You keep saying that but it does not accord with the text. The Logos is presented as a person in a face-to-face relationship, a relationship between two entities capable of an interpersonal relationship. That has nothing to do with any philosophical philosophy,it has to do with the text, with the words and the grammar.
Sorry, it’s “God is spirit”, not “a” spirit.
The Son is the uniquely-begotten God according to John. As God that means an eternal existence, as begotten it means a distinct existence. And one who is begotten and qualifies as masculine gender is called “son”.
No – the sonship is a description of the relation between the Father and the uniquely-begotten God of whom John speaks.
You’ve latched onto a single idea and are trying to make everything fit instead of just listening to scripture and organizing what it says.
That’s just a description of what the scriptures have to say. In the OT scriptures there is already a Yahweh in heaven Who interacts with and speaks with a Yahweh who walks on earth as a man; both are clearly people, especially since individually they also have conversations with people such as Abraham. So in the OT already there are two Yahwehs, but both are equally Yahweh, and neither one is an “it” as you disrespectfully say.
And it says that of a Yahweh already portrayed as two-fold, two Persons who think and act distinctly, who talk individually to people, who talk to one another.
You can’t throw out part of scripture and run just with a piece that takes your fancy, you have to take it all. And in all the OT already has a binitarian arrangement quite clearly, with a trinitarian arrangement in the wings so to speak (the Spirit is identified as Elohim who is identified as Yahweh).
You’re twisting the words there. A manifestation in the sense you are using it is a sort of extension, an altered appearance, of a single entity. Two entities talking to each other do not qualify as manifestations in that sense.
And “made manifest” does not mean a manifestation, it means “shown”, “revealed”, “made clear” – it does not mean “showed up as a different form”.
That’s not how the scripture presents it – you’re forcing that philosophical premise onto the scriptures.
No it doesn’t, because you end up with a schizophrenic YHWH-Elohim.
That’s exactly what the Trinity doctrine teaches.
You’ve bitten into something and found it fascinating, and you’re trying to force everything to fit that notion. But everything in the scriptures about God is summed up in the Trinity; it is not a doctrine invented later and imposed, it does not extend from Greek philosophy and make scripture form to fit it, it is a summary of what the scriptures have to say, one that was arrived at quickly even before the canon was finalized – because it is right there in the Old Testament writings.
Is a result of the effort to think clearly and not just trample over things as ‘oneness theology’ does. That theology boils down to modalism; it does not respect the way the scriptures treat the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the grammar but mushes them together like they were interchangeable masks in an ancient theater.
Only to those too lazy to see the distinction. “Distinction without a difference” isn’t originally a theological phrase, it is a philosophical one that was adopted because it helped clarify what the scriptures had to say. It points out that there are two separate categories, “distinction” and “difference”, and those categories are used to keep things straight.
Right – He’s Father, Son (uniquely-begotten God), and Holy Spirit, presented in the OT scriptures already as three distinct individuals, each one Yahweh bit each one not the other.
But philosophical categories can be used to describe things when they serve to clarify, which they do.
The Spirit did not become flesh; He proceeds from the Father; it is the Son Who has always been the uniquely-begotten God and Whose role thus is to take on flesh.
Only if you think that God is just some kind of magnified human. He isn’t; His categories are different. It’s just like with light: it is a wave, it is a particle, it is a disturbance on a field, and each one is the entirety of the light while none is the other – the wave is not a particle nor a disturbance in a field, the particle is neither wave nor disturbance, etc. That’s not the only trinity physics shows us, so why should we be surprised if Yahweh Himself can be as subtly complex as are His physics?
Now you’re just expounding the Trinity doctrine again. Why can’t you admit that it is the accurate summary of what scripture has to say, and jettison this theology that dabbles in multiple heresies?
Only if you think God is no more than some variety of man.
A large part of your reasoning consists of that, of insisting that God’s nature has to be limited to what human nature can be. That’s a wrong-headed approach from the start.
It illustrates it.
Which is exactly what the Trinity doctrine does.
Since that’s what the Bible presents, then it most certainly is biblical monotheism. The Jews recognized a Yahweh in heaven and a Yahweh who walked on earth as a man, that they were not the same Person, yet held to the Shema, to strong monotheism.
It’s a simple enought thing that it appears in arithmetic. Anyone who applies math to things knows that soemtimes you add and sometimes you multiply, so that there are two different relationships between three ones: 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, but 1 x 1 x 1 = 1. That matches the relationships as set out in the scriptures: the proper operation for Persons is addition, but the proper operation for “God-ness” is multiplication, so 1+1+1 gives 3 Persons but 1 x 1 x 1 gives one God.
Modalism.
You’ve given enough evidence repeatedly to show your theology is modalistic Nestorianism. The church saw through those centuries ago and spoke with united Spirit-guided voice to condemn them.
Yes it does, because that’s just saying what the scriptures portray, that there is only One God – while portraying Him as Father and as Son and as Holy Spirit, each One treated as a Person.
Of course they didn’t – they hadn’t faced the heresies that prompted those. It’s part of what Jesus promised would happen after He ascended, that the Holy Spirit would reveal all truth, and what Paul taught, that the Spirit gives teachers to the church. If those promises weren’t fulfilled through the men who knew scripture better than we because it was in their native language, then they haven’t been fulfilled at all.
Of course they didn’t – they hadn’t run into the heresies involved yet. But when they did, they summed up what the scriptures had to say and set forth the Trinity doctrine.
Basically your argument here is the old “We know better than the students of the Apostles”, the propsition that because someone had a new idea it must be betteer than the old. But on examination (read the arguments!) the Trinity doctrine is nothing but a summary of what the scriptures present; it is not philosophy forced onto the scriptures, indeed it is not philosophy at all – philosophically the Trinity struck everyone back then as nonsense, but the church refused to deviate because it is what the scriptures say.
It requires that when that’s how the scriptures clearly speak that we follow it. Nowhere in scripture does it call the Son or the ‘second Yahweh’ or the Holy Spirit a “manifestation”; that is a label dreamed up by philosophy and imposed. The scripture presents the Three as individuals, often speaking to humans as individuals, often speaking to one another as individuals, and so unless we think that the Spirit regularly inspired bad grammar and forgot to tell us about it then we must assume that it means that they are individuals – and I use the term “individuals” with care since it is easily misinterpreted, as Oneness does, to mean “separate the way that humans are”.
Oneness theology is just another attempt to force the scriptures to conform to some human notion, That has been the spark of every heresy ever, but the Spirit has spoken through the church, through the Spirit-given teachers promised by Christ and told about by Paul, crushing each one in turn. And since as you have demonstrated Oneness theology stumbles between already-corrected heresies, it has already been dealt with by the church.
Enough. We are admonished to not give hearing to false teaching, so I will not respond further.
there’s a significant difference between appealing to Scripture itself and appealing to the traditions that grew up around it. The authority of Scripture is not a “construct” in the same way that creeds or councils are—it is something Scripture claims for itself. When Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” he is not offering a later church’s philosophical reflection, but a divine affirmation: that what is written is God-breathed—originating from the Spirit, not human consensus. That’s categorically different from post-biblical theological frameworks like the Nicene or Chalcedonian formulations, which attempt to systematize doctrine through metaphysical categories foreign to the Hebrew and apostolic mindset.
When I emphasize the Spirit’s ongoing guidance into truth (John 16:13) and the noble example of the Bereans (Acts 17:11), I’m not invoking a tradition about Scripture—I’m appealing directly to Scripture itself, the very revelation God gave. The doctrine of inspiration isn’t a manmade idea imposed on the text; it’s how the text describes itself. That’s why we test all doctrine—ancient or modern—against the Word rightly divided (2 Timothy 2:15). I’m not saying throw out all tradition; I’m saying tradition has no authority unless it agrees with the inspired Word of God. Truth doesn’t belong to human formulations—it belongs to God, and He reveals it to those who seek Him with a pure heart.
I appreciate your desire to preserve continuity between the Old Testament types and the New Testament fulfillment in Christ, but I believe your objection misunderstands the distinction between God’s foreordained plan and actual incarnation in time. David did not prefigure a Second Person of an eternal Trinity—he prefigured the man Christ Jesus, the visible manifestation of the one true God who would come in flesh. Psalmic and prophetic references to “Sonship” point to a future reality realized in time, not an eternal relationship between co-equal persons. Hebrews 1:5 clarifies this beautifully: “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Not “from eternity,” but this day—pointing to a moment in redemptive history when God’s Word took on flesh and became the Son.
David was called “God’s son” (Psalm 89:26–27) in a representative sense, not because he shared eternal divine sonship, but because God made covenant with him pointing forward to the real and final Son who would come from his lineage. When the New Testament speaks of the Son, it never identifies the Son as preexistent as a person, but rather speaks of the Logos—the eternal self-expression of God (John 1:1), which became flesh (John 1:14). That Logos did not become a “second person” in some heavenly hierarchy, but was God Himself, robed in humanity. So David does not prefigure an eternal second person of a Trinity—he prefigures the Incarnate God who would be both Son of David and Son of God in one singular person, Jesus Christ (Romans 1:3–4). To say otherwise is to read creedal philosophy backward into the biblical narrative rather than letting Scripture interpret Scripture.
I appreciate your appeal to the grammar of the text, so let’s take a closer look at John 1:1 and stay precisely within the bounds of the written Word. The phrase “pros ton Theon”—often translated “with God”—literally means “toward God” or “facing God.” While some interpret this as implying personal relationship, the grammar itself does not require personhood. In Greek usage, pros can simply denote orientation, fellowship, or intimate association—not necessarily interpersonal distinction. The subject of the phrase is Logos (Word), a masculine noun, but masculine grammatical gender in Greek does not equate to personhood. “Logos” refers to speech, reason, or expression—it is not inherently a person unless the context makes it so. And what does the next clause of John 1:1 say? “Kai Theos ēn ho Logos”—“and the Word was God.” Not a person with God, not someone beside God in the sense of another conscious self, but the very God Himself.
It is ONLY in verse 14 that the Logos becomes flesh—indicating that the Word was not already flesh, not already a distinct person in the Godhead. So grammatically and contextually, John 1 presents the Logos as God’s own divine self-expression, eternally present with God because it is God, not because it is a second divine person relating face-to-face. The moment of personal embodiment occurs in the incarnation—not before. To read back personhood into the Logos prior to verse 14 is not exegesis based on grammar; it’s a theological inference that steps beyond what is written.
Whoops, that was my mistake—you’re absolutely right. I need to be more careful when I type next time.
The assertion that “begotten” automatically implies a distinct, eternal personhood reads later theological categories back into the text. Let’s focus on John 1:18, which in some manuscripts reads, “the only begotten God” (monogenēs theos), and in others, “the only begotten Son.” Either way, the term monogenēs does not mean “eternally begotten” in the way post-Nicene theology claims. It means unique, one-of-a-kind, or only-born, and in Johannine usage it emphasizes the uniqueness of the manifestation, not the eternality of a separate person. To be “begotten” speaks to origin or manifestation—not an unending dual existence alongside the Father.
Scripture never uses the phrase “eternally begotten.” That concept is extra-biblical, developed in creeds attempting to philosophically preserve both monotheism and Trinitarian distinctions. But biblically, the Son is begotten in time—“today have I begotten thee” (Psalm 2:7, quoted in Hebrews 1:5), not from eternity past. The Sonship begins in the incarnation (Luke 1:35), when the eternal Spirit overshadowed Mary. The masculine pronoun and term “Son” are applied after this moment, not before. God did not beget another divine person in eternity but revealed Himself as Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Ghost in regeneration. The Son is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the Word made flesh (John 1:14).
I would lovingly suggest that it’s not a matter of latching onto a single idea—it’s about taking Scripture at face value, without importing post-biblical philosophical constructs like “eternal begetting” or assuming that Sonship inherently implies a timeless, co-equal relationship within the Godhead. The very term Son by its nature implies derivation, beginning, and submission—concepts that don’t align with co-equality and co-eternality if taken literally. That’s why Scripture is careful in its language. John speaks of the monogenēs Theos—the only begotten God—not to establish two Gods or two centers of consciousness, but to declare the unique manifestation of the invisible God in a way never before seen: through the incarnation.
The Sonship is not an eternal relation between two divine persons—it is a temporal manifestation of the eternal Spirit (John 4:24) in flesh (John 1:14). Hebrews 1:5 and Psalm 2:7 explicitly root the begetting in a specific point in time: “This day have I begotten thee.” If we want to “just listen to Scripture,” then let’s follow the text where it leads: the Word existed from the beginning as God, not as a second person beside God. That Word became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ—not a separate divine individual—but the one true God revealed and made visible. This is not forcing a framework on the text—it is letting the text define God’s self-revelation on its own terms.
Even more striking is 1 Corinthians 15:24–28, where Paul describes the end of all things: the Son delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, and then the Son Himself becomes subject so that God may be all in all. This doesn’t imply inferiority, but it shows the functional role of the Son as mediator coming to a close. The office of Sonship fulfills its redemptive purpose and yields to the eternal oneness of God. If the Sonship ends, it cannot be co-eternal. That which ends is not everlasting by nature—it was appointed, for a time, to reveal and redeem.
Thus, the Son is not a separate divine person who always existed alongside the Father. He is the visible manifestation of the one invisible God, the Word made flesh for our salvation. The Sonship began in time, and it will culminate in time—its glory everlasting, but its role complete—when the fullness of God dwells among us unveiled, no longer through a mediating office, but face-to-face with the One who is Spirit, eternal, and indivisibly remains in the glorified body of Christ, not as Son but as God All in All.
I agree completely that we must not cherry-pick Scripture—we must take the whole counsel of God. But to say that the Old Testament presents “a Yahweh already portrayed as two-fold” is to overlay later theological constructs onto texts that emphatically assert uncompromising monotheism. The repeated declarations in Isaiah 43–46 are not poetic hyperbole or mere rhetorical emphasis; they are God’s own divine self-disclosures, spoken to Israel in contrast to the polytheistic nations surrounding them. When Yahweh says, “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me” (Isaiah 45:5), He is not leaving space for another divine person—He is establishing His exclusive identity. Deuteronomy 32:39 is even more explicit: “There is no god with me.” The Hebrew word ‘imadi (with me) does not allow for the presence of another divine being alongside Yahweh in any ontological sense.
Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find two or three divine persons talking among themselves as co-equal beings. What we find are manifestations of God—such as the Angel of the LORD, or the Spirit of God moving upon individuals—but these are not presented as separate divine persons with independent consciousness or will. Rather, they are ways the one God interacts with His creation. The idea that Yahweh is already two-fold or that the Spirit constitutes a “Trinitarian arrangement in the wings” is a theological framework read into the text, not one derived from it. The Old Testament’s witness is consistently clear: Yahweh is one, indivisible, and knows of no other—not beside Him, not with Him, and not within Him in parts. Anything beyond that isn’t faithful exegesis—it’s doctrinal imposition.
I fully and completely respect your desire for textual integrity, so let’s stay within the scope of Scripture and language. You’re correct that manifest (φανερόω) in 1 Timothy 3:16 means “to make visible” or “to reveal,” but that actually supports my point more than it undermines it. To say God was “manifest in the flesh” is to say the invisible God (1 Timothy 1:17) made Himself visible—not by becoming a second divine person, but by stepping into human flesh as the one true God expressing Himself in a tangible, knowable way. Manifestation doesn’t mean God changed His nature—it means He revealed Himself in a particular form for a particular purpose.
As for your objection that “two entities talking to each other” disproves manifestation, Scripture itself provides context: God is omnipresent and omnipotent. Theophanies like the burning bush (Exodus 3), the Angel of the LORD (Judges 13:21–22), or the fourth man in the fire (Daniel 3:25) were not separate divine persons—they were God’s presence revealed. God speaking from heaven while acting on earth does not require multiple divine persons—it simply requires an omnipresent Spirit manifesting in multiple modes. Just as His voice thundered from Sinai while dwelling in the Tabernacle, He can speak from heaven and act on earth without being internally divided.
There is nothing in Scripture requiring us to interpret these events as interactions between co-equal divine persons. What we consistently see is one God revealing Himself in many ways, never splitting into persons, but always remaining fully and indivisibly Himself (Isaiah 44:6, Deut. 6:4). So when God is manifested—He is not becoming someone else, nor sending another being—but revealing His own nature, His own will, in a way that creation can comprehend.
respectfully, to call Oneness theology a trampling of Scripture or mere modalism is a mischaracterization that neither honors the text nor engages its claims seriously. Oneness doctrine does not “mush” the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into interchangeable masks but rather affirms the biblical revelation of one indivisible God who manifests Himself in different ways for different redemptive purposes. The grammar of Scripture does show relational language between the Father and the Son—but context matters. That relational dynamic is explained not by eternal interpersonal fellowship within a tri-personal Godhead, but by the incarnation—God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). The Son is begotten in time, born of a woman (Galatians 4:4), and acts within the constraints of genuine humanity, including submission, prayer, and dependence. This is not a theater mask—it is God entering real time and space as man to redeem man.
Furthermore, Oneness theology deeply respects the text, which repeatedly declares God is one (Deut. 6:4), not “three persons.” Nowhere does the Bible define God as three co-equal, co-eternal persons with distinct minds, wills, and relationships. Those are extrapolations imposed onto the text. What we see in Scripture is a God who speaks of Himself in singular terms, who alone is Savior (Isaiah 43:11), and who became flesh to dwell among us (John 1:14). The Spirit, the Father, and the Son are not separate persons—they are the same God revealing Himself in distinct modes of operation, not as mere roles, but as divine actions flowing from His singular nature. That’s not modalism—it’s biblical monotheism rightly understood.
I respectfully disagree with the claim that pointing out multiple “I’s” within the Godhead is merely a projection of human limitation onto divine nature. In fact, it is not about reducing God to man—it’s about protecting the absolute oneness of God as revealed by God Himself. The Shema doesn’t say, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is a complex unity,” but “The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4). Scripture reveals a God who speaks consistently as a single “I”—“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me” (Isa. 45:5). The problem is not that Oneness theology limits God by human reasoning, but that Trinitarianism introduces a plurality of personal centers of consciousness, each saying “I” and “You” to each other, which by any honest reading constitutes more than one “person”—it constitutes division.
If one says that God can be three “I’s” and still one being, that is not transcending human limitations; that is contradicting the scriptural pattern of God’s indivisible identity. God is not limited, but He is consistent—and He has consistently revealed Himself not as a committee, not as three selves, but as one undivided Spirit (Eph. 4:4, John 4:24), fully revealed in Christ. That’s not human limitation; that’s biblical revelation.
thank you for the engagement. You’re right to say that many of the earliest heresies forced the Church to clarify its understanding—but that clarification must always remain within the bounds of Scripture, not outside of it. And we both must honestly admit that the very terms used to define the doctrine of the Trinity—such as homoousios (same substance), persona, subsistence, and even the term Trinity itself—are not found in the Bible. Of course, neither is Oneness, but, there is One, I AM, by myself and alone repeated through Scripture. They are extra-biblical philosophical terms developed centuries later, especially during and after the Nicene and Chalcedonian councils, to interpret the Scripture. That doesn’t automatically make the conclusions wrong—but it does mean they are not simply a “summary of what the Scriptures say” in their plain form. Rather, they are constructs applied to the text to explain what was perceived as paradox.
What we contend is not that we know better than the students of the apostles, but that Scripture alone—God-breathed and sufficient—should interpret itself without needing non-biblical language to hold it together. The earliest believers, including the apostles, never taught that God exists as “three co-equal persons.” That framework emerged as an attempt to resolve tensions using Greek metaphysical categories, not the Hebrew monotheism of Deuteronomy 6:4. So while we respect the history, we are called to return to the language of Scripture itself, where God is always presented as One Spirit (Eph. 4:4), who manifested Himself in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), and who indwells us today—not as a committee of persons, but as the one Lord who is both Father and Redeemer.
St. Raymond, I understand your conviction, and I respect your desire to remain faithful to what you believe the Church has preserved. But your response presumes that post-biblical councils and creeds are the Spirit’s final voice, when in fact, the Spirit speaks foremost through the Scriptures, not through ecclesiastical consensus. Oneness theology isn’t a human attempt to reshape Scripture—it’s a return to the language the apostles themselves used: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9), “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deut. 6:4). These are not speculative reconstructions—they are the Spirit-breathed declarations of who God is.
If we are honest, every major Trinitarian formulation—be it Nicene or Athanasian—goes beyond the text by introducing terms and categories not found in Scripture. The Oneness position simply affirms what the Bible plainly states: that the one God who is Spirit (John 4:24) took on human flesh (John 1:14), was called the Son because of that incarnation (Luke 1:35), and now indwells believers by His Holy Spirit—not three centers of consciousness, but one God revealed in Christ.
If the Church is truly Spirit-led, then let us always return to the Scripture-first model, not post-apostolic philosophical frameworks. And if we truly love truth, we shouldn’t fear re-examination. Paul praised the Bereans for testing all things by the Word—even his own teaching (Acts 17:11). That remains the only safe ground for doctrine.
Hmm.
Like most theological questions, it is a bit more complex than it looks. Could such a concept have theoretically existed from The Garden onward? Difficult to say. But the concept was not known reliably in writings until the 4th Century CE.
Does that mean it didn’t exist beforehand? Well, yes and no. The only thing that we can be certain of is that there are no instances before the 4th century that can be tied by biblical scholarship to Trinitarian thoughts and ideas. It certainly is not found implicitly and explicitly in Jewish writings before the 4th century.
Who are you talking to? If you’re responding to my question, why? My question was to Omega, who is a Oneness Pentecostal. Are you a Oneness Pentecostal? If not, why are you trying to answer my question to a Oneness Pentecostal? Surely you’re not trying give a rational answer to my question to a Oneness Pentecostal, are you? If you are, don’t.
Agreed. Nowhere does the Bible define God as one person either (one God but not one person), and there are places where God is spoken of as a more than one person. I think the correct statement of the doctrine doesn’t use the word three at all: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different/distinct persons but only one God.
But the number three is nowhere in the text and this is not something I agree with. I don’t agree with the limitation to three persons any more than I agree to the limitation to one person. I believe in a transpersonal God – no limitations. Three only comes into it because these are the persons of God we know. And they are the only three spoken of in scripture. So… we are right to be wary of opening this up for anyone to add more persons to this, which I can easily see new religions trying to do. But I believe in an infinite God, not a God who is three.
I am always dubious of attempts to limit reality to fit the Christian religion and what it understands. I see a lot of that among Christians. I don’t buy any of that.
What a load of complete nonsense!
As long as I have known him, being faithful to church tradition has never had ANYTHING to do with St.Roymond’s convictions. It has always been about the text in the original languages and the cultural background of that text. AND it is not like I have agreed with them because my priorities are completely different. I have little reason for being faithful to church tradition or the text frankly! My last post was expressing doubts that we can derive such details from the text. I think both go too far with this. But your claim (the claim of The_Omega) that you (he) just follows the text and St.Roymond does not is just plain garbage.
St. Roymond has pointed to a long list of things which you have added to the text. So there is no honesty whatsoever in your formulation about how far YOU go beyond the text. I mean, I agree that Trinitarian doctrine is not explicitly stated in the Bible but I don’t see what you have been saying stated in the Bible either. It doesn’t bother me either way, because the notion that all truth must be found in the Bible is totally bogus anyway.
I think there is a connection to tradition because that tradition is based on a very long history of many people studying that text. But all the reasoning I have seen from St.Roymond both in this thread and elsewhere on the forum has always been based on the text itself… whether I agree with him or not. Nevertheless the idea that your new group has studied the text longer and with greater expertise than all those people in Christian history is not believable.
I did a search for church fathers giving any support to the One-ness Pentacostal view and not only found nothing of the sort, but found that there is now dissention among those who were originally One-ness Pentecostals themselves. This is one site I found. Reading this reinforces my principle conclusion that One-Pentacostalism is going in the wrong direction to limit God and what God can do. That is a deal breaker for me. I believe in an infinite God without ANY limitations - even without the traditional limitation to being unable to limit Himself. I think that amounts to enslaving God to human theology and human definitions.
Binitarian and trinitarian thought can be found in second-Temple Judaism.
True; the number isn’t an assertion that it is a complete description of God, it is an assertion about what has been revealed about God. That’s something we forget often in the West, thinking that because x, y, and z are what we are told about then that is the complete list; in the East it is quite common to think that x, y, and z are what we know about the list.
There’s a somewhat annoying subtle arrogance in the western attitude one you manage to see the eastern view.
FWIW, Grok couldn’t find a trace, either. I didn’t think there was, but without having a memory module attached to my brain with the complete text of all the Fathers I wasn’t absolutely sure, so I checked with a source that can scan those complete texts in seconds.
Wow – great read! I find I wasn’t doing too badly at tackling the scriptural issues when I’ve never encountered the Oneness heresy before. Now I’m wondering if Oneness is common enough that I should bookmark the essay. And I am humbled at how much more thoroughly the author dealt with the grammar as pointing to the Trinity!
BTW, and FWIW, when I first encountered the Trinity doctrine I sat down and (mind you, this was before the internet and electronically-searchable documents) listed out every statement about God, sorting them generically, Father, Son, and Spirit, to see if it all fit. To my surprise, they did, to the point that it was evident that the Trinity doctrine emerges from the text and is not, as I would have guessed, something that emerged from Greek or other pagan philosophy. To be sure, I reviewed Greek philosophy, and sure enough there is no hint of trinitarian thinking until scriptural thinking had introduced it.
It seemed to me that the quote was claiming we will only worship what we do not know, and i said that we need to know something otherwise it is blind worship but not necessarily everything.
Following the arrows, where you say Jesus sends the Spirit, that is to indwell us.
The Son is begotten of the Father and then ascends to the Spirit. The Father then proceeds to the Spirit, but that is through the Son. This gives us the full image of God the Father in Jesus. For example, to see an expression of love (abstract spirit) you need a face (physical manifestation) to see it on.
Once Jesus ascends to the Father (“right hand” represents authority), through the Spirit, He then sends the Spirit back to us, to indwell us (the sons of God/body of Christ). We are then made in the image of the Father, but that is through Jesus who sends the Spirit.
The cycle of building the body of Christ continues to this day. He initially sent the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, 50 days (representing completeness, fulfillment) after Passover. Everyone had been waiting in Jerusalem that entire time and were all gathered in one place.
The Name of God is Jesus, the name above all names. YHWH or Yahweh means “I am”. It is not a name but a breath sound. God did not reveal His name to Moses but side stepped the issue. In other cases in the OT God calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
In God’s plan to manifest in the Son, to be born of Adam (mankind), He wanted to reveal His name through the Son, to be born in the flesh and named by Adam. He already had a name and a face before it was manifested. He provided the name to Joseph though the angel Gabriel.
Matt 1:20 But after he had pondered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to embrace Mary as your wife, for the One conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”
Also consider this:
Mat 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Okay, so answer this: If the Father’s name is Yahweh, the Son’s name is Jesus, then what is the Holy Spirit’s name?
Acts 2:38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is Jesus.
The Son doesn’t ascend to the Spirit, He ascends to the Father.
The Father doesn’t proceed anywhere, the Spirit proceeds from the Father.
Your statements flatly contradict the plain words of Jesus.
Since the name had to be given, it wasn’t the name yet. And it is given as a description of what He would do.
So “Jesus” can be no more a name that “Yahweh”, to use your own reasoning.
God’s name is Yahweh. The Father is Yahweh, the Son is Yahweh but in the Incarnation gains the name Jesus, the Holy Spirit is Yahweh (which is right out of the OT and repeated by Paul when he says “Now the Spirit is the Lord”, since “the Lord” is how Yahweh transfers into Koine for first-century Jews).
A living soul is a body plus the breath (of God) --it’s in Genesis 2.
Terry, that’s an important question, and it gets right to the heart of the difference between biblical language and later theological formulations. According to Scripture, yes—there was a time when the Son did not exist, not because God changed or lacked anything, but because Sonship began in time. Luke 1:35 says clearly that the child would be called the Son of God because of the miraculous conception: “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee… therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Sonship is tied to the incarnation, not to eternity past.
What existed before time was not the “Son,” but God Himself—eternal, invisible, and indivisible (1 Timothy 1:17; Deut. 6:4). John 1:1 tells us that the Word was with God and was God—not “the Son was with God.” The Word is God’s own divine utterance, His self-expression—not a second person in a Godhead. And John 1:14 says the Word was made flesh—that’s when the Sonship began. So no, the Son did not exist as a separate person or identity before Bethlehem. The eternal God manifested Himself in time as the Son to redeem mankind (Gal. 4:4–5), but the role of the Son is incarnational, not eternal in title or personhood. This honors the fullness of Scripture without importing extra-biblical categories.
Hebrews 1:3 :
“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, (not persons) and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”
Mitchell, that’s a bold statement, and I believe it deserves a thoughtful and respectful response. While it’s true that the Bible doesn’t claim to be an exhaustive encyclopedia of all facts—like how to build a car or perform surgery—it does claim to be the complete and sufficient revelation of God’s redemptive truth and spiritual authority. Paul wrote, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). That’s not a light claim. Scripture positions itself as enough—not lacking, not partial, not in need of supplement from philosophy, tradition, or speculative revelation.
When people say, “not all truth is in the Bible,” they often mean there are other sources of wisdom, which can be fine in practical matters. But when it comes to doctrine, salvation, and the nature of God, if it’s not rooted in the God-breathed Word, then it is not binding truth for the Church. Once we open the door to truth being found outside of Scripture in spiritual matters, we quickly drift into dangerous waters where personal opinion, tradition, or cultural consensus replaces divine revelation.
So yes, the Bible may not tell you how to change your oil—but it tells you everything you need to know about how to walk with God, know Him, and be saved. And for that, it is complete.
I appreciate your willingness to explore and research differing views, but I believe your conclusion about Oneness Pentecostalism misunderstands both its core theology and the nature of divine self-revelation. To say that Oneness limits God is actually the opposite of what we believe. We affirm that God is limitless, infinite, and absolutely sovereign—so much so that He is not confined to three eternal persons, but can manifest Himself however He chooses without compromising His essential oneness (Isaiah 43:10–11; Deut. 6:4). It is not limiting God to say He manifested Himself in flesh; it would be limiting to say He must always exist as three co-eternal persons in order to be God.
Your appeal to early Church Fathers is understandable, but the authority of doctrine does not rest in post-apostolic writings, especially when they began to drift toward philosophical constructs foreign to the apostles’ teachings. The absence of early Oneness terminology is no more troubling than the absence of later Trinitarian terminology from Scripture. What matters most is what the Bible actually says—that God is one (not three), that He was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), and that the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ (Col. 2:9). These aren’t human definitions—they’re Spirit-inspired truths.
As for those who have left the Oneness message, defections exist in every tradition. But disagreement doesn’t invalidate doctrine—Scripture does (or does not). If you believe God is infinite, then surely He has the power to be fully Spirit and fully man without fragmenting into persons. That’s not a limitation. That’s divine supremacy. And rather than enslaving God to human theology, Oneness seeks to submit to how God chose to reveal Himself—through His name, His Word, and His Spirit—all fully embodied in Jesus Christ.
20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
The Bible does not use the phrase “God the Son” even one time. It is not a correct term because the Son of God refers to the humanity of Jesus Christ. The Bible defines the Son of God as the child born of Mary, not as the eternal Spirit of God (Luke 1:35). “Son of God” may refer to the human nature or it may refer to God manifested in flesh—that is, deity in the human nature. “Son of God” never means the incorporeal Spirit alone, however. We can never use “Son” correctly apart from the humanity of Jesus Christ. The terms “Son of God,” “Son of man,” and “Son” are appropriate and biblical. However, the term “God the Son” is inappropriate because it equates the Son with deity alone, and therefore it is unscriptural. The death of Jesus is a particularly good example. His divine Spirit did not die, but His human body did. We cannot say that God died, so we cannot say “God the Son” died. On the other hand, we can say that the Son of God died because “Son” refers to humanity.
If we could justify the use of the phrase “God the Son” at all, it would be by pointing out, as we have done, that “Son of God” encompasses not only the humanity of Jesus but also the deity as resident in the humanity. However, John 1:18 uses “Son” to refer to the humanity, for it says the Father (the deity of Jesus) is revealed through the Son. This verse of Scripture does not mean that God is revealed by God but that God is revealed in flesh through the humanity of the Son. "Son of God” refers to the humanity of Jesus. Clearly the humanity of Jesus is not eternal but was born in Bethlehem. One can speak of eternal existencein past, present, and futureonly with respect to God. Since “Son of God” refers to humanity or to deity as manifest in humanity, the idea of an eternal Son is incomprehensible. The Son (God’s Humanity) of God had a beginning.
Hebrews1:1 In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs.
Wow! Did The_Omega think we wouldn’t look up the passage and put in back in context???
