Isaiah 45:21
Isaiah 45:2121Speak up and present your case— yes, let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago? Who announced it from ancient times? Was it not I, the LORD? There is no other God but Me, a righteous God and Savior; there is none but Me.
A cornerstone verse for the Watchtower's monotheism, and rightly treasured. Jehovah alone is the righteous God and Saviour, and there is none besides him. JWs use it to rule out any claim that Jesus is God, and to insist that Jesus saves only as the means Jehovah employs — the channel, not the source.
Take the exclusivity seriously; it is the argument. Jehovah is not merely the greatest Saviour among several. He says there is none besides him — the category has exactly one member. Now open in the same NWT: "the glorious manifestation of the great God and of our Saviour, Jesus Christ." And : there is no salvation in anyone else, no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. If salvation belongs to Jehovah alone and to no other, and the apostles say there is no other name but Jesus', then either the New Testament has handed a creature the one thing Isaiah says cannot be shared, or the two names belong to one God. This works best cumulatively rather than as a single strike. Walk through the titles Jehovah reserves for himself and then find each one applied to Jesus — only Saviour here and at , the Rock at , the First and the Last at , every knee bowing at . After three or four the pattern becomes hard to explain any other way. Compare , , .