Can a Christian believe that Jesus is not God? Are there any implications to salvation? Can one truly be born again and think that Jesus is not God? There was a conflict in the early church over the doctrine known as Arianism. This is most commonly represented by the Jehovah’s Witness movement today. They hold that the Bible is God’s word but reject the view that Jesus is God. Thus, the Arians would consider themselves Christians who believe that Jesus is not God. They would say that the apostles did…
Category: Trinitarian Apologetics
Is The Holy Spirit Personal?
It seems as though the doctrines which are most sacred to Christians are those which are blasphemed most thoroughly. The most significant truths about God are those which are distorted so abundantly. But God will not be mocked, so he says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” (Romans 12:19). There are those who want to say that the Holy Spirit is not God. Muslims will say that when Jesus spoke of a comforter (John 14:26), he was actually referring to Muhammad. They will say that the Holy…
Why Did Jesus Say, ‘The Father Is Greater Than I.’?
Everything that Jesus ever did came back to the gigantic claim of divinity. Jesus Christ is God. He is the human image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:18). He is the exact representation of God’s being in human form (Hebrews 1:3). The Psalms of worship were written of him (Hebrews 1:8-10). He took God’s name in Exodus, and applied it to himself (John 8:58/Exodus 3:14). If that is the case, why did Jesus say, ‘The Father is greater than I.’? After all, if the Father is greater than he is,…
Is Jesus God The Son?
Is Jesus God the Son? That is a question for which one will need a little background knowledge before you can understand the pointed issue. There is a debate within Christendom over what is called the doctrine of the trinity. The doctrine of the trinity is founded upon three essential premises. (1) There is only one God. (2) The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each God. (3) The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons. (If you think that there are three gods, you…
If God Is A Trinity, And Man Is Made In His Image, Why Are There Not Three Of You?
The trinity is the view that there is one God, who is eternally present in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Some people will reply, but if God is a trinity, and man is made in his image, why are there not three of you? If man is made in God’s image, after all, we should reflect who he is. Thus, if God is a trinity, man should be able to reflect the trinity. We should expect there to three of each man. People like to…
Why Didn’t The Jews Believe In The Trinity?
Why didn’t the Jews believe in the trinity? Such a question is usually supposed to serve as a theological quagmire for those who believe in orthodoxy. After all, if there is one God who is eternally present in three persons, God seemed to have forgotten to reveal that to his people. Trinitarian theology was not formulated until the great councils in the early years of Christendom. But the Jews seemed to be strict unitarians, had no conception of the doctrine of the trinity. Indeed if you ask a modern Jew,…
Does Deuteronomy 6:4 Disprove The Trinity?
I have found that most people who do not believe in the trinity just do not understand what it is. So they will use this proof-text that they think disproves the trinity, when really, all they have done is disprove a version of the trinity in which nobody claims. A common example of this is Deuteronomy 6:4, which reads, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” One can see the force of this objection. After all, the trinity suggests that the Lord is three, while…
Should We Baptize Only In The Name Of Jesus?
Everybody in the early church was baptized. If one was to express the fact that they were a Christian, or perhaps even the mechanism by which they became a Christian, they went through the process of water baptism. For the sake of discussion, this essay will ignore the question of whether water baptism, in and of itself, is an essential prerequisite to salvation. Rather, I will focus on the view of the Oneness Pentecostal Movement. They teach that went one is water baptized, the person conducting the baptism must recite…
Is Jesus The Father?
The focal point of this essay is this question: is Jesus the Father? Let me preface this a tad. The Bible reveals the following three truths: there is one God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each distinct persons. That is a rather confusing set of doctrines, because, after all, how can there be one God, if there are three persons? Well, to me, this is sort of like asking how there can be one triangle,…
Is Jesus The Holy Spirit?
Almost in an attempt to muddy the waters and distort the biblical teaching about the person of Christ, some people will argue that Jesus is the person of the Holy Spirit. Before I answer the question, ‘Is Jesus the Holy Spirit?’ I ought to preface this topic so that you, dear reader, will understand what I mean. There has been heated debate throughout church history over the nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The prevaling orthodox position has always been the position that there is one…
Is The Trinity A Logical Model Of God?
Heavy criticisms against trinitarian theology are usually mounted from logic and common sense. People will believe what they prefer to believe and what makes sense to them. Since they cannot make sense of the trinity, they will prefer a doctrine that is easier to understand. In fact, unfortunately, many preachers cannot even explain the trinity, which leads many people to drift toward some form of unitarianism, which usually denies that Jesus is God. So is the trinity a logical model of God? I suppose first it would be profitable to…
Several Common Arguments That Jesus Is Not God Refuted
Two thousand years ago, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This claim has been assaulted throughout all of church history, from within a few hundred years of Jesus’ death. People will try to say that Jesus of Nazareth was not God in the flesh, but that he was merely a man, merely a human teacher, merely a prophet, merely the Messiah. But he was not God in human form. Whether in Muslims, or Jehovah’s Witness, we have heard of this. We may have heard the common arguments that…
Several Passages In The Bible Proving Jesus Is God
The most plain reading of the Bible reveals unequivocally and unquestionably that Jesus is God. When I say that, I mean that Jesus is the human version of the invisible God. However, some groups do teach people that Jesus is not God. But that is not a conclusion that one reaches from the Bible. That is a conclusion that one is told before they read the Bible. This view was exposed as heretical by the Council of Nicaea and has mostly been stomped out aside from a few fringe groups,…