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#19 The Facts on Jehovah's Witnesses
Analysis and Critique: Does God Speak
Only Through the Watchtower Society?
Four Tests Examining This Claim
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TEST FOUR: If the Watchtower Society admits it received much of its teachings
from angels or spirits and those teachings have proven to be false, is such a
source trustworthy?
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19. Has the Watchtower Society ever claimed to receive information from
angels or spirits?
It can be documented that the
Watchtower Society in its early years dabbled in the occult, although the
Society's official position toward occult activity is supposedly in agreement
with the prohibition found in Deuteronomy 18:9-12. Nevertheless, today the
Watchtower Society appears to be unsuspectingly involved in the occult in at
least one manner: It seems to accept demonic guidance and revelations which come
to it in the disguise of angelic or spiritistic contacts.
The Watchtower in the past has claimed "angelic guidance" for
its Bible translators in their writing of Jehovah's Witnesses' doctrine and
practice. Of real supernatural activity has occurred, and the Watchtower's
translation, doctrines, and practices have failed to meet biblical, moral, and
scholarly standards, it hardly seems likely that the supernatural assistance was
from God. Godly angels would never lend help to an organization that denies the
true nature of who God is, deliberately distorts His word, and completely
rejects His Son. But the Bible says fallen angels - demons - would. The Bible
further declares that demons masquerade as "angels of light" while doing so (2nd
Corinthians 11:14-15).
Besides the Watchtower Society's express claim (p. 21) that
"angels" guided its translators in translating the New World Translation
of the Bible, former service department member Bill Cetnar in the Jehovah's
Witnesses headquarters at Brooklyn, New York, found many Watchtower beliefs were
also professed by a spirit-possessed medium the Society was quoting.
Judge Rutherford openly stated that angels helped write the
Watchtower magazine when he said "the Lord through His angel sees to it
that the information is given to His people in due time . . ." F. W. Franz also
spoke of angels guiding the Watchtower. He said, "We believe that the angels of
God are used in directing Jehovah's Witnesses."
Among other things the Watchtower claims that angels
enlighten and comfort, bring refreshing truths, and transmit information to
"God's anointed people." In another statement of its belief that angels guide
the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses, we read in the Watchtower magazine,
"Jehovah's Witnesses today make their declaration of the good news of the
kingdom under angelic direction and support."
In the Watchtower, December 1, 1981 (p. 27), and July
15, 1960 (p. 439), the leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be God's
"channel of communication," actively "channeling" (the use of this common New
Age term is theirs) since the days of Rutherford. In the issue of April 1, 1972
(p. 200), they claim that all spiritual direction is supplied by invisible
angels. In the issues of November 15, 1933 (p. 344), November 1, 1935 (p. 331),
and December 15, 1987 (p. 7), they claim that the name "Jehovah's Witnesses" and
their key doctrine of "Christ's" invisible return in 1914 were channeled by
invisible angels.
Under the second president of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Judge
Rutherford, the Witnesses received most of their basic doctrine. Yet Rutherford
believed that God's "holy spirit" (God's impersonal active force) had ceased to
function as his teacher and had been replaced by angels who taught him in his
mind (the Watchtower, September 1, 1930, p. 263, and February 1, 1935, p.
41; Rutherford, Riches [1936], p. 316).
Today the Society's leaders claim that both "holy spirit" and
"angels" communicate information to them (the Watchtower, March 1, 1972,
p. 155; August 1, 1987, p. 19).
In conclusion, these rather startling admissions from the
Watchtower documenting that it receives information and guidance from "angels"
coupled with the fact of all its false prophecies, biased Bible translation, and
unbiblical teachings lead us to believe it is receiving its information from
lying spirits the Bible identifies as demons, rather than from God.
John Ankerberg & John Weldon
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