You Have to See This to Believe It

If you want to best understand the relationship between Christ and God, next time you have a glass of water, put some ice in it.

How can one element be three things at the same time and still be one?

It happens in your kitchen every day. Sure.

The Trinity is like water and how you can find water in three different forms, liquid and ice and vapor.

That's mortalism, Patrick. Jesus did not have to be

God to do what he said. I'm going to tell you this is how you wake up to the

Trinitarian falsehood. Where do you even see the word

Trinity in the Bible? That is a man -made word because it's a man -made false doctrine. We often are arguing about words that are not in the

Bible. We're arguing about words that are not in the Bible. People want to know, are you Pentecostal, Baptist, Oneness, Trinitarian, all these different words that kind of divide the body or whatever.

And if you go overseas, they don't ask you, are you a Pentecostal, are you a

Baptist before they kill you or they persecute you, they just kill you. T .D. Jakes is one of the most popular pastors in the

United States. Don't let people tell you that God just wants to give you enough. And Oprah says,

I don't think there is a better preacher in the country. Brandon Tatum is an extremely popular conservative political commentator.

I'm just going to say it because I don't know how to do nothing else but tell the truth. The Democrat Party is evil. They've been evil since slavery, they've been evil since Jim Crow, and they're evil today.

Marcus Rogers is an extremely popular YouTuber. And I'm going to just tell you what he showed me, and I believe that if you're watching this, it's because God specifically wanted you to hear this because you were chosen.

And then God just, he just gave me this clear vision, and I know when he gives me visions because it's so clear and it's so accurate.

Three very different men with one very important similarity. Jakes, Tatum, and Rogers all deny the historical, orthodox view of the

Trinity, which is that God exists as both one God and three distinct persons.

Jakes attempted to dispel concerns about his view of the Trinity at an event called the

Elephant Room. One God, three persons? No, one God, three persons. One God, three persons.

And here is why I am there. I'm not crazy about the word persons. Most people who know me know that that is really, my doctrinal statement is no different from yours except for the injection of manifest instead of persons, which you describe as modalists and I describe as Pauline.

But what Jakes said resulted in more questions than answers. The word manifestation is precisely the problem we are talking about.

Does God merely manifest himself as three different persons in such a way that the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not distinct from one another? Jakes never answers that question.

And his emphasis on using the word manifestation suggests that his answer to that question would still be, yes.

Tatum explicitly argues that Jesus is not God. Jesus did not have to be

God to do what he said. Let's take a look at some of his arguments.

I'm going to tell you this is how you wake up to the Trinitarian falsehood. This is how you wake up to it.

Only use words that are in the Bible. Just only use words that are in the Bible. The Bible says, if you look at the

Bible and you read it from the front and you read it to the back and you look at the middle, you will not see the word

Trinity anywhere in the Bible. Now, this is without a doubt one of the most simplistic objections you'll encounter it over and over again.

And the problem is once you've encountered it for about the 5 ,000th time, it's difficult to remain patient with someone when you have recognized just how bad an objection this is.

But remember, you can't know, and I would imagine with Mr. Rogers, he has in fact heard answers to this over and over again.

But with many of the people you're talking to, you can't know whether they've actually heard a meaningful response to this. Many people pointed out as soon as they saw this, it was one of the first responses

I saw was, the word Bible is not in the Bible either, and you've been using the word

Bible. In fact, none of the words you're using right now are in the Bible because you're speaking

English and English didn't exist when the Bible was written. So if you really want to go there, the issue of course, is the accuracy of the words description of biblical teaching, not where the word itself appears there.

Jesus has never been called God in any scripture in the Bible. Never. Well, in John 20, 28, when

Thomas is talking to Jesus, we read, Thomas said to him, my Lord and my

God, or how about in Titus 2, 13, where Paul says, while we wait for the blessed hope, the puring of the glory of our great

God and savior, Jesus Christ. Or how about Paul in Romans 9, 5 to them belong to the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh is the

Christ who is God overall. Now there's so many things in the New Testament where Jesus is doing things that the scriptures say that only

God can do, like forgiving sin and other things. Rogers is a oneness Pentecostal who openly teaches modalism.

Because it's one God, right? And he revealed himself to us in different ways.

Rogers also argues that believing in the Trinity is not essential for salvation.

We often are arguing about words that are not in the Bible. You know, people want to know, are you

Pentecostal, Baptist, you know, oneness, Trinitarian, all these, you know, all these different, you know, words that kind of, you know, divide the body or whatever.

And, you know, if you go overseas, they don't ask you, you know, are you a Pentecostal or are you

Baptist before they kill you or they persecute you? They just kill you. There are two primary arguments that are used to defend men like Jakes, Tatum, and Rogers.

The first is that the Trinity is such a complicated subject that we can't truly know exactly who

God is. But, while it is true that we will never fully understand all the details of the

Trinity, the Bible is crystal clear about the aspects of the Trinity that we can and do know and that have been affirmed throughout history.

The Trinity is often referred to as unexplainable dogma. I think that's unfortunate because the

Bible does give us explanations for the Trinity. The fact of the matter is God has revealed himself in the person of the

Father, in the person of the Son, and the person of the Spirit. We know that the Father is God. We know that the

Son is God. We know that the Spirit is God. We know that this one God has existed eternally in three persons.

We know that there is one nature and one essence in these three persons. And so the

Bible has much to say about the Triune God. It has much to explain to us about the

Triune God. Our inability to apprehend this is different than saying that it's something that cannot be explained.

It can be explained. Most of us just don't like the explanation. The second argument is that affirming the historical, orthodox view of the

Trinity is not essential for salvation. However, there is a big difference between a new believer who has not yet learned what the

Bible clearly teaches about the Trinity and a professing believer who outright denies the

Trinity. Is it essential to know the Trinity? Well, I would say on a certain level, yes.

Since this is the highest of God's revelation, it's his personal revelation, it tells us who

God is. To reject how God has revealed himself to exist is going to obviously put you in the position of not being able to worship the one true

God. If God has revealed himself to be one God existing in three distinct persons,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then to deny the Trinity would be to deny

God himself. If we worship a God who is not the God who is revealed by Scripture, then we are not worshiping the one true

God. There is a reason why men like Athanasius devoted his life to defend the doctrine of the

Trinity. And there is a reason why statements like the Chalcedonian definition were written.

The Trinity is essential both because the Bible clearly teaches it and because it relates to the nature of God himself.

If we get the nature of God wrong, then the inevitable conclusion is that we simply don't know

God. We can sincerely believe in a false God who is foreign to Scripture and be sincerely wrong.

You believe the wrong gospel, it doesn't matter how sincere you are in your belief. You are merely sincerely wrong.