This is what Jehovah says, your Repurchaser, the Holy One of Israel: “I, Jehovah, am your God, The One teaching you to benefit yourself, The One guiding you in the way you should walk. If only you would pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
Isaiah 48:17-18 NWT
Brother Schafer said that these verses from Isaiah teach us that imperfect human beings can have a righteous standing before God. He claimed that the peace that righteousness brings is achieved by obedience to Jehovah’s commandments.
What he fails to mention is that these verses were given to the people of Israel and should be, at least in the way Jehovah’s Witnesses understand things, considered ‘old’ light. One cannot address the issue of how a person is made right with God, without considering the ‘new’ light found the Christian Greek Scriptures (New Testament). Because Schafer sticks with the ‘old’ he teaches that righteousness, and the resulting peace, can only be attained through our own effort.
OXYMORONS
An oxymoron is… a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction.[1]
Some of my favourite oxymorons are Military Intelligence, Microsoft Works, and Family Holiday! I mention oxymorons because I find this idea of self-contradictory words/statements often at play in the cults, and they don’t even realise it.
This is what Brother Schafer does as he teaches about pursuing peace. He asked the question: ‘Do you recall the very first time the word ‘righteous’ is used in the Bible?’
Taking his hearers to Genesis chapter 6, he pointed out that Noah found favour in the eyes of Jehovah because he proved himself faultless amongst his contemporaries. Indeed Genesis 7:1 NWT says:
‘After that Jehovah said to Noah: “Go into the ark, you and all your household, because you are the one I have found to be righteous before me among this generation.’
Noah was certainly obedient in building the Ark, and God did declare him righteous, but here are my questions to Brother Schafer. Did Noah continue to be seen as righteous by Jehovah after the flood? What about when Noah was drunk and lay uncovered in his tent? (Genesis 9:21) Is being declared righteous something one can slip in and out of, so that I am righteous when I’m obedient but not righteous when I’m disobedient?
This is a serious question because Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to believe this. I recently spoke to a JW lady at their cart, and she told me that obedience to Jehovah is needed to be saved. She told me that a person who smokes is not being obedient to Jehovah, so cannot be a Jehovah’s Witness and so cannot be saved.
But here is where the oxymoron comes into play, because Schafer now moves onto the next appearance of the word ‘righteous’ in the Bible, Genesis 15:6 NWT:
And he put faith in Jehovah, and He counted it to him as righteousness.
This of course is speaking about Abraham. Schafer acknowledges the verse and claims to believe what it says yet goes on to contradict what it teaches. He is, at this point, being clearly ambiguous, because though the Bible says we are made righteous by faith, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that it is faith + works.
This is how the verse reads in a few other translations:
And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (ESV)
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (NIV)
And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. (NKJV)
Then he believed in the Lord; and He credited it to him as righteousness. (NASB)
Now you may feel I am finding something that is not there, or I am being a little neurotic, but I want to point out something that I believe the Jehovah’s Witness will see in the verse, that we probably wouldn’t.
All the other versions I have quoted say that Abraham ‘believed in the Lord’ but the New World Translation says: ‘he put faith in Jehovah’.
The Jehovah’s Witness will read this as Abraham’s faith and works (obedience to Jehovah) resulted in him being declared righteous.
Now of course we believe that the fruit of righteousness is works, but root righteousness is faith. In other words, we are not declared righteous because of anything we do, but rather we are declared righteous because of what we believe.
Abraham believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:6 (ESV)
Interestingly, Brother Schafer fails to mention that the Apostle Paul has something to say about Abraham to his fellow Jews in the New Testament. Using Genesis 15:6 as his base he tells them:
‘What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness…’
Romans 4:1-5 ESV
Paul is very clear in his communication to his fellow Jews. They, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, believe they must keep the commandments to be made righteous with God, but Paul says there is no real peace to be found in pursuing this course of action. Elsewhere he says:
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
(Galatians 3:10-11)
Brother Schafer’s talk was entitled: The Result of True Righteousness will be Peace, yet Jehovah’s Witnesses know nothing of true righteousness. They reject God’s righteousness, which can only be found by faith in the true Jesus, and seek to establish their own.[2] Therefore they are still lost in their sin and in need of salvation. As they are now back on their carts and soon to be back on our doors, let’s share with them the true gospel of peace.
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