The Trinity

The Trinity doctrine represents that God exists in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It further teaches that these three persons are co-existent, co-equal, and co-eternal. The Bible, however, does not even imply that there are any “persons” in any Godhead, nor does the word Trinity ever appear. From beginning to end, the Bible repeatedly proclaims that GOD IS ONE. And the one God of the Old Testament is the very same God of the New Testament.

The Father is God, the Holy Ghost is God, and Jesus is God. How can these three be one, and not be three separate persons?

First of all, consider some attributes peculiar to God alone. We know that “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). Whatever else we believe about God must agree with God is a Spirit. “In the beginning God (God is a Spirit) created the heaven and the earth.” God is a Spirit and He is holy. He is, therefore, a Holy Spirit. We know that the Lord is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and He is invisible. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He fills the whole universe, He doesn’t take up space, and He has no mass. He is everywhere at once and we can’t see Him. Yet, for all of this, the Bible states that God created man in His OWN IMAGE. If God is an invisible Spirit, how did He create man in His own image? Maybe the answer to this riddle will give us a better understanding of God.

When God created man in His own image, Adam was the man He created. Exactly how, then, was Adam created in the image of God? Romans 5:14 states that Adam was patterned after Jesus. Even though Adam came 4000 years before Jesus, the Bible says Adam was “The figure of him that was to come.”

Well then, if Adam was created in the image of God and Adam was patterned after Jesus, is Jesus the image of God? Colossians 1:15 tells us that Jesus is indeed the IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD (God is a Spirit). Colossians 2:9 also tells us that all the fullness of the Godhead (Deity) dwells in Christ, bodily (flesh). And 2 Corinthians 5:19 says: “To wit, that God WAS IN Christ reconciling the world unto HIMSELF.” Now, what does this verse really tell us? God was in Christ. God (The invisible Spirit) was in Christ (the flesh) reconciling the world unto Himself. The Father was in the Son, Divinity was in humanity. In John 14:10, Jesus said, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. “ Hebrews 1:1-3 says it even plainer: Jesus is the EXPRESS IMAGE of God’s person.

One of the first things the Jews had to learn is recorded in Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear O Israel: the LORD our God is ONE LORD.” Jesus confirmed this in Mark 12:28-30 as the greatest commandment, and the scribes agreed in verses 32 and 33, saying, “None other but He.”

“The LORD” is translated from the Hebrew proper name, Jehovah. Let’s review a couple of Bible passages which show us that Jehovah was the only God of the Old Testament. Isaiah 43:3: “For I am the LORD (Jehovah) thy God, (Elohim)(God is a Spirit) the HOLY ONE of Israel, thy savior.” Isaiah 44:24: “Thus saith the LORD, (Jehovah) thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD (Jehovah) that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens ALONE; that spreadeth abroad the earth by MYSELF.”

So did God the Father have any help in the creation? Was Jesus there physically? Was He a separate divine person with the Father? Was He also omniscient and omnipresent? Was He an invisible Spirit, the Son of an invisible Spirit? Was He the eternal Son, as the Trinity doctrine declares? What eternal mother would have given birth to this Eternal Son? The Bible never refers to Jesus as the Eternal Son, but the Begotten Son. Eternal Son and Begotten Son are opposite terms. For that matter, Eternal and Son are mutually exclusive. Eternal means without beginning and without end. A son, on the other hand, could not exist until he was fathered by another. And to say that the Son is eternally begotten is simply ridiculous. Jehovah said that He made all things by Himself, alone.

And now, let’s get back to Jesus being the image and very person of God. We are told in Matthew 1:23: “And shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.” When was the one God of the Old Testament with us? And in what form? Now we see God (Jehovah, Divinity, Spirit, Invisible, Father) with us in the form of a man (lamb slain from the foundation of the world, made of a woman, made under the law).

The Father (invisible Spirit) robed Himself in flesh (body, Son). One God, One Person, One Body. I have a body, soul, and spirit, but I am only one person. 1 Timothy 2:5 states that there is one mediator between God and men, the MAN Christ Jesus. We see here that mediator refers to the humanity of Jesus. The distinction is not between persons, but between divinity and humanity, between the Eternal Spirit and the flesh. Jesus the man, was not God at all, but Jesus the Lord, was Jehovah Savior. Galatians 3:20 states: “Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but GOD IS ONE.” And 1 Timothy 3:16 tells us that GOD was manifest in the flesh. God (One, Spirit, Deity, Father) was manifest in the flesh (man, humanity, Son). Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 8:6, “But to us there is but ONE GOD, the Father.” So, who was manifest in the flesh? The Father.

God the Son wasn’t manifest in the flesh; there is no such thing as “God the Son.” That title is contrary to the Scriptures. God is a Spirit, the Son of God was a MAN. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, “Made of a woman.” He sent His Son into the world from the virgin Mary. He did not send Him from the Son’s throne in heaven. The “Son of God” did not exist before He was born in Bethlehem, except in the mind or plan of God.

Jesus actually did claim to be the Father. He said in John 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” He told Philip in John 14:9, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” In John 12:44, Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.” Let that soak in for a moment. Jesus said, “If you believe on Me, you’re not believing on Me (humanity), but on Him that sent Me (Divinity).” And finally, in John 8:19, some religious leaders asked Jesus to show them the Father. They asked Him point-blank, “Where is thy Father?” Jesus answered the question in John 8:24, “If ye believe not that I AM HE, ye shall die in your sins” He, who? He, the Father. “If you don’t believe that I am the Father, you will die in your sins.”

Die in your sins? Why? If you don’t believe that Jesus is the Father–the Spirit manifest in the flesh–you might believe that He is just the second person of some kind of a triune god-group. If you believe in three personal gods, you’d try to cover all your bases by being baptized in the three titles instead of in Jesus’ name. The idea is that if one is baptized only in the name of Jesus, the Father God and Spirit God may be offended. But, there is no remission of sins in the titles. Without remission you would, therefore, die in your sins.

If the apostles didn’t give us the Trinity, then who did? The same folks who gave us bowing to statues, counting repetitious prayers with beads, calling priests “Father,” and praying to a dead woman. All these things are opposed to the Bible. These things are gross sin. And to worship a triune conglomeration invented by men is idolatry. It robs God of His glory. The God of the Bible is the only true God. The three-in-one god invented in the early centuries is an idol because it is not the God revealed in the Bible. We might as well bow down to a golden calf as to worship a Trinity.

Jehovah, the God and Savior of the Old Testament, came to earth in a human body, and while He has used other names to reveal Himself in the past, in Jesus Christ He has made known His greatest name (Philippians 2:9). He was Jehovah-Shalom, our peace, and Jehovah-Jireh, our provider, but Jesus is “Jehovah Savior” or “Jehovah is become salvation.” Jesus encompasses all that God ever was or is. Jesus is our peace, our provider, our healer, our everything.

Even though God was in Christ when He walked the earth, it did not diminish His omnipresent Spirit that fills all things. It was also no great feat for the omnipresent Spirit to speak from heaven while Jesus, the man, was being baptized and the dove descended (which was just a sign for John the Baptist and not the identification of a person).

I guess the LORD, Jehovah, (prophesying about the Son that would be born 700 years in the future) sums it up pretty well Himself in Isaiah 52:6, “Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak; behold IT IS I.” Isaiah 26:19 is even clearer, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.” You can see this fulfilled in Matthew 27:52-53, “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection.” Jehovah, the One God of the Old Testament, referring to Jesus Christ said, “MY BODY”.

When the rich man of Luke 16 died, “in hell he lift up his eyes.” Who went to hell? The rich man. Bear in mind, though, that he didn’t take his body with him. The body was just the physical image of the rich man’s person. The rich man was in hell while his body went to the grave and the spirit that animated his body returned to God.

We are spirit beings living in bodies of flesh. Jesus was a spirit being living in a body of flesh. But, who was the person living in Jesus’ body? “God was in Christ;” “The Father that dwelleth in me,” and “God was manifest in the flesh.” We are not eternal, so before our bodies were born, we didn’t exist, but before God made His body, He was still the great “I AM.”

Adam was the figure of Him that was to come. Adam was created in the image of God. The image of God is Jesus. Adam’s body looked like God’s body. “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” (I Corinthians 15:47).

The apostle Paul knew that Jesus was Jehovah manifest in the flesh and not just Jehovah Jr. He wrote to the Ephesians, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6). Who is in you when you receive the Holy Spirit? The “Spirit” of Christ, the Father. God is a holy, invisible Spirit. Paul also wrote to Titus, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:13). The Son of God was a man, but Jesus was more than a Son and more than a man; He was Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus is our great God and Savior.

The confusion occurs because some people have tried to retrofit the Scriptures to prove that the one true God exists as three members of a race of gods. John 1:1 is used by Trinitarians to try to prove that Jesus was physically with God in the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “Word” here is translated from the Greek word “Logos,” which means thought or Divine Expression. “Word” does not translate SON or CHRIST. So when people wrongly substitute “Son” for “Word,” the verse reads: “In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was WITH God, and the Son was God.” They want this to mean that Jesus was a separate god person beside or WITH God the Father. This is to say that the Son was God “also.” “The Son was God but not the Father God. This is exactly how the Jehovah’s Witnesses got the idea that Jesus was “a god.” He is “a god,” but not “the God.”

The following are just a few passages that must be harmonized with John 1:1…

1. Deut. 6:4: The Lord our God is ONE LORD.
2. John 4:24: GOD IS A SPIRIT.
3. Isaiah 43:10-11: Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and BESIDE ME there is NO SAVIOR.
4. Isaiah 43:15: I am the Lord…the HOLY ONE.
5. Isaiah 44:6: I am the first, and I am the last; and BESIDE ME there is no God.
6. Isaiah 44:8: Is there a God BESIDE ME? Yea, there is NO GOD; I know not any.
7. Isaiah 44:24: I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens ALONE; that spreadeth abroad the earth BY MYSELF.
8. Deut. 32:39: I, even I, am he, and there is no God “WITH ” me.

We’ll go ahead and rewrite John 1:1, though, substituting “Son” for “Word,” but this time, we’ll also substitute “Father” for “God” the way the Trinitarians want it: “In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with the Father, and the Son was the Father.” Rewriting scripture is tricky business. The Word was God, Himself, not God also. The Word was God–God was the Word.

And now, verse 3: “All things were made by him.” Who made all things? The one God of the Old Testament…“In the beginning God…”

Verse 14: “And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Who was the WORD? God Himself. He is a Spirit, invisible, everywhere at once…The everlasting Father.

Verse 14 continued: “And we beheld his glory, the glory AS OF the only begotten of the Father.” Whose glory did we behold? God’s glory. How did we behold God’s glory? AS OF a Son. We did not behold God’s glory as of the supreme creator of the universe, but AS OF the only begotten of the Father. This is very clearly confirmed in Hebrews 1:1-3: “God…hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…” Whose glory? God’s glory. Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of God’s person.

Isaiah 9:6 declares that the Son would also be The everlasting Father. This is the only place in the King James Bible that the term Everlasting Father is used and it is attributed to Jesus. As surely as Jesus is the Prince of Peace, He is also the everlasting Father. God is a Spirit, the Son of God was a man–Jesus is both.

When Stephen was being stoned, he looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God (Acts 7:55). Did he see the Father sitting on His throne in all His glory and Jesus standing on His right hand? No, he couldn’t. The Father is an invisible Spirit that fills the universe. “No man hath seen God at any time.” He saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Standing on God’s right hand is figurative and merely shows Jesus in a position of authority. 2 Chronicles 16:9 says: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” This doesn’t literally mean that God has a big pair of eyes running all over the place. Likewise, an omnipresent, invisible Spirit would not have a literal right hand. The only person Stephen could possibly have seen was Jesus.

Then, notice how Stephen called on God: “Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He saw the brightness of God’s glory. He saw Jesus Christ. Then he called on God, but he called God by the name that is above every name, he called Him Jesus.

After the resurrection, the flesh and Spirit were permanently united in the glorified body of Jesus. Jesus said in Mat. 28:18: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” Jesus is now the head of all principality and power (Col. 2:10). All the fullness of the Godhead now dwells in Christ, bodily (The Bible never says that Christ is in the Godhead, but that the Godhead dwells in the body of Christ). Godhead simply means divinity; it isn’t some kind of a thing with persons in it. Indeed, Romans 1:20 speaks of “His Godhead,” “His Divinity” (possessive). And doesn’t this go hand-in-hand with 2 Corinthians 5:19, “God was in Christ”? The only God any of us will ever see is Jesus Christ. To Him shall every knee bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

What Jehovah was in the Old Testament, Jesus is in the New. Jehovah was the I AM, Jesus is the I AM. Jehovah was the King of Kings, Jesus is the King of Kings. Jehovah was the Redeemer, Jesus is the Redeemer. Jehovah created all things, Jesus created all things. And we could go on, and on, and on. Jesus is the express image of God’s person. When we call on God today, we call Him by His greatest name. Whatever we do in word or deed, we do in the name of Jesus. When John went up into heaven, in the book of The Revelation, he saw one throne and ONE that sat on the throne. He saw the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, The Almighty, and His name was Jesus.

Take a look at this 14th century depiction of the Trinity and say to yourself, “I BELIEVE IN ONLY ONE GOD – HE EXISTS IN THREE PERSONS.”

You don’t believe God is three individuals? Well, this is an accurate description of the Trinity. Read some of your church dogma or look it up in Webster. The Trinity doctrine really does claim that God exists in THREE PERSONS. A person is an entity, an individual, a being. The only way to say that the Trinity is one is like saying that the City Council is one. The City Council is made up of three human persons, but they are one council–one group of humans. The Trinity is made up of three god persons–one group of gods.

The following two copies are excerpts from the 1937 edition of WORLD’S POPULAR ENCYCLOPEDIA. Perhaps the modern doctrine was not as pervasive then. This references only one encyclopedia; the library is full of reference materials that will reveal false doctrine.

Greek thought? Greek Philosophy? Col. 2:9: “Beware lest any man Spoil you through Philosophy and vain Deceit…” The fully developed Trinity was the work of the early centuries. Polytheism is the belief in more than one God. The Trinity is not a mystery; it is a lie.

From the earliest times, Baptism was ESSENTIAL. TheTrinitarian formula has been questioned. Nobody in the church in the Bible was ever baptized in the three titles. The converts were always baptized in the name of Jesus. Nobody was baptized in the three titles until a couple hundred years after Christ.

The 1993 edition of GROLIER’S ENCYCLOPEDIA…

Three persons united, or joined together into one God, all, each, sharing.

And how about this? “The doctrine of the Trinity is post-scriptural.” Post-scriptural! After the Bible. Not in the Bible. How plain could it be? No matter how much people try to Christianize it, the Trinity is three gods in a one-god mask. The worship of triune or multiple gods has its roots in Babylonian paganism.

The proponents of the Trinity tell us that there are three divine persons, and this group of persons eternally joined up to be one God. The Bible says, “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God is ONE LORD.”

Perhaps one final point should be made before we leave the Trinity.

The Old Testament was written basically in the Hebrew language and the New Testament was primarily written in the Greek. Curiously, the word “Trinity” is derived from a Latin word. It didn’t come from the Old Testament prophets or the New Testament writers; it came from Rome.

The Trinity doctrine was not created in a corner, either. You can go to the library and discover the names of the men who invented it and when they introduced it into the churches. You can also discover that it took a few hundred years to fully develop.