The
False Teaching
The Catholic
View: The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central
doctrine of the Christian religion -- the
truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly
distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed:
"the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet
there are not three Gods but one God."
Per
Billy Graham: The Bible shows very clearly that there is only one
God, and yet that there are three personal distinctions in His complex
nature, traditionally referred to as "three Persons in the Godhead"
-- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Each is distinct from the others but never acts independently.
A
Baptist View: Our God is also utterly unique from the theological
conceptions of all other religions, for the Bible reveals him to be a
Trinity of three eternal persons, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, and yet still one — a unity. Indeed the biblical
witness is clear: whatever it is that constitutes God as God, the
Father is all of this, the Son is all of this and the Holy Spirit is
all of this. But, there is still only one God, distinct in person “but
without division of nature, essence or being.”
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Exposing
the Error
First,
some simple facts: 1) To define this doctrine, one must apply three
terms: godhead, trinity, and person to the deity. The
first two are entirely absent from the Bible, the third present only as
applied to men: 2) It has its origin in the Athanasian
- Arian controversy in the early Fourth Century and was stated first at
the Council of Nicea, three hundred years after Jesus introduced the
complete gospel. 3) Athanasius made it clear, at the Council, that if Christ and the Holy Spirit were
not of one substance with the Father, Polytheism would triumph*,
thus indicating that it was intended as a means of distinguishing
Christianity from Polytheism - lest the Christians be found to worship
three gods and be no better than the competition. Second, The sayings of Jesus are the fount of all
spiritual Truth.He said: If you continue in my word ... you will
know the truth....(Jn 8:31,32). The Trinity can't be found there and thus
has no place in Truth. Third, the few words of the Lord that
men have cited to support the doctrine fail to do so (see col.3)
but are read back to support what Jesus did not teach. One such saying
is the phrase from Matt. 28:19:. .
baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with
focus on the singular of name.
This is a forced idea that need be
no more mysterious than that of a man giving his name to his
wife and children.
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Declaring
the Truth
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, `I said,
you are gods'? If he called them gods
to whom the word of God came,...
do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world,
`You are blaspheming,' because I said, `I am the Son of God'?
(Jn.
10:34,36). I and the Father are
one. (Jn. 10:30) I
do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that
they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in
thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe
that
thou hast sent me.The glory which thou hast given me I have
given to them, that they may be one
even as we are one, I in
them and thou in me, that they may become
perfectly one,(Jn.
17:20-23)To state the obvious, all
who receive the Word of God, spoken by Jesus, become gods, and enter
into perfect oneness with the Father that is the same as that
of the Father and Son. The doctrine that defines three persons in one
God is therefore false. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are
first among many in the divine family. A child of humans is born of
humans and is a human; just so, a child of God is born of God and is a
god who, on earth, is
an humble servant so as to be exalted in heaven. more
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