A truthseeker by the name of Keith Dyer has recently come to
the knowledge of the truth that:
- there is solely ONE GOD, the Father
- and the Lord Jesus Christ is the ONE GOD's human Son
In light of this, he has written some wonderful blogs promoting what
the Scriptures truly say.
Here (and the following blog) are two samples for
you to enjoy:
(edited by me for emphasis)
Three in One is a great lubricant ...
When did otherwise rational people start believing that three persons equals one God? When and how did otherwise reasonable people begin accepting the idea that one does not really mean one? Let's face it, what if I tried to give a dollar bill as payment for merchandise costing $3 and told the cashier that even though it looked like only $1, it was actually worth $3? What would happen? Well, perhaps if the cashier was in a good mood, he or she might chuckle in disbelief and wait for the other $2. The fact is, no thinking person accepts that kind of math when it comes to money, or anything else! Why then do otherwise normal people accept it when it comes to the subject of God?
For over 35 years, as a Christian and student of the Bible, I never seriously considered that the doctrine of the Trinity could be false. My parents believed it, their parents believed it, my Pastors believed it, my Bible teachers and professors believed it; why, even many non-Christians believe it, or at least accept it. Like the majority of Christians today, I accepted this doctrine without question as the truth about the nature of God. The basis of this acceptance on such a wide scale seems to be rooted in the notion that it's simply a mystery and that God's ways are “past finding out” (Job 9:10; Rom 11:33). We must accept it by faith since no one can expect to understand God in His totality! To question this divine revelation of "three Who's which equal one What", as suggested by the Bible Answer Man Hank Hanegraaff, simply because it makes no logical sense, is futile and faithless. But is that right? Is that how we should view the subject of the revealed nature of God? Is that actually what the Bible teaches? I don't think so!
Part of my “paradigm shift” concerns this Trinitarian concept of God.
Until recently (roughly August '08) I believed in God the
Father God the Son and God the Spirit, the three persons of the Trinity. I sang
the songs passionately, extolling the three in one and listened to the sermons
referencing the three in one without bending an eyebrow. I was well
aware that it made no sense, but I was content to be confused along
with everyone else. When confronted with the irrationality of it, I consoled
myself with the usual analogies of water, ice and steam, or depth width and
height, or past, present and future, and of course the standard tripartite
nature of man, body, soul and spirit. But one day those ideas just didn't work
for me any longer. In my search for truth, I began reading some literature on
the subject that so impacted me, that I began to see Scripture with new eyes. As
I followed the Bible references with an open mind, I began to turn around in my
thinking. I can't say exactly what specific argument or premise brought about
this sudden change, (some might say I simply allowed myself to be deceived) but
I think rather, I was just hungry enough to receive it.
Please understand that, I am a "believer"! I do not deny Jesus as a genuine historical personality, nor do I question His virgin birth, his sinless life, his Sonship, or even his divinity, i.e. that he is like God; but I now see that I have gone beyond what the Bible teaches about him, or even what he says about himself. Rather than simply taking him at his word that, he is the Son of God, tradition has made him what he never claimed to be and by doing so the theological waters have been muddied. Even in the gospel of John which is used extensively as proof that Jesus is God, closes by declaring,
“but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
-- John 20:31 (ESV)
For the first time in my adult life, I have been willing to take seriously
the arguments of those who refute the Trinity. And now as I study the subject on
my own, the evidence just keeps “piling up” in favor of my newly adopted
understanding that,
God the Father alone is God,
Jesus is His son, the only begotten, and the holy spirit, rather than a person,
is the active, personal, power of God at work in the world and especially the lives of believers.
I will submit my arguments from Scripture for this view in future posts, but if you are reading this and you believe in the Trinity, I must concede that 1700 years of Church history are on your side! The Trinitarian view of God has been called "orthodoxy" since the council of Nicea in 325 AD, and Trinitarian scholars would no doubt argue that the council only put down on paper what was already the accepted view by the majority of the Church. However, it's not that simple. The history is complex. Other groups argued against the Trinitarian view for centuries after, with some later Councils overturning the Council of Nicea. But regardless of the current majority view, I believe sound reasoning and, more importantly, sound Scriptural evidence, will show that a Biblical Unitarian interpretation of Scripture is more faithful to the text of the Bible, more logically coherent to the Bibles message, and allows for a more exalted view of Jesus, the human Christ!
I'll be writing more on this later, but in closing I would like to quote from a Trinitarian source in order to make a point. In the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia under the topic “Trinity” we read as follows:
“The term “Trinity” is not a Biblical term, and we are not using Biblical
language when we define what is expressed by it ...
A doctrine so defined
can be spoken of as a Biblical doctrine only on the principle that the
sense of Scripture is Scripture. And the definition of a Biblical
doctrine in such un-Biblical language can be justified only on the principle
that it is better to preserve the truth of Scripture than the words
of Scripture...
As the doctrine of the Trinity is indiscoverable by reason, so it is incapable of proof from reason. There are no analogies to it in Nature, not even in the spiritual nature of man, who is made in the image of God. In His trinitarian mode of being, God is unique; and, as there is nothing in the universe like Him in this respect, so there is nothing which can help us to comprehend Him...” [emphasis mine]
It seems to me that the doctrine of the Trinity is not a revealed doctrine at all, but in fact, an inferred doctrine, and there is a big difference! If the doctrine of the Trinity is so important, and if God, indeed, intended to reveal Himself as a “triune” being, certainly He would have made it much more plain, and it would be stated clearly in BOTH Testaments and we would not be left to “infer” anything!
Three in one is a great
lubricant,
but not such a great doctrine!
