Jehovah Witnesses : Sharing Gospel with Jehovah Witnesses centered on the Deity of Jesus Christ
Worship Argument: Only worship God
If they truly believe that Jesus Christ is not God, then they should not worship Him. I can remember from conversations with several Jehovah Witnesses many years ago saying that they would never worship Jesus Christ. So this was not an argument. But now, since they affirm they worship Christ, then we can call them idolaters. I clearly tell them this. The point is clear. They are not wrong in worshiping Christ because the scriptures clearly call us to worship and bow down to Christ especially in their beloved book of Revelation.
And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation." (Revelation 5:8,9).
They are wrong in worshipping him when they think he is only some created being and not God. Jehovah Witnesses, I suppose, just couldn't get around the fact that Christ was worshipped and so now join in. They took themselves out of one hard place and put themselves in another. The worship given to Jesus Christ is the same as given to the Father. This itself infers Christ's deity. We see the angels telling John not to bow down to them, but we never see Christ saying this. He is on the throne receiving worship.
If Christ is really not God, then they are worshipping that which was created. There are many verses against worshipping anything but God. They know this, and it must cause great inner conflict. Even though they know this, I still quote these verses as much as I can to help them see their wrong.
For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 1:25).
You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me (Exodus 20:3-5).
Man is not suppose to worship that which is created. Nothing created is lifted up to God's level. This was Satan's problem. I tell them directly that they are idolaters since they worship that which they claim to be created.
The worship argument goes like this: If Christ is worshipped, and only God is to be worshipped, then we must conclude that Christ is God Himself.
Scripture Support
There are plenty of verses that speak to Christ's deity. Some are more clear; others need logical deductions to arrive at the thought (such as the worship argument above). Christ is not said to be created anywhere.
He showed me two vain arguments for Christ being created.
He first referred to Genesis 1:26 where is says, "Then God said, "Let us make man in Our image...""
Was it ever tempting to say this supports the trinity! I didn't though. First of all if Christ was a mere creature, why would God say to make man in "Our" image? Do we have some angel dust in our blood? We are not made to think that God is speaking to any person such as some created angel. There is no object. The normal reading would be to conclude that God is a plurality of persons and is addressing Himself.(2) In any case, this does not prove that Christ was cocreator unless He was God.
They secondly referred me to Proverbs 8:22-31. This again does not speak clearly about creating Jesus Christ. We would be wise to just accept this as a poetic statement about wisdom in which Wisdom is personified. Some see this as a type of Christ, but even so, we are not to make doctrine out of types and illustrations because they are never complete. This passage does not state that Christ Jesus was created.
What we find is an empty chest of verses proving that Christ was created and numerous references affirming Christ's deity.
I am very choosy on the references I use. I do not see any reason to jump to a whole lot of verses leaving them ready to give their quick and shallow answers. I rather go deep. I do keep a good list of references in my mind (could write them in your Bible) which would support a certain argument, but center everything around one verse. Let that one truth penetrate as deeply as the stake can go.
In this case since we were speaking about the first-born from Colossians 1, I just settled on this passage. I asked them to state is God the creator? I have Colossians 1:16 on my mind but I want them to affirm the truth of Genesis and the scriptures that assert that God alone is the Creator. After this, I show them that all creation was formed through Christ. They might not get the connection that Christ is God, so simply state it.
Go back and with emphasis say, "I worship the Creator; you worship the created. God is not happy with your life choices!"
Since they had said to me several times, "Just show me one verse about Christ's deity, and I will believe." Well I took him up on it. I said, "You said if I find one verse that speaks about Christ's full deity, you will believe? How about it?" I waited and received a shy response stating, "Show me what you have."