Question:
Hi Greg,
I
appreciate your ministry. Presently I am discussing various beliefs with a
“Jehovah’s Witness”. Denying
Christ’s divinity (as it seems these folks do) in my view comes close to
“taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain”—not recommended!!
“Preaching another Jesus” is condemned scripturally too, as is
“preaching another gospel”--doubly condemned!
One
of their main sticking points is the Trinity doctrine, and I have supplied him
with various articles in an attempt to explain this to him.
He writes: “I am
interested in your comments on Bible verses relating to the time after Jesus’
resurrection, such as
He
later writes: “…does the Father have more knowledge than the son, or does
this apply only when Jesus was on earth? (Matthew
24:36)”
Could
you please help me to provide authoritative answers for him?
Thank you in anticipation.
Ian
Answer: Dear Ian,
The
problem the Jehovah’s Witnesses have in this regard is called Arianism—it is
a heresy that goes back to the early years of Christianity.
The major problem concerns the Incarnation—what happened when God came
to us in the person of Jesus? As
God, Jesus was the Eternal Son of God—he was always God.
He didn’t stop being God to be Jesus.
Always was, and still is God. But
he became something he had never been. He
took a human body. As the human son
he had a body, and it was that body that was crucified, buried and resurrected.
It is that body that was glorified with immortality (1 Corinthians
15)—and it is in that way that we have our hope, for “we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is” (! John 3:2).
So
the incarnate God was the God-man—fully divine, and fully human.
Another
mistake that some make in discussing the Trinity is assuming that the Trinity
teaches three Gods—it does not. The
Trinity affirms that God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4).
God is one, yet three distinct Persons.
Thus the Father, the Son, or the Spirit does not have “more
knowledge” than each other do—they are one.
A
good resource for answering Jehovah’s Witnesses questions, based upon a flawed
and unbiblical view of the nature of God is “Why You Should Believe in the
Trinity—An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses” by Robert M. Bowman, Jr.
In
Christ,
Greg
Albrecht