Watchtower Can’t Stop Lying
June 11, 2021 E-Letter
The Watchtower misquotes our scholars and the ancient Patriarchs. This is in keeping with the saying, “Oh the tangled web we weave when at first we practice to deceive.” When your “truth” does not line up with the Bible you have to lie to prevent your followers from finding you out. So, what’s new?
We are posting a number of e-letters Make Sure Ministries has received from David Henke, founder of Watchman Fellowship, Inc., an apologetics ministry, on a variety of subjects. They will post on Tuesdays into the foreseeable future. As always, we appreciate your comments. Please consider clicking on the link following this blog to learn more about Watchman Fellowship and what they have to offer. E-letters have been slightly edited for clarity.
The correct rendering of John 1:1 is of absolutely central importance. The Society knows this because if Jesus is “God” in the same sense that the Father is God then the Society would have to admit that it is following a false god of its own creation. Therefore, they must first keep Jehovah’s Witnesses in the dark about what the scholars, even non-Christian scholars, have said about it, then second, represent some scholars in such a way as to seemingly endorse their renderings.
In their booklet The Trinity: Should You Believe It? The Watchtower misquotes or misrepresents the views of many of the early Church Fathers. In the vast majority of their quotes the Watchtower fails to use footnotes. This leaves the reader without a practical means of verifying the statement. Was this on purpose?
Since the advent of Google, the source quoted can be found out in about five minutes. Before the Internet and Google one would have to go to a library and search. Most people are not that interested but especially not Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their trust in the Watchtower is almost absolute. But when they discover they have been lied to they could turn 180 degrees on the Watchtower. Let’s look at an example from their book cited above.
One undocumented misrepresentation is that of Clement of Alexandria. The Watchtower said,
Clement of Alexandria, who died about 215 C.E., called Jesus in his pre-human existence “a creature” but called God “the uncreated and imperishable and only true God.” He said that the Son “is next to the only omnipotent Father” but not equal to him.
The Trinity: Should You Believe It?, p. 7
Why would Clement say Jesus was a creature and unequal to God on one hand and then call Jesus the following?:
The Divine Word, He that is truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the universe.
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, pages 202, 234
And again:
The divine Instructor is trustworthy … for He is God and Creator. “For all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made.” [John 1:3]
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, pp. 202, 234
The above-named Watchtower booklet cites Origen, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, as teaching contrary to the historic Trinitarian orthodoxy. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All of their representations of these early Christian thinkers are misrepresentations. They are simply not true.
You can rest assured that anytime the Watchtower quotes our Christian scholars to argue against historic Christian orthodoxy you can do a quick Google search and find how they have lied in their misquote.
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