To be honest, I guess I had always thought Jehovah's Witnesses believed in a Gospel of works and of earning your way into Heaven, but it turns out they don't. At least not the couple that we've made friends with.
The real major difference in what we believe is to do with the identity of Jesus. They believe in one God alone, and we believe in a Trinitarian God... i.e. that Jesus was both fully man and fully God, and that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.
I won't go into it all, and there are a few other noticeable differences too in our thoughts on Hell and judgement and the new creation, but I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on why it is so important that we do believe Jesus is God. Does it matter?
As their brochure "Should I Believe in the Trinity?" says:
"If the Trinity is true, it is degrading to Jesus to say that he was never equal to God as part of a Godhead. But if the Trinity is false, it is degrading to Almighty God to call anyone else his equal"So one belief is right, so one of us is blaspheming. But in the end, do you think that will matter if our hearts have been right and our beliefs are based on what we have learned from the Bible. Surely the main thing is to believe in a Gospel of salvation by grace, and if we are putting our hope in Jesus to have taken the punishment we deserve, does our understanding of the theology behind it matter?
Their basis for saying it is super important is from John 17:3 where Jesus said "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent", in other words saying that we must know the TRUTH. But surely there are lots of things that Christians differ on opinion about that it won't matter in the end about who was right, like whether or not there'll be a rapture and what kind of music we should have in church and that kind of stuff.
I am convinced that Jesus was God, it's more the idea of whether or not our belief about that will affect our salvation that I'm wondering about...
Please share your thoughts in the comments :)
Hi Miriam,
ReplyDeleteGreat question, and something we all need to wrestle through. Here are some thoughts (we've been studying this recently!)
Church history sides with the idea that its a major issue, and although in history we haven't always got it right, they got this one right.
Arius, a 4th century bishop who preached the idea that Jesus wasn't God and was in fact the first creature, was removed from his position and banned because his views were seen as so damaging to the gospel and the faith of Christians.
There are four big implications with saying that Jesus isn't God.
-one major problem is that if the Son isn't God and was created at a point in time, then the Father was, at one point, not a Father. This is a big deal because it means that God has changed.
-also, only God can reveal himself. God is invisible, and we are in active hostile rebellion against him, and in the business of suppressing the truth about him. Thus we need God to take the initiative and reveal himself to us. Only Jesus (if he is God) can reveal God to us.
-thirdly, if Jesus isn't God, then we're guilty of worshipping a creature rather than the creator God, which means that we'd be what Romans 1:25 describes of the rest of humanity. We'd be pagans.
-fourthly, Isa 43:10-11 says that only God can save. If Jesus isn't God, he can't save us.
Basically, it's only because Jesus is God that we can be sure
-that God won't change in the future, which has massive implications for our assurance of salvation.
-that we truly know God (even if we don't know him fully)
-to worship properly
-that we're saved.
What do you think?
Tim
Hey Tim, thanks so much for your comment... I read it a couple of days ago and have been mulling it over in my mind.
DeleteEspecially thanks for the bit about if Jesus was created, God must have at one point not been a Father, and therefore have changed. I'd heard Mike Reeves saying about how if Jesus was created God must have at one stage been alone and so not completely loving and relational etc... but my friends didn't really accept that as they didn't see how God having once been alone, would imply that he therefore wasn't a relational God.
And the Isaiah verse too is really helpful. I'll definitely bring up these things when I next speak to them so thanks a lot! :)
I guess I'm still not sure though if/how/why it means that they're not saved though if they ARE trusting that Jesus death on the cross had paid for their sin. It's true that they don't have real assurance... they say they don't want to "presume" on God's mercy... which I guess shows maybe that their trust in Jesus death is waay different. But even though their understanding of who God is is different, do you know where it might say in the Bible that that would stop them being saved?
Surely Romans says "whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" and "If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
I wonder what it implied then to say "Jesus is Lord"...?
Then again, I know THEY think it IS a matter of salvation and they think we have deviated from the true Gospel and that as a result, we'll just be annihilated rather than having any position in the "paradise" they're waiting for.
Hmm.....