Oneness Pentecostalism with Simon Escobedo and Eddie Dalcour

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

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If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States. It's 1 -866 -854 -6763. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Hello, well this is not James White, Dr.

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White is vacationing in Long Island, although if he was listening to me right now he probably would take umbrage with that statement.

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But this is Simon Escobedo filling in for Dr. White who is actually in Long Island on some speaking engagements and he'll be there for a few weeks and so these next two weeks

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I'll be sitting in the big chair and trying to fill some big shoes and hopefully provide for you all a program that will both be instructional and interesting.

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Now I'm kind of excited about today's program. Some time ago, Dr. White and I were talking with an individual about the opportunity of discussing oneness

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Pentecostalism or oneness theology. And while we haven't had an opportunity to this point, we do today and we are going to have a special guest join me for these next two weeks, a person that is a very dear friend to me.

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In fact, as we were talking just the other day, I had asked him how long has it been since we first met and it's been somewhere around four years that I've known

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Eddie Dalcour. Eddie is joining us from California. Are you there

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Eddie? Yes, I am. And Eddie, it's great to have you on the program. Delighted to be on. Well, of course,

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I think you remember that evening when I had mentioned to you the possibility of getting you on The Dividing Line to do a show specifically on oneness.

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Now for those of our listening audience, you may like to know that Eddie has done quite an extensive work in the field of oneness theology.

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In fact, I was overwhelmed when he sent me a manuscript that he just recently wrote wherein he addresses this specific issue.

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And I have had just a wonderful time reading through that. Of course, it's in an apologetic setting and it's very detailed, very informative.

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And there's probably no more articulate and better prepared person to address the subject of oneness theology than my good friend

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Eddie. So Eddie, why don't you do us a favor? Tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're from right now.

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Well, my friend, I am, of course, calling from Los Angeles, California, and I am Eddie Delcourt. I'm the director and founder of Apologetic Ministry, Department of Christian Defense and that's at www .christiandefense

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.org. And today we are dealing with oneness theology and I think it's very passionate about defending the triunity of God, particularly against oneness

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Pentecostals and other anti -distinction groups. Now, Eddie, if you can give us something of your background that perhaps made this a special field of study for you.

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In terms of background, of course, I've been in ministry for a while now. I was in an athletic ministry, as you know,

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Simon, for quite a number of years. But before that, I was studying

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Christian apologetics. And of course, my studies lead me into Watchtower, Mormonism, and others.

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However, when dealing with oneness theology, what I find, when I go to Bible bookstores, when

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I go to book conventions and others of the like, what I do not find is books on oneness theology.

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There is nothing out there on oneness theology. There is a book by Gregory Boyd, but it's not a recent book.

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There's a couple pamphlets out there, but by and large, bookstores are completely absent. And why

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I'm so passionate about this subject is because in terms of numbers that fill up oneness theology and oneness believers, they surpass

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Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses in terms of numbers, because they are the only non -Christian construct, and we'll get into as the reasons why we would look at them as non -Christian, they are the only non -Christian cult that asserts

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Jesus is fully God, but it's the meaning that they pour into that statement that Jesus is

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God. And because of that, there's not much written about it, and so many people are duped with oneness theology.

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I mean, I travel and speak at many churches, and Simon, you would be surprised at how many pastors do not think there's anything essentially wrong with oneness theology.

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There's just an area, well, you know, let's not split hairs, or, well, it's really semantics.

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But as we will see, it is not semantics. This is the core of the nature of God.

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This is the core of the character of God. And oneness theology, as we will demonstrate, denies the person, nature, and finished work of the person of Christ.

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Well, obviously, just in those few statements, we can certainly see how passionate indeed you are, and it, again, is a great joy to have you here,

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Eddie. I will put your mind at ease. Of course, I have been ill this past week, and I sound a little cranky right now over the mic, but as I joked with you on the phone,

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Dr. White does have, in fact, here on his desk, a cough button, and I will certainly utilize that so as to not distract or take away from anything that you have to say.

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And I will not ask you to rip a phone book over the phone.

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We'll try to stay substantive in this discussion, and that's a private joke for our listeners. Eddie's quite the bodybuilder, and as he said, he's involved in athletics and all kinds of good things, but he's been a dear friend, and again, he is certainly capable of dealing with this issue.

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Now, Eddie, to open this up, let me read you a letter that I recently received from someone who apparently embraces the oneness position.

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He wrote the ministry, they forwarded it on to me, and basically this is what he says. He says, both oneness and Trinitarian theologians agree that the

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Bible teaches the existence of only one God. So there he's trying to, obviously, bridge the monotheistic views that we would both have.

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He goes on to say, both agree that the New Testament, now this is interesting, makes a distinction between the

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Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Both views maintain that the scripture speaks of Father, Son and Spirit as God.

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The question that both oneness and Trinitarianism seeks to answer, then, is how to understand

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God as being one and yet account for the scriptural distinctions.

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Oneness and Trinitarian theology both attempt to explain these distinctions but do so from different starting points and obviously end up with two different conclusions.

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Oneness theology starts with the clear teaching of the Old Testament that God is one and understands the

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New Testament distinctions between Father, Son and Spirit in light of this foundational

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Old Testament teaching. Trinitarians, on the other hand, start with the New Testament distinctions between Father, Son and Spirit and understand the

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Old Testament assertions that God is one in light of these. So are you actually telling me in order to be saved and avoid being considered a heretic

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I must adhere to Trinitarian doctrine? I disagree, for I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

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Now, probably to most lay people in the church a letter like that is pretty emotionally packed and obviously the writer is trying his best to formulate all these various places where we supposedly have agreements and only in one, maybe two areas are there minor disagreements but certainly not the kinds of disagreements that would result in eternal peril.

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So having read that, Eddie, what would your comments be on something like that? Well, first of all, we have to be very careful as Christians when we dialogue with people of other faiths and other denominations, actually other religions and other faiths, we have to be very, very careful to define our terms because if we leave terms undefined the problem with that is when

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I say faith and you say faith, we might be talking two different worlds.

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So when the unipersonal Unitarian person or the oneness believer says monotheism, he does not mean what

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I look at monotheism as. He does not believe what historically the

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Jews recognize monotheism as. He does not believe what the church fathers recognize monotheism as.

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They pour the meaning into monotheism as unipersonality, meaning monotheism equals one person.

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Okay, there is no statement in scripture that ever communicates that. In fact, the Old Testament, as I would submit, the

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Old Testament has more Trinitarian theology than that of the New in terms of a multi -personal

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God, to be sure. For instance, church fathers frequently use Genesis 19 -24 where Yahweh rained fire and brimstone from heaven, right, from Yahweh in heaven.

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So you have two occurrences of Yahweh and historically church has used those multi -personal references to demonstrate that God, as Hippolytus said, even though He is alone,

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He is multi -personal and they have used those passages. So I think we have to be careful to define our terms because what he says monotheism is is clearly not what we or nor the church views monotheism as.

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And of course we can obviously dismiss right off the top that while all

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Christians are monotheists, it does not follow in the reverse. That is that monotheists are necessarily

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Christians because as you just indicated there are several groups who would claim monotheistic belief such as Islam, Judaism, the

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Watchtower, although functionally they are henotheists, but they would claim to be monotheists. And hence simply hanging your hat as one is due on the fact that they are quote -unquote monotheists begs the question.

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Absolutely. I think in the beginning as we discover one of the reasons why modalism or monist theology first emerged because it was reactionary.

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They took a radical view to monotheism and they reacted to the church's view of a multi -personal or tri -personal

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God and to uphold the deity of Christ and to uphold the oneness of God, they reacted starting with Noetis to this theology that we would call modalism.

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Because they thought when people would make these tri -personal references of God, well they would say that is three gods and we are getting the same exact argument.

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A lot of oneness folks think that Trinitarians believe three gods or that the Trinity means three gods as with Jehovah's Witnesses.

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Right. And as we were discussing in a couple of our phone calls, much of the problems with many of the arguments that are presented against Trinitarians is their complete misapprehension and misrepresentation of what we as Trinitarians actually believe.

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Now I guess what I would like to do, Eddie, is to give you an opportunity. Of course I've read through most of your manuscript but although I'm sure that many of our listeners would love to get really deep into this and explore the things that you've already written on it, obviously we're only going to be able to cover some of the basics.

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So I thought what we could do today as we have discussed is probably address the topic of oneness theology in general.

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What is it and you can discuss some of its origins and so on. And then hopefully next week, by God's grace, we can be back and discuss some of the passages that they like to use and deal with some of the more contemporary folk that are the,

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I guess, high profile personalities such as T .D. Jakes and of course you deal quite heavily in your manuscript with the arguments put forward by David Bernard.

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So with that then as a background, why don't you go ahead and help us and define for us exactly what is oneness theology, what is it that they believe, what is it that they claim, and discuss some of the origins of that for us.

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Basically oneness theology, to define it in a very simple way, because again, as the first proponent of oneness theology said, he said, where am

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I in error? I'm glorifying Christ as God. Now we have to look at oneness theology for what it is.

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Oneness theology asserts that monotheism means one person, a unipersonal deity.

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Before time, there existed a lone deity with no relationship, with no one around, just in absolute darkness, just one unitarian deity.

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At a point in time, for redemption, the Father, who is

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God, they think, they take the unitarian position that only the Father is God. The Father came down from heaven, this unitarian deity.

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He came down from heaven, the Father took flesh. Now, he does not become the flesh, he just merely wraps himself in flesh or assumes, temporarily, and I say that parenthetically because that role of the flesh will end.

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So the Father takes flesh. That flesh is the human nature now.

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He took a new nature. That human nature is now called Son. So in the end, just as Jehovah's Witnesses, and others, the nature of the

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Son, the person of the Son, began at Bethlehem.

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So you have the divine nature is the Father, and the person of the Son. The human nature is the Son in one person, the unipersonal

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God. So they tell us, when we read the Bible, we have to discern and decide, is

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Jesus speaking as Father? Or is Jesus speaking as Son? In other words, when

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Jesus says, I am, that's the Father talking, his divine nature. But when

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Jesus says, who touched me? Or, I don't know when I'm coming back? They tell us, that is the human

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Son, because the Son is not God. Only the Father is God. And then there's the role of the

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Holy Spirit. Sometimes this Unitarian deity will manifest as the role of the

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Holy Spirit. So you have the sole Unitarian, unipersonal deity that comes out in different modes or different offices, as an actor would come behind the screen, on a stage, or behind a curtain, and sometimes he's the role of the

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Father, sometimes he's the role of the Son, sometimes he's the role of the Holy Spirit. But you have to decide by reading

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Scripture. It's an arduous task. And we know now, according to one of theology, that the name of this

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Unitarian deity is Jesus. So hence, Jesus is the Father, Jesus is the

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Son, Jesus is the Holy Spirit. Three modes or manifestations, not person.

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In fact, they repudiate the term person in the sense of free person. But logically that's called special pleading, because there's many literature in one of theology that uses the term person to describe the one deity, meaning he's unipersonal.

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And then they attack us for saying God exists in three persons. So the

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Unitarian deity was alone, he became or put on a flesh body as a child would go into a store and put on a

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Halloween outfit. He doesn't become the flesh, but the Father puts on this flesh outfit, and the flesh is called

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Son. And afterwards, as David Bernard points out, a UPC, United Pentecostal International author and prolific writer, he says that the

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Son role will soon end. So what you have is a God who pretends he's the

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Son sometimes, he pretends he's the Holy Spirit, sometimes he pretends he's the Father. We never really know about this deity.

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We never know his real nature, because these roles or offices of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that's not his real nature.

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These are roles or offices that he temporarily assumed for the sake of redemption.

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So his redemption is reduced to a charade. So what you have is the actor deity, and we have to decide what role is he playing at certain times.

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So in a very abbreviated sense, that is oneness theology and the oneness deity.

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So when they say Jesus is God, what they mean is Jesus as the Father is God. And when they say

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Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus as the Son office is the Son of God.

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So obviously they could say Jesus is the Son of God, but they could never say

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Jesus is God the Son. No, they could never say that. In fact, David Bernard, who has no formal training in textual criticism, makes the absurd statement that John 118 is completely translated wrong, and it should be haios and atheos, and so on and so forth.

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So he can be the Son of God, but not God the Son. And as you've just indicated, the pre -existence, obviously, of Christ is done away.

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As we'll see, I think that demonstrating that Jesus Christ, eternally distinct from the

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Father, as the agent, not the mere instrument, but as the agent of creation, shuts oneness theology down.

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Because if you can demonstrate that Jesus Christ existed as Creator, distinct from His Father as Creator, then that completely dissolves oneness theology.

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Now, I noticed in the section in your manuscript on the Holy Spirit, you've touched on, obviously, the major points of their denial of the distinctions, the fact that the

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Son has a beginning and He has an end, and the Father wraps Himself, not the

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Word, agenitav, sarx, He doesn't become flesh, and the Word is obviously, I would assume, the

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Father then? Is that how they would interpret that passage? Yeah. Dealing with John 114, when they say, in the beginning was the

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Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, as the Scripture says, they will say that the

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Word there, that's the Father, just as man has his own reason. They will say the

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Word is the Father, and they will really depersonalize the Word. But what I find is a great defense of the trinity of God, is to demonstrate the personal attributes of the

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Word. The Word in Him was life, the Word created all things, and then the

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Word became flesh. He doesn't wrap Himself in flesh, the

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Greek is very powerful there, He became, agenitav, He became the flesh, God actually became man, and to say anything else completely violates the clear teaching of Scripture.

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But that's what they believe, the Word is the Father, and the Father became flesh, or wrapped Himself in flesh. Now, as I was reading your manuscript, what

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I was going to point out, and I don't quite have it here, but you could possibly allude to it, and that is that they also seemingly have a similar view to that of the

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Jehovah's Witnesses. In fact, here's the quote that you cite, I'm not sure who the reference is, but basically it says,

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When we speak of the Holy Spirit, we are reminding ourselves of God's invisible work among men, and of His ability to anoint, baptize, fill, and dwell human lives.

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The term Holy Spirit speaks of God in activity, and the

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Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters, and so on. I guess this is a citation from probably

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David Bernard, and basically is using similar argumentation to that of the

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Witnesses, where the Holy Spirit is nothing more than an active force, is that correct?

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Right, they equate, in that statement, He equates the Holy Spirit as a depersonalized mere force.

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Again, the Holy Spirit was a role, and so they depersonalized Him, but as you know,

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Simon, if we comb through John, we see Christ, and I use this all the time with Jehovah's Witnesses, we see

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Christ completely define the grammar by using masculine pronouns to refer to the neuter word for Spirit, which is not right grammatically, but Jesus does it to demonstrate, to emphasize the personality of the

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Holy Spirit. Plus, we find multiple references of the personality of the

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Holy Spirit. He speaks, He thinks, He investigates, He loves, and so on and so forth. Only a self, someone that's conscious of their self, or cognizant of their own being, can actually give love, like in Romans 1530, and they depersonalize

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Him. Now you touched on this earlier, as far as this was kind of a reaction, in essence, historically, but give us a little bit of some of the roots here.

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You know, we're talking about monarchianism, dynamic, modalistic, what does all that mean?

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It was first coined as monarchianism, because they held to the monarchia, or the one principle, but there was two types of monarchianism.

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There was dynamic and modalistic, and keep in mind, the first heresy that, besides the

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Judaizers, that the Church had to deal with in combat was, of course, Gnosticism. They denied callously that Christ could not be human, and they attacked the word man theology, however that was systematically refuted by both

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John and the Apostle Paul. But the second great heresy that crept into the Church was monarchianism.

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Now, there was two types of monarchianism. There was modalistic and dynamic. First with dynamic.

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Dynamic monarchianism taught that Jesus Christ, at His baptism in the

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Jordan, was in due with power, or was divinely inspired to do miracles, without becoming deity.

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And the first one that we know of that ever taught that was Theodotus in around AD 90.

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And he taught this to another Theodotus, and to some of his disciples who brought it to Rome.

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Now, of course, Theodotus was excommunicated by Pope Victor, but they also believe in the

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Virgin Birth, but they believe that Jesus Christ became a divinely inspired man.

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So, hence, it was more properly called adoptionism. Hence, the Son was adopted by the

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Father at a point in time, but He was just a mere man that was adopted by the Father. He was virtuous, though. And that dynamic monarchianism.

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And then, after Theodotus, we find a man named Paul of Thimosida. Now, Paul of Thimosida was from Antioch, in fact.

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I believe he was a Bishop of Antioch before he was excommunicated for these teachings. And he really presented better arguments for adoptionism, and eventually he was condemned at a council of Antioch in 268.

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So, that is dynamic monarchianism. And also, some of the same folks who were in the same camp taught that Jesus became divine, but it started out that they taught that He was just a man that was inspired by the deity.

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Then we have modalistic monarchianism. Now, that was more popular. Dynamic monarchianism, that fizzles out pretty fast, because it denied that Jesus Christ was

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God, holy God. So, it was very hard to maintain. I mean, it was just too blatant.

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No one was going to buy into that. But modalism was something different. And one of the first persons that we know to teach modalism was a man named

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Noetis, Noetis of Smyrna, around A .D. 190, the same time as Theodotus.

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However, we do have a reference from Justin Martyr. In fact,

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I have it right here. It says, "...for they who affirm that the Son is the Father are proved neither to have become acquainted with the

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Father, nor to know the Father." So, even before Noetis, there was, at least as Justin Martyr saw it, someone was teaching it.

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But as we know, Noetis was the first popular person that was teaching it. Now, Noetis was an interesting fellow.

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He claimed he was Moses, and he claimed his brother was Aaron. And if we read Hippolytus, he wrote a whole book on Noetis called

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Against Noetis, one named Noetis, where he refutes him systematically, and he gives very, very biblical arguments why the modalism of Noetis was just completely un -biblical, and it was completely out to lunch.

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And again, Noetis asked his attackers, "...what evil then have

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I done? I'm just glorifying Christ." And after Noetis, he gained a few disciples in Rome.

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The most popular person to teach modalism was

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Sibelius. And what I want to mention, too, is there was a man named Prases that Tertullian writes about in Against Prases.

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The problem is, we don't know who Prases was. Some people feel he was Pope Callistus, and Tertullian just used the name

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Prases, but it's hard to determine who Prases really was, because our primary evidence for Prases is

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Tertullian. And Tertullian gives us a lot of great insight, and it was

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Tertullian who first coined the word in the West, Trinity, and this was in his writings against Prases.

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But getting back to Sibelius, now he was probably the most popular person that ever taught modalism.

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In fact, it is coined historically after Sibelius as Sibelianism. However, he presented very sophisticated arguments.

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He was intelligent, he was cunning, he was crafty, he was a convincer, and people bought into it.

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He was especially excommunicated by Pope Callistus, who I apologize for being accused of being a

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Sibelius. Right. Eddie, hold that thought for a moment, and they're telling me that we need to take a quick break. And to our listening audience, we will be right back, and we'll pick up with that thought from Eddie Dalcour on Sibelianism, and the inroads into today, where now we have oneness theology, a real force to reckon with.

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Wow, I never get tired of that catchy little tune that allows us to get right back into some serious theological discussion.

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And my friend Eddie Dalcour, by the way, this is Simon Escobedo, again filling in for James White, who is in Long Island, will be back with us in about three weeks,

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Lord willing, and I'm sure he'll be ready to go. But, Eddie, you're still there. Yes. You'll be happy to know,

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Eddie, at least I hope this has been a blessing, as we've been on now for about a half hour, and I don't think

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I've had to use the cough button yet. I was just going to say that. I heard no cough. So, anyways, you were basically just giving us a definition of dynamic monarchism.

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Dynamic monarchism and modalistic monarchism, or known as modalism, or what we know today as oneness theology.

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And you got into Sibelius. Sibelius. He traveled to Rome, and as I was saying, due to his slyness and his intellectual arguments, he gained many devotees there.

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However, this must be stated, contrary to what modern oneness theology believes,

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Sibelius held to what is known as successive modalism. Now, there was successive modalism that taught, first there was the father role, right, in creation.

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That ended. Then there was the role of the son in redemption. That ended.

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Then, and now, the Holy Spirit for regeneration that is still going on. And that is known as successive modalism.

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Contrary to modern oneness theology, starting in 1744, with Emanuel Swinnenberg, who switched the whole thing around, now it's a static modalism.

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In other words, we say, well, wait a second, how can Jesus be the father, son, and Holy Spirit when, for instance, the baptism we read in Matthew, you know, the dove descending in the father's voice.

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Well, they say that's no problem, because God is omnipresent. The Unitarian deity, he's omnipresent, so he can speak at different places at different times to make you think that there's distinction.

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And that is what's known as static modalism, or simultaneous modalism, where the modes can be simultaneous.

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And it's just straining to all means just a clear reading of the passage.

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My question I always ask oneness believers is how can you just come to Scripture with a clean slate?

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How can anyone come to Scripture with no prior theological commitment and get the idea that Jesus is himself the

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Father as well as the Son and the Holy Spirit? Now, I was going to ask you now, you were saying the distinctions between the historic position and the modern position.

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As I understood what you were saying is, in the historic position, it was the Father who was behind all the masks.

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Now it is Christ. Is that basically the difference? Right. It started out, it was the

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Father behind the mask, or prosopon, as the bell is used. And today, starting with Immanuel Swindenberg in 1744, because he did all the changes to modalism here, now it's

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Jesus is the name of the actor that pretends he's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, he's really the

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God of illusion, and you never know what mask he's going to be in. But, to be clear,

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Bernard, David Bernard, and others teach in Oneist theology that the role of the Son will disappear.

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It will cease. So, getting back to Sibelius and his successive modalism, he was soon condemned.

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He was excommunicated by Callistus, and the question to be asked when dealing with successive is how does the

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Son pray to the Father simultaneously, if successive modalism is true? Or how can both the

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Father and the Son make their abode with the believer, like John 14 .23?

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And I think it's very problematic to hold to successive modalism, because they have to explain biblically that we find that the

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Father is Creator, the Son is Creator, and the Holy Spirit is Creator, Job 33 .4. So, there's many problems with successive modalism, to be sure.

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Now Sibelius was what, 2nd century? Yeah, Sibelius, well, early 3rd century.

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Early 3rd century. So, once he was condemned as a heretic... He was condemned, and Athanasius says his doctrines trace back to Stoic philosophy.

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But after Sibelianism, it kind of died off. We don't hear too much about it.

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And it really wasn't until 1744 with Immanuel Swinnenberg that it started emerging again.

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But even modern modalism, it's just Sibelianism regurgitated.

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In fact, they used the same arguments as did Sibelius. Right. Sibelius. Well, let me take this liberty, as you're thinking of your next direction on this issue, to inform our listening audience that if you have any questions for Mr.

34:27

D 'Alcour, feel free to give us a call. The number is 1 -866 -854 -6763.

34:34

And we'll be taking phone calls probably in the next 10 minutes or at the top of the hour. So if you have a question for Mr.

34:41

D 'Alcour on oneness theology, I'm sure he would love to try to help you out on that, and so feel free to call.

34:48

So you're saying that it kind of went away for a while, and then it resurfaced again later on. It emerged again with Immanuel Swinnenberg in 1744, and he revamped it.

34:59

Now, he was a spiritist, and he revamped modalism to what it is today as simultaneous modalism with Jesus as the actor behind all the mass, or Jesus as the head pretender.

35:12

And then around 1913, in Los Angeles, the

35:18

Pentecostal Revival, there was R .E. McAllister, as we know, and he preached a sermon in Azusa Street that was based on Acts 2 .38,

35:30

which he argued the baptismal formula should be in the name of Jesus only, and not in the

35:35

Trinitarian formula. And there were many there who were greatly influenced by the message, and in prayer they encountered all kinds of revelations and mystical experiences at this place, and they came out with, hey,

35:49

Jesus is really the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And they make great arguments for Matthew 28 .19.

35:56

If there's one text that's most abused by the cult, it's Matthew 28 .19.

36:02

You have the Mormons, they assert polytheism, you know, that's the three gods. Then you have the

36:08

International Church of Christ, well, that means that you have to be a disciple first, then be baptized, then you can be saved.

36:18

And now we have oneness, we find all kinds of groups completely abusing

36:23

Matthew 28 .19. So they argue, because of the singularity of the term name, that that means it's just the unipersonal deity,

36:34

Jesus, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So their theological filter, the basic external authority, if you will, that they bring to the scriptures is the implicit assertion of Unitarianism.

36:48

Absolutely. It goes beyond normalized Jesus, even. What they do, how they violate the text, it's befuddling how someone with a straight face can do this, and at the same moment say they follow

37:05

Christ, and just damage the text in such a severe fashion. Now that brings up a point that you and I talked about last evening, before we get into what are some of the theological implications of oneness theology and those that are involved with it.

37:20

That was, as I read your manuscript, and as I told you last night, I could tell that you wrote with quite a bit of passion.

37:27

You used quite a few charged words, shall we say. One that really stuck out to me was doctrinal sabotage.

37:36

And if you remember, as I asked you last evening, I basically said I get the impression that you at least give me the impression that some of these leaders like David Bernard and others are purposefully deceiving people.

37:53

Obviously we know there are false teachers, and we know that some false teachers are deceiving themselves and hence they're deceiving others.

38:01

But I know like James and I have talked before, and we're firmly of the belief that those in the Watchtower Association and folks like that know what they're doing and are leading people astray deliberately.

38:13

What would your opinion be on the oneness position, particularly the leaders involved in that? I find both categories, as you will find with the

38:22

Watchtower. I think the Watchtower engages in a lot of textual sabotage by changing the text.

38:30

What the oneness folks do, they don't change the text. Most of them go by the

38:35

King James Bible, and they're very King James -only, a lot of them. However, there are variances there.

38:43

However, what they do, as I said, pointed out, they sabotage the doctrine by making words appear with different definitions than the normal definitions, and making things say and teach things that clearly are not being taught.

38:59

And I think the greatest theological implication of oneness theology, and the most damning aspect of oneness theology, is that it denies some of the greatest doctrines.

39:14

For example, the word incarnation. Because the word doesn't become flesh. The Father, as I pointed out, wraps himself or puts on a flesh outfit.

39:23

It's not really Him, He just pretends He puts on an outfit. So they deny the incarnation. That's completely trashed.

39:30

They deny the doctrine of intercession. I mean, who does Jesus intercede for, if He's the Father and the

39:35

Son? There's no intercession there. What, does He intercede for Himself? They deny the doctrine that Jesus is mediator between God and man.

39:43

How can He be mediator in reality, if He's both Father and Son? And, it denies substitutionary atonement.

39:53

Because, if the Son is only the human, the humanity only,

39:59

He's not God, how does a mere human atone for our sins? You have to be

40:05

God. Acts 20, 28, Paul makes a convincing argument. It was the God -man that died on the cross.

40:13

He was God and had infinite value. And as man, He was the perfect representation. You can't divide the

40:20

God -man and make some Nestorian heresy. You can't insert that into the text.

40:26

It denies substitutionary atonement, because you have a mere man dying for the sins of the world, which is an impossibility, biblically.

40:34

If the Son is not a distinct person, how was the Father propitiated, if He wasn't distinct?

40:41

The Son died, or a temporary manifestation on the cross died.

40:47

Redemption, in the end, is reduced to some kind of charade, like a play.

40:55

And these are some of the most important doctrines. And of course, it denies the personality of the

41:00

Holy Spirit, but these doctrines are essential, they're substantive. These things determine one's salvation.

41:06

Jesus said, unless you believe that I am, you'll die on your sins. It's just not merely confessing

41:12

Jesus that makes someone saved. You must believe. Faith is that instrument.

41:19

But you have to have faith in the right object. And clearly, their Jesus is not the biblical

41:25

Jesus. And that's the point that needs to be driven home and home again. And as the letter that I initially read to open the program demonstrated,

41:33

I don't, in fact, that very correspondence was about six or seven letters in length.

41:40

And each time that I tried to get this oneness gentleman to realize that we believe in a different Jesus, the object of our faith is obviously of eternal consequence.

41:56

And the point that I was trying to make with him is that if he was to be consistent with his own position, and now

42:02

I don't know what types of, you know, what the oneness folk do in terms of evangelism, but if he was to be consistent with his own position, there would be no way that he could, say for instance, tell a

42:15

Mormon that they believed in a different Jesus, or tell a witness that they believed in a different Jesus.

42:21

For if he could not himself see that obviously there were tremendous differences between the view of God that I was presenting and the view of God that he was presenting, these weren't simply mere differences.

42:36

These were completely different gods. And if the object of our faith is of eternal consequence, then there would be no way that he could tell us that he believed in a different Jesus.

42:49

And if he was to be consistent with his own position, there would be no way that he could tell us that he believed in a different Jesus.

42:58

say to the husbands, if I started teaching that your wife is half amphibious or half fish, are you going to say, hey, that's okay, as long as I love her?

43:06

No, now we're talking about a completely different person than his wife.

43:12

She's not half fish, she's human. Same with God. God is either unitarian, unipersonal, or he exists in three distinct persons in which

43:21

Christ can say, this is eternal life, to have knowledge of the true

43:28

God. A cannot be non -A. He's either unitarian or tripersonal. Absolutely.

43:34

You know, there's a demarcation there, there's an ontological distinction there.

43:40

And I think in the end, both dynamic modalism, or dynamic monarchism and modalistic monarchism, in the end, they both relegate the

43:52

Savior to a divinely inspired man. Real similar to Mormonism, Jesus became

43:57

God. With Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus became an inspired, divinely inspired a -God.

44:06

And that is the end result, unitarianism. Well, certainly that is the discussion for this afternoon.

44:14

Modalism, oneness theology, in many ways, as I was looking through some of the things that you sent me,

44:21

Eddie, I was fascinated at the similarities between oneness teaching and the

44:27

Watchtower. In fact, if basically you have the objections to the

44:34

Trinity down from the Watchtower perspective, they're almost mirrored in what the oneness presents.

44:40

They use the same arguments. In fact, even Arius' teachings can be traced back to Paul of Symoseta, to be sure.

44:49

They all use the same unitarian arguments. Right. Now, he had mentioned earlier, and I don't want us to get ahead of ourselves,

44:54

I'm sure this will be discussed next week. In fact, to give our audience a little bit of a,

45:00

I don't know, to whet their appetite for next week's program, we have tentatively an opportunity of hearing some

45:07

Eddie Dalcor soundbites that hopefully we'll be able to utilize and give people an actual listening to some of the claims that are being made from some of these high -profile personalities.

45:19

But you had mentioned earlier, T .D. Jakes, and in our discussion a few nights ago, you had mentioned that he was on the cover of Time magazine.

45:29

I don't know what issue that was. But he's pretty outspoken about his particular position.

45:36

And given the fact that he has so much influence, and as some have suggested, the new

45:42

Billy Graham and all this, a person certainly leading that many people and being so heretical in his position on the nature of God, this is a serious issue.

45:56

I think it's very serious because, again, you know, we're talking about a completely different God than the

46:05

God of the Bible, a completely different construct. I would invite everybody to go to the doctrinal statement of T .D.

46:12

Jakes. It's on his website. Or you can pick it up on my, on his intro page on my website. I have a link to it.

46:18

Where the first, when he's defining God, the very first line in his doctrinal statement is,

46:26

God exists in three dimensions. God exists in three dimensions.

46:33

And then it says, the Father is God. And it gives

46:39

John 1 .1. Now, in fact, I have the paragraph here. It says, three dimensions of one

46:45

God. And it says, triune in his manifestation. Triune in his manifestation.

46:51

Being both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And that he is sovereign, absolute in his authority.

46:57

We believe in the Father, who is God himself, creator of the universe. Genesis 1 and John 1 .1.

47:05

Now, why would he give John 1 .1 to demonstrate that the

47:10

Father is God himself? Well, if you understand modalism, they believe that the Word is the Father. So of course he would give

47:16

John 1 .1. And three dimensions of one God? Is your wife a dimension or is she a person?

47:24

Yes, I hear you. I'll have to answer that really quickly to make sure that she, if she's listening, won't get offended.

47:30

But she's a person, Eddie. Yes. Okay. And as I write, trying to, if someone's interested in a church and they want to know their doctrinal beliefs, go to their doctrinal statements.

47:46

And the oneness, I have an article called the Oneness Church Tag. And one of the red flags are the fact that persons are never there.

47:57

Person, the term person, is absent from the statement. Now, not that that in and of itself makes a doctrinal statement of oneness.

48:07

But when you look at the entirety of the doctrinal statement, a lot of times, and if you do your homework and understand and apprehend one of theology, when you read someone like T .D.

48:19

Jake's doctrinal statement, you'll know exactly what he means. Now, he's never denied that he's oneness.

48:25

And all the public statements that he makes, they're always oneness in nature. And he has never affirmed that he believes in the

48:33

Trinity. In fact, next week I'm going to get a tape out to you, Simon, where he was interviewed out here by a apologetic group.

48:40

And they asked him, how important is the doctrine of the Trinity to the believer? The first thing that came out of his mouth was, well,

48:48

Trinity's not even in the Bible. The Trinity's not even in the Bible.

48:53

Of course anyone who doesn't know onenesses knows. That's their argument. And in one of the theologies, that's their argument.

48:59

They confuse data, biblical data, with doctrine. And then he says that when

49:04

God made a man to look like him, whatever that means, he made him not three, but one.

49:11

Then he says, he's Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit in recreation. Now, where did he get that quote?

49:18

Well, I can open my The Oneness of God by David Bernard, and he, quote, makes that same quote to define

49:24

God. Now, where does David Bernard get that? Well, we can trace back that quote to Sibelius himself, defining his

49:32

Unitarian construct. So, to be sure, T .D. Jakes absolutely is oneness.

49:38

And I spoke with a UPCI pastor in Florida, a big church, and I submitted

49:44

T .D. Jakes' doctrinal statement. And he says, oh yeah. His friends know Jakes, and he says, see,

49:50

Jakes doesn't teach openly a lot oneness theology. He doesn't teach it a lot.

49:56

Because he wants to appease his Trinitarian audience. He's smart.

50:02

He knows that if he teaches it too much, people might get whim. But the tragedy that I see in Christian churches is doctrines like the

50:11

Trinity and justification by faith, the deity of Christ, is never taught. I mean, Simon, when I go to churches and I ask that same question,

50:18

I say, who here in the last ten years has ever heard a message on the

50:24

Trinity? Raise your hand. I don't get any hands. How about the deity of Christ? I don't get any hands.

50:32

Or justification, no hands. But if I say, how about gifts? They all raise their hands. Or Antichrist, or 666, or eschatology, or prophetic speculation.

50:41

Everyone raises their hands. That's the problem. We're nothing like the first century church in terms of teaching.

50:47

If you comb through the New Testament epistles explicitly and implicitly in every single epistle, the deity of Christ and justification is taught.

50:55

You know, that's a good point to make, because this was a question I was going to ask you later, but you bring it up now, so I'll go ahead and ask it.

51:04

And that is, those who we would probably consider them to be Christians, they love the

51:11

Lord, they believe in Christ, but yet obviously quite ignorant of some of the things that they should know, because the scriptures are there for them to read and to study.

51:22

And sadly, because in so many churches there is such a deprivation of sound teaching, that many of God's people, many of these churches are just absolutely starving.

51:33

But I remember the ministry that I came out of, and my mother was struggling through the pandemic, and she was in the hospital, and she went to the pastor.

51:53

And I know him, and I believe him to be a person who loves the Lord and so on, so I'm not questioning his salvation or my questioning his orthodox view on the

52:02

Trinity, but he gave her an illustration that was very modalistic, and I'm sure you've probably heard of this one.

52:10

He pretty much told her that, well, consider, if you will, a courtroom, and you're standing before the judge, and you're guilty.

52:19

And the judge, in love, gets up out of his chair, takes his robe off, comes down where you're standing, and takes your place.

52:32

That's the Trinity. Or in this case, that's how you, you know, try to understand the

52:38

Father and the Son and so on. Well, when she told me that, I said, that is wrong.

52:45

You know, that's heretical. And what I find often is that many

52:51

Christians tend to give responses within the

52:58

Unitarian mindset. In fact, I'll hear people say, well, how could Jesus be God, and yet the

53:04

Son of God? And obviously implicit in that is they're assuming unipersonality as well, which means they have not been taught what is the

53:14

Trinity. And do you come across a lot of people like that? Absolutely. I get that question when

53:20

I speak on Watchtower Theology, because they make many arguments about the

53:27

Jesus called Son of God. You know, he's not God, he's called Son of God, as if there's some kind of distinction there in terms of position of nature, in terms of nature.

53:36

And I get that question a lot, and you hit it on the head. The reason why most Christians, that I think, get chewed up by Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, and the reason why

53:46

Christians don't know about the Trinity, because it's not taught. How do you know anything unless, you know, it's just not, and I hold pastors accountable.

53:55

They should be teaching these things. Paul certainly did. Paul teaches distinction in every single one of his salutations, where the grace and peace flows equally.

54:05

It doesn't, in his salutation, you know, the grace and peace doesn't flow through Jesus from the

54:12

Father. Paul didn't write that. But the grace and peace flows from the Father, and it flows from Jesus Christ.

54:20

So in Paul's mind, kairos and seos there, Father and Jesus, were on an equal plane of deity.

54:28

So all through Paul's letters, he makes these glaring distinctions. And you're right, they're not being taught the most important doctrine, in which,

54:38

I would submit, every single biblical doctrine flows out of the doctrine of the

54:44

Trinity. Unless God is triune, salvation is not a reality. And it's a shame that the teaching priorities are just so different than in the first century.

55:00

Well let's go ahead and take a break at that point, Eddie. Let me remind our callers that if you have a call for Mr.

55:07

Eddie Dalcor, please feel free to call us at 1 -866 -854 -6763.

55:13

We'll be right back. Hi, everyone.

55:31

This is Rich Pierce. I just want to let you know I'm actually kind of interrupting here, because Warren was actually supposed to pot

55:37

Simon up first, and then bring me into it so that I'm talking with Simon.

55:43

Simon, are you still here? I think so. I hope so. I wonder what happened. There we go. Okay, now.

55:49

Is that Dulos that did that? Yeah, that's Dulos did that. But, you know, the old dead air thing, you can't have that anyway.

55:57

Folks, I want to bring to your attention a couple of items here. First of all, I've been getting e -mails this week saying that folks are not able to play from the archives of the dividing lines and various other things over on Straightgate.

56:10

I don't know what all the details are, but I do know that the situation is that apparently the host server company that Straightgate is on has been bought out.

56:24

And as a result of that and the transition somewhere, the server has gone down.

56:32

And Steven Luker is, to my knowledge, doing everything he can to try to work that circumstance out and get that server back up and running with a company that hosts it.

56:42

Those of you who utilize the services of Straightgate .com know that it hosts an enormous amount of real audio files for you to listen to, a very large selection of files for you to be able to play from, not just the dividing line,

56:57

James White and our ministry, but many other ministries as well. And so we are going to actually be archiving until Straightgate comes back up, we'll be archiving this and a few of the previous programs over on our real server backup site for the time being.

57:18

But for those of you who are wanting to play some of the older real audio files over on Straightgate, you're not going to be able to do that for the time being, and we'll try to update you when that comes back around.

57:29

The other thing I want to let you know about is that we've got some budgetary needs I need to bring to your attention.

57:35

Actually, they're not budgetary needs, they're off -budget needs. Now first of all, I don't want to alarm anybody, we aren't having another crisis like last

57:43

May. We recovered from that, our budgetary needs are being met very well, many of you stepped up and are supporting this ministry month to month, and that is what we need to have in order to keep going.

57:57

We do have a couple of projects that we want to expand out to and do more in ministry, and we have not been able to mail out a newsletter in seven years, believe it or not.

58:10

And one of the things we want to be able to do, and those have come because of financial problems that we've struggled with, etc.,

58:17

but we're now in a situation where we have all the volunteers lined up to be able to make this happen.

58:23

And the next roadblock we've got is the final one, and that is the financial needs being met to make that happen, and be able to purchase the materials, be able to pay the postage, and to be able to send out approximately 3 ,000 newsletters, which is what our mailing list is at right now, and make that a realistic possibility again to where we're sending out a newsletter letting you folks know what's going on here at Alpha and Omega Ministries every quarter.

58:51

And then the goal after that will be the Prasapala Ghion journal, theological journal, bringing that back into the picture once again as well.

59:02

The Prasapala Ghion theological journal was sent out by Alpha and Omega Ministries for years, and we had to stop that about seven years ago as well.

59:11

And so we're really excited at these opportunities, but I do want to let you know, folks, that we need some extra off -budget funds to make this happen, and if you'll click on the

59:25

Support Us link over at aomin .org and go ahead and give us some help there, we will definitely appreciate it, and we want to communicate with you some of the things that are going on here.

59:36

So that's basically all I need to bring you up to speed on. Simon, I really appreciate the time. Oh, absolutely, Rich. Any time you need that kind of parenthetical note, you let me know.

59:46

Okay, and I'll let you get back to Eddie. Okay, you there, Eddie? Eddie, are you there? I'm there.

59:51

Okay, good. Just thought I'd let you know, I don't know if, oops, I went in and out there on the mic.

59:57

I don't know if you're in Prasapala Ghion right now, but our dear friend Dr. White is in there, and he says that he is enjoying the program, and that you are the bomb.

01:00:08

So I'll let you interpret that as you wish. Of course, these aren't the kinds of days that you use that kind of terminology, but I'm sure he means something fun by it.

01:00:18

But anyways. Well, we only got a few minutes left, Eddie, and I kind of want to basically summarize what we've already gone over.

01:00:28

You've discussed some of the terms involved. You've discussed some of the history. I'm looking again at your manuscript, and you provide a really nice doctrinal syllogism, if you will, of the oneness position.

01:00:41

So let me read that, and then wrap up for us in, oh, the 20 minutes or so that we have left, a breakdown again on the specific position, what it sets forth, and some of the things that we need to do to inform believers of what they believe so as to better deal with these kinds of groups.

01:01:01

Now you say premise number one for this syllogism is there is only one God slash the

01:01:08

Father, and they, I guess you cite Malachi 2 .10, 1 Corinthians 8 .6 as some of their proof texts.

01:01:14

Premise two, Jesus is God, John 8 .58, Romans 9 .5, Titus 2 .13.

01:01:21

So their conclusion based on those two premises is that Jesus is the

01:01:26

Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus has two natures, divine as the

01:01:31

Father or Holy Spirit, and human as the Son. That's really an excellent syllogism that really puts it right there for everyone to see what the clear definition of oneness theology is.

01:01:45

Yeah, oneness theology I think could be defined simply as God is a unipersonal deity that pretends he has different roles, he pretends he has different mass, but he's never really those mass, that's not really his own nature.

01:01:57

So the oneness worship of God, the God of pretenders, because you never know who this

01:02:03

God is. He doesn't really die for anyone's sin, because that's just really a temporary mode, or a temporary manifestation on the cross.

01:02:10

He doesn't really make propitiation for anything or anybody, because it's a mode. He's not intercessor, because who does he intercede for?

01:02:18

He's not mediator, because who is he mediator for? A mediator by way of definition implies distinction.

01:02:25

So to put your faith in a Unitarian God is putting your faith in a God not of Holy Scripture, but is a

01:02:33

Unitarian God, the same God as Muslims, as Jehovah's Witnesses, and other so -called monotheistic groups.

01:02:42

And I would just admonish all Christians to really study up on these things, because you will encounter the oneness believer.

01:02:51

Even within your own church, you'll encounter oneness believers. I certainly, when

01:02:56

I speak at different churches, I encounter many, even pastors, that tell me they don't think it's a huge issue.

01:03:02

It's like peripheral or secondary. You know, just don't speak out against ministries.

01:03:08

You know, just talk about the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, but oneness, well, you know, semantics. No, it's not semantics.

01:03:15

It's not, it's the difference between a, not a simple readout of the text.

01:03:20

It's the difference between clear exegesis and clear eisegesis. You cannot come to the text with a plain text clear slate and get the idea that Jesus was

01:03:34

Himself the Father. Jesus says, I came forth from the Father, in John 16, 28, and have come into the world.

01:03:41

I am leaving the world again and going back to the Father. Now, if you just look at the plain reading, you will not get the idea, unless you were taught before, you will not get the idea that Jesus Himself is the

01:03:56

Father. In fact, if you look throughout all the plain readings of the text, where Jesus is the agent of creation, where Jesus has love before time with the

01:04:05

Father, which implies distinctions of personality. You have love before time that implicitly, by way of definition, implies a distinction of personalities.

01:04:16

Jesus says, Father, now glorify me with the glory I had, or I shared with you, before the world was.

01:04:24

So Jesus shared, or had glory with the Father. And grammatically, next week we can probably get more into this, grammatically, it's inescapable.

01:04:36

Jesus shared something with the Father, and it was glory. And He had glory with the

01:04:43

Father, and when did He have it? Before time began. Oneist theology denies that. Oneist theology has a sole, lone, unitarian, anti -distinction deity floating around in darkness, and at some time, because of redemption,

01:04:59

He comes to earth. It's like two parents staying together, not divorcing for the sake of the children.

01:05:05

So this lone deity comes down from space, and He assumes flesh, and He calls the flesh

01:05:11

Son. And our task is to decide, is Jesus talking here as the

01:05:19

Father, or as the Son? And oneist theology puts scripture, oneist theology puts doctrine in a place where their devotees are totally misapprehension about when they view the

01:05:36

Trinity. Because they were taught a divergent view of the Trinity, and they were not taught what the

01:05:43

Trinity actually is. They were taught of three gods. So I would say the unitarian God of oneist theology is not the tri -personal

01:05:50

God of the Bible. Now, is there solidarity amongst oneist believers? I mean, do they have like a statement of faith as to what they believe?

01:06:00

Yeah, you can go to the largest denomination, which is the

01:06:05

United Pentecostal International, and they have their statement of faith. And it's similar to most of the oneist groups.

01:06:13

Keep in mind, not all oneist groups share the same views in terms of secondary doctrine, like their soteriology is completely different from one church to another church, for instance.

01:06:27

Yeah, talk about that. We discussed that last night. What is the oneist soteriology, if they even have such a thing?

01:06:33

Well, the oneist in terms of salvation in the

01:06:40

UPCI, they would say, you have to be baptized under the formula in the name of Jesus only to be valid.

01:06:51

Then after you're baptized, you have to repent, of course, and believe in their deity, and confess the name of Jesus, and be baptized in the name of Jesus.

01:07:00

And after that, you receive tongues. However, tongues doesn't necessarily come instantaneous.

01:07:07

Sometimes you have to plead with God to get tongues, because they teach you, unless you have tongues as the evidence of the

01:07:16

Holy Spirit, you are not saved. So the result of that is, you have people in the church, that might be in the church for years, with never receiving the gift of tongues, and for all those years, they think they're not saved.

01:07:32

Can you imagine the stress of that? Repenting, doing good works, being baptized in the name of Jesus only, doing everything right, yet not be saved.

01:07:41

Then there are other oneist churches who do not hold to that. They believe that you're saved by faith alone.

01:07:47

There are oneist churches who believe that. But what they do share, the commonality among oneist churches, is the

01:07:56

Unitarian deity, that pretends he comes out in different modes. That's what they all share. But other doctrines, they vary.

01:08:03

Which again, once you embrace that whole concept, many of the Christian truths, obviously inherent in the doctrine of the

01:08:10

Trinity, fall apart, such as, as you indicated earlier, Jesus the

01:08:16

Word is not eternal in oneist theology. He is not the creator of all things, like Colossians 1, 15 through 17 tells us.

01:08:24

There is no pre -existence, like we find in Philippians 2 and John 1 and so on.

01:08:30

They will say, and again we have to define our terms when we use those terms, pre -existence, because they will say, and I get letters all the time, they say, wait a second,

01:08:38

I do believe Jesus is eternal. But if you understand oneist doctrine, they believe

01:08:44

Jesus in the Father mode is eternal. They don't believe that Jesus is eternal distinct from the

01:08:50

Father. Whether you call him Eternal Word or Eternal Son, they don't believe it. And so they do not believe in the pre -existence of the person of Christ distinct from his

01:09:01

Father. They don't believe it because all those eternality passages, they'll say, well, yeah, we believe that, that's the Father.

01:09:09

Uh -oh, did we lose you there, Eddie? No. Oh, okay. I thought I saw a little thing there that might have given me the impression

01:09:15

I lost you. It was a mental ellipsis. Okay. Yes, well, good. I'm glad I didn't lose you.

01:09:21

But anyways, you were saying? So, when we talk about the eternality of Christ or the pre -existence of Christ, we have to define what we mean and make clear that we are talking about the pre -existence of Christ distinct from his

01:09:37

Father. John 1 .1, John 17 .5, Colossians 1, Philippians 2 .6

01:09:42

are great examples of the eternality of Christ that teaches clearly, grammatically and contextually, that Jesus Christ was distinct from his

01:09:52

Father, from his Father before time began. And he is not a mere instrument of creation, as with oneness, as with Mormons, but he was actually the agent of creation itself, which they deny.

01:10:10

And that certainly is a major, major problem. So what are some of the practical implications,

01:10:15

Eddie, as we consider, obviously, the major theological problems? You said earlier in the program that one of the frustrations that you've had is that as you have gone about, you just do not see a lot of information on this issue.

01:10:30

People perhaps, for the sake of unity, not wanting to be divisive. In fact, as a footnote to that thought,

01:10:38

I remember when Dr. White was on one of the local radio programs here, this was a few years ago, and there was a very popular radio host and we knew him really well and we liked him and we believed him to be a believer and so on.

01:10:53

And he was pretty good on most issues, but Dr. White went on and the issue of oneness was the topic.

01:11:00

And I remember the radio host telling James, come on, aren't we just nitpicking here and so on and so forth?

01:11:10

And I was really surprised to hear that, but it's obviously the pervasive attitude. And so it is perhaps an emotional discussion, because unlike the

01:11:20

Witnesses, you have a clear break with Protestant evangelicalism, but with oneness, since it has inroads into professing

01:11:32

Christendom, now you've got a major emotional dialogue before you.

01:11:38

So what are the practical implications of this? Well, first of all, for those who relegate the

01:11:45

Trinity to semantics, well, it's all semantics, it just shows a real Biblical neglect of the worst kind.

01:11:52

We're talking about God here, we're not talking about something that's peripheral here, we're talking about his character here, and how he chose to reveal himself.

01:12:03

And to say it's semantics, again, there's an ontological difference here, the same difference as Christianity and Jehovah's Witnesses, or any other non -Christian cult or non -Christian religion.

01:12:16

To the Biblical authors, the very object of their worship was

01:12:21

God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, not as a mode, but as a person, as the

01:12:26

God -Man, who is the very image and representation of the Father, who in his pre -existence had loving intercourse and glory with the

01:12:37

Father before time. And I think that Christians should really grasp the enormity when we're talking about the character of God.

01:12:46

When they're expressing the personality of their wife, or wives are talking about their husbands, if you really want to express the love that you have for someone, you don't just talk about what they did last week, or how great they mowed the lawn, or how great they cooked dinner, you want to express their person, who they are.

01:13:06

And I think nothing glorifies God more than expressing and accurately communicating who he is.

01:13:13

Is that not what Paul the Apostle did? Is that not what Jesus taught? This is eternal life?

01:13:20

To have knowledge? They didn't say it's eternal life, just to have some kind of semantical view and take a vote, see which view is right.

01:13:27

And we should not be afraid to offend anyone for the case of the nature of God.

01:13:34

We shouldn't be afraid. And too many pastors run with their tail tucked between their legs because they're afraid what someone might think.

01:13:43

They're afraid what followers of T .D. Jakes might think, or they're afraid of T .D. Jakes himself. Maybe they'll lose meetings.

01:13:50

As someone once said, I wouldn't give a snowball in hell for a pastor that didn't have any guts.

01:13:56

They don't want to speak out for the nature of God. They surely did that in the first few centuries.

01:14:02

I mean, they were so passionate about distinction. If I can revisit a story about Dionysus of Alexandria, I mean, this guy was so zealous to defend the trinity of God, to defend the eternal distinction.

01:14:18

And we have to keep in mind that the early, early church, no, they did not use the word trinity to describe

01:14:25

God. I mean, they lacked this technical vocabulary to really articulate the divine distinction, but they apprehended it.

01:14:34

The early church envisaged a plurality of divine persons. And that's, if we had more time, we can go through all the massive amounts of Epistle of Barnabas and Clement and Ignatius and Hippolytus and on and on it goes.

01:14:49

And Dionysus of Alexandria, he was so heated when it came to the anti -distinction of Sibelius that some of the followers of two other bishops, and they went to the

01:15:05

Bishop of Rome, who was another Dionysus, Dionysus of Rome, and they complained to him.

01:15:11

And really they lied about poor Dionysus of Alexandria. They said that he said that Christ was created and he didn't use the term homoousios and all these things to pull the

01:15:28

Rome at that time, Dionysus of Rome. So with Dionysus of Rome, he wrote a work called

01:15:35

Against Sibelius, which he criticized Dionysus of Alexandria because Dionysus of Alexandria used language of distinction.

01:15:45

And in his emotion, he perhaps went a little overboard and it sounded a little polytheistic there, but that wasn't his intention.

01:15:52

He was just so passionate, as was Tertullian, as was Hippolytus. These men devoted their life to defending the nature of God, not just what he did, but the character and nature of God, because it was him who saved them.

01:16:10

And it was him who provides eternal life and their justification. And so they died defending him.

01:16:16

And no one can read the writings of Hippolytus, Tertullian, Ovation, Epiphanius, no one can read those writings and not get the idea that modalism was some secondary doctrine.

01:16:26

These guys, they devoted their life teaching about distinction. And we should have that same passion to defend the triunity of God because that's how

01:16:36

God chose to reveal himself to us. We shouldn't put God in easy to understand categories because it's easy to understand.

01:16:44

And we shouldn't be afraid to offend people for the sake of truth. Right. Well, that's good stuff,

01:16:49

Eddie. You got me all charged up here. In fact, I've just been given a note that we actually have a caller on the line, and I believe it's

01:16:57

Mike from Florida, and he wants to ask Mr. Eddie DelCour a question. Mike, are you there? Yes, I am.

01:17:04

And what is your question for Mr. DelCour this afternoon? Well, Mr. DelCour, I'd like to ask in regards to the personhood of the

01:17:11

Son of the Trinity, does the incarnation of Christ affect the immutability of the

01:17:18

Godhead in any way? Did you hear that question? No, because he's not changing his nature.

01:17:24

I am God, I change. He's not changing his nature. He's taking on a new nature. So whereby his emptying,

01:17:31

Philippians 2 .6, that was the means of him taking on a new nature. So it doesn't change his essential nature.

01:17:37

He just took on a new nature. Okay. I can barely hear you guys, so I think

01:17:43

I'd better sign off here. Basically, what Eddie just said, Mike, was that Jesus didn't change his nature when the

01:17:51

Word became flesh. He took on another nature. So X did not cease to be X when joined with Y.

01:17:57

Does that make sense to you? Well, yes. It's just a question. In other words, if Christ did have a flesh body, of course, during the incarnation, is that a change in any way of the

01:18:09

Godhead itself? Is it, of course, not the nature, but the form of? No. It's not a change because the second person doesn't change his

01:18:19

Godhood. He's always deity. But what the second person did for us was he assumed he became flesh.

01:18:28

He took on a new nature. Now, his new nature doesn't change in any way, shape, or form the fact that he's on the same plane of deity as the

01:18:35

Father and the Holy Spirit. So God does not change if the second person, Christ, not the

01:18:40

Father, not the Holy Spirit, but it's Christ who takes on a new nature. Keep in mind, when we're dealing with God, we're dealing with a being that's unquantifiable.

01:18:50

You can't quantify him into parts or sections. You know, like the Holy Spirit, he's on earth, he's not in heaven, as a lot of popular evangelists say.

01:18:59

That's nonsense, because you can't quantify him into parts. He's indivisible. Right, we don't want to affect his omnipotence or his omnipresence in any way.

01:19:07

He's inseparable. Correct. So the answer is, no, God does not change, but the second person, the

01:19:13

Trinity, took on a new nature. Correct. Which did not affect his deity in no way, shape, or form.

01:19:19

Great. I appreciate it. Okay, well, Mike, thanks for calling. Thanks for your question. Thank you, sir.

01:19:25

Yes, well, you know, that's an interesting question, Eddie, because I actually was involved in a very lengthy discussion with an open theist who tried to use

01:19:33

John 1 .14 as a proof text in suggesting that the nature of God changed at the

01:19:39

Incarnation, and hence, if there is a change, then the immutability of God is out the window.

01:19:46

And, of course, as I indicated to our caller there, I don't know that that was the position he was coming from, is that does not cease to be

01:19:54

X when joined with Y. And as you indicated, the mixtures, or I should say the natures, did not mix.

01:20:03

That's another ancient historical heresy. But a second nature was taken on.

01:20:08

Absolutely. As a lot of the creeds point out, he was perfect in Godhood and perfect in manhood, and they were defending against an historian view who taught that the word was a, the person of Christ was a kind of a muddy mixture, kind of God mixed with man.

01:20:26

And no, that wasn't, then that would, that essentially changed his nature in that sense.

01:20:31

So the creed, particularly Chalcedonian, speaks out against that point in saying, no, they're not, you know, they're not separators.

01:20:39

The deity does not change. The deity just takes on a new nature. Right. Well, Eddie, it is getting close to the bottom of the hour, and I cannot tell you what a joy it has been to have you on the show this afternoon.

01:20:54

I trust that we have whetted the appetites of our listening audience to join us again next week, and we're going to open up some passages.

01:21:03

I was wondering, perhaps maybe we can get into some of those arguments against the Trinity that the

01:21:09

Oneness position presents. Do you think we can do that? Yes, absolutely. So I'll try to brush up on that, read your manuscript, at least that portion of it.

01:21:17

And again, the basic nuts and bolts, if you will, of people who have listened to the entirety of this program, they want to get it as narrowed down as they possibly can.

01:21:28

Again, the Oneness position can best be defined as a Unitarian deity over against the

01:21:35

Christian view, as the Bible demonstrates, and that is a triune

01:21:40

God, triune nature, I'm sorry, triune person. And that basically is the major distinction between the two.

01:21:50

And if I can make a correction, the heresy that mixed the two was

01:21:55

Eutychianism, not Nestorianism. Nestorianism divided Christ into two persons, one divine and one human, as with Oneness.

01:22:03

But Eutychianism, the natures are mixed. There's one little correction out there. Right. So again, that was, that's basically it,

01:22:12

Senor, right? The Unitarian deity. So if people are really trying to get a handle and they've gone into their local bookstore and they do not see

01:22:21

Eddie D 'Alcourt's book as of yet, hope to see it soon. I'm waiting. Okay.

01:22:27

But I trust that you've enjoyed the program. We do thank Eddie D 'Alcourt for being with us, and we will have him back again next week.

01:22:34

We'll have some sound bites that he'll have for us, and we'll get into some of the passages, particularly that the

01:22:39

Oneness position tries to present and the arguments that they use against the Trinity that obviously are similar to what the

01:22:46

Watchtower presents. So I trust you'll be back with us again. On behalf of Rich Pierce and Warren Smith, this is

01:22:51

Simon Escobedo. Thank you and have a good afternoon and we'll see you next week. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:23:22

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at PO Box 37106,

01:23:30

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01:23:37

That's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.