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John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – Episode 28, Paul’s Testimony to Jesus’ Deity
We’ve been trying to show why it could not or would not make sense for John to be saying that Jesus was ‘a’ god. Would the apostle John be out of step with the other apostles and view Jesus as a created being? We can see that the rest of the apostles whose writings we have in our New Testament, did not view Jesus as a created being but the Almighty God.
The Apostle Paul
Paul has one of those doxologies to Jesus,
The Lord will deliver me from every evil work and save me to His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory for ever and ever, Amen. (2 Timothy 4:18)
The “Lord” whom Paul is praising is the one who, according to verses 16 and 17, stood by him during his first trial in Rome and enabled him to proclaim the gospel and enabled his release. It is Jesus who did this.
And Paul, like Peter, includes both the Father and Jesus in his blessings to his letter readers:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2; Philippians 1:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:2; Philemon 3)
Paul and Silas and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. (1 Thessalonians 1:1)
Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:3)
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2)
For Paul, both the Father and the Lord Jesus are the equal source of grace, mercy and peace. Paul also identifies Yahweh with Jesus on several occasions:
- He quotes Joel 2:23, “Whoever calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved,” in Romans 10:13 in reference to Jesus. As he says there, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (10:9).
- Paul alludes to Jeremiah 9:24, “‘Let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am Yahweh who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares Yahweh,” when he says in 1 Corinthians 1:31, “As it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts make his boast in the Lord.’” Paul has just described Jesus as the one who has become wisdom for us from God, has become our righteousness, holiness and redemption, and as he says in the second chapter, the one whom he preaches.
- Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13, “Who has known the mind of Yahweh so as to instruct him?” and then declares, in his next words, “But we have the mind of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
- Paul tells us in Philippians 2:9-11 that God has exalted Christ and given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He is referencing Isaiah 45:23, which says, “By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’” Paul is attributing to Jesus what Yahweh has attributed to Himself.
In 1 Corinthians 1:2 Paul describes believers as those who call upon the name of Jesus in prayer. Should we pray to ‘a’ god? Of course not! No one but God Himself should receive prayer.
Paul makes an extraordinary statement in 1 Corinthians 8:6. He says, “But to us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things and we are for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we are through him.” This is a clear reference to Deuteronomy 6:4, which says, “Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.” Jehovah’s Witnesses would have no trouble explaining that there is only one God the Father, but how could it be possible that there is only one Lord? Witnesses might perhaps say there is only one Lord Jesus Christ. But why is he called “Lord”? Isn’t the Father the Lord? Of course He is, and that is what makes this statement so extraordinary. Both the Father and Jesus are the Lord. Paul includes both here with unique prepositions (“from” whom and “through” whom) but has them on equal footing.
In Colossians 2:9 Paul has begun defending against the false philosophies the Colossians have been influenced by and argues that they shouldn’t accept these non-Christ-centered alternatives, “Because,” as he says, “in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” What is the fullness of the Godhead? We may describe God’s fullness using the Westminster Shorter Catechism answer to the question, “Who is God”: God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. God’s fullness is all the attributes of God that make Him God. And all those attributes belong to Jesus in addition to His human nature. He is God and He is human. To not acknowledge Jesus’ deity is to embrace a false theology.
And this is why Paul uses a Christian hymn in Philippians 2:5-11 to describe the humility of Jesus Christ. As Paul writes, “Think this way in yourselves as also Christ Jesus did, who, though he existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be greedily grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of humans, and while found in guise as a human, humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).
Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation purposely obscures the plain meaning with their translation of verse 6:
who, although he was existing in God’s form, gave no consideration to a seizure, namely, that he should be equal to God.
Jesus existed in equality with the Father, in the form of God, “infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” God cannot become not-God, and Jesus did not become not-God, but gave up acknowledgement and worship as God by taking on human nature. It is this humbling of himself that resulted, Paul says, in him being exalted by the Father and given the name that is above all names (verse 9), and there is no name higher than God’s name. Jesus is God. That is Paul’s testimony.
About the Author Randall Johnson
A full-time pastor since 1979, Randall originally graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary (ThM) in 1979 and from Reformed Theological Seminary (DMin) in 1998. He is married with four grown children and a pile of epic grandchildren.
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