--------------------------------------------------------------
The rich are not those who have the most. They are the ones who need the least.

--------------------------------------------------------------
.::.add Facebook.::.What were you born for?.::.

The Oneness vs. Trinity issue is not simply an issue of what the Scripture teaches. Oneness believers and Trinitarians have the same Scriptures available to them. If it was simply a matter of an awareness of certain Bible verses, then everyone who has read the Bible in its entirety should have the same understanding of the nature of God. However, it is not the words of Scripture that distinguish the two theological camps, but rather the interpretation, explanation, and emphases of the same. This is why the views of each theological camp cannot be proven or disproved merely by Scripture citing. Our interpretation of Scripture differs, being colored by the preunderstandings we bring to it, and the emphases we place on certain teachings/portions of Scripture.

Both Oneness and Trinitarian theologians agree that the Bible teaches the existence of only one God; both agree that the NT makes a distinction between the Father, Son, and Spirit; both views maintain that the Scripture speaks of Father, Son, and Spirit as God. The question that both Oneness and Trinitarianism seeks to answer, then, is how to understand God as being one, and yet account for the Scriptural distinctions.

Oneness and Trinitarian theology both attempt to explain these distinctions, but do so from different starting points, and end up with two different conclusions. Oneness theology starts with the clear teaching of the OT that God is one, and understands the NT distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit in light of this foundational OT teaching. Trinitarians start with the NT distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit, and understand the OT assertions that God is one in light of these. The result is that Oneness theologians understand the distinctions as arising in the incarnation, while Trinitarians understand the distinctions as being eternal distinctions of divine persons in the Godhead both prior to, and after the incarnation.

The question before us, then, is what model or starting point does the most justice to the Biblical data? While every theological position has its own difficulties, which theological position (Trinitarianism or Oneness theology) more adequately preserves Biblical monotheism, while at the same time accounting for and explaining the distinctions we find in the NT?

Specifically, is the Holy Spirit simply another reference for a particular aspect of God's one person just like our spirit is a reference to a particular aspect of our one person (I Cor 2:11), or is the Holy Spirit a reference to a distinct person within God? If the latter, why did the OT not make this explicit and why is the NT data so lacking for such a conclusion?

While Oneness recognizes a distinction between the Father and Son, is such a distinction due to the addition of humanity to God's one eternal person (a distinction between God's transcendent existence beyond the incarnation and God's existence as a genuine man in the incarnation), or is such a distinction between eternal persons? If between eternal persons, why do we not read of the second person until the incarnation?

We must also ask why, if God is eternally Father, is He never called "God the Father" until the NT? It seems strange that we never read of Father and Son until the NT when God actually fathered a son (while "Father" appears approximately a dozen times in the OT it is used in quite a different sense than it is in the NT). Father and Son are relational terms used in the context of begetting a child. Did not God beget a child? Yes, at the time of the incarnation. Would this account for the lack of such a term in the OT and the virtual exclusive use of such a term for God in the NT?

Seeing that the incarnation brought a distinction between God's existence as Spirit made flesh (genuine humanity and deity conjoined into one unified person) and God's transcendent existence beyond the incarnation (Spirit alone), and therefore the need for a relationship between the Father and Son, is it not better to understand Father and Son to be incarnationally-bound terms rather than eternal relationships within the Godhead? After all, it is not until the NT that we find any distinctions in reference to God, and the Father/Son terminology. This incarnationally-grounded distinction might also explain the apparent lack of evidence for a distinct person of the Spirit. The OT speaks of the Spirit often, but it was always understood to be a reference to YHWH, referring to His nature as Spirit. The NT often makes a distinction between the Father and Son, but rarely distinguishes the Father, Son, and Spirit.

What model best explains the Biblical insistence on monotheism, the lack of any distinction in God's person in the OT, the emergence of Father/Son terminology only after the incarnation, and the fact that most often only the Father and Son are spoken of using distinction-terminology, to the exclusion of the Spirit? I argue that a Oneness theology best accounts for such a phenomenon, insisting that God is an absolute monad, the Spirit being His very nature and an aspect of His person, and the Son being none other than His own person incarnated as a man, but distinguished from the transcendent Spirit of God due to the hypostatic union of His deity and humanity. Oneness theology best accounts for the rise of distinction-terminology in the NT, and the emergence of the appellations "Father/Son," because it was not until the NT that God fathered a son, and it was not until the hypostatic union when God incorporated a human identity into His person that there arose such a need to make any distinctions in reference to God. The distinction, however, is never said to be between eternal persons in the Godhead. Such distinctions are only necessary in light of the incarnation.

--------------------------------------------------------------
And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.

1 Timothy 3:16...And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

John 1:1...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Now replace word with Jesus

John 1:1...In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God.

Zecharia 12:10...And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

Acts 20:28...Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

--------------------------------------------------------------
With God Nothing Is Impossible

JSteinsholt wrote: 1 Timothy 3:16...And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. John 1:1...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now replace word with Jesus John 1:1...In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. Zecharia 12:10...And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.  Acts 20:28...Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Wow that makes complete sense seeing that Jesus is WITH god and also is god. How can he be with god at the same time as be god. And if that proves that there is a trinity then where is the Holy Ghost???? 

 

(NKJV)

 John 5:19: Then Jesus answered to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do; for whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner" Jesus just copies god like a son copies his father. If Jesus was really god he would be able to do anything by himself but he can not. He can only do what his father tells him to and what he sees the father doing. 

John 14:28: You have heard me say to you, 'I am going away and coming back to you.' If you loved me, because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for my Father is greater than I.

  First of all if Jesus was God why would he have to go to God? It would be pointless. And there it also says that the Father is greater than the son. How can one be greater than the other if they are all equal as you teach? 

Mark 13:32: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Also said in Matthew 24: 36)

John 17:20-23: "I do not pray for these things alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word; that they all maybe one, as you, father, are in me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which you gave me I haven given them, that they may be one just as we are one: I in them, and you in Me; that they be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them as you have loved me. 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------
HALLELUJAH!!!

God should not be a mystery he made the bible so that we can know him and if he really was a trinity then he would have said it! the word trinity never appears in the bible. God made the bible for a reason. If he really was a trinity he wouldnt have left something that important out!

the word One means one in unity as well as one in number. It means unity   in 1John5:7, as it does in Jn.17:11, 21-21, and yet these three persons, the Father, the Word(Jesus), and the Holy Ghost, are spoken of as one each in number and individuality in scripture. There is One God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, and one Holy Ghost. ( 1Cor.8:6; Eph.4:3-6). Thus there are three seperate persons in divine individuality and divine plurality. The Father is call God( 1Cor. 8:6), the Son is called God ( Isa. 9:6-7, Heb. 1:8, Jn.1:1-2, 20:28), and the Holy Spirit is called God (Acts5:3-4). 

 As individual persons each can be called God and collectively they can be spoken of as one God because of their perfect unity.

to say it is only Jesus, would be denying the Father, and The Holy Ghost.  Look at Genesis 19:24, you can see that the Unity , Tri-unity.

Genesis 19:24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

A clear example of more than one persnon in the Godhead...

The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost.

all have a good day God bless you, got to get ready for work

--------------------------------------------------------------
"~The most powerful weapon on earth is a soul on fire for the Lord!~"

--------------------------------------------------------------
"Jesus Christ is the Hope in the Hopeless situation"-Bro.Mann

--------------------------------------------------------------
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever leaving something in place we have traded for it...