The True God Series - God is Not a Trinity

(4) The True God - God is not a trinity - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RP-qVTqI4I

Transcript:
(00:01) Today I want to deal with I want to try to simplify another heresy which is the the most popular heresy there is which is that God is a trinity. It is the foundational teaching of modern Christianity mainstream Christianity both Catholics and Protestants. I know you guys know this well because I think we used to go to a Christian school that no longer lets us go there because we did not teach, preach or believe that God is a trinity and we were invited not to return.
(00:33) And so this is this is foundational for us to understand. But I would I would give you a bit more than that especially for anybody who's say under the age of 40. It is this doctrine that tore apart and began the foundation of the building of the church called the United Church of God. This was the doctrine that tripped up many many many people.
(00:56) You know there was 145ish thousand people in Worldwide Church of God in 1994. By the end of 1995 there was what 15,000 maybe maybe 18,000 in United Church of God who had left that organization. The rest, the vast majority of the rest who stayed simply did not agree anymore that God is a family.
(01:17) They accepted that God's a trinity. It had been preached status for three straight years. So unless you had a proper foundation, you might not have been able to withstand all of that. So I want to give us I want to simplify. It's why it's so important. This is what was the genesis of why I wanted to do the True God series to begin with because some people said to me privately, I'm not really all that familiar with this Trinity thing and what it's about and why it's what's wrong with it. Okay, fair enough.
(01:43) Let's deal with that today. Now, we do have a booklet on it. If you've read the booklet, if you read any of our materials online, you may draw the conclusion that there's a lot to this subject. And honestly, we do try to deal with every nuanced area and issue in all of our writings. And I'm not going to do that today.
(02:02) I like to simplify, give us a really firm foundation in what this is really about and show how it's not a biblical thing. And that should give you enough that you can on your own bolster the the learnings from today in your own studies. You just need a place to start and understand where it came from.
(02:21) I can't go all the way back to the mystery religion of Babylon because I don't have five sermons in a row here to do this today. I have just this amount of time. So, what I want to do instead is just cover the the roots of the Trinity teaching itself. Where did it come from? Uh, and and why is it a thing? I guess let's say it that way.
(02:37) So, where did it come from? Well, it's a man-made doctrine. That's where I want to begin. The Trinity is a man-made doctrine. It did not come from scripture. You will not find it in scripture. It came from a centuries long process of philosophical debate. There was quite a bit of theological confusion.
(03:02) You know, if you think about it, John was the last of the apostles and he died, we think around 100 AD. He was a contemporary of Christ. We think he was right around the same age. We don't know exactly, but if that's true, that puts him at about 100 years old when he dies. And so, you know, he writes his gospel and he writes first, second, and third John at the latter portion of his life.
(03:21) We think sometime in the '9s AD. He gets to look back over a long history of the church. Centuries, excuse me, decades of a church that's had been in existence. But after his death around 100 AD, I mean, his legacy was Polycarp. But then what? You know, you begin to move forward in time and it looks a lot like what happened after the death of Moses. Moses dies and who inherits the leadership of Israel? Well, it's Joshua.
(03:50) What happens after Joshua? Well, we have the book of Judges that shows us what happens after Joshua. And it's chaos, a cycle of chaos, rinse and repeat. Do we get to the end of the book and it says there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
(04:09) It's how we start the book of judges. It's how we end the book of judges. It's how 400 years of history goes down. And so John dies, we have Polycarp. And after that, what will we enter? The same kind of thing. A lot of confusion. And of course the rise of the Catholic Church, its teachings, what they often call dogma, which we find so often in conflict with the truth.
(04:40) So without this a apostolic guidance, doctrinal confusion spread and the church found itself wrestling with how to express the divine nature of Christ and the role of the Holy Spirit. But rather than holding to the clarity of scripture, many church leaders, this is we're talking now of the Catholic Church, began blending scripture with Greek philosophical concepts. I'm going to have some quotes for you today from historian JN D Kelly L- L Y.
(05:11) He explains uh from his book Early Christian Doctrines. He explains the pattern of Christian thought, this is now talking post uh apostolic Christian thought, the pattern of Christian thought was now largely cast in the mold of Greek philosophical ideas. In particular, the logos doctrine. We're going to get to that today.
(05:35) The logos doctrine owed a great deal of uh to stoic and platonic speculation. Platonic refers to Plato, the great well-known Greek philosopher. So the this resulted in a shift in vocabulary. So now we see from that time period we begin to see new terms called things like essence or substance or immaterial form. meaning that they're invented words or they're words applied to God that don't come from the Bible.
(06:03) They come from philosophy. Man's thinking. That's what philosophy is, is man's thinking. It's the simplest way I can put it. That's really what philosophy boils down to here. The New International Dictionary of the Christian Christian Church acknowledges and it says the following.
(06:20) Christian theology became more and more influenced by the philosophy of the Greco Roman world. Platonic and neoplatonic metaphysical concepts provided the tools and vocabulary for the formation of the doctrine of the trinity. So as doctrinal disputes increased, which it did, some teachers drifted into extreme views, there were two major heresies at this time that entrenched themselves in the Catholic Church. The first was called modelism.
(06:47) M O just like it sounds, M O D A L I Sm. modelism or selianism if you if that word strikes you. The idea that God is one person who simply appears in three different modes. Sometimes as the father, sometimes as the son, sometimes as the holy spirit. So this idea then goes back to the early second century that God is one being but in three manifestations if you will. That's called modalism.
(07:17) The second, so we think of it as a split in the church over two concepts with a middle ground of people not sure what the truth is. The other group called Aryanism. Aryan, A R I A N I Sm. So Aryanism is the claim that Christ was not eternal but was a created being, the first and highest creation of God, but not God. That's Aryanism.
(07:44) So in this church, this Catholic church professing to be the church of Christ, you have this big split in these two ideas. One God, three persons, Christ is created. They didn't agree with one another about the nature of God. Stanley Grants, a trinitarian theologian, says, "The doctrine of the Trinity was not formulated in the early church in the same way we now understand it.
(08:13) the language of substance which is yucia um o u s i a so substance a non-biblical term here and person hypoasis some of us remember that word uh going all the way back to the early 90s that word was shoved down our throats pretty hard pretty regular hypostasis meaning person so he says the language of substance and person was philosophical in origin.
(08:45) That's from theology for the community of God. So fast forward, we have a basic idea that there's a division in this organization called the Catholic Church. And they don't agree on these two major concepts trying to understand the nature of God. So we get to 3:25 AD and the council of Nika. This is I would say the initial or defining start to the adoption of the trinitarian doctrine.
(09:17) Roman emperor Constantine convened the council of Nya to resolve the growing dispute between Aras and Athanasius. These modalist or Aryanism views of the nature of God. And this was not a biblical council. You didn't have a group of people that all gathered around a round table, everybody with their Bible out and all, you know, searching the scriptures to figure out what to do about this and to really understand the nature of God. This is clean up your mess.
(09:49) I want a resolution. I don't care what it is. So, it was a politically driven event to restore unity to a fracturing empire. Constine was newly sympathetic to Christianity but he wanted harmony and theological disunityity was obviously a problem. This resulted in the council issuing the nyine creed. So the nyine creed also 325 AD declared the following. Christ is begotten not made.
(10:26) So they cleared up for the position of the Catholic Church that Christ is not a created being. They established that this would be the truth they would preach from now on that Christ is not a created being. He is begotten not made being of one substance with the father. Now one substance for them is a word called homouisius. Homucius, one substance not in the Bible.
(10:54) This word means of the same substance. And of course, it's not in our Bibles. It was borrowed directly from Greek philosophical thought. But the creed affirmed Christ's divinity, which is true. He is divine. He was the word who was God who became flesh. This is true. But how they defined this him as being the same substance of the father gave no distinction between him and the father.
(11:23) They were the same substance. The same being is what they attempted to declare there. But it wasn't fully accepted as a complete doctrine yet. This isn't really the Trinity doctrine yet because there's no mention of the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit's a person, clearly at some point you're going to have to deal with that. And obviously that was a part of the questions in the legacy of this creed, the nyine creed.
(11:54) So we fast forward to the council of Constantinople 381 AD. The Council of Constantinople. Now I want to give you just a back up a little bit to 380. In 380 AD, emperor the Roman emperor Theodosius I issued the edict of Thessalonica. The edict of Thessa Lonica declaring nyine Christianity the church that was recognized by um previously in 315 or 325 excuse me that church became now according by edict the official religion of the Roman Empire. It was called the nyine Christianity which later became known as Roman
(12:38) Catholicism. Okay. And here in 380 it now becomes the religion of the Roman Empire. Now this is extremely important to understand a number of things. There were certain positions that the nyine Christians held before 380 and then certain changes in those positions afterwards. For example, the church taught previously pacifism that serving in the military would lead to yielding weapons that could kill which would violate the commandment.
(13:16) Also, Christ's own example and his use of the sword, live by the sword, die by the sword. These sorts of New Testament concepts which argued against violence and murder in particular in war. This was a part of the dogma of this organization. Well, if you're go so being rec, this is a the great thing about this in terms of if you just look politically at this in 380 AD, you have the Roman Empire.
(13:43) You have a lot of members of that empire which are part of the Catholic Church and you have somebody who comes from the east who's trying to establish himself over the whole empire. And if he could align himself with an organization that had a lot of members which were a part of that empire, you end up achieving your goals faster, which is what he did.
(14:01) So he recognized the Catholic Church as the church of Rome. Every member of Rome, every citizen was required to be a member of that church and no other church. That was your church. And if you weren't a part of that church, you were a heretic. Heretics got to be killed. That came a little later, but not much. If we understand this is the foundation.
(14:27) This is what leads up to 381 where we have this symbiotic relationship that's forged between the church and the state. The church benefits because now everybody's got to be a member. The state benefits because we've got all these members under the control of the church. So if the church says to do something, tada, big win.
(14:46) Well, except we've got this problem. The problem is you you teach pacifism and I need a military. You cannot do that. Interesting to note, as you'll see, that after this, theologians, scholars, leaders of the Catholic Church began to change their teaching and declare that it was no longer a sin to serve in the military, that God had purposes for that which were which made it right when it was declared holy by the church.
(15:14) So the church, it was at this time, 4th century, when the church changed its position on pacifism. And you'll see it's there was no pacifism taught after this. There was almost exclusively pacifism taught before this. Most people don't really understand this change happened and why it happened.
(15:36) Now we get to 381 and there's still a problem in the church. I want a unified church is what Theodosius wanted. A unified church. But I don't have that because I still have this infighting of these people over the nature of God. In particular, the church was wrestling with the role of the Holy Spirit.
(15:59) You can imagine over time how one set of beliefs gets morphed and corrupted and, you know, more complex and more difficult because it's not biblical. And so anybody's ideas are as good as anybody else's if we're all just theorizing about what these things mean, especially when it looks at the Godhead from a non-biblical perspective, from a philosophical perspective.
(16:19) So to settle this issue, Theodosius convened the council of Constantinople in 381, bringing together bishops to finish what Nika started. So we see the work started at Nika but did not finish there. Here is where we're going to resolve the outstanding issues. So at this council, the bishops formally declared that the Holy Spirit was fully divine, a distinct person, and equal to the father and the son. and no one turned to their Bible.
(16:51) It was declared to be so. So now the trinity is no longer assumed. It is the official position of the church. One God in three persons, father, son, and holy spirit. Co-equal, co-eternal, co-substantial. This is the dogma. But again, not the re the result of revelation or biblical discovery.
(17:26) It's the result of centuries of debate influenced by non-biblical philosophy and sanctioned by the imperial authority, the Roman Empire. Alvin, his name is Alvin, A L V-n, Lamson in the church of the first three centuries, wrote, "The modern doctrine of the trinity is not found in any of the creeds of the first three centuries. And it was not until the fourth century that it took its place among the dogmas of the church.
(17:53) " And of course after this, once it was fully established, the trinity doctrine became the test of orthodoxy. If you don't accept it, you're not a Christian. You're a heretic. Those who disagreed were labeled heretics. Councils passed laws. Emperors issued edicts. Bishops enforced conformity. This is the union of the church and state.
(18:24) So after that the church began to suppress, persecute and even execute those who clung to the biblical view of God is a family of two persons, two different beings, the father and the word. And that the power of this that this holy spirit was a power and not a person. Those people began to be persecuted and even murdered.
(18:46) Will Durant the story of civilization Caesar and Christ Christianity. This is a quote. Christianity did not destroy paganism. It adopted it. Greek language, Greek philosophy, and Greek culture entered into the Christian church. The Greek apologists were not content to use scripture to defend their faith.
(19:11) They borrowed freely from Plato and the Stoics. Adolf Hornac in history of dogma wrote, "The church took Greek metaphysics and made it the framework for its doctrine." Dogma in its conception and development is a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel. So as simply as I can explain it to you without making this too big of a thing to try to explore, we really only need a few events to see what happened and to understand that there was a teaching that began to form as the root of mainstream Christianity. A doctrine that had never existed before
(19:50) was formalized in 381. The doctrine called the Trinity, which represents God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three persons in one being. Nowhere in all of that history does the Bible support that. Nor did they rely on the Bible. They relied on the Stoics, Greek philosophers, Greek thinking.
(20:18) The Bible reveals something much clearer and far more personal. We see a father who is the source of all life. We see a son, the word who was from the beginning with God and was God. and we see the spirit not a third person but the shared power of both this is what we know from scripture so how did how did they justify in scripture and this is what's I think particularly interesting is that a lot of people are innocent in this if you think about it does the average person who's told that God is a trinity dive deeply into God being a trinity to see
(20:54) whether or not God is really a trinity or not or do they accept it as a Christian in mainstream Christianity and I think the latter. So, I'm not throwing stones at anybody here, but to convince the masses, you probably need more than a quote from a stoic philosopher. And so, a lot of work has gone in to try to using the scriptures to explain something that's non-biblical in origin.
(21:18) So I want to tackle today in the last half of this message uh five I think maybe six scriptures used taken out either out of context or misinterpreted to try to justify the doctrine called the Trinity. And we're going to see that they don't it's not only that they don't do that, but they say something entirely different than what is claimed that they say.
(21:49) And this is what's important for us to to know as we're going through our Bibles to employ those rules of Bible study to know whether or not these things are being treated correctly, these scriptures. So, I'm going to begin in Matthew 28: Matthew 28 and verse 19. This is called the great commission. Jesus Christ here with his disciples before he ascends to the father gives them instructions where he says in verse 19 of Matthew 28 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. It is cited as one of the clearest proofs of the trinity.
(22:33) See, we have the father, the son, and the holy spirit. And we have this phrase in front of that that says in the name of. See, that's telling us that the godhead includes these three persons is the argument. But there are two major problems with that conclusion.
(22:57) The Greek text is mistransated and misrepresented in most English versions. And number two, the biblical context and usage of this phrase does not support the trinity. In fact, they teach something entirely different. So let's look at this phrase in the name. The original Greek phrase is ice to on e i s space t o space o n o m a ice to anoma. You might recognize ice as you see it a part of a word called is a Jesus.
(23:31) Okay. So ice means something different than in. How it's translated here. It means into. And I'll show you what I what I mean by that here. The word is a preposition that is directional. It literally means into conveying the idea of movement toward something or entering into a state, a position or relationship with someone.
(23:57) This is what this word implies. It's a different word if you want to say in as in I instead of into the word I is the Greek word en just plain en and it means in. If Jesus had meant simply in the name referring to authority or representation that what he's describing represents the godhead then he would have used em.
(24:28) Instead he uses eis into direction focused on placing into a relationship by using eis. Christ was not prescribing a formula but describing a spiritual transition. Baptism. Notice how that scripture read. Baptism brings the believer into a relationship with God and into the family of God. Notice the command. Go therefore, make disciples.
(24:55) This is the command to the disciples. Make more disciples of all the nations. How? Baptizing them into a relationship. That's what it is saying. That is literally what it means. Baptizing them into the name of the father and the son and of the holy spirit. This is a relationship that we enter into.
(25:25) It is not a definition for the nature of God. Nothing in this passage defines the nature of God as three persons in one essence. That interpretation is imported into. That's what isogesis means to read into the text. That's why when you talk about good Bible study techniques, we talk about exogesis where we read out of the scripture.
(25:49) The scripture tells us what it says. We don't tell it what it means. It tells us, the Bible tells us what it means. So, we don't read our interpretations in. But that's exactly what they have done here to read into it an interpretation that doesn't exist. So, Jesus here is really just listing three aspects of the believer's new relationship.
(26:09) The father, which is the source and sovereign to whom we now belong. The son, our redeemer and mediator. and the Holy Spirit, which is the power and presence of God now at work within the baptized person. The means by which we're brought into the relationship with the Father and the Son. So, when we already know that God's a family, that's not complicated to understand.
(26:33) We know that they want us to be in a relationship with them for all eternity. That God is a family and that that's our destiny. There is no suggestion that these three are co-equal, co-eternal persons of a single being. And there is no philosophical language here. The text does not say these three are one.
(26:59) It simply names the three-fold relationship a baptized person now enters into. And of course, the biblical practice doesn't support a trinitarian formula. Because this is striking. If we read the specific instruction, the way that it's interpreted wrongly that they were supposed to baptize in the name of the Godhead. That's how they're interpreting that.
(27:25) In the name of the Godhead, which includes these three beings, the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Okay. So, turn with me over to Acts chapter 2. The very person, one of the very people that Christ was talking specifically to was Peter. So, what did Peter do? And what did he say had to be done? In verse 38 of Acts chapter 2, Peter says, "Then Peter said to them, repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
(28:00) " How come he doesn't say in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit? Isn't that what Jesus Christ told him that they must do? And doesn't this mean that he is not complying with his instructions from Christ? If all he says is, "I baptize you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ," what's the matter with you, Peter? Like, you would think that God is not going to honor that if that's outside the bounds, if if he's disobediently doing it this way.
(28:30) And yet, we know that 3,000 souls were baptized in it and became a part of the family of God that day. Like, that's an amazing thing if Peter was not doing what he was supposed to do. But that's not the only instance. Turn over to Acts chapter 8. You'll remember previously that Philip was ordained as a deacon, hands laid on him, and he was ordained to the office of deacon. And we get to Acts chapter 8, we realize that he's gone on a baptism tour up into Samaria.
(28:58) And and so, do they receive the Holy Spirit? No, they do not. Peter and John are sent there to what? Lay hands on them. Philip had no authority to lay hands and he did not lay hands. He simply baptized them for the remission of sin. Yet they had to have hands laid on them.
(29:20) And we get to verse 16 here and it says, "For as yet it had fallen on upon none of them." All those that Philip had baptized, they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So shame on Philillip for not baptizing in the name of the father, of the son, and of the holy spirit. He only baptized them in the name of the lord Jesus.
(29:44) So did Christ tell them that they were supposed to be saying these things because they form the godhead or that they are the basis of the relationship the baptized person enters into? Last one here for example is Acts chapter 10 and verse 48. again dealing with Peter, this naughty guy. Acts 10:48, because this is the case where Peter is summoned to the house of the gentile, the commander of the Roman legion. What was his problem? He wanted to be baptized, but he was a gentile.
(30:20) And Peter thinks, remember this is the episode in which the blanket comes down with all manner of creeping crawling things. And Peter says, "I'm not going to eat that stuff. I've never eaten anything unclean." And he's led to understand by this episode that God is not that God is calling Gentiles equal to the Jews into the church.
(30:40) And that the Jews were no longer to call the Gentiles unclean. They had a right to be at the same table as the Jews in the church. And so Peter recognizes this because they received the Holy Spirit the same way that the disciples did on in Acts chapter 2 and he says here and he commanded them verse 48 and he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.
(31:06) These are Gentiles. What do they know about God and the son and the spirit? You know the Gentiles worshiped a pantheon of gods. Here, Peter has an opportunity to set these guys straight. God is a trinity. Let me prove that to you by baptizing you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, just like Christ told me to do so that you'll understand that. And yet, he doesn't do that.
(31:36) He baptizes them in the name of the Lord. Why do you think that was? If Jesus had meant baptizing in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit to be recognition of the nature of the godhead, surely Peter would have done that so that they would properly receive the Holy Spirit, which he and his fellow apostles had received.
(32:02) Surely he would have obeyed Christ. But they did not violate his words. They obeyed his intent to bring people into relationship with the father. Which is why the word into the name is used, not in the name. And this is foundational for our understanding of how the scripture has been misinterpreted to defend a belief that is not biblical.
(32:29) We are not baptized in the name of a trinity. We are baptized into a relationship with the father and the son through the power of the holy spirit. which is now indwelling after baptism. The second scripture I want to deal with is first John 5. 1 John 5 verse 7. If you have the King James Bible or the New King James Bible, they essentially say something similar here.
(33:11) It says, "For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." Well, if you're a Trinitarian defender, you know you're going to lean heavy on this scripture. It says exactly what you want it to say. These three are one. Thus endeth the case.
(33:33) I don't need to go any further. But there's a problem with that because this verse isn't in the writings of John. This was added. Can you guess when it might have been added? What happened around 381? The council of Constantinople in which the trinity doctrine was established. And not long after that, we find a note written in the Latin Vulgate that says this that adds this and it later becomes incorporated in scripture. It was not originally there.
(34:17) It's known as the Joe I think I'm saying this right. Johanine comma. The Johannine comma. It does not exist in any Greek early Greek manuh manuscript. It was inserted in the Latin Vulgate sometime around the 4th century, likely as a marginal note that eventually found its way into the main text.
(34:40) Note the timing, sometime after the Council of Constantinople in 381, which declared that God was a trinity. Textual scholars have long recognized this insertion as a later corruption. It was not present in either any known Greek manuscript before the 14th century. It was not in any writings of the early church fathers when they quoted first John. It's not in any major manuscripts.
(35:04) It doesn't exist. Even the editors of the New King James Version acknowledge this in a footnote. Quote, only four or five very late Greek manuscripts contain these words in Greek. Even Trinitarian scholars recognize this addition as illegitimate. Reading from Bruce Mezer, a textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, he writes, "There is no doubt about the spirious nature of the passage.
(35:37) It appears in no Greek manuscript before the 14th century and is not quoted by any of the Greek fathers. It's made up. It's invented. It's inserted. In fact, many modern translations leave it out. The New International Version leaves it entirely out. So does the English Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, Christian Standard Bible, Young's Literal uh Translation, and many others do the same thing.
(36:11) There's just a few there's there is a few that will quote italicized while these don't quote it at all. But let me for those who want to make a note about what is actually added. Let me tell you exactly what's added because you can put a parenthesis in your Bible around the exact portion that's added. So where you see let's let's let's read here from verses 6 through8. It says this is he who came by water and blood.
(36:35) Jesus Christ not only by water but by blood by water and blood. And it is the spirit who bears witness because the spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven. That is where you stop. There are, excuse me, where you want to stop here is there are three that bear witness.
(37:01) Okay? Before the word in heaven in before that is where you would put your first parenthesy so that you note what was added because the addition begins here. This is the addition language. in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one. And there are three that beared witness on the earth. That's the entirety of what was added.
(37:29) Okay, one more time. It said, this is what's added in heaven, the Father, the Word, the Holy Spirit, and these three are one, and there are three that bear witness on earth. All of that is added. So that if you take that out, what does it read? And it is the spirit who bears uh witness because the spirit is truth.
(37:49) For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, the water, and the blood. And these three agree as one. That's the actual writings of John. very important that we just understand something so obvious as that was added into it and is not in any of the original manuscripts.
(38:17) It is not a part of what John actually wrote which makes it a spurious addition, a false edition, a patently untrue addition. Now I want to deal with the third scripture I that one that honestly that's all you have to know about that that was added end of story. It does not say what they say that it says. Next one, John 1:1. We went through this meticulously when we were looking at Christ who was not a created being.
(38:42) We began here as we looked at who he was before there was such a thing as creation because it says in the beginning, John 1:1, in the beginning was the word. Not after the beginning. He was there already at the beginning. And the word was with God and the word was God. And of course they want to say that see the word was God.
(39:15) And they want to claim that that proves that Jesus is one of the three persons of the triune God. But that's actually not what it says nor what it means. So let's look at this piece by piece. In the beginning was the word. Of course, that echoes what we read in Genesis 1:1, right? In the beginning, Alohim, which is God's created.
(39:37) There was more than one God. Therefore, the beginning of any creation, there were more than one God. Doesn't tell us how many. Genesis doesn't tell us how many either, but John does. John says that there is God and there is the word who was with God and was God. But was he the God? If they're the same, then he'd have to be the God, wouldn't he? Same as God is God. He'd have to be the God like God is the God if they're the same.
(40:10) But that's not what it actually says. It's just telling us that the word existed in the beginning, not after it. He already existed. Now the next phrase and the word was with God and this is a critical distinction because the word was with you cannot be with yourself. Okay? If you're driving alone, you're not with yourself.
(40:35) If you're driving with your spouse, you're with someone or your sister, you're with them. You're with another person, you're not with yourself. You can't be with someone if you are that someone. In the Greek, the phrase is I'll give it to you. You might not like it. Kai logos enroontheon.
(40:59) Just if you're really interested, look it up later. There's some important words in here. Proton Theon is a really important phrase. The word pros denotes close proximity, intimate relationship, or direct interaction. It doesn't imply same person. It means face to face with. So the word was distinct from God yet in a perfect harmony or in relationship with God. That's what that means.
(41:26) And that of course is consistent with the biblical understanding that there were two divine beings at the beginning. The father and the word who became the son. Now this is the problem the problematic one. It says and the word was God. That's the translation. And the word was God. And this is where confusion enters because the Greek, remember what the Greek read, ka theos.
(41:51) This is how it reads. Kai theos enhogos. It's out there. So if you listen to this later, you're going to be like, great. Now I can write it down. Okay, it's kaios nhologos. What does all that mean? Well, kai means and. Ki means and. It doesn't mean the. It means and. There's no definite article. The definite article would be the kaitheos means and god. It doesn't mean the god.
(42:20) It means and god. And then enhos means was the word. So correctly read exactly as it's written. It would say and god was the word. Not the god was the word. You see the difference. Or that the word was the god. It doesn't say that. So this structure tells us that this statement is not one of identity. The word was with God and the word was God.
(42:52) Even many Trinitarian scholars admit this is not a statement of numerical identity but of quality of essence. The word shared the divine nature of God but was not the same person as the God he was with. The New English Bible captures this. I think captures this very nicely. Here's how it renders this its translation.
(43:14) What God was, the word was. It gives you that same sense. This is talking about form and function. But whatever God was, so was the word, not the same person. If John were trying to establish the Trinity, the foundational doctrine of mainstream Christianity, he literally failed to mention the third member of it. You read through the whole thing.
(43:40) Where does it introduce the spirit, the Holy Spirit, as the third member of this triune God? Well, it's not here. So, this was kind of fun. I had some fun with this because here's homework for you. Go through and and read every just the introduction to every epistle written by Paul. Just read just the introductions and tell me if he even one time gives an honorific to the Holy Spirit.
(44:08) The honorific is the recognition of office and authority. The honorific that's owed to God the father and his son Jesus Christ. Is it ever given to the Holy Spirit? If the Holy Spirit is God, as the father is God, as the son is God, Paul did the greatest slight, the greatest irreverence that can be done.
(44:33) He did not give an honorific to the third person of the Godhead. Not once. John in telling us if this supposedly tells us that the God is a trinity, John fails in the same regard. He gives no honorific to the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit is God as God is God, why would that God be okay with the disrespect? It makes no sense, does it? And when you walk through Paul's writings and you see time and again, from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
(45:12) From God the Father and Christ our Lord. From God the Father and Christ our Lord, never mentioning the Holy Spirit. Sorry, that is a high offense to the great God who is deserves our honor and worship and praise to ignore a third member of that. It's it's inconceivable. It's inconceivable that God would be okay with that. So, that's your homework to research that and prove that I'm wrong.
(45:39) All right. Number four. I didn't give you numbers, but I have been giving you scripture. So, we're going to go next to John 14. John chapter 14. Well, we're in the book of John. So, now let's just go over to chapter 14. This is also famously used to say, see, the Holy Spirit is a person.
(46:05) Reading in verses 16 and 17, John 14. Verses 16 and 17. It says, "And I will pray the father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you." Okay, one more. Verse 26. same chapter 14 verse 26.
(46:35) But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. So obviously these are quoted to show that the Holy Spirit is a distinct divine person. It's called he. You see it very plainly in your scriptures, don't you? Trinitarians point to the masculine pronouns he and him as evidence of personhood.
(47:10) But anybody who speaks a foreign language understands English doesn't use genderbased nouns. I know that Spanish does. I know for I know German does. I know Italian does and French does. I know Greek does. And the New Testament is written in Greek. And so the root words are Greek and the Greek uses genderbased nouns. And so the noun that's translated as comforter or helper.
(47:42) It's it's helper in the New Test in the New King James and I believe it's comforter in the King James version. That word is paracletos. A masculine noun. Pericletos is a masculine noun. You know what else is a masculine noun? Hographus. Hog gravis is a masculine noun. You know what that is? It's a pencil. Would we say that the pencil has any kind of personhood to it? No.
(48:14) And so what's challenging is the translation. How do you translate a masculine noun from one language into a non-genderbased language like English? Well, if you have an objective to suggest that the Holy Spirit is a person, you might be using the he's and hims version of that in English because we don't have gender-based nouns. So, we would say it,
(48:40) wouldn't we? It's not a person. So, we would say it. I would say of the pencil, it's a pencil. And if it fell off my desk, I would say it fell off the desk. But in Greek, it would say he fell off the desk. Or the paper. You know what paper is? The paper is hechartis. Forgive me if I've mispronounced that. He chartes. It's a feminine noun. Paper is a feminine noun.
(49:07) So you would you would say in the Greek, I wrote on her. In English, we'd say, I wrote on it, the paper. So, we can see clearly that gender-based nouns have nothing to do with personhood regardless of what they are. Masculine, feminine, or neuter are simply forms that must be adhered to within the language.
(49:30) In Greek, pronouns must match the grammatical gender of the noun they refer to, even if the object is not a person. So, is this in fact proof that the Holy Spirit is a person? No. You know why? What's fun about that is when we read in verse 26, the word Holy Spirit, that word spirit is numa. It's a neuter or neutral noun. It has no gender. But we still see it called whom the father will send.
(50:02) That's bias in interpretation, in translation. It's not proof that the Holy Spirit is person. It's simply a language problem. And we ought to be honest about that when we're doing our Bible studies. Okay. Last, I want to touch briefly on Genesis 126. This is the last one. Genesis 1:26. There are others, but everything gets weaker after this. Genesis 1 26.
(50:29) You're familiar with this. It says, "Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish and of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
(50:53) So let us make man in our image according to our likeness must mean that God's a trinity except I don't see quantity here. Right? You if you're looking for quantity I don't see it. I just see us. And us can be two people as we see from John 1:1 that it is the father and the word. Or it can mean more. I mean my mom moved in with us back in May.
(51:18) So, if I said we're coming to dinner, it might mean three of us, but more than likely it's going to be me and Becca cuz she's not here. So, I don't know how that would happen. So, you understand my point. This doesn't talk about quantity. We have no idea how many are here except that John 1:1 tells us how many are here. Two. No mention of the Holy Spirit. So, we know that this is talking about the Father and the Word.
(51:38) Before any creation was made, they were creating together and they made man in their image. The idea of the Trinity is built on human tradition, on centuries of philosophy, on councils and on creeds, on declarations, but not on the Bible. And what we've seen today is that the most commonly cited proofs of the Trinity either don't say what people think they say or in some cases don't belong in the Bible at all.
(52:16) What I love about the truth is it's always much simpler. It's always just easier when God because it's divinely revealed you. That's why we understand it. And it always is simple to understand. God is a family. He's not a closed group of three. That's what the trinity does. It says that here is God complete in three persons. There will be no more in this family.
(52:41) This is it. And if you truly interpret it for what it is, it's not a family. It cannot be a family because it's one God in three persons. you your brain can't handle that, which is why you don't ever find any really good explanations of it because your brain can't process what's trying to be suggested about that. See, it doesn't make sense.
(53:06) It all breaks down if you just apply the most basic logic to the question. It can't stand up to scrutiny. God is not a closed circle of three persons. He is a father. He has a son. And together, they share their presence and power through the Holy Spirit. And through that spirit, they're building a family. We've been offered a place in that family, adopted sons and daughters at the return of Jesus Christ to become members of that family. God is not a trinity. God is a family.