How to Know that the Trinity is Obviously False

How to Know that the Trinity
is Obviously False
Just One Obvious Fact Which Proves the Doctrine of the Trinity is a Farce

Jesus Christ's God The primary question at hand concerning the issue at hand is the identity of the one God who is mentioned thousands of times in the Scriptures. In Trinitarianism, this identity is a three person being, three distinct identities who together are one single identity: the Triune God. According to the Scriptures, there is only one God, one Creator. Trinitarianism claims that this one God, this one Creator, is their Triune Being. According to Trinitarianism, the one God is the Triune God described by their own doctrine of the Trinity. In order to test the veracity of the Trinitarian claim, all we need to do is contemplate the implications of an extremely simple question. Do the Scriptures tell us that the one God is Jesus Christ's God? Is it true or false to say that the only God is Jesus Christ's God? And since there is only one true God, would it ever be plausible to suppose that the only true God is not Jesus Christ's God? Of course it would not. Hence, it is an inescapable fact that the only true God is Jesus Christ's God. Jesus Christ's God is not a Triune being. Trinitarianism itself acknowledges that Jesus Christ's God is only one person, the Father. So when we use the expression, "Jesus Christ's God," we are effectively referring to only one person, the Father. And if the only true God is Jesus Christ's God, we are compelled by common reason to conclude that the only true God is the Father, Jesus Christ's God.  Additionally, it seems that few Trinitarians recognize that the expression, "Jesus Christ's God" is referring to a person's God, the person, Jesus Christ's God. In the Trinity doctrine, the person that is in view is God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity. Therefore, the expression "Jesus Christ's God" effectively means "God's God" in Trinitarianism since it would be a reference to the person God the Son and his God. God's God. This is absurd. God does not have a God. For God to have a God would necessarily involves two true Gods since if God the Son has a God, his God is necessarily someone else. But there is only one God. Another question you can ask yourself is this question: "Is Jesus Christ's God someone else?" The obvious answer is Yes. Jesus Christ's God is someone else - his Father. In fact, this is true in Trinitarian doctrine. But if his God is someone else then he is not his God is he? And if he is not his God then he isn't that God. And if he isn't that God, you would therefore end up with two Gods by claiming that Jesus is God in addition to someone else who is his God.  There are numerous questions one can ask which reveal the truth of the situation. For example, you could ask, "Who created everything?" Did the Triune God create everything? Or did Jesus create everything? Or did Jesus Christ's God create everything? Since Jesus is not his God, and Jesus Christ's God is not a Triune God, it is a question which must be asked and honestly answered. It is inescapable that Jesus Christ's God created everything.  When we regard these things, we can see that Trinitarianism is something which just won't add up and it is irrational nonsense. In Trinitarianism, Jesus Christ is identified as "God" while Jesus Christ's God is also identified as "God." However, in Trinitarianism, Jesus Christ and his God are two different identities; they are not the same identity. He is one identity and his God is another. To say he is God results in two Gods since his God would not be the God that he is. In Trinitarian doctrine, the Father is most definitely not the Son. Therefore, that would mean by definition that Jesus as "God" and his God are not the same God since he is not his God. But in the Scriptures there is only one God. So we end up with a situation where Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ's God are not the same and since Jesus is not his own God, that necessarily means somebody else is his God. Jesus Christ's God is not Jesus and does not include Jesus. It is here that one can easily see the contradictions of this Trinitarian farce.  The light of truth begins to shine very brightly when we consider these things honestly and reasonably. If we exclude all Scriptural mentions of pagan gods and false gods, is it safe to conclude that all mentions of the one God of Israel are in fact Jesus Christ's God ? This is not a question which a Trinitarian can reasonably answer as "No." But if he answers "Yes," he must accept the contradictions with his own doctrine. If you are a Trinitarian, you must insist that your Triune God and Jesus Christ's God are the very same God. Otherwise you have two or more God's on your hands. But you won't be making any sense since a one-person-God and a three-person-God are obviously not the same God. Jesus Christ's God is not a Triune God in Trinitarianism, therefore, his God is obviously not the same God as the Trinitarian God. So since there is only one God, and not two or more, the Trinitarian is compelled to agree that all mentions of God in the Scriptures are references to Jesus Christ's God. But notice what happens to Trinitarian doctrine if you acknowledge that all references to the one God in the Scriptures are references to Jesus Christ's God. To you it was shown that you might know that YAHWEH, He is God; there is no other besides Him..... Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that YAHWEH, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. Deuteronomy 4:35,39 Is this verse referring to Jesus Christ's God? Think about his carefully. His God is no one but the Father and to interpret this passage to refer to the Father would mean that the Father is exclusively the one God and the one God is no one else but the Father.  That rules out the Trinity since two other persons are also God in the doctrine of the Trinity. Because of this, Trinitarians are forced to interpret this verse to refer to the Triune Being. "He" the Triune Being is God and there is no other besides "Him" the Triune Being. However, the Trinitarian must then insist this passage is NOT referring to Jesus Christ's God. And that puts him in a very serious dilemma. There is only one God and no one can reasonably and honestly avoid interpreting this verse to be referring to Jesus Christ's God. And his God is most definitely not the Trinitarian's Triune God. Whether a Trinitarian acknowledges or denies this passage is referring to Jesus Christ's God, he is caught in a contradiction with respect to his own doctrine. This demonstrates that the Trinity is most certainly false. To you it was shown that you might know that [Jesus Christ's God], He is God; there is no other besides [Jesus Christ's God]..... Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that [Jesus Christ's God], He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. Deuteronomy 4:35,39 No one can deny this verse is referring to Jesus Christ's God without getting caught in an inescapable contradiction. And if this verse is referring to Jesus Christ's God then it is referring to the Father alone and the verse is telling us that only the Father is God and nobody else is God except the Father. And no one can reasonably say that this verse is not referring to Jesus Christ's God since that would be resorting to completely irrational behavior. But Trinitarians do claim this verse is referring to a God which is not Jesus Christ's God, namely, the Trinity. However, there is only one God and if that God is not Jesus Christ's God then Jesus Christ has a false God. But we know that Jesus does not have a false God; his God is the only true God and the only true God is his God. Hence, the Bible affirms that only Jesus Christ's God is God and nobody else. There are numerous other examples in Scripture which illustrate the same type of thing. With respect to Trinitarian doctrine, the passage is either referring to Jesus Christ's God or the Triune Being and you can't have it both ways since Jesus Christ's God is not a Triune Being. So which is it? Can anyone in their right mind deny that the above verse is referring to Jesus Christ's God? There are numerous passages which illustrate the same problem for Trinitarian doctrine.  Additionally, when you read verses such as Matthew 1:23, "God with us" you will also realize that such verses are also necessarily referring to Jesus Christ's God . God the Father was with Israel by giving them Jesus to save them from their sins (context). He was with them in plan and purpose; He was with them, on their side. This understanding is also confirmed at Isaiah chapters 7 through 8 where the child Immanuel is given as a sign to King Ahaz that his God, Yahweh, was with him concerning the two kings attacking Judah.  Or for example when Thomas says, "My Lord and my God," you will realize the words "my God" are necessarily a reference to Jesus Christ's God, since both Thomas and Jesus have the same one God. This is also clearly explained by Jesus at John 12:44-45 and 14:5-10. Jesus revealed the Father (Jn 1:18) who is his God. Or again, at 1 John 5:20 the true God in view is Jesus Christ's God, the Father. This is obviously true since the point of this passage is to say that Jesus came so that we might know the true God by being in the true God's son and that true God is necessarily Jesus Christ's God. Just as Jesus himself declared, his God and Father is our God and Father (Jn 20:17).  The only true God is Jesus Christ's God, and since there is only one God, this cannot be denied by any rational and honest person who accepts the Scriptures as the truth. This simple fact demonstrates to reasonable people that the doctrine of the Trinity is obviously false. Whenever you read your Bible, and the one God is mentioned, just ask yourself whether the passage is referring to Jesus Christ's God. You will soon realize that you cannot truthfully answer "No" without creating an unresolvable contradiction for yourself. And that means that claiming the existence of a Triune God conflicts with the Scriptural facts and when claims conflict with the facts, we know the claimant is a telling lie. Another thing you can do is to keep this in mind when you are discussing the doctrine of the Trinity with Trinitarians (or Modalists). Whenever they refer to God, and they don't seem to be referring to the Father, ask them if they are referring to Jesus Christ's God. Also observe their confused responses. They are not accustomed to being asked such a question or even having such a thought.  If you are an honest seeker of the truth, I would encourage you to always keep in mind that the only true God of the Scriptures is necessarily Jesus Christ's God. This is inescapable. Since there is only one God, the only true God can't be someone else's God since that would necessarily amount to another God. So whenever you read a passage of Scripture which mentions our God, the God of Israel, the Creator, just ask yourself, "Does this passage necessarily refer to Jesus Christ's God?" You will soon see that you must always answer "Yes."  And when you do this, you will also clearly realize that you will know with absolute certainly, and without any hesitation, that the only God is Jesus Christ's God and no one else can possibly be God than his God. And seeing this clearly, you will know this leaves the Trinity doctrine behind in the trash bin along with all the other false Gods which true followers of Jesus have left behind.  If you can't confess that every mention of the one God of Israel in the Scriptures is Jesus Christ's God you will be found mired in your own contradictions. And if you are a Trinitarian who confesses that every mention of the one God of Israel in the Scriptures IS Jesus Christ's God, you will still be found mired in your own contradictions. And that is what happens when you espouse a tangled web of lies. There is no escape from your dilemma and your only option will be to resort to irrational mental gymnastics in the fantasy that there must be some way you can somehow talk your way out of it. But you can't. You are trapped in your own lies with no way out but to confess your claims are false.  As you read this, and digest the implications, you might wonder how it could be so easy to demonstrate why this doctrine is certainly false and why you didn't see this before. But as you contemplate the matter and how the only God cannot be any other than Jesus Christ's God, you will indeed realize this does show the Trinity is obviously false. And then you will likely also have other realizations. You will realize the utter insanity of having a three-person-God which is not your Lord's God. And again, you will also wonder how anyone could believe the Head of the body of Christ has a one-person-God while the rest of the body of Christ has a three-person-God who is not the God of the Head of the body of Christ. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. Ephesians 1:17. The only God is our Lord's God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is God and there is no other but Him. Serve only our Lord's God and no other. The above article was taken from How to Know that the Trinity is Obviously False

Idolatry

Idolatry

You turned to God from idols to serve a Living and True God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. - 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10. Modern Idols True believers serve a Living and True God. They do not serve idols and they do not serve false gods. Their God is a living God. Unlike a lifeless idol, their God is someone who is alive and personal. Their God is not an image of God but God Himself, a Living Being whom they know, a Living God who truly dwells with their hearts. Modern people within the world of the organized church system tend to think of idols as little stone men carved up by ancient pagans. In this way, they delude themselves into supposing they have no idols. Idolatry is not confined to stone sculptures sitting in a shrine. Notice carefully how the Apostle John ends his first letter: Little children, guard yourself from idols. 1 John 5:21. Many folks read these words as if John is having some kind of afterthought not have any idea why he decided to say such a thing at the end of his letter. He concludes his letter with these words. Why? Notice the context of John's words: We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know the True One and we are in the True One, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the True God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols. Idols are not the True God but false gods. Observe that we are in "the True One" if we are in His son Jesus. Through Jesus we know the True God. The True God is He who is known in/through the Son. Here John is saying essentially the same thing we find in John's Gospel. Eternal Life is that we might know the Father, the only True God, and Jesus Christ whom the only True God sent (John 17:3). Since Jesus is the Way to the Father (14:6), we cannot know the Father apart from the Son. John tells us to guard ourselves from idols in this context. Why? There is the True God. And there are idols. If we are not serving the True God, we are serving an idol. John's letter is addressing a false prophet antichrist teaching. In his letter, he emphasizes that the True God, the Father, is known through the Son, Jesus. You must confess the Son to have the Father and whoever denies the Son also denies the Father, the True God. Today, most people serve idols, images of God. They serve doctrines of men depicted with paper and ink, images of God. They serve things which do not have life and do not give life. The images they serve are paper and ink images of God, the doctrines of men. They are images of God in words on paper, images which do not have life nor give life. The serve lifeless things which do not give life. For most people, their God is not the Living God, but an image of God they have in their minds and which depict on paper and ink. Their God is an image imagined in their imaginations rather than the Living God Himself. Here is another image of God which man have crafted and command you to serve: This is a man's image of God. Idolatry. Men command you to serve this God, this lifeless image of God created by men. This is not the True God which John is describing. The True God is a Living Being not an image and He is the God who we know through Jesus: the Father. The above image is a lifeless idol created by men. But such images of God are the only God most people know; they do not know the Living and True God. The only know an image in their minds which they project in paper and ink. The above image is not the True God; it is a man's graven image of God. You can believe in this image all you like and it will do nothing for you but lead you away from the True God. This image is an idol of men. It is not the Living God; it is a lifeless creation of men and it will not give you life. The True God is the Living God who is Life and gives Life, our Father. And we know the Living and True God through His Son Jesus His Anointed One. John ended his letter with the words, "Little children, guard yourselves from idols" for a very good reason. He had just described how we might know the True God. Anything other than the True God is a false god. Any god other than the True God is an idol and not the True God. And John identified the True God here for us. The True God is the God we know through His Son: the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ. And who else would be the True God but our Lord's God? For if our God is not his God, we only know a false god and not the Living and True God whose Son delivers us from the coming wrath. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!" Exodus 32:8 The above article was taken from Idolatry

Worship and Revelation 4-5 by Dale Tuggy

What does Revelation imply about God, Jesus, and worship?

In Revelation chapter 4, the author is granted a heavenly vision:

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. (ESV, emphases throughout are added)

Awesome. Who could this be? There follows a description of the setting and the heavenly court. Featured are some weird heavenly beings singing,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

Right – this is Yahweh. All of this is very reminiscent of the vision in Isaiah chapter 6:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

“LORD” here is the proper name Yahweh. So this is who Isaiah saw. And this, the author of Revelation is telling us, who he now sees in his vision. Much in the vision is similar to the visions in Ezekiel 1 and 10. There too, the prophet sees God himself.

If the point wasn’t clear enough in Revelation 4, some worship this one on the throne, saying,

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

This recalls well-known passages later in Isaiah, were Yahweh asserts that he’s the only true God, and the only creator.

Note finally that the author here nowhere says the one on the throne is a man, although one imagines the character as humanoid – I mean, appearing to be similar to a man – he does sit enthroned here, and in the next chapter he’s got a scroll in his right hand. Of course, he’s assumed to be a self here too. He has a will, he performs intentional actions like creating, and he can be addressed and worshiped.

He’s a glorious and powerful being here, but the author demurs from directly describing him. I think that’s why a good portrayal of this scene has a sort of non-descript person on the throne, e.g. with no articulated face, as in the picture here  

So our author (“John” – Rev. 1:1) was granted a vision of God in heaven, receiving worship in his throne room.

In chapter 5, God – the one on the throne – is holding a sealed up scroll – a scroll which we later find out (ch. 6-9) contains his future plans. This is what the author was promised at the start of chapter 4 – that he’d be shown the future (4:1), again, something we know from Isaiah is the prerogative of God alone.

No one is found worthy to open it, and John is bummed. Someone tells him,

“Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Lamb. Who? We’ve met him before – it is Jesus, the one through whom God has given this vision to John (1:1), described in chapter 1 as the one who “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”. (1:6) So, not God himself – this one, like us, has a god, and in contrast, there is no god over God. And Jesus’ god, “God,” is our god.

John brings this whole message from Jesus, but also from the seven spirits around God’s throne, and from God himself. (1:4-5) Again, the assumption is that Jesus is someone other than God.

So it is all the more striking that here he is (chapter 5) in the very throne room of God, daring to take and open the scroll. They sing to him,

““Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals…”

Whew! So he won’t be struck dead for his daring act. Now, why is he worthy? Because he’s God himself? Can’t be that; he’s portrayed here as a second self in addition to God. Because he’s “ontologically equal to God”? Because he “shares the divine nature”?
The author only gives a simpler reason:

“…for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

This expands on what’s already been said as to his worthiness to take and open the scroll – it is because he has “triumphed” – v. 5. So he’s worthy to do this because of what he accomplished as the obedient Messiah, indeed, the willing sacrificial Lamb. This is part of his reward. But there is more!

The above was sung by the “twenty four elders” attending God’s throne. But now a chorus of uncountably many angels chimes, or rather, roars in: Rev. 5.12

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Presumably God, Creator of the cosmos and so owner of it all, needs neither power, nor wealth, nor wisdom, nor might. (I’m not clear on the difference between “power” and “might” here; need to look more into the Greek terms.)  But the Lamb does need those things, and this whole scene seems to be about his exaltation to the right hand of God.
(Psalm 110) Now, astoundingly, the two receive worship together, jointly, receiving the last three things just mentioned, which neither needs, but both deserve.

The chorus now includes every creature: Rev. 5.13

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

This climax sort of ends the scene.  (The Lamb goes on in ch 6-9 to open each of the seven seals on the scroll.) But what just happened? Two beings were addressed, two beings were worshiped. One of them was God. The other was the man Jesus, called the “Lamb” and recently exalted to a God-like position. We know he’s a man because he’s in the line of David, and of the tribe of Judah. (Rev. 5.5)  God, we know from the Hebrew Bible, is not a man (e.g. Num 23:19), although he is somehow like a man, since both men and women are made in his image. (Gen 1)

Note that there’s no theory in the explication here; we’ve stuck entirely to the assumptions of an intelligent, first century, biblically literate reader, and explicated how he or she would look at this episode.

... Jesus is worshiped, and plainly, this is held forth as appropriate. The author is aware that this may be shocking, so he specifically relates why Jesus is worthy of honor. (5:12)

Given that we accept that Jesus ought to be worshiped, we must choose between Only God should be worshiped and Jesus isn’t God because we can’t consistently accept both of these, in addition to the claim that Jesus ought to be worshiped.

Let us ask which of these John would agree with?

Would John agree that only God should be worshiped?

Plainly not. 

• Jesus is presented throughout as someone else. In these chapters, he comes into God’s throne room, receives the scroll of God’s secret plans from God, and is then honored alongside God.

• God, the one on the throne, silently approves of all this. He lets Jesus take the scroll. It is his mission that Jesus accomplished, because of which Jesus is worthy to now be exalted. And he stands by while people worship both him and Jesus. And he does not thunder “You lousy idolaters” – worship only me!” And he, he tacitly approves of this exaltation of Jesus.

• Smartly, the people present agree. (Rev. 5.14) No one calls out God for his wrongful advocacy of worshiping someone other than himself. Because he can do that – he can exalt his only Son in that way. And since he does, John is saying, you should fall on your face before the two of them, just like “the elders” present here do. Phooey on your scruples, if you object that you can’t worship the Lamb, because he isn’t God himself. God himself has so raised him over you. To not worship Jesus is to defy God.

• As we saw, Jesus is asserted to be a man, a human being, and given the background assumptions of Judaism, the reader infers that he’s not God. This is consonant with John throughout the whole book seeming to pointedly distinguish the two. From the very first verse (1:1) he assumes that Jesus, the immediate source of this series of revelations, is other than God himself, who is the ultimate source of them. This being one among many ways Jesus serves his God. (1:6)

• Nor is the reader supposed to think that the Lamb is worthy because he is numerically one with God, that is, just is God himself. To the contrary! He’s God’s agent, who has accomplished amazing things on God’s behalf, according to God’s will. You can’t act on someone’s behalf if you are that very someone. Here, God doesn’t have blood, and so can’t shed it. But this Lamb, being a man does, and did. God didn’t ever need to be exalted, but this Lamb did, and was. God already had a throne; Jesus now comes to share what was someone else’s throne.

Would John agree that Jesus isn’t God?

• John doesn’t say this anywhere, for the simple reason that it doesn’t need saying. We all assume that a thing can’t at one time differ from itself. And Jesus and God differ in many ways here. e.g. on the throne, not on it; holding scroll vs. taking the scroll; sending vs. not being sent; vs. being a servant of God vs. not.
• Again, that the Messiah is not God himself is an assumption of ancient Judaism.
• Nor do the characters, as it were, ever merge. We never find out that John has been calling one being by two names.
• Because of their theoretical commitments, some will read all of this in ch. 4-5 as a big series of elaborate hints that Jesus just is God and vice-versa. But the climax passes (end of ch. 5) and the worshipers are worshiping two beings, addressing each one individually, seemingly oblivious to any deeper truth that the one just is the other. And the author goes right on talking of them as if he thought they are two. After more heavenly scenes and other actions, there is a resurrection of people to be “be priests of God and of Christ” (20:6) – yes, servants of the both of them. And in ch. 22, in the vision of heavenly New Jerusalem, we’re told of “the throne of God and of the Lamb”. (22:3; cf. 21:22-3)
• Is that the crucial hint that they’re really one being, at long last – that they have a single throne? No – there’s just one throne of the one God, and Jesus was raised up to share it with him.
• Or maybe near the very end? Jesus there says  “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (22:13) Aha! Smoking gun! For God himself said he was the Alpha and Omega back at the start. (1:8) In light of the above, what to make of this? Well, why can’t both be correctly called “Alpha and Omega”. Where is it written that only one can be truly so described? [Sound of crickets chirping.]
  What does this mean, here in ch 22? That he’s the First and Last, it says, the Beginning and the End. Of what? I would say, of the new creation. He the first born (1:5) of a new, better human race. Yes, this is a divine title now being extended to Christ. That doesn’t mean he’s divine. (There’s only one divine being.) Rather, it means that he has been put in a God-like position in this new order. He bears other divine titles as well,
  e.g. 19:16. But he’s still God's message and pre-eminent messenger, the “faithful witness” (1:5).

Here is some music depicting this scene: Worthy is the Lamb & Amen (Messiah) - Handel

If we stick with objections arising from the text of Revelation itself, perhaps the most obvious one is that raised in a comment on previous post by my friend James Anderson. Reformulated by me, it goes:

The text itself (Rev 19:10, 22:9) asserts that we should worship only God. And yes, Revelation plainly implies that Jesus should be worshiped. And so it plainly implies that Jesus is God. 

One might look to one of my favorite translations, the New Living Translation, which has these two verses saying, in part: “Worship only God”.

When you look at the Greek, though, you see that it simply says “Worship God.”Not the same thing! And most translations get this right.
(Even The Message and the Good News Bible get it right.)

Where does the “only” come from? From the theological agenda of the translators; they want the text to be making the argument above.
So in the ESV Study Bible, which translates these phrases correctly (“Worship God.”) they feel the theological need to add this footnote:

Human beings must not worship even the angels… God alone must be worshiped. Since the Lamb is rightly worshiped (5:8-14), he is God. (p. 2497)

Interestingly, these evangelical commenters agree with those in the recent Jewish Annotated New Testament that Revelation asserts that only God should  be worshiped. In their comment on 19:7-10, they assert that

It is God, not the Lamb/Jesus, who is to be worshiped. (p. 493)

And bizarrely, in their notes on chapter 5, they ignore the obvious fact that Jesus is being worshiped together with God, although they correctly note that

The heavenly song makes a clear distinction between the enthroned one and the sacrificial lamb. (p. 474)

I’m reading between the lines here, and the commenters in this book are understandably very circumspect, but I think their assumption is that surely, no first century Jew would worship anyone but God himself. To that, I say that this very book is a counterexample. Their theological agenda is blinding them to the obvious. But the same is so with the conservative evangelical commenters of the ESV Study Bible.

When you look at the texts on their own terms, they are not at all making the argument I started this post with.  The excellent Craig S. Keener nails what is really going on in both of these texts:

19:10 Revelation seems to encourage the view that Christians on earth worship with the angels, in communion with the worship of heaven (a common Jewish view); but the book simultaneously rejects the views of those who prayed to and praised angels (amulets and incantations attest that some Jews invoked angels).
… (The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, p. 811, emphasis added)

22:8-9 Ephesians and Colossians suggest that some Jewish Christians in Asia Minor had been assigning too prominent a role to angels; if that error is at all in view here, this passage refutes it (cf. also Rev 19:10). (p. 820)

Right – in both passages, John has started to give into a temptation to worship the angel speaking to him. Worshiping Jesus is not at issue, and is not in view in Rev 19. In Rev 22 the angel (v. 1, 6) is speaking to John, and he speaks first in the prophetic first person for Jesus in v. 7 (“I am coming soon…” – this resumes in v. 12)  But there is a break or transition in v. 8. In any case, it seems that John is just repeating his earlier error. In either case, the angel might just as well have said, “Worship God and his Son.” This would have made his point too.

The angel in both cases tells John why John must not worship him. And it is not because the angel isn’t God himself (although of course, he isn’t). Rather,

I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. (19:10)

I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. (22:9)

In both cases this immediately precedes his command to “Worship God.” He grabs John’s head, as it were, and points it to the one on the throne – who has just been worshiped (19:1-9 – this time, without Jesus also being directly worshiped). This does not imply that John should not also worship Jesus. The angel emphasizes that he’s on a level with human prophets; but not so with Jesus, now that he’s been exalted to bear God’s right hand, as we’ve seen. He no longer has the status of being a “fellow servant” with us; he is God’s agent, yes, but is now “the ruler of kings on earth.” (1:5) So the grounds the angel gives for it being wrong to worship himself pointedly do not rule out worshiping the exalted man Jesus.

I conclude that this objection is a total miss; the objector can get no grip on the texts here. She only has her theory to fall back on, a theory which is at odds with Revelation.

We are implicitly and clearly told to worship Jesus, and it is assumed throughout that Jesus is not God, but rather the human Son of God, now exalted to an everlasting position of honor at God’s right hand. The book stands dead against a theological assumption that many consider obvious, that we should only worship God himself. But theological theory must bow to textual fact, given the authority of the text.

19th c. American minister Charles Morgridge makes an apt comment about Revelation 4-5:

There is not in the Bible a clearer distinction between the only true God, and his only Son our Saviour, than is here expressed. GOD sat on the throne; the Son stood amidst the elders. GOD had in his right hand a book; the Son came and took the book out of his hand. GOD was worshiped as the Being who created all things; and who liveth forever and ever. The Son was honored as the Lamb that was slain, and redeemed us unto God by his blood. And as
[in 1 Chronicles 29:20] the whole congregation of Israel bowed down their heads, and worshiped the LORD and the king, who was but a type of this Lamb; so, in verse 13, the whole universe is represented as ascribing Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, unto HIM that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.
(The True Believer’s Defence, p. 58, bold added)

A couple of other gems:

• The word worship is now generally used to express the religious homage due to God. But this is not the only sense in which the word is used in the Bible. [Then illustrates this with numerous cases.] (p. 52, bold added) … 
• If honor is due to the Son because the Father hath commissioned and sent him, it must be received by the Son with higher reference to the glory of God the Father. (p. 56) …
• For GOD made him both Lord and Christ; exalted him to be a Prince and Saviour; and ordained him Prophet, Priest, and King. Therefore all men honor the Son, even as they honor the Father, when they render to him that homage only which comports with his moral character and relations. Consequently it cannot be supreme worship; that being due to the FATHER, the fountain of all that love, and mercy, and grace in the Son, for which we are required to honor him.
  Yet we are required to worship the Son, as the Son… as the first begotten… the brightness of the FATHER’s glory, and the express image of his person – as the Christ of God, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead – as the Lamb that was slain for us – as the resurrection and the life – as the author and finisher of our faith – and our intercessor at the right hand of God. (p. 57)

In another throne room scene, in interlude ...

And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev 15: 2-4, ESV, emphasis added)

Song of the Lamb? Why is that there? Elements of the quoted hymn echo famous Old Testament passages in which Moses praises God for his deliverance. It could be that the first part is supposed to be Moses’s song, the second part the Lamb’s song. Or maybe it is one song which belongs to both.

In any case, even though in a previous scene Jesus received worship alongside God, here, although he’s not directly in view, he seems to be on the side of the worshipers. This song, or part of it, is his song, his song sung in praise of Yahweh, the Almighty (a term never used of Jesus, by the way).

Most commenters skate right past this detail. It was drawn to my attention by G.W. Burnap:

Now, if the Lamb were a Person of the Trinity, would he not rather be placed as a person worshipped, instead of a person worshipping? ...
(Expository Lectures on the Principal Passages of the Scriptures which relate to the Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 138)

It is interesting that Jesus is assumed here to be worshiper of the one true God, which of course he was, and is.  Burnap does have the big picture right:

Christ is represented [in Revelation]  as reigning, but it is only under God, as the supreme Sovereign, and by his power and appointment. (p. 138)

Could it be the Lamb’s song, say, given to the saints to sing, but not one which the Lamb sung? It is possible.  But the parallel with Moses suggests otherwise.


The above was taken from
Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 of Dale Tuggy's series on Worship and Revelation 4-5
Some editing has been done.

Debate - Dr. Dale Tuggy vs. Dr. Michael Brown - Is the God of the Bible the Father Alone?

Subject

Dr. Dale Tuggy (Biblical Unitarian) and Dr. Michael Brown (Trinitarian) debate the subject 
“Is the God of the Bible the Father Alone?” 

• Dale Tuggy defends that there is only one who is the eternal God – the Father himself. 
• Michael Brown proposes that there are three who are one God. 

Watch the debate and judge for yourself. This debate took place on January 11, 2019 in Concord, North Carolina.

Video of the Debate - 2hr45mins

Click this link to watch

Dr Dale Tuggy's Opening Statement

January, 11th 2019

I want to thank Kingdom of God Ministry & Missions for organizing and sponsoring this debate. Other sponsors include 21st Century Reformation, Restoration Fellowship, and the Church of God General Conference, which is the denomination of my church, Higher Ground Church in White House, TN. Finally, my thanks to Dr. Brown for being willing to debate this important topic, and to FIRE church for hosting this event.

I was born into an independent Charismatic church in 1970, and born again and baptized in that church in 1978, and it is an honor for me to be here with you.

My thesis is that the God of the Bible is not the Trinity because the God of the Bible is the Father alone. The NT is just as monotheistic as the OT. But it also tells us who this one God is, and contrary to catholic traditions, in the NT the one God is not the Trinity. In the New Testament this one God is the one Jesus referred to as “Our Father in heaven,” the one Paul calls “God the Father.” [1]
In the NT the one God just is the Father, and the Father just is the one God: “they” are one and the same. This is the defining thesis of unitarian Christian theology, and it is contradicted by any trinitarian theology.

A trinitarian thinks that the one God is the tripersonal god. But no one thinks that the Father is tripersonal. The trinitarian says the one God is the Trinity, and so the Father gets demoted to being in some sense one third of God, whether a part of God, a personality of God, a mode of God, or a “Person” within God. The trinitarian’s theory requires that the one God is not numerically the same as the Father – but rather, he must distinguish the one God, the tripersonal god, from the Father. But here, fourth-century speculations clash with plain NT teaching.

We can observe this identification of the one God with the Father in every NT author. They rarely state this commitment, because it was not then disputed. But occasionally they express it clearly. In John 17:1-3 Jesus reveals his belief that the Father is “the only true God.” If the Father is the only true God, then no one else is! And in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul tells us that while the pagans believe in various gods, as far as Christians are concerned, there is “one God, the Father.” In John 8:54 Jesus says to his Jewish opponents, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God…” Right – the God of the Jews, the only God in both OT and NT is the one Jesus calls
“my Father.” [2] In Acts the message preached to the Jews is that “the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus.” [3]

In Judaism, and in the NT, the one God is understood not to be a human being, [4] but rather a God, in fact, the only God.
In contrast, Jesus is everywhere in the NT portrayed as a real man.
In John 8:40 Jesus describes himself as “a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.” The NT Jesus is not God; rather, he is God’s Messiah, his special human agent, called “the Son of God.” Paul writes to Timothy that “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” [5] and this one God, Paul thinks, is the Father. [6]

The NT explicitly states seven times that the Father is Jesus’s God. [7] And Jesus is portrayed as calling the Father “my God” in seven other places. [8] These “Father-as-Jesus’s-God” texts are not the subject of significant interpretive, translation, or textual disputes.
In the NT, like you, Jesus is subject to the unique God, the Father. [9] Thus, Jesus is not taught to be the same god as the Father, or any god at all; there is only one God, the Father, and he is, Paul says, “the head of” Jesus, his Christ. [10]

I want to spend the rest of my opening statement comparing two hypotheses in the light of six indisputable facts about the New Testament. [11] The two hypotheses are,

1. first, that these authors believe the one God to be the Father alone, and 
2. second, that they think the one God to be the Trinity. 

If a fact is just what we would expect given the truth of one hypothesis, but it would be a surprise given the truth of the rival hypothesis, then that fact confirms the one hypothesis over the other. Notice that this procedure does not presuppose unitarian theology, or any controversial thesis whatever.

Fact #1 All four gospels feature a “human being” compatible main thesis.

This is the thesis that Jesus is God’s Messiah. While this thesis is plainly and repeatedly stated throughout these books, it is highlighted at certain key moments. In the first three gospels, Jesus privately asks his disciples who they think he is, and their leader Peter replies: “You are the Messiah.” [12] And towards the end of the fourth gospel, John states his main thesis: “these [signs] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” [13]

Wait... that’s it? Nothing about Jesus being God, God the Son, having a divine nature, or being the “godman,” or the second Person of the Trinity? This simple thesis only mentions the man Jesus’s uniquely important role as God’s Messiah, saying nothing at all about his deity. It’s what we’d expect if the author thinks the one God just is the Father, but it is not at all what we’d expect if he were a trinitarian. This confirms that these authors are unitarians, not trinitarians.

Fact #2 In the New Testament, the word “God” nearly always refers to the Father, 

while no word there refers to the Trinity.

If the NT authors were trinitarians, we’d expect them to sometimes use the word “God” to refer to the Trinity – but they never do. And we’d expect them to somewhat spread the title “God” around between the three, often calling the Son or the Spirit “God,” in addition to the Father.

But this is not what we see. In the NT, “God” is nearly always the Father; all textual scholars agree on this. In a small handful of cases, no more than eight in the whole NT, it can be argued that “God” refers to the Son. [14] But we know that in biblical terminology, a human who is subject to God can be referred to or addressed using the title “God”! Jesus makes this very point in John 10:34, quoting Psalm 82; we also see it in
Hebrews 1:8-9, quoting Psalm 45. While many latter-day readers suppose that only the one God should be called “God,” biblical authors don’t assume this.

Even so, all NT authors are very stingy about applying the word “god” to anyone other than the Father. This would be very surprising if they were trinitarians, but it’s just what we’d expect if they hold that the one God is the Father alone.

It is vanishingly unlikely that the NT authors believed in a triune God and yet had no word or phrase by which to refer to that god. The very first thing a trinitarian will do is to coin a word or phrase to refer to the triune God as such. They needn’t use the word “Trinity.” They could just coin a new use of the word “God,” or they could talk of “the heavenly three,” or “the triple God,” “or the divine three.” But we don’t see any term or phrase in Bible which was then understood to refer to a tripersonal God.

These authors’ lack of any word or phrase for the Trinity is exactly what we’d expect if they instead held the one God to be the Father alone. In sum, NT God-terminology reflects their thinking that the one God is the Father, and so not the Trinity.

Fact #3 In the New Testament only the Father and the man Jesus are worshiped.

One would expect trinitarian authors to authorize, model, or portray worship of the Trinity as a whole, or at least worship of all three Persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit. But there are exactly two objects of religious worship in the New Testament: God, and the human son of God. This is plainly seen in Revelation 4 and 5.

One might worry that two objects of worship means two gods. But Paul explicitly teaches in Philippians 2:11 that:

the worship we give to the exalted Jesus is “to the glory of God the Father.” Jesus is not a second god, rivaling God. Rather, he is God’s human Son, and it honors God when we worship Jesus. 

His exaltation to God’s right hand implies that all must worship him – not “as God,”
or confusing him with his and our God, but rather, as the exalted Son of God.

It is not a case, as Paul says in Romans 1:25, of worshiping “the creature rather than the Creator.” Jesus, being a man, is a creature, yes, but in worshiping him we thereby worship the Creator,  the one God, who raised and exalted him.

This pattern of worship would be quite a shock if the NT authors were trinitarians. First, we’d expect to see the Holy Spirit worshiped at least once! Second, we’d expect the Son to be an ultimate object of worship, like God, so that worshiping him isn’t to the glory of any other. Third, we’d expect to see the triune God worshiped somewhere, anywhere. But it never happens. Nor do we see the later trinitarian idea that the Father and the Son are two “Persons” within God, so that they should somehow count as the same god. The actual NT pattern of worship disconfirms the theory that the NT authors are trinitarians, and like our other facts, confirms that they are unitarians.

Fact #4 That God is triune or tripersonal is never a clear assertion of any passage in the NT; core Jewish theology is always assumed.

In the gospels Jesus is an extremely confident and opinionated man, who taught “as one having authority.” [15] If he had believed there needed to be a correction or addition to standard Jewish teaching about God, we’d expect him to say so. But he never gets around to telling us that God is three Persons in one essence. In conversation with one of his fellow Jews in Mark 12 Jesus simply quotes the famous Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4, the statement that God is unique – and he gives no hint that Jews of his day misunderstood it. John tells us that God’s eternal word comes to us most fully in this man, [16] and Paul tells us that Jesus is the very “wisdom of God.” [17] I suggest that we take Jesus seriously as a theologian. He teaches that God is our and his Father, [18] but he never teaches that God is a Trinity.

Neither do Paul, John, Peter, or the author of Hebrews make this a teaching point. They teach at length about resurrection, the second coming of Jesus, food sacrificed to idols, and how Christians should behave. But at no point do they inform us that Jewish monotheism is somehow too stingy, because finally it can be told that God is multipersonal. This would be a shocking omission for trinitarian authors; but these are not trinitarian authors.

Fact #5 There is no trace of any first century controversy 

about whether or not Christian theology is truly monotheistic.

Everywhere trinitarian theology goes, it creates controversy, particularly at first, and especially when interacting with rival monotheistic religions like Judaism and Islam. Its opponents commonly denounce it as confused, tritheistic, not a genuine variety of monotheism, or as akin to pagan polytheism. After all, the Nicene creed describes the Son and Father as “true God from true God,” which sounds like two gods. But no such controversy occurs in the first Christian century. The reason is that there were not any trinitarians at that time!

The main NT-era controversies are about whether or not Jesus is God’s Messiah, and whether or not as Paul taught non-Jews could be fully acceptable to God without full Torah observance. But there is no whiff of any controversy about God being multipersonal.

If Christians in the NT era were trinitarians, this would be very surprising. How could their Jewish opponents fail to notice? But it’s exactly what we’d expect to see if back then Christians thought that the one God is the Father alone.

Fact #6 No New Testament author lifts a finger 

to limit or qualify clear implications of the Son’s limitations.

NT writings explicitly assert that Jesus got his mission, authority, message, and power from God. [19] No writer shows any embarrassment about Jesus’s dependence on God in these ways, even though for a Jew, God does not take orders from anyone, and does not get his authority, message, or power from any other! Nor do these authors make the convoluted distinctions beloved by some trinitarians – that Jesus was subordinated “as man” but not “as divine.”

Moreover, Jesus tells us that he didn’t know the day or hour of his future return, although God did. [20] These authors are unembarrassed to imply that Jesus at that time knew less than God. Hence their consistent portrayals of him as learning, asking questions, and even feeling anxious about what is going to happen. [21] Like us, the NT Jesus puts his faith and trust in God. [22] They even quote him, without comment, as implying that God is good is some way that Jesus is not. [23]

Again, the NT is explicit that God is immortal, [24] whereas the man Jesus died. [25] Happily, his God then raised him and made him immortal. [26] In contrast, we should see that God is essentially immortal, and this is not because of any other.

The NT always portrays Jesus as a real man. He has a real human mother, although according to Matthew and Luke, not a human father. Rather, God miraculously made Mary pregnant. Jesus, the angel in Luke 1:35 says, is “begotten” in Mary by God. As with ordinary human reproduction, it is assumed here that Jesus was brought into existence at some point in this miraculous pregnancy;
he’s not portrayed as traveling from some other realm to enter Mary’s womb.

But the one God, by definition, is eternal; he never began to exist. How can these authors sit back while the reader infers that Jesus came to exist in this miraculous pregnancy? Notably, no NT author shows any concern to assert the eternal existence of the Son of God. Unlike partisans of the Nicene creed since the 4th Christian century, NT authors don’t say anything to rule out that Jesus came into existence.

...

All these apparent limits on Jesus are simply left to stand in the NT. This is wildly unlikely if the authors are trinitarians. But it makes sense if they simply had no need to argue for “the deity of Christ” – because like other Jews, they believed in exactly one deity, God the Father.

We should be good Protestants, and reject even old and prestigious human traditions when they conflict with clear biblical teaching. There is a such a conflict here; the Bible teaches that the one God is the Father alone. Later traditions since the late 300s AD have said that the one God is not the Father, but rather the Trinity. So much the worse for those traditions. Let’s learn our theology from the Lord Jesus and his hand-picked apostles.

Footnotes

1 Compare: Malachi 2:10 (NRSV) “Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?”
2 For more scriptural evidence and argument see “podcast 248 – How Trinity theories conflict with the Bible,”
https://trinities.org/blog/podcast-248-how-trinity-theories-conflict-with-the-bible/ .
3 Acts 3:13, NRSV.
4 “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it?” Numbers 23:19 (RSV)
5 1 Timothy 2:5, NASB.
6 1 Timothy 1:2. [1 Corinthians 8:6]
7 Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 11:31; Ephesians 1:3, 17, 3:13; 1 Peter 1:3.
8 Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46; John 20:17; Revelation 3:12 (four times).
9 “Jesus said to [Mary Magdalene], ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them,
‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17, NRSV)
10 “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 11:3, NRSV.
11 For some other relevant facts see “podcast 189 – The unfinished business of the Reformation,”
https://trinities.org/blog/podcast-189-the-unfinished-business-of-the-reformation/.
12 Mark 8:29; Compare: Matthew 16:15, Luke 9:20.
13 John 20:30-31, NRSV.
14 Murray Harris, Jesus as God; Harris concludes positively about the following seven passages that many have thought referred to Jesus as theos: Harris' conclusions are:
Certain – John 1:1, John 20:28, Romans 9:5;
Very Probable – Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8, 2 Peter 1:1; Probable: John 1:18. (p. 272)
He rules out Acts 20:28 and 1 John 5:20.
15 Matthew 7:29.
16 John 1.
17 1 Corinthians 1:24.
18 John 20:17.
19 E.g. John 5:30; Matthew 9:8; John 17:8; John 14:10; Luke 4:18.
20 Mark 13:32; Matthew 24:36.
21 Luke 2:52; Mark 5:31; Mark 14:32-36.
22 Luke 1:5-20; Luke 1:26-38; Luke 10:16; Hebrews 12:1-4; Hebrews 2:13; Luke 8:43-48;
Matthew 27:27-44; Luke 4:16-30; Luke 5:16; Mark 14:32-42; Philippians 2; John 5:19; John 10:30;
John 19:30; John 8:40; Matthew 21:18-22; Matthew 17:14-20; Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41;
Matthew 24:36; Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5; Acts 5:31; 2 Peter 1:4; Mark 11:15-17.
23 Mark 10:18.
24 1 Timothy 1:17; Romans 1:23; 1 Timothy 6:16.
25 Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46; John 19:30; Acts
26 Acts 2:24, 32, 3:15, 26, 4:10, 5:30, 10:40, 13:30, 37; Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 15:15;
Galatians 1:1; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 2:21; 1 Peter 1:21.
On his being given immortality see 1 Corinthians 15:26, 42, 53. I assume that the saints will receive the same benefit in this regard as
the “firstborn from the dead.” (Colossians 1:18, Revelation 1:5)

Please note: some editing has been performed

Don't Be Left Behind!

(Click Image To Enlarge)

(Click Image To Enlarge)

For the sake of clarity, please note:
This has nothing to do with the fictional, nonscriptural Left Behind series of books/films which teach that Christians will be
"caught up and taken to Heaven"
whilst the rest of the world are left behind!
No! The Bible does not teach such nonsense.

Rather those left behind at Christ's coming will share the same fate of those who were left behind in Noah's time (that is, they were not in the ark); and those who were left behind in Sodom; that is:
and destroyed them all!

So, Don't Be Left Behind!