The Teachings of Oneness Pentecostalism

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Alpha and Omega Ministries presents James White in the Dividing Line radio broadcast. This topic is

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Oneness Pentecostalism. If you'd like to contact Alpha and Omega Ministries, you can do so by writing us at P .O.

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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona 85069.

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Or you can call us at our office. We are open 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, Arizona time, at area code 602 -973 -0318.

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Or, you can look for our website on the internet. That is www .aomin .org.

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That's www .aomin .org.

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And now, your host, James White. And welcome back to Dividing Line. My name is

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James White. I'm the Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and today we continue the discussion that we began last week on the subject of the

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Trinity. Last week, we looked at the fact that there is but one God, as revealed in Scripture.

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We looked briefly at the fact that the person of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are said to be deity.

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We barely got into the subject of the deity of Christ before we took a phone call that took up most of the rest of the program, that only later did

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I realize was representing the worldwide Church of God viewpoint, and I, for some reason, had to slip my mind when talking to the individual.

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But, this week, we want to look at the teachings of the Jesus -only or Oneness groups, such as the

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United Pentecostal Church, the Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God, Pentecostal Assemblies of the

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World, Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostolic Faith. Groups such as these, those being the four major groups as they exist today, that represent this

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Oneness or Jesus -only teaching. When we looked at the doctrine of the

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Trinity last week, we said it was based upon a foundation of three truths. Truth number one was the fact that there is but one true

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God. The second was that there are three persons, persons in the fullest sense of the word, the ability to communicate, having a will, things like this.

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And the third truth was that all three are described as being fully God. We looked at truths one and three last week briefly.

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This week, we look at an aspect of the doctrine of the Trinity that many Christians never really think about or deal with, and that is the idea of the three persons.

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Christians are normally just taking it for granted that there is the Father, there is the

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Son, and there is the Holy Spirit, and that these are persons and that they speak to each other.

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Very few individuals come up with the idea that the Father is the

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Son, or the Son is the Spirit, or that maybe there is only one person who is truly

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God, but there are others like the Holy Spirit who is just another way of saying

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God, things like this. Most people don't really think about it in that way, though it must be readily admitted that many

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Christians, when they are new to the faith and have not received instruction concerning the doctrines of the faith, might come up with some idea that somehow the

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Father and the Son and the Spirit are one person, not realizing what the Scriptures teach about that and not having read the

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Bible for themselves, things like this. So we realize that that is the case. What we are examining today is the actual teachings of the oneness theology.

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Now I think it needs to be pointed out that this type of theology, as it is expressed in its modern form, is not really all that old.

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The oneness groups trace their origins back to the Worldwide Pentecostal Camp Meeting held April 15th through May 15th, 1913, so you are only looking at about 75 years ago that this movement began.

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It is an interesting story that I am not going to spend a whole lot of time on looking at the origins of this movement, but it is rather interesting to me anyways that during this camp meeting, during a baptismal service outside the tent, the speaker,

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R .E. McAllister of Ottawa, Canada, mentioned that the Apostles invariably baptized their converts once in the name of Jesus Christ and that the words

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are never used in Christian baptism. It is interesting enough that John Sheppey, originally

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Hans Sheppey, an immigrant from Danzig, Germany, was very inspired by McAllister's comments.

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Along toward morning, it is written, he claimed to have received a revelation of the power of the name of Jesus, which overwhelmed him.

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He jumped to his feet, ran to the camp, shouting that he had received a revelation. The revelation made a profound impression upon the campers and all rejoiced with Sheppey and began to search the scriptures concerning the name of Jesus.

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This began to spread across the United States. It was in 1916 that the

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Assemblies of God Church condemned the teaching and split off from that and began forming their own organizations.

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You are only looking at about 75 years relevant to these organizations and their teachings, though you can find earlier exponents of this type of idea going back to the 3rd century in such people as Praxeus, Noatus, and Sibelius.

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Let's look at what you encounter when you are talking about Oneness Theology. It's difficult to nail down a perfectly representative writer or creed that would tell you exactly what these individuals believed because you will find different viewpoints within the movement itself, which is hardly unusual.

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I have met both people that could be accurately called Sibelianists or Modalists or Patrapassionists and I'll define those in a second.

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And then of course I've encountered those who would deny that that is a proper examination or proper representation of their beliefs.

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So I can give you two basic positions and we'll spend more time on the second position that is more accurately portrayed in the writings of these individuals.

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First of all, the first viewpoint that you might encounter would be Modalistic Monarchianism or Patrapassionism.

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Patrapassionism simply means the father suffered. This type of teaching was taught by Noatus, Praxeus, and Sibelius.

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Sometimes you hear it known as Sibelianism after Sibelius. These go way back to the 3rd or 4th century.

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This is possibly what is brought out, for example, by the first article of the

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United Pentecostal Church Creed, which in reference to the Godhead says this one true God has revealed himself as Father in creation, through the

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Son in redemption, and as the Holy Spirit by emanation. However, that could be understood in a second way that we'll look at right now.

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There is another one, this Theology Expounded, for example, and I have chosen for our brief time together today to use

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Mr. John Patterson's book, God in Christ Jesus, as an example of this.

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For example, that book is described by the catalog of the Pentecostal Publishing House of the

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United Pentecostal Church, which is sort of representative of their materials, as follows, quote,

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In the early days of the Pentecostal movement, this book was widely used as a textbook, unquote. Well, if it was considered once to be a textbook,

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I figure it would probably be a good one to use to define this type of theology.

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To define them, however, is a little more difficult. In the first half, in the first viewpoint, that of modalistic monarchism,

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God is unipersonal. He reveals himself in three different manifestations, or modes, that's why you hear such things as modalism, three different manifestations as the

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Father, as the Son, and as the Holy Spirit. These are not three separate persons, but one person revealing himself in three different ways.

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Hence, of course, the Trinity is denied, and this often results in what is known as patrapassionism, the idea that it was the

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Father who suffered on the cross. These would say that the Father is the

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Son, the Son is the Spirit, the Spirit is the Father, etc. We don't need to spend a whole lot of time refuting this viewpoint, because it is simply untenable.

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The interpersonal communication of Jesus and the Father, seen in such passages as John 17, would be completely meaningless unless there is a person to whom

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Jesus is speaking. Jesus often said that he was sent by the Father, that he was returning to the Father, that he loved the

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Father, and the Father loved him, etc., all of which demands, if language means anything at all, at least two persons involved.

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This can clearly be seen, for example, in John 7, 28, Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying,

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You both know me, and know where I am from, and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know.

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I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me. It is very clear that there are two persons spoken of there, the

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Father and the Son. However, this is not a proper representation of such people who would follow

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John Patterson and other Oneness teachers. From Patterson's own words,

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I have derived a number of statements that we will utilize to attempt to construct the basic definition of the

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Oneness position. For example, from God in Christ Jesus we read, Make no mistake, the

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God of the Bible, though omnipotent, is nevertheless a conscious, intelligent being, possessing a will and capacity for independent thought and action, and is distinct from his creation.

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I would agree with that. The reason I quoted it is that we have to understand what

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Mr. Patterson's definition of a person is. His definition of a person would include the possession of a will and a capacity for independent thought and action.

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But that will become important when we begin discussing the person of Jesus Christ. Mr. Patterson goes on to say,

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So we conclude that the Word was the visible expression of the invisible God. In other words, the invisible

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God embodied an invisible form. Not only this, but the Word was, essentially, nothing less than the eternal

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God himself. The Word is not merely an impersonal thought existing in the mind of God, but was in reality the eternal

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Spirit himself, clothed upon by a visible and personal form. Hence, Mr.

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Patterson is denying the separate personality of the Logos. In his theology, the

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Word is the Father, and the Father is the Word. The Word is not a separate personality from the Father that became flesh in Jesus Christ.

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This becomes important as well. This section here, of course, will be the most important, the next section

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I'm going to be reading, the most important in defining what Mr. Patterson is saying. Why should we imagine that the

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God who made man's mouth is incapable of expressing himself with unmistakable clarity? Why should he use the terms

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Father and Son if he intends us to understand the eternal coexistence of two co -equal personalities?

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How can a begotten being, even one begotten before all ages, be truly and perfectly God? The Supreme Deity must surely be unbegotten and eternally self -existent.

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Therefore, and this is where it gets important, when we say that Jesus is both God and man, we mean that he is both

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Father and Son. As the Father, he is absolutely and purely

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God. As the Son, he is absolutely and purely man. When Jesus claims to be

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God, it is with respect to his essence as the Eternal Spirit, the Father. And when he says,

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My Father is greater than I, John 14, 28, it is with respect to his created nature as man, the

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Son. It is not at all the same as teaching that the Father is the Son, or the

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Son is the Father. Such teaching is confused, illogical, and inscriptural. But when we say that Jesus is both

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Father and Son, both God and man, that is a vastly different matter.

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But mark this, when properly taught, the doctrine often alluded to as Jesus only, Jesus' name, or oneness, is nothing like this.

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It is not patripassionism, it is not teaching that the Father is the Son, but that the

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Father is in the Son, a very different matter. From what

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Mr. Patterson says, I conclude the following. First of all, that as he states, Jesus was bi -personal, that is, he was both the

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Father and the Son. That is very, very important. That is the difference between this twist on the teaching and that of Sibelius and Praxeus and the others, that they are basically saying that Jesus is both the

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Father and the Son. They are not saying the Father is the Son, but that there are two persons, Father and Son.

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For Patterson, saying Father is the same as saying God, and saying Son is the same as saying man.

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For example, up above, he said, but when we say that Jesus is both Father and Son, both

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God and man, notice the parallelism, Father and Son, God and man. What Mr.

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Patterson is saying is that Father means God, Son means man, hence

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Jesus was not one person, but two persons, the Father and the Son. Also, we must conclude, the

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Son was in no way deity, he was in no way divine, but instead a mere created creature who did not exist before his birth in Bethlehem.

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Patterson, so states later on when he says, "...the man, Christ Jesus, and through whom, in the foreknowledge and wisdom of God, all things are created to the end that he might be the

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Lord of all." Notice that this man, Christ Jesus, existed in the foreknowledge of God.

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He did not have a true existence of his self, but only in God's foreknowledge. Of course, we exist in God's foreknowledge too, so that is hardly a good excuse for saying that, well, yes, he existed before then, but only in God's foreknowledge.

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Make sure you understand what is being said here. From the oneness position, Jesus is bi -personal,

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Father and Son, the Father is the deity dwelling within Jesus, the

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Son is the human person, as we saw from his own writings.

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Notice well that, according to Patterson, both persons could speak through Jesus. Sometimes when

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Jesus would claim to be deity, as he often did, the Father was speaking, according to Patterson anyways.

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At other times, when speaking of the Father as a separate person, as in John chapter 14 verse 28, it was the

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Son who was speaking. In other words, rather than the Christian position, that in Jesus there were two distinct natures that made, however, one whole person, the oneness teachers say that there are two distinct natures and therefore two distinct persons as well.

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One cannot put a finger on just who Jesus was, for there was no one person who was

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Jesus, just a physical body that had two persons resident within it, one deity and one not.

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Let's get a few more quotations from Mr. Patterson's teachings. Quote, I do not say that the

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Holy Spirit did not exist previous to the glorification of the Son of Man, for the very term Holy Spirit signifies the

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Spirit who is holy, even the everlasting God. We have spoken thus in order to show that the very nature of the

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Comforter, combining as it does the power of the Father and the priesthood of the Son, forever precludes any possibility of a personal existence separate and distinct from Jesus.

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In this study we have found that Jesus is Father in his Godhead, Son in his humanity, and Comforter in the body of his elect.

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Unquote. Hence, Patterson is saying that before Jesus, the Holy Spirit was simply another way of saying

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God, for God is holy and God is Spirit, hence God is Holy Spirit. Just as such cultic groups as the

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Way International would state it. There is only one person that must be remembered who is truly divine, and that is the

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Father. The Holy Spirit is not a separate person, but is simply the emanation of, or the manifestation of, the

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Father, the true deity, the person that is true deity. Therefore we must conclude in our definition of oneness theology the following.

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First of all, God is unipersonal. There are not three persons in Godhead, but only truly one who is fully deity.

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The only true deity is the Father, and the Holy Spirit is simply another manifestation of him. Second, the

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Son is not divine. The Son is a creature who is totally and completely human.

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The Son was indwelt by the Father, making him the Father and the Son. He was not one person, but two.

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Therefore, the oneness position manages to hold on to the unity, or oneness of God, by sacrificing the unity, or oneness, of Jesus Christ.

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Jesus Christ is no longer one person, but is two. When Jesus speaks, one cannot know whether it is deity speaking through him, or whether it is humanity speaking through him.

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It all depends on what is said. This very briefly, and of course

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I realize that we can only be very brief in the short amount of time we have today, because I do want to have the opportunity of taking phone calls from those people who, for example, would believe in the oneness position, and who would like to defend it.

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We would like to have the opportunity of talking to you today. I'm going to basically outline why

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I feel this is a non -biblical position, then we're going to take a break. We're going to look at a number of Bible passages that clearly teach the opposite of the oneness teaching, and then hopefully you will take the opportunity of calling in and discussing this teaching of the oneness

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Pentecostalism groups. In refuting the oneness position, many particular objections could be raised, but to keep things a little clear, we must see that there are two fatal flaws in the oneness position.

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They are as follows. Number one, the Bible makes it clear that the person variously identified as the

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Word, the Son, or Jesus, eternally pre -existed as a separate person from the

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Father. This will be demonstrated clearly from the Gospel according to John, especially in the prologue of the book, chapter 1, verses 1 -18.

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The second fatal flaw is that Jesus was unipersonal. He was one person, not two.

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Put into more crude terms, Jesus was not schizophrenic. When Jesus spoke, it was

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Jesus speaking, not one of two resident individual persons who shared his body.

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When Jesus spoke, he represented his entire self, not just simply a part of himself. Jesus used personal pronouns that represented his own individuality.

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When he referred to the Father, he never used the first person. In other words, he never said he was the

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Father. He always referred to the Father as someone other than himself. True, Jesus said the

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Father was in him and he in the Father, but he also said the same with the disciples. If God the

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Father's dwelling in the human son made the Son deity, then the Holy Spirit's dwelling in us would make us deity as well.

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So these are the two fatal flaws that I see. The Bible says, makes it very clear, that the person variously identified as the

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Word, the Son, or Jesus, eternally preexisted as a separate person from the

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Father, and secondly that Jesus was unipersonal. He was one person, not two.

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Those are the two areas that we will be looking at the Scriptures at after we come back from this break. We will be beginning in John 1, if you'd like to turn there and be ready, as we look at the prologue of the

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Gospel of John, a number of the passages from John, as well as two passages from Paul's writings, and look at what the

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Bible says concerning this teaching of the oneness groups. We'll be looking at that when we come back right after this.

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Hi, my name is James White. I'm the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries. And as you're listening to The Dividing Line today,

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I'd like to remind you that Alpha and Omega Ministries is a non -profit Christian organization.

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We are not a denominational group, nor are we supported by any one church. We are supported by people like you.

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If you have a heart for evangelism amongst people who have been given a false gospel and a false hope, if you believe that the

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Bible and God's teaching is worthy of our respect and our defense, then we'd ask you to support

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Alpha and Omega Ministries. And welcome back to The Dividing Line. On this Saturday afternoon, we're examining the teachings of the oneness

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Pentecostal groups, such as the UPC, the United Pentecostal Church, and others. Let me mention briefly what's coming up on The Dividing Line.

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For the next two weeks, we're going to have a very interesting series of programs that I'm sure you'll want to catch, especially if you ever do any watching of local

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Christian television or certain local Christian television stations, or if you listen to various religious stations in the

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Valley. You will want to tune in to our two -week series on the teachings of the

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Word -Faith Movement. What is the Word -Faith Movement? Why do the Word -Faith teachers say that Jesus had to be born again?

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What do they mean by all that? We're talking about such teachers as Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagen, and Charles Capps.

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What are they teaching? Why does it sound just a little bit different than what you would normally expect to hear?

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We'll be talking about that with Mr. Greg Smith, who has taken a number of years to study this movement, and he'll be explaining to us the basic teachings of the

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Word -Faith Movement. We'll be looking at that in light of God's Word. If you have some friends that are caught up in the idea of the

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Word -Faith Movement, sometimes knows the health -wealth gospel, then you'll want to be listening for the next two weeks as we discuss that subject right here on The Dividing Line.

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That starts next week on The Dividing Line, the Word -Faith Movement. Getting back to the subject at hand, that is the subject of oneness teaching.

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Is it true that Jesus is the Father and the Son? When Jesus Christ walked the earth, was he actually bi -personal?

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Was he two persons, the Father and the Son? Was the Father the deity dwelling within the created human son?

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Let's look at the scriptures and find out what they have to say. John 1, verses 1 -18.

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You have a fascinating discussion, the part of the Apostle John known as the prologue to the book.

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In this prologue, you are introduced to the person of the Logos, the

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

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Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made.

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In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

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This person described as the Word in verse 14 says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

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We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

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In verse 18 we read, No one has ever seen God, the unique God who is in the bosom of the

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Father. He has made him known. Now, these passages together introduce us to what

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John teaches concerning the Logos, the Word. It is very important that we look closely at what scripture says about the

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Logos. First of all, the first clause of John chapter 1 says,

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In the beginning was the Word. Many people identify this beginning as the beginning of Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, but in reality the

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Greek language makes it clear that there is no particular beginning in mind, rather it is simply stating the eternal existence of the

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Logos. The Word has always existed. The word was in our

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English Bibles translates the Greek phrase Ein, which is the imperfect form of Aimi, which is simply stating that the

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Word has eternally existed without any reference to a beginning. The second clause of John 1 says,

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And the Word was with God. Now it is very clear here that there is a personal communication going on here.

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The Word was with God. Some, especially Oneness teachers, have attempted to say that is not really the best translation because there are some passages in Hebrews that uses the exact same

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Greek phrase, Prostantheon, and most English Bibles don't translate that in the same way.

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They say the things that are related to God or in reference to God. What these people seemingly have ignored is that it is a completely different syntactical construction in the book of Hebrews.

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That phrase is preceded by a neuter article, which completely and totally changes the syntactical construction.

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So that dodge out of what this passage clearly says won't work. The Scripture says the

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Word was with God. The word Prost normally refers to a face -to -face relationship with.

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So the Word communicated with God was in the presence of God, and you might say, well that sounds like there are two

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Gods. We will find out that the writer himself, John, will identify

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God as the Father here. He is speaking of the Word having communication with the Father. Then in the third clause we have, and the

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Word was God. Now the Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, mistranslate this passage as the

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Word was a God. Since we are not talking about Jehovah's Witnesses today, we are not going to deal a whole lot with that. What we will emphasize is the fact that the construction of the third clause of John chapter 1, verse 1, makes it very clear that what the writer is attempting to describe is the nature of the

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Word. Not necessarily the Word's identity, but the nature of the Word. Here he describes the

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Word as being God, as being, as to his essence, absolute deity. It is how

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Dr. Kenneth Wiest, long -time professor of Greek at Moody Bible Institute, translated the passage in his expanded translation of the

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New Testament. So John 1 introduces us very clearly to two persons, which we will see when we get to verses 14 and 18, are the

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Father and the Word. The Word will become Jesus Christ. This is reiterated in verse 2 when he says, he was in the beginning with God.

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Literally it says this one was in the beginning with God. This one being the Word himself.

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When we look down at verse 14, we run into a major stumbling block for oneness teaching. And the

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Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the

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Father, full of grace and truth. First of all, we must emphasize that the

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Word became flesh. The Word did not simply indwell flesh.

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The Word did not simply live with flesh. The Word did not simply look like he had flesh.

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The Word became flesh. Now nothing is indicated that the Word ceased to be the

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Word. Nothing is indicated that the Word ceased to be deity. But what is indicated is that one cannot say that God simply indwelt a perfect human being.

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We've already seen that this Word is not the Father. The oneness teachers would tell us that it was the Father who indwelt the human son.

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But the scriptures say it was the Word who was eternally prosantheon, eternally with God, who became flesh.

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Now however else we understand it, we must assert and must maintain that Jesus was a true person.

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We do not, for example, see a schizophrenic person as being a true person. Schizophrenic people we place down the facility at 24th

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Street in Van Buren because that is not a true person. That's not meant to be funny, that's simply true.

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The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Then we run across another phrase, the only begotten from the

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Father. This of course is a phrase that is latched onto by many people and by oneness teachers who attempt to make the

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Son have somehow a derived nature in this way. The word monogamous, which is translated only begotten in most of our

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English Bibles, was for a long time understood in that way, as only and begotten.

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It was not until this past century that it was discovered that monogamous does not come from the

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Greek term genao, which means to beget, but from the Greek term genos, which means kind or type.

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Therefore, monogamous does not really mean only begotten, with an emphasis on the idea of being begotten or derived, but it is referring to the uniqueness of the subject.

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That's why, for example, the New International Version will use the words one and only or unique to translate monogamous.

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Monogamous means unique. When we come down to verse 18, we have what

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I see as an absolutely insuperable passage for the oneness teacher. No man has seen

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God at any time. The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him, or as other translations would say, the unique God.

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If there are not two persons who are eternally God, this verse makes absolutely no sense at all.

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In fact, I would submit to you that anyone who does not have a Trinitarian concept of God cannot understand this passage at all.

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No man has seen God at any time. While the Old Testament says that many saw God, Isaiah saw

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Jehovah sitting on his throne in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1 through verse 10. Jacob wrestled with God, Abraham, well not necessarily

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Abraham, well Abraham walked with God by the Oaks of Mamre in physical form, walked down to Sodom and Gomorrah.

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You may recall the instance where he was bargaining with God concerning how many righteous people he might be able to track down in Sodom and Gomorrah and still couldn't find even the ten that he eventually got him to.

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The point is, men saw God in the Old Testament, so what is he referring to? The writer makes us aware of this when he says, the unique God who is in the bosom of the

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Father, he has explained him. That word explained is the Greek term exegesita, which we get our word to exegete, it means to explain, to make known.

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So John chapter 1 verse 18 says that no man has seen God at any time, well who is that?

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Well we have definitely seen the Son, who is described here as the unique God, who has explained him, who is in the bosom of the

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Father. There the writer defines for us what he's talking about. What he's saying is that no one has seen the

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Father at any time. The Son, the unique God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

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We know the Father, we know because of the revelation made of the Father in the

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Logos, in the Word, in the Son, in the person of Jesus Christ.

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So no matter what else we do, we are forced to see that the prologue of the Gospel of John clearly demonstrates that there are two eternal persons, now

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I'm not even getting into the subject of the Holy Spirit this time, I'm talking about two eternal persons in the prologue of John.

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The Father and the Word, who we will also see later on is the

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Son. The Father and the Word. The Father is never identified as the

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Word, and neither is the Word ever identified as the Father. I mentioned when

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I read quotes from John Patterson's book, God in Christ Jesus, that he did identify the

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Word as the Father and the Father as the Word. That is an error, that is one of the major errors of his entire work.

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So the prologue of John, John chapter 1 verses 1 -18 makes it very clear that there are two persons being spoken of, the

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Father and the Word. But John does not stop there obviously, it is found all through the

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Gospel of John. For example, John chapter 5 verses 19 -24, John 5, 19 -24,

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Jesus therefore answered and was saying to him, Truly, truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the

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Father doing, for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

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For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all the things that he himself is doing, and greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel.

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For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to those whom he wishes.

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For not even the Father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, in order that all may honor the

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Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the

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Father who sent him. Now again, very clearly two persons, Father and Son.

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The Son is sent by the Father, but notice verse 23 that says, Please turn the tape to side two.

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In order that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. Now if the Son is not a divine being, he is not in any way, shape or form, worthy of the same adoration of the deity, the

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Father. If one is going to say the Son is simply a creature, a created being, then one cannot understand

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John 5 .23 and the idea that the Son, a created being, could possibly say that I deserve the same honor as the

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Father does. And here again, this person has to basically say, this is the human aspect of Jesus speaking.

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This is the Son speaking, rather than the Father speaking, for obvious reasons, because the Son is here referring to the

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Father. But again, we have already seen that you cannot have a schizophrenic Jesus Christ, that this is

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Jesus speaking. And he is identifying himself completely as the Son and not as the

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Father in any way. Look at John 5 .30,

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Jesus says, I can do nothing on my own initiative, as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

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Jesus again referring to the Father, he refers to himself when he talks about his own judgment, is this the judgment simply of a human being?

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Are we going to be judged simply by a human being someday, or are we going to be judged by God? Obviously the

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Bible tells us what the answer to that is. Look at verses 37 -39, And the Father who sent me, he has borne witness of me.

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You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form. And you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe him whom he sent.

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And you search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is these that bear witness of me.

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I must ask the question, who is speaking through Jesus now? Is it the Father or the

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Son? Who do the Scriptures tell us of? Who do the Scriptures bear witness of?

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Mr. Patterson's books say that the Scriptures bear witness of the Deity of Jesus Christ, that is the

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Father. And yet here, we have the same person speaking. There is no break between verses 30 and 39, where he stops speaking, or where maybe the

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Father steps in and starts speaking. This is one person speaking, speaking of his relationship with the

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Father. In John chapter 8 we see many passages as well, and here the oneness position really falls apart, because the

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Deity of Christ is here seen in the person of the Son. In John chapter 8 verses 23 -30 we read,

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And he was saying to them, You are from below, I am from above. You are of this world,

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I am not of this world. Hardly could be said by someone who is simply a human being, right? I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins, for unless you believe that Ego I me,

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I am, you shall die in your sins. And so they were saying to him, Who are you?

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Jesus said to them, What have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true, and the things which

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I heard from him, these I speak to the world. They did not realize that he had been speaking to them about the

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Father. Jesus therefore said, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that Ego I me,

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I am, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the

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Father taught me, and he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

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As he spoke these things, many came to believe in him. Now it's interesting, many of the things spoken of here by the

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Son refer to the Father. So the oneness person would say, Well, this is the Son speaking.

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This is him speaking in his office as the Son of God, as mediator or as something along those lines.

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But notice that the Son says in verse 24, Unless you believe that Ego I me,

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I am, the very phrase utilized of the name of Jehovah in the

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Old Testament in the book of Isaiah, the I am, unless you believe that, you will die in your sins.

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Now who said that? The Son said that. Can the oneness person really honestly say that the

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Son is the I am? Not very consistently. The Son is a completely and totally human being.

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No human being is the I am. John chapter 8 verses 23 through 30.

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John chapter 8 verses 53 through 59, the same thing occurs again. Surely you are not greater than our father

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Abraham, who died. The prophets died too. Whom do you make yourself out to be? The Jews asked

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Jesus. Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our

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God. Now who is speaking here? Again the Son. And you have not come to know him, but I know him.

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And if I say that I do not know him, I shall be a liar like you. But I do know him, and keep his word.

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Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he sought and was glad. What's fascinating to me is that Patterson brings this very passage up as evidence of the deity of the

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Father dwelling in Jesus Christ, and yet this is the Son speaking. The Son says, Your father

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Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he sought and was glad. The Jews therefore said to him,

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You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly,

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I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Therefore they picked up stones to throw at him, but he hid himself and went out of the temple.

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Here the Son identifies himself as the I am. The I am of the

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Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament, Yahweh or Jehovah. Outside of the book of John there are a couple more passages, we are going to take a brief break.

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I would like to invite you to go ahead and call in, we are just going to briefly look at the passages, two passages out of Paul's writings to continue our look at the fact that one is theology, the idea of making

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Jesus into two persons, the Father and the Son simply is not biblical at all. We will be looking at that and taking your phone call at 278 -55 -55, 278 -55 -55, we will be right back right after this.

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And welcome back to the Dividing Line on a beautiful and warm Saturday afternoon in Phoenix, Arizona.

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We are talking about the oneness teachings of the United Pentecostal Church and other groups, the

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UPC being the largest of the groups. And we are looking at just a couple of the passages, just a few that could be brought forward that demonstrates that the

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Father and the Son are not only separate persons but that the Son is divine, is an eternal individual.

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We can see this as well in Colossians chapter 1 beginning at verse 13, the book of Colossians chapter 1 beginning at verse 13 where we read for he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved

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Son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins. And he, that is the

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Son, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Two things to mention about that verse, first of all image of the invisible

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God refers to the fact that the Son is the exact image of the

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Father, the invisible God. But he is the visible representation of God and that would be tied into John's concept of the

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Logos, the word who reveals the Father. This verse is very similar to the prologue of John.

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The word firstborn of all creation is the Greek term prototokos. It does not refer to the idea of begetal or origin or source.

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The word prototokos is in reference to the one who has preeminence over or rulership over here all creation.

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Verses 16 and 17, for by him, that is the Son, all things were created both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

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So here we have the Son, he is preexistent, he has eternally been, he is the one who creates all things, whether in heaven and earth, visible or invisible.

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So here is a clear teaching again of the relationship of the Father and the Son, which is reiterated in the famous passage in Philippians chapter 2 that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the day after Christmas in fact we discussed

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Philippians chapter 2. But in Philippians chapter 2 you are again introduced to the

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Son who had this attitude in himself that although he existed in the very form of God, he did not regard that equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.

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Now obviously again, here is an individual who is existing eternally in the form of God, with God, and who yet lays aside his robes of glory, he makes himself of no repute and comes here to this earth in the form of a bondservant in the likeness of men.

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This is the person of Jesus Christ and the result of that of course is found in verse 11 that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. So very clearly again you have the pre -existence of the

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Son, the Logos, the Word who became Jesus Christ, his creatorship, and the fact that he is not the

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Father. These scriptures I think are very very plain, very very clear, and unfortunately very very ignored or misinterpreted in the writings of the oneness groups that I have encountered.

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Now today we have had a very short period of time to deal with it, we have not been able to go as in depth on it as we would like to, we will undoubtedly in the future take the time to look at this issue more in depth.

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But I think it is very clear that this, which is an absolutely foundational issue, some of you may be going, why are you spending, you have spent 45 minutes so far talking about what is obviously a very complicated issue, well let me point out to you that this issue forms the underlying presuppositions, the underlying foundation for the oneness teachers saying that baptism is to be only in the name of Jesus.

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They look at the book of Acts and not having an understanding of the separate personalities of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not being able to see that or understand that, they look at the passages in the book of Acts that says that people were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, they say well you see this is how they did it in the

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New Testament, they only baptized in the name of Jesus, they don't seem to realize that what Luke is emphasizing was the

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Christian nature of their baptism, and not anything necessarily about the exact words utilized, but you see the whole foundation of this

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Jesus name only teaching relevant to baptism and things like this, is this teaching of the oneness of the

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Godhead, the denial of the deity of the Son in reality, and the teaching that it was simply the

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Father indwelling the Son, and the idea that Jesus is both the Father and the

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Son, that causes the great problems that we encounter when we start discussing such subjects as baptism and many other teachings of the

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United Pentecostal Movement that is simply not biblical in its emphasis. So this subject must be addressed before any other subjects can be addressed, because it is the most foundational difference between the

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Unitarian teaching of the UPC and other groups, and the

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Christian teaching of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God, three persons, co -equal and co -eternal, making up the person of God, the being of God, excuse me that was an inaccurate usage, the being of God.

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So we must address this issue, we must look at it, and must look at what the scriptures say, because many

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Christians have absolutely no problem whatsoever in saying, ah, Mormonism, that says there is more than one

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God, and God once lived on another planet, and things like that, definitely not Christian, no problem with that.

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And many Christians have a problem with saying, ah, Jehovah's Witnesses, they think Jesus was Michael the Archangel, 144 ,000 are the ones who go to heaven, they are the

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Christ class, and things like that, definitely not Christian. Well, that's the denial of the first truth, the

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Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses deny the third truth, and a couple of the others as well.

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But here you have a denial of the second truth, yet a lot of people like to say, ah, well hey, they talk about Jesus so much, they emphasize

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Jesus so much, well that's fine, that's nice, but Jesus is not the

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Father, and if we emphasize that you must know the true Jesus Christ, then we must be consistent at this point as well.

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The writer of 1 John, John himself said, he who does not have the

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Son does not have the Father. One cannot divide them up in such a way as to say, well, the

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Son is really not divine, the Father is, and Jesus is both the Father and the Son, you can't do that.

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And if you're going to be consistent in saying, hey, wait a minute, Mormonism is not Christian teaching, I agree,

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Jehovah's Witnesses, not Christian teaching, I agree, and the Panic Apostle Church, well, they're a little bit different than us, but it's all right, no,

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I disagree, I disagree, still not Christian teaching, because you are not basing all of it simply on the text of Scripture itself and what the

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Bible says. Oh, you may be able to base 95 % of your teaching on the Bible, but if you ignore 5%, if you ignore 1%, you are not giving all of God's Word the equal opportunity to present its truth, and therefore your system will be deficient.

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278 -55 -55, 278 -55 -55 is the phone number, we would like to hear from those of you who are members of United Pentecostal Churches or churches such as the

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Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God, or the Pentecostal Assemblies of the

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World, or the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, and a large number of other smaller groups as well that hold the oneness teaching, split off from the

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Pentecostal movement that began in the Azusa Street Revivals back in the early part of the century, split off around 1913 or so, between 1913 and 1916.

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What do you have to say? Have I said something in error concerning what you teach? You may take a little bit of a different viewpoint, that's quite a possibility.

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One thing that must be said for these groups is that there is a great deal of diversity concerning the particulars of the teachings as they are presented by the various teachers.

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I understand that, but I'd like to talk to you about this, or we can open it up to a wider subject, not necessarily a water subject, but a wider subject, that is the whole doctrine of the

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Trinity. If you do not hold to it, I'd like to know why, and you can contact us at 278 -55 -55, 278 -55 -55 is the phone number.

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We'd like to talk to you about the subject of the Trinity today as we finish up a short two -week series on the subject, and then we will be moving into a discussion of the word faith -teaching, which, from what

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I have studied already, has some Trinitarian difficulties as well. I certainly don't think that the people who teach it have thought it through far enough to realize the ramifications of their teaching, but there is definitely a difficulty with the doctrine of the

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Trinity as expressed by even the word faith -teachers, and that might surprise you, but I don't want to get into the subject of the word faith -teachers right now, because we're going to be spending two weeks on that, and in fact, if there are enough phone calls and interest in that subject, we will probably take a third week for open phones and basically throw it out to you.

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What are your questions? What are your concerns? What would you like to know about, relevant to the subject of the word faith -teachers and their doctrines, and deal with a couple of those things.

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278 -55 -55, 278 -55 -55 is the phone number, and we'd like to talk to you about the

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Oneness Churches. You may not have ever noticed that they were there. They're not the largest groups around, that is for certain.

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On my way into the station today, I was listening to a religious station in the

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Valley. I like using that term religious better than Christian, especially when this particular religious station has a number of groups on it that we would identify as being cultic in their teaching, including the original

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Jehovah's Witnesses and a few others. I was listening to this station, and an hour before our program airs here on KHEP, a program airs on this station from the

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United Pentecostal Church, called Harvest Time. I remember just having my radio on coming into the station a couple of weeks ago and listening to this person.

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It was on the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and I thought, well, that's a nice topic. I agreed with a lot of the things the man was saying, but there was just something missing, something different.

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Something just made me feel uncomfortable. So I actually got to the station before the program ended, and I sat out in the parking lot and kept listening to the program to see if at the end of the program any identification was made of the people who were sponsoring the program.

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I got to the end of the program, and lo and behold, here was mentioned the United Pentecostal Church, and I've listened since then, and I've heard some of this

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Oneness teaching put on this program and presented. So that's rather interesting.

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We're going to take our first phone call. I think we're going to Phoenix, and this is

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Dave. Hello, Dave. Hi, Jim. How are you doing? I've got a question for you.

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Dealing with some of these groups, I have found that they say that if you're not baptized in the name of Jesus and water, you're not saved.

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Right. Now, in my search of the Scriptures, I have yet to find a verse that says anything like that.

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Where do they get their authority for that? Well, again, it's based upon this idea of the

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Oneness and this being the correct way of baptism. They are into baptismal regeneration.

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That is the idea of the necessity of baptism to bring about remission of sins, a basis on Acts 2 .38,

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as do many of the, for example, Church of Christ groups and things like that, that are into the baptismal regeneration teaching.

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But as we've examined Acts 2 .38 before, it is very clear that pulling one text out like that and overthrowing, for example, the entire teaching of the

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Book of Romans in the process is hardly rightly dividing the word of truth. The idea that salvation is based upon human actions, or even the idea of saying the right words when one is plunged underneath the water, simply is without basis in the text of the

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New Testament. One can only go to the Book of Acts and say, well, see, Luke says they were baptized in the name of Jesus.

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Well, Luke never says this is the words that were spoken over them when they were baptized. Jesus said they were to be baptized in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Ah, the Oneness Teacher says, what is that name? The name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is

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Jesus. Ah, that is based upon the whole teaching of Oneness, which we've just seen from the

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Scriptures cannot be substantiated. So it's sort of a vicious circle, and I think the best place to start with that is to start with who

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God is and the revelation of God, and then move on from there to start dealing with such subjects as salvation and baptism.

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Well, now, you know, when you present that Scripture to them where Christ says, you know, Father, Name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they say that that's the correct name is

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Jesus. Right. Well, in actuality, it's interesting, in a passage I just read from Philippians Chapter 2, the name that is mentioned there is the name

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Lord, Kurios. This is the name which is given to Christ in his exaltation, is

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Kurios. So that's an interesting thing right there. But no, the name of the

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Father is not Jesus, and the name of the Spirit is not Jesus. So do they say that Christ was speaking as just a man at that point in time?

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Do they hop and skip and say, well, he's speaking as a man, he's speaking as the Father? Well, good question. I would say at any time where there's a difficulty one way or the other, you're going to identify a speaker either as the

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Father or the Son, whichever one substantiates your position. I am trying to get some people who represent the oneness position to come on the air with us.

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I have a possibility locally as well as a possibility out in Florida to get a person to deal with this issue with us, to present their side and to debate it.

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But so far, I have been unsuccessful in getting those people to come on the air so they can present it for themselves.

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It's always much better to do it that way for the simple reason that you can't be accused of misrepresentation when the person is sitting there giving their own side of the story.

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How widespread is this view? Well, the numbers I have are 20 years old, but the numbers back then had the

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United Pentecostal Church at about a quarter of a million, the Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God at 75 ,000, the

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Pentecostal Assemblies of the World at 50 ,000, and the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostolic Faith at 45 ,000.

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More down south, because most of these groups are predominantly black, are the UPC. From what

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I have read of some of the historical studies done, but again, they are older studies. I don't have any modern attendance figures or membership figures, which again, one of their people themselves could provide more of that information.

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So no small issue as some would say then? Well no, I don't think it is. I think it is an important thing, especially in our modern world where theology and belief such as this is not really held to be all that important,

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I think it is important for Christians to understand what these groups are saying. Okay, thanks a lot. Okay, thank you. Bye -bye.

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That's going to be pretty much all the time we have today. I'd like to mention again, in case you're just now tuning in, that next week, beginning at 3 o 'clock, we'll be joined by Mr.

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Greg Smith, who will be talking to us about the subject of the Word -Faith Movement, the

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Word -Faith Teachings, the teachings of well -known leaders such as Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagen, and Charles Capps.

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If you want to be involved in that, all you've got to do is turn on your radio at 3 o 'clock next

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Saturday afternoon and listen to us right here on The Dividing Line. We'll be talking about that subject.

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We hope you've enjoyed this edition of the Dividing Line radio broadcast with James White discussing Oneness Pentecostalism.

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If you'd like to get in touch with Alpha and Omega Ministries, you can do so by writing us at Alpha and Omega Ministries, P .O.

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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona 85069.

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Or you can call us. Our office hours are 8 a .m. to 5 p .m., Monday through Friday, Arizona time, at area code 602 -973 -0318.

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Or look us up on the Internet. Our website address is www .aomin .org.

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That's www .aomin .org.