To Witnesses: To Make Much Of Christ

I have, in my discussions with TJ, come to have a better grasp of the bottom line: Jehovah's Witnesses say that Jesus Christ is unworthy of worship because they believe he is of merely limited worth. I cannot refrain from addressing this.

First, I want encourage Witnesses to just relax a little bit. It seems to me that they have set themselves on a quest for which there is really very little cause. They don't need to keep wearing themselves out going door to door and spreading the good news of Christ’s inferiority, reminding Christians that they ought not to worship Christ or telling them that they ought to restrain themselves from esteeming him so excessively. If they would just take a look around they would note that Christ is not really in all that much danger of even being discussed in most churches, let alone of being esteemed too highly. Yet these crusaders insist on pressing forward with this noble task.

How have the Witnesses come upon such pious revelation, anyway? How have they discovered that Christ is of merely limited value? It is, they say, because Christ is not the Father; he is begotten of the Father. And how can one who is begotten of the Father, and who is not the Father himself, be worthy of infinite love, honor, and devotion? But of course, this is foolishness. Far from being any indication of Christ’s limited worth, the fact that Christ is begotten of the Father is proof that his worth could not possibly be limited. And why is that? Because in begetting the Son, it pleases the Father that all the fullness of his divinity should dwell in him (Col 1:19; 2:9). That is, all the fullness— not some of his fullness, not all of a portion, all of his fullness.

Really, then, the Witnesses’ error is rooted in their inadequate esteem for the Father's divinity. Is the Father’s worth in any way limited? Of course not. How then can that infinite worth be limited just because he has caused it to dwell in his Son whom he has begotten? It cannot. In effect, then, to limit the worth of the Son is to limit the worth of the limitless Father who is pleased to have his limitless fullness dwell in his Son, and that without any limit whatsoever. This, of course, is why we are told to honor the Son, even as we honor the Father and why we are told that if we do not honor the Son we do not honor the Father (John 5:22-23).

But the Witnesses, perhaps, are wiser than God, and more concerned for his glory than he is himself. But God is not jealous of any worth we should recognize in Christ. Why should he be? It is his own worth. It is his own fullness dwelling in Christ. It his own divinity which he has fully begotten in him. The more men love and honor Christ, the more glory the Father receives. It is unreasonable, then, to think that the Father would want Christ's praise to be limited or his esteem to be restrained.

Ponder, furthermore, the arrogance involved in believing that one even has the capacity to overvalue Christ. How can we love him too much whose love for his people exceeds our ability to understand it (Eph 3:19)? How can we give too much to him by whom, through whom, and unto whom all things were created and in whom all things consist (Col 1:16-17)? And how can we give ourselves too fully to him who wholly gave himself up for us (Gal 2:20)? We are not able to honor Christ according to a fraction of his worth. To persuade men to hold back any portion of their love, esteem, and devotion from Christ is more than just academically mistaken. It is blasphemously immoral. I sincerely pray that God would have mercy on the souls of those laboring so hard to lead men so far astray.