The Bible teaches there is one God, the Father, and one Messiah and Lord, Jesus Christ, who is the divinely conceived Son of God. Jesus Christ is the fully human “Son of God” and not “God the Son.” For clarity’s sake, it's helpful to understand what the Trinity is. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and the three of them are co-equal, co-eternal, and share the same essence and together those three individual “Persons” are one triune God. The doctrine of the Trinity that Jesus is both 100% God and 100% man and that both the divine nature and his human nature live together in his flesh body may be widely believed, but is never stated in the Bible.
Something that is openly admitted by theologians that is not known by many Christians is that the doctrine of the Trinity is not stated in the Bible, but is actually “built” by piecing together statements that are said to support it. Since most Christians believe the Trinity is a mystery and not to be understood is a huge reason why doctrinal discussions about it are often avoided or brushed aside and ignored. Worse, the teaching that the Trinity is a “mystery” has been used as a club to beat down doubters and dissenters, and those people are often branded as “heretics” and their role in Christianity minimized.
The word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, and that is supporting evidence that the doctrine is unbiblical, which may be why Trinitarians differ, sometimes greatly in their definitions of the Trinity. The Eastern Orthodox Church differs from the Western Church on the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. Trinitarians who hold to the “classic” definition of the Trinity say Jesus was 100% God and 100% man while on the earth believe differently from Kenotic Trinitarians who believe Jesus set aside his godhood while he was a man on the earth. Oneness Pentecostals say the classic formula of the Trinity is completely wrong, and yet all these claim that Christ is God and that the Bible supports their position.
A study of the history of the Christian Church shows a definite development in the doctrine of the Trinity over the centuries. For example, the early form of the Apostles Creed (believed to date back to shortly after the time of the apostles themselves) does not mention the Trinity or the dual nature of Christ. The Nicene Creed that was written in 325 AD and modified later added the material about Jesus Christ being “eternally begotten” and the "true God” and about the Holy Spirit being “Lord.” But it was the Athanasian Creed that was most likely composed in the latter part of the 4th century or possibly even as early as the 5th century that was the first creed to explicitly state the doctrine of the Trinity.
It seems it would have been clearly stated in the Bible and in the earliest Christian creeds if the doctrine of the Trinity was genuine and central to Christian belief and especially if belief in it was necessary for salvation as many Trinitarians teach. God gave the Scriptures to the Jewish people, and the Jewish religion and worship that comes from that revelation does not contain any reference to or teachings about a triune God. Surely the Jewish people were qualified to read and understand it, but they never saw the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather just the opposite as all throughout their history they fiercely defended the fact that there was only one God. Jesus himself tied the greatest commandment in the Law together with there being only one God when an expert in Old Testament law asked him which of the commandments was the most important. Jesus said to him “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God….” (Mark 12:29-30).
The pronouns in the Bible that refer to “God” are singular and there are lots of them. “The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament contain well over twenty thousand pronouns and verbs describing the One God” (Anthony Buzzard and Charles Hunting, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity’s Self-inflicted Wound, International Scholars Publications, New York, 1998, p. 17). Singular pronouns include “I” “my” and “he.” We would expect it to say “For God so loved the world that they gave the Father’s only begotten Son….” if “God” were composed of three co-equal beings who each had their own mind and together agreed to send Christ. The fact that the pronouns in the Bible refer to “God” as a singular being is also evidence that there is no Trinity.
The Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah foretold that he would be a human being who would be the offspring of Eve (Genesis 3:15); a descendant of Abraham (Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18); a descendant of Judah (Genesis 49:10; a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15); a son of David (2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 11:1); a king ruling under Yahweh (Psalm 110:1); and a ruler from among the people of Israel (Jeremiah 30:21). That explains why the people were all expecting a human Messiah. Psalm 110:1 merits special attention because it's especially clear but has been misunderstood and misrepresented by most English versions that read “The LORD says to my Lord….” The word “LORD” is Yahweh, but many Trinitarian commentators argue that “my Lord” in this verse is the Hebrew word "adonai" that is another name for God, and that would provide proof of the divinity of the Messiah. But the Hebrew text does not use "adonai" but rather "adoni" which is always used in Scripture to describe human masters and lords, but never God.
The Old Testament refers to the Messiah as “one like a son of man” and the phrase “son of man” was a Semitic idiom for a human being and it's used that way throughout the Old Testament. The phrase “son of man” also became a title of the Messiah when Daniel referred to him as “one like a son of man” (Daniel 7:13) and that explains why Jesus called himself “the son of man” many times. The use of the “son of man” in reference to the Messiah is one more piece of evidence that Jesus was fully human and one more reason that people were expecting the Messiah to be human. The New Testament teaches Jesus was a man and Jesus himself said he was “a man who has told you the truth” John 8:40. Jesus was not being disingenuous and hiding his “divine nature” but rather was making a factual statement that reinforced what the Jews were expecting of the Messiah—that he would be a fully human man.
The apostles also taught Jesus was a man and we see this when the Apostle Peter spoke in his sermon to the crowds gathered on the Day of Pentecost making a very clear declaration that Jesus was a man approved of God: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you…” (Acts 2:22). Here Peter clearly taught that Jesus was a man and that God did miracles “by him.” Paul also taught Jesus was a man and we can see that when he was in Athens teaching a crowd of unsaved Gentiles about Jesus Christ and said that God would judge the world “by the man whom He has appointed” (Acts 17:31). Paul never said or implied that Jesus was anything but a “man.”
There are a number of other New Testament verses that state Jesus was a man and we can see them in places like Romans that says a man (Adam) caused sin to enter into the world, and also that a man would have to redeem it from sin. Romans 5:15 says “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” The Bible specifically says that a man must do it. The book of Corinthians makes the same point Romans does when it says “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:21).
1 Timothy 2:5 says that it's the man Jesus, who was the mediator between God and men. “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” This verse calls Jesus Christ a “man” even after his resurrection. Trinitarian doctrine tries to explain the verses that say Jesus was a man by saying that he was a man, but he was also 100% God at the same time. But there are problems with that such as there is no single verse that says Jesus was both God and man and that's why the God-man doctrine is built from many verses.
Furthermore, scholars admit that there are only about eight verses in the entire New Testament that can be understood to say that Jesus is God, and every one of them can either be translated in a way that supports the Biblical Unitarian position, or disputed textually, or can be explained from the use of the word “God” in the culture. In contrast, the clear verses where Jesus is said to be a “man” such as when Peter or Paul taught their audiences that Jesus was a man appointed by God are not disputed and in the context there does not seem to be any good reason those men would not have said Jesus was a God-man if in fact that is what he is.
Actually, the book of Hebrews seems to clear up the subject when it says that when Jesus was on the earth that he was made like us in every way: “Therefore he [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God” (Hebrews 2:17). This verse shows that Jesus was not both fully human and fully God at the same time and if he was then he would not be like us in every respect. Adam, the first man was fully human and by his sin brought sin into the world. Jesus is called the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45) and it seems that designation would not be appropriate if Jesus was not fully human in the same way that Adam was.
Adam is called a “type” of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:14). The word translated as “type” in many English versions is the translation of the Greek word tupos (τύπος) which can be defined as “a type, pattern, model, or example of something else.” Although the KJV translates tupos as “figure” most of the more modern versions say “pattern” (NIV), “prototype” (HCSB), or “type” (ESV, NAB, NASB). Adam was a type, prototype, or pattern of Christ because he was fully human and began without a sin nature—and Jesus was the same: fully human and made without a sin nature. The reason no other human male after Adam could be a “type” of Christ is that we are all born with a sin nature. Adam could not be a “type” of Christ if Jesus was 100% man and 100% God because Adam did not have a “God-nature.”
The Bible says in many verses that there is only one God and “God” does not have a God. We read in Isaiah 44:6 “…there is no God besides me” and Ephesians 4:6 says there is “one God and Father of all, who is over all.” Jesus has a God in contrast to “God” who alone is God and does not have a God. Jesus spoke about his God after the resurrection to Mary Magdalene, saying “…I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God” (John 20:17). Jesus still called God “my God” after his ascension into heaven when he was standing at the right hand of God.
There are also verses in the New Testament that clearly speak of “God” being the “God” of Jesus Christ. Romans 15:6 says “...you can, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 1:3, Ephesians 1:3, and 1 Peter 1:3 all say “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So the “one God and Father” (Ephesians 4:6) is the God of Jesus Christ. The “one God” of the Bible never says He has a God because He is God, the Father, the Creator, “the Most High God” and He has no equals. Jesus is not “God” because he's a man, the last Adam, the created Son of God, and the God of Jesus is God the Father.
In John 5:44 Jesus called the Father “the only God” and The New American Standard Bible goes so far as to translate it as “the one and only God.” The straightforward reading of this verse is that Jesus did not think of himself as God. Jesus prayed to God on the night he was arrested that people would “know you, the only true God” (John 17:3). It seems disingenuous or at least confusing that Jesus would refer to his Father as “the only true God” if he knew that both he and “the Holy Spirit” were also “Persons” in a triune God and that the Father shared His position as “God” with them. It seems much more likely that Jesus spoke the simple truth when he called his Father “the only true God."
Colossians 1:15 calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.” Scholars disagree on what this phrase means, but that is primarily because the doctrine of the Trinity obscures its simple meaning. Trinitarian doctrine states that Jesus is “eternal” but if that is true then he cannot be the firstborn “of all creation” because that would make him part of the creation. But the simple reading of Colossians 1:15 seems clear: Jesus is a created being. The BDAG Greek-English lexicon [entry under “creation”] explains the Greek word translated “creation” as “that which is created… of individual things or beings created, creature.” Not only was Jesus a created being, but he's also called the “firstborn” from the dead because he was the first one in God’s creation who was raised from the dead to everlasting life—a point that is also made in Colossians 1:18.
God is eternal and was not born. In contrast to the eternal God, Christ is “begotten” that is born meaning Jesus Christ had a beginning. Jesus is never called “God the Son” in the Bible, but he's called the “Son of God” more than 50 times, and a “son” has a beginning. The very fact that Jesus is the “Son of God” shows he had a beginning. Trinitarian doctrine denies this and invents the phrase “eternally begotten" but “eternally begotten” is not in the Bible, but was invented to help explain the Trinity and is actually a nonsensical phrase because the words are placed together but they cancel each other out. “Eternal” means without beginning or end and something that is “begotten” by definition has a beginning.
We cannot approach the Bible with wisdom and “reason together” if we must invent and use non-biblical phrases to support our theology. The Bible calls Jesus the “Son” of God for the simple reason that he had a beginning. Jesus had been part of God’s plan since the foundation of the world, but he began his actual life when God “fathered” him and Mary conceived him in her womb. There are many verses where Jesus and God are portrayed as two separate beings and there are too many examples to list, but just to mention a few we can look at when Jesus told the rich young ruler that he was not good, but “God” was good. Also Jesus grew in favor with “God” and with men, and he told his disciples “Believe in God; believe also in me."
I find it interesting that the Church Epistles were authored by both God and Christ and we see this in 1 Corinthians 1:3 that says “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” There's a lot of Scripture that shows Jesus to be separate and distinct from “God” which is what the people of the time believed and expected. The Trinitarian explanation of these verses is that Jesus is God and so “God” means “the Father” when Jesus speaks of himself and “God.” But the Bible never says that. It's only because Trinitarian doctrine asserts that Jesus is God that the assumption is made that “God” means “the Father” when Jesus and God appear together.
Jesus prayed to God “not my will, but yours, be done” because Jesus and God have separate wills (Luke 22:42; John 5:30). They would have one will if Jesus and the Father are the same “one God.” Trinitarian doctrine claims that Luke is referring to the human will of Jesus, and not his divine will, but that is problematic because the Bible never says anything like that or even hints that Jesus had two wills in conflict with each other inside him allowing one to be human and the other to be divine.
The Bible says Jesus is an “heir” of God (Hebrew 1:2), and a “joint-heir” with us (Romans 8:17). But if Christ is a co-eternal “Person” in the “Godhead” then he cannot be an heir “of God” because being God would put him into a position to be a full owner of everything and that would mean there would be nothing he could “inherit” which is why Jesus cannot be God and an heir of God at the same time. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the “image of God” Colossians 1:15; 2 Corinthians 4:4). If Christ is the image of God, then he cannot be God because a person cannot be himself and an image of himself at the same time. Jesus can be called the “image” of God because he always did the will of God, and because he was the image of God is why he could say you had seen the Father if you had seen him.
Ephesians 4:4-6 says there is one God and one Lord and one spirit. This verse teaches exactly what the Jews expected based on the Old Testament and what Jesus, Peter, Paul, and others taught: that there was one God, one Lord, and one spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 8:6 says “for us there is one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” This simple and straightforward language elucidates that the Father is God and the Son is “Lord” making a clear differentiation between the two.
Jesus said: “…the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). In contrast, the orthodox formula of the Trinity says the Father and the Son are “co-equal.” God is greater than Christ, just as Christ is greater than we are. 1 Corinthians 3:23 says “And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” When the Bible says “you are Christ’s” it's saying “you belong to Christ” and many English versions say exactly that (i.e., CJB; HCSB; NASB; NET; NJB; NLT). So the verse is saying “and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God” (NASB). It seems apparent that Jesus cannot be God and belong to God at the same time.
The Bible teaches that God is the “head” of Christ. “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3). The Trinitarian explanation of this verse is that God was the head of Christ only while he was on the earth, but the Bible never says that. In fact, the Bible shows us the opposite: God is still the head of Christ and directing him even after he ascended into heaven. God can be seen to be greater than the Messiah in Psalm 2 when God’s Messiah is called “his anointed” and God says “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill." The Messiah is not being shown to be a co-equal ruler with God, but God’s under-ruler. God says He fathered the Messiah: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you." It's clear the Messiah was begotten at a specific time in history and that means he's not “eternally begotten” even if commentators argue about which day “today” refers to.
Peter’s teaching to the Jews on the Day of Pentecost says “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36). God must have greater authority than Jesus in order to make him the "Lord." Christ would have already been the “Lord” if he was God—in which case God would not need to “make” him the "Lord." It's also taught that Jesus must be God because he's called the “Lord.” The Greek word for Lord is kurios and is a masculine title of respect and nobility, which is why we see many others besides God and Jesus being called the “Lord."
The Bible says the Son will be subject to the Father even in the future “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him [God] who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). The teaching that the two of them are “co-equal” must be wrong if Jesus is subject to the Father even in the eternal future. John 10:36 says “do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, You are blaspheming, because I said, I am the Son of God?” The fact that Jesus was consecrated, or as it's translated in other versions as “sanctified” by God shows he's not God because God does not need to be sanctified. Philippians 2:6 says that Christ “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” The point of the verse is that Jesus Christ was highly exalted by God because he was humble and did not seek equality with God. Jesus would never have needed to seek equality with God in the first place because it would have been inherent in him if he was God.
We read in John 5:19 “the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.” Jesus repeated that in several different ways. “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge… because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30). “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me” (John 7:16). “I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me” (John 8:28). “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49). Jesus would not have needed to be directed by his Father if he was God, and co-equal and co-eternal with the Father.
The Old Testament referred to the Messiah as the servant of God, and we see this in Isaiah 52-53, which speaks of the suffering and death of the Messiah when referring to the Messiah as God’s “servant.” They called King David God’s “servant” when the disciples prayed to God in Acts 4:25 and later in that same prayer they called Jesus “your holy servant” (Acts 4:30) CSB; ESV; NAB; NASB; NET; NIV; NJB). They equated the Messiah as a servant of God just like David was rather than referring to Jesus as if he was God himself. There are many verses indicating that the power and authority Jesus had was given to him by the Father. Jesus Christ would have always had those things that the Scripture says he was “given” if he was the eternal God. Christ was:
These verses and others like them make no sense if Christ is “co-equal” with the Father because taken at face value they show Jesus is a man approved of God. A rich young ruler came to Christ and called him a “Good Teacher” (Luke 18:18). Jesus replied with “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Luke 18:19). Why did Jesus not compliment this young ruler for calling him “good” if Jesus was telling people he was God? Instead Jesus gave the man a mild rebuke and said that no one was good except “God” and this is evidence that Jesus was not teaching that he was God. Jesus was very quick to make the distinction between himself and God, and in doing so affirmed what this Jewish man would have already believed, which was that there is one God, and Jesus was certainly not that one God.
Luke 2:52 says Jesus grew in favor with God. But if Jesus were God and part of the Trinity then he could not grow in favor with himself or the Father or the Holy Spirit. Jesus could only grow in favor with God if he himself were not God because the mutual love and blessing among the members of the Trinity would have been eternal and unchanging. When it comes to assigning positions of authority in the coming Kingdom of Christ, Jesus said those who will sit next to him as people with authority “is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father” (Matthew 20:23). Those positions of authority would be his to give if Jesus were God and co-equal with the Father.
And right here I think it's interesting to note that the popularity of the phrase “Deity of Christ” never appears in the Bible, nor is Christ ever called the “Deity” in the Scriptures. Colossians 2:9 says "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." This verse is stating that God placed all His fullness in Christ, which is quite different from saying that Christ is himself God. In Colossians 1:19 we read “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” That is true, but the fact that Christ has “all the fullness” of God does not make him God. Ephesians 3:19 says that Christians should be filled with “all the fullness of God” and that does not mean Christians will somehow become God.
God is all wise, but Jesus grew in wisdom. The Bible says “And Jesus increased in wisdom” (Luke 2:52). Jesus “learned obedience” (Hebrews 5:8). God does not need to learn. Trinitarians assert that it was the human part of Jesus that grew and learned, but there is not a single verse that makes that distinction. Jesus also had limited knowledge, whereas God does not. In the book of Mark we read “But concerning that day or that hour [when the Son returns] no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” And then there's Scripture teaching it was fitting that “God” should make Jesus “perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). God is, and has always been “perfect” but Jesus needed to attain perfection through his suffering.
Jesus needed the gift of the holy spirit and he received it at his baptism of John and had it upon him when he started his ministry. He would not need the "holy spirit" if he was God, which is the very nature of God. God placed the gift of His holy spirit on the leaders and prophets of the Old Testament so that they would have spiritual power and be able to hear from Him via the spirit upon them. The Old Testament prophecies indicated that God would put His spirit upon His Messiah, showing that he was not fully equipped without it. Jesus needed the gift of the holy spirit to be spiritually powerful just as the other prophets did. Acts 10:38 says “Jesus, the one from Nazareth—how God anointed him with holy spirit and with power, and he went around doing good, and healing all those who were being oppressed by the Devil, for God was with him."
Jesus was “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrew 4:15), and yet the Bible is clear that God cannot be tempted: “for God cannot be tempted with evil” (James 1:13). Angels ministered to and strengthened Jesus at times of weakness or difficulty and we see this in Luke 22:43 that says “And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him” [in the garden of Gethsemane]. Humans need to be strengthened, but God does not need to be strengthened by angels or by anyone or anything. Scripture says very plainly that Jesus died. God cannot die. Romans 1:23 and other verses say that God is immortal. Orthodox Christian doctrine teaches only the human side of Jesus died, but that assertion is based on assumptions because there's no verse of Scripture that says anything like “only the human side of the nature of Jesus died.”
Hebrews 2:10-11 teaches that we are “brothers” of Jesus and “sons of God” and Jesus is never ashamed to call us such. Hebrews is making a distinction between God and Jesus that is very important and that we lose if we think Jesus is God. We would be “brothers of God” if that were the case, but we clearly are not that. A Trinitarian explanation is that we are brothers of the man part of Jesus, but that is adding to the text. The Bible nowhere says or implies anything like that. In John 14:12, Jesus told his disciples that “whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.” If Jesus was God, then his statement would be a commission for us to do greater works than God—which is not possible. Jesus would have had to have the attributes of God if he was God, and most theologians agree that some of God’s attributes are unoriginated, self-existent, immortal, all wise, all good, all-powerful and omnipresent. But Jesus had none of those attributes.
John 4:24 says God is Spirit and yet Jesus said about himself that he was not a spirit, but flesh and bone even after his resurrection. Jesus said when he appeared to his apostles “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). That Jesus is still flesh and bone today is exactly what we would expect if Jesus is a “man approved of God.” Part of the great hope that we Christians have is that in the future Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). So in the future we will have bodies that are like the body that Jesus has, which would hardly seem appropriate if Jesus is God in the flesh.
Jesus never taught the Trinity even when he had good opportunities to do so, and we see this when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42) and told her he was the Messiah, but nothing more. Jesus did not take the opportunity to teach the Trinity when he asked the Apostles who they thought he was, and Peter said that Jesus was the Christ (Matthew 16:17-20). Also he said he was the Messiah, but did not say a word about the Trinity when he healed the man who had been born blind (John 9:35-38). Trinitarians also commonly say that Jesus claimed to be God, and for that reason the Jews hated him and tried to kill him, but that is not the case because Jesus had been stating in various ways that he was the Messiah, and that is what the Jews were upset about. The Jews all throughout their history made a clear distinction between “God” and the “Messiah” and they did not think the Messiah was going to be God or a “Person” in a triune God.
The Jews would not have considered Jesus a threat, but insane if he had walked around saying he was God. But it was a threat for Jesus to claim to be the Messiah of God and also walk around doing miracles. Jesus had not been claiming to be God in the flesh and this is why the Jews never asked him at his trial if he was God in the flesh, but instead they asked him about what he had been claiming to be, which was the Messiah. Mark 14:61-62 records the High Priest asking “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said "I am.” The High Priest tore his garments and said he deserved to be put to death when Jesus stated he was the Messiah. So we see that the Jews correctly assessed that Jesus had been claiming to be the Christ, and that Jesus indeed said he was the Christ, and also that the Jews thought his claim was worthy of the death penalty.
It's sometimes said the miracles Jesus did proved he was God, but almost every miracle that Jesus did on the earth was done in some form by earlier prophets or by the apostles. Miracles that include healing the sick, raising the dead, multiplying food, and even walking on water. In fact, the Old Testament prophets did some amazing miracles that Jesus did not do such as splitting an ocean apart, stopping a river, making the sun stop in the sky, and calling down fire from heaven. God was the one who worked the miracles through the prophets and He also worked them through Jesus (Acts 2:22).
The supposed “dual nature” of Christ is never stated in the Bible and contradicts the Bible and the laws of nature that God set up. Nothing can be 100% of two different things. Jesus cannot be 100% God and 100% man, and that is not a “mystery” but it's a contradiction and a talk of nonsense. A fatal flaw in the “dual nature” theory is that both natures in Jesus would have had to have known about each other. The Jesus God nature would have known about his human nature, and (according to what the Trinitarians teach) his human nature knew he was God, which explains why Trinitarians say Jesus taught that he was God. The book of Hebrews is wrong when it says Jesus was “made like his brothers in every respect” if Jesus knew he was God (Hebrews 2:17). Jesus was not made like other humans in every way if Jesus was 100% God and 100% human at the same time. In fact, he would have been very different from other humans in many respects.
For example, in his God nature he would not have been tempted by anything (James 1:13), and his human part would not have been tempted either since his human nature had access to that same knowledge and assurance. It is written he was tempted in every way like we all are (Hebrews 4:15). Furthermore, God does not have the problems, uncertainty, and anxieties that humans do, and Jesus would not have had those either if he knew he was God. Also, Luke 2:52 says Jesus grew in wisdom, but his human part would have had access to his God part, which would have given him infinite and inherent wisdom. Hebrews says Jesus “learned obedience” by the things that he suffered, but again, the human part of Jesus would have accessed the God part of him and he would not have needed to learn anything.
Kenotic Trinitarians claim that Jesus put off or limited His God nature, but that theology only developed to try to reconcile some of the verses about what Christ experienced on the earth. The idea that God can limit what He knows or experiences as God is not taught or explained in Scripture, and Kenotic Trinitarianism has been rejected by orthodox Trinitarians for exactly that reason. The very simple way to explain the “difficult verses” that Kenotic Trinitarians are trying to explain about Christ’s human experiences is to realize that Jesus was a fully human being, and not both God and man at the same time. Some assert we have to take the Trinity “by faith” but that is not biblical either.
It's important to know who they really are in order to fully love and worship God and Jesus. God, the Father, is the Creator of the universe, the Author of the plan of Salvation, the Father of Jesus Christ, and our One God, and removing Him from that exalted position and having Him share His position as “God” with two other “Persons” diminishes who He really is and what He alone has done. Making Jesus into God actually diminishes who he was, and who he is today, and what he accomplished and is still doing. It demeans Jesus because his courage, mental tenacity, love, great faith, and his true greatness is lost if he is made to be God.
Believing Jesus is God also demonstrates disbelief in his own words when he made statements such as “my father is greater than I” and when he prayed to the Father as “the only true God.” The Father has the unique and singular position as God, and should receive all the worship, credit, respect and awe that He deserves as the One True God. Jesus Christ has the unique and singular position to receive all the worship, credit, respect and awe that he deserves as the man approved of God—the only-begotten Son of the Father.
Here's some notes and additional data concerning the Trinity
I have noticed we graduate from all the other subjects be it accounting, mechanics or dentistry. We study the books and complete the course that brings us to the required accomplished task which is the ability to know how to do something. We study a map to learn how to get someplace. Thus, our study ends with us able to get from point A to point B, fix a tooth, balance the financial numbers or build the car. How come we spend our entire lives studying the Bible and yet nobody seems to graduate?
What I believe I have been able to graduate from is the following verse...
1 Corinthians 1:9
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
This cannot be achieved if we do not know the attributes and characteristics of the resurrected Christ Jesus.
Much of the Roman Catholic doctrine was assimilated into Protestantism and is still being passed along as Christian groups continue to split off from one another. In a nutshell that is why even the independent church in your neighborhood today most probably believes that there is a trinity, dead people are alive, God is in control of everything that happens, the Four Gospels are written to Christians, and water baptism is relevant. And then there's everything that you know about our sin nature was taught to you by them.
I cannot find one single biblical verse that clearly teaches that we should believe or confess that Jesus is God. Nor has there ever been a teaching on it anywhere in the Bible. A teaching... a whole paragraph or chapter. The Jews never saw it anywhere in the entire Old Testament nor anyone in the New Testament ever taught it. Trinitarians piece together statements that are scattered all over the Bible. They basically use bits and pieces of words and half verses along with their own human reasoning, imagination, speculation and assumptions as they pick one verse here, and another verse there, a hint here, and a clue there, and then they construct their "own God" which is the product of their own human thinking. This is why they cannot present one single biblical verse that clearly teaches that we should believe or confess that Jesus is God.
I never cared for the Catholic doctrine or the philosophy of its protestant sisters.
There's no verse in the Bible that says we should believe or confess that Jesus is God.
If there is a trinity
then why not just come out and say it? Why do we have to jump all over
the Bible cutting and pasting pieces of words that are scattered all
over the Bible? Why not just teach it? I know enough about how the Bible
is written in the New Testament and in the Gospels to know if there was
a trinity it would have been taught. The Gospels would have clearly
said...
Verily, verily I say unto you that I am Jesus and I'm also God.
The Epistles would have writings like...
Yay, I Paul do testify that Jesus who is God came down from heaven to be
a man for us. And we do know and testify that this same Jesus who you
crucified is God. And so let us bow our knee to the one and only true
God-Man Jesus Christ.
And yet there's nothing like that anywhere. Not in the Old or New Testament. Not even one complete verse like that.
John 1:1
It seems difficult for people to
understand that John 1:1 is introducing the Gospel of John, and not the
Book of Genesis. The topic of John is God (the Father, the only God) at
work in the ministry of the man Jesus of Nazareth, not the creation of
rocks, trees and stars.
Jesus Christ is not a lexical definition of logos. The verse does not say "In the beginning was Jesus." The "Word" is not synonymous with Jesus, or even the "Messiah." The word logos in
John 1:1 refers to God's creative self-expression... His reason,
purpose and plans, especially as they are brought into action. It refers
to God's self-expression or communication of Himself. This has come to
pass through His creation and especially the heavens. It has come
through the spoken word of the prophets and through Scripture. Most
notably it has come into being through His Son. The logos is the
expression of God and is His communication of Himself just as a "word"
is an outward expression of a person's thoughts. This outward expression
of God has now occurred through His Son and thus it's perfectly
understandable why Jesus is called the "Word." Jesus is an outward
expression of God's reason, wisdom, purpose and plan. For the same
reason we call revelation "a word from God" and the Bible "the Word of
God."
If we understand that the logos is God's
expression... His plan, purpose, reason and wisdom. Then it is clear
they were with Him "in the beginning." Scripture says God's wisdom was
"from the beginning" and it was common in Hebrew writing to personify a
concept such as wisdom. The fact that the logos "became" flesh
shows it did not exist that way before. There is no pre-existence for
Jesus in this verse other than his figurative "existence" as the plan,
purpose or wisdom of God for the salvation of man. The same is true with
the "word" in writing. It had no literal pre-existence as a
"spirit-book" somehow in eternity past, but came into being as God gave
the revelation to people and they wrote it down.
John 1:3
“Everything came to be through it.” The logos is an “it” not a “him.”
Translators have deliberately chosen to use “him” because they wanted
to emphasize that the Word was the male person we know as Jesus. This
was a theological choice, not a linguistic one.
"Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you” (Proverbs 4:6).
Is the Wisdom in Proverbs 4:6 a distinct divine person?
The "Word" is not literally a person for the same reason that "Wisdom" is not literally a person. Both are to be taken metaphorically.
Jesus is the personification of the Word because He speaks the words of
God. To listen to Jesus equals listening to the Word of God.
John 1:14
The
"Word" is the wisdom, plan or purpose of God and the Word became flesh
as Jesus Christ. Thus, Jesus Christ was the Word in the flesh, which is
shortened to the Word for ease of speaking. Scripture is also the Word
in writing. Everyone agrees that the Word in writing had a beginning. So
did the Word in the flesh. In fact, the Greek text of Matthew 1:18 says
that very clearly: "Now the beginning of Jesus Christ was in this
manner..." The modern Greek texts all read "beginning" in Matthew 1:18.
Birth is considered an acceptable translation since the beginning of
some things is birth, and so most translations read birth. Nevertheless,
the proper understanding of Matthew 1:18 is the beginning of Jesus
Christ. In the beginning God had a plan, a purpose, which became flesh
when Jesus was conceived.
John 8:58
At
the last super, the disciples were trying to find out who would deny
the Christ. They said literally, "Not I am, Lord" Matthew 26:22, 25. No
one would say the disciples were trying to deny they were God because
they were using the phrase "Not I am." "I am" was a common way of
designating oneself and it did not mean you were claiming to be God. The
argument is made that because Jesus was "before" Abraham, Jesus must be
God. Jesus figuratively existed in Abraham's time. He did not actually
physically exist as a person, but rather he existed in the mind of God
as God's plan for the redemption of man. In order for the Trinitarian
argument that Jesus' "I am" statement in John 8:58 makes him God, his
statement must be equivalent with God's "I am" statement in Exodus 3:14.
The two statements are very different. The Greek phrase in John does
mean "I am." The Hebrew phrase in Exodus means "to be" or "to become."
God was saying "I will be what I will be."
John 10:30
There
is no reason to take this verse to mean that Christ was saying that he
and the Father make up "one God." The phrase was a common one, and even
today if someone used it, people would know exactly what they meant...
he and his Father are very much alike. When Paul wrote to the
Corinthians about his ministry there, he said that he had planted the
seed and Apollos had watered it. Then he said, "... he who plants and he
who waters are one..." (1 Corinthians 3:8 NKJV). In the Greek texts,
the wording of Paul is the same as that in John 10:30, yet no one claims
that Paul and Apollos make up "one being." Christ uses the concept of
"being one" in other places, and from them one can see that "one
purpose" is what is meant. John 11:52 says Jesus was to die to make all
God's children "one." In John 17:11, 21 and 22, Jesus prayed to God that
his followers would be "one" as he and God were "one." I think it's
obvious that Jesus was not praying that all his followers would become
one being in "substance" just as he and his Father were one being or
"substance." I believe the meaning is clear: Jesus was praying that all
his followers be one in purpose just as he and God were one in purpose.
John 10:33
Had
the translators rendered the Greek text in verse 33 as they did in
verse 34 and 35, then it would read, "...you, a man, claim to be a god."
In the next two verses, John 10:34 and 35, the exact same word (theos,
without the article) is translated as "god" and not "God." In Acts
12:22, Herod is called theos without the article, so the translators
translate it "god." The same is true in Acts 28:6, when Paul had been
bitten by a viper and the people expected him to die. When he did not
die, "...they changed their minds and said he was a god." Since theos
has no article, and since it is clear from the context that the
reference is not about the true God, theos is translated "a god." It is a
general principle that theos without the article should be "a god," or
"divine." Since there is no evidence that Jesus was teaching that he was
God anywhere in the context, and since the Pharisees would have never
believed that this man was somehow Yahweh, it makes no sense that they
would be saying that he said he was "God." Now since Jesus was clearly
teaching that he was sent by God and was doing God's work. Thus, it
makes perfect sense that the Pharisees would say he was claiming to be
"a god" or "divine."
Philippians 2:6 is
not a teaching on the trinity or that we should confess or believe that
Jesus is God.
After saying that Christ was in
the form of God, Philippians 2:6 goes on to say that Christ “considered
being equal with God not something to be grasped at.” If
Jesus were God, then it would make no sense at all to say that he did
not “grasp” at equality with God because no one grasps at equality with
himself. Some Trinitarians say, “Well, he was not
grasping for equality with the Father.” That is not what the verse says.
It says Christ did not grasp at equality with God, which makes the verse nonsense if he were God.
The Greek word morphē does not refer to the essential nature of
Christ in that context. If the point of the verse is to say that Jesus is
God, then why not just say that? If Jesus is God, say that, don’t say
he has the “essential nature of God.” Of course God has the “essential nature” of God, so why would anyone make that
point? This verse does not say “Jesus being God” but rather “being in
the form of God.” Paul is reminding the Philippians that Jesus
represented the Father in every possible way.
From the Septuagint and their other writings, the Jews were familiar with morphē referring to the outward appearance, including the form of men and idols. To the Greeks, it also referred to the outward appearance, including the changing outward appearance of their gods and the form of statues. The only other New Testament use of morphē outside Philippians is in Mark, and there it refers to the outward appearance. Also, the words related to morphē clearly refer to an outward manifestation or appearance. The word morphē refers to an outward appearance or manifestation. Jesus Christ was in the outward appearance of God, so much so that he said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Christ always did the Father’s will, and perfectly represented his Father in every way.
1 Timothy 3:16
“he.” There are some Greek manuscripts that read, “God
appeared in the flesh.” This reading of some Greek manuscripts has
passed into some English versions, and the King James Version is one of
them. Trinitarian scholars admit, however, that these Greek texts were
altered by scribes in favor of the Trinitarian position. The reading of
the earliest and best manuscripts is not “God” but rather “he who.”
Almost all the modern versions have the verse as “the mystery of
godliness is great, which was manifest in the flesh,” or some close
equivalent.
Hebrews 1:8
“Your throne is God.” Hebrews 1:8 is an almost exact quotation
from the Septuagint version of Psalm 45:6, which itself was a very good
translation of the Hebrew text of Psalm 45:6, and Hebrews 1:9 is from
the Septuagint of Psalm 45:7. The theme of Hebrews 1 centers around the
Father’s rule and elevation of the Son over the rest of creation. God
spoke through the prophets, and then through His Son, who He appointed
heir of all things and who is now seated at God’s right hand as second
in command under God.
The God of the Son—anointed him and set him above his companions, such
that the Son now sits on God’s right hand. Hebrews exalts the Son, and
in so doing exalts the Father. But in contrast to what Trinitarians say,
Hebrews 1:8 (and thus Psalm 45:6) does not call Jesus “God” and does
not support the Trinity. To see that fully, one must study Psalm 45.
Upon examination, Psalm 45 does not support the Trinity, so when it is
quoted in Hebrews 1:8 then that quotation does not support the Trinity
either. The Jews read Psalm 45 for centuries and never concluded that
the Messiah would be “God in the flesh” or somehow be part of a Triune
God.
Hebrews is saying your throne oh God is forever. Not Jesus is
forever. In Hebrews it's quoted referring to Jesus having the use of
that throne.
Hebrews 1:8
But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
Psalms 45:6
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.
Isaiah 9:6
“a child will be born.” The Hebrew text reads “a child has been born...
a son has been given.” The Hebrew verb about being born is a perfect
passive and is most literally translated “has been born.” Although some
scholars say this prophecy is about Hezekiah, and in fact it may
reflect upon him in part, the prophecy is more completely about the
Messiah. It's common in the Hebrew idiom to write about something that
will happen in the future as if it had happened in the past, and this is
referred to by many scholars as the idiom of the “prophetic perfect.”
Also, the prophetic perfect occurs very often in prophecy, especially in
Isaiah.
“The Mighty God is an Extraordinary Advisor” The phrase is usually
translated as “Mighty God, Wonderful Counselor” in most English Bibles.
However, a better way to understand it is as a theophoric name given to
the Messiah which describes God, not the Messiah. It's noteworthy that
if Isaiah 9:6 was a proof that Jesus is God, nothing is said about it in
the New Testament.
“Mighty God/Warrior God” el gibbor is the same name attributed to
Yahweh (the true God) subsequently in Isaiah 10:21, as well as in all
the other biblical occurrences Deuteronomy 10:17; Jeremiah 32:18). So,
in the other places where this same phrase is used in the singular,
it's referring to Yahweh, not to anyone else. So, in every occurrence of
el gibbor, it refers to God the Father—Yahweh. This provides strong evidence that el gibbor in Isaiah 9:6 likely also refers to Yahweh.
Although some Trinitarians attempt to see this text as teaching the
Messiah’s Deity, many do not consider that the text taken consistently
in their framework would actually be calling the child “The Everlasting
Father.” That would then make Jesus the “Everlasting Father” which would
be Modalism, where God is strictly a unitary being who exists at
different times in different modes (i.e., the Holy Spirit, the Father,
and the Son). The Athanasian Creed, which is considered as orthodox
today states that Christians should “neither confound the Persons nor
divide the Substance” but if Isaiah 9:6 says the Son is the Father, then
it would be doing that and not teaching the modern definition of the
Trinity.
Saying you are the son of God does not make you God. It
does put you in the same family to whatever the Father has. If you're a
king then the son would be a prince and therefore share in the kingdom
on equal ground pertaining to the kingdom. If your dad is a business
owner then it would put you on equal ground in the family business to
share in the wealth and even run the business later on. The Jews
understood that custom and even we do today in our country.
“My Lord and my God.” A
very likely way to understand John 20:28 is that Thomas had realized
the power of God working in Jesus, and in saying “my Lord and my God” he
was pointing out that Jesus did reveal God in a unique and powerful
way. In seeing the resurrected Jesus, Thomas clearly saw both the Lord
Jesus, and the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus always taught
that he only did what God guided him to do, and said that if you had
seen him you had seen the Father. In that light, there is good evidence
that “doubting Thomas” was saying that in seeing Jesus he was also
seeing the Father.
We have to remember that Thomas’ statement
occurred in a moment of surprise and even perhaps shock. Only eight days
earlier, Thomas had vehemently denied Jesus’ resurrection. Thomas could
no longer deny that Jesus was alive and that God had raised him from
the dead. Thomas, looking at the living Jesus, saw both Jesus and the
God who raised him from the dead. When Thomas saw the resurrected
Christ, he became immediately convinced that Jesus was raised from the
dead. But did he suddenly have a revelation that Jesus was God? That
would be totally outside of Thomas’ knowledge and belief. Jesus had
never claimed to be God despite Trinitarian claims that he had.
In
other places in the Bible where the apostles speak about the
resurrection of Jesus, they do not declare “This proves Jesus is God!”
Rather, they declare that God raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. The
confession of the two disciples walking along the road to Emmaus
demonstrated the thoughts of Jesus’ followers at the time. Speaking to
the resurrected Christ, whom they mistook as just a traveler, they
talked about Jesus. They said Jesus “was a prophet mighty in deed and
word before God and they crucified him." The disciples thought Jesus was
the Messiah, a “Prophet” and the Son of God, but not God Himself.
Are
we to believe that somehow Jesus taught the Trinity, something that
went against everything the disciples were taught and believed, but
there is no mention of Jesus ever teaching it anywhere, and yet the
disciples somehow got that teaching? That seems too incredible to
believe. There is no evidence from the gospel accounts that Jesus’
disciples believed him to be God, and Thomas upon seeing the resurrected
Christ was not birthing a new theology in a moment of surprise.
If the spirit is telling you that Jesus is God. That spirit is not from God. The spirit from God will say that Jesus came in the flesh. The false spirit will say God came in the flesh. There's your test of the spirit.
There's no Trinity. The verses that are used to try to teach it are all taken out of context, or not understood how the words were used in the culture they were written in, or from a bad translation. It's an evil Catholic concept that was sold to the world mostly by the power of the sword. The folks had NO choice. They weren't allowed to have Bibles to read for themselves. The rejection of the Trinity often brought severe punishment including the loss of your job, intimidation, harassment, confiscation of property, jail or imprisonment, torture, and even burning at the stake.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God.” These words apply to God, not to Christ. The one “who is and who was and who is to come” is clearly identified in the context as God, not Jesus Christ. Revelation 1:4-5 reads: “Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” The separation between “the one who is, was and is to come” and Jesus Christ can be clearly seen. The one “who is, and who was and who is to come” is God.
The phrase “the Alpha and the Omega” has caused many people to believe this verse refers to Christ. However, study of the occurrences of the phrase indicates that the title “Alpha and Omega” applies solely to God. Scholars are not completely sure what the phrase “the Alpha and the Omega” means. Lenski concludes “it is fruitless to search Jewish and pagan literature for the source of something that resembles this name Alpha and Omega. Nowhere is a person, to say nothing of a divine Person, called "Alpha and Omega" or in Hebrew, Aleph and Tau.
Although there is no evidence from the historical sources that anyone is named “the Alpha and Omega” Bullinger says that the phrase “is a Hebraism, in common use among the ancient Jewish Commentators to designate the whole of anything from the beginning to the end." That would make the expression the figure of speech polarmerismos, similar to "and there was evening, and there was morning” which stands for the whole day in Genesis 1. The best scholarly minds have concluded that the phrase has something to do with starting and finishing something, or the entirety of something. Norton writes that these words “denote the certain accomplishment of his purposes; that what he has begun he will carry on to its consummation.
He came down from heaven...
Something
was said to have come from God or come from heaven if God was its
source. For example, James 1:17 says that every good gift is “from
above” and “comes down” from God. What James means is clear. God is the
Author and source of the good things in our lives. God works behind the
scenes to provide what we need. The verse does not mean that the good
things in our lives come directly down from heaven. The phrase “he who
came down from heaven” in John 3:13 is to be understood in the same way
we understand James’ words—that God is the source of Jesus Christ, which
He was. Christ was God’s plan and then God directly fathered Jesus.
There are also other verses that say Jesus was “sent from God” a phrase
that shows God as the ultimate source of what is sent. John the Baptist
was a man “sent from God” (John 1:6), and it was he who said that Jesus
“comes from above” and “comes from heaven” (John 3:31). When God wanted
to tell the people that He would bless them if they gave their tithes,
He told them that He would open the windows of “heaven” and pour out a
blessing (Malachi 3:10). Of course, everyone understood the idiom being
used, and no one believed that God would literally pour things out of
heaven. They knew that the phrase meant that God was the origin of the
blessings they received. Still another example is when Christ was
speaking and said “Where was the baptism of John from? From heaven or
of human origin?” (Matthew 21:25). Of course, the way that John’s
baptism would have been “from heaven” was if God was the source of the
revelation. John did not get the idea on his own, it came “from heaven.”
The verse makes the idiom clear: things could be “from heaven” i.e.,
from God, or they could be “from men.” The idiom is the same when used
of Jesus. We can say Jesus is “from God” or “from heaven” or “from above” in the
sense that God is his Father and thus his origin.
The idea of coming from God or being sent by God is also clarified by
Jesus’ words in John 17. He said “Just as you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.” (John 17:18). We understand perfectly
what Christ meant when he said “I sent them into the world.” He meant
that he commissioned us, or appointed us. The statement does not imply
that we were in heaven with Christ and then incarnated into the flesh.
Christ said “As you sent me… I sent them.” So, in the same way that
Christ sent us is how we should understand the phrase that God sent
Christ.
Jesus is the son of God, the Messiah to Israel, and the now resurrected Lord Christ to the Christian who sits at the right hand of God as second in command and is the head of the Church that is called the body of Christ.
The
early church was always baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus until the
development of the Trinity doctrine in the 2nd century. The Catholics
acknowledge baptism was changed and Scripture such as Matthew 28:19 that was never in the Bible was added by them.
Baptism was changed from the name of Jesus to the words Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the 2nd Century. -Britannica Encyclopedia, 11th Edition, Volume 3, page 365.
The early church baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus until the second century. - Canney Encyclopedia of Religion, page 53.
Christian baptism was administered using the words "in the name of Jesus." page 377. Baptism was always done in the name of Jesus until the time of Justin Martyr, page 389. - Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion, Volume 2.
Here the authors acknowledged that the baptismal formula was changed by their church. - Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2, page 263.
The New Testament knows only the baptism in the name of Jesus. - Schaff & Herzog Religious Encyclopedia, Volume 1, page 435.
It must be acknowledged that the three fold name of Matthew 28:19 does not appear to have been used by the primitive church, but rather in the name of Jesus, Jesus Christ or Lord Jesus. - Hastings Dictionary of Bible, page 88.
And concerning 1 John 5:7-8 where it has the words "In heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth" are words that are not found in any Greek Manuscript before the 15th or 16th century and in no ancient Version. - E. W. Bullinger., A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament: (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1975), p. 11 of Appendix A.
There's reasons why the Bible does not teach the trinity in one whole paragraph in a few different places or a whole chapter or two on it. There's reasons why there's no teaching on why God would come to the earth as a man. There's reasons why there was never a debate about the trinity in Scripture like we see with justification by works or who should be circumcised. Such an important subject matter like the trinity and the Bible is silent on all of it.
And there's the spinning and twisting from the trinitarians who can't come up with one verse in the Bible that says we should believe or confess that Jesus is God. Trinitarians who can't come up with one verse that says why God would come to the earth as a man. Trinitarians who have to make up their own words that are not in the Bible. Words like trinity, deity, and incarnated.
If any of this nonsense was true and since it's so important and a huge subject to Christianity and is necessary for salvation like many teach. Then it would have been taught by someone somewhere. And it is not.
"...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father;..." John 14:9.
The key to understanding John 6:46 is knowing that the phrase “seen the
Father” does not refer to seeing with one’s physical eyes but
figuratively to “knowing the Father.” Jesus knew God, not because he
lived and talked with God in heaven before his birth on earth, but
because God revealed Himself more clearly to Jesus than He had to anyone
else. Jesus made this clear in other teachings when he said “For the
Father loves the Son and shows him all he does…” (John 5:20).
In both Hebrew and Greek, words that are translated “see” throughout the Bible often mean “to know or realize.” The Hebrew word ra’ah
is used for both seeing with the eyes and knowing something, or
perceiving it (Genesis 16:4; Exodus 32:1; Numbers 20:29). Similarly, the
Greek word horaō (ὁράω) translated “see” in John 1:18, 6:46; and
3 John 1:11, can mean “to see with the eyes” or “to see with the mind,
to perceive, to know.” Even in English, one of the definitions for “see”
is “to know or understand.” For example, when two people are discussing
something, one might say to the other, “I see what you mean.”
The usage of “see” as it pertains to “knowing” is found in many places
in the New Testament. For example, Jesus said to Philip, “…he that hath
seen me hath seen the Father;…” (John 14:9). Here again the word “see” is used to indicate “knowing.” Anyone who
knew Jesus (not just those who “saw” him) would know the Father. In
fact, Jesus had made that clear two verses earlier when he said to
Philip, “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From
now on you know him, and have seen him” (John 14:7). In this verse,
Jesus says that those who know him have “seen” the Father.
A.E. Knoch: All comes through Christ, from the beginning to the end. He is the channel, not the source or the object of all things. When entering into the world, he said, "Lo... I am arriving to do thy will oh God." (Hebrews 10:7). This is one of his most gracious glories. Let us not rob Christ of it by making him identical with God in this regard. He will vanish if we do. The Christ cannot be conceived with a will of equal force with the Father. "not my will, but Thine" is the illuminating flash which reveals the relation existing between the will of Christ and his God. A.E. Knoch - Christ and Deity (Edition 2.0)
"The doctrine of the Trinity is not a biblical doctrine... it's the product of theological reflection." - The Christian Doctrine of God Trinitarian. E. Brunner, 1949, p. 236.
“Trinity is not a biblical doctrine" - New Bible Dictionary, J. Douglas, F. Bruce, 1982, p. 1298.
“Scholars generally agree that there is no doctrine of the Trinity as such in either the Old or the New Testament” - The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1995, p. 564.
“The Bible has no statements or speculations concerning a trinitary deity." - Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 12, p. 383, 1979.
“Three coequal partners in the Godhead cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the Bible. It's important to avoid reading the Trinity into places where it does not appear." - Oxford Companion to the Bible, Bruce Metzger, M. Coogan, p. 782-3.
“The doctrine of the Trinity is not present in biblical thought... it goes beyond, and even distorts, what the Bible says about God.” - A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity - God in Three Persons: Professor M. Erickson, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, p. 12, 20.
“The belief (in a Trinity-God) was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief." - Dictionary of the Bible, 1995, (trinitarian) J. Mckenzie, p. 899.
“The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated in the post-biblical period." - Harper’s Bible Dictionary, 1985.
“In the New Testament there is no direct suggestion of a doctrine of the Trinity." - An Encyclopedia of Religion, V. Ferm (ed.), 1945, p. 344.
“No passage of Scripture discusses the threeness of God." - The New International Version. Disciples Study Bible, p. 173, note for Mt. 3:16.
“The Bible does not state that there is one God who exists in three persons” - Basic Theology, Professor C. Ryrie, p. 89.
“The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity” - Christian Doctrine, Professor S. Guthrie, Columbia Theological Seminary, 1994, p. 92.
“The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be justified on the basis of Scripture. Indeed it's hard to imagine Jesus speaking in such terms" - An Outline of Biblical Theology, Professor M. Burrows, Yale Divinity School, p. 81.
“The doctrine of God as existing in three persons and one substance is not demonstrable by scriptural proofs." - Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, 1898.
“There is in the Old Testament no indication of interior distinctions in the God-head. And there is no doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament” - The Known Bible and its Defense, Reverend M. Hembre, 1933, p. 25.
The above is from volume one of a two volume paper called...
Sleight Of Mind
by: Steven Blake
Appendix E
Data On The Holy Spirit
The gift of God’s spirit has changed
The words “HOLY SPIRIT” in the Bible are primarily used in two very different ways: One way is to refer to God Himself and the other is referring to God’s nature that He gives to people. God is holy and is spirit and therefore “the Holy Spirit” with a capital “H” and a capital “S” is one of the many “names” or designations for God. God gives His holy spirit nature to people as a gift and when HOLY SPIRIT is used that way it should be translated as the “holy spirit” with a lowercase “h” and a lowercase “s.” The Bible says there is one God, and one Lord, who is the man Jesus Christ; and one gift of the holy spirit. Most Christians are aware that the original manuscripts of the Bible were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. However, it's not well known that Hebrew and Aramaic do not have uppercase and lowercase letters, but rather they just have one form for their letters.
Greek does have upper and lowercase letters, but the early Greek manuscripts were all written with only uppercase letters. Therefore, the early manuscripts had no such thing as the “Holy Spirit” or the “holy spirit” because what was always written was the "HOLY SPIRIT." The capital or lowercase letters are always a translator’s interpretation whenever we read “Holy Spirit” or “holy spirit” or “Spirit” or “spirit” in the English Bible. The difference is usually due to the theology of the translator. The bottom line is we cannot know from the Hebrew or Greek texts whether the Author meant the “Holy Spirit” or the “holy spirit” because we must decide based on the context and scope of Scripture whether the reference being made is to God or God’s gift.
There are many descriptions, titles, and names for God in the Bible and I would like to add God’s proper name is “Yahweh” which occurs more than 6,000 times in the Hebrew Old Testament and is generally translated as “LORD.” But God is also referred to as Elohim, Adonai, El Shaddai, the Ancient of Days, the Holy One of Israel, Father, Shield, and by many more designations. Furthermore, God is holy (Leviticus 11:44), which is why He was called “the Holy One” (the Hebrew text uses the singular adjective “holy” to designate “the Holy One." He is also spirit (John 4:24). It makes perfect sense since God is holy and God is spirit that “Holy” and “Spirit” are sometimes combined and used as one of the many designations for God. Thus, the Hebrew or Greek words for the "HOLY SPIRIT" should be brought into English as the "Holy Spirit” when the subject of a verse is God.
None of the dozens of descriptions, titles, or names of God are believed to be a separate, co-equal “Person” in a triune God except for the “HOLY SPIRIT” and there is no solid biblical reason to make the "Holy Spirit” into a separate “Person.” In other contexts the “HOLY SPIRIT” refers to the gift of God’s nature that He placed on people and the new birth to the Christian, and in those contexts it should be translated as the “holy spirit." God placed a form of His nature which is “holy spirit” upon people when He wanted to spiritually empower them because our natural fleshly human bodies do not have spirit power of their own. This holy spirit nature of God was a gift from God to humankind and we see this in the case of Acts 2:38 when the spirit is specifically called a "gift" when given to the Christian.
God put the holy spirit upon Jesus immediately after he was baptized by John the Baptist because Jesus himself needed God’s gift of the holy spirit to have supernatural power just as the leaders and prophets of the Old Testament did. This fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies that God would put the holy spirit upon the Messiah enabling him in his ministry. The gift of the holy spirit was born “in” believers (John 14:17) after the Day of Pentecost rather than resting “upon” them and this is one reason why Christians are said to be “born again” of God’s spirit (1 Peter 1:3, 23). Christians have spiritual power when they receive the gift of the holy spirit (Acts 1:8) because the holy spirit is born in them and becomes part of their very nature, and this is why Christians are called God’s “holy ones” which is usually translated as “saints” in the New Testament.
God put His gift of the “holy spirit” or the “spirit” on as many people as He deemed necessary in the Old Testament, and we see this when we look at how God took the spirit that was upon Moses and put it upon the 70 elders of Israel. However, today everyone who makes Jesus Christ their Lord receives the indwelling gift of the holy spirit and that's why Peter on the Day of Pentecost quoted the prophecy in Joel that said God would “pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh." Many scholars admit the concept of the Trinity that also includes reference to the "Holy Spirit” as an independent “Person” cannot be found in the Old Testament. The Jews to whom the Old Testament was given did not recognize any such being. It's a well-known historical fact that “Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone,” was the cry of Israel. No verse or context openly states or even directly infers that there is a separate “Person” called “the Holy Spirit."
Almost every English version translates John 14:17 similarly to “even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.” Translators capitalize “Spirit” and use “he” and “him” because of their theology. The Greek word “spirit” is neuter and the text could also be translated as “the spirit of truth” and paired with “which” and “it.” The New American Bible reads “which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it.” Capitalizing the “H” and “S” and using the English pronoun “He” is appropriate when God is being referred to as “the Holy Spirit.” However, when we see the “h” and “s” having the lowercase such as "the holy spirit" and all the pronouns referring to that spirit being impersonal such as “it” and “which” is when the subject under discussion is the gift of God’s nature.
One of the ways we know that “pneuma hagion”
often refers to the gift of God’s nature is that it “belongs” to God,
who calls it “my” spirit. The spirit is called “God’s” spirit in many
verses and
King David understood the holy spirit belonged to God because he wrote “…do not take your holy
spirit from me.” The Bible shows us that “the holy spirit” is under
God’s authority and
direction, which makes sense when we understand it's the gift of His
nature that He gives to believers. The words “Messiah” in Hebrew (mashiyach מָשִׁיחַ) and “Christ” in Greek (christos
Χριστός) both mean “anointed one.” Thus, the early Christians
would have known him as “Jesus the anointed one.” God “anointed” Jesus Christ with the holy spirit
and that's why Jesus was said to have been “anointed” even though
people knew he had never been formally anointed with oil (Acts 4:27;
10:38).
We have no evidence in the Bible that “the Holy Spirit” was ever used as a name because no one ever used it in a direct address. Many people spoke or prayed directly to God, starting out by saying “O Yahweh” (translated as “O LORD” in almost all English versions). Furthermore, the name “Jesus” is a Greek form of the name “Joshua” (in fact, the King James Version confuses “Joshua” and “Jesus” in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8) and many people spoke “to Jesus” in the Bible. But no one in the Bible ever used “the Holy Spirit” in a direct address because there's simply no actual name for any “Person” known as “the Holy Spirit” anywhere in the Bible.
The “holy spirit” God gave in the Old Testament was God’s nature, but after the Day of Pentecost He gave His nature in a new and fuller way than He had ever given it before and this is what was foretold in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26). It was because this new spirit was promised in the Old Testament that the New Testament calls it “the promised holy spirit” Ephesians 1:13; Acts 2:33; Galatians 3:14). We have the “firstfruits” of the spirit (Romans 8:23) because Christians are the first to receive this new spirit and that's why we have the guarantee that we will be in the coming Messianic Kingdom.
The gift of the holy spirit that Christians have is a gift and thus an “it.” Jesus told the apostles that the spirit would be “in” them (John 14:17)—which is what happened on the Day of Pentecost when the holy spirit went from being with or “upon” people in the Old Testament and Gospels to being born “in” people on and after the Day of Pentecost. The spirit is sent by the Father (John 14:16-17) and Jesus (John 16:7). It does not speak on its own, but it speaks only what it hears (John 16:13). Thus, the gift of the holy spirit is directed by God and Jesus, which is what we would expect since it's God’s nature born in us. The gift of the holy spirit is the nature of God, and when it's born in us it becomes part of our very nature (2 Peter 1:4).
God does not change, but the gift of God’s holy spirit that believers have today is different from the spirit that God gave in the Old Testament, and so the gift of God’s spirit has changed. The simple and straightforward reading of the Scripture is that there is one God, who is sometimes referred to as “the Holy Spirit” and one Lord who is the man Jesus Christ, and one gift of the holy spirit that is the nature of God that He gives to people.
Appendix F
Another Teaching On Faith
Faith in the New Testament means Trust
In the New Testament “faith” is most often translated from the Greek noun pistis (#4102 πίστις), which like many other Greek words has several meanings including “trust” Romans 3:38, 1 Corinthians 15:14, “faithfulness and reliability” (Proverbs 12:22, Matthew 23:23, Romans 3:3, Galatians 5:22, and “proof and pledge” (Acts 17:31). Also we find pistis in the New Testament and later Christian writings being used as a designation for the entire scope of religious practices and beliefs of the followers of Jesus as in “the Christian Faith” (Galatians 1:23). “Faithfulness” and “trust” were both very common meanings of pistis and that is why it was also used in the everyday Greek-speaking world. However, pistis in the New Testament means “trust” much more than it does “faithfulness” and when pistis is translated “faith” in phrases like “faith in God” or “faith in Christ” or “have faith” it means “trust” or “confidence” or “assurance.” The early Christians would have readily perceived the meaning of pistis as “trust” or “confidence” and that meaning can be easily confirmed by checking any good biblical lexicon or Bible dictionary such as the following...
We read in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith [pistis] is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (NIV). The NASB uses slightly different vocabulary but gives the same message which is “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” So the Bible itself defines pistis as assurance or confidence in something and a good way to express that in English is by the word “trust.” Faith has been defined and explained so many different ways that it's a difficult concept to grasp, but “trust” is simple to understand. The lexical sources listed above defined it when they defined pistis as a confidence, a firm persuasion, a conviction based on the reliability, or trustworthiness... of the person or thing that is trusted. Trust also has to have an object and by that I mean something that is trusted. The human mind cannot “just trust” because we have to trust something. It can be God, our spouse, our friend, or even that the sun will come up tomorrow, but trust requires an object because we have to trust some trustworthy thing.
And our trust does not make or force anything to happen. We trust the sun will come up, but that does not make it come up. We trust that our so-far-always-reliable-car will start when we turn the key, but that does not make it start. We trust our friend will help us in a pinch, but that does not force them to help. We trust God loves us, but that does not make Him help us in any given situation. Pistis (trust... faith) is not a force because it does not make things happen. It's easy to see why pistis, which means “trust” or “confidence” came to be translated “faith” in our English Bibles. The Latin word fides (pronounced feeˈ-dace), which means “trust” was often used to translate the Greek word pistis when the New Testament was translated into Latin and fides was a good translation because just as the Greek word pistis meant “trust or confidence” so did the Latin word fides. The Latin word fides became the root of the English word “faith” as the English language developed many centuries later as also did the word “fidelity."
The English word “trust” has Indo-European roots and came into our language via the Old Norse which is very different from the Latin root “fidelity." The English language was built over time from many different word-roots, which is a major reason why modern English has so many different words that seem to mean the same thing. The statement “take it by faith” has echoed throughout Christianity for centuries, but it never occurs in the Bible and is not a biblical concept. We cannot make ourselves trust something that is untrustworthy or that we do not understand. This concept is not well understood. It's often said “I don’t understand electricity but I trust it.” That statement is not actually correct. What most people trust about electricity is that it works because the light always comes on when we flip the switch and we always get shocked if we touch the “hot” wire. That's not “trusting electricity” as much as it's trusting that electricity reliably does certain things—and we do understand and thus trust that part.
Translating pistis as “faith” instead of “trust” has obscured the simple truth that we don’t trust what we don’t understand. Most people are not really sure of what “faith” is and so they accept the Church teaching that they can have faith in something they don’t understand. We can “accept” something and not argue about it even if we don’t understand it, but “accepting” something is not “trust.” Once we realize pistis means “trust” is when we can understand that the phrase “take it by faith” is equivalent to “just trust me.” We become suspicious and are inclined not to trust a salesperson when they say “just trust me” and so we should also think twice when someone is talking about a biblical subject and says “just take it by faith.” It should be a signal to us when a person teaching cannot explain the doctrine they are teaching and or that the doctrine is untrustworthy when we are told to “take it by faith.” The biblical meaning of the Greek word pistis is “trust” but that is not its primary meaning “on the street” today. Many Christians and most non-Christians think “faith” means “firm belief in something for which there is no proof” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, 2004).
Often that definition has been used to ridicule Christians and admittedly “believing in something for which there is no proof” and that seems like a questionable practice. So how did that non-biblical definition of “faith” develop? Doctrines were brought into Christianity over the centuries that were not biblically sound and some were not even logical. When those doctrines were questioned because there was no proper biblical answer is why the answer often given by the church authorities was simply “take it by faith.” The history of the Christian Church has many examples of wonderful Christians who were pressured or tortured into taking things “by faith” that did not make sense to them. Thus, over time “faith” came to mean a belief in something for which there is no proof, and the average Christian is not enough of a linguist to know that the commonly accepted definition of faith is not the actual biblical definition of the Greek and Latin text, and so they wrongly think that “belief in something for which there is no proof” is a biblical definition of “faith.” The meaning of faith changed again for many Christians in the 20th century although the meaning of “belief in something for which there is no proof” has remained alongside the newer meaning.
In what is now called “the Word of Faith Movement” is how the word “faith” has come to denote a power or force of the mind that can appropriate things that can force God or “the universe” to bring things to pass. Many denominations reject the teaching of the Word of Faith Movement because they believe biblically that “faith” is not a force or a power of the mind. However, millions of Christians believe the biblical word “faith” means a power of the mind that can bring material things into one’s life, move mountains, produce healing and bring financial wealth. Let’s say you have a friend whose car is being fixed and so you offer to give them a ride to work. They trust you will actually show up and give them the ride and so they accept. Then because you are trustworthy is why you keep your promise and give them the ride. But did their trust in you somehow force you to give them the ride? Their trust gave them the confidence to be ready to be picked up at an appointed time, but it was your power that supplied the ride. Furthermore, you did not have to offer them the ride in the first place even though they were a trusting friend. At no point did the fact that they trusted you force you to act on their behalf.
Biblical trust works the same way and this is why we trust that God can heal, but that does not force Him to heal, and our trust does not give us the power to heal without God. The fact that our trust in God does not “make” things happen explains why “faith” seems to fail so often. The Word of Faith Christian ministers and power of the mind unbelievers both believe in a "law" based on the power of the mind that allows people to get what they want by somehow affecting the physical world. One of the problems with the doctrine of the Word of Faith Movement and non-Christian groups that teach about the power of the mind is that it puts the emphasis on the individual—you. Since most of these groups teach that it's a “law” that if you have faith you can bring into your life whatever you want is how it puts the pressure on “you.” Kenneth Hagin, a Word of Faith minister once wrote “That’s what you’ve got to learn to do to get things from God... have faith in your faith” (Having Faith in Your Faith, p. 5).
E. W. Kenyon is one of the founders of the Faith Movement who wrote in his book "The Two Kinds of Faith" that “faith in your own faith is the law of success in the realm of the spirit” (p. 36). Kenneth Copeland wrote “faith is a power force. It's a tangible force. It's a conductive force. It will move things. Faith is a spiritual force” (The Force of Faith p. 13). The Word of Faith ministers say the problem is “you” when this “law” is not working in your life. We need to become clear that “having faith in your faith” is nothing more than having faith in yourself and that is not what Jesus said to do to accomplish God’s will in your life. Word of Faith ministers teach you can make things happen in the physical world by your faith and so it's common to hear them use the phrase “have faith for” or “believe for." Many Christians are surprised to learn that no phrase like “have faith for” occurs in the Bible. The reason is simple because we don’t have the power to make things happen. God has the power. This is why we read in the Scriptures to “pray for” because we can’t “believe for” things and make them happen, but we can “pray for” things and let God make them happen.
The wrong doctrine in the Word of Faith Movement about “faith” has obscured the right doctrine about “trust.” The teaching of the Word of Faith Movement has infiltrated so much of Christian thinking that for many Christians “trust” is not a good translation of pistis. Many Christians think “faith is much bigger than trust” and this is a serious problem since pistis is not “bigger than trust” because pistis is “trust.” No ancient Greek speaker would have thought pistis referred to a power or force of the mind, and they would not have thought that their own mind could tap into a spiritual “law” in such a way that they could just have pistis and then the universe would have to respond to them. Could it be possible God created us in such a way that we too are not happy when people do not trust us— and similarly could it be possible that He is not happy when people don’t trust Him? I might add just a side note here that it's impossible to have a relationship with someone if we do not believe they are there. Or to receive something from them if we do not believe they could give it to us mostly because we are not sure if they are there.