105 Years in the Watchtower Service – Program 5

By: Lorrie MacGregor, Joan Cetnar, Jean Eason, Helen Ortega; ©1986

Revelation 1:18 says the Lord God is the “alpha and the omega. Is that Jehovah, or is that Jesus? Why is this information difficult for Jehovah’s Witnesses to accept?

The Alpha and the Omega

Introduction

Tonight on The John Ankerberg Show, you will meet four women who have spent a combined total of 110 years serving as Jehovah’s Witnesses. After years of service, they began to ask questions that the Watchtower Society could not or would not answer. Their search for the truth continued in spite of their being tragically cut off from their families and friends. Tonight, we’ll find out what questions they asked, why those questions were so important, and what they discovered.

John’s guests are Lorri MacGregor from Canada; Jean Eason from Kentucky; Joan Cetnar from Pennsylvania; and Helen Ortega from Georgia. Please join us.

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Ankerberg: Good evening. We’re glad that you joined us. We have four ladies with us that almost all of their lives have been Jehovah’s Witnesses. And they have had some information that has come to them that has got them thinking in a new vein. I want you to listen to some of the things they have to say tonight.

I’ve found the Jehovah’s Witness people are usually very sincere people. They really believe they have the truth. They really believe they are zealously following Jehovah God and they want to have information. Many people have said to me, “If you have something about the truth that would change my mind, you present it to me, and if it is true, I will change my mind.”

I don’t know if that will happen tonight but we want you to listen to some of the things that these ladies are going to say. And I’d like to start this program off with probably the key topic that many people out there in the television audience would like to know about. As Jehovah’s Witnesses, I know together you served over 105 years zealously. Some of you had 13 Bible studies every week for the Jehovah’s Witnesses that you started yourself. What did you think about Jesus? In other words, what were you taught and what did you believe as a Jehovah’s Witness concerning Christ and then, what started to get you thinking differently? Lorri, let me come to you on that one.

MacGregor: Well, as Jehovah’s Witnesses we were taught that Jesus Christ was a secondary god and we even had our own altered Bible translation that said He was a god. We were told He was the first product of Jehovah’s creation. He was a master workman. We were taught that He was besides this the archangel Michael. He was only a man on earth, also.

So, as I really began to seek through the pages of the Bible I found out Jesus was not the archangel Michael. There is no scriptural proof. Michael is not called Jesus; Jesus is not called Michael. But then I was left with the problem: Is Jesus some kind of an extra god or is He the One God? Is He Almighty God? So I just want to share with you a couple of Scriptures that proved to me, and that you can use to prove to Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Jehovah’s Witnesses can use to prove to themselves that Jesus is Almighty God, because that cuts right through it. If He’s Almighty God, He’s not any kind of an extra one.

Ankerberg: Now these are things that you came to out of a background of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and fighting it all the way. So these are powerful verses you’re going to share with us.

MacGregor: Right. I call this presentation to Jehovah’s Witnesses “The First and the Last” because it uses the terms “the first” and “the last” and it also uses two chapters of Revelation, the first and the last. Isn’t this easy to remember?

Revelation 1:8 says, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Now Jehovah’s Witnesses will instantly say, “This is Jehovah God and our Bible has Jehovah in there.” And you say, “Well, actually, if you look in your purple Bible”—any time the Scriptures don’t agree look in your purple Bible, the Interlinear—and they will see that it says “Lord God.” Get them to agree that the Almighty is speaking, and He calls Himself the Alpha and Omega. They have to agree to that.

Now let’s find the identity of the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty. Turn to Revelation 22 and there are several speakers here. So we want to get the one who is coming quickly, the one who is the Alpha and Omega. We want to read it in context, that there’s no change of speaker. We begin in Revelation 22:12, “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with me, to render to every man according to what he’s done. I am the Alpha and the Omega [the same one is speaking. Underline this next part] the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Verse 14 says blessed are some, verse 15 says outside are the others. The same speaker in verse 16 continues: “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things for the churches….” So Jesus says He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t like this. They’ll say, “Oh, well, it has to be Jehovah. The speakers have to change.” And you say, “Well, now, would you agree that the Alpha and Omega calls Himself ‘the first and the last’?” Well they have to agree. He says, “I’m the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.” [Rev. 22:13]

Turn back to Revelation 1 and let’s get further identification on the first and the last, because “At the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter is established.” [Matt. 18:6] Revelation 1 verses 13 and following has a vision of the Son of Man. Down in verse 17—and Jehovah’s Witnesses will agree—the Son of Man is Jesus Christ; no argument. Verse 17 records John saying this, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as a dead man. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last and the living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” [Rev. 22:17-18]

Ankerberg: So it can only be Jesus.

MacGregor: It can only be Jesus. Jesus is the first and the last. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega.

Ankerberg: He was the one that was dead.

MacGregor: Right.

Ankerberg: He is the one that is coming.

MacGregor: Right. And we go back to Revelation 1:8 and we put His name in where it belongs. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God [Jesus Christ], “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Ankerberg: Could there be two? Would they say, “Okay, you got me on that one, but it seems like Jesus is the first and the last and Jehovah God is the first and the last.” You couldn’t have two firsts and lasts could you?

Cetnar: They apply Revelation 22:12 in two different Watchtower magazines in the same year, one to Jesus and the other to Jehovah. So they’re saying that “the first and last” is Jesus and Jehovah. There is only one first and last.

MacGregor: That’s right. Isaiah 44:6 says, “Thus says the Lord [YHWH, Jehovah], the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the [Jehovah or] Lord of hosts” It sounds like two, but the two are the one God; because look what He says: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides me.” And so there is only one first and one last, Jehovah’s Witnesses; there are not two firsts and two lasts, there are not two Alphas and two Omegas, there is the One Almighty God who has manifested Himself as the Father and the Son.

Ankerberg: Okay, but what other things did you teach that you found out later were not exactly what you taught concerning Jesus right along this line? How about where it says He’s the beginning. You say He was a created being, or you used to say that. What did you find out that meant? Helen?

Ortega: I did a little research on that, and it’s really funny because I have it right here, and it’s Revelation 3:14: “The Amen, [Christ] the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, says this:…” And the word “beginning” in Greek means origin or the source, and actually that’s where you get your word “architect.”

Ankerberg: All anybody has to do is just look it up in any Greek lexicon.

Ortega: That’s right. Look it up. And so then He that brought forth creation is the beginning or the origin or the author of the creation, so the New English Bible declares, “The prime source,” this is the way it translates, “The prime source of all God’s creation.” And Knox’s version reads, “The faithful and true witness, the source through whom God’s creation came,” and Goodspeed said, “The beginner of God’s creation.”

Ankerberg: Didn’t anybody ever share that with you when you were a Jehovah’s Witness? Did anybody just simply say, “Look up the word. It doesn’t mean He was a created being, it means He was the source, the one that brings everything into being.”

MacGregor: Another thing we have to share when we look at the Scripture is the change by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, dishonestly, of the word “of” to the word “by”: “the beginning of the creation by God.” [Rev. 3:14] That seems to indicate that, hey, Christ was the one that was created first.

Ankerberg: That’s in your New World Translation?

MacGregor: In the New World Translation it says, “by God.” But in the Greek it says that Jesus is the beginning, and Helen gave you those meanings: “supervisor, designer, cause, origin, source, of the creation of God.”

Ankerberg: Okay, how about this other one I hear that Witnesses will bring up, and that’s the fact that He’s the firstborn. I mean, what could be plainer? He was the firstborn, it says.

Cetnar: Colossians 1:15.

Ankerberg: Read the verse for us.

MacGregor: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

Ankerberg: I can hear the Witnesses saying, “What else can be plainer?”

Cetnar: Well, “firstborn” does not always means “the first one born,” but under Jewish law the firstborn was the natural heir, and it says, “He’s the natural heir of all creation.”

Ankerberg: Doesn’t even mean the fact of anything being created at this point.

Cetnar: That’s right. If He wanted to say “first created” He could have used a Greek word to say “first created” there, but He didn’t say that, He said, “firstborn.” But what they did in subsequent verses where it says He created everything; all things under the earth, on top of the earth, and also for Himself—and he’s still talking about Jesus—they added the little word “other” in every other place to make Jesus an “other”: “He created all other things.” [Col. 1:16] Now that’s dishonest.

Ankerberg: Lorri, read to us where they put this in Colossians where they inserted the word “other” four times and it’s not anywhere in the text at all.

MacGregor: “For by Him all other things…”

Ankerberg: And why did they have to put that in there, because if they had read it without it, what does it mean?

MacGregor: Well, without it, it is saying, “For by Him [by Christ] all things were created.” All things have been created by Him. He is before all things. [Col. 1:16-17] What could He be but the Creator? And in that one verse where it says He is the firstborn of all creation, verse 15, it also says He’s the image of the invisible God. Now, when you look in a mirror what do you see? An image. Is it you? Well, it isn’t anybody else, is it? And Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is God manifest in the flesh.

Ankerberg: Coming back to this thing of He’s the firstborn, an illustration that shows it has nothing to do with making or bringing into existence at that point, if they go back and look in the Old Testament you’ll find Jacob and Esau. Esau sold his birthright for a little pottage [porridge or stew] and what happened is that Jacob, who was the second one that was born, got the title of “firstborn,” which gave him the right to rule over his family’s inheritance. And if you were to put that “the right to rule, the preeminence, the sovereign one,” into that verse, He’s the One that has the right to rule, the One who brought all things into existence. Why? Because He’s God.

MacGregor: And likewise the nation of Israel in the Old Testament is called the firstborn of YHWH, God. [Ex. 4:22] Does this mean it was the first nation ever created? No, but it was the preeminent one, because God put His hand on it, and Jesus is the preeminent one. There’s no one higher.

Ankerberg: Now when you, in your own thinking, got to this point, you must have remembered some of those other things that you said going door to door, namely that, “Listen, you know, if He’s God, now I’ve got a big problem here,” you’re probably saying, “and that is when Jesus died, because the Bible says He died, then God must have died. Who was ruling the world?”

Cetnar: That’s right.

Ankerberg: I mean, you girls all said that, didn’t you?

MacGregor: I used to say, “If He’s God, who was He talking to in the Garden of Gethsemane?”

Ankerberg: That’s right, who was He praying to, Himself?

MacGregor: Uh-huh, and was He a ventriloquist?

Ankerberg: And when He says in John, “The Father is greater than myself,” [John 14:28] you know, obviously there’s a differentiation.

Cetnar: Well, there’s no Christian that believes that Jesus is the Father. They are two separate persons. But just because He is the Son of God does not make Him any less God, because God begets God just as man begets man, and He is the only begotten God, John 1:18 says.

Ankerberg: How do you fit Jesus into your whole concept of the nature of God? Lorri?

MacGregor: Well, a favorite Scripture we had as Jehovah’s Witnesses to hammer Trinitarians on the head with was John 14:28 where Jesus said, “I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” And we always said, “You see, Jesus knew He was inferior, He wasn’t equal to the Father, you know, He was lesser, of an inferior nature.”

That’s not so. It took me 15 years to get out a Greek dictionary and look up the word “greater” to find out what it meant. And what it means is higher in position. It’s got nothing to do with nature. You see, when Jesus came to this earth, as the Word made flesh among us, He humbled Himself; He emptied Himself. [Phil 2:5-11] He walked this earth as a man, because that’s the only thing that would satisfy God’s perfect law. A perfect man, Adam, lost it all; a perfect man, Jesus, had to buy it back. And when He was in this condition of humanity/humility, He said, from the earth, “the Father is greater than I.” It’s like the president and the vice president of a company. One is in a higher position than the other, and yet by nature, they’re both men and equal in the eyes of God.

Ankerberg: Well, take our President of the United States. He’s got a higher office than we do, but he’s still a man like we are.

MacGregor: Exactly right. And if Jesus, however, had said, “The Father is better than I am,” we’d be in trouble, because that word “better” in Greek means higher in nature. This is why in Hebrews 1:4 when it says Jesus is “better than the angels,” He’s higher in nature than the angels, He’s not any kind of an angel.

Ankerberg: Alright, let me give you an argument that you guys used to give us, and that would be, “I hear three Gods!” That’s what Christians are saying, you used to go around saying, and you used to redefine what we said. Would you correct yourself, please? What was the definition you used to give?

MacGregor: Well, we used to say the Trinity taught that there was a freakish looking three- headed god.

Ortega: In fact, the new Watchtower, we were looking at the picture of it, of a three-headed god and they say this is the Trinity of Christendom.

Ankerberg: And then you used to shoot that down.

Ortega: Oh, absolutely! Well, you know, the pagans believed in three-headed gods and the Christians, so-called, got it from them. But the definition of a Christian of Trinity is not the same. When you say “Trinity” to a Jehovah’s Witness, they’re thinking of three-headed god, or three gods in one, but a Christian doesn’t mean that. There’s one God.

Ankerberg: Okay, could you give me a definition that you have come to learn that the Scripture gives to us that fits the evidence. Can you give it to us?

Cetnar: Within the nature of God we have the three Persons, not as we understand “person,” but we know each one of these has personality and they are separate, and we find them in Matthew 28:19 being spoken of, but it says “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” not “the names”. So it’s one God in three Persons.

Ankerberg: The nature of the one God is made up of Three Persons.

Ortega: Yes.

Ankerberg: And what would be your evidence for that?

MacGregor: Well, the fact that the main teaching of Scripture is the fact that there is only one true eternal God by nature.

Ankerberg: And we can’t get away from that.

MacGregor: We can’t. Now, Jehovah’s Witnesses are in big trouble, because they’ve got a big God, Jehovah, and beside Him they’ve got a little God, Jesus Christ….

Ankerberg: Because they say in John 1:1 He is….

MacGregor: How many Gods do Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in?

Ankerberg: That would be polytheism, two or more.

MacGregor: Two. They’ve got a big God and a little God. I asked one Jehovah’s Witness lady, “Look, how many Gods do you believe in?” And she thought and thought and thought and she said, “One and a half.” And I said, “One and a half?” She said, “Well, yes, because there’s Jehovah God and beside Him there’s Jesus Christ, but at the same time He’s Michael the archangel.” I said, “I’m sorry, dear, you’ve got a half a God too many. There is only one true eternal God by nature.”

Ankerberg: But what would say that the Son is that God, and the other thing that you denied was the Holy Spirit.

MacGregor: Well, let’s stick with the Son for a moment. I’d like to bring out a Scripture that calls Jesus the only God. That should settle it, don’t you think? It’s in 1 Timothy 1:16-17. Jehovah’s Witnesses would love to move the “Amen” here, but they can’t. The subject is Jesus Christ and Paul says this: “And yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ [subject] might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Now to the king eternal, [not created] immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” Jesus is the only God. You see, if there is only one God, if the Father is called God, He is that one God; if the Son is called God, He is that one God, and one step further: if the Holy Spirit is called God, He is that one God.

Ankerberg: As a Jehovah’s Witness what did you define the Holy Spirit as?

Ortega: A wind.

Cetnar: A force.

MacGregor: Active force.

Cetnar: The active force of God.

Ankerberg: Wind, force, active force, but not a Person.

Cetnar: Not a person. Acts 5 says that the Holy Spirit is God. He said in one place, “you lied against the Holy Spirit;” a little further down, it says, “you lied against God.” [Acts 5:3-4]

Ankerberg: Okay. Does it make a difference, girls, about this kind of stuff? Some people might be out there saying, “I mean, who cares.”

Cetnar: Of course it makes a difference.

Ankerberg: What difference does it make? Tell me.

MacGregor: Well, I would say this. If you have the right Jesus Christ, you are right for all eternity. But if you have the wrong Jesus Christ, you are wrong for all eternity. And Jehovah’s Witnesses, check it out. You’ve got the wrong Jesus. You see, I used to feel like you did. I used to think I was fulfilling Matthew 24:14, that I was preaching the good news of the kingdom to all the world and then the end would come. What I was really fulfilling and what Jehovah’s Witnesses out there, the Scripture you are fulfilling is 2 Corinthians 11:4: “There will be those coming to you preaching another Jesus.”

Ankerberg: That’s a pretty hairy verse isn’t it?

MacGregor: It certainly is.

Ankerberg: Didn’t you ever think about that when you went door to door preaching another Jesus, or did you just assume that was everybody else?

MacGregor: We didn’t know.

Cetnar: We thought we had the right Jesus.

MacGregor: Nobody corrected us. It took 15 years for someone to say, “Hey, I don’t think He’s the archangel Michael.”

Cetnar: I’m concerned, too, John about those who are out of the organization and still have another Jesus that they say is their Lord and Savior. There is only one Jesus that died for us. Acts 20:28 says that it was God who died for us. If He was not God that sacrifice was worth nothing. God had to come down here, take the form of man, and die for us for that to be valid.

Ankerberg: Alright, Jean, please read 2 John 1:9-10 for us, would you?

Eason: “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed.”

Ankerberg: Okay, so the point is that if you don’t have the Son, you don’t have the Father. And what about the verse that comes right after that concerning the house, about letting them into your house?

Eason: “For he that biddeth him God speed is a partaker of his evil deeds.” [2 John 1:11]

Ankerberg: Yea, and he’s warning them, what? Not to let them come in. And some Christians have taken that, Lorri, and probably they did this on you. They say, “Well, that says any Jehovah’s Witness that comes to my door, don’t let them in, don’t talk with them,” you know, as Joan’s husband used to say turn out the German shepherds on them or get the hose out and squirt ‘ em down good. Maybe that happened to you. What does that text really say?

MacGregor: Well, when the doors were slammed in my face for 15 years with the words, “I don’t need this; I’m saved,” it taught me two things about Christians. Number one, they have no love, and number two, I really wasn’t satisfied with what I had as a Jehovah’s Witness. But surely if they had something better, they’d share it with me.

Now I realize that 2 John is used, as you said, to not share, but we don’t want to be guilty of the same thing the cults are guilty of, that of taking the Scriptures out of their context. Who is 2 John written to? “The elder to the chosen lady and her children whom I love in truth.” It is written to believers. Verse 7 says, “Many deceivers have gone out into the world.” Gone out from where? Well, who was he talking to? The believers, the Christian congregations. Verse 9 identifies them further: “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ.”

This doesn’t apply to Jehovah’s Witnesses. They have never abided in the teaching of Christ. They don’t even know who Christ is. In the world of the cults – Jehovah’s Witnesses included – are two classes. At the high levels in Brooklyn, Toronto, wherever they are, they are the deceivers. Don’t let one of them around and don’t let anyone who leaves the Christian church and denies Christ come into your home either. But the ones at your door like us, we were not deceivers, we were deceived.

And so I believe the instructions to Christians are not in 2 John but in 2 Timothy 2:24-26. “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness, correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

Ankerberg: Okay. And, Joan, what about this thing, what is the doctrine of Jesus?

Cetnar: Yes, in 2 John 1:7 it says that “Those who have gone out into the world who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.” They do not believe that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh. They believe when He comes it will be spiritual and you won’t see Him anymore. And so that Scripture can really apply to them. They are the deceiver and the antichrist because that is their teaching, that Jesus Christ is not coming in the flesh.

Ankerberg: We’re just about out of time here. What would you say is the bottom line for people who are watching in tonight that are Jehovah’s Witnesses that are saying, “You know, if I were to accept what you’re saying about the nature of God and who Jesus is and about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as you have outlined in the Scripture, that’s going to cause me terrible circumstances. I might be disfellowshipped; I might be cut off from my family, my friends, everything that I’ve always known. Is it worth it?

Eason: Yes. Yes, it is.

Ankerberg: Jean, why is it worth it?

Eason: I would like to make this point. So often, as a Jehovah’s Witness they would say, “All you have to do is believe in Christ Jesus.” And we in turn would say, “If that is the case, then the devil is going to be saved, because the Bible says that Satan believes and the demons believe and tremble.”

Ankerberg: Yes, James 2:19.

Eason: Okay, so I looked up the word “believe” in context of John 3 in a Greek lexicon. And the word believe there meant to have intimacy with Christ, to have a relationship with Him. There’s a big difference in having a head knowledge of Christ Jesus and knowing Him. You see, we believe that Abraham Lincoln was a President of the United States, don’t we? But we don’t have a relationship with him. So it’s a big difference in knowing Christ as it is mentioned in the Scriptures.

Ankerberg: That’s right. If in the one true God He exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and I can have an intimate relationship with the Son and He can come and live in my life, which He says, then that’s worth it all. And He can empower me to live through whatever circumstances might come my way, including disfellowshipping, the ostracizing by my family, which all of you girls have gone through, correct? And, Joan, you also had a statement from the book of John concerning the importance of Jesus.

Cetnar: John 8:24 said, “If you do not believe that I am, you are going to die in your sins.” And that is the worst thing that can happen to us. We need the blood of Jesus to cover our sins, no matter how good we have been, and we must believe that He is the I Am. If we do not have the real Jesus, we don’t have anything.

Ankerberg: And each one of you invited Him into your life, didn’t you?

Cetnar: That’s right.

Ankerberg: And He’s changed it. And He’s kept you. And protected you.

Cetnar: “He that has the Son has life.” [1 John 5:12]

Ankerberg: Okay, we’re going to continue this discussion on our next program. I hope that you’ll join us.

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