The Forgotten Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and Jehovah's Witnesses

The Purpose of the Dividing Line and the Call to Defend the Faith

To present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, you can call now by dialing 602 -274 -1360.

That's 602 -274 -1360. Or if you're out of the Metro Phoenix dialing area, it's 1 -888 -550 -1360. That's 1 -888 -550 -1360. And now with today's topic, here's James White. And good afternoon.

Why Christians Should Love and Defend the Trinity

Welcome to the Dividing Line. My name is James White. We're live in studio today on this beautiful, warm Saturday afternoon in Phoenix, and we welcome you if you're listening on KPXQ, or if you're listening live via the Internet.

We have many people who do that. Or maybe you're even listening by archive off of the StraightGate .com. However it is that you've come to be listening to us today, we welcome you and hope God's best for you this day, or whatever day you end up listening to this.

You could be listening to this 10 years from now, for all I know. But we welcome you to the program today. How do you give an answer for the faith that is within you, and especially how do you deal with the one topic that many Christians, they shy away from it, they don't necessarily want to talk about it for a very simple reason, and that is they feel uncomfortable in giving a reason for their faith in the Trinity.

Why do you believe in the Trinity, and how can you explain it to others and do so with sufficient confidence that you won't dodge the many opportunities that come up? I wrote a book a number of years ago now called The Forgotten Trinity, and in that book I talked about the fact that we need to love, love God's truth about the doctrines of Trinity.

That is, we hear people talking about loving justification, or loving the Bible, or loving the inspiration of Scripture, or loving the cross. There's all these things like that, but you rarely hear people talking about loving the Trinity, and the reason is because most people do not understand.

They have not been taught properly what the doctrine of the Trinity is and why it is that if you hold the Bible in your hand and you believe the Bible to be the God-breathed Scriptures, to be a revelation from God, that you must be a biblical Trinitarian.

That you cannot hold a Bible in one hand and say, I believe this, I believe all of this, and I believe only this as my rule of faith, and at the other hand say, I don't believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

The reason that Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity is not because some church forces them to. It's not because someone holds a gun to their head and says, believe it. The reason that Christians believe in the Trinity is because it's the only way to believe all of Scripture.

In other words, if you reject the doctrine of the Trinity, then what I can show you is that there are truths in Scripture that you are denying, and if you believe everything that the Bible has to say, you will believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

The One Being of God and Three Divine Persons

Well, first and foremost, what is the doctrine of the Trinity? Well, I like to offer the following as a brief definition. Within the one being that is God, there exists eternally three co-equal and co-eternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Now, you might say a doctrine that can be defined in one sentence certainly can't be that difficult to discuss and to understand, but obviously everything in that definition that I read you is very purposeful and comes from the page of the Scripture.

Let me repeat it for you again. Within the one being that is God, there exists eternally three co-equal and co-eternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now the single most often repeated error, the single most often repeated thing that causes confusion in regards to the doctrine of the Trinity is that people do not understand the difference between the words being and person.

They do not understand that the word being does not mean the same thing as the word person. We don't use it that way normally. We recognize that anything that exists has being. A chair has being, a rock has being, anything that exists has being, but not everything is a person.

Not everything is personal. A chair or a rock has being, but is not personal. You can insult chairs and rocks all you want. They won't care. They don't mind because they have no personhood to them. And so when we speak of the doctrine of the Trinity, we're saying there is one what?

The being of God, and three whos? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now why is it that Christians have come to understand this and to believe this? Well, many people suggest they believe that because the Council of Nicaea got together and came up with some new doctrine and forced it on everybody.

Well that just simply isn't true. That is not historically the case. That is not to the case when you look at the people who lived before the Council of Nicaea. You can find all sorts of references to a belief in the deity of Christ, which was the main issue of the Council of Nicaea.

We may have time to look at some of that later on. It simply is not the case that Constantine, the Roman emperor, came along and said, well, I think y 'all should believe this and I'll use the force of the army to force you.

That is not the case. Why was it that even after the Council of Nicaea, when those who denied the deity of Christ through political machinations and other ways became very prevalent in the society, why was it that even after the Council of Nicaea, people like Athanasius continued to believe in the deity of Christ, fought for the deity of Christ.

What was the basis upon which they did it? They did it on the basis of the Word of God. And that is the main issue we need to look at. Now, I said a little bit earlier on that if you hold the Bible in one hand and say, I believe all of this, you cannot, on the other hand, say, I do not believe in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity.

Why is that? Well, because the doctrine of the Trinity flows from three biblical foundations, three biblical truths that form the very foundation, essence, and heart of the doctrine of the Trinity. And if you're a Christian today and you want to be ready to give an answer for the hope that's within you, and you want to have confidence in responding to those who would say, oh, Jesus is just a prophet, or Jesus is just a creation, or the Holy Spirit's not really a person, how would you give an answer to someone who would ask?

Well, I strongly suggest that you do not start where many people would like you to start. That is, we don't believe in the doctrine of the Trinity because of some philosophy. We don't believe in the doctrine of the Trinity because there's some philosophical necessity for us to do so.

Instead, my suggestion to you, the believer, is that all of the conversation, the doctrine of the Trinity, should find its root and its source in the pages of Scripture itself. Most of the time when I see people who, in one way or the other, have gone astray, they've lost confidence in their foundation, the reason is because they have left that firm foundation of Scripture, and they have gotten themselves involved with all sorts of philosophical speculations, and quite simply, the philosophies of men are not a sufficient foundation for Christian truth and Christian proclamation.

And so we need to stay in the pages of Scripture. Well, what are those three foundations? What are those three areas that we have to look at to understand Scriptural truth? Well, first and foremost, we must realize, and this is where the Bible comes into direct contradiction with the LDS faith, with the LDS Church, the first and formal foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity is that there is only one true God.

Monotheism, a belief that there is only one true God. The doctrine of the Trinity is monotheistic. There is only one being of God. There are not three beings of God. There are not ten beings of God. There are not billions and billions of beings of God.

There is only one being of God. And the Scriptures are clear and replete in their testimony to absolute biblical monotheism. We must recognize that any system of teaching that compromises that very teaching is a system that at its heart and root cannot possibly be Christian.

Now there are variations of monotheism. There are variations that people like to present. For example, the opposite of monotheism is polytheism, a belief in more than one God, that there are maybe more than one equal gods, or maybe there are various gradations amongst the gods, but in essence the idea that there is more than one being that is God.

But then there is a sort of middle route called henotheism. And henotheism is that there is one main God and then there are sort of sub-gods below him. And henotheism may take various and sundry forms.

Some people might believe that there is a major God and then there are minor gods who might differ in their being or substance, but they are still gods. And so henotheism is sort of between polytheism and monotheism.

And I would submit that there are various systems out there that are better called henotheistic than anything else, and we might get into those a little bit later on. But first and foremost, one true and eternal God.

The great confession of every Jewish person in the days of Christ was the Shema. Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Yisrael. Yahweh is one. Yahweh is our God. And that issue of oneness will take us to the last point a little bit later on because there are those who want to take that and say, well, not only is God one in his being, but God's one in his person too.

And they're the ones who will say that Jesus is the Father and the Father is the Son and the Son is the Spirit and all the rest of this stuff. And that's not what the biblical doctrine of the Trinity states at all.

But the first foundation, the first foundation that must be established in Scripture is there is only one true God. And that is why some like to go to John chapter 17 and say, well, Jesus says there's only one true God.

And he differentiates between the Father and himself. And that means Jesus can't possibly be God. But in reality, Jesus is a monotheist. He recognizes there is only one true God. And you have to allow the whole passage to speak as to whether he excludes himself from the category of deity when we look at that particular passage.

What's the second foundation? The first foundation, monotheism. There is only one true God. The second foundation, there are three divine persons. Three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are differentiated from one another.

The doctrine of the Trinity does not teach that the Father is the Son. It does not teach that the Son is the Spirit. It does not teach that the Spirit is the Father. Three divine persons, one divine being.

Three divine persons that share that one divine being. Just as I as a human being am one person sharing one being, since the being of God is unlimited and eternal and cannot be divided up nor can it be limited in any way, three divine persons sharing one divine being.

Now, how does the scripture reveal this? Well, very clearly, Jesus said, the Father is greater than I am. Jesus prayed to the Father. The Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. At the baptism of Jesus, you have the Father speaking from heaven.

It is the Son, the incarnate Son who is being baptized, the Spirit descending in the form of a dove. The scriptures clearly differentiate between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And Jesus himself said to the Father in his prayer in John chapter 17, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had in your presence before the world began.

Here is one divine person speaking to another divine person. Clearly the Bible differentiates between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Now the problem, of course, is that many people when they attack the doctrine of the Trinity misrepresent this very issue.

They misrepresent what the Bible teaches on this very issue in an attempt to confuse people and say, well, the doctrine of the Trinity is saying that Jesus is the Father, and yet there's all these places that differentiate between them.

We are not saying that at all. We are not saying that Jesus is the Father. When we say Jesus is God, we're speaking to Jesus' nature, not to his identity as a person. And many people will play on that and will say, well, you recognize that God's the Father, right?

Well, yes, there is the phrase God the Father. And yet you're saying, Jesus is God, that means you make him the Father. No, we're talking about, in one sense, we're talking about God the Father as who he is, and when we talk about Jesus, we're talking about what he is.

Who and what are two different things. And so many people have been so brainwashed to ignore that distinction that they cause tremendous confusion in others when they try to discuss this issue. And there are entire groups that train their people to create confusion by ignoring the difference between what and who.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, in their literature, and hence their people as they speak, will constantly create confusion by failing to distinguish between whether you're talking about someone's name, who they are, or what someone is.

We all recognize the difference. When we are looking at someone, we recognize they're a human being, and then we want to know who they are, what they are, and who they are, two different things. And yet you'll find literature produced by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and others, the Mormon Church does the exact same thing, they specifically want to confuse both their followers and those they're seeking to proselytize on this particular issue by ignoring the difference between what and who.

Now, as a result, there's a tremendous amount of confusion when we get to the issue of the Incarnation. The Incarnation. Who is it that became flesh? John 1 .14 says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Who is it that became flesh? Well, it wasn't the Father, nor was it the Son, I'm sorry, the Spirit. It was the Son that became flesh. The Word became flesh, not the Father, not the Spirit. It is one divine person who became flesh as the person Jesus Christ.

And that divine person differentiated himself from the Father. And so many people get very, very confused, well, was it the Father who became flesh? Was it the Spirit who became flesh? No. The Scriptures teach that it was the Son who became flesh.

The Incarnation was one divine person taking on that human form and dwelling amongst us as the God-Man Jesus Christ. And as the God-Man Jesus Christ, who would we expect the Incarnate One to be? Would we expect him to be an atheist?

Would we expect him to not worship the Father who is not incarnate, who is still in heaven? Well, of course he would worship the Father. He is a perfect man. A perfect man will worship. And so people will almost always base their objections to the Doctrine of the Trinity on the statements of Jesus when he says things like, worship the Father, or when he's shown praying to the Father, or when he says the Father is greater than I am.

All of those things refer to the Incarnate Son and flow from a recognition that he is truly man. He doesn't merely look like he was a man. He is truly, truly man. Now what's the third foundation of the Doctrine of the Trinity?

We've seen two so far. Monotheism, there is only one true God. The second foundation, there are three divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. We can differentiate between them because it is the Father who has decreed all things.

It's the Son who has taken on flesh as Jesus Christ. And it is the Spirit who comes into the church and comes into the life of the believer to sanctify him and to direct him and to give him insight. And so in light of all those things, there is one foundation, monotheism.

The second foundation, three divine persons revealed in Scripture. And the third foundation, those divine persons are co-equal and co-eternal. Co-equal and co-eternal. Well what does that mean? Does that mean that Jesus Christ in a fleshly existence has always existed?

No. The Son entered into flesh at a point in time in the past. But the point is that the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit has eternally existed. The Father has eternally existed as a divine person.

The Son has eternally existed as a divine person. The Spirit has eternally existed as a divine person. They are co-equal and co-eternal as to their being. And what's the major denial here? Well, of course, Jehovah's Witnesses deny that the Son has eternally existed.

In fact, they deny the Spirit's even a person. So they're all over this point, denying the deity of Christ, denying the personality of the Holy Spirit. But much of the confusion, when you're not dealing with that particular perspective, comes from the fact that people, when they hear of the equality of the persons, think that that must mean that the persons are indistinguishable from one another.

And so they go to the pages of the New Testament, and they say, well look, all through the New Testament you see the Father taking one role in salvation, and then you see the Son voluntarily taking another role, and in fact, the Son submits Himself to the Father.

The Son is the one sent by the Father, and the Son voluntarily makes Himself nothing. And the Spirit voluntarily is the one sent by the Father and the Son, and He indwells us. And He doesn't point to Himself, but He literally points away from Himself to the Son and to the Father.

And since they take different roles, well that must mean that they are not equal with one another. And the confusion is this. The equality that the doctrine of the Trinity teaches is that each one is co-equal and co-eternal as to their participation in the divine nature, in the being that is God.

It does not teach that they are equal in the roles that they take in the redemption of mankind. That is, we recognize in the Bible that they take different roles, and that the Son voluntarily submits Himself to the Father.

And so it is not an argument against the doctrine of the Trinity. When someone says, well look, the Son enters into human flesh and He voluntarily lays aside the exercise of certain divine prerogatives.

He veils Himself in human flesh, and only in that one time on the Mount of Transfiguration is His real glory as a divine person seen by His disciples. But if you walked along a dusty road in Galilee and ran into Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, you wouldn't be amazed about the fact that here's a group of thirteen men walking along and one of them glows as bright as noonday.

No, that's not how it was. You could have walked right past Jesus and the Apostle Band and never recognized that one of them was in fact the Creator in incarnate form. Only in that one instance, and only with those three Apostles with Him, did His glory truly shine through in the presence of the Father there on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And so, you need to recognize, and really as you share the Gospel, and especially as you deal with Jehovah's Witnesses, and you deal with Mormons, and you deal with Oneness Pentecostals, and you deal with all the variations, and sometimes you run into folks who seemingly have picked up baggage from every one of those groups and they're so confused they don't know which ends up.

As you're dealing with those individuals, one of the most common things you'll encounter is that their arguments or their confusions, sometimes they're just confused, primarily come from certain presuppositions or certain misunderstandings of the doctrine of the Trinity.

And they primarily come from arguments based on assuming that if the Father and the Son and the Spirit are co-equal as to their participation in the Divine Being, that must mean that we cannot differentiate between them.

And if we can't, if we can differentiate between the Father and the Son especially, that means from their perspective that the Son cannot truly be God. And so when they see the Son enter into human flesh and take the form of a servant, bingo, that's it, he can't truly be God because he's taking a different role than the Father.

What they don't seem to realize is that the presupposition they're operating on is that God cannot enter into human flesh. And they're also functioning on the assumption of Unitarianism, that if there's one being of God, there must be only one person of God as well.

That presupposition, that assumption, lies behind 85 to 90 percent of all the objections to the doctrine of the Trinity. When you're talking with Jehovah's Witnesses, you dig through any statement they make and it'll always come back, always come back to the assumption on their part of Unitarianism.

That Jehovah can only be one person. That the being of Jehovah is so limited that it is impossible, impossible for there to be three persons that share that one being that is Jehovah. That's the assumption.

And you have to keep reminding them, we have to go to Scripture. We must go to Scripture and realize that Scripture itself shows us one name Jehovah, that one name Yahweh, is used of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and yet those same Scriptures differentiate between those persons.

And therefore that's why Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. And so you must learn to hear these assumptions, hear these things that have been so crammed into people's minds that they no longer even question them, and in fact they no longer even see when a Scriptural passage refutes that assumption that is theirs.

We must learn to see these things and to be able to minister to these folks and show how their own reasoning is circular. It's not coming out of Scripture, it's not saying, well what does Scripture teach?

Does Scripture teach there's only one true eternal God, Jehovah? Yes. Does Scripture differentiate between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Yes. Does the Scripture teach us that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit share that one divine name, share that one divine being?

Yes. Well how do we understand those things? Well that's what the doctrine of the Trinity is all about. We are forced to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity by the weight of all of Scripture. And any passage that we go to, we must keep in mind that the person with whom we're speaking must deal with the same Biblical evidence that we are.

That is, when someone comes to you and says, well Jesus can't truly be God because he says in John 14, 28, the Father is greater than I am. Well, immediately we recognize certain assumptions there. Certain assumptions that the Son could not voluntarily take a role of submission to the Father in redemption.

Why not? We also recognize the assumption of Unitarianism. And then we need to always turn the question back around and say, who do you say Jesus Christ is? If you're a Jehovah's Witness and you say that Jesus Christ is Michael the Archangel, then let's ask ourselves, could Michael the Archangel say the things that Jesus says in John chapter 14?

Yes, he could certainly say the Father is greater than I am. However, what's the rest of John 14, 28 say? Jesus has just told the disciples that he's going back into the presence of the Father and he says you should have rejoiced when I told you I was going back into the presence of the Father because the Father is greater than I am.

Well, what would make the disciples rejoice if Jesus was Michael the Archangel? Why should they rejoice that Michael the Archangel is just going back to the position he had before? What is it about being in the presence of the Father that's so special?

Well, does not the Bible tell us? Did not Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17 say, glorify me Father with the glory which I shared with you, which I had in your presence before the world began?

The reason the disciples were to rejoice was so they were to recognize that Jesus was going back to the glorious position he had before as Michael the Archangel? Would Michael the Archangel say to Jehovah God using the imperative voice, the voice of command in the Greek language, glorify me?

Would any angel ever stand in the presence of God and say glorify me? Well, yeah, one, Lucifer. Yeah, he was cast down for it, remember? No, the angels we see in Isaiah chapter 6, they cover their face in the glory, in the presence of the glory of God, and yet Jesus says glorify me with the glory which I shared with you.

That's not some derivative glory. That is the very glory of God. It is a divine glory. If Jesus is Michael the Archangel, he could never say the words of John 17, 5, without committing blasphemy. And so we must always turn the question back around and say, Jesus is Michael the Archangel, huh?

So were to be baptized in the name of Jehovah God, Michael the Archangel, in an impersonal active force, when Matthew 28 says were to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Michael the Archangel says I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes to the Father but by me. Michael the Archangel says before Abraham was born, I am? I don't think so. No, we must be ready to turn those issues around. Well, I've gone a little bit long. We're going to take a break and come back and continue talking about the subject of the doctrine of the Trinity here on The Dividing Line.

We'll be right back. And welcome back to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We're talking about the doctrine of the Trinity today, but I have been reminded that we need to mention there's a little bit of a change in the format of how we do things during the week.

I think some of you who access our webpage know that we have been open from 1 to 5 p .m. in the afternoon. That is now changed to 10 a .m. to 5 p .m., I believe, is what the website says. And that means that you have many more hours now during the day to call Rich up and to ask him any question that you've ever had about any even remotely biblical topic whatsoever.

And he will be more than happy to get you on the line. No, actually, that is a new thing for us, and that is that Rich is available full-time now. That also means that there are more needs in the ministry as far as support goes.

We don't talk about that very often, but the simple fact of the matter is we are a small ministry, and bringing a second person on in the full-time capacity does put a strain on resources. And so we would remind you that, no, we're not sitting around as a bunch of millionaires and just do this for the fun of it.

We're a small ministry. We don't like to talk about financial issues on the air, but we would let you know that we are supported by individuals, and by a small number of them for that matter. So we would invite you to support the work if you found it to be useful and you found it to be of benefit to you, and you can now get hold of us from 10 a .m. to 5 p .m. to order things and to get clarification on issues and stuff like that.

And no, generally, Rich will not put me on the phone because I would never get anything done whatsoever if I were to do that type of thing. We're looking at the doctrine of the Trinity today, and I want to read you the words of an ancient Christian.

Early Christian Witness to the Deity of Christ

An ancient Christian who lived almost two centuries, well, a century and a half, okay? Century and a half prior to the Council of Nicaea. And listen to what this ancient preacher preached when he preached upon the subject of the Passion of Christ and the Passover.

And so he was lifted up upon a tree, and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed. Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling. But listen as you tremble before him, on whose account the earth trembled.

He who hung the earth in place is hanged. He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place. He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree. The sovereign is insulted. God is murdered. The king of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.

This is the one who made the heavens and the earth and formed mankind in the beginning. The one proclaimed by the law and the prophets. The one enfleshed in a virgin. The one hanged on a tree. The one buried in the earth.

The one raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven. The one sitting at the right hand of the Father. The one having all authority to judge and save. Through whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.

This one is the Alpha and the Omega. This one is the beginning and the end. The beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible. This one is the Christ. This one is the King. This one is Jesus. This one is the leader.

This one is the Lord. This one is the one who rose from the dead. This one is the one sitting on the right hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is born by the Father. To him be the glory and the power forever.

Amen. That was Melito of Sardis. Melito of Sardis was a bishop around 180. So here, long before the Council of Nicaea, we have Melito teaching the two natures of Christ. Teaching the deity of Christ. Teaching the relationship that exists between the Father and the Son.

He says he bears the Father and is born by the Father. There's this relationship that exists between the two. How can that be if, in point of fact, the doctrine of the Trinity is something that came along so much later that no one really truly believed until forced to believe it by Constantine?

Well, obviously that's not the case whatsoever. Instead, we see the very same kind of doctrine found in Scripture. And it is so common a possession of the Christian people that Paul, when he writes the Corinthians and he closes his second letter, says, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Well, where does grace come from? Is not grace divine? And yet he refers to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. These are divine things coming from a divine source and all through the Scriptures you'll find this Trinitarian thinking.

The grace of Christ or the grace of the Father. They can be interchanged, not because the Father and the Son can be interchanged, but because both are a source of divine grace. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is associated with the Father and the Son with such ease that it would be so improper and so wrong if, in point of fact, the Holy Spirit is some inferior creature or, as some people teach, an impersonal active force.

And so you see, as we go to the Scriptures, we see over and over and over again the testimony to the doctrine of the Trinity because we see each of the foundations firmly taught in Scripture. Monotheism taught in the fact that God has eternally been God.

Psalm 90 verse 2 says, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou form the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. God has eternally been God and he is the only true God.

He says, I know of no other gods, in Isaiah chapter 44. Over and over again, between Isaiah chapter 40 and 48, we are reminded of the truth that Jehovah God knows of no other gods. We're not henotheists and Jehovah isn't a henotheist.

He knows of no other deities, no other gods. All other gods are merely idols. And the New Testament repeats this. The New Testament is the continuing revelation of God. It's not some contradictory document to the Old Testament.

The faith of the Old Testament continues in the New. And so we have repeated that there is only one true God. Paul, when he writes the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians, he recognizes that there are people who don't know this.

They lived in a culture where there were various and sundry false gods. There were all sorts of polytheists running around. But he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, he says,. Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no god but one.

Idols don't represent true gods. There is no god but one. For even if there are so-called gods, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8 .5, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many so-called gods, many so-called lords, but to us there is but one God, the Father from whom are all things, and we exist for Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

But he says, however, not all men have this knowledge. In verse 7, not everyone knows there is only one true God, and not everyone knows how God has revealed Himself as the Father. He has revealed Himself in the Son, and now through the Spirit He indwells His church.

Not all men have this knowledge, Paul says. And so, we have the clear testimony of the fact there is only one true God, and yet we have clearly revealed to us in Scripture the teaching that, yes, the Father is God, and yet Jesus Christ is described as God over and over again.

And it's just here that people have to find such imaginative ways to get around such clear language, such imaginative ways. Most of you know, for example, John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

My goodness how people can find ways around the clear teaching of Scripture in a passage like that, even though it goes on to say that that Word became flesh, and then describes that Word as the unique God who is in the bosom of the Father who has revealed the Father to us in John 1 .18.