On their website the Watch Tower Society explains their beginnings: ‘The modern-day organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses began at the end of the 19th century. At that time, a small group of Bible students who lived near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States, began a systematic analysis of the Bible. They compared the doctrines taught by the churches with what the Bible really teaches. They began publishing what they learned in books, newspapers, and the journal that is now called The Watchtower—Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom.’

This was the Bible student Movement that developed in 1870 under the leadership of Charles Russell.

These groups like to present themselves as founders, innovators, trailblazers, but they so often issue from what is happening around them. Restorationism and Adventism were two great movements of the 19th century that produced groups like Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventists among many others. It was out of this spirit of renewal and restoration the Bible Students Association emerged.

It was this association that would become the Jehovah’s Witnesses we know today, adopting the name Jehovah’s Witnesses. Joseph Rutherford, who succeeded Charles Russell, gave them this name, doubling down on being witnesses of Jehovah above everything else. Rutherford made many and significant changes to doctrine, a pattern already established by Russell, and many left the movement as a result. You can read of the changes here.

‘In the Bible Students Association/Watch Tower Society, God’s name has been Jehovah from the beginning.’ The Society explains:

‘Jehovah is the personal name of God, as found in the Bible. (Exodus 6:3;Psalm 83:18) A witness is a person who proclaims views or truths of which he is convinced. ‘Thus, our name Jehovah’s Witnesses designates us as a group of Christians who proclaim the truth about Jehovah, the Creator of all things. (Revelation 4:11) We witness to others by the way we live our lives and by sharing with them what we’ve learned from the Bible.—Isaiah 43:10-12;1 Peter 2:12.’

Jehovah’s Witnesses say they are the only ones calling God Jehovah, that the churches having embarked on a programme of eradicating it. Because of such claims I notice more than most how often the Name is used, in church services, in my reading. I find Christians calling God Jehovah a great deal more than Jehovah’s Witnesses think, though perhaps not as much as would ever satisfy the them; but there is a reason for that.

Calling Jehovah Father

You will be familiar with the apologetic Jehovah’s Witnesses bring to support their claim that God’s name is Jehovah and the primary purpose of Jehovah’s Witnesses is to make the name known. I will briefly review them here.

Going to John 17, Jesus’ High Priestly prayer, they quote, ‘I have made your name manifest to the men whom you have given me out of the world.’ (John 17:6, NWT)

How has Jesus made God’s name manifest?

In Bible times names reflected character and purpose, not passing fashion as it so often does today. Abraham means father of a multitude, David means beloved, Jesus is the Greek form of Yeshua, meaning ‘Yahweh (Jehovah) is salvation.’

The answer to our question is tied up with the relationship God has with his image-bearing creatures. In Christ God’s character is most fully revealed (Hebrews 1:1-3). The Father’s name is in the name of the Son, and the character of Jehovah is most clearly revealed in the Son. As Paul writes of Jesus, ‘For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily.’ (Col.2:9)

They also appeal to Matthew 6, the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.’ (Matthew 6:9, NWT) I have written at length about this flawed apologetic here. What is clear is that Jesus never used ‘Jehovah’ and instructs his disciples to call God ‘Father.’ How are we to understand this? I am drawing on the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (NIDNTT) here.

The ancient world was patriarchal, with the father figure filling the role of head of the household, and the one with absolute authority over his family. Thus he is due the greatest respect. ‘The religious use of the image of a father is one of the basic phenomena of religious history.’ (NIDNTT)

In the secular world, ‘father’ identifies a literal father, the patriarch of a family, and in plural form, forefathers and ancestors generally. It is used figuratively as a title of honour, for a venerable man, city fathers, fathers of a nation, and to indicate spiritual or intellectual fatherhood. It is derived from patēr, indicating lineage, clan identity in the same origin, ancestral patriarchy, which you see in Luke 2:4, where, ‘Joseph went up to Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, which is called Bethlehem, because he was born of the house and lineage of David.’

This is an important point of understanding as we look further into the Fatherhood of God.

‘The description of God as Father refers in the OT only to his relationship with the people of Israel (Deut.32:6; Isa.63:16 twice; Jer.319; Mal.1:6;2:10) or to the king of Israel (2 Sam.7:14; 1 Chr.17:1322:10;28:6)’ (NIDNTT)

This fatherhood is not the mythical fatherhood understood by Israel’s neighbours, nor is it a biological fatherhood, as we understand it today. It is not a natural fatherhood, but a soteriological, based on the idea of election (Ex.4:22).

Calling Jehovah Father

In the New Testament, Jesus uses Father as a description of God 35 times in Matthew, 3 times in Mark, 4 times in Luke, and 100 times in John. Apart from his cry of dereliction on the cross, quoting Psalm 22:1, Jesus always addressed God as Father. In light of what has been said above about the fatherhood of God in the Old Testament, Jesus’ consistent reference to God as ‘my Father’ would be unheard of in that society and considered outrageous, especially given Jesus’ use of the unceremonious Aramaic word ‘abba.’

Three things are noteworthy:

1) Jesus never called God the Father of Israel.

2) He spoke of God as his Father (‘my Father’) and as the Father of the disciples (‘your Father’) but he never joined with them in saying ‘our Father,’ for example in the Lord’s Prayer, which is a prayer for the disciples.

3) ‘Your Father’ is found only in the words of Jesus to his disciples. He did not teach the universal fatherhood of God, i.e. God is not the Father of all men.

The Fatherhood of God is linked in Jesus’ teaching to men’s relationship to Jesus. If Jesus is your Lord and Saviour God is your Father. This is vitally important as we move to our conclusion.

Many pictures are used in the New Testament to describe who we are in Christ. We are the body of Christ (1 Cor.12:27); Earlier in the chapter we are described as a body with many members:

‘For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and all were made to drink of one Spirit.’ (1Cor.12:12,13)

Paul describes us as ‘God’s building’ (1Cor.3:9-11), while Peter describes us as ‘living stones being built up as a spiritual house,’ (1 Peter 2:4,5).

However, we are not literally Christ’s body, we are not a literal building. This is picture language to help us understand what God is doing in and through the church, and our role and place in that.

‘Father,’ however, has a much more literal meaning. Paul in Romans writes:

‘All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and fellow heirs with Christ…’ (Rom.8:14-17)

To Galatia Paul writes:

‘When the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer slaves but a son, and if a son, than an heir through God.’ (Gal.4:4-7)

It is through the redemptive work of Christ, and our faith in that finished work, that we are adopted into God’s family. It is Jesus himself who gives us permission to address God as Father. in Matthew’s gospel, ‘Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven…’ (Mt.6:9)

Essential here is not simply that Jehovah’s Witnesses have it wrong because taught incorrectly by the Watch Tower. What is essential is Jehovah’s Witnesses are being robbed of that closeness to God gained exclusively through Christ, that has true believers as the family of God, addressing him, not as the remote ‘Jehovah’ of the Old Testament, but calling on him intimately as ‘Abba! Father!’