Hello readers! My thanks goes out first to Fred for his comment. I have one caveat I wish to throw out about my arguments. I do believe they’re good arguments or else I wouldn’t advance them. However, use caution with JWs not because the arguments are bad, but because you can’t assume the JWs will listen to argumentation. I prefer using a slow and steady method with JWs and slowly raising up questions. I don’t advocate it too much, but I think there is something to friendship evangelism when dealing with the cults.
For tonight, we’re going to be wrapping up our study of Romans and looking mainly at Romans 16:27, but we will start at verse 25. I also urge the reader to go through Romans 15 and see how many Trinitarian passages there are in the sense of a passage that speaks of God, Jesus, and the Spirit. For now, let’s get to our text:
25Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him— 27to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.
Some of you might be wondering what this has to do with the Trinity. The answer is in the title. We know from texts of Scripture such as Malachi 3:6 that God doesn’t change. That means that God has never been without his wisdom. He has been eternally wise.
I have earlier advocated the view that when we hear about the wisdom of God in Proverbs 8, that we are actually hearing about Jesus. Jesus is God’s Wisdom. The great joy of using this passage is that this is ironically ones Jehovah’s Witnesses will use when they want to speak of Jesus being created.
However, let us consider the implications of what this would mean. If Jesus is God’s Wisdom, which we will agree to, (And let’s suppose you don’t agree with my interpretation. If the JW uses this argument on you, you can still use this to deal with them.) then if Jesus came into being at a point in time, that would mean that God’s wisdom came into being at a point in time.
If that happened, then that would mean God has not been eternally wise. He created wisdom and then he took on the wisdom that he created somehow. Thus, we have a God who is temporal and a God who changes, but not only that, which is problematic enough in itself, we have a God who was foolish at one time in that he created wisdom and then gave it to himself. (Not to mention how can an unwise being call into being wisdom?)
Is that the case then? Was God foolish before he created wisdom? How could anyone think such a thing? However, if wisdom is a created thing in a temporal sense and there was a time when Jesus was not and Jesus is God’s Wisdom, then it follows that there was a time when God’s Wisdom was not.
Thus, when you meet with the JWs and they bring up this passage, ask them about it. Do they really think God was foolish at one point? It would be best to get them to agree that this is Jesus first if they use that and then when they want to deny that God was never foolish, that he has always been as verse 27 says, “the only wise God”, then you can say “So you think God’s Wisdom is eternal?” They will have to say yes. At this point you will say “But isn’t Jesus God’s Wisdom?” They’ve already said yes. Finally, you give the logical conclusion.
And if you don’t know what that conclusion is, then I guess you’ll need to read tomorrow’s blog.
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