Following my previous post about my conversation with the "Jehovah's Witnesses" on the resurrection of Christ, I want to tell you about how the conversation ended.
I asked them what the Watchtower Society was. The senior Witness quite aggressively said to me, "Why do you want to know?" I wasn't expecting such a reaction and told him so. He went on to say that he thought it was very disrespectful of me to make these insinuations and ask these questions, and if I had an opinion I should just give it! I said I just wanted to know why he held the beliefs he held, so he told me that the Watchtower Society was merely a publishing organisation. I asked him was it God's prophet, and he told me again it was a publishing company, so I asked him could it ever be wrong in what it teaches, and he said it wasn't infallible. When I asked him had it ever been wrong in the past he shrugged and said it's not infallible.
I decided then I would go for broke, and I asked him if the false prophecies of the Watchtower Society bothered him. He refused to engage on the subject. His reaction betrayed the fact that this is a very touchy subject and very shaky ground for the JW because they implicitly accept all that the Watchtower Society teaches without, yet time and time and time and time (etc.) again the Watchtower Society has been wrong - it is not worthy of trust.
My final question was this, "Do you have any assurance that your sins are forgiven and that you are saved?" He initially said, "Of course!" but then he changed it to a "No" because he said that salvation depends on our works, obedience and endurance. He asked me if I had the assurance that I was saved. I was delighted to tell him that I did, because Ephesians 2 v 8-9 teaches "By grace you have been saved through faith..." I told him there was a time in my life when I recognised my own guilt and helplessness, and realised that Christ bore the punishment for my sins at Calvary (1Peter 2 v 24), I trusted Him to save me, and now have a relationship with God that will never be severed, and peace with God that will never be shattered. I challenged him to tell me if he had that; he admitted he didn't, and didn't think anyone could. I told him, and I tell you, Christ disagrees! He says it is possible to have this peace - e.g. John 6 v 37, 47; 10 v 9, 28.
I'll write more about this exchange soon, and look at the objections they raised and the verses they brought up.
