Isaiah 43:10

"Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen . . ."

Problem:

J.W.'s interpret this prophecy in a spiritual sense to apply to the Watchtower organization. In a convention of J.W.'s at Columbus, Ohio, 1931, a resolution was proposed and passed in which the following was stated:

". . . to make known to the people that Jehovah is the true and almighty God; therefore we joyfully embrace and take the name which the mouth of the Lord God has named, and we desire to be known as and called by the name, to wit, 'Jehovah's witnesses'. - Isa. 43:10-12; 62:2; Rev. 12:17."1

Solution:

1. The witnesses of this passage cannot be the self-styled "Jehovah's Witnesses" for the following reasons:
   1. The witnesses of this passage are ransomed by the price of Egypt, Ethiopia and Seba. (vs. 3). J.W.'s claim to be ransomed by the body of Christ.
   2. The witnesses of this passage are condemned: "Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! . . . But you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities." (Isa. 43:22,24, R.S.V.). When have J.W.'s merited this description?
   3. The witnesses of this passage are condemned for not bringing sheep for sacrifice or honouring God in their sacrifices. (vs. 23). This verse cannot apply to J.W.'s since they have never offered animal sacrifices.
      
2. The witnesses of this passage are unwilling witnesses. They witness to the truth of God's prophetic Word (Isa. 41:22,23) in their persecution, scattering and regathering. (Deut. 28; Lev. 26; Jer. 32:37). But the J.W.'s claim that one who is not a willing witness is "not with the organization".2
   
3. Similarly the "new name" of Isa. 62 is "Hephzibah" (Isa. 62:4) and not "Jehovah's witnesses". It is the name of a city - Jerusalem (vs. 7), not an organization.
   
4. The following is a useful piece of information to be found in the writing of John Thomas in Elpis Israel:

   "The pre-adventual colonization of Palestine will be on purely political principles; and the Jewish colonists will return thither in unbelief of the Messiahship of Jesus, and of the truth as it is in him."

   "I know not whether the men who at present contrive the foreign policy of Britain, entertain the idea of assuming the sovereignty of the Holy Land, and of promoting its colonization by the Jews; their present intentions, however, are of no importance one way or the other; because they will be compelled, by events soon to happen, to do what, under existing, circumstances, heaven and earth combined could not move them to attempt."3

   The fact that this was written 100 years before the establishment of the State of Israel, indicates the part Israel has played in God's divine challenge in Isa. 41:22-23. The "spiritualizations" of the J.W.'s nullify the position of the real witnesses in this challenge. Surely one can hardly use language too strong in condemnation of this Scripture whittling practise.

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Footnotes:

1. Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose, (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of N.Y., 1959), pp. 125-126.
   
2. Let God Be True, (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1946), p. 237.
   
3. John Thomas, Elpis Israel, (London: Maran-atha Press, 1858), pp. 395- 396. (pp. 441, 442 - 1958 ed.) - The first edition was printed 1848-1849

Ron Abel