He is Eternal and therefore He is God Two Oppositions

[Mary Naeem]

Pope Shenouda III




If Christ is the First then He was not created because there was none before Him to create Him. And if He was not created then He is Eternal and therefore He is God. Two Oppositions

After we had published the previous proof in the Sunday School magazine of July 1953, Jehovah's Witnesses, to disprove it, published two attempts in Watchtower magazine of November 1953:

(1) They claimed that He who will come is God the Father! This is in reply to Revelation chapter 1, verse 8. (2) They claimed that what is written about Christ being the First and the Last is said regarding limited matters only, namely, His death and resurrection.

We wrote a detailed rebuttal of the previous two points in the Sunday School magazine of January 1954, the summary of which follows:
(a) Undoubtedly, He who will come is the Lord Jesus Christ. He will come to judge and reward each one according to his deeds (see next proof). The last verse of the Book of Revelation says: "'Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev. 22:20). And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself said to the high priest: "Hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven", and said about the signs of the end of the age that "all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels" (Matt. 24:30,3 1).
If Jehovah's Witnesses say that He who will come is Jehovah and it is proved from the Holy Bible that He who will come is Christ, therefore they are presenting us with a new proof that Christ is God. In order to escape this awkward position Jehovah's Witnesses said in the same issue of Watchtower magazine: "Jehovah will come taking the form of Jesus Christ." Are they, by saying this, confessing that God was Incarnate and became Man?
(b) We refuted their claim that the expression 'the First and the Last' only refers to the Lord's death and resurrection, by saying:
(i) Regarding death, Christ was not the first nor was He the last of those who died. Millions died before and after Him.
(ii) Regarding resurrection, although Christ is truly the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep who rose with a glorified body, yet He is not the last, because all people will rise from the dead, both the righteous and the wicked (Jn. 5:28,29).

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