Jehovah's Witnesses and Easter

I have been sick this week, that is why there has been little action on the blog. But, one thing had my stomach churning that I can't get my mind off of. Last week I came home to find a flyer from our local temple of Satan, otherwise known as the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses. It had a picture of Christ on the front with a title, "The greatest love ever shown." I believe that there is no way that they can defend this with their historical heresy that comes from Arius. Namely, that Jesus Christ was only a man and not God Himself.

This post isn't long and would love for ANY JW to show me as false on this one. The claim is that the greatest love ever shown came from the cross. How do we learn from the Bible that God shows us, or demonstrates, his love for us? It comes in the following verse:

But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

This verse only makes sense if Jesus is God. To put it bluntly, this verse makes absolutely no sense if Jesus isn't God. If Jesus isn't God then God demonstrated his own love by murdering an innocent human.

How can God demonstrate his love toward us through killing a finite human? For God to truly demonstrate this love, he needs to lay down his own life, not someone else's. This verse becomes lipservice. This is no demonstration of God's love, but a demonstration of Jesus' love. You can say all you want, that Christ laid down his life willingly (which I agree with), that Jesus did this for us (which I agree with), on his own initiative (which I agree with) but if God and Jesus aren't one, how does this demonstrate God's love?

Doesn't the cross only demonstrate Jesus' love for us, and not God's? If Jesus isn't God it is like God saying, "I love you so much, I am going to kill someone else for you." Thanks. That does nothing to show God's love at all. It actually becomes a brutal slaying of someone that even the executioner, Pilate, couldn't find fault with.

But, here is the beauty. If Jesus is God, and he was part of the decision from all eternity, we don't have a brutal murder by God, but we have the eternal God literally laying down his own life, and not passing the buck to someone else.

If Jesus is God, we can believe this statement. We can see the love that God shows, not merely some man. We can see that the demonstration of this love was an amazing plan from eternity past (Revelation 13:8) that the whole of the Trinity planned and brought to determination (Acts 4:27,28).

If anyone can show me how God demonstrates his own love for us, by killing a mere human, I would like to know how.

I am up for any discussion on this one, as I believe the argument will fall well short of the biblical testimony. May our Lord Jesus Christ's name not be thrown in the mud by these that proclaim false testimony from the den of thieves.

Soli Deo Gloria.

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What Must I Do To Be Saved?

I have been pondering this question a lot lately as I have discussed the issue of Mormonism, Jehovah Witness, Charismatics, Arminianism vs Calvinism, paedo vs credo baptism, eschatology, emergent, seeker sensitive and also I have been laying out the distinctives of my local church as I design and teach our newcomers class. So, the question is: What must one believe and NOT believe to be saved?

First, I want to say that I am NOT in the camp that believes that the Arminian will not be saved, but I do stand behind Spurgeon when he states:

"The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach today, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again"

But really? What must one believe to be saved? Here is my stance on the subject.



First, I believe that one must believe that Jesus Christ is God, came to live amongst us (Phil 2:5-8; Hebrews 2:17,18), born of a virgin (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 2),lived a perfect life (Heb 4:15,16; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 2:22), died and rose again (Romans 10:9). I believe that one must repent from their sins (Acts 2:38) and turn to Christ as their sole reason for righteousness. I believe that this faith will be a saving faith that is given by God (Phil 1:29;2 Thess 1:13) and will produce good works (Col 1:6; John 15; James 2:26) but salvation does not come because of good works. So who does this exclude? This definitely excludes the Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Buddhist, New Ager, Muslim and the Universalist, (or any other that does not believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven). It also excludes any who believe that anything besides faith alone saves us. If we add anything to the gospel they are to be accursed (Galatians 1:6-10) and those who seek to be justified by the Law has fallen from grace (Galatians 5:4) So this now excludes the Roman Catholic faith as well as well as the Seventh Day Adventist and the Church of Christ.

I am also a hardlined Lordship salvation believer as well based on the many references to what happens when someone is saved, which is they produce fruit. This is the scariest aspect of salvation if you ask me, as this will be the biggest group that think they are saved, but Christ will say, "Away from Me, for I never knew you." I am not saying if you believe in the longtime carnal Christian that you will go to hell, but those who say,"I said a prayer, now I can do what I want." Those are the ones who do not know our Lord.

Their are many people that I call brothers in Christ but I don't agree with their theology in full. These would include the Presbyterian (baptism,eschatology), Reformed (covenants, eschatology), Arminians (doctrines of grace) and also the Charismatic (gifts of the Spirit). The only time that I would not include these as my brothers is if they say that this or that must happen to be saved. Which mostly points to the Charismatic who believes you must speak in tongues to be saved. If you believe this I would also have a hard time calling you, "brother."

I do believe as Whitefield believed:

George Whitefield said, "We are all born Arminians." It is grace that turns
us into Calvinists.

I would also go with any of the above, Presbyterian, Reformed, Arminian and Charismatic to evangelize the lost and I would even worship with them every once and a while as I will be worshiping with them for eternity. I cannot wait til we see our Saviour face to face so that we do not have to worry about Theology and Doctrine as we will all be completely unified and praising our God.

May we all keep our eyes on the Justifier and our eyes away from the world.

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Refuting Jehovah's Witnesses

This is definitely not exhaustive but wanted to share some of the verses that some Jehovah Witnesses recently tried to "convert" me with and then how I refuted their answers with the living and abiding Word of God.

The first verse that they took me to was Revelation 3:14

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this..

They stated that if Jesus had a beginning then He must have been created. The easy answer is truly this: God is called the Alpha and the Omega the Beginning and the End; so if God has a beginning then He was also created but even more piercing is that if God is also the Omega or End, then there will be a day that God doesn't exist, He will have an end. To which they of course said that couldn't happen, I then told them that they were using double hermeneutics which is against correct biblical interpretation. Which I, of course, do not believe that God has a beginning or an end but wanted them to see where their logic must take them. So, I continued to take them to proving Jesus is truly God.

I asked them what the term "Alpha and Omega" means. They stated, "The Beginning and the End" I then asked them, "how many Alpha and Omegas are there?" They replied, "one, the Lord Jehovah" Which is found in Isaiah 41:4; 44:6 and Revelation 1:8. So, getting what I wanted from them to show them Christ, I took them to Revelation 22. Read the whole chapter for yourself but I want to take a look at 4 verses in this chapter: 12,13, 16, 20

"Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly " Amen Come, Lord Jesus.

This Alpha and Omega in verses 12,13 is "coming quickly" and notice verse 16 says that it is Jesus who is speaking and then Jesus uses the same term, "I am coming quickly" in verse 20 and John reconfirms who this by stating, "Amen Come, Lord Jesus." So, we have just seen that if there is one Alpha and Omega then Christ must be Jehovah, because He is called the Alpha and Omega in Revelation 22 just as Jehovah is shown in the above mentioned references.

The last verse they took me to is John 17:3

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

They ask, "If Jesus is truly God why would He say that Jehovah is the only true God?" This is easier to answer than some may think because God the Father calls Jesus God in Hebrews 1:8

But of the Son He says,
"YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER,
AND THE RIGHTEOUS SCEPTER IS THE SCEPTER OF HIS KINGDOM.

Notice who is doing the talking: God the Father about the Son. The Father says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and forever"

God the Father just called Jesus, God.

This is what is so great about the Word of God; it, when read and studied comletely, explains itself. Know that there is many other testaments of who our triune God is, and that it exactly what I worship: the triune God.

I don't know what will happen with those two that came to my door that day, but I told them that I wasn't into winning an argument but in the salvation of their souls. We spoke for about 45 minutes and spoke about many things, I just pray that the Holy Spirit will convict them of their sin and warped thinking of who He truly is.

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