polytheists. We are not as the pagans who worship multiple “gods”; we worship one God, who has been pleased to reveal Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). He is the God who is pleased to reveal Himself in the Person of Jesus. And while God may not always be easy to understand (for He is incomprehensible), He is easy to trust and easy to love and easy to serve!

We close with the words of the Nicene Creed, written at Nicea in 325 AD by sincere Christian leaders to refute the error of Arius, the “Jehovah’s Witness” of that day. In the words of the Nicene Creed, we do confess “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father…God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man….” This is the truth and, as Jesus has promised us, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free! (John 8:31-32).