God's Glory--Jesus Glory--The Same?--Different?

For this blog it will be beneficial that you use the WT Bible, The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (KIT), which you can download here.

We will start with God’s self-revelation in Isaiah 42:8, “I am Jehovah; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.” Jehovah is condemning idol worship because of something about himself: He does not give his glory to another. This principle stretches throughout the Bible, from the fall of Satan to the death of Herod in Acts 12 when “an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory.” The great angel of Revelation 22:8-9 affirmed the same law when he warned John not to fall in obeisance to him, but to worship God alone.

The principle is clear: God does not share his glory. The gap between the Creator God and everything else is massive, and anyone who tries to raise himself across that gap, whether angel of heaven or king of the earth, is guilty of blasphemy. "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Hebrews 10:31)

When Herod was struck down and when the angel of Revelation cried out against being worshipped, nobody was saying they were exactly equal in glory to God. They were just being honored in a way which only God deserves.

Now to the KIT and Revelation 4:11, "You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God to receive the GLORY and the HONOR and the POWER, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created."

Just 12 verses later at Revelation 5:12-13 we read this, "the Lamb that was slaughtered is worthy to receive the POWER and riches and wisdom and strength and HONOR and GLORY and blessing. And every creature that is in heaven and on earth and underneath the earth and on the sea, and all the things in them, I heard saying: "To the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing and the HONOR and the GLORY and might forever and ever,"

Clearly, the Bible teaches that God and Jesus share the same GLORY and HONOR and since God does share his glory with another, Jesus must be God. At this point JW's will pull out their Trump Card: Jehovah is Almighty God, Jesus is just a mighty God. See my blog on this topic here.

Why does this matter? The WT's understanding of Jesus causes them to embrace the high GLORY which Scripture heaps upon him while keeping him wholly separate and distinct from God the Father. The more they adhere to the high biblical view of Jesus, the more they will find him sharing the Father’s GLORY. But the more they diminish Jesus’ GLORY, the less their language about him will match that of Scripture. In short: They have the wrong Jesus. See my blog that compares the WT Jesus with the Jesus of the Bible here.

What I have in this blog is just the "tip of the iceberg" on this subject. The definitive work on this topic can be found here (Bjorkbloggen.com ).