You’re exactly right to tie Psalm 2:7 and its New Testament echoes to kingship, mission, and divine appointment, rather than some eternal, ontological relationship within a Trinitarian framework. The phrase “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (Psalm 2:7), quoted in Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5, and Hebrews 5:5, is consistently applied not to some timeless divine relationship, but to a moment in redemptive history—a "day” when God declares and reveals something new.
In Acts 13:33, Paul ties the “begotten” declaration directly to the resurrection of Jesus, not His eternal preexistence. In Hebrews 5:5, it’s linked to His high priestly role, and in Psalm 2, it’s clearly tied to royal enthronement—not divine biology. The term “begotten” here, especially in the ancient Hebrew and Greek context, is not about physical origin, but about investiture with authority—crowning a king, establishing a ruler, or publicly identifying a chosen one as God’s representative on earth.
This view aligns perfectly with how Sonship is presented throughout Scripture: as a role and identity rooted in the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus—not an eternal relationship between divine persons. When Jesus is called the “Son of God,” it’s declaring that this man, born of a virgin, filled with the Spirit, anointed without measure, and raised in power, is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the appointed King, and the redeemer of the world.
So yes—Jesus’ Sonship was fundamentally about communicating His mission, not mapping a metaphysical relationship inside the Godhead. It’s a revelatory title, not a blueprint of divine anatomy. And that’s why Oneness theology holds that Sonship began with the incarnation—when the eternal God stepped into time, crowned Himself with human nature, and fulfilled the mission of salvation as the Son.
Personally? Anybody willing to undergo circumcision to show fealty to me would impress me, and I might go so far as to call him “Son”, but I’m not likely to ask anybody to undergo circumcision just to be my son.
Yes, I agree with all this. But I still think the concept of “sonship” and how it all relates to the Incarnation and Christology is somewhat distinct from whether or not we call one aspect of God’s Three-in-Oneness “the Son.” So when you are presenting all these very valid points about the concept of sonship, you need to remember that establishing them doesn’t negate or disprove the pre-existence of the Second Person of the Trinity, it just calls into question whether the term “Son” is the best name. I would grant that the label in English (and other languages) has failed to communicate well outside of the original ANE context what God Incarnate in Jesus has been before the Incarnation.
I can see how projecting ideas derived from Jesus’ sonship back onto history as if it is exemplary of how God has always related and functioned as Godself could be theologically problematic and part of the reason people get off on weird Trinitarian tangents that aren’t grounded in actual revelation. But like I have said, all theology involves building concepts and those concepts depend on imagination not simply logical deduction or adding up empirical evidence. But I think it is a legtimate theological exercise to ask where people have filled in the gaps a little too imaginatively and then called it “God’s word.”
That’s partly why in my organization we had a HUGE controversy over the translation of divine familial terms in minority language Scripture translations, and a lot of Reformed English-speaking pastors in America beclowned themselves saying stupid and racist and Islamophobic things as they weighed in with their uninformed (and sometimes downright heretical) opinions.
I think you might have a messaging problem more than a theology problem (from my perspective) with your insistence that “Oneness theology” is in opposition to “Trinitarian theology” and framing it as a novel interpretation of the texts instead of an important corrective to the constructs that have built up over time around the discussion of the texts.
It’s pretty clear to me that the apostolic message preached the “Three-in-Oneness” of God, and this Three-in-Oneness construct is necessary and foundational for other doctrines in orthodox Christian Christology, pneumatology, eschatology, and ecclesiology, as well as ideas about divine revelation and the inspiration of Scripture.
I think you are right that throughout Christian history and theological thought development, people have tended to discuss Three-in-Oneness using lenses, language, and analogies that center Threeness over Oneness and this has left people with constructs attached to labels like “sonship” and “begotten” and “pre-existence” and “personhood” that are not serving the theology or the interpretation of the texts well. Maybe because our conceptual analogies and linguistic toolboxes deal better with separateness than with integration, it has just been easier to fall into Threeness thinking. Our embodied human experience is as individuals and our experience with collectives is always as differentiatable invididuals united into collectives. We are not hive mind creatures like the aliens in Ender’s Game.
So I agree with much of what you have said about intepreting the texts without imposing a Threeness lens or insisting on Threeness constructs or without projecting our own individual-ness and separate-personhood onto God’s Three-in-Oneness.
I’m just not at all convinced that you recover the Three-in-Oneness that the apostles taught by introducing a novel Oneness construct for everything. The reason people react combatively to these “Oneness theology” ideas, (many of which are not at all bad ideas and are quite consistent with ANE informed Bible scholarship) is that you are presenting them as a novel and oppositional take on orthodoxy. Is that really even what you have? If you want a corrective to the privileging of Threeness in Trinitarian (Three-in-Oneness) Christianity, then present a Oneness lens as the corrective to Threeness that gets you back to Three-in-Oneness, don’t try to argue that Oneness is new and better theology than Three-in-Oneness. People are just going to hear the part where you are saying “orthodox Christianity is wrong, listen to my new ideas about the real meaning of the Bible texts” and all their “this is a cult” alarm bells are going to go off.
Ok. I guess I thought part of the argument was that Jesus was just a human born like any other human, and that god chose to adopt him as his own, giving him a name above all, and elevating him.
Christy, that’s a very thoughtful and fair reflection, and I want to approach it in the same spirit. I truly appreciate your willingness to acknowledge that some ideas within Oneness theology align with ancient Near Eastern (ANE) understandings of Scripture—and you’re right to sense that the conflict isn’t always over content, but often over how it’s framed and how it challenges long-standing tradition.
But I would gently push back on the idea that Oneness theology is “novel.” What we call “Oneness” today is not a 20th-century invention—it’s a sincere effort to return to the language, categories, and theological worldview of the apostles and the Hebrew Scriptures. The apostles never described God as three persons in one essence. They preached One God (Deut. 6:4) who manifested Himself in flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), and they baptized in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38) as the revealed name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. These are not novel concepts; they are biblically grounded realities that were later reinterpreted through creeds and philosophical categories unfamiliar to the original Jewish-Christian context.
What may feel “oppositional” isn’t so much about attacking orthodoxy, but about challenging the assumption that the Nicene and post-Nicene formulations were the final and only faithful expressions of biblical truth. Oneness theology doesn’t deny the mystery of God—it seeks to honor it by refusing to divide Him into persons when the Bible so clearly emphasizes His indivisible oneness, and by viewing Jesus not as a part of God, but as the fullness of God revealed (Col. 2:9).
The goal isn’t to be contrary. It’s to magnify the name of Jesus, the One in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. If the presentation sometimes feels combative, I admit that’s a danger when contending for truth. But the heartbeat behind it is this: to return to the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3), and to proclaim with clarity and love that Jesus is not one of three—He is the One who was, and is, and is to come, the Almighty (Rev. 1:8).
Well, yes, Jesus of Nazareth the human was a human born like other humans whose physical body had a conception point in time. Jesus is the name of the human. The Incarnation says God became Jesus at his conception, it doesn’t say an unembodied human named Jesus was eternally part of the Trinity. I think the one true God has always existed as a Three in One, and the eternal Son is a convenient label for one member of the Trinity, it’s not an indication that Jesus the human pre-existed. The whole question of the OP is whether Jesus is a created being. To the extent that Jesus is a human with a physical body, yes, humans are created at a point in time. God chose that human for “sonship,” and what sonship entails is what we are talking about. It’s a separate part of Christology to say Jesus is the incarnate eternal Son who is fully God and fully man. Anything involving the Incarnation of Three-in-Oneness is going to be kind of a mindscrew and our words and categories will fail us.
And all of this can be true even if Jesus was God from the moment of his conception. The Trinitarian constructs are in many ways trying to make sense of the sonship and fathering language of the New Testament while maintaining the doctrine that Jesus the human was fully God and fully man.
The problem is that Christianity was in many ways a world-shattering re-interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures that expanded and re-invented those conceptual categories. The Incarnation was a new thing. Jesus was preaching something new. The apostles were teaching something new. Unless you are using Hebrew Scriptures not to mean “Old Testament” but the entire canon, which is not what the term “Hebrew Scriptures” conventionally means.
I think “viewing” is the operative word here and what we can’t escape in our mental limitations. Jesus is the fullness of God, not a “part” of God, true. But the separateness of the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is also revealed, and its useful to attempt ways to speak of this (hence the Trinity construct) even if we can never quite perfectly “view” it.
Agreed, but we already established that “Jesus is one of three” is a strawman and not what “God is a Trinity=God is Three-in-One” teaches.
Great question, Christy—and one that deserves a clear and scriptural answer.
When I say that the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus as the revealed name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I’m referring to the understanding that the one saving name revealed in the New Testament is Jesus, and that this name encompasses and expresses the full identity of God in His redemptive roles.
In Matthew 28:19, Jesus told the disciples to baptize “in the name [singular] of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” He didn’t say “names” (plural), but “name”—implying a single, unified authority. Then, in Acts 2:38, Peter obeyed that command under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost by baptizing in the name of Jesus Christ. This pattern continues consistently throughout Acts (Acts 8:16, 10:48, 19:5)—there is not one recorded instance of anyone being baptized by repeating the titles “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Why? Because they understood that those were titles, not names. The name that fulfilled all three roles was Jesus.
As Father, God is the Creator and source of all life (Isaiah 64:8).
As Son, He manifested Himself in flesh for redemption (1 Timothy 3:16).
As Holy Ghost, He indwells and empowers believers (John 14:17–18; Romans 8:9–11).
All of these roles are fulfilled by one God, and His revealed name is Jesus (John 5:43; Philippians 2:9–11). So when the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus, they were not disobeying Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19—they were fulfilling it by invoking the name that carried the authority and identity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That’s what I mean by “Jesus is the revealed name.” It is not a denial of the roles—it’s the revelation of the One Name behind them all.
Yes, the Scriptures clearly show the Father sending, the Son redeeming, and the Spirit indwelling—but none of this requires separate divine persons to be meaningful. What we see in Scripture is not separateness of divine essence, but distinction of manifestation, function, and role. The One God reveals Himself in different ways for different purposes—not because He is three, but because He is infinite and relational in His dealings with us. Isaiah 43:10–11 makes this crystal clear: “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 saviour.”
The Oneness perspective embraces the full range of God’s self-disclosure. We believe the Father is God in His transcendence, the Son is God in incarnation, and the Holy Spirit is God in His indwelling and empowering presence—not three persons, but one God revealing Himself in three primary ways. The early believers didn’t have to coin philosophical terms to explain this; they simply pointed to Jesus as the fullness of all God is (Col. 2:9), and they experienced His Spirit as the very presence of God dwelling in them (Romans 8:9–11).
I see. I was not really raised up with the belief of the trinity. The discussions never make sense to me. But that was mainly the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit was not a bring, but the power of god. Like a magician full with magic. The magic is not a being but a power even if it sought out goodness. So I see it , if supernatural, that Yahweh is god. Yahweh is full of supernatural power. That power is called the Holy Spirit. Somehow Jesus was conceived, abd Jesus a man was born with complete control and authority with this power that Yahweh gave him. As Jesus grew the power revealed more to him. When he died, God used this power to bring him back. We as Christians receive a minute mustard grain size of this Holy Spirit to help guide us. Jesus has full access to it. Those chosen had a lot more access to it then we do now. That’s about as “magical” I can accept. Though I tend to think the fo conception was not supernatural.
I don’t disagree at all with what you are asserting (that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit refer to One God, one source of authority and honor and salvation, that’s what Christians believe), but “name” here doesn’t mean “personal word used to refer.” Also the distinction between title and name in English is irrelevant to discussing the Greek. Both titles and names in English are “personal words used to refer.” “In the name” here in the Greek (and elsewhere in the Hebrew) means by means of the authority or honor, or reputation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A singular authority or a singular reputation can be ascribed to a collective, so you can’t prove “God is One not Three” by pointing to the grammar here. Just for the record.
But Jesus of Nazareth was a human being and that human being does not in fact indwell and empower me. And Jesus of Nazareth the human being did not in fact create the world, because he did not yet exist. So this makes no sense to me. God created, God became incarnate in Jesus and reconciled the world to himself through Jesus (the human being’s) death and resurrection, and God indwells the church. God’s name is not Jesus, it’s YHWH, the Eternal One.
We’ve already agreed that “separate divine persons” is a construct and what people mean by it depends on how they construe the word person as it applies to God. What I mean by God is Three-in-One and by naming Persons of the Trinity is not that God is Three Individuals. Insisting that it has to mean that is arguing with a strawman. I honestly don’t see how what you are saying is any different from what I was taught the Trinity is by Trinitarians.
This is almost verbatim what I learned as a “Trinitarian persepective on the missio dei.” If you want to insist that God has three simultaneous and distinct “ways” of being God instead God existing in three simultaneous and distinct “Persons,” I feel like it’s semantics and you arguing for your preferred way of labeling your concepts. Sure, if that works for you, why not? It’s just two different ways of trying to get at the same reality with language.
How does that take into account the items I noted up in post 172 or so, where the Psalmist says “Kiss the Son” in such a way that the Son is identified with Yahweh’s anointed and indeed Yahweh Himself? That usage suggests a relationship that is prior to the Incarnation.
Though the question says “Jesus Christ”, and I would say that the “Christ” aspect changes the question, that the eternal Word was always “Yahweh’s anointed one”.
This made me think of “The king is dead – long live the king!” It’s a duality we in the West really have no mental niche for, that in the phrase just above “the king” refers to two different people yet who are both equally king, though in the case of Messiah has him already Yahweh’s anointed one and yet he also becomes Yahweh’s anointed one in/during the Incarnation. It’s an aspect of the “already, but not yet” theme many see in the New Testament writings: the eternal Word was the anointed one from the foundation of the world, yet also became the anointed one in Baptism and ultimately on the Cross.
The Greek there is ἐπὶ (eh-PEE), not the expected ἐν (en) that would be used if this were meant as a formulaic. The phrase is ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι, literally “upon the name”, which was a standard way of saying “by the authority of”, followed by stating the name of the source of the authority, whether a person or council or such. So the idea that this identifies Jesus “as the revealed name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” tramples the grammar. The assumed linkage goes through the apparent parallel in Matthew 28, but again the word is not the possibly expected “ἐν”, rather it is “εἰς” (eh-ees), “into”. The following part of the phrase is the same, τῷ ὀνόματι (toe oh-NOH-ma-tee), so we have “into the name”. This is a standard phrase indicating entering the company of someone(s) or membership in a group, so it is completely different than the phrase in Acts 2. There is thus no parallel and no connection between the two names.
So they baptized by the authority of Jesus, which includes following the way He said to do it, and that way is found in Matthew 28, i.e. using the singular name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The fascinating thing is that the Jews were accustomed to Yahweh showing up in a human body; it’s here and there in the OT. The real objection was that He would be born and grow up, making Him actually human, not just in form.
Better would be “distinctness”, since part of the concept of the Trinity is that none ever acts alone.
Well put – that catches a subtlety I overlooked.
It’s dragging God down to the level of humans, a common element in heresies. For humans, it would mean three individuals; for God, it means “something sort of like would be individuals in humans but we have no better word for with God”.
Or in theological technical terms, the *opera ad extra", the ways in which God relates to things outside Himself.
In second-Temple Jewish terms, it’s a matter of there being a Yahweh in heaven Who is doing one thing or set of things while there is a Yahweh Who walks on the earth in human form Who is at the same time doing other, different things. They recognized that this makes Yahweh functioning as two actors. I’d have to do some digging to see what terms they used for this, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that the one the Christians adopted actually was adopted right from Judaism.
In the Psalms, YHWH’s anointed is King David, not Jesus, and that is the covenant son that this Psalm is referring to.
Messiah/Christos is a title and it referred to individuals other than Jesus in the Bible. Jesus was not the only anointed one.
Fine, the eternal Son was always the anointed one. But that doesn’t change the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, the human person that the Son became incarnate as did not exist until the Incarnation, because humans are embodied, physical beings with a bounded existence in time.
Rev 8:16 “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star.”
Jesus is Yahweh’s Anointed One who comes upon King David. He is both before and after David.
1 Sam 16:13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward.
Samuel was anointed and then Saul, but then taken back from Saul and given to David, then Solomon, etc. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon them making them a representation of the Son. So Jesus, the Word, the Son of God speaks through multiple people in the OT. And He speaks through us, the multi-member body of Christ in the same way today, not just through one king but through the many that the Holy Spirit comes upon.
But Jesus is the Son of God, not just “Jesus of Nazareth, the human person”. His incarnation goes beyond just physically being born human. He had his name Jesus before He was even conceived as flesh in Mary.
Luke 1:30 So the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, 33 and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”
Jesus is the name of the One God as discussed previously. He has a Triune nature. Spirit of the LORD (proceeding from the Father) rushed upon (indwells and made manifest in) David (son, part of the Son of God).
Jesus, places His anointing upon David and speaks through him.
No, Jesus is the name of the human born in the first century who was God Incarnate. Jesus (the fully God, fully man person) did not exist during the lifetime of King David. This isn’t hard.
That’s the Spirit of YHWH, not the Spirit of Jesus.
kyrios (Lord) in Greek does not refer to the same referent as YHWH in Hebrew.
Why is it not the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God, not Jesus.
Says you. He was given the name Jesus at the Anunciation. The eternal Son was not named Jesus before that. For reasons, I assume. The name Jesus means God Saves. It’s significant that the name was given at the Incarnation and not before.
I look up Philippians 2 in the First Nations Version, because I think it’s helpful for English speakers to hear it in words they aren’t as used to. “Jesus” is not some magical God-name. It is a transliteration of a name whose meaning is significant. It’s the action denoted in the name and the work of the bearer of the name that is powerful, not the name as a personal label.
" 5 Think about yourselves in the same way Creator Sets Free (Jesus) the Chosen One thought about himself.
6 Even though Creator Sets Free (Jesus) has always been the same as the Great Spirit and shared everything equally with him, he did not even think of holding on to this in a selfish way.
7 Instead, he emptied himself, became nothing, and gave up all he had. Then, having been born as a human being, he took on himself the lowly form of a servant.
8 As a True Human Being, he lowered himself even more by following the guidance of the Great Spirit, even when death was waiting for him at the end of the trail, death on a tree-pole—the cross!
9 Because Creator Sets Free (Jesus) did this, the Great Spirit gave him an honored place above all others and bestowed on him a name greater than all other names,
10 so that all who live in the spirit-world above, on the earth below, and underneath the earth will bow their knee to Creator Sets Free (Jesus) in honor of his name.
11 Then everyone, in their native language, will shout out loud that Creator Sets Free (Jesus) the Chosen One is Grand Chief over all the earth. This will bring honor and praise to our Father the Great Spirit."
Fully God, yes, but I didn’t say anything about Him being a fully man person at the time of King David. He manifests and indwells, but then becomes fully incarnate, born of water (flesh), in the first century.
Its the same Spirit. Being born of the flesh though, He also took on a flesh spirit (same as our flesh) that wars with His Spirit.
What would be the correct Greek word that corresponds?
The Holy Spirit does not speak the Word without a body (the Son)… it has to be physical but can be either a material or immaterial body. God always sends someone to speak. It could be a person or a messenger (angel). The Angel of the LORD is the pre-incarnate Christ.
The name was revealed at the annunciation. There is only one name written from the foundation of the world, and we are saved through His name, Jesus.
Rev 13:8 And all who dwell on the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb who was slain.
You’re absolutely right to affirm that God manifests and indwells, and that the incarnation of Christ in the first century is central to our understanding of God’s redemptive work. But I want to gently clarify one important point regarding your mention of being “born of water (flesh)”—especially as it relates to John 3:5, where Jesus says, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Some interpret “born of water” as referring to natural birth, associating it with amniotic fluid. But this understanding doesn’t hold up well in the immediate context or in the broader theological framework of John’s Gospel. Nowhere in the Bible is natural birth ever referred to as being “born of water.” Jesus wasn’t simply stating the obvious—that everyone must first be born naturally. Instead, He was speaking spiritually to Nicodemus about a new birth from above (John 3:3, Greek anōthen), involving water and Spirit, which connects directly with the baptismal and spiritual rebirth preached consistently throughout the early Church.
In John 3, Jesus is drawing from Ezekiel 36:25–27, where God promises, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you… and I will put my Spirit within you.” This is a prophetic image of cleansing (water) and renewal (Spirit)—not childbirth. In fact, just a few verses later in John 3:22 and John 4:1–2, Jesus and His disciples are actively involved in water baptism, which would make no sense if “born of water” simply referred to physical birth.
So, while we agree that God became fully incarnate, the “born of water” statement in John 3 isn’t a reference to His human birth process—it’s a reference to the new birth of the believer through baptism in Jesus’ name and the infilling of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38). It’s a call to enter the kingdom not by lineage or flesh, but by spiritual transformation. That’s the message of the Gospel—not just incarnation, but regeneration.
Christy, that’s a sincere and important question—and Scripture actually gives us a very rich and clear answer. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, absolutely—but the New Testament also reveals that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus, because Jesus is God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), and not a separate being from the Father.
Romans 8:9 is especially key: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Notice how Paul uses “Spirit of God” and “Spirit of Christ” interchangeably—because they are one and the same Spirit. In Galatians 4:6, it says, “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” So the Holy Ghost is not a third divine person distinct from the Father and the Son—it is the indwelling presence of the same God who was in Christ, now living in believers.
Acts 16:7 even says, “the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them” (NASB), showing again that the Holy Spirit is identified directly with Jesus. Why? Because Jesus, after rising from the dead, was glorified and now pours out His own Spirit upon His Church (John 7:39; Acts 2:33). He said in John 14:18, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” Then just a few verses later (John 14:23), He says the Father and the Son will make their abode in the believer—through the Holy Spirit.
So while the Holy Spirit is indeed the Spirit of God, we must recognize that in Christ, God and His Spirit were fully revealed. The Spirit that now fills and empowers the Church is not someone other than Jesus—it is the Spirit of the risen Christ, who is both Lord and God (John 20:28; Acts 2:36).