Jehovah’s Witnesses: Is Jesus God?

Is Jesus God?
Core Belief Challenge #1: Is Jesus God?I’ve talked a lot about Jehovah’s Witnesses in my blog. I’ve made many references to doctrinal issues with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.Now  I’m going to take on every single core belief one by one and challenge it scripturally and critically so that anyone who deals with Jehovah’s Witnesses, has been in the Jehovah’s Witnesses or is currently debating whether or not to leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses can make their own decisions based on the facts!

  • Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is not God but a created angel Michael. They believe that while Jesus is referred to as “a god” He isn’t the God or almighty God. Jesus is the son of God and not the Father. Jesus is not to be worshipped by Christians. He is not equal to God (The Father).

The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society makes a lot of inferences as to the pagan roots of belief in the trinity. They will point out that the word “trinity” doesn’t even appear in the scriptures (and they would be right.) However, the very first question that one should ask is this: “Does the fact that other religions, whether pagan or Christian, teach the concept of a triune godhead in any way add to or take away from the argument? It doesn’t. Not even a little bit! Just because a mugger wears blue jeans doesn’t make you a mugger because you choose to wear them. Just because a serial rapist parts his hair in the middle doesn’t mean that you are one just because you choose to part your hair in the middle! The Watchtower seeks to establish guilt by association and in doing so discredit any belief that they don’t agree with. It is actually a pretty easy way to try to cast stones in a particular direction without actually addressing an argument.

This is essentially a “straw man”. It is the way that the Watchtower has sought to discredit beliefs without even bringing one scriptural proof as to the validity or the lack thereof. They are quite good at this and if you aren’t “tuned in” to their tactic you could fall victim to it!

Rather than stoop to the Watcthower’s level I will provide you with irrefutable scriptural proof that Jesus is

  •   not a creation but the Creator
  •   not an angel or archangle but God Himself

Isaiah 7:14


 Matthew 1:23 tells us exactly what Immanuel means when the scripture above is directly quoted:


Isaiah 9:6-7 American Standard Version



Isaiah makes it quite clear in this prophecy that Jesus (the Messiah foretold) shall be called Mighty God and Everlasting Father. This really creates some problems for the Jehovah’s Witness theology.

God is spoken of as “a Rock” numerous times in the old testament.

1 Samuel 2:2


Deuteronomy 32:4


Yet Jesus is also spoken of as “a Rock” in the new testament:

1 Corinthians 10:



   3 and did all eat the same spiritual food;


Interestingly God revealed Himself to Moses in the following verse:

Exodus 3:14


Jesus applied this scripture to Himself in the following:

John 8








Now Jehovah’s Witnesses go to great lengths to try to alter this scripture. They have made up a new tense in the Greek language to try to justify their mis-translation here of “I am.” As “I have been.” Regardless of their failed attempts at trying to justify their translation the facts are revealed by reading the scriptures in context. The Jews’ reaction tells it all in the very next verse!


You see when Jesus equated Himself with God He was committing blasphemy in the minds of the Jews. That is why they sought to stone Him.

At John 5 Jesus had a similar run in with the Jews.









It is plain that Jesus did make Himself equal to God here as the bible writer pointed out. Note that he didn’t say that they misunderstood Jesus or that the assumption was somehow mistaken. He just stated the fact that Jesus made Himself equal to God and that the Jews took exception to it.

If all of this is true that Jesus was to be revered and worshiped with the same devotion as what had been reserved for the Father is there a scripture that explicitly shows that worship being performed?

I’m glad you asked that question because there are numerous accounts of this.

Just as in prior verses the New World Translation of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society continually attempts to “split hairs” and deliberately mislead those who wish to read the bible for themselves. They do this by translating the Greek word “proskuneo” which is normally translated as “worship” in most all bible translations as “obeisance” when it is applied to Jesus. Again they are playing the “you say tomato and I say tomato” game. They do this because to do otherwise would show up the faults in their contrived theology! How can we still make our point? Context to the rescue!

All of the following scriptures show Jesus being worshiped by various people while He was on earth:

1.    Matthew 2:11 (Whole Chapter)

2.    Matthew 8:2 (Whole Chapter)

3.    Matthew 9:18 (Whole Chapter)

4.    Matthew 14:33 (Whole Chapter)

5.    Matthew 15:25 (Whole Chapter)

6.    Matthew 18:26 (Whole Chapter)

7.    Matthew 28:9 (Whole Chapter)

8.    Matthew 28:17 (Whole Chapter)

9.    Mark 5:6 (Whole Chapter)

10. Luke 24:52 (Whole Chapter)

11. John 9:38 (Whole Chapter)

The Watchtower has translated the above cited texts using the word “obeisance” in order to mitigate the damage to their failed “theology”. However there is one major problem. In all of these instances Jesus was never seen refusing the worship or correcting the worshiper. Now if He was just a man or an angel he would have been duty bound to correct those worshiping him. Yet there is no record of that ever happening. However there are two records of this same Greek word “proskuneo” being used where a servant of God was being worshiped erroneously. One was Peter and the other was an angel:

Acts 10:25-27:



Revelation 19:10:


These references to worship where the one doing the worshiping was corrected both use the very same Greek word: “proskuneo” and therefore, in spite of the Watchtower’s vain attempts to pervert the word of God, the truth comes out to those who wish to read the scriptures in context with honest hearts and open minds. Jesus openly accepted worship from others. I believe, more so than anything else, that this was the reason why the Pharisees resented Him. He was cutting in on their action. The modern day Pharisee class (any authoritarian religion that seeks to control and manipulate their flock including the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society) also resents and seeks to root out and “kill” anyone threatening their status as the intercessor between the Great Crowd and God!

Was Jesus Christ created or not?

Colossians 1:






Well if you plainly state, like Paul, that everything in the heavens and on earth were created by Jesus Christ then that doesn’t leave a thing out does it? All of the angels were created by him as well as the earth and man. Let’s go back to Genesis and see who actually did the creation.

  1. Genesis 1:1 (Whole Chapter)
    In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
  2. Genesis 1:21 (Whole Chapter)
  3. Genesis 1:27 (Whole Chapter)
  4. Genesis 2:3 (Whole Chapter)
  5. Genesis 2:4 (Whole Chapter)
  6. Genesis 5:1 (Whole Chapter)

Well if Jesus created everything that was created and Genesis states that God did all of the creating Himself, wouldn’t we have to assume, logically, that Jesus and God were one and the same?

Here is one more little tidbit for all of those new critical thinkers out there:

  1. Genesis 1:26 (Whole Chapter)

So God and Jesus did the creating together because God said “Let us make man…”

The only way to reconcile all of this information is to conclude that Jesus is God and that the Father is God. Only that conclusion could rightly reconcile all of these scriptures.

The apostle John bears this out in glorious simplicity:

John 1


The Watchtower again seeks to pervert the scriptures by adding a little “a” in between “was” and “God” in their New World Translation. The Watchtower seeks to somehow limit Christ’s position and power as the creator of everything that is. They wish to make him a “little god” with a little “g” so that they can continue teaching their man-made version of theology.This is characteristic of many of the cults. By taking Jesus Christ down from His throne they can then impose themselves as mediator between God and men and assume that power that Jesus has over the church. Of course we were warned of this by Jesus Himself:

Matthew 15:



Matthew 24:

     11And many false prophets will rise up and deceive and lead many into error.

Paul also gave us some warning:

Acts: 20




The scriptures are extremely clear as to the identity and nature of Jesus Christ. It is the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society that has sought to “muddy the water” and make the truth more difficult to ascertain by their arbitrary and biased “translation” of the scriptures.

Witnesses speak about the bible saying that it is “difficult to understand”. Nothing could be further from the truth folks. It is quite simple and easy to understand. It is when you start trying to inflict your own preconceived notions upon the bible that you run into difficulty. That is why Jehovah’s Witnesses want so desperately to get you out of reading your bible and into reading one of their books. They know that is the only way that they can sell you on their man made contrived theology. It is almost laughable that the Watchtower maintains that if someone were to read their own bible without the “Watchtower helps” to guide them that they would go right back to standard mainstream Christianity:


Here’s a bit of critical thinking for you to engage in:

If what the Watchtower says is true and that reading your bible without their publications helping you to “filter” everything will lead you directly into apostasy wouldn’t that infer that God, when He inspired the bible to be written, did willfully and knowingly attempt to deceive anyone seeking to know Him by reading it?

I’ve given you a lot to think about here. I suggest that if you really wish to know more about the nature of Jesus Christ that you read the bible for yourself without the filters and blinds that the Watchtower attempts to give you.

In the next post I’ll examine the Trinity and specifically the Holy Spirit and show you exactly why the Holy Spirit is simply another personage of God.

Yours in Christ,

Doug Shields

twitter me @watchtowerfiles