Eric Wilson here. I’ve been surprised by the reaction my last
video provoked from the Jehovah’s Witnesses community defending the JW doctrine that Jesus
is Michael the Archangel. Initially, I didn’t think this doctrine was that critical to the
theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but the response tells me I underestimated its value
to them. When I produced videos showing that the 1914 doctrine was false, I got very little
scriptural argumentation. Oh sure, there were the haters with their hate, but that is just
impotent bluster. I got even less resistances to the revelation that the other sheep doctrine
was bogus. The biggest concern was whether or not paradise would be on earth. (Short
answer: Yes, it will be.) So why did the video on Jesus not being an angel strike such a
nerve with Witnesses? Why do Jehovah’s Witnesses defend this teaching
so tenaciously? There are two spirits at work in the world.
There is the holy spirit at work in children of God, and the spirit of Satan, the God of
this world. (2 Co 4:3, 4) Satan hates Jesus and will do whatever he
can to keep us from getting a relationship with him and through him with our heavenly
Father. The children of God are his enemy, because they are the seed by which his complete
defeat is assured; so, he’ll do anything to block the development of that seed. (Ge
3:15) Misrepresenting Jesus is one of his chief ways of achieving that. He’ll do anything
to destroy or pervert our relationship with the Son of God, which is why I felt compelled
to start this series on the nature of God’s Son.
On one extreme, you have the Trinity doctrine. The majority of Christendom believes the Trinity
represents the nature of God and therefore, the nature of God’s Son, or as they refer
to him: “God the Son”. This belief is so central to their belief that they do not
consider anyone who does not accept the Trinity to be a true Christian. (In case you’re
wondering, we will be looking into the Trinity in detail in a series of upcoming videos.)
On the other extreme, you have the anti-trinitarian or unitarian Jehovah’s Witnesses, along
with a minority of Christian sects, who—in the case of the Witnesses at least—give
lip-service to Jesus as God’s Son, and even recognize him as a god, still denying his
divinity and marginalizing him. For any Witness out there who disagrees with me, I would ask
that before you write me flaming comments, you engage in a little exercise of your own.
When you are out in your next field service group, sitting at your mid-morning coffee
break, refer to Jesus instead of Jehovah in your casual conversation. At any point in
the conversation where you would normally invoke Jehovah’s name, substitute Jesus.
And for fun, refer to him as our “Lord Jesus”, a phrase that appears in Scripture over 100
times. Just watch the result. Watch the conversation comes to an abrupt halt as if you’d just
used a swear word. You see, you’re not speaking their language anymore.
In the NWT bible, “Jesus” appears 1,109 times, but in the 5,000+ manuscripts of the
Christian Scriptures, Jehovah’s name does not appear at all. Even if you add the number
of times the NWT translation committee saw fit to insert his name arbitrarily—because
they thought it should go there—you still find a four-to-one ratio in favor of Jesus’
name. Even given the Organization’s best efforts to have us focus on Jehovah, the Christian
writers have us looking to the Christ. Now take a comparative look at The Watchtower
to see which name
So what we have here is a comparison of the number of times Jehovah appears in the publications
compared to Jesus. Of course, in the Bible we would
expect the occurrences of Jehovah to outweigh those of Jesus, simply because
the Christian Greek Scriptures are a much smaller part of the Bible than the Hebrew Scriptures.
So in the Reference Bible in total we have 8363 occurrences. Of course, that's counting
also footnotes, et cetera, and the number of times the name "Jehovah" has been inserted
into the Christian Scriptures by the New World Translation committee, which we know are
insertions made by the committee or humans rather than actually found in the manuscripts
that are used to translate the Bible.
That aside, if we look at the number of times "Jesus" occurs,
we are counting here only the number of times he appears in the Christian Greek Scriptures.
However, our main interest is what focus is the Organization placing on the name?
Is it following the example of Christian writers
who, because now in the Christian era, the focus is on Jesus,
put all the focus on him, so that we could find our way to God through him?
Or are we doing an end-run around Jesus and going directly to Jehovah,
which is not the Christian way?
Well, if we look at the publications, we'll see down the line that the number of times Jehovah is used
compared with the number of times for Jesus, you'll always find that Jehovah outweighs Jesus.
In a 2 to 1 ratio approximately.
However, and this is of particular interest,
In the Meeting Workbooks, and in the Kingdom Ministries, we find a much greater ratio.
In the Kingdom Ministry, we have like a 3 to 1 ratio.
And in the Workbooks, we have a 5 to 1 ratio in favor of Jehovah.
Why is that?
Well, first of all, the oral teaching always has outweighed
the written teaching in our Organization.
So what we hear orally week by week is going to have
a greater impact on us than what is written.
Second, the Meeting Workbooks are a fairly recent innovation.
So we see a shift from a 3 to 1 ratio to a 5 to 1 ratio,
meaning that even more emphasis is now being placed on Jehovah and even less on Jesus.
‘Nuf said? No? Still have doubts? You think
I’m exaggerating? Well, have a look at this illustration from the April 15, 2013 issue
of The Watchtower.
Where is Jesus? Don’t come back to me, as
some have, saying that Jesus isn’t depicted because this only represents the earthly part
of Jehovah’s Organization. Really? Then why is Jehovah here? If it is only the earthly
part, then why show Jehovah on his so-called chariot. (I say so-called because nowhere
in this vision of Ezekiel, nor in the rest of the Bible for that matter, is Jehovah ever
depicted riding a chariot. If you want a picture of God in a chariot, you have to go to pagan
mythology. Don’t believe me? Google it!) But back to the matter at hand. The Christian
congregation is referred to as the Bride of Christ.
So, what do we have here? If you read Ephesians 5:21-33, you’ll see that Jesus is pictured
as a husband with his bride. So here we have a picture of the Bride and the Father of the
Bride, but the Groom is missing? Ephesians also calls the congregation the Body of the
Christ. Christ is the head of the congregation. So, what do we have here? A headless body?
One of the reasons this diminishment of the role of Jesus has been made possible is the
demoting of our Lord to the status of angel. Remember, humans are only a little lower than
the angels. “…what is man that You are mindful of
him, or the son of man that You care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels;
You crowned him with glory and honor.” (Ps 8:4, 5 BSB)
So, if Jesus is just an angel, it means that you and I are just a little lower than Jesus.
Does that seem silly, even blasphemous to you? It does to me.
Father tells us to, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he become wise in his own
eyes.” (Pr 26:5 BSB) Sometimes, the best way to show the absurdity of a line of reasoning
is to carry it to its logical extreme. For instance: If Jesus is Michael, then Michael
is a God, because John 1:1 says, paraphrasing, “In the beginning was Archangel Michael,
and Archangel Michael was with God, and Archangel Michael was a god.” (John 1:1)
All things were made by, for, and through Archangel Michael according to John 1:3 and
Col 1:16. Archangel Michael made the universe. We must put faith in Archangel Michael based
on John 1:12. Archangel Michael is “the way and the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through” Archangel Michael. (John 14:6) He is the “King of
kings and Lord of lords.” (Re 19:16) Archangel Michael is the “eternal father”. (Isaiah
9:6) But some, still desperately clinging to the
belief, will cite Revelation 12:7-12 and argue that who else but Jesus could be the one to
throw the Devil out of heaven? Let’s have a look, shall we?
“And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels battled with the dragon, and the
dragon and its angels battled but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them
any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one
called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled
down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. I heard a loud voice in heaven
say: “Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of our God and
the authority of his Christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who
accuses them day and night before our God! And they conquered him because of the blood
of the Lamb and because of the word of their witnessing, and they did not love their souls
even in the face of death. On this account be glad, you heavens and you who reside in
them! Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great
anger, knowing that he has a short period of time.”” (Re 12:7-12)
Witnesses allege that this happened in October of 1914 and that Michael is really Jesus.
Modern-day anointed Christians pointed in advance to October 1914 as a significant
date. (w14 7/15 pp. 30-31 par. 10) Apparently, from the context, this battle
took place because according to verse 10, “now have come to pass the salvation and
the power and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ”. Since Witnesses
put the enthronement and authority of the Christ at October, 1914, the battle must have
taken place then or shortly thereafter. But what about the ensuing “woe to the earth
and the sea”? For Witnesses, the woe starts with the First
World War, then continues with more wars, pestilences, famines and earthquakes. In short,
because the devil was angry, he caused much of the bloodshed of the 20th century.
Additionally, the phrase “they conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because
of the word of their witness” must apply to Jehovah’s Witnesses from 1914 forward.
The problems start right away with this interpretation. First, according to Witnesses, the devil could
not have been thrown down before October of 1914, but the war (the woe) he was supposedly
responsible for due to his great rage, was already underway by that point. It had started
in July of that year, and the nations had been preparing for it in one of the greatest
arms races in history for the preceding ten years. Was the Devil planning to get angry?
Further, Christians had been ‘conquering Satan by the word of their witnessing since
the time of Christ’. There is nothing unique about the faith and integrity of the Bible
Students to distinguish them from faithful Christians down through the centuries.
Moreover, the authority of the Christ did not just come to pass in 1914, but had been
in place since his resurrection. Did he not say, “All authority has been given me in
heaven and on the earth”? (Mt 28:18) He got that in 33 C.E., and it would be hard
to envision that more authority was given him later. Doesn’t “all authority” mean
“all authority”? But I think the real kicker is the following:
Think about this. Jesus leaves earth to return to heaven to receive the kingdom he has earned
for his faithful course on earth. Jesus illustrated this in a parable that begins, “A man of
noble birth traveled to a distant land to secure kingly power for himself and to return.”
(Lu 19:12) When he arrived in heaven, in 33 C.E., this prophetic Psalm was fulfilled:
Jehovah declared to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
Until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.”
(Psalm 110:1) Jehovah tells Jesus, the newly crowned King,
to sit tight while He (Jehovah) places the enemies of Jesus at his feet. Notice, God
doesn’t destroy his enemies, but he puts them at his feet. Jehovah’s footstool is
the earth. (Isaiah 66:1) It follows that Jesus’ enemies would be confined to the earth. That
fits perfectly with what is described happening to Satan and his demons in Revelation chapter
12. Nevertheless, Jesus does not do this. He is
commanded to sit while Jehovah does it. Like any king, Jehovah God has armies that do his
bidding. He is called “Jehovah of Armies” hundreds of times in the Bible and his armies
are angelic. So, to make this Psalm come true, Michael, not Jesus, acts on God’s command
and being one of the foremost angelic princes leads his army of angels to do battle with
the Devil. In this way, Jehovah puts the enemies of Jesus at his feet.
When did this happen? Well, when did the salvation, power, kingdom
of God and authority of Christ come about? Certainly not in 1914. We just saw that Jesus
claimed all authority was already his following his death and resurrection. The Kingdom of
God and his Christ began then, but Jesus was told to sit patiently until his enemies were
subdued as a stool for his feet. There is therefore reason to believe the ousting
of Satan happened in the first century, just after Jesus’ ascension to heaven. What about
the rest of the vision described in Revelation chapter 12? That will be the topic of a future
series of videos, God willing. As we look at the rest of the vision can we find consistency
with the understanding that it happened in the first century? I am not a preterist, one
who believes everything in the Christian Scriptures happened in the first century. I believe that
we have to take the Scriptures as they come and follow the truth wherever it leads. I
am not saying dogmatically that this prophecy was fulfilled at the time of Christ’s ascension,
only that it is a distinct possibility and currently seems to fit with the Bible narrative.
It is a rule of logic that while we may not always know exactly what something is, we
can very often rule out what it is not. The evidence is that this prophecy was definitely
not fulfilled in 1914. I believe the weight of evidence points to the first century, but
if evidence comes forward to lend credibility to another date, we should all be open to
consider it.
Did you notice how, by freeing ourselves from the preconceptions that force us to impose
religious dogma onto our study of Scripture, we were able to come to an easier, scripturally
consistent understanding than that which we held under our old beliefs? Isn’t that satisfying?
This is the result of looking at things exegetically rather than eisegetically. Do you remember
what those two terms mean? We have discussed them in previous videos.
To put it another way, it is far more satisfying to let the Bible lead us to truth rather than
try to force it to support our own truth. Actually, the reason Jehovah’s Witnesses
believe Michael the Archangel is Jesus is a direct result of eisegesis, of trying to
force Scripture to support their own truth. The prophecies of the kings of the north and
south as well as the 1,290 days and 1,335 days of Daniel have all been affected by their
need to support 1914. This all makes for an excellent object lesson
on the dangers of this study method. In our next video, we’ll use this as a means to
learn how not to study the Bible and then we’ll redo our research utilizing the proper
method for arriving at Bible truth. We will put the power of discovery into your hands,
into the hands of the individual Christian, where it belongs. Not in the hands of some
ecclesiastical authority, some Pope, some Cardinal, some Archbishop, or some Governing
Body. Thank you for watching. Please click subscribe
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