“Add thou not unto his words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” Proverb 30:6 Most people who say they believe that God is a Trinity of three divine persons do not realize that this doctrine was never taught by any Hebrew Apostle or Prophet of the Bible.
Nor was this doctrine fully developed until five centuries after Christ‘s death. The first person to use the word “trinity” was Tertullian of Carthage who ministered within one hundred years after the death of the original apostles.
It was Tertullian himself who acknowledged in his own writings that “they that always constitute the majority of believers reject the trinity.” Church history proves that the majority of Christians living during the first two centuries and in the early third century of the Christian era believed in Modalistic Monarchianism, a scholarly term for the same teaching as the modern day Oneness Theology of the Apostolic Faith Movement (also known as Oneness Pentecostal Theology).
Most professing Trinitarians do not know that the vast majority of the earliest Christians rejected the earliest concept of a trinity of three divine persons. The earliest Trinitarian doctrine of three divine persons was closer to the Jehovah Witness doctrine because these alleged Trinitarians did not believe that the Son was coequal and coeternal with God the Father.
Tertullian called the majority of Christian believers who rejected the trinity of his day, “Modalistic Monarchians” because these early Christians stated that the Person of God’s Being operated in three different modes or manifestations of His existence while remaining a single Monarch [King or Ruler].
It is this simple teaching that Tertullian called “Modalistic Monarchianism” which was embraced by the vast majority of Christian believers within the second century A.D. Where did these early Christians get their teachings from? Since these earliest Christians lived so close to the time of the original apostles it is likely that they received their teachings from the apostles themselves.
The historical evidence proves that the earliest Apostolic Faith Christians who received the New Testament scriptures and their immediate post Apostolic successors were not Trinitarian: The Illustrated Bible Dictionary records: “The word Trinity is not found in the Bible … It did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the 4th century.”
The New Catholic Encyclopedia admits that the Trinity “is not … directly and immediately the word of God.” The Encyclopedia of Religion And Ethics records: “At first the Christian Faith was not Trinitarian … It was not so in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in the New Testament and other early Christian Writings.” L. L. Paine, professor of Ecclesiastical History acknowledged: “The Old Testament is strictly monotheistic.
God is a single personal being. The idea that a trinity is to be found there … is utterly without foundation.” The Encyclopedia of Religion admits: “Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity.” The New Catholic Encyclopedia also admits: “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught in the Old Testament.”
Jesuit Edmund Fortman wrote in his book, The Triune God: “… There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a Trinity within the Godhead … Even to see in the Old Testament suggestions or foreshadowing’s or ‘veiled signs’ of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers.”
The Encyclopedia of Religion says: “Theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity.” The New Encyclopedia Britannica reports: “Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament.” The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology confirms: “The New Testament does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity.”
Jesuit Fortman similarly states: “The New Testament writers … give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons … Nowhere do we find any Trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead.” Yale University professor E. Washburn Hopkins affirms in the Origin and Evolution of Religion: “To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently unknown; … they say nothing about it.”
Historian Arthur Weigall records in The Paganism in Our Christianity: “Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon, and nowhere in the New Testament does the word ‘Trinity’ appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord.”
The New Catholic Encyclopedia admits: “The formulation ‘one God in three Persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century … Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.”
Since even the Catholic church which formulated the doctrine of a trinity of three alleged divine persons admits that the earliest Christians were not true Trinitarians (according to the creedal language) we must acknowledge that the creedal doctrine of a trinity of three divine persons was not believed in, nor taught by
the first century apostles of Christ, nor by their second century successors. Many Trinitarian scholars admit that the doctrine of a trinity of three divine persons is not taught in the Old or New Testament scriptures. These facts should alarm all professing Christians who have been duped into believing a doctrine that is not
even taught in the Bible. When we search the scriptures we find that the creedal doctrine of a trinity of three separate and distinct divine persons cannot stand up to the clear teachings of the Word of God. For a person must have his own individual spirit in order to be a real person. So if God is three divine persons then God must be three Spirit Persons. But there is not even a single verse in the Bible stating that God has three omnipresent Spirits.
Ephesians 4:4 clearly proves that there is only “One Spirit” and “One Lord.”
“There is one body, and ONE SPIRIT, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; ONE LORD, one faith, one baptism. ONE GOD AND FATHER OF ALL, WHO IS ABOVE ALL, AND THROUGH ALL, AND IN YOU ALL.”
In a formal debate, an Evangelical Pastor told me that the trinity is a three person family with the Father as the head of the other two members. Yet the Trinitarian Athanasian Creed teaches that each alleged divine person is coequal with the other two alleged divine members.
In his vain attempts to try to explain a trinity of three divine spirit persons this Evangelical Pastor would be called a heretic himself by his own Trinitarian Creed. For how can two divine persons be coequal if they are both under the authority of the first divine person who is said to be the head of the other two?
If each alleged divine person is said to be equally God then each alleged member should have all of the divine attributes of God such as equal power and knowledge with the other alleged members. And if the other two alleged divine persons are equally as powerful as God the Father then how could they be said to be under the authority of the first person as their God?
According to the scriptures, a God who is under the headship or authority of another God cannot be a true God at all! Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is a lesser god who is under the authority of the true God.
Therefore some Trinitarians are actually teaching a form of Arianism which postulates a belief that Jesus is a lesser god who is under the authority of God the Father. Trinitarian Theology deceives us into believing that “God is Three Spirit Persons of a Three Person Deity. Yet there is not a single verse of scripture stating that God is two or three separate and distinct divine
Spirit Persons. Nor is there a single verse of scripture stating that God has two or three separate and distinct co-equal thrones. The Bible speaks of “The Throne” of God; never does it state “The Thrones” of God. And there is not a single verse of scripture stating that God has two or three separate and Distinct Divine Names. The Bible always says, “The Name of the Lord,” never “The Names of the Lord.” Search and see for yourself.
You will never find the plural word “NAMES” of the Lord in any verse in the Bible. Therefore the Bible does not teach the creedal doctrine of a trinity of three individual divine persons with each alleged divine individual having his own individual name.
If God were really a trinity of three divine people then God would have to have three separate and distinct minds, wills, and individual identities. If this is the case then we would have to have three Spirits of God, three thrones, and three separate and distinct Kings. Yet such a belief clearly violates many passages of inspired scripture.
Try finding the words “Spirits,” “Thrones,” or “Kings” in passages referring to God in your Bible. You will never find any verses supporting a plurality of divine persons, having their own individual Spirits or Thrones. Trinitarian Theology clearly violates the clear teaching of scriptural Monotheism.
If God is really three people then we must believe that God is three Kings, Three Lords, and Three Almighties. If each person is coequal with the other two divine persons then there would have to be three Almighty Spirit Kings. But the scriptures teach that there is only One Divine Spirit of Yahweh God who alone is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. How can God be truly One Lord while existing as three Personal Kings and three Personal Lords?
Can a Trinitarian truly say that he has a relationship with all three divine Spirit Persons of a trinity and does he have to pray to each alleged member? The doctrine of a trinity of three divine spirit persons is clearly illogical and unbiblical. Whenever the God of the Bible described Himself He always described Himself as One divine individual, never three.
The prophet Isaiah clearly spoke of Jesus as the arm of Yahweh revealed in Isaiah 53:1 “Who has believed our report? And to whom is the ARM OF YAHWEH revealed?” The apostle John clearly proved in John 12:37-41 that Jesus is the arm of Yahweh revealed. How can Jesus be a second divine person when He is described as God’s own arm?
Can a man make another person out of his own arm? Since man is made after the image of God and man is one individual spirit person, so God must also be one individual Spirit person. God says in Ezekiel 38:18 “… My fury shall come up in MY FACE.” The Bible never says that God has three faces! Therefore the doctrine of a trinity of three divine people cannot be a true doctrine of the Bible. It was clearly added by the Roman Catholic Church centuries after the death of the original apostles of Christ.