I had an interesting conversation with Jehovah’s Witnesses last night. They asked me to prove that the scriptures say the Jesus is God. I started in Revelation but got cut off and never finished. Does the Bible say that Jesus is God? Absolutely! Revelation is just one of many places where this is clear from scripture.

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.” My JW friend said that refers to God, and he challenged me to show him where that same title is used for Jesus. Revelation 22:13 uses the same phrase, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” So the Alpha and the Omega is also described as the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” If this is a reference to Jesus, then he is here called the “Alpha and the Omega;” the same name used for God in chapter 1. If this is a reference to God, then God is called “the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” That is interesting because Revelation 1:17 says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last.” Is this also a reference to God? The sentence goes on in verse 18 to say, “and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” So the one described as the first and the last died. If this is a description of God, we must ask when God died? If this is a description of Jesus, then Jesus is called by the same name as God, “the first and the last.” Revelation 2:8 does the same thing. It says, “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.’” Again we must ask: If the first and the last refers to God then when did God die and come back to life? If this is a reference to Jesus, then Jesus is again called by the same name as God.

With these few verses one cannot escape the simple truth that Jesus is called by the same name as the Lord God. Jesus is God. The JWs want you to believe that Jesus is a created being. There are many verses we could go to in refuting that idea. These few verses in Revelation are just a sampling. In John 1 they want to add a little word “a” to the first verse. John 1:1 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Their translation reads, “the word was a god.” There is nothing in the original language to suggest that word “a” should be in the text, but that doesn’t really solve their problem. The text goes on to say, “He was in the beginning with God” (Jn 1:2). That would be a reference to Jesus. Then it says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (Jn1:3). Everything that was made by God was made by Jesus, according to this verse. The JWs insist that Jesus is the first created being. If that is true, then this verse makes no sense. How can Jesus be the first created being and yet everything that was made was made by him? Everything in inclusive. It doesn’t say everything except Jesus. It says everything. Jesus was not created. He is the eternal Son of God, the second person of the god-head. Jesus is God, not a god.

My JW friends started with this phrase, “We’re not trying to convince anyone. We just want to reason through the scriptures.” They ended the night saying, “We pray to different Gods.” The God I pray to is the triune God of the Bible, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is one God; three persons. I can’t really wrap my finite mind around the complexity of an infinite, triune God, but that is the God the Bible presents. I am not sure who their god is.