Jesus made himself out to be God even in the New World Translation. One of the things that you’re gonna hear from Jehovah Witnesses is that Jesus is a mighty God but not the Almighty God. They’ll fire quickly at you that Jesus said “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), so how could he be equal to the Father? We know this from their online Q&A article “Is Jesus Almighty God?” They state that Jesus’ opposers accuse him of making himself equal to God. However, Jesus never claimed to be on the same level as Almighty God. He said “The father is greater than I am.” (John 14:28) Jesus’ early followers did not view him as being equal to Almighty God. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote that after Jesus was resurrected, God exalted him to a superior position. (Philippians 2:9) Obviously Paul did not believe that Jesus was Almighty God, otherwise how could God exalt Jesus to a superior position? We’ve covered what exactly Jesus meant by “greater than I” in an earlier video and that he was simply talking about rank and not a difference in his essence as God. We know this because earlier in that scene, Jesus compared a master and his slave to his relationship with the father in that the master simply outranks the slave in the same manner that the father outranks the son.
But here’s the great thing for you in this discussion. You can reply that Jesus did make himself equal to the Father in the book of Revelation. Revelation is one of the best and easiest places to turn to because you will see numerous straightforward “I am this” statements that come right out of the mouth of Jesus. So open up to the last book in the Bible and also to Isaiah 44:6 and 48:12 here we’re going to see statements from Jesus that makes himself equal to the Father. We are going to use the American Standard Version (ASV) primarily as it’s the closest in wording to the New World Translation.
Isaiah 44:6 “Thus saith Jehovah, the king of Israel and his redeemer, Jehovah of hosts “I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is no God.” This is repeated again in Isaiah 48:12 “Hearken unto me, Jacob and Israel my called. I am he, I am the first, I am also the last.” Jehovah is calling himself the first and the last. This is a statement declaring that he is eternal and the only self-existing being. Revelation 1:17-18 says “Fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one, and I was dead and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” We know this is Jesus because the person talking said “I was dead and now alive forevermore” and no one is ever saying that the Father has ever died. So your question to a Jehovah Witness would be “How many first can you have?” Jesus said this again in Revelation 22:12-13,16 “Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me, to render to each man according as his work is. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end… I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright, the morning star.” This passage we’re going to use over and over again because of the other descriptions that are tagged along with it. You can see how simple the Lord is really making it for us to be able to flip to a place in the Bible that clearly says Jesus is God. If you’re thinking maybe they have different definitions from the Old to the New Testament, the answer is no because the Hebrew and the Greek have the exact same definitions to them. So Jesus is clearly declaring himself as eternal and self-existing. Remaining in the same passage, Jesus calls himself the beginning and the end and he did this earlier in Revelation 21:6. It’s just more of Jesus saying “I existed before all creation”. All of this goes totally in the face of Jehovah Witnesses’ belief that Jesus is created and had a beginning. All you have to do is just check out our earlier videos that refute this claim head-on but just remember that this is also a strong place to go as well if you’re bouncing between topics on who Jesus Christ is.
Another statement that both Jehovah God and Jesus say in Revelation is that they are both coming. Revelation 1:8 says “I am the Alpha and the Omega saith the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 4:8 says “holy holy holy is the Lord God the Almighty who was and who is and who is to come.” Every single translation has the word “Lord” in front of God but the New World Translation says “Jehovah” instead. They translate the Greek word “kyrios” as “Jehovah” although it just means “Lord” in the original Greek. What’s great about getting inside this discussion of Lord versus Jehovah is that the Watchtower Society couldn’t fully get away from what Paul said about Jesus in Philippians 2:9. Here Paul says “every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (the same Greek word “kyrios” is here as it is in Revelation). Here’s where the Watchtower Society gets trapped. In Romans 14:11, they translate “Lord” as Jehovah with the same “every knee will bow and tongue confess” citation. Why that is great for us is because Paul is pulling from the only place in the Old Testament that states this – Isaiah 45:23 – and we see that Paul is applying Isaiah 45:23 to Jesus but if you glanced your eyes up to Isaiah 45:22, the person talking in this passage is God so Paul is clearly making Jesus equal with God. The Bible might seem cryptic at times to us but that’s the fun part about digging into it and we see the integrated design that’s from the Old to the New Testament.
Going back to Revelation 1:8 and Revelation 4:8, we see that this coming Lord God is the Almighty God so you can see why they translated “kyrios” as “Jehovah” instead of “Lord” as everybody else has done. The Watchtower Society has made every effort to separate the deity nature away from Jesus in their Bible translation. You might have to tread lightly here because they will defend their translation as if it was their firstborn and likely more so because they were more willing to shun their own kids than to feel that their religion is kind of jacked up. My question for them is “Is Jehovah coming to earth?” You need to get them thinking critically about what they’ve always been taught, part of that is snapping them out of their autonomous salesmen approach that they’ve been taught to do and just be a regular person in that moment for a few minutes. Since you know “kyrios” really means “Lord” and Jesus Christ is Lord, you can point out why this fits more smoothly with the whole narrative about Jesus’ second coming. It’s really a catch-22 for them because this one that’s coming is either the invisible Jehovah God that nobody else has ever seen except the son or Jesus is really the Lord God here in the scene who is the one that is coming. This is why the New World Translation picks “Jehovah” in some cases and then picks “Lord” in others when it deals with Jesus, just to try to separate them because it’s the exact same Greek word that’s being translated in all cases. I’m not sure how they’re gonna respond to all this but here’s the bonus. The Lord has sandwiched another one of these “I am coming” statements right in between these two passages that we can quickly point to. Revelation 3:7 Jesus says “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none openeth.” A little bit down (Revelation 3:11) Jesus says “I come quickly.”
In the last chapter of Revelation, Jesus says that three more times just to hammer it home for us. Revelation 22:6, 7, 12-13, 16, 20 “And he said unto me: These words are faithful and true… and behold I come quickly. Behold I come quickly. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. I, Jesus, he who testifieth to these things saith yes I come quickly.” We see here how clearly the same phrases are being applied to both God and to Jesus.
The last equating phrase for us to share with them are the “Alpha and the Omega” verses. See how in the same verse that the one who says that he is coming states also “I am the Alpha and the Omega”. Jehovah Witnesses might try to debate that Jesus isn’t the one that’s talking here but it’s clear that it’s not the father and certainly not the angel because an angel would never describe him with the same lines, so it only leaves us with Jesus. In Revelation 22:16 it says” I Jesus”. If they don’t want to concede on that, just flip back one chapter that says “And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold I make all things new. And he saith, write, for these words are faithful and true. And he said unto me: They are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit these things and I will be his God and he shall be my son.” (Revelation 21:5-7) Jesus said “I will be his God”. How much clearer do you need it than that? This is no different than when Thomas declared to Jesus “my Lord and my God.” “My kyrios and my theos”. When you finally line up all these statements beside each other, that come right out of the New World Translation, for Jehovah and Jesus, over and over again the exact same descriptions for each are used. Jehovah God, Lord God is described as Almighty God and since Jesus Christ is Lord and God, he is thus Almighty God as well.