No. 23. >> How is eternal life obtained, according to Jehovah's Witnesses. And what do Jehovah's Witnesses believe about Christ and his work? Has this group unwittingly preserved the heresy of Arias from the Fourth Century? >>DR. THOMAS E. MANTEUFEL: The Jehovah's Witnesses was started by a man by the name of Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s. He started a Bible class in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And that eventually became the Jehovah's Witnesses. It wasn't called the Jehovah's Witnesses at that time. They just were called the Bible Students. But in 1930 they had a convention in which they adopted the name Jehovah's Witnesses. And they said they were taking that from Isaiah 43:10: You shall be my witnesses says the Lord -- or says Jehovah as they translate it. And they claim that they are the true witnesses of Jehovah and of all of the truth about him. Russell also set up something called the Watchtower Society in 1884 in order to handle all of the publications that he was putting out, especially his journal, "The Watchtower." And that society, the Watchtower Society, then became the governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses. And is to this day. Now, the purpose of the redemption of Christ, according to the Jehovah's Witnesses, was to restore man's right to live. Man originally was created to live forever upon the earth. But then he lost the right to do this because he fell into sin. The result of sin is not eternal punishment, as they see it. But rather, it's the loss of the right to live at all. It's the sentence of being annihilated, of being completely blotted out from existence. Man has lost the privilege of living in God's world. The Son of God, they say, is a mighty creature, who was sent to restore man's right to live sent by Jehovah to carry out this great purpose. But the Son of God is not the eternal God without beginning and without end. And Jehovah's Witnesses definitely reject the doctrine of the Trinity. They say there's only one divine person. Only one eternal person. And that is Jehovah, who is the true God. And then they say that the Son or Christ is a creature that was created as an angel. And then he became a man. He stopped being an angel all together and was completely transformed into being a man. And he lived as a man up until the time of his death. And then he returned to being an angel and is no longer man at this time. As for the Holy Spirit, they say that is simply a name for the power of God. It's not a person at all. That's one of the corruptions which has been imposed upon the church throughout the centuries. That the Holy Spirit is a person. Christ, the Son of God, was transformed into a man in order to carry out his two purposes. His purpose as Savior and then later his purpose as king. He carried out the first task by living a perfect, sinless life as a man. By which he earned for himself the right to live forever. On earth. He gave up his right to live on earth in a human life forever. So that it, his right the to live as a man forever, could be transferred then to all who show themselves worthy of it. And this is what his saving sacrifice was, which the Bible talks about. That is to say it was the sacrifice of giving up his humanity in his death. And he stopped then being a man all together at the time of his death. He is no longer a man. Then his second task or purpose was to be king. That is to set up the kingdom. He was to carry out this purpose in order to apply the right to live to all who can show themselves worthy of it. He carried out this task by his return to initiate the kingdom. And that return took place in 1914 say the Jehovah's Witnesses. That's a date that they have calculated. And this return was not a visible appearance because Christ is no longer a man. He has no body which could ever be seen. When the Bible speaks of his return or of his coming, his second coming, that's a figure of speech for taking up action to set up the kingdom. He has set it up in heaven in 1914. And it is operating there ever since. And he will set it up on earth at the time of the Battle of Armageddon, which will come at any time. And that will be the millennial kingdom. The Jehovah's Witnesses definitely are a form of premillennialism. And this is the meaning of the prophesy of the thousand years reign of Christ. His coming in 1914 was for the purpose of setting up that kingdom. And people in that -- people then are to use that kingdom to gain the right to live which he has made available. And they do this by their works in which they exercise their faith in him or their conviction in him and his work. Almost all people will earn the right to live during the time of the millennial kingdom on earth. But a certain number of people -- and the number is 144,000 taken from Revelation 7 -- are righteous enough to gain the right to live already before living in the kingdom that Christ has set up. All of these 144,000 are noble people who decide to give up their right to live on earth forever. That is they decide not to use that. But instead to become spirit beings like Jesus did. And to live in heaven with him. And assist him in ruling the kingdom of God. Most people will have physical bodies in the millennial kingdom. That is to say they will be raised at that time. There are some people who are so wicked that they have already shown in this life that they definitely are unworthy of the right to live. And so there will be no point in raising them at all. But most people will at least have a chance to show themselves worthy of the right to live during the time of the millennial kingdom. And either they will pass that test and gain the right to live. Or they will fail it and then will be annihilated. Blotted out forever. This is a thumbnail sketch of the Jehovah's Witness plan of salvation. In evaluation of it we can state that Jehovah's Witnesses fail to see, first of all, the greatness of man's need. That is to say in reality man faces not only annihilation as a result of his sin but everlasting punishment and misery as Scripture says. Matthew 25:41: The Judge on the Day of Judgement will say to those on his left hand: Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And a Matthew 13:42: The Son of Man shall cast them into a firey furnace. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Jehovah's Witnesses fail to see the greatness of the Savior in John 20:25. It definitely is said that Jesus is God. "Thomas answered and said to him my Lord and my God." And also the Bible says that he definitely has had a bodily resurrection. He said, for example, in John 2:19 and 21: Destroy this temple. And in three days I will build it up. And he spoke of the temple of his body. And thirdly, Jehovah's Witnesses fail to see the greatness of the salvation provided for us. It is a free salvation. Undeserved by works. Given purely for the sake of Christ. It is not something that is earned or which we must show ourselves worthy of. Ephesians 2:8 and 9 is the famous promise: By grace you have been saved through faith. And that is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not by works. It is a renewal by a divine personal sanctifier, namely, the Holy Spirit. In Titus 3:5, for example, we have the words of Paul: He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. And then Paul also says in Ephesians 4:30: Do not grieve God's Holy Spirit. And you can only grieve a person. So this divine sanctifier who brings salvation to us is definitely a divine person. Contrary to what the Jehovah's Witnesses think and say. And this salvation that has been divided for us is actually a deliverance from eternal misery as has already been stated. Now, you asked about Arias and that is to say you asked whether the Jehovah's Witnesses have unwittingly preserved the heresy of Arias in the Fourth Century. Yes, Jehovah's Witnesses have preserved the heresy of Arias. But not unwittingly. In their literature he is praised as one of the great champions of faith in the early church. They honor him as one of the leading defenders of authentic biblical teaching. That is of primitive Christianity. When errors like the Trinity were being imposed upon the church and he nobly and faithfully stood against that error. And so he was an agent elder who stood up for the dissident segment of Christianity in those days. And he took issue with the Council of Nicaea, which was adopting such false doctrines as the Trinity. The Jehovah's Witnesses hold that Arias rightly understood that the Son of God was a created being, an angel. And also that while he was a distinct person from the Father, he did not share a divine essence with the Father. Where the witnesses do not agree with Arias and where they think that he had fallen into error was in his idea that the Holy Ghost is actually a person. They say, as we noted before, that the Holy Ghost is simply a name in the Bible for the power of God. And they say that it is the post New Testament perversion that had made him out to be a person so that actually it had made it out to be a person. The Holy Spirit is not a person. And Arias had been influenced wrongly by that idea, which had come about. And that then needed to be corrected. By Arias was one of the most important forerunners of Charles Taze Russell. And Russell has carried on his great work. This is what they say about Arias.