Dealing With Jehovah's Witnesses

1036 Ridgecrest Dr., Dickson, TN 37055

, County Wexford, Ireland

Miles McKee Ministries

Dealing with the Jehovah’s Witnesses!

D.G. Miles McKee.

Dear Brothers, here is a brief word on how to deal with the growing influence of Jehovah’s Witnesses in your assemblies.

The simplest way for a pastor to protect his flock from the error of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (Arianism) is to teach the Bible truth of the Hypostatic Union. This doctrine teaches that the Lord Jesus is fully God yet fully man. In the Lord Jesus, divinity and humanity were fused but not confused. He was still properly man and still properly God. The man Christ Jesus was the flesh temple within which the Almighty robed Himself.

Jesus was qualified to be the Saviour because He was fully divine and fully human. As God, He was the only one powerful enough to wipe out the offences of His people. As a human being, He was able to take our place and represent us in Judgment.

Isaiah tells us of this wonderful truth of the Hypostatic Union: “Unto us a child is born, and a son given and this child is the Everlasting Father and the Mighty God and the Prince of Peace” (see Isaiah 9:6). Paul takes up this same truth when he says, “Great is the mystery of godliness---God was manifest in the flesh.’ (1 Timothy 3:16). And again, ‘God was in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:19).

If you understand and teach the truth that Jesus was both God and man, you will serve your people well. Take for example, if one of the flock is reading Hebrews chapter 1 they perhaps might get confused if they do not understand the Hypostatic Union. In Hebrews 1:3 they read, “Who being the brightness of His glory,” This is referring to the He who was God manifest in the flesh (manifest as a human), It is talking about the glorious Son of God who was both God and man. He also is “the express image of the Father’s person, (that’s why He could say “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.)”

He will also read that Jesus is upholding all things by the word of his power and when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” The right hand in this verse is not a literal right hand. It’s a term that stands for the place of cosmic strength and authority (see Isa 41:10,13; Ps 63:8; Ps 89:13; Ps 98:1 etc). Make sure your people understand this. The only physical right hand that God has is the one which belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.

If your people understand that Jesus is fully God and fully man it will do much to thwart the Arian influence that is attacking your congregations.

Remember this, sometimes Jesus speaks out of His humanity and at other times out of His deity. For example, He says He doesn’t know when He will actually return (Matthew 24:36). That’s Jesus the man speaking. But then again, sometimes He speaks as God, for example, He says, “Before Abraham was, I Am” (John 8:58). That is God speaking.

Another matter for your people to know is the truth of Jehovah being the First and the Last. Ask any JW, “Who is the First and the Last?” and they will correctly answer that He is Jehovah. (Isa 41:4; Isa 44:6; Isa 48:12).

Since the JW says he believes the Bible to be the Word of God, take him to Rev 2:8, and show that Jesus is the First and the Last. (Also, see Rev 1:8; Rev 1:11; Rev 1:17-18.) Since it is very clear that Jesus is the First and the Last that must mean that Jesus is Jehovah.

Take them then to John 20:28 where Thomas says of Christ, “My Lord and my God.” What he literally said was, “You are the Lord of me and the God of me.” Thomas has grasped the truth that every Christian must embrace. What truth? The truth that Jesus is God. In John 8:24 Jesus warned that if we did not believe that He was God, the great I Am, we would die in our sins.

On another point, Steven in his speech to the Jews said that Yahweh, in the Old Testament, had come down to deliver His people (see Acts 7:34). Are we to believe that to do an even greater rescue mission God sent a deputy? Yet, according to the JWs, a deputy is in fact all that Jesus is. But Jesus was not merely a deputy for Jehovah, He was Jehovah Himself.

See also Isaiah 43:10-12 where we read that Jehovah is the Saviour yet we know from the New Testament that Jesus is the Saviour (Matthew 1:21;1 Tim 1:15; Titus 2:13; Acts 4:12). Are there two saviours? No! Only one, and His name is Jesus.

See also the words ‘Redeem and Redeemer’ in Isaiah and the Psalms. For example, Isaiah 43:14 “Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; …”. Here we see clearly that Jehovah is the redeemer. Does that mean there are two redeemers? It must do if Jesus isn’t Jehovah. After all, Galatians 3:13-14 tells us “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree:”