Historians Speak Honestly About the ‘Trinity’

James Hastings: “It has been customary to trace the institution of the practice to the Words of Christ in Matthew 28:19, but the authenticity of this passage has been challenged on historical as well as textural grounds. It must be acknowledged that the formula of the threefold name, which is here enjoined, does not appear to have been used by the primitive church, which so far as our information goes, baptized ‘in’ or ‘into’ the Name of Jesus, or Jesus Christ, or the Lord Jesus, without any reference to the Father or the Spirit” (Dictionary of the Bible, p. 88).

Scribners: “The original form of words were into the Name of Jesus Christ or Lord Jesus. Baptism into Trinity was a later development” (Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I, p. 241).

Canney Encyclopaedia: “The early church always baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus until the development of the Trinity; afterward they were baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” (p. 53).

American Encyclopaedia, International Edition: “The term Trinity was used by Theophilus of Antioch in AD 180″ (Vol. 27, p. 116).

Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The triune and Trinity formula was not uniformly used from the beginning, and up until the third century, baptism in the Name of Christ only was so widespread that Pope Stephen, in opposition to St. Cyprian, said that baptism in the Name of Christ was valid. But Catholic missionaries, by omitting one or more persons of the Trinity when they were baptized, were anathematized by the Roman church. Now the formula of Rome is, “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost” (11th Ed., Vol. 3, p. 365-366).

Encyclopedia of Religions: “Persons were baptized at first in the Name of Jesus Christ, or ‘in the Name of the Lord Jesus.’ Afterwards, with the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, they were baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (p. 53).

New International Encyclopaedia: “The Trinity doctrine. The Catholic faith is this: ‘We worship one in Trinity, but there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. The glory equal—the majesty co-eternal.’ The doctrine is not found in its fully developed form in the Scriptures. Modern theology does not seek to find it in the Old Testament. At the time of the Reformation, the Protestant Church took over the doctrine of the Trinity without serious examination” (Vol. 22, p. 476).

Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion: “Christian baptism was administered by using the words ‘in the Name of Jesus.’ The use of a Trinity formula of any sort was not suggested in the early Church history. Baptism was always in the Name of the Lord Jesus until the time of Justin Martyr when the Triune formula was used” (Vol. 2, p. 377-378, 389. )

“NAME was an ancient synonym for “Person.” Payment was always made in the name of some person referring to ownership. Therefore one being baptized in Jesus’ Name became His personal property. “Ye are Christ’s.” (Acts 1:15; Revelation 3:4; I Corinthians 3:23).

LIFE Magazine: “The Catholics made this statement concerning their doctrine of the Trinity to defend the dogma of the assumption of Mary in an article by Graham Green: ‘Our opponents sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in the Scripture but the Protestant churches have themselves accepted such dogma as the Trinity for which there exists no such authority in the Gospels’” (October 30, 1950, Vol. 29, Number 18, p. 51).

Catholic Encyclopaedia: “The true doctrine of the sacrament of baptism is not taught by the Roman church. Baptism given by heretics in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost with the intention of performing what the church performs, is not true baptism” (Vol. 2, p. 259).

New Catholic Encyclopedia: “With regard to the form used for Baptism in the early church, there is the difficulty that although Matthew (28:19) speaks of the Trinitarian formula, which is now used, the Acts of the Apostles (2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5) and Paul (I Corinthians 1:13; 6:11; Galatians 3:27; Romans 6:3) speak only of Baptism ‘in the Name of Jesus.’ Baptism in titles cannot be found in the first centuries. . .” (McGraw Hill Publishing, p. 59).

William Phillips Hall: “In this very ancient version (Syriac Peschito Version) which is believed by good authorities (Gwilliam, Boners, and others) to represent a text much older that of the Greek manuscript from which our English Old Testament was largely derived, ‘The Name of the Lord Jesus Messiah or Christ’ appears in all four readings given (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5)” (A Remarkable Discovery, p. 70).

International Encyclopaedia: “The doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the Apostles’ preachings, as this is reported in the New Testament” (First Edition, Vol. 18, p. 226).

New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: “The term ‘Trinity’ was originated by . . . Tertulian, a Roman Catholic church father. No record of the Trinitarian formula can be discovered in the Acts of the Apostles. . . At the time of the Reformation, the Protestant Church took over the doctrine of the Trinity without serious examination” (Vol. 1, p. 396).

“Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon.” “Trinity,” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 782.

“The adoption of a non-biblical phrase at Nicea constituted a landmark in the growth of dogma; the Trinity is true, since the Church — the universal Church speaking by its Bishops — says so, though the Bible does not! We have a formula, but what does that formula contain? No child of the Church dare seek to answer.” “Dogma, Dogmatic Theology,” in Encyclopedia

The Second Seal

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

-Revelation 6:3-4

Each horse and its rider is a continuation of the work of the antichrist spirit working on the earth. Each “beast” or “living creature” is the cherubim or throne guard that typifies an attribute of God that is working in the elect of that time period.

This horse is red and it conquers and kills with the great sword that was given to it. This corresponds to the time when the true church began to be persecuted and killed for their faith. While certainly this started from the very beginning however, the great persecutions sponsored by the Roman Empire began in the 2nd century and it continued on even when the Roman Empire turned from being pagan empire to being a papal empire where the emperors were under the headship of the pope.

In fact the persecution and cruelty that this Popish spirit inflicted on mankind is beyond any doubt the cruelest in all of history. No other organization in the world at this time is responsible for more deaths, not even Islam. This cruelty and desire to conquer and kill is a continuation of the antichrist spirit that started with the white horse. Though this white horse was innocent in appearance it resulted in a rebellious and paganistic organization called Roman Catholicism. A denomination that prays to saints, bows before statues, exalts Mary to the level of divinity in that no one can come to Jesus, but first must come to Mary, they installed confession to a priest in order to control the minds and hearts of people. Here is the result of this red horse that was given a sword to kill.

“In addition to this regular, systematic process, the Romish church has been guilty of numerous, extensive, and sometimes national persecutions, in which hundreds of thousands of our Protestant brethren were butchered in cold blood. Need I point you to the bloody tragedy of St. Bartholomew’s eve, 80 in 1572, when at the nod of the Pope a hundred thousand of the best people of France were massacred in cold blood by order of their own priest-ridden king, Charles IX.? Need I speak to you of the treacherous revocation of the edict of Nantes, by approbation and applause of the Roman pontiff, in violation of all law, human and divine, by which half a million or more of the best citizens of France, because they would not renounce their religion, were compelled to flee from papal persecution and death, and, stripped of all their earthly goods, to seek shelter in foreign lands? Need I direct your attention to the millions of Waldenses and Albigenses who were butchered in cold blood by the minions of the pope! Need I speak to you to the thirty years’ war in Germany, which was mainly instigated by the Jesuits, in order to deprive the Protestants of the right of free religious worship, secured to them by the treaty of Augsburg? Or of the Irish rebellion, of the inhuman butchery of about fifteen millions of Indians in South America, Mexico and Cuba, by the Spanish papists? In short, it is calculated by authentic historians, that papal Rome has shed the blood of sixty-eight millions of the human race in order to establish her unfounded claims to religious dominion.” From S. S. SCHMUCKER, D. D.’s The Glorious Reformation.

However, the elect did overcome this wicked and evil spirit working through Roman Catholicism. How did they do it? By the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. God gave them a Spirit to overcome. This is the second beast or living creature that had a face like a calf. The calf typified the submissive and sacrificial spirit willing to lay his life down. This is the nature that the Christian was given as a gift from God for this time when the persecution was so deep and difficult. They had a willingness and a faith that transcended this world. They had a vision that death is simply a step from this evil world into a place of rest and peace where you have the joy of seeing Jesus.

What is the Message of the Hour?

In this article I want to establish that God indeed promises in Scripture that he would send a message to the generation that would witness the return of Jesus Christ. While it is true that God is no longer adding to the canon of Scripture and all truth that God desires us to know as Christians is in the Bible, it is also true that the Church fell away from the original doctrine of the apostles. Since the Reformation God has been continuously restoring the Church back to the pure Gospel. To put it in another way God is continually unfolding what is already contained within Scripture. Prophecy is not always immediately understood when written or spoken by a prophet or apostle, but as time goes on God reveals it.

It started with John Hus, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and on down the line. While each of these leaders sent from God had a glorious truth to proclaim it was not all that Christ was seeking to accomplish. He continued to work as the years went by, each leader was anointed by the Spirit and sent for a specific purpose. So in our generation has there been a leader sent from the Lord to gather together all these truths taught by the various reformers.

In each generation he sends men to stand as a beacon to reveal what God had in mind for that period out of the scriptures. He requires that truth from our mouths. If someone were to hear the message of Martin Luther in his days, “the just shall live by faith” and reject it they would be rejecting the gospel. Even if they continued in the current religion of the day, which was Roman Catholicism. They were rejecting the word. So is it today when God restores more of His truth to his church. If you reject the word of God in this day you are rejecting the Gospel of Christ. Just because something is not mainstream does not make it wrong. John Hus, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and John Calvin were by no means mainstream Christianity. They were viewed by mainstream Christianity as heretical.

So then what is the message?

In order to comprehend that there is a message you must first understand who the messenger was. William Branham lived from 1909 to 1965. He had many supernatural experiences throughout his lifetime leading to his calling and ministry. Click on the name above to learn more specifics about the mighty signs and miracles God did through him. William Branham went forth with mighty signs and wonders showing that he was a teacher sent from God. This is not about that specifically, it’s about the restoration of the Church to the doctrine of the apostles. To listen to any of the sermons of William Branham you can go to his ministry website at http://branham.org/MessageAudio.

In 1933 while he was baptizing new converts in the Ohio River a supernatural light appeared above him and said to hundreds of witnesses, “As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Christ you are sent with a message to forerun his second.” These points us to scripture in Malachi 4:5-6 and it says this, “Behold, I will send unto you Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers’ lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

Now, first of all, understand that this is a two fold prophecy with a fulfillment in two specific prophets. First, John the Baptist and second William Branham. To prove this lets read Luke 1:17, “And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Here we see John is to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.” The Scripture does not say that John turns “the hearts of the children to their fathers.” He turns the hearts of the fathers to the children. John the Baptist does not complete the prophecy of Malachi. So another prophet is going to fulfill the last part of the prophecy.

How did John the Baptist Fulfill Malachi’s Prophecy?

John was the link to the changing dispensations. He preached the baptism of repentance and called the religious leaders vipers. He was called to turn peoples hearts from the doctrine of the Jewish “fathers” to the apostolic “children”. He went before Jesus the Christ as a forerunner to his coming and turned their faith off of the traditional doctrines on to the true faith of Israel and in the coming Messiah.

Then the next part of Malachi’s prophecy does the reverse. It turns the heart of the children to their fathers. Here we see the children whose hearts were turned away from the doctrine of their fathers. There was a restoration needed just as in the days of John the Baptist.

Starting after the death of the first apostles of Christ there was a gradual shift away from the original apostolic doctrines. There are many specific examples and there are other articles written on these specific topics, but two specifics are the doctrine of the oneness of God and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. The Gentile believers began to unwittingly apply Greek philosophical thought to scriptural teaching. Thus began the shift from believing in the one God of Israel and his Son, Jesus the Christ to a belief in three co-equal, co-eternal Gods. This is not a Jewish biblical teaching. It is the result of combining Greek philosophy, Gentile religion and Christian teaching. The second, water baptism is a result of this shift from the one holy Name, the Lord Jesus Christ to the titles, Father, Son and Spirit.

The church also shifted from the teaching of justification by faith alone through the sovereign grace of God. They taught that certain works needed to be done in order to complete salvation.

These shifts away from the bible caused the necessity of God bringing forth the Reformation and all the resulting denominations from them. Most denominations have some form of truth that they focus on and is a teaching that God desired to restore to His elect. However, it was not God’s purpose that each of these truths be divided and separate into various factions. He wanted this truth to all be there and available for his elect to embrace and proclaim. This was the purpose of God in William Branham. He came and turned “the hearts of the children (of God) to their (apostolic) fathers.” His ministry has turned the Church back to the original faith and doctrine of the apostolic fathers. He told us to get back to the Bible over and over again.

Each denomination has their own take on what the bible teaches. So how do we know the difference? God proved the difference by manifesting himself and showing that William Branham was a teacher sent from God. He was a man approved of God among us by signs and wonders which God did through him.

Of course the objection tends to come up, “why have I not heard of this?” There’s a very good reason for that, but first let’s explore the times when Jesus Christ was here ministering on earth. First of all, was he rejected? Yes, he most certainly was, only the minority of simple people who were not religious authorities accepted him. Second, who were the people that hated him so much that they sought to kill him? Again, it was the religious authorities who were in power and were afraid of losing their power and control over the people.

Search through the Scriptures and find out if any prophets who were totally accepted and applauded by the “orthodox” church, synagogue or temple leaders. Of course they were not accepted by the majority because their ministry came as a rebuke to that majority.

Is different in this day? Unfortunately it is not. William Branham came with a strange ministry to most people. He did not join with any organization or group. He heavily criticized them and was in turn rejected by them, but that did not stop God from accomplishing his purpose through that ministry.

Now, William Branham has been dead for 40 years and MOST people refuse to accept his ministry. Things have not changed, but there are a few who receive the benefits of what God has revealed to us.

Remember, the man is just a means for God to accomplish his purpose. He is simply a chosen vessel God uses for his eternal glory.

What specifically is the message?

The message is what the end-time Elijah is sent for…to bring the Church back to the original faith as taught by the apostles. John 1:5 tells us, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” There is no traditional darkness in God. He is Light! “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” If God is light and the light is what is made manifest then the message itself is a manifestation of God himself.

The message makes manifest God himself as He brings the Church back to the original Bible faith and life of the Gospel.

One God In Three Manifestations

I humbly request that each of you read through this entire writing to get the full picture of what I am trying to present. If you simply read a part here or a part there you will miss the whole picture that I am hoping to present to you. In no way do I intend to present the entire subject, but rather an overview of what we stand for. I don’t pretend to understand every aspect about God, to do so to me would be the height of arrogance. While knowing God is not subjective to each of us personally (he is the true reality and there is only one proper way to comprehend his reality) he does reveal himself to us in a process throughout our life. We all must be open to correction from the Scripture and the unction of the Holy Spirit. My hope for all who read this and myself as well is that each of us would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit working on our conscience.

The trinity of co-equal and co-eternal persons is a post biblical one, it is not based upon the apostolic teachings. The Oxford Companion to the bible clearly explains this fact.

“Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon.” “Trinity,” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 782.

As bible believers we hold to scripture as the final authority not the creeds nor confessions of Christendom as they have often proven to be in contradiction to one another and thus cannot be fully relied upon.

While the majority of Christian theologians focus on and seek to maintain the threeness of God as most important we want to focus on what God declares to be the greatest commandment, his oneness or unity. These are the words of Jesus and if there is any proper confession about who God is this is it, “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” This is the first and greatest command of the law and the greatest and first command that Jesus gives to us. God is one. He does not say God is three persons in one essence. Secondly, those who hold to the trinity should know that there is no where in Scripture that God is spoken of as a trinity of three persons. This is an ancient word that was used to describe the various triumvurate gods and godesses within various pagan systems of worship.

We want to define God as Scripture defines him and not through philosophy. Unfortunately, after the death of the apostles the church began to gradually drift away from the proper understanding of the oneness of God towards a Greek philosophical one.

The confession that God is three distinct persons is none other than tri-theism, the belief in three gods. The trinity seeks to maintain the oneness of God by stating that he is one essence or ousia. However, myself, my wife and my daughter each are made up of the same essence or ousia, flesh, bones and blood. We are still three persons and to confess that this is what God is is a belief in three gods.

I confess, that the majority of Christians do not fully believe in the Trinity of three persons, they confess belief in it, but the reality is they believe something far different in practice and thought.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are never spoken of as three persons. We will bear this out scripturally to properly understand the relationship between Father and Son, but any supposed threeness of God is in his manifestations of himself. During the first 300 years of the church there was a gradual departure from Hebrew thought to Greek philosophical thought. The Greeks always sought to understand God inside of himself, but the Hebrews always sought to understand God in his manifestation to mankind. The Greeks separate knowledge from relationship, the Hebrews viewed knowledge as intimacy with the object of knowledge. Hence, sexual intercourse with ones wife was to “know” her. God is not known to us inside of himself, he is known as he is revealed to us in time/space. Thus, we conclude that Father, Son and Spirit are three various ways God manifested himself to mankind. It is three different aspects of the one true God.

God created man in his own image. He gave man a body, a mind and a soul or spirit.. As the image of God he is a triune being. Man is one being, one individual but has three aspects to his one being. God also is a triune being not beings, but singular being. There is no God but God and he is one. There is one Spirit that is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. There are not three persons that are omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. God as a triune being has a mind, expresses himself through is word (body) and is spirit.

God as Father is the creator and the foundation out of which all existence flows. The Father was expressed in a visible and tangible way in the Son who was God manifest in flesh. God is a Spirit and this Spirit proceeds from the Father to work in and through mankind to work to draw us to the Son in order that we might receive eternal life.

“The Father loves the Son…” according to John 5:20. Often it is cited one aspect of God’s being cannot love another aspect of his being. While this is not necessarily true, the fact remains that here we have a relationship between Father and Son. This is a relationship between the eternal, invisible God who’s glory covers the whole universe and the man Christ Jesus who was born of the virgin Mary after being generated by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is a real flesh and blood human being that grew in wisdom and knowledge (Luke 2:52), did not know the outcome of all future events (Mark 13:32), was subordinate to God (John 14:28) and was subject to the Father’s will (John 5:30). Those who hold to a trinity of persons and the hypostatic union between the 2nd person of the trintiy and the man Christ Jesus state all these merely point to the human nature of Jesus Christ. Scripture does not teach a hypostatic union between two natures. It teaches us that Jesus is God manifest in flesh and that he is a real human being that submitted himself fully and perfectly to God. God does not ask us to explain what kind of union there is between himself and his Son. The human body, of course, is not God since God is not a tangible object, but the human body reveals God as Jesus said, “he that has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9. Thus the human being who is the Son of God is the tabernacle of the fullness of Deity.

Jesus was a man who was the Messiah and Son of God as to his humanity. He bypassed the normal human birth process in order to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. To be Messiah and to be Son of God means to be human. He was not some kind of a split personality. He was a human being in whom the full divine nature and attributes dwelt. All the heavens were not emptied of the presence of God for “in him we live and move and have our being.”(Acts 17:28)  But all that the invisible, unseen God IS was expressed in and through the man Jesus Christ. Though he is a human being Jesus Christ is the one true and living God because the fulness of the divine nature was expressed in him.

God is One Person According to Scripture

Notice as you read scripture that God is spoken of as a singular pronoun thousands upon thousands of times. If when the writers of scripture were referring to God and they truly believed he was three persons would they not refer to God as they, them, their, we, us, our rather than I, me, mine, my, etc. Certainly, there are several times that God speaks as us, however, when you as one person speak and you say “us” clearly you are speaking of yourself and someone who is not yourself. When God says us he is speaking to someone who is NOT God.

Here is Galatians 3:20 from the Amplified Bible, “Now a go-between (intermediary) has to do with and implies more than one party [there can be no mediator with just one person]. Yet God is [only] one Person [and He was the sole party in giving that promise to Abraham. But the Law was a contract between two, God and Israel; its validity was dependent on both.” God is only one person not three. The entire scripture bears this out.

The truth about baptism bears this truth out. Matthew 28:19 says, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” God is spoken of as one singular name. There are not three names here, there is one. There are three titles, Father, Son and Spirit, but one name. What is that one name that the Lord Jesus tells us about? Jesus told them to baptize in the singular name of the Father, Son and Spirit. What is that name? Notice, the obedience of Peter in Acts 2:38, “Then Peter said unto them, 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.” The NAME of the Father, Son and Spirit is Jesus Christ. There are three manifestations of God in that one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one person of God manifest in human flesh. (1 Timothy 3:16)

John 14:9, “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” Here we find out that the Son is the visible manifestation of the Father. When you see the Son you are seeing the Father manifested visibly. He is “the image of the invisible God” and “the express image of his substance.” (Col. 1:15, Heb. 1:3) “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” John 1:18. “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1 Timothy 1:17. No man has seen God in himself at any time for he is invisible. God in himself is Spirit for John 4:24 declares that God is a Spirit. That is God’s substance or essence. Ephesians 4:4 tells us there is one Spirit. There is one invisible God, whom no man has seen at any time, he is one substance and that substance is one Spirit. God within himself cannot be seen nor comprehended by mankind for “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) However, this invisible God chose to create this world and mankind as well as relate to mankind in a way that we can understand. What love and grace to condescend to us so that we could know him even though we are sinners.

So this God who is one Spirit, covers all space and is invisible, no man has seen him at any time nor can you see him chose to condescend to reveal himself. This is where the unfolding and condescending of God comes in. God chose to limit himself in such a way that he could be seen.

Logos

Proverbs 8:22-24, “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.”

Before there was time or even an atom, there was nothing but God. How he existed and what was there we do not know. He created everything out of nothing. Prior to anything being created God sent forth his thought or logos from himself. When this thought was expressed it became logos. Prior to creation God’s wisdom was IN himself. Just before creation he brought forth his logos, which was the Son of God prefigured in order to limit himself and manifest himself inside of and to his creation. The word prefigured means to picture beforehand or to announce by type. In other words, the item you are speaking of does not yet exist, but you are announcing it prior to its arrival.

God’s wisdom or word are not a separate being from himself, but the logos is the limitation of the Father to a form by which he can be seen and understood. No man knows the Father save the Son and to whomsoever the Son reveals him. (Matthew 11:27) The Logos that went out of God was the Son prefigured. That is, the Logos showed forth what Jesus was after his birth, he is the revelation of the Father, the visible expression of God. As I said previously, you cannot say that God’s reason or wisdom is a separate person from him, it is simply his body, his means of limiting himself to a form that can be understood. The Son is the delimitation of the Father. The Father is the eternal, invisible God and the Son is the self-limitation of the Father to a body that could be seen and understood.

If the Logos is the prefiguration of the Son does this mean that there are two persons of God. As I stated previously, the wisdom of God is not a separate person from the Father. It is the self-limitation of the Father into a body or a form by which he can be seen. Your body is not a separate person from you any more than your thought is. As your body and soul are two so is the Father and his logos. The Father is like unto the soul and the logos is like unto the body whereby the soul is seen.

As stated previously, the Spirit of God cannot be separated from God because there is one Spirit not two or three. Jesus said, “God is a Spirit.” The Spirit of God is also referred to as the “power of the Highest” in Luke 1:35. God’s power is not a distinct person from him.

Summary

We are not denying the Deity of Jesus Christ, but rather embracing a biblical construct of what that means that a human being is the manifestation of the only true God. “No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son…has declared him.” John 1:18 God cannot be seen, yet his invisible attributes including his eternal power and divine nature were declared in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are attributes and aspects of the one true and living God as he is revealed in time/space. The greatest command is God’s unity and oneness. We must maintain this above all other concepts of God.

I do not deny that there are mysteries to the nature and revelation of God, but there is a difference between a mystery and a contradiction. We embrace the apostolic teachings of the bible and the prophetic utterances of the prophets in the old testament. However, we do reject the post-biblical constructs that created the trinity of persons.