I have recently been in conversations with a couple Jehovas Witnesses. Naturally, the topic turns to the nature of Jesus. This post will cover texts for and against Jesus as God (part of the trinity).
A) Jehovas Witnesses
B) Explanation of the trinity
C) Texts against JC divinity
D) Texts for divinity
If I were to turn you to the shortest, most revelant part of this post, it would be the 4th verse mentioned in section D, Jeremiah 23:6. The next verse is also very strong for Christ being Yaweh/Jehovah.
A)
Jevhovas witnesses believe many odd things (nothing too wierd), but the most important, probably, is the nature of Jesus. They believe that he is NOT God, that is some sort of superbeing. He is still SON of God, above all other beings except for God, God still created the universe through him, he still forgives sins. The idea that he is the archangel Michael is more of an afterthought, but they believe that too.
They hold fast to the oneness of God and do not believe in the trinity. Deuteronomy 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." Gods formal name (like Bill) is Jehovah, which is the same thing as Yaweh. (The words kind of got ambiguous is pronunciation due to the leaving out of vowels in the name) Most bibles nowadays don't have Jehovah in there, but if you see 'LORD' in all capitals, that's probably YHWH.
'God' Elohim, is more of a title. In fact, Jesus said after his ressurection "I am going to your God and my God" John 20:17. So God the father is still God in relation to Jesus, even though Jesus is God. 'God' is just a big authoritative name.
Jehovahs witnesses, holding to the oneness of God, claim that Jesus, although 'God' Elohyim, never said he was Yahweh/Jehovah.
B)
I will not go into depth about the trinity. Is you want some more ideas, see "BIG THEORY Trinity and TSM" from June 10, 2010.
I will only explain as far as it is neccesary to understand some of my arguments. The three parts of the trinity are distinct persons, with individual thoughts and such. However, they are still the same God. An analogy (which errs on the side of uniting them) might be to the heart, will, body, and mind of a human. All three are part of the one human, but they can act differently. You see a piece of candy: your body may salivate for it, your heart may say that it is desirable, your mind may say that it will make you fat, and your 'will' will decide between these inputs. In the same way, the trinity have independent views and functions but of the same body. God has control over both the holy spirit and Jesus.
C)
The bulk of the arguments of the Jehovahs witnesses center around simple functional language used by Jesus. He only does the will of his father in heaven. The father is greater than Jesus. His mission is on behalf of the Father primarily, etc.
I had the great fortune that they gave me their theolgoy book. Essentially I have in my hands their arguments for everything they believe, the book they use on the field. How awesome is that? If I ever get bored, I can just pick a topic we disagree on from the table of contents and dive into some fun!
But anyway, these are all seven verses I could find in their book:
1 - John 17:3 "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Here, eternal life is being applied to God and Jesus equally, a counterpoint actually. And we recognize that God has sent Jesus, yes. Perhaps in the same way that you could send your eletrical expertise to help your neighbor set up his television.
2 - John 20:17 "Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” This is just saying that God is God towards JC. This is true. I aknowledge that God is higher in command structure than JC, just like the 'will' of a person has command over their desires.
3 - John 10:34 "Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”'" This is a point for Jehovas Witnesses. Jesus is here explaining why he can call himself 'Son of God'. God calls some important people 'gods', and in fact Christians can be called 'sons of God'. This does NOT prove that Jesus is not God, is just puts a strong suggestion that way. Bear with me until we look at the other side. This forces us to have Jesus labeled as the most high God, Jehovah, not just 'God'.
4 - Matt 4:10 "Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’"" This is during Jesus's temptation in the desert. Satan has just asked Jesus to worship Satan. Duh! You shouldn't do that!
5 - John 8:54 "Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me." This is a function of Gods lordship. Jesus does not glorify himself because he is under the house of God. Neither do we glorify ourselves, we let God do that.
6 - 1 Cor 8:5-6 "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."
7 - John 5:19 "Truly truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father dong." This is, again, just a function of God being in command over Jesus.
One note before we move on to Jesus being God - ability and ease of proof. It is far easier to prove that Jesus is God than to prove that his is not, almost unfortunately. See, Jesus wouldn't go to any great length to say that we wasn't God is he really wasn't. Why bother? I could claim that Jesus was a rhinocerous and not be shot down easily (logically at least) because Jesus never said he wasn't a rhinocerous.
I am dodging around most of these verses above with explanations and the simple observation that these text don't PROVE that Jesus isn't God. It's a kind of cheap, but true way of doing things.
However, I hope all we need is some proof that Jesus is God, and there really doesn't have to be ambiguity on this point.
D)
Five texts that support that Jesus is God (I decided to limit myself to the same number).
1 - John 1:1 - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Now, Jehovas Witnesses defend this by saying that is should be translated 'the Word was a God' because there is an article before the first 'God', denoting name and person, and not before the second 'god', indicating title or position. This seems pretty plausible. Many of the references to Jehovah do have an article. However, some don't. For instance Hebrews 1:6 (I just picked Hebrews and found that the first 'theos' referring to Jehovah in 1:1 had an article, and the second in 1:6 didn't.)
2 - John 8:58 - “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” This is during a debate with the Jews where Jesus claims that he was before Abraham (among other things). Notice the 'incorrect' grammar of the last phrase. "I am" (most people think) refers to I AM, the title of the God who appeared in the burning bush. (Exodus 3:14). "I am" is also closely connected to the literal meaning of Yaweh. Jehovahs Witnesses translate this as "I have been". However, the verb "I am" 'eimi', in the present activTe indicative, not any sort of past-perfect, pluperfect, aorit tenses or otherwise. It's the base form they use for verb paradigms, present tense "I am".
These next two verses I found on my own just by chance. Zachariah because that's the book I was working through (awesome Jesus-prophetic one btw), and Jeremiah because I was looking for a really strong angry series of verses I had seen once.
3 - Zachariah 12:10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced..." This is obviously God talking, because only God gave prophecies. But he says 'me, the one they have pierced'. I don't know how anyone can NOT connect that to Jesus. The word 'me' there comes from a prefix on the verb 'look' which refers to the speaker as the one to whom they look. Here I have cut and pasted a couple sentences from the Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament:
הבּיטוּ אלי, they look upon me. Hibbı̄t, used of bodily sight as well as spiritual (cf. Numbers 21:9). The suffix in אלי (to me) refers to the speaker. This is Jehovah, according to Zechariah 12:1, the creator of the heaven and the earth. את־אשׁר דּקרוּ, not "Him whom they pierced," but simply "whom they pierced." את, that is to say, is not governed by hibbı̄tū as a second object, but simply refers to אלי, to me, "whom they pierced,"
4 - Jerermiah 23:6 "In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteous Savior." This is a passage about the Righteous Branch, a virtually undenaible prophecy about Jesus, and his name is the LORD, which is Yaweh, the formal name of God. Take that!
5 - Isaiah 40:3 (also quoted in Mark 1:2-3 and Luke 3:4) "...'a voice of one calling in the desert "Prepare the way for the LORD, make straight paths for him."'". Mark explains this is John the baptists telling of Jesus. But the 'LORD' is YHWH here, the big God. JC = Jehovah.
6 - John 5:18 "This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but aslo called God his Father, making himself equal with God." Now, the Jehovas Witnesses defend this by saying that the Jews were wrong and quote the next verse, where Jesus says he's only obeying his Father (thus somehow implying that Jesus is not God). However, the subject of their conversation was about breaking the Sabbath, so Jesus's words about doing the fathers will is just about works, not about being God. I would assume that Jesus would not want the Jews to think that he was claiming to be God if he wasn't. That would be a cruddy moral teacher or archangel Michael. 'Great job' God admonishes Michael 'now they think YOU'RE God.'
NOTE: It's hard, using new testament to prove that Jesus is YHWH, because the name for God is in Hebrew, and the NT is written in Greek. And the Greek 'theos' is equivalent to the Greek 'Elohyim', just the title 'God', not YHWH. This is evident from passages like John 10:34 (listed in section C). So, we are reduced to context, wierd and indecisive grammatical stuff like in John 1:1 (with the article preceding theos indicating YWHW), and the OT.
Ok, got the idea? Jesus is God.
