JESUS CHRIST IS GOD (part 8)
“If we are to reject the concept of the Triune God, a unified One, because of the pagan distortions, then we must reject much more than this. As we have seen the pagan cultures also have claims to a virgin birth and some even claim a resurrection. The ancient Sumerian ‘deity’ Tammuz died on a Friday and was allegedly raised on a Sunday 40 days later. The pagan religions had a priesthood and sacrifices, this too became distorted with human sacrifices for God’s blessings. Some pagans believed that certain gods became men. They had Biblical symbology such as a dove, the lamb, altars, there are many religions that have distortions of the Bible’s account of the Flood. Are we now to reject the whole of Genesis because of their misrepresentations.” Are we to reject the biblical account of the Holy Spirit descending as a dove, and the Son of God, Jesus, being described as the Lamb of God, simply because such images exist in various corrupt and perverted pagan religions of the past? “All of these are counterfeits and distortions of truth, yet we are told since they have a counterfeit Trinity, we are to reject the Biblical Trinity on the same grounds! If you are going to do that, then you must reject all of it on the basis of it being found in some form or other in ancient paganism. You then annihilate the doctrine of Christ as the God/man, virgin birth, His sacrifice, etc. All these are the proof of what Paul explained happened in history in Romans 1, that mankind had a true knowledge but refused to worship the true God and sank into idolatry.
“The God of the Bible is unique.” God Himself says: “…I am God, and there is none like Me” (Isa. 46:9 cf. Ex. 8:10; 9:14; Deut. 3:24; 33:26; 1 Sam. 2:2; 2 Sam. 7:22; 1 Kings 8:23; 1 Chron. 17:20; Psa. 86:8; Jer. 10:6,7). No one is like God. No one saves like God. Every religion which has come from the mind of man has man at the centre point. Everything ultimately revolves around man and what he does as that which will determine his future. It is man upon whom the focus lies, for salvation according to the religion of lost men depends on what a man does and does not do. Christianity condemns all such religion, for it teaches that man is dead in sins, that he cannot come to God, for mankind is without hope because it is without God (see Eph. 1). God saves according to His will. Christianity conditions all of salvation upon the grace of God, the mercy of God and the imputed Righteousness of Christ toward those to whom God is willing to be merciful. No ‘god’ of paganism is a Triune God. They are all either on their own, or are part of groups be they 2, 3, 4, 5 or even more. No god is like the true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No god which has come from the mind of man saves by the obedience of One, the Son of God, likewise no man-made god has three Personages and is yet one God. Of the heathen it is said: “For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges” (Deut. 32:31 cf. Ex. 14:25; Num. 23.8; 1 Sam 4:8 see also Dan. 4:35). “…the rock in which the heathen trusted, are not like the God of Israel, the Rock of salvation, in which all true believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, place their confidence; and indeed let that be what it will, that is short of Christ the Rock, men lay the stress of their salvation on, it is no Rock, but sand, and will stand them in no stead (see Matt. 7:24-27). God is Triune, which is neither polytheistic nor is it tri-theistic. God is one in nature and is composed of three distinct eternal Persons. They are one in substance with a difference in position. What makes all three the one God is that they share the same nature. This is the simple description of the God of the Bible.” This is one of the many aspects of God which distinguishes Him and separates Him from all the false gods of the world. The gods of man’s religious imagination are merely the manifestation of perverted thoughts and corrupt imaginings of those who are destitute of the truth. They are ideas of what man in his lost, blind and dead spiritual state is helplessly drawn to. Almighty God is the God of truth. He is eternal, “...and His truth endureth to all generations” (Psa. 100:5).
In one of his many flawed efforts to understand and explain the biblical Trinity which man has concocted, the following is, perhaps, the worst: “…the faulty illustration of comparing the Trinity to water, which has three forms—liquid, ice and steam. But the Trinity is not like that at all, and here’s why: 1) The same water cannot be liquid, ice and steam at the same time, all the time. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the same time, and He is always, has always been, and will always be Father, Son and Spirit at the same time, all the time. But that's not what water, ice and steam are like. Water is sometimes liquid, sometimes ice, and sometimes steam, but never all three at the same time. So that's not like God at all. In fact, this is the ancient heresy of Modalism (which still thrives today in Oneness churches). Modalism falsely teaches that the one God sometimes manifests Himself as Father, sometimes as Son, and sometimes as Spirit. And even if, in some extremely odd weather condition, it were possible for liquid water, ice and steam all to be present in the same place at the same time, it wouldn't be the same water existing in all three forms at once; you'd have three different waters, rather than a trinity of water. (So, in that probably only possible in a very high-tech laboratory for a split second if at all case, you'd have another heresy—Tri-theism, the belief in three gods, not one). Tri-theism is the teaching that the Godhead is really three separate beings forming three separate gods. This erring view is often misplaced by the cults for the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there is but one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is, by definition, monotheistic. That is, it is a doctrine that affirms that there is only one God in all the universe. Tri-theism has taken different forms throughout the centuries. In the early church, the Christians were accused of being tritheists by those who either refused to understand or could not understand the doctrine of the Trinity.
“But is Trinitarian theology at odds with the clearly taught monotheism of the Hebrew Scriptures? Or did the early Christians get it right when they upheld the monotheism of the Old Testament while at the same time affirming the full Deity of Three distinct Persons? To answer this question, we need to look over the biblical data. The Bible clearly affirms that there is but one God”, AND YET GOD NEVER ONCE SAID ‘I AM ONE’!! He only ever said: ‘I am’, I am that I am’, ‘I am God’, ‘I am the Lord’, ‘I am the Lord your God’, ‘I am the Lord their God’, ‘I am the Lord thy God’, ‘I am thy Shield’, ‘I am the Almighty God’, ‘I am the God of Abraham’, ‘I am the God of Bethel’, ‘I am God Almighty’, ‘I am the God of thy father’, ‘I am gracious’, ‘I am Holy’, ‘I am He’, ‘I am with thee’, ‘I am with you’, ‘I am the first’, ‘I am the last’, ‘I am merciful’, ‘I am their inheritance’, ‘I am their possession’. Significantly, God never referred to Himself as ‘one’. “…I am God and there is none else…’ (Isa. 45:22 cf. Isa. 46:9), is vastly different to ‘I am one’. God is saying that outside of Himself, apart from Him, God, there is no other god/God. This is not a denial of the Trinity, the Tri-oneness of God, the Tri-unity of God, the Tri-Person God, it is merely God declaring that no God outside of Himself exists. There are no Scriptures in the entire Bible which say ‘He is one’, or God saying ‘I am one’, in the relative context. God never says that He is one, meaning, He is one Personage. The Scripture does say “The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4), but this is not the same as God saying ‘I am one’. The oneness of God has always, is, and will always be in contrast with the polytheism of the world’s pagan religions. Christianity has one God, not multiple gods. God saying there are no other Gods but He, is not a statement which can legitimately be used to attack the doctrine of the Trinity, but is one which may properly be employed to smash any idea that there is more than one God in the entire universe. “Ye are My witnesses, saith the LORD, and My servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He: before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me” (Isa. 43:10). This proves only that there are no other Gods but one, and not at all that this One God has only one Personage. “As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4). That is, Three Persons, but one God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit all being that one God does not in any way clash with the teaching that there is only one God in existence.
“The Bible teaches the Deity of the Father: 'Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for Him hath God the Father sealed' (Jn. 6:27); 'To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ' (Rom. 1:7); 'Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied' (1 Pet. 1:2). The Deity of the Son: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made' (Jn. 1:1-3); 'Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds' (Heb. 1:2); 'Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ' (Titus 2:13);” Interestingly this verse from the apostle Paul’s Letter to Titus, in the original Greek, reads: “Toward receiving (anticipating) the happy expectation and on appearance (advent) of the esteem (glory) of the great God and Saviour of us Jesus anointed (Christ)”. The Young’s literal translation reads: “Waiting for the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ”. Obviously a clear reference to the fact that Jesus Christ is indeed Almighty God. "'For by Him were all things created, that are in Heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Col. 1:16,17); and the Deity of the Holy Spirit: 'But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God' (Acts 5:3,4); 'Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are' (1 Cor. 3:16,17). Moreover, the biblical writers go out of their way to affirm that all three Persons are distinct from each other. Jesus said: 'Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost' (Matt. 28:19); 'Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me' (Rom. 15:30); 'The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen' (2 Cor. 13:14).
“So, while it is true that the word ‘trinity’ is not found in the Bible, the concept most certainly is. Does the fact that there exist Three Divine Persons entail that there exist three separate gods? The answer is no.” God is truly and fully unique. The LORD says: “…I am God, and there is none like Me…’ (Isa. 46:9). There is no god ever conceived in the mind of man that is even remotely like the true and only God. The true God does not come from the mind of man, for He is eternal. No man-made god saves like the True God, or is like the true God, for the only true God proclaims that there are none like Him. God says He alone is the Saviour, therefore, no other means to salvation can save but His: “I, even I, am the Lord; and beside Me there is no Saviour” (Isa. 43:11); “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2:11 cf. Matt. 1:21; Jn. 4:42; Acts 13:23; Phil. 3:20; 1 Tim. 4:10; Titus 2:13; 1 Jn. 4:14). Any perceived similarities are immediately dispelled by the gross dissimilarities which are evidenced by the copious and perverted doctrines of the false gospels which promote the false gods of men. All false Gods demand obedience from the individual in order for them to procure and/or maintain a state of salvation. Only the True God of the universe conditions salvation only upon His love, His will, His grace and the imputed Righteousness of His Son which is given to the ones He has chosen from before the foundation of the world. “The same Scriptures that affirm that all three Persons of the Trinity are Divine also unequivocally affirm monotheism (see Deut. 6:4; 1 Tim.2:5). So, what are we to do with this tension between the idea of Three Divine Persons and monotheism? A helpful clarification involves what we mean by the word ‘person’. ‘Person’ can be defined as ‘a center of self-consciousness’. A person has a mind, emotions, and a will, can communicate with others, and is capable of performing actions. When we speak of the concept of personhood as it relates to the Trinity, we are describing self-distinctions in God. All three Persons of the one Triune God possess the complete attributes of Deity. All three Persons are truly Divine, yet eternally distinct from one another. The Divine Persons can and do communicate with each other: 'But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of Righteousness is the sceptre of Thy Kingdom' (Heb. 1:8 see also Jn. 17:1-26). Essentially, God has three centers of self-consciousness. Yet this one Being (the Triune God of Scripture) possesses one indivisible Essence. There is only one Being that is God, and this one Being is Tri-Personal, with each of the three Persons having full possession of the Divine nature.”
Returning now to our earlier examination of Modalism’s heretical claim that the Trinity is like water, ice and steam. “2) Liquid, ice and steam cannot mutually indwell one another. You cannot split God into three and find Father, Son and Spirit—they aren't three parts of God. All three share the same 'space'. (By that I'm not saying that God is in any way confined or limited by space, it's simply that we think in spacial terms, so I'm using the language of space analogically.) So the Father, Son and Holy Spirit fill one another. The Father is in the Son and the Spirit, the Son in the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit in the Father and the Son. We call this mutual indwelling (or perichoresis), and this is how the Father, Son and Spirit are one—not by sharing the same molecular make-up like liquid, ice and steam all being H2O. (There is no molecular make-up for God). Now this mutual indwelling works in the Trinity, for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one in purpose and will—they're not trying to pull apart. But you can't have mutual indwelling with water, ice and steam. For steam and liquid melt ice. Ice liquifies steam. The three destroy one another, so they are not like the Triune God. 3) There's no love lost between liquid, ice and steam. The true God, the Triune God, is the Father eternally loving His Son in the Spirit. The true God is Three Persons united in love. That's the very heart of the doctrine of the Trinity. It's not a maths problem of how three can be one, but rather the very identity of our loving God. Liquid, ice and steam don't love one another. It's not that they dislike one another either. It's simply that they don't have any personal relationship. So not only does comparing God to water remove the love from the very core of His being, but it also strips Him of His personal existence. God is not a thing. He is not a 'what' but a 'who'. And 'who' He is, is the Father eternally loving His Son in the Spirit, which is very different from liquid, ice and steam. Not only does the water illustration introduce a heresy (Modalism) rather than the biblical Trinity, but it also robs God of His true oneness found in the loving relationships of mutual indwelling between the Father, Son and Spirit and transforms the loving personal God from a 'who' into an impersonal 'what'. There is one choice from the Bible’s revelation, IF ONE DENIES THE TRI-UNE GOD, THEY ARE EITHER LEFT WITH ATHEISM OR POLYTHEISM.” So, whilst many pagan religions do have triads in their teachings—which stand as monuments to lost man’s intrinsic inability to understand and accept the concept of the true God as a Triune God—they are nothing more than perversions of the only true, Holy and blessed Trinity which has always been and always will be. Importantly, one cannot have the biblical teaching that Jesus is God, without the doctrine of the Trinity. If one does not have the Trinity, then one cannot say that Jesus is God according to the Scriptures, likewise, if one does not believe the fact that Jesus Christ is God, one cannot have the Trinity. Those opposed to the Trinity are not so much against the Father being God, or even the Holy Spirit being God, but what the hostility towards the Trinity is all about is the incessant, concentrated, Satanically inspired and directed onslaught upon the most hated Person in the history of mankind: the TRUE Jesus Who is the Son and Messiah of God, and the Saviour of all His people.
Another major criticism aimed at the Trinity is the fact the Lord Jesus Himself refers to the Father as “…the only true God…” (Jn. 17:3). Those who reference this verse as ‘proof’ that the Father is the only God fail to take into account a verse like Jude 4 which in the original Greek language translates as: “…of the God of us grace after placing into wantonness and the only owner God and Lord (Master) of us Jesus Christ (anointed)…”. The Young’s Literal translation has: “…and our only Master, God, and Lord—Jesus Christ…” (Jude 4). If the only true God is the Father, then according to this Scripture the only Master, God and Lord is Jesus Christ. Here we have either a contradiction, or the most powerful of all evidences that Jesus and the Father are One: THEY are God! The following verse shows clearly that Jesus Christ is also called the true God: "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the TRUE GOD, and eternal life" (1 Jn. 5:20). The opposition raised against the claim of a Trinity by the misuse and misrepresentation of John 17:3 is most often submitted by “…Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. This argument, as we will see, is self-defeating. The argument refers to Jesus’ words to the Father in John 17:3, 'And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent'. Critics argue that ‘the Father cannot be ‘the only true God’ if Jesus and the Holy Spirit can also claim to be God. This thinking is illogical’.” What the carnal mind fails to grasp is the reality of One God being three Persons. The fallacy that only one person can be the one God is all that natural man can comprehend. This flawed conclusion supported only by an improper way of processing Scripture, however, is quite logical according to the carnal mind of lost, spiritually dead, men who can see nothing but what their blinkered minds tell them, but it does not at all concur with the Word of God. The carnal mind of lost men can only ever see one side, it only has an inferior ground-level perspective, for it has neither the potential nor the actual ability or capability of seeing and understanding the things of God in accordance with the Word of God. The saved man can see both sides, he has an elevated, or aerial, view, a proper perspective, a spiritual understanding which is based on the Word of God, for where he once believed with his carnal mind, the saved man now sees and believes the things of God with a renewed mind through the Spirit of God Who is in him. Not only can he see the error, and understand why it is believed, but he now has a firm grasp on that which is truth and as well as a precise understanding of why error is error, and why the truth can only be the truth. “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us (His chosen) by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they (the things of God) are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:9-14). The carnal mind, belonging to spiritually dead people, thinks, and can only think, according to the spirit of the world. The carnal mind cannot compare spiritual things with spiritual, therefore, it can never judge spiritual things—the things of God—with any degree of accuracy. The carnal mind can only ever see the things of God as foolishness, “…the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). A man must be made alive by God before he can see and understand the things of God: “…Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3 cf. 1 Jn. 5:20). A man who has the Holy Spirit which is of God, and is, therefore, sanctified in Christ Jesus, does know the things that are freely given to all God’s people by God. The man who is not saved, who has not the Spirit of God—and is, therefore, not led by the Spirit of God—is a man who knows not the things of God, and, therefore, does not have the love of the truth, nor can he judge thereby (see Rom. 8:14 & 2 Thess. 2:10-12).
“Jesus’ words in John 17:3, as with those in Deuteronomy 6:4, do not exclude the Son and Holy Spirit from also being the only true God. They DO, however, exclude Jesus and the Holy Spirit from being separate gods. In other words, if the Father is the only true God, then Jesus cannot also be a true God and the Holy Spirit cannot also be a true God (distinguishing them as separate gods rather than simply separate persons). If we understand the true nature of the Trinity, we can acknowledge that the Son and Holy Spirit are co-equal and co-eternal Persons that comprise the one true God, and John 17:3 does not counter that. However, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons believe that Jesus is a separate god, and Mormons believe that the Holy Spirit is yet another god. In the J.W.s’ New World Translation, John 1:1 states, ‘In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god’. Mormonism’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith, taught, ‘In the beginning, the head of the gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people it’. Now if a Mormon or J.W. wants to claim that John 17:3 teaches that the Father alone is the only true God, then Jesus and the Holy Spirit must be false gods. If that is true, the teachings of the LDS prophets and the New World Translation must be wrong.”
The infamous, and highly blasphemous claim made by the Watchtower Society, the so-called Jehovah’s Witnesses, is that Jesus Christ is not God, but merely a god. This insolent lie is drawn from a fraudulent misrepresentation and misinterpretation of John 1:1. Their New World Translation reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god”. The footnote to this verse in the NWT says “Or ‘was divine’”. The King James Bible reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. The original Greek text of John 1:1 states: “In original (beginning) was the saying (Word) and the saying (Word) was toward the God and God was the saying (Word)”. Young’s literal translation reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. "The Watchtower Society’s New World translation is incorrect in its translation of John 1:1 for several reasons. First of all, the Bible teaches a strict monotheism. To say that Jesus is ‘a god’ is to suggest that there is another god besides YHWH, which is contrary to Scripture (see Isa. 43:10; 44:6, 8, etc.). Of course, the ‘Jehovah's Witnesses’ will respond that Jesus is not the Almighty God, but a ‘lesser’ kind of God. He is the ‘mighty God’ as is referenced in Isaiah 9:6: ‘For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace’. Therefore, they say that Jesus is the mighty god but not the Almighty God. The immediate and glaring problem with this explanation is the irrefutable fact that YHWH is also called the Mighty, or Mighty God, in OVER 200 SEPARATE VERSES! Some of which are: Jeremiah 32:18: ‘…the Great, the Mighty God, the Lord of hosts, is His name’; Isaiah 10:21: ‘The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God’ (see also Gen. 49:24,25; Deut. 7:21; Psa. 50:1; 132:2; 132:5; Isa. 10:21; Hab. 1:12).” Prior to Isaiah 9 we see the term mighty used of God, and in the very next chapter in Isaiah we see just how often the word mighty is used in reference to the Almighty God. God is called “the mighty one of Israel” (Isa. 1:24; 30:29); "The mighty one of Jacob” (Isa. 49:26; 60:16). “the mighty God” (Isa. 10:21 & Isa. 9:6). God is referred to as Almighty only 4 times in the 17 Books of the prophets of the Old Testament (Isaiah 1; Ezekiel 2; Joel 1), while mighty is used of God 16 times (Isaiah 7; Jeremiah 3; Ezekiel 2; Daniel 2; Habakuk 1; Zephaniah 1). The phrase mighty God is used 9 times throughout the Old Testament, while Almighty God is used only 3 times in the entire Old Testament. God Almighty is used 11 times. There are many other verses present throughout the Scriptures which use the word ‘mighty’ in reference to God including: Ex. 32:11; Deut. 3:24; 4:34; 5:15; 7:19,23; 9:26; 10:17; 11:2; Josh. 4:24; Neh. 9:32; Job 36:5; Psa. 24:8; 50:1; 132:2; Ezek. 20:33; Dan. 9:15; Zeph. 3:17; Lk. 1:49; 19:37; Lk. 24:19; Rom. 15:19; 2 Cor. 10:4; 1 Pet. 5:6.
Isaiah 9:6 “…is clearly a prophecy of the Messiah, fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Yet it applies the titles ‘mighty God’ and ‘everlasting Father’ to Jesus although the titles are elsewhere used only of God.” “In all three verses—Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 10:21; Jeremiah 32:18—the Hebrew word for ‘mighty’ (gibbor-Masterful) is used. We can see that the ‘Jehovah's Witness’ explanation is not valid; both the Son of God and God are called the Mighty God.” “Is there a distinction between Mighty and Almighty God? Only in the fact that they are not the same word. Mighty is from the Hebrew gibbowr, while Almighty is from the word shadday. They are two unrelated Hebrew words, both used to describe the nature of Jehovah. However, the Bible makes no distinction in the use of the words when it comes to the Father and the Son. The Father is both ‘Mighty’ and ‘Almighty’. The Son is both ‘Mighty’ and ‘Almighty’.” So we see that the title ‘Almighty’ is one which is not restricted to the Father, nor is the title ‘Mighty’ exclusive to the Son. Moreover, those who attempt to dismiss the fact that Jesus is God, and try to convince their hearers that He is only a mighty god—meaning He is a lesser god—rather than the Almighty God, are forever silenced by the Lord Jesus’ own words found in Revelation 1:7,8: "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, THE ALMIGHTY.’ For those wondering, the original Greek also has the word ‘Almighty’ in this verse from Revelation.
“Now, if God-only is referred to as ‘Almighty’ and Christ ‘only’ as ‘mighty’, making Him less than God, then it stands to reason, a logical deduction, that God cannot be called ‘mighty’, for it would make Him, too, less than God! Yet, throughout Scripture, we find God referred to as both ‘mighty’ and ‘almighty’. The first instance of ‘mighty’ in connection with God, is Genesis 49:24, which speaks of the ‘mighty God of Jacob’. In Deuteronomy 7:21, we find ‘for the LORD thy God is among you, a mighty God...’ In Psalm 50:1, Asaph speaks of ‘The mighty God, even the LORD…’, which again throws a mighty spanner in the JW works! In that text ‘God’ is ‘Elohiym, and LORD is Jehovah! It is so easy at times to destroy a cultish teaching! But, are the words ‘mighty’ and ‘Almighty’ different? Yes, when applied to God, they are different words, but they share the same meanings. In the Genesis text above, ‘mighty’ is ‘abiyr, an old poetic word for God; it also means strong–BUT IS ONLY USED TO DESCRIBE GOD! So, this very first usage completely obliterates the JW idea that Christ is not God, because the same word is applied in Scripture to both Father and Son. Another word for ‘mighty’, gadowl, means great… and, again, refers to God Himself. The word in Psalm 50 is ‘el’, an old basic word used to describe any god, but in the text, to God as Jehovah, the One True God. In Isaiah 9:6 and 10:21, the word used is gibbowr, but is used as an adjective, so is not particularly useful for our short study. It means strong or mighty. In Habakkuk 1:12, tsuwr is used to refer to God as the Rock… the same Rock describing Christ, when Jesus told Peter that He alone, Christ, is the Rock on which the Church would be built. Rock=Christ=God! In Genesis 17:1 we have the amazing, holy command to Abram: ‘I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be thou perfect’. In this text ‘God’ is ‘el’ and ‘Almighty’ is Shadday, meaning most powerful, Shaddai… God. The same word is used in Ezekiel 10:5. In Revelation 19:5, the word is pantokratōr. It means God, ruler of all; He who controls everything. The word kratos refers to might, great power. Revelation 15:3 says this, equating the Father and the Son: ‘And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints’. Here we see ‘God’ and ‘Lamb’ are the same; this is repeated in 21:22. (‘and’, kai, is a conjunction, so ‘and’ can easily mean ‘also’, eg. God=Lamb). Christ is in this song addressed as a Divine Person, as Lord of all, God over all, blessed for ever, the Almighty God, as His works declare Him to be; His works of creation, providence, and redemption, which are all great and marvellous, particularly the accomplishment of the glorious things spoken of His church, and the destruction of His enemies, which are here designed. So, very clearly, both God and Christ are equal, as is Their power; both share the epithet ‘Almighty’ and ‘mighty’. If ‘mighty’ is supposed to denote a lesser or non-God, then JWs have a very big problem getting over these objections. In 2 Corinthians 6:15: ‘what concord hath Christ with Belial?’ The text continues, by equating Christ with God, Who walks amongst His people (as Christ did): ‘And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’ (2 Cor. 6:16). Then, that same God will be a Father to us: ‘Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty’ (2 Cor. 6:17,18). In this text, ‘Lord’ is kyrios, which means God, the Messiah! And ‘Almighty’ is…pantokrator…which means God. We can easily conclude, then, that ‘mighty’ and ‘Almighty’ refer to both Father and Son equally. This is because they ARE equal. The argument about the words themselves is very silly and immature, showing a deliberate act of doctrinal sabotage on the part of cults, by abusing the texts and the meanings of words. Because it is such an absurdity, in reality, it deserves to be treated with contempt.
“The Watchtower interpretation of John 1:1 is unconvincing, to say the least, for several reasons. First, when all of the descriptions of the Messiah are considered from Isaiah 9:6, ‘mighty God’ is clearly a reference to Deity. For example, the Messiah is referred to as ‘Eternal Father’, which means Father of Eternity or Possessor of Eternity. Who but God is Eternal? Certainly no temporal, created creature could be considered eternal, or the Father of Eternity. Furthermore, the reference to the ‘Prince of Peace’ in no way demeans the Messiah’s Deity; rather, as Isaiah 9:7 indicates, the Messiah’s rule will be a reign of unending peace: ‘Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end…’. Additionally, if the Watchtower requires a ‘King’ reference in order to indicate Almighty Sovereignty for the Messiah, they will find it in Revelation 19:16 of their bibles where this verse refers to Jesus as ‘King of kings, and Lord of lords’. Additional evidence that the Watchtower misinterprets ‘mighty God’ (to bolster their false claims concerning the Lord Jesus) is the fact that the same name is used in reference to Jehovah IN THE VERY NEXT CHAPTER OF ISAIAH!: 'The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God’ (Isa. 10:21).” “Who are they returning to? To the Lord, Yahweh, the one true God of Israel. Here He is plainly called the ‘mighty God’ [el gibbor] in the very same prophetic context as Isaiah 9:6. Indeed, only a chapter apart from it! Yahweh is the Mighty God. The Messiah is the Mighty God. There is only one God. The conclusion here is obvious. And the other prophets concur that Jehovah is the ‘mighty God’. Jeremiah, for example, pronounces: ‘Thou shewest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the great, the Mighty God [el gibbor], The Lord [YHWH, or Jehovah] of hosts is His name’ (Jer. 32:18). And Zephaniah lauds in similar terms: ‘The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty [gibbor]; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing’ (Zeph. 3:17). Yahweh is certainly ‘Almighty’, but He is also rightly called ‘mighty’ by the prophets. He is the living God. He is the true God. He is the only God upon Whom we are to call. He is the only Saviour. Jesus is the ‘mighty God’ upon Whom we are to call. He is our eternal Saviour. Jesus is Yahweh God. It would be most incongruous of Isaiah to use the title ‘mighty God’ for a mere creature in one chapter and of Yahweh in the very next chapter. Finally, even if ‘mighty God’ did refer to a lesser ‘god’, this does not alleviate the Watchtower’s dilemma because Yahweh has clearly, repeatedly stated that He is the only God. The only reasonable conclusion from this passage is that Jesus the Messiah is Deity.” Some try to draw attention to the fact that the word ‘mighty’ is not capitalized in Isaiah 9:6 when referring to the coming Messiah, but there are multiple verses which also do not have the word ‘mighty’ capitalized when clearly referring to Yahweh, such as Genesis 49:24: “…by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob…”, as well as Isaiah 10:21, “The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God”. In addition, it is also important to note the fact that there are no capital letters at all in the Hebrew language. The King James translators sometimes used a capital letter for Mighty, and other times the lower case mighty.
“How many actual gods are there in Scripture? The obvious answer is that there is only one God in existence. Though there are others who have been falsely called gods: ‘For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him’ (1 Cor. 8:5-6 cf. Isa. 9:6), or even said to be as Godlike Moses (see Ex. 4:16; 7:1). There is only one real God ‘Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods’ (Gal. 4:8; cf. Isa. 44:6, 8).” There is only one real God, one true God. Apart from the delusions of Satan and his minions, all others who are called ‘God’ are mere human inventions, fictions devised in the minds of lost men who know not the true and only God. “If Jesus is ‘a god’ that was ‘with God’ in the beginning, then is Jesus a true god or a false god? But, the Jehovah's Witnesses often claim that Jesus is a god in the sense that Moses was called a god…” Jesus never claimed to be a god, but the God, the one and only God. In His answer to Phillip’s request to “show us the Father”, Jesus replies, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father”, not a Father. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, not the image of a God (see Col. 1:15). “In the Gospel of John, we are told that the Jews immediately took up stones to throw at Jesus when he said the following statement: ‘…Verily, Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM’ (Jn. 8:58). In those days, a person was stoned for blasphemy, for claiming to be God. People didn’t try to kill you or crucify you if you claimed to be a really good person or a nice guy. They did, however, slaughter you in cold blood for claiming to be God. When Jesus said, ‘Before Abraham was, I AM’, He was claiming to be God. His language echoes that time when God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush (see Ex. 3:14). God said to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM’. The Septuagint, which is a Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew text, translates this as ‘I Am the Being’, and Jesus’ statement here confirms this teaching. At the beginning and very end of the Bible, in Revelation, we read: ‘Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, THE ALMIGHTY’ (Rev. 1:7,8), and ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last’ (Rev. 22:13). Therefore, what Jesus means is not simply that He came before Abraham in some pre-existent state, but that He created Abraham. Jesus was claiming to be the very eternal God of Israel, the Creator of the universe as described in the Old Testament. If this wasn’t His claim, then His opponents never would have killed Him for it. They also would not have accused Him of making Himself out to be God—if He wasn’t saying that He was God.” Nor did the Lord Jesus ever deny that He had called Himself God. “The Jews actually told Jesus, ‘…For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God’ (Jn. 10:33). The trouble with the question is that people are trying to read an ancient text as if it were written today. Jesus isn’t answering our question, ‘Why didn’t Jesus just say ‘I am God?’, though; He was answering the Jews. Jesus spoke in a specific way to a specific group of people who understood exactly what He said. Jesus was, and is, God.” JESUS CALLED HIMSELF I AM WHEN SPEAKING TO A PEOPLE WHO KNEW THE ONLY TRUE GOD AS I AM. More on this later.
By far the verse most frequently referred to by JW’s against the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is John 1:1. “The J.W.’s erroneous claim is that John 1:1 is translated in error. They insist that ‘the Word was God’ should actually be ‘the word was a God’. For how could God make the mistake of saying He was with Himself in the beginning? Many people, most notably the Jehovah's Witnesses, have tried to claim that John 1:1 has been misrepresented and the indefinite article ‘a’ should be inserted into this verse. This is primarily because the verse, as it is currently rendered in English, makes Jesus God Almighty. Now, there are many scholarly works that can be cited to show why the Greek phrase Theos en ho logos is correctly translated ‘The Word was God’, but it requires those discussing the issue to have a mastery of koinie Greek to speak intelligently at this level. Therefore, whenever I discuss this verse and how it should properly read, I usually deal with what we do know and what is beyond debate. Examining the Options of John 1:1: First, the argument leaves us with only two choices—either Jesus is the one true God (YHWH) or He is ‘a god’. There are no other options open when dealing with John 1:1. Since both Christianity and Judaism affirm monotheism (the belief that there is only one true God), then translating John 1:1 ‘a god’ leaves the reader with a problem. What kind of god is Jesus? If Jesus is God Almighty, then He cannot be created because God is eternal. Psalm 90:2 tells us ‘…from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God’. If Jesus is some other kind of god (or if something else is meant by using the term ‘god’ for Jesus), then He would be a created being.” Everything outside of the only true God is no God at all. There are no Gods in existence except for the only true God. “For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens” (Psa. 96:5 cf. Jer. 10:10-13). God Himself asks: “…Is there a God beside Me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any” (Isa. 44:8 cf. 1 Chron. 16:26; 1 Cor. 8:4-6). Such an answer from Almighty God Himself no less is all the evidence one needs to prove the fact that there are no true Gods of any description at all except One. God is the only God there is, all so-called gods/Gods come from the imaginations of men and delusional boastings of Satan and his angels. Therefore, the J.W.’s insistence that Jesus is merely a god, a lesser god, simply makes no sense at all particularly in light of the fact that there is no other God but the one and only true God. There are no Deities outside of the one true Deity, be they major, minor, metaphorical, or whatever. “…there is none other God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4 cf. Deut. 4:39; Mk.12:29). In light of this unchallengeable Scriptural fact, Jesus can be none other than Almighty God. “If there is only one God, then Jesus must be Yahweh, the one God. If there is more than one God, then the NWT is wrong when it teaches monotheism. Either there is only one God or there is more than one God. Therefore, either Jesus must be Yahweh, or the NWT is wrong when teaching monotheism. One way or the other the Watchtower Society must be wrong for either their theology is wrong or their bible is corrupted.
“The best way to clarify John 1:1 is by looking at it in context. The most compelling verse I have found for Jesus being God Almighty, apart from Revelation 1:8, is actually John 1:3. There we read ‘All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made’ (cf. Col. 1:15-17). John 1:3 becomes crucial to our debate because it makes a very specific claim. If anything had any type of beginning at all, it was begun by Jesus. You cannot even infer the word ‘other’ in the text because the last part of the verse says ‘without Him was not any thing made that was made’. In other words, John states there are two groups of things: all those things that have a beginning and all those things that are eternal, and, clearly, Jesus is not one of those that have a beginning”, for “in the beginning was the Word” (Jn. 1:1). Jesus as God precedes the beginning of all things, for He created all things. “Perhaps an easy way to think of it is as a piece of paper with a line drawn down the middle. On one side there are eternal things with no beginning and on the other there are created things. The created things section is completely empty until Jesus starts working and putting things there. That means that Jesus is already there—but He cannot be on the created side because we said it was empty. So He must be on the non-created side. If this is so, then Jesus is eternal. IF JESUS IS ETERNAL, THIS MAKES HIM GOD ALMIGHTY. As I said before, there is no other option available. If Jesus is God Almighty, then John 1:1 is properly rendered ‘The Word was God’ instead of ‘a god’ for that translation would set up a duality of gods.” If Jesus is only a god, then God did not create anything without the assistance of this so-called minor god, Jesus. But how can this be when the Triune God says: “…I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by Myself…I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me…” (Isa. 44:24; Isa. 45:5 cf. Isa. 45:12; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16,17; Heb.1:2, 10-12). The very first verse of Genesis informs us that “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Everything was created by the Triune God Who created everything by Himself. “The claim that God wouldn't ‘make the mistake of saying He was with Himself in the beginning’ denies the idea of the Persons of the Trinity being distinct. In many passages such as Psa. 2:7; 45:6; 110:1,4; Matt. 22:44; Mk. 12:36; Jn. 12:28; Heb. 1:5; 5:5,6, we see the Father speaking of the Son or even to the Son and the Son speaking to the Father so I don't see how this would be a problem.”
The Watchtower’s New World Translation of John 1:1 is “…not a matter of correct translation, but of reading one's preconceived theology into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself. There is no indefinite article in Greek (in English, ‘a’ or ‘an’), so any use of an indefinite article in English must be added by the translator. This is grammatically acceptable, so long as it does not change the meaning of the text. There is a good reason why theos has no definite article in John 1:1 and why the New World Translation rendering is in error. There are three general rules we need to understand to see why. 1. In Greek, word order does not determine word usage like it does in English. In English, a sentence is structured according to word order: Subject - Verb - Object. Thus, ‘Harry called the dog’ is not equivalent to ‘the dog called Harry’. But in Greek, a word's function is determined by the case ending found attached to the word's root. There are two case endings for the root theo: one is -s (theos), the other is -n (theon). The -s ending normally identifies a noun as being the subject of a sentence, while the –n ending normally identifies a noun as the direct object. The J.W’s teach that the two Greek words in John 1:1, theos and theon, refer to two different gods, Jehovah and a lesser god, Jesus. In Greek, word endings indicate grammatical settings in a sentence. Theos is subjective and Theon is the objective case. Examples: (1) God, theos, loves me. (2) I love God, theon. 2. When a noun functions as a predicate nominative (in English, a noun that follows a being verb such as ‘is’), its case ending must match the noun's case that it renames, so that the reader will know which noun it is defining. Therefore, theo must take the -s ending because it is renaming logos (Word). Therefore, John 1:1 transliterates to ‘kai theos en ho logos’. Is theos the subject, or is logos? Both have the -s ending. The answer is found in the next rule. 3. In cases where two nouns appear, and both take the same case ending, the author will often add the definite article to the word that is the subject in order to avoid confusion. John put the definite article on logos (‘the Word’) instead of on theos. So, logos is the subject, and theos is the predicate nominative. In English, this results in John 1:1 being read as ‘and the Word was God’ (instead of ‘and God was the Word’).