I have a co-worker who is a Jehovah Witness. He states they believe that Jesus is the archangel Michael. He questioned that if Jesus was God, why did he pray to himself. And he also referenced that when the disciples asked when he would come again, he said only the Father knows the time and hour of his return. Could you help me in showing him, with scriptural evidence, that Jesus was God with us?
Remember that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in the Trinity, so they have to find some other identity for Jesus. But John said that Jesus was God in John 1:1. Paul said so in Colossians 1:15-20, and the writer of Hebrews agreed in Hebr. 1:3. Jesus claimed to be God in John 10:30, and God Himself called Jesus God in Hebrews 1:8.
When Jesus agreed to become a man to save mankind, He “put off” His godliness and became fully man, dependent on the Father and on the Holy Spirit, just as you and I are. While on Earth He prayed just like He taught us to pray, “knew” only those things that man could know and performed only those works man can perform (John 14:12).
In the first verse of Revelation we learn that all things were revealed to Him after He arrived in Heaven to take His place at the right hand of God, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion (ranks of angels) and every title that can be given, whether in this age or the next (Ephes. 1:21). He is as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is to theirs. (Hebr. 1:4)
To deny the deity of Jesus is to deny what’s been revealed about Him through God’s Word.