Quick Facks on Jehovah's Witnesses
Jesus is not Jehovah God; he is the first and only direct creation of God and the agent through which
Jehovah made all other things.
Jesus’ true followers are known by their worship of the true and almighty God, Jehovah, who is not a Trinity.
Jesus was raised from the dead, not with a physical body, but as a mighty spirit Creature.
The second “coming” of Jesus was an invisible spiritual presence that began in 1914.
The dead exist only in God’s memory: the wicked will not be punished with conscious torment but will be extinguished forever.
Martin, W., & Rische, J. M. (2020). The kingdom of the cults handbook: quick reference guide to alternative belief systems (p. 51). Bethany House.
Historical Perspective
Charles Taze Russell was the founder of what is now known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult and the energetic administrator that brought about its far-flung organization. The name Jehovah’s Witnesses was taken at Columbus, Ohio, in 1931, to differentiate between the Watchtower organization run by Judge Rutherford, Russell’s successor, and those who remained as true followers of Russell as represented by The Dawn Bible Students and the Laymen’s Home Missionary Movement.
Russell apparently controlled the entire financial power of the Society and was not accountable to anyone. He was proven to be a perjurer under oath, a sworn adversary of historical Christianity, and a scholastic fraud.
C. T. Russell was born on February 16, 1852, the son of Joseph L. and Anna Eliza Russell, and spent most of his early years in Pittsburgh and Allegheny, Pennsylvania, where at the age of twenty-five he was known to be manager of several men’s furnishings stores. At an early age he rejected the doctrine of eternal torment, probably because of the severe indoctrination he had received as a Congregationalist, and as a result of this act entered upon a long and varied career of denunciation aimed at “Organized Religions.” In 1870, at the age of eighteen, Russell organized a Bible class in Pittsburgh, which in 1876 elected him “Pastor” of the group. From 1876 to 1878 the “Pastor” was assistant editor of a small Rochester, New York, monthly magazine, but he resigned when a controversy arose over Russell’s counterarguments on “the atonement” of Christ.
Shortly after leaving his position, Russell founded The Herald of the Morning (1879), which developed into today’s The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom. From 6,000 initial issues, the publication has grown to 69,804,000 bimonthly copies (six annually) in 334 languages. The other Watchtower periodical, Awake! has a bimonthly circulation of 64,905,000 per month in 184 languages.
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society claims to have 120,053 congregations throughout the world in 240 different lands. They boast that they have published 220 million New World Translation Bibles and 40 billion pieces of literature in 900 languages from their inception through 2017. Its literature is distributed by the individual Jehovah’s Witness, called a “publisher,” who is often seen on the street or going door-to-door—some 8.4 million volunteers participate. Missionary activity is carried on by pioneer publishers, of whom there are 1.2 million workers. The Society has become a great disseminator of propaganda and a challenge to the zeal of every Christian.
Russell continued his teachings until his death on October 31, 1916, aboard a transcontinental train in Texas. The former pastor had a remarkable life, highly colored with legal entanglements, but not without success in his chosen field. Russell’s obituary reads, in part,
A year after this publication, The Watch Tower, had been established, Russell married Maria Ackley in Pittsburgh. She had become interested in him through his teachings, and she helped him in running the Watchtower.
Two years later, in 1881, came “The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society,” the agency through which in later years “Pastor” Russell’s sermons were published (as advertisements) in newspapers throughout the world. This Society progressed amazingly under the joint administration of husband and wife, but in 1897 Mrs. Russell left her husband. Six years later, in 1903, she sued for separation. The decree was secured in 1906 following sensational testimony and “Pastor” Russell was scored by the courts.
There was much litigation then that was quite undesirable from the “Pastor’s” point of view regarding alimony for his wife, but it was settled in 1909 by the payment of $6,036 to Mrs. Russell. The litigation revealed that “Pastor” Russell’s activities in the religious field were carried on through several subsidiary societies and that all of the wealth that flowed into him through these societies was under the control of a holding company in which the “Pastor” held $990 of the $1,000 capital and two of his followers the other $10.
Russell apparently controlled the entire financial power of the Society and was not accountable to anyone. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle led the fight to expose the hypocrisy of “Pastor” Russell, and nothing could be more appropriate than their on-the-spot testimony as to his many fraudulent claims. Russell carried on many such advertising stunts, and despite his protestations about earthly governments and laws being organizations of the devil, he was always the first to claim their protection when it was convenient for him to do so.
Recent History
Upon Russell’s death the helm of leadership was manned by Judge Joseph Franklin Rutherford, who acquitted himself nobly in the eyes of the Society by attacking the doctrines of “organized religion” with unparalleled vigor, and whose radio talks, phonograph recordings, numerous books, and resounding blasts against Christendom reverberated down the annals of the organization until his death on January 8, 1942, from cancer, at his palatial mansion, “Beth Sarim” or “House of Princes,” in San Diego, California. He was seventy-two. Rutherford’s career was no less amazing than Russell’s, for the judge was an adversary of no mean proportions, whether in action against “organized religion,” which he termed “rackets,” or against those who questioned his decisions in the Society.
Throughout the years following Russell’s death, Rutherford rose in power and popularity among the “Russellites,” and to oppose him was tantamount to questioning the authority of Jehovah himself. An example of this one-man sovereignty concerns the friction that occurred in the movement when Rutherford denounced Russell’s pyramid prophecies scheme as an attempt to find God’s will outside the Scriptures (1929). Many followers of Russell’s theory left the Society as a result of this action by Rutherford, only to be witheringly blasted by the vituperative Judge, who threatened that they would “suffer destruction” if they did not repent and recognize Jehovah’s will as expressed through the Society.
Rutherford also approached at times the inflated egotism of his predecessor Russell, especially when in his pamphlet Why Serve Jehovah? he declared in effect that he was the mouthpiece of Jehovah for this age and that God had designated his words as the expression of divine mandate. It is indeed profitable to observe that Rutherford, as do all would-be “incarnations of infallibility,” manifested unfathomable ignorance of God’s express injunctions, especially against the preaching of “any other gospel” (Galatians l:8–9). It was under the leadership of the judge that the Russellites adopted the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” (1931), partly to distinguish Rutherford’s group from the splinter groups that arose after Russell’s death.
In comparing Russell and Rutherford it must be noted that the former was a literary pygmy compared with his successor. Russell’s writings were distributed, some fifteen or twenty million copies of them, over a period of sixty years, but Rutherford’s in half that time were many times that amount. The prolific judge wrote over one hundred books and pamphlets, and his works as of 1941 had been translated into eighty languages.
Thus, he was the Society’s second great champion who, regardless of his many failings, was truly an unusual man by any standard. Russell and Rutherford are the two key figures in the Society’s history, and without them it is doubtful that the organization would ever have come into existence.
One of the most distressing traits manifested in the literature and teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses is their seemingly complete disregard for historical facts and dependable literary consistency. At the same time, however, they condemn all religious opponents as “enemies of God” and perpetrators of what they term “a racket.”8
Historically, Jehovah’s Witnesses have quoted “Pastor” Russell numerous times since his death in 1916. The following is a token sample of what we can produce as concrete evidence. In 1923, seven years after the “pastor’s” demise, Judge J. F. Rutherford, heir to the Russellite throne, wrote a booklet some fifty-odd pages in length, entitled World Distress: Why and the Remedy. In this informative treatise, the new president of The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and the International Bible Students quoted “Pastor” Russell no fewer than sixteen separate times; referred to his books Studies in the Scriptures at least twelve times; and devoted six pages at the end of the booklet to advertising these same volumes. Further than this, in a fifty-seven-page pamphlet published in 1925, entitled Comfort for the People, by the same Rutherford, “His Honor,” in true Russellite character, defines clergymen as “dumb dogs (D. D.),” proceeds to quote “Pastor” Russell’s prophetical chronology (AD 1914), and then sums up his tirade against Christendom universal by recommending Russell’s writing in four pages of advertisements at the back of the book.
Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose was published still later and gave high praise to Russell as well. The Society’s debt to Russell as founder and to his teachings as foundational is still acknowledged in Watchtower publications such as their 1979 publication, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Twentieth Century. In the Internet age, they devote a small portion of their website to Russell as the one who began the modern-day Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. They credit Jesus as the “Founder of Christianity” and then they draw the line from Christ to Russell.11
Martin, W., & Rische, J. M. (2020). The kingdom of the cults handbook: quick reference guide to alternative belief systems (pp. 51–56). Bethany House.
Theological Evaluation
Doctrines of Jehovah’s Witnesses
1. There is one solitary being from all eternity, Jehovah God, the Creator and Preserver of the Universe and of all things visible and invisible.
2. The Word or Logos is “a god,” a mighty god, the “beginning of the Creation” of Jehovah and His active agent in the creation of all things. The Logos was made human as the man Jesus and suffered death to produce the ransom or redemptive price for obedient men.
3. The Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God as it was originally given, and has been preserved by Him as the revealer of His purposes.
4. Satan was a great angel who rebelled against Jehovah and challenged His Sovereignty. Through Satan, sin and death came upon man. His destiny is annihilation with all his followers.
5. Man was created in the image of Jehovah but willfully sinned, hence all men are born sinners and are “of the earth.” Those who follow Jesus Christ faithful to the death will inherit the heavenly Kingdom with Him. Men of good will who accept Jehovah and His Theocratic Rule will enjoy the “new earth”; all others who reject Jehovah will be annihilated.
6. The atonement is a ransom paid to Jehovah God by Christ Jesus and is applicable to all who accept it in righteousness. In brief, the death of Jesus removed the effects of Adam’s sin on his offspring and laid the foundation of the New World of righteousness including the Millennium of Christ’s reign.
7. The man Christ Jesus was resurrected a divine spirit creature after offering the ransom for obedient man.
8. The soul of man is not eternal but mortal, and it can die. Animals likewise have souls, though man has the preeminence by special creation.
9. Hell, meaning a place of “fiery torment” where sinners remain after death until the resurrection, does not exist. This is a doctrine of “Organized Religion,” not the Bible. Hell is the common grave of mankind, literally sheol (Hebrew), “a place of rest in hope” where the departed sleep until the resurrection by Jehovah God.
10. Eternal Punishment is a punishment or penalty of which there is no end. It does not mean “eternal torment” of living souls. Annihilation, the second death, is the lot of all those who reject Jehovah God, and it is eternal.
11. Jesus Christ has returned to earth AD 1914, has expelled Satan from Heaven, and is proceeding to overthrow Satan’s organization, establish the Theocratic Millennial Kingdom, and vindicate the name of Jehovah God. He did not return in a physical form and is invisible as the Logos.
12. The Kingdom of Jehovah is Supreme, and as such cannot be compatible with present Human Government (“Devil’s Visible Organization”), and any allegiance to them in any way which violates the allegiance owed to Him is a violation of the Scripture.
The Holy Trinity
1. “The obvious conclusion is, therefore, that Satan is the originator of the Trinity doctrine” (Let God Be True, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Socieety, 1946 ed., 101).
2. “Sincere persons who want to know the true God and serve Him find it a bit difficult to love and worship a complicated, freakish-looking, three-headed God” (LGBT, 102).
3. “Any trying to reason out the Trinity teaching leads to confusion of mind. So the Trinity teaching confuses the meaning of John 1:1–2; it does not simplify it or make it clear or easily understandable” (“The Word,” Who Is He? According to John, 7).
Deity of Christ
1. “The true Scriptures speak of God’s Son, the Word, as ‘a god.’ He is a ‘mighty god,’ but not the Almighty God, who is Jehovah” (The Truth Shall Make You Free, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1943, 47).
2. “In other words, he was the first and direct creation of Jehovah God” (The Kingdom Is at Hand, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1944, 46–47, 49).
3. “The Bible shows that there is only one God . . . greater than His Son . . . and that the Son, as the Firstborn, Only-begotten, and ‘the creation by God,’ had a beginning. That the Father is greater and older than the Son is reasonable, easy to understand, and is what the Bible teaches” (From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1958, 164).
4. “As chief of the angels and next to the Father, he [Christ] was known as the Archangel (highest angel or messenger), whose name, Michael, signifies ‘Who as God’ or ‘God’s Representative’” (Studies in the Scriptures, Brooklyn: International Bible Student Association, 1911 ed., 5:84).
“Being the only begotten Son of God . . . the Word would be a prince among all other creatures. In this office he [Christ] bore another name in heaven, which name is ‘Michael’. . . . Other names were given to the Son in course of time” (TTSMYF, 49).
The Holy Spirit
1. “As for the ‘Holy Spirit,’ the so-called ‘third Person of the Trinity,’ we have already seen that it is not a person, but God’s active force” (The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1968, 24).
2. “The Bible’s use of ‘holy spirit’ indicates that it is a controlled force that Jehovah God uses to accomplish a variety of his purposes. To a certain extent, it can be likened to electricity, a force that can be adapted to perform a great variety of operations” (Should You Believe in the Trinity?, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 2006, 20).
3. “No, the holy spirit is not a person and it is not part of a Trinity. The holy spirit is God’s active force that he uses to accomplish his will. It is not equal to God but is always at his disposition and subordinate to him” (SYBITT, 23).
The Virgin Birth
1. “Jesus was conceived by a sinless, perfect Father, Jehovah God. . . . The perfect child Jesus did not get human life from the sinner Adam, but received only a human body through Adam’s descendant Mary. Jesus’ life came from Jehovah God, the Holy One. . . . Jehovah took the perfect life of his only-begotten Son and transferred it from heaven to . . . the womb of the unmarried girl Mary. . . . Thus God’s Son was conceived or given a start as a human creature. It was a miracle. Under Jehovah’s holy power the child Jesus, conceived in this way, grew in Mary’s womb to the point of birth” (FPLTPR, 126–127).
2. “Jesus’ birth on earth was not an incarnation. . . . He emptied himself of all things heavenly and spiritual, and God’s almighty spirit transferred his Son’s life down to the womb of the Jewish virgin of David’s descent. By this miracle he was born a man. . . . He was not a spirit-human hybrid, a man and at the same time a spirit person. . . . He was flesh” (What Has Religion Done for Mankind?, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1951, 231).
3. “While on earth, Jesus was a human, although a perfect one because it was God who transferred the life-force of Jesus to the womb of Mary” (Should You Believe in the Trinity?, 14).
The Atonement
1. “That which is redeemed or bought back is what was lost, namely, perfect human life, with its rights and earthly prospects” (Let God Be True, 114).
2. “The human life that Jesus Christ laid down in sacrifice must be exactly equal to that life which Adam forfeited for all his offspring: it must be a perfect human life, no more, no less. . . . This is just what Jesus gave . . . for men of all kinds” (You May Survive Armageddon into God’s New World, Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1955, 39).
3. “Jesus, no more and no less than a perfect human, became a ransom that compensated exactly for what Adam lost—the right to perfect human life on earth. . . . The perfect human life of Jesus was the ‘corresponding ransom’ required by divine justice—no more, no less. A basic principle even of human justice is that the price paid should fit the wrong committed. . . . So the ransom, to be truly in line with God’s justice, had to be strictly an equivalent—a perfect human, ‘the last Adam.’ Thus, when God sent Jesus to earth as the ransom, he made Jesus to be what would satisfy justice, not an incarnation, not a god-man, but a perfect man, ‘lower than angels’” (Should You Believe in the Trinity?, 15).
Salvation by Grace
1. “We have learned that a person could fall away and be judged unfavorably either now or at Armageddon or during the thousand years of Christ’s reign or at the end of the final test . . . into everlasting destruction” (From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained, 241).
2. “Make haste to identify the visible theocratic organization of God that represents his king, Jesus Christ. It is essential for life. Doing so, be complete in accepting its every aspect” (The Watchtower, October 1, 1967: 591).
3. “To receive everlasting life in the earthly Paradise we must identify that organization and serve God as part of it” (The Watchtower, February 15, 1983: 12).
The Resurrection of Christ
1. “This firstborn from the dead was raised from the grave, not a human creature, but a spirit” (Let God Be True, 276).
2. “Jehovah God raised him from the dead, not as a human Son, but as a mighty immortal spirit Son. . . . For forty days after that he materialized, as angels before him had done, to show himself alive to his disciples” (LGBT, 40).
3. “Jesus did not take his human body to heaven to be forever a man in heaven. Had he done so, that would have left him even lower than the angels. . . . God did not purpose for Jesus to be humiliated thus forever by being a fleshly man forever. No, but after he had sacrificed his perfect manhood, God raised him to deathless life as a glorious spirit creature” (LGBT, 41).
The Triune Deity
One of the greatest doctrines of the Scriptures is that of the Triune Godhead (tes Theotetos) or the nature of God himself. To say that this doctrine is a “mystery” is indeed inconclusive, and no informed minister would explain the implications of the doctrine in such abstract terms. Jehovah’s Witnesses accuse “the clergy” of doing just that, however, and it is unfortunate to note that they are, as usual, guilty of misstatement in the presentation of the facts and even in their definition of what Christian clergymen believe the Deity to be.
First of all, Christian ministers and Christian laypersons do not believe that there are “three gods in one” (Let God Be True, 100), but do believe that there are three Persons all of the same Substance—coequal, coexistent, and coeternal. There is ample ground for this belief in the Scriptures, where plurality in the Godhead is very strongly intimated if not expressly declared. Let us consider just a few of these references.
In Genesis 1:26 Jehovah is speaking of Creation, and He speaks in the plural: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Now it is obvious that God would not create man in His image and the angels’ images if He were talking to them, so He must have been addressing someone else—and who but His Son and the Holy Spirit who are equal in Substance could He address in such familiar terms? Since there is no other god but Jehovah (Isaiah 43:10–11), not even “a lesser mighty god” as Jehovah’s Witnesses affirm Christ to be, there must be a unity in plurality and Substance or the passage is not meaningful. The same is true of Genesis 11:7, when God said at the Tower of Babel, “Let us go down,” and also of Isaiah 6:8, “Who will go for us? . . .” These instances of plurality indicate something deeper than an interpersonal relationship; they strongly suggest what the New Testament fully develops, namely, a Tri-Unity in the One God. The claim of Jehovah’s Witnesses that the early church Fathers, including Tertullian and Theophilus, propagated and introduced the threefold unity of God into Christianity is ridiculous and hardly worth refuting. Any unbiased study of the facts will convince the impartial student that before Tertullian or Theophilus lived, the doctrine was under study and considered sound. No one doubts that among the heathen (Babylonians and Egyptians) demon gods were worshiped, but to call the Triune Godhead a doctrine of the devil (Let God Be True, 101), as Jehovah’s Witnesses do, is blasphemy and the product of untutored and darkened souls.
In the entire chapter titled “Is there a Trinity?” (Let God Be True, 100–101), the whole problem as to why the Trinity doctrine is “confusing” to Jehovah’s Witnesses lies in their interpretation of “death” as it is used in the Bible. To Jehovah’s Witnesses, death is the cessation of consciousness, or destruction. However, no single or collective rendering of Greek or Hebrew words in any reputable lexicon or dictionary will substantiate their view. Death in the Scriptures is “separation” from the body as in the case of the first death (physical), and separation from God for eternity as in the second death (the lake of fire, Revelation 20). Death never means annihilation, and Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot bring in one word in context in the original languages to prove it does. A wealth of evidence has been amassed to prove it does not. I welcome comparisons on this point.
The rest of the chapter is taken up with childish questions—some of which are painful to record. “Who ran the universe the three days Jesus was dead and in the grave?” (death again portrayed as extinction of consciousness) is a sample of the nonsense perpetrated on gullible people. “Religionists” is the label placed on all who disagree with the organization’s views regardless of the validity of the criticism. Christians do not believe that the Trinity was incarnate in Christ and that they were “three in one” as such during Christ’s ministry. Christ voluntarily limited himself in His earthly body, but heaven was always open to Him and He never ceased being God, Second Person of the Trinity. At His baptism the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, the Father spoke, and the Son was baptized.
What further proof is needed to show a threefold unity? Compare the baptism of Christ (Matthew 3:16–17) with the commission to preach in the threefold Name of God (Matthew 28:19) and the evidence is clear and undeniable. Even in the Incarnation itself (Luke 1:35) the Trinity appears (see also John 14:16 and 15:26). Of course it is not possible to fathom this great revelation completely, but this we do know: There is a unity of Substance, not three gods, and that unity is One in every sense, which no reasonable person can doubt after surveying the evidence. When Jesus said, “My Father is greater than I,” He spoke the truth, for in the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7) and as a man, the Son was subject to the Father willingly; but upon His resurrection and in the radiance of His glory taken again from whence He veiled it (2:7–8). He showed forth His deity when He declared, “All authority is surrendered to me in heaven and earth” (Matthew 28:18); proof positive of His intrinsic nature and unity of Substance. It is evident that the Lord Jesus Christ was never inferior—speaking of His nature—to His Father during His sojourn on earth.
Martin, W., & Rische, J. M. (2020). The kingdom of the cults handbook: quick reference guide to alternative belief systems (pp. 56–63). Bethany House.
