22, 23. (a) What failure on their part did Jehovah call to their attention? (b) What were some of the charges laid against them, and what would they have to face?

²² Before this they had not appreciated so fully and clearly that he was their God. With regard to this fact they had been spiritually blind and deaf, like Christendom, which worships what it calls a “triune God,” a trinity of three coequal, coeternal persons all said to be contained in one God. Their slowness to see and hear was to a large extent due to the influence of Christendom, with which they had so long been associated and which had oppressed them and held them captive. They had failed to act as the “servant of Jehovah.” In the preceding chapter of Isaiah (Isa 42:18-25) Jehovah had called attention to this and to the painful consequences of it, saying to them:

²³ “Hear, you deaf ones; and look forth to see, you blind ones. Who is blind, if not my servant, and who is deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as the one rewarded, or blind as the servant of Jehovah? It was a case of seeing many things, but you did not keep watching. It was a case of opening the ears, but you did not keep listening. Jehovah himself for the sake of his righteousness has taken a delight in that he should magnify the law and make it majestic. But it is a people plundered and pillaged, all of them being trapped in the holes, and in the houses of detention they have been kept hidden. They have come to be for plunder without a deliverer, for pillage without anyone to say: ‘Bring back!’ Who among you people will give ear to this? Who will pay attention and listen for later times? Who has given Jacob for mere pillage, and Israel to the plunderers? Is it not Jehovah, the One against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they did not want to walk and to whose law they did not listen? So [Jehovah] kept pouring out upon [Jacob] rage, his anger, and the strength of war. And it kept consuming [Jacob] all around, but he took no note; and it kept blazing up against him, but he would lay nothing to heart.”

THE CALL FOR WITNESSES

24. (a) How might some view the plundering of Jehovah’s people? (b) What, then, was necessary?

²⁴ Due to letting his people be plundered and pillaged because of their failing to see and to hear and to obey their God, Jehovah allowed it to appear that their God was no God at all, or was a weakling God and so the gods of their persecutors, plunderers and pillagers were stronger than Jehovah. Now the time had come to reverse the wrong impression that had been allowed to grow. The time had now come for the dispute over the true Godship to be settled and every false god to be silenced. Let a judicial court be held! Let witnesses be called, and let all the universe attend the hearing, particularly all the nations of earth! Rather than call for a unification of all the gods and for a combining of their worship in one all-inclusive religion, Jehovah challenges all those who are worshiped as gods by the nations, to prove themselves gods.

25, 26. What did Jehovah then do for his people, and how did he speak of this prophetically?

²⁵ That his dedicated people may serve as his representatives in this universal court, Jehovah opens up their eyes and their ears in a spiritual way by having them brought forth from their captivity in the Babylonish religious organization in the year 1919, in which year they held the epoch-making first general convention of the international Christian Bible students after World War I. Having now his own free representatives, Jehovah God calls for all the nations of earth to appear in court. His once blind and deaf people must face all the worldly nations on the controversy of Godship.

²⁶ Prophetically issuing the order for the calling of this court together in this twentieth century, Jehovah went on to say by means of his prophet Isaiah of twenty-seven hundred years ago: “Bring forth a people blind though eyes themselves exist, and the ones deaf though they have ears. Let the nations all be collected together at one place, and let national groups be gathered together. Who is there among them that can tell this? Or can they cause us to hear even the first things? Let them furnish their witnesses, that they may be declared righteous, or let them hear and say, ‘It is the truth!’”—Isa. 43:8, 9.

Part Two

1. To whom are the challenging words of Jehovah addressed?

WHOM does Jehovah mean when he says concerning all the nations and national groups: “Who is there among them that can tell this? Or can they cause us to hear even the first things? Let them furnish their witnesses, that they may be declared righteous”? By those challenging words Jehovah means the gods of all those nations and national groups. These gods are the ones that are called upon to furnish witnesses who by their testimony can prove that their gods are gods of prophecy and are righteous gods, the right gods to be worshiped, gods who can clear themselves of the charge of being false gods. Let such gods plead their case in court against Jehovah.

2. While there has been plenty of time for Jehovah’s words to be proved true, what pointed questions are asked of all other gods, including Christendom’s trinitarian god?

² Jehovah’s written Word, the Holy Bible, was completed by the end of the first century C.E. In the more than eighteen centuries since then there has been plenty of time for Jehovah’s prophecies written in his Word over his own name to be fulfilled. But what about the gods of all the worldly nations, including the trinitarian god of Christendom? Was there or is there among all the nations of this world any god that “can tell this,” that is, tell what Jehovah has told in his written Word? Or can those gods of the nations “cause us to hear even the first things,” that is, things in advance? Did those gods make predictions in the past that later on came true in the past? Did those gods make predictions concerning the present time of perplexity? Do the events and conditions of the world since A.D. 1914 prove that those gods spoke the truth and that they are truthful gods of prophecy who have the power to make their prophecy come true?

3. What are these gods called on to do?

³ Let these gods bring forth their witnesses from all the many nations whose total population today numbers over three thousand millions. Surely among so many people the gods should find the required two or three witnesses to prove them to be true gods. Let these witnesses hear what their gods have to say in their sacred religious books in order that such witnesses may point to and say regarding the prophecy of their gods: ‘“It is the truth!” Our gods have proved true!’

4, 5. (a) How many of the gods of the nations are able to produce witnesses to their godship? (b) What does Jehovah now say?

⁴ Where, though, in the midst of the world trouble do those gods have witnesses who are thus testifying, “It is the truth!” concerning their gods? Which of those gods has foretold for any length of time in advance this present anguish of nations with perplexity and then provided an explanation of it and foretold its outcome? Not one of those gods can furnish the required number of witnesses to this effect! Not one of such gods can be declared righteous by proofs submitted by witnesses on earth. But there is one God who has done these things by which to prove his Godship. To his representatives in court he now speaks:

⁵ “‘You are my witnesses,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘even my servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know and have faith in me, and that you may understand that I am the same One. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there continued to be none. I—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior. I myself have told forth and have saved and have caused it to be heard, when there was among you no strange god. So you are my witnesses,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and I am God.’”—Isa. 43:10-12.

6. Who are these serving the true God as his witnesses and how are they made witnesses?

⁶ Plain common sense has to agree in all honesty that persons who thus serve in this spiritual court trial are Jehovah’s witnesses. A person does not prove that he is one of Jehovah’s witnesses by just adopting the name and advertising himself as such. Back in the year 1931 dedicated Christian Bible students, being gathered together in international assembly in Columbus, Ohio, embraced that name by formal resolution, after which Christian congregations around the earth adopted that same resolution in order to be publicly identified by that designation. Today there are upward of 22,761 congregations in 194 lands who are known as Jehovah’s witnesses. Their adopting the resolution concerning the name did not in itself make them his witnesses. It is Jehovah himself who makes his own witnesses and they have to meet his conditions before he chooses them.

7. How is proof given that one is a witness of the true God?

⁷ Witnesses have to be wholly dedicated to Jehovah God through Jesus Christ as the Mediator of the new covenant, that they may become members of spiritual Israel. This puts them under the obligation to be Jehovah’s witnesses, because his name is called upon them and they bear his name. However, they must prove that they actually are such by bearing witness to his name, in this way proving their faith by their works. Did any persons of our day make such a proof prior to the year 1931?

8, 9. (a) What may those in doubt about this do? (b) Why is the charge that Jehovah’s witnesses have arbitrarily interpreted Isaiah 43:10 and applied it to themselves a false one?

⁸ Let any person in doubt examine the history of Jehovah’s witnesses from the year 1919, and particularly from 1926, down to July 26, 1931, when this designation was embraced, and he will find that these dedicated, baptized Christians met Jehovah’s requirements for being His witnesses. In a book entitled “Religion in the Soviet Union,” the well-known journalist and writer on political affairs, Walter Kolarz, tells on pages 338-344 about the campaign of Communist Russia to destroy Jehovah’s witnesses, but he opens up saying:

The name ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ has been in use since 1931. The members of the sect trace it back to various arbitrarily interpreted Bible passages, especially to Isaiah (43.10) ‘Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen. . . .’ This is changed into ‘Ye are my witnesses, says Jehovah.’ Jesus himself was ‘Jehovah’s Chief Witness’. Until 1931 members of the sect were known by various other names such as ‘Bible Students’ or ‘Russellites’ . . .

⁹ However, in this regard Jehovah’s witnesses are not guilty of what Kolarz calls “various arbitrarily interpreted Bible passages,” and they did not change the expression “the Lord” into the name “Jehovah.” They merely used such modern translations as the American Standard Version, Robert Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, and so forth, instead of the antiquated three-hundred-year-old Authorized or King James Version of the Bible published away back in 1611. Such modern translations do not mistranslate God’s name.

WITNESSES FOR MESSIAH

10. For whom else are genuine Christians to act as witnesses?

¹⁰ It is true that genuine Christians, such as Jehovah’s witnesses of today are, must be witnesses of Jesus Christ. Just before ascending to heaven Jesus said to his disciples: “You are to be witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48), and, “You will be witnesses of me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the most distant part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) And in the last book of the Bible it speaks of the true Christians as those “who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.” (Rev. 12:17; 1:9; 19:10; 20:4) So, even since 1931, Jehovah’s witnesses have continued to bear witness to Jesus, and this they do because they “observe the commandments of God.”

11, 12. (a) Why must Jehovah’s witnesses testify in behalf of both Jehovah and Jesus? (b) With what was Jesus anointed, and by whom?

¹¹ However, in the last book of the Bible, its writer the apostle John says concerning himself as a Christian: “John, who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Rev. 1:1, 2, American Standard Version) A true Christian has to bear witness of both God and of his Christ or Messiah. Let no one forget or hide the fact that the title Christ or Messiah means “Anointed One.” For there to be an anointed one there has to be an anointer or anointing one. So, in order to bear full witness concerning Jesus Christ, we also have to bear witness to the One who anointed Jesus and made him the Christ or Messiah. We have to bear witness to the Anointer as well as the Anointed One. Well, then who anointed Jesus, and with what—oil, or what? Jesus himself tells us who anointed him. When, in the Jewish synagogue, the book of Isaiah was handed to him, he turned to chapter sixty-one, verses one and two, and read them in the Hebrew, as follows:

¹² “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me . . . ; to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor.” (Isa. 61:1, 2, AS) After reading those words in the Hebrew text, in which the Hebrew name of God occurs (יהוה), he opened up his sermon to the Jews, saying: “To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke 4:16-21, AS) Thus Jesus publicly said that the Lord Jehovah had anointed him with holy spirit. Jesus on earth did not anoint himself with holy spirit from heaven. Three and a half years later he baptized his disciples with holy spirit from heaven, but Jesus did not baptize himself with spirit. The Lord Jehovah did that; and Jesus said that the Lord Jehovah was the One who sent him to preach and to “proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor.” So Jesus and Jehovah are not the same individual. Jehovah is the Sender; Jesus is the Sent One. Jehovah is the Anointer; Jesus is the Anointed One or Messiah.

13. Of whom was Jesus a witness, and what proof did he give of this?

¹³ Jesus was all the time bearing witness of his Anointer, who is the Lord Jehovah. Jesus was born under the obligation to be a witness of Jehovah, for, by the Jewish virgin girl Mary, Jesus was born into the very nation to whom God by his prophet Isaiah said: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen.” (Isa. 43:10, AS) On trial for his life before the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, Jesus said: “To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into