John 5:26
John 5:2626For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.
The word "granted" carries the weight in the Watchtower reading. If the Son was given life in himself, then there was a point at which he did not have it, and what he has is derived. The verse is offered as confirmation that Jesus depends on the Father for his very existence — the same point JWs draw from and from "the Father is greater than I."
Look at what is granted rather than at the granting. The Father does not grant the Son life. He grants the Son to have life in himself — and that phrase is the whole point, because having life in yourself is precisely what creatures never have. Every created thing holds life the way a room holds borrowed light: from outside, moment by moment, dependent. To have life in oneself is the mark of the uncreated. So the verse says the Son possesses, as the Father possesses, exactly the attribute that separates God from everything else. On "granted": Trinitarian theology has always spoken of the Son as eternally from the Father — begotten, not made. The Father is the source within the Godhead, and the Son receives everything the Father is, eternally and without beginning. That is a different claim from being created at a point in time, and this verse fits it exactly: what is received is not life but self-existent life, which cannot be received at a moment because it has no moments. Pair it with — "in him was life." Compare , .