December 26, 2016 Show with Edward Dalcour on “A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the Light of Biblical Trinitarianism”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this day after Christmas, December 26th, 2016 and I am so delighted to start the first broadcast after the holidays, well at least after the

Christmas holidays, by having Dr. Edward DelCour on the program.

Dr. DelCour is going to be discussing his book, A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the

Light of Biblical Trinitarianism and by the way this book is a revised, updated and expanded edition now and now in its fourth edition and it is a delight to have you on the first day after Christmas, Dr.

Edward DelCour. Yes, I am delighted that we're on today and I know we tried it before and we were not successful because of the immortal enemy electronics and everything else.

Yeah. But I'm real delighted to discuss this very, very important topic. Yes, we were going through, as most of our listeners know unless they are brand new listeners, we were going through unfortunate technological trials and we found out that it was just a minor thing that was overlooked by many people who are very knowledgeable about these kinds of things but all it took was a television producer who happens to be a

Christian who listens to my program and actually is a childhood friend of Dr.

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. He heard about my problem and after an hour and a half of trying to get to the root of it, the last thing he said was to a friend of mine,

Joe Ignacio, who was in the studio trying to troubleshoot with him. He said, by the way, is the

IMAX internal microphone turned on? And Joe said, yes, it is. Turn it off.

And that was what it took. There was an internal microphone on that was causing an echo and a feedback and all kinds of stuff.

So anyway, we thank God that that's over with and that we have been broadcasting trouble -free ever since and God willing that will continue that way.

And I'd like to announce back in the studio, after a long absence, is a man who was co -hosting my program fairly regularly but had to, after going off of medical leave and returning to his full -time job, had to leave us, at least for the time being, as a co -host.

But today, since he has a holiday, being the day after Christmas, he was able to join us today and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back into the studio,

Rev. Buzz Taylor. Well, what can I say? The Lord healed me and I had to leave.

You sound like you're drifting back into the old Pentecostalism of you. There we go. Well, we all, we still as Calvinists, believe that the

Lord heals, though. In fact, he's the only one that does. Well, he used the doctors.

Well, Edward Delcor, I want, before we even to go into the topic today, a very controversial topic, a topic that amazingly and tragically many evangelicals don't even want to discuss because they don't think it's a big deal.

But before we go into the subject of oneness theology, I'd like you to tell our listeners something about the religion of your childhood, if any, how the

Lord providentially used circumstances in your life to draw you to himself and save you.

And also, I want to hear something after that about your years with the Power Team, an organization that—

I can't get away from that. Well, you could just tell us a little something about that.

I want to hear about that. In fact, Reverend Buzz Taylor may have even seen you because he was working with Teen Challenge in the 80s and may have seen you at an event.

Well, it was before that, before I worked for Teen Challenge even. They came to a church, I can't remember the exact name of the church, but Covenant something or something,

Covenant in the Buffalo area. And all I remember is that you were trying to find somebody tough enough to pick on you guys, and they found one of our local pastors who was going to stand up to you.

I never did get back to find out how that turned out. Well, I don't know if you remember being in Buffalo, but before we even get to that,

Ed, let's go back to your childhood. I sound like a psychiatrist right now.

Yeah. Well, here's how it began. Actually, I think

I told you this last time. I said I was baptized.

I was six months old in a Presbyterian church. I never realized that until I found a document, and it was very interesting.

But basically, I was brought up in a Baptist church. It's the same Baptist church that actually my mother goes to today, just a different name.

I went there for many years. I even went to Christian schools. A couple of them

I got kicked out of, but I went to Los Angeles Baptist High School at least for one year, then

I went to public school for the last three years after that. But I was actually brought up in a

Christian environment, and it is providence that I'm here where I'm at today, because going through challenges through college and so on and so forth, it wasn't until later in my years until I actually solidified my

Christianity. It's hard to pinpoint a time when the Lord saved me. It's almost impossible.

But I stand here today as a justified Christian, and it's been quite an experience, and it's such a privilege being used by God not only as a

Christian, but actually being in Christian ministry, because we're all in Christian ministry in some way, shape, or form, even if you don't do it professionally.

But the Lord has granted me the opportunity and privilege to do it professionally. I made my living doing

Christian ministry, so it's been an honor. It's been a privilege. It's been a blessing, and I have my wife by my side who actually used to be a

Jehovah's Witness, so she really understands evangelism. Yeah, she was a door knocker when she was young.

She used to go to people's doors and hand out the really beautiful, artistic paraphernalia.

I mean, they are the best. They are the best at their art. So then shortly thereafter, after college,

I was introduced to a friend who knew the leader of the power team, John Jacobs, and he introduced me to John, and next thing

I know, a couple weeks later, they flew me out to Crescent City, California, to see what the team was all about.

I had seen the team on, I think it was on TBN one time, and I also saw them live at Jack Hayford's church from the outside.

I wasn't allowed to come in because there were too many people. It was standing room only, but it was quite interesting.

So I met John Jacobs, went to Crescent City, and that's how it started.

And then after that, I was on a plane, virtually weeks later, when I first got on the team,

I was on a plane to Australia. Never really testified or spoke or anything in front of people.

I had to go on stage in front of 2 ,000 people in Australia to give a testimony, which is harder to do than just speak about something, is it not?

But I was on the team for about nine years, and then

I winged off of that because I was doing full -time. I was getting into apologetics, and I just really liked to teach and study and all these things, and I saw the need in the

Christian church for that, and so my effort, my focus was pointing to what

I do now. But being on the power team did give me a lot of experience with a very eclectic kind of body of Christians, meaning we would go to charismatic churches, we'd go to fundamentalist

Baptist churches, we'd go to Methodist churches, because it was a gospel presentation, that's it.

Nothing more. We weren't allowed to expand on the number 666 meetings or the day

Jesus is coming back, all these other issues. But we just kept it, and we couldn't talk about gifts or anything, we just kept it on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

So that was a good part, and I gained a lot of experience in ministry, all kinds of venues,

I mean from bullfighting readings we performed in Venezuela in front of 12 ,000 people, to some of the largest churches in the world, and interfaith with all these people.

I really gained, I think, a good stock of knowledge as to the interaction of charismatic, conservative

Christians, and really saw the behind the scenes of TV, and you know, no, they really operate.

But since then I've been doing, after I got off the power team,

I started teaching, and I got my master apologetics from Columbia Evangelical Seminary, I did my

PhD in theology from Northwest University, and then

I promised my wife I would not go to, won't go to school anymore because it's due time. So here

I stand today doing what I'm doing. Praise God. And one of the reasons why this topic today is kind of interesting also is because of the fact that, as you know, many evangelicals who are

Trinitarian, or at least profess to be, seem to think, well, this is not really one of the primary teachings of the

Christian faith, so therefore we really shouldn't be squabbling or dividing over this.

I remember working for a Christian radio network where we had a major event on the beach where there would be a number of pastors who mainly were selected because they had radio programs on our network, speaking in some of them fairly well -known, or very well -known,

I should say, and then they invited Phillips, Craig, and Dean to be the main entertainment, if you will, or the main worship band, and when

I said, excuse me, I really object to this group being a part of what is supposed to be a

Christian celebration and a time of Christian worship. This is a group that denies the

Trinity. And the response I was given was, here he goes again, the nitpicker.

I mean, are you kidding me? You're going to squabble over the

Trinity? I mean, come on, the word isn't even in the Bible. And so basically my response was, well,

I'll tell you who does take this issue pretty seriously. It's anti -Trinitarians.

They take it very seriously. But anyway, didn't you even have some difficulty with the power team over this issue?

Yeah, I mean, you know, the power team, since they went into so many churches, you know, and it's very difficult to get team members because the qualifications to be on a power team, not only do you have to be a

Christian, you have to be an athlete to look the part. And that's very difficult. And on the

Christianity side, you know, they sought to hire mature Christians and get some newbies.

But the problem was, toward the end, this is one of the reasons why I left, toward the late 90s, early 2000s, under John Jacobs, there were so many people on the team.

Not like when I started, there was many people and we'd go to town every week.

We'd be at a town together. But after a while it got huge. And then some of the people coming in, they, you know, a couple of them were members at T .D.

Jakes and a couple of them were professing. One of the guys in particular was, he had no problem with one of the theology.

And God can reveal himself as any way he wants and all these things. A lot of it was a matter of ignorance. And to me, you shouldn't be in ministry if you're ignorant of fundamental gospel issues.

If you're saying it's nitpicking or something, I don't think you'd say it's nitpicking if I said, you know, if I started talking about your, say, your wife and I'm saying, yeah, she's really nice, but the only problem is she's half amphibious.

She's a nice girl though, but she's not really human. You know what

I'm saying? These are ontological differences. And as you said, Oneness Pentecostals, they see it as ontological differences.

They see it as fundamental, but there's so much ignorance in the body of Christ on these kind of issues.

And of course we do differentiate between sufficient knowledge and exhaustive knowledge. But the fact of the matter is,

Hosea 6 .6, the Lord said, I delight in loyalty better than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than my burnt offering.

So it doesn't matter how many times you say praise God or do all these works. If you don't have loyalty in the knowledge of God, you know, it's doing more damage than good to the people to which you're speaking.

And even in your own faith, if you don't have the knowledge, sufficient knowledge of God, you know, how in the world do you, you know, worship

God in spirit and truth in a very serious sense? If you don't, you just think

Jesus is some really cool guy in first century Palestine. But yeah, there was a guy that was a one in the sky and, you know, they just, you know,

I've talked to him many times. I thought it was heretical. Eventually I told John Jacob not to want to be on stage with this guy.

Eventually I just left completely. And there was another guy in contrast to that, who was a oneness and we had, he's never dialogued with a

Trinitarian, just brought up that way. Real nice guy. We had some good dialogue together and about a year later he had the need or urge to call me and to tell me he's radically, ever since that conversation, he radically changed his position.

I believe the Lord saved him at that point. He goes to a Florida Trinitarian church and he wanted to tell me this and he sees the error in oneness theology and he sees the non -gospel of oneness theology and the non, you know, it's a

Jesus that cannot save. And so he sees the issues and he wanted to tell me that. And I was really, a lot of times, you know,

Chris, we don't see the fruit of our labor all the time. You know, we'll never know sometimes on this earth, the effect we had on someone that we've talked to before.

Yeah, well, praise God for that. In fact, I hope that there's some of my friends listening also that went through a transformation, a radical transformation themselves, where they were, one, the

Spentecostals and even a couple of them, one, the Spentecostal pastors, who became not only reformed theologically, but also

Trinitarian, thanks be to God. The first - Wow, double blessing though.

Yeah, the first not being an issue that would necessarily leave you out of the circle of saving faith or those that are truly born again, but the second definitely is something where one salvation would be called into question.

But I want to actually get into that at some point, that very issue. But I think a very helpful thing to do right now, it may seem silly to some folks that I would even ask you to do this, but I think it's at the heart of what we're talking about, especially since I have heard from many

Trinitarian Christians who are very experienced with the apologetic realm, who will say that the average

Christian in a Trinitarian church will typically give a modalist definition of the

Trinity, unconsciously. But if you could give us a definition of the

Trinity. Yeah, simply speaking, because we can really hammer out the definitions of the

Trinity, but there is a simple definition, which is, and again, this is one of the arguments that one of Spinnakussel's posits, the

Old Testament is consistent with the New Testament. You can't judge a doctrine because it's more revealed in one testament than the other.

But as I would point out, and do point out, and always point out, that the Old Testament is consistent in terms of the revelation of God, revealing a multi -personal

Trinitarian God. But in terms of a simple definition, there's a couple that we can use.

First, I don't like any of the analogies, like light, and ice, and all these things.

A lot of them are oneness definitions, or modalist definitions. They don't really do justice to the biblical doctrine of the

Trinity. I like just to give the biblical definition. Simply put, there are three distinct persons, and why do we call them persons?

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because they have personal attributes, personal characteristics, which is the hallmark of personhood.

They have emotions. They love, they have a will to get angry, they speak to each other, they talk.

We can go on and on to delineate the personal characteristics. So, person is probably,

I see it as the best category. But what we don't mean when we say three distinct persons, we don't mean three distinct people, nor do we mean three separate persons, or three,

I don't like the word separate, because the Godhead cannot be, the persons aren't separate, as you and I are separate right now, but they're distinct.

Three distinct persons, or self -aware subjects, a cognizant of their own existence, if you like that term better, self -aware subjects.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who share the nature, or being, of the one

God. They share the nature of the one God. They're, all persons are co -equal, co -eternal, and co -existent.

And that is probably the best, or shortest answer, three distinct persons that share the one, the nature of the one true

God. Based on what you've just told us, I've heard it put this way, and you can either say this is good, bad, or indifferent, but it's three who's, and one what.

Have you heard that? Yeah, that was Hank Hanegraaff's favorite. Yeah, I wasn't going to bring him into the discussion. Lee, come on, leave the

Armenians alone. I think he's trying to.

But anyway. Actually, I don't know if he's pointing that, he might have said it from his mentor,

Norman Geisler, but yeah, that is actually a good working definition, because, and here's the problem, when we say three persons, it's commonly misrepresented by Unitarian groups, and what's

Unitarian? Someone who sees God as one person, right? Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, they all fundamentally have the same view that God exists as Unitarian.

They're Unitarian, stinking people. And so when we say three persons, they immediately translate persons to gods, which is a strawman, because we're not talking about three gods.

In fact, the last debate I did, which I was very reluctant to do, because the pastor that I updated,

Nathan Dudley, in Kansas City, he was just, he was a pastor, he was extraordinarily illiterate on things like, on the nuts and bolts of the doctrine of the

Trinity. In fact, the title, in relationship to your question, the title of this debate was

One God versus the Trinity. And so you see how their view of the

Trinity is three gods, but being, simply put, is what something is.

If it's a rock, even human mankind is denoting the being, right?

Person is who something is. So therefore, the doctrine of the Trinity is firmly based on ontological monotheism, one

God by nature. It's based on monotheism, the idea of one God, but not one person.

Monotheism does not mean one person. Oneist Pentecostals commonly misapply monotheism to a view of universalism.

So what they do, and this is what this guy did at the debate, is the entire brunt of his argument, of his whole thesis of the debate, was quoting all the passages that say there's one

God, which is so irrelevant to what we were debating about. The debate was not about one

God, but rather, how does God reveal himself? How does the one God reveal himself? They never got it.

And the oneness mind, I think because, you know, we do see a noetic effect of them, they just can't compute the idea of one

God meaning one being. You know, they think one God means one person, and they'll never separate from that unless the

Lord saves them. So the doctrine of the Trinity is based on one God, and I think the definition of one, one, three, who's is apropos.

And of course, we've all, well, those of us who have met Oneist Pentecostals and spent enough time with them, perhaps you have heard the derogatory remark, blasphemous remark, against our

God, the true God of the Bible, that it is a three -headed monster.

Have you ever heard that one? You know, it's funny, the first time I ever heard that, or read that, was from,

I believe it was Charles Davies Russell, the president, the founder of the

Watchtower, he says the Trinity is a three -headed God. And that's what you have with Muslims and Oneist Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses who just don't understand, and at least argue our doctrine correctly, you know, but it's very rare that you'll find a

Oneist person who can actually define the Trinity. Yeah, and wouldn't you say that the difference that we have here,

I mean, there are obviously other differences, but like the key difference between a

Jehovah's Witness, as your wife once was, and a Oneist Pentecostal, they are both anti -Trinitarian and Unitarian in a sense, meaning they are

Unitarian, but the Oneist Pentecostal claims to believe in the deity of Christ, whereas the

Jehovah's Witness vehemently rejects that notion. Very good, good point, in fact, they think they're one of the only groups who affirm the deity of Christ, but we have, and I want the audience to really keep this in mind, when they say

Jesus is God, as we say the same thing, they say one God, we say one

God, they say Jesus is God, we gotta define our terms, like the term faith,

I'll say faith, someone else says faith, we mean two different things. But on this issue, Jehovah's Witnesses and Oneist Pentecostals are similar in the sense that their definition of one

God is one person, so when they say Jesus is God in the Oneist sense, the

Oneist Pentecostal means he's everything that God is, meaning he's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We just found out his name was

Jesus in the New Testament revelations, when you look at Isaiah 9 -6 and all these places that talk about the coming

Messiah, and Isaiah 9 -6 calls the coming Messiah and Eternal Father, which is actually the

English translation, they're not the Hebrew, they say, see, Jesus is the name of the

Unitarian God. A lot of them don't use the word Unitarian because they don't know what it means, or they just do not because they don't like it.

They think Jesus is the unipersonal God that comes out sometimes as the

Father, that's him as God. Sometimes when he's speaking as the Son, he's speaking of his human nature exclusively.

So the Son is human. There's no such God the Son. In fact, they're appalled at that phrase.

There is no God the Son. You know, Tennessee, my opponent, never responded to Hebrews 1 -8, which calls the

Son God, Hebrews 1 -10, which calls the Son Yahweh of Psalms 1 -2. There was no response to that.

And I didn't expect a response because I don't know how a Oneist, it's very difficult for a

Oneist Pentecostal without doing gymnastics around some kind of eisegetical interpretation how they get around the prologue of Hebrews.

But the fact of the matter is, Son equals his human nature, and Father equals his divine nature.

And that's how they explain Jesus as God, only as the Father, though. Yes, and we're going to be going to a break right now.

When we return, I'd really like you to get into the history of modalism, because it didn't even start with the 20th century

Oneist Pentecostals that broke away from the assemblies of God.

It started earlier in history, but I'd also not only want you to go back into history about the development of this heresy, but also to discuss the beginnings of this group as a denomination in the early 20th century.

And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net.

Remember, my primary Gmail account, unfortunately, is still disabled by Google because I was sending out too many emails promoting the upcoming debate and pastors luncheon.

So they slapped me on the wrist again and disarmed, or whatever they call it, they deactivated, or whatever, my

Google account, my primary Google account. So use chrisarnson at comcast .net

today. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at comcast .net.

And we're going to be right back, God willing, with Dr. Edward Delcore and our discussion of a definitive look at oneness theology.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,

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Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

It is going to be a bang -up conference called the G3 conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the

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We hope to see you there. Learn more at g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

This is Chris Zarnes and your host of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than 90 minutes to go is

Dr. Edward Delcor, founder of the Department of Christian Defense, and we are discussing today his book,

A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the Light of Biblical Trinitarianism.

In studio with me is my co -host today, the Reverend Buzz Taylor. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at comcast .net,

chrisarnsen at comcast .net. And before I return to our discussion,

I want to remind you that we have two major events coming up. The first is the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon. It's going to be held at the

Carlisle Vault in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a really beautiful catering hall that is a historic bank going back to the early 20th century that has been transformed into a catering hall.

And this is a beautiful facility and the new owners of this catering hall are absolutely being phenomenal to us.

They are letting us rent this facility free of charge for this minister's luncheon, with the only exception is that I have to pay for the cleaning crew afterwards.

So I am blown away by God's providence and goodness in this area. And if you want more details on that, please email me at chrisarnsen at comcast .net,

chrisarnsen at comcast .net. By the way, our guest speaker at that luncheon is going to be

Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Canada.

And there's not only going to be a free gourmet meal for you, but all of the pastors attending, all of the men,

I should say, in ministry leadership attending, are going to leave a heavy sack of brand new books, probably between 30 and 40 books, donated by major Christian publishers all over the

United States and the United Kingdom. And everything is absolutely free of charge from beginning to end.

There will be nothing for sale at this luncheon. This was a luncheon began by my late wife in the 1990s, and it has continued on to this day as I relocated from New York to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

This is going to be my third luncheon. And this is the first time, though, at the Carlisle Vault. The very next day,

Friday, January 13th at 7 p .m., we are having our first debate here in Carlisle.

We've done these debates for many years, going back to 1996. But this will be the first great debate in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the historic

Carlisle Theater, also a historic building dating back to the early 1920s that has been restored to its original beauty and grandeur.

This debate will be between the aforementioned Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary and Roman Catholic apologist

Robert Syngenis, founder of Catholic Apologetics International. The theme will be,

Mary, Sinless Queen of Heaven or Sinner Saved by Grace. There will be a ticket charge for this event, $5 per ticket, which is less than you'll be paying for most movies that you go to, if not all movies you go to.

And again, that's Friday, the 13th of January at 7 p .m. The luncheon, as I mentioned, is

Thursday, the 12th of January, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m., and the debate is

Friday, the 13th of January, 7 p .m. For more details on that event as well, email me at chrisarnsen at comcast .net,

chrisarnsen at comcast .net, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at comcast .net,

and please put a luncheon or debate or both in the subject line if you're asking about either or both of those events.

And before I go to a listener question, Dr. Delcor, I want you to first give a little bit of detail on the

Department of Christian Defense, because I failed to have you do that in the beginning of the program, and then we'll move on to the history of modalism or oneness theology.

Dr. Delcor Right. The Department of Christian Defense, the website is christiandefense .org.

Apologetic ministry, we have a ton of educational materials and links and so on and so forth, and we also have a free newsletter that comes out electronically or email, and also we can send you a hard copy if you'd like to, a mailing address.

All you've got to do is go to the website, christiandefense .org, and just contact us or sign up.

There's a little sign up for newsletter. But it has a good amount of information on not only oneness theology, but on Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and I have some articles on Islam, and also

I have some really good links to some of my friends who have really fantastic websites, information hubs on Islam.

Sam Shimon with Dan's Green Islam is one of those. But go to the website.

We have a ton of information. We'd be delighted if you get on the newsletter.

Contact us. I try to answer all the questions, even if you're mad and you're right in all capitals. So visit the website.

Get a lot of those. And great. Well, that's christiandefense .org, right?

Yes, christiandefense .org. Right. Well, let's go, as I said, back into history about when oneness theology, obviously before, was in its

Pentecostal form, but there have been anti -Trinitarians for many centuries that have done battle with Trinitarian Christians.

And if you could give us your understanding from history of when this group reared its head in time.

Yeah, we do have a whole lot of historical documentation to not only to see what the

Church's view of it was, and I say that because you'll have one apologist, if you want to call them, or one of the writers who somehow think the early

Church was oneness, which is, I would just challenge everyone to read the patristic record on this, because just kind of, you know, wrenching a verse or a passage out of context from the patristic record is not how you read the

Church Fathers. You've got to read the Church Fathers in context. So when Ignatius of Antioch says the phrase several times,

Jesus Christ, or Our God, Jesus Christ, when he says Our God, Jesus Christ, he does that in light of his view that Jesus Christ, as his

God, was distinct from God the Father. In fact, there's nowhere the Greek writings of Ignatius, the copies in the

Greek, where grammatically he identifies Jesus with the

Father. And we can look at, you know, that can be for another show, we can examine the patristic record.

I remember in the debate it was so funny to me, I was trying to hold back giggling because someone asked the question during the end of question and answer, let the audience ask questions, they would write it down, give it to the moderator.

Was the Church oneness, or did they baptize in a oneness formula?

And my answer was, my gosh, look at the record. I mean, there's just a ton of references or citations of Church Fathers who promote baptism in the name of the

Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, going back to maybe A .D. 70 to the Didache, when the

Didache instructs, if there's no water, sprinkle them three times for the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Didache goes way back, that's around 70

A .D., as some scholars put it. So, anyways, his answer, my opponent's answer was,

I don't need to go to the, and I'm trying to quote him verbatim, I don't need to go to the Church Fathers because I have the

Apostles, those were the earliest Church Fathers, and everything was in the name of Jesus. Of course, the whole, you know, there was 501

Pentecostals, about six Christians, or maybe less than a dozen Christians there, and five

Pentecostals. Of course, when he said that, they all like, you know, roared and cheered, you know, no matter what he said, they cheered.

But the fact of the matter is, what is theology, you can trace it back, all the way back to at least the second century.

In fact, I don't have the reference in hand, but it was Justin Martyr who actually made a statement referring to the false, false teaching of this

Oneness kind of idea that Justin Martyr was expressing.

But after, you know, we look at the Church record, and aside from Sibelius, who was one of the more popular

Oneness folks, you have Tertullian and Hippolytus, speaking out against Oneness theology.

In their letters, there was one specific letter by the great Church Father, Hippolytus.

It was called, it was a refutation to Noetis, Noetis of Cerna.

And Hippolytus writes, in fact, I have the reference, he says, they, the modelists, answer in this manner, therefore

I acknowledge Christ to be God, he is the Father himself. And if he is indeed

God, then Christ suffered, being himself God, and consequently the Father suffered, for he was the

Father himself. Was that called patri -passionism? I was just going to mention that, yes, which most

Oneness people would deny, because again, they don't see the Father as the Son, they see

Jesus in different times, or simultaneously as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So it was Jesus as the Son who suffered, not Jesus as the Father. But there was two forms, historically, of modalism, and we call it modalism, it was called modalism because they teach that God comes out in different modes.

The mode of the Father, the mode of the Son, and the mode of the Holy Spirit, similar to a husband, he's the mode of the husband when he's interacting with his wife, but he can be the mode of the

Son when he's talking to his father, and he can be the mode of the Father when he's disciplining his children, and they even define it that way.

So you have two forms of modalism, historically, you had something called successive modalism, or developmental, and you have simultaneous modalism, which most

Oneness Pentecostals believe today. Successive modalism was a teaching that first, it teaches that modes were successive, meaning the first mode was the

Father in creation, it was only the Father, and then the successive mode was the

Son for the task of redemption, and then after his role was finished, you have the role or mode of the

Holy Spirit for each generation, in which Jesus is always the Holy Spirit. Now, it's the way

International believes something to that effect, and it was Sibelius who believed in the successive modalism, as Shaft points out.

So, you know, it was a distinct of theology, but we have to keep in mind, and I brought this point up all the time, the early

Church completely, they were reactionary when they interacted, when they came across Oneness Theology, in that they refuted, hands down, the

Oneness view, because the standard of the Church was Trinitarian. How do we know?

Well, not only do we have the statements of the Church Fathers, I mean a huge, a vast amount of documentation, but consider this, the

Ecumenical Council, the seven great Ecumenical Councils, starting with the

Council of Jerusalem, but the first one outside of the Apostolic Age, Nicaea, and then you go down, were

Trinitarian. The whole marrow starting point of these councils were

Trinitarian. They saw Jesus as God, distinct from the Father. There was no

Oneness Council. There were no Oneness creeds. There were no

Oneness -like groups that would reign even in ecclesiastical councils.

You didn't have anything even resembling Oneness, because the Church rejected

Oneness as non -Christian. But it eventually died out, modalism, because it was so challenging, it was so rejected by the people of God, that it died out.

And I say the people of God, because these were Christian churches. Some of these Church Fathers were disciples of the original

Apostles, and no one taught Oneness theology. Modalism generally died off until around the 18th century, a man named

Swindenborg. Emanuel Swindenborg was kind of a different kind of guy. He had his revelations, similar to like your modern -day charismatic...

Are you talking about the founder of Swedenborgianism? Exactly. Okay. And he had a revelation that Jesus was the person behind the masks of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where, of course, early modalism, like Sebelius taught that the one person behind the three masks, or modes, was the

Father, not Jesus. But Emanuel Swindenborg, because of his revelation, he believed that Jesus was behind those three masks.

So that translated, after it died off, he re -emerged it again.

And now we have some of the denominations, some calling themselves

Oneness denominations, with the UPC, United Pentecostal Church International being the largest

Oneness denomination. But as you alluded to, it really was a development from early

Pentecostalism, emerging out of the Assembly of God, as you mentioned. And it's really interesting because I think it was in 1960, at one of the councils or conferences of the

Assembly of God, they expunged about 156 pastors from the

Assembly of God because they were teaching one theology. They kicked them out because they did not see it as consistent with Biblical theology, they thought it's heretical, and they actually took a very strong stance in their third conference,

I think it was their third conference, affirming the doctrine of the Trinity. But from 1913 -1916, there was several leaders,

Pentecostal leaders, R .E. McAllister, Edward Lynn Cook, and some others,

I think it was Garfield Haywood, and they began teaching the so -called correct baptismal formula.

Most non -Christian groups always start out with a faulty hermeneutic, and then they go from there. And we have, what we have today, is these people were teaching the correct formula, because we got it wrong for so many years, and it must be in the name of Jesus Christ, not in the name or the triune name for formula that Jesus pronounced in Matthew 28 -19.

So they were greatly influenced, and again, they also coupled that on Acts 2 -38, that was one of their verses that they would use to support that idea, and it affected and it greatly influenced other pastors.

And one night in the midst of this revival under John Shep, there was this intense prayer, and then the pastor there claimed that he had encountered again a type of revelation, mystical experience, confirming the power of the name of Jesus.

And he used certain passages like John 10 -30, even Philippians 9 -11,

Colossians 3 -17, and it led him, Shep, to adopt a modalistic view of the

Godhead, and that's what really springboarded it. And now there's millions of Oneness Pentecostals, with the

UPCI being the biggest, but we have to keep in mind, which is interesting, is there's many

Oneness churches that do not hold a title that says

Oneness. Right. So it's hard to get numbers, you know, a lot of them are Apostolic Temple, or Faith Temple, you know, they use these things, you know, but normally if it has

Apostolic in the title, it's probably a Oneness, but you gotta look at their doctrinal statement. If you're looking for a church, you know, even if it says, you know,

Life something Church, look at their doctrinal statement, talk with the pastor, see how important doctrine is to the pastors.

But that's how it started, that's basically the upbringing of Oneness Pentecostals.

And they go so far, I mean, I've met these guys in the malls and stuff, you know, and of course there was one group that was working on me pretty hard a few years ago, but they are very quick to say that if you were baptized in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you really aren't even saved. Let me ask you what that group you met in the mall,

I'm asking this for the sake also of people listening. Yes. Were they part of the, because were they young that came up to you, rather young?

The ones in the mall primarily dealt with, of course, this is where Chris said that I dealt with them through Teen Challenge.

They were approaching, I was a choir director for, they weren't really teenagers, they were a little bit beyond that, but we were traveling, and we were in the malls, and they approached them.

So there was one guy in particular, he was probably a little bit older than you're thinking, but the particular pastor that I went to lunch with up in, when my home state was

Maine, he was very young, and in fact probably too young, some of them were too young to be in the ministry

I thought, but yeah, they were young, and they were definitely United Pentecostal.

Yeah, it's interesting because there's a group today that's very popular in the malls, they look like they're in their 20s or something, and they come up to, they're called the

Church, I think the Mission or Mission Church of God, not to be confused with the Christian Church of God and Christ, the charismatic group, but they come right up to you boldly, and they say, right up to you, and they just, their opening statement is this, hey, did you know

God has a wife? You know, and that's their opening statement, they'll show you all the passages of Revelation, but they are one, their father is the

Lamb, and you gotta forget about arguing, I'd have one go right to the juggler.

These guys were very, very condescending in the way they spoke to us too, I mean, you know, they were right, and that was all there was to it, you know?

Well, actually, sometimes that's refreshing as opposed to hearing the the mamby -pamby, it doesn't really matter what you believe kind of thing.

Yeah, but I think it's also interesting to point out that, as you said, because I don't want anybody to think that, you know, anybody that's

Pentecostal is oneness, that the Assemblies of God did break off back in the, what you said, 19...

Or dispelled, or disfellowshipped, or excommunicated. That was in their own writing, in their own doctrinal statement, where they mentioned that there was a split over the

Trinitarian issue, so, you know, just, I want to make sure that everybody understands that we're not giving all Pentecostals a black eye, at least not for this.

Yeah, and that is a very, because I get that question a lot, that is a very good point you brought up, thank

God you brought that up, because you're absolutely right, there are many, many, many Pentecostals who are

Christians, the Fourth, or the Assembly of God, I mean, you know, many, it just goes on, but then there's one of Pentecostals, and they must be differentiated.

One does not embrace the Christ of Scripture, that's oneness. Yeah. Whereas the other ones do, they're

Christian Pentecostals, we've got to differentiate. Yeah. Right, and also in our day and age, the oneness, the united Pentecostal group would probably be the ones that would be more, far more prone to condemn

Trinitarians as being lost, where there are other groups that are very ecumenical with other evangelicals, like I seriously doubt

T .D. Jakes would condemn Trinitarians as being lost. I don't know, that's some of his main givers.

He would never do that. Right, exactly. And Phillips, Craig, and Dean as well,

I'm certain they wouldn't use that rhetoric, and in fact, when Robert Sabin, when

I organized a debate years ago in the early 2000s,

I think it was, I organized a debate with Robert Sabin, one of the most well -known oneness

Pentecostals, and Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, they debated on the

Trinity. Dr. Sabin at that point had left the united Pentecostal denomination, and he was far more ecumenical in his vocabulary, and it was really a huge disappointment, the debate, because he really did not do much debating at all.

He spent the majority, if not all, of his opening remarks eulogizing

Michael Servetus, trying to tug at the heartstrings of those in the audience that those horrible, wicked, nasty, bigoted

Calvinists who are Trinitarian executed the poor, innocent

Miguel Servetus, as he's also known. And by the way, just out of curiosity, that 16th century figure who was a oneness

Pentecostal, I'm sorry, a non -Trinitarian, not a oneness Pentecostal, an anti -Trinitarian,

Miguel Servetus, was he also denying the deity of Christ, or did he also, like the oneness

Pentecostals, try to affirm Christ's deity while denying the trinity? I'm not sure if he denied it.

I think he was closer to how oneness would look at it. It's the language that was utilized.

It was his Unitarian belief that God is one person. How he figured

Christ into that was, I believe, similar to how a oneness would, but it was just his anti -Trinitarian stance, you know.

It's fast, you know. Well, we have to go to another break right now, and we do have some listeners waiting to have their questions asked and answered, so we thank you for your patience.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at comcast .net, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at comcast .net,

that's C -O -M as in Michael, C -A -S -T dot net. So don't go away, we are going to be right back,

God willing, with Dr. Edward Dahl Korr and more of our discussion on oneness theology.

Chris Arnzen here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia, and here's my friend Dr. James White to tell you why.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with one hour to go is

Dr. Edward Delcor, founder of the Department of Christian Defense, which can be found at christiandefense .org,

christiandefense .org. We are discussing his book, A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the

Light of Biblical Trinitarianism. If you'd like to join us on the air as well, you could be joining those who have already written us.

We're waiting for their questions to be asked and answered. The email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net.

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And we have some listeners who have responded. We have

Joe in Slovenia who wants to know, Please ask

Dr. Edward Delcourt to explain how to understand the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 9, verse 6, referring to the

Everlasting Father. Isn't that teaching oneness? Thanks so very much.

Good, that's a really good question because that is probably one of the highlights,

I should say, or hallmarks of oneness that folks use in Isaiah 9, verse 6.

A couple things, you know, when we look at these kind of passages, we have to look at it in light of the entire content of biblical revelation, not just, let's look at this sentence right here there,

I just refuted you, but from Genesis to Revelation. But in the text it says,

A child will be born to us, yaled in the Hebrew, the normal word for child. A child will be born to us and a son, a son will be given to us.

I think this is a great, especially today, this is a great affirmation of the incarnation.

A child will be born as to his humanity. A son will be given as to his duty and the government will rest on his shoulders.

And his name will be called Wonderful. Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Now, of course, because of the phrase Eternal Father, the one to say, hey, look, you know, he's the father, so on and so forth.

However, there's some problems there, both syntactically and context. Now, for the sake of time,

I'll try to be super brief. First of all, it's a fallacy of equivocation to say that the word father only has one meaning.

In other words, if it says father, it must be talking about the New Testament person of the father or the father that Jesus speaks about.

And it has no other meaning. Well, that's not how we interpret the Bible, because the Hebrew ab is used only about 15 times in the

Old Testament. And when it's used of God, it denotes, as we see it, look up all the times that we see this term about 15 times.

It denotes his parental role to his children, namely Israel, like in Exodus 4, 22 and 23, where God called

Israel my firstborn. Right. And also in Isaiah 63, 16 is let me bring this up for you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us.

You, Lord, are our father, our redeemer of old. You can see how they use the word father in the sense of denoting his parental role and also his role as creator, like in Deuteronomy 32, 6,

Malachi 2, 10. In fact, Malachi 2, 10, if you take most, most one Hispanic hospitals, at least a whole lot of them are

King James, King James only folks. And that's their preferred translation.

Interesting, in Malachi 2, 10, where it says he's our father, our creator, they don't capitalize the word father in the

King James version, because they recognize that it's not talking about the person of the father, but rather his role as provider, redeemer, and creator.

It's not capitalized rightfully so there, because they know it's not talking about, they understand it's not talking about the person of the father, which the

Old Testament believer would really not be familiar with in terms of this relationship with the father and son, which was more revealed in the

New Testament. Also, another point, the term name, his name will be called Shem in the

Hebrew, was not a formal title of God, rather denoted essence or essential characteristics of who someone is, as to be the essential characteristics of the

Messiah. He's wonderful, he's counselor, he's mighty God, he's father eternal.

That's how the Hebrew reads, by the way, it doesn't say eternal father, it says father eternal, prince of peace.

And then thirdly, and this is from a lexical meaning, as mentioned, it doesn't carry the meaning of identification here.

When we see ab in these contexts, referring to the father, it carries the meaning, referring to God, it carries the meaning of possessor or founder, in the sense of provider, creator, and so on and so forth.

I'll give you an example. Second Samuel 23, 31 speaks of a man named

Abi -albon, which means father or possessor of strength, right?

Or in Exodus 6, 24, Abiaseph, which means father of gathering, or he who gathers.

And when we see Jesus is called father eternity or father eternal, we see the meaning consistent with how it's used in the

Old Testament and lexically used. He's the possessor of eternity.

The Targum affirms this by saying, translating that as he who inhabits or dwells in eternity, that's how they translate that in Isaiah 9 -6.

So we see these points that completely, I think, refute the oneness view. And also, there's never been a commentator who would conclude a oneness view of Isaiah 9 -6 and say, oh yeah, that means the

Messiah is going to be the person, or going to be identified as the

New Testament character, the father. So we just don't find that.

The oneness view here not only opposes historical sources, but it opposes scholarship and even

Jewish sources. There's just no Jewish sources that would subscribe to that meaning there.

Well, Joe in Slovenia, guess what? You have won a free copy of A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the

Light of Biblical Trinitarianism, thanks to our friend and guest,

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Todd and Patty Jennings. And we have a first -time listener,

Carmine in Hernando, Florida. And for some reason, Abba just popped into my head, the musical group, not the

Hebrew word. I don't know if actually

I think that that song is Fernando with an F, but I might be wrong. Well, Carmine in Hernando, Florida says, concerning the

Trinity, can you give five fallacies of the

Trinity? And obviously, he is speaking of, I'm assuming, a caricature or a wrong, a false definition that very often,

Oneness Pentecostals, or perhaps even Christians in ignorance, will use to define the

Trinity. I mean, we've actually seen, many of us have seen that very hilarious St.

Patrick's Day animation that the Lutheran folks have provided with us.

I don't know if you've seen it. Have you seen the St. Patrick's Day? Excuse me?

I'm not sure if I've seen it. You're kidding me. I've got to send you that YouTube link because it's pretty hilarious.

Missouri Synod Lutheran, there's a bunch of guys who are, well, I don't know if there's a bunch of guys. It might be only two guys. But they are very brilliant humorists and satirists, and they create all these different animations that really highlight a

Christian truth and expose error. And St. Patrick is rattling off a whole bunch of erroneous ways to define the

Trinity in this animation. But anyway, do you have, can you provide five fallacies of the

Trinity? That would we be accused? Yeah, I assume that's what he means.

Right. Number one, that the Trinity is of Pagan origins.

Simple answer to that. Show me in Pagan literature where the word Trinity is ever used. Show me in Pagan literature where the concept of the

Trinity accurately presented typically, meaning the accurate definition of the Trinity defined by creeds and the scriptures.

Show me in Pagan literature where that is so, because we just don't find it. Um, number two, which leads me to, uh,

I think a most common, uh, uh, argument against the Trinity.

Well, assertion, not an argument, because an argument requires evidence. Um, that the Council of Nicaea were the ones that invented the

Trinity, you know, with those folks. And, and of course, most folks that use that argument think that it was a

Roman Catholic Council, which was almost as funny. And, um, yeah, there are, there are even fundamentalist

Baptist Trinitarians who will discount all of those councils as being

Roman Catholic. And the compilation of the Bible.

Thank you for bringing that up. Yes. Council of Nicaea, the Council of Nicaea, I would, I would respond almost the same way.

Show me where the word Trinity is used. Show me where they discussed the Trinity. It wasn't a

Trinitarian Council, even though they embraced the Trinity, even though they embraced the concept of the

Trinity. That wasn't the issue there. The issue was the relationship between Jesus Christ and the

Father. What was the ontological relationship? And we all know the Arius Deheritant when he promoted so on and so forth.

And the conclusion was that Jesus Christ was of the same substance. And Chris, keep in mind that Sibius and others were uncomfortable with Homo Ussios, the same substance, because it sounded too oneness, which they already refuted.

The Church has already refuted oneness. They're just a little uncomfortable about the same nature.

But, of course, after hammering the Bible verses out, um, quickly, as Athanasius tells us, the conclusion was he was of the same substance, but distinct from the

Father and Holy Spirit. So that fallacy is annihilated. Another fallacy, which is really a strawman, is the

Trinity actually teaches three gods. We discussed that. We discussed how that is not only an obvious argument, but it misrepresents the

Trinity, so it's not even an argument against the Trinity. It has nothing to do with the Trinity. It just shows you that, you know, it shows that the person arguing that has no stock of study in what the

Trinity is, and he actually embarrasses himself. And, um, let's see. Oh, how about this?

Well, we don't find the word Trinity in the Bible, so it would not be true. Well, you know, there's a whole lot of words we don't find in the

Bible that one of the Pentecostals used, like the word incarnation, or the equivalent to mode.

We just don't find those words. Which always witnesses, we don't find theocracy and, you know, and self -existence and all these other terms.

Here's the point. Does the word we use support the

Biblical? Does the Biblical day support the word that we use if we use a non -Biblical word?

Is there Biblical justification for us to use that word? And the answer is yes. We find in Scripture there's one

God, and then we find in one being, and we find in Scripture that there's three persons who are identified as Yahweh, called

God, called Lord in a religious context, worshipped as God, and yet they're distinct in Scripture.

We see that this is the data. We use the Trinity to define the

Biblical data. Same with the incarnation. The word became flesh. So we can use a non -Biblical word, because incarnation's not in the

Bible, to define the Biblical data. So that refutes the, you know, the word's not in the

Trinity kind of nonsense. Fifth one, the

Trinity was—gosh, there's so many—the Trinity was not at the top of the early church, but we already showed that to be true, and I would just challenge anyone who actually thinks that, just look at the patristic record on these issues, and patristic authorities like J .D.

Kellett. And Carmine has another question that I'll go to in a minute, but one thing that I think, and perhaps you will either agree or disagree with me.

I have a feeling you'll agree with me. I know brethren in Christ who strongly object to using extra -Biblical terminology, and like, for instance, they may agree with me soteriologically nearly 100 % on all issues, but they will say things like,

I do not identify myself as a Calvinist, because I don't want to attribute my beliefs to a man.

I don't identify myself as Reformed, because it's not a Biblical term. And I give a lot of credence to those things.

I have very good friends that I highly respect who are in those categories.

But when it comes to the Trinity, I think there you're getting into more dangerous ground, because it gives people more of an open door to embrace or teach a heretical concept or understanding of the

Godhead that may be confusing or go over the heads of the average person, if you follow what

I'm saying. To say that I don't want to identify myself as Trinitarian, because it's not a

Biblical word, so therefore this is really what I believe, etc., etc. Shouldn't we really not be nitpicking over using the extra -Biblical word and actually try to remain in harmony with the historic

Church by upholding even that term? Yes, and you know, it's interesting, because if the

Apostles had that view, that they couldn't use non -scriptural words, of course it would be hard for them to write the

Epistles, but the fact of the matter is, we identify our doctrines by using words that people understand.

When we teach, we use words like God is omnipresent. Would they have a problem with that, or God is omniscient?

Where do we find those words in Scripture? Where do we find any English word in Scripture? Where do you draw the line on that?

Are you going to never use a word that's not used in Scripture? Then what are you going to say Sunday morning?

That's fine, you can read the Greek text, okay, but as soon as you start reading the English text, now you're using words that are translated words, and some don't even have

Greek equivalents. Don't use John chapter 5. There was no chapter 5 in the

Scripture. Don't use chapter, don't use the word verse, don't use the word passage, and certainly don't use the maps in the back of the

Bible. I'm assuming you were referring to the authors of the epistles in that they weren't using the

Old Covenant or the Hebrew Scriptures verbatim. They were introducing something new, of course, guided by the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit. Yeah, guided by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, Paul made up words, like one of my favorite words he made up in Romans 8, 37, he says, we're overwhelmingly conquerors in the

Greek text. It's one of my favorite words. Hyper Nike, meaning we're super conquerors.

I love the word. But the fact of the matter is, again, we use

English in teaching in this country, we use English words to define biblical data, and we use biblical words in a translation.

How do we draw the line between using translation words and words like the

Trinity or the Incarnation? The word became flesh. We use, of course, the scholar

B .B. Warfield, no problem, using non -biblical terminology to define the biblical data.

And that's the whole concept with Sola Scriptura, as long as Scripture teaches the words in their context that we use.

But yeah, I've heard the Calvinist, I'm not a Calvinist, I'm a Christian or something like that. Well, we're going to our final break.

And by the way, Carmine, you have also won a free copy of A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the

Light of Biblical Trinitarianism. And guess what, Carmine? You've also won, since you are a first -time questioner in the

Iron Sharpens Iron audience, you are also winning a free New American Standard Bible, complements of the publishers of the

NASB. And both of those will be delivered to you by a mailman, but they'll be shipped out to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com. And we will get to your other question after the break,

Carmine, but I will read the question to our guest so he has time to mull it over during the station break.

He asks, would you believe that the Father begot the Son and the

Son brought forth the Holy Spirit that the one is subordinate to the next with the

Father as the head? So maybe if you could mull that over.

And there is even, as you are probably fully aware, a conflict amongst

Reformed Calvinistic Trinitarians over what has been nicknamed economic subordination, where there is absolute unity, but there is a subordinate function.

But anyway, if you could comment on those when we come back from the break. If anybody else would like to join us, we have a half hour left.

So now's the time to send your email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages, God willing, with Edward Alcor. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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Again, 717 -254 -6433. I'm Chris Arnsen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and here's one of my favorite guests,

Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to. Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris's show,

Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

It is going to be a bang -up conference called the G3 Conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the

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Thanks, Todd. I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's Booth.

I love hearing that commercial for some reason. Yeah. We are back.

And we have for about 25 more minutes our guest, Dr. Edward Dalcor, founder of the

Department of Christian Defense. And that email, or should

I say that website, if you want to find out more information on that organization when the program is over, go to christiandefense .org,

christiandefense .org. And I think that Iron Sharpens Iron more and more has earned the reputation of being the

Department of Offense, because of how many people get angry at the subjects that we bring up.

But we are discussing the definitive look at oneness theology.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at comcast .net,

chrisarnson at comcast .net. Before the break, Dr.

Dalcor, I read to you the final question that we're going to read by Carmine in Hernando, Florida.

And I'm going to read that to you now. He says, let's see, do you believe that the

Father begot the Son and the Son brought forth the Holy Spirit, that the one is subordinate to the next with the

Father as the head? Yeah, a couple issues on that.

I'm not sure how the caller sees the word begot. But nevertheless, what we find in Scripture is that we find that the three persons ontologically are equal in every respect, in every manner, in terms of nature, ontologically.

Meaning Jesus is fully God, the Father is fully God, distinct from Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is fully

God. But Scripture does teach a functional subordination of the

Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father, and of the Holy Spirit to the

Son. And we see that particularly in John, like for instance in John 14, 26, we're taught that the

Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and in the name of the Son.

But we clearly see that the Comforter, or the Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in my name, says

Christ. He will teach you all these things and bring you into remembrance, whatever I say, and so on and so forth.

And then in John 15, 26, we're told that Jesus sends the

Spirit from the Father. So the sending of one from another,

I think, demonstrates subordination, but a functional subordination. Also in places like Romans 8, 9, you're not in flesh if you have the

Spirit of God dwelling in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, or the

Spirit coming from Christ, the Holy Spirit, we just read, comes from Christ.

Christ sends the Holy Spirit. He is not of his, Romans 9 says. Same thing in Acts 16, 7, the

Holy Spirit is spoken of, the Spirit of Jesus being the Spirit coming from Jesus.

So there's no problem, I mean, that's how Trinitarians look at the, not every

Trinitarian, but certainly in conservative scholarships, see the persons in the

Trinity, we see a hierarchy, we see a functional subordination of the

Son to the Father, because he was sent, I think 40 times in John, we read that the

Son was sent by the Father, and the Son obeys.

And this is before his humiliation, right? This is before. This is in the

Gospel of John alone, we see 40 times that Jesus is actually sent by the Father. So I think the mere fact they obey, and the

Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, and the Holy Spirit was sent,

I think it demonstrates, I see it as demonstrating a functional subordination.

Particularly in John, the one, John 16, 14, he shall glorify me, says

Christ, the Spirit, for he shall not, he shall receive of mine, and he'll show it to you.

You know, we see, we have a lot of verses like that that show this. Now, this may be a ridiculous move on my part, since we only have 20 minutes left, but could you touch on the current controversy even raging amongst

Reformed Christians on the Trinity? Not that they are disagreeing on the

Trinity, but they are disagreeing on the functional subordination or the economic subordination factor into the equation, if you could.

Right, there's, unfortunately, the egalitarian, I think that's a

French word actually, egalitarian means that they're same in every respect. There's no functional subordination between the members of the

Trinity. And as you said, we have to remember this is an in -house kind of thing, this is not a debate of, you know, a different God, just different views some have of the doctrine of the

Trinity, how the persons function. So the egalitarian view holds that all three persons are equal in every sense, and unfortunately, sometimes, that transcends to roles in the

Church between men and women. They hold, they would hold, some would hold egalitarian view of the roles in leadership between men and women, meaning they're both equally the same.

Women can be elders and pastors and deacons and all these things, just as men can.

And then there's the complementarian view, which teaches that there is a functional subordination, not only in the

Godhead, but between husbands and wives, men and women in the Church as well. And again, it's not touching on the nature.

We have to, you know, not see it in terms, in light of nature, but rather in terms of function and position.

And this view would hold that the Father is the ultimate source of all things. He's the ultimate agent of creation.

And the Son, He had a role in which He functionally submits to the

Father as a wife would functionally submit to her husband. He obeys the Father. He glorifies the

Father. And then, same with the Holy Spirit. So we have different positions, which we do call the

Economic Trinity, different positions. It was the Son who ascended and died on the cross, not the

Father. The Father and Son send the Holy Spirit to regenerate sinners.

You know, that was His role in Romans 8. It's the Father that justifies, but He does so on the basis of the function of the

Son's cross work. That's the very ground of the justification, right? Not man's work, of course.

So we see the different functions of each member, which I would hold to. There is a functional difference.

There is a functional subordination between the members of the Trinity. And I think it would be wise of me to add that not everyone who is in opposition to the economic subordination view is egalitarian in their understanding of gender roles.

There are a couple of people I will not name because I don't want to misrepresent them.

I'm not an expert on their view, but I know that they are in denominations that vehemently oppose the ordination of women.

And the converse. Some see the functions of the Godhead, but they have a egalitarian view when it comes to women in the church, vice versa.

Yeah, that's interesting. And the thing that makes it confusing is obviously those who oppose economic subordinationism or functional subordinationism, they all agree with the other group that Jesus Christ in his humanity submitted to the

Father and had a submissive role. So I'm not quite understanding why this is viewed with such an alarming reaction.

And Buzz, Reverend Buzz. Well, I'm looking at the clock running down and our guest said something at the beginning of the program that I just wanted to get back to because you referred to a doctrine or a view, you named it,

Jesus cannot save or something to that effect. Could you enlarge on that? Within one

Eastern gospel? Right. Yes. Oh, yeah. Thank you for asking that. One thing we have as Bible -believing

Christians wanting to promulgate the gospel to everyone, we have to understand that there is difference.

Not minor differences, secondhand or secondary differences, but there is actual fundamental differences of the actual nature of God.

So when God says, when Jesus says, those who worship God must worship him in spirit and truth, this is what we're talking about.

The oneness Jesus, who is the name of a

Unitarian deity, the oneness Jesus who was not God the

Son, but rather was the Father who took a new role and he called that role the

Son, this is not the Jesus of biblical revelation. This is not the

Jesus who loves his Father. This is not the Jesus who glorifies his

Father and says, glorify me, Father, with the glory I shared with you before the foundations of the world.

This is not the same Jesus. This is not the Jesus who was God the Son incarnated himself, who became the

Savior of sinners. This is not the same Jesus. And when the

Pentecostals are embracing, and I know they would say the same to us, but the

Bible has to be the judge of these things, when the Pentecostals are embracing a Jesus they can't say because their

Jesus is not a Jesus that's presented in Scripture, not the Jesus of biblical revelation.

And yet they will tell us that if we were baptized in the Trinitarian formula that we are not saved because it says be baptized in the name of Jesus, you know, in the book of Acts, you know, but they were actually, when you think about it, that's taking works salvation to the limit because I'm not only now saved by something

I did, if indeed baptism were what saves me, but I'm now saved by what the pastor said when my ears were underwater and I couldn't even hear him.

Yeah, absolutely, that's a great point, and I mean, I just get a stomachache when

I hear them try to interpret Matthew 28 -19, which again, it is not found in Christian scholarship.

You don't find the greatest grammarians, whether it's Robinson or Wallace who comments on these things, or Dana or Greenlee and so on and so forth, you don't hear a oneness interpretation of Matthew 28 -19.

It has been, historically has been in modern scholarship, a

Trinitarian formula. In fact, you don't, you know, junior high kids understand this by the plain reading of the text, and when they say the word name is singular there, so it must be the name of Jesus, not the name of the

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, I recoil at that because it shows a sloppy way of exegeting that passage, it shows a disconcerting attitude for scholarship, and it shows a total ignorance of the grammar of the passage and the context of Matthew's own context.

What about when they show people at the mall or wherever, they happen to encounter them, you know, they can show them in the book of Acts where they really were baptized in the name of Jesus, could you explain the difference, why one wording is different from the

Trinitarian? You know, that's an excellent point, and I know how

I answer that in my book, here's the problem. Matthew 28, no, it's not a problem for us.

Matthew 20, 19, Jesus gives a commission to his apostles, his disciples, to go and baptize, and he gives the

Trinitarian formula, and we have to keep in mind that grammatically, these persons,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, were differentiated grammatically by that article, there's a repetition of the the, of the article there.

The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which differentiates the person.

But then when we, and it's a commandment there, but when we look at Acts, what do we find?

We don't find a Trinitarian baptism. You don't find the words uttered,

I baptize in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we don't find it. We have different forms of Jesus, like in the name of Jesus, or in the name of the

Lord, or in the name of Christ Jesus, different variances, which is the problem for these Oneist Pentecostals who say they're under the strict standard of the

Apostolic Doctrine. Well, which formula is it? Jesus Christ? Is it the name Jesus alone? Is it the name of the

Lord? Because in Acts we find all those formulas. Why don't we find the

Trinitarian formula, where there's two answers? One answer is simply this. In Matthew 28, 19,

Jesus says, go out to all the nations and make disciples. But go out to all those nations.

Well, all those nations didn't have any conception of who God was. They were worshiping reptiles, right?

They're worshiping metal, you know, brass structures and all these things. So the emphasis was on the full presentation of God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Where in Acts, these were God -fearing Greeks and Jews who had a conception of God, right?

They had a conception. It's inaccurate, but they had a conception. So the emphasis was on Jesus Christ.

However, I hold to a different view because of the word name.

And another issue. The word name, onamah, we find in Scripture, has, in a

Jewish mind, has the connotation and has the connotation of authority or power.

Not just somebody's name. For instance, 1 Samuel 17, 45,

David approaches Goliath and he says, You come to me with a sword, javelin, and spear. I come to you, what, in the name of Yahweh.

That certainly wasn't saying, hey, my name's Yahweh. How you doing? But in the authority and power.

That's how it was used. And same with Acts 4, 5 -7, the Jewish leaders ask the

Christians, By what power, in what name have you done this?

Right? These were the high priests. So clearly, the word onamah can indicate character or essence, power, authority.

Power, authority, right? Yes. Well, in Matthew 28, or in Acts, we see that phrase, in the name of, right?

In other words, in the authority of Jesus Christ. Keep in mind, I would challenge anyone, show me in the text where that was a verbal formula.

In A .T. Robinson, he says the use of onamah here, speaking of Matthew 28, 19, is a common one in the

Septuagint and in the Pyre, for power and authority. So, carrying that to our interpretation, contextually, how would a

Jewish person understand? Well, clearly, when you're baptized in the name of Jesus, you're baptized under His authority.

However, there's nowhere in Acts where we find a verbal formula, only that they were baptized in the name of Jesus.

Right. Thus denoting, in my view, the kind of baptism, not necessarily a formula.

I believe they would have—clearly, I believe they would have used the Trinitarian formula as commanded by Christ, but it was the kind of baptism in the power of Christ when that was said.

We have Bruce in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, I keep hearing conflicting reports on the conversion of T .D.

Jakes and Phillips, Craig, and Dean to Trinitarian theology.

Are these reports that they have changed their views from oneness to Trinitarian accurate?

In terms of the Potter's House, our challenge—I mean, if you want to get the current perspective, what you do, you go to the

Potter's House website, and you look under their links.

They have a lot of links. But look under the link of Belief Statement. They call it Belief Statement.

And you will find, from the man's mouth, his view of God.

So when you go to the actual

T .D. Jakes website, and just migrate, try to find where you can find his belief—actually, it's under Explore, and there's something called, not the

Mission Statement, but the Belief Statement. And under God—in fact,

I'm at it right now, and I periodically check it, because he's changed it a couple times. But here's how it reads now.

There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations—Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit. That is not a description of the God of the Bible. Manifestation is purely

Unitarian. It's oneness. So there is no argument if he's oneness or not, because he says it in his own doctrinal statement.

Let the man speak for himself. Three manifestations. We are not manifestations. We are persons talking to each other.

A manifestation is something that's some kind of dimension, something that appears.

It's not a person. He doesn't use the word person, because he doesn't believe in the word person. Now, if he changed, and this would be a monumental change, certainly,

I think if he was a truth lover, he would tell the world. But right now, he has a oneness doctrinal statement. That should close the argument there.

Darrell Bock And that goes back to something I was saying earlier about the danger of saying, oh,

I believe in the concept of Trinity, but I don't want to use that term.

That seems to be the same kind of thing that he is doing. But then when he defines what he believes, as you said, he's using modalist vocabulary.

David Morgan Yeah, he's clearly—and he's put it this way. Of all of his—interesting—of all of his literature that I've seen, you don't find things on the nature of who

God is, or on Christ Jesus and his nature. You don't find things like that.

In fact, he defines John 1 as a oneness. And in one of his—which I have a videotape, actually—in

July, he did a Bible study, and he quotes John 14. When you see me see the

Father, and don't you know, Philip—here's how he quotes it. He had a Bible reader for him, and he kept asking the lady in the audience to read.

And she read it. She was instructed to read like this. Don't you know, Philip—you haven't seen me, but don't you know that I am the

Father? And he paused every one, and he put his hand over his mouth.

Ooh, did you hear that Yahwehistic terminology? I am the Father. And everyone clapped.

They all clapped at a God -denying heresy that I am the—now, most of them clapped in ignorance, but that's oneness.

I am the Father, misquoting a verse, his doctrinal statement. You know, we gotta look at the evidence,

I would say. Just look at the evidence. Look at his statement. And how about Phillips, Craig, and Dean, the

Christian recording artists, or should I say the oneness, charismatic recording artists?

One of them is a—you know, they're so—I think they're so—they're so dangerous because they're so subtle.

They hide—a lot of these guys hide their true beliefs. And of course, it's not what they say a lot of times, but it's what they don't say.

But they hide their beliefs. I am not aware of any change of Phillips, Craig, and Dean.

They were totally oneness in their beliefs. And I know people that actually were gonna go—there was an athletic team similar to the power team, and they were invited to do a crusade at the—I forgot which one had the big church, either

Phillips or Dean. I forgot which one had the big church. But they said they can't because of this issue.

And it wasn't an argument where, hey, we're Trinitarians, but rather, can't you just come in and preach the gospel?

Can't you just come in and—you know? There was no correcting. They just said, well, we want you to come—I think it's rude of—they were very upset, but they never denied that they were oneness.

Yeah, and— Unless someone could show me. And if they changed, you would think they would be a lot more vociferous and clear in their denunciation, their condemnation of anti -Trinitarian theology.

Absolutely, because, look, if you and I were—you know, if we were good

Mormons out there, or a good one as Pentecostals, and we got saved, we want to tell the world in our ministries, hey, this is the true

God of biblical revelation, the only Jesus Christ that can save, you know? I think

James White has an article—it's somewhat recent, 2013—it's titled

Blurring the Divining Line, the Legacy of Phillips, Craig, and Dean. I think he posted some documentation on them, but to my knowledge, you know, when someone ever says, you know, we don't know, there's controversy, well, go to their website, or go to the statements they make, you know, instead of just going back and forth with someone in the church, because T .D.

Jakes is, you know, he's loud, and he likes to say Jesus a lot. By the way,

Bruce, thank you for the question. You are getting a free copy of A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the

Light of Biblical Trinitarianism. Please make sure you get us your full mailing address in Suffolk County, New York.

We have R .J. in White Plains, New York, who says, you mentioned earlier,

Chris, that there are Trinitarian apologists who have said that if you interview the average person in a

Trinitarian church about what the Trinity is, they will give a modalist definition unconsciously.

Does that mean that this view of the Godhead is not something that salvation hinges upon?

Well, like I said before, we have to keep in mind that many, many, many, many, many, far too many

Christians have been not adequately taught what the Trinity is, and have a really bad definition.

That's different. And I've stated this before. A lot of Christians give a oneness definition of God without embracing oneness.

That's different than a oneness Pentecostal or Jehovah Witness saying, I don't believe in the

Trinity. It's false. There's a total difference there, because there's a lot of Christians that just can't explain it.

They'll say, well, yeah, Jesus is God, but he's not the Father, but he's three people.

They just don't know how to explain it. That's different than saying, I rechecked it. Same with other groups.

Well, I know one thing right now is that I want you back on the program, so if you could hold on after we go off the air so I can reschedule you for another interview in February, which is our next opening date.

So if you don't mind, if you'd like to be on, Eddie. Sure. Okay, great. Well, if you could hold on for a moment.

I want to thank everybody who contributed to the program today with your questions, and I want to thank everybody who listened.

I want to thank all of our sponsors, as always, and Eddie, if you could close the program with one minute of summary of what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Okay, what I definitely most want for all Christians, as Hosea 6 -6 states, as God stated, to be loyal to God, because that's better than sacrifice, and that's better than works.

Be loyal to Him in your knowledge of God. Don't be afraid to promulgate the

God that you serve. Be bold in presenting Jesus Christ crucified distinct from the

Father. Um, the Apostles were bold in their distinctions of how they delineated

Christ in the Incarnation. We have to be that bold. Look, John said if you don't believe in the professional Incarnation, you're the

Antichrist. You don't have to say what John said, but he had the Holy Spirit. You know, this is how he viewed

Christian doctrine, and we have to have a high view of Christian doctrine. As Jesus says, those who worship

God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We must convey that to the world, the true

God and the true Jesus Christ of biblical revelation. The triune God is the only God of biblical revelation.

There is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected from the dead, who sits enthroned at the right hand of God the

Father. Well, thank you so much, and I know your website is christiandefense .org. christiandefense .org.

Thank you, Reverend Buzz Taylor, for once again joining us as our co -host. My pleasure. I want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.