The unknown single most important thing to be sure to know if you meet a JW.

[PS95]

I thought it would be helpful to understand how Jehovah's Witnesses view the atonement. It is a very different view than if you just read your bible and prayed.
You may need this info one day if you run into a JW or know someone who does.
I have invited @Aunty Jane to join me since she is a popular JW here, and we recently had an encounter here where we disagreed. I told her I would make a new thread, rather than divert the OP any further. So here we are.

I wrote this-
”A Christian will never deny that the- Lord Jesus' death paid for our sins.” JWs will say things, but their words mean something other than you think. They wont tell you this."

Jane wrote this-
"Since when do we deny that Christ’s sacrifice paid for our sins? Please show us where we have ever made a statement like that here?"
This is absolute nonsense! I don’t know where you get this half baked rubbish, but it is apparent that you didn’t listen at the meetings or even to your parents growing up."

Ok. I should explain that I was raised as a JW. My family is large and are all JWs, but me and one of my brothers. I am a Christian now, and have been shunned by family for many years. I was not baptized as a JW. I defended my faith in Christ and was shunned. They see me as antichrist.
We speak at funerals, or if they have what is called to JWs a "family emergency" on their part, they may or may not call me.
Ok enough of that-

If you stick around you will be very surprised at what you learn here. I do not expect this to take very long. I am also requesting if Aunty Jane could please try her best to succinctly say what she has to say, so that posts are not a mile long. No one likes reading those. I would like to keep it short and sweet and stay on topic I hope you can agree, Jane.

My question for Jane --
Ok, Hi Jane,
You insist that JWs believe that when our Lord was crucified that His death paid for OUR sins. Not just Adam's sin, but our sins. We know we all inherited Adam's sin. I am not referring to that, nor do I need to hear that again. We all know we inherited Adam's sin nature and we are all sentenced to die. Let's not waste time on what we know. I stated that Jesus' blood paid for OUR sins, and You said, yes, that you teach that.
Are your personal sins washed clean in the blood of Jesus, Jane?

 

[Davy]

So what is it that JWs believe instead, that you are pointing to?

I personally am not afraid to call the Jehovah Witness organization a Cult, and NOT Christianity, simply because they do not believe Lord Jesus is GOD The Savior, but just an Angel, even the Archangel Michael.

Their false idea goes strongly... against New Testament doctrine, because one of Lord Jesus' Titles is Immanuel, which means 'God with us' (see Matthew 1:23). There are also several New Testament Scriptures where Lord Jesus either directly, or indirectly, claimed to be God; for example, the end of John 8 when Jesus answered the unbelieving Jews by saying, "... Before Abraham was, I AM." The 'I AM THAT I AM' is one of God's sacred Titles that He gave Moses (Exodus 3:14).

Therefore, making Jesus Christ as an Angel and not as God The Son Who died on the cross and was raised by The Father, is a complete... rejection of God's Plan of Salvation through His Son for the remission of sins for those who believe.

And that... kind of idea... tells on itself as to its original origin, i.e., the UNBELIEVING JEWS who REJECT Jesus of Nazareth as God The Savior Who died on the cross for the remission of sins of those who believe. It means from the very start, JWs do not believe Christ's death and resurrection remits sin. Thus JWs are NOT saved unless they leave that Cult started by one man, Charles Taz Russell, and instead believe the ONLY Name Jesus Christ by which man can be saved, as written per Acts 4:10-12.

 

[PS95]

Unfortunately, Aunty Jane has declined my offer-.
So, Here is the JW reasoning for how to pay for sins- Be prepared to be speechless at first and then deeply saddened for them.

To a JW- Jesus' sacrifice paid for Adam's sin. (Although, Adam will never be forgiven.) We all know that death came through Adam as the penalty for sin. What about our personal sins since we also all have sinned? How are we forgiven?
To a JW, Jesus' blood does not cover our personal sins. He just paved a way for us to perhaps gain life by paying for Adam's sin which resulted in death. So how are we forgiven our sins? Well, they aren't "forgiven". OK so..

Romans Chapter 6 is very beautiful- 23 verses long! I encourage you to pray and read all of the chapter. If you don't full comprehend it, use your cross references as well.
We should always read the bible in context, agree? At the very least we should read a whole chapter in context.. But JWs don't do that. They memorize verses, or in this case partial sentences. So, JWs end up with a lot of erroneous weird teachings. If you will read the chapter you will see that Paul is speaking about how believers died to sin, were crucified with Christ, buried with Him in baptism, raised to newness of life, freed from sin, and so on. ( freed, in v7 = set free, justified, acquitted)

Out of the23 total verses in Romans 6- Only 2 partial sentences out of 2 verses are needed from this entire chapter to form this new strange Christ denying doctrine. As you know, anyone can make the bible say anything you want to that way. We all have heard this one, "Judas hung himself , go and do likewise." This is the same type of thing.

Romans Chapter 6-

1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, 7for he who has died is freed from sin.
8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

​

Got that? Ok, So here's where they get deadly sticky-
They utterly rip 1/7th of one sentence out of it's context. Verse 5-7 are one sentence. The first partial abused sentence is v 7

(v7) "............for he who has died is freed from sin."
When JWs die physically that is their payment for their sins. Which means that, since by physically dying their sins were paid for, so they will be automatically resurrected.
If you ask why- they will tell you that Adam's penalty was death which spread to us. ok. So, when they die they will paying for their own sins. Now, if you did not know Christ or the scriptures, you may believe that twisted logic. But you certainly will not, if you do know Christ and the bible. *( for v 7- Just see Romans 6:18--and 6:22 for clarification)
But, if you still are not convinced by the JW's yet- Here comes their fireball.. they will add in 1/2 of verse 23 for the foul.
(v23)- They only use the underlined portion;
"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
So here is what they are left with- ..for he who has died is freed from sin." For the wages of sin is death
That's the doctrine. No I am not joking.
I've tried to help a JW see that Ro 6 is speaking about our lives NOW in the present time in Christ- but he was insistent that this entire passage is all about after they are physically dead! He then refused to read it along with me.
I could not convince him otherwise due to their JW elect leaders , Said so.
For a JW, only their elect leaders can do bible interpreting, and they are not to ever question it. They must also teach it to others.

V23- Instead of seeing the gospel's gift of grace in the 2nd half of the sentence-- they accept the negative half which is the penalty for those who die rejecting Christ- those who reject the gift of God. Paul is merely showing the 2 outcomes. They will tell you that proves that we pay for our sins by dying. They fail to see that God is paying the wage earned as sinners without Christ. It is what we all deserve. . They've decided that since death is the penalty for sin since Adam- that God accepts our dead bodies as payment now. This is disturbing pretzel logic and ignores all that the Lord Jesus did! They deliberately ignore the 2nd half of the sentence-
".........BUT the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord"!!!

So, perhaps you can see now why Jesus is not all that terribly important in the Watchtower religion. He only helped them part way by giving them a chance to earn a resurrection by obeying all of the Watchtower rules, and then dying for their sins.
Those JWs who have not died yet have a different problem. - but that's a whole other subject........

Congrats if you made it this far! Obviously, in CONTEXT, Paul is speaking about our lives NOW in Christ.
Believers have been baptized into Christ's death. And since we were baptized into His death-we were also buried with Him, and since we were buried with Him, we were also raised to walk in our new life now, and then we will also share in His resurrection.
Paul continues that since our old self was crucified with Jesus, then our sinful bodies have died, so we are no longer slaves to sin which we once were, because since we have died with Him we have been acquitted or freed from our sins.
Now, also since we have died with Christ we will also live with Him since He was raised from the dead.
So, now we should consider ourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ!

 

[PS95]

There are so many bible passages that confirm that JWS are in great error here.
Here are some cross references for vs 2-9 . Verse 23 is self-explanatory!
Romans 6-
verse 2- Luke 20:6, Ro 6:15, Ro 6:11, Ro 7:4, 7:6, Gal 2:19, Col 2:20, Col 3:3
verse 3- Matt 28:19, Acts 2:38, 8:16, 19:5, Gal 3:27
verse 4-Col 2:12, Acts 2:24, Ro 6:9, John 11:40, 2 Cor 13:4, Ro 7:6, 2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15, Eph 4:23, Col 3:10
verses 5-7 - 2 Cor 4:10, Phil 3:10, Col 2:12, 31, Eph 4:22, Col 3:9, Gal 2:20, Gal 5:24, Gal 6:14, Ro 7:24, Ro 6:18, 22, John 8:36
verses 8-9 - Ro 6:4, 2 Tim 2:11, Eph 2:5, Col 2:12, 2 Cor 4:10, acts 2:24, Ro 6:4, Rev 1:18

Once you understand this, you can see just how great and deadly this error is. The JW elect leaders are playing like a cruel horrible joke in order to enslave people to them. Please show JW's this chapter( and cross references!) at the door, or wherever you see them, to plant a seed. Don't allow them to sidetrack you with the trinity argument or soul sleep. That is where they desire to steer you to debate endlessly. Keep bringing them right back to this topic. They don't have Christ, and that is FIRST, pure and simple.