World Religions Jehovah’s Witnesses

History of Jehovah’s Witnesses

While the name “Jehovah’s Witness” came about in 1931, the religious movement traces its beginnings back to 1870. Charles Taze Russell was confused by the doctrines of hell and the Trinity that were taught in the church he grew up in. Consequently, Russell began exploring other denominations and for a time attended a Seventh Day Adventist church. In 1879, Russell officially split from the Adventists and started his own magazine and publishing company called The Watchtower. Russell used The Watchtower to publicize his view that the battle of Armageddon would occur in 1914. As Russell’s movement attracted followers he expanded the magazine into the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WTBTS) and moved the publisher’s headquarters to Brooklyn, New York. When WWI started in 1914 Russell claimed that it was the beginning of Armageddon but was proven wrong by subsequent history. Russell died in 1916 as a failed prophet but other prophets sprung up to take his place in the WTBTS.

In 1917, Joseph F. Rutherford became the next president of the WTBTS and set the date of Armageddon as 1925. When proven wrong, Rutherford claimed he was misunderstood by Watchtower followers. In 1931, perhaps to distance himself from his incorrect prophecy, Rutherford changed the name of the society to “Jehovah’s Witnesses” which is a title taken from Isaiah 43:10. Another addition from Rutherford was the door-to-door witnessing technique that Jehovah’s Witnesses are infamous for. Rutherford’s intention was to swell the number of followers and to this end instituted the idea that the 144,000 members of the tribes of Israel mentioned in Revelation 7 was actually a reference to the number of people who would be allowed entrance to heaven. The problem then became that the number of Jehovah’s Witnesses began to near 144,000 and Armageddon had not happened. In 1935 Rutherford instituted the idea that the initial 144,000 were the “little crowd” and would be welcomed into heaven but that members who joined after 1935 would be the “great crowd” and would inherit a new paradise on Earth. In 1942 Rutherford died and the Jehovah’s Witnesses were still awaiting Armageddon.

The list of errant prophecies goes on and on. Nathan Knorr, the president to follow Rutherford, predicted Armageddon would occur before 1975. Frederick Franz, the successor of Knorr, predicted that the generation alive in 1914 would certainly see Armageddon before they died. Milton Henschel, Franz’ successor, taught that the entire dating system was flawed and thus the prophecies were mistakenly understood. Therefore the followers were wrong but not the prophets. This is the view that modern Jehovah’s Witnesses hold to, that anyone who belongs to the world is eligible to see Armageddon. They deny any accusations of false prophecy and claim that they were misunderstood.

Charles Taze Russell’s Confused Doctrine: Russell found the Christian ideas of hell and the Trinity difficult to comprehend and consequently discarded them in his interpretation of the Bible.

Hell: Russell borrowed the idea of annihilation from the Seventh Day Adventists. Annihilationists believe that a person is destroyed, not eternally punished, in hell. What this essentially does to the infinite gap between God’s perfection and fallen man is reduce it to a gap that is bridgeable by man’s work. Either we earn our way out of hell on earth through our good works, in service to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or we earn our way out of hell by being annihilated and paying the price for our own sin.

The Trinity: Russell could not understand the Trinity and therefore concluded that it could not be true. This led him to deny the deity of Jesus Christ and reduce the person of the Holy Spirit to an energy or force that comes from God. In Jehovah’s Witness theology, Jehovah is the “correct” name for Almighty God taken from the Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH). Jehovah is the source of all spirits and when a spirit is annihilated it is actually reabsorbed into Jehovah’s memory bank. Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that Jesus was the incarnation of the archangel Michael who lived a perfect life to become the payment for original sin and when killed was physically annihilated but spiritually returned to heaven. Consequently, they deny the resurrection and claim that the Jesus that appeared to the disciples was a recreated Jesus from Jehovah’s memory bank. Jehovah’s Witnesses will acknowledge Jesus as lesser god than Jehovah and may even use phrases like “Son of God”. However, doing this shows a misunderstanding of how a Hebrew person would have understood Jesus’ claims (John 5:18) and was actually the heart of a third century heresy called Arianism. Arius taught that Jesus was created by God and therefore not coeternal with God. The Council of Nicea in 325 AD, from which we get the official church acceptance of the Trinity, was actually a response to Arius’ teaching.

Work Your Way to Heaven

Because Jesus’ death only paid for Adam’s sin it puts man in a neutral position to earn their way to heaven. Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that by strict attendance to the Kingdom Hall and by service to their organization they can earn heaven. Each Kingdom Hall has five weekly sessions and all congregation members are expected to attend. Many of these sessions focus purely on how to argue against Christian theology and how to create confusion over the meaning of scripture translations. Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught to pick and choose which verses are acceptable from each translation but their own translation, the New World Translation, is the only one that is completely authoritative. Two examples from the New World Translation are John 1:1 and Colossians 1:15-20.

The NWT makes John1:1 read “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was a god.” A good response to this would be to continue reading to verse 3.

The NWT makes Colossians 1:15-20 read “first created (instead of firstborn) over all creation” and goes on to insert the word “other” in every reference to creation. A good response to this would be to point out other places in the NT that “firstborn” is used such as Romans 8:29 and Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1 makes it particularly difficult to deny Christ’s deity and position above all of creation including the angels (Michael).

A Christian who hopes to share the gospel with a Jehovah’s Witness door-to-door visitor should be comfortable navigating the Bible and practice a good hermeneutic. They should not expect the Jehovah’s Witness to share this hermeneutic as their organization twists scripture to say was they want it to say. Also, there is a great deal of fear used in the manipulation of Jehovah’s Witness members. Remember that 2 Timothy 1:7-9 tells us that we do not have a “spirit of timidity” and that we are saved “not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”

Source Information:

Ridenour, Fritz. So What’s the Difference? A Look at 20 Worldviews, Faiths and Religions and How they Compare to Christianity Ventura, CA: Regal, 2001. Print.

The Jehovah’s Witness Worldview