The general understanding was that Jesus was the manifestation or seeable version of God in the Old Testament. He was either the word of the Lord or the angel of the Lord, etc., etc..
People have been arguing over the details of this for the last 2000 years and I really don’t think there’s much point or anything I can add to this to discussion so I really don’t bother anymore.
The part that I’ve always found quite frightening with the watchtower is there’s no concept or understanding of why people believe what they believe.