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Old 10-16-2006, 05:04 PM   #1
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Default Oneness Heresy


Oneness Heresy

Did Jesus do away with God the Father?

Oneness doctrine says that Jesus has somehow caused God the Father to cease to exist and Jesus has taken his place.


There is only one God the Father and only one Son of God, Jesus, and one Holy Spirit. These add up to three but there is only one God, who is the Father of Jesus. When the bible says these three are one, it means they are in agreement. Jesus did not some how swallow up God the Father and cause him to cease to exist.



In the Old Testament in different places, it says the people saw God. But in the New Testament Jesus says, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (ST John 1:18) If Jesus was God, why did he say, "No man hath seen God at any time" because the bible says different people had plainly seen God at times in the past and he was standing in plain sight right in front of them when he said, "No man hath seen God at any time." It is obvious that Jesus was saying, "The one you saw, who you thought was God, was really me."



God of the Old Testament
Jesus is called God a few times in the Bible and was received as God in Old Testament times. The apostle Paul said of Jesus:
Philippians 2:6
"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:"



Hebrews 1:1-3
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

It was understandable how Jesus could be received as God in that the Father had given Jesus great power, authority, and glory. But the full revelation of truth came when Jesus explained how his Father had sent him and appointed him as savior, judge and ruler of all mankind and angels. The idea that God had a Son is basically a New Testament revelation. The concept of the "Son of God" is hardly mentioned in the Old Testament.



Jesus Will Always Be Subject to the Father
The Apostle Paul speaking of the resurrection and future events says Jesus will always be subject to God the Father.
1Corinthians 15:27-28
27 For he (God the Father) hath put all things under his (Jesus) feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he (God the Father) is excepted, which did put all things under him (Jesus).
28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him (God the Father) that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
Paul says it is manifest or plain and easy to understand (by anyone with common sense) that the Father who exalted and blessed His Son is not under the feet of His Son, but still has the final authority.



Names of God
The bible shows that God the Father and Jesus have shared the same name since the beginning of time. Their Old Testament name was Jehovah. Their New Testament name is Jesus. This is why Jesus said to baptize people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ or Spirit of Jesus. There is yet another name change planned, found in Revelation 3:12 "I will write upon him my new name."



One With God
Notice in the verse following how Jesus uses the word one to describe his relationship to his Father.
ST John 10:30
Jesus said, "I and my Father are one."



Then Jesus uses the same word, one ,to describe the relationship of people to one another and the relationship of God to the people.;
ST John 17:11
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.



ST John 17:21-23
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Jesus said we the people should be one with each other as Jesus is one with the Father. Because we the people are one does not mean we cause one another to cease to exist. In the same way Jesus does not cause God to cease, as Oneness doctrine teaches, but rather is obedient to the Father. The word translated one in these verses is the same Greek word each time.



John taught doctrine of both Father and Son
These verses following show John's doctrine of both the Father and Son:
1John 2:22-24
22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
24 Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.



2 John 8-9
8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

Oneness doctrine denies the concept of both Father and Son therefore the bible declares oneness doctrine to be heresy.



The next verse shows how Jesus stands between God and men.
1Timothy 2:5
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
There has to be someone on each side for you to stand between. You can't stand between yourself and another person.



Heresy
The word "heresy" means: Any belief different from or contrary to what is taught in the Holy Bible.

The bible says you should reprove heresies and if the people do not repent, then reject them. (Titus 3:10) The Apostle Paul did not preach oneness doctrine and said, "If anyone preaches any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8) And in Galatians 5:19-21 Paul lists heresies among other sins such as witchcraft and murder and says, "they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

Galatians 5:19-21
19Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God

It is obviously a serious matter for you to find the truth and reject heresies.

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Old 10-16-2006, 06:19 PM   #2
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Default RE: Oneness Heresy

Effort for effort . . .I copied one too . . .here it is, I don't know what it says, but oh well.

[blockquote]
The internet is filled with web-site after web-site trying to convince those who are gulliable that the One God of the Old Testament is really three Gods. But, obeying their creeds and confessions they balk at the obvious conclusion of their pagan theories and say they are forbidden to call these three *separate* persons each a God. But does not their creed say: GOD from GOD and VERY GOD from VERY GOD? God from God is certainly more than one God.
The trick used by trinitarians to try and prove three Gods are three persons, is their use of segmentalism. They will take segments of Scripture, segments of a text, segments of an incident, out of the context of the whole Bible, and try to make them say what the entire Bible refutes. It is said that heresy in its first generation crawls, in the next walks, and in the next runs.
This characterizes the pagan trinity heresy of Nicaea where after birth it crawled back to the different regions and became law; Jerome was then hired to interpolate and incorporated such language into the Vulgate where it was next walked all over Europe by the Monks and interpolationist scribes; and then Priests and Preachers ran to all the world to pollute it before the Lord could reach the masses with his message of truth and salvation by the few persecuted and dicimated remaining Monarchist.
Rome and her daughters have persecuted Monarchist, tortured, multilated, and confiscated their homes and property. They have murdered those who would not recant the monotheism of the Scriptures. And, out of respect for that righteous blood, a true Monarchian will never conceed to trinitarianism, Papalism, or Creeds which were used as their law and authority to kill our people, and allow descendents of such to parade upon our platforms and speak behind our Pulpits. And, only the dead can forgive this injustice against their faith in Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour!
Do not ask us to deny their faith and call them in retrospect heritics and a cult. TRUE MONARCHIANS WILL NOT DO IT EVEN IF YOU KILL US! Yes we have had a few traitors who have run to the trinitarians. Yes we have some who came in among us and went out again to embrace the trinity Creeds. Yes, they call us a cult, but look where they went, ...to Rome or one of her daughters? Should we have expected anything less than their wanting to take part and accept the blood guilt of the precious saints among whom these could never fit because of their lust for LIBERIALISM? The Monarchians does have its list of shameful persons, it starts with Judas, and descends down today among people of like character (self-will above personal sacrifice).
There are these and other attacks upon Oneness Apostolics who hold to the Monarchian doctrine of One God. Just because someone makes a claim that the trinity of three Gods is true, and just because Papal Rome and her Protestant daughters are the One Catholic Church based upon that confession, DOES NOT MAKE THEM RIGHT IN THEOLOGY or IDEALOGY.
However they paint the trinity doctrine and however it is pedaled and packaged, it is a false doctrine and is a pagan heresy. You may stay in the trinity and embrace Catholicism, that is a choice, but to call Apostolics a cult because we have rejected one of the BIGGEST cults and her daughters is unfounded.
Abuse us if you will, but to us there is one God, and as Jesus said in Revelation 1:8, he is the LORD GOD. That is our faith and if you want to judge and condemn us for our faith, we are proud to be persecuted, denied, and hated for the name of Jesus Christ.
The Trinity is Pagan

Note: words in italics between the [ and ] are my remarks and not part of the quote.
The three branches of the Catholic Church that grew out of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, are the Eastern orthodox Greek Catholic Church, The Roman Catholic Church, and Protestant Catholic Churches. The one identifying doctrine that makes all of these Catholic, is the mystery of the trinity doctrine and trinity baptism. This is the cult captivity of millions. The difference between the true Church that began at Jerusalem and the Catholic Nico-Latins is the Oneness Monarchian Message.
Few realize that the trinity doctrine that was adopted at the Council of Nicaea and thereafter molded into several Creeds (click creeds to go read), descends from Mystery Babylon via Greek philosophy in Plato's theories, and from Jewish Gnosticism, not from the Bible. Yet the Catholics all teach, that if a person does not believe in the trinity doctrine of Mystery Babylon, that person can not be saved. According to them, you and I can not be saved unless we believe Greek philosophy and Jewish Gnosticism that has reinterpreted God different from how God identified himself. This is wrong. Jesus did not ordain philosophers or Gnostic mystics, he ordained Apostles to be the authorities of Church doctrine. One great difference between the Arians, the Trinity-arians, Greek Plato philosophy, Mystery Babylon, and the true Apostolic Christians, is the Oneness Monarchian Message.
All Pagan religions from the time of Babylon, have adopted in one form or another a trinity doctrine or a triad or trinity of gods. In Babylon it was Nimrod, Semiramas, and Tammuz; In Egypt it was Osiris, Isis, and Horus; within Israel pagan gnosticism it was Kether, Hokhmah, and Binah; In Plato's philosophy it was the Unknown Father, Nous/Logos, and the world soul. But in Old Testament Judaism there was only One God, a numerical ONE. The difference between paganism and God's people has always been the Oneness Monarchian Message reinforced by the First Commandment that prohibits any theory of a plurality.
In our study, we will use a few verses to give a flavor of the One God message, and then give a lot of quotes concerning the trinity message. The true Apostolic Church rejects all the decrees and creeds of the Councils. For this reason we reject the trinity doctrine because it is not in the Bible but in the Creeds of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Our Creed of One God is plainly in the Bible, the Oneness Message.
What God Says About His Oneness
EXO 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
ISA 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
ISA 44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
ISA 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.
ISA 44:8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
REV 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
[hr]
The plurality of the word Elohim translated God

The cult that arose in Babylon and spread its cult tentacles throughout the world was trinitarian (Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop). At first, this doctrine was merely humanism, man making himself god. The first humanism trinity of record to be setup and worshiped as gods, was that of Nimrod, Simeramus, and Tammuz. These are in the Old Testament in the Canaanite language identified as Baal, Ashtoreth, and Tammuz. At the dispersion of the people at the Tower of Babel, this trinity doctrine of humanism was spread all over the world. Each religion of all the pagan religions held two common traits: 1.) A trinity of gods and; 2.) These were in a form of human gods.
These consisted of a man (sacred husband-king), a woman (sacred wife-queen), and a sacred child (son-prince). In Mystery Babylon, the entire body of religious beliefs about God, good and evil, morals, and worship, were reinterpreted with a spiritualist view that we now call mysticism or the left hand path of the cult. In most instances everything contained in the ancient orthodox faith of the Patriarchs was reversed, reinterpreted, or corrupted.
In witchcraft today, the prayers, rituals, and teachings are reversed. Thus, in witchcraft the trinity doctrine is the central theme against which stands the original doctrine of one supreme God (the Monarchy). The singular Eloah for God as in Genesis 1:1 was reinterpreted in Babylon and replaced with the plural Elohim to enhance and help establish the idea of a plurality in the word God.
To prove the singular is the intent of one-God in Genesis 1:1 the verb is singular which identifies the subject as being singular. Although trinitarians do not like it and say the Jews are telling lies, the ancient Godly Israelites always understood God to be one person, a numerical ONE and not three. They understood the plural Elohim to speak of the majesty of intensity and his attributes of power. And for any trinitarian to say the plural means *GODS*, then let them translate it that way and see what a mess they make of the Scriptures. Even staunch trinitarians know this would be a pollution and sacrilege. The great schema: Hear O Israel the LORD our God is one LORD, settles the argument. But within Mystery Babylon the skilled scribes of the occult would not be so easily exposed and rebuked by Jewish doctrine. No, they would live by the reinterpretations of Nimrod and his gnosticism and impregnate the world with his doctrines. And thus we have Ministers and people today who believe in the trinitarian doctrine of Mystery Babylon and don't know it is a philosophy of man and not a true doctrine of God.
Within Nimrod's Mystery Babylon eventually came the philosophy that the trinity was a unity of persons whose perfect agreement upon all things, made them one. They were one in agreement and this mutual consent merged into the idea of the one unity of essence. The trinity in unity doctrine was thus stated in the cult as the one essence or nature of the three. As it relates to Nimrod, Simeramus, and Tammuz, they were one in essence, the essence being identified as human gods. When these human gods became deified, it was accepted these three gods were in reality reincarnated avatars or spiritual guides.
It was taught that these three deceased gods were in fact not only once human but were actually sparks of the cosmic soul of one essence. This is interpreted within the occult as the one. This is interpreted as saying that the cosmos is God and man is a microcosm of the cosmos, in reincarnation. The idea of their karma is the perfecting ofthe soul andmerging back into the unity and perfection of the one. This is alleged to rule all human affairs. Thus the zodiac becomes the rule of the one god of the cosmos upon and charting the human purpose.
Within this occult mysticism, the spirits within Nimrod, Simeramus, and Tammuz were the real essence of the cosmos that made their trinity family a unique fullness of the one pluralistic cosmos. The next step in the formation of the trinity in unity concept, was to teach the idea of emanation. The doctrine of emanation is the pantheistic concept behind the teachings of evolution, all things emanate and evolve from the one source and are a part of the whole in unity and of the same substance.
The idea of emanation of a primary God making of himself another God by subdividing his person as an amoeba splits in half to form another like being, is purely pagan. From Genesis 1:1 and the words: *In the beginning God,* we have the idea of a singular God and there being none else. It is true that the Hebrew word Elohim from which we get the word *God* is a plural word. But that does not mean there are plural Gods.
From ancient time Mystery Babylon has tried to make God what he is not. The ancient Godly Jews would have never dreamed of their being more than one God. They were prohibited by the first Commandment of having a pluralistic concept or view. It was from within this revelation, in contradiction to the surrounding religions of Pagan trinitarians, that Israel worship the One LORD of the Old Testament, chanting: *Hear O Israel, the LORD our GOD is ONE LORD.*
The plural use of *us* as in let *us* make man; Let *u*s go down; were interpreted by the Jews to be God speaking to his angels. It was only after the Council of Nicaea that the Catholics fled to these verses in order to find Scriptural support and excuse for adopting Plato's trinity in unity doctrine that he borrowed from Mystery Babylon.
The doctrinal position formulated at Nicaea was that if a theory does not conform to the Scriptures, then the Scriptures must be reinterpreted to conform to the theory.
Theory was then based upon spiritualizing or bending toward mysticism and philosophy for its support of the great Mystery of Babylon. Except they drop the word Babylon and say only that the trinity is a great MYSTERY that no one can understand. The world is deceived to believe the trinity should be left to mystics and philosophers to interpret, exactly as they did in ancient Mystery Babylon.
The next shoe to drop is to inhibit the human mind from examining the theory, by claiming no one can understand it, it must be accepted by faith. Or as one Minister once said: "If you try to understand the trinity you will lose your mind, but if you don't believe it you will lose your soul." This from a man who preached salvation by faith and then said: "O, by the way, if you don't believe in the trinity you can never be saved." .
The purpose of this lesson, is to acquaint individuals with the side of the cult doctrine of the trinity that their Church will never tell them. The side that book writers try to exclude from their reference materials.
This one doctrine makes the Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodist, Pentecostals, Episcopals, Charismatics, Presbyterians, Armstrongites, and several more groups and cults, ALL ONE PEOPLE in their basic statement of faith. And the statement to which they subscribe is the doctrine of the trinity however they explain it. Of course the Jehovah's Witnesses deny the trinity as taught by Rome but they have their own trinity of God the Father, the Archangel Jesus-Michael, and the Archangel Lucifer-Devil.
As the Nicaea trinity has two brothers in the trinity, so the Jehovah's Witnesses have a two-brother trinity of Jesus and the devil. Today the Nicaea trinitarians deny the two-brother doctrine, of Jesus and the Holy Spirit being brothers. But what else could the doctrine teach: The Father begets the son, the Holy Spirit proceeds (emanates from) the Father and the Son, hence the Holy Spirit is of the Father and a brother to the Son, or else, the Holy Spirit is the Son of the Father and the Son. God is not the author of confusion.
The clear teaching of the Old Testament is that there is one God, undivided as to his person and that he made man in his IMAGE and in his LIKENESS. That we are all ONE PERSON having a three-fold composition of body, soul, and spirit, but still ONE PERSON, is the exact picture of God. Our soul is manifest in a body. God is manifest in a body. God is one. Jesus is God by virtue of his dual nature. God in Christ; the Father in the Son; Emmanuel God with us; The LORD who ye seek shall come to his Temple; In that day, they shall say this is our God, we have waited for him.
If Jesus is not God, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, then he is not God at all. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. Not one God in unity or three Gods or even three persons, but ONE GOD. *When ye have seen me ye have seen the Father.* Who is antichrist but he that denieth the Father and the Son (It does not say believe in the Father separate from the Son). When a person confesses that the Father and the Son are the same God in manifestation, they are called heretics by the Catholic Church and Protestant Catholics.
But we believe John 1:1 against all gnosticism however it raises a protest:
In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with GOD and the WORD was GOD (John 1:1).
Should we rephrase this to suit trinitarians who teach that the WORD is the second person of the trinity who was with God the Father, the first person of the trinity, here is what we would get by changing the word God to Father like they want:
In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with the FATHER and the WORD was the FATHER!
Wow! ...now, how can they deny what they make the verse to say? By this change in their own language, the Word and the Father are the same God exactly what we are teaching here.
Now you are ready to read some remarks made by trinitarians about their own doctrine.
[hr]
Quotes About The Babylonian Trinity

"The necessity to formulate the doctrine was thrust upon the Church by forces from without, and it was, in particular, its faith in the deity of Christ, and the necessity to defend it, that first compelled the Church to face the duty of formulating a full doctrine of the Trinity for its rule of faith" (New Bible Dictionary, J. D. Douglas & F. F. Bruce, Trinity, p 1298).
"In the immediate post New Testament period of the Apostolic Fathers no attempt was made to work out the God-Christ (Father-Son) relationship in ontological terms. By the end of the fourth century, and owing mainly to the challenge posed by various heresies, theologians went beyond the immediate testimony of the Bible and also beyond liturgical and creedal expressions of trinitarian faith to the ontological trinity of coequal persons "within" God. The shift is from function to ontology, from the "economic trinity" (Father, Son, and Spirit in relation to us) to the "immanent" or "essential Trinity" (Father, Son, and Spirit in relation to each other). It was prompted chiefly by belief in the divinity of Christ and later in the divinity of the Holy Spirit, but even earlier by the consistent worship of God in a trinitarian pattern and the practice of baptism into the threefold name of God. By the close of the fourth century the orthodox teaching was in place: God is one nature, three persons (mia ousia, treis hupostaseis)" (The Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade, Trinity, Vol 15, p53-57).
"In the New Testament affirmations about the Son were largely functional and soteriological, and stressed what the Son is to us. Arians willingly recited these affirmations but read into them their own meaning. To preclude this Arian abuse of the Scripture affirmations Nicea transposed these Biblical affirmations into ontological formulas, and gathered the multiplicity of scriptural affirmations, titles, symbols, images, and predicates about the Son into a single affirmation that the Son is not made but born of the Father, true God from true God, and consubstantial with the Father" (The Triune God, Edmund J. Fortman, p 66-70).
"Economic and essential trinity:- (a) The transition from the Trinity of experience to the Trinity of dogma is describable in other terms as the transition from the economic or dispensational Trinity [Greek] to the essential, immanent or ontological Trinity [Greek]. At first the Christian faith was not Trinitarian in the a strictly ontological reference. It was not so in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in apostolic the NT and other early Christian writings. Nor was it so even in the age of the Christian apologists. And even Tertullian, who founded the nomenclature of the orthodox doctrine, knew as little of an ontological Trinity as did the apologists; his still the economic or relative conception of the Johannine and Pauline theology. So Harnack holds, and he says further that the whole history of Christological and Trinitarian dogma from Athanasius to Augustine is the history of the displacement of the Logos-conception by that of the Son, of the substitution of the immanent and absolute Trinity for the economic and relative. In any case the orthodox doctrine in its developed form is a Trinity of essence rather than of manifestation, as having to do in the first instance with the subjective rather than the objective Being of God. And, just because these two meanings of the Trinity-the theoretical and the practical, as they might also be described-are being sharply distinguished in modern Christian thought, it might be well if the term 'Trinity' were employed to designate the Trinity of revelation or the doctrine of the threefold self-manifestation of God), and the term "Triunity' (cf. Germ. Dreienigkeit) Adopted as the designation of the essential Trinity (or the doctrine of the tri-personal nature of God)" (Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, James Hastings, Trinity, p 461).
"Of course the doctrine of our Lord's divinity itself partly implies and partly recommends the doctrine of the Trinity ... First, the Creeds of that early day make no mention in their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention indeed of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the Three are One, that They are coequal, coeternal, all increate, all omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated and never could be gathered from them. Of course we believe that they imply it, or rather intend it" (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, John Henry Newman, a cardinal by Pope Leo III in 1879, 1878, p40-42).
"The ideas implicit in these early catechedical and liturgical formulae, as in the New Testament writers' use of the same dyadic and triadic patterns, represent a pre-reflective, pre-theological phase of Christian belief. It was out of the raw material thus provided by the preaching, worshiping Church that theologians had to construct their more sophisticated accounts of the Christian doctrine of the Godhead" (J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p 90).
"First, it is important to note that the doctrine of the Trinity does not go back to non-Christian sources [this is his opinion], as has sometimes been supposed in the past. There has been no lack of attempts to find the initial form of the doctrine of the Trinity in Plato, or in Hinduism, or in Parsiism. All such attempts may be regarded today as having floundered [again his opinion refuted below]. It is another question, of course, whether or not the church, in developing the doctrine of the Trinity [why develope something if it already existed?], had recourse to certain thought forms already present in the philosophical and religious environment, in order that, with the help of these, it might give its own faith clear intellectual expression [see an admission of borrowing pagan philosophy]. This question must definitely be answered in the affirmative. In particular cases the appropriation of this concept or that can often be proved. Unfortunately, however, it is true that particularly in reference to the beginnings of the doctrine of the Trinity there is still much uncertainty. In this area final clarity has not yet been achieved. As far as the New Testament is concerned, one does not find in it an actual doctrine of the Trinity. This does not mean very much, however, for generally speaking the New Testament is less intent upon setting forth certain doctrines than it is upon proclaiming the kingdom of God, a kingdom that dawns in and with the person of Jesus Christ. At the same time, however, there are in the New Testament the rudiments of a concept of God that was susceptible of further development and clarification, along doctrinal lines [his opinion]. ... Speaking first of the person of Jesus Christ ... In other passages of the New Testament the predicate "God" is without a doubt applied to Christ"(A Short History of Christian Doctrine, Bernard Lohse, 1966, p37-39).
"It is a good thing to examine the revelation that God made to the Jewish people in the Old Testament. We shall not find in it a lesson on the trinity--there is none [Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Vol. 20, What Is The Trinity, Bernard Piault]."
"In the book A Statement of Reasons, Andrews Norton says of the Trinity: 'We can trace the history of this doctrine, and discover its source, not in the Christian revelation, but in the Platonic philosophy . . . The Trinity is not a doctrine of Christ and his Apostles, but a fiction of the school of the later Platonists" (A Statement of Reasons, Andrews Norton, 1872, Fifth edition, American Unitarian Association, Boston, MA, p 94, 104).
"What does the Old Testament tell us of God? It tells us there is one God, a wonderful God of life and love and righteousness and power and glory and mystery, who is the creator and lord of the whole universe, who is intensely concerned with the tiny people of Israel. It tells us of His Word, Wisdom. Spirit, of the Messieh He will send, of a Son of Man and a Suffering Servant to come. But it tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit." "But nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead" (The Triune God, Edmund Fortman, pp 6, 15).
"The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the trinity. Neither the word trinity itself, nor such language as one in three, three in one, one essence or substance or three persons, is biblical language. The language of the doctrine is the language of the ancient Church, taken not from the Bible but from classical Greek philosophy [Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine, p 92]."
"There is no evidence the Apostles of Jesus ever heard of a trinity [H. G. Wells, Outline of History, 1920 Edition, p 499]."
"The word trinity is not found in the Bible [The Illustrated Bible Dictionary]."
"It was at this stage that Constantine made his momentous suggestion. Might not the relationship of Son to Father be expressed by the term homoousios ("of the same substance" ). Its use, however, by the Sabellian bishops of Libya had been condemned by Dionysius of Alexandria in the 260s, and, in a different sense, its use by Paul of Samosata bad been condemned by the Council of Antioch in 268. It was thus a "loaded" word as well as being unscriptural. Why Constantine put it forward we do not know. The possibility is that once again he was prompted by Hosius, and he may have been using it as a "translation" of the traditional view held in the West, that the Trinity was composed of "Three Persons in one substance," without inquiring further into the meaning of these terms. The Emperor bad spoken, and no one dared touch the creed during his lifetime. The great majority of the Eastern bishops found themselves in a false position" (The Rise of Christianity, 1985, W.H.C. Frend, p140-141).
"The doctrine of the Trinity is considered beyond the grasp of human reasoning [The Encyclopedia Americana]."
"Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon. Since the Christians have come to worship Jesus as a god ... Matthew 28.19 ... Matthew records a special connection between God the Father and Jesus the Son (e.g., 11.27), but he falls short of claiming that Jesus is equal with God. It is John's gospel that suggests the idea of equality between Jesus and God ... While there are other New Testament texts where God, Jesus, and the Spirit are referred to in the same passage (e.g., Jude 20-21), it is important to avoid reading the Trinity into places where it does not appear. An example is 1 Peter 1.1-2" (Oxford Companion to the Bible, Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, Trinity, p 782).
"The trinity is not directly and immediately the Word of God [New Catholic Encyclopedia]."
"The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches. ... This Greek philosopher's conception of the divine trinity ... can be found in all the ancient [pagan] religions" (French Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel [New Universal Dictionary], Vol. 2, p. 1467).
"The doctrine of the holy trinity is not taught in the Old Testament [New Catholic Encyclopedia]."
"Without abandoning our principle that Egyptian influence made itself felt as an undercurrent throughout Hellenism, we may nevertheless claim pride of place for Alexandria and so consider Alexandrian theology as the intermediary between the Egyptian religious heritage and Christianity [yet those who accept the Alexandria trinity infusion cry the loudest over Alexandrian manuscripts for the Bible?]. The Trinity is not the only subject- matter at issue here. Also Christology, which is closely linked to it - the doctrine concerning the nature of Christ and especially his pre-existence before the creation and time - revolves around questions which had been posed earlier by Egyptian theologians and which they solved in a strikingly similar way" (Egyptian Religion, Siegfried Morenz, p254-257).
"In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word [tri'as] (of which the Latin trinitas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A. D. 180. . . . Shortly afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian" (The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, Vol. 15, Trinity, p 47).
"The Old Testament tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a triune God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a trinity within the Godhead. Even to see in the Old Testament, suggestions or fore-shadowings or veiled signs of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers. The New Testament writers give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. Nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead [The Triune God, by Edmund Fortman, Jesuit].
"Neither the word trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament" [The New Encyclopedia Britannica]."
"Let us allow that the whole circle of doctrines, of which our Lord is the subject, was consistently and uniformly confessed by the Primitive Church . . . But it surely is otherwise with the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. I do not see in what sense it can be said that there is a consensus of primitive [church authorities] in its favour . . . The Creeds of that early day make no mention . . . of the [Trinity] at all. They make mention indeed of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the Three are One, that They are coequal, co-eternal, all increate, all omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could be gathered from them" (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, John Henry Newman, a cardinal by Pope Leo III in 1879, 1878, p40).
"As Far as the New Testament is concerned, one does not find in it an actual doctrine of the trinity [A Short History of Christian Doctrine, by Bernhard Lohse]."
"(b) Although the notion of a divine Triad or Trinity is characteristic of the Christian religion, it is by no means peculiar to it. In Indian religion e.g., we meet with the trinitarian group of Brahma, siva, and Visnu; and in Egyptian religion with the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, constituting a divine family, like the Father, Mother, and Son in medieval Christian pictures. Nor is it only in historical religions that we find God viewed as a Trinity. One recalls in particular the Neo-Platonic view of the Supreme or Ultimate Reality, which was suggested by Plato in the Timmoeus; e.g., in the philosophy of Plotinus the primary or original Realities are triadically represented as the Good or (in numerical symbol) the One, the Intelligence or the One-Many, and the World-Soul or the One and Many. The religious Trinity associated, if somewhat loosely, with Comte's philosophy might also be cited here: the cultus of humanity as the Great Being, of space as the Great Medium, and of the earth as the Great Fetish. (c) What lends a special character to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is its close association with the distinctive Christian view of divine incarnation" [still borrowed from paganism]... " As Augustine said, "if in the books of the Platonists it was to be found that 'in the beginning was the Word,' it was not found there that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.'" ... "None the less Christ is acknowledged as the eternal Son of God and the supreme revelation of the Father, and the quickening Spirit of life is acknowledged to be derived ' from on high." And so, when the early Christians would describe their conception of God, all the three elements-God, Christ, and the Spirit-enter into the description, and the one God is found to be revealed in a threefold way" [revealed via Plato philosophy] (Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, James Hastings, Trinity, p 458).
"The New Testament does not contain the developed doctrine of the trinity [The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology]."
"The doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the apostles' preaching, as this is reported in the New Testament" (Encyclopedia International, Ian Henderson, University of Glasgow, 1969, page 226).
"This sublime pronouncement of absolute monotheism was a declaration of war against all polytheism . . . In the same way, the Shema excludes the trinity of the Christian creed as a violation of the Unity of God" (The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, J. H. Hertz, 1941, Vol. 1, p. 215).
"Luther was uneasy with the term trinity, not the idea of Trinity, for Luther most certainly always was a trinitarian: "On the words persona, (etc. ). . . . Much has been said, about the time of the Reformation, concerning the tendency of these terms to lead to tritheism [believing in three gods]; and among the advocates for their expulsion from theological disquisition, might be mentioned a number of the first divines of the age, not excepting Minnius and even Luther himself.--Yet, to prevent the charge of Arianism or Socinianism, which he knew his enemies would eagerly seize the least pretext to prefer against them, Luther yielded to Melanchthon's wishes, and in the Augsburg Confession, the doctrine of the Trinity is couched in the old scholastic terms" [scholastic, meaning borrowed paganism] (G. C. Storr & Flatt's , Biblical Theology. S. S. Schmucker, trans., p. 301).
"The fanciful idea that [elo-him] referred to the trinity of persons in the Godhead hardly finds now a supporter among scholars. It is either what grammarians call the plural of majesty, or it denotes the fullness of divine strength, the sum of powers displayed by God" (William Smith: A Dictionary Of The Bible, p220).
"The doctrine of the trinity he [Michael Servetus] felt to be a Catholic perversion and himself to be a good New Testament Christian in combating it. According to his conception, a trinity composed of three distinct persons in one God is a rational impossibility" (Man's Religion, John B. Noss, 1968) [note: John Calvin, founder of the Presbyterian Church,had Servetus burned at the stake because of his anti-trinitarian views].
"The doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity received their shape from Greek Fathers, who ... were much influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Platonic philosophy ... That errors and corruptions crept into the Church from this source can not be denied" (The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson, 1957, Vol. IX, p. 91).
"To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently never known. They say nothing about it [Origin and Evolution of Religion, by Yale University Professor E. Washburn Hopkins]."
"Christianity had conquered paganism, and paganism had corrupted Christianity" (Winwood Reade, Philosopher and historian, The Martyrdom of Man, p 183-84).
"Yet it is self-evident that Father, Son and Spirit are here linked in an indissoluble threefold relationship. On the other hand, the NT does not actually speak of triunity. We seek this in vain in the triadic formulae of the NT. ... Early Christianity itself, however, does not yet have the problem of the Trinity in view" (Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. 3, p. 108).
"The Christian religion in the 3rd century made no compromise with any of the pagan religions and kept far away from the numerous intersections out of which, under the influence of the monotheistic philosophy of religion, a now religiousness developed itself. But the spirit of this religiousness entered into the Church and produced forms of expression in doctrine and cultus to correspond with itself. The testament of primitive Christianity-the Holy Scriptures-and the testament of antiquity-the New-Platonic speculation-were by the end of the 3d century intimately and, as it seemed, inseparably united in the great churches of the East. Through the acceptance of the Logos- Christology as the central dogma of the Church, the Church doctrine was, even for the laity, firmly rooted in the soil of Hellenism. Thereby it became a mystery to the great majority of Christians" (Outlines of the History of Dogma, Adolf Harnack, p193).
"At first the Christian Faith was not trinitarian. It was not so in the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic ages, as reflected in the New Testament and of the early Christian writings [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics]."
"The doctrine of the trinity was of gradual and comparatively late formation. It had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It grew up, and was engrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers. [The Church of the First Three Centuries]."
"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it ... From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity" (The Story of Civilization, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Part III, 1944, p. 595).
"The trinity "is a corruption borrowed from the heathen religions, and ingrafted on the Christian faith" (A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, Lyman Abbott, 1875, p944).
"Precisely what the doctrine is, or precisely how it is to be explained, Trinitarians are not agreed among themselves" (A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge" (Lyman Abbott, 1875, p. 944).
"The word Trinity is not found in the Bible, and, though used by Tertullian in the last decade of the 2nd century, it did not find a place formally in the theology of the Church till the 4th century" (New Bible Dictionary, J. D. Douglas & F. F. Bruce, Trinity, p 1298).
The trinity: "is a very marked feature in Hindooism, and is discernible in Persian, Egyptian, Roman, ***anese, Indian and the most ancient Grecian mythologies" (Religious Dictionary, Lyman Abbott, p944).
"Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity ... theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity. In the immediate post New Testament period of the Apostolic Fathers no attempt was made to work out the God-Christ (Father-Son) relationship in ontological terms" (The Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade, Trinity, Vol 15, p53-57).
"Neither the word Trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old Testament: "Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord" (Deut. 6:4). ... Thus, the New Testament established the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies" (Encyclopedia Britannica, Trinity, Vol. X, p.126, 1979).
"The New Testament does not contain a formalized explanation of the trinity that uses such words as trinity, three persons, one substance, and the like" (Why You Should Believe In The Trinity, 1989, Robert M. Bowman Jr.).
"The Trinity. The NT does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. "The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence and therefore in an equal sense God himself" (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Brown, Colin, 1932, God, vol 2, p84, J. Schneider).
"When we turn to the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity, we are confronted by a peculiarly contradictory situation. On the one hand, the history of Christian theology and of dogma teaches us to regard the dogma of the Trinity as the distinctive element in the Christian idea of God, that which distinguishes it from the idea of God in Judaism and in Islam, and indeed, in all forms of rational Theism. Judaism, Islam, and rational Theism are Unitarian. On the other hand, we must honestly admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did NOT form part of the early Christian-New Testament-message. Certainly, it cannot be denied that not only the word "Trinity", but even the EXPLICIT IDEA of the Trinity is absent from the apostolic witness of the faith.. The doctrine of the Trinity itself, however, is not a Biblical Doctrine" (Emil Brunner, "The Christian Doctrine of God", Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1949, pp. 205 & 236).
"All this underlines the point that primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds of the early church" (James L. Barker, "Apostacy From the Divine Church", Salt Lake City UT, 1960, p. 44).
"Thus the New Testament itself is far from any doctrine of the Trinity or of a triune God who is three co-equal Persons of One Nature" (William J. Hill, "The Three-Personed God", Washington DC, The Catholic University of America Press, 1982, p. 27).
"These passages give no doctrine of the Trinity... Paul has no formal Trinitarian doctrine and no clear-cut realization of a Trinitarian problem......there is no trinitarian doctrine in the Synoptics or Acts... nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead" (Fortman, "Triune God", pp. 22-23).
"In order to argue sucessfully for the unconditionality and permanence of the ancient Trinitarian Creeds, it is necessary to make a distinction between doctrines, on the one hand, and on the terminology and conceptuality in which they were formulated on the other... Some of the crucial concepts employed by these creeds, such as "substance", "person", and "in two natures" are postbiblical novelties. If these particular notions are essential, the doctrines of these creeds are clearly conditional, dependent on the LATE HELLENISTIC MILIEU" (George A. Lindbeck, Professon of Historical Theology, Yale University, "The Nature of Doctrine", Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984, p. 92).
Trinitarian discussion, Roman Catholic as well as others, presents a somewhat unsteady sillouette. Two things have happened. There is the recognition on the part of exegetes and Bibical theologians, including a constantly growing number of Roman Catholics, that one should not speak of Trinitarianism in the New Testament without serious qualification. There is also the closely parallel recognition on the part of historians of dogma and systematic theologians that when one does speak of an unqualified Trinitarianism, one has moved from the period of Christian origins to, say, the last quadrant of the 4th century" (R.L.Richard, "Trinity, Holy", in New Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols.).
"The concept of three divine persons-Father, son, and Holy Spirit united in one Godhead-came into Christianity, not via the Bible, but from philosophical categories of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. ...It baffles and repels modern man, who misses the nuances of the Greek ('Prosopon') in which the doctrine was formulated and therefore concludes, mistakenly, that Christianity preaches a kind of polytheism. ...Nothing essential would be lost and much clarity would be gained if Christians abandoned traditional Trinitarian terminology and simply spoke of God acting as the Creator and sustainer of the universe, revealing Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, or dwelling within men as a holy spirit" (Bishop James A. Pike, Denver Post, August 28, 1965).
"The trinitarian doctrine is pagan. The idea of three gods is paganism and comes from polythiesm and pantheism. The overwhelming majority of trinitarian scholars admit the trinity is not Biblical, did not exist in the Apostolic age, and was developed over a period of 295 years. It appears to be the basic doctrine of the gnostic sect called the Nicolatines in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. While it is true that many trinitarians confess the trinity doctrine came from paganism, they elect to believe it, remain in it, because that is where their employment is. The doctrine of salvation by faith (mind religion) allows for belief in paganism with no threat to salvation. Thus, these have no invested interest to identify the paganism of the trinity as a damnable philosophy. They also have no interest in actually saying the tinity is pagan and comes from paganism. They will skirt this declaration to say only that it is not in the Old Testament, not intended in the New Tesament, was not known by Jesus or the Apostles, and was developed over nearly three centuries. To protect their jobs, their reputations, and to remain financially secure, they will support the trinity doctrine. So, for anyone to say that there are no trinitarian scholars of repute who confess the trinity came from pagan sources, is falsehood. And for anyone to labor to prove the trinity did not come from pagan sources, shows a total disregard and disrespect for the God of the Bible" (The Trinity Doctrine Is Pagan, Cohen G. Reckart, Pastor; Copyright 1995).
Note: Some of the quotes contained here were copied from the anti-Semitic web site <http://www.bible.ca/trinity/>. By anti-Semitic, we mean those at this web site do not believe in the absolute oneness Monarchy of God as contained in the First Commandment and throughout the Old Testament. We believe that at the root of trinitarianism lies the ancient root of anti-Semitism of Gentile nations trying to destroy Israel, the only Monothestic religion and nation in the world. Anyone who espouses an anti-oneness, an anti-Monarchian view, are therefore advocating subtle paganism (Greek pagan Hellenism), to overthrow the ancient Apostolic Messianic Jewish belief in one God and one person in the godhead. While the Jews reject Jesus as God, the Apostolic doctrine is that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. Jesus said he was this God in Revelation 21:6-7. We hold to the strict monothestic, oneness, monarchian Messianic Jewish faith in God.
[hr]

Dear reader: Why have many done exactly what the First Commandment prohibits, which is accept from some non-divine source a plural view or belief in or about God? Meaning they believe there is more than one God or persons whom men call God? And that these three Gods know of each other's separate presence and they talk to one another?
If Jesus Messieh is not the God of the Old Testament incarnate in human flesh, then he is not God at all. The revelation of God in Messieh is simply that the soul of Jesus was the Spirit of God, which we call God the Father. The flesh of Jesus, Mary's baby, the seed of Abraham and David, was the Son of Man as to his human side. God then was the Father of his own fleshly body (they claim this happened in the instant God was created anyway). Therefore, we profess as Jesus, that it is the Father in him which doeth the works and not the flesh itself without deity incarnate: ...so we confess the Father and the Son.
We confess that the Father is Jesus come in the flesh as Emmanuel, God (the Father) with us. Therefore we confess both the Father and the Son; ...that when you see Jesus you also see the Father, ...that Jesus and the Father were not one in a trinitarian unity, but in a oneness of Godhead. Jesus was not a Son in a Son, but the Father in the Son. That is the truth of the incarnation. Here we receive the revelation of Jesus being Emmanuel, God with us.
Since there is only one God, Jesus is God (the express image), made visible in human form, in which we can look upon him as Thomas and say: *My Lord and my God.*
Since we are created in the image of God with soul (spirit), and body, we see that God also can have a body and a soul (spirit) and be one person in Messieh even as we are one person and not three persons in our one body. Therefore we are a three-fold being, and by manifestation one person. Likewise, God is revealed in a three-fold manifestation and as the one person of Messieh.
This revelation destroys the attempt by Mystery Babylon to incorporate the mystery of Nimrod's pagan trinity, which to cover their contradictions with Scripture, claim no one can understand but must accept by faith? Or as one minister previously stated: *If you try to understand the trinity you will lose your mind, but if you don't believe it, you will lose your soul.*
JAM 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
If the devil knows there is only one God, why should we believe in three and say they are only three separate persons but yet one God in unity? Is this not a convoluted theological mess?
Separation from the trinity doctrine is a GREAT step of coming out of Mystery Babylon. The choice is ours. Stay in or come out.
This lesson was not constructed or designed to deny that a person loves God. There are several who love God and who are actively involved in their Churches. I have met many hundreds of good people who after learning of the pagan source of the trinity doctrine, have asked God to lead them to a New Testament congregation where they can express their full faith and beliefs, not just those of Catholic or Protestant Catholic Churches.
Should you elect to pursue this subject, be advised that most Pastors deny what they do not know. Like a lot of Freemasons who belong to their satanic lodges and don'know they are in a cult; so there are many in several Churches advocating the trinity and do not know the Catholic trinity cult had its birth among Christians Churches at Nicaea in 325 AD under a pagan emperor sitting as the first pope of the new-born Catholic Church. The Mystery of Babylon against the True Church of Jesus Messieh came from Babylon to Israel to Alexandria, Egypt, and then by Athanasius to Nicaea.
Question: I am trinitarian, how do I convert to Apostolic Messianic oneness of God?
Answer: First, return to the Scriptures. Second, believe that God is one. Third, study the Scriptures that prove Messieh is God. Fourth, accept the authority of the Scriptures above the philosophers and deceivers of Rome and her daughters. Fifth, begin to confess your faith in the oneness of God by witnessing to others.
Question: I was baptized trinitarian according to Matthew 28:19 and that is why I believed in the trinity. Is there another baptism in the Scriptures that is into Jesus Messieh if he is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all in one?
Answer: Matthew 28:19 is a verse that many scholars now believe was corrupted by adding the words *baptise* and *Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.* to Matthew's Gospel. The correct wording quoted by Eusebius some twenty one times in his massive works was: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations and make disciples in my name." The other words were added to the original Matthew 28:19. Scholars now admit this happened but keep it a secret because it helps them prove the trinity. Jerome in his translation of the Latin Vulgate, which is the pattern of all future translations, interpolated this text into his new translation. From this it came into the King James Version. Yes, there is an older baptism mode or method used by the early Church. It is found in Acts 2:38. Interesting that no where in all of the Acts of the Apostles did they ever repeat the words of Matthew 28:19 in water baptism. Baptism was always into the name of Jesus Messieh in one manner or another. So find a Church that baptizes pronouncing the name of Jesus Messieh over candidates and be rebaptized. If you do not know of a Church in your locality, e-mail me and I will locate one for you.
Question: How do I become Messianic?
Answer: Depart from all denominations and join an Apostolic Messianic Congregation. Some Apostolic Congregations do not as yet use the terminology Messianic, however, the fact that they believe Jesus is the Messieh and that he was God manifest in the flesh, is evidence they are Messianic in part of their doctrine and will need further revelation to come into the fullness of the New Testament restoration of the Church.
God bless you,
Pastor Note: This study has been copyrighted. It may be copied and posted on your web site as long as you have permission and the page contains the name of the author and a live link back to the home page.

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Old 10-16-2006, 06:30 PM   #3
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Effort for effort . . .I copied one too . . .here it is, I don't know what it says, but oh well.

The difference I read mine. The diffeence is I don't think heresy is a funny matter.Paul cried for the space of 3 years when wolves crept in to confuse the sheep. May God reward you accordingly.
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Old 10-16-2006, 06:47 PM   #4
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Old 10-16-2006, 06:49 PM   #5
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Well, here's some more stuff then . . .I have read it a few times, but just not lately. And thanks for the reminder about Paul because I've cried somewhat longer than three years over the false doctrine of the trinity.



Why should we conclude that God is a Trinity of persons; i.e. God's eternal essence subsists in three distinct and eternal persons: Father, Son, Spirit? Is the Biblical evidence as overwhelmingly compelling as many Trinitarians claim it is? Oneness believers would answer in the negative. Each theological position will point to certain Scriptures to bolster their case. This is arguing from the micro-level. Our doctrine of God cannot be informed from a few isolated verses, but must be informed from the entire corpus of Biblical data. While we must grapple with the Biblical text on the micro-level, we can only do so after having established the Biblical teaching on God on the macro-level.
No theological position can adequately explain every verse in the Bible that pertains to God. There will always be passages that are difficult to explain, and that seem to support another position. Because of this we must move beyond proof-texting when it comes to the Oneness vs. Trinity debate. It is at the level of proof-texting, however, that the debate usually lies. Both sides gather up five verses that bolster their view, and use those same verse to attack the contrary position. Each side thinks they are right and have "won" the argument, but in reality we have ten verses that seem to teach to different things. Nobody has "won" until we can find a way to understand all ten verses with internal consistency and without jumping through exegetical hoops.
It will not do to find a particular verse in the Bible that does not readily fit with our opponents doctrine, and exploit that one verse to such an extent that we dismiss their entire position. To do so is to commit what I call the "weak link" fallacy. We commit the weak link fallacy when we attack the one weak link in our opponent's theological system, and then mistakenly believe that we have dismanteld the entire theological chain. Not so. In order to dismantle a theological system we must not only dismantle the weak links of the chain, but the strong links of the chain too. All theological positions have weak links. There are just as many difficult texts for Trinitarians as there are for Oneness believers. We will not be able to solve the Godhead issue and the dilemma of these problem texts unless we first establish a Biblical foundation upon which to interpret them through. We build that foundation through observing the Biblical data as a whole, not a difficult verse here and there. When it comes to the Oneness vs. Trinity debate we must ask ourselves Which view is better supported by the larger picture of Scripture? While there may be verses which seem to indicate a Trinity of eternal persons on the micro-level, we would only be justified in concluding that God is indeed a Trinity if such an interpretation is supported on the macro-level. If Trinitarianism cannot be supported on a macro-level of exegesis, then we should not interpret particular verses within a Trinitarian construct. In this short article I intend to demonstrate that on the macro-level Oneness theology is better supported by Scripture than is Trinitarian theology.
Those who believe in a Trinity often do so based on the fact that Scripture often makes a distinction between the Father and Son, and to a lesser degree the Holy Spirit. If God's oneness is a numerical oneness of person (meaning He is uni-personal) as Oneness believers maintain, these distinctions become very perplexing, if not meaningless. After all, how is it that Jesus prays to the Father, and speaks of the Father as though the Father is another person distinct from Him if Jesus' deity is the deity of the Father? It would be the same personal deity in both cases. If such is the case why would we need to make any distinction between Father and Son? In order to make sense of the distinctions betwen Father and Son it would seem that Jesus must be a distinct person from the Father.
While I believe monotheism and the Biblical distinctions are easily reconciled when understood in light of the humanity God assumed in the incarnation (without resorting to a Nestorian view of Christ), I can also see the weight of the dilemma that faces the readers of Scripture when they encounter such distinctions. How can God be one and at yet at the same time the Scripture speak of the Father, Son, and Spirit as distinct and as God?
It would be very easy to conclude that Father, Son, and Spirit are three personal deities within one divine essence. Such a conclusion can account for both the real distinctions we encounter between Father, Son, and Spirit, and maintain the existence of only one God. Of course "one" has to be redefined away from a numerical oneness to the notion of a "unity" to make this view work. While I sympathize with the Trinitarian solution to the perplexing data in Scripture, it is the redefining of "one" that makes the Trinitarian view untenable. See my articles entitled "Trinitarianism: Modified Tritheism."

There is no doubt that we find distinctions in reference to Father, Son, and Spirit in the Scripture, but the simple existence of distinctions does not warrant a Trinitarian concept of God. The doctrine of the Trinity is a mere a model formulated by the church fathers through which the oneness passages could be reconciled with the distinction passages. I do not believe that such a conclusion is the best conclusion to make of the data, because the Trinitarian conclusion is not based on all the data.
We must consider the following data when developing our theology of God:
[blockquote] 1. While we do find distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit, these distinctions do not appear until the NT.
2. The vast majority of distinctions in the NT are between the Father and Son, not the Father, Son, and Spirit.
3. The appellations "Father" and "Son" do not appear in the OT as designations for God. God is only called "Father" or likened to a "Father" about a dozen times, and in each case it describes God's relationship to His creation (as creator, or covenant-maker), not His relationship to another divine person (Son). Rather than being referred to as "Father" in the OT, God is referred to as "YHWH."
4. While the OT speaks of the Spirit, there is never any indication that the Spirit is a distinct person within God's essence. The Spirit is most often said to belong to YHWH, not to be a distinct person from Him.
5. Not only do we find Jesus being distinguished from the Father, but we also find Him being distinguished from God altogether.
[/blockquote] What are the implications of this data? What is the best model of God that we can formulate to adequately account for all of the Biblical data? Is it the Trinitarian or Oneness model?
The Nature of the Distinctions
Based particularly on the NT data Trinitarians conclude that God is three persons in one essence. Why should we conclude such? Is it because we see distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit in the Bible? To conclude that God is tri-personal based simply on the fact that we find distinctions in the Bible is not logical, and is a hasty conclusion that does not account for all the data. To determine how Jesus is distinguished from the Father we must examine the nature of those distinctions. What we find is that Jesus is not only distinguished from the Father, but at times Jesus is distinguished from God altogether (Matthew 27:46; Luke 2:52; John 8:40; 14:1; 17:3; 20:17b; Acts 2:22; 4:10; 7:55; 10:38; Romans 10:9; Ephesians 1:3; Hebrews 1:9; I Peter 1:3). Jesus spoke of the Father calling Him "My God." If Jesus has a God, then who is Jesus? If we assume that this is the second person speaking, does God the Son have a God? In Trinitarian theology God the Son is God, He does not have a God. Paul said, "To us there is but one God, the Father; and one Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 8:6). There is God, and then there is Jesus. Here again Jesus is distinguished from God Himself.1
Should we conclude from the above distinction passages that Jesus is just a man, and not God? Of course not. But if we are going to look merely at the distinctions between Father and Son and conclude from the very existence of those distinctions that God must be more than one person (a triune being), then we must with those same distinctions further conclude that Jesus is not God at all. We realize that this would be a false deduction because there are Scriptures that clearly declare Jesus to be God. This demonstrates that the mere existence of distinctions between Father and Son does not give us warrant in itself to understand those distinctions as eternal distinctions within God's very essence. We must seek to understand how it is that the Son is distinct from the Father, and distinct from God altogether.
Why is the Son Distinct from the Father?
Is the distinction between the Father and Son due to the existence of three eternal persons in one God, or is it due to the addition of humanity to God's one eternal person? Is the distinction between eternal persons, or is the distinction between the one uni-personal God's incarnate existence as a man, and the same uni-personal God's existence continued existence beyond the incarnation as the unlimited Spirit?
If the distinction is between eternal persons in the Godhead, why do we not read of the second person until the incarnation? Why would God fail to reveal Himself as eternal Son until the NT, if the Son is an eternally divine person in YHWH's eternal and essential being?
Also, why, if God is eternally Father, is He never called "God the Father" until the NT? While God was called "Father" occasionally before the incarnation (e.g. Malachi 3:10), "Father" begins to be used for God in an unparalleled way after the incarnation. In the OT "Father" was employed to describe the relationship between God and His creation, not between God and God (as in Trinitarian thought). God's fatherhood to Jesus Christ, however, was of a different nature than God's fatherhood spoken of in the OT. God was Jesus' Father because it was God who fathered Jesus' human existence. This might explain why it is that God becomes known as "Father" in the NT, rather than "YHWH" as He was known in the OT.
And why do we not hear of the "Son" before the NT? If God is eternally Father and eternally Son, it seems strange that we never read of "Father" and "Son" until the NT when God actually fathered a son. If we do not find the Father and Son in the OT, but start seeing such terminology and distinctions in the NT, all sane individuals ought to ask why that is so. What changed between the testaments? The answer to that question just might be a clue as to why we suddenly start reading about the "Son," and start hearing God referred to as "Father" so frequently. Is the dramatic change just a coincidence, or is there a logical reason for this?
The appellations "Father" and "Son" describe a specific kind of relationship: a filial relationship [parent/child]. Do we find such a relationship between the Father and Son in the NT? Yes we do. Is this relationship centered around the incarnation? Yes it is. God overshadowed Mary and she conceived of the Holy Spirit, making that which was born of her the Son of God, and God His father. With such an event should we be shocked that Jesus calls God His Father (in a way very distinct from the way Father was used by other Jews, as the Jews clearly recognized-John 5:18), and that God calls Jesus His Son? No. Yes there is a relationship, and it could be between two persons (whether those are two divine persons, or one divine person and one human person could not be determined simply from this evidence alone. Other information would need to be sought to determine the nature of the two persons), or it could be due to something else. His sonship could be entirely filial and temporal, beginning at the incarnation. That is the normal meaning of son, is it not? Jesus became the Son of God at the incarnation. If we never read about the Son prior to the incarnation, and yet we know that God actually fathered a human son in the incarnation, and then we start hearing about the son, which is more logical to conclude: 1. The Son is eternal and a distinct divine person from the Father, or; 2. The Son refers to the human child fathered by God, making God the Father, and the child the Son?
The time at which the appellations begin to be used may tell us something as to whether or not they are referring to two persons or something else. If the appellations start being used at the incarnation to describe the relationship between God and the human child He fathered, then we would have no reason to believe that the Father and Son are two eternally distinct divine persons. If however, they are used prior to the incarnation to describe God's relationship with another eternally divine person, then we would have reason to believe that the Father and Son are two eternally distinct divine persons, and that such is unrelated to the incarnation. But when the distinctions are found after the incarnation, as well as the Father/Son terminology, it does not favor the Trinitarian notion of an eternal distinction of persons, but rather a temporal distinction grounded in the incarnation (human existence).
A Trinitarian can always fall back on the argument that the Son was not revealed until the NT because it was not time for Him to be revealed until then. While this is possible, why should we believe it to be likely? The real issue is If God is eternally three persons, and the activities of those three persons are both diverse and interconnected, why would we not see the distinct personhood of someone called the Son and Spirit in the OT? It surely could not have been because they were inactive. To say that it just was not time for the Son to be revealed is logical according to the Trinitarian theory, but it simply follows on the heels of what Trinitarian theory would require. Trinitarians reason that since God is a Trinity, the Son must have been there even though we do not read of Him, and we do not read of Him apparently because it was not His time to be revealed to us.
This line of argumentation reminds me of evolutionists who speak of all the missing links in the fossil record that they have not found yet. I ask, "Who says they are missing? Maybe they are not there to begin with, and thus will never be found. After all, one cannot find what does not exist." It is the evolutionary theory that requires the existence of missing links, not the evidence itself. The evidence simply shows fully formed, distinct species. The theory causes them to both look for missing links, and to offer explanations as to why they are missing. Maybe evolutionists are asking the wrong questions, and are working from a flawed model, which is causing them to search for something that is really not there, and come up with very logical explanations as to why they have not found them yet. They are having difficulty finding the missing links that are required by their theory because those missing links simply do not exist. While evolutionists reason, "Well we just have not found them yet," Trinitarians seem to be saying "The Son is not found in the OT because it was not His time to be revealed." Maybe it was not His time to be revealed because He did not exist, because the Son is God's human manner of existence, not a distinct divine person in a tri-personal Godhead. That is not an unlikely possibility, especially when we have a very good reason to understand the dramatic shift we see from the OT to the NT: the incarnation. In the NT God fathered a son, and now we read about the Father and Son all the time. Since the Son is a human being who came into being at a certain point in time, it would make sense for us to not hear anything about Him prior to the NT.

The fact that such terminology is mysteriously missing from the OT makes sense when it is recognized that "Father" and "Son" are relational terms used in the context of begetting a child. Did God beget a child? Yes, at the time of the incarnation. Would this account for the lack of such terms as "Father" and "Son" in the OT, and the virtual exclusive use of such terms for God in the NT? Yes it would. Is it not better, then, to understand "Father" and "Son" to be incarnationally-bound appellations rather than eternal relationships within the Godhead? After all, it is not until the NT that we find any distinctions in reference to God, and the existence of the Father-Son terminology.2
The incarnation brought a distinction between God's existence as an incarnate man (genuine humanity and deity united in one theandric3 existence) and the same God's continued transcendent existence beyond the incarnation (exclusive Spirit or theistic existence). The Father is exclusive deity while the Son, being God incarnate, is deity and humanity metaphysically united in one existence. The distinction between the Father and Son does not lie in the identity of Jesus' deity (as some distinct person in the eternal Godhead), but in the fact that the Son is a genuine human being. The distinctions between Father and Son are exclusively bound up in the incarnation, not in God's essential being.
Because of the addition of a genuine human existence to God's eternal person, there arose a real relationship between Father and Son. This relationship was a temporal relationship arising due to God's existence as a genuine human being with a genuine human consciousness, not an eternal relationship between two distinct divine persons. Jesus is a real man with a genuine human existence. Because of His human nature Jesus possesses human rationality, consciousness, spirit, soul, body, and will, giving Him the capacity for, and need for relationships as all men have need, even a relationship with God.
Holy Spirit
What about the Holy Spirit? While the distinction between the Father and Son can be explained by the incarnation, when it comes to the Father and the Spirit there is no incarnational distinction. How is it that the Spirit is distinct from the Father? Is the Holy Spirit a reference to a distinct person within God, or is it a reference for a particular aspect of God's one person just like our spirit is a reference to a particular aspect of our one person (I Corinthians 2:11)? If the former, why did the OT not make this explicit, and why is the NT data so lacking for such a conclusion? The NT often makes a distinction between the Father and Son, but rarely makes a distinction between Father, Son, and Spirit.
While the OT speaks of the Spirit of4 God, there is never any indication that the Spirit is a distinct person within God's essence. The Spirit is most often said to belong to YHWH, not to be a distinct person from Him. If YHWH is the Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit), and the Spirit is a person in the Trinity, then we must conclude that the Spirit is YHWH. If the Spirit is YHWH, how can the Spirit be said to belong to YHWH? Does the Spirit belong to Himself? It would be senseless to say that one can belong to themselves. They either are themselves, or they belong to another. If YHWH is the Trinity, and the Spirit is said to belong to YHWH, and yet one cannot belong to themselves, then we would have to conclude that the Spirit is not YHWH. Such cannot be true even in Trinitarian thought, and thus we have no logical reason to assume that the Spirit is a distinct person from YHWH. The only way to curtail such a logical conclusion would be to argue that in some references "YHWH" is referring only to the Father, and the Spirit is being said to belong to the person of the Father in YHWH. Such an explanation, however, is inconsistent and falls prey to splitting up the Trinity. Either YHWH is the Trinity of eternal persons, or YHWH refers to only one person in the Trinity. It cannot be both ways.
God is holy, and God is a Spirit, so it is no surprise that God is referred to as "Holy Spirit," or that we read about the "Spirit of [being used as a possessive meaning "belonging to"] God." God's Holy Spirit is the innermost essence of His being. The references to God's Holy Spirit also speak of God in activity. The term serves to signify a certain aspect of God's self-revelation to man. In the OT the Spirit is clearly understood to be a reference to YHWH, referring to His nature as Spirit.
We must still ask how it is that the Spirit is distinguished from the YHWH in the OT, or the Father and Son in the NT. We can make as much distinction between God and His Spirit as we can between a man and his spirit. Paul seemed to make this point when he said concerning the deep things of God: "But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, even the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God" (I Corinthians 2:12-13). I can distinguish my spirit from my flesh, and speak of my spirit as distinct from me, but my spirit is not a distinct person within me. I am one person, a unified whole, being both body and spirit. God's Spirit is no more distinct from Him than my spirit is from me.
When we understand the NT distinctions to be incarnationally-grounded, it explains the reason Trinitarians find so few passages that would argue for a distinct person of the Spirit, while they find so many that seem to argue for the distinct person-hood of the Son.
Jesus' Prayers
Trinitarians believe that Jesus' communication with the Father, namely His prayers, compels us to conclude that the deity of the Father and the deity of the Son are distinct persons in the Godhead. It is reasoned that if the deity of the Son and the deity of the Father are the same personal deity, then Jesus' communication to the Father was simply God talking to Himself. The simple fact that Jesus communicates with the Father and has a relationship with the Father does not de facto indicate that God is a Trinity of persons. We have to understand why Jesus communicates with the Father. While it could be due to the fact that God is tri-personal, is there compelling evidence to conclude so? There are several reasons why Jesus' communication with the Father should not be understood to indicate that God is a Trinity. We need to ask a few questions about the Biblical data before we can conclude why Jesus communicated with the Father.
First, why do we not read of any communication between the Father and Son until after the incarnation?5 If God is eternally Father and eternally Son we would expect to find the Father and Son communicating with one another prior to the incarnation. Interestingly, however, we only find such communication after the incarnation. If the communication between Father and Son is a major reason why Trinitarians feel compelled to conclude that the Father and Son are two distinct and eternal persons, and yet the communication only begins after the incarnation when God became man, what compelling evidence is there to conclude that God is eternally Father and eternally Son? If the communication began at a certain point in time, maybe the Son is not an eternal person in the Godhead. Maybe there is another explanation for the Father-Son distinction, and another explanation for the Son's communication with the Father.
Secondly, why is it that Jesus never communicated with any person of the Trinity besides the Father? Why did He not communicate with the Holy Spirit or with God the Son?6 It seems kind of odd that Jesus would only communicate with one person in the Trinity. Are we more justified in believing that the Son simply chose not to communicate with any person besides the Father, or are we more justified in believing that Jesus only communicated with the Father because there is only one person in the Godhead to communicate with in the first place? The lack of communication to the other two persons of the Triune God may just indicate that there are no 'two other persons.'
Maybe Jesus only communicated with the Father because "Father" is the one uni-personal God's existence as the unlimited Spirit apart from the incarnation. Maybe we do not find any communication between Father and Son prior to the incarnation because the Son did not exist before the incarnation, because the Son is the uni-personal God's existence as man. Maybe the communication and relationship between the Son and Father is due to the fact that God assumed a real limited human consciousness in the incarnation, and with such a consciousness Jesus had need of a relationship with God as does any other human being. Jesus' prayers do not support Trinitarian theology.

Foundational Problems with Trinitarianism
If we are going to confess a Trinity we must ask why we do not find this triunity of God until the NT. We have to wonder why we never read about the second person in the OT. Why was the existence of a second person not revealed until the incarnation? Why is it that God has only spoken through the Son in these last days (Hebrews 1:1-3) if the Son has eternally existed alongside the Father? Does it make more sense to conclude that the Son is an eternally distinct person in the Godhead that God failed to mention until the NT, or is it more reasonable to conclude that "Son" has to do with the one uni-personal God's existence as a man, which existence did not come to be until the incarnation?
If there was no distinct person from the Father in the OT, what would we expect to find in the OT concerning the Son? Nothing. What do we find? Nothing. So why conclude that the Son of God is an eternal person in the Godhead, and reject the idea that "Son" pertains to God's incarnate existence, if we read nothing about the Son until the incarnation? Frankly, there is no good reason to do so. Trinitarians must account for the lack of evidence upon which they have concluded that the Son is eternal. They must account for the fact that God never disclosed His threeness until the NT, offer a viable explanation for such disclosure, and offer compelling evidence that would substantiate the belief that there ever was an eternal Son to be disclosed in the first place.
While both Trinitarian and Oneness theologies must account for the new revelation of God in the incarnation, there is a difference between saying that the same person who revealed Himself to Moses in the OT became a man in the NT (Oneness theology), and saying that a second person in the Godhead no one knew existed became a man in the NT (Trinitarian theology). While Oneness believers may be shocked to see that God would become a man, Trinitarians would be shocked to see who showed up! In Oneness theology the person who shows up is the same person we have been reading about in the OT, not a different person in the Godhead we never read about before. Trinitarian theology has to admit that a whole other person in the Godhead showed up on the scene in flesh, who is personally distinct from the personal God revealed in the OT. In Oneness theology we do not find a part of God that we have never known before; we find the same familiar God, but manifest in flesh.
Also, why is it that God is called "YHWH" before the incarnation, and only "Father" and "Son" after the incarnation? The Father-Son terminology only arises after the incarnation when God actually became a man. It is no surprise, then that we find a distinction between Father and Son starting in the NT (not the OT). Maybe we do not find such terminology in the OT because God was never "Father" (in the NT sense of the word describing the relationship between Father and Son) before He fathered a son in the incarnation. (See my article entitled "Eternal Father, Eternal Son?") It is much more reasonable to conclude that the distinctions between Father and Son are temporal distinctions arising in the incarnation, not eternal distinctions within God's essential being.
Conclusion
What model of God, then, can most adequately account for all of the Biblical data? What model best explains the Biblical insistence on monotheism, the lack of any distinction in God's person in the OT, the emergence of Father-Son terminology only after the incarnation, and the fact that most of the Biblical distinctions are in reference to the Father and Son, to the exclusion of the Spirit? Is it the Trinitarian or Oneness model?
While the Trinitarian model can account for the distinctions in the NT, it cannot account for the lack of such in the OT, nor the failure of the OT to mention "God the Son" (other than in prophetic passages), nor the non-existence of the Father-Son terminology before the incarnation. While it can account for the distinction passages, it does so only at the expense of redefining "one" to mean "unity," and thus bringing the church to the borders of Tritheism. Why should we adopt the Trinitarian model of God when the model fails to answer so much of the Biblical data?
I argue that a Oneness theology best accounts for such a phenomenon, insisting that God is an absolute monad, the Spirit being His very nature and an aspect of His one person, and the Son being none other than His one person incarnated as a man, but distinguished from His continued existence beyond the incarnation due to the hypostatic union of His deity and humanity into one unified theandric existence. Oneness theology best accounts for the rise of distinction-terminology in the NT, and the emergence of the appellations "Father-Son," because it was not until the NT that God fathered a son, and it was not until the hypostatic union when God incorporated a human identity into His person that there arose such a need to make any distinctions in reference to God. The distinction, however, is never said to be between eternal persons in the Godhead. Such distinctions are only necessary in light of the incarnation and God's acquisition of a genuine human consciousness when He assumed a genuine human existence.
[hr] Footnotes 1. Jesus, the Son of God, is fully God, but God is not identified with Jesus, as being identically the same. This demonstrates that God was not centralized in the person of Christ, so that God no longer existed apart from the incarnation. The Scripture presents Jesus both as being God, and in contradistinction to God, offering us a paradoxical, bilateral view of His person. Jesus thought of the Father as being someone other than He Himself, though He also realized that the deity of the Father was in Him (John 10:38; 14:10-11, 20), and that He preexisted the incarnation as YHWH (John 8:56-59).
2. While the absence of the Son in the OT, and the absence of the Father-Son language in the OT does not disprove Trinitarian dogma, it does throw serious question on it as the best explanation of the data. There is no question that it is possible for an eternal Son to not be mentioned in the OT and yet still truly exist. The possibility of such is not being disputed; what is being disputed is the likelihood of such.
3. Coming from the Greek theos (God) and anthropos (man).
4. In the Hebrew grammar "of" is being used as a possessive meaning "belonging to."
5. In certain OT passages YHWH does speak to or of the Son (Psalm 2:7; 45:6; 110:1), but a few things should be noted. First, it is never said that the "Father" spoke to the Son. It only speaks of "YHWH" or "God," never suggesting a Father-Son relationship prior to the incarnation. Secondly, these OT passages are clearly prophetic, speaking of the Messiah, and thus cannot be divorced from the incarnation which was yet future. The communication between YHWH and the Messiah (Son), then, was not a present transaction, but a future even.
6. While it may be argued that Jesus would not communicate with God the Son (as he exists apart from the incarnation) because Jesus was God the Son incarnate, and for Jesus to communicate to God the Son would be for Jesus to communicate to Himself, this assumes that Jesus' communication to the Father arose out of His divine consciousness, rather than a genuine human consciousness. Such a view of Christ denies Christ a true human consciousness and psyche, being Docetic and Apollinarian in nature. Trinitarians must confess a genuine human consciousness for Christ. If His consciousness was human, then His prayers were also human, and could not be construed to be one divine person praying to another divine person, but a genuine human being praying to God. In such case it would not matter if Jesus (God the Son incarnate) prayed to God the Son transcendent because Jesus' prayers arose out of His human consciousness, not God the Son's divine consciousness.
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Old 10-16-2006, 07:00 PM   #6
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Default RE: Oneness Heresy

Oneness doctrine says that Jesus has somehow caused God the Father to cease to exist and Jesus has taken his place.


Chuck; Your statement is so far from the truth that I am not even going to waste my time with it. It is better to remain quite and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
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Old 10-16-2006, 07:02 PM   #7
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It is better to remain quite and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt
Amen to that.Very true.
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Old 10-16-2006, 07:32 PM   #8
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There goes the doubt.
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Old 10-16-2006, 07:35 PM   #9
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Thou hast spoken.
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Old 10-16-2006, 07:43 PM   #10
 
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Cut this out guys...seriously. If God requires us to have a perfected knowledge of his nature we're all screwed. If not, than bringing him glory is the last thing this thread is doing.
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