How To Effectively Communicate the Trinity
to a Jehovah’s Witness
Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses have long duked it
out over the issue of the Trinity. As the late Dr. Walter Martin often mused,
most Jehovah’s Witnesses can make a doctrinal pretzel out of a Christian in a
matter of seconds when it comes to the Trinity. It is therefore absolutely vital
for us as Christians who take the great commission seriously to be able to
clearly articulate the biblical truth of the Trinity when lovingly sharing the
gospel with Jehovah’s Witnesses. But how exactly can this be done?
First, it’s important start on common ground with the
Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Bible unequivocally teaches that there is only one
God (see Duet. 4:35, 39, 6:4, 32:39; Ps. 86:10; Is. 43:10, 44:6,8,
45:5,18,21,22; Gal. 4:8; Eph. 4:6; 1 Cor. 8:4-6; 1 Tim. 2:5; John 17:3; James
2:19). JW’s will give this point a hardy “Amen!” To deny this biblical
truth is to fall into the polytheistic heresy of tritheism (i.e., the
belief in three separate Gods), which Mormons espouse and Jehovah’s Witnesses
wrongfully accuse Christians of teaching. It is therefore important to clarify
that as a Christian you do not believe in three Gods, but only one God.
Second, Scripture teaches that the Father of Jesus Christ
is God (see John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; 1 Pet. 1:3; Eph 1:3). The Jehovah’s
Witnesses will not contend this fact. They believe in one God, the Father. Yet
Scripture also teaches that Jesus Christ Himself is God (see Isa. 9:6; John
1:1-3; John 5:18, 8:58 cf. Ex. 3:14, 10:33, 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Col. 1:15-17; Heb.
1:8-13; cf. Is. 44:24). This is where the battle is won when dealing with
Jehovah’s Witnesses, so get well acquainted with the above passages. One way
to effectively demostrate the deity of Christ with a JW is to ask them to please
read the following passages out loud (the more they read Scripture for
themselves with the fuzzy interpretive lenses of the Watchtower the better):
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God
and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all
things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made…The
Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn (see
CP0404) over all creation. For by him all things were created: things
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or
rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He
is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
About the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last
for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You
have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has
set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy,’ He also
says, ‘In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
Not only is Christ directly referred to as God in the
above passages (the Father even calls Jesus “God” in Heb. 1:8-10), but as
the italicized phrases make crystal clear - Jesus is the Creator of all
things. JW’s agree that Christ created all things, although they believe
that he did so after first being created by the Father. The creative activity of
Christ is absolutely critical to the question of whether or not Christ is God;
especially when considered in light of Isaiah 44:24, in which God declares in no
uncertain terms, “I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched
out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself” (emphasis added).
The clear biblical teaching that Jesus is the Creator and that the LORD
(Jehovah) God alone created the universe, indeed carries profound
implications as to the identity of Christ.
The Scriptural formula is as follows:
Creator = Jehovah (Is. 44:24)
Jesus = Creator (John 1:3, Col. 1:16, Heb. 1:10)
The necessary logical conclusion, therefore, is……..
Jesus = God (Isa. 9:6; John 5:18, 10:33, 20:28, and Rom.
9:5).
In other words, Jesus and Jehovah are one and the same,
and the honest JW cannot escape this biblical fact.
As a critical point of clarification, Trinitarians do not
believe that Jesus is merely God. JW’s will frequently counter
arguments for Christ’s deity with passages that speak of Christ’s humanity.
Thus it is vital to point out that at the incarnation, Jesus, the second person
of the Trinity, took upon Himself a human nature in addition to and
distinct from His divine nature.
- Divine Nature
- Human Nature
- The Person of Christ
In doing so, the Son became fully God and fully man; that
is, two distinct natures united in the one person of Christ (i.e., two whats
in one who). Ask them to read Scripture’s teaching on this issue:
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the
human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
In this theologically terse passage, Christ’s humanity
and deity are set up side by side.
….regarding His Son, who as to his human nature was a
descendent of David and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with
power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Scripture goes on the clarify what Christ’s claim to
be God’s Son entails:
For this cause therefore the Jews tried all the more to
kill him because He was not only breaking the Sabbath, but also calling God
his own Father, making Himself equal with God.
Scripture clearly expresses that Jesus possessed the
essential attributes of humanity. He had a human body (Matt. 4:2; Luke 2:7, 40;
24:39, 42; John 4:6; 19:28), a human mind (Luke 2:52; Mark 13:32; Hebrews
5:7-8), and a human soul and emotions (John 12:27; Matt. 26:38; Heb. 5:7). When
it comes down to it, you and the JW’s are faced with only three options: 1) to
tear the passages that teach Christ’s humanity out of our Bibles 2) to tear
the passages that teach Christ’s deity out of our Bibles or 3) to accept what
all of Scripture teaches; namely that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man.
In addition, Scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit is God
(see Acts 5:3-5; 2 Cor. 3:17-18). Witnesses will typically argue that the Holy
Spirit is not God but an impersonal force. This teaching, however, is entirely
unscriptural. The Holy Spirit demonstrates that He is a personal being by
exercising volition (Acts 15:28; Rom. 8:26; John 16:8), emotion (Eph. 4:30), and
intelligence (Rom. 8:27). An impersonal force cannot do these things (see also
Acts 5:3-5 [only a personal being can be lied to]; Matt. 12:31 [only a personal
being can be blasphemed]). Thus the overwhelming weight of Scriptural evidence
proves that there is one God and that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
are all God! To deny this biblical truth leads to the unitarian heresy of arianism,
held by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which teaches that the Father alone is truly
God and reduces Jesus to a mere created being.
Scripture goes on to clarify that the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit are three distinct and co-existent persons:
The Holy Spirit is referred to as “another” Who is
sent from the Father. Nowhere in Scripture is the Greek term translated “another”
in this passage (allon) used in reference to the same person (e.g., John 4:37;
5:7, 32; 7:41; 18:15; 21:18; Rev. 7:2; 8:3; 10:1; 13:11; Matt. 8:9, 21; Acts
2:12). If the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were three manifestations
of one person as Oneness Pentecostals teach, Jesus would have said “I will
send myself as the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus makes a clear distinction between His testimony
and the testimony of “another,” the Father. Once again the Greek term,
allon, expressing a clear personal distinction, is used. If the Father and the
Son are one person this distinction would not be made.
Jesus repeatedly uses the third person terminology to
refer to the Holy Spirit. This passage is translated literally from the Greek
as:
But when that one has come, the Spirit of
truth, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak
from himself, but what things he will hear he will speak and
the things coming he will announce to you. That one will
glorify me, because he will take what is mine and he will
announce it to you. (third person terms italicized)
If God was merely one person manifest in three forms as
Oneness Pentecostals contend, Jesus would have said:
But when I have come as the Spirit of truth, I
will guide you into all truth. For I will not speak from myself, but
what things I will hear I will speak and the things coming I
will announce to you. I will glorify myself, because I will
take what is mine and I will announce it to you. (first person terms,
which do not appear in the biblical text, italicized)
Such a reading is entirely nonsensical. Jesus’
repetitive use of the third person in reference to the Holy Spirit, as opposed
to the first person, clearly communicates the personal distinctions within the
Godhead.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit carry out
different functions simultaneously at the baptism of Jesus. Thus all three
persons are God at the same time. In other words, God doesn’t become the
Father to do certain things, become the Son to do others, and so forth. The
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God at the same time, three
co-existent and distinct persons.
Other helpful passages that clearly teach the personal
distinctions within the Godhead include 1 John 1:3b, 2:1; 2 John 3; Phil.
2:10-11; Gal. 1:1,3; Rom. 15:5-6; John 14:23-26, 15:26, 16:12-15; Titus 3:5-6;
and Eph. 2:18). To deny this biblical truth is to succumb to the heresy of modalism
(i.e., the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely manifestations of the same
person and not three distinct persons). This heresy is currently espoused by
modern day Oneness Pentecostals.
Having examined Scripture, we arrive at the following the
inescapable conclusion: Within the one Being that is God there are
three co-existent and distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Simply put, God is one What and three Who’s.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are often quick to point out that
the term “Trinity” never appears in the Bible. It is true that this specific
term never appears in the Bible, but then again, neither do the terms “Bible,”
“Christianity,” or “rapture.” Simply because a given term does not
appear in Scripture does not mean that what it conveys is not taught in
Scripture. Simply put, “Trinity” is just a term used to express the clear
biblical teaching about the Godhead.
Jehovah’s Witnesses also often argue that the Trinity
was borrowed from pagan philosophy. However, pagans believed in triads of Gods
who ruled in a pantheon of other Gods (Ron Rhodes, Reasoning From the
Scriptures, [Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1993] 222). The polytheistic
tritheism of paganism is radically different from the monotheistic
Trinitarianism of biblical Christianity. Moreover, such polytheistic pagan ideas
predate Christianity by two millennia and circulated in an area of the world far
removed geographically from where Christianity developed (Ibid., 222). But
suppose hypothetically that Trinitarian concepts were taught by pagans in the
same time and area as Christianity (which they weren’t as pointed out above).
Would that preclude the biblical doctrine of the Trinity? As a case-in-point,
the Gilgamesh Epic, a Babylonian pagan source, speaks of a flood sent as divine
punishment for man’s wickedness, in which an ark was constructed for the
preservation of human and animal life (The Zondervan Pictorial
Encyclopedia of The Bible, volume 2 D-G, ed. Merril Tenney, (Grand Rapids,
MI, Zondervan, 1976) 553). Should we toss out the biblical account of the flood
because of these pagan parallels? The obvious answer is “no.”
As a quick recap:
- First, there is one only God.
- Second, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are
all God (and this is the key issue when dealing with JW’s).
- Third, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are
three distinct, co-existent persons.
- Fourth, the word “Trinity,” though it never appears
in Scripture, is a term used to express this clear biblical teaching about
the Godhead.
- Fifth and finally, the biblical doctrine of the Trinity
was not borrowed from pagan religions as many argue.
It is GTO’s sincere prayer that this info better equips
you to defend the awesome reality of the Trinity with your Jehovah Witness
friends.
For further insight into this issue we recommend:
-Reasoning From the Scriptures With a Jehovah’s
Witness by Ron Rhodes (Baker Books).
-Kingdom of the Cults by the late, great Dr. Walter Martin (Bethany
House).
-Index of Watchtower Errors, edited by David A. Reed.
-The Watchtower Files by Duane Mignani.
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