How to Show a Jehovah's Witness That Jesus Was—and Still Should Be

How to Show a Jehovah's Witness That Jesus Was—and Still Should Be—Worshiped

Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW’s) have a severe problem with the question of worship when it comes to Jesus. They say that Jesus is not God, and that because of the First of the Ten Commandments, we should not worship Him. Is this correct thinking biblically speaking? In this article, I will argue why it is not correct, and I will do this from the New World Translation (NWT) which is the Jehovah’s Witness corrupted version of the Bible. Allow me to briefly say here that they believe that Jesus is a “lower case g” god, which immediately has scriptural issues in their own translation with the First of the Ten Commandments, namely that they would have “other gods besides me” (NWT of the First of the Ten Commandments).

First, since I have argued in multiple places concerning John 1:1 that Jesus is God, which implies our worship of Him, I will direct you to those articles HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Moving forward, I want to look at three specific primary scriptures in the NWT that show that Jesus is to be worshiped. The first is found in the NWT of the Gospel of Matthew 2:11. It reads, “And when they went into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and falling down, they did obeisance to him. They also opened their treasures and presented him with gifts—gold and frankincense and myrrh.”

The word here translated “obeisance” comes from the Greek word, προσεκύνησαν (prosekunasan), which means “to express in attitude or gesture one’s complete dependence on or submission to a high authority figure, (fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully…”[1]

The way that JW’s use this is inconsistent throughout their translation. For example, in Judges 7:15, the same Greek word is used in the Septuagint here, and the word used to translate this word is “worship,” as in, “As soon as Gidʹe·on heard him relate the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down to worship. After that he returned to the camp of Israel and said: “Get up, for Jehovah has given the camp of Midʹi·an into your hand” (NWT).

The question is, why is it translated in the book of Judges as worship, but not in Matthew? The reason is because it does not fit their agenda. Their agenda is to say that Jesus is not YHWH, that is to say, YaHWeH, or, the way they translate the tetragrammaton, Jehovah.

Again, in Matthew chapter 14:33, when Jesus returned with Peter from walking on the water, the Greek New Testament uses the exact same word, προσεκύνησαν to describe their action toward Jesus. But also again, the NWT translates this as, “obeisance,” which is yet another inconsistency in their translation. Ultimately, JW’s are changing the translation of the word in order to change the context of what is taking place. This still does not remain consistent with their own translation of Judges 7:15 in the NWT.

The way that they use the word, obeisance, is essentially the way that we might use the word, “curtsy.” It is ultimately a deep distancing from the word, worship. The translation, “obeisance,” is used throughout the New Testament of the NWT in order to show that Jesus was never worshiped as God, because this would be inconsistent with their teaching that Jesus is not God. The way to remove such an inconsistency then would be to simply translate this Greek word as “worship,” but this would then make Jehovah’s Witnesses closer to biblical Christianity.[2]

The third and final primary scripture from the NWT I want to look at is a bit of a different flavor. This is from John 20:26-29.

“Well, eight days later his disciples were again indoors, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and he stood in their midst and said: “May you have peace.” Next he said to Thomas: “Put your finger here, and see my hands, and take your hand and stick it into my side, and stop doubting but believe.” In answer Thomas said to him: “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus said to him: “Because you have seen me, have you believed? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe” (NWT).[3]

Our focus of this text is on verse 28 which again reads, “In answer Thomas said to him: “My Lord and my God!” Thomas is clearly worshiping Jesus as his Lord and God in this text, but there is a footnote in the NWT study Bible that seeks to explain away such a bold act of worship toward Jesus.

“Some scholars view this expression as an exclamation of astonishment spoken to Jesus but actually directed to God, his Father. Others claim that the original Greek requires that the words be viewed as being directed to Jesus. Even if this is so, the intent of the expression “my Lord and my God” is best understood in the context of the rest of the inspired Scriptures. Since the record shows that Jesus had previously sent his disciples the message, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God,” there is no reason to believe that Thomas thought that Jesus was the almighty God.”[4]

The phrase, “some scholars” in the beginning of this citation is discussing the biased translators of the NWT. But, in order to make their case, they show that Jesus sent the message to His Disciples that He is ascending to “…my God and your God.” This is taken from John 20:17, and the conclusion from the citation above is that “there is no reason to believe that Thomas thought that Jesus was the almighty God.” Yeah, except for the fact that according to the Greek and even to the NWT, Thomas said to Jesus, “my Lord and my God!”

Thomas didn’t just say this in passing, because if it was, then Thomas would be taking God’s name in vain (i. e. “an exclamation of astonishment” in the above citation). This would be breaking of the Third Commandment, even in the NWT: “You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way, for Jehovah will not leave unpunished the one who takes up His name in a worthless way.” Even if someone tried to argue that Thomas is not using God’s actual name, Thomas is still pointing to the same object, which everyone agrees that Thomas is referring to Jehovah YHWH God. Thus, we can conclude that from the JW study text of the NWT that either Thomas is taking God’s name in vain (as something common; i. e. “an exclamation of astonishment”), or he is calling Jesus His Lord and God.

Do you really think a first century Jew (which is what Thomas was) would take the name of God in vain? The reason the tetragrammaton (four letters; YHWH) exists is because of the Third Commandment. In the English Standard Version, this verse reads, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7). The tetragrammaton is an unpronounceable name of God. The reason is because the Jews feared taking the name of God as something as common, so they removed it all together.

When I worked in a Jewish synagogue in NY, the Jews there referred to God as “HaShem” which, in Hebrew, simply means “the name.” One of my friends there explained to me that there are some Hasidic Jews in that synagogue who read the word “God” in Hebrew (such as found in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God…”) use a different Hebrew word when reading and speaking such from the scriptures. The word pronounced in Hebrew here is “Elohim.” The word used to replace this word in order to avoid using it, according to my young Jewish friend, is “Elokim.” Now, I ask again, do you really think a first century Jew would take the name of the Lord God in vain or as something common? This is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses are implying.

In any event, the question of whether we should worship Jesus should be answered with a resounding “Yes!” The reason for this act of worship is because Jesus is God.

Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus

[1] William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 882.

[2] See 2 Corinthians 11:4.

[3] https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/john/20/.

[4] https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/john/20/#v43020028.

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