Vast Differences in Prophetic Understanding

One of the major differences between the teachings of The Restored Church of God and the Seventh-day Adventists is our belief that the Millennium will occur on earth—1,000 years of peace and abundance under the rule of Jesus Christ and His resurrected saints.

The SDAs, however, teach that the saints who have previously died will be resurrected and taken to heaven. They believe that during the following 1,000 years, only Satan and his demons will be living on the earth, and that the planet will be desolate. Then, at the end of the Millennium, the second resurrection will occur, and the righteous will return to earth and establish the New Jerusalem.

The portrayal of the Millennium as a time of desolation amounts to a gross distortion of what the scriptures plainly reveal. In contrast to the SDA position, we read of this time in Revelation 20:6: “Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”

Revelation 5:10 tells us where these saints will reign: “And has made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”

Only on earth could we find such conditions as the following: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for THE EARTH shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:6-9; see also Isa 35:1-2 and Amos 9:13-14).

There are also vast doctrinal differences in other areas, such as the observance of God’s annual Holy Days (which picture His overall Plan of Salvation) instead of the world’s pagan holidays.

Beginning of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Movement

Shortly after the Seventh-day Adventist movement began around 1860, the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) movement started. This organization was started in Pennsylvania by Charles Taze Russell, and was established as a religious society of ministers. “The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society was incorporated in 1884 with Russell as president…The Society’s magazine, Watchtower, was first published in 1879.”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses Society adopted their name from Isaiah 43:12 as found in the American Standard Version of the Bible: “…You are My witnesses says Jehovah [Heb. “YHWH”] and I am God” (World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 11). The TANAKH (the Jewish Publication Society translation of the scriptures according to the traditional Hebrew text) renders this same passage as “…So you are My witnesses declares the LORD and I am God.” The King James Version (KJV) also uses the term “LORD” in this verse.

From the KJV, Exodus 6:2-3 reads: “And God spoke unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by My name JEHOVAH was I not known unto them. In Exo 6:2, YHWH is translated as “LORD”; yet, in Exo 6:3, the same word is translated as “Jehovah.” According to Strong's Concordance, the original terms in Exo 6:2-3 come from YHWH (Strong’s #3068).

The word “Jehovah” is also found in Psalms 83:18, Isaiah 12:2 and 26:4 of the KJV. Each of these is likewise a mistranslation of YHWH. The TANAKH and other versions based on the original Hebrew properly render the terms as “LORD” (instead of “Jehovah”).

The true pronunciation of the Hebrew word YHWH has been lost. This happened because the Hebrew language uses consonants and semi-consonants, but not vowels. Moses was inspired to write this name for the Creator with the four Hebrew letters YHWH, which means “Self-Existent One” or “Eternal.” This Hebrew word, which the Israelites originally knew how to pronounce, comes from another Hebrew word—HWH, an old form of the root HYH, which means “to be” or “to become.”

If the term “Jehovah” did not originate from the Hebrew Scriptures, then from where did it originate? The Jewish Encyclopedia offers valuable insight on this subject: “‘Jehovah’ is generally held to have been the invention of Pope Leo X’s Confessor, Peter Galatin… who was followed in the use of this hybrid form by Fagius…But it seems that even before Galatin, the name ‘Jehovah’ had been in common use…It is found in Raymond Martin’s ‘Pugio Fidei,’ written in 1270” (Jewish Encyclopedia, article “Jehovah,” Vol. VII, p.88). From all indications, the word “Jehovah” came to the modern world through the Catholic Church.

A Crucial Doctrinal Difference

The doctrine mostly unique to this group is their belief that Christ is a created spirit being. This contradicts John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” This describes the Godhead consisting of two Beings, yet both called God. This is why, upon creating the first man, God (Hebrew: Elohim) said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness…” (Gen. 1:26).

One of these Beings, called “the Word,” later became Jesus Christ (John 1:14). Christ was the YHWH (“LORD”) of the Old Testament (I Cor. 10:1-4), who created all things (John 1:3; Eph. 3:9;Col. 1:16-17). The other God-Being, called “the Father,” was unknown to mankind, and had to be revealed by Jesus Christ (Matt. 11:27). Yet, the Jehovah’s Witnesses think that there is only one God-Being, whom they call “Jehovah,” and that Christ was created, as were angels.

There is one God (I Tim. 2:5), but there are two Beings who share the name “God.” Elohim is a uniplural term, like the word “family”—one family, but consisting of many members. “God” is a family name!

Although Jesus Christ is subordinate to the Father (John 14:28), the Bible clearly reveals that He is on the God-plane and is the second member of the God Family. (To learn much more about the true nature of God and man’s future role in the God Family, read our books The AWESOME POTENTIAL of Man and The TRINITY – Is God three-in-one?)

Though the Jehovah’s Witnesses consider Christ as equal to and even synonymous with the archangel Michael, the following scripture proves that Christ is a far greater being than any of the angels: “God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, You are My Son, this day have I begotten You? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son? And again, when He brings in the first begotten into the world, He said, And let all the angels of God worship Him. And of the angels He said, who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son He said, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom” (Heb. 1:1-8).

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