Keep sharing good news without ads.
Trinity Oneness Debate: Matt Slick vs Rodney Smith
All right, we had a little bit of a technical difficulty and it seems to be working fine. Now tech problem was on Rodney's end and I'm an ex-computer tech, so I was giving him some pointers and stuff.
If it continues, then what he'll do is turn his camera off and then that should take care of the problem. If it continues, we'll just, we'll figure something out, you know, and just bear with us. Things happen and that's just life.
All right, so today is August 24th, 2021 and Rodney and I are on opposite sides of a certain theological issue, but he seems to be a nice guy. We've agreed to a debate format of a 10 minute opening. I'm going to put it in here, but I have a feeling he's going to be about as adaptable as I am.
So 10 minute opening, five minute response, then cross-examination for 10 minutes and closing statements for five minutes each, then Q &A from the audience. I can stay longer. I don't know how long he wants to stay.
And some, what's that? I can stay as long as, as long as we're going. Okay.
Sometimes, you know, 10 minutes cross-exam often what happens is, for example, I'll just ask you questions for 10 minutes, you answer. And then it's your turn to ask me questions for 10 minutes. That's one option.
The other one is we could just have a 20 minute, 30 minute, just dialogue back and forth. And I'll let you decide which one you want because I'm game with either one.
Yeah, I am too. I normally like the back and forth. I have a list of questions that might work, but, you know, we can work that into a dialogue. That's fine with me.
So you're the guest. You decide which one you want to do, back and forth or 10 minute segments.
Let's do, let's do the dialogue. Was that 10 minutes? Back and forth. Yeah, that's fine.
20 minutes, half hour-ish. And so he, folks, he and I are going to just, we're going to, we're going to time ourselves. And if we go over a minute, we go over a minute. But it's not a big deal. All right.
Or if we go under a minute, no big deal. And we've agreed that I'm going to go first. Okay. So, Rodney, why don't you introduce yourself? I'll introduce myself and then I'll start.
Okay. I'm Rodney Smith. I appreciate Matt hosting this. And I hope he, thanks for giving an opportunity for little guys like me to to get in the fight on theological issues. And I hope they keep doing that.
I'm one, this Pentecostal Christian from, well, lived in San Diego for a long time and in Auburn, Alabama right now. I attended Bethel Seminary in San Diego, got a Master of Arts there in Concentration in Biblical Studies and still attend there.
I've all but finished my Master of Divinity, all but internship. So I'm entering my internship right now. I've worked with several different, I've had the pleasure of attending and also serving in several different oneness churches as well as Trinitarian churches, including I taught at the International Apostolic Bible College, which is the official Bible college for the Oneness Pentecostal denomination, the Apostolic Assemblies of the Faith in Christ Jesus.
So I've had some teaching experience. I have also currently, currently I have a teaching ministry called the Word Center Online, where I teach courses at different, different Bible, different, different churches.
I'm able to offer biblical education to different churches. They're all Oneness Apostolic, Oneness Pentecostal churches right now. So my, my ministry for reaching out and providing that ministry is right now I'm trying to consolidate it all in a website, which is WordWarriors and it's WordWarriors .cc.
OK. All right. All right. My name is Matt Slick. I'm the founder and director of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, CARM .org. It's had over, I don't know, 150, 60 million visitors. Forgot which.
I've been doing radio for 16 years and 16 and a half years. I've been doing apologetics, written a lot of books, do a lot of debates. And most of you guys know who I am. Not a big deal. Matt Slick is my real name, just in case some people are new and coming in because they sometimes think it's a radio name or, or just some avatar name, whatever.
But that's my real name. So there you go. I am a devout Trinitarian and I consider, no offense meant to anybody who holds it, but I consider Oneness to be a damnable heresy that if you hold to it, you cannot be a true Christian.
And if you're consistent in it, you, when you die, you will face eternal damnation. This is my position. And we can have a discussion on that particular issue later on. It might come up, might not. All right, let me go ahead and begin.
And like I said, we're going to time ourselves. And so I'm just going to, you know, if we go, it's supposed to be 10 minutes, but if we go 11, not a big deal. We both agree to that. So here it goes. All right.
All right. So in the context of our debate tonight, the God of Christianity is either Trinitarian or Unitarian. He is either three eternal, simultaneous and distinct persons, or he is a single eternal person.
Now, the Trinity doctrine is this, that there is one God in three simultaneous, eternal and distinct persons. So if Mr. Smith asserts in any way that the Trinity is three gods, then he is not arguing against the Trinity.
He's not involved in our debate. So as I always teach my students, definitions are important. We cannot determine if God is a Trinity of three persons or just one person if we don't define what we mean by the term person.
So let me offer definition of what it means, as well as some attributes of personhood. And if he disagrees, he can offer something better. We can discuss it because this is important. We need to know what person is before we can talk about personhood and whether God is one person or three.
So personhood is the unique status shared by human beings, angels and God that involves the power to think, act and value. Traditional theories of personhood stress that persons are a substance of rational nature.
More contemporary theories emphasize the ability to act and have emotions. And these often link personhood to the ability of use of language and relationship to others. Now, I agree with this definition.
Some of the characteristics of personhood are such things as self-awareness, awareness of others, having a will, being able to love, being able to speak, make decisions, aware of other people themselves, things like this.
This is the definition of what we have in personhood. So since I have already defined God to some degree, let me expand on it a little bit. There is only one God in all places and all time. There have been no gods before him.
There will be no gods after him. He is the one and only uncreated, necessary Trinitarian being, eternally consisting of three simultaneous and distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The three persons share the same divine essence, but express different functions in creation. Neither person derives his substance from either or both of the others. In the Trinity are unity and diversity, which are equally basic and mutually dependent upon one another.
I can get involved in this a lot more, but I don't have time. In Genesis 126, it says, let us make man in our image. The us is plurality. It is not metaphor, it is not a royal we of self-declaration, nor does it include the angels.
We know this because in Isaiah 44, 24, God says that he alone is the maker of all things. So when he said, let us make man, God first begins his description of himself in the plurality, in the plural.
The continuation of the plural nature is all over the Bible. I'll just give a few references. In Genesis 11, 7, God says, let us go down and confound our language. In Genesis 19, 24, it says that Yahweh rained fire and brimstone from Yahweh out of heaven.
In Isaiah 48, 16, it says, from the time it took place, I was there and now the Lord God has sent me and his spirit. In Exodus 6, 2 and 3, God spoke further than Moses and said to him, I am the Lord, I am Yahweh.
And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name, Lord Yahweh, I did not make myself known to him, to them. Yet in John 6, 46, Jesus says, not that anyone has seen the father except the one who is from God, he has seen the father.
In light of this, who are they seeing? Who were they seeing in the Old Testament? Who's God Almighty, but as Jesus says, is not the father. How would oneness theology respond to this in light of the idea that Jesus distinguishes between himself, between the father and himself, since he is the one person who has seen God the father?
Now, sometimes oneness people and others will say it's an angel or it's a vision, but that's not the case in Exodus 6, 2 and 3, because it says God spoke and said, I am Jehovah. So the text is very clear.
Furthermore, Jesus said in John 6, 38 to 39, for I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent me that all he has given me. I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
And notice in verse 38 that Jesus said he came down from heaven. He said that he came down from heaven not to do his own will, but the will of him who sent him. This must mean that they each have a will.
Before Jesus became flesh, notice I came down from heaven. I, he's identifying himself as that person who was in heaven and came down. We know this because Jesus says he came down from heaven to do the will of him who sent him.
Notice that Jesus says the I, this is very, very important. This is identification as a person. Personhood is recognized by attributes such as being self-aware, aware of others, could say you and yours and me and mine.
Persons have wills, can make decisions, et cetera. This is exactly what we see here. In fact, in John 14, 20, I don't get into that, we're running out of time. Now, what I've presented so far is background information that supports the plurality of God.
But the Trinity is not arrived at by only considering these verses or verses like these. Instead, we arrive at the doctrine of the Trinity systematically by looking at the whole of Scripture. Now, let me repeat this.
This is critical. The doctrine of the Trinity is not arrived at by looking at just a few verses. It is arrived at by systematically applying logic to the full revelation of Scripture. Therefore, there is no single verse that proves or disproves the doctrine of the Trinity.
If my opponent seems to invalidate the doctrine of the Trinity, then he has to do so by reducing the system to something that's false. He'd have to demonstrate that the system I'm going to reveal is false.
And if he does, great, let's see him do it. If he does not do that, then the Trinity teaching is maintained and his oneness theology falls by the wayside. So this is how it works. We know the Bible said there's only one God in all places and all times.
But the Bible says that the Father is called God, the Son is called God, and the Holy Spirit is called God. I can give you all the references, I've got them. Each is all knowing. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are said to be all knowing.
We have fellowship with each one. We have each one has a will. Each one is said to love. Each one speaks. Each one is demonstrating the attributes of what we call personhood. If he wants or anyone just wants to say that the Trinity is not true, then you have to negate these scriptures being supportive of personhood because they're called God.
They have knowledge. You have fellowship with them. They have wills. They can love and they can speak. These are the attributes of personhood, and they're established and expressed by each of them, particularly when they talk to each other.
Now, does the Bible teach that the Father is called God along with the Son? Yep. Does the Bible teach that the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit are each all knowing? Yep. Does it teach that the Bible teach that the Father and the Son have separate wills?
Absolutely. Luke 22, 42, Jesus says in the garden, he wants to escape the crucifixion. He says, not my will, but your will be done. Does the Bible say that we're called in the fellowship with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit?
Yes, it does. That means that fellowship with Jesus is to occur now. There's a question. How do we have fellowship with Jesus right now if he's not God in flesh? We'll get to that later. Probably. Does the Father speak to the Son and the Son speaks to the Father?
Yes, they do. This is exactly what we would expect in personhood. This is exactly what person is. See, these facts are clearly taught in Scripture. This is exactly what we would conclude about the Trinity if we were to look at these verses.
We see there's only one God. We see the Father speaks, the Son speaks, the Holy Spirit speaks. We see each one has a will. They talk to each other. Not my will, but your will. These are the facts that we Trinitarians use to say three persons.
It would be up to Rodney here to show that these scriptures mean that God is not three persons. And to show why the Father is not a person and or that the Son is not a person or that the Holy Spirit is not a person means he'd have to negate the idea of them each having wills, each speaking, recognizing others, have fellowship with them, make decisions, be rational and all of that.
But that is what the Bible teaches about each one. And they're each called God, so there are four or three persons in one God. So he must deny that each one has a will, that each is all knowing, that he speaks, recognizes others in order for his oneness to stand and then say somehow they are all just one person.
But that does not make any sense. If he ignores my presentation on how the Trinity's arrived at, then my argument stands unrefuted. Now, if I acknowledge my opponent acknowledges, as he should, according to scripture, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit each speak, each have a will, each speaks to the other, each loves, each is all knowing, etc., then he is agreed to exactly how we arrive at the doctrine of the Trinity.
I am curious to know how he's going to tackle this. I'm done. You want me to just go now? Yeah, yeah. You have, I think, 48 seconds. OK, I don't know how you did all that in 10 minutes. Brevity is not my gift.
All right, I'm going to start my timer. Skip stuff. OK. And what I'm going to do is remove myself from the overall window. And if you start breaking up, I'll come back in and show you you're breaking up.
But OK. So I'm good. OK. All right. Thank you.
All right. I'm starting my time. All right. So I'm not going to be responding to Matt's statement right now. I'm going to give my opening statement. We'll have rebuttals later. But man, this is a big topic and so little time.
Maybe it'll unfold throughout this evening. But first, see, I want to start by defining the topic of the debate, by the way, which is the biblical view is what we talked about in the original. So obviously, you know, Matt said, I think, which is true.
And he was proving, you know, he was biblical, which is biblically true. So I wanted to start off by defining biblical and the end trinity and oneness, which is the biblical view of my position is oneness is the biblical view and not trinity.
And by biblical, what I mean is that is expressly stated or taught in Scripture. So by the biblical view, if a view is truly biblical, it's what the biblical writers are seeking to convey. That's what their meaning is.
For example, if the baptism of Jesus at the baptism of Jesus was intended by the writers to to say to show, oh, there is now a plurality or there is a threeness in God or to convey that message, that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons in one God, then that would be biblical and a biblical illustration, a biblical presentation.
But actually, it's that scene is, you know, meant to show us that this is God's Son and listen to him. So a couple of examples would be a expressed biblical statement. Christ died to save sinners. Christ died according to the scriptures, was raised according to the scriptures, and then a biblical allusion, such as Matthew 28, 19, baptized in the name of the Father.
Son and Holy Spirit, we see in Acts 2, 38, baptized in the name of Jesus and throughout the book of Acts, baptized in the name of Jesus. So we can deduce from those two statements that the apostles understood that there was one name, Father, Son, Holy Spirit shared the name of Jesus.
So I do not believe this is how I define biblical, by the way, and I do not. I think that in order to make something inviolable, a test of orthodoxy, you have to be a true Christian. It should be something that the Bible explicitly states, explicitly presents and teaches.
All right. Now, Matt defined the Trinity for us already. I'm going to define it a little bit myself. One God in three persons. He said, now, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is only one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each that one God, and the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit.
They're each individual, except the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son. So there is that necessary distinction. Oneness, on the other hand, what I believe is there is one God who is personal, indivisible, omnipotent.
He's not limited by space and time, who for our sakes manifested himself in visible form. And in 2000 years ago, in the person of Jesus Christ, in human form. Note the similarities between these views.
Trinitarianism is there is one God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit are each God, but Father, Son, Holy Spirit are not one another, personally distinct. In oneness, there is one God as well. Father, Son, Holy Spirit are each God.
But then they're not understood to be distinct in their persons, in their identity. So God is one in his person. So I'll demonstrate that the biblical view is that solely based on the presentation of Scripture and accounting for the totality of biblical revelation.
This is something else. This is something else later. Part of the definition of biblical, I'm all out of order. Is that it must not contradict something else within the Scripture. So the Trinity, and that's oneness.
Yeah, I'll demonstrate that oneness is biblical. It's expressly presented in Scripture and it does not contradict anything in Scripture and it accounts for the totality of biblical revelation. On the other hand, the doctrine of the Trinity is derived from biblical statements and systematically pieced together from the teachings and statement of Scripture.
However, where Trinitarianism violates the Scripture is when it extends beyond scriptural statements based on inferences drawn from the text into formulations and affirmations of statements which are not found anywhere in the text.
So namely, that God is one being yet three co-equal, co-eternal persons that is not found anywhere in the biblical text. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not one another. Father is not the Son. Son is not the Spirit.
That presentation is, that statement or idea is not presented anywhere in the biblical text. So that is where the debate lies on that third part. Where, let's see, if biblical, if, okay, skip that. So God is one in his person.
There are vast problems with the doctrine of the Trinity. I can only go into a few of them. But the God in Scripture is presented as a person. Now, God himself, the one who created all things alone by himself in Isaiah 44, 24, is a person.
Let's see, he said, I am Yahweh who makes all things and stretches forth the heavens alone and spreads abroad the earth by myself. It's the same God in Yahweh in Isaiah 43, 10 through 11. You are my witnesses, my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.
Before me, there was no God formed. Neither shall there be after me. I, even I, Yahweh, am Yahweh. Beside me, there is no savior. The same one in Isaiah 45, 12. He says, I have made the earth and created man upon it.
I, my hand, stretch out the heavens. So there is personhood in God himself, Yahweh. This one creator who is alone by himself has to be God proper. If he's three persons, this is all three persons. But the alone, the one who created alone without anyone by him is a person.
By using I, me and all of these personal pronouns, he's indicating that he is personal. There is, let's see, proofs. There are some difficulties with the doctrine of the Trinity as far as. Yeah, when there's proofs about Yahweh raining down fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven or in the baptism of Jesus, if those are used to, you see father, son and Holy Spirit coming down like a dove.
There's an assumption that each of them are spatially located, that the son is only in Jesus when they're all supposed to be co-equal, co-eternal. And those passages are completely explained by God's omnipresence.
They take the relationship between the father and the son and in the incarnation and apply it to the eternal Godhead. When God says in Hebrews 1, quoting 2 Samuel 7, I will be to him a father, he will be to me a son.
It assumes the preeminence of the father. The father is said to create through the son. The father sends the son in John 6, 38 and 39. If the father sends the son in John 6, 37 and 38, and Jesus came not to do his will, but the will of him who sent me, why is one person of the Trinity submitting to the other person of the Trinity?
Why is one sending the other? When Jesus ascends, why does he said to only be ascending to the father and not to the whole Trinity? There should be, where is the Holy Spirit and God and the second person who is eternal in heaven as well?
There is a duality in scripture that proves oneness. For example, in John 1, 1, there's the word. The word is with God. The word is God. The word becomes flesh. There's no mention of the Holy Spirit there.
In Revelation 22, 21 through 22, there's the throne of God and of the lamb and his servant shall see, shall serve him in Revelation, Revelation 21, 22 to 23, his servant shall see him and see his face.
But the synonym, there's a vast synonymity that proves oneness. We've already seen that in Revelation. But in Isaiah 9, 6 is a child born and he has a dual identity. He's a son that's given and he is the everlasting father.
When, let's see, the spirit of God is called the spirit of Christ and Christ in you, the spirit of the son, the Lord is that spirit. In 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians 3, 17, in 1st Corinthians 15, the last Adam, Christ is made a life giving spirit.
In Acts 2, 38, we received the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5, 16, we walk in the spirit. But in Colossians 2, 6, as you have therefore have received Jesus Christ, so walk in him. So in John chapter 14, there's a huge, my last thing of synonymity here.
Jesus says in John 14, 7, the father, if you would have known me, you would have known my father also. You have now both seen him and known him. In verses 15 through 26 of John 14, Jesus says, I will pray to the father.
He will send you another comforter. And he says, I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. And the world cannot receive him because it neither sees him nor knows him. And his disciple, Judas, not as scary asked, how will you manifest yourself to us and not to the world?
So he knew what he was talking about, manifesting Jesus himself coming back, as he said in Matthew 28, 20. I am with you always. The son, Jesus ascends to heaven and becomes omnipresent in his disciples.
But that's described as the father and the son in us, as well as Jesus coming to us. So in John 14, a little bit later, Jesus says that he answers Judas question. If anyone loves me, my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.
So there's this synonymity in 1 Corinthians 12. There's the same spirit. The spirit gives gifts to the body in Ephesians 4. Christ gives gifts to the body. In Ephesians and 1 Corinthians 12, God sets up the leaders in the church.
In Ephesians 4, it is God who does it. And my very last point here, because I'm a minute over, Ephesians 4, 6, it says there is one God who is above all. In John 3, 30 through 31, John the Baptist says the one who is from heaven, speaking of Jesus, is above all.
So there is a synonymity that shows that Jesus is the father manifested in the flesh. He is the visible expression, the visible image of the invisible God. And he is. And so that proves the synonymity, proves that the second half or that the third part of the Trinity, the father is not the son, is not true.
And one is true.
There we go. Sorry, muted myself. Are you, I assume you're done, right? Yeah, I hear you now. Okay. All right. So now we'll do a five minute response, then you'll do a five minute response, and then we're going to just do a dialogue back and forth.
All right. All right. Let me put myself on this full screen here. Let's see. I think I'd do it this way and then put on my thing for five minutes-ish. He went over. That's fine. We already agreed, folks.
That's fine to do. We didn't, we don't care about that. Really, we're just using this as guides. Okay, here we go. So he defined what is biblical. I'm grateful for that. He said expressly stated or taught in scripture, and it must not contradict anything in scripture.
I totally agree. He said, Trinitarians violate this when it goes beyond the scripture. We don't go beyond the scripture. And you'll see that, namely, that God is one being and three distinct simultaneous persons.
That's called begging the question. He's assuming his position to be true. We have yet to establish if it is or is not. But he, of course, is going to do that, just as I'm going to beg the question by assuming my position to be true.
All right. And he said that the doctrine of the Trinity is not presented anywhere in the text. And he says where, namely, that God is one being and three distinct simultaneous persons. This is a mistake on his part.
You see, it works both ways. The Bible doesn't say God is one person. If we are required to have a theological statement to support a particular theological view, the way the person, the opponent wants it, well, then I can say, show me that the Bible says there's only one person.
It doesn't say that any place in scripture. God is one person. It doesn't say that. Now it says God is one in Exodus, excuse me, in Exodus 6 -4, but the word one, echad, is a composite unity. So that's not a good place to go.
But nevertheless, so that argument works against him. He said that if there's a definitive Trinitarian statement to be biblical or to address that, I'm going through my notes. He said the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and each are the one God.
Now, we're short on time, so he really can't explain what he means by that. But we Trinitarians don't say that, but some do, that they are the one God. We would say that the three persons comprise the totality of one God.
I'm not sure if he understands, maybe we can find this out, divine simplicity, perichoresis, economic trinity, and ontological trinity, because these are necessary to understand if you're going to debate the Trinity, along with when you debate, as we talk about Jesus later, the hypostatic union and the cuneicatio idiomatum, which are necessary to understand who Christ is and what he's done in totality as they relate to the doctrine of the Trinity.
But nevertheless, he acknowledged personhood by saying that they, persons, say I and me, use personal pronouns, and that in that God is acknowledging that he's personal. This is what he said, that God's acknowledging that he's personal by using those kind of pronouns.
Good, because this will become very important later on when we discuss the personhood of Christ, personhood of the Father, their relationship. Because if I can show you that there's at least two persons in the Godhead, which I don't affirm is only two, but at least two, oneness is falsified, oneness is proven to be false.
So I'll be using that statement later. He said that they, the Trinitarians, take the relationship between the Father and the Son and apply it to the eternal God. Yes, we do. That's correct. It's refreshing to at least find out that Rodney here has a much better understanding of the Trinity than my last one, this opponent, who said that the Trinity was three gods and that he knew more about what I believe than I do.
And so Rodney's not doing that. I'm grateful for that. He assumes the preeminence of the Father. This has to do with the economic trinity. Don't know if he knows about that. The Father created the Son.
This is just more doctrine of the Trinitarian extent, which is necessarily true because it's the Father who sent the Son from all eternity. You have to exist in order to be sent. It's a real simple thing.
We'll get to that later. The Father sent the Son. Why did Jesus not do his own will, but the will of the Father? That's a good discussion. Why would he do that? Because if he came to do the will of the Father who sent him, and he said he was John 6, 38, he came down from heaven to do the will of him, not to do his own will, but the will of him who sent me.
You have to exist in order to be sent. And he sent from heaven logically necessarily means that the preincarnate Christ was in heaven with the Father and was sent by the Father. And since he already admitted, these are the terms of personhood because of his I, me and pronouns, that this is what God designates as person.
Then we have a perfect example that by his own admission of that very thing. And let me go to my one last thing here. He said, I will not leave you alone. I will come to you in reference to John 15, 26.
Rodney, you misspoke there where Jesus says, I will come to you in reference to the Holy Spirit. No, he said, I will send you the Holy Spirit. But not I will come to you. It's just, we often, you know, it happens.
We misspeak sometimes and we correct ourselves later. But there you go. There's my five minute response. You're on. All right. Okay, let's see.
Oh, five minutes, right? I'm bad at this. Five minutes. All right. Matt's opening statement. He said that oneness was a damnable heresy. You cannot believe it. You cannot be a true Christian and believe that.
Then if that's the case, then we would need to, well, have a statement like that in scripture. You can't believe what is oneness believe. I showed that oneness believes everything that Trinity believes.
That there is one God and the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are each God, except for the part that the three are distinct persons rather than the three being the one personal God. So we would need to have a statement of that last statement.
Unless you believe that Jesus is not the Father, the Holy Spirit is not the Father. If you confuse, such as in the Athanasian Creed, you know, unless you affirm this and separate all of the persons, then you're anathema.
Matt defined personhood and I agree with it. All of his definition of personhood, think, act, value, love, relate, have a will. Now, he said the Trinity is one God, unity and diversity, eternally consisting of three persons.
That's what the scriptures teach that there is one God and that one God is a person. So if he consists of three persons, then what about, you know, in Isaiah 44, 24, God created all things alone by himself.
And in the New Testament, we see the Father creating by the Son. Well, why does the Father get credit for what the Son is creating? Rather, what we have is a God who creates by himself, who that God is one person, and we can have a relationship with God.
We can relate to him in an I-thou relationship. I would like to hear what Matt's view is of us relating to God himself as the totality of God. Is he a person or do we have to relate to, or can we only relate to the individual persons of the Trinity?
Um, let's see. So I affirmed that the omnipresent Spirit of God, God is omnipresent Spirit. He is eternal. He is invisible. I don't think I said that, but he has made himself visible. And so he has manifested himself in the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament.
He's come in the flesh in the New Testament. He's visible. He's knowable. He's experiencing his world, and he creates through that world. That's how the Son can say, have said to the Father, is the Father creates through the Son.
That's why the Father gets credit. Because the Father, in John 14, uh, 17, 3, Jesus said, the Father is the only true God, and eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
In 1 John 1, 1 to 3, 3, John says, uh, this is the, this is eternal life that they may, uh, wait, that, uh, this, you are in him who is true and in his Son, Jesus Christ. Um, this is the true God in eternal life.
That's a different, that's a different part in 1 John. Um, but there is a duality. There's a Father and Son in duality all throughout scriptures, uh, where, you know, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the tri-, the tri-formula there of who God is, it still fits within oneness, uh, because God is a Holy Spirit.
The Father is holy, the Father is a Holy Spirit. Um, Jesus was glorified and became a life-giving Spirit. So, I addressed Yahweh, uh, Genesis 19, 24 in my opening statement. However, when Yahweh is raining down fire from Yahweh, that can be just the language of the, it's coming down from, language is not exactly exact like that from Yahweh in heaven.
Um, Solomon's call, resembles people to Solomon. Um, but it shows God's omnipresence. Um, Isaiah 48, 16, Yahweh, uh, has sent me and His Spirit. Um, okay, the Lord Yahweh has sent me and His Spirit. Who's being sent here?
If they want to say that it's Jesus, if Matt wants to say that it's Jesus, or the second person, the Trinity being sent, in the New Testament, the Father sends them, and here it's Yahweh, God, and the Lord Yahweh and His Spirit.
So, is the Lord Yahweh one, or is it three sending Him, or is the Lord Yahweh, the Father and the Spirit, who is sending the Son? There's a little bit of confusion there. Yes, no one's seen the Father, uh, because the Father is invisible.
He is everything that is untouchable or unknowable about God, but He reveals Himself, and that's how we have God manifested to His creation, called the Word, in John 1, and, uh, manifested as Jesus Christ, who is God the Father and the Holy Spirit, one person.
He came not to do His own will, uh, because He, Jesus speaks as a human who is sent into the world. Yes, God sent Himself into the world, but He also became a real man, 2 Timothy 2, 5. There's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
God is God, the eternal Spirit, and God is the begotten Son, the human man. And, um, again, there's that duality of who God is, invisible made visible, not a plurality of persons, but a plurality of expression, especially a duality more so than a triad, uh, than a, you know, than a threefold presentation.
That's my time. So that's your time? Yes, sir, that's my time. All right, were you done? Because if you want to go a little bit more, that's fine with me. Um, yeah, one, one more point. Um, I would have to, Matt's last point was, uh, okay, no single verse disproves the Trinity because it's arrived at systematically.
And so disproving the system would be essential to prove it false. But if I don't disprove the system, then oneness is false. When, um, you know, that's not necessarily true. It could be not inability to disprove the system.
There might be inability on the same grounds to disprove my system that, uh, uh, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all share are all the one God, or it's the same identity synonymous. It's the synonymity, um, of person that makes God one person manifested in three ways.
Um, however, when, uh, oneness would not have to, as Matt said, disprove personhood because we believe in personhood. But when you have three persons expressed, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are persons and they are God.
It actually takes a one step further to, it takes another leap that is imaginative speculation to, to postulate that just because the, uh, there's one God, the Father is God, and He's a person. The Son is God, and He's a person.
The Holy Spirit is God, and He's a person. Um, you have to take that other leap that is not taught in scripture to say that, now these are three distinct person. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father.
When the scriptures clearly present a synonymity that Jesus is the Father, Jesus is the Holy Spirit, I will come to you, um, in John 14. And the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ is Jesus in us, Jesus in His disciples with us always to the end of the age.
All right, I'm done, thank you.
Thank you for your time. Okay, sure, no problem. That actually gave me more ammo, I appreciate that. Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna just start in because what you said, um, you said, uh, whoops, uh, there we go.
So you said, uh, three persons, uh, you said, you know, that each is a person, but you say they're really one person.
Are you saying that each is a person? Each is a person and they are all one person.
So three persons is one person.
No, they're not three persons. They're all, nothing says that they're nothing in scripture says that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons. They are all persons, but they are the one person of God who is a person.
Isaiah 44, uh, I lost it already, 44, 24, he uses impersonal pronouns, he uses personal singular pronouns of himself. He is a singular person, the God who creates everything alone by himself. Yeah.
Does the Bible ever say God is one person?
Um, the, the Bible says that God is one and there would be no, there would be no, um, let's see. Let me just continue. There, there would be, there, there would be no, uh, reason that a, an impersonal or a non-personal, let's say being who consists of three persons, would use personal pronouns of himself.
So in Isaiah 44, 43, 45, that I read in my opening statement, the singular personal pronouns over and over and over again indicates a single human person. Now there are also, you know, the, the singular verbs with, uh, with, uh, used with Elohim in, in, in Genesis chapter one and chapter two, Genesis one, 27, uh, Elohim, he created, and it's singular.
So it's a singular personal, is God a he, is the Elohim who created, is that the Trinity? Is that one person? Because it is a single person. It is a he, a single personal pronoun.
Um, you said there must be a, uh, a distinct statement for the Trinity to be true. And you said, you know, uh, one God and three distinct persons. Does that rule also apply to you? Uh, does the Bible have to say God is one person?
Well, yeah, it does. And the Bible doesn't, the Bible needs to expressly, expressly state it or teach it or, you know, present it.
Does the Bible, since the Bible doesn't say God is one person, then you can't use your assertion that it has to have a specific statement. Can you?
Yeah, I would stick by that definition and I see what you mean. And, and, um, uh, the, if the Bible never states that God is one person and the Bible never states that God is three persons, uh, then either both are possibilities and you cannot excommunicate the other and make it a test of faith or, um, the normal use of the language, as far as there is one God and he is personal, um, the, you know, the normal, the normal use of the language.
If there's some, one God who's three persons would be something that's not like anything ever known, um, in it, in, in the history of the world until, you know, the, the new Testament or a post new Testament, Aaron, I would say not in the new Testament, but the doctrine of the Trinity, um, the formulations of the church councils.
When Jesus walked on the earth, was he one person or more than one person? Jesus is one person. Okay. So he was one person and the one person said in John 6, 38, for I, that's the person talking, have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, John 6, 38.
So the person of Jesus said, I have come down from heaven. Did the person of Christ come down from heaven?
Um, yeah, I w I would say, uh, the, uh, the person of Christ, Christ is a human person. Well, Christ didn't leave that. The doctrine of the Trinity believes that as well. Um, I won't ask my question right now because you just asked yours.
It wouldn't be polite. But, um, if, uh, Jesus, Jesus is God, there is one personal God and he's manifested in the flesh and he comes down from heaven. For example, in, um, I, in Luke 1, 35, it's the Holy spirit who comes down.
Um, so there's a synonymity there between which one is coming down, uh, in, uh, in the incarnation and in John 1, it's the word is man is manifested in the flesh is, is, um. But you're not answering the question really comes flesh and dwells among us.
So Jesus pre-exists his birth as a divine person. That divine person is the one true God.
But my question was, uh, G you said Jesus is a person. I haven't even asked you if Jesus has two natures yet, because that's important. Uh, I don't know if you affirm the hypostatic union, but, um, he says, I have come down from heaven, Jesus, the person.
Do you agree that Jesus, the person said I came down from heaven?
Yes, I agree. He came down from heaven as God.
So when it says I come down from heaven and not to do my own will, but the will of the father who sent him. So he was in heaven and was sent by the father and that's the person of Christ, pre-incarnate Christ, right?
So that's two persons in heaven right there, right?
Well, um, you have what you have in this duality. You have God, the omnipresent spirit and God, his expression. So the word, the logos, the image of the invisible God, um, you have God, the invisible, the unknowable, the unreachable, the untouchable, the made visible, made knowable, uh, interacting with his creation.
So that is God himself. God's, um, God's expression of his one person. That's what it says in Hebrews, uh, one, three, that the sun is the, the brightness of his glory. He's the express image of his person.
So this is the person of the one true God manifested in the flesh. God came down from heaven and did not cease being God in heaven at the same time. The same thing Trinitarians believe about the second person of the Godhead of the Trinity, but yet he walked on earth at the same time in submission as a human man.
So sometimes he speaks as a man and sometimes he speaks as God, as God.
That's another heresy, uh, called Nestorianism. Um, but I asked you, uh, uh, you know, because you're giving me long answers to simple questions. Um, but he said, I've come down from heaven. He said, Jesus was a person.
So he's speaking as a person who was sent by the father. So isn't that two persons?
Yeah. So, um, what I, what I was saying is that the, the, um, I'll go back to the beginning, you know, the first scripture that I used in my, in my, uh, you know, in my statements that one God created everything alone by himself and Colossians one in Hebrews one, God creates everything by his son.
Um, and, uh, but you're not answering the question I'm asking, is that two persons in heaven at the same time?
I'm answering, I'm answering your question. The answer is either yes or no. God created everything by his son, who is the image of God. So the son is himself. God created everything by himself and the image of God.
He expressed himself as the angel of the Lord and in the flesh as Jesus Christ. That is he himself. And it is a true human person. So you can say, um, uh, it is possible to say two persons. You can say two persons.
Um, if those two inner, if the father who is one is an eternal person manifests himself in a way in the flesh. And now that human person 2000 years ago has a new personality because what I believe is that Jesus, I mean, God took on himself humanity in its totality and has a relationship and interaction with that man.
But yet that man's, the man Christ Jesus transcendent identity is Jesus, is, is God himself. So now God for the last 2000 years, who was only omnipresent spirit now exists as eternal omnipresent spirit and begotten human being simultaneously.
Are you familiar with a hypothetic union?
Yes. And that is just for the listeners that Jesus is one person with two distinct natures, not God, the father in dwelling him. That's not a hypothetic union. A hypothetic union says the one person has two natures and that the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person.
That's called the communicatio idiomatum. It's fancy. It sounds impressive, but that's what it is. So do you agree with that?
Um, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And, um, let me see, I think, okay. So then in a, in a, let's see, it, yeah. One, I read an article, your, one of your articles on, uh, the Trinity or did Jesus always exist?
So you said something about Jesus. He obviously, I'm, I was saying, saying, obviously that he speaks as divine. He speaks with the divine prerogatives. Sometimes other times he speaks, um, in a very human way.
So your examples were as, uh, low, I'm with you always to the end of the age, Matthew 28, 20, and I am thirsty. So those would be two different ways of speaking that Jesus, Jesus is both human and divine.
Okay, good. You said, uh, well, let me ask you, is Jesus in heaven right now? Yes. So is Jesus a single person in heaven?
Yes. Jesus is a single person. Jesus is, um, Jesus, who was God manifest in the flesh. First Timothy 3, 16, um, 2000 years ago ascended to the father. Okay. And he is now Colossians three hidden with Christ in God of John 1, 18.
He is in the bosom of the father and first and first Timothy chapter six. He is the blessed and only post potentate who only has, who alone has immortality dwelling in inapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.
So no man can see the father. No man has seen God at any time. Um, but what is visible of God, he has manifested himself or been made known in the person of Jesus Christ.
So right now, Jesus is a person in heaven with two natures, right? Yes.
Yes. And I, and I do believe that there's something, something that occurred at his glorification. For example, John states when Jesus said that, um, whoever believes in me as a scripture, I said out of his belly will flow or heart will flow rivers of living water.
John says this. He spoke of the Holy Spirit who was not yet poured out because Jesus was not yet glorified. Um, and when Jesus, so Jesus said he ascended up into his head into heaven. And now this localized person approved of Jesus, who was God in the flesh could now sit, could now be with all of his people.
Always. He could sit. He, he, he promised them that he is going away. He is coming back. He said, I will not, when he said, I will sit, um, I will pray the father. He will send you another helper, the spirit or truth.
He said, I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. So there's a synonymity there where he's saying, I am coming back. And first in first Corinthians 15, Paul says the first Adam was, uh, became a living soul.
The last, the last Adam was made a life giving spirit. So there was a glorification in which, uh, the father and the, and the son are able to operate both of them as the, as the Holy Spirit. And John 14, Jesus said, we will come to him and make our home with him.
Speaking of the Holy spirit and dwelling with us.
Well, I got one last question. I know you want to ask me a question, but here's my last question for you. Cause I know I've been asking a lot. So the same person who on earth, Jesus talked to the father who had a will separate than Jesus.
That means Jesus is a person talking to the father who has a will, which you admitted is designation of personhood. He was sent by the father. You have to exist or to sit, be sent by that's in heaven, which is simultaneous personhood and he's in heaven with the father.
Now, would you, is that last part true? So then you are, are just repeating what we say as Trinitarians, right?
We're repeating what you say as Trinitarians that the, uh, about the second person of the Trinity, he is eternal. He is God. He is omnipresent. He is invisible. He is almighty, all knowing omniscient.
He is a person and he came down and was manifested in the flesh and was a human person who had needs to pray, eat, sleep, and he could die, bleed all of those things, but yet he could raise himself up from the dead.
So everything that you believe or Trinitarians believe about the second person of the Trinity, we just have one person of God who could become a human manifested in the flesh. And at the same time, not cease to be the eternal omnipresent all omniscient almighty spirit.
Yeah, you contradicted yourself. You said that he's the same person who walked on, on earth. That's Jesus who spoke to the father. That's a person. That's two persons. The father is divine. Jesus is divine.
You just falsified your own, your own belief system. You just showed it to be false.
That's not what I said. I didn't say, well, I said that, um, God is one person. He's one person and he was manifested in the flesh as a human person. So now over the last 2000 years, there is one God, the father, um, the father is the only true God in, um, in, uh, John 17, three in a lot of places, God is referred to as the father and, and one man who is the mediator between God and Christ.
But God is, there's one God and one Lord God now exists as eternal spirit and as begotten human being now resurrected and glorified human being simultaneously. God exists. So this is, this is called as two modes of existence.
God is completely up. God. The one personal God is completely other than space time. I think you've even said that God is not in space. Um, no, he's outside of space. He's not limited by space and time, but yet he entered creation in a very real, very experiential way and actually was born as a human person.
So we have a divine person and a human person who are the same God, but yet that God, that Jesus was glorified together with God to where they can be called a he, the two, the Jesus Christ manifested in the flesh and the eternal father to whom he prayed can be referred to in revelation 21 as he, God and the lamb is a he.
His servants will, will, will serve him. They will see his face, the lamb and, and he, and the God are called the light of the new Jerusalem and so forth.
In John six 38, Jesus says that he came down from heaven. The person of Jesus came down from heaven, which means he had to preexist as the son in order to do that. And so if God is one person, how is it possible then that Jesus, the person was sent by the person of the father, because Jesus is not my own will, but his will.
So he's saying he existed simultaneously with the father before the incarnation as two persons at the very least right there. How do you refute that? John six 38.
Well, that's exactly what I believe in. The, the, the, um, Jesus pre does preexist is, is birth in Bethlehem as the one true God. So in a, in a true sense, now there's, there are differences. I think, you know, this early, I'm not sure it might be something else.
You, you noted a difference within one, this theology, but some would say that God came down in the person of Jesus Christ. So not all of God is incarnate, but God, but the incarnate Jesus Christ, the man is completely God and, um, uh, but you're refuting yourself.
Well, also, so if, if Jesus is God in the flesh, then God sends himself into the world. Yahweh sends Yahweh, but yet he is born as a human person. He is born as Jesus Christ. Now, um, in John one, it talks about the word, the logos was with God and was God.
Um, Jesus is, is referred to, uh, in Colossians one as the first born overall creation and Hebrews one, God makes everything, uh, by, uh, or through the son. And, um, it's the son who upholds everything by his powerful word.
So there's the relationship between the father and son. They're revealed in John one, Hebrews one and Colossians one. This express image of who God is, the brightness of his glory is God himself as the power of God that upholds everything by the word of his power is said to be, to be the case of the son.
So as the, as, or as of this logos, this word, um, so whether some apply son to the pre-incarnate manifestation of God, the angel of the Lord, the logos, and someone is believers don't, I'm okay with, with either way, see Hebrews, it seems to apply son retrospectively to that manifestation of the Lord.
But that look, the Lord Yahweh, the one God made visible is the, he's in such a close relationship with, with the father, with the one God that he is that one God, the power of God, the creative work of God comes through him, comes through his hands.
So that expression of God is the one true God. There is one person. And that logos was made flesh over the past 2000 years ago. God is now a divine person and a human person.
Um, but I was just saying out of John 6 38 for I that's Jesus. The person came down from heaven, not to do my own will, will as a designation of personhood, but the will of him who sent me, that's another person.
That means that's the father. So we have the pre-incarnate existence of two divine persons in heaven. That just proves that oneness is false.
Well, it, it, it doesn't. It proves that Jesus came down from heaven as he, who is above all. So a couple of different scriptures review what you just said there. And, um, I mentioned earlier in, um, Ephesians four, it says.
God, the father, there is one God, the father who is above all. And John three 30 and 31, John the Baptist said he, who is from heaven is above all. There's a synonymity between synonymity between he, who is from heaven, Jesus Christ in the flesh and the father, they are both said to be above all.
Um, so Jesus said that he came down from heaven because he is God come down from heaven. In John chapter 10. Also, he talks to, he elaborates more on this, not to do his will, but as a, as a human, he is submitted to the father's will.
So while he is found in, while he, while he is, um, while he is walking the earth as a human, as a, as a man, he is submitted. He is sent into the world. He is in the world. Having been sent into the world as God coming into the world.
He is now in the world to do his own, not his own will, but the father's. That is during the incarnational period. And that will was to lay down his life. In John 10, um, I probably find it real quick to get the right words, but in, in John 10, Jesus talks about this same thing and then lands on synonymity.
Again, he says that, um, uh, verse 17, my father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down to myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up.
This command I have received from my father. So how is he receiving commands from the father and receiving, um, what is it? Uh, submitting to the father's will as a divine person. No, he's doing it as a human person.
He continues, um, my last point here is, uh, let's see verse 27, my sheep, hear my voice verse 28. I give them eternal life and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all.
And no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. I am, my father are one. So he, he, he, he illustrates what the synonym, he starts off with this section that I laid on my life. I have a command from the father.
It's implied to do his will. And then, um, he goes to a little synonym, synonymity of no one can snatch them out of my hand. No one can snatch the people that the father has given me out of the father's hand.
Uh, for he is greater than all. I am, my father are one. He is the father manifested in the flesh.
You didn't refute, uh, the point I made out of John 6, 38. That's it like three times and you go different directions, but you're not addressing it. But nevertheless, do you have some questions for me?
Yeah. Um, why, so how, um, let me see if, if, uh, one divine person is sending another divine person in the world, um, co-equal co-eternal, why is the father sending the son and where is the Holy Spirit and all of that?
To the son. And where is the Holy Spirit? Why is the father sending the son? Uh, you're not familiar with the ontological or economic Trinity doctrines, are you? Yes. Right. You are. I want to hear your answer.
The ontological Trinity is that the three persons share the same divine essence. The ontological Trinity says there's a difference of function within the created order, within the created order, within the Godhead, where the father sent the son and the father and the son send the Holy Spirit is only the son who became incarnate.
And as it says in Ephesians 1, 4, that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, which designates that the son of Christ was eternally existing. So why would one divine person send this another divine person?
Because that's what they chose to do. And the Holy Spirit's job is to bear witness of the, of Jesus. And so he doesn't bear witness of himself, but of Christ, John 14, 26, John 15, 26. So that's why we don't see as much about him.
Okay. And, and, um, so how, how did that, um, order come about? Is there anything in scripture that tells us how that divine order was decided as far as the father, um, being the one who gives commands to the second person of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit is sort of subservient to just testify of the other two persons.
Is that in scripture, how that was decided and ordered?
No, God doesn't reveal his secret eternal counsel to us in that regard. Okay. Very good.
Um, let's see. So is, is God a person?
He is referred to as, uh, the singular as a person and in the plural as three persons. Yes.
Okay. So is that four persons or what? No, we don't say one plus three.
We say that God, uh, you know, he says, let us make man in our image. He's become like one of us. This is how God speaks about himself in the plural that he made, uh, Adam and Eve. And in Isaiah 44, 24, he does it all alone.
So God has revealed himself in the plural context. And within the doctrine of the Trinity, we absolutely would say that God speaks as one person. And then God also speaks as three persons.
Well, okay. So how can God speak as one person if he is not one person, if he is really three persons, how could he use pronouns of I, myself, and me that is, uh, applied to the totality of God, whom you would say is the Trinity?
How could he, who is three persons, speak as one person?
Are you familiar with a doctrine called perichoresis? Okay. What is that? Just really, I mean, I want to make sure, you know, the interdwelling of the persons, right?
The interpenetration, interdwelling of the person. So a little bit of a, yeah, I'll let you go ahead and answer first. No, it's okay.
So no, I just asked if you knew about that and the perichoresis folks, the members of the Godhead interdwell, interpenetrate each other in what's called the divine simplicity. So because God is three persons in one divine, simple essence, who interdwells all the members interdwell each other, then we would see sometimes God speaking as one person and sometimes God speaking in a plurality, which is exactly what we see in scripture.
Okay. So when God is speaking of one person as one person, who is he, is it the Trinity? Is it the whole of God representing all three persons or, you know, is it one person representing the rest of them?
I'd have to look at each context of a verse that you might quote for that to determine that.
What about Isaiah 44, 24, who's speaking? Well, let's go take a look at it.
That says the Lord, that's Yahweh, and that's the name of God, right? You redeemer and the one who formed you from the womb. I, Yahweh, and the maker of all things, who came down to heaven by myself, I spreading out there all alone.
So the one, we say God is one being, one thing, perfectly consistent with Trinitarianism.
Okay. So this is God speaking, God as in the entire Trinity, or is it one person? Because it uses personal pronouns and that was your definition of a person.
Well, we don't know, I don't, what I don't like to do is not go beyond what the scripture says. It just says, Yahweh says that. And I just say, that's who Yahweh is speaking. That's it. It doesn't say it's the father who's speaking, the son or the Holy Spirit, because I can show you some stuff in the Old Testament where it must be the pre-incarnate Christ who's speaking and not, not God, the father, who is Yahweh.
Okay. So this could be God who, this could be God speaking as one person then.
Yeah, he's speaking as one person, as I says, God does, the Trinitarian God does. And then he also speaks in plurality. Let us make man, Yahweh ran fire and brimstone from Yahweh out of heaven. Or you go to, to Amos 4, 10, 11, God speaking.
And he says, I, I killed your young, your young men by the sword. I caused a stench to rise up your nostrils. Yet you have not returned to me, declares Yahweh. I overthrew you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
These are the verses I'll actually quote to Jehovah's witnesses. I just read them. And then they usually say, are you trying to show me the Trinity out of that? They get a Trinity just by reading these things, the plurality of God in the Old Testament.
Well, I see God speaking as one person and I see an omnipresent God. So when you have God, Yahweh on earth, raining down fire from Yahweh on heaven, or there, you know, God is in all of those places, visible and invisible.
So springboard from Isaiah 44, 24. Then who is the creator who created all things alone by himself? Yahweh.
So is that father, son, and spirit? It just says here, Yahweh, that's who the creator is. And God says he is, I am, that's the name of God. I would say God, the Trinity is as a Yahweh, not Jesus, but Yahweh.
Okay. And so in John 1, 3, where it says all things were made by the word or through the word, Colossians 1. 15 through 17. Yep. All things were made through him. Hebrews 1, that by him or through him, he made the world.
So who is he who made the worlds through him? Why is one getting credit for it through the other one? Because the Trinity is true.
Because it's just how you would think if the Trinity was true. Jesus is the one, or the son is the one, the pre-incarnate Christ is the one through whom and by whom all the creation order is made. Yahweh identifies himself as the plurality as well as a singularity.
These are exactly the kinds of things we go to, to help demonstrate the plurality of God as also a singularity, which is what the Trinity is. It's exactly what you're doing. Exactly what we do.
Yeah. And why is there a duality? Why is the Holy Spirit not mentioned in those passages in the New Testament as a third person in creation?
Because the Holy Spirit is the one who bears witness of Christ. And if you go to Genesis chapter 1, it says the Holy Spirit was brooding, hovering over creation. The Holy Spirit is there when God spoke.
That's the word. And the Holy Spirit was brooding.
There's a Trinity right there. So how do you know that God is the Father and not the whole Trinity?
Well, it depends on the context of the verse you might want to look at, like Exodus 6, 2, and 3.
What does that say? Does it say the Father created by his word?
No, it says, God spoke further to Moses and said, I am Yahweh. Okay. And I appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. But by my name Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them. So that's God speaking.
I would agree. I think it's God speaking. But he says he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but not as God Almighty. I mean, as God Almighty, excuse me, right?
So the next question is, we're speaking about the Father and the Holy Spirit in creation. We're speaking about the Holy Spirit and where is he in creation. So in Matthew, well, in the baptism of Jesus, in Matthew, Mark, in all the gospels, the Holy Spirit comes down upon Jesus.
And so you agree with that, I'm sure.
Yes, incidentally, Job 33, 4, it says the Spirit of God made Job. So the Spirit's involved in creating also.
Okay. And Luke 4 and Mark, Luke 4, 1 and Mark 1, 12, Jesus has said to have received the Holy Spirit. Yeah, of course. Done, been driven into the wilderness or the Holy Spirit led into the wilderness.
So we see he's filled with, led into the wilderness, driven into the wilderness. In Acts 10, 38, it says that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and he went around performing miracles, right?
In Matthew 12, 28, Jesus says, if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. In another place, I think he says, finger of God. Now in John, so why then in John 10, 38, Jesus says the Father in him, the Father who dwells in him.
No, not John 10, 38. Yeah, John 10, 38, Jesus refers to the Father in him. And in John 14, 10, he says, the Father who dwells in me does the works. Speaking of the great works that he's done.
Don't forget John 5, 19 and John 5, 30, he could do nothing unless he sees the Father do it. So he sees the Father do it, which is another person. And so, because the Father's indwelling him, no problem.
Good Trinitarianism so far.
So is the Holy Spirit is indwelling him and the Father, so there's two divine persons indwelling him or is there just one?
I don't know of a verse off the top of my head, which says the Holy Spirit is indwelling Jesus, because we know that the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus at his baptism as he fulfilled Levitical law, Old Testament law, to enter into the priesthood, that's why he was baptized.
So Luke 4, 1, he is filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. Luke what, 4, 1? 4, 1, yeah. Okay. He's filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
The second part, he does the works by the Holy Spirit. And it's the Father who dwells in him doing the works. Yeah, good Trinitarianism.
Father. I'm sorry, you kind of jiggled there. So is the Holy Spirit the Father?
Of course not. There's a synonymity there. One is spoken of interchangeably as the other one.
Yeah, that's what we have in Trinitarianism.
You have a Holy Spirit as not the Father. So when one person does something, the other person does not do something, or if one person is, you know, sort of in the economic trinity, it's the Father's role to send the Son, to command the Son.
And it's the Holy Spirit's role to, you didn't say this, but to work through him, to work through us. But you also say to him, yeah. But so how is, so this is broken. That point is refuted and broken that the Father is not the one in the world doing the works through us and testifying to Jesus and so forth.
They're both, the Father and the Holy Spirit are synonymous.
Well, you've gone halfway down the road, but you've got to realize that, as you've already admitted, personhood is demonstrated through saying me and mine and you and yours having a will, etc. And Jesus has not my will, but your will, Father.
Jesus is a person, as you already acknowledge, is a hypostatic union, which means there's an incarnation which would never be separated. It's always going to be that. And he, while he was on earth, was speaking to the divine person of the Father, which you've already admitted.
That logically necessitates at least two persons in the Trinity, right there in the Godhead, at least two persons. So what you're saying is perfectly consistent with Trinitarianism. You just don't go down the rest of the way.
You don't recognize that they speak to each other. They each have different wills. Jesus said in John 6, 38, he said, I came down from heaven from the one who was sent me. You have to exist in order to be sent.
You can't be sent nothing. So that means that the word, I mean, Jesus, excuse me, the pre-incarnate Christ was preexistent with the Father in heaven. That's what we call, at the very least, two persons.
That's exactly how it works. You're just repeating what we say. You just don't go down the rest of the way and acknowledge that they have personhood each and communicate to each other and are distinct by that very nature.
Okay, so thank you. The Father and the Son is a duality and not a Trinity. Yeah, so far, yeah. And we also have that biblical view, I say, that dominates, that duality dominates the biblical view, but that's also true in oneness.
And oneness sees it as one divine invisible eternal God who manifested himself in the flesh.
Is it a simultaneous person, two persons? Are they simultaneously existing, Father and Son?
The divine person and the human person are simultaneously existing. And the human person can said to be in a transcendent identity. He is both the Son of Man and he is the everlasting Father. He is both the Father and the Son.
Wait a minute. You said Jesus, hypothetic union, and you affirm that. That means Jesus, the one person has a divine nature, right? And the person, and the Father is also a person. You admitted that. So is the Father divine?
Well, of course, the Father is the one true God. Whenever it speaks of God, God is the Father. God is the Holy Spirit. God is the one person of God who says, I created all things alone by myself. He is the singular person of God.
And he is the one who took on humanity upon himself. He's the one who became a man to be with us and to be our savior, to save us. He took onto himself humanity, not just flesh, but human personhood.
So the divine person of the Father and the human person of Jesus, right? The human person of Jesus?
The God is, I'm talking, I'm speaking of the, Jesus is a human man. And he has, as you said, a divine nature, right?
So he is one person or two persons. Jesus is one person.
He is both God and man, okay? Okay, John 17, three, the only, the Father is the one true God. And Ephesians four, there's a one God, the Father who is above all. Jesus is God. And if Jesus is God and human and man at the same time, there's only one God for him to be.
And that is the one God who created all things alone by himself.
The one person of God. So the one person of Jesus, who's God in flesh, was speaking to the one person of the Father who's in heaven, right?
Yes. Sometimes he spoke as a man and he prayed to the one person.
Are you familiar with the communicatio idiomatum? The communication of the properties. It means that the one person has the attributes of both natures, the human and divine. He never speaks as one or the other.
He never speaks as one or the other. That's Nestorianism, which is there's two persons in the one body. No, he always speaks as one person. I'm with you always. I am thirsty. That's how he speaks. So when he's speaking, he's speaking as a person with two distinct natures.
So the person of the Son is speaking to the person of the Father, right?
Well, that last statement is true because what we see in Scripture is we don't see a... We actually see a Jesus who speaks in a human way and speaks as a transcendent human way. He speaks as a divine figure or assuming divine prerogatives and sometimes in a very limited sense.
For example, I am thirsty. What we see in Scripture is there one personal God who has manifested himself as a man so that there is one God and one man who is the mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ.
And God now exists as eternal spirit in one mode and a begotten human being now glorified in another completely different mode of existence. Two simultaneous modes of existence, not a trinity.
Well, when you say that the Son who is one person who's divine and he has his own personhood and he's speaking to the Father who has his own personhood, that's two persons who are in the Godhead.
You could say that's two persons now. First of all, in order to get an eternal Son, you would have to not only prove pre-existence, you would have to prove eternality for all eternity. So even though Jesus pre-exists as an angel of the Lord or as an expression that relates to God and it was before, what is it?
Firstborn over all creation. If it was just before the creation, there still is a beginning to the expression of the invisible God, but there's also still synonymity. So was Jesus a distinct person from God for all eternity?
Oh yeah, that's easy to prove. John 6, 38, which I've already gone over this with you, he says, I came down from heaven. He's identifying himself as a person. He came down from heaven because he was sent by God.
That means he was in heaven sent by God and we know that he's God. So therefore he has to have eternal nature, eternal relationship, eternal essence by being the I, who as you admit is God, who was with the Father according to Jesus' own words in John 6, 38.
And if you go to Ephesians 1, 4, it says, he, the Father, chose us, the elect, in him, Christ, before the foundation of the world. These two verses demonstrate the eternal pre-existence of the Christ.
Okay, they demonstrate the pre-existence of Christ, especially in some of them, you know, one understanding of that, but you still haven't shown how that applies. Yes, before the foundation of the world, but going back beyond that for all eternity, you haven't demonstrated that God eternally exists and you as Father and Son in his essence eternally.
And then you'd also have to prove that the Holy Spirit also is eternally distinct and in relation with one another for the Trinity to be true.
Jesus has a divine nature, right? Divine nature is eternal by nature, right?
Well, his divine nature is God, the one true God, the Father.
Eternal by nature. And he said, claiming that divine attribute, says, I was with you before the foundation of the world. I came down from heaven, you have sent me. There's a rule in logic. If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C.
It's a law of proper inference. If Jesus is divine by his nature and the attributes of divinity ascribed to his personhood, and he's claiming eternal relationship with the Father, I came down from heaven and he's divine by nature, which you said, then that necessitates that he's eternal in that sense.
Otherwise, he's not divine. That said nothing about him eternally coming down from the Father or eternally existing. You said came down from the Father. So that is pre-incarnation and the other one before the foundation of the world.
So that's pre-creation. So that He's eternal. He's divine. He's eternal though as the person of the Father. You can't, as the one God, you can't demonstrate that he's eternal as a distinct person from the Father.
He said he was came down from heaven because the Father sent him. So Jesus said he was sent by the Father, John 6, 38. What was Jesus' existence in that before he was sent by the, when he was sent by the Father?
What was he existing as?
He was though he was the one true God. The image of the invisible God, the expression image of his person, the brightness of his glory. So the invisible God made visible the angel of the Lord. And even prior to that, before being manifest, he is God himself.
So Jesus was the true God sent by the true God? Correct. Yeah.
He sent himself into the world. Also, he sends his spirit as part of him. Just, you know, God is a lot greater than us, but you know, we don't speak in these terms, but if I send my hand over to do something or I send my word to say, send hello to someone like that.
God is, you know, beyond that, he's omnipresent. He fills all things. But this, so he sent himself or part. Now, you know, he's not a, the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. So he is not completely contained in an incarnate state, but the God incarnate is truly him.
And there is also another sense to where he's sent as he is already in the world. He is sent to do the father's will in his ministry when his time had not yet come and his time came. He was sent to lay down his life and so forth.
If I send my wife to the store, does that not designate a distinction between us through an object-subject relationship? It does. Yeah, there's a distinction.
I'm not denying the distinction. Oneness doesn't deny a distinction. We deny it before there was any creation for all of eternity in the eternal essence of God. We deny a distinction of persons.
So Jesus was sent by the father, the pre-incarnate Christ sent by the father. That's not a distinction.
That is a distinction, but there's also a synonymity in that he can be said to be the father.
Well, wait, if he's sent by the father, how is he the father? If I send my wife, she's not the same person as me.
That's because, okay, so this is what scriptures teach us. If we just listen to the scriptures, this is what we get. You're talking about you and your wife are on the same mode of existence. You're two distinct persons, but we're talking about an eternal divine spirit who wanted to express himself and make himself known, who could find no other, so his own arm brought salvation.
So this is an extension of himself coming into the world. This is the one true God entering into his creation in another mode of existence that he did not have previous to that.
Does personhood require awareness of others and reciprocity, giving back and forth, fellowship, things like that?
So yes, it does. Jesus is a person. God is a person. So we relate to Jesus as a person. His person is the person of God. His divine identity, his divine nature is the divine person, the one singular divine person.
That's what presented in scripture.
So if, as you say, personhood requires awareness of others, reciprocity, fellowship, and your God is one person, then how is he expressing his personhood from eternity before he created?
Well, it depends on what you're referring to specifically, but you could say there was no time when God did not express his personhood to anyone.
But you said it requires awareness of others. If it requires awareness of others and reciprocity and fellowship, then by your definition, your God doesn't have personhood.
No, because God is a transcendent divine person. He is the only one of his kind and he is completely self-sufficient. He does not need to be in a relationship. He does not need to express himself, but he had chose to do so.
I'm not arguing with that. I'm just saying that you said that personhood requires, I put the word require, you said, yes, requires awareness of others, reciprocity, fellowship. If it requires that and from eternity past, your God did not have that, then he does not have personhood.
You want to redefine personhood? Well, yeah, I will retract that and say, personhood does not require that, especially when you're speaking of if there is only one person in existence at that time, it wouldn't have to require awareness of others.
But awareness of others and so forth, would indicate and be an indicator of personhood.
I have a couple more questions. Sure, how about the top of the hour, we open it up to Q and A or closing statements and then Q and A. We'll do that five minutes.
Okay, the top of the hour. Okay. Yeah, I almost forgot about closing statements. Yeah, me too.
Unless you want to just go straight to Q and A, but it's up to you. You're the guest, so it's up to you. No, it doesn't matter to me.
I could probably think of something to say, but I'll probably just say the same stuff over and over again. I didn't get through everything. All right, so let's see. So when Jesus said in John 14, 7, if you had known me to his disciples, you would have known my father.
And from now on, you have seen him and known him. Who have... And it's kind of two questions in one. Who had the disciples seen and known and how had they seen and known the father?
Jesus represented the father, as it says in Hebrews 1, 3. And that's what's going on. He's the express image of God. Just as God made us in his image, then the image of God is made in the human person of Christ in that sense.
And that's why he would say,.
If you see me, you've seen the father. Okay, so Jesus is the express image of the father or is he the express image of God? Of God. Of God the entire time.
Yeah, Hebrews 1, 3. Well, like I said, you gotta be careful not to fall into the fallacy of equivocation because if you don't define your terms properly when you're using them, then you'll do what a lot of people do.
You just end up with these alleged contradictions that aren't contradictions because you're not being specific. And so when you ask me certain things, I'll say, well, the Bible doesn't say, you know, doesn't say this.
And a lot of times people will read into the text. So when it says he's a radiance of his glory, it doesn't say who it is. We could say it was probably the father. We could say that. And even though it doesn't say specifically, but I don't have any problem with that.
And yet he upholds all things by the word of his power. I don't have any problem with that.
Okay. So where in scripture does it tell us that a second person of the Trinity was incarnated in Jesus or that Jesus divinity is a second person of the Trinity? It doesn't say. Who is his divine nature specifically?
Who is his divine nature is a wrong question. How is Jesus divine? Oh, I see. Okay. Oh, okay. Now I get it. Okay. So who, okay. How is Jesus divine? By the word that was with God that became flesh and dwelt among us.
John 1, one of verse 14. Okay. And who was the word with? Who is that God? Is that the Trinity? Is that the father? Is that the Holy Spirit? It just says, it just says what it says. It says in the beginning was the word.
The word was with God and the word was God. And the word became flesh. So it says it's with God. It's speaking of God as that person. And then the word was God. It's not talking about it as a person anymore.
It's talking about divinity and nature. So John 1, one in the Greek is very interesting because it's designating the identity with and also the distinction from. That's Trinitarian.
Okay. I forgot what I was going to say. But the, let's see. The word. Okay. So Jesus, as the word before his incarnation, that is the word is with God. And okay. You said it. We don't know. The scripture doesn't tell us if that's the father or the whole Trinity.
So is it safe to say then that we cannot look for that the others believe one or the other that that was, he is with the father or with the whole Trinity? I'm not sure I'm following your question. Sorry.
Okay. So I asked, my question was the word was with God and the word was God. Who is the God that the word was with? Was it the father, the whole Trinity? One other person, two other persons. And the scripture doesn't say was your answer.
Yeah, it doesn't say. So I won't say. Okay. So if this word that is distinct from God and God can't be said to be with a single person of God or with all of God, then we cannot make, if we don't know what the answer is, we can't make that a test of faith.
Would you say that? Is that correct?
No. No. So, no, because you take one verse that's designating the identity of Christ as being divine and then say that we can't take that as a text. Yes, we can. Because oneness denies the true and living God.
It denies it. And oneness goes so far as to add requirements of works to salvation by requiring baptism in Jesus' name. And it teaches you can lose your salvation. Yes, it is. But this is the whole thing, because soteriology is based on Christology, which is based on theology.
And so if you get that wrong, you're gonna get everything else wrong. It's trickle down. Trickle down heresy is what it is. And so what you're, I've already shown you that the distinction in the persons of the divine persons existed simultaneous before the incarnation, particularly John 6, 38.
There's many verses I can go to. I showed you the plurality issue of God in the Old Testament, how he reveals himself in the plural. Let us make. He's how, that's how God begins. In fact, in Genesis 1, God is there.
The spirit is brooding and God speaks. That's the word. There's a Trinity right there from the very beginning, the plurality of God. Let us make man. Let's go find a language. That's how God is. And so God has revealed himself because we know the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are each called God and each speak and each has a will.
This is how it is. And since the Bible says in Exodus 20, you're to have no other gods before him. Your God is not the God of scripture. Your God is not the God of scripture. And I'm not mad at you. I'm sure if we were meeting in person, we'd shake hands, we'll get a cup of coffee and argue with each other.
But the thing is, you believe in a false God. Your God doesn't exist. Your God cannot manifest the true nature of fellowship unless something else has created. Then its totality is expressed and manifested in light of creation of others.
Your God is the one who doesn't exist as a plurality, but yet the Bible says Jesus was with the Father before he was incarnate and that the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
I've shown you and you've even admitted that the person of the Son is divine and that the person of the Father is divine. That's two persons. That refutes your oneness. It refutes it. You have not demonstrated.
Yes, it does. You have not demonstrated at all that the systematic approach which I defined in there as one God, we know there's one God, the Father's called God, the Son's called God, the Holy Spirit's called God.
They each speak to each other, have wills, love, fellowship with each one. This is exactly what we would say as Trinitarians. You haven't refuted that that's the case. This is what we do say. This is how you get the Trinity and that they speak to each other.
This is identity. It's personhood, separate distinctness. That's what it is. You've not refuted it at all. So you... That's my closing statement.
Go ahead. Okay. And you've been honest a few times. I can't remember what you said during those times. Wait, wait, wait. When you say honest a few times, are you saying I'm not honest the rest of them?
No, I'm saying a few times when I asked you a question, you know, a clarification question, you said, well, the scripture doesn't tell us such as with John 1, who is the God? I'm always honest, just so you know.
All right, fair enough. But yeah, when you said a couple of things, you said the plurality of God let us indicates plurality. But in the very next statement, it says God, Elohim, He created, one God created.
Plurality and singularity. Well, and there are different ways to look at that. There are different ways, many different ways to look at that. And my view is that God was talking to the heavenly host, but God counsels everything or does everything after the counsel of his own will.
He doesn't counsel with other people. He wouldn't speak as himself as a plurality and then one doing a creation. But I'm not saying that well. When you said, I'm bad at this. But when you said at the very beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and then God spoke and that's the word.
And then the spirit hovers over the face of the waters and that's a third person. You're imagining that. There's no indication that the speaking is a second person in scripture or that the spirit is a third person.
That's what I've shown through synonymity. And that's why I asked about the Holy Spirit and the father and the synonymity that the Holy Spirit that was in Jesus doing the works through him later on. He said that was the father in him doing the works through him.
That's why I asked about Jesus said, well, you know, the famous one. He has seen me, has seen the father and John 14 and verse seven, back up John 14, seven, that's verse nine, seven hardly ever gets in the debates, which is if you would have known me, you would have known my father.
How do you know the father by knowing Jesus? Because no one has seen God in any time, but the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father, he has revealed him. He has made him known. The invisible God being made visible to be known.
So to know Jesus is to know the father. See, this is the presentation of the scripture, not a God that is tripersonal. When the Holy Spirit hovers over, when the spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters, there's no indication that that is a distinct person or anyone distinct from the father or from the word in that passage.
That is just speculative imagination. And, you know, creative attempts like perichoresis and interpenetration, which comes down to, well, Jesus is just representing the father. That's how they know the father.
That is a bad argument. That is, well, it is also to just explain a way this clear synonymity that shows that Jesus is the father. If Jesus is God incarnate, God manifested in the flesh, there's only one God for him to be.
And then in John 14 as well, my very last point, not only did he say, if you would have known me, you would have known my father also, but you have seen him and known him. Um, let's see in verse, and I mentioned this earlier, verse 17, the spirit of truth.
Let's see. He said, I'll pray the father that he will send you another helper. They may, he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.
But if you, but you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. That was Jesus there dwelling with them. And we will be. And he said, we'll be in them. He who dwells with them will be in them.
And he clarified it in verse 18. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. Jesus is saying, I am the Holy Spirit that is going to come to you. This refutes the Trinity. This is a synonymity to show that Jesus is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit that is in us is Christ in us, the hope of glory. When we received the Holy Spirit, John 1, 12, as many as have received him, he gave the power to become sons of God. And, you know, and I could keep going because I mentioned this already earlier, but I don't need to keep saying it.
But, you know, the, he said, the father, he said, the father will love him. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My father will love him. And he will come to, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
He's speaking of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as himself and as the father and the son. So there is a, there is a synonymity in personal identity rather than a distinction in personal identity. And I'll just say, we agree that the one God was manifested in the flesh in human form and did not cease to be that one God.
But we disagree that the father, son, and Holy Spirit are all personal. It's not enough to just show that they're personal and that they're God, but they're either the same personal being, the same personal God, or they're distinct personal God persons or persons within the one God.
But you, but Trinitarians equivocate on being in person. When, when, when God speaks as one person using personal, singular personal pronouns, and then the individual, then the father, son, and Holy Spirit do the same.
God is said to be one being and one and three persons. Well, beings do not communicate in, or personal pronouns are not indication as you said of being, but as well, let me put the, as you said now, but as you said, personal pronouns are indication of person.
So what you have is a one God who is a person in three persons. That's not what you claim to believe, but that's an equivocation within Trinitarianism. When in actuality, the scriptural God is one person and he has manifested himself in three relational personal ways in the father, son, and the Holy Spirit.
That is the biblical God. That's your God.
All right, that's your God. Yeah, no, no, no. There's, we haven't even gotten into the heavy philosophical aspects of things we can get into, but we won't. I guess those are our closing statements. Let's do some Q &A, you ready?
All right. Yep. All right. Sure. So you guys want your questions. If you all put them in at once, what I'm gonna do is this. I could do, oh, okay, there we go. Got our healer, got our provider, got our savior.
How many gods did I name? And so I'll do that so we can both see it. So go ahead and then, because when this is up like that and then people put in questions, they'll roll up, you probably won't see them.
So if you have a question, say, you know, for Rod or Matt, and then how about this? If it's for you, you answer for one minute, then I'll respond for one minute. We just go to the next one like that. Let's do it.
Works for me. Okay. Where do you live by any chance?
What city, state, if you don't mind? Well, Auburn area and Alabama. Alabama, okay. So they're sister cities, twin cities.
Okay. Yeah, I'm up here in Idaho, Boise area. Yeah, it's the last free state in the country. That's what I like to say. Okay. Okay. Charlie's doing it. Awesome. Okay. For Charlie. I mean, that's yours, go.
Oh, Rodney.
Okay. So, okay. Revelation 5 .13, it says, all creation worshiped both the father and the lamb, Jesus. Why is Jesus distinct from the father and worshiped by all creation if he is a creature? Well, Jesus isn't.
He is the eternal God entering into his creation. The uncreated God creating himself to enter his creation. This is, this is a, this shows, this imagery between God and the lamb shows rep, uh, the trend, uh, the, uh, oneness perfectly.
There's not a triad here or, you know, bad word. I know Matt doesn't like that word, but there's not a father, son, and Holy spirit here, but there's a father or God. They're not necessarily father. It says God and the lamb and he who sits on the throne and the lamb.
It shows that God is both the eternal spirit and the lamb of God. Jesus manifested, uh, in the flesh to take away our sins. That's what the lamb represents. Jesus is not really literally a lamb. Um, but the lamb comes from the midst of the throne, just as Jesus said in revelation three, I believe, or two, um, that he sat, he was, he sat down with the father on his throne.
So he is the visible image of the invisible God. This is what one is would expect a duality. It's, this is another example of duality and not a triune presentation of who God is.
Yeah. We just said revelation five 13 demonstrates, uh, that the person of the son is distinct from the person of the father. While they're both in heaven, just as Trinitarianism would say, and that this is perfectly consistent with Trinitarianism.
It's one of the verses we would use to help substantiate the Trinitarian view. And in my opinion, it refutes, uh, oneness.
Uh, here's other questions. Rod, how would I explain the gospel to someone? The gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. More so. I actually start with God became a human being, uh, like us became a man, Jesus Christ, who is God manifested in the flesh.
He did that to save us from our sins because we couldn't save ourselves. And so he, as a human being, God could take the penalty of our, for our sins, which he could not do. You know, he could not die as an eternal spirit.
So he was manifested in the flesh to be crucified and resurrect and be the first fruits to resurrect from the dead and the first one to be a glorified human being. Um, and, and that's the gospel. We, uh, receive salvation by putting our trust completely in what he did, what he accomplished.
God himself took on our punishment. God loved the world by sending the son. That was God's doing and God's work from beginning to end.
Well, I'm going to talk to you afterwards about salvation, what your view is. Um, I, I teach three parts. I teach law, gospel, and then costs. When I preach laws, don't lie. You're guilty. You lied. The gospel will rescue you from the judgment and the cost.
Luke 14, 28, Jesus says, count the cost of what you're getting involved with. Now that's a super short version, but I want people to understand what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ and to follow the true and living God, et cetera, et cetera.
But, uh, that's just a brief, brief, uh, thing. But, uh, anybody else got any more questions? There's one for you up there. Uh, Matt. Okay. There we go. If there's a Trinity, then why did Jesus say all power is given to me in heaven and earth?
A typical question. Good question. If you go to Luke, excuse me, you go to a Hebrews 2, 9, it says he was made for a little while, uh, Lord and the angels and Hebrews, uh, Galatians 4, 4 says he was made under the law.
So as a man who is made under the law, then he would have to cooperate with the limitations that the law required as a man, completely as a man, Philippians 2, 5 -8, have this attitude in yourselves. It's also was in Christ Jesus who, although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God and deign to be grasped, but he emptied himself.
Now there's discussion about what that means, but we'll get into it. Try to do this in one minute. And so we would just say that, of course, the power had to be given to him because he was under the law and cooperating with limitations of being a man.
And so, uh, that's why it's perfectly consistent with Trinitarianism. And I have a lot of written on this and a lot more deeply stuff. So anyway, if you want to respond, go ahead.
Yeah. And I would agree with that. Jesus was, Jesus was a true man manifested in the flesh, made under the law, uh, submitted to, um, you know, all the different, uh, natural processes and socio, uh, so, uh, social circles and everything, uh, in his time and place, he was, um, truly a human being.
However, he was God as well in his transcendent identity. That's why throughout the gospels, especially the synoptics, they're always marveling at his works, doing things that no man can do and saying, who is this man?
And not quite getting it until John 14, when he finally reveals, if you would have known me, you would have known my father. And from now on, you've seen him and known him. And there's another helper, the Holy spirit coming.
I will come to you. So he received that power, the, uh, all power and authority when he was ascended up and the human was glorified and to take on that divine, uh, prerogatives.
It doesn't say, I will come to you.
And John 14, it does down 14 where.
18. I was 14, 18. I want to say 18. Yeah. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. Oh, okay.
Interesting. We'll let you address that one in the next debate. And maybe I'm just kidding. Yeah. Do what you want. You're the boss. You keep saying I'm the guest. You're the boss. That's all right. Um, okay.
Let's see. We got any other questions? Show me scripturally that Jesus is the Holy spirit. I just did John 14. Um, the, uh, spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, nor it can see neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for, he dwells with you will be in you.
I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you a little while longer. You will see me. No, the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Um, let me see. Uh, Judas said, how will you, uh, manifest yourself to us and not to the world?
He says, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And my father will love him. We will come to him, make our home with him. And, uh, John, uh, last one, there's a lot of them, but first Corinthians 15, uh, 15, Paul said the last, the first Adam became, was made a living soul.
The last Adam was made a life-giving spirit. Also second Corinthians, uh, three 17. The Lord is that spirit.
Yeah. This would be consistent with Trinitarianism, uh, where it has the, the interpenetration of the personhood in the Trinity, uh, in Eucharist, where they identify, know each other, but, uh, I will, I will not leave you as orphans.
He's not saying I'm going to be the one who's returning to you as the Holy spirit, but I'm not going to leave you in order. I'm going to send someone. He says, uh, and I will come to, you know, that I'm going to research.
What does it mean? That says, I will come to you because, uh, he says, I will come to you, leave you go. Uh, so I'm going to research that one, uh, to see what the context is and stuff because he's going to return.
Jesus is going to return. He's not going to return as the Holy spirit. Uh, he's going to return as Jesus. So if he's the Holy spirit now, or in that form of the Holy spirit now that you have stopped being the Holy spirit to come back, uh, we can see, um, but I'll, I'll, uh, yeah, I'll research that.
That's a good one. I'm sure you'll check out the context following that too. There was a little bit more to it that I read.
After course there is, uh, John eight 17. Go ahead, Rodney.
Okay. Eight 17 and 18. I was there real close. So I don't need to use the electronic to get faster. 17 and 18. Is it? Oh, even in your law, it has been written at the testimony of two people is true to men is true.
It's, um, my translation.
I am he who testifies. Oh, I can't see it on there anymore. And my father is another one back up there. So you can see it.
I've got it. I think in front of me, um, I am one who bears witness of myself and the father who bears witness of me, uh, who sent me bears witness, bears witness of me. Um, yeah, so this is, uh, you know, to Jesus refers to him in the father as to you have one divine person and one human person.
God, uh, Jesus is God manifested in the flesh. So he is both God and man. Second, uh, second first Timothy two, five, there is a one God and one between God, man, the man, Christ, Jesus, uh, Jesus said in another, another place here, somewhere around here that see, you're bearing witness of yourself and your witness.
So your witness is not true. And Jesus said, well, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. Um, you know, because here in the context, he is the judge, but there is a distinction between the human on earth and the father in heaven.
And there is the testimony of both the divine person and the human person. And we're okay with saying two persons or I am, but, uh, God is, you know, you can't get, you have to prove a third person from there.
And then you have to prove, prove that these two persons were eternally existing, which you can't be done scripturally.
Um, uh, sorry, I got distracted by something that popped up. Okay. So, uh, came up there. Even, uh, in your law, it says written testimony of two men is true. I'm the witness who testifies to myself and the father sent me testifies about me.
That's two witnesses, two persons right there. But you, you said something, which you've said before. I'm glad you said it again to expose it. You said Jesus is a human person. Do you know that that is incorrect?
Nestorianism is the error that Jesus is one body with two persons in him. A human person and a divine person. That'd be two persons.
And that's not the case. I got to ask you about the fusion thing. You said, yeah, you did it earlier.
No, not tonight, but so for you to say Jesus is one human person is to misrepresent him. He's not one human person. He's one person with two natures. That's how you should say it. Because if you don't say it that way, then you'll be misrepresenting who Christ is.
And then be building a doctrine on a misrepresentation.
Well, I just respond real quick. I didn't say Jesus is two persons. And I, by human person, I just mean that he is a man. He is a real human being, a man. He's also God. I wouldn't say within Jesus as a human and divine person, but within the eternal God, there is a divine person and a human person or a eternal spirit and a human, human.
Say it again.
Did you say in Jesus is a divine person and a human person?
I said, I would not say in Jesus is one person, but within the eternal God, you can say there is an eternal person or eternal spirit and a human person, which you can't say two persons is okay. But there are two different modes of existence.
They're completely distinct in that way. Two persons. I'm glad you admit that. Anybody else got any more questions? Oh, yeah. There's one for you, Rodney. Then I'll respond. 1628. Jesus says he goes to the father just as he came.
Okay. If he goes to the father as an actual person, on what exegetical basis do you reject his coming was also as a person? I don't reject that his coming from heaven was as a person. His coming from heaven was as the one divine person.
That's what the old, that's what the scriptures present. The scriptures don't know of a tri-personal God. That's what one is believed, that God is one person, but he was manifested as a human person.
So in a real sense, he came down from heaven, from the divine eternal spirit, which I don't want to speculate as even outside of creation, but entered into creation as a human person. There's my word.
I'm not supposed to use my term. But he became a man. So the eternal spirit was manifested in the flesh as a man. So now Paul can say, we can say that there is one God and one mediator between man to man, Christ Jesus, but to go with the totality of scripture, which I don't have time to go over right now, I've said some, given some illustrations, but God is now presented as existing in both modes of existence.
He is eternal spirit, but he has been manifested in the flesh for our redemption.
And that's problematic because you're admitting that Jesus is a divine person, separate from the father was a divine person because that's how he came in John 6, 38. I, Jesus is saying, was sent from the father.
That's distinction. And then you're saying that Jesus is in heaven, which I got a quote from you about being fused, which we can get to, if you got time, I could ask you about that for clarification. But what you're saying is you're hinting at the duality, but nevertheless, it says in John 16, 28, I came down from forth from the father.
And he's saying, I came from the father. Okay. He's not talking about just his humanity there. He's talking about himself, who by definition is both divine and human. So the divine essence was sent by the father.
So you have a distinction right there. That is more Trinitarian verses. Anybody else got a question? Which Bible version do you use?
That was for Rodney. It says do oneness use. I couldn't speak for that. I can recommend to use more than one and to find out about Bible versions and different methods of translation and go use across the whole spectrum.
I use the NASB 95 version. That's what I use. Prefer it more accurate to the Greek. Right now I'm using the New King James.
That's what I use mostly to read. If that was what the question was at, what am I reading out of? There's this question for you. Yeah. I was going to respond to you, I think a couple of things, but I don't remember what they are now anyway.
So Matthew 12, 32, let me see something about Jesus existing as a divine person. I think Trinity has the problem because you have Jesus existing as a distinct divine person and only a second person of the Trinity being incarnate and not God in his totality becoming incarnate.
And none of that is in Scripture at all. You have to assume and isogenize that into the text that Jesus coming into the world as a divine person distinct from the Father. He's distinct from the Father in the world, but you assume that he was distinct from the Father prior to coming into the world.
The text doesn't say that.
I don't assume it. Jesus said he was with the Father before the creation of the world. In John 17, 5 and John 6, 38, he speaks about being with the Father beforehand. So this is clearly in Scripture and he's divine.
That's two persons. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven him. If Jesus is the Holy Spirit, why is there a distinction by Christ himself?
That's what I would ask in either in this age or the age to come. So how can the Holy Spirit not be Jesus? How can the Holy Spirit and Jesus be the same if one will forgive and the other will not? That's exactly, you know, it's a great question because if Jesus is one person with two natures and he's God and he and the Holy Spirit are the same, then why would it be forgiven against Jesus and not against the Holy Spirit?
That's a good question.
Yeah, that's a good question. And I don't know all of the reasoning behind that, but there is a distinction between Jesus. Jesus was being spoken against during his lifetime when he was here to do his Father's will, to do God's will, to submit and to be rejected.
So he was there during his lifetime to be rejected and ultimately to be crucified when the time came. However, I have shown that Jesus was leaving the world and was going to manifest himself and be always with and in his disciples.
And that is also synonymous with the Father and the Son being in his disciples. That's the Holy Spirit. So Jesus is referring to making a distinction between his work there during that time on earth and what he was doing versus what was going to be accomplished and how God was going to work through the Holy Spirit after he had ascended up into heaven, after the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the church from the day of Pentecost on.
That's the distinction. It doesn't show a distinction in persons, but a distinction in time or a distinction, again, in modes, because how do you get that the Holy Spirit is not the Father from that? Let's go back and forth.
So you have a duality there still. Again, you have the human Christ and you have the eternal spirit. Yeah, which refutes oneness.
Can you please explain Christ's baptism? It's for you. Oh, that's for me. Yeah.
God speaking from heaven. Okay, so yeah, I can explain it. I would ask who is speaking from heaven? You said God, you must mean the Father. And then it says there's a voice speaking from heaven. This is my beloved son.
So that's why you would infer I'm sure that it's the Father. But in order to get a Trinity, a Trinity is not in view here. You have one God on earth. You have Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, Jesus Christ himself on earth.
And you have a voice and you have the spirit coming down upon Jesus. So you can't distinguish between how do you know it's not the person of the Holy Spirit speaking at the same time as coming down. When I would see one God who is eternal spirit, he is both anointing Jesus and speaking.
And then there's the human, the man Jesus, who is God in the flesh being anointed with the Holy Spirit. So I would explain it just in two simple ways. That's a long way. God is omnipresent. So the second person in the Trinity is not just located right there in one body.
And the third person of the Trinity is there. We're seeing like as a dove coming down. So that's the third person in the Trinity. No, God can be in all those places at the same time. Now, Jesus as a man humbled himself and was obedient to God, the Father as a man.
And so he did his works as we do. He was in humble submission. And he, as we do, received the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit began to work through him and do the works through him, which who later on in John 14, 10, he said that the Father who dwells in me does the work.
So the baptism of Jesus is a clear example of it's a picture of God's omnipresence, of the duality of the eternal spirit and God manifested in the flesh, the man Christ Jesus. And it's a beautiful proof or demonstration that Jesus, that the Holy Spirit is the Father who is working in Jesus.
And let me respond to that really quickly. The baptism is a good Trinitarian verse because we see all three there simultaneously, which is exactly what the Trinitarian view holds that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are simultaneous.
It's exactly what occurs when Jesus was baptized. Incidentally, he was sprinkled. Another topic. But that's, we would say that the Father is my beloved Son in whom I'm well-pleased. And don't forget that Jesus, that the Father calls Jesus God in Hebrews 1, 1, 6, 1, 8.
He's worshiped. He's called God Hebrews 1, 8. So he's speaking of someone else besides himself. This is a differentiation and distinction example of personhood, exactly what the scriptures teach. And that is exactly the Trinitarian perspective.
Uh, okay. So another one after, okay, this is for you. Boy, they're really hitting on you.
Is Jesus after the incarnation, the person of the Son or the person of the Father? Um, I think, well, I mean, I don't know what the question is being based on, but I, I, yes, he's both. He, Jesus is, Jesus, um, is the person of the Son in his incarnate flesh.
A person that was a man that was born 2000 years ago, but he is also deity. Okay. Jesus said in John 17, 3, that his Father is the only true God. In John 10, he said, my Father is greater than I. He doesn't mean he's better, more important in quality.
He means greater because the Father is the eternal omnipresent spirit, uh, who the heavens of heavens cannot contain. And, and, uh, the logos and then the word, and then the word made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
So Jesus is both man and God, both, um, Father and Son. If God was the only, if, if Jesus' Father was the only true God, then there, and Jesus is God. And then, then there's only one God for Jesus to be.
Jesus must be the Father. And we should see a synonymity and Jesus presenting himself as the Father or knowing the Father by knowing Jesus and so forth.
Um, you know, my response is that you have a problem in that you admit one thing and then say something else. Not intentionally, you're not deceptive, but what you admit is that the person of the Son is indeed a person.
The Father is also a person. The Father has a divine essence and the Son has a divine essence and that they speak to each other, which is exactly what personhood is. They do this. This is exactly what Trinitarianism would state.
You've admitted this. You just don't go down the whole length of the road to come to the logical and necessary logical conclusion that are two distinct simultaneous persons at the very least right there.
That's what we would say about that. Uh, so after the incarnation of the person, the Son of the person of the Father, I'd like to get into before the incarnation, but that's another topic. I think someone else had some more questions.
Oh, question for me. How about that? God, my healer, God, my provider, God, my protector, God, my salvation is God not able to be the four by his spirit instead of persons? The question is not coherent in that the conclusion does not come from the premises.
See, to say God's my healer is the one God. He's the provider. He's a protector. He's not able to be the four. So when you say the four, well, of course, he's a healer and he's a provider. He does different things.
By four instead of persons. Well, the issue of personhood has nothing to do with how God is a provider and a healer. So you're mixing categories in logic. It's called a category mistake. So one is titles and the other is personhood.
They're not the same thing. So it's a category error on the questioner's part.
And I see, Lafonso, kind of what you're getting at in bringing up this question, because the one God can manifest himself in different ways or have different functions and still be one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are relational terms and how God has related to humanity.
And you could see a relationship between the Father and the Son, yes. But, you know, the oneness of God is still true because we see the synonymity of one God creating alone and by himself. And yet there is a Jesus is spoken of as the creator and the Father creating through the Son.
We see a duality of modes, but yet the same personal God, the same being. Malachi 2 .10, it says, have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Now, I don't know how a Trinitarian would, different Trinitarians, I'm sure, understand that in different ways, but I would say that's synonymous parallelism.
There's one Father, the God who created us. It's a synonymous parallelism because of what Paul says in Ephesians 4 .6 or something like that. There's one God and Father of all who is above all. Oh, who is above all, through all.
Hope you're doing Q &A and short answers.
But yeah, that's a long minute. Sorry.
Which one of the Trinity should you pray to? All of them, one of them, whatever. And a specific person, why not the other two also? I pray to the Father. I pray to the Son. The Son is prayed to. I could show you where the Son is prayed to after his ascension into heaven.
That's Colossians 1 .2. Obviously, Jesus said, pray to the Father, John 6 and Luke 11. And fellowship is with the Holy Spirit. You can't have fellowship with someone that you don't communicate to and talk to.
And that, by definition, is prayer. 2 Corinthians 13, 14 talks about that. Go ahead.
This is a good point. If the Trinity were true, then what Matt's saying is true. You would pray to all the persons of the Trinity. However, in scripture, we're told to pray to the Father because the Father is the one true God.
And then you see Jesus prayed and worshiped as well. You see a lot of duality, like the first questioner who brought up Revelation 5. The God and the Lamb are worshipped. There's not a mention of a Trinity there, but there's God, or the one on the throne, and there's the Lamb, Jesus, worshipped as God together.
Let's see. There was a man by the name of John who was sent by God. Why couldn't this meeting apply to Jesus being sent? Does this meeting, you mean meaning, does this mean that John was preexistent? No, because we know by definition he was not.
But we know that Jesus is God in flesh, hence preexistence. And Jesus says he came down from heaven to do the will of the Father. So that doesn't apply to John the Baptist. Jesus is absolutely designating his preexistence simultaneously with the Father in his personhood.
We've gone over this before tonight. John 6, 38 clearly teaches that, among other verses. John 17, 5, and other verses. So there you go.
Yeah, and I've said a few things on this. Jesus is sent in the world as a man to do the will of the Father, being found in Philippians 2 and form as a man. He humbled himself to the obedience, the point of death.
But he is also spoken of coming down from heaven and being sent by the Father. It's not specified whether the sending was prior to the incarnation or after the incarnation. There could be both, but it's still God is spoken of, like in Zechariah 2, 12 or so, Yahweh sends Yahweh.
So it's true, God sends himself, but it's not someone other than himself. Anybody else got any more questions?
If not, I got to use the restroom. And then I got some questions for you. I want to know if you got time.
I'm just getting warmed up. Oh, okay. I'll tell you what. I'm pretty bad at this for my first time. Hopefully, I'll get better at this.
Well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to use the restroom, if that's okay. You want to just have a, because we've had people give Q &A, but I want to talk about, I'm just curious, your view of how we get saved and what we got to do.
That's okay. Okay.
I want to put this down. You're going to say anything, Charlie? No, you're allowed to go to the restroom. We'll give you a special dispensation. Good questions, people. I can't keep up with the text and post them fast enough.
So if I missed it, I apologize. But Rodney, you and Matt have generated some good interest here. So that's always good. That's good. How many do we got watching? Can you tell? 102 plus 27. Okay. I can't see.
Yeah. All the streams filter into this one particular spot. It should be showing you at the top of the StreamYard screen that we are all appearing on at this point. But yeah, I appreciate you showing up and taking some heat, Rodney.
That's good. Yeah. I'm really a true amateur. No, no, no. You're using all the logos. It doesn't matter. You're polite and you're respectful. And that's as much as anybody can ask for. I'd like to, I wouldn't mind being your next door neighbor.
That's for sure. Thank you for that. I'll take that as a compliment. Yeah. Well, you said you have kids and that's always good medicine for me. I enjoy kids. They're the best medicine. And at my age, you need medicine.
And kids are the best, especially mine. Good. Well, how about you answer all the questions while he gets back?
Oh, no, I never put myself out there. You can do from both perspectives. There we go. There you go. Okay. There you go. Okay, Matt, you were allowed that special dispensation. We appreciate it. Oh, man.
See, you didn't even say thanks. Okay, bye. Well, anyway, Rodney, I want to say thank you for your time. I will continue to talk, but you are polite, unlike some other people I've debated. But that's good.
Okay. So I'm curious about soteriology, right? Okay. Second debate, ladies and gentlemen. You didn't sign up for this. Well, we're just going to... I'm just curious. Actually, curiosity, more curiosity.
I was wondering if Rodney has a website or a YouTube channel, or if he wants to be contacted by people, if you're going to offer him a chance to put the contact information out there. Go ahead.
Okay. Yeah. I can't believe I sent this to everyone I know, and I'm being such a bad presenter. But yeah, this is my first time. But yeah, I gave my website earlier, wordwarriors .bc. I'm still working on it.
I'm very bad at that too, do too many things at one time. My YouTube channel is youtube .com slash wordwarrior007, wordwarrior007. And you could contact me by my email. It's wordprofessorathotmail .com, wordprofessor, word as in the word of God, wordprofessorathotmail .com.
Yeah. So you check out my YouTube channel and you'll see maybe a little bit better presentations of some teachings rather than debates. Here's my first debate.
I was very easy. I could be quite pointed.
The hardest thing was trying to get everything in there. And also, man, I just kept violating the time as well and then had to trip over my words and stuff to try to get some of these points in there.
It's all right. Something to get used to.
That's all right. I have suggestions when I debate people is try and be as succinct as you can without being overly succinct. Just get it down. That's why I try and do that as much as possible. Okay, so that's all right.
Justification is a legal declaration of righteousness, right? Yes. Okay, sorry. Are we justified by faith alone in Christ alone?
Let's see. We're justified by faith. So I don't use the term faith alone, which is from Martin Luther. I use we're justified by faith apart from the works of the law. However, faith and trust in faith, I say we're justified by faith or saved by faith and that we're trusting in Jesus completely for our salvation.
We know there's nothing that we could do to save ourselves. Grace is when God himself accomplished our salvation and we couldn't do anything about it, so we can't earn it. Our part is faith, so we put our trust in him and that we accept that free gift of salvation and that is completely apart from the works of the law.
It's not a part of the old covenant. It's a new covenant. Another aspect of that is if we're saved by faith, there's a couple aspects to faith. Faith or salvation actually is already accomplished in what Jesus did.
It's past, present, and future. We have been saved. We are being saved. We shall be saved. So there's a future aspect to salvation and it says in 1 Peter 1, ready to be revealed in the last time and we're kept by the power of God through faith.
So in that sense, we haven't received our final gift of salvation where we will have eternal life. We know that we have that by faith because we trust in what Jesus accomplished for us, but also the scriptures tell us and Jesus told us the way to receive salvation is by believing in him and by being baptized in his name, born of water and the spirit, receiving his presence in us, which is the father in us, which is the Holy Spirit in us, which is Jesus in us.
So we accept that when Jesus said, when you're born of water and the spirit, or the Bible says, let's just say in Acts 2 38, what shall we do? Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Receiving the presence of God in you is the accomplishment of your salvation right now and the blood of, well, I don't want to go that far because that won't make sense. But when the Bible says, when you are baptized in the name of Jesus, you come to him God's way.
You come to God his way. He says that you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. You will receive the Holy Spirit. That's God's part. So we come to him in full assurance of faith, as it says in Hebrews 10 and we submit to his way and we believe that if we will be baptized, if we believe in him and are baptized as he said, then he will save us.
So faith also entails believing in his word. It's a holistic faith, not just belief only, not just belief that, but belief in, investment in, our full trust in and our full lives in his hands.
Maybe you could work on getting those answers shorter. I don't know. That's the one thing I was nervous about. Yeah, it's not my gift. Do you have to be baptized in order to be saved? Yes, you do, Jesus.
You have to. Okay, so yes, you have to be baptized to be saved. So can you be saved without being baptized?
Well, that would be the inverse of the same question.
So a person on his deathbed, tubes all over him, trusts in Christ, believes in Christ, dies before he's baptized, does he go to heaven or hell?
Well, first of all...
If it's necessary, he goes to hell, right? Well, I stick to a biblical discussion on it, and rather than making exceptions, the rule, I think that's a fallacy to make exceptions. It's not an exception.
I know what happened.
I used to work at a hospital. I knew the chaplain in the hospital. It happened. So the people confess Christ. Literally, I used to be a transport guy in the hospital and register patients in emergency.
I just go to all the hospital. I've seen people in conditions where they cannot be moved. I've asked the chaplain, do they receive Christ on their deathbeds, you know, trust in Christ? Yes. By faith, yes.
And then they can't get baptized because they can't. And then they die shortly afterwards. So let me ask you, this is real. Yeah, it's real. Do they go to heaven or hell? It's real, but it's not my call.
I don't make those decisions. Yes, you can, because if you have to be baptized to be saved, logic requires that you must then say they go to hell because they weren't baptized.
No, but I don't have to make that decision. Now, I would say, I am bound to present things the scriptural way. Jesus said he made disciples by baptizing them and teaching them everything that I have. I'm not talking about discipleship.
I'm just saying that person. A Christian is a disciple. His Christians are disciples.
So then he's not, I'm going to be a little tougher on you now.
He told us to go and baptize. So I have to give the scriptural answer is that baptism. He commanded us to be baptized to be saved. John 3, 5, whoever, unless a man is born of water and the spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
If God makes an exception, God can make an exception. But I can't tell you because of that exception or because of that other, you know, I can't say it's an exception, but you don't have to be baptized.
I won't do that. I'll say, well, what, here's what you need to do. And it has to be what God's word says.
Okay. I'm going to turn the fire up a little bit on you. Are we justified by faith? Romans 5, 1 having therefore been justified by faith. Romans 5. Yeah, we are justified by faith. Okay. And the Bible says that God grants us faith.
Philippians 1, 29. The error is passive indicative, which means that God is one who performs the action upon us. And we ended up believing he grants that we believe Philippians 1, 29. All right.
And he has dealt to each one, the measure of faith.
And so he grants that we believe, right? And to suffer for Christ's sake, this is believers. So are we justified by faith when we have faith?
Are we justified by faith when we have faith? You mean faith that God grants us? Then you will obey his word, which when he says to receive, he will be baptized. I agree. In his way.
I agree. Are we justified by faith when we have faith though?
Uh, well, we're not justified by faith alone, apart from. Sure we are. Obeying him. No, no, no, no, no. We're justified by faith if it's true faith and not just belief or mental assent. The faith that God grants you.
So he grants that you believe you have faith. Philippians 5, 1. I mean, Philippians 1, 29, he grants that we believe. Remember I told you I could turn the heat up. I was nicer in the debate, but now we're just talking.
So I'm going to, I'm going to put the heat on you. So we're justified by faith. It's either this. It's either the case that we're justified by faith or it's not the case that we're justified by faith, right?
Right. It's a logical necessity. There's no third option. So if we're justified by faith and God grants us that faith, are we justified by faith when we have the faith that God grants us? It's either the case is yes or it's no.
Well, in Romans 5, 1, it's yes, because he's talking about those who are already saved. He's talking about baptized spiritual believers. Nope. You don't know that. Who have been justified. Well, he's writing to the Roman church.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
My question is, are we justified by faith when we have faith? That's the question. You. Yes or no. I mean, it's just a yes or it's a no. Because you've got a problem because you're going to have to say you're going to be baptized to be saved, but the Bible doesn't teach it.
Furthermore, you said by faith what we do, but you know what? Faith alone is taught by Paul in Romans 4, 5, the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is credited as righteousness.
So there's no works. The man on the deathbed who does not work, but believes his faith is credited as righteousness. Would you agree?
Yes. I didn't say anything about faith by works. I just said that doesn't and I will say it now. I didn't say it this way, but that does not negate the entryway into the church and receiving the remission of sins by baptism because that is not at work.
You don't do anything to get baptized. You just come. You just come and someone else baptizes you. It's a ceremony that says baptize yourself. You do not do anything to be baptized. You just submit and come to God his way.
I can turn that question on you as well. Are we justified by faith when we just have faith, but we don't come to him? Do you have to come to him?
No, you can't come to him unless it's granted to you by the Father, John 6, 65.
So how do you come to him? Is it just when faith comes or how do you come to him?
God grants that you believe, Philippians 1, 29. He grants you repentance, 2 Timothy 2, 25. You're caused to be born again, 1 Peter 1, 3. You're born again, not of your own will, John 1, 13. And we're justified by faith, Romans 5, 1, Romans 3, 28, Romans 4, 5, Galatians 2, 16, 2, 21.
And that God grants us that faith. We're justified when we have faith. And so as Acts 2, 38 says, and I think you think it's this formula for salvation, right? All right, Acts 2, 38, repent, each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Is that a formula?
It is the means for coming to God. It is coming to him his way, yes.
All right, so then how come faith is not mentioned in there?
So just specifically Acts 2, 38, what's something else that you mentioned in there? Okay, born again. So I'm answering your question, but you did mention born again. So I'm going to preface my answer with the question and you can come back to it.
How are you born again? How are you born again? How is a person born again? And then you said in Acts 2, 38. Okay, you said in Acts 2, 38, why is there no mention of faith there? So it's not a formula, that's my point.
It's not just, well, I mean, I don't just isolate the verse there. The whole context is a preaching of the gospel and they have responded. So that crowd has already received his word and cried out, men and brethren, what shall we do?
So they do believe there and he gives them the answer. Now those who respond, respond in faith. Those who don't have true faith do not respond. There are 3 ,000 souls added that day. And it has to be by immersion.
His baptism has to be by immersion. Well, I believe that's what the word means.
That can be a... Did you know that Jesus was sprinkled?
Jesus was sprinkled. I heard that you're doing some research or something on your view of baptism.
I've been doing baptism research for years. And according to the Old Testament law, Jesus, in order to enter into the priesthood, had to be sprinkled. And I have an article on this. Why was Jesus baptized?
You can go through and you can see the references. No one's refuted it yet. Not because they have and I refuse to ignore it. I just ignore it. No, it says that they have to be sprinkled with water. That's what the command is in Numbers 8, 7 when the priest.
Jesus had to be 30 years of age. The priest had to be 30 years of age. Anointed with oil, the Holy Spirit. Verbal blessing. My beloved son, whom I'm well pleased. Had to be sprinkled with water. In fact, when it says in Hebrews 9, 10, it talks about washings.
Baptismos is the Greek word. Hebrews 9, 10. Baptismos, washings. Read the context. And it's absolutely referring to Old Testament sprinklings. Here's a question for you. If you go to Acts 1, 5. John baptized with water.
And you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So the word baptism there, what does it mean?
The word baptism means to dunk or dip or plunge or submerge in water.
Then were you dunked or submerged in the Holy Spirit?
That's a metaphor. Of being baptized into the church, but also baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Baptism with the Holy Spirit is by pouring. It's a prophecy from Joel 2, 28, 29, which Peter says is fulfilled in Acts 2, 17 and 18. This is what was fulfilled. Talked about the Holy Spirit, the fulfillment of the promise of the pouring.
John baptized with water, but you'll be baptized, poured on with the Holy Spirit. The second word baptized there, does the context require it to be pouring?
Well, wait, the second word of what? And even in Acts 1? Acts 1, 5. No, the context doesn't require it to be pouring. But that is a good and better connection that you made between that and the Joel passage.
But I think that the passage, when you made the connection before to the high priest being sprinkled with water and Jesus being, Jesus' baptism, you made that connection because you see a connection and there's no necessary connection there.
I would tell you what, you go to my article, Why Was Jesus Baptized? To Fulfill All Righteousness, Fulfill the Old Testament Law. Leviticus chapter 8, chapter 4, Exodus 29. It talks about the requirements.
See if you can find any place where the priest, because he had to enter into the priesthood. This is what he's fulfilling. He's a high priest. Show me any place in Scripture where the priest was dunked in water, and that's fulfilling what Jesus was done.
Yeah, well, I don't know. I'm not up on the requirements and the washings and baptisms in the Old Testament. I know that there are other requirements. He had to wash his clothes and wash his body and so forth.
Yeah, he wasn't immersed at times. He wasn't immersed. The water was applied, the elements applied. So when it says John baptized with water, you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The second word baptism means the pouring.
Well, you're connecting it with the other, with the anointing, anointing with oil or with the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Now, these are just metaphorical terms of how we receive the Holy Spirit.
That doesn't negate that the Holy Spirit comes down from heaven in us and that we're totally immersed in the Holy Spirit. That doesn't directly correlate with baptism.
The way the Bible says is the Holy Spirit's poured, and that pouring is called baptism.
Yeah, it's also called anointing, which means pouring.
But yeah, I don't have a problem with anointing, 1 John 2 .27. But the thing is that I'm showing you that the word baptism here is dealing with pouring. I got a question for you. Did you know that there's about, I did research on this, about 600 ,000 people around the Sumerian Jerusalem area at the time of John the Baptist?
And it says all of, not Sumeria, but all of Judea and Jerusalem are going out to be baptized by John. Now, obviously not every individual. So, if John the Baptist was baptizing by immersion, and he was the one doing it, thousands upon thousands of people were going out.
Have you done any thought about how much work that is? If he can mathematically even do that, how many thousands would he have to be baptizing every week? Have you thought about that? The Jordan River is cold and being down in the water, hypothermia.
Did you also know that how they were, people were sprinkled with hyssop, which is a plant that goes on the sides of the Jordan River, and people were coming to be sprinkled? It makes more sense. The reason I'm bringing this up is because you teach you have to be baptized immersed in the name of Jesus, which is another topic, in order to be saved.
But yet we have, in Acts 2 .38, we have what you call an order. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, but the gift of the Holy Spirit is not salvation in the context. It's the movement of the charismatic gifts.
If you read Acts chapter 2, absolutely, yes, it is. They were hearing them speaking with tongues, and they were doing this. And that's what it is. If you go to Acts 2, it says, "...having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit," verse 33.
Because what were they, what was Peter talking about? You should do the homework, read the context. The Holy Spirit was poured on them. And why did he say that in verse 17? Because it was spoken of through Joel.
What were they talking about? Hearing them speak in other languages, speaking in tongues. The great sound occurred in verse 6, Acts 2 .6. Hearing them speak with their own language. They're like, whoa, you can't, you know, just talking about what those languages are and all that.
He says, Peter said, well, this is what was spoken of through Joel the prophet. In the last days, God says, I will pour forth my spirit on all mankind. And that's verse 17 and verse 18. Those days I'll pour forth my spirit and they shall prophesy.
And so it's, that's what it says. And then it says in verse 33, "...having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit," been poured forth, which you both see in here. That's the context of what it means to receive the Holy Spirit.
It's not salvation, is it? It's a charismatic movement, gifts.
There are a lot of topics there, but no, I haven't done the mathematical calculations of how long John was out there and how many were coming. I don't know how many were coming to him on a particular day.
Obviously not everybody came all at once. And as you said, not all of the people. It's a blanket way of describing what was happening. A lot of people.
Yeah. Yeah. There's only 10 ,000 came out out of 600, like 630 ,000, just 10 ,000. Well, that wouldn't be all. That would be just almost in a portion. So if we did all, I mean, a lot more than that, you do the numbers.
You see how problematic it is by immersion. In fact, 3 ,000 were added in one day. Now it doesn't say how many people were baptizing, but if 12 men were baptizing, I just did numbers on 12, 12 disciples, let's say all 12 were baptizing by immersion.
Then you have to do one baptism roughly every two minutes and 20 seconds. If you do it for eight hours straight. Now a person weighs 100 pounds going down in the water to weigh 103, 105 coming up out of the water because of water on the clothing.
How do you not could do that for eight hours, every two minutes and 20 seconds. Do you think they could do that? Because don't forget hypothermia because the waters, you get cold. So you can't be up really high.
It can't be out in the water very long.
How are they going to do that? I don't know how it happened, how it unfolded, how they did it. It's been a long time since I've looked into modes of baptism and how baptism was done. I go mostly on the, depend mostly on the definition of baptism as a dipping, as a submersion.
I'm showing you some scripture contrary stuff.
Well, and I'm also, you know, would have to have you looked at the first, the first century Jewish washings, the baptism did, did they do baptisms by immersion? Is that something that was ever done?
We did immersions, sprinkling.
How did the different modes, how did the different modes come about? How do they play about?
Immersion, sprinkling, pouring were all done and they would do it. Okay. They would do it three times.
So just sprinkling or just pouring. I didn't say it was just. And so it's any, any mode.
Yeah. I'm just saying that you can't say it's immersion because it might be, but it might not be. What does baptizo mean? It means to dip. Okay. The more I've studied it over the years, the more I'm convinced that it does not mean and necessitate immersion.
And I've got good arguments, but nevertheless, in Acts 10, 44 through 48, they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Just like in Acts 2, 38, before they were baptized, they're speaking in tongues and glorifying God.
That's what it means because of the Holy Spirit. So if you had to be baptized to be saved, were these people not saved, even though they were glorifying God and they were speaking in tongues?
Well, let me take a Rodney minute and answer your question. But first, let me, let me tell you why I think Jesus was baptized. You said to fulfill all righteousness. Yeah. When he, when he, when he initiates his ministry, before he goes out to be tempted in the wilderness, he starts by coming and being baptized.
He says it is too full. It is necessary that we fulfill all righteousness. It is all right. He is baptized by John in the Jordan. And then he receives the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes down upon him in bodily form.
So he does that to fulfill all righteousness. And I believe he does that as an example. He is doing, he is, as it says in Hebrews, he is made and always like his brethren. He was like us in all ways, except without sin.
And then when Jesus starts preaching at the very beginning of his ministry, he says, unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom. He cannot see the kingdom of God. And when Nicodemus asks what he means, Jesus, um, synonymously says the same words.
Um, except, uh, truly, truly, I say to you, except one is born. And then in place of, again, it's of water and the spirit. He cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Let's go take a look at the context. Yeah, that's fine.
But then there is a water and spirit theme all throughout the rest of the, of the New Testament, including the book of Acts, as far as when people are added to the church and coming to the church, baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit, including Acts 10.
And in the four accounts of the great commission, there's a water and spirit or remission of sins and spirit theme. And in the epistles as well, Paul's argument often hinges on in Romans and Galatians.
You don't have to go to the law. You're justified apart from the law because Romans six, he who has died to sin is freed from sin. We have died on by virtue of our baptism and been buried with Jesus. In baptism and in Galatians five to his, his, his, uh, Paul's argument often hinges on him.
You were baptized. Therefore, you are a new creature. You don't have to go through these other things. And I'm using my words, but we can look at Romans six and Galatians three and four. We can look at Colossians two.
And what do you want to look at a lot of it? Well, we can go straight through. You wanted, we can start at the beginning. You wanted to go to John three, go to John three. What's the context.
Jesus says in John three, three, it's salvation. He says, I say, unless one is born again, cannot see the kingdom of God. Right. I would say that has to do with salvation. No problem. Nicodemus said, how can he be born when he's old and or a second time in his mother's womb?
So he's talking about entering into the womb. Okay. Jesus said, uh, you don't see born of the water and the spirit. Now water, I believe is the womb. Why? Because Jesus then goes on to say the next verse, that which is born of the flesh is flesh and the spirit is spirit.
So Nicodemus says the water of the womb and Jesus says water and the spirit. And then he says that was born of the flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit, water, flesh, spirit, spirit.
Now, Nicodemus doesn't say the water of the womb. First, you'd have to demonstrate that born of water is an idiom that means natural child birth or something like that when it actually doesn't. But what Nicodemus doesn't understand what Jesus said, and he says, how can a man be born a second time?
You mean go back into the womb, but that's not what Jesus meant. His words are identical in John three, three and John three, five, except a man be born again is be born of water and the spirit. So water and spirit is elaboration on begin and of again, and it is the second birth that is being referred to here that is of water and the spirit.
And that's clearly seen throughout the rest of the New Testament. That's how salvation is played out.
Well, you imply that, but you haven't demonstrated it. So the context is born of water and the spirit, and Jesus talks about the flesh and the spirit. So how do you know Jesus isn't referencing the water to the flesh?
Well, I don't think that's the, I think, like I said, don't know because the context at first is a second birth.
And then he goes, there's a fleshly birth and a spiritual birth.
After that, it's true. He does. I think he switches the context from the new birth from the first and then distinguishing the second birth.
The two. He says, you must be born of the water and the spirit, or you can't enter the kingdom of God because that which is born of the flesh is flesh and born of the spirit of spirit.
Yeah. Those two are not connected, except for the new birth is of the spirit and it's of water and the spirit.
They're not connected. He just said them both in one breath.
Maybe you're right, Matt. If in the rest of the New Testament, we don't see anything about salvation being water and spirit. Let's go to another verse then. Give me another one. That doesn't prove your point.
So how does Jesus commission his church, his disciples to make more disciples? To baptize them. Right. And teach them. Which baptism is symbol of? What's your it's of the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus.
It's a covenant sign. OK, that too. Now, let me tell you, it's it's. So Matthew 28, 9, 28, 19 and 20. You have a water and spirit theme. Jesus said, go, therefore, make disciples of all nations. And then he says how with a series of prepositions baptizing them and teaching them everything I've commanded you.
So that's the water. And then there's that's continued after. And, Lo, I am with you always to the end of the world. So there's a spiritual end of the age. There's a spiritual presence of Jesus there.
There's a water and spirit theme. You see the same thing in Mark, a parallel passage. He who believes in his baptized shall be saved. He who believes not. You want to go to that verse. It's not a good verse for you to go to.
No, it fits right in there with the other. No, it's not a good verse. Let me tell you why.
That's one thing. For one thing, it has some textual, serious textual variance. 17 non-Markan words appear in a non-Markan sense in those last 11 verses. And there's a doctrinal error in verse 12, which says Jesus appeared in a different form.
And it says for the one who does not believe won't be saved. You froze. OK, there you go. So it doesn't say who's not baptized.
It's not a good verse for you to go to. Well, I understand those issues. But my point is that it is parallel in that when Jesus is commissioning his apostles, if this was added later, it was still added earlier in church history.
All you're doing is just saying that the covenant sign is there. It doesn't mean the covenant sign is what saves. Let me tell you what I'm saying.
There's a water and spirit theme in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John version of the Great Commission, whether you want to argue Mark or not. OK, there's baptism and Jesus with us always in Matthew. In Mark, there's be baptized to be saved.
And these signs shall follow those who believe. And there are all these spiritual, miraculous manifestations of God working through us. In Luke, Jesus. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're skipping stuff around.
I said Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Oh, OK. But you forgot Acts where it contradicts that. It doesn't contradict that. Yes, it does. Water and spirit theme is all throughout. Really? Go to Acts 16, 30.
After they brought him, it says, what must we do to be saved? And he says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's a good one.
We'll go right there. But as soon as I, after I finished with Luke and John, so we'll skip all the Acts.
Don't go too fast, because if you're going to whip all these out, I'm going to examine each one. OK, pick one.
Matthew, Matthew, you can skip Mark if you want. But in Luke, so there's baptism. Luke what? There's Luke 24. Luke 24 what? 24, starting at, is this 24? What verse are you trying to find? It's verse 44.
No, 46. Then he said to them, thus it is written, and thus it is necessary for the Christ to suffer and to die and to rise from the dead the third day. So he's summarizing the gospel instead of saying, go and teach or preach.
And he says, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of my father upon you.
There is no sin for you to do for power, power and high. So you have a dual response to the gospel, repentance and remission of sins that will be received and the Holy Spirit, the promise of the father, the power from on high.
So baptism is for the remission of sins. Instead of baptism, it says remission of sins. Can I ask you a question here? Parallel. Hold on.
You're going too fast. Okay, gotta slow down. All right. Act 238 says you're baptized for the remission of forgiveness of sins. Does that mean that's how you get forgiveness of sins? Yes, it does.
So, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Okay, now in Luke 24, 47, repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Is that how you get forgiveness of sins?
By repentance? No, it says repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. It's parallel. See, go make disciples of all nations. Would you please slow down?
Slow down. Okay, you make a state your question.
Not going to give just one word answers. I'm showing the parallel. Jesus, you're making a mistake. I'm trying to be polite with you. You're making a mistake.
So, okay, what is it? Right. You said what the Greek says. I'm going to read you the Greek. Okay, that's what it says. And that repentance, forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed. That's what it says.
That's English. Okay, so, okay, I'm looking at the Greek.
Yeah, repent. You're talking about in Luke or?
Okay, hold on, hold on, Rodney, hold on. I'm asking you if you must repent in order to get and obtain salvation. You must repent. Yes. Okay, is repentance compliance with the law? If you're committing adultery, you got to stop adultery in order to go get saved, right?
So you have to abide by the law in order to be saved. Is that what you're saying?
It's not. No, it's not synonymous, but you have to cease from. I didn't say it was synonymous.
So is a ceasing from sin repentance? Because right here you brought this up and I'm trying to work with you. The repentance, it says for the forgiveness of sins. That's what the NASB says. Okay, the King James, it says repentance and remission of sin should be preached.
Okay, the word and is not there in Greek. All right. It says on the third day and that repentance for or actually, actually, you know, I got to be right. It actually says and actually says the word and in Greek.
Okay, that repentance and forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed. So just leave it there. I'm honest. That's what it says in the Greek. I'm looking at it. All right. It has in the interlinear has the word for because the word and chi can mean different things in different contexts in different ways.
It can. Right, right. So I'm asking you, do you have to repent in order to be saved? Repentance?
Yes, you have to repent in order to be saved. Repentance is synonymous with salvation.
Now, is repentance keeping the law?
Repentance is not keeping the law. The Old Testament law, if you're lying, I'm trying to show you something. It's a moral alignment and submission. I'm trying to show you something as well.
How can an unbeliever do that? Unbeliever cannot please God. Hold on. It says the unbeliever cannot please God, doesn't seek for him, doesn't do any good. Romans 3, 10, 11 and 12 does not receive spiritual things.
First Corinthians 2, 14, right? He is a slave of sin. Romans 6, 4 through 6, 6 through 18. So how does someone like that repent?
Well, and I would add to in Hebrews, it says without faith, it's impossible to please God. Hebrews 11, 6.
How is it that someone who is a slave of sin, a hater of God, can do no good, cannot receive spiritual things? How does he just repent in order to become saved?
God grants it to him. God, no one can come to the Father, can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. So God grants him repentance. Yeah. Does God grant it to everybody? He's the author and finisher of our faith.
Yes. Does God grant it to everybody? Well, obviously not. He doesn't. So then God selectively chooses who he grants repentance and faith to, right?
Well, yeah. God, by his grace, accomplishes something, but he also saves us by his power.
So then is he doing this because... Yes, he does. Hold on, hold on, hold on. We also have a part to respond. Okay, go ahead. Hold on. Does he grant faith? You've been, look, you've already spoken, believe it or not.
I'm gonna speak more in the... Yeah, because I've been very patient with you. Okay, but I'm just telling you that God is what he grants faith and grants repentance to whom he chooses, right? Yes. So he doesn't choose to give it to everybody, right?
Correct. So then you believe that God chooses who gets saved. Yes. Good. I just want to make sure that you believe a good reformed theology, at least in that area.
And salvation is referred to as repentance. In Acts 11, they concluded that God has also granted to the Gentiles salvation unto life. Repentance unto life.
Repentance unto life. Repentance is... God grants it to him. He doesn't grant it to everybody, does he? So then who is responsible for our salvation? You or God? There's a reason this is going to go to baptism.
No, we are...
Who's the one? We're responsible for our response to him because...
You can't respond if you're a slave of sin, a hater, a God who does no good, cannot receive these things. How do you just respond in your sinfulness?
Well, God draws you. God grants you. John 6, 44. You're still required to repent. Jesus said, unless you all repent, you will all likewise perish. So we have a responsibility to respond. You're not answering my question.
You're not thinking. You're not listening. You're thinking. You're automatically doing the oneness thing. Now, the Bible says the unbeliever, he's not saved. He's not regenerate. He's not born again. He's in this state.
He cannot come to God on his own. He cannot at all receive the truth. I give you the references. He's a slave of sin. He's a hater of God. He's dead in his sins. He's by nature, a child of wrath. His heart's full of wickedness and deceit.
How does he, of his own free will in that condition, come to Christ?
As I said, the Father draws him. I didn't say that. Does he draw? How does he come? I know what you're getting at. I don't... We're going to tie it to the baptism. Well, God... Okay, that's great. We can.
God draws the person and grants them the grace to come to him. God grants us also the measure of faith. He gives... But he's given to each one a measure of faith. But he also... So he predestines us. He chooses us.
And in that, in his will, he also requires us to respond to him in faith according to what he has commanded.
He predestined us. The new command is baptism. So he predestined us from the foundation of the world? Yes. Okay.
Did he predestine us in Christ? Yes. But you're not regenerate when he predestines you.
I know you're not. But he predestines you in Christ.
When you follow through with how he said to be born again.
He predestines you in Christ, Ephesians 1, 4, before the foundation of the world, right? How could he do that if Christ pre-incarnate wasn't there?
This is talking about a decision, a relationship between God and us.
He predestined us... No, he predestined us in Christ.
He predestined us to receive Christ, to be in Christ later.
He chose us in him.
It has nothing to do with Christ being there at that time.
That's not... He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
Yeah. We weren't there and Christ wasn't there either.
Jesus Christ... And how could he choose us in Christ if Christ wasn't there before the foundation of the world?
There's nothing in the text that says Christ had to be there. He chose us in... Jesus came down from heaven. Yeah, he's God who came down from heaven.
Yeah. So he, the person from heaven, existed and was sent by the Father who chose us in him before the foundation of the world.
Well, that passage does not necessitate the pre-existence, but I do believe in the pre-existence of Christ. It doesn't necessitate eternal pre-existence either. I believe in the pre-existence of Jesus Christ all the way to the beginning of creation as the expression of Yahweh himself.
It was Christ created.
Jesus is Yahweh himself. Jesus Christ... Wait, wait, wait. If he's not eternal, is he created? As a man, he is creation. No, no, no. Before, you said he was... As the angel of the Lord. You don't believe he's eternal in the past, but then you said he's there with the Father.
Yeah.
How do you have that? As the angel of the Lord, the visible expression of the invisible God. Wait, the angel of the Lord. Invisible. Was he, did he have a visible expression to him at all times?
You said that Jesus, the pre-incarnate Christ is not eternal. I didn't say that.
He's not eternal. Well, he is. He's not eternal. I'm sorry. The pre-incarnate Christ is the eternal Father. He is the eternal Father. Who also has a visible angelic image in the Old Testament to which he can be seen by the angels.
He could have been seen by Moses. He was seen by...
Well, it doesn't say that. No, in Exodus 6, 2, and 3, we're jumping around, but it says God spoke to Moses and said, I am Yahweh. Is that an angel?
That's, well, yes, it's God and an angel. It's the angel of Yahweh.
It says God spoke to Moses. It doesn't say an angel. It says God.
Is God an angel? Well, God had an angelic presence, I believe. I got that. Is an angel God? I think there is a passage that says that Yahweh, that the angel of the Lord spoke out of the bush. Is that incorrect?
You know, it's okay. I'm asking you specific about Exodus 6, 2, and 3. It detects, says God spoke further to Moses. Right. The text says God was speaking. So who was speaking according to the text? God, the one person of God.
Okay. And so God said, yeah, his name was Yahweh. It's a true and living God, right? Is that the Father? Yes. Then why does Jesus says no one's ever seen the Father in John 6, 46? Who were they seeing in the Old Testament?
Who's God, Almighty, Yahweh, but not the Father? Because no one has seen... It doesn't say no one has seen the Father. It says no one has seen God. Jesus didn't say that. No, no, no, no. Go to Exodus 6, 2, and 3, and I'll show you that you're wrong.
God spoke further to Moses, said to him, I am Yahweh. And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. So he appeared as God Almighty. That's what he says. You agree that God appeared as God Almighty to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
Yes, I do. Good. And it's not an angel because it says it was God who spoke and said, I am Yahweh. That's not an angel who'd say, I'm Yahweh. That's not going to happen. Go to John 6, 46. What does Jesus say?
Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who's from God. He has seen the Father. So Jesus knows that they weren't seeing the Father. Who are they seeing who's not the Father, who's also there simultaneously in the Old Testament, but not God the Father, who's God Almighty?
By the Father and by God. In John 6, by the Father and by no one has seen God at any time. In John 1, 18, it is speaking of the omnipresent vastness of all the totality of who God is. No one has seen or can see, it says in 1 Timothy 6.
1 Timothy 6, 16.
Talk about the Father. He dwells in a hundred boats of the light, who no man has seen or can see. He's talking about Jesus there. No, no, no, no. Because they've seen Jesus. Look, I know this verse well.
I've been using it for about 40 years with Mormons. Yeah, that's okay. I'm using it right now. Go to John 6, I mean Exodus 6. Hold on.
In 1 Timothy 6, the inapproachable light that no man has seen nor can see, in which Jesus dwells, that is the Father. That is the vastness of who God is. Let's go look.
I'll show you you're wrong. I'll show you you're wrong. Heaven of heavens cannot contain you. People have not...
No one has seen... I'll show you you're wrong. Let me put a period on here first, if I may. No one has ever seen the totality of who God is in His omnipresence, internality. No one ever can. But people have seen the visible expression of God as He has made Himself known.
In verse 13 of 1 Timothy 6, I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testifies a good confession before Pontius Pilate. It's talking about God and Jesus in the present tense after the ascension of Christ in there.
So we know God here will be in reference to the Father, because it's differentiating between the God and Jesus Christ. Verse 14, that you keep the commandments without staying in reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about.
Who is that? That's God, will bring about the appearance of Jesus at the proper time. He, who is the blessed and only sovereign. Who's the He? He will bring about the appearance of Jesus. He is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, who no man has seen or can see.
The context is the Father, not the Son.
I have to go to the bathroom right now, but I'll tell you my succinct answer. The antecedent to He is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the King of kings and Lord of lords is also parallel in Revelation 19, when He comes back on a white horse and has the name written.
He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. This He who dwells in unapproachable light is speaking of Jesus. The unapproachable light who no man has seen or can see is the Father, the totality of God that no one has seen.
Just as John 1 .18, the only God, the unique God, Jesus, is in the bosom. He's in the bosom, in the heart of the Father.
When you get back, we'll go to Exodus 6 and actually take a look at what it says. All right. You guys enjoying this after talk here? I've turned the heat up on him a little bit. I was polite, really nice and easy during the debate, but I'm going to get him a little bit.
Watch this. When we go to Exodus 6, let's see if he actually sticks with the text. Watch. Will he jump around? Actually, look at the text. Yeah, he's moving towards Reformed theology. Yeah, I can relate.
Yeah, and so you have to, as far as 1 Timothy 6 .16 goes, we can go over that over and over. I know what it's saying. Jesus is the one there who has been seen. He's God in flesh. But like I said, let's go to Exodus 6.
A plethora of topics here, but hey, we're back on Trinity and oneness.
God spoke further to Moses, said to him, I am Yahweh. That's verse 2. Okay, Exodus 6. So it's God who's talking. So because it says God who's talking, I'm going to conclude that it's God. And he identifies himself as Yahweh.
And he says, I, that's God talking about himself. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. Do you agree that he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty?
Well, yeah, that's what the text says, I believe. Good. God using impersonal pronouns, by the way.
Good. And when we go to John 6 .46, you keep your finger in the Exodus. Jesus says, not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. So who were they seeing in the Old Testament who's not the Father, but is God Almighty?
They're seeing the visible expression of the invisible God.
No man has seen or can see.
Yeah, he's called the angel of his presence or the angel. No, no, no, no, not the angel.
God. God. You brought up 1 Timothy 6 .16. No man has seen or can see.
So who are they seeing? Well, they're seeing the visible expression of God.
No, it says they're seeing God. I could show you where it actually says they saw the God of Israel. I can show you another text. But in Exodus 6, 2 and 3, God spoke and he says, I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty.
God's talking, identifies himself as Yahweh. But you said, you brought up, it wasn't a smart move. You didn't realize it. In 1 Timothy 6 .16, talking about the great glory that is Jesus who dwells in unapproachable no man has seen or can see.
But yet they're seeing someone here.
Who are they seeing? Well, they're seeing the visible expression of God.
They're not seeing the totality. I didn't say the visible expression. I said, who? We can go to the other. They're seeing God. It's paradoxically true. No one has seen God. Is it the father? Is it the father?
God is the father. Are they seeing the father in Exodus 6, 2 and 3? Yes. They're seeing the father. Jesus says, no one's seen the father. John 6 .46. How are they seeing the father? If you say they're seeing the father, Jesus says, no, they weren't seeing the father.
Because they can't see the totality of the father because the father is the only one who can see God. They can see the visible expression as he reveals himself. Okay.
Now you need to do me a favor here really fast. You need to look around you like this to see if the canoe you're in is cracked.
Because you're sinking fast. Because in John 1 .18, it also says no one has seen God in any time. But you said that we're seeing God here. I would agree. We're seeing God. So you have the same thing. It's paradoxically true.
No one has seen God in his totality. But as he has revealed himself, people have seen his image, the image of God.
In John 1 .18, it says no one has seen God anytime. The only begotten God in the bosom of the father. He has explained him. He has explained what it was in the Old Testament that they were seeing. In Numbers chapter 12, verses 6 through 8, God says, Hear now my words that there's a prophet among you.
I, the Lord, Yahweh, will appear to him in a vision or a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my household. And with him I speak openly and not in dark sayings. And he beholds the form of Yahweh.
In Exodus 24, 9 through 11, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel. And under his feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphires clear as a sky itself.
Yet he did not stretch out his hands against the sons of the nobles of Israel. And they beheld God. And they ate and they drank. In Exodus 6, 2 and 3, God spoke further to Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh.
And I appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. Undoubtedly, there are places where it's the angel of the Lord representing God. There are places where there are visions and dreams. There are also places when God himself says it's not a vision.
It's not a dream. They behold the very form of God. He says that in Exodus 6, 2 and 3, that it is God who is seen as God Almighty. That's who is seen. It doesn't say the glory of. Now, when I talk to Mormons and I go to Acts chapter 5, they'll say, you know, they can't see the Father.
Because Joseph Smith supposedly had seen the Father. I say, well, the Bible says you can't see the Father. And they'll say, well, Stephen saw the Father. It says, nope. It says he saw the glory of God.
It doesn't say he saw God, the Father, but the glory of that Father that's representing. It's subtle, but it's important. Here, it says in John 6, 2 and 3, it says that they saw the God. God says he reveals as God Almighty.
Now, you admitted they were seeing God. You also admitted it was the Father. And yet Jesus says it was not the Father. So here's my question. Who were they seeing in the Old Testament? Who is God Almighty, but is not God the Father?
It's, again, the only God in the Old Testament is the Father. They're seeing the image of the invisible God. They're seeing the logos.
They're seeing the Word. The image of God. Is God Almighty?
The Word is God. Yeah, the Word was with God and the Word was God. I don't think it's qualitative either. So what was it?
What God was, the Word was. The Word is God. So where was it that Abraham saw God?
He saw him under the tree at Mamre.
Yeah, Genesis 17, 1. Now, when Abram was 99 years old, Yahweh appeared to him and said to him, I am God Almighty.
Also on the mountain when he offered up Isaac, he saw God at that point as well.
So did Abraham see God Almighty? He did. Was he seeing the Father?
So in a sense, yes, he's seeing the Father. And in a sense, no.
No, no, no, no, no. Jesus says no man seen the Father, period. So who were they seeing who's God Almighty, but not the Father? Hold on.
They were seeing... Now, the Father is the only God. He's the only true God, right? And Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. He is the Mano Genestos, the unique one and only God who is in the bosom of the Father.
So He is the image of the invisible God. He is what is visible of the visible God. He is the unknowable God made known. He is the omnipresent God localized. So prior to the incarnation, God still appeared in various ways as a man or as an angel.
That is still the same God being made visible. You could say Moses as well. It's true. Moses as well, he saw God face to face as we read in Exodus 6. But also in Exodus 33, he doesn't see God. So even with Moses, he both sees God and doesn't see God.
So go to Exodus 33.
3320 and 3311. No man can see my face for no man can see me and live. Yet he spoke to God face to face as man speaks with his friend. The term face to face deals with personal encounter and personal relationship.
And it's used in many places also in 1 Corinthians 8 and the issue of the charismatic gifts. So the Trinity can answer this quite quickly, no problem. They were seeing the pre-incarnate Christ as God Almighty who is simultaneously there with the Father.
So it's easy. See, we can answer this. You're swimming.
No, I'm just being true to the scripture. And it's very simple. The invisible God made himself visible. And the Trinity can answer the question. That's great. No problem. But that is presupposing or assuming a tri-personal nature of God.
Three eternal pre-existent persons or eternally existing persons. That is something that cannot be proven from scripture. Now, this fits within Trinitarianism. Okay, granted, it does. What we're talking about right now, God has not been seen and he has been seen.
But it also fits with the biblical view or biblical oneness. Maybe some, you know, there might be some Trinitarians who get it wrong or someone who get it wrong. But it fits with my view perfectly. The invisible God makes himself visible.
So you have both not seen God in his totality, but we have seen his visible expression as the Logos and manifested in the flesh as Jesus Christ.
Many, many years ago, I was at Anaheim Convention Center. There was a oneness convention and I went there. I don't know if Charlie was there with me, but I went there across the street from Disneyland.
What's that? Did you have fun? Yeah, I always enjoy, I don't go to Disneyland. I enjoy talking to people about the Lord. And five oneness pastors came around me and we got talking. They were polite. And I presented this to them where God is seen in the Old Testament.
And I asked them, who was it saying? I was setting them all up. And I said, so who were they saying? Well, it was God, the Father. And I went, John 6, 46, Jesus has not seen the Father. And I said, who are they saying who's God Almighty, but not God, the Father?
Three of the pastors just turned around and walked off. Two of them stayed. I said, can you answer the question? This guy looked at me, one of them looked at me and very clearly, he said, yes, I do believe in the gifts, Michael.
He said to me, he goes, I can see why you're Trinitarian. And I said, so here I am showing you this and you can't answer from your perspective. As a Trinitarian, it makes perfect sense. I said, so you're holding on to your agenda over the scripture because it clearly says that God Almighty was seen.
God says he was seen as God Almighty. You say it's the Father. And Jesus says it wasn't the Father. You're the one who's stuck. You've got to come out. I could put myself in your shoes and go, well, let's see, how am I going to get out of this?
It's got to be an image of some sort. Well, if it's an image of, then it's not God. It was God Almighty. Are you saying an image of something was God Almighty? No. God says, it says God said, and he goes, I am Yahweh.
I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. It says it. And we go to Genesis 17, one. It says the Lord appeared to Abram as God Almighty. It says it. So you have a problem. You're the one saying that it was God, the Father, but Jesus clearly says it's not.
And when you go to John 1, 18, I've done the research. Every instance of the word God in the gospel of John after verse 14 is always in reference to the Father. I've done the homework on this. I've done this study for many, many years.
Now, this shows you that there's a plurality in the Godhead, and it shows you the simultaneous as it's in nature. And when Jesus said, I came down from heaven, he is God Almighty. That's who it was from the Old Testament, because it wasn't the Father who was seen, but it was Jesus Christ who was seen.
Oh, pre-incarnate Christ. That's who was seen. Simultaneous, who is God Almighty alongside with the Father. Because Jesus says, I was sent down from heaven by the Father. He was there with him. John 6, 38.
John 17, 5.
A refuge oneness. Well, oneness agrees with what you're saying there at the end, just because everybody can't answer or have the same answer, or there are different possibilities, maybe. But you said he was there with the Father, but you didn't say eternally.
So at that point, I could still agree with everything. He's God Almighty. Is God Almighty eternal? All right.
Is God Almighty eternal? Yes, I already told you. Well, then it's not the Father. It's not the Father who is God Almighty. It has to be someone else, another person besides the Father, who's eternal, who's God Almighty.
Who's that going to be?
Now, what was I going to say there? So we have a, you know, as I said, the invisible God made visible. It's the same God. We have a sense in which Moses saw God in Exodus 6 and Exodus 33. He could not see God as well.
The same Yahweh. He could not see. He saw Yahweh and couldn't see Yahweh.
No, it says, you cannot see my face for no man can see me and live. And then he spoke face to face. The only way to make sense of that is to say that one person was speaking and another one was shown.
And I told you, do you get what my answer is? That God in his infinite totality of who he is cannot be seen. OK, he's one person and in his infinite, he cannot be seen. But in his visible expression, he is seen that way.
He appears and he manifests himself and he shows himself. Now, the Trinitarians have a similar problem here as well, because you have just the duality of one person, the father, and who's not seen and another person, the son who is seen.
That's oneness. Now, it's not if they're eternally existing together, not just from the beginning. However, if that visible expression of pre-incarnate Christ is revealing God, I mean, why is he just revealing the father rather than revealing the whole Trinity?
No man has seen God. Why has no man only seen, not seen the father? I can answer your questions. The whole Trinity. I can answer your questions. OK, go ahead. And then I'll show you that the synonymity that I spoke of, that this Exodus 6 is actually the father as well as we're talking now.
It's Jesus. It's the pre-incarnate Christ. It's the Logos. It's the Word. It's God. We agreed on that. It's Yahweh. The text says that. But I'll go ahead and let you answer. How do we know it's no man has seen the father?
No man has seen the whole, why is it the father the first person and not the whole Trinity?
Because Jesus said no man's ever seen the father. Why did Jesus say that? You're going to have to ask him. But that's what he said. And we're going with what he said. He said no man's ever seen the father.
They were seeing God Almighty in the Old Testament who you said was the father. So who do we trust?
You or Jesus? Well, I'm not putting myself against Jesus, but I'm saying that.
Who were they seeing who's God Almighty in the Old Testament, but not God the father?
I'm saying that you're assuming that when he's saying no man has seen the father, that it means the first person of the Trinity rather than the whole Trinity. If God was a Trinity, then no man has seen the father.
Then Jesus is saying no man has seen the entire Trinity. God in the totality of who he is. No, no, no. It's a false representation. I've asked a specific question. You're avoiding it. Who is the father of Jesus Christ is the omnipresent, omniscient God, the omnipresent eternal spirit.
No man has seen the eternal spirit. And that is who the father is. So there's the same problem. If no man has seen the father, why has no man only seen the first person of the Trinity and not the totality of who God is?
Because God has chosen to reveal himself through the son. That's how the scriptures work. Because I'll tell you how it works. From the blood of the eternal covenant in Hebrews 13 20. Have you ever heard about the eternal covenant?
Well, yeah, I have heard the term.
So covenant is between two or more parties, right? Yes. Who's the eternal covenant made with? What parties are involved in the eternal covenant? What does it say in there?
I mean, there's a sense that eternal doesn't have to mean in eternity past either. We have eternal life because we're given life. I asked about the eternal covenant. Hebrews 13 20.
Okay, let me look it up. Okay. No. Now the God of peace who brought you up from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus, our Lord. So the God of peace who brought up from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep, that's talking about Jesus, right?
Okay. Through the blood of the eternal covenant. So this means that covenant was established already and that the father brought the son through this covenant, which was eternal, right? Would you agree?
No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that it was already established because it tells us when the covenant, the eternal covenant was ratified through the... When was the eternal covenant made? Through the blood of Christ.
Now how? When? When? On the cross 2000 years ago.
Where do you get that a covenant was made on the cross?
The covenant was made by Jesus, by the gospel, Jesus coming, being crucified, buried, resurrected. Now, let me see.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're just, you're just, you're just shooting from the hip here. Show me where it's. A covenant is made at the cross.
It tells you where are we in 13, 13 20. It says 20. Yeah. It says it right here. The eternal covenant. It says through the blood of the eternal covenant, the eternal covenant was ratified in blood. It says it right here in this passage.
No, I didn't say it wasn't ratified in blood. You keep changing what I'm saying.
I agree. It was established at the same time that it was ratified. It doesn't say that. But also, you know, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're ignoring. You constantly do that. I'm calling on the card to answer.
I'm not trying to ignore. I'm trying to answer. You are ignoring. I ask very specific questions and you don't face them.
Please just tell me what I missed.
Can you show me a verse that says that the eternal covenant began at the cross? I don't think. Yeah, right there. Hebrews 13 20. But it doesn't say the covenant was brought into existence at the cross.
It's ratified at the cross, which means it already exists.
I agree that it was God's plan all along to come in the likeness of human flesh and save us from our sins. I agree that that's so. Who's the eternal covenant members?
Foundation of the world. We are. Who's to the eternal covenant with us? God and us. Where's it say that?
In the whole New Testament? No. OK, so Jeremiah and Hebrews 12. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and so forth.
And where's the eternal new covenant? That's not an eternal covenant. Where is notice what it says? The God of peace who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep. That means the father brought forth the son from the dead through the blood of the eternal covenant.
It was manifested through this. He resurrected him through the eternal covenant. So who are the parties of the eternal covenant? Because let me help you out. You need to study covenant theology because the covenant was that the father would not leave the son to corruption.
I think it's Psalm 2 or Psalm 16. And he would not leave him to corruption. Let me ask you this. Who was Jesus sent to?
Do you know who he was sent to? Well, yeah, he was sent. He was sent to us, the people in the world, specifically the house of Israel. He was not sent to us. He was not sent to us. He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Matthew 15, 24. The reason is because of the covenant that God the father had made with Israel that the Messiah was to come through. So a covenant was that covenant was to be ratified in the person of Christ.
And if Hebrews 8, 13, Hebrews 9, 15 through 16, the covenant is ratified and made true. And that when the new covenant comes in with the death of Christ, the new covenant is not an eternal covenant because the eternal covenant is that which is already existing.
It's eternal. It exists. The covenant parties are the father and the son, because the father said he would give to the son, the elect. That's why Jesus says, all of the father who gives me will come to me.
The ones who come to me, I certainly will not cast out. But this is the will of my father who sent me that all he's given me, I lose none. Because he says, I've come down from heaven. This is the eternal covenant where in Ephesians 1, 4, God the father chose us the elect in Christ, which is a term of federal headship, signifying the development of the eternal covenant, which is eternal in the past tense.
You can't make a mistake of saying that God suddenly came up with a new plan and ratified this new plan at a certain time, because then it wouldn't be an eternal covenant. The covenant was made in an inter-Trinitarian communion, which I'm showing you, the Almighty God already existed in the Old Testament, simultaneous with the father, because Jesus said the father was not seen, but the God Almighty was seen.
Okay, so a couple things there. I disagree with your view of the covenant. I see the covenant here as temporal and between God and people, the one God and humanity. But also I also affirm that God's plan is eternal and his plan was all along for a first covenant and a new covenant.
He says to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I will establish my covenant with you. And then it's referred to as the first covenant. And then there's a new covenant. And yes, all of that is part of God's eternal plan.
But the eternal covenant is specifically the one that is ratified in blood. And that is the whole subject of the book of Hebrews prior to this as well. And I can't remember exactly the first covenant was dedicated with blood.
That's in Hebrews. You know, I was skimming here at your question there. Hebrews 9, the first covenant was dedicated, not without blood. And then verse 20, this is the blood of the covenant. And let me see if it uses this word.
And then speaking of the old covenant and according to the law, almost all things were purified with blood without the shedding of blood. There's no remission. 23, therefore, it was necessary that the copies of the heavenly things should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with a better sacrifice for Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands.
That's not what I'm getting at here. Um, so this is about the old covenant. The old covenant is inferior to the new covenant. So I think we're getting into 10 here.
I think it's, uh, this is I'm trying to show you that the covenant, uh, parties are the inter-Trinitarian covenant parties. And it's established and supported by the idea that God Almighty was seen in the Old Testament.
Who's not God, the father.
And I think you just assume that God don't know. I don't assume it.
It says in Exodus six, two and three that God Almighty was seen. God says, so Jesus says it was not the father. So who was God Almighty? Who's not the father. And if he's God Almighty, he's eternal. So who is the eternal God who's called God Almighty who's with the father, but not the father.
Who is that?
And I've answered you already. I know you don't like my answer, but I can show you that this is, this is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that was seen and that it is also the father. Was it the father who was seen?
Yes, it was. Why does Jesus say the father has not been seen?
The father of Jesus, because I, as I mentioned, the father is the totality of who God is, and no one has ever seen him in a sense in his totality, but people have God Almighty was seen. Yes, because Jesus is God Almighty manifested in the flesh.
And who are they seeing in the old Testament? Who's not God, not God, the father, but God Almighty, God Almighty manifested in visible form, but not that.
So they were seeing God Almighty. So, so that God Almighty was the father.
Yeah, that is the father of God of Abraham.
So, but Jesus says, no, I've seen the father. So how, how is it? No, no. How is it that they, you said it was God Almighty, the father they were seeing, but Jesus says it wasn't.
It's paradoxically true. I said in two different modes in his eternality and the totality of who he is, no one has ever seen or can see him in his manifestation in limited time in a limited way in time and space that is truly himself manifested in visible form.
People have seen that, but not all of who he is.
That was my, so when the Bible says they've seen God Almighty, that's the father, God Almighty, they're singing.
Men have both not seen God and seen God.
I'm asking you two different realms, Exodus six, two and three in that pericope. Pericope is a set of scriptures in that pericope. God spoke further to Moses said, I am God Almighty. And he says, I'm Yahweh, excuse me.
He says, and I appeared as God Almighty to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So did they see God Almighty? And you've already said, yes. I asked you, who was that? And you said the father. So God Almighty is simply seen.
Jesus says it wasn't the father. And what you do then is say, well, that's the totality of God. Well, it doesn't say that it's not talking about the totality of God. It's saying God himself says, I'm Yahweh.
I appeared as God Almighty. Do you think that's sufficient and what God has chosen to do? And then you come along and say, oh no, it wasn't a totality. That's how I get out of this. No, because what the Jesus says, it's not the father who was seen.
Do you think Jesus knew about Exodus 6, 2 and 3 when it says God was seen? But he says it wasn't the father. So here's my question again. Who was God Almighty, but not the father in the Old Testament?
Nobody was not God Almighty and not the father in the Old Testament. And it's a simpler answer, the oneness answer over the doctrine of the Trinity. As simply put, God invisible, omnipresent, unlimited, infinite, and God visible.
God. They saw God Almighty, but not God the father. Who were they seeing as God Almighty, but not the father?
No one has seen God. And I'm saying it's a lot simpler answer. God invisible and God visible.
God outside of time and space. It says they saw the God of Israel. Okay. They saw him.
Let me make a point real quick. Can I make a point real quick? It's a lot simpler answer to say God invisible outside of time and space is the one who has not been seen. God, as he has manifested himself visibly in time and space is how God has been seen, not in his totality.
That's a lot simpler answer. And following what the scripture, the text says, then taking another leap and saying, well, God is two or three multiple persons. And only one of those persons became visible or came down in a visible sort of way.
Well, other two persons did it because you're assuming something. The text doesn't say that there is a plurality of persons interacting and only one of those persons was made visible. No, God is the one God was made visible.
I can show you that it's the father, but after this, I'll show you that.
I'll tell you what the Bible says, let us make man the plurality of God. God Almighty is seen because God Yahweh says so. Jesus says it wasn't the father. Trinitarians have no problem. They were seeing the pre-incarnate Christ.
No problem at all. And Jesus says, I was with you before the foundation of the world. John 17 5. He says, I was sent by the father. Jesus is God in flesh. We know that he has two natures. So it's real simple as a Trinitarian, not for you.
I can say that they were seeing the pre-incarnate Christ as well, but the pre-incarnate Christ is also the father.
Were they seeing the pre-incarnate Christ?
They were seeing the pre-incarnate Christ, who is the one God.
So wait a minute. Was the pre-incarnate Christ the father?
The pre-incarnate Christ is the one that they're not seeing and the one that they're seeing.
Okay. You can't see and not see the same time, the same sentence of logical impossibility. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't, don't get into, into paradoxes and use as an excuse.
Look, this is a little, you know, pill container. It's the case that I'm holding a pill container. It's also not the case that I'm holding a pill container. You can't have both because you look, you said it's either, he was either visible.
They're seeing him. And it was also that he was not at the same time, the same sentence, a logical impossibility. It's incoherence. The Bible says that they saw God almighty. It's God almighty. They saw Jesus said, it's not the father.
Who is God almighty? Who's not the father?
Well, it is both the pre-incarnate Christ that they saw, but it is the father as well. Exodus six. So go to Acts 3, 13.
Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So you're saying it's the pre-incarnate Christ.
Who's God almighty? Well, yeah, I'm saying that I'm affirming that.
So then God almighty is eternal, right? So the pre-incarnate Christ is now eternal with the father, but you just blew your own oneness into the garbage heap.
Well, if I can answer, I did not say eternally with the father, but the eternal, hold on. I know you want to respond. The eternal God is one in his being. And when he manifests himself as the son, as the word in time and space, that is himself.
That is himself manifested in invisible form. It's not another person, another personality.
You said it was pre-incarnate Christ who was seen in the old Testament and that it was God almighty. That's what you said. Now is God almighty eternal? Yes, God almighty is eternal. So then if Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ is God almighty, who by definition is eternal, then the pre-incarnate Christ is eternal.
Yes. So then you have two persons in the Godhead, at least right there, who's God almighty.
Well, maybe at least, but not two eternal persons because the second visible manifestation. Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't cut yourself.
No, I'm not. Yes, you are. Because you said the pre-incarnate Christ. Is the pre-incarnate Christ self-aware or is it some energy force? No, I don't.
I don't know what the Bible doesn't say. And not an energy force, but it's God. It's self-aware, but it's God.
So pre-incarnate Christ, self-aware. I misspoke.
I'm sorry. But yeah, he is self-aware as God himself.
So the pre-incarnate Christ is self-aware, which means he's a person who was seen in the old Testament, and it was God almighty, which means he's eternal, but it's not the father. You're just digging a hole deeper and deeper.
You're refuting your own theology. Acts 3 .13, and it shows that it's the synonymity that I showed proves oneness and destroys Trinitarianism. Acts 3 .13, Peter speaking, yeah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant, Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, who was determined to let him go.
So it doesn't say his son, Jesus. I think there might be a variant in there, but it says, I'll just take my translation, his servant, Jesus, at least it's distinguishing Jesus from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Very good. The pre-incarnate Christ distinguished from the father, no problem, because you're going to admit that that's who the father is, the God of the fathers. You already said it's the God, the father in the Old Testament.
Look, this is what you've already admitted to. You've admitted the pre-incarnate Christ is God Almighty. You've admitted that God Almighty was seen. You've admitted, you have to admit that it was not God the father.
Don, now I'm asking you, who is God Almighty who's not the father? And then you said it's a pre-incarnate Christ. And I said, oh, the pre-incarnate Christ is God Almighty. You said, yes, is the God Almighty eternal?
Yes, then the pre-incarnate Christ is eternal.
And not the father. I have affirmed that there is one personal God. The pre-incarnate Christ is eternal and he is the father. God in God visible is the father. Is this Abraham? Who was seen in the Old Testament?
Who was seen? I have a quick question about Acts 3 .13. Is this God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who glorified his servant Jesus? Is that the father?
It doesn't say, but it probably is God the father.
Yeah. It has to be God the father or the Holy Spirit? I said probably. Right.
Because usually how it's spoken of in the context of God is in reference to the father, particularly when Jesus is juxtaposed with it. That's generally how it works. The Holy Spirit lays back because his ministry is to bear witness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he bears witness of Christ. He's humble in that sense. So the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's just what God says in Exodus 6, 2 and 3. I appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty.
By your own admission, that's got to be the father right there. And it's the father who was not seen according to Exodus 6, 2 and 3. This study destroys oneness. You have destroyed your own view and you have to repent of your false doctrine.
If you're going to say that the Christ and the pre-incarnate Christ, the father, the same one, then you're saying if they're the same and they saw God Almighty, they were seeing God the father. Because if they're one and the same, you have to say they saw the father.
But Jesus says it wasn't the father. So who's God Almighty who's there but not the father? Because he's with the father because you said that's the father in the Old Testament. Then who's God Almighty who's not the father?
There's someone else who's God Almighty not the father. Who is it? Pre-incarnate Christ.
Who's eternal? Oneness. Theology believes and I believe in one God Almighty who is both the father and the son. And that matches the rest of the scripture from Isaiah 9, 6. All the ones I've talked about.
Who were they seeing in the Old Testament? They saw the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Who was it? The father? I showed you already. Moses has both seen God and not seen God. My explanation was the invisible God.
They saw a visible form of him. They saw the word. They saw the image of God who is also God's self.
Actually it says in Exodus 3 through 20 he saw the backside of God not the face. So you got to check out Exodus. Yeah I know he didn't see the face. Yeah so then there's no problem. But you're you're stuck here.
This is Exodus 6, 2 and 3. I'm hammering this over and over and over because you need to accept the truth of who God really is. Your position is destroyed. It is destroyed because you have admitted that pre-incarnate Christ is God Almighty who was seen in the Old Testament.
And you've admitted that Jesus said it wasn't the father. Therefore someone else is God Almighty simultaneous with the father in the Old Testament. Who's eternal because God Almighty is eternal. And you said that it was a pre-incarnate Christ who's God Almighty.
That's eternal.
You are stuck. I can't turn this page. Well no because I did not say that I am. I did not say that. Let's see what what what destroys my argument. I didn't say that. I'll explain it again. I did not say that the pre-incarnate Christ was not eternal.
He is the eternal God. You have not proven that Jesus, that there is eternally a relationship within the Godhead. And there are three persons and one person is being manifested and not another one. I'm showing you oneness.
The singularity of an invisible and a visible God, which is exactly what we have in this text. A visible and an invisible God. That is oneness and that proves oneness. And let me see.
No it doesn't. God Almighty was seen in the Old Testament. It was Yahweh, but it was not the Father.
And then I'm over in Exodus 3. Who is the God appearing to him there in Exodus 3? Is it the same incident? It might be the same incident. And God said to Moses in verse 14, I am who I am, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.
Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Yahweh God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever.
So and then he's called also again, Yahweh God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the God that is referred to by Peter in Acts 3 .13 as the one who glorified his servant Jesus.
So this is distinguished from Jesus. This is God, the one person of God. But you could say the Father, the Father of Jesus, but it's not Jesus. But it is. I mean, it's not. Well, it's hard to say that way, but it's distinguished from Jesus.
It's God, the Father in the Old Testament. And it's also Jesus because Jesus also took upon him the name of God. But in John 8 .58, before Abraham was, I am. Jesus is both the manifestation of God and in a transcendent identity.
He is the one true God manifested in physical form 2 ,000 years ago in the flesh. Here, look at this.
God Almighty was seen in the Old Testament. It was Yahweh, Exodus 6, 2 and 3. It was not the Father, John 6 .46. Who were they seeing in the Old Testament? Who is God Almighty, but not God the Father?
Well, according to Peter in Acts 3 .13, it was the Father. Okay, so they were seeing.
So Jesus is wrong. You're sitting in Scripture against Scripture. It doesn't say it was the Father. It says the God of the Father, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, has glorified Jesus, the one whom he delivered.
It doesn't say that he appeared there.
Jesus also said, who has seen him has seen the Father. His disciples said. No, no, no, no, no, no. Representation.
You already talked about that representation. Hebrews 1 .3. Now in Exodus 6, 2 and 3, there's the stuff right there. Okay. It was not the Father, but it was God Almighty. Who were they seeing? Who's not the Father, but is God Almighty?
They were seeing God Almighty, the image of God. They were seeing God Almighty, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But he is the Father.
I got you. You keep not answering my question. Who were they seeing? Who's God Almighty? Who's not the Father? You can't say the Father because Jesus says it's not the Father. So who were they seeing?
Who's God Almighty, but not the Father?
Jesus wasn't referring to this passage. People have both seen God and not seeing the Father. So in my thought, you're not understanding my thought. Father equals God. In your mind, what you would say is the Trinity.
The Father is the totality of who God is. They didn't see the Trinity, you would say, but they were seeing the second person of the Trinity, right? I would say they didn't see the totality of who God is, but they saw himself, his presence there manifested.
Was it the Father they saw then? It wasn't the Father.
Was it the Father they saw? It was the Father. Jesus says it wasn't the Father, John 6, 46. But it wasn't the Father.
It was both God and not the totality of God. So you have it being God the Father and also not being God the Father. Yeah, and just how we have in scripture, they have, people have seen God, but also not seen God.
How do you see God and also not see God? How do you do that? You are actually just being incoherently illogical. How do you see God and also not see God? Same sense, same way. How do you do that? John 1, 18.
No man has seen God. You don't understand. You don't understand. Explain two modes of existence. I explain. I'm holding this. It's also the case. I'm not holding it. They're opposites. They both can't be true.
How can you see God Almighty, the Father, and also not see God Almighty, the Father?
Because God the Father, this is my answer, okay? God the Father cannot be seen. God, the almighty eternal spirit cannot be seen. He manifests himself in visible form, and that is himself being seen. Good.
And so God Almighty in the Old Testament was not the Father who was seen. Good. Who is that? No, he is the Father who was seen.
No, you just said it can't be. And Jesus says no one's seen the Father. Why do you contradict the scriptures? I know why. Because you're oneness serving a false God. I had to tell you this. I don't hate you.
I'm trying to tell you you're serving a false God. I'm hammering you this over and over. I haven't even started to hammer you on the other issues that we could get into about subject-object relationships and the eternal nature of Christ being in the pre-existence and how he has to be in that sense.
Right now, the hypostatic union related to the communicate with your macho. There's so much I could just tackle you with, but this one's the easy one. This one's the simple one. This is easy, but you're having a problem with it.
God Almighty was seen in the Old Testament, but Jesus says it was not the Father. Who were they seeing? It's on the screen here. God Almighty was seen in the Old Testament. It was Yahweh. It was not the Father.
So who were they seeing in the Old Testament? Who's God Almighty, but not the Father? That's the question.
You're not answering the question. Well, those are your words on this screen that you're putting. Yes, they are. And you're not understanding my thinking of it, but you have not proven that there are three persons within God, that God is not a person.
You still have a lot of problems as far as. No, I don't. God is not a person. You equivocate on person and being. God is a person, yet he's three persons. No, I don't say that. No, you don't say that, but God is a person.
Don't say I say it when I don't say it and say this is how it is. It's not representing my position right. Look, we talked about what personhood was the whole bit. I'm showing you that oneness is false.
I'm showing you this. Once I show you it's false, then it's not going to be hard to show you how the Trinity's really arrived at, because then you'll know the Trinity's false. God is obviously more than one person.
I haven't even gotten into the issue of how there's just more logical conundrums of how one person can exist eternally and have what's called the one and many issue. It gets into some highfalutin talk.
We're not going to get into that, but I'm going to tell you something. The simplicity is this. God Almighty is seen in the Old Testament. It's not God the Father. Who were they seeing? Who's God Almighty, but not God the Father.
And I've already answered you. Your answer is what? I'll write it down. Again, let me say it this way real quick though. Oneness and Trinitarianism are parallel to an extent until you get to the division of eternal persons.
Now, we believe in one God who is Almighty, who is omnipresent, who is eternal, who cannot be seen, who no man has seen, who has manifested himself in a visible way. As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each God.
When they saw right here in Exodus 6, when Moses saw the angel of the Lord or the presence of Yahweh right there in the bush, was that the totality of the second person of the Trinity or did the second person of the Trinity also still exist in heaven with the Father, eternally omnipresent?
Or was he completely right there? They saw both him, but not all of him. And that's exactly what we believe about God. They saw God manifested to them, but not the totality of who God is. The same thing that Trinitarians believe about the second person of the Trinity, yet we have one personal God because the scriptures do not teach three persons in God or that each other person is not the other.
There is a synonymity where the Father is the Son, the Son is the Father, the Holy Spirit is the Father and the Son both, and he's also the Son and he's also the Father. And that is what destroys Trinitarianism because they take...
I know how the Trinity has arrived at. Just by taking bits and parts of the God, parts of scripture, scriptural statements and putting them together in a biblically based sort of way, rather than just submitting to what scripture state.
But taking an extra leap, there is an extra leap. There's an extra leap here. Now that is what the scriptures say. Okay, one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all God. But the scriptures do not teach that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit.
They're all an eternal... They speak to each other and about each other. So how are they the same person? They do that. That's what personhood is, speaking about each other and to each other. It's exactly what personhood is.
You acknowledge that and then you deny it when you apply it.
No, they don't do that for all eternity. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And you admit they do it.
If you say they don't do it for eternity, you admit they do it. Then the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, all are persons because they exhibit the attributes of personhood by speaking, listening, saying you, yours, me, mine, and all of that, which you admitted.
So you admit it. You say not for eternity. You're saying, oh, they did do it simultaneously, at least during the time of Christ on earth. So you're now admitting that there's three persons because you're saying each one exhibits the attributes of personhood, which is exactly what we say.
And you said they were doing it, but not for eternity. Now you're affirming Trinitarianism. You can't answer the issue about the Old Testament, who was seen in the Old Testament. It's the Father. When we talk about the Father and we say it's not the Father, then who is God Almighty who's not the Father?
You can't answer the question. I can, pre-incarnate Christ. You did say, however, I got you to say it was a pre-incarnate Christ. But wait a minute. You said, but it's not eternal. But wait a minute.
I got you already. I showed you because eternal, if it's God Almighty who's a pre-incarnate Christ and you admitted God Almighty is eternal, then the pre-incarnate Christ is eternal. You have this. Then what you have to say is, well, they're the same person.
But if that's the case, we're back to the beginning. Well, then how could they see the Almighty God who's not the Father? And we come back to the same thing. We go in the circle. You can't answer the question from your oneness theology.
You can't do it. There is no answer. There is a perfect answer. There is no answer. Who were they seeing then who's not God the Father?
No, they were seeing God who is the Father.
But Jesus says the Father hadn't been seen.
The pre-incarnate Christ is the Father.
The pre-incarnate Christ is eternal. How is the Father the only true?
I mean, that's just another thrown out question. But how is the Father the only true God? And yet Jesus is also God. I mean, these are, these are. It's under the law.
That's a question that the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims would ask. The only true God under the law is going to say something like that to somebody. Was Jesus God? Well, you say yes, because you already did in our debate.
Well, if God the Father is the only true God, is Jesus a true God or a false God? And so he's the Father.
Is he, is he a false God? No, he is God the Father.
He's speaking to the Father. He's speaking to the Father.
This is how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have their
How is he the same person if he's speaking to the Father?
Because he is the invisible God made visible.
You're not making any sense.
Jesus has manifested in the flesh and reveals the Father. You're not making sense.
It makes perfect sense to me. No, Father glorify me with the glory I have with yourself before the foundation of the world. Me and you, attributes of personhood before the foundation of the world, right?
Person to persons before the foundation of the world, right?
Yes, but there is a, well, there's two ways that, there are two persons at the incarnation while he's praying that, or two manifestations of the one God.
Wait, wait, wait. Which says person, you admit it's person. Father, glorify me with yourself. This is what persons do. Recognize themselves and others. Is Jesus a person? Yes. Is the Father he's speaking to a person?
Yes.
Then you have two persons. Yes, and they are two distinct persons in a sense, but they are the same person in a sense. And now God
No, no, no, don't, don't you do that. It's either the case that there are two persons or it's not the case that there are two persons. Which is it?
Well, it's because God who is unipersonal put on himself human personality and
I ask you questions and you ignore them. Is it the case that there's two persons here or is it not the case that there's two persons here?
There are two persons here.
Good, are each of the persons divine?
Well, yes, they are, but
Then you have two divine persons. Then you have two divine Oneness is refuted. You can't just add a third. No, because this is one
Oneness is refuted. Oneness is refuted. The second person was manifest, is God manifested in the flesh 2000 years ago. So it depends on how, there's a lot of different ways to define person, but we're defining person as far as them interacting with each other.
Jesus is a man, but in his transcendent identity, he's also God. And the only God for him to be is God the Father. Jesus is a person, right? So Jesus is a person. Jesus is a, yes, Jesus is God manifested in the flesh.
Now he is God manifested to make, and makes the Father known. And the Holy Spirit is both the Father and the Son come to indwell us in working in the Spirit to make Jesus known and what he said and so forth.
Yeah, what you do is you ignore what I say, or you slightly twist the interpretations of the words of it to make it fit your theology. I don't have to do that. I believe there's only one God in all existence who says, let us make man, let us go down and confound their language.
There's a plurality that God speaks about himself in. I don't have any problem with that. Yahweh rain fire and brimstone from Yahweh out of heaven. I don't have a problem with that. It says, hear all Israel, the Lord our God is one.
Echad, which is like a group. That's what it means. Not Yahid, which is a single one thing. It's a group composite group.
Yes, it is. Definitely not. That's another tributarian sleight of hand.
That's not true. No, I've done research recently and that is the case. All right. Because I just, let me continue. We see the Old Testament. We see God manifested and God appears. We see it. And it's not God, the father, because Jesus says it's not God, the father.
You said or admitted that it was the pre-incarnate Christ who you said is God almighty, which by logical necessity means is eternal. So the pre-incarnate Christ is who was seen, who's not the father.
But yet Jesus speaks to the father while he's on earth. And he also said he was with the father before he became a man because he says, father, glorify me with the glory I had with you before the foundation of the world.
So Jesus is saying that he and his identity were before the creation of the world with the father. But we know that the father is not seen in the Old Testament, who's God almighty. So who's God almighty with the father at the same time?
The pre-incarnate Christ. This refutes, flat out, refutes oneness theology. No, that's also what you said.
And that's oneness theology right there. Everything you said is oneness because you did not show Simultaneous persons.
Two divine simultaneous persons. The almighty God who was seen is not almighty God the father. There's another person. You said the pre-incarnate Christ, who's God almighty. Jesus said, father, glorify me with the glory I had with you before.
He's identifying himself as the one who was with God beforehand. You even said it's a pre-incarnate Christ. Therefore, the pre-incarnate Christ is the one who's God almighty, who was with the father because Jesus says he was with the father.
That's two simultaneous divine persons. For you to drop that, to ignore that is nothing more than a confession that you can't answer the difficult questions.
When it comes to oneness theology. Well, I'm not trying to ignore anything. And I'm trying to be true to the biblical text and what distinction oneness theology makes is that there is a invisible aspect to God and a visible aspect to God.
But God is also the invisible God when he's manifested is also the visible God. So they're not seeing the invisible nature or the invisible father, but they're seeing the father manifested. That's philosophy.
That is himself. And that's the whole discussion we're talking about. That's the answer I gave to you. Like six, that's an exaggeration, but four or five times here that the invisible God was making himself visible.
Now, Jesus is not referring to, this is not the father here because in Acts 3 .13, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that was made visible is distinguished from Jesus Christ who he anointed. Okay, so then who are they seeing?
The only option we're left in a Trinitarianism, if this is, we have to hold strictly to that was not the father is that must've been the Holy Spirit who appeared in the bush. I mean, God invisible appeared as visible.
It wasn't the totality of who he is and nobody has seen the totality of who he is, but he makes himself visible as one person. You cannot God Almighty was seen.
Yes, God Almighty was seen. And it wasn't the father. So who is God Almighty who's not the father? It's not an issue of the totality because what you're doing is no, you're shifting it. God doesn't deal with the issue of who can see his totality because this is the only way you've got to even try and get out of this predicament.
What you're doing is using vain philosophy and empty deception. Out of Colossians 2 .8, you're trying to figure out a way in order to make this make sense. And what you have to do is you recognize the problem, which is why you say, oh, it has to be the total essence of God isn't seen.
Also, in other words, it's a problem. So you have to reinterpret the whole thing in order to make it work. That's what you're doing. You're without realizing it, you are admitting it's a big problem for you.
And this is why you have to say, well, the essence. Well, of course, it's not the essence. Duh, we know that. But God says he appeared as God Almighty. And Jesus says it's not the father. This is how you have to operate under the guise and the level of what he said and what the scriptures actually say.
And it was God Almighty, who's not the father, who's God Almighty, period. This falsifies oneness theology. You got to get it through your head and you got to stop believing in the false doctrine of the oneness.
It's false doctrine.
No, it's not a false doctrine. All I'm trying to do, all I'm doing is trying to understand what is being said in the biblical text. What is, how, in what sense was God not seen? And what sense was he seen?
Jesus is not referring to the Exodus passage. He's referring to God in his totality. He's referring to the eternal spirit. People are asking for an after show. It's getting late. How many of you guys want an after show?
Do 50 minutes. If you don't, that's fine. Because it is getting late. And it's been one, two, three, four and a half hours. I'm surprised my headset's lasting this long. Okay, we're not going to get anywhere further than this.
So I'm going to just say that you need to study this and you need to answer this question and not go into philosophy about essences not being the issue. You need to really stick with what the text actually says.
What the text actually says is that you see all throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation, you see God invisible and God visible. All the way in Revelation, you see he who sits on the throne and the lamb.
You see a duality all throughout scriptures. There are some mentions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But overwhelmingly, it's usually a duality. God is referred to in so many ways and Paul praises God a lot of times by saying to God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ or grace to you a peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
That duality is dominant in scripture. And that is exactly what oneness believes. And the pre-existence of the Son as the Father's visible image does not prove an eternal existence. Yes, it does.
You said it was a pre-incarnate Christ who's God Almighty. By definition, God Almighty is eternal. Therefore, you've, yeah.
Well, that is God himself. That visible image and that pre-incarnate Christ is God himself, not the totality. Pre-incarnate Christ is God Almighty. Is God Almighty eternal? Yes. And it wasn't the Father.
Therefore, it's called two persons right there at the very least. He's one eternal person. Nope, nope. This refutes it. And there is not been anything shown how the Holy Spirit is distinct person. You've shown that he is divine and he's not that he's a distinct.
Actually, I did.
At the beginning, I showed you how the Holy Spirit is called God. Yes. He has a will. He speaks. We have fellowship with just like Father, Son, Holy Spirit. To say I'd said nothing about the Holy Spirit being a third person isn't true because I did.
And I showed that it's a systematic approach. And I gave the information. And you can go on my CARM website, look up Trinity chart. It's just a derivation out of that chart. There it is. And I did. And I'm just attacking oneness and showing you that oneness doesn't work.
There's problems with it.
Unfortunately. Actually, that system doesn't work because you have not said anything about the Spirit. You can't show that the Spirit is a distinct person. He's a divine person. But I have showed that he is a synonymous person, that he is Christ in us, that he is Jesus.
He is both the Father and the Son, that he is also the Father.
He's sent by the Father and the Father and the Son send him. And that means you have a subject-object relationship and the Spirit speaks to set apart from me. If you're gonna say that's Jesus, you have a problem because you already, you said, and I got your quotes, you say Jesus is in heaven right now.
But then you're gonna say the Spirit. Oh yeah, you do. I got a lot of your quotes. I got a lot of stuff I could attack on your quotes and your articles because you make some mistakes in there.
You make mistakes. Well, my point is, well, I obviously wasn't trying to make mistakes, but my point is
No, obviously not. I do not consider you dishonest in the slightest. I think you're a man of integrity.
I think you're deceived also. Well, I see clearly in Scripture that the Holy Spirit is Jesus. He said, I will not leave you orphans. He said, I will come to you. Speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit.
So you have sending language. Father's sending the Spirit. The Son is sending the Spirit. You say it's both, which one is it? But the Spirit, when He comes to us, He is Christ in us. We receive Jesus Christ.
He is the Spirit of Christ. The Lord, referring to Jesus in 2 Corinthians 3 .17, is that Spirit. So for Trinitarianism to be true, the Scriptures would have to say the Spirit is, the Lord is not the Spirit.
The Spirit is not Jesus. The Spirit is not the Father. But on the contrary, the Scriptures say something different. They're each, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are divine.
It doesn't say, it doesn't even say the Son is not the Father. You do it. The Son is the Father. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've already, there's a lot of inconsistencies. You set up a system that you want, but you're not consistent in how you apply it.
It's just the biblical system. It's 1130 for me. We've been on for one, two, three, four and a half hours. I want to get going. I'm going to have a slight after show. Then I want to relax for an hour.
Should be 130 for you. No, I'm in Idaho. Oh, my bad. Yeah, yeah. Cause you were saying Eastern time with the whole setup. And then I forgot. Yeah, you're actually. Right. Okay. I do everything Eastern time because it makes it easier for people.
Gotcha. All right. Well, thanks, Matt. You've been doing this a long time, obviously.
Well, you guys have both been great. You gave a lot of stuff to look over and I hope people take time to go back through. And they have time to pause the chat and see some of the topical articles on the things you guys mentioned.
And at their leisure, open their Bibles and take a look at it like the Bereans and compare it with scripture, as we should all be doing. But you guys have been great. I didn't think we'd last this long, but you've made it interesting the whole way.
Thank you, both of you. And thank you, Rodney, for taking the heat.
I turned it up after, but...
I gotta get started sometime, you know. Yeah.
Well, there's other issues. I can do the same thing with justification and the issue of baptism. I was just filling the water, so to speak, on baptism. We could just have conversations and I can show you stuff about baptism that are gonna mess you up.
Now, I would do suggest you go and look up the article, Why Was Jesus Baptized? Just see what you think. See if there's any merit to it. Because if he was sprinkled, that automatically puts a big hole in a lot of oneness theology.
And then I could show you other stuff about baptism a lot of people don't know about. So just type in, CARM, Why Was Jesus Baptized? It'll come up.
Okay, I can show you a few things about baptism. I'm sure you've heard them before, but it's pretty overwhelming in the scriptures. Baptism for the remission of sins. No, it's not. And the new and living way as our bodies are washed with pure water and our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience in Hebrews 10, the blood of Jesus is applied when we come to him in baptism.
That is his way. That is the new and living way. Yeah, you've got to understand what it is the context you're talking about in the Old Testament and how the application of the element to the person, it's not immersion.
If baptism is a place where their sprinkling is related, then it has to be a sprinkling upon. It is all kinds of stuff. So, hey folks, I'm going to put the after show link, I'm not going to be on very long, but I'll put it up on the CARM Facebook if you guys want to join in for a little bit and then I'm just going to, you know, then take off, okay?
Thanks, Matt. And there's a link to about 15 or 16 of your articles right there on baptism if people want to produce those and see anything that catches their interest. That's right. I love talking baptism.
Okay, you guys, we'll see you. Thanks again, Rodney. All right, thank you. Good night. All right, night.
