Let cut JWs some slack on Christ's status. They might be right.

Spectrum

The alternative light I have received regarding early Christianity has made me wonder whether JWs have unwittingly got it right regarding the status of Jesus.

A lot of strong criticism is made on this forum about JWs sidelining of Jesus in preference for Jehovah the Jewish God. They have been equated with judaism because of their lack of inclusion of Christ in their worship as well as their draconian code of expected conduct.

According to this website (and I don't know how much of an authority this person is on the Bible but he seems to know his stuff).
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/paulorigin.html#paul
The more authentic followers of Christ headed by James (possibly Jesus's biological brother) maintained intacked the Mosiac Law ie draconian conduct. I'm not sure if they gave Jesus a divine status possibly not. I think the question of Christ divinity came up much later possibly in the 2nd or 3rd century from Pauline Christianity which incidentally opposed the more direct linage of Christ's doctrine as practised by the followers of James in Jerusalem. If all this is true then Paul is the heretic and to a large extent it exonerates JWs relegation of Christ and promotion of Jehovah. And by extension their anti-trinitarian stance is correct. Even the early Christians couldn't figure out what status to give Jesus.

Judging from what I learned recently I think we should cut JWs some slack on the Jesus issue.
We can't cuss them one minute for sidelining Jesus and the next criticise Paul as having altered the course of true Christianity.

The problem I see here is JWs accept Pauline Christianity which is why I opened with the word unwittingly.
So basically they got Christ's status correct but for the wrong reasons.

eyeslice

I can see this quickly becoming yet another trinty thread.
Eyeslice

Gamaliel

I also think JWs are closer to being right on this one than most other modern religions. I'm sure Jesus wasn't considered divine in hardly ANY sense of the word until at least 20 years after the date most often given for his death. AD 50's. It's possible that Paul in Philippians didn't mean "divinity" quite as strongly as it sounds. The early references to his divinity were probably in comparison to the divinity of the emperors. Jesus' followers had to compete with expressions like:

"Augustus Caesar, Son of God"

"Augustus Caesar, God of Gods"

"Augustus Caesar, King of Kings."

"This is the Gospel of Augustus Caesar."

Spectrum

No this thread is not meant to be about the trinity, it is about whether christ deserves the level of importance Christendom has given him versus JWs.

For me the trinity is a closed issue as it is a concoction of the Catholics and Orthodox and quite unbiblical.

Gamaliel

I still think that JWs give Jehovah much more importance than early Christians did. There was a lot more specific emphasis on Christ in the early Church, although JWs would say that this is because he was being introduced at a time when emphasis on Jehovah was a given.

lovelylil

spectrum,

where the JWs are wrong is by saying that Christ is a created angel by Jehovah. That is an ancient Aryan Heresy. He is in fact in the same nature of God but is the son of God. Jesus and Jehovah have always been together, Jesus was begotten and not created. These two things are different. Early Christians did in fact worship Jesus and pray to him. The JWs are correct when they say that God the Father is superior to Jesus the Son, but only in position is he superior not in nature.

here is an example:

A human father would be superior to his son as his position of authority is greater but since both are humans, we can say that the son is equal in his nature to the father.

The WT is right to say Jehovah is greater in position by as of this time, it is Jehovah that has put all authority under his son and therefore we are to honor the son just as we honor the father. So the JWs have no basis to totally sidelining Jesus and not praying to him and giving him a lip-service only but no worship. In fact we can pray to and worship both the father and the son. Since Jesus is in the same nature as God and his son, Jehovah allows us to treat him the same as the father. Also since at this time, God has put all authority under Christ, we are to be Witnesses of Jesus through out the world (Acts 1:8), the Jewish Nation were Witnesses of Jehovah back in ancient times.

I do believe the JWs are correct that the trinity doctrine is false. It is based on only one scripture that mentions these three together (Matthew 28:19,20) but that does not mean these seperate things make up one God. Also the Holy Spirit is not a person and although God and Jesus are prayed to in the bible, the Holy Spirit is not prayed too. I believe the Holy Spirit is Gods influence on his people. It is not electricity like the WT teaches but not a person either. The Holy Spirit can move people, teache people and speak through people but cannot speak of its own. The fact that the NT writers said it did was a style of writing only to show it is not an inaminate force but is from the living God.

Anyway, I will not go into the Holy Spirit any more because that topic has been beaten to death as the trinity has also. I hope I answered your questions about the JW beliefs in Christ and where I personally feel they are wrong, Lilly

Narkissos

Spectrum,

The problem I see with your argument is that you are assuming a linear development of doctrine. As if the Hellenistic Christ-cult which Paul strove to control first developed and/or departed from the Jerusalem group of James which consisted in "the more authentic followers of [Jesus]". This is quite dubious. Was James' movement "Christian," or simply another Jewish sect? What role, if any, did a historical Jesus play in it? Remember, all our information on the relationship between "James" and "Jesus" or "Christians" depends on the NT texts, which all presuppose the Hellenistic-Pauline brand(s) of Christianity and have an evident interest in christianising important 1st-century Jewish figures like John the Baptist or James. The different ways in which they try to do it (making James an "apostle," an late-converted unbeliever, a "brother -- literal or figurative -- of the Lord) raise some suspicions.

If we are speaking about "Christianity," its origins are most certainly to be found not in Jerusalem, but in the Greek-speaking Jewish diaspora. And there, as far as we can look back, "Christ Jesus" appears, if not as "God" or "a god," at least as a heavenly figure sent to earth. In this context the ascription of some "divinity" to Christ appears very early (in Paul, in Hebrews, in Johannine literature).

JWs, otoh, do not acknowledge the diversity of "early Christianity" and do not really reflect any of its groups. Against James they maintain that the Mosaic Law is over (no sabbath, no dietary rules except blood). Considering Jesus as an "angel" certainly doesn't correspond to the Jamesian stance either.

LittleToe

I'm just going to pluck out one example of many (as Didier alludes to), in that their treatment of Phil.2 is abysmal. They create more problems than they solve.

Further, what part of "given a name above every other name" do you see taught and practiced by JWs?

(and that's without getting into the knee-bowing of Phil.2:10; Rom.14:11; Isa.45:23).

greendawn

Paul never produced a trinitarian formulation but always aknowledged the son as being subject to the Father, however unlike the dubs he clearly thought of him as being the Lord of the Church and the whole world by decree of the Father.

Yet the dubs loath to call Him "our Lord" that's why many justifiably believe them to be under strong Judaic influence, due to this strange mental block they have in calling Jesus our Lord this in fact freaks them out so much they quickly disfellowship any one that says it.

In view of this their claim that they are a bona fide Christian group is patently false.

Hellrider

The question is also: when did christianity start? Did it start when Jesus preached, or when he died? Should only the gospels have been included in the NT? The gospel of John too? He is pretty much a god-man in that gospel, not to mention that it was written at least no earlier than 50 years after his death... And about Paul, some of his letters predates the Gospels, probably even Mark. I think it`s impossible to take the view that the New Testament was "corrupted", because that leads to so many problems. Who decides what is the real doctrine, then, if we are to assume that "some of the books, pages, chapters doesn`t belong in the Bible"? Who decides? I think, for a christian it is just to trust that God put the right text in there. Otherwise, at which year do you set the "heresy"? In 80 A.D? 120 A.D? Even if it`s true that James and the Jerusalem church held on to the Mosaic Law and were still more jewish than what would later be called "christian", who are to say that they were right in how they interpreted Jesus? Maybe the development that followed with Paul was Gods will?

There are a million questions, but not many answers.

Let cut JWs some slack on Christ's status. They might be right.

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