Debate: Monarchianism and the Godhead

This is Apologetics Live, to answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

Well, we are live. This looks different. Yes, it is, because I am traveling.

And therefore, what we got for you tonight is a little bit different. It will be prerecorded, therefore you cannot join, ask questions.

You could chat away, and well, I'll probably read them later, because it's fun to see your comments, and see actually if you guys are paying attention.

But this is Apologetics Live, where usually we answer your most difficult questions about God and the

Bible. But what we have for you tonight is a debate. My friend, Matt Slick, and I teamed up together.

Usually we debate each other, but we teamed up together to debate two guys on, well, kind of a version of oneness

Pentecostalism. You can listen for yourself and see if it makes any sense, just saying.

But I hope you enjoy this. This is a debate on basically the Trinity, and we will let you guys enjoy this.

So without any further ado, I will give you the debate, and I'll be back at the end, maybe, to say goodbye.

Enjoy. All right, all right.

Thank you for joining me in this episode of The Gospel Church. I'm your host, Marlon Wilson, and we have another fantastic debate for you today.

We have a 202 debate. I have Matt Slick, Andrew Rappaport, and I have

Dan Rappaport. Always a very interactive debate when we begin to talk about the salvation of one, can they lose it or not?

So hopefully you'll be able to join us at that time. All right, after that, I have Abiyal and Stacey Cumberville, and they're gonna be debating, does the son and the father have the same nature?

All right, so this is gonna be a fun one. So hopefully you'll be able to join us on this one as well. Then after that,

I have a universalist debate. William Fallenkamp, I believe his name is Fallenkamp, against James Hunt, did

God save the whole world? So this is coming up here soon on The Gospel Truth, so hopefully you guys are looking out for that one.

And Matt Slick is here today, and he will be here about a month from now. He'll be debating, ah, man,

Josh Hink. Man, all these names I try to remember. Josh Hink, and they're gonna be debating total depravity. You know, basically is total depravity biblical, or is it true, all right?

So that's gonna be a fun debate as well. So I'm excited to have these shows coming up, and I hope that you are looking forward to them as well.

And as you know, we have a bunch of guys with us. All right, this is gonna be a two -on -two debate talking about monarchism and the

Godhead. So I'm excited for this one. Matt Slick just came on last week and had an interesting,

I say interesting debate, I'm gonna leave it at that. And Andrew Rappaport is, last time,

Andrew hasn't been on for quite some time, man. Last time Andrew was on, I think I was just first getting started with this back in,

I wanna say 2018, I think it's been. Andrew can correct me, I think 2018, 2019. So Andrew, it's been quite a time for Andrew being on.

And so this is also Daniel and Caleb's first go -around on the gospel truth. I have seen

Caleb on Standing for Truth with Donnie, but this is his first go -around on the gospel truth.

And Caleb is actually a member, I believe, for the gospel truth. So he's a monthly supporter.

So I'm very thankful for Caleb as well for his monthly support of the ministry and definitely am appreciative of that.

So let me bring these guys in so they can further introduce themselves to you guys and sort of let you know some stuff.

What's up, fellas, how y 'all doing? Doing all right. Hey Marlon, thanks. Doing good.

Thanks for having us, Marlon. Thank you. All right, glad you guys joined me. Appreciate you guys for coming on. And we are gonna have a fun debate concerning monarchism and the

Godhead. But before we get into it, I wanna give you guys a chance to introduce yourselves to the audience, tell them what you do, blogs,

YouTube channels, everything. Let them know so they can come check you guys out, all right? Starting with Matt and Andrew, why don't you guys go ahead and give a quick introduction yourself,

Matt. Go ahead, Andrew. Okay, I was gonna default to you first, but age and beauty before me.

So go ahead, Matt. All right, my name's Matt Slick and I run karm .org,

C -A -R -M .O -R -G. Been doing it for 28 years, written thousands of articles, been doing radio for over 20 years and love to defend the

Christian faith and uplift the true living God, the Trinity, and the incarnate

Son, and justification by faith alone in Christ alone. So that's what I like to do and hopefully we'll do that tonight.

And my name's Andrew Rapp. Before I really introduce myself, I wanna talk to the audience here so you guys know how much

Marlin cares about this audience. Because for folks who don't know, Marlin was at the

Shepherds Conference all week and left the pinnacle of the Shepherds Conference where John MacArthur would close out the conference so that he could be here tonight, get home in time to be here for this.

So for the audience, just understand he cares enough about this program that he's not gonna enjoy a conference.

He's make sure that you guys enjoy the show. So just a shout out to Marlin. But my name's Andrew Rapport. I'm with a ministry called

Striving for Eternity. You can check us out at strivingforeternity .org. I am also not only the executive director of that, but also the executive director of the

Christian Podcast Community. We have over 50 vetted podcasts. Matt Slick Live is one of the ones we have on there.

My regular ones are Andrew Rapport's Rapp Report, a weekly show. We do

Bible interpretations applications. And I also have Apologetics Live. You can go to apologeticslive .com.

We air that live stream on Thursday nights where I can answer any question that anyone has about God and the

Bible. Just remember, if I say I don't know, that's a perfectly good answer. People find it interesting.

I grew up in a Jewish household. I come from a Jewish family. I'm actually a Levite, technically what's called a

Korhine. So that'd be a family that takes care of the temple's elements. I have two books out.

One is called What Do They Believe, which covers the major Western religions. And What Do We Believe, which is a

Christian systematic theology, both available at strivingforeternity .org. All right, all right.

Thank you guys for those introductions. Appreciate it. All right, Daniel and Caleb, you guys are up next. Go ahead and give a quick introduction yourself, man.

Do you wanna go first, Brother Daniel? Yeah, I can, brother.

So my name's Daniel Evans. I'm 26 years old. I'm a disciple and servant of the

Lord Jesus Christ. I absolutely love the Lord. I grew up in a Christian household, and it was kind of Pentecostal charismatic backgrounds, where emphasis on following the

Holy Spirit is very strongly advised. If not, it's very highly advised.

And I started street preaching a few years ago, and I was amazed at how the public proclamation of the gospel is just so powerful and effective.

People kind of look at you strange nowadays because it's not a common practice anymore, but that's what the

Lord called the prophets of old. He called them to go out into the highways and the byways and to compel them to come in.

So that's what I wanna do as a disciple of the King. And I'm currently featured on,

I'm a feature, I'll say it like that. I'm a feature on my brother Caleb's channel, God is

Walking on Water YouTube channel. You should check it out if you haven't ever watched it. It is hours of material that will just make you fall in love with the one

King and ruler, Jesus Christ, who is our Heavenly Father wrapped in flesh.

So brother, take it away. Brother Daniel, well, actually too much it's given to me brother, but Jesus is worthy of all glory.

And I think Matt and Andrew and Marlon as well, all of us in the audience know that there is only one who is good,

God, Jesus Christ. And a quick story, I'm from Switzerland.

I was born and raised in Geneva. I did my Swiss military service in Switzerland. So I grew up in the church background,

Pentecostal church background. And brother, don't forget to mute your mic.

And basically I was brought up in the Pentecostal background where I was taught the doctrine of the

Trinity and the oneness doctrine that diverges to lottery doctrine.

So that caused a lot of confusion in my upbringing as a

Christian. I unfortunately, fortunately left this assembly and I became a father at a very young age.

And to cut long story short, I had the drugs in Amsterdam on psychotropic mushrooms.

And basically after that experience, I was confronted with the reality of hell because I had a vision of hell, a short vision.

And that basically brought me to tears.

I called to God at 3 a .m. in the morning and he revealed himself and he said, I am

Jesus Christ. So I have a YouTube channel called God is Walking on Water channel.

And again, Marlon, thanks for inviting us on. My goal and intent for tonight,

I just have to say this, and Brother Daniel's as well, is not to shame, it's not to demean the opposing view, but it's to discuss in the spirit of righteousness a gentleman -like spirit and to reason, as the scripture says, we need to reason with each other.

So yeah, God bless you all. All right, all right. Thank you for that very well done introduction.

Appreciate you guys for that. So now we're gonna jump into this debate. Once again, the topic of this debate is monarchism and the

Godhead. So basically what we're arguing, is it biblical, right? That's the premise, the foundational premise, is monarchism understanding of the

Godhead biblical? So obviously Caleb and Daniel, you guys are arguing affirmative, and Andrew and Matt are arguing negative.

So we're gonna start with 15 minute opening statements. We're gonna follow that with seven minute rebuttals, and then we're gonna have a 40 minute cross -ex, both teams get 20 minutes each to ask questions.

And then we're gonna follow that with five minute closings, and we're gonna have a 30 minute Q &A from the audience. Sounds good? All right, all right.

All right, so Caleb and Daniel, you guys are up first for your 15 minute opening. Are both you guys splitting that up, or is one person presenting your opening?

I will be presenting the full presentation. All right, sounds good. I'll be giving you the full screen, man.

So I'll have it timed every time, up in your upper left -hand corner, so of the big screen with just you on it.

So you'll see the time up there. Also, you'll hear this chime. That will be your one minute indication to start wrapping it up.

You have one minute left in your presentation. So with that said, Caleb, I'll start your 15 minute timer as soon as you begin to speak.

Thank you, Marlon, for inviting us, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to present our respective view.

As Christians, specifically as Monarchians, we affirm and believe that God the

Father was incarnate. So this will be a presentation going through the

Monarchist position based on the scriptures and with early church history references.

The Father was incarnate as a true human son. Many Trinitarian theologians and adoptionists throughout history have misapplied the term son with an assumption that it's referring to an individual who is distinct from God the

Father. None of the early church believers, called Monarchians by Hippolytus and Tertullian in the apostolic age before the first Council of Nicaea, believed this doctrine.

Instead, they saw a distinction of two natures, a conscious state of being or existing, belonging to the same individual in which both natures were experienced by the same individual or same person in a way that allowed him to simultaneously experience and exist in two distinct dimensions, namely in heaven and on earth at the exact same time.

See Matthew chapter six, verse nine to 13, the famous Our Father prayer, where Jesus is expressing that God the

Father has a will in heaven and on earth. See also

Genesis chapter 28, verse 12 to 13, and John chapter 49 to 51.

Jesus is mentioned in these passages as King of Israel, both on earth and in heaven.

In the Bible, the term father in reference to God is consistently talking about the spirit who gives life and creates, but the term son always refers to the forgotten, generated earthly or biological human existence of the same individual.

God generated himself a body of flesh and blood to live inside for a specific dispensation and experience personhood through the eyes of man while sojourning for a short time here on earth.

A man on earth possesses seed or life in him in order to give life or generate offspring.

He becomes a father when he begets or generates a child. In the same vein, here are four important passages showing that God is a life -giving spirit and identifies the act of giving breath, life, and creating with the term father or life -giver.

Jesus Christ is explicitly described by the Apostle Paul as the life -giving spirit in 1

Corinthians 15, verse 45. So here are four passages we will be examining and they are alluding that the term father is synonymous with the term life -giver, creator, one that gives life, that gives breath.

He is the one that generates life being. So he is ultimately the source.

This is what the term father implies. And we see it here in the scriptures,

Hebrews chapter 12, verse nine. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live?

Acts 17, verse 28. For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.

Genesis two, verse seven. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

A man became a living soul. Zechariah 12, verse one. The burden of the word of the

Lord for Israel saith the Lord which stretcheth forth the heavens and layeth the foundation of the earth and formeth the spirit of man within him.

So we see clearly with these passages that we've just examined that the term father is showing that God gives life.

God the father gives breath. And this is how we should understand the term father as it implies not only in the sense of giving life, creating, but also in the covenantal sense.

So it's synonymous. Many of the prophetic and descriptive passages about the son are evoking

God's dwelling on earth, living as a man described in the scriptures as the son of God and the son of man.

So we clearly see here the two natures within the same person.

He has a divine, his preexisting divine nature, and his generated nature, namely the nature of man.

So he has a human nature. Without father, born of a virgin, compare

Hebrews chapter seven, verse one to three with John chapter eight, verse 56 to 59.

Also compare John chapter one, verse 48 to 51 with Genesis chapter 28, verse 12 to 13.

All these passages are pointing to the preexistence of Jesus Christ as Lord God, the supreme ruler of heaven and earth.

There is no contradiction nor controversy as 1

Timothy 3, 16 stipulates. Great is the mystery of godliness.

God was manifest in the flesh without controversy to be precise.

Great is the mystery of godliness. So there is no controversy. There is no controversy whatsoever in the fact that he experienced prayer, suffering, human weakness, and human emotions in the flesh as a man and as one who submitted that same flesh to his preexisting divine spirit that dwelt inside, overcoming sin by sinless, pure, and irreproachable life.

1 John 3, verse one to three is evidence in plain sight showing that Jesus Christ is truly

God the father incarnate. This is why 1 John 3, verse one to two is so pivotal because it clearly teaches that the world knows us not because it knew him not.

You see the direct antecedent in verse one is the father. So clearly

John knew that the father became a man, that he was incarnate, he became flesh.

Just as it says in John 1, 10, he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not.

By comparing these passages of scripture, we can see that it was the father who veiled himself in the flesh and those who were not born of the spirit but were carnal in their approach to the scriptures could not perceive this mystery.

This accords precisely with Isaiah 45, verse 15, where it says, verily thou art a

God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior. The early

Christians were undoubtedly monarchians. Scholars frequently referred to figures from the second century as modalists or monarchians.

The term modalist was coined by Adolf Harnack in History of Dogma, volume three, in reference to the monarchians.

So the proper term for those who hold to this view as that the father became flesh, the father was incarnate as the son, to be properly referred to as monarchians and not modalists.

For example, American writer Campbell Boner called Melito of Sardis theology naive modalism.

This loose labeling by modern theologians like Campbell is eerily similar to Tertullian's slander in his treaties against Praxeas concerning the monarchians of being simple -minded.

And the majority of the faithful who when presented with a hard distinction between the term father and son in relation to God would reply two or three gods are preached by the

Logos party and boldly proclaim the rule of faith based on Deuteronomy 6 .4.

We hold to the monarchy of God or we hold to the principle of one ruler, the monarchia, as this is based on the

Shema. Evidence in patrology of the second century for monarchian Christology, Reinhard Habener, a

Roman Catholic theologian specialized in patrology in his studies concerning the writings of Ignatius of Antioch and Melito of Sardis asserts that Noetus antedated them and that they were drawing on his monarchian theology in his book entitled

Der Paradoxe einer antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten

Jahre hundert. The term monarchia from the Greek meaning ruling of one or the principle of one ruler and ismos meaning practice or teaching.

The definition of monarchia or monarchy according to Tertullian in his treatise

Adversus Praxeon or Against Praxeus, this is how he expresses the definition of monarchia.

But if I have called any knowledge of both languages know that monarchy means nothing else but the rule of one single person and quote, very simple.

To him, the definition of a king or a ruler, sovereign, it implies and is to be understood in its most basic form, one ruler.

And here are some passages that show you clearly that there can be only one king.

So by definition, a king, there is no higher authority than a king.

So how can we have three divine persons that are essentially one king?

It just defeats the argument provided by Tertullian himself in his definition of monarchia, one ruler.

Psalms 47 verse seven, God is the king of all the earth.

Psalms 22 verse 27 to 29, for the kingdom is the Lord's and he is the governor.

So third person singular pronoun used for the Lord. I will not be reading all the passages,

I will only be reading the specific parts of the verse, the passages that I'll be providing alluding to this fact.

Psalms 95 verse three, for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all the gods.

1 Samuel 12 verse 12. Here clearly we see that they asked for a human king, a human king instead of God.

And he tells us, when the Lord your God was your king.

Zechariah 14 verse nine, and the Lord shall be king over all the earth, in that day shall there be one

Lord in his name, one king. Jesus Christ is referred to as the king, eternal, immortal and invisible, the only wise

God. That means there is no other God except Jesus Christ.

This is what 1 Timothy 1, 16 to 17 is implying. We have the sentiment echoed in 1

Timothy chapter six, verse 14 to 16, until the appearing of our

Lord Jesus Christ, the second coming, which in his times he shall show who is the blessed and only sovereign ruler.

Potentate means the only sovereign. So you cannot serve two masters as Matthew six verse 24 stipulates, the king of kings and Lord of the lords.

And in Revelation 19 verse 15 to 16, he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and he is referred to as the king of kings.

That means above kings and Lord above lords. Romans nine verse five,

Jesus Christ is referred to as the one who is overall

God. That means the authority, the supreme authority above all.

And I will finish with this last slide in 1 Chronicles 29 verse 11, thine is the kingdom,

O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. That's chief above all.

So you cannot serve two masters. Thank you, Marlon, again, for giving me the time to present this.

All right, thank you, Caleb and Daniel for that opening. And we're gonna now transition to Matt and Andrew for their 15 -minute opening.

And Matt and Andrew, will it be Matt giving the opening or Andrew? I'm giving the opening. All right,

Matt, I'm gonna give you full screen, buddy. Go ahead, and I will start your time as soon as you begin to speak.

All right, you can hear me okay? Yep, we can hear you. All right. Okay. All right, well, first of all, thank you for having me on.

And I do hope that by God's grace, I can present the truth of God's word and represent him properly.

And if I fail to do that, it's only due to my sin and my ineptitude.

Nevertheless, from scripture, I can get into this a great deal.

We'll talk about it a lot. But I would say that from scripture, we see clearly that there's only one being.

The question is, who is this one being? Who is God, I should say. In monarchism, from what

I understand, is that it is the position that God is a strict unity and that he is a single person, not a plurality of persons.

And where the Trinity teaches, God is three distinct simultaneous co -eternal persons.

But monarchism is the position that there's only one person in God, which is why you'd have then the father becoming incarnate.

The Christian Trinity is the teaching, as I said, one God and three distinct simultaneous co -eternal persons.

We have in Christian theology in the Trinity, we have what's called the economic Trinity. And it means that the father, son, and Holy Spirit have differences, let's just say, in functions of how they relate to a creation.

The father sent the son, the father and son send the Holy Spirit, only the son became incarnate, et cetera.

We have what's called the ontological Trinity and that the father, son, and Holy Spirit each obtain are of the same divine essence, the one being of God who in his divine simplicity is simply triune.

Some people assert that the Trinity is polytheism or that the Trinity is illogical.

It is certainly not polytheism because by definition, it is monotheistic.

And anyone who would disagree with that simply is not well -versed in the doctrine of the

Trinity to say that it's not monotheism. At that point, I would say, well, then you're not arguing the

Trinity. We could discuss that at a later point. And then there's the issue of the logical impossibility of the

Trinitarian being existent. I've never heard a sound argument where they have demonstrated any logical contradiction between the idea of God being one being with three persons.

And maybe it'll happen tonight. It's not a knock a chip off my shoulder offering. It's just, I've not heard any, but I have heard challenges to the doctrine of the

Trinity. So the Trinity is, again, it's one being, one God who exists as three simultaneous persons.

We know from the scriptures in Isaiah 43, 10, 44, 6, 44, 8, 45, 5, that the

Bible clearly teaches us that there's only one being, one God, one being who is God. All right, my opponents, our opponents, and myself are monotheists in that position, in that belief.

So the issue here is whether or not God is one person or three persons. So we're gonna define our terms as I've defined a

Trinitarianism, the Trinity and monarchism. Now I'll define what it means to be person. So it's defined as an individual substance of a rational nature.

Contemporary theologians emphasize the rational nature of personhood. This is out of Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms.

But within this, we also have what are called characteristics of personhood. So personhood,

I'm a person, and you who are listening are also persons. And we're human persons, and we're encased in the human body.

But God as three persons is not encased in the human body. And all three in that sense. But nevertheless, personhood entails such characteristics as self -awareness, the awareness of others, has a will, can love, can have relationships, recognize people, say you and yours, me and mine, and things like that.

And we see that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each exemplify these attributes of personhood. So hence we'd say that they have these qualities of personhood.

And the reason we as Trinitarians say that they are distinct is because they speak to each other, and they talk about each other.

And they have different wills. And we have in 1 Corinthians 2, 16, the mind of Christ.

We have in Romans 8, 27, the mind of the Holy Spirit. We have Jesus saying, not my will, but your will be done.

Luke 22, 42, we can get into the nuances of that later. But these are some of the aspects and the areas that we discuss and believe in and establish the doctrine of the

Trinity. So, excuse me, on the

CARM website, C -A -R -M dot O -R -G forward slash Trinity, you'll see a chart that I put up years ago.

And it demonstrates, a table actually, it demonstrates how the doctrine of the Trinity has arrived at.

It has arrived at systematically and logically. And this is what I mean when I say systematic and logically.

There's only one being, one God, who is God, as in 43, 44, and 45 tells us this.

And then what we do is we look and we say, well, the Father's called God, the Son's called God, the Holy Spirit's called God. And the

Father speaks, the Son speaks, the Holy Spirit speaks. The Father has a will, the Son has a will, the

Holy Spirit has a will. So they each have attributes of personhood, but their distinction is established by the fact that they speak to each other and about each other, which is exactly what distinction in persons is and is demonstrated in scripture.

So I like to tell people that the doctrine of the Trinity is not arrived at by a single verse, nor is it refuted by a single verse.

No single verse in the Bible either affirms it or denies it. Now, my opponents, the monarchists, will say and might say, not to put words in their mouths, but to say that God speaks in the singularity.

And we would expect that as a Trinitarian, because what we would say is that God is divinely simple, one being, and he has distinguished, he distinguishes himself as he reveals himself to us in what we call persons.

And they are eternal and simultaneous. So what we'll see is both the singularity and the plurality being spoken of.

So God, and we know this, the good Lord God, he speaks, I will do this in Exodus 3 .14,

say to the sons of Israel, I am. He's talking about himself in the singularity. Now, some have said that when we talk about plurality, that can show a lot about plurality of God in the

Old Testament. We don't have time for that here. But when God says, for example, in Genesis 1 .26,

let us, notice this, God says, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

And there's three plurals there, which I think is interesting. I think it's, personally, I believe it's a veiled hint at the doctrine of the

Trinity. And I can get into some more stuff about that in Theophanies, Christophanies, the Old Testament stuff.

Don't have time though, but it's a deep topic. So the Trinity's arrived at systematically. Now some say, well, it's arrived at by twisting scripture.

No, it's not. It's just the father has a will, the son has a will. Jesus has not my will, but your will, it's distinction.

That's it. And so we try and be very simple when we come to the word and recognize the truth of what

God's word says in those areas. So again, the Trinity is a distinction of persons, yet there are one in essence, and that's the ontological

Trinity, yet they relate to us in creation. It was distinction, differentiation, as called the economic

Trinity. All right. So we, like I said, we will expect that God will speak in both singularity and plurality.

Some people, and he does in the Bible, some people say that the plurality is what's called the royal we.

That is not the case. It was never been the case, and it's not how God spoke of himself or in reference.

It was not a Jewish concept. It's not that I've ever studied that it is or ever heard that it is. That was introduced later in the second book.

That was in the second millennium. So when he speaks of himself, let us make men in our image, or let us go down and compound their language, or the

Lord rain fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven. That's Genesis 19, 24, and the previous one, let us go find their languages,

Genesis 11, seven. So there's lots of this kind of thing in the

Old Testament and even hints of it in the new. All right. So I could go on defending the

Trinity and teaching on it for quite a bit, but let me use a little bit of logic without getting into it too deeply, because I can't because I don't have the time, but there are logical problems and challenges to monarchism.

One of them is what I call the static mind problem. If the monarchist

God exists eternally and he knows all things, then can he contemplate?

If he knows all things that he will contemplate from eternity past, can he think about what he'll contemplate?

Why do that if he's already contemplated everything and knows eternally what he'll contemplate? We could say there is in a sense, an eternal generation of all knowledge at simultaneous and eternal within the monarchist

God and the Trinitarian one also, but there's a differentiation between them. And so I call it the static mind problem.

We could talk about that if it comes up again, but then here's another issue. In 1 John 4, 8, it says, God is love.

And the nature of love is other centered. God's a love the world he gave. He's only begotten son, John 3, 16.

Jesus says in John 15, 13, he says, greater love has no man than this, but he lay his life down for his friend.

Well, the nature of love is other centered. So I could ask the monarchists, all monarchists, what was your

God doing from eternity past, from forever ago? Was he experiencing love?

Not the contemplation, that's different. Was he experiencing his own nature of love in the other centeredness and the object, subject object distinction, which is what love is and is necessitated as.

I love my wife. She loves me most of the time. We also have an issue, no experience of fellowship.

God is faithful to whom we're calling the fellowship with the son of Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 1, 9.

And in the last verse of 2 Corinthians 13, 14, it says that we have fellowship with the father, son, and the

Holy Spirit. There's distinction between them. We have fellowship with each one. And that's really an interesting verse

I'd like we could talk about. So if the monarchist God was existing eternally, then there was no one to fellowship with.

There was no one to love, no experience of love, no experience of fellowship. And then we have the static mind issue.

These are challenges to that position. Perhaps they will address those. There are philosophical advantages to the

Trinity in that, I got three minutes left, in that the inter -Trinitarian communion, the eternal love in the members of the

Godhead in the triune nature, no problem. The same with fellowship, not a problem.

The static mind problem isn't a problem either because they are enjoying each other and their fellowship of existence in the singularity of their ontological nature.

And so they can consider, and we get into the nuances of that, breaking that down quite a bit more, but I have to go through these quickly.

There are advantages philosophically and logically. Some people denounce the idea of using any philosophy, but this is just logic.

Philosophy is man's attempt to be logical, to explain actuality. We are not to be held captive by vain philosophy,

Colossians 2 .8. And Paul certainly quotes Epimenides, Menander, and Erastus, pagan philosophers.

He had studied them and he used them to the glory of God. Anyway, so we see in the created order of Romans 1 .20,

it says that the nature of God is invisible attributes are made known in creation. Well, creation exists of three things, a trinity of things, time, space, and matter.

Time, space, matter. And this is reflective of God's nature and time itself is past, present, future.

Space is height, width, depth, and matter is solid liquid gas. So there's a trinity of trinities that comprise our existence.

Now there's another aspect that I could get into which only the trinity can solve.

And it's a problem. This is a little more heady, but it's a problem that's been around for about 2 ,500 years.

And it's the issue of what is the ultimate nature of the universe? Is it one thing or is it many things?

If it's one thing, there's no distinction between objects. And therefore truth is undermined.

If the nature of the universe is many things, there's no coherence between these objects and truth values are undermined.

Now you've got to understand, I'm going through this very quickly and narrowing this down, but this is a very, very, very serious issue.

And the monarchist view, which includes Jehovah's Witnesses, which includes Christadelphians and includes

Islam, not just guilt by association, they also have this problem of solving the problem with the one and the many.

And if you're not familiar with it, that's okay. We can study, teach on it sometime. Where the trinity is equally one and many.

And so there's no ultimacy of one or the other, but the equal necessity of both existing that way.

And so the trinity solves all kinds of problems. It's biblical, it's logical, it's philosophically astute.

And in it, we can explain the incarnation and the work of God. And we can explain why

Christ would pray to someone other than himself in Trinitarianism.

All right, I'm done. All right, thank you so much for that, Matt and Andrew, for your opening.

All right, so now we're transitioning to rebuttals and Daniel and Caleb are back in the scene for a seven minute rebuttal.

And who's gonna be presenting the rebuttal? Mr. Daniel.

All right, Daniel, you're muted. So make sure you unmute. And I will be giving you the full screen for you and Caleb's seven minute rebuttal.

And I'll start your time when you begin to speak. Thank you,

Marlon. And thank you so much. It's a pleasure and an honor to be on your show.

Hopefully we can do some more future debates and just hash things out a little more in the future.

But I wanna start by saying thank you. I know you could have been doing a million other things today but you chose to host this debate, so thank you.

And so as to the question of God is love, right?

His defining characteristic. I think that's the very proof and the impetus for him creating is the need for that love to be focused on something.

Others centeredness, like Matt just said very eloquently, it's centered on others.

And that is why we see man is alone from the beginning. And what does

God say? It's not good for man to be alone because not only does man needs to help me, right?

Not that God needs us or he's contingent upon us but that he is totally, did not need to make us, he did not need to go about the benevolent act of creation but yet he did.

And then I would say that the verse that was quoted, greater love has no one than this that a man would give up his life, paraphrasing, for his friends.

Well, I think that's exactly what we see God doing. He doesn't give up in child sacrifice, his son, right?

Because he condemned it all throughout the Old Testament. He said, child sacrifice is wrong. Neither did it enter into my mind to do such a thing, right?

Such a horrible thing, right? Egregious, wrong. The people back then were literally, there was a place called the

Valley of the Sons of Hinnom where they were sacrificing their children to Moloch. So of course God was averse to it, right?

But I think we have this understanding of love that God didn't send another.

He became the lamb for us. Just like it says in Genesis, Abraham, I believe speaking prophetically to the incarnation, he literally said that God would be that lamb.

God would provide for himself as that lamb. He would be the lamb. So we see, and even in Deuteronomy 6, 4, right?

The Shema, hero Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. That one is Echad. I believe

Andrew probably is familiar with this term. And I'm sure Matt is, and I'm sure all of us are familiar with the term

Echad, which is one, and it does not, in its most primary usage in the scriptures, it doesn't mean a one of unity.

It literally means singular unit. It means the cardinal number one when you look it up in the concordance, the

Strong's Concordance. That's the most common usage of that word. And when it's referring to, of course, when it's referring to man and wife,

I've heard this argument that they've posed to our position. They've said, we'll see there, that's a one, you don't literally become one flesh, but when we're referring to the nature of God, it's different.

He doesn't need anything added to himself or else not be perfect. Perfection means he is self -contained.

He is perfect without any addition, right? He functions without anyone's help. And that's what we see all throughout the scriptures, and especially in the book of Isaiah.

We see this, you would say anthropomorphism, but I think those anthropomorphisms are there, specifically in the book of Isaiah, to drive home a deeper reality.

And it says, to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, right? It talks about the arm of the Lord, right? And it talks about the

Lord with his own victorious right arm. He led the children of Israel out of Egypt, right?

So the arm of the Lord is not, when does your arm become, is removed from yourself and become a separate person?

We don't see that in scripture. When it's referring to the arm of the Lord, and when it's referring to Jesus as being seated at the right hand, it is not referring to a positional right hand.

It is referring to the seat of authority, that all of the authority of the father is said of the son, because the son is the father manifest in the flesh.

You will never find, in scripture, persons mentioned, right? Yes, it says

God's not a man that he should lie, but you see in the scriptures, manifestation mentioned, right?

Prosopon mentioned, when it's transferred as presence, but properly rendered, it says he's gone into the presence of God for us.

That word is prosopon, and it was, and I would pose this to Matt.

I would say, what does prosopon mean in its most ancient understanding, in its most ancient usage? Not separate persons, it's this idea of a mask, right?

An actor, a Greek actor would put a mask on and would play a different role, and then he would come and put another mask on and play a different role, and it was still that one person behind that mask.

That's what we're saying, all the viewers. We're saying that God eternally was a spirit, right?

We see this in Genesis, the first chapter. It says God was hovering above the face of the deep, right?

His love moved him to create. His benevolence moved him to create. He's not contingent upon anything outside of himself, and in the

Trinity, we see him contingent upon several persons to do this act of creation. There was no

Trinity. There was only one God. We were made in the singular image of God, and I would ask Matt and Andrew, whoever can answer this question for me, what does image mean in its most simplistic understanding?

Let's not get away from the simplicity, because Occam's Razor states that the most simple understanding is to be chosen over exhaustive complexity, right?

To dispense away with the truth. That's what we can fall prey to if we're not careful. We need to understand the most simple explanation of what an image is, and an image is, in the

Hebrew, I can't remember the word off the top of my head right now. I'm going off the top of my head, but the word image is a visible representation of the person, right?

And when we see it mentioning the word of the Spirit of God, that is the invisible inner man, inner being of God.

We see God in self -deliberation, saying, you do it all the time. You say, hmm, speaking within yourself.

Let's see, let's do this, let's do that. You're speaking as a complexity, right?

But yet you're one person. And wrapping up, because I know I have one more minute. Those are the questions

I would pose to you, fellas. How do you deal with that, that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible

God, the singular image, not images. There's not images. Man is made in the singular image of God, yet we have mind, body, spirit, but yet we're one person.

And we reflect Him on a lesser scale, God looking into a mirror, right, whenever He creates

Adam. The second Adam is just that way. He's the Son of God, right? We affirm that.

But we believe the Father became the Son. It's not hard. 1 Timothy 3, 16,

I'll end on this. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of by angels, preached among the

Gentiles, received up in the glory. Who else can that be describing but Jesus Christ as the one true

God manifest in the flesh? All right, thank you, Caleb and Daniel for your rebuttal.

And now, Andrew and Matt, you're back in the seat. And who's gonna be presenting the rebuttal? I'll do it.

All right, Andrew, I'm gonna give you full screen for your team's seven -minute rebuttal.

And I will start your time as soon as you begin to speak. Okay, thank you, Marlon. Thank you for having this.

And thank you, guys, for coming on and having this discussion debate. When the topic here is the question of, is this biblical?

So I'm not gonna be arguing from early church fathers or illustrations because the issue is, is it biblical?

And that's what we want to address here. The thing that we're seeing quickly is the fact that there is a difference between understanding that God is one.

I will agree with Daniel. Where it talks in Deuteronomy 6, echad means singular, okay?

It doesn't mean unity. But that doesn't contradict the Trinity. The Trinity believes that there is one

God, one singular God. So arguing from Deuteronomy 6 does not in any way discount the

Trinity. The Trinity is a solution to a problem. And as Matt had said, the

Trinity solves the problems that we end up seeing that if you deny the

Trinity, you still have. So what are those problems? We see three persons.

We're gonna use the word persons, because that's how we have defined it. But we see the

Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Each of them are recognized as God. We see that throughout scripture.

We see that each one of them is God in essence. We see that each one of them are distinct from one another.

And that is where this debate really comes down. We see that they each have attributes of God, and they each do the works of God.

The issue is we all here believe that there is one God. We don't believe,

Matt and I do not believe in three gods. We believe in three persons in one

God. So the issue at the core of this debate is not whether we believe in one, but whether there is distinction.

What we end up seeing is when we look at scripture, we see several scriptures that show this distinction.

We see Jesus at his baptism. We see it saying in Mark 1, in those days,

Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John. Immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens open, and the spirit like a dove descending upon him.

So the spirit can be seen distinct from Jesus who is out in the water.

And then in verse 11, and a voice came out of heaven, you are my beloved son, you are well pleased.

So the voice is not coming from Jesus. So you see the spirit descending on Jesus. Jesus is there in the water.

You hear the voice from the father. Those are three distinctions. They're not the same as the opponents here have said, as Daniel and Caleb have tried to argue.

You can look at the transfiguration where there again, you see Christ physically standing and hear the father's voice.

That is another distinction that we end up seeing. But even Jesus made this argument arguing from Psalm 110 when he was being challenged.

And you can look at this in Mark chapter 12, where in there, he's going,

Jesus himself is going to say, this is starting in verse 35. Jesus began to say, as he taught in the temple, how is it that the scribes say that the

Christ is the son of David? David himself said, in the

Holy Spirit, the Lord shall say to my Lord, who are the two

Lords? One of them, Jesus is saying is himself. The other one is who?

Because this is clearly making a distinction between the father and the son. There cannot be one being one person the way that this is being argued by our opponents.

We can look at Luke 22, where Jesus in verse 42 that says,

Jesus speaking, says, father, if you are willing to remove this cup from me, yet not my will, but your will be done.

Well, if there is only one person, whose will is it that is being done there? Because Jesus is making a distinction between his will and the father's will, saying that they are one in the sense that he's following what the father's will is.

But he's clearly making a distinction. You also see this in John chapter six. And this may be a good thing that we could get into in cross -examination is to see who is actually is speaking here.

Because in John 6, 38, it says, Jesus says, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

This is the will of him who sent me that of all he's given, I will lose none, but raise them up in the last day.

For this is the will of my father and everyone who beholds the son and believes in him will have eternal life.

And I myself will raise him up on the last day. Clearly he is making a distinction here between the father and the son.

We see in the baptism, we see that all three are separate from one another. The issue of debate here is, does the

Bible teach that there is a distinction within the Godhead? If the answer to that is yes, then the

Trinity is the solution to that problem. If you say the answer is no, then you have a problem still.

And that problem is that, how do you explain the distinction? To argue that the very early church fathers did not have a belief in a

Trinity, I'm not gonna dispute that. I'll agree that they didn't have the doctrine defined because doctrines when we understand history are defined when heresy is brought up.

And as the deity of Christ was being denied in the first century, they had to go to the scriptures and looking at the scriptures, had to look to examine what the scriptures say so that they would be able to clarify this doctrine.

That's what the Trinity is. It is a looking at a solution to this problem of how we see three persons that are distinct from one another, yet one

God. So the issue here is God is one. That is not in debate.

The issue of debate here is, are there distinctions within the one Godhead? Now, it was said that God is love and that's the overarching thing.

I would kind of agree God is love, but I don't think it's the overarching. God is called holy, holy, holy.

Kind of interesting. Three times he's called holy. Could that be a reference to Trinity? Maybe, maybe it's there, as I would argue is for emphasis.

However, the issue is, is the most important thing I would argue is that the angels are seeing God's holiness more than his love.

Thank you. All right, thank you everyone for the opening and the rebuttal.

So now we're gonna head into our cross -examination, which is everyone's favorite part of every debate, the cross -ex.

And so this cross -ex, we are going to break this up into 20 -minute segments. And I think we're going, actually,

I think we're gonna do 10 -minute segments, right? Where we're gonna have 10 minutes for Matt and Andrew, 10 minutes for Daniel and Caleb, 10 minutes for Matt and Andrew, and then another 10 minutes for Daniel and Caleb.

And so however you guys wanna split that up in that 10 minutes, that's your prerogative. So that's it.

Let's get to this cross -ex. In the cross -ex, let's make sure we notice a wind up to your question.

Let's make sure your wind up is not too long. And those who are receiving the question, if you can just answer the question with a simple yes or no, please do that.

You don't wanna take the opponent's time, all right? With that said, it'll be Daniel and Caleb first up for their 10 -minute cross -ex of Matt and Andrew.

And I'll start the time as soon as you begin to ask your first question. Okay, you want me to go first,

Daniel? Yes, brother, please. Please do the honors. Okay. So I'm asking the question to you,

Andrew. Is that correct? Either one of us. Okay, well,

I'll ask this question to you, Andrew. As you ended with your rebuttal, you said that if we read

Isaiah 6, there is this affirmation of the phrase, holy, holy, holy.

Now, you would assume that that's talking about three divine persons. Would you assume in the same light,

Jeremiah 22, verse 29, where it says, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the

Lord. Are we talking about three earths? Well, if you listen to what

I said, I actually said that I don't believe that is. I hinted that it could be a trinity, but I said that I believe it's there for emphasis.

Okay, so next question. In 1 John 3, verse 9,

John says, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

When John says whosoever is born of God, is he alluding to the Father? I would say that he is referring to God, which is the trinity.

Is he alluding to the Father? Well, I answered the question that God is a trinity.

Yes, but that doesn't really answer if he is a father or he's a son, because you clearly see, he says, because he is born of God.

So God is begetting a son in this passage, and in the spiritual sense.

So which member of the trinity he's referring to? Well, I can answer the same way.

I mean, you may not like the answer, because it doesn't fit with what you want to say, but I believe God is three persons in one

God. So it is saying, no one is born of God. He's not saying no one is born of the

Father. I wouldn't make an, I would not use an, I would not take this and try to illustrate something that this is not saying by saying that this is a father giving birth to a son, because born does not mean, the way that we would use born, or specifically firstborn in a

Jewish concept is not always the idea of birth of offspring.

It also has ideas of - I just want to make a correction, Andrew. I never said that.

I never said that. I said in the spiritual sense. So in a covenantal usage, are you telling me that the word

God could refer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? They are essentially begetting, they are the begetter, all three of them?

That's what I'm hearing you say. Is that the case? I'm saying the one Godhead.

So that would imply that Jesus is begetting sons of God with the

Holy Spirit and the Father. That's what I think you're saying here.

I don't believe in Mormonism that teaches that God begets children. But then there is no clarity in your answer because God is just a generic term.

You would have to be specific. Are we talking about a nature that is begetting a nature of a son, spiritually speaking?

If you read Romans 8, the whole chapter, it talks about that we are of Christ, His Spirit who comes in us, and we cry,

Abba, Father. That implies sonship. So Romans 8, would that be a way of you reconciling with what you've just said about God begetting?

I'm not having the problem here because I don't have a problem saying the Godhead. You want to make this specific to one person.

I'm not doing that. Okay, let's just move on to the next question. Yeah. Okay, that's okay,

Andrew. In 1 John chapter 2, verse 28 to 29, to just further lighten the question.

John's, in 1 John chapter 2, verse 28 to 29.

John says, and now little children abide in him, third person or singular pronoun used, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him.

When John says everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him, third person or singular pronoun used, who is

John identifying as the begetter? Well, you're really not going to like the answer.

It's called God. And yet John identifies the begetter as Jesus in verse one because he calls him righteous.

Jesus Christ, the righteous. Is it? So you're literally saying, yeah, so with that, with your answer,

I would assume that you were actually saying Jesus is the father unconsciously.

Let's go to the next question. No, no, no, no, no. In John - Hold on, you can't make a statement.

This is for you to ask questions, but you can't put words in my mouth and say that I'm saying something unconsciously. Well, I have a followup with that statement.

It's a question. In John chapter one, verse 12 to 13, John says, but as many as received him, third person or singular pronoun used again, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

When John states those who believe on the name of Jesus Christ are born of God, is

John saying we are born of God, the father? No, he's saying they were born of God.

And this is more of a problem, I would think from your position, because here you see a distinction between the word becoming flesh, clearly referenced to Jesus.

And then the distinction here that you're making for God. So this is the distinction that Matt and I are addressing.

We're not addressing the fact that there is one God. We keep saying this over and over again. There is one

God, but they're distinct persons. So this is showing the distinction.

You didn't really answer the question, Andrew. I'm sorry, but I have to interject. You didn't really answer the question because essentially we have made it very clear with the presentation that the generated nature of the son is the flesh, okay?

The son is a term that is synonymous with the flesh. So we have no problem in understanding that God generated himself a human nature, a body that he could dwell in.

But I just want to follow up with the next questions because you made the statement. In 1

Peter 1, verse 23, Peter says being born again, and we know

Jesus said this to Nicodemus in John chapter three, verse three, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God.

And Jesus is called the word of God in Revelation chapter 19, verse 13, which liveth and abideth forever.

When Peter says being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, who is

Peter describing as the one who begets incorruptible seed? Well, this is a logical fallacy because of fallacy of equivocation.

Just because the word word can refer to Jesus does not mean it always refers to Jesus.

The word of God refers to the Bible as well. So to argue as he's claiming here,

I would say he's arguing from the scriptures. We have the enduring, the living and enduring word of God.

Even the, you know, at least most of the translations I'm trying to look at, they're not capitalizing the word word, which you would if it is referring to Jesus as it does in John.

So this is talking about the Bible. Okay, so my time is fleeting.

This is my last question. So in 1 Peter 1, verse three, Peter says, blessed be the

God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy have begotten us again.

You could translate that fathered us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

How are we begotten again, fathered again or born again and by whom? So right here it says,

God the father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here you have the distinction between the father and the son.

So who is it? It is God who we're born again from. It's born from above, not fathered.

I have no offense. I've just never heard it tried to be explained that way. We would see it as born from above.

The issue though is that we're born from above from God. All right.

Thank you for your answers, Andrew. All right, thank you for that. All right, now it is

Matt and Andrew's time. 10 minutes to cross examine Daniel and Caleb.

All right, Matt, you wanna go first or? Hey Matt, I think you muted

Matt. Yeah. Well, if you want to go ahead, not a problem.

Yeah. I can wait. And I'll just ask for Caleb, Daniel, whichever one of you guys would like to answer because I don't know, you guys might have a preference who would be better.

So the question I have for you is when we look at the passages that I raised, you clearly see,

I would like to take each one of them. Let's look at the baptism of Jesus. Andrew, hold on one second.

Hey, Caleb, sorry, Daniel, I think your speakers are giving a hard, really a lot of feedback.

Do you happen to have any like headphones or anything that you can put on or perhaps you can mute your mic until you're ready to answer because it's getting a lot of feedback on your side.

Yeah, I don't have anything that's compatible. The sound is not coming through, but I can mute myself for sure.

Okay, sounds good. All right, go ahead, proceed, Andrew. Okay, so going through each of the passages,

I don't care which one of you guys answers. So looking at the baptism of Jesus in Mark chapter one, we see

Jesus in the water of baptism. We see the spirit descending as a dove and we hear the

Father's voice. How could, if they're one person, one being, how could they be seen as separate from one another?

Brother Daniel, I'll leave this to you. Thank you, brother.

Again, you gotta unmute yourself, buddy. Unmute yourself. Sorry, there we go.

So I would respond to that, Andrew, that we see God as, in the

Old Testament, right? Going back, because we have to see the consistent view throughout scripture. We can't just go new.

We gotta go Old Testament too, all the way to new. So when we look in the Old Testament, it says, you saw no form, but you heard a voice speaking from the mountain.

And it made him tremble, right? Because they didn't see a form because the form hadn't come yet that they could actually behold and look at.

So that's why in the New Testament, fast forwarding, we hear a voice from heaven, which says, you're my beloved son in whom

I'm well pleased, right? And we see Christ being baptized, who is in the form of God at this point.

He is the visible manifestation, and he is still the word of God, because it says in Hebrews, the word is living and active.

It's not just the written word. It's literally alive. So that's what I would say.

God is manifesting his voice. His form as a man is being baptized, right?

John said, you don't even need to be baptized. You need to baptize me. Why? Because he knew who he was speaking with.

He was speaking with Emmanuel, God with us. He has no sin, he's sinless. So then we see the spirit as a dove.

It's a metaphor. It's not literally that the Holy Spirit, it's a manifestation, multiple manifestations at once, because God is not confined to any one place at any given time.

He can manifest himself in multiple ways at one time and still be one speaker. So are you saying that there is some distinction there in the manifestation?

It's not a hard distinction. But is it? No, I think there is a distinction in so much as the father is the source, but we also see in the son is that which is begotten of the father.

And that's in time. It says, you're my son this day, I've begotten you. So there's a distinction in that way. But I would still say that in the person of Christ, we see

God generating a body for himself to inhabit. Go ahead, sorry. So I'm trying to use your definition of the manifestations.

You would see that John's seen a manifestation of the spirit descending upon Jesus, who's physically there, and then a manifestation of a voice that is not coming from Jesus's mouth.

Right. Oh, actually, for folks listening on audio, you just answer and nod your head.

But just think about it. Oh, yeah,

I know. I know, but just think of what we're saying here, though. You yourself as a man, right?

Because we're made in the image of God. You, before you step into a room, are you not able to cast your voice into the room, and yet you don't see the form?

Well, okay. But yes, when you step into the room - That's not answering the question. That is answering the question.

Okay, is the voice here coming from Jesus's mouth the way we would project our voice if we enter into a room?

Is he projecting, if it's a single person, is he projecting his voice outside of his physical fleshly body that is his current manifestation?

Yes, it's still him speaking externally to his body. We don't have the ability to do that because we're confined in this body.

God is not only confined to one manifestation. He can manifest in multiple ways at once and still be one.

Okay. So I wanna ask some basic questions maybe before we get to some of the other verses, because I just wanna be really clear.

So do you, and this is a question for both of you, do you both acknowledge that the Trinity is defined as one

God? I will answer that question no.

Okay, so you don't believe the Trinity is defined as one God? I believe that the

Trinity could be defined as distinctions of roles in one God.

Okay, but the position Matt and I hold to is that God is one.

Is that your understanding of the Trinity? My understanding of the

Trinity is that there are three divine persons. So that would conflate that idea that there is one

God. In my understanding of the Trinity, is the Trinity, I can't ask questions, but three divine persons.

Daniel, same question to you. Is the Trinity, as we're arguing and Matt and I are arguing, is it the belief that God is one?

I don't think it's the truest understanding of God as one, as a numerical one. It's adding persons to God.

So I think it's tritheism. Okay. So that's gonna be really important.

I'll try to understand. I'm sure Matt's gonna. So going to the transfiguration then, you again have

Jesus Christ there physically in front of them and the Father's voice being there.

Are you gonna say that this is Jesus speaking but throwing his voice?

Is that what's happening here? Can I answer this? Can I answer this, Brother Daniel? Okay, in answer to your question,

Andrew, we know that this was a vision seen by John. Did anyone see the vision?

And can you show me exactly where people are seeing this vision? Because to my knowledge, my recollection, it was only

John seeing this vision. It was a vision for John to confirm that he was the anointed.

Peter, James, and John and the Holy Spirit recorded it. So the Holy Spirit recording it would be enough for me.

But I guess I could. As physical witnesses. Yeah, so I'll ask the question again, see if you'll answer it.

Is this, again, an argument you're gonna say that Jesus is throwing his voice? Or is this the

Father's voice and the Son being there present? The present in front of Peter, James, and John?

Yeah, to answer your question, Andrew, this is what I'm trying to flesh out. It was a vision.

And we know that visions are symbolic when we are describing, like for instance, it says that the

Spirit descended on him like a dove. It doesn't say it was a literal dove.

It doesn't say that the Spirit looks, is a dove that flies.

It's just describing the way the Spirit moves and how it shows that that Spirit indwelt the

Son. And we believe as Monarchians that the Spirit of the Father who is the Holy Spirit indwelt the

Son. Okay, so moving on with the few minutes that I have left.

Who is David speaking to when he says, the Lord said to my

Lord, sit at the right hand, and I will make your enemies a footstool under your feet. Jesus is saying that this refers to him.

The second that he is as the Christ, who is the other Lord that's being mentioned then?

Brother Daniel, I'll leave it to you. You want me to answer, brother?

So I think we're also told, though, in response to that in Ephesians 4 .4

that there is only one Lord. And I know we're not supposed to ask questions, so I won't ask a question to counter that argument, or that question, excuse me.

But I would say that the Lord, at the same time he was on earth, he was in heaven.

So I think when it's referring to two Lords, it's referring to, you know, just like the

Ancient of Days in the book of Daniel, I can't remember the exact chapter and verse, but in the book of Daniel, it refers to the

Ancient of Days and one looking like a son of man. I think because he's Emmanuel, God with us, and then when he's in his glorified state, he's above us.

I don't think it's a two Lord, like numerical two. I think it's speaking prophetically, right?

It's talking about two different, like, I can't really think of how to fully answer that.

Can I quickly chime in? Can I chime in? Really, you guys are running the clock a bit.

Let me just ask the question again, because it's who is the Lord that Jesus is saying David is referring to?

So one, Jesus is making the son of David is the Christ, Jesus, who's the other

Lord? Jesus. Jesus is saying to Jesus.

So you're saying that Jesus said to Jesus. All right, Andrew, that's time right there. All right, Caleb and Daniel, you guys are back in the seat for your 10 minute cross -ex of Matt and Andrew.

Oh, yes, okay. I'll leave it to you, brother Daniel, to ask the questions for this one.

Yeah, I only have a few, so I'm kind of a man of brevity myself, so I don't like to keep it long -winded.

But one question I have for either one of you, Matt or Andrew, whoever wants to answer it,

I would just say, and there's a follow -up to this, I would say, do you believe that the father who is equal to the son in your view is able to change his properties into that of a man?

I'll address that. That's not logically possible. To change his properties, properties emanate out of the ontos.

And if God exists as a certain being, his properties are necessary to the ontos. He can't change his properties because that would be changed in the ontos, and he can't change the ontos.

Malachi 3 .6 says that he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. So he doesn't change, actually, is what it says there.

So the question is not a logical question. It's a non -sequitur related to the understanding of the father.

So if that's the case, and he's not able to do that, I would say, I would ask it this way, okay?

Let me ask it a different way. So do you believe, Matt, since you spoke up, so do you believe that, let's see, not his properties, but maybe he could add onto himself humanity.

He could layer himself with humanity and not change his character or his nature.

Yes, that would be called, that would be, excuse me, that would be called the doctrine of the hypostatic union, that the divine nature not fused, but became in union in the one person of Christ, so that he has two distinct natures, and that the divine nature did not change in any way, shape, or form.

So yes, in that sense, I might word it differently than what you did, but that would suffice for now. So that being the case, who is the one that was incarnate?

Was it God the Son? Was it God the Father? Was it God the Holy Spirit? The Word. Which is?

God the Word. God the Word. Which, the

Word, you would say that would be the Son, right? He became the Son. No, he didn't become the

Son. That's not Trinitarian theology. The Son was eternal, and we could see that in Ephesians 1 .4.

I'm not trying to spin the clock here all this time, but we see that the Father chose us in him, in the

Son, before the foundation of the world, the election had to occur, and then we get into the theology.

But that's what I would say. So when in eternity passed was the point at which he was begotten?

Because to have a son, the son -father relationship had to be initiated at a certain point. You can't have an eternal son.

So when was that? When in eternity passed, was the son generated?

I'm sorry? Well, because the son, to have a son, to have a son and to be begotten means to be generated or to be made or formed.

Yeah. So when in eternity passed, was the son made? I'm trying to use the right word. I'm taking notes, sorry, to represent you accurately.

Yeah, well, I would say maybe not the word made, or when was he begotten? Eternally in the past.

There's a difference between logical priority and temporal priority. And so we can have the sense that God eternally in the

Trinitarian communion always knew exactly what would happen and the son was eternally begotten because it's the nature of the

Trinity to know himself completely and exhaustively without an increase of knowledge or potentiality.

So that's what we would say. It's a logical issue, not a temporal one. I think, no disrespect meant, I think you might be confusing the idea of temporal priority with logical priority.

And so, and then my next follow -up question would be, so if it was God the son that was manifest in the flesh and not the father, would that show that the son is greater than the father because he's able to do something that the father cannot do?

What would you say about that? Well, see, that's kind of an interesting question. Something that he cannot do, therefore it means he's greater.

The word greater is not defined in what sense because I'm greater than my wife in authority, but not greater in beauty, okay?

So there's different senses in which it could be applied. In John 14, 28, Jesus says the father's greater than I.

This is because he was made under the law, Galatians 4 .4, for a little while, lower than the angels, Hebrews 2 .9. So I'm not sure what sense you mean greater for that, okay?

Like capabilities or abilities, like what he's able to do, like he's inexhaustible in his abilities.

That's what I mean by greater. Like nothing is impossible for him, nothing too hard.

Well, God, yeah, well, God can't lie and he can't not be God and things like that. So I'm still not sure if I understand your question.

I'm trying to write it out here. I've had a rough week, I'm tired. You know, bear with me a little bit.

But only the son became incarnate, not the father. And so we don't have what's called patripassianism where the father was crucified.

It doesn't say that because Jesus said on the cross, father, forgive them for not what they do.

And there's a logical problem there for you. I'll get into it maybe later, but sorry. No, that's fine.

That was fair. And then it says, unto us, this would be a follow -up question.

Unto us a son is born and unto us a son is given. When did this happen that a son was given and born?

It could be two senses in which that could be understood in the prophecy of Isaiah 9, 6, 7, 14.

It's eternally decreed because God has decreed this from eternity past, Ephesians 1, 4 through 5.

And then you could also have it in a temporal sense where the manifestation of the eternal decree is accomplished by the wise smartness of God to work out at a certain time in Bethlehem.

Yeah, so you answered it, yeah. When it was actualized, that's what I was asking. There was the potential for it.

He decreed it from eternity past, but I was gonna ask, when did he actualize it? When did it become a thing? Because it says, then it refers to time.

And it says, this day have I begotten you in reference to, because you have to have, a day is a recording of time.

I know it's elementary, but so that means that he would have to be a son in time. There could be no, or else it destroys the idea of a son.

There cannot be no eternal son by that definition because of what the scriptures say.

This day have I begotten you. Did you have more questions, brother?

Can I? Oh, sorry, my bad. My bad, brother, go ahead, go ahead. Sorry. My last question would be, no, it's fine.

Those were the only two I had, brother. That's fine, just keep it brief. Okay. Okay, I've got a question and either one of you can respond.

So in Genesis chapter 17, verse one, the Lord God Almighty is identified as the one who appeared to Abram.

Is this verse referring to the pre -incarnate Christ or is it talking about someone else?

I know that really well, but if you want to go for it, Andrew, go for it. It's up to you. No, I'm looking up the verse.

Genesis 17, one and 18, one, it says Yahweh appeared to Abraham while he was at the Oaks of Abram. In Genesis 18, one, his name was changed to Abraham.

Well, that was the pre -incarnate Christ because Jesus said in John 6, 46, not that anyone has seen the

Father except the one who's from God, he has seen him, and that's John 6, 46. And Paul says in 1

Timothy 6, 16, that the Father dwells in unapproachable eye to whom no man has seen or can see.

And so any appearances of God in the Old Testament where he walks and talking, et cetera, is a pre -incarnate

Christ. Okay, so I have a follow -up with that question.

In 2 Corinthians 6, verse 16 to 18, and by the way, this was actually quoted by Ignatius of Antioch, God promises to dwell in his people and to be our

God in verse 16, and is identified as the Lord God Almighty in verse 18, and says, will be a father unto you and you shall be my sons and daughters.

Is this the same individual or character you described in Genesis 17, verse one?

Yes. So the pre -incarnate Christ is saying that he will be a father unto us?

We have in Christian Trinitarian theology a doctrine called inseparable operations. And I don't know if you're familiar with it or not, but it teaches that in the

Trinitarian communion, the fathers are almost out of time, not trying to spend, waste a clock time, but this is the answer that I would give.

The three persons exist in a pericritic relationship where they're mutually indwelling and they share the one divine essence because they are the one divine essence.

So they exist in what's called a separable operation so that each what is doing is known and experienced by the others, but yet there's distinction in them.

So from that, we could lay the foundation down and then answer the question more succinctly, but I'm out of time.

All right, thank you for that. All right, Matt and Andrew, you guys are up for your final 10 -minute cross -ex of Caleb and Daniel.

Oh, I thought, oh, so we're doing, I didn't realize we're doing 2020. Yeah, 2020, that's a total of 40 minutes.

Oh, we have, because I thought we already did that. Yeah, so Daniel and Caleb already did their two 10 -minutes.

So now, and you guys did one 10 -minute. So now this is the second. Yeah, so this time is your second 10 -minute and that'll end the cross -ex after you guys are done.

All right, well, I got a question then. Andrew, about that time that we were, oh, wrong person, nevermind.

You mean the time I brought you dinner? The time I brought you dinner? Yeah, that I outsmarted you. Yeah, I outsmarted you.

All right, either one of you guys wants to try, I don't mean that disrespectfully, try to answer. I don't mean that disrespectfully.

Do you realize that when you say that the Trinity's three gods, that you're not arguing our position, you're arguing something else?

Go ahead and answer it, Brother Daniel. So the way that I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, what the

Trinity is, because I grew up a Trinitarian Pentecostal, which I know you would probably say that's very misguided.

But I would answer that that is exactly how we see it, because if you have,

I can be in accord with two other people and we can say, well, we're one in that sense. But if I have, if you had two other persons to guide, that would be three gods, because they all would have separate wills.

They all would have separate minds, separate spirits. Is that what you're arguing, by the way? No, it's just that the

Trinity, by definition, what we hold to is monotheism. So if your arguments are geared at polytheism, they don't apply to us.

You're not arguing against us. You're arguing against something else we don't affirm. Do you realize that? Well, how many centers of consciousness does

God have? Does each person of the Trinity have? Hey, Daniel, you can't ask questions until Matt's done.

Oh, excuse me. I'm so sorry. I'm breaking the rules, man. You got carried away. You're a sinner, you.

All right. I know, I'm breaking the rules. That's all right. It happens. Would you say, from your perspective, is

God a person? And I mean, not like you and I, flesh and bones, but he can think, he's self -aware, aware of others, can say you and yours, me and mine.

He has the attributes of personhood. That's what I mean by person. Is God, from your perspective, a person?

Yes, yeah, absolutely. He's a person. Okay. When Jesus was on earth, was he a person?

Yes, he was. Okay. Was he the same person as the father? Yes, but because God is spirit, so he was the visible, he was

God in flesh. God as a man. That's what I would say to that. So is

Jesus in the flesh right now? Glorified, yes. You say yes, and he says no.

So which is it? No, can I explain why, Matt? Sure. Because he's no longer as a human in the flesh, as the scripture says, that he came in the likeness of sinful flesh.

So he's glorified, a glorified flesh. That's what we mean. Okay. 1

Timothy 2 .5 says there's one mediator between man and God, the man, Christ Jesus. He's called a man.

Okay. So, and also Colossians 2 .9 says, for in him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form.

Do you want to readjust your answer that he's no longer in flesh? Because the Bible calls him man in bodily form.

No, no, I'll answer that. No, no, Matt, because again, the priesthood was supposed to act as a mediator between men and God.

So as we know, Jesus Christ is a high priest, and he is also God. Well, as a priest, as man, he is fulfilling that function.

Did you know that according to the Old Testament law, Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness,

Matthew 3 .15. You go to Leviticus 8, Numbers 4, and Exodus 29 to find out the chapters where he entered into the priesthood of the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews 6 .20,

Hebrews 7 .25. Are you familiar with the idea that if he's not a man, he can't be a high priest?

If he's not a high priest, he don't have a nercessary. So if you're saying he's not a man right now, then doesn't that logically mean we don't have a high priest?

Does the Bible requires it has to be a man in order to be a high priest? That's why

I made a precision, Matt. I said that he's glorified man. Not a man.

So he's a man right now. You know, glorified man. I will repeat the question again.

The answer again, glorified man. Okay, so he's a man.

So he's - And that's it, glorified, absolutely. At first, because 1535 through 45, yes. He's glorified, but he has two natures still, right?

He's divine and human, correct? That nature is glorified. It's no longer the nature he had while he was here during the days of his flesh.

And you find that as well in Hebrews. He became a servant. He humbled himself during that time.

It was a specific dispensation. A function does not define the nature.

So do you agree or do you affirm or do you deny that? Right now, Jesus, glorified

Jesus, is both God and man, has two distinct natures. Do you affirm it or do you deny it?

Well, I would rhetorically say that I affirm that he is both glorified man and God, but then again, you would not say that Jesus is still a servant, as he was a servant during the days of his flesh.

So is he still a servant in heaven? Yes, yes, yes, he is. He has three offices, prophet, priest, and king, and he's serving as a priest, as a servant to us eternally.

So here's my question again. Is Jesus, as one person, because he's a person on earth, does he right now possess a divine nature and a human nature in his person?

Again, he has a glorified human nature and a divine nature.

So he does have two natures right now. He's both divine and human, glorified human.

In one person. Good, good, good, good. In one person. And so, okay, so that's what he is.

So when he was on earth and he said, not my will, but your will be done,

Luke 22, 42, who was speaking to who when he said, not my will, but your will be done?

Well, that example you just provided is the incarnation. It's very specific. So that wouldn't apply to his current state at the moment.

Yeah, I said, when he was on earth, Luke 22, 42, and he prayed to the father. He said, not my will, but your will be done.

Who was speaking to who? Not my will, but your will be done. Who was speaking to who?

So it was the human nature. God, as a man, submitted himself to his divine nature, as in John, in the first chapter of John, it says that we were not born of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God, as sons of God.

Are you saying the human nature was praying to the divine nature? Does not

John say that there is a will of the flesh in the first chapter? You don't ask the question, remember? So I'm asking, was the human nature praying to the divine nature?

That's what I'm asking. Yes, that's what I've said. All right, so the human nature is praying to the divine nature at the same time, and this implies, then, two persons, because one nature has consciousness and mind praying to that of another, that by definition is personhood.

So now, are you affirming that there are two persons here, that the flesh is a person praying to the father?

No, because the book of Proverbs says that God is omnipresent, can be in the heavens, he can be on earth, he can be everywhere at the same time.

That's how I opened my opening statement. He is simultaneously in heaven and on earth.

Okay, so in Luke 22, 42, I'm gonna go through quickly, we've got a minute and a half, Jesus, the person, said, father, so that's the human nature praying, addressing the divine nature, right?

So that's the human, right? He says, if you, as the father -

Can you just rectify that? Sorry, I didn't catch that, I'm sorry, my bad. That's okay, that's all right, no problem. So when

Jesus was speaking, he said, father, that's the human nature praying to the father, the divine nature, right?

Brother Daniel, I'll let Brother Daniel answer. I would say, just like you, we have spirits, we have the

Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and we have the flesh. Why do we pray if he's inside of us? Why don't we just command things and they happen?

It's the same thing. He was - Go ahead. We're almost out of time. I wanna ask the question, because I'm sorry, we're almost out of time, and they're trying to just cut you off.

I don't think, don't, yeah. But it says, Jesus said in John 6, 38, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will.

Who's the I speaking, to whom? Because if it's my will, that means it must be the father's will that was in heaven, right?

I came down from heaven not to do my own will that was in heaven? Does that make any sense, from your perspective?

Last question. Sorry, you got the last word. Can't hear you.

That's what I would answer. It was the flesh submitting to the will of the spirit inside of him, which was the spirit of the father.

The flesh was submitting to the spirit. That's what we'd say. All right, all right. Thank you guys for a fantastic cross -examination, guys.

Really appreciate the calm and the politeness you guys showed, and that makes for a wonderful debate. So guys, we are going to transition to our closing statements now, which are five -minute closings.

And so we have, I think Caleb and Daniel, you guys are up first for your five -minute closing.

Who's going to be presenting the closing? Daniel or Caleb? All right,

Mr. Daniel. All right, you're going to be presenting the closing. I will give you the screen, full screen, so everyone can see your glasses and that beard of yours.

Man, your beard still don't look better than mine, though, man. My beard's probably, you got to get some more salt and pepper in there, man.

Nah, I'm messing with you, man. All right. I'm too young for all that, but one day.

One day, one day, one day. All right, man, I'll give you five. You got your five -minute timer coming up as soon as you begin to speak.

All right. Well, so clearly we see, based on what has been presented, that the

Father is the only King of all ages, tribes, peoples, and tongues. And he has spoken by the prophets, judges, patriarchs, in times past, but in these last days, he has spoken to us within Christ.

Who is his spoken word that is him himself in complete self -limiting form being generated in the flesh.

Though his eternal spirit is ungenerated, just as a man can speak into a room before entering it, so the

Father has projected his voice into the room before he himself entered into time and flesh through the prophetic utterance in the fullness of time.

The Father truly is the one casting his image onto the sun and the sun, like a true projector, maintains the integrity of the image being cast.

So in essence, the sun is the Father being projected into the world. The flesh is the screen upon which the singular person of God is clearly seen in full fidelity, just like lines on a record hold true to the original recording upon each successive listening.

Jesus is the recording of the Father that perfectly encapsulates how he would respond as a man.

He helps us get a glimpse of his divine form and his image imprinted on the flesh, just like Caesars would imprint their image on a coin.

And the weight of his glory is pleased for all its fullness to be housed forever in the person of Christ and as such is plainly manifested, being seen of and perceptible by our eyes of flesh in open presentation.

Just like a logo is stamped on a shirt, it gives that shirt designation and distinction, so the form of Christ gives

God designation and distinction and character, definite attributes. And then I would say, behold the hands, behold the nails in the hands of the

God who never fails. Behold the hands within which my fragile heart is held. Oh, carpenter of the world, reframe this house.

This is the God whose gaze pierces deeply beyond the veil of the flesh, the spirit and body in eternal mesh.

The floor of my heart he does perpetually thresh. Lord, I'm weary, my strength it fails. My limbs are heavy, no wind in my sails.

The spirit from above, the body from beneath, heaven and earth enjoined by a thin ethereal thread. These constant battles to you they belong within the tomb of my heart.

Therein lies a joyful song that melody drums at the door of my frame. Each time

I venture to speak the name, blind eyes will see, the deaf will speak, his power will touch even the lame.

Worthy, worthy, worthy is the lamb who is slain as I plunge my hands into his side forever to abide in his sweet savory presence to bask in his heavenly essence.

I'm not worthy. I'm only a shepherd boy with a harp within, yet still he cleanses me from all sin.

I see you, perceive you, grieve you, will never leave you my child. The nails in my hands fastened me to you.

The blood of my covenant seals you. My spirit of truth instilled in you, revealed to you the truth of my identity. For before all creation,

I was the father. When I stepped into time, I was the father revealed as the son, Emmanuel. For I myself was truly with you, the

Lord from heaven as the second Adam. But many of my own supposed people couldn't fathom how the king of all ages, the everlasting father, could become a baby, the savior born of lowly birth.

They rejected me as their king from the time of Samuel. Even in exile tried my servant, Daniel. And how long will you old man resist my plan?

Behold me, seek my face. For I seek after such who long to speak with me, face to face as one does a friend.

Time spent in my presence will truly mend. Thank you, that's my closing. All right, thank you,

Caleb and Daniel for that five minute closing. And Andrew and Matt, you guys are in the seat once again. And Andrew, you're gonna be doing a closing?

That is correct, sir. All right, I'll give you, get a full screen, and I'll start your time when you begin to speak.

All right, first off, let me thank Marlon for having this debate, for Caleb and Daniel for coming on and doing this debate.

Again, I'll just say that, as I said from the beginning, the Trinity is a solution to a problem.

If you don't believe in the Trinity, then you still have the problem of the Godhead being defined as one, and yet we see the distinction.

There is a difference though that we end up seeing is the fact is that when you're given passages from that we discussed here tonight, there were very clear examples that were from the context meant to be taken literally, and instead what we ended up seeing is it's just, oh, well, that's symbolic.

Let's take that as an illustration. That's not how we should be handling the scriptures. We handle it in its immediate context.

And so what you saw was taking passages and claiming that they're symbolic when they shouldn't be.

So the debate was really over the moment that both Caleb and Daniel admitted that they're not arguing against the proper definition of the

Trinity, at that moment that the debate was over, because they were not, they're arguing a straw man, and as long as they're continuing to debate a straw man, that ends the argument.

But the other thing is that at no point in the debate were they really arguing for their position as much as they were arguing against ours.

And so the issue was to see whether their position was biblical. Much of the time was in really attacking a straw man argument of the

Trinity. So the debate here tonight really was over not the singleness of God, but the distinction within the persons of God.

They admitted at one point that there is that distinction, though they put it in as manifestations, but they see that there has to be some distinction.

That was the heart of this debate. The debate was over that issue. Is there a distinction within the

Godhead? Whether you wanna call it manifestations or not, once there is a distinction, that is the dilemma or the problem that the

Trinity seeks to solve. More precisely, we would see them as separate persons, and both

Matt and I tried to present that. The problem is that if you don't understand the

Trinity properly, you should not be debating the Trinity. I personally like both of these men and in the short time

I've spoken with them. But I think that one thing that we said beforehand, before we went live, is the fact that they would not call

Matt and I brothers in Christ. And I didn't take offense to that in any way, because we would feel the same way, because it's a different God.

If you believe in God as a Trinity or you deny the Trinity, those are two different gods. And so I respect that they would say that to me.

I asked that of them, but because I wanted to know, I wanted to see if they would say what

I hope they would, and the same that I feel toward them, could like them. But when I, growing up from a

Jewish background, I did not know the Trinity. I knew nothing of the Trinity, because I never heard of it growing up.

When I came to Christ, I believed Jesus was God. But there's a big difference. You could come to Christ and not understand the

Trinity, but to know about the Trinity and to deny it, that puts you outside of faith.

And for that reason, I wanna take the remaining time that I have to express to both

Caleb and Daniel, as they would express, they wouldn't call me a brother in Christ. I would have loved for them to have done this to me, but I want to clearly explain the gospel to them so that they would hear it.

Because for the same reason, I would say that if you're denying the deity, denying the

Trinity, puts you outside of the faith. And so the gospel message, and for anyone else that's listening, who may not know

Christ, here's the thing. Jesus Christ, God Almighty, came to earth for a very simple reason. The fact is you and I break

God's law. We are sinners. We deserve eternity in a lake of fire because of our sin.

That is how serious sin is. God came to earth that he would become a man to die on a cross, being an eternal being.

This is the essential of what Matt was trying to say with the two natures. Being an eternal being, he could pay an eternal fine.

Being a human being, he could be a substitute for human, for other mankind. And so that's what makes

Jesus Christ unique. His death on the cross could pay an eternal fine. That's God's justice.

But he being a man, being a substitute for us, that is God's mercy. It is the only religion in the world where you have both a

God that can be just and merciful, but it is found within the Trinity and the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ.

And if you deny that, then you don't have the right God. So my plea with anyone listening would be if you aren't believing in Jesus Christ properly, to repent, turn from sin, and trust

Jesus Christ today. Thank you very much for the time. Thank you, gentlemen, for the debate.

All right, thank you guys as well. You guys performed very well. Appreciate you guys once again. All right, so now we're gonna drop into our

Q &A here. We got a few questions, audience. If you have a question, let's make sure you get those questions in.

Make sure you tag at the God's Truth, highlight it so I can actually see it so it doesn't get all mingled in with the rest of the comments in the chat.

All right, so that's it. We're gonna get to our first question here. And rules for the response is that both teams will get a minute to respond to the question, all right?

Whether it's for you or not for you, both will get a minute to respond to the question, all right? All right, and this is uninterrupted as well, all right?

So we're gonna go with the first question here. And if you can't see it, I'll read it.

I don't know, maybe a little pixelated or small on your side. It says, in your opinion, this question is for Caleb and Daniel.

In your opinion, how many persons or figures are referenced to as God in Psalms 45, six through seven?

Also, how many persons of Psalms 45, six through seven did Paul then reference in Hebrews 1, chapter one, verses eight through nine?

Well, Chuck just gave away who he thinks wrote Hebrews. I know, right?

Okay, Brother Daniel, do you want to respond? Or do you would like me to respond?

Oh, you go ahead, you go ahead, brother. I'm trying, I'm trying. Okay, so Psalm 45, and what was the other verse?

Passage Marlon in Hebrews? Yes, Hebrews chapter one, verse eight through nine. Hebrews chapter one, verse, okay, about the son, okay.

So just bear with me, folks, I'll be quick about this. Okay, so Hebrews 45, and it was verse six.

Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter.

Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. Therefore God, thy God, have anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

And Hebrews 1, nine states, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

So it's just showing that God was incarnate, that God was manifest in the flesh as 1

Timothy 3, 16 stipulates. And as a man, he was anointed, he was perfect.

He was perfect, sinless. So I would say that there is only one person who took that function as the son.

All right, Matt and Andrew, you have one minute to respond. For Matt.

Hey, Matt, I think you're muted. No, I thought you were gonna go, go ahead, Andrew.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with it enough to give the response, so I haven't studied

Psalm 45. All right, so you guys are passing that one up?

Yeah. To respond to that? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the name of it. All right, no problem.

All right, going, we have a super chat here from Robert. Thank you, Robert, for the support. And this question is probably for you,

Andrew, and Matt. Thank you for the support, Robert. Is Jesus all the fullness of the

Godhead or only a partial revelation of God? All the fullness of the duty dwelled upon him.

All the fullness of bodily form, Colossians 2, 9. That's the answer. Quite the same verse.

All right, Daniel and Caleb. Go ahead, brother.

Yeah, I would respond that that's properly understood that he's not in the

Godhead. The Godhead is in him. All of the divine attributes, everything that constitutes

God is in Christ in physical representation and in full manifestation in the flesh.

That's what we would maintain about that passage. All right, all right, cool.

All right, thank you. And here's a question coming from Mr. Tyler Aviva.

Hope all is well with you, Tyler. All right, question. God is the alpha and omega, beginning and end in Revelation chapter one, verse eight, and 21 in verse six and 22 in verse 13.

But in 22, verse 16, it is clearly identified as Jesus. How do the non -Trinitarians deal with this?

Daniel and Caleb. I can answer this. I can answer this. He mentioned Revelation, and by the way, he's referred to Jesus as the alpha and the omega, the first and the last.

Isaiah refers to God as the first and the last, exactly the same verbiage. He mentioned

Revelation 21, and it's interesting because in Revelation 21, the same person,

Jesus Christ, literally says in verse seven, he says, he that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his

God, and he shall be my son. Clearly, Jesus is alluding to his fatherhood in this verse.

So that answers the question that Jesus is the father. All right,

Matt and Andrew. I forgot the question. Well, all right.

Go ahead. I can read it again real quick. It says, God is the alpha and omega, beginning and end in Revelation chapter one, verse eight, 21, chapter 21, verse six, and 22, chapter 22, verse 13.

But in 22, chapter 22, verse 16, it is clearly identified as Jesus.

How do the non -Trinitarians deal with this? Well, they deal with it the way they do it.

That's the answer. That's how they do that. But yeah, I mean, that's how they do it.

Let me just point out one thing that they did though, Matt, because I mean, this really was a question for them, but I just wanna read the verse.

I wanted to hear what Caleb said. He referred back to Isaiah with the first and the last, but his passage in both passages, it's referred to as alpha and omega, not first and last.

So what he did there is say, well, see, Jesus is also the first and last, so this is the father. This is the type of hermeneutics we have to avoid.

We can't just say, okay, well, this means this because we grabbed something similar here and grabbed something similar there and say they're actually the same.

They aren't saying first and last, one's saying alpha and omega, one's saying first and last. So that correlation just is not valid for two reasons.

One, it isn't the same language, but two, just because something is used that way doesn't mean it's always used that way.

So because that language is used in both, it refers to the Godhead because Jesus is

God and the Father is God. As a Trinitarian, we don't have a problem with that. All right.

And here is a question. Let me see. This is for Caleb and Daniel here.

Come on, Matthew 9. Thank you, Matthew, for the question. How do you interpret Genesis chapter 19, verse 24?

You wanna, you want me to read it, brother? I'll get the passage if you want,

Genesis 19, and you can answer it. Yeah, it'll be faster. I'm flipping through an old school. Okay.

Verse 24, and it's then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, Brimstone, and fire from the

Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon the ground.

Well, you and I actually talked about that, brother, and it's interesting because if you look in that same chapter, that same passage, he's in front, the

Lord is in front of Abraham, right? And then he goes his own way. He leaves the scene and he goes back up to his throne to rain fire down.

So that's the proper context of that passage. It's not one Lord still on earth and the other Lord up in heaven, two distinct

Lords in that sense. It's God going his own way back up to his throne to then mete out judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.

That's how we would answer that. Right, Matt and Andrew. Yeah, I'll just respond and then

Matt can correct whatever you might want as well. But this is, again, this is what

I've been pointing out throughout, right? This is showing the distinction within the

Godhead, right? You have the Lord who's reigning on Sodom and Gomorrah, Brimstone and fire from who?

The Lord that's in heaven. So you see that there's two persons here being referenced.

That's the Optimus Razor was referred to earlier. That's the clearest reading. All right, all right.

All right, so here's a question for, where is it at? I have a question for you,

Robert, thank you for the support again, appreciate the super chat. This question's for Andrew and I believe it's for Andrew and Matt, is

Jesus the only God we will see in heaven or will we see three persons of God?

I could address that. The question is not accurate. No disrespect, Matt, for the questioner, but we don't say

Jesus is the only God because that would imply then tritheism in the whole question. That's not our position.

So we don't say Jesus is the only God. That's just not it. He's a third person of, excuse me, second person of the

Trinity, which is the one God. Will we see all three? No, because the Father dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see.

So how's the Father in flesh? That's another question. That's 1 Timothy 6, 16. So those who they were seeing in the

Old Testament, the pre -incarnate Christ, who is not the Father. That's in the Old Testament.

So no, when you go to heaven, you're not gonna be seeing the Father. He dwells in unapproachable light who no man has seen or can see.

And Jesus is not a God. So that's not how we would go. All right,

Daniel, Caleb, any thoughts? Go ahead, brother.

Yeah, I will respond. Yeah, I'll respond. Yeah, Caleb, let's see if you can start wrapping things up, so I can't read.

I will respond with that. Actually, it's interesting that Matt said that we will not see a

Trinity in heaven because Matthew 5, 8 says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see

God. That's an absolute statement. And James 3, 9 says that we bless

God and yet we curse men who are created in the likeness, the similitude, the appearance of God.

That would imply that God has a face. God has an appearance. And that's a singular, first -person singular pronoun used for God.

All right, all right. Thank you for that. And here is another super chat.

And I believe this question is probably from Matt and Andrew again. Matthew 28, 19.

Thank you for our support as well, Redfield, appreciate it. Matthew 28, 19, what name is correct,

I guess, in Matthew 28, 19? The name of the

Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Notice that the name is singular and yet three distinct persons are mentioned, right?

This is a clear example of it. You're being baptized in one name, not three names for three people.

And this is the thing that Matt and I have been expressing throughout this, is that we believe in one God. So you're baptized in one name, but three persons.

All right, Daniel, go ahead, brother Daniel. I think it would say the converse, that it is one name because there's only one name given under heaven whereby we're saved.

That's the name of Jesus. So if you look, Jesus is making the statement. A lot of people believe that's an interpolation, a later addition.

So the original they would maintain was in my name, baptized him in my name, but that's a whole nother argument for a different time.

We don't have a lot of time right now, but anyway, I would say that proves that it's one name, that the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is Jesus, showing that his identity is

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all housed in that one name. They're just titles. You don't baptize in titles, you baptize in the name.

That's what I would say. All right, all right. And - Can I ask a question there with that?

No, no, you can't. That's it, that's it. One minute, one minute. Okay, okay, yeah.

All right, you go back. All right, so we have another Super Chat here, and this question looks like it's specifically for Andrew.

He's going right at you, Andrew. He said, I ain't worried about Matt. I'm going right at Andrew. All right, Ken, thank you for the

Super Chat. I appreciate the support. So is it better to remain ignorant of the

Trinity doctrine than to study the Godhead and come to a different conclusion to be saved?

No, I would say you should study the doctrine. I mean, my prayer for both Caleb and Daniel would be that they would walk away from this debate, realizing that they aren't arguing against the biblical, the proper definition, and it would cause them to dig into the scriptures and study it.

As I had said, I'm being raised Jewish. I didn't know anything about a trinity.

So that is out of ignorance. But if I study it and then deny it,

I think that puts us outside the faith. Now, I'm gonna hold a plea and say that maybe with Caleb and Daniel here, they both have given a wrong definition.

And so are they in the ignorant state? I'm gonna argue that they probably are ignorant of the proper definition.

But if they understood the proper definition and then denied it, that definitely would put them outside of the faith.

So we should study it. I mean, we wanna make sure we're right. And I plead that Caleb and Daniel would do that.

All right, Caleb and Daniel, any thoughts? Oh, go ahead, Brother Daniel. I'm responding to the question, right?

Those posts? Yes, I can read it again if you need me to. Yeah, I can't read it.

That's the only reason why. Oh, my phone is pixelated. Sure, it says, so is it better to remain ignorant of the

Trinity doctrine than to study the Godhead and come to a different conclusion to be saved? I started from the understanding of the

Trinity doctrine. And I would say that Caleb and I completely understand because that was our background.

I was taught both. I was taught that there's three persons in one essence, right, consubstantial, each person, they're co -equal.

They basically operate as one, right? So where you read Genesis, I think it's 126.

Let us make man in our image. I used to believe that there were three persons that were at work, right?

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I was baptized in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So I took Matthew 28, 19 to say that's the only way to be baptized.

That's the baptismal formula. So I was raised on it, Andrew. I would just say that.

I was raised on that. So I think now I've come to the light, to the realization that Jesus is my

Father. I see a fluidity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So I've come into the light.

He's going, hey, I'm your father. I'm the one that puts that spirit in you, whereby we cry back to myself,

Abba, Father. So I have a more well -rounded understanding now than I did before.

All right, all right. All right, we're gonna end it there. I thank you guys so much for coming on to Gospel Truth, man.

You guys display very, very respectful behavior. Always appreciate that. You made my job easy, you know, and that's always a good thing.

You make my job easy. As always, Matt and Andrew, you guys are great. I appreciate you guys. Thank you,

Caleb and Daniel. You guys are absolutely great for your first time being on a Gospel Truth, man.

And you know, when that happens, man, you know, I wanna invite you back on. So I appreciate you guys. So before I let you guys go, man, you guys have got any closing words before I shut this thing down?

Well, I will say two things. One, to your audience. I'll say to your audience. Marlon, show some love there to Marlon.

He gave up being at Shepherd's Conference to be here tonight. So if you guys wouldn't mind showing some love to him and support, just more than maybe some super chats, just throw that out.

The only thing, I tried slipping a question in there. I quickly was trying to look.

I see no textual variants in Matthew 28, 19, and 20. So I would challenge.

I looked up in everything I have. I'll challenge you guys offline to show me where there's a textual variant that says just in my name and not in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But we could do that offline. All right,

Matt, any thoughts? Anything, Matt? It's gonna have an after show if anybody's interested. You guys are interested as well.

Just go to karm .org forward slash calendar and you'll see the link stuff all set up.

All right, Caleb Daniels. Thanks for having me on. They ran me a veteran last week. Oh, man, oh, man.

Last week was rough, was rough. But we live and we learn, right? We live and we learn.

It's all good, it's all good. All right, Caleb Daniel, any thoughts? Did you wanna go ahead, brother?

Oh, go ahead, brother. Just again, thank you, thank you,

Moreland for having us. I know we keep parroting that, but thank you, Matt. Thank you, Andrew, for just being, keeping a little bit of levity and also sobriety too, because it's kind of like a fine line.

We can have a little fun and all that and make our points and walk away as gentlemen. And I'm really grateful to all that we were able to accomplish that, a charitable spirit about us all.

So thank you, everyone. Yeah, I will echo that sentiment.

Thank you, Moreland. I think you're a good moderator. I just want to say that. And I know you get a hard time and it's not easy to be impartial, especially when you hold a view so dearly.

So I respect that. And Matt, it was good seeing you on again and that we could just have this, just a harmonious conversation.

And actually, I would be open to have a private conversation with you. And even Andrew, I enjoyed your demeanor.

Thank you. Well, you're welcome to come on Apologetics Live any Thursday night. Just go to ApologeticsLive .com.

I think I'll come on, Andrew. I'm just gonna come on and give you a hard time, just to mess with you a little bit, you know what

I'm saying? It's better than when Matt messes with me, so I would welcome it. Hey, I'm gonna come on there and mess with you about eschatology, man, you know?

I'm gonna come here and poke at you a little bit, you know? I'm gonna come here and talk about some, let's talk about some

Postmills, some Omnil, what you got there, what's up? I appreciate you guys so much, man.

And perhaps we can look forward to doing this again sometime, man. You guys go ahead, enjoy the rest of the evening, man.

And I'll be talking to you guys soon, all right? All right, God bless. And take care.

God bless, thanks. God bless. Thanks, Martin. All right, folks, another fantastic debate in the books, man, definitely appreciated this one, man.

Yeah, like these guys were saying, man, this is a subject matter that can be really sensitive to the heart, right?

Because when you're dealing with the Trinitarian doctrine or Monarchianism, one is, it's one of those subject matters that is like, you believe you got it right, right?

And so it requires a level of humility when you hear something or you're reading a verse, when you're reading a chapter of the scriptures that go against your position, that go against your thought.

In this type of debate, the only thing you can really ask for is that we honestly deal with the scriptures in an honest manner.

And so, you know, when we're having this conversation, when we're dealing with the issues, people are not gonna walk away with the idea of their positions being changed, right?

Very rarely do you see debates convince someone else, an opposing, you know, someone you're debating with, that their position is wrong.

Rarely, if any, any time does that happen. But it does matter when one leaves a debate and begins to deal with some of the issues, some of the scriptures that, some of the issues or some of the scriptures that perhaps was a challenge for them.

You know, perhaps it caused them to really consider what they were saying, you know what I mean?

And so in that, it's vitally important that you don't just assume your position, you don't just take your position for granted and say, well,

I know I'm right, I'm always right. Do a fair, do a fair test of what you believe.

And if the scriptures are raging against what you believe, let's allow the scriptures to dictate what we believe, right?

And so I think that's the only fair way we can treat the theological positions we hold. And we have to be humble enough and willing enough to say,

I'm wrong. And the contrary to that position is probably right, right?

And so let's make sure that when we leave this debate, whether you're just in the live chat or obviously the participants within the debate, whether you're wherever you're at, and if you're just viewing this debate later, you're gonna get a chance to check it live, check it out live, make sure we're checking our theology, right?

One thing that we don't wanna do is believe something because maybe Matt Slick believes it, or because Andrew believes it, or because Daniel or Caleb believes it.

Let's not do theology that way, right? Let's do theology because that's what scripture teaches, right?

Because the understanding is that the theology we hold to is derived from scripture, because scripture is our foundation.

So let's ensure that we're treating it honestly and fairly, that we're not being flippant with our theology.

So I really appreciate Matt, Andrew, Caleb, and Daniel for coming on.

And I appreciate the respect. Oh my goodness. You guys just don't understand how the respect level helped.

It helped tons, all right? So I definitely appreciated that. So we have appreciate.

Thank you, Matthew, appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for the debate, God bless. Thank you for your support, Matthew. I appreciate you as well.

And Slam, help me up. Thanks Slam, appreciate for supporting the ministry. I really do appreciate you.

And Slam is one of the best moderators I have. She has just been steadfast in her support.

I mean, she's a moderator, she's helping out. And if there's anyone that don't even need to support the ministry monetarily, it's

Slam. I mean, Slam has been a standup moderator. You know, I'm always scoping out the live chat to see what the mods are doing, what the other people are doing.

And Slam is just the most cordial, respectful mod I think I have. And so, and it's not to put down any of my other mods.

I love all my mods. But Slam is a Slam dunk as a mod, you know?

And pun intended, right? Slam, you're great and I appreciate your support. And thank you guys for all the support you guys give.

So with that said, I'm gonna get out of here. And once again, be on the lookout for all the other debates that are coming up here in the future because we have a whole bunch of them, man.

And don't be bashful about hitting that subscribe and that notification bell because you don't wanna miss out on anything that The Gospel Truth has coming up here in the future.

All right? So that said, I'm out of here. May God bless you and may God keep you.

All right, well, I hope you guys enjoyed that. Good, lively debate. Just remember at the end when they claimed they knew the

Trinitarian position and yet during the debate, they misdefined it. So next week, what do we got?

Well, we got Claude Ramsey, one of probably the most passionate preacher that I know is gonna be coming on April 4th.

We're gonna have Dr. Carl Widmer. He's gonna be talking, again, we're gonna talk creation.

And then on April 11th, well, we'll see if this actually happens, a guy agreed to a debate on full preterism.

I haven't heard from him yet. Will he show? I don't know, but we will talk about it.

So I hope you guys enjoy that. Come back next week, Apologetics Live. We will be here to answer your questions.

Go to apologeticslive .com to join the discussion on most weeks, except for, well, this one where we played a pre -recorded debate.