1 Corinthians 10:4
1 Corinthians 10:44and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
JWs accept that Paul identifies the wilderness rock with Christ in but interpret this as the pre-human Jesus — the archangel Michael — serving as Jehovah's agent. The rock symbolises Jehovah's provision channelled through a created intermediary, not evidence that Christ is himself divine. The holy spirit that worked in the OT period is understood as Jehovah's impersonal active force, not the spirit of Christ as a distinct divine person.
Paul identifies the rock that accompanied Israel in the wilderness as Christ himself: "the rock was Christ" (). In the OT narratives the rock is inseparable from YHWH's own presence — has God say "I will stand before you on the rock," and calls YHWH himself "the Rock." Paul is not saying Christ was a passive channel; he is identifying Christ with the divine presence that sustained Israel. This complements , where the "spirit of Christ" is said to have been active in the OT prophets — further evidence of pre-existence as a divine person, not merely a created intermediary. The NWT restructures the genitive in to weaken the possessive link, but is harder to deflect: "the rock was Christ" is a direct identification. anchors the same claim from a different angle: the Word was with God and was God "in the beginning."
Two objections deserve an answer. First, "it's only a type": the "examples" of verses 6 and 11 are the events of Israel's history, written "for a warning to us," not Christ as a symbol. Second, "Paul borrowed the rabbinic legend of a travelling well": even if Paul knew that tradition, he corrects it, naming Christ as what truly went with Israel. The chapter is steeped in the Song of Moses (10:20 echoes ; 10:22 echoes 32:21), where "the Rock" is Jehovah himself (, 15, 18). Since Witnesses already accept that Jesus existed before his human life, the force of this verse lies in identity, not presence.
The Greek reads hē petra de ēn ho Christos, "and the rock was Christ." The NWT renders the verb "meant" ("that rock meant the Christ"), which shifts Paul's identification toward symbolism. The same form, ēn, is rendered "was" in ("the Word was with God").