Muslims in Balkan Should Promote Europe of Peace and Hope

[makedonche]

Vangelovski

George isn't providing an alternative interpretation of the Trinity, he's denying its existence outright.

That's two you've pointed out that are denying the existence of the Trinity, not trying to explain/interpret it.

It's Georges interpretation, which has been the point for some time now, that there are other interpretations, based on peoples knowledge etc.

What's a statement of fact?

My statement of fact!...my knowledge etc., gained from life not from, or solely from, an 'honest study of the Bible'

That's correct, 'a concept' the actual word Trinity isn't even mentioned in the Bible, and a concept is:-
Quote:
A concept is an abstraction or generalization from experience or the result of a transformation of existing concepts
Which is thus open to interpretation

Comments on this?

[makedonche]

The complete shape of the concept of the trinity was formulated in the 4th century A.D.
I had stated very early in the topic the importance of tradition to the faith. This tradition is based in the scriptures in order to explain them. So the trinity concept is faith because it's tradition. The holy tradition for the christians.
You don't have to decipher the meaning of trinity on your own just relying on the scriptures, tradition explains it for you.
However this means that a whole lot of more information has to be taken into account when explaining christianic faith.

Spitfire
Makes sense....but doesn't it also open up different interpretations or the ability for different interpretations?

[Vangelovski]

The complete shape of the concept of the trinity was formulated in the 4th century A.D.
I had stated very early in the topic the importance of tradition to the faith. This tradition is based in the scriptures in order to explain them. So the trinity concept is faith because it's tradition. The holy tradition for the christians.
You don't have to decipher the meaning of trinity on your own just relying on the scriptures, tradition explains it for you.
However this means that a whole lot of more information has to be taken into account when explaining christianic faith.

If you believe in God you don't accept man-made traditions when there are no basis for them in the Bible. If you do, then you have to question what you believe - God or stories told by men.

[Vangelovski]

Vangelovski



It's Georges interpretation, which has been the point for some time now, that there are other interpretations, based on peoples knowledge etc.



My statement of fact!...my knowledge etc., gained from life not from, or solely from, an 'honest study of the Bible'



Comments on this?

How do you know whether your knowledge of the Trinity is factual if you have never bothered to check it against what the Bible says?

Just because the Bible does not use the word "Trinity" does not mean that the trinity isn't explained in the Bible. You should read it.

George is not trying to provide an alternative explanation of the Trinity, he's denying its existence outright. You're confusing the two things.

Where are these other examples?

[spitfire]

Spitfire
Makes sense....but doesn't it also open up different interpretations or the ability for different interpretations?

We are talking about saints and what the church thinks over the centuries. When reffering to the church try to think it as a body that includes its believers.

Different interpretations is what brought the different doctrines in christianity.

If you believe in God you don't accept man-made traditions when there are no basis for them in the Bible. If you do, then you have to question what you believe - God or stories told by men.

Unfortunately, if you make such a statement you refuse the church. It is guided by the holy spirit. All its decisions are supposed to be guided like that.
You have 7 mysteries because of tradition. The church has come to a conclusion about that number over the centuries.
It's not man-made when they are guided by the holy spirit.

[makedonche]

Vangelovski

The complete shape of the concept of the trinity was formulated in the 4th century A.D.
I had stated very early in the topic the importance of tradition to the faith. This tradition is based in the scriptures in order to explain them. So the trinity concept is faith because it's tradition. The holy tradition for the christians.
You don't have to decipher the meaning of trinity on your own just relying on the scriptures, tradition explains it for you.
However this means that a whole lot of more information has to be taken into account when explaining christianic faith.

Here's another one, there are others if you look.

How do you know whether your knowledge of the Trinity is factual if you have never bothered to check it against what the Bible says?

I know it's factual according to my sources and my understanding of those sources which entitles me to my interpretation. You are only prepared to accept that the 'Bible' is the only source and that your interpretation is the only correct one.

[makedonche]

Spitfire

Different interpretations is what brought the different doctrines in christianity.

So it's not out of the question that there are other interpretations?

[spitfire]

Spitfire



So it's not out of the question that there are other interpretations?

Haven't you heard of the filioque or the purgatory? It's the most popular differences that brought the schism in 1054.

(Well not really, I think it was political reasons but anyway I have to go for now. But I'll be back).

[makedonche]

Haven't you heard of the filioque or the purgatory? It's the most popular differences that brought the schism in 1054.

(Well not really, I think it was political reasons but anyway I have to go for now. But I'll be back).

Spitfire
Can't say that I have, but interesting interpretation!

[spitfire]

Spitfire
Can't say that I have, but interesting interpretation!

OK let's talk about the filioque which is closer to what have been discussed about the trinity. (I'm back)
It's about the symbol of the faith, the father the son and the holy spirit.

To the catholics:
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit
(And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who from the Father and the Son proceeds)
To the orthodox:
Καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον, τὸ κύριον, τὸ ζῳοποιόν, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον
(And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, from the Father proceeding)

To the catholics the holy spirit proceeds from the son also whereas to the orthodox the holy spirit proceeds from the father alone.

There are other issues such as the papal premacy, which by the way is based also in tradition. Remember the apostolic descent is through tradition. The actual bishops today are not mentioned anywhere in the scriptures.
Of course this premacy explains the political reasons.

Another issue is the purgatory which is an intermediate state between heaven and hell where you go through the purification process.
There are quite a few.
And that concerns only the very close doctrines of catholicism and orthodoxy. If we go to the Anglican church you will find many more.
For instance, is god one? Yes she is... .

[spitfire]

Here's a comparison table.

http://christianityinview.com/comparison.html

I can't help but commenting on the previous link and the photo of the previous Pope of Rome.
Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) is appointed prefect of the Sacred Congregation (November 25 1981)

Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. Previously known as... the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. The Holy Inquisition that is.

A religion of love... .

[George S.]

Is God a
TRINITY?

HE belief that God is one substance, yet three persons,
is one of the central doctrines of the Christian T religion. The concept of the Trinity is believed by
most professing Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant.
A Gallup Poll taken in 1966 found that 97% of the
American public believed in God. Of that number, 83%
believed that God is a Trinity.
Yet for all this belief in the Trinity, it is a doctrine
that is not clearly understood by most Christian laymen.
In fact, most have neither the desire nor the incentive to
understand what their church teaches. Few laymen are
aware of any problems with the doctrine of the Trinity.
They simply take it for granted - leaving the mysterious
doctrinal aspects to theologians.
And if the layman were to investigate further, he
would be confronted with discouraging statements similar
to the following: “The mind of man cannot fully understand
the mystery of the Trinity. He who would try to
understand the mystery fully will lose his mind. But he
who would deny the Trinity will lose his soul” (Harold
Lindsell and Charles J. Woodbridge, A Handbook of
Christian Truth, pp. 51-52).
Such a statement means that the concept of the Trinity
should be accepted or else. But, merely to accept it as
doctrine without proving it would be totally contrary to
8 Is God a Trinity?
Scripture. God inspired Paul to write: “Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good” (I Thes. 5:21).
Peter further admonished Christians: “. . . Be ready
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a
reason of the hope that is in you.. .” (I Peter 3:15).
Therefore the Christian is duty bound to prove
whether or not God is a Trinity.
Clear Explanation Difficult
If you were to confine yourself to reading the articles
on the Trinity in popular religious literature for laymen,
you would conclude that the Trinity is everywhere and
clearly taught in the Bible. However, if you were to begin
to read what the more technical Bible encyclopedias, dictionaries
and books say on the subject, you would come to
an entirely different conclusion. And the more you studied,
the more you would find that the Trinity is built on a
very shaky foundation indeed.
The problems inherent in clearly explaining the Trinity
are expressed in nearly every technical article or book
on the subject.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia begins: “It is difficult,
in the second half of the 20th century, to offer a clear,
objective, and straightforward account of the revelation,
doctrinal evolution, and the theological elaboration of the
mystery of the Trinity. Trinitarian discussion, Roman
Catholic as well as other, presents a somewhat unsteady
silhouette” (Vol. XIV, p. 295). (Emphasis ours throughout
But why should the central doctrine of the Christian
faith be so difficult to understand? Why should such an
important doctrine present an unsteady silhouette? Isn’t
there a clear biblical revelation of the doctrine of the
Trinity? Didn’t Christ and the apostles plainly teach it?
Surely the Bible would be filled with teachings about
such an important subject as the Trinity. But, unfortunately
the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible.
‘The term ‘Trinity’ is not a Biblical term, and we are
not using Biblical language when we define what is
I

Is the Trinity Biblical?
expressed by it as the doctrine” (The International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p. 3012).
Not only is the word “Trinity” never found in the
Bible, there is no substantive proof such a doctrine is even
indicated.
In a recent book on the Trinity, Catholic theologian
Karl Rahner recognizes that theologians in the past have
been “. . . embarrassed by the simple fact that in reality
the Scriptures do not explicitly present a doctrine of the
‘imminent’ Trinity (even John’s prologue is no such doctrine)”
(The Trinity, p. 22). (Author’s emphasis.)
Other theologians also recognize the fact that the first
chapter of John’s Gospel - the prologue - clearly shows
the pre-existence and divinity of Christ and does not teach
the doctrine of the Trinity. After discussing John’s prologue,
Dr. William Newton Clarke writes: “There is no
Trinity in this; but there is a distinction in the Godhead, a
duality in God. This distinction or duality is used as basis
for the idea of an only-begotten Son, and as key to the
possibility of an incarnation” (Outline of Christian Theology,
P. 167).
The first chapter of John’s Gospel clearly shows the
pre-existence of Christ. It also illustrates the duality of
God. And as Dr. Clarke points out, the key to the possibility
of the incarnation - the fact that God could become
man.
The Apostle John makes plain the unmistakable fact
that Jesus Christ is God (John 1:l-4). Yet we find no
Trinity discussed in this chapter.
More Biblical ”Proof” for the Trinity?
Probably the most notorious scripture used in times
past as “proof” of a Trinity is I John 5:7. However, many
theologians recognize that this scripture was added to the
New Testament manuscripts probably as late as the
eighth century A.D.
Notice what Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote in
their commentary: “The only Greek MSS. [manuscripts],
in any form which support the words, ‘in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are
10 Is God a Trinity?
one. And there are three that bear witness in earth. . .’ are
the Montfortianus of Dublin, copied evidently from the
modern Latin Vulgate; the Ravianus copied from the
Complutensian Polyglot; a MS. [manuscript] at Naples,
with the words added in the margin by a recent hand;
Ottobonianus, 298, of the fifteenth century, the Greek of
which is a mere translation of the accompanying Latin.
All old versions omit the words.’’
The conclusions arrived at in their commentary, written
over 100 years ago, are still valid today. More conservatively
oriented The New Bible Commentary
(Revised) agrees, though “quietly” with Jamieson, Fausset
and Brown. “. . . The words are clearly a gloss and are
rightly excluded by RSV [Revised Standard Version] even
from its margin” (p. 1269).
The editors of Peake’s Commentary on the Bible wax
more eloquent in their belief that the words are not part of
the original text. “The famous interpolation after ‘three
witnesses’ is not printed even in RSV, and rightly. It cites
the heavenly testimony of the Father, the logos, and the
Holy Spirit, but is never used in the early trinitarian
controversies. No respectable Greek MS contains it.
Appearing first in a late 4th century Latin text, it entered
the Vulgate and finally the NT [New Testament] of
Erasmus” (p. 1038).
Scholars clearly recognize that I John 5:7 is not part
of the New Testament text. Yet it is still included by some
fundamentalists as biblical proof for the Trinity doctrine.
Even the majority of the more recent New Testament
translations do not contain the above words. They are not
found in Moffatt, Phillips, the Revised Standard Version,
Williams, or The Living Bible (a paraphrase).
It is clear, then, that these words are not part of the
inspired canon, but rather were added by a “recent hand.”
The two verses in I John should read: “For there are three
that bear record, the Spirit, and the water and the blood:
and these three agree in one.”
Three things bear record. But what do they bear
record to? A Trinity? We shall see.
Is the Tlinity Biblical? 11
Bear Record to What?
The Spirit, the water and the blood bear record of the
fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is living His life
over again in us. John clarifies it in verses 11-12:
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us
eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son
hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not
life.”
But how do these three elements - the Spirit, the
water, and the blood - specifically bear witness to this
basic biblical truth?
“The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we
are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). (We will see more
about the part the Spirit plays in Chapter Three.)
Water is representative of baptism, which bears witness
of the burial of the old self and the beginning of a new
life (Rom. 6:l-6).
The blood represents Christ’s death by crucifixion,
which pays the penalty for our sins, reconciling us to God
(Rom. 59, 10).
Now understand why Christ commanded the apostles
to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit (Matt. 28:19). First of all, Jesus did not command
the apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son
and the Spirit as an indication that God is a Trinity. No
such relationship is indicated in the Bible.
Why, then, were they to baptize using these three
names? The answer is clear.
They were to baptize in the name of the Father
because it is the goodness of God that brings us to repentance
(Rom. 2:4), and because the Father is the One “of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”
(Eph. 3:15). In the name of the Son because He is the one
who died for our sins, and in the name of the Spirit
because God sends His Spirit, making us His begotten
Sons (Rom. 8:16).
Many theologians have misunderstood the part that
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit play in each
(Continued on page 15)
The central doctrine of most Protestant and
Catholic churches for many centuries has been that
of the Trinity. This doctrine is so important that the
Catholic Encyclopedia states : ' 'T h is [the Tri n it y] ,
the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding
God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which
she [the Catholic Church] proposes to man as the
foundation of the whole dogmatic system. "
Both Catholic and Protestant theologians quote
Theophilus of Antioch (circa 180 A.D.) as the first
person to write about this most important doctrine.
But isn't it strange that such a major doctrine was
avoided in religious writings for nearly two centuries?
That is almost as long as the United States
has been a nation.
Furthermore, Theophilus' allusion to the traditional
Trinity - "the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost" - is quite nebulous at best. Notice what
Theophilus wrote in commenting about the fourth
day of creation in the first chapter of Genesis:
"And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming
less, so does God always abide perfect, being full
of all power, and understanding, and wisdom, and
immortality, and all good. But the moon wanes
monthly, and in a manner dies, being a type of
man; then it is born again, and is crescent, for a
pattern of the future resurrection. In like manner
also the three days which were before the luminaries,
are types of the trinity, of God, and His
Word, and His wisdom" (Ante-Nicene Fathers,
' ' T h eo p h i I us to Auto I y cu s ' ') .
Here is the first statement by a theologian that is
supposed to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. But
does his statement really teach this?
Read it - simply. He does not say that God is a
Trinity of persons, or that the Holy Spirit is a part
of that Trinity. He just refers to God, His Word and
His wisdom.
Theologians have tried to imagine into this
unusual statement "their Trinity" - and yet even
the editors of the Ante-Nicene Fathers state in a
footnote that the word translated "wisdom" in
English is the Greek word sophia which Theophilus
elsewhere used in reference to the Son, not the
Holy Spirit.
4
(Continued on next page)
Theophilus could not possibly have gotten the
idea of a Trinity from the Bible - if he really did
have a Trinity of persons in mind, which appears
unlikely from the preceding statement - as the
Bible nowhere even alludes to God being a Trinity.
From the time of Theophilus, it was several hundred
years before this doctrine became a part of
the Catholic dogma. It was in the last twenty-five
years of the FOURTH century that "what might be
called the definitive trinitarian dogma 'one God in
three persons' became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought" (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
' ' H 01 y T ri n i ty ' ') .
From this it is evident that this "central doctrine"
of Catholicism and Protestantism was not a
part of the "faith which was once delivered
unto the saints" (Jude 3) during or prior to the
time o f Jude, but was added by later
theologians.
The doctrine of the Trinity was not what Jesus
Christ "came upon the earth to deliver to the
world." He came to preach the good news of His
soon-coming Kingdom, to establish His true
Church, to give His life as a sacrifice for all who
repent, and to give God's Holy Spirit to those who
are baptized - the Spirit that empowers believers
to be ONE with the Father and the Son.
Is the Trinity Biblical? 15
(Continued from page 11)
person’s salvation. The doctrine of the Trinity is the result
of that misunderstanding.
The Trinity is not a biblical doctrine. It has no basis
in biblical fact. Then how did this doctrine come to be
believed by the Church?
I
i History of the Trinity
The ancient idea of monotheism was shattered by the
sudden appearance of Jesus Christ on the earth. Here was
someone who claimed He was the Son of God. But how
could He be? The Jewish people believed for centuries that
there was only one God. If the claims of “this Jesus” were
accepted, then in their minds their belief would be no
different from that of the polytheistic pagans around
them. If He were the Son of God, their whole system of
monotheism would disintegrate.
When Jesus plainly told certain Jews of His day that
He was the Son of God, some were ready to stone Him for
blasphemy (John 10:33).
To get around the problem of a plurality in the Godhead,
the Jewish community simply rejected Jesus. And to
this day, Orthodox Jews will not accept Jesus’ Messiahship.
However, the more liberal Jews will at least admit
that He was a great man - maybe even a prophet.
But the “new” Christian religion was still faced with
the problem. How would proponents explain that there
was only one God, not two?
“The determining impulse to the formulation of the
doctrine of the Trinity in the church was the church’s
profound conviction of the absolute Deity of Christ, on
which as on a pivot the whole Christian concept of God
from the first origin of Christianity turned” (International
Standard Biblical Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p.
3021).
But the Deity of Christ does not mean that a doctrine
of the Trinity is necessary, as we shall see in Chapter Two.
Roots in Greek Philosophy
Many of the early church fathers were thoroughly
educated in Greek philosophy, from which they borrowed
e
*

Is the Trinity Biblical? 17
such non-biblical concepts as dualism and the immortality
of the soul. However, most theologians, for obvious reasons,
are generally careful to point out that they did not
borrow the idea of the Trinity from the Triads of Greek
philosophy or those of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.
But some are not so careful to make such a distinction.
“Although the notion of a 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 the
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 . . .” (Hasting’s Bible Dictionary, Vol. 12, p. 458).
Of course, the fact that someone else had a Trinity
does not in itself mean that the Christians borrowed it.
McClintock and Strong make the connection a little
clearer.
“Toward the end of the 1st century, and during the
2nd, many learned men came over both from Judaism and
paganism to Christianity. These brought with them into
the Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and
phraseology” (article “Trinity,” Vol. 10, p. 553).
In his book, A History of Christian Thought, Arthur
Cushman McGiffert points out that the main argument
against those who believed that there was only one God
and that Christ was either an adopted or a created being
was that their idea did not agree with Platonic philosophy.
Such teachings were “offensive to theologians, particularly
to those who felt the influence of the Platonic philosophy”
(ibid., p. 240).
In the latter half of the third century, Paul of Samosata
tried to revive the adoptionist idea that Jesus was a
mere man until the Spirit of God came upon Him at
baptism making him the Anointed One, or Christ. In his
beliefs about the person of Jesus Christ, he “rejected the
I
18 Is God a Trinity?
Platonic realism which underlay most of the Christological
speculation of the day” (ibid,, p. 243).
At the end of his chapter on the Trinity, McGiffert
concludes: “. . . It has been the boast of orthodox theologians
that in the doctrine of the Trinity both religion and
philosophy come to highest expression’’ (Vol. I, p. 247).
The influence of Platonic philosophy on the Trinity
doctrine can hardly be denied.
However, trinitarian ideas go much further back than
Plato. “Though it is usual to speak of the Semitic tribes as
monotheistic; yet it is an undoubted fact that more or less
all over the world the deities are in triads. This rule applies
to eastern and western hemispheres, to north and south.
Further, it is observed that, in some mystical way, the
triad of three persons is one.. . . The definition of Athanasius
[a fourth-century Christian] who lived in Egypt,
applied to the trinities of all heathen religions” (Egyptian
Belief and Modern Thought, by James Bonwick, F.R.G.S.,
p. 396).
It was Athanasius’ formulation for the Trinity which
was adopted by the Catholic Church at the Council of
Nicaea in A.D. 325. Athanasius was an Egyptian from
Alexandria and his philosophy was also deeply rooted in
Platonism.
“The Alexandrian catechetical school, which revered
Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the greatest theologians
of the Greek Church, as its heads, applied the allegorical
method to the explanation of Scripture. Its thought
was influenced by Plato: its strong point was theological
speculation. Athanasius and the three Cappadocians had
been included among its members. . .” (Ecumenical Councils
of the Catholic Church, by Hubert Jedin, p. 29).
In order to explain the relationship of Christ to God
the Father, the church fathers felt that it was necessary to
use the philosophy of the day. They obviously thought
that their religion would be more palatable if they made it
sound like the pagan philosophy that was extant at the
time. These men were versed in philosophy, and that philosophy
colored their understanding of the Bible.
It was the doctrine of the Trinity - colored by the
Is the Trinity Biblical? 19
philosophy of the time - that was accepted by the Church
in the early part of the fourth century - over three
hundred years after Christ’s death.
Even theologians recognize that the Trinity is a creation
of the fourth century, not the first!
“There is recognition on the part of exegetist and
Biblical 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
- that when one does speak of unqualified Trinitarianism,
one has moved from the period of Christian origins to say,
the last quadrant of the 4th century. It was only then that
what might be called the definitive Trinitarian dogma ‘one
God in three persons’ became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought” (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
article “Trinity,” Vol. 14, p. 295).
The Council of Nicaea
It was at the Council of Nicaea in AD. 325 that two
members of the Alexandrian congregation, Arius, a priest,
who believed that Christ was not a God, but a created
being; and Athanasius, a deacon who believed that the
Father, Son and Spirit are the same being living in a
threefold form (or in three relationships, as a man may be
at the same time a father, a son and a brother), presented
their cases.
The Council of Nicaea was not called by the church
leaders, as one might suppose. It was called by the
Emperor Constantine. And he had a far-from-spiritual
reason for wanting to solve the dispute that had arisen.
“In 325 the Emperor Constantine called an ecclesiastical
council to meet at Nicaea in Bithynia. In the
hope of securing for his throne the support of the growing
body of Christians he had shown them considerable favor
and it was to his interest to have the church vigorous and
united. The Arian controversy was threatening its unity
and menacing its strength. He therefore undertook to put
an end to the trouble. It was suggested to him, perhaps by
the Spanish bishop Hosius who was influential at court,
20 Is God a Trinity?
that if a synod were to meet representing the whole
church both east and west, it might be possible to restore
harmony. Constantine himself of course neither knew or
cared anything about the matter in dispute but he was
eager to bring the controversy to a close, and Hosius’
advice appealed to him as sound” (A History of Christian
Thought, Vol. I , p. 258).
The decision as to which of the two men the church
was to follow was a more or less arbitrary one. Constantine
really didn’t care which choice was made - all he
wanted was a united church. (Anus was banished, but
later recalled by Constantine, examined and found to be
without heresy.)
The majority of those present at the council were not
ready to take either side in the controversy. “A clearly
defined standpoint with regard to this problem - the
relationship of Christ to God - was held only by the
attenuated group of Arians and a far from numerous section
of delegates, who adhered with unshaken conviction
to the Alexandrian [Athanasius’] view. The bulk of the
members occupied a position between these two extremes.
They rejected the formulae of Arius, and declined to
accept those of his opponents.. . the voting was no criterion
of the inward conviction of the council” (Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 11th ed., article “Nicaea, Council of,)’
p. 641).
The council rejected Arius’ views, and rightly so, but
they had nothing with which to replace it. Thus the ideas
of Athanasius - also a minority view - prevailed. The
rejection of Arianism was not blanket acceptance of Athanasius.
Yet, the church in all the ensuing centuries has
been “stuck,” so to speak, with the job of upholding -
right or wrong - the decision made at Nicaea.
After the council the Trinity became official dogma in
the church, but the controversy did not end. In the next
few years more Christians were killed by other Christians
over that doctrine than were killed by all the pagan
emperors of Rome. Yet, for all the fighting and killing,
neither of the two parties had a biblical leg to stand on.
4
CHAPTER 7WO
Who Was Jesus?
HE Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity.
But we are still faced with the question: Who was T Jesus Christ? Was He a man that lived such a
perfect life that God decided to call Him His Son at
baptism? Or was He God who became a man and died for
all men?
In the past in most theological circles, a rejection of the doctrine
of the Trinity included a rejection of the divinity of
Christ. But before this booklet becomes classed as an Arian
heresy, let me quote from Catholic theologian Karl Rahner:
“. . . We must be willing to admit that should the doctrine of
the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of
religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged..
. . the Christian idea of the incarnation would
not have to change at all if there were no Trinity.
“It is not surprising then, that Christian piety practically
remembers from the doctrine of the incarnation
only that ‘God’ has become man, without deriving from
this truth any clear message about the Trinity” (The
Trinity, pp. 10-12).
A rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity does not
constitute a rejection of the incarnation - the divinity of
Christ. In fact, what he says indicates that, for all practical
purposes, the doctrine is meaningless.
Jesus Was the Problem
To this day Christianity is still confused about who
and what Jesus Christ really was. There is a majority who
22 Is God a Trinity?
believe in a mysterious Trinity and a vociferous minority
who believe that Christ was a created being. Neither has
the truth.
But why all the confusion?
Who Jesus was is clearly indicated in the pages of the
Bible. It has been there for centuries. While Christians
were busily excommunicating and killing each other over
the question of who Jesus was, the answer has been in the
pages of the Bible, and that explanation is not in harmony
with what is taught by most churches today. Christ is not
the second person in a Trinity, and He was not created by
God - He is the Creator God!
In the Beginning. . .
To find out who Jesus was, let’s go back to the beginning.
Beginnings are mentioned in the Bible in at least two
separate places - in the first chapter of Genesis and in the
first chapter of John’s Gospel.
The Apostle John began his Gospel by describing who
and what Jesus was before He came to this earth as the
saviour of mankind.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made.. . .
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father,) full of grace and truth” (verses 1-3, 14).
If we read no further in the New Testament than this,
we would be able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt
that Jesus Christ was God and that He is the One who
created man in Genesis 2:7. Because John clearly states
that the Word - the One who became Christ - created
all things. Had Christians clearly understood these verses
there would have never been an Arian controversy or a
doctrine of the Trinity.
But the Apostle John is not the only New Testament
writer who wrote about the pre-existence of Christ. Notice
what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. “Moreover, brethren,
I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our
Who Was Jesus? 23
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in
the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all
drink of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that
spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was
Christ” (I Cor. 109-4).
Paul clearly tells us that Jesus Christ was the God of
the Old Testament - the One who spoke to Moses and led
the Israelites out of Egypt. This clearly shows us that the
One who became the Son was the God of the Old Testament,
not God the Father.
Yet the doctrine of the Trinity hinges on the assumption
that God manifested Himself as the Father in the Old
Testament and Christ in the New Testament.
Duality of God Throughout
the Bible
The plurality of God is not merely a “plural of majesty”
as some would have us believe.
Six hundred years before Christ, the Prophet Daniel
recorded for us a vision. “I saw in the night visions, and,
behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of
heaven, and came to the Ancient of days.. .” (Dan. 7:13).
The “Son of man” he described can be none other than the
One who later became Jesus Christ. Daniel then saw Him
given rulership and a Kingdom that will never be
destroyed (verse 14). The “Son of man” mentioned here
could hardly be a mere physical human being!
The Ancient of Days, in this instance, is the divine
Being who is called the Father in the New Testament.
Jesus Christ referred to the same occurrence as mentioned
in this vision in His parable of the nobleman (Himself)
who went to a far country (heaven) to receive a
kingdom, and to return (Luke 19:12).
The duality of the God family was also referred to in
Psalm 110 by David.
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool’’ (verse 1).
Two different Lords are mentioned here. One is God
the Father and the other is the One who became Jesus
Many ancient peoples have preserved among their myths
an account of the creation of the world. Distorted though such
stories may be, they do contain certain basic elements common
to other, more reliable ancient documents. The Popol
Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quich6 Maya of Guatemala,
for instance, contains a creation story very similar to
that found in the Bible. It opens with a vista of emptiness
very much like that of Genesis 1
"The surface of the earth had not appeared. There
was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky.
There was nothing . . . . There was only immobility and
silence in the darkness, in the night" (Popol Vuh, Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, p. 81).
In this expanse of water and chaotic gloom, then, creation
began.
But unlike the conventional concept of a Creator doing all
the work, the Maya account speaks of two beings. Tepeu
and Gucumatz, the "Creator" and the "Maker," known as
the "Fore-fathers," combined their efforts for the task:
"Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness
. . . and talked together. . . discussing and deliberating;
they agreed, they united their words and their
thoughts . . . . Then t'iey planned the creation, and the
growth of the trees and the thickets, and the birth of
life and the creation of man.
\
j"
The story proceeds then with "Let there be light," the
appearance of dry land, plants, animals and man, much as in
Genesis.
Notice that the Mayas speak of two creating beings
instead of one.
They have actually retained a detail not commonly understood
outside the original Hebrew context of the Genesis
record. For the Bible, too, shows there were two distinct
personalities involved in creation, not one as commonly
assumed.
When Genesis 1:l opens with: "In the beginning
God . . .," the Hebrew word for "God" used here is Elohim.
It is in the plural form which can designate more than one.
Note that Genesis 1 :26 was correctly translated from the
original Hebrew: "And God said, Let us make man in our
image. "
Most professing Christians would find it alien to conceive
of more than one being as the creator. Yet Elohim can
express plurality. The word in Genesis One means "God,"
but in a family relationship. The New Testament speaks of
"God the Father" and "God the Son," the One who became
Jesus. They are two distinct beings, but both are God. Both
of them have been together since eternity. "In the beginning
was the Word [the Son], and the Word was with God [the
Father], and the Word was God" (John 1 : 1). Together they
planned the creation, and God the Son carried it out (John
1 :3; Col. 1:16). Notice Ephesians 3:9: ". . . God [the
Father], who created all things by Jesus Christ."
Thus the Bible reveals that there were actually two spirit
beings - two distinct personalities who united their efforts
in the creation - exactly as the Maya account so surprisingly
relates.
\
I
j
I
26 Is God a Trinity?
Christ. Paul quoted this passage to the Jewish Christians
- applying it directly to Jesus Christ: “But to which of
the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until
I make thine enemies thy footstool?” (Heb. 1:13.)
Was the Son also God? Verse 8 answers, “But unto
the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever. . . .” There
can be no doubt that God the Father and Jesus the Son
are mentioned as two separate beings in the Old Testament.
Who Was Melchizedek?
Now notice Hebrews 5:6-7:
“So also Christ glorified not himself to be made high
priest; but he [glorified him] that said unto him, Thou art
my Son, today have I begotten thee. As he saith also in
another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek. ”
So Christ holds the office of Melchizedek. Who was
Melchizedek? He was one of the Persons composing God.
In Genesis 14:18 he is called the king of Salem and the
priest of the Most High God. Notice why he could not
have been merely a human being.
The Apostle Paul described Him further in Hebrews
“To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first
being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after
that also King of Salem, which is King of peace; without
father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the
Son of God; abideth a priest continually.’’
Paul could not have been describing a human being,
or even an angel in these verses, for he is describing a
Being that eternally existed, as only God has eternally
existed.
Melchizedek was a priest of the Most High God. Who
is the Most High God? Why of course, the Father! Jesus
Christ said: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
And also Melchizedek still lives (and if you will read
Hebrews 7:8 carefully, you will see that Paul repeats this
supremely important fact) and is still that High Priest.
But Christ also is High Priest (see Heb. 7:26; 8:l). There
7~2-3:
I
Who Was Jesus? 27
cannot be two High Priests both holding the same office,
so Melchizedek and Jesus Christ must be one and the
same.
So we see that even in the first book of the Bible the
this truth could not be known until Jesus came to reveal it
in the New Testament. Jesus said, “. . . No man knows who
the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the
Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him” (Luke
10:22).
Jesus Came to Reveal the
Father
A clear distinction is made in the New Testament
between Christ and the Father. The God that Moses saw
and heard was not God the Father, again proving that
Christ was the God of the Old Testament. “No man has
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in
the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John
1:18). Christ came to earth to, among other things, reveal
the Father and to show a family relationship that exists in
the Godhead. But, more about that later.
Unless Jesus had revealed the Father to us, there is no
way for us to know Him. “All things are delivered unto me
of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the
Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”
(Matt. 11:27).
The Meaning of the Word YHVH
In the Hebrew of the original inspired text, there are
two different names that are commonly used to refer to
God. The word first used for “God” in Genesis is Elohim.
The second word - which we will explain here - is
YHVH (commonly, though erroneously, pronounced
“Jehovah”). This word YHVH is generally translated
“LORD” (in capital letters) in the King James Version of
the Bible. The first place it is used is in Genesis 2:7. It was
the LORD God - YHVH - who formed man out of the
dust of the ground. It was the LORD God that dealt
I plurality of God is shown, although clear understanding of
I
r
28 Is God a Trinity?
directly with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And
as we saw in John, chapter 1, it was the Word - Jesus
Christ - who created all things.
Therefore, it was the LORD God of the Old Testament
who became the Jesus Christ of the New. This fact is
illustrated interestingly enough by the grammatical derivation
of the word YHVH.
The word YHVH is explained by Rabbinic sources as
encompassing three Hebrew words: HYH meaning was,
HVH meaning is (literally “the present tense” - the word
“is” is not used in Hebrew) and YHYH meaning will
continue to be.
Putting them all together, YHVH actually means the
“Was-Is-Will Continue to Be” Being. Even Hebrew linguistic
scholars agree that YHVH must be derived from
some form of the verb “to be” (was, is, will be).
By His very name, then, God quite literally encompasses
all aspects of time - past, present and future. This
is in complete accord with Malachi 3 “For I am YHVH,
I change not”; Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday
[was], and today [is], and forever [will continue to
be]”; and Revelation 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.”
Here we can see that even etymologically, Jesus
Christ and YHVH can be equated. Yet this is only a small
part of the picture because the clear statements of both
the Old and New Testaments give overwhelming proof
that the God of the Old Testament is the One who became
Jesus Christ. (For further information on this vital part of
our subject, write immediately for the free article “Who
and What Was Jesus Before His Human Birth?”)
People Stumbled at Christ
In Isaiah chapter eight, verses 13 and 14, we find a
very interesting prophecy concerning the Lord of Hosts.
“Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself; and let him be
your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a
sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of
offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a
snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.’’
Who Was Jesus? 29
Most editions of the King James Version of the Bible
note that these verses refer to the one who later became
Jesus Christ. But even more accurate proof is found in the
New Testament.
I In his first epistle, the Apostle Peter writes:
“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto
them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders
disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a
stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, even to them
which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto
also they were appointed” (I Pet. 2:6-8).
The very same prophecy is alluded to in Luke 2:34.
There can be no denying the fact that Jesus Christ was the
God of the Old Testament, the Stone over which many
people stumbled.
The religious leaders of the time simply could not
understand how Jesus could have been God. Yet the Old
Testament which they had copied for centuries is filled
with prophecies about Him. Truly they were blinded,
and most remain so to this day, as the Apostle Paul
explained in the ninth through the eleventh chapters of
his epistle to the Romans.
While Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament,
was on earth as a human being, there was only one God-
Being - the Father - left in heaven. And we find that
Jesus prayed to His Father in heaven:
“And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self with the glory which I had with thee before the world
was” (John 175).
The Jews and the Arians found it hard to believe that
God could become man, Yet, the New Testament explains
that it did indeed happen. One of the members of the
Godhead became a man that we might have the opportunity
to become God.
The Apostle Paul explained this concept in his epistle
to the Philippians. The Amplified Bible makes the passage
I Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious:
30 Is God a Trinity?
a little clearer. In chapter 258, he encourages the Philippians:
“Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble]
mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Let him be your
example in humility.. . Who, although being essentially
one with God and in the form of God [possessing the
fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not
think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly
grasped or retained; but stripped Himself [of all privileges
and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant
(slave), in that He became like men and was born a human
being. And after He had appeared in human form He
abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His
obedience to the extreme of death, and even the death of
[the] cross!” Jesus Christ was God. But He voluntarily
gave up His position as God, became a physical human
being and came to this earth to die for us that we might be
saved.
The true impact and importance of the oft-repeated
scripture: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16), becomes
abundantly clear.
CHAPTER THREE
the Holy Spirit
a Person?
E HAVE seen that Jesus Christ is, was and always
will be God. However, you can search the Bible W from Genesis to Revelation and you will find no
such Bible teaching with regard to the Holy Spirit. The
Bible does not teach that the Holy Spirit is a third member
of the God family or of a Trinity.
This is not a prejudiced anti-trinitarian opinion. It is a
fact that is recognized even by Trinitarian theologians!
Discussing the evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity
in the Bible, Dr. W. N. Clarke, writes: “The New Testament
begins the work, but does not finish it; for it contains
no similar teaching [like John 1:l-18 concerning the divinity
of Christ] with regard to the Holy Spirit. The unique
nature and mission of Christ are traced to a ground in the
being of God; but similar ground for the divineness of the
Spirit is nowhere shown. Thought in the New Testament is
never directed to that end. Thus the Scriptures take the
first step toward a doctrine of essential Trinity, or threeness
in the being of one God, but they do not take that
second step by which alone the doctrine could be completed‘‘
(An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 168).
(Author’s emphasis.)
Theologians have to recognize that there is no biblical
proof for the divinity or personality of the Spirit. And that
in order to arrive at a doctrine of the Trinity, they have to
go outside of the Bible.
32 Is God a Trinity?
Karl Barth, one of the most noted theologians of the
20th century, admits that the church has gone beyond the
Bible to arrive at its doctrine of the Trinity.
“The Bible lacks the express declaration that the
Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence and
therefore in an equal sense God Himself. And the other
express declaration is also lacking that God is God thus
and only thus, i.e., as the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. These two express declarations which go beyond
the witness of the Bible are the twofold content of the
church doctrine of the Trinity” (Doctrine of the Word of
God, p. 437).
Since, as theologians recognize, the Bible is not the
source of the Trinity doctrine, how can they square it with
the Bible teaching that inspired Scripture should be the
source of doctrine? (I1 Tim. 3:16).
The answer is, they can’t. They must freely admit the
painful facts.
The Spirit of God in
the Bible
The personality of Jesus Christ is thoroughly provable
from the Bible, but there is no such proof for a personality
of the Holy Spirit.
“The OT [Old Testament] clearly does not envisage
God’s spirit as a person, neither in the strictly philosophical
sense, nor in the Semitic sense. God’s spirit is simply
God’s Power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct
from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts
exteriorly (Isa. 48:16; 63:ll; 32:15).” So say the authors of
the New Catholic Encyclopedia. But let them continue:
“Very rarely do the OT writers attribute to God’s
spirit emotions or intellectual activity (Isa. 63:lO; Wis.
1:3-7). When such expressions are used, they are mere
figures of speech that are explained by the fact that the
riiah was regarded also as the seat of intellectual acts and
feeling (Gen. 41:8). Neither is there found in the OT or in
rabbinical literature the notion that God’s spirit is an
intermediary being between God and the world. This
activity is proper to the angels, although to them is
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 33
ascribed some of the activity that elsewhere is ascribed to
the spirit of God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII,
p. 574).
In the Old Testament, God’s Spirit is pictured as His
power. The power by which the One who became Jesus
Christ, as Executive for the Father, created the entirety of
the universe. These theologians also recognize that when
the Spirit is spoken of as a person or in a personal way, the
Bible writer is merely personifying the Spirit, as he would
wisdom or any other attribute.
Now what about the New Testament? They say:
“Although the NT [New Testament] concepts of the
Spirit of God are largely a continuation of those of the OT,
in the NT there is a gradual revelation that the Spirit of
God is a person.”
But this would seem true only if you are armed with a
preconceived notion that God is a Trinity. We will see
there are only a few scriptures that can even remotely be
construed as presenting the Spirit as a person, and in each
case only as the result of a grammatical misunderstanding.
But again let’s let the New Catholic Encyclopedia
continue.
“‘The majority of NT texts reveal God‘s spirit as something,
not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism
between the spirit and the power of God.”
Though theologians would like for the Bible to say
that the Spirit is a person, they must admit that the
majority of the scriptures connected with it show that it is
not someone, but something. Even the personification of
the Spirit is no proof of its personality.
“When a quasi-personal activity is ascribed to God’s
spirit, e.g., speaking, hindering, desiring, dwelling (Acts
8:29; 16:7; Rom. 8:9), one is not justified in concluding
immediately that in these passages God’s spirit is
regarded as a Person; the same expressions are used in
regard to rhetorically personified things or abstract ideas
(see Rom. 6:6; 7:17). Thus the context of the phrase ‘blasphemy
against the spirit’ (Mt. 12:31; cf. Mt. 12:28; Lk.
11:20) shows that reference is being made to the power of
rRII.. . Y 5 . - I.I"UL "I yl"tGaDlIly b l l I I J L 1 c I l I I L y today believes that God is limited to a "trinity" com osed
of three persons - God the Father, God the Son fiesus
Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Shown here are two of
many symbols used to represent the .Trinity.
Ambassador CaNege Art
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 35
God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, p. 575).
After such admissions, it is almost inconceivable that
any theologian could still teach that the Spirit is a person
- yet some do.
A Lesson in Greek Grammar
The one place that most theologians feel describes the
Spirit as a person is resolved by a lesson in the Greek
language. In the Greek language, like the Romance languages
(Italian, Spanish, French, and others), every noun
has what is called gender; that is, it is either masculine,
feminine or neuter. The gender of a word has nothing to do
with whether it is really masculine or feminine - it is
more of a grammatical tool.
The verses most Trinitarian theologians will fall back
on for their proof that the Spirit is a person are in the
14th, 15th and 16th chapters of John’s Gospel. Here Jesus
is recorded as referring to the Spirit as “the Comforter.”
The pronoun “he” is used in connection with the word
“comforter” - parakletos - however, the reason for the
use of the personal pronoun “he” is for grammatical, not
theological, or spiritual reasons. (cp A c h (2: IO
All pronouns in Greek must agree in gender with the
word they refer to, therefore the pronoun “he” is used
when referring to the Greek word parakletos. Only John
refers to the Spirit as the parakletos - “Comforter.” The
other New Testament writers use the wordpneuma which
means “breath” or “spirit.” This is the Greek equivalent of
rfiah, the Hebrew word for “spirit” used in the Old Testament.
Pneuma is a grammatically neuter word and is
always represented by the pronoun “it.”
However, the translators of the King James Version,
being swayed by the doctrine of the Trinity, have generally
mistranslated the pronouns referring to pneuma as
masculine. One instance where they did not mistranslate
is found in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
John’s use of theparakletos is no proof the Spirit is a
person. For if the simple gender of a noun were the basis
for the personality of the Spirit, then the Spirit changed
gender from the Old to the New Testament, the Hebrew
Is the Holy Spirit a person, just like God the
Father and Jesus Christ, as the doctrine of the
Trinity teaches?
Let's examine the plain, clear testimony of Scripture
to see what God's Holy Spirit IS.
First, it is the power of God. "Not by might, nor
by power [of humans], but by my spirit, saith the
Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). "I am full of power by
the Spirit of the Lord, and judgment, and of
might. . ," declared the prophet Micah (Micah
3:8).
Second, it is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the
Spirit of knowledge and of the fear (deep reverence
and respect - not craven fear) of the Lord
(Isa. 11:2).
Third, it is a gift. After baptism, you are to
receive "the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). It
is poured out. "And it shall come to pass in the last
days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon
all flesh" (Acts 2:l 7). I ' . . . On the Gentiles also
was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts
10:45).
Fourth, to be effective the Holy Spirit must be
stirred up. "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance
that thou stir up the gift of God," Paul reminded
the young evangelist Timothy (I1 Tim. 1 :7).
Five, the Spirit of God can be quenched (I Thes.
5: 19).
Six, it is the begetting power of God (Matt.
1 : 18; Rom. 8:9).
Seven, it is God's guarantee to us that He will
fulfill His promise to us (Eph. 1 : 14).
Eight, it sheds the love of God abroad in our
hearts (Rom. 5:5).
Nine, it must be renewed (Titus 3:5-6).
Notice that in all of these scriptures there is not
one characteristic even implying a "person."
Does a person do any of these things? Is a
person "poured," "quenched," "renewed"? Does
a person live IN someone else or live IN people's
hearts?
For further evidence proving that the Holy Spirit
is not a person, see Matthew 1:20. Here we read
that Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yet
Christ calls God His Father, not the Holy Spirit
(John 14:16). If the Holy Spirit were a person, it
would be Christ's Father - proof positive that the
Holy Spirit is not a person but the power God the
Father uses - much as a man uses electricity.
Consider further. If the Holy Spirit were a person,
Jesus Christ prayed to the wrong individual.
Throughout the four Gospels, we find Christ speaking
to God - not the Holy Spirit - as His Father.
38 Is God a Trinity?
word for “spirit” in the Old Testament being in the feminine
gender in a majority of cases and in a masculine sense
less often.
The fact that the word “spirit” is feminine in the
Hebrew did lead some to believe that the Spirit was a
feminine being of the Godhead. They believed in a Trinity
of the Father, the Mother and the Son. Interestingly
enough, their belief was condemned by the Trinitarians
who used the same kind of ploy to prove that the Spirit
was a masculine being!
The Holy Spirit - God’s
Begettal Power
What is the Spirit? As we saw earlier, theologians
admit that the Spirit of God is the power of God. They
would have no reason to believe otherwise unless they had
a preconceived idea of a Trinity.
The Spirit, or Holy Spirit, as it is called in the New
Testament, was the power by which Jesus Christ was
begotten. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:
When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before
they came together, she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1 :18.1.
When Joseph was about to put Mary away because
she was pregnant, “the angel of the Lord appeared unto
him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not
to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1:20).
of the Holy Spirit. He was literally born with God’s Spirit
in His mind. He became the Son of God and died for us
that we might have the same opportunity to become God.
The Apostle Paul plainly taught this vital scriptural
truth that we just read in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God.” Paul did not mean this in some sentimental sort of
way, as he goes on to show in the next verse. “And if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ.. . .”
Paul goes on to point out that Jesus Christ is the heir
Jesus was begotten in the womb of Mary by the ~ ~ w e r (Lk 1235)
Trinity
The Apostle Paul would probably be considered a
blasphemer by many Trinitarians today, because in
his greetings to the churches he neglected to mention
the Holy Spirit. In his introduction to the
Romans, he represents himself as an apostle of God
the Father and Jesus Christ, but nothing is said
about any third person.
He also neglects to mention the Holy Spirit in the
greetings of the rest of his letters. His standard
greeting is: ”Grace be unto you, and peace, from
God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ”
(I Cor. 1 :3). The same greeting is repeated in II
Corinthians 1 :3, Galatians 1 :3, Ephesians 1 :2, Philippians
1 :2, Colossians 1 :2, I Thessalonians 1 : 1,
II Thessalonians 1 :2, I Timothy 1 :2, Titus 1 :4, and
Philemon 1 :3.
All of these greetings are without variation - the
Holy Spirit is consistently left out (a great oversight
- indeed blasphemy, provided the Trinity doctrine
is correct).
Only in II Corinthians 13:14 is the Holy Spirit
mentioned with God and Jesus and there only in
connection with communion or fellowship. The Holy
Spirit is not the third member of the Godhead.
40 Is God a Trinity?
of all things in Hebrews 1:2. We then have the opportunity,
if we have God’s Spirit in our minds, to inherit all
things with Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God unites with our minds, and we are
begotten (or conceived) again - this time spiritually -
not as we originally were, physically. We become a new
person.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet. 1:3). And verse 23 says,
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and
abideth forever.”
The Holy Spirit impregnates us with God’s nature.
That spiritual begettal imbues us with the nature and
mind of God. Throughout our Christian lives we continue
to grow and develop in the understanding and mind of God
until we are finally born into the God family and made
immortal at the return of Jesus Christ to this earth (I Cor.
How can we obtain this Spirit? The answer was given
by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost mentioned in
Acts chapter two. When Peter was asked at the end of his
sermon what to do, he answered: “Repent, and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Acts 2:38).
Here again we can see why the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit are mentioned in the “baptismal formula”
in Matthew 28:19. God the Father is the One who brings
us to repentance; Jesus Christ - God the Son - is the one
who died that we can have our past sins forgiven; and the
Holy Spirit is the power by which God the Father begets
us. (For further information about the Holy Spirit, write
for our free reprint article “How You Can Be Imbued
With the Power of God.”)
How plain the truth of the Bible is. The Holy Spirit is
the power of God. It is not a person. It is the power by
which we are begotten that we might become sons of God.
15 ~49-52).
CHAPTER FOUR
God Is a Family
ARLY theologians were driven by the need to explain
the appearance of Jesus Christ. Some found their E explanation by fabricating the Trinity doctrine.
But since God is not a Trinity and since Jesus Christ is
God, what is the relationship in the Godhead? Is God one,
or are there two separate Gods and is Christianity, therefore,
polytheistic?
In Chapter Two we found that the Bible teaches that
Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament, and that He
became flesh and came to this earth to die for mankind. He is
called the Son of God and He calls God His Father. By now
the relationship should be coming clear - God is a family.
We found in Chapter Three that we also can become
begotten sons of God by the impregnation of God’s Spirit
- again a family relationship.
When we understand that God is a family - that God
is reproducing after His kind - we are no longer confronted
with the problems inherent in the Trinity doctrine,
nor are we faced with the problem of worshiping
many gods.
There is only one God family, yet there are presently
two members, and in the future there will be many more.
Jesus was called “the firstborn of many brethren” (Rom.
8:29).
Look at yourself. Whether married or single, you are
part of a family. You have parents and maybe even children
or grandchildren of your own. Yet, you are still one
family.
42 Is God a Trinity?
It was God who created man and put him on the
earth. He created marriage and the family relationship as
a type of His divine family. (For further information on
this vitally important subject, write for the free booklet
titled Why Marriage!)
God‘s Name Is Plural
The Hebrew word for “God” used in Genesis 1:l and
26 is Elohim. Elohim is plural in form. Though this word
taken by itself does not prove that there are two beings in
the Godhead, it does allow for the plurality that is clearly
indicated in other parts of the Bible.
By what we can understand from the rest of the Bible,
this word Elohim can act like our English words “family,”
“ g r ~ ~ p , ~ ’ “church,” or “crowd.” These words are often
regarded as singular and take a singular verb form, but
they all contain more than one member.
The Apostle Paul exemplifies this for us in I Corinthians
12:20. Speaking about the Church he says: “But now
are they many members, yet but one body.”
God is a family. There presently are two members in
that God family, God the Father - the Head of the
family, the Lawgiver - and Jesus Christ the Son - the
Spokesman, the Creator. But the word Elohim is not just
dual. There is a dual number in Hebrew, but this would
have to be Elohaim. The God family, however, is destined
to be truly plural - to have many members. And this is
what the word Elohim describes and allows for.
Belief in a Trinity clouds the real purpose that God
has in store for mankind. If we are taught that God is a
closed Trinity of three persons, we lose sight of the fact
that God’s real purpose is to create many more members
of the God family.
Look at the creation account in Genesis 1: God created
fish after the fish kind, birds after the bird kind, and
animals after the animal kind. But in verse 26 God made
man - not after any of the animal kinds, but after the
God kind - in God’s image and God’s likeness. “And God
[Hebrew, Elohim] said, Let us make man in our image,
God Is a Family 43
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
God created man in His own image. Man is greater
than the rest of the creation, because God gave him mind
power. He has dominion over all the creatures. Man is not
an animal. He was created in the image of God - after the
God kind.
Taught in the New Testament
The Apostle John understood God’s plans for mankind.
Notice what he wrote in I John 3:l:
“Behold, what manner of love the Father [here is the
family relationship - not a closed trinity] hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore
the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we [already] the [begotten] sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we
shall see him as he is.”
Jesus Christ, the One who was the God of the Old
Testament, the Creator God, became flesh, died and was
resurrected as a part of God’s plan to make man God.
Jesus Christ is not to be the only son of God. He is the
only born Son now, but as John wrote, “when he shall
appear, we shall be like him.” We are begotten sons now,
and will be born sons of God at the resurrection.
It is clearly God’s plan to bring many sons into His
family. “For it became him [God the Father], for whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing
many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation
[Jesus Christ] perfect through sufferings” (Heb. 2:lO).
The pages of the Bible are filled with this - God‘s
great purpose for man. And yet the majority of this
world’s Christians are blinded to this central biblical
truth. Why? Because Satan has deceived the whole world
(Rev. 12:9). God is not a closed Trinity, He is a family - a
family in which you can become a member.
44 Is God a Trinity?
Why the Deception?
Why has Satan palmed off the doctrine of the Trinity
on the world? Because he doesn’t want you to rule in his
place! Satan was originally created to carry out God‘s rule
on earth. But, he refused to serve the Creator and even
fomented a rebellion to dislodge God from His position as
Ruler over the whole universe (Ezek. 28:ll-19; Isa. 14:12-
14). A third of the angels united with Lucifer in that
rebellion and were cast back down to this earth with him
(Rev. 12:3-4) - having forever disqualified themselves and
Satan from ruling in the government of God. However,
Satan and his demonic cohorts remain in office until
Christ actually returns.
Yet being disqualified, they do not want anyone else
ever to take their place. For that reason, during nearly
6000 years of man, they have tried to hide from all the
world the breathtaking truth of God. If they can make you
believe in the Trinity, you will be deceived into thinking
that the Godhead consists of only three persons. You
would then never in your wildest dreams ever imagine that
you were created to be born into the God family - to
actually have a part in ruling this earth!
Satan wants you to think that God is a limited Trinity
- not a growing family or Kingdom into which we
may, through the grace of God, enter.
There you have it. That is the truth about the Trinity.
God’s family isn’t closed to mankind as Satan would
have you believe.
It’s wide open to you, your family and all mankind.
You can be made in the exact likeness of God at Christ’s
return! 0

intelligent and Almighty Creator for a definite purpose?
And if so, what is that purpose - and why is humanity so
totally unaware of it?

[George S.]

Is God a
TRINITY?

HE belief that God is one substance, yet three persons,
is one of the central doctrines of the Christian T religion. The concept of the Trinity is believed by
most professing Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant.
A Gallup Poll taken in 1966 found that 97% of the
American public believed in God. Of that number, 83%
believed that God is a Trinity.
Yet for all this belief in the Trinity, it is a doctrine
that is not clearly understood by most Christian laymen.
In fact, most have neither the desire nor the incentive to
understand what their church teaches. Few laymen are
aware of any problems with the doctrine of the Trinity.
They simply take it for granted - leaving the mysterious
doctrinal aspects to theologians.
And if the layman were to investigate further, he
would be confronted with discouraging statements similar
to the following: “The mind of man cannot fully understand
the mystery of the Trinity. He who would try to
understand the mystery fully will lose his mind. But he
who would deny the Trinity will lose his soul” (Harold
Lindsell and Charles J. Woodbridge, A Handbook of
Christian Truth, pp. 51-52).
Such a statement means that the concept of the Trinity
should be accepted or else. But, merely to accept it as
doctrine without proving it would be totally contrary to
8 Is God a Trinity?
Scripture. God inspired Paul to write: “Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good” (I Thes. 5:21).
Peter further admonished Christians: “. . . Be ready
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a
reason of the hope that is in you.. .” (I Peter 3:15).
Therefore the Christian is duty bound to prove
whether or not God is a Trinity.
Clear Explanation Difficult
If you were to confine yourself to reading the articles
on the Trinity in popular religious literature for laymen,
you would conclude that the Trinity is everywhere and
clearly taught in the Bible. However, if you were to begin
to read what the more technical Bible encyclopedias, dictionaries
and books say on the subject, you would come to
an entirely different conclusion. And the more you studied,
the more you would find that the Trinity is built on a
very shaky foundation indeed.
The problems inherent in clearly explaining the Trinity
are expressed in nearly every technical article or book
on the subject.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia begins: “It is difficult,
in the second half of the 20th century, to offer a clear,
objective, and straightforward account of the revelation,
doctrinal evolution, and the theological elaboration of the
mystery of the Trinity. Trinitarian discussion, Roman
Catholic as well as other, presents a somewhat unsteady
silhouette” (Vol. XIV, p. 295). (Emphasis ours throughout
But why should the central doctrine of the Christian
faith be so difficult to understand? Why should such an
important doctrine present an unsteady silhouette? Isn’t
there a clear biblical revelation of the doctrine of the
Trinity? Didn’t Christ and the apostles plainly teach it?
Surely the Bible would be filled with teachings about
such an important subject as the Trinity. But, unfortunately
the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible.
‘The term ‘Trinity’ is not a Biblical term, and we are
not using Biblical language when we define what is
I

Is the Trinity Biblical?
expressed by it as the doctrine” (The International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p. 3012).
Not only is the word “Trinity” never found in the
Bible, there is no substantive proof such a doctrine is even
indicated.
In a recent book on the Trinity, Catholic theologian
Karl Rahner recognizes that theologians in the past have
been “. . . embarrassed by the simple fact that in reality
the Scriptures do not explicitly present a doctrine of the
‘imminent’ Trinity (even John’s prologue is no such doctrine)”
(The Trinity, p. 22). (Author’s emphasis.)
Other theologians also recognize the fact that the first
chapter of John’s Gospel - the prologue - clearly shows
the pre-existence and divinity of Christ and does not teach
the doctrine of the Trinity. After discussing John’s prologue,
Dr. William Newton Clarke writes: “There is no
Trinity in this; but there is a distinction in the Godhead, a
duality in God. This distinction or duality is used as basis
for the idea of an only-begotten Son, and as key to the
possibility of an incarnation” (Outline of Christian Theology,
P. 167).
The first chapter of John’s Gospel clearly shows the
pre-existence of Christ. It also illustrates the duality of
God. And as Dr. Clarke points out, the key to the possibility
of the incarnation - the fact that God could become
man.
The Apostle John makes plain the unmistakable fact
that Jesus Christ is God (John 1:l-4). Yet we find no
Trinity discussed in this chapter.
More Biblical ”Proof” for the Trinity?
Probably the most notorious scripture used in times
past as “proof” of a Trinity is I John 5:7. However, many
theologians recognize that this scripture was added to the
New Testament manuscripts probably as late as the
eighth century A.D.
Notice what Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote in
their commentary: “The only Greek MSS. [manuscripts],
in any form which support the words, ‘in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are
10 Is God a Trinity?
one. And there are three that bear witness in earth. . .’ are
the Montfortianus of Dublin, copied evidently from the
modern Latin Vulgate; the Ravianus copied from the
Complutensian Polyglot; a MS. [manuscript] at Naples,
with the words added in the margin by a recent hand;
Ottobonianus, 298, of the fifteenth century, the Greek of
which is a mere translation of the accompanying Latin.
All old versions omit the words.’’
The conclusions arrived at in their commentary, written
over 100 years ago, are still valid today. More conservatively
oriented The New Bible Commentary
(Revised) agrees, though “quietly” with Jamieson, Fausset
and Brown. “. . . The words are clearly a gloss and are
rightly excluded by RSV [Revised Standard Version] even
from its margin” (p. 1269).
The editors of Peake’s Commentary on the Bible wax
more eloquent in their belief that the words are not part of
the original text. “The famous interpolation after ‘three
witnesses’ is not printed even in RSV, and rightly. It cites
the heavenly testimony of the Father, the logos, and the
Holy Spirit, but is never used in the early trinitarian
controversies. No respectable Greek MS contains it.
Appearing first in a late 4th century Latin text, it entered
the Vulgate and finally the NT [New Testament] of
Erasmus” (p. 1038).
Scholars clearly recognize that I John 5:7 is not part
of the New Testament text. Yet it is still included by some
fundamentalists as biblical proof for the Trinity doctrine.
Even the majority of the more recent New Testament
translations do not contain the above words. They are not
found in Moffatt, Phillips, the Revised Standard Version,
Williams, or The Living Bible (a paraphrase).
It is clear, then, that these words are not part of the
inspired canon, but rather were added by a “recent hand.”
The two verses in I John should read: “For there are three
that bear record, the Spirit, and the water and the blood:
and these three agree in one.”
Three things bear record. But what do they bear
record to? A Trinity? We shall see.
Is the Tlinity Biblical? 11
Bear Record to What?
The Spirit, the water and the blood bear record of the
fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is living His life
over again in us. John clarifies it in verses 11-12:
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us
eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son
hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not
life.”
But how do these three elements - the Spirit, the
water, and the blood - specifically bear witness to this
basic biblical truth?
“The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we
are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). (We will see more
about the part the Spirit plays in Chapter Three.)
Water is representative of baptism, which bears witness
of the burial of the old self and the beginning of a new
life (Rom. 6:l-6).
The blood represents Christ’s death by crucifixion,
which pays the penalty for our sins, reconciling us to God
(Rom. 59, 10).
Now understand why Christ commanded the apostles
to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit (Matt. 28:19). First of all, Jesus did not command
the apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son
and the Spirit as an indication that God is a Trinity. No
such relationship is indicated in the Bible.
Why, then, were they to baptize using these three
names? The answer is clear.
They were to baptize in the name of the Father
because it is the goodness of God that brings us to repentance
(Rom. 2:4), and because the Father is the One “of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”
(Eph. 3:15). In the name of the Son because He is the one
who died for our sins, and in the name of the Spirit
because God sends His Spirit, making us His begotten
Sons (Rom. 8:16).
Many theologians have misunderstood the part that
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit play in each
(Continued on page 15)
The central doctrine of most Protestant and
Catholic churches for many centuries has been that
of the Trinity. This doctrine is so important that the
Catholic Encyclopedia states : ' 'T h is [the Tri n it y] ,
the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding
God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which
she [the Catholic Church] proposes to man as the
foundation of the whole dogmatic system. "
Both Catholic and Protestant theologians quote
Theophilus of Antioch (circa 180 A.D.) as the first
person to write about this most important doctrine.
But isn't it strange that such a major doctrine was
avoided in religious writings for nearly two centuries?
That is almost as long as the United States
has been a nation.
Furthermore, Theophilus' allusion to the traditional
Trinity - "the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost" - is quite nebulous at best. Notice what
Theophilus wrote in commenting about the fourth
day of creation in the first chapter of Genesis:
"And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming
less, so does God always abide perfect, being full
of all power, and understanding, and wisdom, and
immortality, and all good. But the moon wanes
monthly, and in a manner dies, being a type of
man; then it is born again, and is crescent, for a
pattern of the future resurrection. In like manner
also the three days which were before the luminaries,
are types of the trinity, of God, and His
Word, and His wisdom" (Ante-Nicene Fathers,
' ' T h eo p h i I us to Auto I y cu s ' ') .
Here is the first statement by a theologian that is
supposed to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. But
does his statement really teach this?
Read it - simply. He does not say that God is a
Trinity of persons, or that the Holy Spirit is a part
of that Trinity. He just refers to God, His Word and
His wisdom.
Theologians have tried to imagine into this
unusual statement "their Trinity" - and yet even
the editors of the Ante-Nicene Fathers state in a
footnote that the word translated "wisdom" in
English is the Greek word sophia which Theophilus
elsewhere used in reference to the Son, not the
Holy Spirit.
4
(Continued on next page)
Theophilus could not possibly have gotten the
idea of a Trinity from the Bible - if he really did
have a Trinity of persons in mind, which appears
unlikely from the preceding statement - as the
Bible nowhere even alludes to God being a Trinity.
From the time of Theophilus, it was several hundred
years before this doctrine became a part of
the Catholic dogma. It was in the last twenty-five
years of the FOURTH century that "what might be
called the definitive trinitarian dogma 'one God in
three persons' became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought" (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
' ' H 01 y T ri n i ty ' ') .
From this it is evident that this "central doctrine"
of Catholicism and Protestantism was not a
part of the "faith which was once delivered
unto the saints" (Jude 3) during or prior to the
time o f Jude, but was added by later
theologians.
The doctrine of the Trinity was not what Jesus
Christ "came upon the earth to deliver to the
world." He came to preach the good news of His
soon-coming Kingdom, to establish His true
Church, to give His life as a sacrifice for all who
repent, and to give God's Holy Spirit to those who
are baptized - the Spirit that empowers believers
to be ONE with the Father and the Son.
Is the Trinity Biblical? 15
(Continued from page 11)
person’s salvation. The doctrine of the Trinity is the result
of that misunderstanding.
The Trinity is not a biblical doctrine. It has no basis
in biblical fact. Then how did this doctrine come to be
believed by the Church?
I
i History of the Trinity
The ancient idea of monotheism was shattered by the
sudden appearance of Jesus Christ on the earth. Here was
someone who claimed He was the Son of God. But how
could He be? The Jewish people believed for centuries that
there was only one God. If the claims of “this Jesus” were
accepted, then in their minds their belief would be no
different from that of the polytheistic pagans around
them. If He were the Son of God, their whole system of
monotheism would disintegrate.
When Jesus plainly told certain Jews of His day that
He was the Son of God, some were ready to stone Him for
blasphemy (John 10:33).
To get around the problem of a plurality in the Godhead,
the Jewish community simply rejected Jesus. And to
this day, Orthodox Jews will not accept Jesus’ Messiahship.
However, the more liberal Jews will at least admit
that He was a great man - maybe even a prophet.
But the “new” Christian religion was still faced with
the problem. How would proponents explain that there
was only one God, not two?
“The determining impulse to the formulation of the
doctrine of the Trinity in the church was the church’s
profound conviction of the absolute Deity of Christ, on
which as on a pivot the whole Christian concept of God
from the first origin of Christianity turned” (International
Standard Biblical Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p.
3021).
But the Deity of Christ does not mean that a doctrine
of the Trinity is necessary, as we shall see in Chapter Two.
Roots in Greek Philosophy
Many of the early church fathers were thoroughly
educated in Greek philosophy, from which they borrowed
e
*

Is the Trinity Biblical? 17
such non-biblical concepts as dualism and the immortality
of the soul. However, most theologians, for obvious reasons,
are generally careful to point out that they did not
borrow the idea of the Trinity from the Triads of Greek
philosophy or those of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.
But some are not so careful to make such a distinction.
“Although the notion of a 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 the
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 . . .” (Hasting’s Bible Dictionary, Vol. 12, p. 458).
Of course, the fact that someone else had a Trinity
does not in itself mean that the Christians borrowed it.
McClintock and Strong make the connection a little
clearer.
“Toward the end of the 1st century, and during the
2nd, many learned men came over both from Judaism and
paganism to Christianity. These brought with them into
the Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and
phraseology” (article “Trinity,” Vol. 10, p. 553).
In his book, A History of Christian Thought, Arthur
Cushman McGiffert points out that the main argument
against those who believed that there was only one God
and that Christ was either an adopted or a created being
was that their idea did not agree with Platonic philosophy.
Such teachings were “offensive to theologians, particularly
to those who felt the influence of the Platonic philosophy”
(ibid., p. 240).
In the latter half of the third century, Paul of Samosata
tried to revive the adoptionist idea that Jesus was a
mere man until the Spirit of God came upon Him at
baptism making him the Anointed One, or Christ. In his
beliefs about the person of Jesus Christ, he “rejected the
I
18 Is God a Trinity?
Platonic realism which underlay most of the Christological
speculation of the day” (ibid,, p. 243).
At the end of his chapter on the Trinity, McGiffert
concludes: “. . . It has been the boast of orthodox theologians
that in the doctrine of the Trinity both religion and
philosophy come to highest expression’’ (Vol. I, p. 247).
The influence of Platonic philosophy on the Trinity
doctrine can hardly be denied.
However, trinitarian ideas go much further back than
Plato. “Though it is usual to speak of the Semitic tribes as
monotheistic; yet it is an undoubted fact that more or less
all over the world the deities are in triads. This rule applies
to eastern and western hemispheres, to north and south.
Further, it is observed that, in some mystical way, the
triad of three persons is one.. . . The definition of Athanasius
[a fourth-century Christian] who lived in Egypt,
applied to the trinities of all heathen religions” (Egyptian
Belief and Modern Thought, by James Bonwick, F.R.G.S.,
p. 396).
It was Athanasius’ formulation for the Trinity which
was adopted by the Catholic Church at the Council of
Nicaea in A.D. 325. Athanasius was an Egyptian from
Alexandria and his philosophy was also deeply rooted in
Platonism.
“The Alexandrian catechetical school, which revered
Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the greatest theologians
of the Greek Church, as its heads, applied the allegorical
method to the explanation of Scripture. Its thought
was influenced by Plato: its strong point was theological
speculation. Athanasius and the three Cappadocians had
been included among its members. . .” (Ecumenical Councils
of the Catholic Church, by Hubert Jedin, p. 29).
In order to explain the relationship of Christ to God
the Father, the church fathers felt that it was necessary to
use the philosophy of the day. They obviously thought
that their religion would be more palatable if they made it
sound like the pagan philosophy that was extant at the
time. These men were versed in philosophy, and that philosophy
colored their understanding of the Bible.
It was the doctrine of the Trinity - colored by the
Is the Trinity Biblical? 19
philosophy of the time - that was accepted by the Church
in the early part of the fourth century - over three
hundred years after Christ’s death.
Even theologians recognize that the Trinity is a creation
of the fourth century, not the first!
“There is recognition on the part of exegetist and
Biblical 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
- that when one does speak of unqualified Trinitarianism,
one has moved from the period of Christian origins to say,
the last quadrant of the 4th century. It was only then that
what might be called the definitive Trinitarian dogma ‘one
God in three persons’ became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought” (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
article “Trinity,” Vol. 14, p. 295).
The Council of Nicaea
It was at the Council of Nicaea in AD. 325 that two
members of the Alexandrian congregation, Arius, a priest,
who believed that Christ was not a God, but a created
being; and Athanasius, a deacon who believed that the
Father, Son and Spirit are the same being living in a
threefold form (or in three relationships, as a man may be
at the same time a father, a son and a brother), presented
their cases.
The Council of Nicaea was not called by the church
leaders, as one might suppose. It was called by the
Emperor Constantine. And he had a far-from-spiritual
reason for wanting to solve the dispute that had arisen.
“In 325 the Emperor Constantine called an ecclesiastical
council to meet at Nicaea in Bithynia. In the
hope of securing for his throne the support of the growing
body of Christians he had shown them considerable favor
and it was to his interest to have the church vigorous and
united. The Arian controversy was threatening its unity
and menacing its strength. He therefore undertook to put
an end to the trouble. It was suggested to him, perhaps by
the Spanish bishop Hosius who was influential at court,
20 Is God a Trinity?
that if a synod were to meet representing the whole
church both east and west, it might be possible to restore
harmony. Constantine himself of course neither knew or
cared anything about the matter in dispute but he was
eager to bring the controversy to a close, and Hosius’
advice appealed to him as sound” (A History of Christian
Thought, Vol. I , p. 258).
The decision as to which of the two men the church
was to follow was a more or less arbitrary one. Constantine
really didn’t care which choice was made - all he
wanted was a united church. (Anus was banished, but
later recalled by Constantine, examined and found to be
without heresy.)
The majority of those present at the council were not
ready to take either side in the controversy. “A clearly
defined standpoint with regard to this problem - the
relationship of Christ to God - was held only by the
attenuated group of Arians and a far from numerous section
of delegates, who adhered with unshaken conviction
to the Alexandrian [Athanasius’] view. The bulk of the
members occupied a position between these two extremes.
They rejected the formulae of Arius, and declined to
accept those of his opponents.. . the voting was no criterion
of the inward conviction of the council” (Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 11th ed., article “Nicaea, Council of,)’
p. 641).
The council rejected Arius’ views, and rightly so, but
they had nothing with which to replace it. Thus the ideas
of Athanasius - also a minority view - prevailed. The
rejection of Arianism was not blanket acceptance of Athanasius.
Yet, the church in all the ensuing centuries has
been “stuck,” so to speak, with the job of upholding -
right or wrong - the decision made at Nicaea.
After the council the Trinity became official dogma in
the church, but the controversy did not end. In the next
few years more Christians were killed by other Christians
over that doctrine than were killed by all the pagan
emperors of Rome. Yet, for all the fighting and killing,
neither of the two parties had a biblical leg to stand on.
4
CHAPTER 7WO
Who Was Jesus?
HE Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity.
But we are still faced with the question: Who was T Jesus Christ? Was He a man that lived such a
perfect life that God decided to call Him His Son at
baptism? Or was He God who became a man and died for
all men?
In the past in most theological circles, a rejection of the doctrine
of the Trinity included a rejection of the divinity of
Christ. But before this booklet becomes classed as an Arian
heresy, let me quote from Catholic theologian Karl Rahner:
“. . . We must be willing to admit that should the doctrine of
the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of
religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged..
. . the Christian idea of the incarnation would
not have to change at all if there were no Trinity.
“It is not surprising then, that Christian piety practically
remembers from the doctrine of the incarnation
only that ‘God’ has become man, without deriving from
this truth any clear message about the Trinity” (The
Trinity, pp. 10-12).
A rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity does not
constitute a rejection of the incarnation - the divinity of
Christ. In fact, what he says indicates that, for all practical
purposes, the doctrine is meaningless.
Jesus Was the Problem
To this day Christianity is still confused about who
and what Jesus Christ really was. There is a majority who
22 Is God a Trinity?
believe in a mysterious Trinity and a vociferous minority
who believe that Christ was a created being. Neither has
the truth.
But why all the confusion?
Who Jesus was is clearly indicated in the pages of the
Bible. It has been there for centuries. While Christians
were busily excommunicating and killing each other over
the question of who Jesus was, the answer has been in the
pages of the Bible, and that explanation is not in harmony
with what is taught by most churches today. Christ is not
the second person in a Trinity, and He was not created by
God - He is the Creator God!
In the Beginning. . .
To find out who Jesus was, let’s go back to the beginning.
Beginnings are mentioned in the Bible in at least two
separate places - in the first chapter of Genesis and in the
first chapter of John’s Gospel.
The Apostle John began his Gospel by describing who
and what Jesus was before He came to this earth as the
saviour of mankind.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made.. . .
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father,) full of grace and truth” (verses 1-3, 14).
If we read no further in the New Testament than this,
we would be able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt
that Jesus Christ was God and that He is the One who
created man in Genesis 2:7. Because John clearly states
that the Word - the One who became Christ - created
all things. Had Christians clearly understood these verses
there would have never been an Arian controversy or a
doctrine of the Trinity.
But the Apostle John is not the only New Testament
writer who wrote about the pre-existence of Christ. Notice
what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. “Moreover, brethren,
I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our
Who Was Jesus? 23
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in
the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all
drink of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that
spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was
Christ” (I Cor. 109-4).
Paul clearly tells us that Jesus Christ was the God of
the Old Testament - the One who spoke to Moses and led
the Israelites out of Egypt. This clearly shows us that the
One who became the Son was the God of the Old Testament,
not God the Father.
Yet the doctrine of the Trinity hinges on the assumption
that God manifested Himself as the Father in the Old
Testament and Christ in the New Testament.
Duality of God Throughout
the Bible
The plurality of God is not merely a “plural of majesty”
as some would have us believe.
Six hundred years before Christ, the Prophet Daniel
recorded for us a vision. “I saw in the night visions, and,
behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of
heaven, and came to the Ancient of days.. .” (Dan. 7:13).
The “Son of man” he described can be none other than the
One who later became Jesus Christ. Daniel then saw Him
given rulership and a Kingdom that will never be
destroyed (verse 14). The “Son of man” mentioned here
could hardly be a mere physical human being!
The Ancient of Days, in this instance, is the divine
Being who is called the Father in the New Testament.
Jesus Christ referred to the same occurrence as mentioned
in this vision in His parable of the nobleman (Himself)
who went to a far country (heaven) to receive a
kingdom, and to return (Luke 19:12).
The duality of the God family was also referred to in
Psalm 110 by David.
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool’’ (verse 1).
Two different Lords are mentioned here. One is God
the Father and the other is the One who became Jesus
Many ancient peoples have preserved among their myths
an account of the creation of the world. Distorted though such
stories may be, they do contain certain basic elements common
to other, more reliable ancient documents. The Popol
Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quich6 Maya of Guatemala,
for instance, contains a creation story very similar to
that found in the Bible. It opens with a vista of emptiness
very much like that of Genesis 1
"The surface of the earth had not appeared. There
was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky.
There was nothing . . . . There was only immobility and
silence in the darkness, in the night" (Popol Vuh, Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, p. 81).
In this expanse of water and chaotic gloom, then, creation
began.
But unlike the conventional concept of a Creator doing all
the work, the Maya account speaks of two beings. Tepeu
and Gucumatz, the "Creator" and the "Maker," known as
the "Fore-fathers," combined their efforts for the task:
"Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness
. . . and talked together. . . discussing and deliberating;
they agreed, they united their words and their
thoughts . . . . Then t'iey planned the creation, and the
growth of the trees and the thickets, and the birth of
life and the creation of man.
\
j"
The story proceeds then with "Let there be light," the
appearance of dry land, plants, animals and man, much as in
Genesis.
Notice that the Mayas speak of two creating beings
instead of one.
They have actually retained a detail not commonly understood
outside the original Hebrew context of the Genesis
record. For the Bible, too, shows there were two distinct
personalities involved in creation, not one as commonly
assumed.
When Genesis 1:l opens with: "In the beginning
God . . .," the Hebrew word for "God" used here is Elohim.
It is in the plural form which can designate more than one.
Note that Genesis 1 :26 was correctly translated from the
original Hebrew: "And God said, Let us make man in our
image. "
Most professing Christians would find it alien to conceive
of more than one being as the creator. Yet Elohim can
express plurality. The word in Genesis One means "God,"
but in a family relationship. The New Testament speaks of
"God the Father" and "God the Son," the One who became
Jesus. They are two distinct beings, but both are God. Both
of them have been together since eternity. "In the beginning
was the Word [the Son], and the Word was with God [the
Father], and the Word was God" (John 1 : 1). Together they
planned the creation, and God the Son carried it out (John
1 :3; Col. 1:16). Notice Ephesians 3:9: ". . . God [the
Father], who created all things by Jesus Christ."
Thus the Bible reveals that there were actually two spirit
beings - two distinct personalities who united their efforts
in the creation - exactly as the Maya account so surprisingly
relates.
\
I
j
I
26 Is God a Trinity?
Christ. Paul quoted this passage to the Jewish Christians
- applying it directly to Jesus Christ: “But to which of
the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until
I make thine enemies thy footstool?” (Heb. 1:13.)
Was the Son also God? Verse 8 answers, “But unto
the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever. . . .” There
can be no doubt that God the Father and Jesus the Son
are mentioned as two separate beings in the Old Testament.
Who Was Melchizedek?
Now notice Hebrews 5:6-7:
“So also Christ glorified not himself to be made high
priest; but he [glorified him] that said unto him, Thou art
my Son, today have I begotten thee. As he saith also in
another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek. ”
So Christ holds the office of Melchizedek. Who was
Melchizedek? He was one of the Persons composing God.
In Genesis 14:18 he is called the king of Salem and the
priest of the Most High God. Notice why he could not
have been merely a human being.
The Apostle Paul described Him further in Hebrews
“To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first
being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after
that also King of Salem, which is King of peace; without
father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the
Son of God; abideth a priest continually.’’
Paul could not have been describing a human being,
or even an angel in these verses, for he is describing a
Being that eternally existed, as only God has eternally
existed.
Melchizedek was a priest of the Most High God. Who
is the Most High God? Why of course, the Father! Jesus
Christ said: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
And also Melchizedek still lives (and if you will read
Hebrews 7:8 carefully, you will see that Paul repeats this
supremely important fact) and is still that High Priest.
But Christ also is High Priest (see Heb. 7:26; 8:l). There
7~2-3:
I
Who Was Jesus? 27
cannot be two High Priests both holding the same office,
so Melchizedek and Jesus Christ must be one and the
same.
So we see that even in the first book of the Bible the
this truth could not be known until Jesus came to reveal it
in the New Testament. Jesus said, “. . . No man knows who
the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the
Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him” (Luke
10:22).
Jesus Came to Reveal the
Father
A clear distinction is made in the New Testament
between Christ and the Father. The God that Moses saw
and heard was not God the Father, again proving that
Christ was the God of the Old Testament. “No man has
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in
the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John
1:18). Christ came to earth to, among other things, reveal
the Father and to show a family relationship that exists in
the Godhead. But, more about that later.
Unless Jesus had revealed the Father to us, there is no
way for us to know Him. “All things are delivered unto me
of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the
Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”
(Matt. 11:27).
The Meaning of the Word YHVH
In the Hebrew of the original inspired text, there are
two different names that are commonly used to refer to
God. The word first used for “God” in Genesis is Elohim.
The second word - which we will explain here - is
YHVH (commonly, though erroneously, pronounced
“Jehovah”). This word YHVH is generally translated
“LORD” (in capital letters) in the King James Version of
the Bible. The first place it is used is in Genesis 2:7. It was
the LORD God - YHVH - who formed man out of the
dust of the ground. It was the LORD God that dealt
I plurality of God is shown, although clear understanding of
I
r
28 Is God a Trinity?
directly with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And
as we saw in John, chapter 1, it was the Word - Jesus
Christ - who created all things.
Therefore, it was the LORD God of the Old Testament
who became the Jesus Christ of the New. This fact is
illustrated interestingly enough by the grammatical derivation
of the word YHVH.
The word YHVH is explained by Rabbinic sources as
encompassing three Hebrew words: HYH meaning was,
HVH meaning is (literally “the present tense” - the word
“is” is not used in Hebrew) and YHYH meaning will
continue to be.
Putting them all together, YHVH actually means the
“Was-Is-Will Continue to Be” Being. Even Hebrew linguistic
scholars agree that YHVH must be derived from
some form of the verb “to be” (was, is, will be).
By His very name, then, God quite literally encompasses
all aspects of time - past, present and future. This
is in complete accord with Malachi 3 “For I am YHVH,
I change not”; Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday
[was], and today [is], and forever [will continue to
be]”; and Revelation 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.”
Here we can see that even etymologically, Jesus
Christ and YHVH can be equated. Yet this is only a small
part of the picture because the clear statements of both
the Old and New Testaments give overwhelming proof
that the God of the Old Testament is the One who became
Jesus Christ. (For further information on this vital part of
our subject, write immediately for the free article “Who
and What Was Jesus Before His Human Birth?”)
People Stumbled at Christ
In Isaiah chapter eight, verses 13 and 14, we find a
very interesting prophecy concerning the Lord of Hosts.
“Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself; and let him be
your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a
sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of
offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a
snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.’’
Who Was Jesus? 29
Most editions of the King James Version of the Bible
note that these verses refer to the one who later became
Jesus Christ. But even more accurate proof is found in the
New Testament.
I In his first epistle, the Apostle Peter writes:
“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto
them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders
disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a
stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, even to them
which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto
also they were appointed” (I Pet. 2:6-8).
The very same prophecy is alluded to in Luke 2:34.
There can be no denying the fact that Jesus Christ was the
God of the Old Testament, the Stone over which many
people stumbled.
The religious leaders of the time simply could not
understand how Jesus could have been God. Yet the Old
Testament which they had copied for centuries is filled
with prophecies about Him. Truly they were blinded,
and most remain so to this day, as the Apostle Paul
explained in the ninth through the eleventh chapters of
his epistle to the Romans.
While Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament,
was on earth as a human being, there was only one God-
Being - the Father - left in heaven. And we find that
Jesus prayed to His Father in heaven:
“And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self with the glory which I had with thee before the world
was” (John 175).
The Jews and the Arians found it hard to believe that
God could become man, Yet, the New Testament explains
that it did indeed happen. One of the members of the
Godhead became a man that we might have the opportunity
to become God.
The Apostle Paul explained this concept in his epistle
to the Philippians. The Amplified Bible makes the passage
I Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious:
30 Is God a Trinity?
a little clearer. In chapter 258, he encourages the Philippians:
“Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble]
mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Let him be your
example in humility.. . Who, although being essentially
one with God and in the form of God [possessing the
fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not
think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly
grasped or retained; but stripped Himself [of all privileges
and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant
(slave), in that He became like men and was born a human
being. And after He had appeared in human form He
abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His
obedience to the extreme of death, and even the death of
[the] cross!” Jesus Christ was God. But He voluntarily
gave up His position as God, became a physical human
being and came to this earth to die for us that we might be
saved.
The true impact and importance of the oft-repeated
scripture: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16), becomes
abundantly clear.
CHAPTER THREE
the Holy Spirit
a Person?
E HAVE seen that Jesus Christ is, was and always
will be God. However, you can search the Bible W from Genesis to Revelation and you will find no
such Bible teaching with regard to the Holy Spirit. The
Bible does not teach that the Holy Spirit is a third member
of the God family or of a Trinity.
This is not a prejudiced anti-trinitarian opinion. It is a
fact that is recognized even by Trinitarian theologians!
Discussing the evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity
in the Bible, Dr. W. N. Clarke, writes: “The New Testament
begins the work, but does not finish it; for it contains
no similar teaching [like John 1:l-18 concerning the divinity
of Christ] with regard to the Holy Spirit. The unique
nature and mission of Christ are traced to a ground in the
being of God; but similar ground for the divineness of the
Spirit is nowhere shown. Thought in the New Testament is
never directed to that end. Thus the Scriptures take the
first step toward a doctrine of essential Trinity, or threeness
in the being of one God, but they do not take that
second step by which alone the doctrine could be completed‘‘
(An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 168).
(Author’s emphasis.)
Theologians have to recognize that there is no biblical
proof for the divinity or personality of the Spirit. And that
in order to arrive at a doctrine of the Trinity, they have to
go outside of the Bible.
32 Is God a Trinity?
Karl Barth, one of the most noted theologians of the
20th century, admits that the church has gone beyond the
Bible to arrive at its doctrine of the Trinity.
“The Bible lacks the express declaration that the
Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence and
therefore in an equal sense God Himself. And the other
express declaration is also lacking that God is God thus
and only thus, i.e., as the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. These two express declarations which go beyond
the witness of the Bible are the twofold content of the
church doctrine of the Trinity” (Doctrine of the Word of
God, p. 437).
Since, as theologians recognize, the Bible is not the
source of the Trinity doctrine, how can they square it with
the Bible teaching that inspired Scripture should be the
source of doctrine? (I1 Tim. 3:16).
The answer is, they can’t. They must freely admit the
painful facts.
The Spirit of God in
the Bible
The personality of Jesus Christ is thoroughly provable
from the Bible, but there is no such proof for a personality
of the Holy Spirit.
“The OT [Old Testament] clearly does not envisage
God’s spirit as a person, neither in the strictly philosophical
sense, nor in the Semitic sense. God’s spirit is simply
God’s Power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct
from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts
exteriorly (Isa. 48:16; 63:ll; 32:15).” So say the authors of
the New Catholic Encyclopedia. But let them continue:
“Very rarely do the OT writers attribute to God’s
spirit emotions or intellectual activity (Isa. 63:lO; Wis.
1:3-7). When such expressions are used, they are mere
figures of speech that are explained by the fact that the
riiah was regarded also as the seat of intellectual acts and
feeling (Gen. 41:8). Neither is there found in the OT or in
rabbinical literature the notion that God’s spirit is an
intermediary being between God and the world. This
activity is proper to the angels, although to them is
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 33
ascribed some of the activity that elsewhere is ascribed to
the spirit of God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII,
p. 574).
In the Old Testament, God’s Spirit is pictured as His
power. The power by which the One who became Jesus
Christ, as Executive for the Father, created the entirety of
the universe. These theologians also recognize that when
the Spirit is spoken of as a person or in a personal way, the
Bible writer is merely personifying the Spirit, as he would
wisdom or any other attribute.
Now what about the New Testament? They say:
“Although the NT [New Testament] concepts of the
Spirit of God are largely a continuation of those of the OT,
in the NT there is a gradual revelation that the Spirit of
God is a person.”
But this would seem true only if you are armed with a
preconceived notion that God is a Trinity. We will see
there are only a few scriptures that can even remotely be
construed as presenting the Spirit as a person, and in each
case only as the result of a grammatical misunderstanding.
But again let’s let the New Catholic Encyclopedia
continue.
“‘The majority of NT texts reveal God‘s spirit as something,
not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism
between the spirit and the power of God.”
Though theologians would like for the Bible to say
that the Spirit is a person, they must admit that the
majority of the scriptures connected with it show that it is
not someone, but something. Even the personification of
the Spirit is no proof of its personality.
“When a quasi-personal activity is ascribed to God’s
spirit, e.g., speaking, hindering, desiring, dwelling (Acts
8:29; 16:7; Rom. 8:9), one is not justified in concluding
immediately that in these passages God’s spirit is
regarded as a Person; the same expressions are used in
regard to rhetorically personified things or abstract ideas
(see Rom. 6:6; 7:17). Thus the context of the phrase ‘blasphemy
against the spirit’ (Mt. 12:31; cf. Mt. 12:28; Lk.
11:20) shows that reference is being made to the power of
rRII.. . Y 5 . - I.I"UL "I yl"tGaDlIly b l l I I J L 1 c I l I I L y today believes that God is limited to a "trinity" com osed
of three persons - God the Father, God the Son fiesus
Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Shown here are two of
many symbols used to represent the .Trinity.
Ambassador CaNege Art
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 35
God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, p. 575).
After such admissions, it is almost inconceivable that
any theologian could still teach that the Spirit is a person
- yet some do.
A Lesson in Greek Grammar
The one place that most theologians feel describes the
Spirit as a person is resolved by a lesson in the Greek
language. In the Greek language, like the Romance languages
(Italian, Spanish, French, and others), every noun
has what is called gender; that is, it is either masculine,
feminine or neuter. The gender of a word has nothing to do
with whether it is really masculine or feminine - it is
more of a grammatical tool.
The verses most Trinitarian theologians will fall back
on for their proof that the Spirit is a person are in the
14th, 15th and 16th chapters of John’s Gospel. Here Jesus
is recorded as referring to the Spirit as “the Comforter.”
The pronoun “he” is used in connection with the word
“comforter” - parakletos - however, the reason for the
use of the personal pronoun “he” is for grammatical, not
theological, or spiritual reasons. (cp A c h (2: IO
All pronouns in Greek must agree in gender with the
word they refer to, therefore the pronoun “he” is used
when referring to the Greek word parakletos. Only John
refers to the Spirit as the parakletos - “Comforter.” The
other New Testament writers use the wordpneuma which
means “breath” or “spirit.” This is the Greek equivalent of
rfiah, the Hebrew word for “spirit” used in the Old Testament.
Pneuma is a grammatically neuter word and is
always represented by the pronoun “it.”
However, the translators of the King James Version,
being swayed by the doctrine of the Trinity, have generally
mistranslated the pronouns referring to pneuma as
masculine. One instance where they did not mistranslate
is found in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
John’s use of theparakletos is no proof the Spirit is a
person. For if the simple gender of a noun were the basis
for the personality of the Spirit, then the Spirit changed
gender from the Old to the New Testament, the Hebrew
Is the Holy Spirit a person, just like God the
Father and Jesus Christ, as the doctrine of the
Trinity teaches?
Let's examine the plain, clear testimony of Scripture
to see what God's Holy Spirit IS.
First, it is the power of God. "Not by might, nor
by power [of humans], but by my spirit, saith the
Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). "I am full of power by
the Spirit of the Lord, and judgment, and of
might. . ," declared the prophet Micah (Micah
3:8).
Second, it is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the
Spirit of knowledge and of the fear (deep reverence
and respect - not craven fear) of the Lord
(Isa. 11:2).
Third, it is a gift. After baptism, you are to
receive "the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). It
is poured out. "And it shall come to pass in the last
days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon
all flesh" (Acts 2:l 7). I ' . . . On the Gentiles also
was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts
10:45).
Fourth, to be effective the Holy Spirit must be
stirred up. "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance
that thou stir up the gift of God," Paul reminded
the young evangelist Timothy (I1 Tim. 1 :7).
Five, the Spirit of God can be quenched (I Thes.
5: 19).
Six, it is the begetting power of God (Matt.
1 : 18; Rom. 8:9).
Seven, it is God's guarantee to us that He will
fulfill His promise to us (Eph. 1 : 14).
Eight, it sheds the love of God abroad in our
hearts (Rom. 5:5).
Nine, it must be renewed (Titus 3:5-6).
Notice that in all of these scriptures there is not
one characteristic even implying a "person."
Does a person do any of these things? Is a
person "poured," "quenched," "renewed"? Does
a person live IN someone else or live IN people's
hearts?
For further evidence proving that the Holy Spirit
is not a person, see Matthew 1:20. Here we read
that Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yet
Christ calls God His Father, not the Holy Spirit
(John 14:16). If the Holy Spirit were a person, it
would be Christ's Father - proof positive that the
Holy Spirit is not a person but the power God the
Father uses - much as a man uses electricity.
Consider further. If the Holy Spirit were a person,
Jesus Christ prayed to the wrong individual.
Throughout the four Gospels, we find Christ speaking
to God - not the Holy Spirit - as His Father.
38 Is God a Trinity?
word for “spirit” in the Old Testament being in the feminine
gender in a majority of cases and in a masculine sense
less often.
The fact that the word “spirit” is feminine in the
Hebrew did lead some to believe that the Spirit was a
feminine being of the Godhead. They believed in a Trinity
of the Father, the Mother and the Son. Interestingly
enough, their belief was condemned by the Trinitarians
who used the same kind of ploy to prove that the Spirit
was a masculine being!
The Holy Spirit - God’s
Begettal Power
What is the Spirit? As we saw earlier, theologians
admit that the Spirit of God is the power of God. They
would have no reason to believe otherwise unless they had
a preconceived idea of a Trinity.
The Spirit, or Holy Spirit, as it is called in the New
Testament, was the power by which Jesus Christ was
begotten. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:
When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before
they came together, she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1 :18.1.
When Joseph was about to put Mary away because
she was pregnant, “the angel of the Lord appeared unto
him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not
to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1:20).
of the Holy Spirit. He was literally born with God’s Spirit
in His mind. He became the Son of God and died for us
that we might have the same opportunity to become God.
The Apostle Paul plainly taught this vital scriptural
truth that we just read in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God.” Paul did not mean this in some sentimental sort of
way, as he goes on to show in the next verse. “And if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ.. . .”
Paul goes on to point out that Jesus Christ is the heir
Jesus was begotten in the womb of Mary by the ~ ~ w e r (Lk 1235)
Trinity
The Apostle Paul would probably be considered a
blasphemer by many Trinitarians today, because in
his greetings to the churches he neglected to mention
the Holy Spirit. In his introduction to the
Romans, he represents himself as an apostle of God
the Father and Jesus Christ, but nothing is said
about any third person.
He also neglects to mention the Holy Spirit in the
greetings of the rest of his letters. His standard
greeting is: ”Grace be unto you, and peace, from
God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ”
(I Cor. 1 :3). The same greeting is repeated in II
Corinthians 1 :3, Galatians 1 :3, Ephesians 1 :2, Philippians
1 :2, Colossians 1 :2, I Thessalonians 1 : 1,
II Thessalonians 1 :2, I Timothy 1 :2, Titus 1 :4, and
Philemon 1 :3.
All of these greetings are without variation - the
Holy Spirit is consistently left out (a great oversight
- indeed blasphemy, provided the Trinity doctrine
is correct).
Only in II Corinthians 13:14 is the Holy Spirit
mentioned with God and Jesus and there only in
connection with communion or fellowship. The Holy
Spirit is not the third member of the Godhead.
40 Is God a Trinity?
of all things in Hebrews 1:2. We then have the opportunity,
if we have God’s Spirit in our minds, to inherit all
things with Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God unites with our minds, and we are
begotten (or conceived) again - this time spiritually -
not as we originally were, physically. We become a new
person.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet. 1:3). And verse 23 says,
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and
abideth forever.”
The Holy Spirit impregnates us with God’s nature.
That spiritual begettal imbues us with the nature and
mind of God. Throughout our Christian lives we continue
to grow and develop in the understanding and mind of God
until we are finally born into the God family and made
immortal at the return of Jesus Christ to this earth (I Cor.
How can we obtain this Spirit? The answer was given
by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost mentioned in
Acts chapter two. When Peter was asked at the end of his
sermon what to do, he answered: “Repent, and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Acts 2:38).
Here again we can see why the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit are mentioned in the “baptismal formula”
in Matthew 28:19. God the Father is the One who brings
us to repentance; Jesus Christ - God the Son - is the one
who died that we can have our past sins forgiven; and the
Holy Spirit is the power by which God the Father begets
us. (For further information about the Holy Spirit, write
for our free reprint article “How You Can Be Imbued
With the Power of God.”)
How plain the truth of the Bible is. The Holy Spirit is
the power of God. It is not a person. It is the power by
which we are begotten that we might become sons of God.
15 ~49-52).
CHAPTER FOUR
God Is a Family
ARLY theologians were driven by the need to explain
the appearance of Jesus Christ. Some found their E explanation by fabricating the Trinity doctrine.
But since God is not a Trinity and since Jesus Christ is
God, what is the relationship in the Godhead? Is God one,
or are there two separate Gods and is Christianity, therefore,
polytheistic?
In Chapter Two we found that the Bible teaches that
Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament, and that He
became flesh and came to this earth to die for mankind. He is
called the Son of God and He calls God His Father. By now
the relationship should be coming clear - God is a family.
We found in Chapter Three that we also can become
begotten sons of God by the impregnation of God’s Spirit
- again a family relationship.
When we understand that God is a family - that God
is reproducing after His kind - we are no longer confronted
with the problems inherent in the Trinity doctrine,
nor are we faced with the problem of worshiping
many gods.
There is only one God family, yet there are presently
two members, and in the future there will be many more.
Jesus was called “the firstborn of many brethren” (Rom.
8:29).
Look at yourself. Whether married or single, you are
part of a family. You have parents and maybe even children
or grandchildren of your own. Yet, you are still one
family.
42 Is God a Trinity?
It was God who created man and put him on the
earth. He created marriage and the family relationship as
a type of His divine family. (For further information on
this vitally important subject, write for the free booklet
titled Why Marriage!)
God‘s Name Is Plural
The Hebrew word for “God” used in Genesis 1:l and
26 is Elohim. Elohim is plural in form. Though this word
taken by itself does not prove that there are two beings in
the Godhead, it does allow for the plurality that is clearly
indicated in other parts of the Bible.
By what we can understand from the rest of the Bible,
this word Elohim can act like our English words “family,”
“ g r ~ ~ p , ~ ’ “church,” or “crowd.” These words are often
regarded as singular and take a singular verb form, but
they all contain more than one member.
The Apostle Paul exemplifies this for us in I Corinthians
12:20. Speaking about the Church he says: “But now
are they many members, yet but one body.”
God is a family. There presently are two members in
that God family, God the Father - the Head of the
family, the Lawgiver - and Jesus Christ the Son - the
Spokesman, the Creator. But the word Elohim is not just
dual. There is a dual number in Hebrew, but this would
have to be Elohaim. The God family, however, is destined
to be truly plural - to have many members. And this is
what the word Elohim describes and allows for.
Belief in a Trinity clouds the real purpose that God
has in store for mankind. If we are taught that God is a
closed Trinity of three persons, we lose sight of the fact
that God’s real purpose is to create many more members
of the God family.
Look at the creation account in Genesis 1: God created
fish after the fish kind, birds after the bird kind, and
animals after the animal kind. But in verse 26 God made
man - not after any of the animal kinds, but after the
God kind - in God’s image and God’s likeness. “And God
[Hebrew, Elohim] said, Let us make man in our image,
God Is a Family 43
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
God created man in His own image. Man is greater
than the rest of the creation, because God gave him mind
power. He has dominion over all the creatures. Man is not
an animal. He was created in the image of God - after the
God kind.
Taught in the New Testament
The Apostle John understood God’s plans for mankind.
Notice what he wrote in I John 3:l:
“Behold, what manner of love the Father [here is the
family relationship - not a closed trinity] hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore
the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we [already] the [begotten] sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we
shall see him as he is.”
Jesus Christ, the One who was the God of the Old
Testament, the Creator God, became flesh, died and was
resurrected as a part of God’s plan to make man God.
Jesus Christ is not to be the only son of God. He is the
only born Son now, but as John wrote, “when he shall
appear, we shall be like him.” We are begotten sons now,
and will be born sons of God at the resurrection.
It is clearly God’s plan to bring many sons into His
family. “For it became him [God the Father], for whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing
many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation
[Jesus Christ] perfect through sufferings” (Heb. 2:lO).
The pages of the Bible are filled with this - God‘s
great purpose for man. And yet the majority of this
world’s Christians are blinded to this central biblical
truth. Why? Because Satan has deceived the whole world
(Rev. 12:9). God is not a closed Trinity, He is a family - a
family in which you can become a member.
44 Is God a Trinity?
Why the Deception?
Why has Satan palmed off the doctrine of the Trinity
on the world? Because he doesn’t want you to rule in his
place! Satan was originally created to carry out God‘s rule
on earth. But, he refused to serve the Creator and even
fomented a rebellion to dislodge God from His position as
Ruler over the whole universe (Ezek. 28:ll-19; Isa. 14:12-
14). A third of the angels united with Lucifer in that
rebellion and were cast back down to this earth with him
(Rev. 12:3-4) - having forever disqualified themselves and
Satan from ruling in the government of God. However,
Satan and his demonic cohorts remain in office until
Christ actually returns.
Yet being disqualified, they do not want anyone else
ever to take their place. For that reason, during nearly
6000 years of man, they have tried to hide from all the
world the breathtaking truth of God. If they can make you
believe in the Trinity, you will be deceived into thinking
that the Godhead consists of only three persons. You
would then never in your wildest dreams ever imagine that
you were created to be born into the God family - to
actually have a part in ruling this earth!
Satan wants you to think that God is a limited Trinity
- not a growing family or Kingdom into which we
may, through the grace of God, enter.
There you have it. That is the truth about the Trinity.
God’s family isn’t closed to mankind as Satan would
have you believe.
It’s wide open to you, your family and all mankind.
You can be made in the exact likeness of God at Christ’s
return! 0

intelligent and Almighty Creator for a definite purpose?
And if so, what is that purpose - and why is humanity so
totally unaware of it?

[George S.]

Here you go TOM read it and weep.
Is God a
TRINITY?

HE belief that God is one substance, yet three persons,
is one of the central doctrines of the Christian T religion. The concept of the Trinity is believed by
most professing Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant.
A Gallup Poll taken in 1966 found that 97% of the
American public believed in God. Of that number, 83%
believed that God is a Trinity.
Yet for all this belief in the Trinity, it is a doctrine
that is not clearly understood by most Christian laymen.
In fact, most have neither the desire nor the incentive to
understand what their church teaches. Few laymen are
aware of any problems with the doctrine of the Trinity.
They simply take it for granted - leaving the mysterious
doctrinal aspects to theologians.
And if the layman were to investigate further, he
would be confronted with discouraging statements similar
to the following: “The mind of man cannot fully understand
the mystery of the Trinity. He who would try to
understand the mystery fully will lose his mind. But he
who would deny the Trinity will lose his soul” (Harold
Lindsell and Charles J. Woodbridge, A Handbook of
Christian Truth, pp. 51-52).
Such a statement means that the concept of the Trinity
should be accepted or else. But, merely to accept it as
doctrine without proving it would be totally contrary to
8 Is God a Trinity?
Scripture. God inspired Paul to write: “Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good” (I Thes. 5:21).
Peter further admonished Christians: “. . . Be ready
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a
reason of the hope that is in you.. .” (I Peter 3:15).
Therefore the Christian is duty bound to prove
whether or not God is a Trinity.
Clear Explanation Difficult
If you were to confine yourself to reading the articles
on the Trinity in popular religious literature for laymen,
you would conclude that the Trinity is everywhere and
clearly taught in the Bible. However, if you were to begin
to read what the more technical Bible encyclopedias, dictionaries
and books say on the subject, you would come to
an entirely different conclusion. And the more you studied,
the more you would find that the Trinity is built on a
very shaky foundation indeed.
The problems inherent in clearly explaining the Trinity
are expressed in nearly every technical article or book
on the subject.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia begins: “It is difficult,
in the second half of the 20th century, to offer a clear,
objective, and straightforward account of the revelation,
doctrinal evolution, and the theological elaboration of the
mystery of the Trinity. Trinitarian discussion, Roman
Catholic as well as other, presents a somewhat unsteady
silhouette” (Vol. XIV, p. 295). (Emphasis ours throughout
But why should the central doctrine of the Christian
faith be so difficult to understand? Why should such an
important doctrine present an unsteady silhouette? Isn’t
there a clear biblical revelation of the doctrine of the
Trinity? Didn’t Christ and the apostles plainly teach it?
Surely the Bible would be filled with teachings about
such an important subject as the Trinity. But, unfortunately
the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible.
‘The term ‘Trinity’ is not a Biblical term, and we are
not using Biblical language when we define what is
I

Is the Trinity Biblical?
expressed by it as the doctrine” (The International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p. 3012).
Not only is the word “Trinity” never found in the
Bible, there is no substantive proof such a doctrine is even
indicated.
In a recent book on the Trinity, Catholic theologian
Karl Rahner recognizes that theologians in the past have
been “. . . embarrassed by the simple fact that in reality
the Scriptures do not explicitly present a doctrine of the
‘imminent’ Trinity (even John’s prologue is no such doctrine)”
(The Trinity, p. 22). (Author’s emphasis.)
Other theologians also recognize the fact that the first
chapter of John’s Gospel - the prologue - clearly shows
the pre-existence and divinity of Christ and does not teach
the doctrine of the Trinity. After discussing John’s prologue,
Dr. William Newton Clarke writes: “There is no
Trinity in this; but there is a distinction in the Godhead, a
duality in God. This distinction or duality is used as basis
for the idea of an only-begotten Son, and as key to the
possibility of an incarnation” (Outline of Christian Theology,
P. 167).
The first chapter of John’s Gospel clearly shows the
pre-existence of Christ. It also illustrates the duality of
God. And as Dr. Clarke points out, the key to the possibility
of the incarnation - the fact that God could become
man.
The Apostle John makes plain the unmistakable fact
that Jesus Christ is God (John 1:l-4). Yet we find no
Trinity discussed in this chapter.
More Biblical ”Proof” for the Trinity?
Probably the most notorious scripture used in times
past as “proof” of a Trinity is I John 5:7. However, many
theologians recognize that this scripture was added to the
New Testament manuscripts probably as late as the
eighth century A.D.
Notice what Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote in
their commentary: “The only Greek MSS. [manuscripts],
in any form which support the words, ‘in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are
10 Is God a Trinity?
one. And there are three that bear witness in earth. . .’ are
the Montfortianus of Dublin, copied evidently from the
modern Latin Vulgate; the Ravianus copied from the
Complutensian Polyglot; a MS. [manuscript] at Naples,
with the words added in the margin by a recent hand;
Ottobonianus, 298, of the fifteenth century, the Greek of
which is a mere translation of the accompanying Latin.
All old versions omit the words.’’
The conclusions arrived at in their commentary, written
over 100 years ago, are still valid today. More conservatively
oriented The New Bible Commentary
(Revised) agrees, though “quietly” with Jamieson, Fausset
and Brown. “. . . The words are clearly a gloss and are
rightly excluded by RSV [Revised Standard Version] even
from its margin” (p. 1269).
The editors of Peake’s Commentary on the Bible wax
more eloquent in their belief that the words are not part of
the original text. “The famous interpolation after ‘three
witnesses’ is not printed even in RSV, and rightly. It cites
the heavenly testimony of the Father, the logos, and the
Holy Spirit, but is never used in the early trinitarian
controversies. No respectable Greek MS contains it.
Appearing first in a late 4th century Latin text, it entered
the Vulgate and finally the NT [New Testament] of
Erasmus” (p. 1038).
Scholars clearly recognize that I John 5:7 is not part
of the New Testament text. Yet it is still included by some
fundamentalists as biblical proof for the Trinity doctrine.
Even the majority of the more recent New Testament
translations do not contain the above words. They are not
found in Moffatt, Phillips, the Revised Standard Version,
Williams, or The Living Bible (a paraphrase).
It is clear, then, that these words are not part of the
inspired canon, but rather were added by a “recent hand.”
The two verses in I John should read: “For there are three
that bear record, the Spirit, and the water and the blood:
and these three agree in one.”
Three things bear record. But what do they bear
record to? A Trinity? We shall see.
Is the Tlinity Biblical? 11
Bear Record to What?
The Spirit, the water and the blood bear record of the
fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is living His life
over again in us. John clarifies it in verses 11-12:
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us
eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son
hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not
life.”
But how do these three elements - the Spirit, the
water, and the blood - specifically bear witness to this
basic biblical truth?
“The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we
are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). (We will see more
about the part the Spirit plays in Chapter Three.)
Water is representative of baptism, which bears witness
of the burial of the old self and the beginning of a new
life (Rom. 6:l-6).
The blood represents Christ’s death by crucifixion,
which pays the penalty for our sins, reconciling us to God
(Rom. 59, 10).
Now understand why Christ commanded the apostles
to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit (Matt. 28:19). First of all, Jesus did not command
the apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son
and the Spirit as an indication that God is a Trinity. No
such relationship is indicated in the Bible.
Why, then, were they to baptize using these three
names? The answer is clear.
They were to baptize in the name of the Father
because it is the goodness of God that brings us to repentance
(Rom. 2:4), and because the Father is the One “of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”
(Eph. 3:15). In the name of the Son because He is the one
who died for our sins, and in the name of the Spirit
because God sends His Spirit, making us His begotten
Sons (Rom. 8:16).
Many theologians have misunderstood the part that
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit play in each
(Continued on page 15)
The central doctrine of most Protestant and
Catholic churches for many centuries has been that
of the Trinity. This doctrine is so important that the
Catholic Encyclopedia states : ' 'T h is [the Tri n it y] ,
the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding
God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which
she [the Catholic Church] proposes to man as the
foundation of the whole dogmatic system. "
Both Catholic and Protestant theologians quote
Theophilus of Antioch (circa 180 A.D.) as the first
person to write about this most important doctrine.
But isn't it strange that such a major doctrine was
avoided in religious writings for nearly two centuries?
That is almost as long as the United States
has been a nation.
Furthermore, Theophilus' allusion to the traditional
Trinity - "the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost" - is quite nebulous at best. Notice what
Theophilus wrote in commenting about the fourth
day of creation in the first chapter of Genesis:
"And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming
less, so does God always abide perfect, being full
of all power, and understanding, and wisdom, and
immortality, and all good. But the moon wanes
monthly, and in a manner dies, being a type of
man; then it is born again, and is crescent, for a
pattern of the future resurrection. In like manner
also the three days which were before the luminaries,
are types of the trinity, of God, and His
Word, and His wisdom" (Ante-Nicene Fathers,
' ' T h eo p h i I us to Auto I y cu s ' ') .
Here is the first statement by a theologian that is
supposed to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. But
does his statement really teach this?
Read it - simply. He does not say that God is a
Trinity of persons, or that the Holy Spirit is a part
of that Trinity. He just refers to God, His Word and
His wisdom.
Theologians have tried to imagine into this
unusual statement "their Trinity" - and yet even
the editors of the Ante-Nicene Fathers state in a
footnote that the word translated "wisdom" in
English is the Greek word sophia which Theophilus
elsewhere used in reference to the Son, not the
Holy Spirit.
4
(Continued on next page)
Theophilus could not possibly have gotten the
idea of a Trinity from the Bible - if he really did
have a Trinity of persons in mind, which appears
unlikely from the preceding statement - as the
Bible nowhere even alludes to God being a Trinity.
From the time of Theophilus, it was several hundred
years before this doctrine became a part of
the Catholic dogma. It was in the last twenty-five
years of the FOURTH century that "what might be
called the definitive trinitarian dogma 'one God in
three persons' became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought" (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
' ' H 01 y T ri n i ty ' ') .
From this it is evident that this "central doctrine"
of Catholicism and Protestantism was not a
part of the "faith which was once delivered
unto the saints" (Jude 3) during or prior to the
time o f Jude, but was added by later
theologians.
The doctrine of the Trinity was not what Jesus
Christ "came upon the earth to deliver to the
world." He came to preach the good news of His
soon-coming Kingdom, to establish His true
Church, to give His life as a sacrifice for all who
repent, and to give God's Holy Spirit to those who
are baptized - the Spirit that empowers believers
to be ONE with the Father and the Son.
Is the Trinity Biblical? 15
(Continued from page 11)
person’s salvation. The doctrine of the Trinity is the result
of that misunderstanding.
The Trinity is not a biblical doctrine. It has no basis
in biblical fact. Then how did this doctrine come to be
believed by the Church?
I
i History of the Trinity
The ancient idea of monotheism was shattered by the
sudden appearance of Jesus Christ on the earth. Here was
someone who claimed He was the Son of God. But how
could He be? The Jewish people believed for centuries that
there was only one God. If the claims of “this Jesus” were
accepted, then in their minds their belief would be no
different from that of the polytheistic pagans around
them. If He were the Son of God, their whole system of
monotheism would disintegrate.
When Jesus plainly told certain Jews of His day that
He was the Son of God, some were ready to stone Him for
blasphemy (John 10:33).
To get around the problem of a plurality in the Godhead,
the Jewish community simply rejected Jesus. And to
this day, Orthodox Jews will not accept Jesus’ Messiahship.
However, the more liberal Jews will at least admit
that He was a great man - maybe even a prophet.
But the “new” Christian religion was still faced with
the problem. How would proponents explain that there
was only one God, not two?
“The determining impulse to the formulation of the
doctrine of the Trinity in the church was the church’s
profound conviction of the absolute Deity of Christ, on
which as on a pivot the whole Christian concept of God
from the first origin of Christianity turned” (International
Standard Biblical Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p.
3021).
But the Deity of Christ does not mean that a doctrine
of the Trinity is necessary, as we shall see in Chapter Two.
Roots in Greek Philosophy
Many of the early church fathers were thoroughly
educated in Greek philosophy, from which they borrowed
e
*

Is the Trinity Biblical? 17
such non-biblical concepts as dualism and the immortality
of the soul. However, most theologians, for obvious reasons,
are generally careful to point out that they did not
borrow the idea of the Trinity from the Triads of Greek
philosophy or those of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.
But some are not so careful to make such a distinction.
“Although the notion of a 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 the
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 . . .” (Hasting’s Bible Dictionary, Vol. 12, p. 458).
Of course, the fact that someone else had a Trinity
does not in itself mean that the Christians borrowed it.
McClintock and Strong make the connection a little
clearer.
“Toward the end of the 1st century, and during the
2nd, many learned men came over both from Judaism and
paganism to Christianity. These brought with them into
the Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and
phraseology” (article “Trinity,” Vol. 10, p. 553).
In his book, A History of Christian Thought, Arthur
Cushman McGiffert points out that the main argument
against those who believed that there was only one God
and that Christ was either an adopted or a created being
was that their idea did not agree with Platonic philosophy.
Such teachings were “offensive to theologians, particularly
to those who felt the influence of the Platonic philosophy”
(ibid., p. 240).
In the latter half of the third century, Paul of Samosata
tried to revive the adoptionist idea that Jesus was a
mere man until the Spirit of God came upon Him at
baptism making him the Anointed One, or Christ. In his
beliefs about the person of Jesus Christ, he “rejected the
I
18 Is God a Trinity?
Platonic realism which underlay most of the Christological
speculation of the day” (ibid,, p. 243).
At the end of his chapter on the Trinity, McGiffert
concludes: “. . . It has been the boast of orthodox theologians
that in the doctrine of the Trinity both religion and
philosophy come to highest expression’’ (Vol. I, p. 247).
The influence of Platonic philosophy on the Trinity
doctrine can hardly be denied.
However, trinitarian ideas go much further back than
Plato. “Though it is usual to speak of the Semitic tribes as
monotheistic; yet it is an undoubted fact that more or less
all over the world the deities are in triads. This rule applies
to eastern and western hemispheres, to north and south.
Further, it is observed that, in some mystical way, the
triad of three persons is one.. . . The definition of Athanasius
[a fourth-century Christian] who lived in Egypt,
applied to the trinities of all heathen religions” (Egyptian
Belief and Modern Thought, by James Bonwick, F.R.G.S.,
p. 396).
It was Athanasius’ formulation for the Trinity which
was adopted by the Catholic Church at the Council of
Nicaea in A.D. 325. Athanasius was an Egyptian from
Alexandria and his philosophy was also deeply rooted in
Platonism.
“The Alexandrian catechetical school, which revered
Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the greatest theologians
of the Greek Church, as its heads, applied the allegorical
method to the explanation of Scripture. Its thought
was influenced by Plato: its strong point was theological
speculation. Athanasius and the three Cappadocians had
been included among its members. . .” (Ecumenical Councils
of the Catholic Church, by Hubert Jedin, p. 29).
In order to explain the relationship of Christ to God
the Father, the church fathers felt that it was necessary to
use the philosophy of the day. They obviously thought
that their religion would be more palatable if they made it
sound like the pagan philosophy that was extant at the
time. These men were versed in philosophy, and that philosophy
colored their understanding of the Bible.
It was the doctrine of the Trinity - colored by the
Is the Trinity Biblical? 19
philosophy of the time - that was accepted by the Church
in the early part of the fourth century - over three
hundred years after Christ’s death.
Even theologians recognize that the Trinity is a creation
of the fourth century, not the first!
“There is recognition on the part of exegetist and
Biblical 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
- that when one does speak of unqualified Trinitarianism,
one has moved from the period of Christian origins to say,
the last quadrant of the 4th century. It was only then that
what might be called the definitive Trinitarian dogma ‘one
God in three persons’ became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought” (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
article “Trinity,” Vol. 14, p. 295).
The Council of Nicaea
It was at the Council of Nicaea in AD. 325 that two
members of the Alexandrian congregation, Arius, a priest,
who believed that Christ was not a God, but a created
being; and Athanasius, a deacon who believed that the
Father, Son and Spirit are the same being living in a
threefold form (or in three relationships, as a man may be
at the same time a father, a son and a brother), presented
their cases.
The Council of Nicaea was not called by the church
leaders, as one might suppose. It was called by the
Emperor Constantine. And he had a far-from-spiritual
reason for wanting to solve the dispute that had arisen.
“In 325 the Emperor Constantine called an ecclesiastical
council to meet at Nicaea in Bithynia. In the
hope of securing for his throne the support of the growing
body of Christians he had shown them considerable favor
and it was to his interest to have the church vigorous and
united. The Arian controversy was threatening its unity
and menacing its strength. He therefore undertook to put
an end to the trouble. It was suggested to him, perhaps by
the Spanish bishop Hosius who was influential at court,
20 Is God a Trinity?
that if a synod were to meet representing the whole
church both east and west, it might be possible to restore
harmony. Constantine himself of course neither knew or
cared anything about the matter in dispute but he was
eager to bring the controversy to a close, and Hosius’
advice appealed to him as sound” (A History of Christian
Thought, Vol. I , p. 258).
The decision as to which of the two men the church
was to follow was a more or less arbitrary one. Constantine
really didn’t care which choice was made - all he
wanted was a united church. (Anus was banished, but
later recalled by Constantine, examined and found to be
without heresy.)
The majority of those present at the council were not
ready to take either side in the controversy. “A clearly
defined standpoint with regard to this problem - the
relationship of Christ to God - was held only by the
attenuated group of Arians and a far from numerous section
of delegates, who adhered with unshaken conviction
to the Alexandrian [Athanasius’] view. The bulk of the
members occupied a position between these two extremes.
They rejected the formulae of Arius, and declined to
accept those of his opponents.. . the voting was no criterion
of the inward conviction of the council” (Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 11th ed., article “Nicaea, Council of,)’
p. 641).
The council rejected Arius’ views, and rightly so, but
they had nothing with which to replace it. Thus the ideas
of Athanasius - also a minority view - prevailed. The
rejection of Arianism was not blanket acceptance of Athanasius.
Yet, the church in all the ensuing centuries has
been “stuck,” so to speak, with the job of upholding -
right or wrong - the decision made at Nicaea.
After the council the Trinity became official dogma in
the church, but the controversy did not end. In the next
few years more Christians were killed by other Christians
over that doctrine than were killed by all the pagan
emperors of Rome. Yet, for all the fighting and killing,
neither of the two parties had a biblical leg to stand on.
4
CHAPTER 7WO
Who Was Jesus?
HE Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity.
But we are still faced with the question: Who was T Jesus Christ? Was He a man that lived such a
perfect life that God decided to call Him His Son at
baptism? Or was He God who became a man and died for
all men?
In the past in most theological circles, a rejection of the doctrine
of the Trinity included a rejection of the divinity of
Christ. But before this booklet becomes classed as an Arian
heresy, let me quote from Catholic theologian Karl Rahner:
“. . . We must be willing to admit that should the doctrine of
the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of
religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged..
. . the Christian idea of the incarnation would
not have to change at all if there were no Trinity.
“It is not surprising then, that Christian piety practically
remembers from the doctrine of the incarnation
only that ‘God’ has become man, without deriving from
this truth any clear message about the Trinity” (The
Trinity, pp. 10-12).
A rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity does not
constitute a rejection of the incarnation - the divinity of
Christ. In fact, what he says indicates that, for all practical
purposes, the doctrine is meaningless.
Jesus Was the Problem
To this day Christianity is still confused about who
and what Jesus Christ really was. There is a majority who
22 Is God a Trinity?
believe in a mysterious Trinity and a vociferous minority
who believe that Christ was a created being. Neither has
the truth.
But why all the confusion?
Who Jesus was is clearly indicated in the pages of the
Bible. It has been there for centuries. While Christians
were busily excommunicating and killing each other over
the question of who Jesus was, the answer has been in the
pages of the Bible, and that explanation is not in harmony
with what is taught by most churches today. Christ is not
the second person in a Trinity, and He was not created by
God - He is the Creator God!
In the Beginning. . .
To find out who Jesus was, let’s go back to the beginning.
Beginnings are mentioned in the Bible in at least two
separate places - in the first chapter of Genesis and in the
first chapter of John’s Gospel.
The Apostle John began his Gospel by describing who
and what Jesus was before He came to this earth as the
saviour of mankind.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made.. . .
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father,) full of grace and truth” (verses 1-3, 14).
If we read no further in the New Testament than this,
we would be able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt
that Jesus Christ was God and that He is the One who
created man in Genesis 2:7. Because John clearly states
that the Word - the One who became Christ - created
all things. Had Christians clearly understood these verses
there would have never been an Arian controversy or a
doctrine of the Trinity.
But the Apostle John is not the only New Testament
writer who wrote about the pre-existence of Christ. Notice
what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. “Moreover, brethren,
I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our
Who Was Jesus? 23
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in
the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all
drink of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that
spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was
Christ” (I Cor. 109-4).
Paul clearly tells us that Jesus Christ was the God of
the Old Testament - the One who spoke to Moses and led
the Israelites out of Egypt. This clearly shows us that the
One who became the Son was the God of the Old Testament,
not God the Father.
Yet the doctrine of the Trinity hinges on the assumption
that God manifested Himself as the Father in the Old
Testament and Christ in the New Testament.
Duality of God Throughout
the Bible
The plurality of God is not merely a “plural of majesty”
as some would have us believe.
Six hundred years before Christ, the Prophet Daniel
recorded for us a vision. “I saw in the night visions, and,
behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of
heaven, and came to the Ancient of days.. .” (Dan. 7:13).
The “Son of man” he described can be none other than the
One who later became Jesus Christ. Daniel then saw Him
given rulership and a Kingdom that will never be
destroyed (verse 14). The “Son of man” mentioned here
could hardly be a mere physical human being!
The Ancient of Days, in this instance, is the divine
Being who is called the Father in the New Testament.
Jesus Christ referred to the same occurrence as mentioned
in this vision in His parable of the nobleman (Himself)
who went to a far country (heaven) to receive a
kingdom, and to return (Luke 19:12).
The duality of the God family was also referred to in
Psalm 110 by David.
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool’’ (verse 1).
Two different Lords are mentioned here. One is God
the Father and the other is the One who became Jesus
Many ancient peoples have preserved among their myths
an account of the creation of the world. Distorted though such
stories may be, they do contain certain basic elements common
to other, more reliable ancient documents. The Popol
Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quich6 Maya of Guatemala,
for instance, contains a creation story very similar to
that found in the Bible. It opens with a vista of emptiness
very much like that of Genesis 1
"The surface of the earth had not appeared. There
was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky.
There was nothing . . . . There was only immobility and
silence in the darkness, in the night" (Popol Vuh, Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, p. 81).
In this expanse of water and chaotic gloom, then, creation
began.
But unlike the conventional concept of a Creator doing all
the work, the Maya account speaks of two beings. Tepeu
and Gucumatz, the "Creator" and the "Maker," known as
the "Fore-fathers," combined their efforts for the task:
"Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness
. . . and talked together. . . discussing and deliberating;
they agreed, they united their words and their
thoughts . . . . Then t'iey planned the creation, and the
growth of the trees and the thickets, and the birth of
life and the creation of man.
\
j"
The story proceeds then with "Let there be light," the
appearance of dry land, plants, animals and man, much as in
Genesis.
Notice that the Mayas speak of two creating beings
instead of one.
They have actually retained a detail not commonly understood
outside the original Hebrew context of the Genesis
record. For the Bible, too, shows there were two distinct
personalities involved in creation, not one as commonly
assumed.
When Genesis 1:l opens with: "In the beginning
God . . .," the Hebrew word for "God" used here is Elohim.
It is in the plural form which can designate more than one.
Note that Genesis 1 :26 was correctly translated from the
original Hebrew: "And God said, Let us make man in our
image. "
Most professing Christians would find it alien to conceive
of more than one being as the creator. Yet Elohim can
express plurality. The word in Genesis One means "God,"
but in a family relationship. The New Testament speaks of
"God the Father" and "God the Son," the One who became
Jesus. They are two distinct beings, but both are God. Both
of them have been together since eternity. "In the beginning
was the Word [the Son], and the Word was with God [the
Father], and the Word was God" (John 1 : 1). Together they
planned the creation, and God the Son carried it out (John
1 :3; Col. 1:16). Notice Ephesians 3:9: ". . . God [the
Father], who created all things by Jesus Christ."
Thus the Bible reveals that there were actually two spirit
beings - two distinct personalities who united their efforts
in the creation - exactly as the Maya account so surprisingly
relates.
\
I
j
I
26 Is God a Trinity?
Christ. Paul quoted this passage to the Jewish Christians
- applying it directly to Jesus Christ: “But to which of
the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until
I make thine enemies thy footstool?” (Heb. 1:13.)
Was the Son also God? Verse 8 answers, “But unto
the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever. . . .” There
can be no doubt that God the Father and Jesus the Son
are mentioned as two separate beings in the Old Testament.
Who Was Melchizedek?
Now notice Hebrews 5:6-7:
“So also Christ glorified not himself to be made high
priest; but he [glorified him] that said unto him, Thou art
my Son, today have I begotten thee. As he saith also in
another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek. ”
So Christ holds the office of Melchizedek. Who was
Melchizedek? He was one of the Persons composing God.
In Genesis 14:18 he is called the king of Salem and the
priest of the Most High God. Notice why he could not
have been merely a human being.
The Apostle Paul described Him further in Hebrews
“To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first
being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after
that also King of Salem, which is King of peace; without
father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the
Son of God; abideth a priest continually.’’
Paul could not have been describing a human being,
or even an angel in these verses, for he is describing a
Being that eternally existed, as only God has eternally
existed.
Melchizedek was a priest of the Most High God. Who
is the Most High God? Why of course, the Father! Jesus
Christ said: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
And also Melchizedek still lives (and if you will read
Hebrews 7:8 carefully, you will see that Paul repeats this
supremely important fact) and is still that High Priest.
But Christ also is High Priest (see Heb. 7:26; 8:l). There
7~2-3:
I
Who Was Jesus? 27
cannot be two High Priests both holding the same office,
so Melchizedek and Jesus Christ must be one and the
same.
So we see that even in the first book of the Bible the
this truth could not be known until Jesus came to reveal it
in the New Testament. Jesus said, “. . . No man knows who
the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the
Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him” (Luke
10:22).
Jesus Came to Reveal the
Father
A clear distinction is made in the New Testament
between Christ and the Father. The God that Moses saw
and heard was not God the Father, again proving that
Christ was the God of the Old Testament. “No man has
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in
the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John
1:18). Christ came to earth to, among other things, reveal
the Father and to show a family relationship that exists in
the Godhead. But, more about that later.
Unless Jesus had revealed the Father to us, there is no
way for us to know Him. “All things are delivered unto me
of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the
Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”
(Matt. 11:27).
The Meaning of the Word YHVH
In the Hebrew of the original inspired text, there are
two different names that are commonly used to refer to
God. The word first used for “God” in Genesis is Elohim.
The second word - which we will explain here - is
YHVH (commonly, though erroneously, pronounced
“Jehovah”). This word YHVH is generally translated
“LORD” (in capital letters) in the King James Version of
the Bible. The first place it is used is in Genesis 2:7. It was
the LORD God - YHVH - who formed man out of the
dust of the ground. It was the LORD God that dealt
I plurality of God is shown, although clear understanding of
I
r
28 Is God a Trinity?
directly with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And
as we saw in John, chapter 1, it was the Word - Jesus
Christ - who created all things.
Therefore, it was the LORD God of the Old Testament
who became the Jesus Christ of the New. This fact is
illustrated interestingly enough by the grammatical derivation
of the word YHVH.
The word YHVH is explained by Rabbinic sources as
encompassing three Hebrew words: HYH meaning was,
HVH meaning is (literally “the present tense” - the word
“is” is not used in Hebrew) and YHYH meaning will
continue to be.
Putting them all together, YHVH actually means the
“Was-Is-Will Continue to Be” Being. Even Hebrew linguistic
scholars agree that YHVH must be derived from
some form of the verb “to be” (was, is, will be).
By His very name, then, God quite literally encompasses
all aspects of time - past, present and future. This
is in complete accord with Malachi 3 “For I am YHVH,
I change not”; Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday
[was], and today [is], and forever [will continue to
be]”; and Revelation 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.”
Here we can see that even etymologically, Jesus
Christ and YHVH can be equated. Yet this is only a small
part of the picture because the clear statements of both
the Old and New Testaments give overwhelming proof
that the God of the Old Testament is the One who became
Jesus Christ. (For further information on this vital part of
our subject, write immediately for the free article “Who
and What Was Jesus Before His Human Birth?”)
People Stumbled at Christ
In Isaiah chapter eight, verses 13 and 14, we find a
very interesting prophecy concerning the Lord of Hosts.
“Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself; and let him be
your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a
sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of
offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a
snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.’’
Who Was Jesus? 29
Most editions of the King James Version of the Bible
note that these verses refer to the one who later became
Jesus Christ. But even more accurate proof is found in the
New Testament.
I In his first epistle, the Apostle Peter writes:
“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto
them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders
disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a
stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, even to them
which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto
also they were appointed” (I Pet. 2:6-8).
The very same prophecy is alluded to in Luke 2:34.
There can be no denying the fact that Jesus Christ was the
God of the Old Testament, the Stone over which many
people stumbled.
The religious leaders of the time simply could not
understand how Jesus could have been God. Yet the Old
Testament which they had copied for centuries is filled
with prophecies about Him. Truly they were blinded,
and most remain so to this day, as the Apostle Paul
explained in the ninth through the eleventh chapters of
his epistle to the Romans.
While Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament,
was on earth as a human being, there was only one God-
Being - the Father - left in heaven. And we find that
Jesus prayed to His Father in heaven:
“And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self with the glory which I had with thee before the world
was” (John 175).
The Jews and the Arians found it hard to believe that
God could become man, Yet, the New Testament explains
that it did indeed happen. One of the members of the
Godhead became a man that we might have the opportunity
to become God.
The Apostle Paul explained this concept in his epistle
to the Philippians. The Amplified Bible makes the passage
I Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious:
30 Is God a Trinity?
a little clearer. In chapter 258, he encourages the Philippians:
“Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble]
mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Let him be your
example in humility.. . Who, although being essentially
one with God and in the form of God [possessing the
fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not
think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly
grasped or retained; but stripped Himself [of all privileges
and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant
(slave), in that He became like men and was born a human
being. And after He had appeared in human form He
abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His
obedience to the extreme of death, and even the death of
[the] cross!” Jesus Christ was God. But He voluntarily
gave up His position as God, became a physical human
being and came to this earth to die for us that we might be
saved.
The true impact and importance of the oft-repeated
scripture: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16), becomes
abundantly clear.
CHAPTER THREE
the Holy Spirit
a Person?
E HAVE seen that Jesus Christ is, was and always
will be God. However, you can search the Bible W from Genesis to Revelation and you will find no
such Bible teaching with regard to the Holy Spirit. The
Bible does not teach that the Holy Spirit is a third member
of the God family or of a Trinity.
This is not a prejudiced anti-trinitarian opinion. It is a
fact that is recognized even by Trinitarian theologians!
Discussing the evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity
in the Bible, Dr. W. N. Clarke, writes: “The New Testament
begins the work, but does not finish it; for it contains
no similar teaching [like John 1:l-18 concerning the divinity
of Christ] with regard to the Holy Spirit. The unique
nature and mission of Christ are traced to a ground in the
being of God; but similar ground for the divineness of the
Spirit is nowhere shown. Thought in the New Testament is
never directed to that end. Thus the Scriptures take the
first step toward a doctrine of essential Trinity, or threeness
in the being of one God, but they do not take that
second step by which alone the doctrine could be completed‘‘
(An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 168).
(Author’s emphasis.)
Theologians have to recognize that there is no biblical
proof for the divinity or personality of the Spirit. And that
in order to arrive at a doctrine of the Trinity, they have to
go outside of the Bible.
32 Is God a Trinity?
Karl Barth, one of the most noted theologians of the
20th century, admits that the church has gone beyond the
Bible to arrive at its doctrine of the Trinity.
“The Bible lacks the express declaration that the
Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence and
therefore in an equal sense God Himself. And the other
express declaration is also lacking that God is God thus
and only thus, i.e., as the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. These two express declarations which go beyond
the witness of the Bible are the twofold content of the
church doctrine of the Trinity” (Doctrine of the Word of
God, p. 437).
Since, as theologians recognize, the Bible is not the
source of the Trinity doctrine, how can they square it with
the Bible teaching that inspired Scripture should be the
source of doctrine? (I1 Tim. 3:16).
The answer is, they can’t. They must freely admit the
painful facts.
The Spirit of God in
the Bible
The personality of Jesus Christ is thoroughly provable
from the Bible, but there is no such proof for a personality
of the Holy Spirit.
“The OT [Old Testament] clearly does not envisage
God’s spirit as a person, neither in the strictly philosophical
sense, nor in the Semitic sense. God’s spirit is simply
God’s Power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct
from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts
exteriorly (Isa. 48:16; 63:ll; 32:15).” So say the authors of
the New Catholic Encyclopedia. But let them continue:
“Very rarely do the OT writers attribute to God’s
spirit emotions or intellectual activity (Isa. 63:lO; Wis.
1:3-7). When such expressions are used, they are mere
figures of speech that are explained by the fact that the
riiah was regarded also as the seat of intellectual acts and
feeling (Gen. 41:8). Neither is there found in the OT or in
rabbinical literature the notion that God’s spirit is an
intermediary being between God and the world. This
activity is proper to the angels, although to them is
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 33
ascribed some of the activity that elsewhere is ascribed to
the spirit of God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII,
p. 574).
In the Old Testament, God’s Spirit is pictured as His
power. The power by which the One who became Jesus
Christ, as Executive for the Father, created the entirety of
the universe. These theologians also recognize that when
the Spirit is spoken of as a person or in a personal way, the
Bible writer is merely personifying the Spirit, as he would
wisdom or any other attribute.
Now what about the New Testament? They say:
“Although the NT [New Testament] concepts of the
Spirit of God are largely a continuation of those of the OT,
in the NT there is a gradual revelation that the Spirit of
God is a person.”
But this would seem true only if you are armed with a
preconceived notion that God is a Trinity. We will see
there are only a few scriptures that can even remotely be
construed as presenting the Spirit as a person, and in each
case only as the result of a grammatical misunderstanding.
But again let’s let the New Catholic Encyclopedia
continue.
“‘The majority of NT texts reveal God‘s spirit as something,
not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism
between the spirit and the power of God.”
Though theologians would like for the Bible to say
that the Spirit is a person, they must admit that the
majority of the scriptures connected with it show that it is
not someone, but something. Even the personification of
the Spirit is no proof of its personality.
“When a quasi-personal activity is ascribed to God’s
spirit, e.g., speaking, hindering, desiring, dwelling (Acts
8:29; 16:7; Rom. 8:9), one is not justified in concluding
immediately that in these passages God’s spirit is
regarded as a Person; the same expressions are used in
regard to rhetorically personified things or abstract ideas
(see Rom. 6:6; 7:17). Thus the context of the phrase ‘blasphemy
against the spirit’ (Mt. 12:31; cf. Mt. 12:28; Lk.
11:20) shows that reference is being made to the power of
rRII.. . Y 5 . - I.I"UL "I yl"tGaDlIly b l l I I J L 1 c I l I I L y today believes that God is limited to a "trinity" com osed
of three persons - God the Father, God the Son fiesus
Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Shown here are two of
many symbols used to represent the .Trinity.
Ambassador CaNege Art
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 35
God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, p. 575).
After such admissions, it is almost inconceivable that
any theologian could still teach that the Spirit is a person
- yet some do.
A Lesson in Greek Grammar
The one place that most theologians feel describes the
Spirit as a person is resolved by a lesson in the Greek
language. In the Greek language, like the Romance languages
(Italian, Spanish, French, and others), every noun
has what is called gender; that is, it is either masculine,
feminine or neuter. The gender of a word has nothing to do
with whether it is really masculine or feminine - it is
more of a grammatical tool.
The verses most Trinitarian theologians will fall back
on for their proof that the Spirit is a person are in the
14th, 15th and 16th chapters of John’s Gospel. Here Jesus
is recorded as referring to the Spirit as “the Comforter.”
The pronoun “he” is used in connection with the word
“comforter” - parakletos - however, the reason for the
use of the personal pronoun “he” is for grammatical, not
theological, or spiritual reasons. (cp A c h (2: IO
All pronouns in Greek must agree in gender with the
word they refer to, therefore the pronoun “he” is used
when referring to the Greek word parakletos. Only John
refers to the Spirit as the parakletos - “Comforter.” The
other New Testament writers use the wordpneuma which
means “breath” or “spirit.” This is the Greek equivalent of
rfiah, the Hebrew word for “spirit” used in the Old Testament.
Pneuma is a grammatically neuter word and is
always represented by the pronoun “it.”
However, the translators of the King James Version,
being swayed by the doctrine of the Trinity, have generally
mistranslated the pronouns referring to pneuma as
masculine. One instance where they did not mistranslate
is found in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
John’s use of theparakletos is no proof the Spirit is a
person. For if the simple gender of a noun were the basis
for the personality of the Spirit, then the Spirit changed
gender from the Old to the New Testament, the Hebrew
Is the Holy Spirit a person, just like God the
Father and Jesus Christ, as the doctrine of the
Trinity teaches?
Let's examine the plain, clear testimony of Scripture
to see what God's Holy Spirit IS.
First, it is the power of God. "Not by might, nor
by power [of humans], but by my spirit, saith the
Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). "I am full of power by
the Spirit of the Lord, and judgment, and of
might. . ," declared the prophet Micah (Micah
3:8).
Second, it is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the
Spirit of knowledge and of the fear (deep reverence
and respect - not craven fear) of the Lord
(Isa. 11:2).
Third, it is a gift. After baptism, you are to
receive "the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). It
is poured out. "And it shall come to pass in the last
days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon
all flesh" (Acts 2:l 7). I ' . . . On the Gentiles also
was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts
10:45).
Fourth, to be effective the Holy Spirit must be
stirred up. "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance
that thou stir up the gift of God," Paul reminded
the young evangelist Timothy (I1 Tim. 1 :7).
Five, the Spirit of God can be quenched (I Thes.
5: 19).
Six, it is the begetting power of God (Matt.
1 : 18; Rom. 8:9).
Seven, it is God's guarantee to us that He will
fulfill His promise to us (Eph. 1 : 14).
Eight, it sheds the love of God abroad in our
hearts (Rom. 5:5).
Nine, it must be renewed (Titus 3:5-6).
Notice that in all of these scriptures there is not
one characteristic even implying a "person."
Does a person do any of these things? Is a
person "poured," "quenched," "renewed"? Does
a person live IN someone else or live IN people's
hearts?
For further evidence proving that the Holy Spirit
is not a person, see Matthew 1:20. Here we read
that Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yet
Christ calls God His Father, not the Holy Spirit
(John 14:16). If the Holy Spirit were a person, it
would be Christ's Father - proof positive that the
Holy Spirit is not a person but the power God the
Father uses - much as a man uses electricity.
Consider further. If the Holy Spirit were a person,
Jesus Christ prayed to the wrong individual.
Throughout the four Gospels, we find Christ speaking
to God - not the Holy Spirit - as His Father.
38 Is God a Trinity?
word for “spirit” in the Old Testament being in the feminine
gender in a majority of cases and in a masculine sense
less often.
The fact that the word “spirit” is feminine in the
Hebrew did lead some to believe that the Spirit was a
feminine being of the Godhead. They believed in a Trinity
of the Father, the Mother and the Son. Interestingly
enough, their belief was condemned by the Trinitarians
who used the same kind of ploy to prove that the Spirit
was a masculine being!
The Holy Spirit - God’s
Begettal Power
What is the Spirit? As we saw earlier, theologians
admit that the Spirit of God is the power of God. They
would have no reason to believe otherwise unless they had
a preconceived idea of a Trinity.
The Spirit, or Holy Spirit, as it is called in the New
Testament, was the power by which Jesus Christ was
begotten. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:
When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before
they came together, she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1 :18.1.
When Joseph was about to put Mary away because
she was pregnant, “the angel of the Lord appeared unto
him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not
to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1:20).
of the Holy Spirit. He was literally born with God’s Spirit
in His mind. He became the Son of God and died for us
that we might have the same opportunity to become God.
The Apostle Paul plainly taught this vital scriptural
truth that we just read in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God.” Paul did not mean this in some sentimental sort of
way, as he goes on to show in the next verse. “And if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ.. . .”
Paul goes on to point out that Jesus Christ is the heir
Jesus was begotten in the womb of Mary by the ~ ~ w e r (Lk 1235)
Trinity
The Apostle Paul would probably be considered a
blasphemer by many Trinitarians today, because in
his greetings to the churches he neglected to mention
the Holy Spirit. In his introduction to the
Romans, he represents himself as an apostle of God
the Father and Jesus Christ, but nothing is said
about any third person.
He also neglects to mention the Holy Spirit in the
greetings of the rest of his letters. His standard
greeting is: ”Grace be unto you, and peace, from
God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ”
(I Cor. 1 :3). The same greeting is repeated in II
Corinthians 1 :3, Galatians 1 :3, Ephesians 1 :2, Philippians
1 :2, Colossians 1 :2, I Thessalonians 1 : 1,
II Thessalonians 1 :2, I Timothy 1 :2, Titus 1 :4, and
Philemon 1 :3.
All of these greetings are without variation - the
Holy Spirit is consistently left out (a great oversight
- indeed blasphemy, provided the Trinity doctrine
is correct).
Only in II Corinthians 13:14 is the Holy Spirit
mentioned with God and Jesus and there only in
connection with communion or fellowship. The Holy
Spirit is not the third member of the Godhead.
40 Is God a Trinity?
of all things in Hebrews 1:2. We then have the opportunity,
if we have God’s Spirit in our minds, to inherit all
things with Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God unites with our minds, and we are
begotten (or conceived) again - this time spiritually -
not as we originally were, physically. We become a new
person.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet. 1:3). And verse 23 says,
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and
abideth forever.”
The Holy Spirit impregnates us with God’s nature.
That spiritual begettal imbues us with the nature and
mind of God. Throughout our Christian lives we continue
to grow and develop in the understanding and mind of God
until we are finally born into the God family and made
immortal at the return of Jesus Christ to this earth (I Cor.
How can we obtain this Spirit? The answer was given
by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost mentioned in
Acts chapter two. When Peter was asked at the end of his
sermon what to do, he answered: “Repent, and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Acts 2:38).
Here again we can see why the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit are mentioned in the “baptismal formula”
in Matthew 28:19. God the Father is the One who brings
us to repentance; Jesus Christ - God the Son - is the one
who died that we can have our past sins forgiven; and the
Holy Spirit is the power by which God the Father begets
us. (For further information about the Holy Spirit, write
for our free reprint article “How You Can Be Imbued
With the Power of God.”)
How plain the truth of the Bible is. The Holy Spirit is
the power of God. It is not a person. It is the power by
which we are begotten that we might become sons of God.
15 ~49-52).
CHAPTER FOUR
God Is a Family
ARLY theologians were driven by the need to explain
the appearance of Jesus Christ. Some found their E explanation by fabricating the Trinity doctrine.
But since God is not a Trinity and since Jesus Christ is
God, what is the relationship in the Godhead? Is God one,
or are there two separate Gods and is Christianity, therefore,
polytheistic?
In Chapter Two we found that the Bible teaches that
Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament, and that He
became flesh and came to this earth to die for mankind. He is
called the Son of God and He calls God His Father. By now
the relationship should be coming clear - God is a family.
We found in Chapter Three that we also can become
begotten sons of God by the impregnation of God’s Spirit
- again a family relationship.
When we understand that God is a family - that God
is reproducing after His kind - we are no longer confronted
with the problems inherent in the Trinity doctrine,
nor are we faced with the problem of worshiping
many gods.
There is only one God family, yet there are presently
two members, and in the future there will be many more.
Jesus was called “the firstborn of many brethren” (Rom.
8:29).
Look at yourself. Whether married or single, you are
part of a family. You have parents and maybe even children
or grandchildren of your own. Yet, you are still one
family.
42 Is God a Trinity?
It was God who created man and put him on the
earth. He created marriage and the family relationship as
a type of His divine family. (For further information on
this vitally important subject, write for the free booklet
titled Why Marriage!)
God‘s Name Is Plural
The Hebrew word for “God” used in Genesis 1:l and
26 is Elohim. Elohim is plural in form. Though this word
taken by itself does not prove that there are two beings in
the Godhead, it does allow for the plurality that is clearly
indicated in other parts of the Bible.
By what we can understand from the rest of the Bible,
this word Elohim can act like our English words “family,”
“ g r ~ ~ p , ~ ’ “church,” or “crowd.” These words are often
regarded as singular and take a singular verb form, but
they all contain more than one member.
The Apostle Paul exemplifies this for us in I Corinthians
12:20. Speaking about the Church he says: “But now
are they many members, yet but one body.”
God is a family. There presently are two members in
that God family, God the Father - the Head of the
family, the Lawgiver - and Jesus Christ the Son - the
Spokesman, the Creator. But the word Elohim is not just
dual. There is a dual number in Hebrew, but this would
have to be Elohaim. The God family, however, is destined
to be truly plural - to have many members. And this is
what the word Elohim describes and allows for.
Belief in a Trinity clouds the real purpose that God
has in store for mankind. If we are taught that God is a
closed Trinity of three persons, we lose sight of the fact
that God’s real purpose is to create many more members
of the God family.
Look at the creation account in Genesis 1: God created
fish after the fish kind, birds after the bird kind, and
animals after the animal kind. But in verse 26 God made
man - not after any of the animal kinds, but after the
God kind - in God’s image and God’s likeness. “And God
[Hebrew, Elohim] said, Let us make man in our image,
God Is a Family 43
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
God created man in His own image. Man is greater
than the rest of the creation, because God gave him mind
power. He has dominion over all the creatures. Man is not
an animal. He was created in the image of God - after the
God kind.
Taught in the New Testament
The Apostle John understood God’s plans for mankind.
Notice what he wrote in I John 3:l:
“Behold, what manner of love the Father [here is the
family relationship - not a closed trinity] hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore
the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we [already] the [begotten] sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we
shall see him as he is.”
Jesus Christ, the One who was the God of the Old
Testament, the Creator God, became flesh, died and was
resurrected as a part of God’s plan to make man God.
Jesus Christ is not to be the only son of God. He is the
only born Son now, but as John wrote, “when he shall
appear, we shall be like him.” We are begotten sons now,
and will be born sons of God at the resurrection.
It is clearly God’s plan to bring many sons into His
family. “For it became him [God the Father], for whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing
many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation
[Jesus Christ] perfect through sufferings” (Heb. 2:lO).
The pages of the Bible are filled with this - God‘s
great purpose for man. And yet the majority of this
world’s Christians are blinded to this central biblical
truth. Why? Because Satan has deceived the whole world
(Rev. 12:9). God is not a closed Trinity, He is a family - a
family in which you can become a member.
44 Is God a Trinity?
Why the Deception?
Why has Satan palmed off the doctrine of the Trinity
on the world? Because he doesn’t want you to rule in his
place! Satan was originally created to carry out God‘s rule
on earth. But, he refused to serve the Creator and even
fomented a rebellion to dislodge God from His position as
Ruler over the whole universe (Ezek. 28:ll-19; Isa. 14:12-
14). A third of the angels united with Lucifer in that
rebellion and were cast back down to this earth with him
(Rev. 12:3-4) - having forever disqualified themselves and
Satan from ruling in the government of God. However,
Satan and his demonic cohorts remain in office until
Christ actually returns.
Yet being disqualified, they do not want anyone else
ever to take their place. For that reason, during nearly
6000 years of man, they have tried to hide from all the
world the breathtaking truth of God. If they can make you
believe in the Trinity, you will be deceived into thinking
that the Godhead consists of only three persons. You
would then never in your wildest dreams ever imagine that
you were created to be born into the God family - to
actually have a part in ruling this earth!
Satan wants you to think that God is a limited Trinity
- not a growing family or Kingdom into which we
may, through the grace of God, enter.
There you have it. That is the truth about the Trinity.
God’s family isn’t closed to mankind as Satan would
have you believe.
It’s wide open to you, your family and all mankind.
You can be made in the exact likeness of God at Christ’s
return! 0

intelligent and Almighty Creator for a definite purpose?
And if so, what is that purpose - and why is humanity so
totally unaware of it?

[George S.]

Here you go TOM read it and weep.
Is God a
TRINITY?

HE belief that God is one substance, yet three persons,
is one of the central doctrines of the Christian T religion. The concept of the Trinity is believed by
most professing Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant.
A Gallup Poll taken in 1966 found that 97% of the
American public believed in God. Of that number, 83%
believed that God is a Trinity.
Yet for all this belief in the Trinity, it is a doctrine
that is not clearly understood by most Christian laymen.
In fact, most have neither the desire nor the incentive to
understand what their church teaches. Few laymen are
aware of any problems with the doctrine of the Trinity.
They simply take it for granted - leaving the mysterious
doctrinal aspects to theologians.
And if the layman were to investigate further, he
would be confronted with discouraging statements similar
to the following: “The mind of man cannot fully understand
the mystery of the Trinity. He who would try to
understand the mystery fully will lose his mind. But he
who would deny the Trinity will lose his soul” (Harold
Lindsell and Charles J. Woodbridge, A Handbook of
Christian Truth, pp. 51-52).
Such a statement means that the concept of the Trinity
should be accepted or else. But, merely to accept it as
doctrine without proving it would be totally contrary to
8 Is God a Trinity?
Scripture. God inspired Paul to write: “Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good” (I Thes. 5:21).
Peter further admonished Christians: “. . . Be ready
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a
reason of the hope that is in you.. .” (I Peter 3:15).
Therefore the Christian is duty bound to prove
whether or not God is a Trinity.
Clear Explanation Difficult
If you were to confine yourself to reading the articles
on the Trinity in popular religious literature for laymen,
you would conclude that the Trinity is everywhere and
clearly taught in the Bible. However, if you were to begin
to read what the more technical Bible encyclopedias, dictionaries
and books say on the subject, you would come to
an entirely different conclusion. And the more you studied,
the more you would find that the Trinity is built on a
very shaky foundation indeed.
The problems inherent in clearly explaining the Trinity
are expressed in nearly every technical article or book
on the subject.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia begins: “It is difficult,
in the second half of the 20th century, to offer a clear,
objective, and straightforward account of the revelation,
doctrinal evolution, and the theological elaboration of the
mystery of the Trinity. Trinitarian discussion, Roman
Catholic as well as other, presents a somewhat unsteady
silhouette” (Vol. XIV, p. 295). (Emphasis ours throughout
But why should the central doctrine of the Christian
faith be so difficult to understand? Why should such an
important doctrine present an unsteady silhouette? Isn’t
there a clear biblical revelation of the doctrine of the
Trinity? Didn’t Christ and the apostles plainly teach it?
Surely the Bible would be filled with teachings about
such an important subject as the Trinity. But, unfortunately
the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible.
‘The term ‘Trinity’ is not a Biblical term, and we are
not using Biblical language when we define what is
I

Is the Trinity Biblical?
expressed by it as the doctrine” (The International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p. 3012).
Not only is the word “Trinity” never found in the
Bible, there is no substantive proof such a doctrine is even
indicated.
In a recent book on the Trinity, Catholic theologian
Karl Rahner recognizes that theologians in the past have
been “. . . embarrassed by the simple fact that in reality
the Scriptures do not explicitly present a doctrine of the
‘imminent’ Trinity (even John’s prologue is no such doctrine)”
(The Trinity, p. 22). (Author’s emphasis.)
Other theologians also recognize the fact that the first
chapter of John’s Gospel - the prologue - clearly shows
the pre-existence and divinity of Christ and does not teach
the doctrine of the Trinity. After discussing John’s prologue,
Dr. William Newton Clarke writes: “There is no
Trinity in this; but there is a distinction in the Godhead, a
duality in God. This distinction or duality is used as basis
for the idea of an only-begotten Son, and as key to the
possibility of an incarnation” (Outline of Christian Theology,
P. 167).
The first chapter of John’s Gospel clearly shows the
pre-existence of Christ. It also illustrates the duality of
God. And as Dr. Clarke points out, the key to the possibility
of the incarnation - the fact that God could become
man.
The Apostle John makes plain the unmistakable fact
that Jesus Christ is God (John 1:l-4). Yet we find no
Trinity discussed in this chapter.
More Biblical ”Proof” for the Trinity?
Probably the most notorious scripture used in times
past as “proof” of a Trinity is I John 5:7. However, many
theologians recognize that this scripture was added to the
New Testament manuscripts probably as late as the
eighth century A.D.
Notice what Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote in
their commentary: “The only Greek MSS. [manuscripts],
in any form which support the words, ‘in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are
10 Is God a Trinity?
one. And there are three that bear witness in earth. . .’ are
the Montfortianus of Dublin, copied evidently from the
modern Latin Vulgate; the Ravianus copied from the
Complutensian Polyglot; a MS. [manuscript] at Naples,
with the words added in the margin by a recent hand;
Ottobonianus, 298, of the fifteenth century, the Greek of
which is a mere translation of the accompanying Latin.
All old versions omit the words.’’
The conclusions arrived at in their commentary, written
over 100 years ago, are still valid today. More conservatively
oriented The New Bible Commentary
(Revised) agrees, though “quietly” with Jamieson, Fausset
and Brown. “. . . The words are clearly a gloss and are
rightly excluded by RSV [Revised Standard Version] even
from its margin” (p. 1269).
The editors of Peake’s Commentary on the Bible wax
more eloquent in their belief that the words are not part of
the original text. “The famous interpolation after ‘three
witnesses’ is not printed even in RSV, and rightly. It cites
the heavenly testimony of the Father, the logos, and the
Holy Spirit, but is never used in the early trinitarian
controversies. No respectable Greek MS contains it.
Appearing first in a late 4th century Latin text, it entered
the Vulgate and finally the NT [New Testament] of
Erasmus” (p. 1038).
Scholars clearly recognize that I John 5:7 is not part
of the New Testament text. Yet it is still included by some
fundamentalists as biblical proof for the Trinity doctrine.
Even the majority of the more recent New Testament
translations do not contain the above words. They are not
found in Moffatt, Phillips, the Revised Standard Version,
Williams, or The Living Bible (a paraphrase).
It is clear, then, that these words are not part of the
inspired canon, but rather were added by a “recent hand.”
The two verses in I John should read: “For there are three
that bear record, the Spirit, and the water and the blood:
and these three agree in one.”
Three things bear record. But what do they bear
record to? A Trinity? We shall see.
Is the Tlinity Biblical? 11
Bear Record to What?
The Spirit, the water and the blood bear record of the
fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is living His life
over again in us. John clarifies it in verses 11-12:
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us
eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son
hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not
life.”
But how do these three elements - the Spirit, the
water, and the blood - specifically bear witness to this
basic biblical truth?
“The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we
are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). (We will see more
about the part the Spirit plays in Chapter Three.)
Water is representative of baptism, which bears witness
of the burial of the old self and the beginning of a new
life (Rom. 6:l-6).
The blood represents Christ’s death by crucifixion,
which pays the penalty for our sins, reconciling us to God
(Rom. 59, 10).
Now understand why Christ commanded the apostles
to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit (Matt. 28:19). First of all, Jesus did not command
the apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son
and the Spirit as an indication that God is a Trinity. No
such relationship is indicated in the Bible.
Why, then, were they to baptize using these three
names? The answer is clear.
They were to baptize in the name of the Father
because it is the goodness of God that brings us to repentance
(Rom. 2:4), and because the Father is the One “of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”
(Eph. 3:15). In the name of the Son because He is the one
who died for our sins, and in the name of the Spirit
because God sends His Spirit, making us His begotten
Sons (Rom. 8:16).
Many theologians have misunderstood the part that
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit play in each
(Continued on page 15)
The central doctrine of most Protestant and
Catholic churches for many centuries has been that
of the Trinity. This doctrine is so important that the
Catholic Encyclopedia states : ' 'T h is [the Tri n it y] ,
the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding
God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which
she [the Catholic Church] proposes to man as the
foundation of the whole dogmatic system. "
Both Catholic and Protestant theologians quote
Theophilus of Antioch (circa 180 A.D.) as the first
person to write about this most important doctrine.
But isn't it strange that such a major doctrine was
avoided in religious writings for nearly two centuries?
That is almost as long as the United States
has been a nation.
Furthermore, Theophilus' allusion to the traditional
Trinity - "the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost" - is quite nebulous at best. Notice what
Theophilus wrote in commenting about the fourth
day of creation in the first chapter of Genesis:
"And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming
less, so does God always abide perfect, being full
of all power, and understanding, and wisdom, and
immortality, and all good. But the moon wanes
monthly, and in a manner dies, being a type of
man; then it is born again, and is crescent, for a
pattern of the future resurrection. In like manner
also the three days which were before the luminaries,
are types of the trinity, of God, and His
Word, and His wisdom" (Ante-Nicene Fathers,
' ' T h eo p h i I us to Auto I y cu s ' ') .
Here is the first statement by a theologian that is
supposed to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. But
does his statement really teach this?
Read it - simply. He does not say that God is a
Trinity of persons, or that the Holy Spirit is a part
of that Trinity. He just refers to God, His Word and
His wisdom.
Theologians have tried to imagine into this
unusual statement "their Trinity" - and yet even
the editors of the Ante-Nicene Fathers state in a
footnote that the word translated "wisdom" in
English is the Greek word sophia which Theophilus
elsewhere used in reference to the Son, not the
Holy Spirit.
4
(Continued on next page)
Theophilus could not possibly have gotten the
idea of a Trinity from the Bible - if he really did
have a Trinity of persons in mind, which appears
unlikely from the preceding statement - as the
Bible nowhere even alludes to God being a Trinity.
From the time of Theophilus, it was several hundred
years before this doctrine became a part of
the Catholic dogma. It was in the last twenty-five
years of the FOURTH century that "what might be
called the definitive trinitarian dogma 'one God in
three persons' became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought" (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
' ' H 01 y T ri n i ty ' ') .
From this it is evident that this "central doctrine"
of Catholicism and Protestantism was not a
part of the "faith which was once delivered
unto the saints" (Jude 3) during or prior to the
time o f Jude, but was added by later
theologians.
The doctrine of the Trinity was not what Jesus
Christ "came upon the earth to deliver to the
world." He came to preach the good news of His
soon-coming Kingdom, to establish His true
Church, to give His life as a sacrifice for all who
repent, and to give God's Holy Spirit to those who
are baptized - the Spirit that empowers believers
to be ONE with the Father and the Son.
Is the Trinity Biblical? 15
(Continued from page 11)
person’s salvation. The doctrine of the Trinity is the result
of that misunderstanding.
The Trinity is not a biblical doctrine. It has no basis
in biblical fact. Then how did this doctrine come to be
believed by the Church?
I
i History of the Trinity
The ancient idea of monotheism was shattered by the
sudden appearance of Jesus Christ on the earth. Here was
someone who claimed He was the Son of God. But how
could He be? The Jewish people believed for centuries that
there was only one God. If the claims of “this Jesus” were
accepted, then in their minds their belief would be no
different from that of the polytheistic pagans around
them. If He were the Son of God, their whole system of
monotheism would disintegrate.
When Jesus plainly told certain Jews of His day that
He was the Son of God, some were ready to stone Him for
blasphemy (John 10:33).
To get around the problem of a plurality in the Godhead,
the Jewish community simply rejected Jesus. And to
this day, Orthodox Jews will not accept Jesus’ Messiahship.
However, the more liberal Jews will at least admit
that He was a great man - maybe even a prophet.
But the “new” Christian religion was still faced with
the problem. How would proponents explain that there
was only one God, not two?
“The determining impulse to the formulation of the
doctrine of the Trinity in the church was the church’s
profound conviction of the absolute Deity of Christ, on
which as on a pivot the whole Christian concept of God
from the first origin of Christianity turned” (International
Standard Biblical Encyclopedia, article “Trinity,” p.
3021).
But the Deity of Christ does not mean that a doctrine
of the Trinity is necessary, as we shall see in Chapter Two.
Roots in Greek Philosophy
Many of the early church fathers were thoroughly
educated in Greek philosophy, from which they borrowed
e
*

Is the Trinity Biblical? 17
such non-biblical concepts as dualism and the immortality
of the soul. However, most theologians, for obvious reasons,
are generally careful to point out that they did not
borrow the idea of the Trinity from the Triads of Greek
philosophy or those of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.
But some are not so careful to make such a distinction.
“Although the notion of a 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 the
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 . . .” (Hasting’s Bible Dictionary, Vol. 12, p. 458).
Of course, the fact that someone else had a Trinity
does not in itself mean that the Christians borrowed it.
McClintock and Strong make the connection a little
clearer.
“Toward the end of the 1st century, and during the
2nd, many learned men came over both from Judaism and
paganism to Christianity. These brought with them into
the Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and
phraseology” (article “Trinity,” Vol. 10, p. 553).
In his book, A History of Christian Thought, Arthur
Cushman McGiffert points out that the main argument
against those who believed that there was only one God
and that Christ was either an adopted or a created being
was that their idea did not agree with Platonic philosophy.
Such teachings were “offensive to theologians, particularly
to those who felt the influence of the Platonic philosophy”
(ibid., p. 240).
In the latter half of the third century, Paul of Samosata
tried to revive the adoptionist idea that Jesus was a
mere man until the Spirit of God came upon Him at
baptism making him the Anointed One, or Christ. In his
beliefs about the person of Jesus Christ, he “rejected the
I
18 Is God a Trinity?
Platonic realism which underlay most of the Christological
speculation of the day” (ibid,, p. 243).
At the end of his chapter on the Trinity, McGiffert
concludes: “. . . It has been the boast of orthodox theologians
that in the doctrine of the Trinity both religion and
philosophy come to highest expression’’ (Vol. I, p. 247).
The influence of Platonic philosophy on the Trinity
doctrine can hardly be denied.
However, trinitarian ideas go much further back than
Plato. “Though it is usual to speak of the Semitic tribes as
monotheistic; yet it is an undoubted fact that more or less
all over the world the deities are in triads. This rule applies
to eastern and western hemispheres, to north and south.
Further, it is observed that, in some mystical way, the
triad of three persons is one.. . . The definition of Athanasius
[a fourth-century Christian] who lived in Egypt,
applied to the trinities of all heathen religions” (Egyptian
Belief and Modern Thought, by James Bonwick, F.R.G.S.,
p. 396).
It was Athanasius’ formulation for the Trinity which
was adopted by the Catholic Church at the Council of
Nicaea in A.D. 325. Athanasius was an Egyptian from
Alexandria and his philosophy was also deeply rooted in
Platonism.
“The Alexandrian catechetical school, which revered
Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the greatest theologians
of the Greek Church, as its heads, applied the allegorical
method to the explanation of Scripture. Its thought
was influenced by Plato: its strong point was theological
speculation. Athanasius and the three Cappadocians had
been included among its members. . .” (Ecumenical Councils
of the Catholic Church, by Hubert Jedin, p. 29).
In order to explain the relationship of Christ to God
the Father, the church fathers felt that it was necessary to
use the philosophy of the day. They obviously thought
that their religion would be more palatable if they made it
sound like the pagan philosophy that was extant at the
time. These men were versed in philosophy, and that philosophy
colored their understanding of the Bible.
It was the doctrine of the Trinity - colored by the
Is the Trinity Biblical? 19
philosophy of the time - that was accepted by the Church
in the early part of the fourth century - over three
hundred years after Christ’s death.
Even theologians recognize that the Trinity is a creation
of the fourth century, not the first!
“There is recognition on the part of exegetist and
Biblical 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
- that when one does speak of unqualified Trinitarianism,
one has moved from the period of Christian origins to say,
the last quadrant of the 4th century. It was only then that
what might be called the definitive Trinitarian dogma ‘one
God in three persons’ became thoroughly assimilated into
Christian life and thought” (New Catholic Encyclopedia,
article “Trinity,” Vol. 14, p. 295).
The Council of Nicaea
It was at the Council of Nicaea in AD. 325 that two
members of the Alexandrian congregation, Arius, a priest,
who believed that Christ was not a God, but a created
being; and Athanasius, a deacon who believed that the
Father, Son and Spirit are the same being living in a
threefold form (or in three relationships, as a man may be
at the same time a father, a son and a brother), presented
their cases.
The Council of Nicaea was not called by the church
leaders, as one might suppose. It was called by the
Emperor Constantine. And he had a far-from-spiritual
reason for wanting to solve the dispute that had arisen.
“In 325 the Emperor Constantine called an ecclesiastical
council to meet at Nicaea in Bithynia. In the
hope of securing for his throne the support of the growing
body of Christians he had shown them considerable favor
and it was to his interest to have the church vigorous and
united. The Arian controversy was threatening its unity
and menacing its strength. He therefore undertook to put
an end to the trouble. It was suggested to him, perhaps by
the Spanish bishop Hosius who was influential at court,
20 Is God a Trinity?
that if a synod were to meet representing the whole
church both east and west, it might be possible to restore
harmony. Constantine himself of course neither knew or
cared anything about the matter in dispute but he was
eager to bring the controversy to a close, and Hosius’
advice appealed to him as sound” (A History of Christian
Thought, Vol. I , p. 258).
The decision as to which of the two men the church
was to follow was a more or less arbitrary one. Constantine
really didn’t care which choice was made - all he
wanted was a united church. (Anus was banished, but
later recalled by Constantine, examined and found to be
without heresy.)
The majority of those present at the council were not
ready to take either side in the controversy. “A clearly
defined standpoint with regard to this problem - the
relationship of Christ to God - was held only by the
attenuated group of Arians and a far from numerous section
of delegates, who adhered with unshaken conviction
to the Alexandrian [Athanasius’] view. The bulk of the
members occupied a position between these two extremes.
They rejected the formulae of Arius, and declined to
accept those of his opponents.. . the voting was no criterion
of the inward conviction of the council” (Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 11th ed., article “Nicaea, Council of,)’
p. 641).
The council rejected Arius’ views, and rightly so, but
they had nothing with which to replace it. Thus the ideas
of Athanasius - also a minority view - prevailed. The
rejection of Arianism was not blanket acceptance of Athanasius.
Yet, the church in all the ensuing centuries has
been “stuck,” so to speak, with the job of upholding -
right or wrong - the decision made at Nicaea.
After the council the Trinity became official dogma in
the church, but the controversy did not end. In the next
few years more Christians were killed by other Christians
over that doctrine than were killed by all the pagan
emperors of Rome. Yet, for all the fighting and killing,
neither of the two parties had a biblical leg to stand on.
4
CHAPTER 7WO
Who Was Jesus?
HE Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity.
But we are still faced with the question: Who was T Jesus Christ? Was He a man that lived such a
perfect life that God decided to call Him His Son at
baptism? Or was He God who became a man and died for
all men?
In the past in most theological circles, a rejection of the doctrine
of the Trinity included a rejection of the divinity of
Christ. But before this booklet becomes classed as an Arian
heresy, let me quote from Catholic theologian Karl Rahner:
“. . . We must be willing to admit that should the doctrine of
the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of
religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged..
. . the Christian idea of the incarnation would
not have to change at all if there were no Trinity.
“It is not surprising then, that Christian piety practically
remembers from the doctrine of the incarnation
only that ‘God’ has become man, without deriving from
this truth any clear message about the Trinity” (The
Trinity, pp. 10-12).
A rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity does not
constitute a rejection of the incarnation - the divinity of
Christ. In fact, what he says indicates that, for all practical
purposes, the doctrine is meaningless.
Jesus Was the Problem
To this day Christianity is still confused about who
and what Jesus Christ really was. There is a majority who
22 Is God a Trinity?
believe in a mysterious Trinity and a vociferous minority
who believe that Christ was a created being. Neither has
the truth.
But why all the confusion?
Who Jesus was is clearly indicated in the pages of the
Bible. It has been there for centuries. While Christians
were busily excommunicating and killing each other over
the question of who Jesus was, the answer has been in the
pages of the Bible, and that explanation is not in harmony
with what is taught by most churches today. Christ is not
the second person in a Trinity, and He was not created by
God - He is the Creator God!
In the Beginning. . .
To find out who Jesus was, let’s go back to the beginning.
Beginnings are mentioned in the Bible in at least two
separate places - in the first chapter of Genesis and in the
first chapter of John’s Gospel.
The Apostle John began his Gospel by describing who
and what Jesus was before He came to this earth as the
saviour of mankind.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made.. . .
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father,) full of grace and truth” (verses 1-3, 14).
If we read no further in the New Testament than this,
we would be able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt
that Jesus Christ was God and that He is the One who
created man in Genesis 2:7. Because John clearly states
that the Word - the One who became Christ - created
all things. Had Christians clearly understood these verses
there would have never been an Arian controversy or a
doctrine of the Trinity.
But the Apostle John is not the only New Testament
writer who wrote about the pre-existence of Christ. Notice
what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. “Moreover, brethren,
I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our
Who Was Jesus? 23
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in
the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all
drink of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that
spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was
Christ” (I Cor. 109-4).
Paul clearly tells us that Jesus Christ was the God of
the Old Testament - the One who spoke to Moses and led
the Israelites out of Egypt. This clearly shows us that the
One who became the Son was the God of the Old Testament,
not God the Father.
Yet the doctrine of the Trinity hinges on the assumption
that God manifested Himself as the Father in the Old
Testament and Christ in the New Testament.
Duality of God Throughout
the Bible
The plurality of God is not merely a “plural of majesty”
as some would have us believe.
Six hundred years before Christ, the Prophet Daniel
recorded for us a vision. “I saw in the night visions, and,
behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of
heaven, and came to the Ancient of days.. .” (Dan. 7:13).
The “Son of man” he described can be none other than the
One who later became Jesus Christ. Daniel then saw Him
given rulership and a Kingdom that will never be
destroyed (verse 14). The “Son of man” mentioned here
could hardly be a mere physical human being!
The Ancient of Days, in this instance, is the divine
Being who is called the Father in the New Testament.
Jesus Christ referred to the same occurrence as mentioned
in this vision in His parable of the nobleman (Himself)
who went to a far country (heaven) to receive a
kingdom, and to return (Luke 19:12).
The duality of the God family was also referred to in
Psalm 110 by David.
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool’’ (verse 1).
Two different Lords are mentioned here. One is God
the Father and the other is the One who became Jesus
Many ancient peoples have preserved among their myths
an account of the creation of the world. Distorted though such
stories may be, they do contain certain basic elements common
to other, more reliable ancient documents. The Popol
Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quich6 Maya of Guatemala,
for instance, contains a creation story very similar to
that found in the Bible. It opens with a vista of emptiness
very much like that of Genesis 1
"The surface of the earth had not appeared. There
was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky.
There was nothing . . . . There was only immobility and
silence in the darkness, in the night" (Popol Vuh, Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1950, p. 81).
In this expanse of water and chaotic gloom, then, creation
began.
But unlike the conventional concept of a Creator doing all
the work, the Maya account speaks of two beings. Tepeu
and Gucumatz, the "Creator" and the "Maker," known as
the "Fore-fathers," combined their efforts for the task:
"Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness
. . . and talked together. . . discussing and deliberating;
they agreed, they united their words and their
thoughts . . . . Then t'iey planned the creation, and the
growth of the trees and the thickets, and the birth of
life and the creation of man.
\
j"
The story proceeds then with "Let there be light," the
appearance of dry land, plants, animals and man, much as in
Genesis.
Notice that the Mayas speak of two creating beings
instead of one.
They have actually retained a detail not commonly understood
outside the original Hebrew context of the Genesis
record. For the Bible, too, shows there were two distinct
personalities involved in creation, not one as commonly
assumed.
When Genesis 1:l opens with: "In the beginning
God . . .," the Hebrew word for "God" used here is Elohim.
It is in the plural form which can designate more than one.
Note that Genesis 1 :26 was correctly translated from the
original Hebrew: "And God said, Let us make man in our
image. "
Most professing Christians would find it alien to conceive
of more than one being as the creator. Yet Elohim can
express plurality. The word in Genesis One means "God,"
but in a family relationship. The New Testament speaks of
"God the Father" and "God the Son," the One who became
Jesus. They are two distinct beings, but both are God. Both
of them have been together since eternity. "In the beginning
was the Word [the Son], and the Word was with God [the
Father], and the Word was God" (John 1 : 1). Together they
planned the creation, and God the Son carried it out (John
1 :3; Col. 1:16). Notice Ephesians 3:9: ". . . God [the
Father], who created all things by Jesus Christ."
Thus the Bible reveals that there were actually two spirit
beings - two distinct personalities who united their efforts
in the creation - exactly as the Maya account so surprisingly
relates.
\
I
j
I
26 Is God a Trinity?
Christ. Paul quoted this passage to the Jewish Christians
- applying it directly to Jesus Christ: “But to which of
the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until
I make thine enemies thy footstool?” (Heb. 1:13.)
Was the Son also God? Verse 8 answers, “But unto
the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever. . . .” There
can be no doubt that God the Father and Jesus the Son
are mentioned as two separate beings in the Old Testament.
Who Was Melchizedek?
Now notice Hebrews 5:6-7:
“So also Christ glorified not himself to be made high
priest; but he [glorified him] that said unto him, Thou art
my Son, today have I begotten thee. As he saith also in
another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek. ”
So Christ holds the office of Melchizedek. Who was
Melchizedek? He was one of the Persons composing God.
In Genesis 14:18 he is called the king of Salem and the
priest of the Most High God. Notice why he could not
have been merely a human being.
The Apostle Paul described Him further in Hebrews
“To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first
being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after
that also King of Salem, which is King of peace; without
father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the
Son of God; abideth a priest continually.’’
Paul could not have been describing a human being,
or even an angel in these verses, for he is describing a
Being that eternally existed, as only God has eternally
existed.
Melchizedek was a priest of the Most High God. Who
is the Most High God? Why of course, the Father! Jesus
Christ said: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
And also Melchizedek still lives (and if you will read
Hebrews 7:8 carefully, you will see that Paul repeats this
supremely important fact) and is still that High Priest.
But Christ also is High Priest (see Heb. 7:26; 8:l). There
7~2-3:
I
Who Was Jesus? 27
cannot be two High Priests both holding the same office,
so Melchizedek and Jesus Christ must be one and the
same.
So we see that even in the first book of the Bible the
this truth could not be known until Jesus came to reveal it
in the New Testament. Jesus said, “. . . No man knows who
the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the
Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him” (Luke
10:22).
Jesus Came to Reveal the
Father
A clear distinction is made in the New Testament
between Christ and the Father. The God that Moses saw
and heard was not God the Father, again proving that
Christ was the God of the Old Testament. “No man has
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in
the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John
1:18). Christ came to earth to, among other things, reveal
the Father and to show a family relationship that exists in
the Godhead. But, more about that later.
Unless Jesus had revealed the Father to us, there is no
way for us to know Him. “All things are delivered unto me
of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the
Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”
(Matt. 11:27).
The Meaning of the Word YHVH
In the Hebrew of the original inspired text, there are
two different names that are commonly used to refer to
God. The word first used for “God” in Genesis is Elohim.
The second word - which we will explain here - is
YHVH (commonly, though erroneously, pronounced
“Jehovah”). This word YHVH is generally translated
“LORD” (in capital letters) in the King James Version of
the Bible. The first place it is used is in Genesis 2:7. It was
the LORD God - YHVH - who formed man out of the
dust of the ground. It was the LORD God that dealt
I plurality of God is shown, although clear understanding of
I
r
28 Is God a Trinity?
directly with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And
as we saw in John, chapter 1, it was the Word - Jesus
Christ - who created all things.
Therefore, it was the LORD God of the Old Testament
who became the Jesus Christ of the New. This fact is
illustrated interestingly enough by the grammatical derivation
of the word YHVH.
The word YHVH is explained by Rabbinic sources as
encompassing three Hebrew words: HYH meaning was,
HVH meaning is (literally “the present tense” - the word
“is” is not used in Hebrew) and YHYH meaning will
continue to be.
Putting them all together, YHVH actually means the
“Was-Is-Will Continue to Be” Being. Even Hebrew linguistic
scholars agree that YHVH must be derived from
some form of the verb “to be” (was, is, will be).
By His very name, then, God quite literally encompasses
all aspects of time - past, present and future. This
is in complete accord with Malachi 3 “For I am YHVH,
I change not”; Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday
[was], and today [is], and forever [will continue to
be]”; and Revelation 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.”
Here we can see that even etymologically, Jesus
Christ and YHVH can be equated. Yet this is only a small
part of the picture because the clear statements of both
the Old and New Testaments give overwhelming proof
that the God of the Old Testament is the One who became
Jesus Christ. (For further information on this vital part of
our subject, write immediately for the free article “Who
and What Was Jesus Before His Human Birth?”)
People Stumbled at Christ
In Isaiah chapter eight, verses 13 and 14, we find a
very interesting prophecy concerning the Lord of Hosts.
“Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself; and let him be
your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a
sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of
offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a
snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.’’
Who Was Jesus? 29
Most editions of the King James Version of the Bible
note that these verses refer to the one who later became
Jesus Christ. But even more accurate proof is found in the
New Testament.
I In his first epistle, the Apostle Peter writes:
“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,
and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto
them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders
disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a
stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, even to them
which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto
also they were appointed” (I Pet. 2:6-8).
The very same prophecy is alluded to in Luke 2:34.
There can be no denying the fact that Jesus Christ was the
God of the Old Testament, the Stone over which many
people stumbled.
The religious leaders of the time simply could not
understand how Jesus could have been God. Yet the Old
Testament which they had copied for centuries is filled
with prophecies about Him. Truly they were blinded,
and most remain so to this day, as the Apostle Paul
explained in the ninth through the eleventh chapters of
his epistle to the Romans.
While Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament,
was on earth as a human being, there was only one God-
Being - the Father - left in heaven. And we find that
Jesus prayed to His Father in heaven:
“And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self with the glory which I had with thee before the world
was” (John 175).
The Jews and the Arians found it hard to believe that
God could become man, Yet, the New Testament explains
that it did indeed happen. One of the members of the
Godhead became a man that we might have the opportunity
to become God.
The Apostle Paul explained this concept in his epistle
to the Philippians. The Amplified Bible makes the passage
I Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious:
30 Is God a Trinity?
a little clearer. In chapter 258, he encourages the Philippians:
“Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble]
mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Let him be your
example in humility.. . Who, although being essentially
one with God and in the form of God [possessing the
fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not
think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly
grasped or retained; but stripped Himself [of all privileges
and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant
(slave), in that He became like men and was born a human
being. And after He had appeared in human form He
abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His
obedience to the extreme of death, and even the death of
[the] cross!” Jesus Christ was God. But He voluntarily
gave up His position as God, became a physical human
being and came to this earth to die for us that we might be
saved.
The true impact and importance of the oft-repeated
scripture: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16), becomes
abundantly clear.
CHAPTER THREE
the Holy Spirit
a Person?
E HAVE seen that Jesus Christ is, was and always
will be God. However, you can search the Bible W from Genesis to Revelation and you will find no
such Bible teaching with regard to the Holy Spirit. The
Bible does not teach that the Holy Spirit is a third member
of the God family or of a Trinity.
This is not a prejudiced anti-trinitarian opinion. It is a
fact that is recognized even by Trinitarian theologians!
Discussing the evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity
in the Bible, Dr. W. N. Clarke, writes: “The New Testament
begins the work, but does not finish it; for it contains
no similar teaching [like John 1:l-18 concerning the divinity
of Christ] with regard to the Holy Spirit. The unique
nature and mission of Christ are traced to a ground in the
being of God; but similar ground for the divineness of the
Spirit is nowhere shown. Thought in the New Testament is
never directed to that end. Thus the Scriptures take the
first step toward a doctrine of essential Trinity, or threeness
in the being of one God, but they do not take that
second step by which alone the doctrine could be completed‘‘
(An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 168).
(Author’s emphasis.)
Theologians have to recognize that there is no biblical
proof for the divinity or personality of the Spirit. And that
in order to arrive at a doctrine of the Trinity, they have to
go outside of the Bible.
32 Is God a Trinity?
Karl Barth, one of the most noted theologians of the
20th century, admits that the church has gone beyond the
Bible to arrive at its doctrine of the Trinity.
“The Bible lacks the express declaration that the
Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence and
therefore in an equal sense God Himself. And the other
express declaration is also lacking that God is God thus
and only thus, i.e., as the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. These two express declarations which go beyond
the witness of the Bible are the twofold content of the
church doctrine of the Trinity” (Doctrine of the Word of
God, p. 437).
Since, as theologians recognize, the Bible is not the
source of the Trinity doctrine, how can they square it with
the Bible teaching that inspired Scripture should be the
source of doctrine? (I1 Tim. 3:16).
The answer is, they can’t. They must freely admit the
painful facts.
The Spirit of God in
the Bible
The personality of Jesus Christ is thoroughly provable
from the Bible, but there is no such proof for a personality
of the Holy Spirit.
“The OT [Old Testament] clearly does not envisage
God’s spirit as a person, neither in the strictly philosophical
sense, nor in the Semitic sense. God’s spirit is simply
God’s Power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct
from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts
exteriorly (Isa. 48:16; 63:ll; 32:15).” So say the authors of
the New Catholic Encyclopedia. But let them continue:
“Very rarely do the OT writers attribute to God’s
spirit emotions or intellectual activity (Isa. 63:lO; Wis.
1:3-7). When such expressions are used, they are mere
figures of speech that are explained by the fact that the
riiah was regarded also as the seat of intellectual acts and
feeling (Gen. 41:8). Neither is there found in the OT or in
rabbinical literature the notion that God’s spirit is an
intermediary being between God and the world. This
activity is proper to the angels, although to them is
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 33
ascribed some of the activity that elsewhere is ascribed to
the spirit of God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII,
p. 574).
In the Old Testament, God’s Spirit is pictured as His
power. The power by which the One who became Jesus
Christ, as Executive for the Father, created the entirety of
the universe. These theologians also recognize that when
the Spirit is spoken of as a person or in a personal way, the
Bible writer is merely personifying the Spirit, as he would
wisdom or any other attribute.
Now what about the New Testament? They say:
“Although the NT [New Testament] concepts of the
Spirit of God are largely a continuation of those of the OT,
in the NT there is a gradual revelation that the Spirit of
God is a person.”
But this would seem true only if you are armed with a
preconceived notion that God is a Trinity. We will see
there are only a few scriptures that can even remotely be
construed as presenting the Spirit as a person, and in each
case only as the result of a grammatical misunderstanding.
But again let’s let the New Catholic Encyclopedia
continue.
“‘The majority of NT texts reveal God‘s spirit as something,
not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism
between the spirit and the power of God.”
Though theologians would like for the Bible to say
that the Spirit is a person, they must admit that the
majority of the scriptures connected with it show that it is
not someone, but something. Even the personification of
the Spirit is no proof of its personality.
“When a quasi-personal activity is ascribed to God’s
spirit, e.g., speaking, hindering, desiring, dwelling (Acts
8:29; 16:7; Rom. 8:9), one is not justified in concluding
immediately that in these passages God’s spirit is
regarded as a Person; the same expressions are used in
regard to rhetorically personified things or abstract ideas
(see Rom. 6:6; 7:17). Thus the context of the phrase ‘blasphemy
against the spirit’ (Mt. 12:31; cf. Mt. 12:28; Lk.
11:20) shows that reference is being made to the power of
rRII.. . Y 5 . - I.I"UL "I yl"tGaDlIly b l l I I J L 1 c I l I I L y today believes that God is limited to a "trinity" com osed
of three persons - God the Father, God the Son fiesus
Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Shown here are two of
many symbols used to represent the .Trinity.
Ambassador CaNege Art
Is the Holy Spirit a Person? 35
God” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, p. 575).
After such admissions, it is almost inconceivable that
any theologian could still teach that the Spirit is a person
- yet some do.
A Lesson in Greek Grammar
The one place that most theologians feel describes the
Spirit as a person is resolved by a lesson in the Greek
language. In the Greek language, like the Romance languages
(Italian, Spanish, French, and others), every noun
has what is called gender; that is, it is either masculine,
feminine or neuter. The gender of a word has nothing to do
with whether it is really masculine or feminine - it is
more of a grammatical tool.
The verses most Trinitarian theologians will fall back
on for their proof that the Spirit is a person are in the
14th, 15th and 16th chapters of John’s Gospel. Here Jesus
is recorded as referring to the Spirit as “the Comforter.”
The pronoun “he” is used in connection with the word
“comforter” - parakletos - however, the reason for the
use of the personal pronoun “he” is for grammatical, not
theological, or spiritual reasons. (cp A c h (2: IO
All pronouns in Greek must agree in gender with the
word they refer to, therefore the pronoun “he” is used
when referring to the Greek word parakletos. Only John
refers to the Spirit as the parakletos - “Comforter.” The
other New Testament writers use the wordpneuma which
means “breath” or “spirit.” This is the Greek equivalent of
rfiah, the Hebrew word for “spirit” used in the Old Testament.
Pneuma is a grammatically neuter word and is
always represented by the pronoun “it.”
However, the translators of the King James Version,
being swayed by the doctrine of the Trinity, have generally
mistranslated the pronouns referring to pneuma as
masculine. One instance where they did not mistranslate
is found in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
John’s use of theparakletos is no proof the Spirit is a
person. For if the simple gender of a noun were the basis
for the personality of the Spirit, then the Spirit changed
gender from the Old to the New Testament, the Hebrew
Is the Holy Spirit a person, just like God the
Father and Jesus Christ, as the doctrine of the
Trinity teaches?
Let's examine the plain, clear testimony of Scripture
to see what God's Holy Spirit IS.
First, it is the power of God. "Not by might, nor
by power [of humans], but by my spirit, saith the
Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). "I am full of power by
the Spirit of the Lord, and judgment, and of
might. . ," declared the prophet Micah (Micah
3:8).
Second, it is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the
Spirit of knowledge and of the fear (deep reverence
and respect - not craven fear) of the Lord
(Isa. 11:2).
Third, it is a gift. After baptism, you are to
receive "the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). It
is poured out. "And it shall come to pass in the last
days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon
all flesh" (Acts 2:l 7). I ' . . . On the Gentiles also
was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts
10:45).
Fourth, to be effective the Holy Spirit must be
stirred up. "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance
that thou stir up the gift of God," Paul reminded
the young evangelist Timothy (I1 Tim. 1 :7).
Five, the Spirit of God can be quenched (I Thes.
5: 19).
Six, it is the begetting power of God (Matt.
1 : 18; Rom. 8:9).
Seven, it is God's guarantee to us that He will
fulfill His promise to us (Eph. 1 : 14).
Eight, it sheds the love of God abroad in our
hearts (Rom. 5:5).
Nine, it must be renewed (Titus 3:5-6).
Notice that in all of these scriptures there is not
one characteristic even implying a "person."
Does a person do any of these things? Is a
person "poured," "quenched," "renewed"? Does
a person live IN someone else or live IN people's
hearts?
For further evidence proving that the Holy Spirit
is not a person, see Matthew 1:20. Here we read
that Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yet
Christ calls God His Father, not the Holy Spirit
(John 14:16). If the Holy Spirit were a person, it
would be Christ's Father - proof positive that the
Holy Spirit is not a person but the power God the
Father uses - much as a man uses electricity.
Consider further. If the Holy Spirit were a person,
Jesus Christ prayed to the wrong individual.
Throughout the four Gospels, we find Christ speaking
to God - not the Holy Spirit - as His Father.
38 Is God a Trinity?
word for “spirit” in the Old Testament being in the feminine
gender in a majority of cases and in a masculine sense
less often.
The fact that the word “spirit” is feminine in the
Hebrew did lead some to believe that the Spirit was a
feminine being of the Godhead. They believed in a Trinity
of the Father, the Mother and the Son. Interestingly
enough, their belief was condemned by the Trinitarians
who used the same kind of ploy to prove that the Spirit
was a masculine being!
The Holy Spirit - God’s
Begettal Power
What is the Spirit? As we saw earlier, theologians
admit that the Spirit of God is the power of God. They
would have no reason to believe otherwise unless they had
a preconceived idea of a Trinity.
The Spirit, or Holy Spirit, as it is called in the New
Testament, was the power by which Jesus Christ was
begotten. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:
When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before
they came together, she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1 :18.1.
When Joseph was about to put Mary away because
she was pregnant, “the angel of the Lord appeared unto
him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not
to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” (Matt. 1:20).
of the Holy Spirit. He was literally born with God’s Spirit
in His mind. He became the Son of God and died for us
that we might have the same opportunity to become God.
The Apostle Paul plainly taught this vital scriptural
truth that we just read in Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God.” Paul did not mean this in some sentimental sort of
way, as he goes on to show in the next verse. “And if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ.. . .”
Paul goes on to point out that Jesus Christ is the heir
Jesus was begotten in the womb of Mary by the ~ ~ w e r (Lk 1235)
Trinity
The Apostle Paul would probably be considered a
blasphemer by many Trinitarians today, because in
his greetings to the churches he neglected to mention
the Holy Spirit. In his introduction to the
Romans, he represents himself as an apostle of God
the Father and Jesus Christ, but nothing is said
about any third person.
He also neglects to mention the Holy Spirit in the
greetings of the rest of his letters. His standard
greeting is: ”Grace be unto you, and peace, from
God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ”
(I Cor. 1 :3). The same greeting is repeated in II
Corinthians 1 :3, Galatians 1 :3, Ephesians 1 :2, Philippians
1 :2, Colossians 1 :2, I Thessalonians 1 : 1,
II Thessalonians 1 :2, I Timothy 1 :2, Titus 1 :4, and
Philemon 1 :3.
All of these greetings are without variation - the
Holy Spirit is consistently left out (a great oversight
- indeed blasphemy, provided the Trinity doctrine
is correct).
Only in II Corinthians 13:14 is the Holy Spirit
mentioned with God and Jesus and there only in
connection with communion or fellowship. The Holy
Spirit is not the third member of the Godhead.
40 Is God a Trinity?
of all things in Hebrews 1:2. We then have the opportunity,
if we have God’s Spirit in our minds, to inherit all
things with Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God unites with our minds, and we are
begotten (or conceived) again - this time spiritually -
not as we originally were, physically. We become a new
person.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet. 1:3). And verse 23 says,
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and
abideth forever.”
The Holy Spirit impregnates us with God’s nature.
That spiritual begettal imbues us with the nature and
mind of God. Throughout our Christian lives we continue
to grow and develop in the understanding and mind of God
until we are finally born into the God family and made
immortal at the return of Jesus Christ to this earth (I Cor.
How can we obtain this Spirit? The answer was given
by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost mentioned in
Acts chapter two. When Peter was asked at the end of his
sermon what to do, he answered: “Repent, and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost [Spirit]” (Acts 2:38).
Here again we can see why the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit are mentioned in the “baptismal formula”
in Matthew 28:19. God the Father is the One who brings
us to repentance; Jesus Christ - God the Son - is the one
who died that we can have our past sins forgiven; and the
Holy Spirit is the power by which God the Father begets
us. (For further information about the Holy Spirit, write
for our free reprint article “How You Can Be Imbued
With the Power of God.”)
How plain the truth of the Bible is. The Holy Spirit is
the power of God. It is not a person. It is the power by
which we are begotten that we might become sons of God.
15 ~49-52).
CHAPTER FOUR
God Is a Family
ARLY theologians were driven by the need to explain
the appearance of Jesus Christ. Some found their E explanation by fabricating the Trinity doctrine.
But since God is not a Trinity and since Jesus Christ is
God, what is the relationship in the Godhead? Is God one,
or are there two separate Gods and is Christianity, therefore,
polytheistic?
In Chapter Two we found that the Bible teaches that
Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament, and that He
became flesh and came to this earth to die for mankind. He is
called the Son of God and He calls God His Father. By now
the relationship should be coming clear - God is a family.
We found in Chapter Three that we also can become
begotten sons of God by the impregnation of God’s Spirit
- again a family relationship.
When we understand that God is a family - that God
is reproducing after His kind - we are no longer confronted
with the problems inherent in the Trinity doctrine,
nor are we faced with the problem of worshiping
many gods.
There is only one God family, yet there are presently
two members, and in the future there will be many more.
Jesus was called “the firstborn of many brethren” (Rom.
8:29).
Look at yourself. Whether married or single, you are
part of a family. You have parents and maybe even children
or grandchildren of your own. Yet, you are still one
family.
42 Is God a Trinity?
It was God who created man and put him on the
earth. He created marriage and the family relationship as
a type of His divine family. (For further information on
this vitally important subject, write for the free booklet
titled Why Marriage!)
God‘s Name Is Plural
The Hebrew word for “God” used in Genesis 1:l and
26 is Elohim. Elohim is plural in form. Though this word
taken by itself does not prove that there are two beings in
the Godhead, it does allow for the plurality that is clearly
indicated in other parts of the Bible.
By what we can understand from the rest of the Bible,
this word Elohim can act like our English words “family,”
“ g r ~ ~ p , ~ ’ “church,” or “crowd.” These words are often
regarded as singular and take a singular verb form, but
they all contain more than one member.
The Apostle Paul exemplifies this for us in I Corinthians
12:20. Speaking about the Church he says: “But now
are they many members, yet but one body.”
God is a family. There presently are two members in
that God family, God the Father - the Head of the
family, the Lawgiver - and Jesus Christ the Son - the
Spokesman, the Creator. But the word Elohim is not just
dual. There is a dual number in Hebrew, but this would
have to be Elohaim. The God family, however, is destined
to be truly plural - to have many members. And this is
what the word Elohim describes and allows for.
Belief in a Trinity clouds the real purpose that God
has in store for mankind. If we are taught that God is a
closed Trinity of three persons, we lose sight of the fact
that God’s real purpose is to create many more members
of the God family.
Look at the creation account in Genesis 1: God created
fish after the fish kind, birds after the bird kind, and
animals after the animal kind. But in verse 26 God made
man - not after any of the animal kinds, but after the
God kind - in God’s image and God’s likeness. “And God
[Hebrew, Elohim] said, Let us make man in our image,
God Is a Family 43
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
God created man in His own image. Man is greater
than the rest of the creation, because God gave him mind
power. He has dominion over all the creatures. Man is not
an animal. He was created in the image of God - after the
God kind.
Taught in the New Testament
The Apostle John understood God’s plans for mankind.
Notice what he wrote in I John 3:l:
“Behold, what manner of love the Father [here is the
family relationship - not a closed trinity] hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore
the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we [already] the [begotten] sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we
shall see him as he is.”
Jesus Christ, the One who was the God of the Old
Testament, the Creator God, became flesh, died and was
resurrected as a part of God’s plan to make man God.
Jesus Christ is not to be the only son of God. He is the
only born Son now, but as John wrote, “when he shall
appear, we shall be like him.” We are begotten sons now,
and will be born sons of God at the resurrection.
It is clearly God’s plan to bring many sons into His
family. “For it became him [God the Father], for whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing
many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation
[Jesus Christ] perfect through sufferings” (Heb. 2:lO).
The pages of the Bible are filled with this - God‘s
great purpose for man. And yet the majority of this
world’s Christians are blinded to this central biblical
truth. Why? Because Satan has deceived the whole world
(Rev. 12:9). God is not a closed Trinity, He is a family - a
family in which you can become a member.
44 Is God a Trinity?
Why the Deception?
Why has Satan palmed off the doctrine of the Trinity
on the world? Because he doesn’t want you to rule in his
place! Satan was originally created to carry out God‘s rule
on earth. But, he refused to serve the Creator and even
fomented a rebellion to dislodge God from His position as
Ruler over the whole universe (Ezek. 28:ll-19; Isa. 14:12-
14). A third of the angels united with Lucifer in that
rebellion and were cast back down to this earth with him
(Rev. 12:3-4) - having forever disqualified themselves and
Satan from ruling in the government of God. However,
Satan and his demonic cohorts remain in office until
Christ actually returns.
Yet being disqualified, they do not want anyone else
ever to take their place. For that reason, during nearly
6000 years of man, they have tried to hide from all the
world the breathtaking truth of God. If they can make you
believe in the Trinity, you will be deceived into thinking
that the Godhead consists of only three persons. You
would then never in your wildest dreams ever imagine that
you were created to be born into the God family - to
actually have a part in ruling this earth!
Satan wants you to think that God is a limited Trinity
- not a growing family or Kingdom into which we
may, through the grace of God, enter.
There you have it. That is the truth about the Trinity.
God’s family isn’t closed to mankind as Satan would
have you believe.
It’s wide open to you, your family and all mankind.
You can be made in the exact likeness of God at Christ’s
return! 0

intelligent and Almighty Creator for a definite purpose?
And if so, what is that purpose - and why is humanity so
totally unaware of it?