The Trinitarian Resurrection — Who Raised Jesus from the Dead?
The Watchtower teaches that Jehovah alone raised Jesus from the dead,
and that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal active force Jehovah used
to accomplish this. They would say Jesus did not raise himself because
he was dead, and the Father acted on the Son.
This is a compact, memorable trinitarian proof built entirely from the New World Translation itself. Walk your friend through four passages slowly, each using their own Bible. The point is not to debate philosophy but to let the four texts sit beside each other. Keep them on one question: 'Who is the agent — who is doing the raising?' Do not let the conversation drift to how Jesus was raised (body vs spirit); that is a different argument. One question at a time.
First, — 'Paul, an apostle, neither from men nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him up from the dead.' The agent is the Father. Both of you agree on this.
Second, — 'Jesus replied: Tear down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up… He was talking about the temple of his body.' Read it slowly. The verb is 'I will raise it up.' Jesus is the agent. The NWT itself confirms the reference in verse 21: 'he was talking about the temple of his body.' Jesus raised himself.
Third, — 'If the spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you…' The Spirit is named as the agent connected to raising Jesus, and the Spirit 'dwells in you' — impersonal forces do not dwell.
Fourth, — 'But God resurrected him by releasing him from the pangs of death.' God is the agent.
Four passages. Four agents. One event. If the Father raised Jesus, and Jesus raised himself, and the Spirit raised Jesus, and God raised Jesus — and there is only one God — then the Father, the Son, and the Spirit must all share in the one divine identity. This is precisely why Christians talk about one being of God existing eternally as three persons. The resurrection is not three separate events. It is one event carried out by the one God whose identity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Let your friend sit with it. Do not rush to a conclusion. Just ask: 'If these four verses are all true, what do they tell us about who Jesus is and who the Spirit is?'
The New Testament attributes the single historical event of Jesus's resurrection to the Father, to Jesus himself, to the Holy Spirit, and to God. Four passages, four agents, one event. If there is only one God, this is not a contradiction — it is a window into the trinitarian life of God. And every one of the four texts is in the New World Translation unaltered.
Jesus didn't really raise himself — John 2:19 is just figurative. He meant the Father would raise him.
Read the passage in your New World Translation, verse 21 — 'he was talking about the temple of his body.' The text itself tells us what Jesus meant. He is not speaking figuratively about the stone temple; he is speaking about his body, and he uses the first person — 'I will raise it up.' If Jesus meant the Father would do it, that is what he would have said. Instead he puts himself as the subject of the resurrection verb.
The Spirit is Jehovah's active force, not a person. Romans 8:11 just means Jehovah used his force.
Let me read again slowly from your Bible — 'the spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead.' Notice that the Spirit is distinguished from the one raising — 'the spirit of him who raised.' Now compare in the NWT — Jesus was 'made alive in the spirit.' And look at — he was 'declared righteous in spirit.' When the Spirit is the agent of an action, impersonal forces do not 'dwell in' people ( says 'dwells in you'). The Spirit is clearly personal throughout these passages, and the Spirit is connected to the resurrection.
Jehovah did all of it. The Bible just uses different names for him — Father, Son, Spirit — when describing the same act.
If the Father and the Son and the Spirit are just different labels for the same person, who was Jesus praying to in Gethsemane? Who spoke from heaven at his baptism and said 'this is my beloved Son' while Jesus was standing in the Jordan? The Bible clearly distinguishes the three — the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit. They are not interchangeable labels. And yet the resurrection is attributed to all three. The only coherent answer is that the three are distinct persons who share the one divine being — which is exactly what the historic Christian doctrine of the Trinity affirms.
You're just stacking passages to force a conclusion — any one of them could be explained separately.
You are right that each passage could be treated in isolation. But the pattern emerges only when you place them side by side. The Father raises Jesus. Jesus raises himself. The Spirit raises Jesus. God raises Jesus. Four scriptures, all in your New World Translation, all attributing the same historical event to four different agents. If there is one God and one resurrection, there must be some way all four statements are simultaneously true. The trinitarian answer — one being, three persons — holds all four passages together without altering any of them. What other explanation does that?
The apostles never preached that Jesus raised himself. They always say God raised him up. Acts 10:40 says 'God raised this one up on the third day.'
I agree with completely, and so does every Christian. The Father is God, and says the Father raised him. "God raised him" is not a problem for the Trinity at all. The question is what to do with Jesus' own words. Go back to John 2 and read one verse further than we usually do. in your NWT says that when he was raised up from the dead, "his disciples recalled that he used to say this," and "they believed the scripture and what Jesus had spoken." What had he spoken? "I will raise it up." So the apostles did not set aside after the resurrection. The resurrection is what made them believe it. John writes "he was raised up" and "I will raise it up" in the same paragraph and sees no contradiction. Jesus says the same thing in and : he lays down his life so that he may take it up again (your NWT says "receive it again"), and no one takes it from him. Acts tells us God raised him. John tells us Jesus raised himself. Both are apostolic witness, and one does not cancel the other. If the very disciples who preached "God raised him" also believed "I will raise it up", how would you hold both of those together?
Do not get lost in Greek verb analysis — the point is the cumulative pattern, not grammatical fine print. Do not claim the Spirit is 'the same person' as the Father or Son — the Spirit is a distinct person who shares the one divine being. Keep the number of passages manageable — four is memorable, seven is forgettable.
Open your New World Translation and read four passages in this order — , , , . After each one, write down who raised Jesus. Then look at your four answers and ask yourself: if there is one God and one resurrection, how can the resurrection be attributed to four different agents without contradiction?