---
title: Acts 17:31
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-17-31/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-17-31.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Acts 17:31
testament: NT
section: Acts
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Acts 17:31

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

## JW Usage

JWs affirm Acts 17:31 — Jehovah has appointed Jesus as the judge of the inhabited earth and guaranteed that appointment by resurrecting him from the dead. The verse is read compatibly with the JW framework: Jehovah's chosen agent executing Jehovah's judgment.

## Protestant Usage

Two observations worth lingering over. First, Acts 17:31 locates eschatological judgment in the hands of a *raised man* — "a man whom he has appointed." The resurrection did not de-gender or de-humanise Jesus; he remained identifiably a man. Pair with Acts 1:11, where the angels tell the disciples at the ascension "this same Jesus" will return in the same way they saw him go. Pair with John 20:16, where Mary recognises the risen Christ as "Rabboni." The resurrected body is transformed (1 Corinthians 15) but the person is preserved. This matters when JWs appeal to Galatians 3:28 to neutralise the literal "male" of Revelation 14:4 — if resurrection dissolved gender, it would also have dissolved humanity, ethnicity, and personal identity. It evidently did not. Second, the verse grounds judgment in the historical resurrection rather than a private organisational claim. The guarantee is public, evidential, and Christ-centred — not institutional.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Galatians 3:28 Is About Who Can Be Saved, Not What You Become in Heaven](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/galatians3-28-jew-gentile-unity.md) — Galatians 3:26–29 — Equal Access, Not Cosmic Dissolution of Gender [Salvation]