Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Biblical Doctrine of Salvation/Part 2

By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©March 2000

Jehovah’s Witnesses stress works salvation, something the Bible condemns in the clearest terms. This emphasis on salvation by works/character is frankly admitted in Watchtower publications.

Salvation by Works

As we will emphasize throughout this article, Jehovah’s Witnesses stress works salvation, something the Bible condemns in the clearest terms (Gal. chs. 2-3; Eph. 2:8-9). This emphasis on salvation by works/character is frankly admitted in Watch­tower publications. Below, we provide sufficient examples in documentation.

In Man’s Salvation Out of World Distress at Hand! a chapter is titled “Require­ments for Entering Spiritual Paradise.” Here, it is asserted:

Ways and thoughts approved by the God of righteousness are a requirement for gaining entrance to the spiritual paradise of His worshipers and servants.^[1]

For persons who listen to and obey God’s commandments it can mean an eternal future.^[2]

The “doctrinal” text Make Sure of All Things contains the following subheadings quoted verbatim:

For one to be declared righteous, he must exercise faith in the shed blood of Christ and conduct himself in harmony with that faith.^[3]

Following the Test at the End of Christ’s Thousand-Year Reign, Obedient Ones Will Have Their Names Written in the Book of Life as Justified.^[4]

Knowledge of God’s Word Necessary to Gain Salvation.^[5]

Not “Once Saved, Always Saved”; Endurance Required.^[6] (Earlier editions of the last quote (1953) stated, “Salvation a goal to be attained—Not ‘Once Saved Always Saved’.”)

In Aid to Bible Understanding^[7] (The Watchtower’s biblical and theological dictio­nary) we find the following: “There is no substitute for obedience, no gaining of God’s favor without it.”^[8]

The Watchtower magazine also contains numerous examples indicating faith alone is insufficient for salvation:

It is evident from this that besides faith and baptism, “public declaration” to the effect that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised him up from the dead is a requirement for salvation…. Clearly, for all who wish to gain an approved standing with God, Christian baptism is a requirement.^[9]

So taking a comprehensive view of our sacrifices, we must admit that atmeetings, when sharing the “good news” with others, and in attitude, word and action, yes, in all areas of life, we should be prepared to give our very best. We should not be halfhearted about such vital matters. What is at stake is Jehovah’s approval and our being granted life.^[10]

Persons desiring divine approval and eternal life must understand God’s Word, declare it to others and live according to the Bible.^[11]

After following through on what Jehovah God requires, the baptized disciple comes into possession of a good conscience. As long as he maintains that good conscience he is in a saved condition. Divine condemnatory judgment will not be expressed against him.^[12]

As noted, the emphasis on works salvation is true even for the 144,000 who are said to be elected by Jehovah and saved by grace. Dr. Anthony Hoekema, author of The Four Major Cults, points out that even after their faith, repentance, baptism, and willingness to sacrifice all their rights on earth for the hope of heavenly life, even though they are allegedly “justified” (that is, have the hope of final justification after death), they are still not immortal, and must yet earn their immortality. Only if they maintain their integrity until death will they have the opportunity for immortality. Thus, their election by God is on the basis of personal merit:

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that the selection of the 144,000 is a sovereign act on God’s part. This selection, however, is made on the basis of their having met the requirements for membership in this class. One is chosen to belong to this group, therefore, on the basis of his worthiness. We must remember, too, that the first steps in the process that leads to salvation for this class are faith, repentance and dedication to Christ—steps that these individuals themselves must take. It is only after they have taken these steps that God justifies, regenerates, and sanctifies them. It should further be noted that much emphasis is laid on continued faithfulness to God.^[13]

Hoekema proceeds to refute the Witnesses’ claim that they believe in salvation by grace:

Hence, though Jehovah’s Witnesses’ claim that salvation is of grace, and that all credit for salvation belongs to Jehovah, we conclude that in Watchtower theology it is not really God’s sovereign grace that saves even the 144,000, but rather man who saves himself by grasping the ransom, by showing himself worthy of being selected as a member of the anointed class, and by carrying out his dedication to Jehovah faithfully until death.^[14]

And yet, as Hoekema also observes, the remaining vast majority of Witnesses are expected to believe that they can also earn their own salvation without any of the declared advantages of the 144,000.

According to Watchtower teaching, most of those who are to be saved will attain this salvation without being regenerated, justified (in the Christian sense), anointed to office, and sanctified (in the Christian sense). This means that, without having their sinful natures renewed, this “great crowd” will be able to have faith in Christ, to dedicate their lives wholly to him, and to remain faithful to the end!^[15]

Biblically speaking then, we are asked to accept that Jehovah’s Witnesses and the rest of humanity will be able to save themselves apart from God’s mercy, grace and power! If anything in this life is to be considered impossible, it must be this. The very reason Christ died for us was because we were helpless to save ourselves by personal effort and good works: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Indeed, to argue we can save ourselves is to repudiate the atonement: “for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 3:21)! The Bible is clear on this. No person can be saved apart from, first of all, the divine miracle of regeneration that enlivens the spirit and changes ones disposition toward the things of God (Jn. 3:3-5; 1 Cor. 2:14-15; 2 Cor. 5:17). This is something the Jehovah’s Witnesses forbid to everyone but the144,000 who are believed to receive spiritual rebirth only after death.

Second, no one can be saved apart from final justification in this life, which legally declares one eternally righteous before God (Rom. 3:21-31; Phil. 3:3-9). This is also prohibited for the “other sheep” and the rest of mankind and again only occurs to the 144,000 after death on the basis of works, not faith!

Third, no one can find acceptance with God apart from having their sins for­given—fully and totally—something the Witnesses claim the “ransom” of Christ, by itself, did not effect (cf. Rev. 21:27).

Fourth, no person can live for God and please Him apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit whom Witnesses believe does not exist.

Clearly, the Watchtower doctrine of salvation is not biblical. To the contrary, the Bible denies Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrines when it teaches (emphasis added):

1. That salvation is by grace through faith, not through works—“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
2. That complete forgiveness of all sins occurred at Calvary—“In him [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins…” and, “He forgave us all our sins…” (Eph. 1:7; Col. 2:13).
3. That full and entire justification occurs in this life at the moment of faith— “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (Rom. 5:1, 9).
4. That eternal life is a present possession of all true believers— “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life” (Jn. 6:47).

The truth is that Christ atoned for all our sins on the cross, not just the sins of Adam or potentially the sins of most. This is why salvation is entirely by grace, and why God does not expect us to earn our salvation by good works, or to achieve the potential forgiveness of our sins by obedience. Christ earned full salvation for us so that we only need receive it as a gift. The Bible clearly teaches that salvation is a free gift. By definition, a free gift cannot be paid for. The Oxford American Dictio­nary defines gift as “a thing given or received without payment.” No man takes a gift of flowers home to his wife and says, “Hi, honey, these are yours after you wash the car.” In the same way, no one pays for salvation with his or her works when it has been freely given as a gift. Biblically, “the gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 6:23); and we are “justified freely by his grace” (Rom. 3:17) because we have “the gift of righteousness.” (Rom. 5:17) The Witness concept of salvation then, obviously disavows the biblical teaching on salvation by grace through faith alone (Romans 3:28):

This means, too, that the vast majority of believers are not justified by faith but must earn their justification by their “unbreakable steadfastness” during the millennium—thus the Witnesses repudiate the so-called material principle of the Reformation: justification by faith. Looking at all this, one is forced to the conclusion that, in this theological system, man is saved not primarily by the grace of God shown to unworthy sinners, but rather by his own demonstration of his worthiness to be saved.

William J. Schnell points out that during his years with the movement the other sheep were told that if they stayed close to the Watchtower organization, listened attentively to its indoctrination, went out regularly to distribute literature, and rigidly reported the time spent in doing so, they might be saved at Armageddon! All the emphasis, he insists, was on works, particularly on witnessing, as the way to arrive at a reasonable certainty of future salvation, rather than on faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour.^[16]

This is the crux of the problem. Witnesses do not teach that salvation comes by faith in Jesus, but, in essence, by faith in what the Watchtower Society tells them. William Schnell also points out another major consequence of the Witness view of salvation. That is to nullify the relevance of most New Testament texts related to salvation for the vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why? Because only the 144,000 are declared to be regenerated, chosen, justified, saints, part of the body of Christ, sanctified, heaven-bound, etc. Therefore, all the Scriptures that speak of these and related things do not apply to the average Jehovah’s Witness. It’s not just that they cannot be born-again, it’s that most of the doctrines related to regeneration are denied them as well.

In effect, most of what the Bible teaches on salvation is irrelevant for the vast majority of Witnesses, not to mention the entirety of mankind, and useful only for a minuscule number of persons—the 144,000, almost all of whom are now dead. Thus, since almost all the 144,000 are believed to be selected from past genera­tions, what the Bible teaches about salvation is really applicable to only a handful of people. In effect, as far as salvation is concerned, the Bible is simply irrelevant for 99.999999999% of humanity.

By their sharp division of believers into two classes, the Watchtower Society actually makes a large part of the Bible, particularly of the New Testament, meaningless for the majority of its adherents. For all Scriptural passages dealing with regeneration, sanctification, anointing, and consecration; all passages which speak of being sealed by the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, or testified to by the Spirit; all passages which describe the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the new creation, the holy nation, and the elect (the list is far from exhaustive) are intended, so the Witnesses say, only for the anointed class and mean nothing for the other sheep.^[17]

Schnell correctly points out that the end result, practically, is a teaching as fully destructive to the Bible as the biases of the higher critics of Scripture such as the form and redaction criticism of the so-called “Jesus Seminar” (which we critiqued in The Facts on False Views of Jesus).

Surely this is a kind of divisive criticism of the Bible that is just as damaging to its authority and comfort as are the irreverent scissors of the higher critic!^[18]

In 1980 it was reported that a number of high-ranking Jehovah’s Witnesses at Bethel headquarters were disfellowshipped or voluntarily left the Watchtower Soci­ety. It seems that their personal Bible studies had caused them to believe—quite correctly—that everyone, not just the 144,000, needed to be born-again. Among this new crop of outcasts were Raymond Franz, nephew of former president F.W. Franz, and Edward Dunlap, former 12-year head of the Watchtower Society Gilead School of the Bible, its missionary training arm.^[19] But, as is so often the case with authoritar­ian religions, the Watchtower Society would not tolerate dissent, and appropriate action was taken to silence the “heresy.” In response, Raymond Franz wrote Crisis of Conscience and a sequel, detailed and scathing exposés of Witness life and policies that should be considered must reading for all Jehovah’s Witnesses or those interested in the Watchtower Society.

It would seem that despite its claim to love biblical truth, the Watchtower Society is so opposed to basic biblical truth (e.g., that everyone needs spiritual rebirth), that even when its own members start to believe in a biblical doctrine, decisive action must be taken to prevent “contamination” to others.

Read Part 3

 

Notes

1. ↑ Man’s Salvation Out of World Distress at Hand! (1975), p. 112. [Note: All Jehovah’s Witnesses texts are published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WBTS, 25 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY 11021).]
2. ↑ Making Your Family Life Happy (1978), pp. 182-183.
3. ↑ Make Sure of All Things, Hold Fast to What Is Fine (1965), p. 296.
4. ↑ Ibid., p. 297.
5. ↑ Ibid., p. 439.
6. ↑ Ibid.
7. ↑ The discussion under “Righteousness” may seem to imply a more biblical view but these state­ments must be interpreted in light of the overall Watchtower theology and worldview.
8. ↑ Aid to Bible Understanding (1971), p. 1240.
9. ↑ The Watchtower, May 1, 1979, p. 15.
10. ↑ The Watchtower, May 1, 1979, p. 20.
11. ↑ The Watchtower, June 15, 1977, p. 373.
12. ↑ The Watchtower, May 1, 1980, p. 13.
13. ↑ Anthony A. Hoekema, The Four Major Cults (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1963), pp. 282-283.
14. ↑ Ibid.
15. ↑ Ibid., pp. 284-285.
16. ↑ Ibid., p. 285.
17. ↑ Ibid.
18. ↑ Ibid.
19. ↑ Christianity Today, December 12, 1980, pp. 68-71.