---
title: Acts 22:16
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-22-16/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/acts-22-16.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Acts 22:16
testament: NT
section: Acts
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Acts 22:16

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on His name.’

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "wash your sins away by your calling upon his name"
- NWT (2013 revision): "wash your sins away by your calling on his name"

## JW Usage

Paul's account of his Damascus baptism — washing his sins away by calling on the Lord's name — is treated in JW publications as continuous with the Acts pattern of baptism in association with Jesus' name. The verse is rarely surfaced in Watchtower argumentation because, as the agent verified against jw.org, the NWT keeps "his name" here and does not insert "Jehovah" — a point that fits awkwardly beside the Watchtower's claim that "Jehovah" should appear 237 times elsewhere in the NT.

## Protestant Usage

Ananias tells Paul to "rise, get baptised, and wash your sins away by calling on his name." The pronoun refers to Jesus — Paul has just had the Damascus-road encounter with the risen Christ, and Ananias has named Jesus to him in the preceding context (Acts 9:17). The verse shows the apostolic pattern: forgiveness, baptism, and calling on the name — and the name is Jesus'. There is no NT command anywhere that the form "Jehovah" must be used for true worship. Calling on Jesus' name is the apostolic shape of Christian invocation.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders the verse "wash your sins away by your calling on his name" without inserting "Jehovah" — even though the wider Watchtower argument is that "his name" in contexts like this should be restored as the divine name. The selectivity matters: the NWT inserts "Jehovah" 237 times into the NT where Greek manuscripts uniformly read kyrios, but declines to do so in passages where the pronoun-referent is unmistakably Jesus. The pattern across Acts 2:38, 4:18, 9:14, and this verse is consistent — when inserting "Jehovah" would identify Jesus as the saving name, the NWT keeps the natural christological reading. The selectivity reveals what the practice is and is not for.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [No New Testament Command to Use 'Jehovah'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/jehovah-name-no-NT-mandate.md) — The NT's only command about the saving name redirects it to Jesus [Deity of Christ]