Apologetics/Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses

For the conversation at the door and the one that follows it: what Jehovah's Witnesses believe, why they are so well prepared, where the Bible you both hold says something different, and how to talk without it becoming a contest.

The three questions that matter most

1Is Jesus fully God, the eternal Word, or the first and greatest creature?
2Is the Holy Spirit a person or a force?
3Do you come to God through Christ alone, and can you know today that you have eternal life?

Part 1

What they believe

Jehovah's Witnesses believe in one God, Jehovah, the only true God and the Father, and hold that using his name is a mark of true worship. Jesus is God's first creation, the archangel Michael before his birth, the Son of God and the Messiah, who died as a ransom for humanity and was raised as a spirit; he is a god in the sense of a mighty one, but not Jehovah and not to be worshipped as God. The holy spirit is God's active force, not a person. The Trinity is rejected as a later, pagan corruption. Jesus began ruling invisibly as king in 1914, the last days began then, and Armageddon will soon destroy the present world order, after which a paradise earth will be restored. Most of the faithful hope to live forever on that earth; a limited number, the 144,000, are anointed to reign with Christ in heaven. There is no immortal soul and no hell of conscious torment; death is unconsciousness, and the wicked are annihilated. Salvation is by faith in Jesus' ransom, shown in obedience, baptism, preaching and loyalty to Jehovah's organisation, which is directed by a Governing Body in New York understood as God's channel today. The New World Translation is the church's own Bible. Witnesses do not celebrate birthdays or Christmas, refuse blood transfusions, decline military service and political participation, and give large amounts of time to door-to-door ministry, which is how you most likely met one. Members who leave or are expelled are shunned, which is the cost your friend is weighing whenever they talk with you.

Where to read it for yourself

What Does the Bible Really Teach? (Watchtower, 2005), chapters 3 and 4: Jehovah as the only true God; Jesus as God's first creation and Messiah
Should You Believe in the Trinity? (Watchtower, 1989): the case against the Trinity as a pagan corruption
Insight on the Scriptures, entry Michael: the identification of Jesus with the archangel Michael
What Does the Bible Really Teach?, chapter 5: the ransom sacrifice
What Does the Bible Really Teach?, chapters 6 and 7: the state of the dead and the resurrection hope
What Does the Bible Really Teach?, chapter 9: 1914 and the last days
Reasoning from the Scriptures (Watchtower, 1985), entry Blood: the refusal of blood transfusions
New World Translation, John 1:1 and Colossians 1:16: the renderings (a god; all other things) that carry the christology; compare them with the BSB text

Part 2

Where we agree

Jehovah's Witnesses take the Bible with a seriousness most people do not: they read it, memorise it, and expect it to govern their lives. They believe in one God who created all things, that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah who died as a ransom and rose, that his kingdom is coming, that this world is passing, and that a Christian's life should be morally clean and free of the love of money. They refuse to fight in wars and mean it. They will spend an hour on a doorstep in the rain to talk about Scripture with a stranger. Honour that. You will not out-zeal them, and you do not need to.

Part 3

Where Christianity stands, and why it matters

Everything turns on who Jesus is. Historic Christianity confesses him as fully God, the eternal Word who made all things and who is worshipped without idolatry (John 1:1-3; John 20:28; Hebrews 1:6-8; Philippians 2:9-11); Witness teaching makes him the first and greatest creature. Second, the Holy Spirit: a person who teaches, grieves, and can be lied to (John 14:26; Ephesians 4:30; Acts 5:3-4), not a force. Third, the Bible itself: the New World Translation renders the key passages in line with the church's teaching, so a conversation about John 1:1 or Colossians 1:16 is partly a conversation about translation; know that the BSB you use is public domain and made by a committee with no stake in this argument. Fourth, salvation and the organisation: Christians hold that a person comes to God through Christ directly, is justified by faith, and can know they have eternal life now (Romans 5:1; 1 John 5:13; 1 Timothy 2:5); Witness teaching ties salvation to loyalty to the organisation as God's channel, and offers the heavenly hope only to the 144,000. Fifth, what happens at death and afterward: conscious existence with Christ, and a judgement that is real and lasting (Philippians 1:23; Luke 16:19-31; Matthew 25:46), against annihilation. The dated predictions of the movement's history (1914, 1925, 1975) are a fair thing to know about, and a gentle thing to raise, because Deuteronomy 18:20-22 gives the test the Bible itself applies.

Part 4

Scripture to know

Read these before the conversation. Each one opens in the Bible reader.

1 Peter 3:15-16
You will be tempted to win. Aim to be gentle and clear instead.
John 1:1-3
The Word was God, and all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made: read it in the BSB and compare the New World Translation's rendering together.
John 20:28
Thomas calls Jesus my Lord and my God, and Jesus accepts it.
John 8:58
Before Abraham was born, I am.
Hebrews 1:6-8
The angels worship the Son; the Father addresses the Son as God.
Colossians 1:15-20
All things were created through him and for him; know that the New World Translation adds the word other four times here.
Philippians 2:5-11
Every knee will bow to Jesus, in the language Isaiah 45:23 uses of Jehovah alone.
Isaiah 45:23
The passage Philippians 2 applies to Jesus.
Revelation 1:17-18
The First and the Last is Jehovah's title in Isaiah 44:6 and Jesus' here.
Acts 5:3-4
Lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God: the Spirit is a person, and is God.
Ephesians 4:30
A force cannot be grieved.
1 Timothy 2:5
One mediator between God and men: no organisation stands in that place.
1 John 5:13
You may know that you have eternal life: assurance, now.
Deuteronomy 18:20-22
The Bible's own test of a prophet, worth knowing before any conversation about dated predictions.
Matthew 24:36
No one knows the day or hour.

Part 5

How to make the case

Slow the conversation down. A Witness at your door is following a prepared presentation and expects to move quickly from one proof text to the next; the single most useful thing you can do is stop on one verse and read the whole chapter together, in your Bible and theirs. Choose one question, not twenty, and the best one is who Jesus is. Read John 1 or Colossians 1 or Hebrews 1 slowly and ask what the words mean; compare translations openly and without accusation, noting that the BSB has no denomination behind it. Ask them what they hope for after death and listen; the answer will tell you how they see themselves before God, and it opens the door to speaking about assurance, which Witness teaching does not offer. Be personal, not procedural: ask how they came to be a Witness, what it costs them, whether they have doubts they cannot say aloud (many do, and shunning means there is no one safe to say them to). Be that safe person. Do not hand them tracts; they are forbidden to read them and it embarrasses everyone. Do not expect a decision at the door; expect a return visit, and welcome it. If a friendship forms, it may be the only relationship they have outside the organisation, and if they ever leave, it may be the only one they keep. Pray for them, and, if you can, tell them Jesus receives worship in his own book and that the door to God is a person, not a channel.

Part 6

What not to claim

Do not claim the New World Translation is a wholesale forgery. Most of it reads much like other translations; the issue is a specific set of renderings at the passages that touch the deity of Christ and the Spirit, and those are the ones to compare.
Do not say Witnesses do not believe in Jesus. They believe he is the Son of God, the Messiah and the ransom for sin; the difference is whether he is God.
Do not mock the failed dates as if that alone settled everything. Raise them, once, gently, with Deuteronomy 18 open, and let the person think.
Do not use the word cult or brainwashed. Your friend has heard it and it closes the door.
Do not argue about blood, birthdays or holidays as if they were the centre. They are consequences of the authority question; go to the centre.
Do not pretend the Trinity is simple or that the word is in the Bible. It is not; say that the word is a summary of what the Bible says when read whole, and show the passages.

Part 7

Objections you will hear

What your friend is likely to say, and an answer you can give in your own words, with the passages behind it.

John 1:1 says the Word was a god, not God.

Read the whole passage together, in both Bibles. Verse 3 says all things were made through him and without him nothing was made that has been made; a created Word would have had to make himself. Then read John 1:18, John 20:28, and Hebrews 1:8, where the Father addresses the Son as God. Say plainly that the New World Translation's a god in 1:1 is a rendering found in no other major translation and that the BSB has no denomination behind it. Do not make it a grammar lecture; make it a reading of the chapter.

Scripture: John 1:1-3, John 1:18, John 20:28, Hebrews 1:8

Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. Firstborn means created first.

Firstborn in Scripture is a title of rank, not a birth order: David is called the firstborn in Psalm 89:27 though he was the youngest son. Read the next verse of Colossians 1: all things were created through him and for him, in heaven and on earth, and he is before all things. Your friend's Bible adds the word other four times in those verses; ask them to look for it in the Greek, or in any other translation. The passage says the Son made everything; it cannot also say everything made the Son.

Scripture: Colossians 1:15-20, Psalm 89:27, Hebrews 1:6

The Trinity is a pagan doctrine. The word is not even in the Bible.

Agree that the word is not in the Bible, and neither is the word Bible. The word is a summary. Then ask whether the Bible says three things: that there is one God (Deuteronomy 6:4), that the Father, the Son and the Spirit are each called God and do what only God does, and that they are distinct from one another (Matthew 3:16-17, Matthew 28:19). If all three are in Scripture, the doctrine is in Scripture, whatever it is called. On pagan: the pagans had many gods; the Trinity is the insistence that there is one.

Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 3:16-17, Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14

Jesus said the Father is greater than I. That settles it.

It settles that the Son, in the days of his flesh, submitted to the Father; Philippians 2:5-11 says he emptied himself and took the form of a servant. Greater is about position, not nature: a father is greater than his son in authority, not in humanity. Then read on in the same passage: every knee will bow to Jesus, in the words Isaiah 45:23 uses of Jehovah alone, and Jesus receives worship in Hebrews 1:6 and Revelation 5:12-14, where worship belongs to God. Ask why the Bible would command what it forbids.

Scripture: John 14:28, Philippians 2:5-11, Isaiah 45:23, Revelation 5:12-14

Only 144,000 go to heaven. The rest of us hope for paradise on earth.

Read Revelation 7 together and notice the second group: a great multitude no one could count, from every nation, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, in heaven. Then Revelation 21:3-4: the biblical hope is heaven and earth joined, God dwelling with his people, not two classes of the saved. Say, warmly, that the Bible offers your friend more than their teaching allows them to hope for, and read John 14:2-3, where Jesus prepares a place for those who trust him, with no number attached.

Scripture: Revelation 7:9-10, Revelation 21:3-4, John 14:2-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

Part 8

Case studies

Example conversations: what was said, what worked, what to avoid, and the passages used.

The doorstep that became a kitchen table

A Saturday morning. Two Witnesses at the door of a Christian who decides not to say no thank you.

The Christian invited them in for coffee and said he had one question and plenty of time. They began the presentation about the last days; he let them finish. Then he asked whether they could read John 1 together, in their Bible and his, and stop on anything that differed. They read. At verse 3 he asked how the Word could be created if nothing was made without him. The older Witness said the Word was the first creation and then made the rest. The Christian read verse 3 again and asked where the exception was. They said they would come back with literature. He said he would rather they came back with the chapter, and asked what they hoped for after death. They described the paradise earth. He said he loved that they took the Bible seriously enough to be on his doorstep in the rain, and that he hoped they would let him take it just as seriously. They came back four times. On the last visit the younger one asked, when the older one was in the car, whether it was true that Christians believed you could know you were saved. The Christian said yes, and read 1 John 5:13, and gave him his phone number.

What worked

One chapter, read slowly, in both Bibles. No tracts, no accusation. A question about hope that opened a door the argument could not. Being the safe person for the doubt that could not be spoken in the car.

What to avoid

Trying to win in the first ten minutes. Mocking 1914 or the failed dates as an opener. Handing over literature they cannot read.

Scripture used: John 1:1-18, 1 John 5:13, Hebrews 1:1-8, Deuteronomy 18:20-22

The friend who was shunned

A Christian coworker and a former Witness who has been disfellowshipped and has lost her family.

The coworker knew nothing about the situation until the Witness stopped mentioning her parents. When asked, she explained shunning: her mother would not answer the phone. The Christian did not say anything against the organisation. She said she was sorry, and that she would like to be family in the meantime if that was wanted. Over months the Witness asked questions she had never been allowed to ask: whether the Trinity was really pagan, whether the New World Translation was honest, whether Jesus could be worshipped. The Christian answered each one with the Bible open and admitted what she did not know. When the Witness said she was afraid God would destroy her at Armageddon for leaving, the Christian read Romans 8:1 and 8:38-39 and asked her whether the God who did not spare his own Son would spare her nothing. She had never heard the verses read as a promise. She is in a church now, and her coworker still drives her there, and her mother still does not call.

What worked

She became the one relationship outside the organisation before any argument. She answered questions as they came instead of forcing them. She met fear with the specific verses that answer it. She stayed after the decision, which is when the cost arrives.

What to avoid

Attacking the family the woman still loves. Rushing her to a church to make the story tidy. Assuming leaving is the end rather than the beginning of the hard part.

Scripture used: Romans 8:1, Romans 8:31-39, 1 Timothy 2:5, Matthew 11:28-30

Nothing on this page quotes another tradition's scripture; beliefs are described in our own words and cited by reference so you can read the sources yourself. This page was checked for accuracy and fairness against those sources, and where a point is disputed it says so. If you belong to this tradition and we have described you unfairly, we want to know and will fix it. All conversations