- Acts 20:24, 25: “The grace of God revealed in Christ is the subject of the Good News. It is evident from a comparison of this verse with the next (v. 25) that the preaching of this Gospel of grace is identical with the proclamation of the Kingdom. The proclaiming of the Kingdom is the same as testifying to the good news of God’s grace, v. 24.” F.F. Bruce, Commentary on the Greek Text of Acts, 1949, p 379, 380
- "It must be admitted by everyone who has the rudiments of an historical sense that the doctrine of the Trinity formed no part of the original message. St. Paul did not know it, and would have been unable to understand the meaning of the terms used in the theological formula on which the Church ultimately agreed." Dr. W.R. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul’s, God in Christian Experience, p. 180
- "As remarkable, is the enormous prominence given by Jesus to the teaching of what he called the Kingdom of God, and its comparative insignificance in the procedure and teaching of most of the Christian churches. This doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, and which plays so small a part in the Christian creeds, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought. Is it any wonder that to this day this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?" H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, vol. 1, p. 426
- That the Messiah himself existed before creation is nowhere stated in the Tannaitic literature …"The name of the Messiah is the idea of the Messiah, or more exactly the idea of redemption through the Messiah. This idea did precede creation." (Klausner, Messianic Idea, p. 460; see Strack-Billerbeck II, pp. 334ff., Mowinkel, He That Cometh, p. 334; Vermes, Jesus, pp. 138f.) James Dunn, Christology in the Making, Second Edition, p. 294 note 37.
- "Most of those who profess and call themselves Christians, both in this country and in the rest of the world, are in the habit of saying that Jesus is God. It is taught by the creeds. The average Englishman holds this opinion in a vague and loose sort of way. He has not thought out exactly what he means by it. So he carries about with him in his mind four propositions: 1. Jesus Christ is God. 2. God is our heavenly Father. 3. Jesus Christ is not our heavenly Father. 4. There are not two Gods. Yet he has never considered how to reconcile these four separate opinions of his together. It has probably not occurred to him that they are inconsistent with one another…The average Englishman has not troubled himself with the matter." Richard Armstrong, Trinity and Incarnation, 1904
- "In his birth narrative however Luke is more explicit than Matthew in his assertion of Jesus’ divine sonship from birth (1:32, 35; ...). Here again it is sufficiently clear that a virginal conception by divine power without the participation of any man is in view (1:34). But here too it is sufficiently clear that it is a begetting, a becoming, which is in view, the coming into existence of one who will be called, and will in fact be the Son of God, not the transition of a pre-existent being to become the soul of a human baby, or the metamorphosis of a divine being into a human foetus… Luke’s intention is clearly to describe the creative process of begetting …Similarly in Acts there is no sign of any christology of preexistence." James Dunn, Christology in the Making, Second Edition, p. 50-51
- "For Matthew and Luke there was no thought of preexistence or incarnation associated with the mystical dogma of the virgin birth. The fact is that virgin birth and preexistence cannot be reconciled. A preexistent being who becomes man reduces himself to the state of a human embryo, but he is not conceived [or begotten] by action exterior to himself in the womb of a woman. Conception is the point at which an individual is formed who did not exist before at least as an individual." A. Reville, D.D., History of the Dogma of the Deity of Christ, 1905, p. 43
- "Therefore the holy thing begotten in you will be called the Son of God." "By the word ‘therefore’ the angel alludes to his preceding words: he will be called the son of the Highest. We might paraphrase it: ‘And it is precisely for this reason that I said to you…’ We have then here, from the mouth of the angel himself, an authentic explanation of the term SON of GOD, in the former part of his message. After this explanation Mary could only understand the title in this sense: a human being of whose existence God Himself is the immediate author. It does not convey the idea of preexistence." Godet on Luke 1:35
- "No responsible New Testament scholar would claim that the doctrine of the Trinity was taught by Jesus, or preached by the earliest Christians, or consciously held by any writer of the New Testament." A.T. Hanson, The Image of the Invisible God
- "‘raised up’ – that is by raising him up in the sense in which he raised David (v. 22). For anistemi in this sense, see 3:22; 7:37; 3:26 (‘raised him up and sent him’). The promise of v. 23, the fulfillment of which is described in 13:33, has to do with the sending of the Messiah, not his resurrection (for which see v. 24). The addition of ‘from the dead’ in v. 34 differentiates this use of ‘raise up’ from its use in v. 33." F.F. Bruce, Acts of Apostles, Commentary on Greek text
- "The title ‘Son of God’ is not in itself a designation of personal deity or an expression of metaphysical distinctions within the Godhead. Indeed to be a ‘Son of God’ one has to be a being who is not God"… Colin Brown, "Trinity and Incarnation," Ex Auditu, 7, 1991
Taken From: http://www.kingdomready.org/theologicalpapers/2007%20Buzzard%20presentation.pdf
