[Mr. Ray Clore] How do you relate to God? How can we have a better relationship with God? How does God relate to you? We've heard in the special music about music and that we can relate to God that way and God relates to us. In nature, we see that. How can you relate to a Trinity God, for instance? Does the Bible even truly teach that God is a Trinity? A recent survey by the United Church of God showed that people seeking God were most interested in how to have a better relationship to God. They want to relate to God. Secondly, they wanted to understand the Bible better. And only thirdly were they interested in Bible prophecy and world events. Today, I want to briefly show that the Bible teaches that God is a loving family currently composed of two persons, the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. I want to show the historical foundation for the false doctrine of the Trinity and explain several verses misused by Trinitarians to try to support their error. It is a huge subject and we've only scratched the surface.

Hopefully, this presentation will help all of us relate to God better, relate better to God and Jesus Christ, and hopefully, you will also have and be able to have the building blocks for a short “elevator speech”, a short answer if you are asked why you don't believe in the Trinity. We actually do have a very good study guide, "Is God a Trinity?" So, I want to make this advertisement here. And, you know, I was surprised recently because this is a...in one sense, it's a basic doctrinal presentation. And yet, recently I was told that there was a young lady who attends a Christian school and she's fairly young. She's, I don't know, 10? I'm not quite sure her age but, you know, she's constantly asked by classmates and teachers and so forth why she doesn't believe in a Trinity.

And so, she asked me for some information so I tried to give her some building blocks, and so her parents could give her some building blocks for an answer. I was down to Florida recently and I was talking with a lady who was sitting in front of me at services, and she said that she had been reading the Bible for many years and she thought...she just didn't understand what she was reading and she didn't understand the Trinity. And so, when she came across this particular booklet, she said, "That's it." She understood now. And so, she's been a member of the Church of God for about four years now. So that sort of encouraged me that this subject we are going to be covering today very briefly is relevant. It's relevant for young people, it's relevant for older people. And like I said, I hope with the handout and after hearing the presentation today, you will be able to use those building blocks so that you can have a better understanding of what we believe is based on the Bible and that you can also give an answer to those who ask you in a very brief way but understandable, in a way that's convincing to you so you can speak from the heart.

So how does God reveal Himself in the Bible? We heard in the singing God reveals Himself in nature, in music. That's a beautiful way. Well, we're going to be talking more specifically about how does God reveal Himself in the Bible? The pages of the Bible reveal that God is a family, now I'm making that assertion upfront, currently composed of two individuals, the Father and the Son. And that family is open to many more sons and daughters coming to glory and eternal life. Well, let's see some biblical evidence for what I just said. All right, let's go to Ephesians 3. Now, it's interesting, Ephesians was apparently a circular letter.

Ephesians 1:1 "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus."

It's interesting that those words “in Ephesus" were not in the original manuscripts. Ephesus was the first city on a mail route so it's very likely that this epistle was sent to all the churches of revelation that we see, you know, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, and so forth and so on. So, it had wide circulation. But Ephesus was the very first city and so that's why that was put in there as the official Paul to the Ephesians but, like I said, it had wide circulation. And if we go to Chapter 3, Chapter 3 of Ephesians, we'll start in verse 14. Now, Paul's writing this.

Ephesians 3:14-15 He says, "For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."

Now, that word, family, is patria like patriarch, and it means family. And that word, the whole family, that's a good translation. Some translations will translate that every family but that is incorrect and it hides the meaning. You can translate it whole or all the family. So, the family is named after God. God is the family name. The whole family of God is named after God. So, let's go on.

Ephesians 3:15-17 “The whole family in heaven and earth is named that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might through the spirit and the inner man.”

 So, God wants to give us strength through the spirit in our inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So, it's Christ who dwells in us through the spirit. Remember...and we read these passages for Passover that Jesus said, you know, that he would not leave the disciples “orphanous”, he would not leave them orphans. He says, "I will come to you." How does Christ come to us? He comes to us through the spirit. So, Paul was talking about Christ strengthening all the brethren through the spirit, via the spirit, that connective mechanism and Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith.

Ephesians 3:17-18 “That you being rooted and grounded in love” so again, that is the foundation of the family. The family, I guess, value system is love. “Rooted and grounded in love that we might be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height.”

 I've often puzzled about why four? I mean, why four? I mean, I've looked up in the Greek and all these apparently have to do with just normal measurements. You know, but it is interesting. We have, you know, three dimensions. And we have a different one called time, the space-time continuum. I don't know. It's just...it's alluring for me to think that through love and through Christ living in us, we might be able to understand the whole creation of God, His purpose, His plan for all humankind, for all ages. The space-time continuation, all that he's done, all that he's planned even before the foundation of this universe to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge is that love, and we will see this in the presentation as we go through.

Before the foundation of this world, before, apparently, this universe was created, apparently, before the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, Christ already expressed His love for you and for me that He was willing to lay down His life voluntarily as a substitution sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins so that we could have eternal life, so that he could have brothers and sisters, so that the Father could have children. This is the love of Christ.

Ephesians 3:19 “To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.

Now, if God wants to fill us with all the fulness of God and if you are filled with all the fulness of God, how can you be anything less than a God being? Let's go to 2 Corinthians 6. A God being. Again, much of the Christian world will view that right there as, "Wow, you're really sort of heretical. God being? You think that human beings can become God beings like children of God?" Yes!

2 Corinthians 6:16-18 Paul says, "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you”—the Church of God, the membership, the people—“you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them, I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Don't touch what is unclean and I will receive you and I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

God wants to relate to us as a father and he wants us to be His sons and daughters. This is what God has revealed in His Word. I submit to you the repeated use of family terms like this in the New Testament is deliberate. It's not accidental. It means what it says. Sons and daughters of God. God wants you in his family and he wants us all to live in peace, happily ever after. Let's go now to John 20. John 20. Some of the things that Paul wrote were hard to understand and so it seems that the Apostle John writing, we believe, around 90 A.D. wrote to answer some things and make clear some other things that people had questions about through the years.

John 20:17 This is where Jesus has been resurrected and he meets Mary in the garden. And she recognizes him and she says, "Rabboni." And Jesus says to her in verse 17, "Do not cling to Me for I have not yet ascended to my father but go to my brother and say to them, 'I'm ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.'"

We have the same father as Jesus Christ. He is our true elder brother. You and I can and should relate to God as our father. Jesus is our elder brother and husband of the church. These relationships have clear analogies in the human condition. For those who had loving fathers, this understanding can come fairly easily. But what if your human father was difficult or absent?

Brethren, our heavenly father is all the good things you ever wanted in your physical father and perhaps never had. Our heavenly father wants you. He created this whole universe and finetuned it so that we could live. It's interesting that, you know, the finetuning argument,and I'll make a little bit of a side point.

I’ve been reading a book by Eric Metaxas. He's a fairly popular author, a Christian author, and he has this book, "Is Atheism Dead?" and he's showing—and you can see I've only read about halfway through but it's still pretty good so far—is that the fine-tuning argument is an argument that atheists cannot answer. There are so many instances of finetuning of natural laws, relationships between the natural laws, finetuning of the earth, the almost inexplicable behavior of water that it doesn't continue to get denser and denser and denser until it becomes a solid but after about 29 degrees, it starts to get less dense and then ice floats because if ice didn't float, it would sink to the bottom and then you would have just a ball of ice and it would never melt.

I mean, these kind of  things...and he lists a whole bunch of things like this. It is amazing, the fact that we have Jupiter and Saturn out there and they're the ones that sort of corral all these meteors and asteroids and basically keep them away from crashing into the earth. A few get through but they're out there and they protect us. We have a Van Allen radiation belt. It protects us from too much radiation from the sun but enough gets through. I mean, it just goes down the line, the fine-tuning argument. And Metaxas is trying to make the case that you can't be intellectually honest and be an atheist because we know so much. Maybe people 100 years ago, they didn't know as much as we do scientifically now but we know so much. And the works of God are marvelous. The works of our Father are marvelous. You think about systems within systems. He creates life from nonlife. He builds it. They all interact. He creates flowers and colors.

He creates all these things so that we can have a nice environment. He loves us. He gives us food. He gives us the ability to taste good food. I could go on and on. Our father is marvelous. Our father loves us. He wants us as his children forever. He wants to give us the opportunity to learn things, to say and do things. I mean, how much...if you see small children and they say funny things and we laugh and we think, "Yeah, that's interesting, how interesting the children are." And God looks at us as His children and He gives us the freedom to make choices and do things, and I'm sure he delights in that too. He is a wonderful father.

Hebrews 2:10-13 "For it is fitting for Him for whom are all things and by whom are all things." So, God, the Father, used Jesus Christ to create the whole universe that we see around us “by whom are all things and bringing many sons to glory.” Again, is that just, you know, a throwaway word, or does God really mean it? Many sons to glory. “To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one.” One what? "For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren saying, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise to you. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, here am I and the children whom God has given me."

 As I said, we're all of one. One what? One family. I like how the NIV translates verse 11 here. It says, "Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family." So, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. So how can we relate to God better? I think we should think about and meditate on the idea that the true most high God is your real Father who loves you, who created this whole universe as a fitting place for you to grow in godly character and become part of his eternal family. Think about and relate to the fact that your elder brother did indeed die for you. He took your place to pay for your mistakes to protect you. Jesus does love the little ones. Let's go to Mark 10. And Jesus, of course, is a perfect representation of God, our Father.

Mark 10:13-16 “Then they brought little children to him that he might touch them but the disciples rebuked those who brought them but when Jesus saw, He was greatly displeased and He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to Me. Do not forbid them for such is the Kingdom of God. And surely, I say to you whoever does not receive the Kingdom as a little child by no means enter it.’ And He took them up in his arms and laid His hands on them and blessed them.”

Yes. Little children, when they receive gifts, it's a delight. We brought back a little gift to some of our grandchildren the other day and there was one little ring that had flashing lights. And Elise was just so enamored. She was just, "Wow, this is wonderful, wonderful. There's flashing lights." And I think the Kingdom of God, when we are born spirit beings, sons and daughters of God, how many flashing lights equivalent are there going to be? How much joy are we going to...all this, all this new stuff. How wonderful it will be. We should receive the kingdom of God as a little child and Jesus loves the little children. And our Father loves the little children and He holds us in His arms that He might bless us. He cares for us. He relates to us as children He loves. In Hebrews 13:5 we have a promise. A promise from Jesus.

Hebrews 13:5 "Let your conduct, your behavior be without covetousness” and be content with such things as you have “For He Himself has said I will never..." And the Greek is very emphatic. “I will never ever leave you or forsake you.”

Jesus knows what it's like to feel alone. He felt alone on the cross as He was paying the penalty for the sins of all mankind including ours. And so, because He knows what it's like to be lonely even for a little while...but for Him, you think, "How long must that feeling have lasted?" He will never ever leave us or forsake us. He loves us. He cares for us. Now, let's go to Luke 22. Jesus, He had known that this was coming. He told the disciples that He would be betrayed, He would be crucified. And when it came down to the wire...Luke 22:41.

Luke 22:41-44 He goes to the Mount of Olives and He prays. He's about a stone's throw away from the disciples. He kneels down and prays, "Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from Me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. And an angel appeared to him from Heaven strengthening him and being in agony, pray more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

 He didn't want to have to go through that pain and that agony. For billions of years, even before this universe was created, as you can put in your notes Revelation 13:8, Christ had decided He would voluntarily sacrifice Himself to lay down his life for us. And He did it. He did it voluntarily. We see this in John 10. I'll turn there

John 10:17-18 Jesus said, "Therefor, my father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me but I lay it down Myself." He volunteered out of love for you and for me. “I have power to lay it down, I have power to take it again. This command I receive from my Father.”

All his life Jesus healed the sick, He fed the hungry, He comforted the downtrodden knowing what was ahead of Him on the cross. As I said, when it came down to the wire, He would've preferred some other way to accomplish God's plan to bring billions of children into the family that do not have to include him suffering death by crucifixion. But He humbled himself and He did it for you and for me. The love of Christ. Let's go to Romans 8. Jesus wants brothers and sisters. He's not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters because we are part of the same family. We are begotten children of God even now. We're that part of the family of God on the Earth, the begotten, not yet born children and part of the family in heaven is God and our high priest, Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:31-32 “What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” And it really...the understanding should be who can prevail against us because a lot of people can be against us. But who can really prevail against us? “He who did not spare his own son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

So, the most precious thing to God, our Father, was the life of the being who had lived with Him from forever. I can't comprehend that. No beginning. He had lived from forever. And he gave up that life. And Jesus gave up his life voluntarily. So, if the Father agreed to that loss, that...for three days and three nights that lack of a relationship that he had for forever… Well, Paul is saying, "God is ready to give us everything else that we need so that we might have salvation, eternal life, to be born as glorious children in the family of God."

Romans 8: 28 And there's a promise. “And we know that all things work together for the good.” And the understanding of course is eventually...not necessarily in five minutes. Not necessarily in 10 minutes. But eventually, “all things will work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

And notice that does not include every human being on this Earth today because not every human being is called yet. But for you who are called, you who are here today, who see me, who hear this, God's calling us and He's promised that if we love Him and show that love by obeying His commandments and doing those things which are pleasing in his sight that all things eventually will work out for good. Will work out for good.

Romans 8:29 “For whom he did foreknow, He predestined to be conformed to the glorious image of His Son that He might be the first one among many brethren.”

 That's the point. He wants us to be conformed so that we can be born as glorious brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. He has destined us to have that same glorious body and to be brothers and sisters of Jesus. So, let's think about that kind of love. So how can we relate better to God? Again, I suggest that we should try to relate to God as a loving father who chose you, who loves you, and wants you, and wants to give you every good and perfect gift. Relate to Jesus as our savior, savior from the penalty of sin, our mighty elder brother who will come and defeat our enemies. And our enemies are spiritual in nature, we need to remember. He will set up a glorious kingdom of which we will be co-rulers. Can you imagine? And we will live in peace, harmony, and joy forever with God and Jesus. Let's think about relating in these ways to the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ.

The above one and many other verses show that God is a family. The family is currently composed of two beings, the father and elder brother, and begotten children on the earth this day. As we've seen in the Bible, the family's open to many more sons and daughters being born into that family.

So, let's move on. How can we better understand the Bible? And specifically, about this subject. Specifically, does the Bible teach that God is a Trinity? Now, how did this idea become the litmus test to determine if one is an accepted Christian or heretic? Because it is. If you do not acknowledge and believe and say, "Yes, I believe in the Trinity," then the rest of the Christian world...and we're talking about 90% to 95% or maybe more of the professing Christian world thinks that you're in some kind of cult. You're sort of a heretic. You don't understand. But does believing in a Trinity help you or me relate to God better? Okay, so what's a definition of the Trinity? So I went to Wikipedia, okay. And it states that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as being one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial persons. God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit. Three distinct persons sharing one essence. In this context, the three persons define who God is while the one essence defines what God is.

So, okay. I went to the New Bible Dictionary. And the first line of the article Trinity states, "The term Trinity is not found in the Bible." Oh. It says, "Three affirmations are central to the doctrine. One, there is but one God. Two, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully and eternally God. Three, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each a distinct person." It goes on to state that nowhere does the Bible explicitly teach these assertions and says that the doctrine is an interpretation of the biblical witness.

Now, author and theology professor James White wrote in the "Forgotten Trinity" in 1998, "We hang a person's very salvation up on the acceptance of the doctrine. No one dares to question the Trinity for fear of being branded a heretic." "A Handbook for Christian Truth" by Lindsell and Woodbridge in 1953 states, "The mind of man cannot fully grasp or fully understand the mystery of the Trinity. He who has tried to understand that mystery fully will lose his mind but he who would deny the Trinity would lose his soul." Think about that. and there are so many statements by reputable theology professors and scholars to the effect that the Trinity idea is not found in the Bible.

Now, our study guide on the Trinity, I'll show it again. It can help all of us better understand the subject. It is chockfull of really good information. And it has little boxes which it has...it gives you the opportunity to go to various sources and you can follow up on things that, you know...or questions you might have. It lists many such statements. The Trinity idea of a closed three-person only God being denies the possibility of a real family relationship and is so confusing that no one can really understand the Trinity concept or explain it well. And they all admit that. But I go to 1 Corinthians 14.

1 Corinthians 14:33 A very famous verse and it says, "God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all the churches or the saints."

A doctrine that's so confusing, can it really be of God? A doctrine that denies so many New Testament verses about the nature of God being a family and familial relationships, is that of God? Scholars admit that the original Jerusalem Church of God did not believe in or teach a Trinity. They admit that. It was hundreds of years after Christ's death and resurrection before this idea began creeping into the visible church. So where did it come from? Let's review some history. Again, much of the following is taken from the United Church of God study guide entitled "Is God a Trinity?" so I'm summarizing a lot.

Nearly every ancient culture had the idea of three gods in one. It was across the board. Some examples. In Samaria, they had a separate God for sky, earth, and water but it was a triad of the great gods. Babylonia, they had one God but had three heads. In India, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, they were a single God under three forms, creation, preservation, destruction.

In Greece, Aristotle wrote, "All things are three so let us use this number in the worship of the gods." Egypt, there were many, many triads. Amun, Ra, Ptah was one triad. A famous one was Osiris, Isis, and Horus, another triad. Horus, Khnum, Anuket, so on. So non-Christians from almost every background were very familiar and comfortable with the idea of three gods in one. But the biblical revelation about the God family was at variance with their traditional ideas. So, they had this three gods in one idea and then they had the very strong Jewish tradition of one God, monotheism. So how are they going to deal with that? How are they going to deal with that? As Greeks and Jews came into professing Christianity, they brought their non-biblical philosophies and ideas with them. By the early 300s, the visible catholic church had an internal argument about the nature of God. A fellow named Arius who was a priest from Alexandria in Egypt, he taught that Christ was a created being.

On the other hand, a deacon from Alexandria named Athanasius taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one but also distinct from each other. The issue was addressed by a church council in Nicaea in 325. According to my research, most of the prelates who came to this council had ideas sort of in-between. They sort of all...they weren't quite sure. The Council of Nicaea was presided over by the still sun-worshipping Emperor Constantine. He called them together. It was a political thing. He wanted to have the Christian church united so he could have peace in his empire. And a minority of attendees signed a statement proposed by the pagan emperor rejecting the also minority Aryan position. Neither position had the majority of the votes. There was no sort of unity in the spirit. There was no consensus. No position received the majority of votes or support. The result pleased no one. So, Christians started killing each other based on their views. Professor Harold Brown states, "Essential doctrines hammered out in this period in the mid to late 300s often appear to have been put through by intrigue or mob violence rather than the common consent of Christendom led by the Holy Spirit."

Disagreements continued about the nature of the Holy Spirit. Another council was called in 381 at Constantinople. Little details of the debates have been recorded. We do know however that the first leader fell ill and another man was selected to preside over the conference. This man wasn't even a Christian before being selected to preside. The result of the conference was that the Holy Spirit was declared to be a divine person, a part of the three-in-one Trinity Godhead. But again, it didn't receive a majority of the votes.

So, in summary, on the section of how did the idea of the Holy Spirit being a person and part of a three-in-one God come into the catholic church? Answer, through multiple politically motivated councils, supervised by pagan leaders and supported by the minority of those present hundreds of years after the original Church of God in Jerusalem or the apostles which didn't teach this doctrine at all. So briefly, what does the Bible teach about the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament is primarily described as the power of God. And again, there's a lot more to it than that but primarily. So, let's go to Micah 3. We'll see very quickly several descriptions in the scriptures about the spirit of God.

Micah 3:8 The Prophet Micah says, "But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord and have justice and might." So, the spirit of the Lord filled the Prophet Micah with power and with a sense of justice and strength, power and might, for a purpose. “To declare to the nation of Israel, to Jacob his transgressions, to Israel, his sin. Now hear this.”

You can just hear, like, a...you know, on a ship, "Now hear this." And this was Micah declaring to them what God wanted him to declare through the spirit of God which gave him power and a sense and understanding of justice and of might. We see in 2 Timothy 1, and there's so many verses. I'm just touching a few.

2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

So again, power just like Micah had power. And love, Micah cared for the nation. He wanted people to change so they wouldn't die. And a sound mind. Micah could help them understand what true justice was. Power, love, a sound mind. Let's go back to Luke 1. So, who was the father of Jesus Christ? Everybody says, "Well, of course, it was the Father." Really? Well, let's take a look at this.

Luke 1:26-33 “And an angel, a spirit being called Gabriel is sent to talk to a virgin named Mary. And when she saw him, she was troubled. She said, ‘What is this?’ The angel said, ‘Don't be afraid, Mary. You found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb to bring forth a son so to call his name Jesus. He will be great, will be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and His kingdom will have no end.’”

Luke 1:34 “She said”—logically—"How can this be since I know not a man?" In other words, I have not had sexual relations with a man. “And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. Therefore, also, the holy one’” And then my translation it says “who is to be born, will be called the Son of God.” But really...and, you know, you look it up in the Greek, the tense is...it's passive...excuse me. Present participle passive. So, it really could better be rendered, "The holy one who is being begotten in you." As Gabriel was talking, it seems from my understanding of how this reads, Jesus was even at that moment being begotten in Mary. You know, that sort of makes sense. You know, the God, the Father, he would make sure that a very mighty angel, Gabriel, a watcher possibly, would be there in person to make sure that everything goes well and none of the, sort of, evil spirits flitting around would have anything that would mess this up. Mary was being begotten...or Jesus was being begotten in Mary apparently even as Gabriel spoke. But it talks about, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Highest." So, who was the father of Jesus? Was it the Holy Spirit? Well, no. We understand it was the Father. But the Father used the Holy Spirit as the power, the connective mechanism to do this activity. Luke 4:14. Jesus began his ministry. After He was baptized and He had been tempted by the devil, He'd been sequestered 40 days in the wilderness.

Luke 4:14 "Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee."

The power of the spirit. So, we see again and again and again the spirit of God is many times called the power of God. Acts 1:8. Again, there are so many, so many verses. We're just seeing a few. Jesus told the disciples to stay in Jerusalem.

Acts 1:8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

And of course, we know the disciples did receive special power when the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost. "The New Catholic Encyclopedia," Volume 13, pages 574 to 576 admits, "The Holy Spirit clearly does not envision God's..." Excuse me, the Old Testament. "The Old Testament clearly does not envision God's spirit as a person. God's spirit is simply God's power." Now, this is the catholic encyclopedia. It goes on to state, "The majority of New Testament text reveals God's spirit as something, not someone." Interesting.

So, what are some scriptures that people use to try to say the Bible supports a Trinity? Let's just view some of them. Let's go to Matthew 28. Matthew 28:19. Again, I'm not...I can't cover all the verses. I can't cover all the material. We're scratching the surface but I really do recommend the study guide because it has a lot more material and you can get more sources that you can look into it and research more for yourself.

Matthew 28:18 “Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority's been given to me in heaven and earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even until the end of the age."

So, people use this to say, "See? Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the Trinity right there." Does it show that? Does it show that? Is it talking about the nature of God? It's talking about baptism, talking about baptism, and it shows that baptism and making that covenant with God and entering into that God family involves the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's not a description of the nature of God. So, if you think about it, the Father calls us. There's other versions that show that. The Father calls us, and His goodness leads us to repentance. So, the Father's involved in that process. Jesus died as a sacrifice for our sins. And He lives in us through the spirit to help us identify sin and to choose righteousness, to know the right, choose the right, do the right. And the spirit in us, given into us by the Father and Jesus, makes us God's begotten but not yet born children. So, believers at baptism enter into a loving family relationship with the Father and Son through the Holy Spirit which gives us power to resist and overcome our sinful nature and live in peace with the father and son.

How about Matthew 3? Matthew 3, that's another one that people try to use to say, "Well, this shows that God is a Trinity." Even though the scholars admit that the Trinity is not mentioned and the church didn't teach this until hundreds of years later. Matthew 3:16. So Jesus, He goes to Jordan and He's baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.

Matthew 3:16 "When Jesus had been baptized, He came up immediately from the water, and behold, heavens were opened to Him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him, and suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, 'This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.'"

And they say that this shows that God is a Trinity. Well, does it? What does it show? It shows that the Son was baptized, immersed completely in water. It shows the spirit descending as a dove, and as a dove, perhaps like this but it doesn't show that the Holy Spirit's a person. Are you saying the Holy Spirit's a dove? Well, it says as a dove. It was coming down. And then the Father sent a message by an angel. We have other verses that show that no one's heard the voice of the Father at any time. So, this message was delivered by a spirit being. It's not a hint of the threefold nature of God. And you might wonder what was going on here?

And I'll just say very briefly that this...there's a lot of relationship...there's good analogy between what happened here and the anointing of Aaron as high priest because Aaron had to be washed completely in water. He had garments put on, garments of righteousness which of course Jesus...his whole life was righteousness. And then they poured the anointing oil on Aaron and that anointing oil went down his head and on his beard and so forth and so forth. And then Aaron and his sons, they were sequestered for seven days. So, after Jesus was baptized and the spirit came upon him, Jesus was sequestered 40 days in the wilderness. So, it's just interesting. There are a lot of similarities between the setting apart of the high priest Aaron and what happened to Jesus here. But it's not a doctrinal statement about the nature of God.

Okay. I think I'll leave that there. There are a few other scriptures that are used to try to give evidence of a Trinity. They all have in common that none define or explain or prove that Trinity as they are purported to do. They all show the existence of the Father, the existence of the Son, and the existence of the Holy Spirit but none present the spirit as a person. So, the last section I want to cover is something that is very...it's personally convincing to me. And these are visions of God's throne. And, you know, to make a little bit of a joke if I can, are you going to believe, you know, what the council of Nicaea and Constantinople tells you, or are you going to believe your lying eyes? What are you going to believe? Let's go to Daniel 7. We have several visions of God's throne recorded for us in the Bible. In Daniel 7...let's read this. And what are we going to see?

Daniel 7:9-14 Daniel says, "I watched until thrones were put in place and the ancient of days was seated." So, this is clearly God the Father. "His garment was white as snow. His hair was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame. His wheels a burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands,” that's a million, “ministered to Him. Ten thousand times ten thousand,” well, that's a hundred million. And again, are these exact figures, or are they just sort of rounded off? But, you know, a hundred million stood before Him.

"The court was seated, the books were open. I watched then because the sound of the pompous words with the horn was speaking. I watched how the beast was slain, his body destroyed and given to the burning flame. As for the rest of the beast, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. And I was watching in the night visions and behold, one like the Son of man.” Who's that? Well, that's clearly Jesus Christ, or the one who became Jesus Christ. “One like the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days. And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. His kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed.”

What do we see? We see the Father, we see the being, the Son, hundreds of millions of spirit beings. We don't see the Holy Spirit as a person. We don't see a Trinity God. Not there. Some people will say, "Well, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence." But it could be. I mean, if the Holy Spirit was a person and we're looking at God's throne and this is a very important situation, a very important action being taken to give the kingdom of God to the one who became Jesus Christ, why wouldn't the Holy Spirit be there and cheering it on? Why? Maybe the Holy Spirit is not a person. Maybe the Holy Spirit is not...maybe there's not a Trinity in heaven.

Let's go to Acts 7. I find that personally pretty convincing. We have the deacon Stephen who's being stoned. He's given his witness before the people there in Jerusalem. And they're getting angry with him and they start to stone him.

Acts 7:55-56 Stephen says, "But being full of the Holy Spirit..." So, he was filled with the power of God, the mind of God. “He gazed into heaven.” What did he see? “He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, ‘Look, I see the heavens open and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.’"

He didn't say, "Look. I see the heavens open and the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit and they're all one." He didn't. He said, "This is what I see." Now, a man who knows that he's close to death, I submit, would probably tend to tell you the truth really of what he saw. He didn't see the Holy Spirit as a separate person. He saw the Father, he saw the Son. And that vision comforted him as he died.

The third, I just want to cover very briefly. Revelation 4 and 5. Revelation 4 and 5. So I will jump around a little bit in these chapters, but again, we're going to be seeing the same sort of thing.

Revelation 4:2-8 “Immediately I was in the spirit” or he was having this vision. “Behold, a throne was set in heaven and one sat on the throne.” And he starts describing it. “Like a sardius stone in appearance, a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald around the throne, 24 thrones. I saw 24 elders. They had crowns of gold. There was thunders and lightenings and voices. Before the throne was a sea of glass like crystal. There was four living creatures, each having six wings full of eyes around...they don't rest day and night, saying holy, holy, holy Lord, God Almighty who was and who is and who is to come.”

Revelation 4:9 “And so, when those creatures give honor and glory and thanks to him who sits on the throne,” which we understand to be the Father, the 24 elders, “they cast their crowns before the throne and they say, ‘You are worthy, oh, God to receive glory and honor and power for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.’"

And then we see in chapter five he had a scroll written on both sides, had seven seals.

Revelation 5:2-10 “An angel said, ‘Who's worthy to open the scroll, to loose the seals?’ No one in heaven and earth was able to open the scroll. And so, John wept much. No one was found worthy. One of the elders said, ‘Don't weep. Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has prevailed to open the scroll.’" Who's that? That's Jesus Christ. “I looked and behold, in the midst of the throne, the four living creatures. One stood as a lamb,” the lamb of God, Jesus Christ. “He took the scroll out of the right hand of the Father who sits on the throne and he begins to open it."

Revelation 5:11 "I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, the elders, the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000,” 100 million “and thousands of thousands.” millions.

Where is the Holy Spirit as a person? Where is a Trinity God? It's just not there. In the mouth of two or three witnesses, everything is established. We see three times visions of the throne of God. It doesn't reveal a Trinity God. It reveals a Father, a Son. These are family relationships, family terms. And hundreds of millions of spirit beings.

The subject of the Trinity is really large. We've only scratched the surface of available literature. I've tried to put the emphasis on who and what God is and what the Bible reveals about God. How can we relate to God? Yes, we relate to God through music, through looking at his creation, the beauty that God has made, and the Bible gives us revelation that God is a loving family into which you and I can be born. Now, the Bible's use of familiar terms like father, son, brothers, sisters is deliberate and accurate. Mainstream Christian scholars know and history shows that Jerusalem Church of God of the Apostles did not teach a Trinity God. They just didn't. That idea came into the Catholic Church from preexisting nations and philosophies hundreds of years after the apostles through minority votes and several politically motivated conferences led by non-Christians, verses used by Trinitarians to try to support their error do not really show what they purport them to show.

I hope that after this presentation and after you also do your own study, that you can come up with a sort of short elevator speech, something that will...you can explain to people who ask because they will ask. They do ask, "Why don't you believe in the Trinity?" To give them something that comes from your heart, comes from your heart. And as I also said, we saw these three visions of God's throne in heaven and none, none show the Holy Spirit as a separate person as part of a three-in-one closed Trinity. I for one am happy to be able to relate to God as my father. My human father taught me to love the truth among other things. My heavenly Father teaches me that and so much more. God truly is a loving family into which we can be born as glorious sons and daughters and in which we can live happily ever after.