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Would you be surprised to find that the New World Translation of the Bible calls Jesus “Jehovah”?

That’s what we find in Jeremiah 23:5-6. The prophet Jeremiah clearly predicts the coming of the Jewish Messiah, whom we now know as Jesus Christ, prophesying that He is the coming King of Israel. The New World Translation reads:

“Look! The days are coming,” declares Jehovah, “when I will raise up to David a righteous sprout. And a king will reign and show insight and uphold justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will reside in security. And this is the name by which he will be called: Jehovah Is Our Righteousness” (emphasis added).

If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, this should be disturbing. Jehovah Himself is declaring that the coming Messiah, whom we know to be Jesus of Nazareth, is none other than Jehovah Himself! In biblical and Jewish culture, frequently names are given because they reflect the nature of the individual so named. So, if Jesus is not God, as The Watchtower claims, why would Jehovah Himself confuse things by calling the Messiah by His own name—“Jehovah?”

Of course, if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, you are thinking there must be some other explanation. However, an option you should consider is that Jehovah meant exactly what He said, because there are many indications even in the New World Translation that Jesus is Jehovah Himself.

For instance, have you noticed what Thomas told the resurrected Jesus when He finally encountered Him, according to the New World Translation? Thomas, who refused to believe in the resurrected Jesus unless he personally put his hand in Jesus’ side and his fingers in the wounds in his hands, exclaimed, “My Lord and My God” (John 20:28, NWT). Here, the New World Translation accurately translated the Greek, which literally reads “the Lord of me and the God of me.”

Now if Thomas were mistaken, wouldn’t you expect that Jesus would have corrected him? It’s a very crucial point after all, for if Thomas had mistaken Him for Jehovah-God, and worshipped him with such words, he would be guilty of idolatry! So, how does Jesus respond? Not with a correction, but with a commendation!!! In fact, Jesus proceeds to commend both Thomas and everyone who would believe as Thomas did—that Jesus is God: “Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen me, have you believed? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe’” (John 20:29, NWT).

Wouldn’t you think that Jesus, if He were merely Michael the Archangel, as Jehovah’s Witnesses officially teach, would reject such worship? After all, that’s exactly what an actual angel did when the Apostle John mistakenly began to worship him in Revelation 22:8-9.

“Well I, John, was the one hearing and seeing these things. When I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing me these things. But he tells me: ‘Be careful! Do not do that! I am only a fellow slave of you and of your brothers the prophets and of those observing the words of this scroll. Worship God.” (Revelation 22:8-9, NWT).

The Greek word translated as “worship” in the New World’s Translation’s version of Revelation 22:8-9 is proskuneo. However, the Watchtower Society, the New World Translation’s author, reveals its bias against the deity of Christ by refusing to translate this same word as “worship” whenever it is used of someone worshiping Jesus, as it is in Matthew 2:11 when the Magi worshiped Him, in Matthew 14:33 when the disciples worshiped Him, in John 9:38 when the healed blind man worshiped Him and in Matthew 28:9 when His female followers worshiped Him following His resurrection. Instead, in these verses, the Watchtower Society translates proskuneo with the very obscure verb to “do obeisance.” Compare nearly any other English Bible’s translation of this verse and you’ll find that proskuneo is translated as worship, and that Jesus never corrected anyone who worshiped Him.

The single occasion when the New World Translation admits that proskuneo should be translated as worship of Jesus is when it is used to characterize the activity of heavenly beings who honor “He who sits on the throne” (the Father) and “the Lamb” as “worship” in Revelation 5:14. Again, this is an inescapable admission that just as the Father is worshiped, so will the Son, Jesus, (“the Lamb”) be worshiped as God in heaven.

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and underneath the earth and on the sea, and all the things in them, saying: “To the One sitting on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might forever and ever.” The four living creatures were saying: “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshipped. (Revelation 5:13-14, NWT, emphasis added).

This same habit of Scripture twisting shows up in one of the most challenging passages to anyone who doubts that Jesus is Jehovah, Hebrews 1. After noting that Jesus is the exact representation of God’s very being and sustains all things by His power in Hebrews 1:1-3, the New World Translation goes on to distinguish Jesus as superior to all angels:

So he has become better than the angels to the extent that he has inherited a name more excellent than theirs. For example, to which one of the angels did God ever say: “You are my son; today I have become your father”? And again: “I will become his father, and he will become my son”? But when he again brings his Firstborn into the inhabited earth, he says: “And let all of God’s angels do obeisance to him” (Hebrews 1:4-6).

This passage clearly reveals that Jesus is not an angel, not even the archangel Michael, because he is superior to all angels as the Son of God.

Notice this statement about Jesus: “For to which of the angels did God ever say: ‘You are my son, today I have become your father.’” This statement categorically rules out the possibility that Jesus is an angel of any kind. It states that He is the Son of God, in contradistinction to the status of any angel. Therefore, Jehovah’s Witnesses’ official teaching—that Michael the Archangel “is evidently a name given to Jesus before and after his life on earth” contradicts what God’s Word plainly states—that Jesus is God (See https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/archangel-michael/).

Hebrews 1:4-8 asserts that God says that Jesus is His Son, thus, indicating equality in nature with Himself (see John 5:18-23). And it tells us that all the angels must “do obeisance to,” or in more truthful language, worship (Greek: proskuneo) Him. In other words, Jesus is absolutely in a different category from any and all angels—He is so far superior to them that all angels (note that it does not say “all other angels”) must worship (proskuneo) Him, thus emphatically teaching that He is indeed God, for only God deserves worship.

This is also the claim that Jesus repeatedly made for Himself. Among the examples are Matthew 28:20; Mark 2:1-12; John 5:22-24; 8:24; 8:58; 10:30; 12:45 and 14:9, but one of the most essential is found in John 3:16: “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.” (NWT).

The critical phrase is “only-begotten Son” Most people know that when something is begotten, it is begotten according to the nature of the being who begets it. Sheep beget sheep, goats beget goats, and birds beget birds. You never see sheep begetting goats, or birds begetting sheep. In the same way, God begets God. Jesus is uniquely God’s only begotten Son because the Son uniquely shares His Heavenly Father’s nature—He also is God. When Jesus was begotten, He was the only begotten God, as the proper translation of John 1:18, in the New American Standard Bible, reveals: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”

And that’s exactly what the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day understood Jesus meant when Jesus called God, “My Father” in John 5:17. John 5:18 tells us “This is why the Jews began seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God” (NWT, emphasis added).

Jesus could easily have defused their murderous anger if He had simply corrected their misunderstanding. The only problem is that it wasn’t a misunderstanding. Jesus confirmed that He was calling Himself God as He addressed them at that very moment with these telling words: “For the Father judges no one at all, but he has entrusted all the judging to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:22-23, NWT).

Now ask yourself: How do men honor God the Father? Men honor God the Father by worshiping Him as God. Here Jesus confirms how men are to honor the Father—by worshiping Him—is exactly how they are to honor the Son—by worshiping Jesus! And more than that, whoever does not honor the Son as God by worshiping the Son as God does not honor God the Father who sent Him! Thus, Jesus cannot be a mere angel and must be Jehovah God Himself!

Thus, if you refuse to honor or worship Jesus as God, then Jesus Himself said, you are not honoring or worshiping Jehovah.

This possibility becomes more evident in John 8:24 and 8:58. Once again the New World Translation reveals its bias against Jesus’ deity by mistranslating these verses, even at the risk of contradicting its own Greek Interlinear’s translation of the Greek words ego eimi. In the Watchtower Interlinear of 1969, on page 467, ego eimi is translated as “I am.”

So, in John 8:58 when Jesus says to the Jews, “Before Abraham was born, I Am” (ego eimi in the Greek, NASB) Jesus identifies Himself as the “I Am” of Exodus 3:14-15. In the Old Testament, this is the first time God revealed that His name was Jehovah, or “I Am that I Am” (KJV) to Moses at the burning bush on Mt. Sinai. In the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, the Greek words used for “I Am” are again translated from ego eimi—eimi being the first-person present tense of the Greek verb for “to be.” These are the exact words Jesus used according to the Greek in John 8:58. The proper translation of John 8:58 then is the following, “Before Abraham was born, I Am” (NASB). The New World’s Translation of this verb as a first person perfect, “Jesus said to them: ‘Most truly I say to you, before Abraham came into existence, I have been,’” is inaccurate—an attempt to deny that Jesus used the most holy name of Jehovah for Himself.

If Jesus did not intend to identify Himself as Jehovah, or God, why would the Jewish leaders have been so upset in John 8:59 that they picked up stones to stone Jesus? If Jesus hadn’t been saying He was God, then they would not have understood Him to be blaspheming. Instead, knowing that they had properly understood Him to have claimed to be Jehovah, Jesus allowed them to continue to oppose Him.

Even more telling is Jesus’ use of “I Am” or Jehovah in John 8:24. There, He tells the Jewish religious leaders, “That is why I said to you: You will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am the one, you will die in your sins” (NWT). The more exact translation of this verse: “If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins,” (the NASB adds “He” in italics to show that it is not in the original Greek) shows Jesus claimed to be the “I Am” of Exodus 3:14-15—Jehovah God, even as he had in John 8:58.

But what should be of most interest to you, if you are a Jehovah’s Witness, is Jesus’ statement about the fate of anyone who does not believe Jesus is Jehovah.

Jesus stated that the person who does not believe He is God, or Jehovah, will die in his sins.

That is, that person will pay for his own sins throughout eternity—Jesus’ death will not pay for his sins because he has not believed in the only begotten Son of God (remember this is also what John 3:16 actually says!).

Think about this just a bit more. Is it really possible for a mere finite angel, even an archangel, to pay for the nearly infinite number of sins of all mankind? Scripture tells us it is not possible for a man, a finite being, to redeem a single man from his sin so that he may live forever, in Psalm 49:7-9. More than that, how can an angel properly represent mankind? The only kind of being who could properly represent mankind, and pay for mankind’s nearly infinite number of sins, would have to be both man, to represent man, and infinite and sinless God, to pay for the virtually infinite number of sins mankind would commit. This is exactly what Jesus and Scripture represent Jesus to be—both man and God. According to John 3:16, believing in Jesus as the only begotten Son of God, and therefore God, is the difference between eternal destruction and eternal life.

This only makes sense if Jesus’ other numerous claims about Himself are true. Consider John 14:6: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (NWT). How is it possible for Jesus to be the truth—the absolute and ultimate truth—without actually being the ultimate reality, the eternal Creator/God Himself—even Jehovah in the flesh? Isn’t this what the New World Translation’s rendering of John 1:3 is saying when it says, “All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence” (NWT, emphasis added). So, Jesus cannot be a created being, or an angel, for He is the Creator of all things, even God Himself.

By this time you must be wondering about the proof texts that have been taught by the Watchtower to prove Jesus isn’t God, like Matthew 24:36 (NASB) where Jesus says of His second Coming, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone,” and John 14:28b (NASB), “the Father is greater than I.”

Philippians 2:5-8 provides the explanation. It’s a passage which also affirms that Jesus is, in His very nature, God. In the more accurate NASB version, it reads

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The point here is that though Jesus, as the Son, is subordinate in His role as the Son to the Father, He is equal in His being with God. Philippians 2 affirms this by saying that Jesus existed in the very form of God, was equal with God and did not grasp to be something He wasn’t—because He was already equal with God. However, He emptied Himself in becoming a man—taking the form of a bond-servant and made in the likeness of men, so He could serve our needs. So, to become a man, and truly to be “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15b, NASB), it was necessary for the Self-existent One to become dependent on a mother and father, to suffer needs as men do, to experience hunger and fatigue (John 4:6-7) and to ultimately suffer and die to pay the penalty for our sins. In so doing, He “emptied Himself” in that He chose not to make use of some of the divine attributes that had been His prerogative as God.

And again, because He was willing to empty Himself in this way, what does the rest of this passage indicate? It boldly declares that He would become worthy of the glory, worship and honor that belongs to Jehovah God alone—“For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11, NASB). “Every knee will bow” means every single human being who ever existed will ultimately worship Jesus Christ as God!

Why resist this truth that Jesus is Jehovah-God any longer?

Your eternal destiny depends on trusting in Jesus as God Himself, the Savior, who is and always has been Jehovah, and became “Our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6) when He died for our sins and rose again. What it comes down to is this: Whom will you trust for your eternal life—the very fallible, mortal Scripture-twisting men who run The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, or Jehovah-Jesus, “who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4, NASB)?

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