Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jesus as God

Jehovah’s Witnesses (hereafter JWs) reject the deity of Jesus Christ despite the fact that the New Testament is replete with clear affirmations of the fact that Jesus is called God. We turn to that testimony now.

As a colleague pointed out to me, the JWs’ treatment of Jn. 1.1c as saying ‘Jesus is a god’ begs the question ‘what kind of god is he?’

If he is being affirmed as a false god then why do the JWs accept him as Saviour and if he is a genuine god how does this square with the JWs belief in one true God?

Phil. 2.5b-6 says of Jesus “…who, though existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped…”

There are two elements of note in this text. Jesus is in the ‘form of God’ and Jesus is ‘equal to God’.

The Greek en morphē theou huparchōn translated as ‘existing in the form of God’ uses the present active participle huparchōn which means that “Jesus was ‘the essence of God’ not only before His incarnation but after it as well.” (Robert Morey, The Trinity: Evidence and Issues, 1996, 336)

No one could be ‘in the form of God’ who was not God. Common sense really.

The notion of ‘equality with God’ is an idiomatic expression. Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright says “The idiom here used clearly assumes that the object in question— in this case equality with God—is already possessed. One cannot decide to take advantage of something one does not already have.” (cited in Morey, 339)

2 Thess. 1.12 proclaims Jesus as God. The last part reads “…according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Are there two persons in view here or one? The English text as given here may suggest two persons but the Greek text and Greek grammar demand only one person, described in two ways.

Here is the transliterated Greek of this section kata tēn charin tou theou hēmōn kai kuriou Iēsou Christou.

Translating as closely as possible to the original we get “…according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.”

This translation is justified by a rule in Greek grammar called the Granville Sharp rule which states that when two singular nouns of the same case, with reference to persons not things (but not proper names) are connected by the conjunction kai (and), with the first noun having the article and the second noun without the article, only one person is in view.

The two nouns here joined by kai are tou theou (God) and kuriou (Lord) and both are in the genitive or possessive case but only theou has the article tou, hence, grammatically, Jesus is being called God and Lord.

The ‘and’ is thus explanatory and can be translated as ‘even’ so one could legitimately translate “…according to the grace of our God even [the] Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Granville Sharp rule applies as well in Titus 2.13 which speaks of “…the appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The section with kai in Greek is tou megalou theou kai sōtēros hēmōn Iēsou Christou.

The two nouns here joined by kai are tou theou (God) and sōtēros (Saviour) and both are in the genitive or possessive case but only theou has the article tou and thus, grammatically, Jesus Christ is being called God and Saviour.

There is yet another text in which the Granville Sharp rule is applicable, 2 Peter 1.1, “…by the righteousness of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

This is almost verbally identical to Titus 2.13. The section with kai in Greek is en dikaiosunē tou theou hēmōn kai sōtēros Iēsou Christou.

The two nouns are exactly as we had them in Titus 2.13 so the explanation is the same.  Jesus is called God and Saviour.

The Granville Sharp rule is not arbitrarily applied but is required to make sense of certain passages.

As a control, try making sense of the number of persons referred to in 1 Pet. 1.3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…”

Is God here different from Father? No, this means “God even the Father of…” The Greek is ho theos kai patēr. Theos and patēr are in the nominative or subject case but only theos has the article ho (the subject form).

In case you are wondering, the biblical writers did not know the Granville Sharp rule as such but they knew how the language functioned and Sharp’s rule is a modern description of how the language functioned back in the 1^st century to help us read Greek texts responsibly and meaningfully.

It is the same with the English rules of concord (the agreement between nouns and verbs, etc.) these are descriptions of how the language has functioned and ought to function.

Jesus, in the New Testament, does things that only God can do.

He forgives sins (Mk. 2.5-10) and he not only accepts worship (Jn. 9.38) but God, the Father, commands angels to worship Him (Heb.1.6).

Then there is v. 8 with its bold declaration from the Father of the Son “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever.”  The JWs New World Translation rendition “God is your throne…” is a linguistic train wreck, This rendition does violence to the language of the text and the argument of the writer.

The text in Greek is ho thronos sou ho theos eis ton aiōna tou aiōnos.

Ho theos is in the nominative or subject case but functions here as if it was in the vocative or appeal/direct address case (in fact it is called a vocatival nominative by grammarians).

It is a direct quote from Ps. 44.7 in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint or LXX (=45.6 in English, 45.7 in the Hebrew) where contextually, Messiah or a king is spoken about directly.

The Hebrew text (45.7) uses Elohim with the force of a vocative. The writer in Hebrews deliberately says of the Father in v. 8 “But about the Son he says…”  So there is no wiggle room out of the force of the vocative here.

Moreover, the NWT destroys the writer’s argument with its mistranslation.

The writer is arguing for the superiority of Jesus to the angels (vv. 4-13), and mentions what God the Father said of the angels (v.7) then moves to the superior declaration made of the Son in v. 8.

If Jesus is not the one being described in v. 8 the writer’s logic would be questionable.

Jesus is indeed described as God in Hebrews 1.8 and in several other places in the New Testament as we have shown above.

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