Are JW’s actually Christians? I was always told that they do not recognize Jesus as the Son of God, and therefore has a Divine nature. Am I wrong in this?
My impression of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they do not even belong to the category of ‘Protestants’, in that the prevailing definition of Protestant is being a believing Christian, outside the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Eastern traditions.
I think it is unfair to lump JW in with Protestant as they do not adhere to the accepted Protestant belief in the Trinity and other beliefs about Jesus.
They aren’t sola scriptura, in that they have a hacked up custom translation of the Bible to go along with the edicts from the Watchtower gang. Not to mention being founded by a notoriously false false prophet named Charles Taze Russell, who, like all others who predict the return of Jesus on a specific date, was necessarily disobeying the clear teaching of Jesus that such knowledge belongs only to the Father. So no, not only off on Trinitarian and Christological issues, but also subservient to human authority and false revelation rather than the God-breathed words of Scripture, which to abandon for the vain imaginations of fallen mortals is to guarantee eventual descent into error.
An apostate former priest, Johannes Gerber, spirit-channeler (consort of demons), was adviser to the New World Bible Translation Committee. https://www.google.com/search?q=johannes+gerber+jehovah+witness
More Sola Scriptura - but with a rewritten scriptura!
what was the primary question Jesus was asking?
who was He?
Peter gave the correct answer and Christ noted that Heaven had revealed this to him. And it was upon this rock, this confession of Peter that Christ was the Son of God that the Kingdom of Heaven is built.
No where does the Bible call Peter the primary apostle as does the RCC. You are attempting to read something into the text that isn't there.
Paul and Peter were considered equals. Paul never said Peter was primary or the other way around.
Peter did play a very, very important role in the early church as Christ promised. The keys to the kingdom was the Gospel: Christ being the Son of God and faith in Him alone for salvation. This is what he preached all the time in Acts.
When Cornelius attempted to bow before him Peter told him to get up for he was just a man....contrast that with the actions of the pope.
Peter stumbled by not eating with the Gentiles when pressured by the Jews and Paul had to correct him.
Did the apostles and prophets pass on the message of Christ? Sure they did. You always need new leaders as the old die out. But here is the difference in the Bible and the RCC. The Bible shows that all can understand the Gospel. All can share the Gospel.
Have you ever shared the Gospel with anyone and seen how the Lord works in their life? Or are you just relying on a priest to do the heavy lifting?
They don’t accept orthodoxy that has been know for thousands of years. Instead relying upon their modern day (what was it 1800’s something..) ‘prophet’ to tell them that thousands of years of Christian doctrine were wrong.
They do this in face of the simplicity of the Gospel: You must be saved by Grace, through faith (Eph 2:8-9) and the fact that Jesus is clearly presented as both God, and man equally, and that His own statements claim that He is ONE with The Father.
The JWs are wrong, just like a rusted key won’t work in a lock.
-JS
Searching the Scriptures we will not find the church with men led by apostles but are not, like those who claim to be their successors in Rome, for the true apostles were those who authority was unmistakable of God, '"in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God,..By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, (2 Corinthians 6:6-7) Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. (2 Corinthians 12:12)
Yet nor do we see the NT church looking to Peter as the first of a line of exalted infallible popes in Rome reigning autocratically (unhindered power, needing no agreement from the Bishops in speaking "from the chair") over the church, nor even the necessity of promise of a perpetual assured infallible magisterium.
Instead, both writings and men of God were recognized and established as such, and Truth provided and preserved, and faith, long before a church of Rome would presume itself infallible and essential for this.
And truth was established upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, not the premise of the assured veracity of Rome.
And Peter was the street level leader among brethren, and one of those who were manifest pillars, exercising a general pastoral role, yet who could err in leadership, and did not deliver the final verdict in Acts 15.
Meanwhile, nowhere were perpetual apostolic successors promised, unlike under the Law, and only one is seen, even though James was martyred, (Acts 12:1,2) and only one, as this was to maintain the number of the original apostles (Acts 1:15ff; Rv. 2:14)
In addition, the NT knew nothing of all revolving around the Lord's supper as the source and summit of their faith, and in the only place that it is manifestly mentioned in the life of the church then it is the church which is the focus as the body of Christ that needed to be recognized, by showing the Lord's death toward each other in their sharing of the communal meal. (1Cor. 11:17ff)
Thus the NT church knew nothing of NT pastors being distinctively titled "priests," as they did not have any unique sacrificial function, but their main function was to "preach the Word," (2Tim. 4:2) that the flock might be "nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine." (1Tim. 4:6)
It also knew nothing of a separate class of believers called “saints,” ” or the mention of the postmortem location of the saints being in purgatory versus with the Lord. (Lk. 24:43; 2Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 1Thes. 4:17)
And among other aberrations, based on Scripture it also knew nothing of the practice of praying to the departed, and the hyper exaltation of and devotion to Mary above that which is written; (1Cor. 4:6)
The Lord Jesus did indeed establish a church thru faith in the gospel, and by the same faith that one True church continues as the body of Christ, as it alone consists only of believers, and is visible in the variety we seen in the NT, and in which even the church of the Laodiceans was called a church, thus one might even call Rome a church.
For no one organized church is the one true church since it consist of both unregenerate and regenerate souls, and Rome in particular is mostly the latter (i was an active one), and is fundamentally different than the NT church, engaging in progressively deformation .
They simply assert that the words “rock” and “cornerstone” are synonymous, but that is simply not the case.
Wrong, as there is simply no real distinction made.
God is called “Rock”, and since Jesus is the “cornerstone”, it would follow that Jesus is God, but The Watchtower emphatically denies that.
My point as well. This attests to the Deity of Christ .
And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
That this refers to Peter as being the foundational rock of the church and which does not even have close to unanimous support of the "fathers," and even Catholic scholarship evidences to the contrary of and above all, in Scripture
In the text at issue, there is a play on the word "rock" by the Lord, in which the immovable "Rock" upon which Christ would build His church is the confession that Christ was the Son of God, and thus by implication it is Christ himself. The verse at issue, v.18, cannot be divorced from that which preceded it, in which the identity of Jesus Christ is the main subject. In the next verse (17) that is what Jesus refers to in telling blessed Peter that “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,” and in v. 18 that truth is what the “this rock” refers to, with a distinction being made between the person of Peter and this rock. And see here on the “underlying Aramaic” For in contrast to Peter, that the LORD Jesus is the Rock (“petra”) or "stone" (“lithos,” and which denotes a large rock in Mk. 16:4) upon which the church is built is one of the most abundantly confirmed doctrines in the Bible (petra: Rm. 9:33; 1Cor. 10:4; 1Pet. 2:8; cf. Lk. 6:48; 1Cor. 3:11; lithos: Mat. 21:42; Mk.12:10-11; Lk. 20:17-18; Act. 4:11; Rm. 9:33; Eph. 2:20; cf. Dt. 32:4, Is. 28:16) including by Peter himself. (1Pt. 2:4-8) Rome's current catechism attempts to have Peter himself as the rock as well, but also affirms: “On the rock of this faith confessed by St Peter, Christ build his Church,” (pt. 1, sec. 2, cp. 2, para. 424) which understanding some of the ancients concur with.
In reality, while RCAs attempt to appeal Scripture as if it were the basis for doctrine, Scriptural substantiation is not the basis for RCs assurance of Rome being the one true and infallible church, else they would be evangelicals, but it is because they believe Rome is infallible. But in response to those who invoke Scripture, there are arguments such as by Steve Hays (http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/some-questions-for-pete-enns/#comment-51994) on Matthew 16:18: A direct appeal to Mt 16:18 greatly obscures the number of steps that have to be interpolated in order to get us from Peter to the papacy. Let’s jot down just a few of these intervening steps: a) The promise of Mt 16:18 has reference to “Peter.” b) The promise of Mt 16:18 has “exclusive” reference to Peter. c) The promise of Mt 16:18 has reference to a Petrine “office.” e) Peter resided in “Rome” f) Peter was the “bishop” of Rome g) Peter was the “first” bishop of Rome h) There was only “one” bishop at a time i) Peter was not a bishop “anywhere else.” j) Peter “ordained” a successor k) This ceremony “transferred” his official prerogatives to a successor. l) The succession has remained “unbroken” up to the present day. Only Matthew put the demonstrative with Jesus words, which the rock stood for in the following parable (7:24-27). His reusing it in 16:18 points away from Peter to those same words as the foundation of the church…Matthew’s Jesus will build only on the firm bedrock of his law (cf. 5:19-20; 28:19), not on the loose stone Peter. Also, we no longer need to explain away the association of the church’s foundation with Christ rather than Peter in Mt 21:42,” R. Gundry, Matthew (Eerdmans 1994), 334. (b) Is falsified by the power-sharing arrangement in Mt 18:17-18 & Jn 20:23. (c) The conception of a Petrine office is borrowed from Roman bureaucratic categories (officium) and read back into this verse. The original promise is indexed to the person of Peter. There is no textual assertion or implication whatsoever to the effect that the promise is separable from the person of Peter. (d) In 16:18, perpetuity is attributed to the Church, and not to a church office. (e) There is some evidence that Peter paid a visit to Rome (cf. 1 Pet 5:13). There is some evidence that Peter also paid a visit to Corinth (cf. 1 Cor 1:12; 9:5). (f) This commits a category mistake. An Apostle is not a bishop. Apostleship is a vocation, not an office, analogous to the prophetic calling. Or, if you prefer, it’s an extraordinary rather than ordinary office. (g) The original Church of Rome was probably organized by Messianic Jews like Priscilla and Aquilla (cf. Acts 18:2; Rom 16:3). It wasn’t founded by Peter. Rather, it consisted of a number of house-churches (e.g. Rom 16; Hebrews) of Jewish or Gentile membership—or mixed company. (h) NT polity was plural rather than monarchal. The Catholic claim is predicated on a strategic shift from a plurality of bishops (pastors/elders) presiding over a single (local) church—which was the NT model—to a single bishop presiding over a plurality of churches. And even after you go from (i) oligarchic to (ii) monarchal prelacy, you must then continue from monarchal prelacy to (iii) Roman primacy, from Roman primacy to (iv) papal primacy, and from papal primacy to (v) papal infallibility. So step (h) really breaks down into separate steps—none of which enjoys the slightest exegetical support. (j) Peter also presided over the Diocese of Pontus-Bithynia (1 Pet 1:1). And according to tradition, Antioch was also a Petrine See (Apostolic Constitutions 7:46.). (j)-(k) This suffers from at least three objections: i) These assumptions are devoid of exegetical support. There is no internal warrant for the proposition that Peter ordained any successors. ii) Even if he had, there is no exegetical evidence that the imposition of hands is identical with Holy Orders. iii) Even if we went along with that identification, Popes are elected to papal office, they are not ordained to papal office. There is no separate or special sacrament of papal orders as over against priestly orders. If Peter ordained a candidate, that would just make him a pastor (or priest, if you prefer), not a Pope. (l) This cannot be verified. What is more, events like the Great Schism falsify it in practice, if not in principle. These are not petty objections. In order to get from Peter to the modern papacy you have to establish every exegetical and historical link in the chain. To my knowledge, I haven’t said anything here that a contemporary Catholic scholar or theologian would necessarily deny. They would simply fallback on a Newmanesque principle of dogmatic development to justify their position. But other issues aside, this admits that there is no straight-line deduction from Mt 16:18 to the papacy. What we have is, at best, a chain of possible inferences. It only takes one broken link anywhere up or down the line to destroy the argument. Moreover, only the very first link has any apparent hook in Mt 16:18. Except for (v), all the rest depend on tradition and dogma. Their traditional support is thin and equivocal while the dogmatic appeal is self-serving. The prerogatives ascribed to Peter in 16:19 (”binding and loosing” are likewise conferred on the Apostles generally in 18:18. The image of the “keys” (v19a) is used for Peter only, but this is a figure of speech—while the power signified by the keys was already unpacked by the “binding and loosing” language, so that no distinctively Petrine prerogative remains in the original promise. In other words, the “keys” do not refer to a separate prerogative that is distinctive to Peter. That confuses the metaphor with its literal referent.
d) This office is “perpetual”
Lets go back and review each of these twelve separate steps:
(a) V18 may not even refer to Peter. “We can see that ‘Petros’ is not the “petra’ on which Jesus will build his church…In accord with 7:24, which Matthew quotes here, the ‘petra’ consists of Jesus’ teaching, i.e., the law of Christ. ‘This rock’ no longer poses the problem that ‘this’ is ill suits an address to Peter in which he is the rock. For that meaning the text would have read more naturally ‘on you.’ Instead, the demonstrative echoes 7:24; i.e., ‘this rock’ echoes ‘these my words.’
It means that Scripture, tradition and history (and "unanimous') means whatever Rome says they do. As Rome presumes that since God is the author of both her doctrine and Scripture, then there simply can be no conflict since she autocratically defines what a contradiction is.
Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church... it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church. - (Providentissimus Deus; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus_en.html)
Thus forbidding bowing down to graven images and attributing uniquely Divine attributes to created beings, such as the ability to hear from heaven virtually infinite amounts of mental prayer from earth, which only God is shown able to do, and there is not a single prayer among the approx 200 in Scripture to anyone else in Heaven except the Lord, simply cannot be held to contradict such a thing as kneeling before a statue and praising the entity it represented in the unseen world, including as having Divine powers and glory, and making offerings and beseeching such for Heavenly help, directly accessed by mental prayer.
Moses, put down those rocks! I was only engaging in hyper dulia, not adoring her. Can't you tell the difference? 
And thus even though church "fathers" do contradict both each other and Rome , she either must define them as not, or define "unanimous" as being non-unanimous
Thus when faced with challenges, no less than Bellarmine argues,
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine... may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves...The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour." — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228. .
Thus,
The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as definitely true is a guarantee that it is true.” — Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 275.
For history is seen as showing the deviations of Rome from it, which is why Newman had to work at the theory of the Development of Doctrine due to lack of actual unanimous consent ” of the fathers.
Thus Webster states,
At first, this clear lack of patristic consensus led Rome to embrace a new theory in the late nineteenth century to explain its teachings — the theory initiated by John Henry Newman known as the development of doctrine. In light of the historical reality, Newman had come to the conclusion that the Vincentian principle of unanimous consent was unworkable, because, for all practical purposes, it was nonexistent. To quote Newman:
It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. — John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., reprinted 1927), p. 27.
Like Orthodox:
Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith [context] and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development."
Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), Roman Catholic theologians began to define and teach the idea that Christ only gave us an "original deposit" of faith, a "seed," which grew and matured through the centuries. The Holy Spirit, they said, amplified the Christian Faith as the Church moved into new circumstances and acquired other needs....
On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
Rome's traditions such as the Assumption (never recorded or prophesied), prayer to departed saints (not one example in all Scripture, or Divine hearing ability shown by the latter), NT pastors distinctively titled priests (never done so), assured infallibility (never seen or necessary), etc. never made it into Scripture, and the veracity of them do not rest upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation, but upon her own self-proclaimed assured veracity.
In addition, the NT knew nothing of all revolving around the Lord's supper as the source and summit of their faith, and in the only place that it is manifestly mentioned in the life of the church then it is the church which is the focus as the body of Christ that needed to be recognized, by showing the Lord's death toward each other in their sharing of the communal meal. (1Cor. 11:17 ff)
Nor do we see the NT church looking to Peter as the first of a line of exalted infallible popes in Rome reigning autocratically (unhindered power, needing no agreement from the Bishops in speaking "from the chair") over the church, nor even the necessity of promise of a perpetual assured infallible magisterium.
Instead, both writings and men of God were recognized and established as such, and Truth provided and preserved, and faith, long before a church of Rome would presume itself infallible and essential for this.
And truth was established upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, not the premise of the assured veracity of Rome.
And Peter was the street level leader among brethren, and one of those who were manifest pillars, exercising a general pastoral role, yet who could err in leadership, and did not deliver the final verdict in Acts 15.
Meanwhile, nowhere were perpetual apostolic successors promised, unlike under the Law, and only one is seen, even though James was martyred, (Acts 12:1,2) and only one, as this was to maintain the number of the original apostles (Acts 1:15ff; Rv. 2:14)
For even Catholic research provides evidence against the idea of the early papacy:
The Catholic historian Paul Johnson (author of over 40 books and a conservative popular historian), writes in his 1976 work “History of Christianity:”
Eusebius [whose history can be dubious] presents the lists as evidence that orthodoxy had a continuous tradition from the earliest times in all the great Episcopal sees and that all the heretical movements were subsequent aberrations from the mainline of Christianity.
Looking behind the lists, however, a different picture emerges. In Edessa, on the edge of the Syrian desert, the proofs of the early establishment of Christianity were forgeries, almost certainly manufactured under Bishop Kune, the first orthodox Bishop, and actually a contemporary of Eusebius...
Orthodoxy was not established [In Egypt] until the time of Bishop Demetrius, 189-231, who set up a number of other sees and manufactured a genealogical tree for his own bishopric of Alexandria, which traces the foundation through ten mythical predecessors back to Mark, and so to Peter and Jesus...
Even in Antioch, where both Peter and Paul had been active, there seems to have been confusion until the end of the second century. Antioch completely lost their list...When Eusebius’s chief source for his Episcopal lists, Julius Africanus, tried to compile one for Antioch, he found only six names to cover the same period of time as twelve in Rome and ten in Alexandria.
Catholic theologian and Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that “the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,” and cannot concur with those (interacting with Jones) who see little reason to doubt the notion that there was a single bishop in Rome through the middle of the second century:
Hence I stand with the majority of scholars who agree that one does not find evidence in the New Testament to support the theory that the apostles or their coworkers left [just] one person as “bishop” in charge of each local church...
“...the evidence both from the New Testament and from such writings as I Clement, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians and The Shepherd of Hennas favors the view that initially the presbyters in each church, as a college, possessed all the powers needed for effective ministry. This would mean that the apostles handed on what was transmissible of their mandate as an undifferentiated whole, in which the powers that would eventually be seen as episcopal were not yet distinguished from the rest. Hence, the development of the episcopate would have meant the differentiation of ministerial powers that had previously existed in an undifferentiated state and the consequent reservation to the bishop of certain of the powers previously held collegially by the presbyters. — Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,22,24
Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4 :
“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.
That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”
“....that does not mean that the figure and the commission of the Peter of the New Testament did not encompass the possibility, if it is projected into a Church enduring for centuries and concerned in some way to to secure its ties to its apostolic origins and to Jesus himself.
If we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer.” (page 1-2)
• American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar Raymond Brown (twice appointed to Pontifical Biblical Commission):
“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline tyupe of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.)
• Raymond Brown [being criticized here], in “Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections,” could not prove on historical grounds, he said, that Christ instituted the priesthood or episcopacy as such; that those who presided at the Eucharist were really priests; that a separate priesthood began with Christ; that the early Christians looked upon the Eucharist as a sacrifice; that presbyter-bishops are traceable in any way to the Apostles; that Peter in his lifetime would be looked upon as the Bishop of Rome; that bishops were successors of the Apostles, even though Vatican II made the same claim.. (from, "A Wayward Turn in Biblical Theory" by Msr. George A. Kelly can be read on the internet at http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Dossier/Jan-Feb00/Article5.html)