THE TRINITY PART THREE: THE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE THAT DISPROVES THE DOCTRINE

The emphasis of part one, “The Trinity: Is God Three Persons In One?“ was to point out that “Father”, “Son” and “Holy Spirit”, are not three different Persons, they are three titles of God. This is consistent with the fact that in the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, Jehovah has many titles.

Part two was written to show that while it is true “Elohim” is a plural noun, that does not prove that God is three Persons in one.

In this paper we will look at several scriptures that go to prove that the doctrine of the Trinity is not only illogical, it is unscriptual, and most importantly, it demeans the Person of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Let us look first at Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Councilor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”. This verse is, of course, a prophecy concerning Christ. Note that He is referred to as “Son”, in the phrase “a Son is given”. Note also that He shall be called “everlasting Father”. That is to say, the Son shall be called “everlasting Father“.

But, the reader may object, “How can the Father and the Son be the same Person?” The answer is that “Father” and “Son” are titles of Jehovah, Who is one. There are several passages in the Old Testament that tell us that Jehovah is the Father. Is. 9:6, quoted above is one of the Old Testament verse which proves that the Father and the Son are two titles of One Person.

Another Old Testament verse that proves that the Father and the Son are one is Is. 63:16, “Doubtless, thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: Thou O Jehovah art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting”. We know from at least two New Testament verses that Christ is our Redeemer, i.e. Rev. 5:9, “…for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood …” and Eph. 1:6-7, “..He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, …”.

Is. 63:16 tells us that the Father is the Redeemer. The New Testament verses quoted above tells us that Christ is the Redeemer. In other words, the Father is the Redeemer and Christ is the Redeemer. There are obviously not two Redeemers, therefore, Christ and the Father are one. If we see Christ as the Son only, as opposed to fulfilling all the titles of Jehovah, that makes no sense. If Christ is the Son and the Father, we must understand that to mean that He fulfills the offices of “Father” and of “Son”, they are not two different “Persons”.

Some may object to the suggestion that the Father and the Son are the same Person on the basis of the fact that while Christ was on earth, the Father was in heaven, therefore, they must be two different Persons. Let us examine that thought.

We read in Gen. 3:8, “And they heard the voice (should be translated “footsteps” as it is elsewhere in the Old Testament) of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”. Jehovah (Christ in bodily form, please see the paper Jesus Christ is Both The Jehovah And The Manifestation of Jehovah) was on earth. But God, Whose Name is “Jehovah” was obviously in heaven at the same time. Surely we can not say that there must have been two Jehovahs, one on earth walking in the garden and another in heaven. But all is clear when we see that Christ is the manifestation of Jehovah Who is spirit. That is to say, Jehovah, Who is spirit is everywhere, and the manifestation of Jehovah was walking in the garden. If we see that truth in this situation, why then, must “Father” and “Son” be two different Persons in other situations?

Consider also Gen. 17:1, “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, Jehovah appeared to Abram....”. Again, Jehovah was on earth speaking with Abram. There were not two Jehovahs, one on earth and one in heaven. There was Jehovah, Who is spirit in heaven and Jehovah manifest on earth speaking to Abraham. Again, because that is true in this passage, there is no reason to assume different Persons in the New Testament when we read of the Father and the Son, even if One is in Heaven while the Other is on earth.

Let us continue with a consideration of the Holy Spirit?  The Greek word translated “Comforter”  is “Parakletos”. In I Jn. 2:1 the word is translated “advocate”. Let us consider that verse as it will tell us a very surprising truth as to Who the “Parakletos” is, “….if any man sin, we have an advocate (Parakletos) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”. John tells us quite specifically that Jesus Christ is the Advocate (“Parakletos”).

But John also tells us in Jn. 14:26 that the Parakletos  is the Holy Ghost“. “But the Comforter, Which is the Holy Ghost..…”.  And Jn. 14:16-18 tells us that Christ is the Parakletos.  We read in that passage, “…I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter……….I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you“. Note that our Lord said that the Father shall give them another Comforter, Who in verse 17 is said to be the Holy Spirit. And yet Christ said that He would come to them so that they would not be “comfortless”. In other words, in this passage which speaks of the Father sending the Parakletos, Christ speaks of His coming. Again, that makes Christ the  Parakletos. Since Christ is the Parakletos and Christ is also the Son, they cannot be two different Persons.

Let us also consider the Greek word translated “comfortless” in Jn. 14 which is “orphanos”. The word is also used in James 1:27 which reads, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless (Gr. orphanos) and widows in their affliction……”. It is clear from this context that “orphanos” means “fatherless”.

Let us return then to Jn. 14:18 where we read that Christ will not leave His disciples “comfortless”, i.e. fatherless because He will come to them. That makes Christ their Father. That is to say, only the coming of the Father will make them not fatherless. But as we have seen in the paragraphs above, Christ is the Parakletos. So here Christ fulfills the offices of Father and Parakletos. And because the Parakletos is one of the offices of the Holy Spirit, that means that Christ also fulfills the office of Holy Spirit.

In short, I have presented the Scriptural evidence that “Father” and “Son” and  “Holy Spirit” cannot be three different Persons, but rather Jesus Christ fulfills the office of “Father” and of “Son” and of “Holy Spirit”.  One Person fulfilling three offices.

(For further Scriptural evidence that Christ fulfills the office of Holy Spirit please see the paper on the study of spirit).

Let us consider a New Testament example of how the doctrine of the Trinity contradicts itself. We read in Matt. 1:18, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost“. And in verse 20 we read, “……That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost“. It is clear that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit. But most would say that Jesus’ Father was God the Father. Did Jesus have two Fathers? Of course not, God is His Father. The only way that one can understand this difficulty is to see that “Holy Spirit” and “Father” are not two different Persons, they are two titles of God.

Many have pointed to the fact that while on earth, the Son spoke with the Father. That, it is said, proves that the Father and the Son are two different Persons. I believe that Jehovah was, in a sense, speaking to Himself in different offices. I believe that, because there is a precedence for that. Let us examine that thought.

We read in Gen. 1:26 that, “Elohim said ‘Let us make man in our image’ “. As the paper on Elohim proves from Scripture, Elohim is Jesus Christ. It is not the Father or the Holy Spirit who wrestled with Jacob (Gen. 32:24-30). It is Christ and not the Father or the Holy Spirit Who will stand on the Mt. of Olives (Zech. 14:4). So, in Gen. 1:26 we have Jehovah, in His office of Elohim which, again cannot include the Father or Holy Spirit (see the paper on Elohim), speaking with Himself in His office of Holy Spirit, Who was to breathe into man’s nostrils. This proves that Jehovah does indeed “speak to Himself” in His varying offices. Since that precedence was set in Gen. 1:26, I believe the same is true of Christ while on earth. That is to say, Jehovah, in His office of Savior, spoke with Himself in His office of Father. See also Gen. 3:22, Gen. 11:7 and Is. 6:8, all of which show Jehovah speaking to Himself.

When understood in the traditional way, i.e. God is three Persons  in one, Jn. 4:18 demeans the very deity of Christ.  That verse  reads, “The Father is greater than I”. But Christ is God. God cannot be less than God? If on the other hand, we understand that the office of Father is greater than the office of Son, then all is clear.

To be absolutely thorough let us see how the Holy Spirit means for us to understand the Greek word translated “greater”. That Greek word is “mizon”. The first two occurrences are found in Matt. 11:11 which reads, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater that he”. Let us consider several more occurrences of this Greek word.

Matt. 18:1, “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?”.

John 4:12, “Art Thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well……?”

Jn. 13:16, “The servant is not greater than his lord…..”.

Jn. 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this……”.

I Cor. 13:13, “But the greatest of these is charity”.

I Jn. 3:20, “God is greater than our heart….”.

I Jn. 5:9, “The witness of God is greater….”.

It is clear that the Greek word translated “greater” means the very same thing as does our English translation. .

It might be helpful to discuss some of the reasons that the doctrine of the Trinity is so widely accepted. May I say first, that its wide spread acceptance in itself, does not prove its correctness, just as the wide spread acceptance of the teachings of the Catholic Church before Martin Luther did not prove its correctness.

I believe that there are basically two reasons for the acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity. One is that most English translations of the Old Testament do not show the Hebrew titles and the name, “Jehovah”. So the readers of the English translations are not aware of the many titles of Jehovah. So when that reader enters the New Testament, he is not used to thinking in terms of God’s titles. Therefore, when he reads of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the reader assumes three Persons, rather than three titles.

The other reason for the almost universal acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity is that, unfortunately, most Christians begin their Bible study with the New Testament. So that even if the Hebrew titles were available to the English reader, he would be relatively unaware of them. The New Testament did not come out of a vacuum. It stemmed from the Old Testament, and we can not understand any doctrine found in the New Testament unless and until we read and study the Old Testament.

There are many scriptures, especially in the New Testament, that seem to imply two or three different Persons. May I suggest that the reader try to see those passages in the light of titles, or offices, rather than Persons. By doing so we are not put in the position of seeing Christ as less than the Father or less than God. And we can also understand why Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament as the Father and the Son.

The other papers to be found on this web-site on the doctrine of the Trinity are:

The Trinity: Is God Three Persons In One?

The Trinity: Part Two: “Elohim”

Does Jesus Christ Sit Next To God In Heaven?

This paper was written by Joyce Pollard. I would love to hear your thoughts. Please E-mail me at: janjoyce@aol.com