Matt Slick Responds to David K. Bernard A problem for Trinitarians

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Welcome. This is a response to David K. Bernard's statement, in short, a problem for Trinitarians.

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Let me play it, and we'll get to it. Equals the Son. We're saying the Father is in the

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Son, because Son refers to God as He's manifested in the flesh. This is a problem right here to begin with.

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To say that the Father is in the Son is true in one sense, but not in another. Because the doctrine of the Trinity is that the

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all are the one being who is God, then to say that one is in the other makes sense.

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It's called perichoresis, which is a mutual indwelling of each member of the Godhead in each of the other.

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That's called, like I said, perichoresis. This is just part of the doctrine of the Trinity. If He were to, however, say that the

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Father is indwelling the Son, then we don't have a true incarnation of the

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Word becoming flesh. What we have is a Father indwelling a human body. If that's what

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He's getting at, let's see. The Son was born. The Son died. Well, even Trinitarians have a problem here, because they don't believe the second person of the

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Trinity was born or died. That's incorrect. We do believe the second person of the Trinity was born and died.

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But let me explain. The second person of the Trinity, the Word, Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us.

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In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. That's John 1. And in verse 14, the

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Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So we believe that. And, of course, that's Jesus, and He died on the cross.

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So we believe that. But also we have to understand that in the doctrine of Jesus, there is the teaching called the hypostatic union, which is that Jesus is one person with two natures, one person with two natures, a divine nature and a human nature.

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So Jesus said, I'll be with you always, even to the end of the earth. Jesus says, I am thirsty.

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So Jesus claimed, the one person, Jesus claimed the attributes of both natures, the divine nature and the human nature.

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That's what He did. We call this the hypostatic union. Furthermore, there's another doctrine called the communication of the properties.

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And what this means is, is that even though Jesus has one, He's one person with two natures, as I've already described, that the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person.

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So Jesus says, I'm thirsty. Jesus says, I'll be with you always. He's claiming the attributes of both natures.

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So what we would say is, well, yeah, God died, but not in the sense that the divine nature died, but the person of Christ on the cross died.

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And since the attributes of both natures are ascribed to that single person, then we would say that this sacrifice is a divine value.

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And in that sense, we'd say God died on the cross. We are dealing with human flesh. So I would say the prayers of Christ are a greater problem for Trinitarians if they try to use that to prove the

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Trinity, because if their second person is inferior, seeking help, seeking guidance. We don't teach that.

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As Trinitarians, I'm a Trinitarian, of course. And he said, if Trinitarians teach that Jesus is inferior, we don't teach that Jesus was inferior.

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We teach that Jesus was made Lord and the angels, Hebrews 2 .9, and that he was made under the law,

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Galatians 4 .4. But because he is God in flesh, he's not inferior.

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So Mr. Barnard is misrepresenting the doctrine of the Trinity. He doesn't seem to really understand what it is.

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It proves too much. It proves he's not co -equal. But rather, this is dealing with the incarnation, showing that Jesus, as an authentic human being, related to God just as we relate to God.

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Of course Jesus would relate to God as we do, because he was made under the law, Galatians 4 .4. He's fully a man.

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And so he had to obey the law. He had to pray to God the Father. That's what he would do. So in my assessment,

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Mr. Barnard does not understand the doctrine of the Trinity, and he fails to understand the hypostatic union, the two natures of Christ and the one person.

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And he fails to understand the communication of the properties, which is that the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person.

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I have suggested to many oneness people, as well as atheists and others, that I'd be willing to teach them what our doctrine really is, and what it is not, so they don't misrepresent it.

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I personally talked to David Barnard when he was here in Idaho, and I asked him to be involved with a debate with me on the nature of the doctrine of the

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Trinity, if it was true or not. He declined. We then agreed, he positively agreed to do a written debate.

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He then declined out of that as well. So, you know, I've talked to him,

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I've met him, and in my opinion, from this, he doesn't understand the doctrine of the Trinity, the hypostatic union, and maybe that's why he didn't want to debate me.

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I don't know, because I know the topic, I know the doctrine, I can defend it from Scripture. David K. Barnard is not teaching the truth.